“Because that’s where I live. What does your husband look like?”
She hesitated, unsure now that I’d figured out something for myself. “Tall, brown hair, early forties—”
“White guy with aviators? Italian loafers? Drives a silver Lexus? Always on his phone?”
She almost choked on her wine. “Yes! But how did you know this already?”
“Haven’t you guessed? I, too, am a woman who had the audacity to age. Twenty years wasted, and that’s how I came to reside in a crappyapartment off Delk Road. There’s a Malone who lives across the breezeway from me, in ... Bel Air Apartments.” I thought of those strong hands on my shoulders, and something inside me again ached with the disappointment of knowing he was not what he’d seemed. “I ran into him yesterday.”
“Impossible.”
“Ah.” I held up one finger. “Improbable, but not impossible—”
“I’m so sorry,” Trista said, all the blood having drained from her face. “I didn’t mean to imply you lived in a dump.”
I waved away her concerns. “Oh, it’s a dump. Not my first choice, but needs must.”
She lifted her wineglass, then frowned at its emptiness. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“Oh, no,” I said with a grin. “Things just got a lot easier.”
Slumping back against the booth, she allowed herself a tiny smile.
I grinned back. This ludicrous idea just might work. “Now, about payment ...”
Chapter 8
After interviewing three more clients, I went back to Bel Air Apartments to rest and do my homework before the inevitable debriefing later that evening. A quick look at my watch told me I had half an hour beforeWheel of Fortunestarted, and I wanted to make sure Mrs. Quattlebaum was okay.
I jogged up the stairs and knocked on her door.
“Come in, come in!” Her face lit up as though she’d never expected in a million years that I would take her up on her offer of lemon pound cake.
“I know your show is about to come on, but I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Fit as a fiddle,” she said, stepping aside and again gesturing for me to come inside. “Well, other than this one nasty bruise. See?”
Before I could politely decline, she pulled down the elastic waistband of her slacks to show me a gnarly purple-and-brown bruise at the top of her hip.
“Oh. That has to hurt,” was all I could think of to say.
She pulled up the waistband and smoothed down her shirt. “While you’re here, why don’t you join me for supper? It’s tiresome eating alone.”
I hesitated, but I hadn’t yet done a full grocery run, so a free meal wouldn’t be unwelcome. “If you’re sure I wouldn’t be imposing on you.”
“I insist!”
And how I wished she hadn’t. Not only was supper a spiceless Midwestern casserole made with cream of mushroom and Tater Tots, but Mrs. Q talked my ear off. She gave me a complete history of the Bel Air Apartments as well as an unabridged biography of her now-deceased husband, Harold.
The lemon pound cake almost made up for it.
Well, that and when she said, “You know, I used to always make one of these casseroles when someone new moved into the complex. I should make you one.”
“No,” I said a little too quickly. “I mean, you already have. Even better, you invited me to eat with you, and I’d hate for you to go to the trouble of cooking another one just for me.”
“It’s no trouble at all,” she said, launching into a detailed description of the ingredients, the community cookbook where she’d found the recipe, and why the store-brand Tater Tots were just as good as the name brand but the frozen mixed veggies really should be Green Giant.
“Maybe you could make one for the guy across the breezeway from me,” I suggested. “I don’t know how long he’s been living here, but, uh, bachelors, you know?”
