Something Old - Dianne L. Christner [59]
“There’s so many things I want.” Lil sighed. “A new car, a computer.”
“Computer!”
“Well, yeah. Someday.”
Katy pinched the bridge of her nose. “What else?”
Lil suddenly sat up. “I think I’ll make a list in the back of my journal. Anyway, I learned that marjoram adds more flavor to pasta than oregano. And I need to jot down a penne recipe before I forget it.”
“Under computer, you can write…new roommate.”
“Ha, ha, very funny. You want me to bring you anything?”
Katy kept a journal of cleaning tips, but she wasn’t in the mood to think about work or which hand-cream concoction worked best. “Grab one of those inspirational novels for me. I have a stack on a shelf in the closet.”
“The same closet where you were kissing the moving guy?”
“Stop.”
“So when’s your next building meeting?” Lil taunted, skipping off before Katy could throttle her.
The meeting was held in the sanctuary again, and Katy passed by the lobby’s bulletin board to stare at her unfruitful advertisement. As much good as it had done, she might as well take it down. Yet there was always that distant chance… “Still no job?”
Startled, Katy looked over her shoulder to find Jake standing behind her. “Lil told you I was looking for work?”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, I’m looking, too. I’ll need something after the fellowship hall is done.”
Katy moved to find a seat for the meeting. Jake slid into the pew beside her.
“Must you sit so close?” she asked, shrugging her shoulder away from him.
“Mm-hm.”
She glanced at the meetinghouse’s plain spackled ceiling and back. The painter settled in on Jake’s other side pinning him in place, and Jake grinned.
“You’re impossible.”
“That often goes hand in hand with juvenile behavior.”
She remembered calling him juvenile the day of the move. Was that his subtle way of reminding her that she owed him? “Yes, it does.”
Leaning against her—so that she nearly fell off the end of the pew trying to avoid his touch, not to mention his soap and sawdust scent—he dug something out of his tight jeans pocket and flipped it onto her lap.
“Maybe this will make up for it.”
She pushed away something that resembled a pair of tickets. “Whatever you’re up to, no thanks.”
“Come on. They’re ballet tickets.”
“What!” She snatched them back and stared, her gaze so smoldering it could have turned the offering to ashes. Two tickets to Cinderella? Slapping them back at him, she narrowed her eyes into stormy slits. “How did you get these?”
He shrugged. “At a ticket office.” When she continued to gawk in disbelief, he added, “At the mall.”
The painter leaned forward and stared, too, and to her further aggravation, she noticed they were attracting a small audience. Why did Mr. Weaver have to be late this night, of all times?
“How did you know?” she hissed.
“I’m not uncultured. I thought you might actually enjoy it.”
“A kid’s ballet?”
“It is?”
She glared at him, not fooled by his feigned act of innocence. “No thanks.”
He gave her a lopsided smile and winked. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
Bill Weaver, breathless from running into the meetinghouse, strode down the aisle and took his place in the front of the sanctuary. He quickly called the meeting to order. But other than recognizing the welcome distraction of his opening words, Katy became oblivious to the proceedings of the meeting.
The tickets to the same performance couldn’t be a coincidence, and the only way he could know she was going to that ballet was through Lil. But why a pair of tickets when she obviously already had hers? Just to keep up the pretense? Why would he think she’d want him along at an already-dreaded event? As the evening wore on, she mulled over the details and poked it from every angle.
Slowly, Lil’s part in the incident became glaringly clear. She recalled that Lil hadn’t wanted her to date