Page 68 of Live a Little!

IN A DEFIANT MOODon Monday, Cynthia wore extra makeup and her red dress. As she walked slowly past reception, she realized her wardrobe choice was a bad idea. She couldn’t wear this suit without remembering that she’d worn it the first evening she and Jake had madelove.

“Morning,Marilyn.”

Cyn had done her best to find out what was going on at Oceanic when Jake had given her no support, nothing to help her in her quest. Quite the opposite, in fact. He’d given her grief for trying to investigate what was in those boxes, and he’d yanked her off her date with Neville before she had a chance to get any information out ofhim.

He’d also broken her heart and stomped all over it, but she wasn’t going there. Not this morning. She decided she’d cried all the tears she was ever going to cry over JakeWheeler.

At the thought of never seeing him again, of the unfairness of his accusations, her lids started to prickle and she blinked hard. No tears.No. No.No!

As she headed toward her office with misery on her mind, she stopped dead in her tracks. The staid accounting department looked like a bridal bower. Dozens and dozens of roses…hundreds, possibly thousands of roses surrounded the place. Red ones, pink ones, yellow, white—in vases, bouquets and scattered on the floor anddesk.

The perfume wasdizzying.

And in the midst of it all was Agnes, looking harassed but ecstatic as she crammed roses into a coffee mug. Plan A from Saturday night may have been a total disaster, but Plan B, by all indications, had been an outrageoussuccess.

“From George?” Cynthiaasked.

A blushing Agnes just nodded her head. With her glow of happiness, she looked even better than she had right after the makeover. Surrounded by hothouse blooms, Agnes reminded Cynthia of a rose herself—a neglected back-garden rose bush that had been watered, fertilized and tended to bring it back to its full beauty. “We haven’t been apart since Saturday night,” she whispered, and blushed somemore.

Cynthia gazed around at all the roses and a slow smile formed. “I’m guessing you both had a goodtime.”

Agnes giggled. It was a sound Cyn had never heard her make. “This one’s my favorite,” she said, pointing to a Chintzware teapot that was the base for a florist’s arrangement of roses and baby’s breath. There was a cardattached.

“Forgive me, my darling,” itsaid.

“You’ve got to give the man credit,” Cynthia said, gazing around her. “When he apologizes, he apologizes.” A thought crossed her mind. “What about the,um…”

“Hotties?” Agnes asked with a slow smile. “They’re history. We talked for hours yesterday and he finally admitted he was tired of dating all those silly girls.” She sighedblissfully.

“That’s great,Agnes.”

The older woman held a pink rosebud to her cheek. “He asked me to marryhim.”

Tears pricked Cynthia’s eyes. “Oh, Agnes. I’m so happy for you.” She crossed the room and huggedher.

“I don’t know how to thank you. I think deep down he always cared for me. We’ve been good friends for years, but until I took charge of my life and showed a little backbone, he could keep me as his friend and still see those much youngerwomen.”

Cynthia nodded. She understood better than anybody how that could happen. “It wasn’t the hair dye, or the new clothes, it was the attitude behind them. The one that said ‘Look at me, look at who I really am.’ Those young women flattered his ego, but they didn’t challenge him, the way you do. They didn’t share a history, the way youdo.”

“Yes.” Agnes leaned forward and buried her nose in the roses stuffed into the coffee mug, and Cynthia would have bet money she was reminiscing about some particularly juicy moment from the weekend. “I’m sorry I abandoned you the other night. How did the rest of your datego?”

“Dismally. My house alarm went off so I had to go home.” Cynthia shrugged. “Then Nevilleleft.”

Impulsively, Agnes touched her arm, “Don’t look so downcast, dear. Things will workout.”

“No. It’s too late.” She sighed sadly, then raised her head to stare at her coworker. How could Agnes possibly know about Jake? Then she realized Agnes must think she was breaking her heart over the creepyNeville.

How could she possibly explain? It wasn’t Neville she’d cried over. It wasn’t Neville she yearned for, body and soul. It wasn’t Neville she loved so much her teeth ached when she thought abouthim.

And it wasn’t Neville who’d dumped her on herbutt.

She forced a cheery smile and congratulated Agnes again. “I’d better get some workdone.”

WITH A SIGH,she pulled up her month-end files. She started with the pension files. As she was scanning the monthly payouts, she gasped as a very familiar name caught hereye.

Dominic Torreo.That was the name of one of the pensioners. It was also the name of the murdered drug dealer she’d read about in thenewspaper.

While her heart pounded and excitement flooded her brain, Cynthia forced herself not to jump to any conclusions. There could be more than one Dominic Torreo, after all. The retired Oceanic employee could be one hundred and five and living in a Florida trailer park for all sheknew.

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