The Next Best Thing
Page 52

“Boarding begins in forty minutes. Next.”
Faith sat down, Blue’s head immediately resting in her lap.
Ah, irony. Back at the Buffalo-Niagara Airport, once again dumped. The tears wouldn’t seem to stop leaking out of her eyes, but she gave her dog an ear-scratch nonetheless.
The first time she’d gone to San Francisco, she’d been fleeing in shock and heartbreak. This time, though, her heart was made of stronger stuff.
The trouble was, Levi Cooper had said heart in his fist. She loved him, the big dummy. No one—no one—could’ve done what he did the night he went out to the accident site and...oh, crap, just the image of him walking around in the middle of the freezing, dark night, measuring stuff, then doing an entire accident reconstruction, then knocking on her door at three o’clock in the morning...a little squeak escaped her throat, causing Blue to put his paws on her lap and lick away the tears.
Men. How could they do stuff like that, and then be completely unable to say, Please come back soon, I’ll miss you so  much, I love you. Huh? Why? Any answers? Anyone? No?
Blue whined.
“You’re right, you’re right,” she said to her dog. “We’ll deal with him when we get back.” He wagged his tail.
You know what? This trip back to California...this was her farewell to the city she loved. She’d design the common area and enjoy doing it, stick her chunky fee in the bank and say goodbye to all her pals and associates. She’d go to Golden Gate Park again with Liza and Wonderful Mike, eat butter-drenched sourdough toast, have sushi, go to Rafael and Fred’s wedding, and pack up her apartment.
She wasn’t going to waste her trip crying over Levi Cooper.
Well, okay, she’d give him ten more minutes of weep time. And then she really was going to stop.
Someone sat next to her. Faith looked up, ready to apologize for her tears and/or dog, and saw Jessica Does.
Jessica saw her at the same instant and gave a near comical twitch. “Holland. What are you doing here?” She glanced around, then frowned at Faith.
“I’m going to California for a few weeks,” she said, wiping her eyes. Jess didn’t ask why she was crying. That would be too human of her. “How about you?”
“Arizona.”
“That’s nice,” Faith said. “Beautiful weather out there, huh?” For heaven’s sake. Was she condemned for all eternity to trying to make Jessica like her? “So why are you going out there? You look really nice, by the way.” Question answered.
Jessica didn’t speak right away. If she ever would. Then Blue put his paw on her foot, and she smiled a little at the beastie. “College,” she muttered. “This low-residency program.”
“Really? That’s great.” Faith opened another tissue pack. “What are you studying?”
“Marketing. Better late than never, right? I mean, we don’t all have families who send us off to beautiful schools, do we?”
Sigh. “I guess not.” Faith looked at her a second. She might be kind of a bitch, but the woman was beautiful. “Jess, why have you always hated me?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Faith ignored the hostile tone. “Because my plane doesn’t leave for an hour?”
Jessica started to smile, then seemed to remember she was with Faith. After a second, she shrugged. “The usual reasons. Wearing your old clothes to school, that sort of thing.”
“Which made it okay to bully me at recess and make fun of me behind my back?” What the hell. Time to be honest.
“No.” Jessica paused, petting Blue with her foot, then looked at Faith and sighed. “You weren’t the only one in love with Jeremy, Super-Cute.”
Holy guacamole. “Oh.”
Jess rolled her eyes. “Yeah. But you know...clearly he was gonna go for you and not someone like me.”
“Because you’re so mean?” Again, what the hell.
To her surprise, Jessica laughed. “Not exactly what I meant, but who knows?” Her cheeks grew pink, and she looked away. “I was jealous. Whatever.”
Faith felt a pang of sympathy. Imagine being Jess, serving Jeremy and his super-cute girlfriend back in the day. Imagine seeing him adoring someone else, all that tender attention, that perfect teenage love. Having to wait tables at their rehearsal dinner, and then being a guest at the fairy-tale almost wedding. “I’m sorry, Jess. If I was ever a jerk, I’m sorry.”
“You were actually always pretty damn nice, Holland.” She glanced at Faith and shrugged.
“We should be friends,” Faith said. “We’ve been in love with the same boys.”
“Well, I was never in love with Levi,” Jessica said.
“I don’t see how you could avoid it,” she said, and just the thought of him made her eyes fill.
Jessica gave her a condescending stare. “Wow. You’ve got it bad.”
“I know.” She gave a hiccupping sob.
Jessica started to laugh. “I always sit next to the crazies,” she said. “Sure, Holland, let’s be friends. What the hell.”
* * *
“SARAH, I DON’T CARE! You have two weeks left! You’re not coming home to study.”
“I’d get better grades if I could study from home.” His sister was at the whining phase of their daily conversation.
“No. I mean it.”
“Levi! Don’t you even care how I’ll do on finals?”
“Of course I care!” he snapped. “But you can study there, Sarah! You’re surrounded by entire buildings devoted to studying!”
“Fine! I’m so sorry to be such a huge pain in your ass.”
He sighed. “Don’t cry. You’re not a pain.”
“Of course I’m gonna cry. You’re so mean to me, Levi.”
“Sarah, come on.” He paused. “I’ll drive up tomorrow and take you out for dinner, okay?”
“I want to come home.”
“Two weeks, Sarah. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He hung up from his sister, feeling worse than ever.
Faith had been gone for twenty-two days. Three weeks of one day after the next, three weeks of hardly sleeping, three weeks of every place in this damn town being about her.
The stupid phone rang again. Jeremy, the screen said. Levi let it go to voice mail. Despite the ridiculousness of the argument, he kind of hated Jeremy these days for being Faith’s first and perfect love. He sighed.
“Enough with the sighing!” Emmaline barked. “Knock it off, or I’m gonna go work for Jeremy, and don’t think he hasn’t asked.”
“Do it. I still don’t know what you do here.”
“You’ll find out after I quit, won’t you?”
He closed the case he was working on—all those petty burglaries had been courtesy of Josh Deiner, the kid who’d gotten Abby Vanderbeek drunk that day. Another rich kid who had to get his jollies by breaking the law. “I’m done for the day.”
“Thank you, Baby Jesus.”
“Everett, will you close up tonight?”
“Roger that, Chief! Thanks! Closing up, roger. Will call with a report at oh-eighteen hundred.”
“No need, Ev.”
“Will do anyway, Chief!”
Levi started to sigh, caught Emmaline’s murderous look, and walked out instead. Went home, glancing automatically at Faith’s door. Right. It wasn’t her door anymore. Some middle-aged guy had moved in.
He went into his own apartment, which had once been very peaceful and relaxing and now seemed enormous and barren. Ignored those stupid thoughts, changed out of his work clothes. The refrigerator cycled on. From downstairs, he heard the theme song of Game of  Thrones, which Eleanor Raines had recently discovered and was watching at extreme volumes to compensate for the fact that she refused to admit that she needed a hearing aid.
He didn’t particularly want to go to O’Rourke’s, but it beat staying home listening to all those beheadings and wolf attacks.
Which reminded him: he missed Blue.
Two minutes later, he walked into the bar. “Hey, Levi,” Connor said.
“Connor.”
“How about a beer?”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, ass**le,” Colleen said to Levi, leaning down to make eye contact. “I’m not speaking to you, but if I was, that’s what I’d say.”
“Hi,” Levi grunted.
“Coll, get the man a beer and leave him alone,” Connor said, going into the kitchen.
The only good thing that had happened in the past three weeks was that Nina was gone. She’d knocked on Levi’s door the day after his and Faith’s breakup idiocy argument and told him that she’d be on her way, sorry for the inconvenience, best wishes.
“Why the change of heart?” he’d asked. “I mean, I’m relieved, but...” He’d shrugged.
Nina had looked at him a long minute. “You’re in love with your little birdie,” she’d said. “I saw you yesterday. Okay, fine, I was spying, but her windows are right there overlooking the green.” She smiled. “Saw you fighting.”
“And?”
“And you never fought with me.” Much to his surprise, Nina’s eyes had filled with tears. “We never had a fight, not once. What does that say?”
Levi would have guessed that said they’d been compatible, but then again, he was dealing with a female, and females didn’t make sense.
“I’m sorry for what I put you through,” Nina said. “I really am. I’m not proud of walking out on you. I just... I don’t know. I couldn’t stay.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m over it.”
“I know, moron. That’s why I’m going.” She inhaled sharply, dashed a hand across her eyes, then smiled at him. Hugged him hard. “See you, big man,” she’d said, had given him a noisy kiss on the cheek, and off she’d gone.
Life in a small town during the winter...there wasn’t a lot going on after the long and busy tourism season. The ice harvest would be any day now; that meant a bunch of workers out in frigid temperatures, usually at night, gathering the frozen grapes to make the sweet wines the region was famous for. In a few weeks, the village would have its Christmas stroll, lit up like a movie set. And then...not much.
“Hey, buddy.” Jeremy came over and took the stool next to him. “I just called you, not ten minutes ago.”
“Hey.”
“How are you?”
“Great.” He took a sip of his beer.
“One-word answers,” Jeremy said to Colleen as she set down a glass of red wine in front of him.
“I know. It’s enough to make me spit in his beer,” Colleen said, causing Levi to look up sharply. She smiled enigmatically and gave him the finger.
“Coll, have you heard from Faith?” Jeremy asked, for Levi’s benefit, he was sure.
“We talk every day. You?”
“Almost every day. She sounds great, doesn’t she?” He smiled.
“So great. So happy, now that she’s not stuck with an idiot, don’t you think?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Jeremy said. “He’s only an idiot maybe half the time. Sixty percent, tops. Hey, Carol! How’s your bursitis? You’re doing what I told you, right?”
“Jeremy, give me a hug,” Mrs. Robinson said. “You’re so handsome! Don’t make that face, just do it. You can have Levi arrest me on sexual harassment later.” She giggled like a twelve-year-old as Jeremy obliged.
At that moment, Levi’s phone buzzed. Dispatch. “Chief Cooper,” he said.
It was an MVA out on Route 154. A rollover, people inside, possible injuries. Not a job for Everett, in other words.