Down the Rabbit Hole

CHAPTER ONE

“I am so late!” Elise muttered, bursting through the doors of Candy’s Costumes on the north end of State Street. Catching sight of her brother’s wife, Molly, standing before a mannequin dressed as Bo Peep, she added, “And I’m so sorry! I had the hardest time finding this place. I thought it would be bigger.”

Looking around, she could see that the space required to contain Candy’s colossal collection of costumes was in the length of the building, not the narrow forty-foot width of the storefront. It was cavernous, with an overstuffed appearance that made her feel a little claustrophobic.

“That’s okay.” Molly’s attention was on Bo Peep. “I’ve been standing here trying to decide if I want to go cutesy, creepy or cheap flashy floozy.”

Elise mulled it over for a moment. She did adore her big brother, but . . .

“What about Roger? If you go as Bo Peep, will he go as a sheep or a big bad wolf?” They looked at each other, squinting in thought, and came to the same conclusion—Bo’s problem was forgetfulness, not a wolf. There was love in her laughter. “So, Roger as a sheep. I might reconsider and go just to see that.”

“Reconsider anyway. I want you to come.” Molly started picking through a row of neatly hung storybook costumes. “Look at these costumes! They’re fantastic. I can’t wait to see what everyone else wears. Liz thinks you can tell a lot about a person by the sort of costume they pick; more than you can if they’re wearing regular street clothes.”

Elise was considering a mermaid’s tail for Molly and Roger as a starfish, or maybe a seahorse, when something occurred to her and stirred suspicion. She glanced over her shoulder. “I wonder what Liz’s cousin Bill will come as—do they have a nice-guy-with-a-great-personality costume, do you think?”

Molly flinched, but didn’t turn away from the fantasy costumes she was browsing through. “Going by this place, I’m guessing they do.”

“Ah.” She chuckled, good-natured. “The truth reveals itself: Cousin Bill needs a date.”

“And so do you.”

“Not if I’m not going.”

“Elise.”

“Molly.”

“Liz is counting on you.”

“To be Bill’s date?” This time Elise gave her a slightly longer glance over her shoulder . . . with an appalled expression.

“No . . . Well, yes . . . but not entirely.” She took a deep breath. “She’s hired the nice little dance band that played at Patty Morrison’s wedding—she got lucky there, because they’re super busy. But since so many people will be dressed as characters of some sort, she thought you might be willing to play piano between their sets.”

“Me? Why? How does she even know I could?”

“We’ve talked about it. You know, about your lessons and how much the boys love it when you play ‘Happy Birthday’ for them. And it wouldn’t be anything huge. A few short snippets of show tunes and funny little character jingles like . . . Oh! ‘Muppet Babies, we make our dreams come true. Muppet Babies, we’ll do the same for you,’” she sang quietly. Then, as an afterthought, she added, “No, I hate that one. Reruns, every afternoon at one thirty—sticks in your head until you want to blow it off. But maybe ‘Scooby Dooby Doo, where are you?’” She chuckled. “Or Batman!—everyone knows the lyrics to that one: ‘Nana, nana, nana, nana.’” Suddenly, her right fist shot into the air. “‘Thunder, thunder, Thundercats, ho!’ Best ever. Super motivational for little boys under the age of six.” She went back to the fantasy fashions. “I don’t know what I’d do without it. Maybe ‘Tomorrow’ . . . there’s bound to be at least one Annie there. The Pink Panther . . .”

Elise’s expression was frozen in horror.

Piano lessons were her special treat for sticking with her day job—revenue officer for the IRS. Someone had to do it. The lessons were an indulgence, not a new career choice, and not for public consumption. She was doing pretty well, and proud of it, but she could barely play for family—she’d practiced ‘Happy Birthday’ so often she could also play it backward.

“Short snippets of show tunes? Have you lost your mind?”

Molly finally turned to face her. “I only said I’d bring it up and see what happens—and I can see it isn’t happening. I pretty much assumed it wouldn’t, but Liz . . . well, you know how she gets carried away sometimes.”

Elise barely knew Liz. Liz was Molly’s friend. She’d only agreed to go to the party because Molly had insisted and she’d had a date—at the time.

Now she didn’t—so she wasn’t.

Oh sure, there were worse things than a blind date. And there were more embarrassing situations than tagging along with your brother and his wife to a party—like having your credit card declined during a rush hour at the Piggly Wiggly or mistaking your boss’s daughter for his son or producing a freight train fart in church—but honestly, who wouldn’t avoid all those things given the choice?

A wall of masks caught her eye. Hundreds of masks—from plain domino masks like the ones Green Lantern and the Lone Ranger wear to intricate and beautiful Venetian Carnival masks that looked like works of art. Gaudy half-face Mardi Gras masks to full-face rubber head masks of Freddy Krueger . . . and others more horrifying. Feathers and rhinestones. Glitter and lace. Plastic, ceramic and papier-mâché. Some were universal, others more specific . . .

She reached high to retrieve one with a six-inch nose. “This would be a good one for Jeremy.”

Molly turned, confused. But only for a moment.

“Oh, right. Pinocchio. The liar.” Her voice had an edge to it. She crossed the aisle to the action/adventure outfits. “You’re talking about the Jeremy we haven’t seen or heard from in almost three years? The Jeremy you married—the one who wanted to give you the world and then lied and cheated on you before he finally left you up to your eyeballs in debt? The Jeremy who could, at this very moment, be burning in hell for all we know, and yet he still manages to destroy every chance you get at a happy, healthy relationship? That Jeremy?” She yanked a dress from the crush of clothes and snapped, “Princess Leia?”

Elise bobbed her head. “With Luke, Han or Darth Vader . . . or a Stormtrooper?”

They both looked at an endcap display of the fallen Jedi knight and shuddered at the thought of how effectively Roger’s voice would resonate from inside Vader’s mask.

“Not Darth,” they agreed.

Elise shrugged; there were better costumes. Not one that would involve the grizzly hockey mask of Jason Voorhees—which she quickly diverted her gaze from—but maybe something more wistful, like Erik’s mask from The Phantom of the Opera.

“Jeremy’s gone.” Molly’s voice went gentle and concerned. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

“I know that.” What about a Catwoman or V mask?

“Do you? Or do you compare every man who crosses your path to him?”

So what if she did? Who wouldn’t? People aren’t graded and tagged like cattle at auction. It was more like buying baskets from a snake charmer—who knows what’s inside?

Her laugh was soft and quick. “Luckily, I limit the number of men who cross my path, or I wouldn’t have time to do anything but compare them all.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know.”

Her fingers grazed a female Noh theater mask—beautiful in its flawless simplicity and mystery; steeped in history and tradition. She once read that they were an optical illusion; that the neutral expression of the woman changed to fear or sadness by angling the head down and to joy or happiness by lifting the chin up toward the light. She wanted to see it for herself, and lifted the mask off the hook, looking for a mirror.

“I don’t understand,” Molly said. “Max is really nice. Roger and I both like him . . . a lot . . . We liked John, too. He was charming. Not so much the one before Max—Dillon? But we told you that; we were honest with you, weren’t we? I’m telling you: Max is a sweetie. He’s really smart and he’s funny. And I think he’s serious. He likes you. You can see it when he looks at you.” She glanced over as her sister-in-law stepped up to a strategically located mirror among the masks. “Why do you keep pushing these guys away?”

Elise covered her face with the mask.

“It’s safe.” Darth Vader’s empty, echoing voice came from behind them. Elise screamed and dropped the mask; it shattered on the floor as she turned. He stepped lightly from his perch—she screamed again, jumped and pressed closer to . . . Molly wasn’t there.

“Ah, God! Where’s . . . What’s happening? Where’s Molly? Who are you?” Frantic, she managed to scan the area without actually looking away. “What have you done with Molly? Don’t hurt her . . . or me. Please. What’s going on?”

“Sorry.” It wasn’t just the voice changer in the mask that made his apology sound flat and hollow. “Startling you was going to happen no matter when I did it—so knowing the answer to her question seemed as good a time as any to introduce myself.”

“What?”

“Which what? What is the answer to her question? What are the answers to the five questions you just asked? Or what is my name?”

“What?”

“I said, which what? What—”

“Who are you?”

“Call me Martin.” He did an about-face, stepped over the broken Noh mask and started walking briskly away, black cape billowing. “You smash it, you trash it. I’m not cleaning that up.”

“What? Wait a second.” Jumping the shards and overriding every instinct telling her it was a bad idea to follow him anywhere, she did so. He didn’t seem intent, or even interested, in doing her harm . . . plus, there was no one else around. “Where’s Molly? What have you done with her?” She wondered if the helmet was soundproof; she spoke louder. “I don’t understand. What’s happening?” Anger was inching up on her fear. “Is that it, then? That’s all I’m getting? Your name?”

“That’s a lot.” He took a sharp right turn on the far end of the military uniforms. Rounding blindly behind him she came up short—Zorro turned to face her. “But I will give you so much more, querida mea, if you let me.”

“Wha—” She took a step back, gaping at the flowing black Spanish cape, the flat-brimmed sombrero cordobes and the black cloth Domino mask that covered the top of his head from eye level up . . . from his sparkling and seductive gold-green eyes up. “Am I dead?”

“No, bella damisela.”

“Stroke?”

His grin was roguish . . . and dazzling, set in a strong dimpled chin. Any other day she might have said it was sexy; that his soft Latin accent was dreamy—but clearly it wasn’t any other day.

And truth be told, the pencil-thin mustache was distracting. How hard was it to shave and shape something like that? How long did it take him? And the obvious question: Why bother? Come to think of it, didn’t Don Diego de la Vega have an identical ’stache? Who wouldn’t notice that? A peculiarity like that on the face of both men? No wonder . . .

See? Distracting.

“So, it’s a brain tumor, then—a big one.” Elise sighed, downcast. “Inoperable?”

“Physically, you are perfectly well.” With a wicked twinkle in his eyes, he added, “And perfectly safe. Molly, too.”

“Where is she?”

“Where you left her.”

“Where’s that? Take me there.” He sidled by in front of her, then swept off in the opposite direction. “No. Wait. You said physically.” He slowed to a stop. “I’m well and safe physically. So mentally . . . I’m screwed. Insane. I’m hallucinating.”

“No.” He turned to her, took a few steps back in her direction. She found it comforting—he wasn’t trying to elude her. “No, you are not hallucinating—not exactly. Candy’s Costumes is, let us say, an unconventional establishment.” He studied her. “You are more astute than most, I will say that about you. That is surprising, considering your lack of self-awareness. And you are not screaming and weeping—that is another good thing, querida mea.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to, you know.”

He turned again and slowly ambled off—slowly, as if he was inviting her to follow.

“Of course,” he said. “But you have no idea how hard it is to get tearstains out of these costumes. And also, the only apparel suitable for someone with puffy eyes and a red nose are clown suits or the two-piece Rudolf, which requires a second person, and I am sick of being the ass-end of a reindeer.”

A smile twitched across her lips—she couldn’t help it.

He veered left into a relatively short collection of animal costumes—moose mask, beaver head, alligator face . . . fur. Where was he going? What was he looking for? She stretched her spine, searching for a way out—the dividers were too high. And each end of the aisle opened to another wall of costumes. Who knew there could be so many?

“And clowns, as you well know, are inquietante . . . disturbing. Very disturbing.” Yes, but how did he know she thought so? “Truly, I am worn to the bone by the time the crying stops. They are exhausting—men and women alike. And then we must waste more time on the inevitable confusion and reluctance that quite naturally accompanies a journey such as this—all of which you seem to be handling well, mi belleza.”

“Thanks?” He was bound to pass a door eventually, right? “So, where are we going on this journey?”

“That’s up to you.”

“Back to Molly.”

“Possibly. Eventually.”

“No, I mean: back to Molly. If this journey is up to me that’s where I want to go. Back to Molly.”

From somewhere deep in the bowels of Candy’s Costumes came a muffled growling noise—caged beast or ancient furnace, it was hard to tell. A disturbing, worrisome sound no matter its source, though Zorro seemed unconcerned.

“Then let us begin. We must hurry.” He swerved left again at the end of the rack. She followed.

CHAPTER TWO

“Ah!” Elise came face-to-face with a giant Cat in the Hat—very authentic looking and much taller than Zorro. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes! And, I guess, you must know what this means. We mix your dreams and my schemes, with some baffling talk. But before you can run, you must first learn to walk.”

“Rhymes? Seriously?”

“For as long as it takes, and with lots of mistakes.”

“That’s not makeup . . . or a mask.”

He did a couple of facial contortions and then waggled his brows—it looked pretty real to her. “It’s a magical face, like this magical place.”

“Are you . . .” She couldn’t make herself say it, and so took another track. “Are you still Martin? Can . . . can I still call you Martin?”

“Or Bill or Will or Jon or Don; if you want me to I’ll try them all on. But if one is the same as all the rest, Martin’s the one that I like the best.”

“Is that part of the deal, then? Do you have to keep changing?”

“I do. So do you. It’s just part of life. We do it to handle the pain and the strife.” Her stare was vapid. He chuckled. “Come on, get in gear. You’ve nothing to fear. Together we’ll figure your way out of here.”

“God, that’s annoying.”

“I know and it’s slow. It’s a tough way to learn. Just follow directions; it’s your turn to turn.”

“My turn to turn . . . into that? I don’t think so.”

“I’m already taken, there’s just one of me. First feel it—then think it, and soon you will see, it’s all up to you as to who you will be.”

She squinted at him, thoughtful. It was startling to realize how clearly she was thinking inside her not-damaged, not-insane, not-hallucinating but clearly not-normal state of mind.

“So, I decide on what I’m feeling and then I think about it—and I’ll change. Like you do.” She looked him up and down. “What on earth were you thinking?”

“Of you, that’s who. To get your attention and to add some dimension. What you feel is the deal; you must know it is real.”

“If this really works will you change into something that doesn’t rhyme or talk in riddles?”

“If you will it, I will.”

“Okay.” Elise looked down, searched for her strongest emotion—and when nothing changed, she lifted her gaze back to his. “Is this a joke?”

“Think and blink.”

She blinked instinctively, several times, before she could stop thinking about blinking and settle down to concentrate on what she was feeling. It helped to not look at him . . . or his big hairy cat feet. Her lids slid slowly over her eyes to close them out.

“No better than that, for the Cat in the Hat?” There was disappointment in his voice.

She opened her eyes and gasped at the black and white convict stripes that covered her all the way down to the ugly low-top, canvas, triple-Velcro prison sneakers on her feet. She huffed out an astonished laugh and glanced at his annoyed expression.

“What. It worked. I feel like a prisoner. What did you expect?”

He put his hand over his heart. “The real questions you keep, have answers more deep. The better you ask, the shorter the task.”

“If it takes me more time, will you run out of rhyme?”

His cat brow furrowed darkly; she grinned at him. He folded his arms across his chest, clearly expecting her to try again, to do better.

“Okay. Okay.” Elise closed her eyes for a heartbeat, then opened them. He was scowling at her. Following his line of vision downward, she pressed her lips together at the sight of a ball and chain latched to her ankle. She snorted laughter through her nose; then released it with great amusement.

“The longer it takes, the longer it takes.” He turned and strode away. She watched him turn another corner, saw him glare at her over the partition and then followed the sight of his hat getting lower and lower like a setting sun.

“No. No. Wait.” She started forward; her ball rattled and clanked against the chain as she dragged it along behind her. “I’ll try again. Come on. Give me another chance. I think I’ve got it now.” She bent, picked up the ball and carried it like a baby. It was heavier than she thought it would be. She was a little out of breath when she caught up to him.

“Neeh . . . What’s up, doc?”

Elise stared at Bugs, lounging casually, chomping on a carrot, and then slowly closed her eyes. In less than a hiccup the weight in her arms changed shape.

“Oh!” To her great delight she wore a jacket and pants of tobacco brown canvas trimmed in red, with a matching trapper hat and russet boots. She had a rifle cradled in her arms . . . which she automatically lowered and leveled straight at him. “I want to weave, wabbit.”

His gaze traveled slowly from hers to the Elmer Fudd rifle and back again—it held a challenge. Unfortunately . . . or fortunately . . . she wasn’t about to take even a toy gun for granted, and so rotated wide of her target and pulled the trigger. A cloud of gray billowed upward as a cork popped from the muzzle, landing on the floor between them.

Their eyes met through the smoke—dancing and twinkling. They laughed.

And just like that Martin had gently and cleverly gotten her out of her prisoner frame of mind and broken the precarious ice between them. He could have killed her at any time, she realized. Maybe not with a lightsaber, but certainly a sword . . . or his bare hands . . . and yet he hadn’t once touched her.

“I’m beginning to wike this,” she said.

Nodding, he pushed himself into an upright position. Reaching out, he took hold of the rifle barrel and gave it a gentle tug—she released it to him. He put it and his carrot on the floor, and when he stood up he was Abraham Lincoln . . . stovepipe hat in hand.

Always described as being a tall man didn’t really cover the extent of his height, in Elise’s opinion. He was bend-your-neck-back tall. He was stare-at-the-top-button-on-his-vest tall. He was . . .

“Pwesident Wincoln. Howwy cow!” Elise covered her mouth immediately, appalled.

His smile was close-lipped and gentle. All manner of emotions existed in his fine eyes as they changed from gray to a golden-green hazel. Sadness and kindness were most notable . . . until amusement sparked.

“Martin.”

“Feeling not quite yourself today?” he asked, making his voice soft but clear and Lincoln-like—once again immersing himself in the character. She shook her head. “Go ahead, take a moment and gather your wits. I am in no hurry at all.” While searching the inside of his hat, he added, “I have no gun to my head today.”

She gasped softly at his wordplay and he looked up . . . then down. It was his turn to be startled. He swept his gaze over her, nodded once and muttered, “Interesting.”

Elise looked like Curious George. She sighed, dismayed. “Ahhh.”

“Take heart. We are in a costume shop, after all—magic and make-believe live here. And who would not be curious in a situation such as this? At least you are not the cat that curiosity killed.” The president smiled. “And while I died before reading the book, I understand the intensely curious Alice of Wonderland was foul-tempered and exceedingly bossy, which I would have found tedious in the extreme. So all in all, an inquisitive monkey is not so bad.”

“Ooo-ooo ah-ah.”

Mr. Lincoln grimaced. “Yes, I see. Conversing will be difficult. But perhaps, just for a moment or two, I can speak and you can listen.” He paused. “It would never work in the Congress, of course, but I believe you’re a different breed of monkey.”

She rolled her eyes and he chuckled.

“So, shall I come down to you or will you come up to me?” Martin or not, she couldn’t ask Abraham Lincoln to sit on the floor. She pointed up with her thumb. He reached down to wrap his long fingers around her hand and gave it a little yank—the ability to quickly climb a president’s body came with the costume, apparently. He seemed willing to hold her in his arms, but she couldn’t have borne it—she sprang to the lip at the top of the partition, squatted and curled her toes around the dowel below. They were almost eye to eye now—she just a smidgeon higher.

“Are you comfortable?” Bemused and tentative, she nodded. While he looked inside his hat once again she scanned for an exit. Her disappointment was unexpectedly bearable.

Mr. Lincoln removed and replaced several different-sized pieces of paper and at least one envelope from the lining in his hat until he found the note he was after—then he set it on the floor.

Rising slowly, he read the memo, clearly perplexed. “I must be honest with you; I am surprised by this report.”

“Ooo?” Elise craned her short monkey neck to make out the words.

“It says you are cynical and judgmental and unwilling to balance your checkbook.” He looked as perplexed as she was.

Their eyes met and held; observant and reflective—hers wavered first.

Okay, so the checkbook thing was true. And sometimes she was a little pessimistic, who wasn’t?—aside from yoga instructors and Jamaicans, of course. But judgmental? And with that disapproving undertone?

She wasn’t very curious anymore. Elise became an Angry Bird, soaring over rows of costumes with a head-on trajectory to the far wall at the back of the store. She was about to crash and disintegrate . . . and there was no pig in sight to make her trip worthwhile.

Terrified, she squeezed her eyes shut tight, held her breath, felt herself falling and landed on her feet with a jolt.

At first, it was hard to see beyond her new bulbous nose, but the long white beard, the red jacket, the soft leather booties . . . and her still short stature left little doubt of her present emotions—or who she now appeared to be. She stomped down the aisle and around the corner to the next to confront Mr. Lincoln with her hands fisted on her hips.

“Grumpy.” The light in his eyes danced. “Perhaps you should run for Congress after all.”

“Humph.” Her eyebrows formed a near perfect V on her forehead. In a deep, rough voice she asked, “Who’d you expect? Sneezy? Dopey?”

“It is the gap between our assumptions and expectations that deliver most of the surprises to our life—and would not our lives be abysmally dull without them?”

“Hah! I hate surprises. They make life sloppy and unstable. Not for me, no, sir. A fine kettle of fish, they are.” Elise started pacing back and forth, agitated. Abe watched her until she stopped in front of him and asked, “What were we talking about?”

“I was reporting to you that there are certain people who believe you are the skeptical sort and an atrocious bookkeeper, despite your profession. But I believe it was the assertion that you are also judgmental that had you flying off the handle . . . in a manner of speaking.”

“Right.” She made a gruff noise, clearing her throat. Her language was full of contractions and almost completely g-less. “Judgmental. Molly told you that, didn’t she? Of course I’m judgmental.” She threw up her arms. “Everyone is judgmental. It’s how we mark people and places, things and ideas, as right or wrong, good or bad, healthy or not.

“But here’s this about that: No one ever says you’re being judgmental if you think something is right or good or healthy. Only the opposite—only if you don’t like it and only if they do like it. And there’s something else . . .” She filled her lungs with air. “If they don’t agree with what you decide is right or good, they got no problem telling you how wrong you are about it. But they’re just expressing their opinion, not being judgmental of my choices. Fact is, if that’s the way Molly wants it, then she’s being judgmental by calling me judgmental. What do you think of that?”

The tall man stared down at her thoughtfully—considering, not judging, her perspective.

“Pfft. Molly is the patient sort—everyone she meets is her best friend. She’s everybody’s pal. I love that about her. I’m more discriminating is all; private-like and choosy in my friends. We aren’t all the same.” She hesitated. “And I think you’re more like me.”

“I am.”

“She’s always saying I can’t judge a book by its cover. And maybe I can’t, but reading the first couple pages will tell me if I want to waste more of my time on it. A gooseberry pie can come out of the oven looking perfect and taste so bitter it’ll take a week for your face to unpucker. Why would I take another bite? And people—what we’re really talking about—well, people are the same. They can look as normal as me and you but it doesn’t take long to know if you want them always in your life.”

Mr. Lincoln considered this. “But people are not books and they are not pies. People are never fully cooked or completely written. What if the first time you encounter a person they are not at their best?”

Elise turned her hands palms up. “So what if they aren’t? They’ll be out of my life in two swings of a pickax—why would I care?”

“But what if it is someone you will encounter again?”

“Are they back to being their normal self?” Abe’s nod was provisional. “Then I’d say I still got at least a fifty-fifty chance of liking them. Same as the first time I met them. I can’t always be my usual charming self either. Most everyone deserves a second chance. I believe that. I do. Ask Molly.”

“And if they happen to not be at their best . . . again? What if it is a particularly bad time in their life?” One corner of Elise’s mouth tilted upward in dissent—the odds had already diminished. “But what if they are truly charming and exciting people once—”

“Once they aren’t around me?”

“No. Just . . . once you have had more time to warm up to each other.”

“Eh. I’m to keep rubbing up against people I don’t give a lick for until I can love them like my brother? To make everyone else happy? To make them stop judging me as judgmental?” She folded her arms across her chest and tapped her right foot. “In a pig’s eye! I’m not mean and I’m not uncaring. But I’m also not the type to be making friends with those I’ve got no interest in.”

Martin/Abraham sighed. “But if you do not give them all the chances they need to connect with you, how will you ever know for sure?”

“I won’t.” A Grumpy Elise bobbled her oversized head loosely on her shoulders. “Now I reckon I’m supposed to lose sleep over not knowing about all the things I don’t know about?”

His smile was kind, but not convinced and not discouraged. He opened his mouth to speak—

The muffled growling noise came again, vibrating the floorboards beneath their feet; distant and close at once. It furrowed the president’s brow and alarmed Elise nearly as much as becoming an Angry Bird had.

“What is that?” she asked.

“It’s time. We must hurry.”

CHAPTER THREE

For a second time, President Lincoln bent to take hold of her hand—not to pull her up into his arms but to draw her around another endcap, this one featuring a large Shrek. Once there he stepped behind her and placed his hands lightly on her shoulders; then slowly pushed her forward.

The brightly colored costumes on both sides of the aisle began to fade—first to gray, then completely away, to reveal a filmy image of a woman she knew.

“Molly.”

Abruptly, the figure turned toward the sound of a voice saying, “Ready?”

“Yes,” Molly said.

Elise—looking very much herself—emerged from a cloudy dressing area in the beautiful red cocktail dress she bought four weeks earlier on one of their late-afternoon shopping trips. With a short gossamer skirt and spaghetti straps that crossed over the low-cut back, it had the wow-power to burn her image into Max’s brain until the day he died . . . maybe a little longer.

Molly gasped her approval. “Now that is a six-month anniversary dress!”

“You think so?”

“Lord, yes! It’s fabulous.”

“Not too . . . red?” She twirled before a mirror, looking concerned, but not about the dress.

Her mind began the slow rotation of thoughts that would—too often of late—spin out of control . . .

Pretty red. What if Max hates red? Do I care if he hates red? And what about this special need-a-new-dress-for-it anniversary dinner? It was his idea . . . so obviously he’s been keeping track of our days together. What does that mean? Is it romantic or weird? Or is there a six-month expiration date on the women he dates? Is the dinner a setup to let me down easy? Maybe I should dump him first. Maybe black would be a better color . . . something long and shrouded. No, no. He likes me. I know he does—I feel it. But I thought and felt the same thing about Jeremy. What did I miss in the first six months with Jeremy that I might be missing now with Max? Hell, it took me five years to figure out he was a liar and a cheat. Maybe Max would consider having nine more six-month anniversary dinners . . .

Her sigh was loud and discouraged as she swished the lovely red skirt back and forth around her knees. That would mean nine more amazing dresses I can’t really afford—and five more wasted years of my life. Maybe I should just ask him: Max? Are you planning to stomp on my pride and break my heart?

“I don’t think a sexy red dress can be too red,” Molly said, curbing Elise’s mental debate mid-spin. “Wanna borrow my Judith Leiber knockoff?”

Elise smiled. “Perfect. Thanks.”

“One down, one to go.”

“What?”

“We have a spectacular dress for your special dinner, and now we have to decide on costumes for Liz Gurney’s party.”

“Today?”

“If we wait until the last minute all the good costumes will be gone. I was thinking of Scarlett and Rhett.” She used a thicker-than-thick Southern accent and placed a limp wrist on her forehead, prostrate—then quickly discarded the pose. “But Liz took them for her and the birthday boy. Then I thought of Sonny and Cher, but Roger’s too tall. The kids thought of Bert and Ernie, but I see them all day long—and in my sleep—I’d rather swallow LEGOs. Antony and Cleopatra—there’ll be a dozen sets of those. What do you think?”

Molly gravitated to a nearby sales rack and automatically started to sort through her size. Unable to afford another dress, even on sale, Elise kept close to the mirror, primping.

“How about Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm?”

“For us? That’s more you and Max—still lusty and eager to mate. Rog and I mate plenty, and we have three boys to show for it. Not to mention freezing our fannies off in little furry cave outfits.”

“We have freezable fannies, too, you know. I was thinking Raggedy Ann and Andy for us. That is, if I can’t get us out of it altogether.”

“You said you’d go and bring Max.” Using the mirror to follow Molly around, Elise watched a stubborn streak settle into her features. She’d witnessed her brother cower like a timid puppy at the same expression. “You did.”

“I know.”

“You promised.”

“I know.”

Elise’s Grumpy-self glanced up at the president and rolled her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she won an argument with her sister-in-law.

“I bought extra tickets,” said Molly.

“I know! But see there?” Elise seized the key word. “What’s that about? Why would you sell tickets to a birthday party? Who does that?”

“It’s in lieu of a gift.” Molly’s endorsement was unmistakable as she worked her way to the other side of the rack. “It’s to help defray the cost of the venue. And, frankly, I’d much rather do that than try to decide on what to get a forty-year-old man whose sole mission in life is to fish all day, every day, for his birthday.” That didn’t exactly answer Elise’s question. “And Liz couldn’t very well entertain two hundred guests in costumes at their house, could she?”

“Then why costumes?”

“Why not?” Molly stopped and went thoughtful. “In summer maybe . . . that might work . . . we could wander around outside, eat catered barbecue, but in February—”

“That’s another thing: Two hundred people? I’m not sure I know two hundred people well enough to invite them to a birthday party. Do you? Two hundred people who’d come . . . and pay for the venue, as well? Maybe a wedding or a charity thing, but . . . It reminds me of that time she tried to sell CD recordings of her singing ‘Jolly Old Saint Nicholas’ in Pig Latin at the mall for the Dyslexia Research Trust. Remember that?”

“It’s a good cause—her son is dyslexic.”

“Sure it is, but don’t you think her methods are a little . . . unusual? . . . if not just wacky? What about a car wash or . . . or a lemonade stand? Raffles are always good.”

“She was making a point.” Molly replaced a pretty blue sheath on the stand. “It was symbolic: The jumbled letters in Pig Latin and the jumble of letters a dyslexic kid sees. Clever, really—just disastrously unmarketable.”

“Mmm. You think?”

Wandering off topic briefly, Elise pondered lip-smacking new shoes for her scrumptious new dress versus a pair of old, bland, stale pumps from last year and had barely arrived at the most obvious course of action when something occurred to her . . .

“Liz posted the party invitation on Facebook, didn’t she?”

Molly cringed, but didn’t look up. “To save money on party invitations that could then go toward an open bar.”

“And two hundred people accepted.”

“Only one hundred ninety-two . . .”

“That’s one hundred ninety-two friends, acquaintances and virtual strangers?”

“Within driving distance, yes.” Then she had to admit it. “That’s why she needed the bigger venue . . . and a cash bar.”

“That woman is industrial-strength weird.”

The wavy image dissipated, and Elise felt suddenly alone again without Molly. When she turned back to the president, he looked . . . expectant.

“What? You don’t think she’s as strange as a cow jumping over the moon?”

“Jumping to conclusions makes more sense to you?”

“What?”

Hands on her shoulders, Mr. Lincoln directed her attention back to the murky passage—it pictured Molly and Liz having lunch at Ferdinand’s, her favorite restaurant.

“Hey! I found Ferdinand’s. I was the one who told Molly about it. We go there all the time. It’s our place. What’s she doing there with Liz?”

Shocked, she pressed her fingers to her lips. Did she say that? Out loud? The acerbic tone of her voice jarred her. The words were petty and spiteful. And while she did, on occasion—like now—think and feel exactly that way, not saying so kept it a secret. It allowed her to pretend she was above such socially unacceptable emotions as dejection, jealousy and resentment.

Moreover, the silence protected her from the disapproval of others—those who appeared to have the enviable ability of making the best out of everything; who never had a negative point of view or reaction . . . or at the very least had the talent of giving that impression.

No, prudent people didn’t leave their feelings hanging out; didn’t leave themselves vulnerable. She sighed, resigned to keeping her most unbecoming thoughts and emotions to herself.

“You don’t, you know.” The president spoke softly at her ear.

She tipped her head his way, still watching Molly and the interloper. “I don’t what?”

“Keep your thoughts and emotions to yourself.”

“Yes, I do.” Elise frowned. Her low Grumpy voice felt scratchy . . . and she hated him messing around in her mind. “’Course, I do—the not-so-nice ones, I do. I don’t scream at the little kids running wild at the grocery store—or club their mothers for blocking the aisle with their carts.”

The smile on his lips was soft; the perception in his eyes was hard to take.

“Okay, so . . . so I’m still steamed that Nick Basserman got promoted over me. Especially after I mustered the courage, and the pride, to go in and plead my case to that old pinhead Winston. Three years it’s been. I’m still crushed. I’ve had to act like a good sport, a team player, all along knowing I’m more qualified. Crushed. But I don’t talk about it. I keep it to myself. It still hurts, but I haven’t let anyone see none of that.”

“You do not talk about it, but that does not mean your disappointment goes unspoken. You are less enthusiastic about your work and withdrawn among your coworkers; you smile less and your posture has gone lax with disinterest. The way you are feeling is very much hanging out, as you say.”

She scowled, considering. “Well, what about the time my mother completely forgot my twenty-fourth birthday—the year she went back to Italy to visit my grandparents? My own mother. No card, no call, no T-shirt, nothing. I said nothing, and I didn’t let her see how much it hurt me.”

Abe nodded. “Your mother was remorseful—you saw it in her eyes. But you played indifference, you cut her off short and you did not give her a chance to apologize. Do you know why?”

If she didn’t at the time, she did now. To punish, to teach her mother a lesson, to have stowage to barter with, tit for tat, for any future transgression of her own. Her heart tipped. That wasn’t the way she was raised, it wasn’t the example her mother set for her. Everyone deserved a second chance—isn’t that what she’d said? Didn’t they also deserve the opportunity to ask forgiveness?

“And with no apology to sooth your wound it remains sore and unable to mend,” he said.

Elise shuffled her weight from foot to foot uncomfortably, searching for a good excuse or a reasonable explanation. A chronically overdrawn, cynical, judgmental hypocrite was not what she’d set out to become.

“Look,” he said, reclaiming her attention; his slim-fingered hands still resting on her shoulders. “Their food has arrived.”

“Oh! Good choice!” Elise smacked her lips. “Ferdinand’s Crab Louie never gets old.”

“Thank you for this, Molly,” said Liz Gurney, picking up her fork and knife to cut her salad into manageable pieces. A chink in her voice suggested her emotions were raw and near the surface. “I need . . . You’re a good friend.”

“Nonsense. We mothers need to stick together. We may not have all the right answers, but we do have all the same questions, I think. It helps to know we’re not alone.” She sipped on a sweet tea, still watching her beleaguered friend. “You know, if kids were cake mixes we’d have all the instructions on the back of their boxes with baking tips and low-fat alternatives. But they aren’t, so we don’t. All we can do is our best and hope it’s enough.”

Liz shook her head slowly and left the utensils resting on her plate. “My best is suffocating him. I know it. I see it. And I can’t seem to stop it.

“I look at Cody and I see him struggling to carry a heavy burden that I’ve forced on him—without thinking; without intending to. I’ve been too overprotective, too involved in every second, every aspect of his life . . . holding him too tight, fearful of losing him, too.”

“But that’s perfectly understandable, Liz, losing Lucas the way you did. Cody understands. And he’s not going to blame you for loving him too much.”

“No, of course not, but that’s not what I mean. I see him trying to be more, you know? More than what he is already, which is more than enough. Way more. I see him trying to fill the empty space Lucas left. And I’ve seen the fear in his eyes that he might not be enough.”

Her voice finally cracked, and a tear spilled onto her cheek. “The ‘Jolly Old Saint Nicholas’ recording?—that’s when I started to notice it. Cody was so patient and supportive the whole time Lucas was sick. He’s such a great kid.

“But then after . . . we decided we needed to get away; to do something fun, just the three of us. We took him to Disney World. It was a trip we’d always meant to take—you know, before—but then there was no time and . . .

“I should have realized the first time he said it . . .” She tapped on her forehead with the tips of her fingers. “I should have seen it then. I should have seen it coming. All those stupid books I read on dealing with the death of a child . . . I didn’t see it.” She looked away, and then back again. “We were leery at first, thinking the trip might remind him of Lucas too much. You know, more painful than pleasant for him, for all of us. Finally, Cody just blurted out that the trip was something Lucas would have liked. He said Lucas, not him. It didn’t click.”

“But what twelve-year-old boy wouldn’t want to go to Disney World?” Then, recognizing that there might be a few exceptions, Molly added, “And even if he didn’t, how were you supposed to know?”

“Because it got worse.” She took a draw from her water glass. “He kept pushing himself. Rides that would have scared him to death normally, he rode because ‘Lucas would want me to.’ I look back now, I see his face and he was scared to death. Terrified. But then he’d go find another—a ride Lucas would have ridden over and over—and he’d ride that one. He’d get off pale, trembling and forcing himself to laugh. And all I saw was what I wanted to see.”

“What you needed to see, too, I think. You were all hurting.”

Liz’s nod was slow and tired. “I think the whole trip was like a punishment for him. You know, that survivor’s guilt they talk about?” Her chin quivered. “I can’t bear to think that he, even once, wished he’d been the one to die instead of Lucas. The books say it’s common, but I can’t . . . I hope it isn’t true.”

“But what about his therapy? I thought you were all in therapy.”

“He is now, but that’s only been recently. In the beginning, we were all going to support groups. We went to the parents’ group, of course, but there was a special one for siblings that Cody went to. He always said he liked it, that he was learning a lot, that he thought it helped—he said everything he thought I wanted to hear. Then last fall he turned out for middle school football. We couldn’t believe it; he’d never shown any interest in it before. Lucas was the athlete, and school was easy for him. Cody struggled with his dyslexia to be a good student. He was the laid-back one, the daydreamer who loved to draw the most amazing pictures—his attention to detail is startling . . .” She hesitated, then sighed. “Last year he ran cross-country. It seemed like the perfect sport for him—running alone with just his thoughts, competing against his own best times. He loved it. Football, though, that should have been another red flag.”

“He didn’t like it.”

Liz shrugged her bewilderment. “He never said he didn’t. He went to practice. He sat on the bench during most of the games, and when they did play him, he spent most of his time facedown on the ground. He’d come home at night scraped and bruised and forcing an enthusiasm he clearly didn’t have. His father tried to help him, give him a few tips, but he had no aptitude for it. And again, I missed it. I missed seeing that he was trying to be both himself and Lucas for us. I only saw him failing at things that had been so easy for Lucas, without a clue as to why he’d bothered to try them in the first place.”

Molly reached across the table to cover her friend’s hand with hers.

“The recording.” Liz shook her head. “The dyslexia is so frustrating for him. The tutor has helped, but he still needs some special ed at school. Kids tease him. I wanted to do something just for him. Something important. I wanted to show him that I love him; that I love everything about him—his talents and his limitations—and I wanted to do it in a big way. I wanted . . .” Her voice trailed away in defeat. “Well, let’s just say Elise wasn’t the only person who walked by looking like I was trying to sell vials of Ebola.”

“Oh no, I’m sure—”

“Oh yes. I could see it all over her face. So could Cody.”

From the wings, a horrified gasp escaped Elise, and she closed her eyes in deep and sincere regret.

Liz went on. “But to be fair, he was embarrassed to begin with. He said it was a bad idea. He said that he didn’t want me to go to so much trouble. He said, in every polite way possible, that he didn’t want me to do it. But did I listen? Did I hear him?

“The reactions I got at the mall were only the last straw for him. He finally broke down and told us everything. How he felt, what he was trying to do for us . . . why.” Her soft chuckle was ironic. “Maybe I should thank Elise after all.”

“Listen. I love my sister-in-law to death, I really do. But she can be very cynical sometimes. I was there that day. I knew what you were doing . . . Not that you’d made the recording, but I knew it was for Cody. I didn’t think to mention it to her, but if I had I know she . . . well, she probably wouldn’t have bought a recording, I’ll be honest with you, but I do know she’d have donated money. She has a soft heart, but she’s skeptical, and so intolerant of things she doesn’t understand.”

This time Liz’s chuckle was amused. “Wait until she hears that I accidentally spam-invited everyone I’ve friended on Facebook to Tom’s birthday party.”

CHAPTER FOUR

As the picture cleared, the growling and grumbling noise came again. The sound seemed to roil around inside her like leaves in a tea cup, but Elise barely noticed. She sighed and lowered her gaze to the floor.

She was intolerant. She knew it. Mockery was another defect she’d allowed to take up residence in her life.

She knew, too, that she could wither a stone with a single stare when called for. She used to practice in the mirror to look not frightened, not helpless, less caring—for protection, to defend herself. The downside was that the same expression could come across as fearsome, aggressive or unfeeling.

She never meant to hurt anyone, but she knew she could. She’d seen furtive glances before—fleeting looks that were about her, but not meant for her to see. They hurt. Terribly. Then they made her angry.

“I’m sorry about the boy—and his brother. I didn’t know,” she said, her voice thick in her throat. “I never meant to hurt him.”

“Not meaning to hit a dog with your automobile doesn’t make its pain any less, doesn’t make it less dead.” The words slapped, burned—so much she didn’t detect the odd pitch to his new voice.

She bowed her head in disgrace . . . and would have proceeded on to feel like a miserable wretch had she not at that moment noticed she was now wearing bright yellow socks and a matching shirt—with a black zigzag pattern at the hem.

“Good grief,” she said, though an angst-filled Charlie Brown felt like a good fit just then. She turned quickly to see that her favorite president was now Dorothy Gale’s Tin Woodman. She moaned. “Great. You don’t need to tell me I have no heart—I am well aware.”

“Don’t be dense. Of course you have a heart. Everyone has a heart. Even I have a heart.”

“I didn’t mean it literally.”

“Neither did I,” he said. He turned slowly and started walking down another aisle . . . of fruit and vegetable costumes.

“No. I meant . . .” She stopped, once again distracted. “I can never remember: Is a peanut a fruit or a vegetable?”

His clanking steps stopped and he turned. “In botanical terms, since the seeds are contained within a pod, it is considered a legume, which is a fruit. In culinary terms, since the pods develop underground, it is considered to be a plant cultivated for an edible part, therefore a vegetable. The debate of fruit versus vegetable is an old one with various outcomes.” He went on in a brainy fashion, “For instance, in eighteen ninety-three, the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously that an imported tomato should be taxed as a vegetable, rather than a fruit, which was taxed at a lower rate. The court agreed that a tomato is technically a botanical fruit, but a vegetable in its function—it’s served in salads, soups and main courses, where fruits are eaten in hand or in a dessert. It’s complicated.”

Elise frowned at him, considering. “It’s been a while, but . . . were you smart in the movie?”

“I’m hollow, not shallow.” He turned away—his steps seemed louder than before. “And the movie is based on Dorothy’s story, not mine. My story starts well in advance of her finding me the woods.”

“Really?” she asked, staying close on his heels as he turned into sporting uniforms. This was a story she wanted to hear.

“Yes. I had problems of my own with the Wicked Witch of the East long before Dorothy’s house landed on her.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. You don’t remember? Gamma read you all the Oz books when you were young.” Elise squinted, trying to recall—Gamma read her lots of stories. “And everyone knows the books are always better—and more informative—than the movies based on them.” True; she nodded. He sighed, resigned. “Anyway, I did once have brains and a heart as well. I was as human as you are . . . except that I was a character in a book.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” He turned around to face her. “My name was Nick Chopper then, and I had a sweetheart. She was a beautiful Munchkin maiden named Nimmie Amee, and I loved her very much.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. We were going to marry, but the witch decided Nimmie was to remain a housemaid. She enchanted my ax, and it began chopping off my limbs, one at a time. One by one, I got the tinsmith to replace each extremity as best he could, but in restoring my head and chest, he forgot to add a brain and a heart.”

“Uh-huh.” This part she knew.

“Now, I admit that for a time I was afraid I could no longer love my lovely Nimmie Amee without a heart. I was brokenhearted about it. And with no heart to guide me, to keep me from doing wrong, I knew I needed to be extra careful not to be cruel or unkind to anything. So in the end, well, it turned out I was a better man; a more caring man without a beating heart than I was when I had one.” He grinned. “You might say I had more heart when I didn’t have any.”

This was something Elise had never considered, so she did it now.

“You know,” he went on. “It isn’t the brain in your head or the heart in your chest that you make choices with. They aren’t what you feel and care and empathize with. You know it’s more than muscles and impulses. It’s something you control. It’s you choosing who to be; you deciding how to live your life.”

He gave her a long, steady . . . Martin-like stare. His golden-green eyes found what he was looking for inside her and gently let go. She understood what he was telling her.

“And that no heart nonsense?” he said, his tone more upbeat. “That came from a discussion Scarecrow and I had on the merits of brain versus heart—he having no more of either than I did . . . physically. I told him that if having one or the other made the difference between being smart and being able to love, that a heart would be my choice, because being smart doesn’t make you happy, and happiness is what makes life worth living.” He smiled. “He was young at the time and his straw was still fresh. He hadn’t had the time to learn, which is why he thought he was dim-witted and brainless, and yet in the end it turned out he was the wisest man in all of Oz all along.”

Elise glanced at a football balanced prominently on a rack with other sporting equipment . . . and the Charlie Brown inside her pined wistfully.

She looked away. “And the lion was actually brave, right? He just didn’t realize that courage is acting in spite of his fears. And he did that a lot.” She sighed, easily empathizing with the lion’s lack of self-confidence. “So, none of you knew that you already were what you wanted to be?”

“We didn’t believe in ourselves.”

“And Dorothy needed all three of you—heart, wisdom and courage—to find her way home; to find happiness.”

He nodded, pleased with her acumen. “To find herself.”

He directed her to the gap between two more rows of costumes. Cowboy hats and chaps; fringed shirts, Indian leathers and brightly colored prairie skirts began to fade away to gray . . .

A fog drifted apart to reveal a diorama of the afternoon she and Molly crossed paths with Liz Gurney at the mall.

Knowing now the ramifications of her original reaction to the scene, Elise was inclined to take a more objective view of it—taking the time to notice that great effort had been taken to ensure that the CD cover and the charity poster looked appealing and professional, that Liz was dressed in a serious businesslike skirt and jacket, that her expression was both friendly and hopeful . . . and that her own expression was, at best, snotty and condescending.

And yes, though completely oblivious to him the first time, she now saw a dark-haired boy sitting across the way—head down, shoulders hunched and clearly in pain of the worse kind.

“Oh no,” Elise said, miserable in a way Charlie Brown couldn’t imagine. There was a sickening tightness in her chest. “That poor kid. And look at my face—could I look more soured or hateful? Why do I do things like that? I mean, I do things and hear myself say things and I don’t even know why . . . not specifically. I’m kind and generous and loving—most of the time. I am. And I never would have hurt that little boy like that. Ever. I’m just so—”

“Lacking in self-awareness?”

“You said that before, as Zorro. You said I was pretty astute for someone with so little self-awareness. But I am aware. I know when I do or say things that aren’t very nice. And afterward, I’m almost always sorry. I can even see that it took more time and thought and energy to be harsh and insulting than it would have if I’d simply been polite and respectful and moved on—I don’t know why I bothered. I don’t enjoy it. It’s like an unsatisfying habit.” She tipped her head to the diorama. “I didn’t even try to understand what Liz was doing that afternoon.”

He smiled at her kindly. “Acknowledging your inferior behavior is a beginning, but for true insight you must also know why you behave as you do. Remember, the way you treat people affects them, but it isn’t necessarily about them. It is, however, always about you.”

He looked into the stationary setting, and she followed his gaze. There was a quick blip in the scene, and she and Molly started walking backward into Macy’s. Liz took back the CD she’d handed to Molly, took back the wave she’d used to get her friend’s attention and went back to staring at the boy across the way who seemed suddenly very restless on the bench. Rapidly, she and Molly reversed their lazy mosey through the store—perfume was sucked back into bottles, Molly put down and picked up dress shirts for Roger, and Elise closed and opened at least fifty purses before Molly sped past her and vanished through the street entrance. Momentarily, Elise backed out the door as well, unwound her way up two flights of stairs to Parking Level Green. Without so much as a glance out the rear window she pulled out of her parking space . . . but then continued to drive backward all the way to her building; she zigzagged the halls to her office, where she lowered her head onto her arms, which were folded in front of her on the desk. She jumped up suddenly and backed her way into the conference room, where several other collection officers sat. They were looking directly at her, while Cooper Winston did the same with a scowl. The rerun slowed down . . . slower and slower, then started forward again.

“Haven’t we been over this before, Elise?” Cooper Winston wasn’t shouting at her, but the tone of his voice made it seem so. “We have regulations. We have rules for everyone to follow—not everyone except you! Your job is to collect the taxes people owe. If they didn’t owe the taxes you wouldn’t be here. All you need to do—all you are authorized to do—is get the money owed to the IRS by any means possible: liens, levies, wage garnishments, property seizure. That’s it.”

“I know what my job is.” And she knew she was mortified at being berated in front of her coworkers. She also knew she was being dressed down for an act of kindness; for being understanding and compassionate . . . and stupid, because she’d known she’d get caught eventually. “But you can’t get blood from a rock. The Sheldons have no money, Cooper.”

“It’s not your job to audit these people—just get the money.”

“It’s my job to get it in a fair and reasonable manner. Fair and reasonable, Cooper, that’s what it says in the manual. Fair and reasonable.”

“According to whose standards? Yours? Are you making them up as you go along or what? Because you’re the only person I know who takes it upon herself to unilaterally decide to ignore the standard rules and regulations to—”

“They have two sick kids with some odd genetic disorder . . . that I verified as real, by the way . . . and the hospital bills are sucking them dry. He works a good job, but it’s not enough. They called and explained the situation; they told me they were trying to sell their house to pay off their bills—the IRS included—but needed the lien on it lifted to do that. They also asked for a waiver on the penalty and interest charges on their installment agreement for six months . . . or less, if they sell their house. Being fair and reasonable, I agreed.”

“And you got that authority how?”

She sighed, defeated. “They’re good people, Cooper. They’re trying. They’re doing the best they can. I cut them a break.”

“Rules and regulations, Elise. Rules and regulations.” He tipped his thumb at the computerized display of the Sheldons’ financial information on the wall behind him. “That’s twice you’ve stepped over the line. Just do your job.”

She pushed her chair back and started to stand when he asked, “Why didn’t you come to me first?”

Elise didn’t normally go out of her way to live her life dangerously, but she was already in for a penny. “I knew you’d say no.”

The piercing glare she turned and walked away from added a frightened, insecure feeling to the embarrassment and anger that was presently overpowering her inclination to be sympathetic ever again. No good deed went unpunished, right? Who were the Sheldons to her? Would they send her a Christmas card? If she lost her job for helping them she wouldn’t be able to pay her own taxes—and who’d take mercy on her? Cooper Winston? People suck.

Elise and the Tin Woodman watched the events of that afternoon take on a faster pace.

“And see there?” she said, pointing. “Every purse I looked at while I waited for Molly was as ugly as my mood. Not to mention the disrespect I felt when she couldn’t even manage to get there on time.” She hesitated and looked up at her companion. “Normally, it doesn’t matter. She’s a late person. I’m an early person. Most people are one or the other, which is why it’s such a surprise when someone shows up at the exact right time. Who does that?”

A tin finger directed her attention back to the show of that wretched afternoon. She and Molly were just approaching the exit.

“Stop. Please. Can we stop it there? Look at my face. My expression is rotten and foul before we even see Liz. She could have been Mother Teresa and I wouldn’t have had a single good thought in my head for her. Liz didn’t stand a chance . . . no matter what she was trying to sell.”

The fog closed in around the picture and it vanished. It was a long minute before she could look into the Tin Woodman’s . . . well, Martin’s golden-green hazel eyes.

“I get it. It’s not them, it’s me.”

“Only sometimes,” he said kindly. “Cooper Winston should be flying monkey bait for calling you out in public. And the regulations are soulless. Still, no matter how much you couldn’t regret it, in the end you knew you’d broken a rule.”

“And none of it had anything to do with Molly or Liz or that poor little boy.”

“No. But it still doesn’t mean you have no brain and no heart.” He grinned at her. “The trick is to be more aware of what you’re doing, as well as why you’re doing it. Emotions can create problems that don’t need to exist. Express them to the right person at the right time and then let go of them. That’s my advice,” he said, with a judicious nod.

They looked at each other, and then the muffled rumbling returned—a distant racket, but getting closer; echoing, vibrating like a train on a track heading their way . . .

CHAPTER FIVE

“Don’t tell me. That’s the sound of the train I missed to a life less ordinary.” Elise frowned at the flat affect of her voice. “Not that I’d know what to do once I got there.”

She looked down at the grass-green jacket and black skirt she was wearing . . . then at the sticklike legs in gaping black boots. She shook her head as she stood up straight again.

She was Daria Morgendorffer. Instantly she felt the cynical, pessimistic and sardonic connection and, despite her recent revelations, she had to admit it was the most comfortable costume yet. She used both hands to feel and examine the large round glasses set nerdishly on her face, then turned around slowly.

As a rule, this persona never smiled unless she had a good reason—a really good reason. Elise had a really good reason.

“Hank Hill,” she droned in Daria’s happy-as-she-ever-got monotone. “My brother from another mother.” Hank stared at her as if she’d just asked what propane was. “Same father, different mothers? Mike Judge and MTV?” She pointed to herself, referring to her character creator and television network, then at him and his. “Mike Judge and Fox.”

“Oh. I see what you mean. I thought you were telling me we were relatives.” He looked relieved. “It wouldn’t be impossible. My extended family is already stretched as broad as daylight—nothing about it surprises me anymore.”

“My family, on the other hand, is as ordinary as white paper,” said Elise. “Father. Mother. Sister. Strangers who clearly carried the wrong baby home from the hospital.”

“Aha.”

“In my dream life I’m the only child of stationary characters, like high-end mannequins, who accept that I’m plain, unfashionable and aloof; arrogant, cynical and cranky. They also travel a lot.”

“You forgot smart, sensitive and logical.”

“Also realistic, honest and doomed to live a lonely life.”

Hank tipped his head to one side, and after a moment she saw the twinkle of Martin’s humor in his green-hazel eyes. “Big fan?”

“Huge. I love Daria. I am Daria . . . Well, before I looked like her. The real me is like her.”

“Yep. I can see that,” he said, in a short, clipped, Hank-like manner. “You both avoid people because they make you feel vulnerable. Those you can’t avoid you push away because it’s hard for you to trust. You’re defensive in a way that makes people dislike you—so you’re not surprised or confused when they do. You mock the world so it’s less likely to disappoint you. The only difference is that she’s a child learning to cope with her life; you’re an adult who should have managed to find more mature methods by now.”

“What?” Elise hadn’t expected the awkward, introverted Hank to be so direct—she’d forgotten about Martin.

“Shutting down and running is no way to deal with your life, Elise.”

“I don’t shut down and run.”

“The hell you don’t.”

“I don’t.”

Hank stepped back to reveal a different point of view.

Costumes on both sides of the aisle lost their color and their shapes melted away . . . and suddenly there was Jeremy, sitting at their dining room table, his laptop open in front of him.

Elise remembered the occasion.

He didn’t look up when she entered the room, but she was relieved to see him shuffling though their unpaid bills—her credit card had been declined at the Piggly Wiggly that morning.

“I’m brewing tea, want some?” she asked.

“No.” He startled her when his fist hit the table and he shouted, “Where the hell is all the money going?”

“What?”

“The money, Elise, the money! Where’s it going?”

“I don’t know,” she shouted back, automatically feeling guilty for keeping them perpetually on the precipice of financial ruin—though she didn’t know why. “My paychecks go straight into our account. You know I’m not having anything withheld.”

“This.” He waved a statement at her. “Bobby’s Hobbies?”

“I bought a couple new tubes of paint and three brushes a few weeks ago.”

“Budget. We have a budget.”

“And they’re miscellaneous entertainment—hardly enough to break us.”

“What’s this . . . Nordstrom?”

“Shoes, but—”

“But I thought we agreed you’d cut back on buying shoes for a while. I remember us laughing about it when you promised to cut back to shoe emergencies only.” He looked at her askance.

“They’re a gift.”

“A gift? For who?”

“For you, if you must know. The Ferragamo oxfords that you liked, I bought them for your birthday. I haven’t bought a new pair for myself in months.”

He had to take in a deep calming breath before he could speak to her again. “The money has to be going somewhere, Elise.”

“Maybe if I take a look . . . I deal with numbers all day, maybe it’s something simple that—”

“What, you’re the only one here who can add and subtract? Look, if you think I’m doing a shit job with our finances you can do them. Here!” Instantly angry again, he shoved a pile of papers across the table to her. “You do them.”

She slowly pushed them back, saying, “I don’t think you’re doing a shit job. I was just offering to help, to take a second look. I’m sure it must be something simple . . . a stray decimal point.”

Mostly mollified, he sighed. “I’ve checked and rechecked.” He shook his head in deep regret. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to dip into your inheritance again.”

“Really?” Her half of the money her grandmother left was not a great fortune, but it was a sizable sum held in a trust that her mother controlled until she turned twenty-five in two years. Her mother, however, was an extremely generous and lax guardian who barely blinked twice whenever Elise asked to draw on the funds. “Again? It’s that bad?”

His expression read: I wouldn’t have brought it up if it wasn’t.

She sighed. “I’ll call Mom later; ask her to transfer more money into our savings account. It should only take a day or two, so I’ll call the bank first thing Monday—”

“I’ll call the bank on Monday. You need to march yourself into Winston’s office on Monday and tell him you deserve that promotion. Be firm, sweetheart. You’re better qualified, you have more experience, you’ve been there longer . . . Tell him you deserve it.” He flipped his hands palms up. “There’s no reason for you not to get it, Elise. And the way money disappears around here, we’re going to need the raise.”

He closed the laptop and gathered up the rest of their accounting materials and left her sitting there.

Elise turned to Hank Hill and pushed her big black Daria glasses up against the bridge of her nose. “I didn’t know how to tell him I’d already lost the promotion—that took me another week.” She lowered her gaze to the floor . . . where her pride was. “Took a lot longer for me to figure out where the money was going.”

He was sympathetic. “The bastard. I wouldn’t mind kicking his ass for you.”

She shook her head. “I was stupid. I know it’s a sick, sad world out there. I should have known. I should have seen it. That’s what makes me mad. I trusted him.” She hesitated, then her eyes closed and her shoulders drooped. “Maybe I did know. I think I suspected. Maybe. I just . . . I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe in him. Is that so bad? I loved him. He loved me. It was through thick and thin, good and bad, all that stuff. I never imagined he’d leave me—much less actively position himself to leave me penniless.”

“Dagnabit! Having a heart as big as Texas is never a bad thing. And trusting the people you love should be as easy and safe as using propane for all your residential and commercial needs. And just as natural, too, come to think of it. You’ve got good instincts, Elise. You just need to listen to them and then not overthink what you’re hearing.”

Hank directed her attention back to the gap between the rack of costumes and another scene from her life with Jeremy.

She recognized the expression on Jeremy’s face as he followed her through the blurry image of their kitchen into a much clearer picture of their dining room after work—and from the look on her own face, she knew that a heavy ball of tension was coiling in her abdomen.

“I cooked your favorite tonight—coq au vin.”

“Great. Hopefully it’ll be better than the last time you made it. I’d like one good thing to happen to me today.”

She knew better than to ask about the not-so-good parts of his day, but did so anyway. “Rough one, huh?”

“Rough? That’s mild.”

“What happened?” she asked, turning to light the candles she kept centered on the table—mostly to create a relaxed atmosphere, as opposed to anything romantic.

“Stop. Blow it out. I’m not in the mood for that shit.”

“I thought—”

“Well don’t.” He took his seat at the table. “I’m not in the mood for that either.”

That stung. Bad.

But she understood days that could drain every ounce of happiness from your life. And she was aware that lashing out at the people who love you best happens because they are the most likely to tolerate and forgive your bad behavior. Plus it was her experience with Jeremy that he simply needed a little time to calm down and center himself. Her sweet, funny Jeremy would come back around.

So she swallowed her own harsh retort, pressed her lips together and poured his wine.

Generally, it didn’t seem to bother him that she didn’t drink with him—preferring water to the blistering headaches even small amounts of alcohol delivered. But on other occasions . . .

“There it is again.”

“What?” she asked.

“That smug, superior look you get when I drink.”

“What? I don’t. I don’t care if you drink.” Her smile was tight and hopeful—she didn’t want to fight with him. “I envy you. I could use a drink once in a while.”

“Once in a while? But not as often as I have them.”

“I didn’t say that . . . or mean that. Look, I’m sorry you had a bad day, but don’t take it out on me. It’s not fair.”

He appeared to back off a bit—but it was only to form a new line of attack.

“Sorry.” He heaved a long-suffering sigh. “You’re right. It’s not fair. But do you think it’s fair that since you didn’t get your promotion, I have to work longer hours and work them all with Barry Levine?” He took another gulp of his wine. “We could have used your pay raise to buy us some time while I tried to find a better, more fulfilling job that would benefit both of us in the long run. I’m frustrated. Can’t you see that?”

She nodded, though she didn’t see his frustration being any greater than her own.

They finished their meal in silence. She did kitchen duty alone that night, then joined him in the living room to watch television—so to speak. The television was simply background noise while Jeremy, sporting earbuds, disappeared to wherever the computer on his lap took him and she escaped into Elizabeth Moon’s new novel.

Until it was time for bed . . .

She heard him close his laptop; listened while he prepared for bed. She knew when he left the bathroom and went down the hall to their bedroom. Then she pretended to be engrossed in her book when he returned in his pajama bottoms to stare at her from across the room.

Normally, she would have looked up expecting to see that spark of desire that promised the hot, sweaty sex she was accustomed to with her husband.

But her sweet, funny Jeremy had not returned . . . and the other one had offered no apology for his surly conduct earlier in the evening. His resentment and her hurt feelings from dinner lingered in the air like the scent of coq au vin.

There was a time, not so long ago, when she would have been grateful to see that he still wanted her at the end of a miserable day. A time when she cut him slack with apologies; told herself that the intimacy of making love would fill the empty spaces that the lack of respect and kindness and friendship the rest of the night had created. A time when she could still pretend she didn’t feel used.

There was also a time when all the books she read said she needed to open a dialogue with him. She needed to let him know how she felt and express her concerns. After several attempts at communicating her distress didn’t go as well as she’d hoped, the books suggested marriage counseling as an opportunity to rekindle their relationship.

Jeremy was surprised—shocked, even—to hear that she thought their relationship needed to be rejuvenated. It cut him to the quick; he was devastated for three solid days.

Yes, there was a time for all of that and then some—like the niggling notion of other women. And if she was truthful, there were also times when she gave as good as she got in feeble attempts to take back her self-esteem. But it became harder and harder to flip the switch between overjoyed and offended; between joining in and faking it; between faking it and making no effort at all.

“Are you bringing that sexy bod to bed anytime soon?”

She looked up at him and smiled; her cheeks felt stiff. “Absolutely. I just want to finish this chapter real quick, okay?”

“Sure.” He turned to walk back down the hall. “But don’t be long. I’m beat. I may pass out.”

Please do, she thought and then she turned the page and started chapter twelve.

She didn’t get through the second page before she shoved her candy wrapper bookmark into the crease of her book and tossed it onto the end table.

She covered her face in shame. “What am I doing?”

She wanted to follow him; she loved making love with him. But her feelings were hurt and her expectations had deflated. Was she pouting like a child; a stubborn, grudge-holding child . . . or was she a woman cocooning herself in a protective shell?

She knew that doing nothing changed nothing, and yet she couldn’t make herself get up and go to him—not this time. Her mind and emotions snapped back and forth so fast she went numb. It was her marriage, her life, and she was disengaging, withdrawing and shutting down. She felt it.

Elise crossed her thin Daria arms across her chest, but couldn’t meet the look in Hank Hill’s eyes . . . Martin’s look. “You’re right. I do shut down and run . . . Well, if he hadn’t run first, I probably would have. But I still wonder, if he hadn’t taken all the money and left, if I could have—”

“Uuuuuuuaaaaaagh!” he said, showing his teeth. “You’re chasing your tail, girl. No number of ifs will change what is. Slow down, step back and just think.” He tipped his head to the space where outfits were coming back into view. Strawberries, lemons and grapes—fruit suits. “That’s when you did all the right things; when your instincts were telling you something was wrong. That boy ain’t right. And deep down you knew it. But you didn’t want it to be true, so you didn’t listen to what your gut was telling you—that he needed to be taken out behind the barn and shot. And I’ll tell you what, that ain’t the worst part of it. No, the worst part is that when all was said and done, and you knew you were right about Jeremy, you suddenly got giblets for brains and decided you couldn’t trust yourself to trust your own good sense anymore. And that’s overthinking to the point of not thinking at all.”

“Yeah, well, where was my amazing intuition when I first met him? Or the whole time we dated . . . or during the first year of our marriage?”

“It was there—it’s always there, watching for yellow flags. Maybe there was just nothing to see. What if he wasn’t looking to fleece you in the beginning? Could be that didn’t occur to him until after he took up with that floozy—and that’s when his game started falling apart. He got sloppy, took too many chances, made too many fouls, and flags started falling all over the place.” He raised his hands palms up. “Maybe not. Maybe he was a rat bastard all along. Maybe you made a mistake. Hell, even Tom Landry made mistakes from time to time.”

“What if I keep making mistakes?”

“What if you do? And what if the mistake is seeing red flags where there aren’t any? What if it’s choking under the slightest pressure? What if it’s shutting down and running in the opposite direction if someone tries to . . . well, you know . . . love you? What if you keep living in fear or you quit and never play the game again? Isn’t that like scoring for the other team? Who wins then?”

Daria wasn’t a huge fan of sports analogies, but when Hank Hill used them they made sense. Alas.

He turned and walked into the next row of getups—nature costumes. Trees and mushrooms; fall leaves and rainbows; butterflies and snowflakes.

“I hate being lonely,” she said, barely noticing the large yellow sun partially blocking the path. “I do. Also I’m allergic to cats. So I’ll probably end up being a crazy bird woman—the one who talks to herself and feeds the pigeons in the park all day? But I’m so afraid of being hurt again that it might not be so bad if—”

This time the loud rumbling noise came from deep inside—of her. Churning, vibrating, uneven. More confused than frightened, she put her hands on her stomach and looked down, but as quickly as it had come, the reverberating and stirring died away to nothing.

“Okay. Are you ever going to tell me what that sound is, or—” She looked up and frowned for several long seconds. “Who are you supposed to be?”

CHAPTER SIX

Martin looked like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man . . . with clothes on. Legs apart, arms out, he looked like a human kaleidoscope of what appeared to be superheroes.

His arms and legs presented random bursts of green or black or red or blue sleeves and leggings; some limbs were scaled, some hairy, some metallic. Frosty, flaming and electrified. There were some with contrasting gloves and boots and some without, and some looked distinctly . . . well, turtlelike. His head and torso popped, hit and miss, body armor, mammoth muscles and capes with various caps, masks and helmets.

“I appear to be having an identity crisis,” he said, his voice a booming whisper mix that was creepier than it was cool. “Pick your favorite. Please.”

“Do I have to?”

The light in his eyes changed from uncertain to unamused. “Yes. And quickly, I feel nauseous.”

Elise offered him another rare Daria smile. It was friendly and fond. “Spidey then, I suppose. No! Wait! Superman.” She wrinkled her nose and gave her head a shake. “I don’t know . . . those Spidey-eyes . . . and Superman is, taken as a whole, less bizarre, more emotionally available and socially adept, I think.”

Immediately his hands fisted on his splendid red trunks and his crimson cape billowed—without a breeze—behind him. Superman . . . though his face was quickly morphing from DC Comics to George Reeves to the Christopher Reeves version that was her personal favorite. Even after his laser-blue eyes faded to Martin’s lively golden-green, he was still the Superman by which all other contemporary Supermans were measured.

“You’re a pain in the neck, you know that?”

“I’ve been told before,” she said.

“It bears repeating.”

She agreed with a lopsided smile, then she went serious and worried. “Why haven’t I changed?”

“Maybe your feelings haven’t changed.” He dazzled her with his supersmile. “Or maybe I’m here because you need a new perspective on an old problem.”

She thought about it briefly. “Are we back to the book and its cover again?”

“I love working with people I don’t have to drag every inch of the way. And yes, we’re back to your extraordinary ability to be judgmental and arrive at false assumptions.”

Hadn’t she already admitted to those unflattering flaws in her character? She looked away, disappointed that Superman would kick a sad little IRS agent when she was down.

But then he added, “Except this time, instead of polarizing people and ideas you barely know or understand, let’s take a look at some you do know.”

“Some what? Some people I know? My friends? My family?” Tears pricked at Elise’s eyes, her throat got tight and her remote, dispassionate Daria-shield slipped a bit. “I’m alienating my family? And my friends? Hurting them? No one’s said—and Roger would say . . .” Now she was feeling nauseous. She took a deep breath and let it out slow and dazed. “I didn’t know. My family is stuck with me, I guess, but how can my friends stand me if . . . Why do they stay?”

Her hands were trembling. She clenched them, open and closed, looking up at the iconic champion of truth, justice and the American way—he didn’t lie.

“Your friends love you, Elise,” he said with understanding and compassion in his handsome face. “They accept and cherish what you’ve allowed them to see in you—the good and the not so good.”

“I love them, too. Fay and Trudy know me better than my mother. Carol Ann, she’s the best; she drove me everywhere for three weeks after I sprained my right ankle last year. Abby and Leigh . . . and Molly and . . . all of them. I have great friends. I’d jump in front of a locomotive for any of them. They know that, right?”

“They know you.”

“So they think and agree that I’m . . . Daria Downer? That I’m fault-finding; that I take a lot for granted?”

“All about you.” He held up a finger. “I’m not saying they approve of the practice or that it doesn’t bother them at times—only that they accept it as a part of you. And they do that because there’s so much more about you that is worthy of their friendship and love.” He stopped at another four-way aisle intersection. “Their primary concern is that you’re not seeing the damage it’s doing to you. They’re afraid that you don’t know how self-destructive it is.”

The gray shadows fell across period costumes—Colonial gentleman and Southern belle; flapper, pilgrim and disco dancer—and then scattered away from a scene that had played repeatedly in her mind for weeks. For three weeks and two days, to be exact.

“It’s that night, after our six-month anniversary dinner,” Elise muttered, watching intently.

She’d let Max park his car, turn off the engine, get out, take the elevator and walk her all the way to her apartment door knowing full well what he was anticipating and equally as certain that she had no intention of letting him in.

She had come to a decision; she just didn’t know how to tell him.

“Max.” It was an odd moment to note how perfect he was to hold hands with. He wasn’t so tall and she wasn’t so short that either one of them had to compensate for the length of their arms—their hands were just right, back to back then palm to palm, coming together easily and inevitably.

“Hmm?” He smiled at her.

“We need to talk.”

“Good.” She could barely glance at him. “You’ve been acting . . . not yourself all night. Is something wrong?”

Her tongue felt stuck to the roof of her mouth, and she was too aware that they were still holding hands. She let go and turned to face him.

“This isn’t going to work,” she said, blurting out words that were closer to the end of her prepared speech than the beginning.

“What?”

“Eh. That’s not how I meant to say it.”

“Say what?” He had the deepest, warmest brown eyes she’d ever seen. They were confused and cautious.

“I’m saying that this, you and me, it isn’t going to work. I’ve known for a while and I’m sorry now that I didn’t put an end to it sooner. Certainly before tonight.” She waved her fingers back and forth between them and their elegant attire. “All your plans and . . . the flowers and . . . I’m sorry.”

He studied her face. “What’s happened? What triggered this?”

“Nothing. Not one specific thing. And it’s nothing you’ve done. You’re great. I like you a lot. I’m just not ready for more than a friendship right now. My life is complicated and—”

“It isn’t any more complicated than mine, Elise.” He wasn’t angry, just stating a fact. “You’re scared.”

She was. It might save a lot of time if she just owned it.

“Okay. I’m scared.”

He nodded, like he’d known for a while. “So am I. I get it. Life’s scary.” He recaptured her hand. “And love is the scariest part of all. It’s supposed to be. If love was as easy and free as everyone says it should be it would hold no value. It would be as ordinary and objective as . . . getting hungry. But it isn’t easy and it isn’t free; it’s rare and fragile.” He secured her other hand. “Don’t let your fear force you to turn your back on something so special and out of the ordinary.”

“Yeah. Extraordinary. I saw what loving someone can do to you when my dad left my mom. She suffered. It broke something inside of her . . . and me. I knew better. But then Jeremy came along and I thought: Oh wow. This is real love, not what my parents had. This is something extraordinary.”

“And it was.” His frown was worried, his sigh was sympathetic. “Loving someone is never wrong. It’s what you live for. It’s . . . it’s why you live; how you should live. But it takes two people to keep it alive, Elise. If one person gives up on it, it dies—and it’s a painful death.”

“With a new girlfriend and all my money, I don’t think Jeremy’s feeling much pain.”

“I’m not talking about Jeremy. I couldn’t care less about Jeremy. People have shit in their lives—you scrape it off your shoes and keep walking.” He stooped to look into her downcast eyes. “I’m talking about you, Elise. About us. Right here. Right now. You’re the one I care about.”

She looked up, knowing she’d see everything he was saying with his voice set solid in his eyes. It terrified her.

His smile was small, sweet, endearing. “Besides, it’s too late to run away from me now. You’re crazy about me.” She frowned and his smile grew, but only a bit. “You can deny it if it makes you feel safer, but I know when someone loves me, the same way I know when someone doesn’t. I can see it in your eyes; hear it in your voice. I can feel it when we touch . . . and when we kiss.

“And you feel it, too. That’s why you’re afraid, isn’t it? Because it feels like you’re exposing your underbelly to me. Because you’re feeling weak and vulnerable.” He brought her hands up between them, kissed the back of one and then the other. “That’s not what I want you to feel. I want you to trust me. But I’ll take it—for now—because I know what it means.”

“How can you be so certain?” It was very unfair. “How do you know I haven’t met someone else?”

“Have you?”

“That’s not the point. How do you know you can trust me? This could be revenge love . . . Maybe I’m using you to get back at your entire gender.”

“Are you?”

“No! That’s not it either. What I need to know is—”

“What you need is a guarantee.” He tipped her a sly look. “They don’t even have those in your romance novels. Love is a leap of faith . . . and hope and determination . . . and you know that already. You’re just afraid and—while I am prepared and very willing to hammer at it until we’re old and gray—you’re the only one who can do anything about it.”

He stepped back. Having presented his argument, he didn’t seem to have much more to say. He stood quietly, giving her time to speak, to reconsider, to look him in the eye and reiterate her case. When she didn’t, and when the silence between them grew awkward, he spoke again.

“Look, I was sort of prepared for this—sometimes the gears in your head squeak really loud,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “Maybe you weren’t prepared for me to fight back—you underestimated that in me, too, I think. So just for the record, I do know you’re serious. I know you want out. But I also know that panic and fear can make us do stupid things. Disastrous things. So I’ll give you a little time, and some space, to reevaluate our situation.” He knuckled her chin up to look into her face. “I’m not going to beg you to admit that you love me. Not my style. But I will be around if you change your mind.”

Her heart felt like an egg—cracked, everything inside spilling out. She watched him walk away, taking the stairs for expedience, not quite running. She wanted to scream.

The scene blurred and slipped away.

* * *

The few weeks that followed were torture, and she was exhausted. Elise vacillated in the tiny breath between feeling stupid for putting her heart in peril again and being stupid by throwing away what could be the love of a lifetime.

“Tough one,” Superman said, though there didn’t seem to be any pity in his voice.

“No kidding. And I still don’t know what to do. I . . . I think I love him. I’m ninety-nine percent sure he’d never deliberately hurt me, but that one percent, I can’t get around it. People fall down all the time, you know? But after the first time they’re more careful and take extra precautions because they know how bad it’s going to hurt if it happens again.”

“But don’t you think that standing in one place and going nowhere is extreme?”

“I’m not standing in one place,” she said, miffed. “I just think I’ll have better balance if I walk alone.”

“I might have to agree.” He had her attention now. He was tall enough to bend an arm across the top of the framed divider and lean on it. “Maybe Max is deluded. Maybe you don’t love him at all.”

“Why? I do. Of course I do. Who wouldn’t? He’s . . . We fit, you know?” Every inch of her ached for him. She missed him. “He’s wonderful. And smart and funny. And real. Kind.” She let out a deep, wistful breath. “He’s the calm to my crazy. He listens to me—even when I’m not saying much of anything. And hot! He’s hot, don’t you think?” He raised his superbrows. “He is, trust me. I think he’s amazing. I just don’t know—”

“And that’s why I’m wondering: Do you really love him?”

“What?”

“In this conversation alone there have been twice as many Is and mes than hes and hims. It’s all about you. It’s always all about you. What you want, how you feel. What about him?”

He motioned with his head toward the Medieval tunics, hippie dashiki shirts and polka-dot poodle skirts as another episode commenced . . .

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Relax. She’s sweating. She’ll fold. Just a matter of time.” Her brother, Roger, looked as unconcerned as Max looked gloomy and miserable. “She’s scared, not stupid.” He hesitated. “She can be stupid . . . I just don’t think this is one of those times.”

Slouching in a booth at some bar she didn’t recognize, Max’s sigh was deep and loud. “It’s been two weeks. And six days. That’s almost three weeks. I should at least call her; send a text . . . just hi. I need to do something. What if she’s forgotten about me?”

The wrist under the fist supporting Roger’s cheek went limp in disbelief. “Do you need a slap or something? I’m telling you, she’s in bad shape.” His pause was dramatic. “Not as bad as you, clearly, but I have it from a reliable source that she’s been calling in sick to work and then spending the whole day in bed. My source caught her a couple of times with puffy red eyes and a stuffed-up nose, which—and you should take my word on this, too—once seen can never be unseen or mistaken for anything but crying.”

“No. I don’t ever want to see her cry.” Max took a swig of his beer. “Happy crying would be okay. I could handle that. But I don’t ever want to see her as unhappy as she was the last time I saw her. I swear to God, it was all I could do to walk away from her. She looked so hurt and confused.”

“I still say stubborn.” Roger finished off his beer and motioned to someone for two more. “I know how my wife and my sister work, but I have no idea what drives them to do what they do. If I say no to Molly all she hears is Oh sure, sweetie pie, do whatever you want. Elise is really good at overanalyzing everything. Her mantra is Yes, but. It can drive you completely insane, but eventually she gets to the point where everything yes is bigger or better than whatever comes after the but.” He took two beers off a waitress’s tray and handed one to his companion. “It just takes time. What?”

Max caught himself staring, gape-mouthed. “I can’t believe I understood that.”

“Well, that’s because you’ve spent more than ten minutes with her. In thirty years you’ll have an owner’s manual full of female gibberish. The thing you have to remember is that nothing you do is going to change anything. See, with Elise, you can give her all the answers, write them down for her and show her scientific evidence, and she still has to stubbornly go through her whole weird process until she comes to the conclusion you gave her in the first place.” He tipped his head and squinted at Max. “Come to think of it, you should probably run away while you still can.”

Max chuckled. “Too late. I am hopelessly in love with your sister.”

Roger shook his head in commiseration. “Why do we do this to ourselves?”

“I don’t know. One minute I’m standing behind her at the grocery store. She’s reading the Cook’s Illustrated magazine while she waits for the people ahead of her to finish. Her feet hurt, I guess, because she steps out of one shoe and then the other and stands there in her bare feet, reading, waiting, curling her toes. I was mesmerized. And the minute there was movement in the line she was back in her shoes and returning the magazine . . . then she changed her mind and put it in her cart.” He sighed again and met Roger’s sympathetic gaze. “I wanted to follow her home like a puppy.”

“Molly backed into my practically new, parked Cherokee Trailhawk with her Mazda piece-of-crap car and the whole time she was standing there trying to be apologetic and responsible she had tears in her eyes. She never cried and her voice never cracked. We did the insurance thing and the cops came; the tears stayed and they never spilled, not one. I thought she was trying to kill me. I did follow her home, but only because I didn’t know if she could see well enough not to hit someone else.” He grimaced. “We’re pathetic.”

Max smiled. “Maybe. Probably. But I don’t feel that way when I’m with her. She does things that—”

“Is this going to get weird? This is my sister we’re talking about. I don’t want to have to knock you out.”

Max chuckled. “Pathetic, not insane.” Roger played relief. “I was going to say that she makes me feel like I belong. And awake. I feel so awake around her . . . and I didn’t feel asleep before.” Another forlorn sigh. “We fit, you know? Why can’t she feel it, too?”

“She does.”

“Really? She has an odd way of showing it.”

“I told you. It’s a process. She’s yes, but–ing.” He bobbed his head. “It doesn’t usually take this long, I’ll admit that, but she’s not exactly buying a new car. The good news is that once she makes up her mind about something it becomes a forever thing . . . like a Twinkie.”

Max laughed again—Roger had a way about him.

“I hope so. It’s been six months and I can’t imagine my life without her anymore.” He pushed both hands through his thick black hair, front to back, then looked up suddenly with an epiphany. “Love sucks, man.”

The both laughed then—agreeing, bonding, deciding to order burgers.

Elise watched, transfixed, as a vanishing Max forced forward a jovial demeanor for Roger when clearly, behind it, he was anxious and unhappy. “He loves me.”

“Yes, he does.”

“I’m a dope.”

“Yeah, you are.”

“He never said it to me. Not like that.”

“Then why didn’t you say it to him? Too afraid? Too proud?” She was both, and he knew it. “Did you know that historically it took forty years for Lois to discover that Clark Kent was Superman? Two people in a love triangle? All that time loving each other—him saving her life a dozen times a week, not knowing if she loved him or his superpowers and being super-insecure about it. And all it took in the end was trust and the truth. Think of all the time they wasted.”

These words came in a different tone of voice and from far above her. Things had changed again. She looked at her hands and touched her face . . . then touched it again to be sure.

“Oh.” A two-letter word filled with more relief than one would think possible. “I’m me again . . . I look like me again.” It then occurred to her: “I feel like a fool and I’m back to being me again?”

“Apparently that shoe fits.”

Elise sighed and started to turn to see who Martin planned to foil her with this time—she hesitated briefly, hoping it wasn’t God speaking from on high.

She saw it peripherally first—smooth, striped cyan-colored skin, a long sweeping tail—and eventually came around fully to face the lower hem of a . . . loincloth. Automatically stepping back, twice, her gaze traveled steadily up the slender ten-foot body of Jake Sully’s avatar, Toruk Makto, resplendent in native cuffs, bands and ties; hair braided with beads, bones and bright feathers.

God might have been a little less disquieting.

“I know.” He stretched out his arms, and his lemurlike eyes of golden-green danced. “Is this cool or what? I tried it once before on a guy from Philadelphia, but he fainted.” Bobbing his head and admiring himself, he added, “He was pretty much hysterical the whole time anyway. I should have known better, I guess—but Avatar had just come out and everyone was talking about it and I was really eager to try it out. Still, you know what they say: There’s no point trying to dazzle someone who’s out of their mind with fear. Right?”

“I can’t think of one, no.”

“So now I keep this one for special people who’ve made the most of this experience and are on their way out.”

“I’m on my way out?”

“If you think you’ve made the most of this experience, you are.” The beautiful blue Na’vi came down on one knee and sat back on his calf, making him more accessible but no less mind-blowing. His wide, muscled shoulders rustled costumes and barely fit between the partitions. He curled his tail around himself, and then he grinned at her. “I told you I’d help you find your way back.”

She stared at him. “So all this, just to tell me I’m an idiot? A suspicious, neurotic, hypercritical, misanthropic idiot who takes for granted all the wonderful people in her life who love her in spite of that. You couldn’t have just told me?”

He shrugged. “Would you have believed me? They say it’s more about the message than the magic, but I think there’s more bang in the buck with the magic; it’s more fun, and the message is less likely to be forgotten too soon.”

“Yeah, forgetting this isn’t likely.”

He tipped his head to one side. “It happens. And don’t beat yourself up when it does. You’re going to keep screwing up and reverting back to those safe, dark, life-wasting caverns in your mind, because you’re just like everyone else, Elise. You’re human.”

“Then what’s the point of all this?”

“You tell me,” he said, distracted by the long black queue hanging over his shoulder. It looked like a long braid of hair with many little pink, hairy, wormlike neural tendrils on the end—an extension of the Na’vi nervous system. He gently poked at it, quivered and then tossed it away to hang down his back again. He looked at her. “If you were me, what would I tell you next?”

Her stare was blank; she had no idea. So many things had come up and gone down in ways she’d never dreamed of—what could possibly be next?

In mild desperation, she closed her eyes, hoping to become Waldo—he was perpetually lost, and that’s exactly how she felt.

“He isn’t lost; he’s a traveler,” the lovely blue avatar said, getting in her head again. “Wherever Waldo happens to be, he chose to be there.”

Dashed but still hoping, she sought out an omniscient character, all-knowing and wise. The Matrix Oracle maybe—she’d know plenty, and cookies would be involved.

Abruptly, she opened her eyes. “I’m not changing.”

“Of course you are.”

“No, I’m still me.”

“Of course you are.”

“No, I mean, I’m not becoming something new.”

“Why would you want to?” He grinned at her confusion. “You only get to choose what you feel, Elise. It’s the magic in this enchanted space that decides how best to show it to you—a picture worth a thousand words and all that.”

“And now I feel like me?”

“Now you’re feeling what there is no costume for; what lives naturally inside you, always.” He turned his long-fingered hand palm up. “Always.”

“What is it?” she asked. His brow rose—it wasn’t his question to answer. “If I were you what would I tell me?” She spoke slowly, thinking. Rewinding, rolling forward and rewinding recent events. Her gaze came to rest on the large golden-green eyes that shown Martin, through and through, encouraging her. “I’d say: Go back to the last time I felt . . . not myself. What changed? How? Why? When did I feel completely myself again?”

“And?”

“And it was when Max said he loved me.”

He shook his head, no. “No one, no matter how much they love you—or don’t love you—has the power to change you, Elise. That’s all you. You choose to be happy or bitter or cruel or kind. Max loving you is a damn nice thing, but it can’t make you feel whole.”

“But my accepting that I love him can. Right? That’s it, isn’t it? It’s not about his love, it’s about mine. It isn’t him loving me. This is about me trusting him enough to let him. All this, and it isn’t about all the garbage that piles up in my life; it’s what I decide to do with it—the choices I make. Good or bad. I choose. Max, Jeremy, Liz Gurney, Cooper Winston . . . even the costume I want for Liz’s ridiculous party. I choose.”

He smacked his lips. “I do enjoy the smart ones, I really do.” He stretched his arms out over the dividing walls. “And me? What am I here to tell you now, in this disguise?”

“How should I know?” But then—and with a distinct sadness in her heart—she said, “How to get out of here? How to find Molly?”

“Before I do that.” His smile was gentle, but then he wagged his head and teased her. “Think of something insightful and profound; something more in keeping with my previous incarnations, which, let’s face it, had considerably more wisdom and dignity than all of yours put together.”

“Yeah right, the Cat in the Hat.”

“Curious George.” He looked at her pointedly—then used his finger to point to himself. “Abe Lincoln.” He aimed the finger at her. “Angry Bird, Grumpy and Charlie Brown.” There was a swagger on his face. “Hank Hill and Superman to your Daria. And now you as . . . well, you, and me as this magnificent and way too cool ten-foot blue avatar? Who’s winning this one?”

“Tsk. You are so annoying.” He grinned. She considered him carefully. “So . . . Jake Sully. He’s all about leaving the past behind; about changing and reinventing himself and then deciding how he wants to live the rest of his life. You’re about choosing new adventures over wallowing in self-pity.” She laughed, uncomfortably. “Not too shabby for wise and dignified advice, my friend. The last of it, I’m guessing.”

Before he could speak, the rumbling came again; a thundering like a stampede of Pandoran thanator plowing through the jungle. And then it went silent.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Okay. Enough now! Tell me what that is. It’s driving me crazy.”

“You’re hungry.”

“What?”

“You’re hungry. It’s your stomach, it’s growling.”

“Seriously?”

“A lot of things can make your stomach growl, of course, but in this case it’s hunger. You skipped lunch to have an early supper with Molly after helping her decide on costumes.”

“You’re right, I did. And that’s been my stomach growling this whole time?”

“Well, you haven’t actually been here a whole time; it’s only been a tiny bit of time.”

“What is a tiny bit of time to you?”

“Same as you: a couple of seconds.”

“What?”

“When you first got here you asked if you were dead or in a coma or hallucinating and I said No, not exactly. You didn’t ask about dreaming, and I avoided the subject of daydreaming.”

“What?”

“Daydreaming. Wandering around inside your own head, thinking, fantasizing—”

“Fantasizing?”

“Trying to decide what you want to be, who you want to be, how you’ll go about—”

“Fantasizing? I made you up? I made it all up? Me? It’s been me all along?”

“Of course.” He looked like he wanted to tickle under her chin and call her a silly button. “Who knows you better than you know yourself?”

“I—”

“That’s right. You. You’re in control.”

She stood perfectly still. “So you, Martin, you’re not magic? You’re just . . . me?”

His smile was lopsided and lovable. “Elise. We make our own magic, you know that.” He gazed deep into her eyes and sighed. “Time for you to go.”

Her reluctance surprised her.

“Will I forget all this?” He turned his head first to one side, then slowly to the other; then did it again when she asked, “Can I come back if I do?”

“You need to go now. Molly will start to worry about you.”

“How?” She turned in a circle. “Where?”

“Just put the mask down.”

“What? No, wait . . .”

“Put the mask down, Elise.”

Martin and the corral of costumes around them started to fade away. But slowly, growing clearer and clearer into focus, was a reflection of a Noh theater mask with golden-green hazel eyes peering through from behind. Her eyes.

“. . . Max is a sweetie. He’s really smart and he’s funny. And I think he’s serious. He likes you. You can see it when he looks at you,” Molly was saying. “Why do you keep pushing these guys away?”

Elise lowered the mask from her face, bit by bit. She pressed a cool hand to her flushed cheek and blinked back tears—a combination of the relief to be back and sadness for the loss of Martin. She turned the mask over, examined it, saw nothing askew.

“Elise?”

“Yes?” She turned with a start. “What?”

“I don’t understand why you keep pushing these guys away.”

Lifting her gaze to Darth Vader’s mask, she waited for him to speak.

“Elise!”

“Yes.” She looked straight at Molly this time, delighted to see her. “It’s safe. I push men away to feel safe. But in truth, all I feel is empty and alone.”

“What?” Molly couldn’t have looked more shocked if she’d been hit by a bus.

“And you’re right, by the way—about that guy, John? He was sort of charming, but he texts during movies. It made me crazy. And Max—you’re right about him, too. He is nice and sweet and smart and funny and serious. He does like me—I can see it when he looks at me, too. He loves me, in fact. And I love him.”

“What?”

“Look, I know you left Roger at home to feed the kids tonight so you and I could eat at Ferdinand’s, but I need to take a rain check. I’ll buy. But I have to leave right now. I have to find Max and tell him that I’m not a dope anymore. I’ve never been much of a groveler, but . . . well, it’ll be a new adventure, won’t it?”

“What?” Apparently, she’d stunned Molly speechless.

Elise laughed and hurried over to take Molly’s face between her palms—then laughed again, threw her arms around her and squeezed tight. “I love you, too! I know I don’t say it often enough—but that’s going to change. And I want you to know that while I’ll never understand why you married Roger, I’m so very, very glad you did.” She giggled at Molly’s wide-eyed expression and kissed her cheek. “Give my love to him and the kids and tell him thanks for being a great brother. And—ha! Do you hear that? My stomach’s growling. I’ll take Max out to eat . . . I can be dessert.”

“Elise, honey, are you feeling all right? I can drive you home if—”

She chuckled and started to leave, but then stopped. She looked back at the dark display of the dishonored Jedi knight and, despite what she knew to be the truth, she felt a deep and warm gratitude. Risking a tacky straitjacket in a shade outside her color wheel, she walked over to stand before him and murmur softly, “Thanks, Martin.”

“Elise?”

When she turned back to Molly’s fretful expression, she paused a moment to calm down and gather her wits.

“Listen,” she said. “Tell your friend Liz that I’d rather swallow a piano than play one at her party but I am looking forward to attending the event. And tell her, too, that if she can think of something reasonably sane . . . er, more traditional, more inside the box or . . . dull, probably. I don’t know. Just tell her if she decides to do another fund-raiser for dyslexia research I’d like to help.”

“What?”

“Ha! Poor Molly. I promise you, I’m fine. I’m better than fine. I’ll explain everything later, but right now I have to find Max.” She stopped short. “Oh! I have it! I’m brilliant! Your costumes are Roger and Jessica Rabbit—goofy and gorgeous. Max should be Dick Tracy—intelligent, steadfast and fearless. And I’ll be his Tess Trueheart—because I am.”