Pacific Avenue Read Online Free PDF

to it, but Kathy asked if we’d moved in recently. Made me notice.”
    “Oh, right—Kathy!” said Angela, veering back to her single-minded
track. “She’s up to something, Mama. If you won’t find out what’s going on, I
will.”
    “How?” I wasn’t exactly paying attention. I was
checking out the walls to see how many holes I had to fill before I painted. I
hoped I wouldn’t have to go out for more spackle. Angela had put up a lot of
pictures over the years.
    “The library at school has newspapers from everywhere,”
she said.
    “You won’t find anything there.” I made a mental note
of a water stain on the plaster under the window. Maybe we had some sealer in
the garage. Angela was frowning, so I tried to pay a little more attention.
“Look, honey, most likely Kathy had a bad husband. Those don’t make the
paper—they’re not news.”
    “I don’t see why she’d take her résumé back if it was
her marriage,” she said. “Mr. Giannini should get the police to do a background
check. Want me to tell him how to request one, next time I’m in there?” She had
a real edge to her voice.
    I snapped back, “Angela, you’ve been telling me for a
year or more to get a life of my own. So, I did. You live yours and I’ll live
mine. Don’t butt in, you mind?”
    I picked up the tape again, but she glared at me, and I
put it down. I pushed my annoyance down, too. “Let it be, really,” I said.
You’ll stir up trouble for nothing.”
    Angela gave a theatrical sigh, the way she used to do
when she was a teenager. “If you’re right about her being so innocent,” she
said, “there’s no trouble to stir up.”
    “It’s not your concern, Angela. You leave it
alone—completely alone, you hear me? I’ll find out for myself.”
    She got up from the floor and stood over me with her
arms folded. “I don’t see where it’s your concern either,” she said.
    “You were just telling me it was. Wasn’t it you, one minute
ago, saying she was probably a criminal in disguise?”
    Another theatrical sigh. “Mama, it’s your concern to
get it looked into. But last time I checked, the job description for
‘secretary’ didn’t include detective work. It’s your job to point out that
something’s going on—but whatever her problem is, it’s none of your business.”
    Willis stepped into his peacemaker role. He was getting
good at it.
    “Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, honey, but how
could you find anything out anyway?” he asked me.
    “I have my ways.”
    Willis snorted. Angela shrugged and left the room, dragging
her suitcase. I hoped she was just taking it to the laundry room, not back to
Berkeley.
    “Let’s have some coffee in the living room, honey,”
Willis said. He put out a hand to help me up.
    I was happy to drop the whole subject. But I hoped
Willis and Angela didn’t expect any Christmas cookies to go with their coffee.
If they did, let one of them make a batch.
    For the next few days, I was busy getting the painting
done and hanging new curtains. Willis and Angela helped, and they didn’t say a
single word about Kathy. We finished the room and moved the bed back in. Angela
went to the market and bought some holiday goodies, and she opened all the
cards and stood them on the mantel. No one brought the decorations down from
the attic, but at least it was a little like Christmas.
    Saturday was the day of the annual Holiday Craft Faire
at the Point Fermin lighthouse. I walked over in the late afternoon, just to
get out of the house. As I inspected a hand-knit sweater to see if it was the
right size for Angela, I caught sight of Kathy. She seemed so forlorn, walking
along with her arms drawn in and her head down. Color and music and fun all
around her, and she never looked up once. At work, she seemed down most of the
time, but she still got carried along by the busyness. Watching her on her own
now, I got the idea that whatever was wrong might be more serious than