Torrent(33)

She’d long since finished her meal and nodded agreement at this.
Simon was busy refreshing the screen on his phone so I swiped his last couple of fries. “You staying here?” I asked.
“Yeah, might as well. I’ll trade you the van for your laptop.”
“All right, but don’t get ketchup between the keys again. And don’t slip anything into my laptop bag that we didn’t pay for.”
Unlikely since the Raven served condiments in little bowls on your plate rather than leaving squeeze bottles out on the table, but one never knew what he might find. He’d never touch the paintings listed for sale on the walls—his thefts were always food-related and usually never for items worth more than a buck or two—but he might think the linen napkins would make nice souvenirs.






 
    Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure,   Magic
    
 


 

CHAPTER 11

Temi lifted up a rusty bicycle rim with most of the spokes broken. “When you said estate sales, I was picturing mansions full of antique sofas, priceless paintings, and marble busts.”
“You were picturing that in Prescott?” I asked from beneath a picnic table where I was sorting through old apple crates full of vinyl records and self-help books from the 60s. Older books were more my forte, but I put aside a signed first edition of Sex and the Single Girl. That one was still in print and ought to bring a few bucks. “I know there are some trophy homes up in the hills, but I think most of them are the second houses of well-to-do Phoenix entrepreneurs rather than the twenty-third homes of blue bloods with way too much inherited money to spend.”
“I suppose I was at least thinking that there’d be fewer cobwebs.” Temi swatted at a nice collection in the door frame. We were in the back of an old garage that had started its life as a barn. It was packed to the rafters, with a single path winding its way past the precarious junk piles.
“If the dust isn’t to your taste, you could join the people admiring the furniture in the house.”
“When you say furniture, are you referring to the green plaid sofa with the broken springs or the coffee table made out of plywood and cable spools? I simply ask because I wasn’t sure if those qualified for such a lofty label and thought perhaps you’d seen something someone might actually want.”
“Nope.” I squirmed between the legs of the table and poked into another crate. “That’s what I meant.”
“I don’t mind the dust.” Temi took a deep breath—a bracing breath? “What can I do to help?”
I pulled myself out from under the picnic table and pushed aside a laundry basket full of car parts, possibly related to the half-assembled car in the backyard, but just as likely not. Once I could see her, I decided tall, athletic, and well-dressed Temi looked out of place in the dust-and-rust-filled garage. She might have fit in once, but nine years had changed her a lot more than it had changed me. I wondered if it was harder to have never had money and prestige than to have had it and lost it. I doubted I’d ever know. With my grubby hands, stained jeans, and faded T-shirt, I fit right into that garage and I probably always would.
“Look, Temi, you don’t owe me any explanations, but I’ve been wondering why you’re here. If tennis isn’t an option for you anymore, why not go back to school? I’m sure you could stay with your parents to save money while you’re studying.”
She grimaced. “I can’t go back there. I stopped in for a couple of days, and it was... awkward is a nice way to put it.”
“I don’t get it; your parents are nice.”
“My parents didn’t think much of my decision to leave for Florida all those years ago. If I hadn’t been given a full scholarship to the academy...” Temi plucked a cobweb off her shoulder. “My parents were fine with tennis when I was a prepubescent girl and it was a hobby, but Yaiyai never thought it was appropriate for girls to run around hitting balls with sticks.” This last part she said in her high-pitched Yaiyai-imitation tone, one of an eighty-year-old woman who had a cane she swung like a cudgel at all the young men in the neighborhood, because she was certain they were thinking impure thoughts about her. “My parents became less and less enamored with it when it started taking more of my time.”
“I remember that. They wouldn’t drive you to the tournaments, right? You had to get rides and stay with the other girls on the team?”
Temi nodded. “You only saw the tip of the iceberg. We had a lot of disagreements. Once I was offered that scholarship, I believed I could be independent and didn’t need them. We had a big blowup on the night before I left. If you give up your studies and do this, you’ll never be welcome in our house again. Words of that nature. I threw some curses around, too, words a young lady shouldn’t know, much less say.”