Rachel immediately turned around to beam happily at the answering machine.
“As it happens, I’ve been thinking quite a lot about you, and frankly, I’m rather disappointed you’re not in. In the future, I’d request that you might better anticipate when I might ring you,” he said, and she turned her beaming up a notch. “We’re still on for Wednesday, are we? If it’s not a bother, could you possibly ring me and let me know for certain? There’s a love.” He rattled off the number. Rachel memorized it, etched it into her conscious thoughts for all of time. “Cheers, then,” he said, and clicked off.
She was still smiling when the machine moved to the last message. “This is Mr. Donald Gregory calling for Miss Rachel Lear.”
Surprised, Rachel looked at the machine “I regret to bother you at home, but I must reluctantly inform you that I will not be attending class tomorrow evening,” he said evenly. “My wife passed away today after a lengthy illness.” He announced it as if he was announcing he’d had a gall bladder attack.
Rachel didn’t know if she should be more startled by his apathy at having lost his wife or the fact that he had a wife. She would have sworn he had a boy toy or an ancient queen stashed away in a tiny apartment.
“While this is very sad news, it is also a blessing,” he continued stoically. “She has really . . . suffered for a very long time,” he said, his voice catching just a little. “In any event, I shall be absent from class. Thank you, and have a good day.” The answering machine clicked off.
That poor, poor man! Regardless of how ill his wife had been, or for how long, it had to be excruciatingly painful to lose her so close to the holidays. It reminded Rachel of her father’s cancer, and she felt the burn of tears in her throat just thinking about the awful possibility of his death.
She shook off the morbid thought, glanced at the clock, picked up the phone and dialed Myron’s number. His answering machine picked up. “I’m not in. Please leave your name, a brief message, and a number where I may reach you.”
“Myron, my cell?” she said to the machine, wondering if that was brief enough for him. “Did you borrow it again? If you did, I’d really like it back.” She clicked off, dialed her cell phone, but got her own voice mail and hung up. She next dialed Flynn’s number.
He wasn’t in, either, and more was the pity. “Hi, Flynn,” she said, trying to sound sexy, and wincing at her lack of finesse. “We’re definitely on for Wednesday. I’m really looking forward to it. And of course, there is class tomorrow evening. I think you’ll find my loom techniques are very . . . good,” she said, unable to think of a sexy word, and said a quick good-bye, then hung up and moaned, “Loom techniques?” And with that, she headed upstairs, determined to pay a visit to Mr. Gregory, poor thing.
After successfully locating the class papers and Mr. Gregory’s address, she dressed in a long denim skirt, a ruby sweater, and Doc Martens, then donned a denim jacket and scarf and walked out onto her drive. She was fitting her key in the car lock when Mr. Valicielo stepped out of the shadows to the fender of her Beetle. “Judas Priest!” she cried with alarm. “Mr. Valicielo, you scared me!”
“Sorry,” he said, ducking his little head. She took a breath, noticed he was wearing a giant parka that swallowed him, and a fishing hat that was barely on his head, which gave her the impression that he had slapped it on in a hurry. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I can’t ever seem to find you at home. You, ah . . . you said you’d have money to remove the tree?” he reminded her, glancing uneasily at said tree.
Right. She had said that. But that was before she’d gone and spent her money on a new dress for her first date in eons. “Yeah, I did,” she said, nodding thoughtfully, and looked at the tree. What was the big deal, anyway? It didn’t look like the fence was any more damaged than when the tree first fell. “The thing is, I didn’t make as much as I hoped.”
Mr. Valicielo pressed his lips together so hard that they almost disappeared. “Your father has money, doesn’t he? Maybe he’ll loan you the money.”
“Well, there’s just a little bit of a problem there,” she said, holding up her fingers to show him just how little a problem, which of course he could not see through her mittens. “My dad doesn’t support me—”
“I meant, just ask him for a loan.”