Doris got up. “Anyone want me to brew more tea?”
“Nah.” Godiva rose. “Since you’re okay—that is, back to the usual family drama, episode two-hundred fifty—may as well call it a night.”
Jen went out to unlock her car. Godiva lingered, peering up at Doris with that unwavering gaze. “Whatever shut you down. You sure it wasn’t Joey?”
“Nothing to do with him,” Doris lied.
“Righty-oh, then,” Godiva said. “Catcha on the flip side.”
It was the first time Doris had ever lied right to someone’s face. She felt like a worm as she shut the door and then leaned against it. All the self-protective reasons flitted through her mind: it was her business, no one else’s. People would talk, and she was already at her limit there.
She marched into the kitchen and began hand-washing the cups. As she handled the old porcelain, she made herself imagine generations of women, young and old, using these cups over lifetimes, dreaming of the past, maybe wondering about their future.
And then the image of Joey Hu was back, complete with the spark of sunlight in her body and mind. She sighed as she dried the dancing fox cup and set it on its shelf. The most likely explanation was that whatever those feelings were that Joey had set off in her were a one-time deal, probably caused by all the wedding vibes.
All the more reason to make that wedding her last. She’d done her wedding duty. In her young days she’d served as the smiling bridesmaid for her sister, her cousins, her college roommate. Then she’d stepped into the background as the smiling aunt to various brides, including all three of Nicola’s turns under the wedding canopy. In recent years she’d stepped even farther back, serving as the smiling elder at the synagogue, whose help with all the last minute details made the day a good one for the wedding parties—after which Doris returned to her quiet, empty house.
She’d definitely done her time.
Doris looked around her spotless kitchen, not thinking about Joey Hu. She refused to think about Joey Hu. She needed to keep her mind busy with something useful so she would not think about Joey Hu.
Maybe she needed a new project. Yes. Her cooking for singles books were still earning royalties. They would never make her rich, but she had never expected them to. After all, if you were writing books for people who had to watch their pennies, you didn’t charge a fortune for them.
Her eye snagged on the teacups. What about a book of fancy cooking for one? Surely she was not the only one who loved drinking out of porcelain as if she were a princess in a palace, instead of Doris Lebowitz, spinster, living in a fifties tract house with funky plumbing?
Her eye rested on her fading fox teacup. What about historical cooking for one? The sort of tried-and-true recipes cooked by generations of ordinary people who didn’t have artisanal grocery stores nearby, or a houseful of servants to do the cooking? There were a few of those recipes in her own family.
If she got cracking, she might even have a recipe or two to try out on the writers’ group on Friday, the highlight of her social life . . .
And she would be so busy, she wouldn’t be thinking about blond men in elegant black coats whose eyes seemed to glow gold.
FOUR
JOEY
All week long, Doris’s image burned steadily in Joey’s mind as he dealt with university business and helped his students. As usual, people who had troubles involving love gravitated to him. There was a feline shifter struggling to understand her mate’s canine pack, students trying to figure out if their crushes were reciprocated, a human couple needing help in figuring out the best way to present their case to her very traditional family in Singapore. Normally Joey loved helping young lovers, but this week, each new couple only reminded him of his own romantic woes.
He had to get Doris to talk to him. But how?
Maybe he could go to one of the places Doris went. Somewhere public, so she didn’t feel trapped, but not so public that there was no chance of exchanging a few words.
Then he remembered a conversation with Mikhail, not long after the dragon knight met Bird. Mikhail had told him that Bird attended a writers’ group. Doris was a writer, Joey thought, and she was friends with Bird. Surely Doris also went to the group; it only made sense. What had Mikhail said it was called? Something literary. He searched his memory. Baker Street? He looked that up online and found them mentioned on the town’s Facebook group. They met on Fridays.
We will see our mate there! his fox declared, pleased.
Joey leaned back in his chair. What to wear? Such an important occasion could not be taken lightly—
The door to his office crashed open, shattering his train of thought, and two young people burst in. “Uncle, uncle!” one of them cried.
“It’s customary to knock, Vanessa,” Joey said, swiveling his chair around.
“Sorry,” the young wolf shifter said, abashed.
Her twin Vic was with her, of course; the two were rarely apart. One side of Joey’s family were fox shifters in China, the other were wolf shifters in the Pacific Northwest, and both sides occasionally sent him troubled youngsters to straighten out. Vic and Vanessa were the latest. They were good kids, not troublemakers so much as restless young people who wanted to see something outside the pack before they settled down. Joey’s ranch house at the very edge of town, opening into the wild inland areas of Southern California, suited them to a T.
“Who’s our new houseguest?” Vic asked eagerly.
“A very handsome houseguest!” Vanessa put in.