Chapter 2
Won't, won't, won't.
The engine refused to turn over. Elizabeth twisted the key in the ignition again. She cursed and her breath hung like a cartoon dialogue bubble in the chill air.
Won't, won't, won't.
The frequency of the won'ts was slower this time.
Elizabeth put her forehead on the steering wheel of her truck and emitted a whining noise in a soprano echo of the starter's plummy baritone. Today was Alice's day off and she had to get to work somehow. Elizabeth knew Alice would not take kindly to Elizabeth asking to borrow her car and leaving her with a nonfunctioning vehicle. She considered not asking.
Somebody tapped out her window and she jumped so high the top of her head grazed the ceiling of the cab. An unfamiliar man was standing outside her truck. He tapped on the glass again. Elizabeth rolled down the window.
He said, "Can I jump you?"
"What?" Elizabeth was shocked. Maybe her mother had been right when she had said such awful things about the neighborhood on the phone last night.
The man coughed self-consciously. "I don't think that came out right. What I meant to say was that I can give your truck a jump-start. It sounds like your battery is low."
What else would he have meant? She blushed at her own silliness and smiled. "Yes, thank you." She popped the hood and her savior went over to his car, one of the three silver BMWs on the block. A perfect match for the car, he was clean cut and germanically blond with the chiseled jaw of a comic-book hero. He wore a black overcoat elegantly draped over a gray double-breasted suit. The knife sharp creases in his trousers fell to a crisp break above a pair of wingtips.
Wingtips? Elizabeth looked closer and then stopped herself when she realized that she was expressing far too much interest in the man's feet.
He nosed his BMW to the front of her flowered truck and from his trunk retrieved a sleek case containing a set of jumper cables which had obviously never been used. After he hooked their batteries together, they started their vehicles. The truck immediately roared into life.
He wiped his hands on a snowy white handkerchief and introduced himself. "I'm August Martin, but everybody calls me Trip." They shook hands. "You must be Alice's twin. She mentioned that you were going to move in with her."
"Yes, I got into town on Sunday. I guess you're one of my new neighbors?"
"I live in the downstairs unit of 206." He pointed to the gray brick duplex next door to the group house.
They made small talk while they let her truck run long enough for the alternator to charge up the battery. He pointed out the other houses and told her about her new neighbors. She gave a description, edited for cosmetic reasons, of her job at the bookstore and learned that he was a junior partner at a law firm downtown, unsurprisingly called Martin, Martin, Martin, Martin, & Martin. He was the last Martin, he said sheepishly.
Dirk appeared at the front door in impeccable warm-up gear and a contrasting jacket that wouldn't have been caught dead among the random fruits of the coat tree. He jogged down the front steps and raised his eyebrows at the neighborly tableau. "Good morning, Elizabeth, Trip."
"Hey." Elizabeth smiled and waved.
"Muller, how are you?" Trip waved.
Dirk waved back and jogged off through the park and down the hill towards the health club.
"Your truck is probably fine now," Trip said, returning his attention to the matter at hand. He wound the jumper cables into a neat circlet and placed them back inside their case.
"Thank you so much," Elizabeth said. "I don't know what I would've done if I couldn't get it started. I was thinking I would have to borrow Alice's car, only not ask her first."
Trip laughed, revealing an even row of whitened teeth. "It's a good thing you didn't do that. If she had come out and found her car gone, she'd have called the police and reported it stolen. You might have found yourself with an APB out on you. Anyway, if you pick up a new battery today, I can help you put it in," he offered.
"Thanks, but I think I can manage," Elizabeth said. "I've done it before."
"Well, if you need a hand, don't hesitate to ask." He slid into the BMW and was gone, cyclones of leaves swirling in his wake.
Elizabeth climbed into the cab of her truck, by now toasty warm since the heater had decided it might as well function today and had been on full blast while the engine had been running.
This time she banged her head on the steering wheel. That was dumb, she told herself. You were supposed to play helpless maiden and let the man change your battery so he'd have an excuse to talk to you. You do this every time. Shaking her head, she put the truck into gear and headed down the hill.
As the database filled, byte by byte, Elizabeth let her mind wander. For the last, late afternoon hour, she had been absentmindedly creating thesis titles. "Suburban development in the '80s: Street names as a reflection of middle-class alienation."
Julie Finch
1557 King Arthur's Ct.
Midlothian, VA 23235
"Thematic street names: Semiotic differentiation in neighborhoods of identical houses."
Upender Nadir
"What?" She lifted the postcard from her copyholder and scrutinized it carefully. The name and address were hand printed with precise engineer's lettering. Not a typo, not a misread. She placed the postcard back on the copyholder and typed in the name while she tried to banish the disturbing images that the word "Upender" brought to mind. "It's probably a perfectly normal name," she told herself. "Somewhere."
"Elizabeth," Miss Price called up from the store. "Could you come down and help out for a minute?"
Glad for a chance to stand up and flex her aching knees, Elizabeth bounced out of the folding chair and down the stairs with great alacrity. Miss Price was busy at the register with sudden rush of customers.
A blonde woman in a turtleneck and hand painted sweatshirt stood by the counter. Her arms were folded across her chest and she tapped her foot impatiently. She complained, "I had you order that book weeks ago. I want to know why it hasn't come in yet. If I had ordered it off amazon-dot-com I would have had it already."
"Will you check on her order, Elizabeth?" asked Miss Price as she rang up a birthday card, a miniature book of inspirational quotes, and a cookbook with a photograph of an oozing chocolate pastry on the cover.
Elizabeth joined Miss Price behind the counter and pulled up the ordering screen on the terminal. "What was the book called?"
The woman sighed with irritation. "It's called A Whack in the Seat of Your Pants."
She ran a quick search. "It's out of print and the supplier hasn't been able to locate a copy," she told the customer.
"Well, why don't you call them and find out why they haven't been able to manage it in three weeks?"
Elizabeth bit back an offer to kick the woman in the pants herself, free of charge and no waiting, and picked up the phone. The man who answered the phone at the supplier laughed so hard at the title of the book that he fell out of his chair, or that is what Elizabeth assumed the loud bang to indicate. She was tempted to put on the speaker phone so that everyone could enjoy the conversation, but did not (Alice would have, whispered a voice in her head). Once the supplier guy righted himself and caught his breath, he checked, but couldn't locate the book in inventory and offered little hope that a copy might come in.
With much eye-rolling and many snide remarks about their inability to find a book of such significance, the woman finally left with a promise to return the following week.
After the door had safely closed behind her, Miss Price breathed a sigh of relief. "That's the problem with people who order self-help books: they really, really need them. You handled that very well," she told Elizabeth in a low voice. "How about I call you down when she comes in next week?"
A teenage boy crept out of the back room with a load of books on a small hand truck. "Is she gone yet?"
Miss Price glared at him severely over her glasses. "Yes, no thanks to you."
"Sorry." Voice cracking, the boy ducked behind a protective bookshelf and began putting up books.
"And I want those shelved alphabetically by author this time," Miss Price called to him.
The bell over the door tinkled and they all cringed with apprehension, but it was only housemate Bob. He was carrying a white shopping bag with orange and black tissue poking from the top.
"Well hello, Bob. Doing a little Halloween shopping?" Miss Price asked sweetly.
"Yes, ma'am," he drawled. "Just some truffles for my mother." He held up the shopping bag to display the logo of the candy store on the next block. "She can't get these out in Montgomery County, and she asks for some every time a holiday rolls around. You know, Mothers' Day, her birthday, Arbor Day. I thought I'd send her one of your catalogs too, because they don't have a bookstore in their town either."
"Why, of course, Bob. That's so thoughtful of you. Elizabeth, run up and get him one."
Returning from the storeroom upstairs with a catalog in her hand, Elizabeth found Bob browsing in the science fiction section.
"It's been years since I had time to read anything fun," he confided, placing a copy of Red Mars back on the shelf and taking the proffered catalog.
A spark jumped between their hands.
After he left, Miss Price sidled up to her and said, "I adore that boy. If one of you girls doesn't have enough sense to marry him, ..." She left her threat unfinished.