Free Wait for Me by Mary Kay McComas Page A

should shake hands, deciding it might be best to delay any physical contact.
    “Come in and sit for a minute,” she said. “I want to change clothes.”
    Why? he wondered. She’d be soaked to the bone in five minutes.
    Her apartment seemed to have shrunk since his last visit. He could spit from one end to the other. It was wallpapered, had freshly painted trim, and was neat and cheery, but it gave “efficiency apartment” new meaning. She could cook breakfast, brush her teeth, and make the bed in three easy steps. And why hadn’t he noticed before that there was no bedroom, he speculated, pondering the couch, trusting it would fold out into a bed. A one-room apartment with a kitchen and bath. Oakland wasn’t any different than any other town. There were places to live, and then there were places to live... but this wasn’t one of them.
    Holly, on the other hand, didn’t think of it as all that terrible a place. She knew most everyone in her building and was on saluting terms with several of the merchants and a few of the people across the street. She liked to call it a neighborhood with potential—for both harmony and discord.
    “I’m glad you came early,” she called from the bathroom. He rolled his eyes. She’d noticed. “I’ve been dying to ask if you really asked Clare Hilendorfer if her costume the other night was a bun in the oven?”
    He grimaced.
    “Well, she was standing there with those cooking mitt things on both hands and she did look pregnant. I didn’t see the little handle she was holding until it was too late.”
    “And by then she really was too hot to handle, huh?” she asked, stepping back into the room, grinning.
    “She was... upset. I apologized, but the damage was done.”
    “She almost laughed about it yesterday.”
    “You went to St. Augustine’s yesterday? I thought you had to work yesterday.”
    “I did go to work. The hospital’s on my way home, so I stop in to visit a lot. Thursdays I’m there all day. Are you ready to go?”
    The weather in Oakland was remarkably different from that of San Francisco in the summertime. Warmer, drier, no fog. In winter the differences were less noticeable—they were both a little cooler and wetter.
    Holly had put on a bulky knit sweater and blue jeans that reminded Oliver of the wallpaper in her apartment—old, clean, and stuck tight to the walls. She had one of those rear ends that were almost impossible not to reach out and smack.
    “Ow,” she cried, startled, rubbing her tush as she turned to him. “What was that for?”
    “It was a vote of understanding for Barry Paulson,” he said, looking straight ahead into the rain as he passed her on the sidewalk.
    “Who’s Barry Paulson?”
    “A man with two shirts and no self-control,” he answered cryptically, hoping that poor Barry was giving up everything he owned for a fanny as nice as Holly’s. He stepped to the curb to open the door of his car. “I have absolutely no respect for him.”
    She was frowning at him in confusion, then noticed the open door.
    “Oh, no. We’ll ruin your upholstery with our wet clothes. There’s a BART station two blocks down, and it’ll take us right to the park.”
    He looked up and down the street in both directions and saw plenty of other cars. But in their midst his late-model Lincoln looked like a shiny invitation to grand theft auto. Why hadn’t he brought his driver?
    “Okay,” he said with misgivings. He snatched a brown paper bag from the front seat. He locked the doors and set the alarm.
    Strange... When she sidled up to him, slipping her hand into his, he didn’t once look back at his car.
    “Isn’t this great?” she asked, tipping her face to the downpour. It was running down his raincoat in streamlets. His hair was plastered to his head, his face was wet, and he had to keep blinking to see. It was pretty great all right. But only because the raindrops sparkled in her eyelashes and lingered dewy-fresh on her skin, calling him