Part 4 (1/2)

I went up to him and threw my arms around his neck, crooning words of comfort.

Yes, I talked to him as if he were a despondent collie pup. Yes, I voluntarily brought myself within easy stabbing distance of the horn. Yes, I'm an idiot, I admit it, it says so on my driver's license. If you want proof-positive of my stupidity then consider the fact that I went into writing because I wanted a high-paying, glamorous job where everyone respected me and internecine mudslinging just wasn't the Done Thing. But I couldn't turn my back on the poor creature.

”There, there,” I said, running my hands through his flossy mane. ”She'll be back, you'll see. It's just that she's a little soppy now. Love makes you temporarily brain-dead.”

The unicorn looked me in the eye, his gaze eloquent. Don't sugar-coat it, my lady, he seemed to say. You and I both know what love leads to. She may be back, but she won't be the same, and where are we going to find another virgin at this time of year? Those Christmas parties are h.e.l.l on maidenheads.

”You mean that Greta Marie and Wellcome have -- ?” Curse my imagination! The very thought of Wellcome al fresco and taking care of business was enough to purge a catfish. My conscious mind immediately tacked up wall-to-wall signs reading Don't Go There, Girlfriend. Don't Buy the Ticket, Don't Even Ask to See the Full-Color Brochures.

The unicorn flared his nostrils, scorning the whole hideous idea. Ah, true, true: Would he still be hanging around the property if Greta Marie had done the dire deed with Wellcome already? But to judge by his hangdog expression, he figured it was only a matter of time.

”Look, I'm sorry, but what can I do about it!” I told him. ”Greta Marie's happy.

I realize she's been neglecting you, but --”

The unicorn snorted again and tossed his head, casting off my paltry attempts at consolation. I watched as he picked his way across the farmyard, heading toward the straggle of apple trees. I thought I glimpsed the images of his two companions in the distance, under the spindly shadow of the branches, but that might have been a trick of light on snow.

I cupped my hands to my mouth. ”Don't give up!” I called. ”Please don't just walk away! Even if she and Wellcome Fisher do get nasty, it's never going to last. Greta Marie's not stupid and she's not desperate: one day she'll see him for the ego-leech he is, unless he slaps her in the face with it first. That's when she'll really need you. She's been good to you for G.o.d knows how many years; you owe it to her to stick around. Nice unicorns. Good unicorns. Sit!

Stay!”

I was babbling, but it got their attention. Three s.h.i.+very streaks of marine light lifted beneath the barren orchard boughs, three pairs of glowing garnet eyes winked at me once before vanis.h.i.+ng.

I drove back to town alone.

Greta Marie was in the coffee shop, seated on one of the stools at the counter nearest the big display window up front, reading her registered letter over a steaming cup of Muriel's best brew. It was a wonder she could make out the words for all the stars in her eyes. When she saw me come in, she broke from covert in a whir of bliss.

”Babs, it's so wonderful! I do hope you forgive me for not being at home when you called, but it was such a good thing I came to town and got this letter.

Darling Wellcome! I know he meant to give me a few days' notice, but when one is as significant a figure in the field of belies lettres as he, sometimes it's simply impossible to take time for personal matters until the demands of one's career have been met.”

Belles lettres? Wellcome? The only demand ever attached to his career was ”Please, please, please, don't write another book!” As I seated myself on the stool beside hers, I did a rapid mental translation of Greta Marie's words, allowing for drift, wind resistance, drag, and converting from the Stupid-in-Love scale.

”There's something vitally important in there and he didn't bother mailing it until the last minute?” I presumed, nodding at the letter. Muriel brought me my own cup of coffee, glanced at Greta Marie, then looked at me and raised her eyebrows in a manner that said Lost Cause.

”Oh, I don't mind,” Greta Marie chirped, pressing the unfolded sheets of spiral notebook paper to her heart. Wellcome might waste words, ut never stationery.

”He says he's coming up today, and that I'm to meet him here because there's no sense in him driving all the way out to my place and then all the way back into town to the travel agent.” She p.r.o.nounced those last two words as if they'd been Holy Grail, fraught and freighted with a deeper meaning than was given mere mortals like me to know.

”Planning a little trip, hm?” I asked, striving to keep it casual.

”A very special sort of trip, Babs dear.” She blushed. ”I do think he's coming up to ask me...to ask me if I would consent to become...if I would consent to become his --”

”There you are!” Wellcome Fisher burst into the coffee shop with the elan of a juggernaut. He shouldered his way between us, nearly shoving me off my stool without so much as a word of greeting. Usually it is a fair treat to be ignored by Wellcome Fisher, but not when it means you've been relegated to the role of superfluous stage-dressing. I was miffed. I got up and moved, taking my cup with me.

Wellcome slithered onto the stool I had vacated. He looked Greta Marie up and down, his gaze severe and judgmental. ”You're not prepared,” he accused.

”Prepared, dear?” It was sickening to see the way Greta Marie went into mouse-mode at the sound of her master's voice. ”But -- but I'm here. You did say to meet you here, didn't y -- ?”

”Ye G.o.ds, and was that all I said?”

Greta Marie cringed, but she summoned up the gumption to reply, ”Well...yes.

That and the part about going to the travel agent.” She extended the letter for his inspection and added, ”See, darling?”

He rolled his eyes, playing the martyr so broadly that I wondered whether he had a pack of stick-on stigmata hidden in the pocket of his anorak. ”Merciful powers above, you're a supposedly intelligent wench: Do I have to spell out everything for you, chapter and verse? Are you that literal-minded? Are you incapable of basic inference?” He paused, striking a toplofty pose, apparently waiting for the applause of the mult.i.tude.

Now mind you, the hour of Wellcome's self-styled Calvary was lunchtime and the coffee shop was packed to the gussets with the usual Natives, alt of whom knew and respected Greta Marie Bowman. It was out of this selfsame respect that they went deaf, dumb and blind by common consent. They understood that she had fallen in with this acerbic yahoo of her own free will, they realized that she had brought all her sufferings down upon her own head voluntarily, they were firm in the belief that she should have known better, but d.a.m.ned if they were going to underwrite her humiliation, deserved or not. No one present reacted to Wellcome's words with so much as a glance in his general direction. In fact, as far as the good folk of Bowman's Ridge were concerned, Wellcome wasn't even there. They didn't just ignore him, they nullified him.