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“Well then, all the more reason for you to be getting out of here and getting on with your day. Go on, be off with you.”
Jules did as she was told, kissing his papery cheek goodbye and getting as far as the door before she remembered that she was supposed to tell him that Cass would be coming down later in the afternoon.
But when she turned back he was already out of the sliding door, standing in the pale sun and chatting with two other men, laughing, smoke curling up from his cigar.
“For fuck’s sake,” she muttered to herself.
“Language,” said Lilian who just happened to be walking by.
“Sorry,” Jules said. “It’s just that he’s smoking again.” She nodded to Jim on the distinctly non-smoking patio.
Lilian laughed. “Oh, I shouldn’t worry about that, dear.”
Jules frowned. “Um, why not?”
“Well, he owns half the place now, they can’t throw him out, can they?”
Jules stopped in her tracks. “Wait, what?”
Lilian shook her head slightly. “I should have known he wouldn’t have told you. Remember I thought he was up to something? Well, that’s what it was.”
He had been up to something. With all the fuss over Billie it had escaped her mind. All Jim’s little meetings with his cronies, all the sneakiness. And now this. “He owns half the place?” she said faintly.
“Not just him,” Lilian said. “He put together a group of inmates and together they invested and brought half the place to give themselves a voice on the board. Clever, isn’t it?”
“Don’t call them inmates,” Jules said out of habit.
“We call ourselves inmates, it’s an inside joke,” said Lilian. “And it was a smart move. We’re still people in here, we should have a say in our care, and that’s what Jim has done. Of course, the first thing he pushed through was to make the patio a smoking place, but he’s improved the quality of food as well, got new suppliers in.”
“He has?” Jules said, still faint.
“He’s a smart man, your grandfather. He might be a bit rough and ready on the outside, but he knows what’s what,” Lilian said. “You should respect that about him.”
Jules looked at him standing out there smoking and started to smile. Yes, he was smart. She supposed he’d tell her about his stake in the home at some point. But in the meantime, he was smart about other things too.
She needed to sit down and talk things out with Billie. There was no point sitting around and sulking like a teenager. She assumed that Billie had assumed that Jules had gone to the club because of Alea. Well, she sort of had, but only not to let down a friend.
She should have been more conscious about how that looked.
She would apologize. But first, like Jim had said, she’d give Billie a chance to cool down a little.
Chapter Thirty Three
Billie stood in the doorway of the little outer office and when Hope noticed her, she smiled. “Want to see the boss?”
“Actually, I was hoping to talk to you,” Billie said.
“Then you’re just in time. And in luck, since the headmaster’s made a run for it this morning and is at a conference,” Hope said with a grin. “What can I do for you?”
Billie cleared her throat. This shouldn’t be difficult. She’d already taken other steps. She had two auditions in the next three weeks for two local orchestras, and she was meeting with a chamber group that were looking for a new second violin at the weekend. She was getting herself together, moving on, building a life.
This stuff was important. If she was going to live here then she needed to become part of the community, she needed to be herself so that maybe, hopefully, Jules would be able to see a life with her.
“I thought that perhaps you could add me to the website?” she said now.
“You’re already on there,” Hope said, confused.
“Yeah, as a piano teacher, but I thought maybe you could add that I teach violin too, if someone’s interested.”
