Still not great, but better. Satisfied that I had something to work with, I strode forward, head up and eyes forward. Which was why I noticed the efforts of a man wearing a floppy hat trying to maneuver something out of his vehicle. Whatever it was, it was giving him fits. He was yanking at it with great force and threatening it with unimaginative curses. He also looked vaguely familiar.
As I looked at him, trying to remember where I’d seen him before, he gave a loud grunt, a massive tug, and then he and his walker almost fell back into the street when it came free.
“Three Seasons,” I said out loud, hurrying forward. That’s where I’d seen him, the night Ash, his mother, and I had eaten together at the Three Seasons.
The man caught my gaze. “You have a problem?” he asked, practically hurling the words at me.
“Not right now,” I said, smiling and stepping off the curb. He was still struggling with the walker, trying to unfold what looked like, but couldn’t possibly be, seven legs. “Just wondered if you needed a hand, that’s all.”
“I don’t need your help,” he snarled. “What makes you think I can’t take care of myself? Just because I have to use one of these things doesn’t mean I’m an imbecile.”
And just because he had to use one of those things didn’t mean he had the right to be rude to strangers, either.
“My mistake,” I said mildly. Giving him a nod he didn’t return, I mentally shrugged and went back to my main mission, which was hunting down lunch.
Honk honk!
I jumped at the noise and turned to see my friends Cade and Barb in a small SUV, laughing hard enough to hurt themselves.
“You know,” I said, stepping into the street because they hadn’t pulled up to the curb, but were just sitting in the middle of the quiet road, idling, “don’t you both have better things to do than to scare a mild-mannered librarian out of her wits?”
“We do,” Barb said, smiling. “That doesn’t mean it wasn’t funny to see you jump like a rabbit.”
I looked across her to Cade, who was still laughing. “Don’t you have a masterpiece to paint? Or at least a greeting card?”
“Ouch,” he said, putting his hands to his chest. “That got me right here.”
“Pish,” said his loving wife. “You don’t seem to have any problem cashing the fat checks from the greeting card people. Don’t go acting as if it’s beneath you.”
“My dear Barbara.” He glared at her, but a smile tricked up one side of his mouth. “Nothing is beneath me artistically. At least that’s what what’s-his-name in New York said.”
“Pish,” she repeated. “Critics are clueless.”
My ears twitched at the repetition of two C words in a three-word sentence. Was this the beginning of a new game? The McCades and I had a habit of randomly choosing a letter and then finding words starting with that letter to fit whatever ongoing conversation was at hand. Winning the game wasn’t quite as much fun as beating Rafe at a five-dollar bet, but at least losing didn’t cost me anything.
Honk honk!
This time it wasn’t Cade; it was the car behind them. I glanced up and recognized the vehicle as Rafe’s. I stepped back. “See you two later,” I said to the McCades. “We’ll get together before you head to Arizona, right?”
Waving and agreeing, they drove off and Rafe rolled down the passenger’s window. “What’s up, short stuff?”
I shook my head sadly. “At some point you’re going to realize that you’re not as funny as you think you are.”
“Oh, I know I’m not funny,” he said cheerfully. “But can I help it if other people think I am?”
“Yes.” Then, before he could ask how, exactly, he was supposed to help it, I quickly said the first thing that popped into my head. “I moved up to the boardinghouse last night.”
“Figured that when I didn’t see any lights on in your boat this morning. I had a late meeting last night; otherwise I would have helped.”
I rolled my eyes. “I know what your version of help is like. Supervision from a distance with a beer in one hand.”
He grinned. “Someone’s got to do it. I have to say, though . . .” His voice trailed off.
“Go ahead,” I said, dramatically standing tall and jutting out my chin. “Whatever you have to say, I can take it.”
Rafe smiled. “This may be too much for you.”
“Hah. I come from a long line of strong women. I can take anything.”
“Okay, then.” He shifted his gaze away, and when he looked back, his face was clear of fun and laughter. He looked sincere and serious, which was so unusual that I steeled myself for anything from the worst joke in the world to the news that his mom had been diagnosed with some incurable disease.
“I’ll miss you,” he said quietly.
“You . . . what?” I stared at him, and the world around me shifted.
There was a slight pause, then he said, “Mostly Eddie, of course, but you, too. Who’s going to hand me tools?”
The world righted itself; Rafe was back to joking. “Try thinking ahead,” I suggested. “I hear it can work wonders.”
He grinned crookedly. “Like you’d know?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but a car was coming, so I stepped away from Rafe’s car and waved him away.
Rafe drove off and I watched him go. He missed me. He hadn’t been joking about that; he really missed me. “I miss you, too,” I whispered after him. Because I realized that I did. We spent a lot of time together in the summers, living so close, and I would miss his banter and laughter and . . . him.
“Don’t be stupid,” I muttered. Rafe and I have been friends for twenty years. If there had ever been anything more, we would have figured it out years ago.
With that settled, I took one step in the direction of lunch, then came to a sudden halt. For some reason, meeting up with the McCades had reminded me of a small task that needed doing, and since there was no time like the present, I reversed direction and went into the toy store, the bells attached to the front door jingling merrily.
“Hey, Minnie.” Mitchell, who was standing too close to the top of a stepladder for my comfort, waved at me. “What’s up?”
I tipped my head back to look at him. “You, it looks like.”
“Me? What . . .” Then he laughed. “Oh, I get it.” He reached, readjusted the large hanging model airplane to a slightly different angle, then clambered down the ladder and looked up at his handiwork. “Bet no one dusted that thing in years.”
I could see why, since it was snugged up next to a tall ceiling and no one would ever notice the amount of dust on it, but I was glad Mitchell was taking such a proprietary interest in the store he was managing. “You did a nice job,” I said.
“You’re the second person who said that to me in six months.”
No one should get that little encouragement, and I made a mental note to compliment the library staff more often. “Who was the other one?”
“The contractor I worked for last summer.” He grinned. “The county building inspector was doing his thing, and it was my framing he was looking at. My boss said he couldn’t think of a time when that inspector walked away without writing him up for something.”
My attention went sharp. “Was that Ron Driskell?”
“Yeah, that’s him. My boss couldn’t stand him, but I always figured he was just doing his job. Kind of a crappy one, if you ask me, but I suppose someone has to do it.”
“How did Driskell feel about your boss?” From Mitchell’s puzzled expression, it was clear he had no idea what I meant, so I kept going. “Did they get along? Were they friendly? Did they argue on job sites?”
“Oh, I see what you’re saying. No, they were good, far as I ever saw. Talked about sports a lot. Driskell’s a Lions guy and my boss is a Packers fan, but they were both fans of the Tigers, so it was all okay.”
“Was Driskell like that with most contractors? Get along with them like that?”