Greely's Cove Read Online Free PDF Page B

green eyes made enormous with eyeliner and a blue denim jumpsuit that flowed over an amply curvaceous body.
    Carl took a halting step toward the desk, openmouthed. The woman smiled hugely, and Carl was transported back to his school days at Suquamish High, when the owner of this dazzling smile wore the school’s colors. She had been a cheerleader with flaming pigtails, a spanking high-kicker in her bulky green sweater, tiny silver skirt, and satiny green panties.
    “ Sandy? ” he breathed, scarcely above a whisper. “Sandy Cunningham, is that you?”
    She laughed sweetly. “It used to be, but it’s Sandy Zolten now. My husband, Ken, and I own this place. We live in the big old house across the alley. Carl, you’ve hardly changed at all—except for the beard, of course!”
    Carl felt his face beginning to flush. In high school he and a close buddy, Renzy Dawkins, had worked on the school newspaper as photographers. During games and pep assemblies, they had taken pains to position themselves in front of Sandy, as close to floor level as possible, supposedly to get action pix of the cheerleaders for the paper. What they really wanted, however, were “beaver shots” whenever Sandy kicked especially high—outtakes, of course, that never made the paper. Only the photographers’ wallets. Carl’s skill had earned him a nickname that he hoped no one still remembered.
    “It’s nice to see you, Sandy. You—uh—you look terrific. I mean it.”
    “Oh, come on! I’m three sizes bigger than I was in high school. I guess that’s what motherhood does for you.”
    “I don’t care what size you wear; the years have been good.”
    “Still the charmer, I see.”
    “Me? A charmer? Since when?”
    “Since always! Every girl in the school would’ve killed to go out with you, and you know it!”
    “God, I must’ve been deaf, dumb, and blind. I wish someone would’ve had the human decency to tell me what a hunk I was.” They laughed loudly. To Carl, laughing seemed like something he’d not done in a century.
    Further chitchat revealed that Sandy had married her college boyfriend, an accounting major from Spokane. They had lived and worked in Portland, Oregon, for six years—Ken as an associate in an accounting firm and Sandy as a real-estate agent—before deciding to go into business for themselves. Sandy’s mother had written to say that the Old Schooner was up for sale and within the Zoltens’ reach, a nice little business that was manageable by a hardworking couple.
    The rest of the story hardly needed telling. Two daughters, Teri and Amber, sixteen and thirteen. An English setter, neutered. Kiwanis, PTA, summer vacations in Colorado. Middle-class story, predictable as hell, but easy on the ears. “I envy you,” said Carl during a pause, meaning it. “You’ve got the life most of us dream about. I’m glad for you, I really am.”
    “I’d ask how you’ve been, but I already know,” she said, fixing her gaze on the countertop rather than on Carl’s face. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Everybody in town loved Lorna, and even though you guys were divorced...” She stammered, not knowing what to say next. Finally: “If there’s anything we can do, all you have to do is ask.”
    “Thanks. I appreciate that.”
    Sandy wondered aloud whether he needed help at the house that had once been his and Lorna’s. Cleaning, maybe, or cooking. Someone to look after Jeremy.
    “I’ll know more tomorrow,” he answered. “I talked to Lorna’s sister on the phone this morning, before I left D.C. She and her mother have come over from Seattle, and we’re getting together first thing in the morning. Jeremy’s staying with them.”
    “I know—down the street at the West Cove.”
    Carl smiled: no secrets in a town this size. He had picked the Old Schooner because Lorna’s sister and mother, two people he had disliked thoroughly from the very moment he met them, were staying at the West Cove Motor Inn. Though