Page 53 of The Lookback
“Wait.” He picks up my purse and holds it out to me. “Don’t forget your baseball bat, officer.” His eyes are sparkling.
“It’s called a baton, thankyouverymuch.” I snatch it out of his hands and shove past him.
No one cleaned up the mess from all the kids and there are cheese sticks that have dried out and look like contortionists. Fabulous. Just the type of image I wanted to present.
“You’ve totally redone this place,” he says, looking around. Then he takes off his shoes and lines them up beside the front door, like he’s one of those people who walks around barefoot inside his own house. “It looks great, really great.”
“Did you expect it to have the same brown linoleum sixty years later?” I laugh like I changed it more than five years ago. Like my life has been exciting instead of exactly the same since he left.
When really, it’s been basically the same for decades.
How pathetic.
“Look at all the cool things you’ve collected over the years.” He runs his hand down the back of the elephant as he walks around the family room. “It really makes everything feel. . .fun.”
I’m such an idiot. Why did I buy all that junk? “Well, the bathroom’s just through here.” I walk toward the hall and gesture.
Tommy follows my direction and walks past me, but he stops just a step away and turns back. “And Mandy?”
I raise my eyebrows.
He whispers, “I’m not afraid of bugs—bed or any other variety.” Then he ducks into the bathroom.
Who does he think he is? Fred Astaire? What’s he even saying? Because if he thinks an innuendo aboutbedbugsis going to interest me, he has completely lost touch with reality.
I’m not even one inch into figuring out what he’s saying when the door swings open. “Oh, man. I’ve been up since early this morning, and I cannot wait to go to bed.” Helen dances through the front door and promptly trips on Tommy’s neatly discarded shoes.
I step toward her and catch her windmilling hands, stopping her from falling face-first, but her purse is collateral damage. It hits the floor and sprays things out in all directions. I bend over and start gathering things up and handing them to her until my fingers close around a small photograph. A very unique type of photograph.
“Helen Fisher, what on earth is this?” I wave the ultrasound in front of her. “I may not be an obstetrician, but that looks like ababy.”
Helen straightens, shoving a handful of something into the bottom of her very expensive, very fancy designer bag, and then she extends her hand imperiously. “It’s nothing.”
I yank my hand back. “It doesn’t look like nothing.”
She rolls her eyes. “It fell out of Abby’s bag in my car last week, I think from her purse. She’s been working on Nate’s baby book, and I didn’t want her to lose it.” She snatches her hand back. “But by all means, you keep up with it instead.”
“Oh.” I take three steps into the kitchen and drop it on the counter. “Speaking of keeping up with things, I have a friend who was supposed to be coming out in a few days.”
“Is that why you bought all this ugly, bizarre stuff?” Helen spins in a circle. “Because the idiots you call friends bought my lie, but if you don’t at least take the tacky Ross Dress for Less tags off everything. . .” She shakes her head. “No one’s going to believe that my decorator who costs me several hundred thousand a year actually bought a knock-off totem pole and a terrible reprint of Seurat’s Eiffel Tower—that’s not even the right color palette.” She’s frowning.
“Helen,” I say, glancing back at the bathroom. “You’re talking really loud, and that friend I was talking about?—”
“Wait, is it a guy?” She bites her lip. “So that’s why you got all this weird, new stuff. You want to impress him. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you went the wrong way. Trust me. Even the cabin-chic you had going on before this was better than. . .” She waves her hand through the air. “Whatever this is.”
I’m going to kill her, but I’m still holding onto hope that perhaps Tommy can’t hear any of what she’s saying through the door. “Itisa guy, but I don’t want to impress him. And I didn’t buy all this stuff recently?—”
Helen leans over and yanks a tag off the top of the totem pole that I was too short to see. “Nice try, butthistells me otherwise.” She tosses it at me, and it bounces off the end of my nose and spins round and round, fluttering down to the ground like an oak pod buffeted by the wind.
The bathroom door opens, and Helen’s eyes widen as Tommy emerges.
“Did you really want to impress me?” Tommy’s smiling as he exits the bathroom. “Because if so. . .” His grin widens. “Even if all your stuff burned in that fire, you didn’t need to buy replacements.”
Yes. The fire. I should have thought of that. It would have been a great excuse for why I didn’t have anything from my trips. “It’s just that?—”
“Whoa.” Helen’s clutched her purse to her chest like it’s a shield. “Who are you, and what were you doing in that bathroom?”
“Well, I don’t usually talk to people I’ve barely met about my bladder control and bowel movements, but if you insist.” He’s smiling.
