The High Price of Secrets

“Five weeks is fine.”

“Damn-fool woman who normally does it tripped backward last week over a carpet bowling ball and broke her leg. I guess you’ll give the old codgers something new to look at. You’re hired.”

Tamsyn looked at the woman in surprise. “Just like that? Don’t you want references?”

“Do I look like I need references?” The woman peered at Tamsyn over her half-lens glasses. “What I need is a cigarette, but we’re not allowed to smoke in a council-affiliated building anymore.”

Just privately, Tamsyn thought that given the tsunami of paper throughout the small office, it was a good thing the woman wasn’t allowed to light up.

“Okay, when do I start?”

“Next session is Wednesday this week. Runs from ten-thirty until one. People bring their own lunch. Here’s the ring binder with the weeks’ activities set and the roster of who does what. Don’t lose it.”

“Thank you. I’m Tamsyn Masters, by the way.”

“Gladys. I run this joint because no one else can. Got any questions, ask me. Just not now. Damn bingo caller for tomorrow night has laryngitis and I need to get someone else. I don’t suppose…?” Gladys looked at Tamsyn who firmly shook her head. “Hmmph, you better give me your number in case I need to call you.”

Tamsyn gave her cell phone number. “Okay if I take a look around?”

“Feel free. And don’t lose that binder, whatever you do.”

“I won’t,” she promised, tucking the item firmly under one arm and walking back out of the office.

Well, she thought as she carried on into the main hall, that had to be the shortest job interview in history. She laughed out loud. What on earth had she been worried about? She stopped and looked around.

Sash windows with half-lowered black-out blinds lined the hall on both sides. A raised stage stood at one end with ancient dark red velvet drapes hanging on either side. Tamsyn felt as if she’d stepped into a time warp. As if she could just close her eyes and reopen them to a wartime dance, or a seventies disco.

Folding tables were slanted against the wall on one side, stacking chairs on the other. Tamsyn pulled out one of the stacking chairs and sat down to study the folder she’d been given. Despite Gladys’s curt demeanor and seeming disorganization, everything in here was neatly compiled and ordered. Activities were basically the same each week, with an occasional out-of-town trip organized to see a movie in Blenheim or to visit a restaurant.

Basically, all she had to do was oversee each week and ensure that the door takings, a gold coin per member each meeting, were given to Gladys to bank by the end of each session. It’d be a walk in the park. Even so, the prospect left her feeling more enthused than she’d felt in a very long time. She itched to share her news with someone. Finn, maybe?

She put a clamp on her wayward thoughts. Tomorrow would be soon enough to tell him, when he came to show her how to use the espresso machine. It wasn’t as if they were friends or anything.

Tamsyn thought back to this morning’s meeting, to that moment when she’d thought he might kiss her. He’d been so close, his gray eyes—dark as storm clouds before torrential rain—fixed on her lips. Her whole body had gone on high alert from the instant he’d brushed against her, all her feminine sensors pinging at that merest of touches. She lifted her fingers to her lips. What would it have felt like, she wondered, if he’d followed through on what she thought had been clear intent in those tempestuous eyes?

A thrill rippled through her body as her imagination took hold, and she closed her eyes, lost in the moment.

“Are you planning to nap there all day? I’ve got somewhere to go to, even if you haven’t.”

Gladys’s raspy voice jarred her out of her reverie.

“I’m sorry, I’ll be out of your way in a minute,” Tamsyn said, lurching to her feet and stacking the chair back where she’d found it.

Accompanied by mutterings of “young people these days,” she headed back out the main door and onto the street. Behind her, Gladys activated an alarm, clanged the front doors closed and methodically locked them.

“You still here?” the old woman asked as she reached the pavement.

“I was wondering if you could tell me where I can find the information center.”

“That’d be me,” Gladys said crustily.

“Oh, okay. Maybe you can help. My mother is from here and I’m trying to track her down.”

“Hmmph. I thought you had a familiar look about you. Your mother a local, is she?”

“I…I think so. Ellen Masters, have you heard of her?”