September 4th

"Wow," Wilson said. His eyes widened, brows raised. "Wow."

"Well that's encouraging as far as it goes, but what do you really think?" Greg said.

They stood outside the clinic and looked at it from the front as it faced the road. The weather was beautiful, typical of days immediately after intense storms—sunny, cool and dry, with a nice breeze. Roz was glad to see there were no large tree limbs on the roof or standing water in the yard. The village had been spared most of the major flooding, but some homes had suffered extensive damage from fallen trees and water-filled basements.

"It's a great old place," Wilson said. "Labor intensive though, I'm thinking." He glanced at Roz. "I take it you've been working on things."

"Yeah," she said, and wondered once more how he and Greg had stayed friends. Maybe it was an illustration of the old saying about how opposites attract, but she thought there was more to it than that. There were layers to this friendship, some of them darker than others, and she wasn't sure either man was aware of them all. "I've done some work."

"More than some," Wilson said with a smile. The dappled sunshine through the leaves shifted over his face, picked out coppery highlights in his hair. "You've put in a lot of time here, I'm sure."

He's charming me, Roz thought. He does it without even thinking. It's just part of who he is. "Some," she repeated, and didn't look at Greg.

"Modest too," Wilson said, and there was a subtle caress in the statement. Roz could feel a blush start. She didn't want attention from this man, but she also wasn't sure about how to discourage it and not cause problems. So she took refuge in flight.

"I'm going inside to make sure there aren't any leaks. Maybe Greg will show you around while I'm doing that."

"Maybe," Greg said. Roz knew he'd looked from her to Wilson.

"Okay then," she said. She walked up the steps, avoided the uneven spot at the place where the sidewalk met the first riser—another job on the ever-expanding list of things to fix—and went inside.

It was a laborious process to get into the attic. It involved the navigation of rickety, temperamental pull-down stairs, a crawl on hands and knees to avoid the rafters, as well as the use of the jerry-rigged floodlight she'd put up at the beginning of the project. Roz was familiar with the process by now, though. She was glad she'd worn jeans as she moved around the perimeter and checked the wiring work she'd done. No water damage or leaks evident either; the roofers had done a good job. There was maybe another week's worth of finish-up jobs here, and then she could concentrate on the first floor.

For a moment Roz looked around and enjoyed a sense of accomplishment. She'd created order out of considerable chaos. It had been laborious, dirty, and physically draining to put things right. The temptation to cut corners had presented itself continually, but she'd kept her goal at the forefront of her mind, and the result was now on display. This work would stand, and stand well. With a firm hand she pushed down pride—this was simply the quality of work expected of a master electrician, after all—and clambered down to the first floor, to find an argument in progress.

"—happens to be your wife," Wilson said with some vehemence. He and Greg stood in the main room and faced each other. "You really think I'd do that, try to steal her from you?"

"I don't know what the hell you're gonna do. You just came out of the looney bin," Greg snapped. "But I recognize that tactic from the good old days, complimenting a woman just to get her to turn red and fall for all that boyish charm."

"You are so full of it!" Wilson ran a hand through his hair and looked distressed, but again Roz caught that flash of calculation under the emotion, and felt her temper begin to rise. "If you recall, you spent plenty of time in that looney bin yourself! Don't even make that some sort of species of reproach!"

"Excuse me," Roz said quietly.

"If the shoe fits," Greg said with a sneer in his voice. "You learned just enough to cover your tracks with even more sincerity than you did before."

"That's so not true! I'm—I'm doing my best—"

"Yeah you are, and you're doing it with my woman—"

"I'm not! I wouldn't—"

"Oh, don't even try that innocent injured bullshit with me—"

"Hey!" Roz yelled. Both men fell silent. Wilson rubbed the back of his neck; Greg shifted his weight from foot to foot and looked out the window. "I'm right here, you don't have to talk about me like I'm not in the room."

Greg turned his head to glare at her. His icy gaze raked her up and down. "You're filthy," he said in a tone of both disgust and condemnation.

It was as if he'd slapped her hard. Roz stood there for a moment, felt the breath leave her body before the hurt slammed into her full force. He blames me for this, she thought in disbelief, for what his friend, his so-called friend, is doing. And he doesn't give a shit about what I've done here. Her anger hit high simmer headed for a rolling boil.

"Yes, as a matter of fact I am," she said. "Thanks for pointing that out. If I'm such an embarrassment, guess I'd better leave. See you around." She turned on her heel and strode to the entrance, pushed her way past the screen door that always stuck when it was damp, and thundered down the steps.

It was a three mile walk home from the clinic. By the time she'd reached the house she beyond furious, anger, hurt pride and bewilderment mixed together. She couldn't bring herself to go inside and wait for Greg to come home, it was simply not possible. So she took her truck keys from the rack by the kitchen door, and headed off to Sarah and Gene's place. If Greg could go to Sarah for help, so could she.

Roz had just pulled into the Goldmans drive when her phone rang. She answered it without speaking.

"What the hell was that?" Greg demanded. "You go off in some snit because I said you were dirty?"

"That wasn't all of it," Roz said.

"Enlighten me." The cold sarcasm in the second slap didn't sting as much as the first one but hurt enough to push her fury up another couple of notches.

"Fuck you," she said, and ended the call. She turned off her phone, parked the truck, and as she'd done at her own home, went around to the back. On a day like today Sarah would likely be at work outside.

She wasn't disappointed. Sarah was in the garden. She picked both green and red tomatoes as she knelt on a thick pad of newspapers. At Roz's approach she sat up. Her smile of welcome faded. "What happened?" she asked.

Roz stopped. To her surprise she felt her throat tighten. She just stood there, unable to speak. Sarah got to her feet and stripped off her gloves, dropped them on the newspaper, and came forward to put her arm around Roz's shoulders. "Come on," she said. "Let's go in and you can tell me."

It took a while to get the whole stupid and sorry story out, but Roz managed it. Sarah was quiet throughout the telling, head down as she listened. "I presume he's called you," she said when the narrative was ended.

"Yes. I turned off my phone," Roz said. She felt caught between righteous wrath and guilt.

"He's probably afraid you've really left," Sarah said quietly. "Ignoring him won't help matters."

Roz put her phone on the counter and stared at it. "Why does he do that?"

"Get nasty, you mean?" Sarah got up and went to the fridge. She took out a ginger beer and a pitcher of iced tea, snagged a clean glass from the cupboard and filled it with the tea. "He tends to push people away before they hurt him first. In this case, from what you told me I think he's angry with James for flirting with you, which is a bit like being mad at the tide for coming in." She set the glass of tea in front of Roz, moved the cookie tin next to it and sat down. "He's also afraid you'll do exactly what you just did—walk away." She popped the top on her ginger beer and took a long swallow.

"So I should have stayed there," Roz said. No way, she thought. "I don't like Wilson—James," she amended, "messing with me. He's doing it on purpose, Sare."

"James is a skilled manipulator and he enjoys exercising his abilities," Sarah said. "I doubt very much that will ever change, no matter how much healing he manages to do. That doesn't mean you have to put up with it though. I wouldn't like it either."

"You think I should have stayed and called both him and Greg out on this?"

"Not necessarily," Sarah said. "Wilson and Greg were both out of line and I don't blame you for being angry. You've worked incredibly hard on upgrading and restoring the clinic, you should get acknowledgment for that."

"But it was a bad choice to leave," Roz said.

"It was what he expected." Sarah reached out and pushed the phone a little closer to her. "Turn it back on and answer him."

Roz sipped her tea. It was cold and slightly bitter, refreshing. She took a breath and checked her voicemail. One message from Greg waited. She opened it.

"Fine, throw a hissy fit over nothing. Guess I won't see you later. So much for 'I love you.'"

Roz closed her eyes. She could hear the anxiety behind the sharp edge and icy sardonic tone. She felt her heart swell with rage, as her need for justice warred with the necessity to deal with the situation before it got worse.

"He's pushing to see what you'll do," Sarah said. "Call him back and let him know where you are, that you want to talk, if that's the truth." She tilted her head a little. "Is it?" Roz didn't answer, unsure what to say. "Do you want to hang onto your mad or get this sorted out? You've got a good reason to be angry, but making yourself right won't resolve this."

"I'll . . . I'll call him back and let him know where I am," Roz said finally. "But I need to think about the other things for a while."

Sarah nodded. "That's honest, but he won't let you do that. There's going to be a fight, you might as well face it. You can crash here and have dinner with us after if you want."

"You—you think it'll take that long for him to get here?" Roz was surprised.

"No, I think it'll be more like five minutes. But you'll both need some downtime after you blow up at each other, so you might as well take a nap and eat a good meal before you go home for round four," Sarah said.

Roz sighed. Suddenly she felt incredibly weary. Fuck it, she thought. Let's get this over with. "You're probably right," she said aloud. "Okay, fine. Here goes." She hit speed-dial.

Greg picked up on the first ring. "So what pearls of divine wisdom are you scattering before me now, oh dust-encrusted one?"

"I'm at Sarah's," Roz said. "If you want to talk, come over."

"Why the hell should I bother?"

"Just because I'm pissed off beyond belief doesn't mean I stopped loving you, you damn dumbass," Roz said, more sharply than she'd intended. "Stop making this either-or. If you want to talk, I'm here." She hung up, opened the cookie tin and took out a couple of walnut-honey cookies. They were fragrant and buttery, a little sticky, and her secret favorite of all the recipes Sarah made.

"Nicely done," Sarah said, and smiled a little. "He'll be here with Wilson in tow before you know it."

We'll see, Roz thought, and licked her fingers as she polished off the first cookie.

She'd eaten a second cookie and nearly finished a third when Barbarella roared up the drive. Two car doors opened, slammed shut. Sarah got up and took her ginger beer. "Meet me in the living room," she said. Roz ate the last bite of cookie and stood as she dusted her hands.

Here we go, she thought, and followed Sarah.