LITMIR.BIZ

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And a girl who needs a little kindness passed along.” Bren found it astounding how easily they were talking about this. But she’d definitely noticed how Poppy had initially ducked the question of her inheritance. Before she could ask her again, though, Poppy motioned her closer.

      “Bren! Look what I found!” Poppy had just topped her third glass—again—when she sloshed it on the scarred plastic table. Apparently she’d spotted something under an upholstered chair, because suddenly she knelt down and reached deep under there. She emerged with an old wrinkle-edged cigar box.

      “Um, doesn’t look like much of a treasure. Maybe if you smoked,” Bren said doubtfully.

      Poppy rolled her eyes. “It’s not about smoking, you silly. Cigar boxes are for hiding treasures.”

      “This is a rule where?” Bren asked wryly, but they both bent over the box to view the contents. Neither touched. They just looked. There was a dried-up daisy. A newspaper with its name cut off, just a scrap of yellowed paper with the cutout date of November 7, 1984. A beach shell, broken. A photo of a couple from the ’40s, judging from their clothes, but it was so faded and crackled it was hard to tell. Another photo of a young man—skinny, scrawny, standing by a motorcycle, looking cockily as if he owned the world.

      Slowly Bren said, “You’re right. They are treasures.”

      “Impossible to guess what they meant to her.”

      “No way to know,” Bren agreed.

      “I guess we should throw it all away.”

      “I guess we should. What else could we do with it anyway?” Yet Bren looked at Poppy’s face, sighed and said, “Okay, let’s just put it back under the chair for now. We’ll throw it away. Eventually.”

      “I know we will.” Poppy put on her tough, defensive face. “Hell, how stupid to be sentimental about stuff like that. What difference could it possibly make now?”

      “You’re so right,” Bren murmured. She tried to look away from Poppy, but for that instant—whether Poppy knew it or not—her eyes glistened when she saw that cheap dried flower. So had Bren’s. But then, Bren had no illusions about herself that she was tough. “Hey, Poppy…I didn’t mean to pry before. You don’t have to tell me what you plan to do with your jewels. I was just making conversation.”

      “Hey, I wasn’t ducking it.”

      She was, but Bren wasn’t about to call her on it. She watched Poppy toss back the rest of her wine. The Ms. Tough expression was back in place.

      “I want to have my face fixed,” she said bluntly.

      “Your face? What’s wrong with your face?”

      Poppy rolled her eyes again. “Come on. It’s obvious. My whole life, I’ve been butt-ugly. But I always thought I just had to live with it. Now suddenly I don’t have to. And it’s not as if I need the money for anything else.” She scowled at Bren. “You don’t approve.”

      “It’s not up to me to approve or disapprove.”

      “But you think it’s vain. Frivolous. A dumb thing to do with the money.”

      “I never said that,” Bren defended herself.

      “You didn’t have to. It’s all over your expression. But you never had to live with a face like this. You don’t have my history. You don’t even know me—”

      Bren said quickly, “Poppy, I’m sorry if I offended you. Or if you felt I was judging you. You just took me by surprise, that’s all. I had no idea what you were going to say.”

      But Poppy closed down tighter than a threatened clam. She corked the wine, put attitude in her shoulders, carted her glass to the sink. She was obviously making moves toward leaving. “So what about you, anyway? What’d your husband say when you told him about your windfall?”

      Now it was Bren’s turn to fall silent. Poppy turned. “Bren?”

      Bren punched out cheerfully, “I haven’t gotten around to telling him yet.” It was her turn to leap to her feet. She aimed for the sink, figuring she’d wash both glasses. Oh, and check the contents of the refrigerator. Neither of them had looked inside to see if there was food that needed throwing out.

      Poppy hadn’t moved. Was still staring at her. “Well, hell. I didn’t mean to ask some heavy, loaded question.”

      “It isn’t a loaded question. It’s just a little different circumstance. It’s hard to explain.”

      “No need to strain yourself. It’s none of my business.”

      “I’m going to tell him. He’ll be really happy. I mean, who wouldn’t at such an extraordinary surprise—”

      “Uh-huh. That’s why you didn’t tell him immediately, right? Because he’d be so happy.”

      “It’s hard to explain,” Bren repeated uncomfortably.

      They both left at the same time. Both had keys, lifted a hand to lock the door at the same moment. Went to take the stairs down at the same moment. Hesitated at the same moment before taking off in the pouring rain in opposite directions.

      Bren couldn’t stop thinking how nice it had been between them for a while. Just talking together, more easily than either could ever have expected. It was as if the bond of Maude Rose had somehow paved the way for a friendship between them. They shared a secret. A secret that seemed to open the doors to communicating, talking about things they wouldn’t or couldn’t normally.

      But that door had sure slammed shut fast.

      Bren was still shaking her head—who could ever, would ever, guess that a woman who dressed as ragamuffinlike as Poppy would want plastic surgery? That vanity or looks was even a thought in her head?

      And for herself…well, obviously she couldn’t just tell Poppy about her marriage. You couldn’t explain something like that in a single sentence or a couple of seconds.

      Heckapeck. Bren had been trying for days, weeks and now months to explain to herself what the Sam Hill was going wrong between her and Charles. If she couldn’t figure it out herself, how on earth could she tell a stranger?

      CHAPTER 4

      A week from Thursday, Poppy came to work with her internal engine on rev. She’d been to a plastic surgeon in D.C. Actually, she’d seen a second one in Arlington, as well. And as soon as she’d poured a mug of sludge from the community caffeine pot, she tracked down Web.

      She knew he’d be busy, just wanted to pin him down to a quick conversation later. It wasn’t as if they didn’t pass each other a zillion times during the average workday, but she didn’t want to discuss arrangements in public.

      She heard his voice in exam room one and jogged there—yet ended up standing in the doorway without saying a word. Web was with a gorgeous golden retriever—and the retriever’s owner.

      Pauline was thirty-something, buxom and brunette, pretty enough if you went for the poured-in-jeans type, and was batting her eyelashes at Web as if they were lethal weapons. Poppy had all she could do not to laugh.

      All the women went for Web. He couldn’t help looking like a hunk, but it was still fun to watch an unwitting Roman being circled by a determined lioness. All Web had to do was smile at a female—any age, zero or ninety, and pretty words seemed to promptly spew from the woman’s mouth like bubbly sea foam.

      Web, turning to examine the retriever’s ears, caught sight of her in the doorway and shot her a please-God-save-me! look. Poppy just heartlessly grinned. Maybe he could get the golden retriever to rescue him, assuming the dog wasn’t female and didn’t fall head over heels, too.

      She finally caught up with him at lunch, more by chance than plan. Web usually took off at noon, but he had a patient coming out of surgery. Mrs. Bartholomew’s cat. The cat would

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