Big Girls Don’t Cry (Dundee, Idaho #6)(62)
Author: Brenda Novak

Her eyebrows knit as though she wasn’t finding their agreement any easier to abide by than he was. “He left me a message last night.”

“Did you return it?”

“No.”

“Good girl.”

“He’s not quite as bad as you think. And he lives a thousand miles away. What difference could it possibly make if—”

“Liz?”

Reenie’s voice. An invisible current swept through Isaac as he turned and found her standing right beside him, along with her three daughters.

Liz quickly masked her surprise. “Yes?” she said warily.

“I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed Mica’s performance. She’s very talented,” she said.

Liz blinked several times before managing to find her voice. “Thank you. I—Your girls did a great job, too.”

Reenie smiled triumphantly. Isaac knew she was proud of her children, but he could also tell that the triumph in her smile had very little to do with the talent show. “Good night.”

“Good night,” Liz repeated, then, when they were out of earshot, she turned questioningly to Isaac. “Evidently she likes you, too,” she murmured.

Isaac watched Reenie walk out. “She didn’t do that for me,” he said.

REENIE SAT in front of her computer. The kids were in bed, happily exhausted after the talent show. They had school in the morning, and she had to teach. But it was Thursday night, so the weekend was drawing close. She could handle one more short night. It was the cold shoulder she was getting from Isaac that really bothered her.

Why hadn’t he written her back? Or called? She knew he found her attractive. He’d stared at her so much tonight he’d probably missed half the show.

Her buddy list showed him as being online, so she clicked on Read Mail. Nothing.

Old Bailey lay in the corner by the couch. Apparently, he didn’t even feel good enough to come over and snuggle with her anymore. She was going to have to face reality one of these days….

The lift she’d felt earlier when she’d spoken to Liz and praised Mica slowly disappeared. Bailey was dying. She needed to talk to someone. She thought of her parents and Gabe. Lucky. Beth. Any one of them would be supportive. But she wanted Isaac.

With a sigh, she typed him an instant message. Where are you?

There was a long pause. Either he’d walked away from his computer, or he was thinking about rejecting her offer to chat. Finally she got a response.

Right here.

Bailey’s not doing so well.

Is it that time?

I think it might be. I need you…She stared at the words on her screen. She meant them just the way they stood, but she knew she couldn’t send Isaac something that revealing. So she added a bit more. I need you to tell me some more about Africa.

You think that’ll help?

I like hearing about it.

There was another long pause, then, Have I mentioned the Pygmy tribes?

No.

Well, there are quite a few different ones—the Bambuti, the Batwa, the Bayaka, the Bagyeli.

They all start with b?

Ba means people.

I see.

Pygmies live in some of the most inhospitable forests of Eastern Congo.

What are they like?

Textbooks will tell you they’re hunter/gatherers, that they have dark skin and stand about fifty-nine inches high.

What would you tell me?

They’re a struggling people who are fighting hard to protect their culture and their homes. They’re playful, spiritual. They like to sing.

What’s their music like?

Vocal and rich…sort of like harmonic yodeling with a hypnotic rhythm.

Again, she felt his love of Africa and his work. Do you miss the Pygmy tribes when you’re in the States?

Sometimes.

It’s hard to imagine they’re really so small.

Anthropologists have automatically assumed that they’re the most primitive members of the human race. But…

The ellipses meant he was e-mailing more. She waited.

I’m not sure, he went on. Races of true Pygmy size in prehistory are unknown to archeologists. Where they come from is a bit of a mystery.

She shot another glance at Bailey, wishing Isaac would come over. Tell me about how they live, she typed.

Pygmy women look after the tribe’s general welfare. They search for food in the forest. They gather a lot of vegetables and a mixture of yam, fruit, mushrooms and tubers that they call manioc. In some seasons they collect termites, caterpillars and snails.

To eat?

Yum, huh?:)

That helps take my mind off my own troubles.

LOL Are you okay?

I don’t want Bailey to die.

I know. I’m sorry.

She felt a lump rising in her throat and didn’t know how to respond.

What you did tonight…complimenting Mica to Liz…that was nice, he wrote.

She smiled through her tears. I have my better moments.

Has Keith been bothering you about last Friday?

Here and there. Tonight he accused me of staring at you.

You were staring at me.:)

Only because I want your body.:)

You love to flirt with danger.

I’ve always played it pretty safe in the past. Are you dangerous?

In ways. Did you know that the food the Pygmy women gather is shared equally by the community?

LOL—We’re back to Pygmies?

And that Pygmies practice alloparenting? he asked.

No. What’s alloparenting?

Group parenting, more or less.

The whole tribe raises the young? Something like that?

Pretty much.

You were staring at me, too, Isaac, she wrote.

No kidding. I couldn’t take my eyes off you.

Reenie felt quite a bit warmer when she read that. So why hadn’t he responded to her e-mail? You know my number….

Nothing.

Never mind, she wrote.

I’m leaving town at some point, Reenie. There’s nowhere for us to go.

I know. It’s getting late, she said. I have to get to bed.

But we haven’t talked about the role of Pygmy men.

Maybe some other time. Night.

Reenie…he wrote, but she signed off and went over to hug her dog.

“You have lousy timing, you know that, Bailey?” she said.

He licked her face, and she decided that, as much as it hurt to do it, she’d take him to the vet after school. It was time to put her beloved dog out of his misery.

ISAAC SIGHED as he stared at the screen. He’d known that answering Reenie’s instant message would be going against his agreement with Liz. But her dog was dying.

“Hear anything from Reg?” Liz asked, surprising him at the door.