“You need to return what you stole,” he said.
She could have just explained it to him: The thing was not a Kittery. The thing was a Dot Bennett original. He had defrauded her for nothing. In fact, she might have saved him from trying to sell a fake to someone else. But telling him this did not, in the moment, seem at all like the thing to do.
“Do you think I’m scared of you?” she said. “You left ‘lorem ipsum whoopsy dingdong’ at the bottom of your forged document. Somehow, I’m guessing you are not a master criminal as much as you are a small-time creep who turned to theft because he ran out of ideas for apps people could use to buy pet rocks on the internet.”
“Well, good luck selling that duck once I report it stolen,” he said.
“You’re not going to report it stolen,” she said, “because then we would have to talk to the police about all the other stuff you’ve pinched while you were running your bereavement ransacking business.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Laurie stepped toward him. She raised her eyebrows. And then she said, “I know about Betty Donnelly’s tiger clock. I suspect there’s more where that came from.”
Laurie would remember a lot about that summer for the rest of her life, but the look of the blood draining from Matt’s face was something she wished she could photograph, paint, etch, or just sculpt out of Rice Krispies Treats and eat for breakfast every day for a year.
“Who the hell have you been talking to?” he demanded, just like a man who was used to assuming that voice would work on people.
She cringed. “Ooh, that’s not a very innocent response, I’m afraid. That would be something more like ‘What tiger clock? I have no idea what tiger clock you could possibly be talking about.’？” She walked over to the door and swung it open. “Get the fuck out. And if it’s not already obvious, you’re very, very fired.”
“We have a contract.”
“Try to enforce it and see what happens,” she said.
He tried for one more menacing stare, then turned away and started to leave. When he was almost to the door, she jutted her chin toward his back. “Hey.”
He turned around. “What?”
“Did you really read my piece about the Texas blue lizard?”
He smirked. “I’m not much of a reader.”
“Yeah. It shows. By the way, I’m sorry I never found those darn Andrew Wyeth letters. I know you were really excited.” She pushed the front door so that it closed with a loud bang, and then peeked through the window to watch as he kept on going, down the steps and to his car parked in her driveway.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Laurie had called June on the day she got into her second-choice college, and on the day she didn’t get into her first-choice college. June called her when she got engaged, and even though she and Charlie waited to tell everyone else they were pregnant both times, June called Laurie as soon as she saw the plus signs on the home tests. Laurie called June right before she broke up with Chris, and right after. June called Laurie on the day her mother was diagnosed with cancer and on the day she was declared cancer-free. Laurie called June when she closed on her house, and June called Laurie when she and Charlie had just had their first appointment with a couples counselor.
So while her parents called on her fortieth birthday, and her brothers all texted by the end of the day, and her Seattle friends FaceTimed her with party hats on, it felt right that June’s was the first voice she heard, while she was still pouring herself coffee. “I knew you would be awake,” June said, “because I know this is the time of day when you look at Twitter and do half of the Times crossword.”
“You were right. Although sometimes, I do more than half.”
“Well, happy birthday, anyway. Do you feel different?”
Laurie stood by the sink in Dot’s kitchen and looked out into the yard, where a robin was hopping around picking something out of the grass. “You know, I don’t think I do feel different. Should I feel different?”
“I don’t know why you would. I’m just congratulating you on being an absolutely amazing forty-year-old, much like yesterday you were an absolutely amazing thirty-nine-year-old. And I love you, and I’m so happy that you’ve been here this summer.”
“Thank you, Junie.” Laurie walked into the living room, where the duck was sitting on the coffee table. “I love you too, and I promise, I’m not going to stay away so long next time.”