Because Kate had always been the awkward one, and the feisty one, she held a special place in Ann's heart. After pouring two cups, selecting two chocolate-frosted cakes, Ann sat down and draped an arm around Kate's shoulder.
"Now, you drink your tea and eat some sweets and tell Annie all about it."
Sighing, Kate burrowed. Dorothy from Kansas was right, she decided. There really was no place like home.
* * * * *
"I don't like the way she keeps talking about software." Behind the counter of Pretenses, Margo muttered into Laura's ear. "The only software I want to know about is cashmere."
"We don't have to know," Laura muttered right back. "Because she knows. Think about all the Sunday evenings we sweated over the books."
"Right." But Margo pouted. "A
ctually, I thought I was getting pretty good at it. The way she talks, it's like I was brain-dead."
"Want to go into the back room and help her out?"
"No." That was definite. Margo scanned a browsing customer, calculated nine more seconds before the next subtle sales pitch. "But I don't like the way she's taking this whole mess. No way our Kate walks away from a fight."
"She's hurt, shaken." Though Laura was worried over it herself. "This is just recovery time."
"It better be. I'm not going to be able to hold Josh back from storming into Bittle much longer." A martial light glowed in her Mediterranean blue eyes. "I'm not going to be able to hold myself back, for that matter. Creeps, jerks."
She continued to mutter as she approached the customer, but her face underwent a metamorphosis. Easy, sophisticated beauty. "That's a gorgeous lamp, isn't it? It belonged to Christie Brinkley." Margo trailed a finger down the mother-of-pearl shade. "Confidentially, it was a gift from Billy, and she didn't want to keep it around any longer."
Truth or fiction? Laura wondered, muffling a laugh. The ownership was fact, but the little sidebar was probably fantasy.
"Laura." With the long-suffering look she'd worn after the first hour with the books, Kate stepped out of the back office. "Do you realize how much money you're wasting by short-ordering boxes? The more you order at a time, the less each costs. The way we go through them—"
"Ah, yes, you're right." Out of defense and necessity, Laura looked at her watch. "Oops, piano lessons. Gotta go."
"You're buying tape at the dime store rather than through a wholesaler," Kate added, dogging Laura to the door.
"I should be shot. "Bye." And she escaped.
Her foot tapping, Kate turned, with the intent of nagging Margo. But her partner was busy fussing with a customer over some silly little lamp that didn't look as if it could light a closet, much less a room.
It helped to nag. It felt good to take charge. Even if it was over boxes and tape.
"Miss. Oh, miss." Another woman came out of the wardrobe room carrying a pair of white spangled pumps. "Do you have these in an eight narrow?"
Kate looked at the shoes, looked at the woman, and wondered why anyone would want a pair of shoes covered with iridescent sequins. "Everything's out that's in stock."
"But these are too small." She all but wailed it, thrusting the shoes at Kate. "They're perfect with the dress I've chosen. I have to have them."
"Look," Kate began, then ground her teeth together as Margo caught her eye with a fiery warning look. She remembered the routine Margo had drummed into her head. Hated it, but remembered. "Pretenses is almost exclusively one of a kind. But I'm sure we can find something that works for you." Already missing her computer, she guided the customer back into the wardrobe room.
It took a great deal of control not to yelp. Shoes were tumbled everywhere, rather than neatly arranged on the shelves. Half a dozen cocktail dresses were tossed haphazardly over a chair. Others had slipped to the neat little Aubusson.
"Been busy, haven't we?" Kate said with a frozen smile.
The woman let out a trill of laughter that cut right through the top of Kate's skull. "Oh, I'm just in love with everything, but I'm very decisive once I've made up my mind."
That was a statement for the books. "Okay, which dress have you become decisive about?"
It took twenty minutes, twenty hemming and hawing, oohing and ahing minutes, before the customer settled on a pair of white slingbacks with satin bows.
Kate struggled to arrange the yards of white tulle in the skirt of the dress the woman couldn't live without. Tulle, Kate thought as she finally zipped it into a bag, that would certainly make the woman resemble an oversized wedding cake.