Night Shift
Page 17

Kiki decided to rearrange the wicker chairs and the table. “Who’s the Rev?”
“The Rev is the older man who wears the black suit and hat,” Fiji said between clenched teeth.
“Why is he helping to raise Diederik?”
Fiji had to think quick to come up with an answer for that one. She wasn’t going to tell her sister that the three men were weretigers. “The Rev is a distant relation. Quinn travels all the time, so the Rev’s glad to keep Diederik here until he can go along with his dad. We’re all helping.”
“So he’s been here for years?”
In tiger terms, yes. In human terms, not so much. “We’ve all watched him grow up,” Fiji said truthfully.
“Quinn had quite a chat with you today out on the porch. All by your lonesomes.”
“We’re friends.”
“You never thought about making a play for him?”
No, because I was blinded by my love for Bobo. “I never did,” Fiji said calmly.
“Because seriously, he looks like he would be a tiger in the sack.”
Fiji snorted with laughter. “I’ll bet he would,” she said. She had a strong conviction it was not the first time that observation had been made about John Quinn. She thought for a moment about how it would feel, going to bed with Quinn, all that olive skin at her pleasure. She felt a twinge, and knew it would be a memorable experience, but somehow Fiji didn’t think she’d follow that up.
She glanced at her watch. “Kiki, you want to cook supper tonight?”
“Oh. You don’t feel like it? What were you going to have?”
“I have some chicken in the refrigerator in the meat drawer. How about chicken baked in spaghetti sauce over pasta, with a salad?”
“Got any garlic bread?”
“There should be some in the freezer.”
“Then you got a deal,” Kiki said.
It was really nice not to have to cook this evening, but not quite nice enough to make up for the aggravation and tension that Kiki’s presence caused her. At least Fiji kept busy that afternoon. Three women from Marthasville stopped by to exclaim over the philosophy books, the witchcraft books, and the astrology charts. They even bought two or three things apiece. And as the afternoon came to an end, Fiji could smell cooking from the back of the house, a novel assurance that she could sit back and relax, maybe work on the store’s books for a while.
Though the chicken was a little overdone and the salad a little overdressed, Fiji enjoyed eating a meal that she hadn’t had to prepare. Dinner was even more pleasant when Kiki ran out of small talk. But Fiji could tell there was something else on her sister’s mind. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what that might be, but automatically she began reviewing the possibilities.
After a moment, Fiji realized that Kiki hadn’t said one word about hearing from her husband or their parents since her arrival. Kiki specialized in adversarial phone conversations. This dearth of controversy seemed very odd. I haven’t even seen her pick up her cell phone, Fiji realized. Significant, but in what way?
There was a knock at the front door just as they’d finished eating. Fiji peered out to see through the glass pane that her caller was Teacher Reed. Though she was surprised, Fiji hurried through to unlock it.
Teacher said, “Sorry to bother you, Fiji, I know you’re closed. But my truck has just died, right here.” Fiji peered past him. Teacher’s old pickup had pulled in just off the road. “Can I leave it there until the morning? The tow truck will come get it then, early, I promise.”
“Sure, that’s fine,” Fiji said, feeling Kiki coming up behind her. The woman was as curious as a ferret. “I hope it’s not too broken.”
“Bad enough that I can’t fix it myself,” Teacher said. In Fiji’s observation, Teacher was a man who liked to listen more than he liked to talk, who would rather do than be done for, and he seemed to have a personal goal of self-sufficiency. Fiji found all that admirable, but not endearing. “I had big plans for tomorrow, now that I’m free of working at Gas N Go,” Teacher said.
“I’m glad for you. And I know everyone in town will be relieved now that you’re available as a handyman again!”
“Good to hear. But I’m giving myself a few days off. I was going to Killeen in the morning, but I guess now I’m staying home. I’ll let you know when I can get it moved. Sorry.” And with a wave, he walked off.
At least after Teacher had gone Kiki didn’t ask questions. It wasn’t that Kiki disliked men of color, or looked down on women who dated men of color—at least, Fiji didn’t think so. Kiki simply didn’t see them as suitable play partners for her, so they didn’t register with her as male.
About an hour later, Manfred called her. “What’s broken at your place?” he asked.
“Not a thing, unless you know something I don’t know.”
“Teacher just stopped in for a visit?”
They both knew how unlikely that was. “Right,” Fiji said, laughing. She was holding the phone to her ear with one hand while she put a bookmark into an Anne Rice novel with the other. “No, his truck broke down, and it’s beyond his power to fix so he’s in a state about it. Plus, he had an appointment in Killeen tomorrow and now he can’t go.”
“Killeen? Huh. I have to go to Killeen tomorrow. I should give him a call.”
Manfred didn’t sound too excited about it.
Fiji said, “He won’t know, if you don’t spread it around. I guess you two aren’t soul mates?”
“It just seems so random,” Manfred said. “That he should need to go where I’m going. And that it should also be somewhere I’ve never gone.”
“Got your spidey-sense tingling?”
“Yes,” Manfred said.
“Don’t call him, then,” she advised. “It won’t kill him to wait a few days until his truck is fixed. Killeen will still be there.”
“I’ll think about it,” Manfred said. “I feel like I owe him for fixing my sink. He came over at ten at night after he’d closed the convenience store. That was kind of above and beyond the call of duty. Okay, well, glad nothing’s wrong with your water heater, or your plumbing.”
“Me, too.”
“Hey, I got a couple of bottles of that pinot grigio you like so much. It was on sale. Want me to bring one over? We can talk about the state of the world.”