Chapter Fourteen

Brent feigned indifference to the squalls of the baby two seats down and pretended to ignore the shrieks of two little boys who had managed to escape their mother. After several minutes though, he stood and began pacing his little corner of the room, casting occasional glances toward the doors and the admissions desk.

Finally his gaze fell on something else. He dug in his pants pocket, went to the bank of vending machines and dropped some coins in the coffee machine. A sudden tug at his coat made him turn around.

A pudgy boy in dirty sweats stood staring up at him. "Can I have a coke?"

"What does your mother say?" Brent looked around the room for someone likely to be the boy's mother, but saw no one who seemed willing to claim him.

The boy held out a sweaty palm, showing him some change.

Brent counted the coins. "Looks like you're about fifteen cents short." He dug in his pocket. "Here you go."

The boy took the coins, but continued to stare up at him expectantly.

"What now?" Brent took his coffee out of the bin and sniffed it warily.

The boy looked up at the coke machine. "Can't reach," he said, pointing to the coin slot.

An embarrassed smile crossed Brent's face. "I'm not very observant tonight, am I?" He let the boy give him the sweaty coins one by one. "What do you want?"

"Orange."

Brent pressed the button for orange soda. As soon as the can fell into the bin, the boy reached for it but then handed it up to Brent, who opened it for him, holding his paper coffee cup in his teeth.

"Thank you," the boy said.

Brent gave a little half-smile as the boy scampered off. He blew on his coffee and went to lean against a post where he could survey the entire room, front desk, doors and all. When the coffee was cool enough to drink, he took a sip, his eyebrows barely registering his distaste for the papery-tasting mixture masquerading as a beverage.

He had drunk nearly half the cup when Joe pushed through the steel doors and came over, grinning. "I found someone."

Brent nearly dropped the remainder of his coffee in his excitement. "You're kidding! What happened? Is Elise still here?" He looked around as if she might have suddenly walked into the room.

"The doctor was busy and couldn't talk, but he told me to wait out here and as soon as he gets done with a food poisoning case, he'll come out and talk to us."

"Oh, man, that's great!" Brent slapped Joe on the back. "Good going."

"It was nothing," His gaze fell on Brent's paper cup. "What's that? Coffee?"

"That's what the machine says, but I beg to differ." Brent gestured toward the vending machine.

Joe searched for some change in his pocket. "It's got to be better than nothing."

"Don't bet on it. Brent swirled the rest of the coffee in his cup. "So what did the doctor say? Is she all right?"

Joe took his coffee out of the machine. "He didn't tell me much of anything," he admitted. "Except that he knew the woman I was describing. Said to wait and he'd come talk to me. That's all."

Brent crumpled his empty cup. "Did he give you any idea how long he'd be?"

"Nope."

Brent glanced at his watch. "It's nearly four a.m.," he observed. "It'd be nice to have this whole thing over with before the sun comes up."

Joe didn't say anything and sipped his coffee silently as several minutes passed. Finally Joe frowned. "I guess I ought to thank you for helping me look for Elise. I don't know if I could've gotten this far without you."

Brent leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and staring into the space between his feet. "We did it together."

"No, the computer, getting into the office, getting into the apartment... I couldn't have done all that on my own. I appreciate it."

Brent shook his head. "If it wasn't for me, maybe all this wouldn't have been necessary."

"I don't know." Joe drained the last of his coffee and set the cup on the floor. "Like you said earlier tonight, Elise gets funny ideas in her head, and there's no undoing them. She could've been planning it ever since we moved to Troy, for all I know. She was never very happy about it. She was probably looking to leave from the day we moved there."

"I doubt it. She didn't have to go with you, and I've got no business still thinking of her as a kid. But this kind of behavior sure is more like the old Elise than the one you married."

"Well, none of that really matters," Joe said. "Point is, I appreciate your help."

"I wish it hadn't been necessary."

"There's something I want to know, though. What's going to happen now?"

"What do you mean?"

"I was thinking I'd like her to come home with me once I convince her everything's okay between us."

Brent nodded. "That's what I had figured on."

"So where do you fit into this?"

Brent spent a moment tugging at his cuffs before he answered. "Nowhere. She's your wife. If she wants to go back to you, I'm not going to interfere. I want her to be happy."

"So you're not doing this to get her back for yourself?"

Brent shook his head. "I can't imagine her being happy with me. I could be happy with her, but she'd be miserable."

"What makes you think that?"

"Just I vibe I pick up on sometimes. I don’t think she really likes me all that much."

"Don't be stupid. It's pretty obvious she does."

"No," Brent said with a deep sigh, "I’m sure she's 'fond of me,' as Sylvia put it earlier tonight, but we aren't really compatible. I may feel what I feel for her, but I don't think we would live together well, if that makes any sense."

Joe considered.

"Besides," Brent continued, "Elise and I are worlds apart in a lot of ways. Sylvia is more her type than you may realize. They've both got this aversion to doing things the conventional way. When they're not trying to take a shortcut, they're squandering their brains and talents. I could never understand it, and I never will."

"I can see where you think that with Sylvia, but not Elise. She's done well for herself."

"Not as well as she could."

Joe thought about this for a moment. "You've got a point. Sometimes I think she's her own worst enemy. Just when things are going good, she finds a way to put a halt to it all, like when she stopped painting." Joe shifted in his seat. "The morning after her gallery showing, there she was throwing away her paints, brushes, everything. I tried to stop her, but she even ripped up her unused canvases and unfinished paintings."

"Did she say why she was doing it?"

"Nothing that made any sense. She just said it was a waste of time doing all that work so a bunch of phonies could drool over it."

"If Elise would only stick with something for awhile, play the game a little, she'd be famous. I've never seen anyone with so much talent and so little understanding of how to make the most of it."

"Me either. She's better than me, and it's like she doesn't even know it. Or just doesn't care."

"I tried to help her, you know. I could've marketed her, made her a household name. I never could make her listen, though."

Joe picked up his empty cup and gazed at it thoughtfully. "Elise wouldn't make a good career artist. Or a good career anything. It's like it doesn't mean anything to her if people make too much of a fuss over it." Joe twisted the empty cup into a tight S-shape and began picking at the ends, shredding them into damp confetti. "I understand a little, but I could never give up something I like just because someone I didn't respect thought it was good. Besides, I like the artist's life, not knowing where my next meal is coming from, but I think Elise needs something different."

Brent scoffed. "'Not knowing where your next meal is coming from?' Who are you trying to kid? Look at that house you live in. Look at how famous you are. Sometimes I think you're a bigger liar than I am."

Joe shrugged. "I do all right, but it's not steady money. I might have a good year, I might have a bad one. It's hard on Elise. I can't always give her the things she wants. And it's not like I have a good education that I can talk her kind of talk to make up for when the money is bad. We don't watch the same movies, we don't read the same books. That's why I sometimes wonder if you and her wouldn't be such a bad match. I'm not stupid, you know. You have the same kind of education and you make the kind of steady money that would make her feel secure. Maybe she'd be better off with a guy like you."

Brent turned in his seat and looked at Joe earnestly. "You may not always have a paycheck, but you're steady in other ways. You're the one she doesn't have to apologize to for being who she is. She told me once that I can't relate, but she always knows you can."

Joe threw what was left of his cup on the floor and mashed it with the toe of his boot. "Well she's sure got a funny way of showing it. If she really thought I understood her, I'd be in my bed right now, asleep."

"Maybe you've got a point."

"Hell, I know I've got a point. There's something really wrong with this picture, and I'm going to find out what it is."