The Peacock Emporium(65)

The boy started, glanced away from the priest and back again, his eyes flickering with discomfort. Then he bent and picked up his screwdriver, placing it in his top pocket. Although his face betrayed little emotion, the tips of his ears had flushed a deep red. “I’d best be off,” he muttered. “Got other deliveries.”

“I’m very grateful to you.”

He walked down the narrow corridor after him. “You go easy on her now,” Father Lenny continued, seeing the boy out. “She’s a good girl. I know that with the support of a man like yourself she can find a way to hurt herself a little less often.”

Jason turned to face Father Lenny. His expression was both hurt and furious, his shoulders hunched forward. “It’s not what you—”

“Of course.”

“I love Jess—”

“I know you do. And there are always ways to avoid these things, aren’t there?”

The boy said nothing. He breathed out, as if he had considered, then decided against speaking. His walk, when he headed out to his van, contained a defiant hint of swagger.

“Because we wouldn’t want the whole town concerned about her, after all?” the priest called, waving as the van door slammed and the vehicle skidded out of the driveway.

There were occasions on which he felt a longing for a larger life, broader horizons, as he turned back toward his neglected, long-undecorated house. But sometimes, Lenny thought, with some satisfaction, there were indeed benefits to living in a very small town.



* * *



—

Liliane MacArthur waited until the young men had disappeared across the square, their bags slung carelessly over their shoulders. Then, peering into the shop to ensure that she would be alone, she pushed open the door tentatively and walked in.

Arturro was busy at the back. At the sound of the bell he called that he would only be a minute, and she stood awkwardly in the center of the shop, sandwiched between the preserves and the dried pasta, smoothing her hair.

When he emerged, drying his hands on his large white apron, his face broke into a broad smile. “Liliane!” The way he said her name made it sound like someone announcing a toast.

She nearly smiled back, until she remembered why she was there. She reached into her bag and pulled out the box of sugared almonds. “I—I just wanted to say thank you . . . for the chocolates and everything. But it’s starting to feel like too much.”

Arturro looked blank. He gazed at the box in her hand, which she proffered to him, his own hand rising obediently to take it from her.

She pointed up at the chocolates on the shelf, keeping her voice low as if she were shielding it from other customers. “You’re a very kind man, Arturro. And . . . it’s been . . . well, I don’t get many surprises. And it’s been very kind of you. But I—I’d like it to stop now.”

She held her handbag tight against her side, as if it was supporting her. “You see, I’m not sure what you . . . what you’re expecting from me. I have to look after my mother, you see. I can’t—there are no circumstances in which I’d be able to leave her alone.”

Arturro moved a step closer to her. He ran a hand through his hair.

“I thought it only fair to let you know. I’ve been very touched, though. I wanted you to know that.”

His voice, when it came, was thick, unwieldy. “I’m sorry, Liliane . . .”

She raised a fluttering hand, her expression anguished. “Oh, no. I don’t want you to be sorry—I just . . .”

“. . . but I don’t understand.”

There was a lengthy silence.

“The chocolates? All the gifts?”

He kept looking at her expectantly.

She studied his face now. “You left me chocolates? Outside my door?” Her voice was insistent.

He stared at the box in his hand. “They are from here . . . yes.”

Liliane flushed. She glanced down at the box, then back at him. “It wasn’t you? You didn’t send any of these?”

He shook his head slowly.

Liliane’s hand had lifted unconsciously to her mouth. She gazed around the shop, then wheeled toward the door. “Oh! Forgive me. I’m . . . Just a misunderstanding. Do—please, please forget what I said—” And then, her bag still clutched to her like a life raft, she ran from the delicatessen, her heels clattering on the wooden floor.

For some minutes Arturro stood in the middle of the empty shop, staring at the box of sugared almonds, the faintest remnant of her scent hanging in the air. He glanced at the nearly empty market square as the last of the delivery vans prepared to leave.

Then he looked up at the three white aprons recently abandoned on the hook by the door, and his face darkened.



* * *



—

A few hundred yards away, Suzanna was preparing to close the Peacock Emporium. Jessie had left almost half an hour previously, and she had been a little disconcerted to note that Alejandro had not gone with her. He was still there, having written a series of postcards and now reading a newspaper. He occasionally gazed out into the lane, his thoughts apparently far away.

For some reason, his presence had made Suzanna accident-prone. She had dropped a colored-glass vase just as she was about to hand it over to a customer and been forced to replace it, free of charge, with another. She had tripped up the last two steps into the cellar and half twisted her ankle. She had scalded herself twice on the coffee machine. If he had noticed any of this, he had said nothing. He just sipped at his coffee slowly.