Just Around the Corner

“How often does everyone do this?” Phyllis dropped the pen she’d been holding. She had to leave for class now.

And didn’t want to go at all.

Sophie slung her bag over one shoulder. “Whenever they have to, I guess.” She stood up. “I should get going. I have class in ten minutes.”

So did Phyllis. And a hike across campus to get there. She stood, as well, gathered the pile of papers and folders she had ready for her class and left the building with Sophie beside her.

“You mind if we talk again sometime?” the girl asked as Phyllis scrambled for some way to broach the idea of a future meeting without scaring Sophie off.

“Sure,” she said immediately; trying to hide her surprise.

Sophie gave a quick shrug. “I think it would make Matt happy if I told him we were going to be friends,” she said, stopping as she reached the sidewalk that branched off from the one Phyllis had to take.

Phyllis didn’t like the way Sophie had said that. Maybe it was just the fact that she didn’t want to be someone’s friend just to please someone else. Which, in this case, didn’t matter at all. Or was it because Sophie had sounded too possessive of Matt Sheffield?

Phyllis shook her head. She wasn’t going to doubt him. She knew Matt. Really knew him.

And he would not—absolutely not—involve himself with any woman, let alone a twenty-year-old student.

For now, Phyllis was just glad she’d have at least one more chance with the girl.

“How about Thursday for lunch?”

Sophie frowned. “I can’t then. I’ve got shows all week.”

Phyllis knew that. Matt was going to be working late every night this week. But he was planning to take his dinner hour to drive to her place and do whatever chores needed to be done.

If the bleeding after last Friday’s cleaning hadn’t scared her so badly, she’d tell him not to come.

“How about Saturday morning, then?” Phyllis asked. She wanted Sophie committed to a time.

“That’d be great,” Sophie said, smiling. “Where?”

“The park?” There was only one in Shelter Valley, and it was a popular meeting spot.

“Sure. That’s not far from my dorm.”

“I’d be happy to swing by and get you.”

“That’s okay. I’m happy to walk,” Sophie said. “I can use the exercise.”

As she bade the girl goodbye, Phyllis added that last comment to the list of things she had yet to discuss with her. Was the girl an exercise addict, too? To the point that she couldn’t accept a ride to the park? Another symptom typical of anorexics.

Of course, it was also possible that Sophie really did just enjoy a walk now and then.

In any case, the girl had not only agreed to see her again, she’d instigated the meeting.

There was a lift to Phyllis’s step as she headed to class. She could help Sophie—and if not, she could get this confused, misguided and oddly appealing girl the help she needed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

MATT LOVED HIS JOB. He loved having shows brought to him and making them better. Loved the manipulation, the illusions, the fantasy created by careful staging, painting and lighting.

And the highlight of each day that next week, as he and Sophie and the rest of the students put another show together, was the hour he took away from the theater each evening. Dinner hour.

He’d started going to Phyllis’s out of duty. To atone for what he’d done. But he was enjoying himself because of her. Every night that week she’d had dinner waiting for him, insisting that, if he was going to give up his dinner hour to help her, she was at least going to feed him.

And while he stood at her counter and ate, she sat at the table, eating also and talking with him. They covered everything from movies and mountain ranges to the vagaries of teenagers. The part he enjoyed most, though, was just talking about their individual days. It was comforting, somehow, to have someone waiting to hear what had happened in his life that day.