Free The Things We Do for Love by Margot Early Page B

confused with a “lawn.” No one was there. No Bridget’s car.
    Just Paul and his friend Cameron unloading firewood from David’s truck, efficiently stacking it on the porch. Cameron was with them because, after they left the firewood, they were going to the Salvation Army to pick up some furniture and children’s toys she’d found there for the safe house. Her presence was necessary, if they were to deliver everything.
    No, “we” was just Clare, who had emerged from the cabin with an ominous sense of purpose, demanding that David bring back her phone books.
    “They’re gone,” he told her, glad to join Paul and Cameron on the firewood job; glad he had a ready answer. “Took them to be recycled.”
    “The recycling doesn’t leave the transfer station until Wednesday morning. This is Tuesday, and they’re open till six. I called, and they still have them. We need them back.”
    “No,” David replied. He wouldn’t ask why. If heopened the door a crack, she’d swing it wide and he’d be driving all over Logan County with a truck bed full of phone books. Again.
    “Who is ‘we’?” Paul asked. Paul hadn’t had to move any boxes of phone books.
    “For the schools. For the Crane-a-thon.”
    David did not ask. He said, “Then the schools can go get them.”
    “Muriel Aubrey, the peace artist, started it. Two cities in each of the fifty states are going to fold ten thousand paper cranes. Muriel is going to use them to construct a large paper crane to be a gift to the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a pledge against nuclear violence. The schoolkids who fold the cranes will also collect pledges from people for the number of cranes they fold and that way they’ll raise money for cancer research.”
    “Sounds worthwhile,” Paul remarked.
    “So we need the phone books,” Clare repeated. “For the paper.”
    David paused with his hand on a piece of firewood. His son paused, too, and their eyes met. David knew they were thinking the same thing.
    David said, “Okay. Have to drop off my own recycling anyhow. Seeing that it didn’t fit in the truck on my last trip.”
    Clare seemed startled. Taken aback. She’d been prepared for an argument. Instead, she said, “Thank you.” Brusquely addressing Cameron, she said, “I spoke with your friend. She didn’t mention the potion.”
    “What friend?” Paul asked Cameron.
    Cameron said, “Never mind.” Graham had drunk the love potion, which probably wouldn’t do anything, but Graham already liked Mary Anne and Cameron didn’tknow why she herself felt so attracted to a man she barely knew. Probably because I don’t know him and can therefore believe he has a blemish-free personality. Like one of the heroes in Nanna’s books. But Cameron couldn’t help asking Clare, “Where did you see her?”
    “Here.”
    Beside Cameron, Paul lifted his eyebrows slightly. “Mary Anne?” he said in disbelief.
    “Just forget it,” snapped Cameron. “We weren’t serious .”
    “So who was it for?” Paul grinned, showing his pronounced canine teeth, which always reminded Cameron of Wolfie.
    “I said, forget it. ”
     
    B ECAUSE HE WAS ALREADY downtown, Graham stopped at the WLGN studio to pick up a recording of his most recent show for his personal library. When Graham walked through the door, Jonathan Hale was at his desk, frowning at his computer monitor. He nodded at Graham. “Ready to go on with Mary Anne, Saturday?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “Good, I’ll have everyone start telling our listeners. What shall we say? Dr. Graham Corbett and Mary Anne Drew on Dating Dilemmas?”
    “Sounds fine.”
    “You want a specific focus for each week?”
    “Yes, definitely. I’ll have to finalize them with Mary Anne, but let’s start with…” He thought suddenly of Mary Anne’s annoying infatuation with Hale himself.
    “Unrequited Love.”
    “Or, Can’t Get a Date?” Jonathan said.
    “Different problem. Come on,” Graham said. “Surely, you’ve suffered