Free The Confidence Woman by Judith Van Gieson Page B

known John’s deceased wife, but they rarely talked about either of them.
    She left the center early. Traffic was lighter than usual crossing town, and she got to Page One, Too sooner than she expected. She walked through the store, said hello to the people she knew behind the counter and went to the door to John’s office. As always, it was a mess. Price guides, papers and books were scattered everywhere. John sat in front of a blank computer screen wearing jeans and a rumpled shirt. She hadn’t expected him to be deep in conversation with an attractive woman with auburn hair. Could they be talking about books? Claire wondered. Somehow she didn’t think so. She glanced at the clock on the wall, noticed that she was ten minutes early and slipped out of the doorway. Then she didn’t know where to go. If she returned to the store, the staff would wonder why she was wandering around by herself. There was a small room between John’s inner office and the store where his most valuable books were kept. She checked the shelves to see if there were any Melvilles. There weren’t. The most valuable books here were all about the Southwest. She couldn’t hear John’s conversation, yet she felt as if she were eavesdropping. Not knowing what to do next, she was thinking about leaving when the woman came to the door, flashed a toothy smile and walked out through the store. Claire entered John’s office and found him standing up and smiling, too.
    â€œClaire,” he said. “I haven’t seen you for a while. How have you been?”
    â€œFine,” Claire replied. “And you?”
    â€œGood. Where would you like to go for dinner?”
    Claire had eaten enough dinners with John to know that his taste in food ran to barbecue, chicken- fried steak and mashed potatoes. He had been raised in Texas. You could take the man out of Texas, but you couldn’t take Texas out of the man. Every time Claire had tried to introduce him to new foods he just picked at them. The one place they had been able to compromise was on Italian food. The prickly part of her wanted to choose a restaurant that she knew he wouldn’t like, but she repressed it and suggested Emilios.
    â€œSounds good,” John said.
    They walked out to the parking lot and got into their respective vehicles. Emilios was a short drive down Montgomery, long enough for Claire to remind herself that when John had tried to be romantic she had rebuffed him, but not long enough for her to come to the conclusion that he had only been selling books to the woman in his office.
    He ordered spaghetti with meat sauce. Claire ordered the most unusual entrée she could find on the menu, spaghetti with clam sauce.
    â€œWhat have you been up to?” John asked, leaning forward and resting his arms on the table.
    â€œEvan’s mother died. I went to Arizona for the funeral.”
    â€œThat must have been uncomfortable.”
    â€œVery.”
    â€œEvan’s a fool, but I am sorry to hear that his mother died. No matter what kind of dumb mistakes you make in life, your mother’s the one who’ll understand and forgive you.”
    It wasn’t the relationship Claire had with her own mother, but she let that slide. “Did I ever tell you that I had a signed first edition of Melville’s The Confidence-Man?”
    John shook his head. “I would have remembered if you had. A signed first edition is worth at least eight thousand dollars.”
    â€œTen thousand,” said Claire. “My copy was stolen from my house by a former classmate at the U of A. She replaced it with the Oxford World’s Classics edition. I didn’t notice the substitution until the police told me it had been stolen. There’s always a possibility that my first edition will turn up at Page One, Too.”
    â€œIt’s possible, but it’s not likely. The people I would try are Tom Butterworth, Simon Collins and Brett