Blue Moon Bay (24 page)

“You know, I'm seriously not one of those girls who hung out at the rodeo and learned to scoot a boot at the street dance.” I kept my seat, but I was only teasing now, really. I knew I would be going over the edge soon enough. There was a private dance floor waiting, after all. The idea was heady, thrilling, exciting in a way I wasn't prepared to defend against. Nothing like this had ever happened to me. I'd wanted it to, but it hadn't.

“That was my mistake,” he murmured, and I was hopelessly lost. I stood up, moved toward him, took his hand when he stretched it out. The boat shifted underfoot as I stepped onto the seat, then tried to decide whether to step on the railing or go straight for the rock. Below, I saw a narrow, black slice of water reflecting the glow of the boat's running lights. A chill slid under my coat, a pinprick of fear coming with it. The boat was drifting farther from the rocks now, the watery crevice widening.

I thought of Ruth's story, of the girl in the blue floral dress—bold, certain, unafraid.

I wanted to be the girl in the blue dress.

One jump from the boat suspended me in space, Blaine's hand pulling me in, guiding me until I landed safely on the rocks. Momentum carried me forward, so that I was pressed against his chest, my free hand clutching his coat. I wondered if he could feel my pulse pounding through the tips of my fingers as his face dipped near mine. I looked up and knew he was planning to kiss me. “I thought we were dancing,” I said, but the words were an invitation.

“We are,” he whispered close to my lips, his arm sliding around my waist, his fingers, cool from the trip across the cove, trailing over the wind-reddened skin of my cheek. “Dancing.” The words were barely a hint of sound. His lips found mine, and I felt the dance begin.

By the time the chill of the night forced us to return home, I knew two things. The waltz and the Texas two-step weren't as far beyond my reach as I'd thought, and I'd never gotten over my high-school crush on Blaine Underhill.

I came home feeling buoyant and giddy. Unfortunately, right after Blaine delivered me to the cottage door, I discovered that I had locked myself out during my earlier rush to change footwear.

“Here, let me try,” he said, as if somehow locked doors would open for him when they would not open for me.

“It's really locked,” I assured him, but he tried it anyway, then bent down and gave the knob a good look, trying to peer through the old keyhole.

“It's locked,” he concluded.

I shook my head, chuckling despite the fact that I was stuck out in the cold. “I can get a key from the main house.” Both of us looked up the hill. The windows were dark, everyone obviously in bed.

“I'll drive you up,” he offered.

“We came in a boat.”

“Good point. I'll walk with you.” Considering it was after midnight, Blaine was amazingly upbeat. He didn't sound the least bit cold or tired.

“No, it's okay, really.” The last thing I wanted was to create a bunch of commotion that would wake everyone so they could take note of what time I'd arrived home and whether I had a telltale flush on my cheeks. I was fairly sure I did, but I was better off keeping that to myself. The evening had already traveled far, far beyond anything I'd planned.

Blaine stood in front of me, blocking the steps, his head tipping to one side, dark curls bunching in his collar. “My grandma raised me better than that. What kind of gentleman would let a lady go tromping around in the dark by herself?”

The kind I usually date.
“I don't know. What kind?”

He walked backward down the steps, his lips spreading into a grin as he gave a quick, sideways jerk of his head, motioning toward the big house.

I felt myself wavering. Was there any way this guy could possibly be for real? I mean, it had to be an act, right? Anybody that perfect would be married to a former beauty queen and the father of two-and-a-half kids by now.

“Not this kind, darlin',” he said, his voice throaty, the words hanging in the air in a puff of vapor.

I melted into a little ball of goo right there on the porch.
I give up. I'm putty in your hands,
I thought as I followed him onto the lawn. We walked up the hill toward the house without talking, our feet making trails in the white-tipped grass amid the moon shadows of the winter-bare trees. At the top of the hill, the house towered imposingly, the tall, wood-paned windows unevenly reflecting the glow from outdoor gaslights, creating the haunting appearance of movement.

Blaine tucked his hands into his coat pockets. “Man, I can see why this place was a double-dog dare at night.”

Was it my imagination, or was he slowing up a little? “You're not scared, are you?”

He scoffed indignantly, “Uh, no . . . Do I look scared?”

I pretended to check him out as we passed by one of the yard lights. “Well . . . yeah, kind of.”

“I just didn't want
you
to be scared.” Climbing the steps to the veranda with me, he studied the house.

A chill slid under my collar as I moved carefully across the slick, frost-covered decking. “I used to live here, remember? Anyway, they can smell fear, you know? The ghosts. It wakes them up.”

“Thanks a lot.” He stood to one side and waited while I reached for the utility room door, which I quickly determined to be locked. “Uh-oh.” It was a fairly certain thing that, if this door was locked, all of the doors were locked. Back when the funeral home was in operation, Uncle Herbert had always been somewhat meticulous about that, as combinations of money, personal effects, and treasured loved ones could be stored in the house at any time. Old habits died hard, I supposed.

I turned around and started back across the veranda. “We'll have to go in through the cellar door.” For those who knew the way around Harmony House, the ground-level doors that led to the basement were easy to jimmy.

“The place with all the old coffins in it?” Blaine wanted to know. “That basement?” His cowboy boots slid on the decking, and he did a fairly agile ice-skating maneuver before grabbing the railing.

“I thought you weren't scared.” Despite my show of bravado, a shiver ran over me, making the shadows on the side of the house and the vapor puffing from our mouths seem unusually eerie. I had never liked Harmony Shores at night, but if the alternative was to wake everyone up and have a date discussion—which we would, because Uncle Herbert, having been in the funeral business, was hospitable at any hour of the day or night—I'd take my chances on the basement. I was glad, however, that I didn't have to do it by myself.

“I'm
not
scared,” Blaine assured. “I was just worried about you.”

“Hey, I did the two-step next to an icy lake. It's all downhill from there.” The comment won a chuckle just before we reached the cellar door. I leaned over to grab the handle, and the bite of the frosty metal caused me to jerk my fingers back, pulling them into my sleeve.

“Here.” Blaine took a pair of leather gloves from his coat pocket, put them on, and lifted the door.

“I don't suppose you have a flashlight in that pocket, too?” I asked, peering down the steps. The blackness in there was so thick that the cellar seemed bottomless, only small, faint circles of light coming from the wavy glass windows at ground level. I knew exactly where the light switch was—on the other side of the room.

“Actually, yeah.” He produced the boat keys with a little pinch light on the end of the chain. The faint glow was just enough to allow him to proceed into the basement. Apparently, he wasn't the kind of gentleman who would let a lady descend into a dark, scary subterranean lair first, either. I didn't argue with him about it. I just grabbed a fistful of his jacket and followed along.

The penlight died when we were halfway across the room, blowing out like a candle and leaving us huddled together in the darkness like Shaggy and Scooby-Doo. “Well, that's not good,” Blaine muttered. I felt his coat stretch as he reached ahead, trying to feel his way along. He collided with something, and I collided with him, knocking him forward.

“I think that's a coffin,” he observed, jerking back.

“I don't even want to know.” I was happy enough to take his word for it as he clumsily circumvented the obstacle, and I followed. In the dim light from the windows, shadows shifted at chest level, painting strange shapes and swirls, leaving the territory below murky and impossibly black.

A chill brushed my cheek and slipped over my skin, causing me to do a full-body shudder. A moaning whisper circled the floor joists overhead. I clutched Blaine's coat in two tight fists.

His foot hit something else, sending an unknown bit of cellar flotsam skittering across the floor to a corner, where it collided with a hollow metal object. I heard what sounded like a note of music, and then the faint melody of a woman's singing drifted overhead.

“Do you hear that?” I whispered, thinking of the girl who was rumored to have killed herself in the house, and of all the generations of people who had lived and died there.

“I hear it,” Blaine answered in a hush.

I do not believe in ghosts. I do not believe in ghosts. I do not . . .

The singing grew louder, seemed to be coming from everywhere, all around us.

Blaine tripped over something again. It collapsed and clattered to the floor. I squealed, trying to decide whether to stay put or make a run for the door.

Footsteps echoed through the basement. They were coming closer. A door creaked slowly open. I caught a breath.

Light flooded into the room, and a voice hollered, “Hey, down there!”

When I looked up, Uncle Charley was at the top of the interior stairs. “What're ya'll doin' sneaking 'round the cellar way? C'mon up. We got
The Sound of Music
on late-night TV!”

For with thee is the fountain of life;

in thy light shall we see light.

—Psalm 36:9
(left by Ron, still climbing highline poles to keep the power on)

M
ary and Emily were helping their mother to prepare
verenike
and cream gravy when I arrived for my next visit with Ruth. I'd found another of her drawings, not in an art pad this time but just on a piece of paper that had been torn out. I'd discovered it in an antique serving buffet in the vestibule, where prayer cards and pictures of the deceased were traditionally displayed. Ruth's drawing had been tucked into the drawer haphazardly among leftover funeral programs dating from at least three different decades.

The day was blustery and gray when I arrived at the dairy, so Ruth and I sat in the main room of the house next to a crackling fire, Ruth in a simply-made rocking chair that looked well-worn, and me on an aging gold velvet sofa that had probably been rescued from someone's discards. The sofa wasn't in bad shape—just out of style. One thing about Ruth's family, they could squeeze a dime until you could see through it. As a rule, they didn't believe in waste. Fashion not being of high concern either, they found other people's junk to be perfectly useful. During my high-school year at Moses Lake, I'd learned to be careful of hitching a ride with Ruth when she went out on an errand in one of Uncle Herbert's vehicles. More than once, we had ended up on the side of the road, digging through the castoffs in curbside trash piles. During these unplanned detours, we not only rescued things Ruth wanted, but anything and everything she thought she could give to other people. We cleaned up the treasures—soaped them and polished them—and she presented them to neighbors and friends, either Mennonite or non-Mennonite, depending on the item. Ruth was not above rescuing clothing or toys, and after a washing and mending, she pronounced them good-as-good (not good-as-new, which would have indicated that new stuff was in some way inherently superior to things that were nicely preloved).

Clay adored playing the treasure-dig game with Ruth. It was entirely possible that was why his fashion train still stopped at Goodwill. I, on the other hand, was horrified by the idea of germs, and dead skin cells, and other people's hairs, as well as the possibility of being seen on the side of the highway, should someone from school drive by. I was already weird enough.

I laughed now, stroking the sofa, thinking that some of the best things in life are the ones you're dragged into kicking and screaming. Those treasure hunts with Ruth were good times. She'd probably be pleased to know that much of the décor in my apartment centered on found items from thrift shops and eBay. There were no harvest gold sofas, but I had discovered an egg pod chair and an Oscar Tusquets vintage table that gave the place a serious Jetsons-era look.

Ruth's eyes twinkled as I set her sketch on the sofa beside me, face down. “I found another one,” I said, smiling because I knew she would be pleased. “Sort of stumbled upon it, actually. But anyway, here it is.” I lifted the paper to hand it to her, but she motioned for me to leave it where it was, upside down on the sofa cushion.

Lacing her fingers in her lap, she indicated no hurry to look at the drawing. Ruth's patience had always been surprising and difficult for me to relate to. “They are probably hidden all over the house. Your uncle was terrible about rescuing them from the trash and hiding them where I wouldn't come across them and throw them away again.”

Curiosity nibbled. “Why not keep them? Your drawings are beautiful. It seems like a waste not to frame them.” I thought of all the times I'd watched her sitting on the porch with her pad at the end of the day, when she was waiting for her carpool friends to pick her up. The older Mennonites of Gnadenfeld, while not opposed to car ownership like the Amish, still seldom drove anywhere by themselves. To do so would have been less than frugal, and a lack of frugality implied ingratitude for the resources God provided. In a de facto sense, they were green before green was in vogue.

My aunt Esther had a hard-and-fast rule about our bothering Ruth, or any of the help, after working hours were over. We were strictly not allowed, but I often watched Ruth from a distance while she sketched. I never knew her creations were destined for the trash. She must have thrown them away in the funeral parlor, where I never went unless I had to when I was working for Uncle Herbert.

“They weren't for framing. Not for anyone else to see.” Ruth's fingers twitched against her floral print skirt.

“But why not?” It occurred to me that Ruth, who in her spare time sold home-canned and baked goods, could have more easily sold her drawings to produce income. “It's okay if you don't want to answer.”

“It would have been vainglorious, I think.” She shrugged slightly, as if shedding the compliment, but I suspected that the vaingloriousness of artwork was something she didn't quite believe in. “Besides, I would not have wanted to look at them again. Not all of them, anyway.”

I thought about the story of the girl in the floral dress, and Ruth's behavior made sense. Her drawings were like diary entries—some painful, some beautiful. “I understand.” I did, really. There were boxes in Uncle Herbert's cellar, according to my mother. Boxes that had been packed away since we left the little stone house at the family farm and moved into the gardener's cottage at Harmony Shores. Neither Mom nor I had brought up the issue of the boxes since the phone call that hastened me back to Moses Lake. I hadn't gone looking for them, and I didn't have a desire to. I would come and go from Moses Lake without seeing them, unless I was forced to sort through them with my mother. I knew exactly what was in those boxes. I'd watched Aunt Esther and her church ladies pack them. They were filled with videotapes, photo albums, the framed pictures that had always hung in the halls of my childhood. Images of life as it once was—soccer practices, Halloween parties, picnics by the ocean, my dad and I in line for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disney World.

I understood why Ruth threw away her drawings. Some things are too painful to revisit.

“What is that one?” She wagged a finger toward the drawing.

“Children playing, and a horse,” I said, but I didn't turn it over. “We don't have to talk about them if you don't want to. There was a story you were going to tell me. Something more about my family, maybe? You said you wanted to tell me about my grandfather. We never got to it last time, because we were talking about the girl in the blue dress.”

I wasn't sorry to have learned about the girl in the blue dress yesterday, but I did want to hear about my family. Even though Ruth was already assuming that I would be back tomorrow, there was no telling how many more times I would be able to visit before I had to leave Moses Lake—work, family, or the Proxica deal could change my circumstances at any time. I'd checked my email on my way to Ruth's, and even though Mel had grudgingly allowed me to take a few personal days, he was not happy about it. He wanted me to know I was
on notice
and would be called back immediately if anything critical came up.

Right then, sitting by the fire with Ruth, the office seemed a million miles away. I'd never had much interest in family history or stories about the pioneering days in Moses Lake. When my grandmother and grandfather brought up those things during our occasional visits, the information had seemed fairly unimportant. I suppose I'd always felt that there would be time to reconnect if I ever wanted to—maybe someday after I'd found Mr. Right and the two of us had created a couple of surprisingly perfect and multi-talented offspring. Now, with the prospect of selling off the old family places, I felt the need to carry at least a little bit of that history with me. Who could say if I'd ever see the uncs again after they moved to the retirement community in Oklahoma? Their lives would be filled with Donny and the grands and great-grands.

Ruth motioned to the paper, her gaze drifting toward the fire. “Look at it and tell me what you see.”

I turned the sheet over and did as she asked, even though I didn't need to. I'd studied the sketch previously. It was a collage of sorts—several children playing in the grass and a teenage girl standing on the back of a farm horse, balancing with her arms out, her legs clad in long, black stockings. Her bonnet had slid back, so that tendrils of hair whisked around her face, swirling like the horse's mane. She'd tucked her chin slightly and rolled her gaze upward in a way that seemed coy and confident. Her lips held a precocious smile, as if she knew she was doing something she shouldn't, something dangerous, but she didn't care. Her eyes were green, the only bit of color on the image, except for the wildflowers beneath the horse's feet.

I described her to Ruth, but I couldn't put into words the expression on her face.

Ruth gave a small, private smile, as if she were imagining it anyway. “That is my sister.” Taking in a long breath, she seemed to drink in the scent of the picture, the lingering of graphite and pastel, the fragrance of the wildflowers, bright and alive in a world that was otherwise gray. “She was not afraid of anything, Lydia. Not then. That was before.”

“Before what?”

“Oh . . . before . . .” Ruth drifted off momentarily, then turned her head to the sound of the front door opening. A boy, perhaps seventeen or eighteen wearing jeans and a blue chambray shirt, stepped in and dusted his boots on the rug.

“Is that John?” Ruth called without turning around.

“No, it's Hosephat. Gee Hosephat,” the boy said, smiling slightly at his joke but remaining reserved. Ruth's family had never known what to make of mine. The Mennonites worked any number of places around the area, but the more conservative they were in their views, the more they tended to socialize amongst themselves. Close connections like the one Ruth had with my uncles weren't all that common.

Ruth shook her head at the boy. “Lunch is almost ready, Mr. Gee Hosephat. I know that must be why you came.”

The teenager cast a hungry look down the hall. “I thought I smelled something.” He crossed the room to greet both of us before proceeding on to the kitchen.

After he was gone, Ruth shook her head. “John is a grand nephew, Mary and Emily's cousin. One of my sister's grandsons.”

“The sister in the picture?” I asked.

“No.” Taking a long breath, Ruth let her lashes drift downward until she was gazing into the fire, her eyes unfocused. “John's grandmother went to be with the Lord last year. I miss her. Every day of our lives, we cooked together, did our ironing and mending together, and prayed together. I couldn't have children, you know, but Naomi had seven, so there were plenty to share. Naomi was a good, quiet woman. Obedient to the Lord. Plain in her appearance, as I am plain.” Pointing toward the paper, she shook her head. “But this one, Lydia, she was not the same. We were eight, in all; our mother, father, three brothers and three sisters. Most of us were plain and pale, quiet in nature, but Lydia came into the world with her dark hair and her confident ways. She was second in line, behind John, but you would have thought Lydia was the eldest. Then there was Matthew, then Naomi, and I was younger, and finally the baby.”

Pausing, she cradled her arms, as if she were holding the baby now. “He was such a fine, fat little one. My grandfather had built a beautiful home in the Ukraine on the land allotted to the family years before. So many of the Mennonites had beautiful farms in the villages between the Black and Caspian seas, but after the revolution, the land and what it could produce belonged to the Communists. They were suspicious of Mennonite people and their low German and Plautdietsch speech. I remember men and boys being sent to work camps, the
gulags
, and never coming home. Of course, you prayed that it wouldn't happen to your family, but they took away my eldest brother, and then Matthew. . . . He was only a child. Just a bit over ten years old. My father sat at the table with his back straight against the chair. He did nothing to stop them. Lydia was angry about it. She was about thirteen, then, I think, but older than that in her mind. She had seen things. I was young, but I had seen things, too. Always we were afraid that Stalin's secret police would come to the village and put us on a train. Always we were hungry, but if you were caught stealing food or trying to hide what you had produced, terrible things could happen.”

Shivering, Ruth pulled her knitted shawl closer around her shoulders. I stood up, took a log from the woodbox, and added it to the fire, then returned to the sofa and waited for Ruth to begin again. Lydia, the girl with long waves of dark hair, the one who was different from everyone else, was coming to life in my mind.

I waited for Ruth to tell more of her story. Finally, she pressed a hand to her lips, laughing privately. “But there was joy, too. Children will always find joy, somehow. Lydia wanted to run away and join the circus before the war. We went sometimes to the Russian villages to beg for food, and once there was a circus. Lydia peeked under the tent. She told us of it in whispers, when she knew my father couldn't hear. She told us she would have those glittering costumes with the crystal beads and the gold threads sewn into them, and she would ride a white horse. I could not imagine such a thing. To entertain the idea, even!”