The Listener Page 4

  Elizabeth was fascinated with this unsuspected side of Rainbow. “You’ve slept with Andrew Marrero?”

  “He’s not my usual type, but it was interesting. I used to put him on and spin him.” Rainbow’s eyes half-closed in satisfied remembrance.

  Elizabeth blurted, “I thought you were …” She stopped herself barely in time.

  Rainbow’s eyes snapped open. “Gay?”

  So … not barely in time.

  “Hey, when you’re bi, you double your chance for a date on Saturday night.” Rainbow chortled, patted Elizabeth’s arm, and headed toward the lunch counter.

  Elizabeth sank her teeth into the burger while she watched Rainbow charm three sunburned tourists who chattered with great excitement about their day at the beach.

  Rainbow had apparently been the evening waitress here at the Oceanview when Elizabeth was a child. Twenty-three years later she was still the evening waitress, a fate Elizabeth considered worse than death. Of course, she couldn’t even remember whether she’d ordered a root beer or a fufu berry soda, so that was part of it, but being around people all day filled her with horror.

  She liked rocks.

  She didn’t like people. In her experience, most of them were spiteful, or thoughtless, or cruelly curious, and always, always impatient with her lack of interest in them.

  But Rainbow interested her, because Rainbow seemed to be an entirely different species of human. For one thing, Rainbow was tall, with big bones, broad shoulders, and a head full of salt-and-pepper gray hair. She was hearty, cheerful, and she seemed honestly fascinated by her customers, tourist or local, always chatting, asking questions, giving unwanted advice.

  At first Elizabeth hadn’t known what to do with her; every time Rainbow came to the table she would tell Elizabeth stuff. Stuff Elizabeth didn’t want to hear because it distracted her from her work.

  But Rainbow never needed an invitation to talk. The first time Elizabeth came in for dinner, Rainbow told her, “A lot of people think my name is unfortunate for a woman my age. You know—I was born in sixty-eight in Haight-Ashbury, after the Summer of Love.” She paused and seemed to be waiting for something.

  Elizabeth belatedly picked up her cue. “Your parents were hippies?”

  “Hippies? God, yes. The original hash-smoking, psychedelic-music-playing, free-love-practicing hippies.” Rainbow shook her head like a disapproving mom. “Still are, for that matter. After I was born, they decided the city wasn’t a good place to raise a baby, so they went into the Sierra Nevadas and learned weaving from a Native American woman who’d learned techniques from her great-grandmother. They’re pretty good at it. You’ve probably heard of them.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “They’ve got one of the temporary exhibits in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. My parents are Alder and Elf Breezewing.”

  Elizabeth’s head was spinning. “Which one is Alder and which is Elf?”

  “He’s Alder and she’s Elf, of course. It’s the Breezewing exhibit!” Elizabeth blinked.

  Rainbow put her broad hands on her broad hips. “You really don’t know a damned thing about anything except rocks, do you?”

  “That is not true. I also understand alluvial deposits and am studying the recently mapped ocean floor off the coast of Virtue Falls for an understanding of why tsunamis are so massive in this area.” Elizabeth thought it an intelligent answer.

  Rainbow stared at her as if she was speaking a foreign language. “Right. You’re like your father. I’ll get your dinner. I had the cook put an extra order of fries on the plate.”

  Elizabeth wanted to ask what she meant about her father. Had Rainbow known him when they lived here?

  But Elizabeth had learned, the hard way, never to talk about Charles, so instead she asked, “I asked for mashed potatoes. Didn’t I?”

  “They’re coming, too. You need fattening up.”

  Elizabeth knew for a fact she didn’t need fattening up. She was curvy. Very curvy. For a girl growing up in California, land of the svelte, being built like her was a disadvantage, not to mention it was hard to find clothes. If pants fit her hips, they were loose around her waist, and she hadn’t worn a button-up shirt since she was eleven and developed a C-cup. Her aunt said she was built like her mom. Her uncle said she was built like an exotic dancer. But he didn’t realize she’d heard him, so she would acquit him of malice. Her uncle wasn’t mean; he was overworked and didn’t have time for his own kids, much less a niece who never talked often even after she recovered her power of speech.

  Elizabeth realized she had a bit of a disconnect from the rest of the world caused by the knowledge that humanity could turn on her in an instant. She recognized the fact she sabotaged her own relationships, and sometimes she really tried to join in with the general populace and talk about the weather. She just never got it right. Not even with Garik.

  Especially not with Garik.

  Best not to think of Garik.

  She bent her head to her reports again, and didn’t notice when one of the town’s elderly inhabitants held court in the corner, pointed her out to the tourists, and regaled them with the tale of how Elizabeth Banner had seen her father kill her mother with a pair of scissors.

  About the Author

  CHRISTINA DODD’s fifty novels have been translated into twenty-five languages, featured by Doubleday Book Club, recorded on Books on Tape for the Blind, have won Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart and RITA Awards, and have been called the year’s best by Library Journal. Dodd herself has been a clue in the Los Angeles Times crossword puzzle. With more than fifteen million of her books in print, her legions of fans always know that when they pick up a Christina Dodd book, they’ve found, “an absolute thrill ride of a book!”

  Enter Christina’s worlds and join her FREE mailing list for news, exclusive excerpts, and book sales at her website www.christinadodd.com.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE LISTENER. Copyright 2014 by Christina Dodd. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.stmartins.com

  Cover design by Ervin Serrano

  Cover photographs: sky by BMJ/Shutterstock.com; woman and dock by Alexander Chaikin/Shutterstock.com

  eISBN 978-1-46686-269-2

  First Edition: July 2014

  eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.