Lifting the nearly empty jar of jellybeans off her desk, she set it on the floor at Dayton’s feet. “Do you want to count those out for you and Ayjia?”
He nodded and knelt. She handed him a magazine to set the beans on.
“Why does he get to do it?” Ayjia asked.
“Because he’s older.” Mercedes spoke over her shoulder as she crossed to where she could see through the double doors into the cantina.
“I’m going to turn six in the summer,” Ayjia reminded.
“And Dayton will turn seven right after. No, don’t tip it, Dayton. Just reach in.”
No board members in the cantina. It held only its dozen or so regulars, sipping coffee and playing cards. One lifted a hand and Mercedes returned the wave with a smile.
In the lounge on the other side of the foyer, two elderly men watched golf on the big screen. Through the windows behind her desk, she saw an empty courtyard, not unusual for a Monday morning.
The board must be waiting for her in the meeting room. When Harrison had called again this morning, he’d said one of the young men had asked to meet with them and she needed to be here. Getting the kids off to school had turned into A New Plan. One road trip later, here she was, but no one else seemed to be. Glancing down the hall, she noted even the sunroom at the end appeared deserted.
Hmph. She’d promised to come straight from Porsha’s, but it looked like they had started without her. She tried not to see that as a bad sign.
Going back to where the kids were bickering over the remaining green jellybean, she popped it into her own mouth and crouched to say, “Remember when I said I need you both to be really quiet when we get here? Because I have an important meeting? Dayton, fingers out of your nose, please.”
Dayton stood and swiped his finger on the seat of his too short jeans. Either the kid grew by the minute or he had inherited the impossible Hertzog legs, like she had. Poor guy would suffer cold ankles the rest of his life. She gave him a quick, empathetic hug, then straightened before he could push her away.
“Can you do that?” she asked him. “Be quiet for a little bit?”
“I can,” Ayjia said.
Dayton said, “Can we go swimming?”
“After my meeting.” Setting the empty jar back on her desk, resisting the urge to finger through the mail, Mercedes collected the beach bag and led the kids down the hall. On one side, they passed a series of closed doors. On the other, a wall of windows showcased the gardens that bordered the courtyard.
“Why can’t we swim now?” Dayton asked, pressing hands and face to the window below the handrail, staring at the fenced pool.
“Because I have a meeting.” And she suspected attending it was a deal breaker as far as keeping her job went. She hurried them past the closed door of the meeting room and into the empty sunroom.
“What does that one say, Auntie M?” Ayjia pointed to a poster on the wall.
Mercedes glanced at the schedule she’d hung a month ago. Out of date and damn, she’d missed the flower arrangement classes. She had wanted to talk to the florist about bouquets for the Spring Swing Fling. Yet another beef she could take up with Porsha when she caught up to her.
“It’s a lot of writing,” Ayjia said. “Dayton can’t read it if it’s too much writing.”
“It’s not that interesting anyway. Just a list of what people can do, like card games and art classes and stuff.”
“What about the red one?”
“That’s an exit sign, sweetie, and don’t you dare go through that door. It will make a big noise if you do and I need you to stay here while I go into my meeting. Dayton, hon, do you have to go to the bathroom?”
“No.” He removed his flexing hand from his crotch.
“Okay.” Mercedes turned the two faux leather armchairs so they faced each other and tugged a side table so it stood between. When she slid the straps of the beach bag off her shoulder, her back wept in relief. “Can you two draw me a picture while I go in the next room for a few minutes?”
Dayton gave her The Look, his shaggy hair hanging over his lowered brows, his chin crinkling with mutiny.
“Please,” Mercedes said.
“I’m hungry.”
“We just had a cream cheese bagel.”
“Can I have a soda?”
“You can have milk when I’m finished with my meeting.”
“Is it a party?” A six-year-old shouldn’t be capable of that level of cynicism.
“No, it’s a meeting, hon. Someone broke into a building here and I have to figure out how to fix it.”
“The building?” Ayjia asked.
“Well, that, and meet one of the kids who broke in.”
“Kids broke in?” Ayjia paused in spilling the contents of the bag, eyes wide.
“College kids. Teenagers.” Young adults, she’d since learned, who should have known better. “Keep the crayons on the table, ‘kay, hon?” If one of the seniors came in and rolled an ankle... Mercedes didn’t even want to think about it. “Dayton, will you watch Ayjia for me for a few minutes? You don’t have to color if you don’t want to.”
He swayed away from the hand she combed through his hair. “Why can’t we come?”
Because I want to keep my job. “It’s a meeting for grown-ups. I won’t be long. Just sit here quietly, okay?”
With serious misgivings, Mercedes left the sunroom and entered the meeting room where small private receptions were occasionally arranged for birthdays or anniversaries, and where card tables were set up for the monthly board meeting.
“Mercedes! Finally.” Mrs. Garvey’s Finishing School accent silenced the room as she broke away from the group beside the coffee service at the counter. Her teabag string waved from the edge of her cup and tea sloshed onto the saucer as she marched her thin frame across the room.
“I’m sorry.” Mercedes caught a brief glimpse of a fresh-faced college kid and a face that was definitely that of a man.
Her heart gave a teensy ba-boomp even before she got a proper look at him. Mrs. Yamamoto opened her arms for a hug and Mercedes had to bend way down over the woman’s tiny frame then turn to press a light kiss on Pete Dolinski’s cheek. Her vision was completely blocked by Harrison Michaels’s broad shoulders when she accepted his brief, back-patting hug. He smelled like cotton and cigars and love. Yeah, she loved this ol’ coot.
“Good to have you back,” he said.
“Good to be back,” Mercedes said, and stepped away only to have her attention demanded by Mrs. Garvey.
“We weren’t sure you were going to make it.” No affection from Mrs. Garvey. She was like Dayton. Liked her personal space.
“I was waiting for my sister.” And waiting and waiting. Cocking her head, Mercedes tried to hear the children and doubted it was good news that she couldn’t.
“They’ve been here ten minutes already,” Mrs. Garvey said.
In the quiet, her remark carried. Mercedes sent a faint smile at ‘they.’
She had understood from Harrison that four young men had broken into the back units of the complex, but only one stood across the room. He looked surprisingly clean-cut for a B&E artist.
However, if the man beside him was a relative—and he must be since they shared the same dark coloring—then it explained everything. The older brother or uncle or whatever he was, looked like cheap beer, dirty talk, and sweaty sex.
He smiled at her as if he knew she possessed a learning disability where guys like him were concerned.
Clenching her stomach against flutters of intrigue, Mercedes dredged up a cool smile and approached with her hand extended. “I’m Mercedes Kimball, the Manager of Coconino.”
In his mid to late thirties, the man straightened from a slouch against the wall, giving the impression he was on the wrong side of pulling an all-nighter. His hair was in need of cutting or combing. Both really, and his jeans looked clean, but were faded and frayed. He hadn’t shaved in days and he had to know that old-fashioned senior types like the ones in this room expected a tidier appearance for important meetings like this.
Then again, a man like him didn’t usually give a damn.
“L.C. Fogarty.” He shook with an all-encompassing grip that could easily lead her to the nearest broom closet. He kept her hand while he said, “My son, Zack.”
“Son,” she said with mild surprise and eased her tingling hand free, smiling at Zack.
Zack didn’t meet her gaze, too busy giving his father a weird look.
“What?” L.C. asked.
Zack shook his head, held out his hand for Mercedes, and said, “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Kimball.”
Really the kid was too much a contrast to the punk father, his hair freshly cut, his slacks and collared shirt clean and ironed, his attitude respectful rather than knowing and wicked. He had shaved. Maybe the wrong Fogarty had been copped for the crime.
Mercedes drew back and briefly introduced the board before saying, “I’m not sure why you requested this meeting, Zack. I understood the school and police settled everything yesterday.”
“So did we,” Mrs. Garvey said behind her.
Mercedes sent a questioning glance at L.C.
“Don’t look at me. I just got here a couple hours ago.” His lips were well-defined in a masculine way, speaking of strength and purpose and a restless spirit. “But it seems he doesn’t want to be expelled.” He jerked his head at Zack.