Return To Little Hills. Janice Macdonald
Beth smiled. “Edie, if you haven’t noticed, your sister is trying to set me up with Peter. She thinks we’d be perfect together. And your sister, in case you haven’t noticed that, either, happens to be very determined when she sets her mind to anything.”
Viv hooted. “Me, determined? You don’t know determined until you know Edie. Once she makes her mind up on something, nothing’s going to change it.”
“A family trait,” Edie said, thinking of Maude. “So, are you interested in Peter?” she asked Beth. “Personally.”
“Of course she is,” Viv said. “How could she not be?”
Edie looked at Beth, waiting for her to answer. With her nondescript brown hair pulled into a straggling ponytail, no makeup and an unflattering orange knit sweater, Beth looked like the before picture of a makeover candidate. Not without potential, but at the moment, clearly untapped.
An assessment Beth confirmed a moment later. “I don’t think I’m exactly Peter’s type,” she said. “A few weeks ago I was in administration and this tall gorgeous woman came in. Everyone was looking at her. The security guard’s jaw just about dropped. She asked for Peter, and Betty Jean let her into his office. Apparently, she’s this actress he was dating.”
“But he’s not dating her now,” Viv said. “Ray heard Peter telling her not to bother him anymore.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Beth said. “Clearly, that’s the type of woman he’s interested in.”
“Beth.” Elbows on the table, Viv looked at her friend. “He needs a mother for those children. Betty Jean told Ray. He’s not looking to marry an actress. You just need to work at it, let him see you’re interested.”
“But I don’t know if I am,” Beth said. “I think I might feel…inadequate.”
“No, no.” Viv shook her head. “You and Peter would be perfect together. Men are just sometimes slower to catch up. Although,” she said with a little smile, “sometimes you do get that gut feeling. I remember with Ray. Everyone said, ‘Oh he’s still in love with Edie, he’s just marrying you on the rebound,’ but I knew.”
Edie clasped her hands. A pain that had started at the top of her scalp was gathering strength. “The thing is,” she said. “It’s sometimes difficult to know what guys are thinking. You know how you can kind of read things into situations? See what you want to see?” Edie really wanted to go home and stick her head under the covers. “All I’m saying is, Beth, a friend of mine told me years later that she really wished someone had told her right from the start that this guy was never in love with her. It was just a difficult call, though.”
“Excuse me,” Beth said as she hurried from the room.
“What the hell is with you?” Vivian glared at Edie. “Beth has been glowing all evening and it’s like you just poured a bucket of cold water over her. Why don’t you keep your damn cynical opinions to yourself and quit spoiling things for everyone else?”
“I honestly didn’t mean to rain on her parade,” Edie said. “I was just telling her—”
“Next time, try telling yourself to butt out,” Viv snapped.
Edie returned home to find a message from Maude scrawled on a note under the phone.
Gone to bed. A man called I told him he had the wrong number but he kept calling back and asking for Fred so I wrote down his number just to get some peace and quiet you better call him we need more toilet paper and don’t get that thin stuff again my fingers go right through it. Love Mom.
CHAPTER FOUR
WITH A SMILE, Edie folded the note and put it in her pocket. The infrequent letters Maude sent her were written the same way; long, garbled, stream-of-consciousness missives without a hint of punctuation. She dialed the number she knew by heart and reached a colleague and friend she’d known since their days in the Times London bureau. A grizzled bearlike man approaching retirement, Fred Mazare had probably reported from every country in the world during his forty-odd years in journalism. A gold mine of information on anything from overseas press clubs—he knew them all—to public transport in Bangkok—he recommended tuk tuks—Fred was mentor, father figure, confidant and friend all rolled into one untidy, overweight, cigar-smoking curmudgeon. He picked up the phone on the first ring.
“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded, “And who was that old bat who answered the phone?”
“Out with the girls,” she said, grinning because it felt so damn good to hear his voice. “And watch how you talk about my mother.”
“How’re things going?”
“Oh…” She rubbed her eyes. “I’m home. Does that tell you anything?”
“Yep. It tells me you’re about as out of place as a nun in a brothel.”
She laughed. “Hmm, I’ll have to think about that one.” Her back against the wall, the phone cord wrapped around her wrist, she slid down to the floor. “Why do I feel so…weird whenever I come home, Fred?”
“One, you don’t belong there anymore. Two, you’re trying to convince yourself into believing that you do.”
“I am?”
“Sure you are. Probably hooked up with an old boyfriend and he’s trying to talk you into settling down—”
“Wrong.”
“Okay. Your biological clock’s ticking.”
She groaned. “Oh please, if you can’t come up with something more original…”
“Okay, Edie. Tell Uncle Freddy the problem as you see it.”
“I just…have this empty feeling inside.”
“You going soft on me?”
“No.” She swiped the back of her hand across her nose. “Maybe I’ve had my fill of moving around. Maybe I need to settle, put down some roots.” She swallowed. “Maybe you’re not really so far off the mark about the biological clock.”
“Highly possible,” he agreed.
“But I’d hate to settle down in a place like Little Hills.” She thought of Viv and her off-white leather couches and her endless chattering about Ray and the boys. She thought of Peter with his little girls. Beth all shiny-eyed as she’d called them angels. “I have nothing in common with these people.”
“My guess is that you would if you decided Little Hills is what you’re looking for,” he said. “Ready for some news about Ben?”
She leaned her head back against the wall, closed her eyes. “Yeah.”
“State Department’s arranged for his release. Could be any day now.”
She breathed a sigh. “Thank God.”
“I spoke to his wife.”
“Ex-wife.”
“Tell her that.”
“He told me that.”
Fred laughed. “Ever strike you funny how people can be so cynical and hardheaded about things they want to believe and so damn gullible and stupid about other things?”
“Not so much funny as pitiful,” she said. You’re not breaking up my marriage, Edie, Ben had told her. It was broken long, long before I met you.
“Hey, Edie.” Fred was saying, “Cut out the whiny broad stuff.”
“I’m not whining.”
“You’re feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Bull.” Tears burned her nose. “I’m fine. Terrific.”
“You’ve