Earnest (25 page)

C
HAPTER
51

J
eff had never been to Naomi Blackmore's house. As she hung his raincoat in her entry closet and he glanced down the hall to her living room, he couldn't say he'd ever want to come back.

He'd have expected a modicum of taste from a wealthy woman, and he had to hand it to her: She'd not painted her walls hot pink. But as he followed her into the living room, he cringed at the moose head over her fireplace, the deer antlers in her chandelier, the cheetah skin on her thick white carpet, and the grizzly's claws holding up the copper ashtray on her coffee table. Her trophies belonged in a hunting lodge, not coupled with floral chintz slipcovers and ruffled pillows.

It's a good thing she's never met Earnest, or his head might be up there with the moose.
Jeff noted that the moose looked like Mick Jagger.

Jeff was not squeamish, but he'd never seen the point of killing innocent wildlife for sport. When Mrs. Blackmore picked up her gold cigarette case from the mantel, it occurred to Jeff that maybe
she
belonged on the wall, and the moose should be lighting up a cigarette and blowing smoke around the room. If life were fair, the moose would be nibbling grass around the gazebo on her lawn, which rolled down to the beach. But life wasn't fair, as Jeff well knew. Animals and people got screwed every day, though he did believe that life usually met their needs.

“Are you the hunter?” he asked.

“You bet. Bagged them all over the world,” Mrs. Blackmore said. “Now we hunt from a helicopter. Makes it easier.”

“Indeed.”

“I'll show you my zebra when you leave. He's in the den.”

“Can't wait,” Jeff said through lying teeth. He'd do whatever it took to butter her up before he sprang his question on her, the purpose of his visit.

He spotted a gold lighter on her coffee table and got up from the sofa. “Here, let me do that for you.” Shamelessly gallant, he held the flame to her cigarette as she puffed—and he held his breath to stave off a coughing fit.

“How did you celebrate the city council's vote?” he asked.

“Dinner with friends at my club. They couldn't believe those ridiculous girls trying to stop my project. Who do they think they are?”

“They are ridiculous,” Jeff agreed, amiable as a favorite uncle. “I thought of a way you can get back at them.”

“Oh?” The downturned ends of Mrs. Blackmore's mouth turned up.

“I've heard they wanted to buy your house. You could sell it to them for a dollar and let them move it somewhere,” Jeff said.

“Why would I ever do something like that for those damned girls?”

“Because you'd saddle them with a house that's falling apart. They'd spend years trying to keep it together. Think of all their hard work!” Jeff forced a conspiratorial grin.

“Here's even better. Think of saving yourself the demolition cost! Eventually those women will have to admit the house is hopeless, and they'll have to pay to tear it down themselves. Add it all up. The price of moving the house, trying to renovate it, and finally demolishing it.” Jeff held up three fingers. “You'd be condemning those women to huge expenses and years of trouble.”

Mrs. Blackmore's face brightened. “You're brilliant, Jeff!”

“Have you ever seen
The Money Pit
? It's old, but you can get it on Netflix,” he said.

“Yes,
The Money Pit
! That's what those girls will have. How thrilling!” When Mrs. Blackmore clasped her hands together, her long platinum nails would have given the grizzly's claws a run for their money.

“So you like my idea?” Jeff asked.

“It's fantastic! Nothing like retribution.”

“Absolutely! Retribution!” Jeff agreed.
And
she
is the recipient!

He told himself to tone down his relish. If she realized how sly a fox he was being, she'd shoot him and hang him up with the moose.

C
HAPTER
52

T
he afternoon sun shone down like it was smiling light, and in the apple tree, birds belted out songs. Squirrels, nimble as Mikhail Baryshnikov, leapt across the roof of Grammy's house. A breeze whispered from the harbor and cooled Jeff and Anna's foreheads as they dug in the new garden—and as Earnest lay beside them in his library lion position.

In the last weeks, he'd witnessed major changes. Movers had jacked up the house, set it on a trailer, and driven it down Rainier to a new address. Volunteers had cleared the lot and carved out paths and flowerbeds. Inside the house, Anna, Joy, and Lauren had been cleaning and organizing their new shops. And everyone had been happy, especially Earnest's two most special people, for whom he'd clearly rejoiced to see living together again in the condo.

Now as he sunned himself, the intense expression on his face suggested that he was busy thinking. Perhaps he was pondering his life before the recent changes, sorting through memories, and deciding which to discard or keep. He might have tossed out smoke inhalation, Mad Dog Horowitz, Tiffany the tumor princess, the drafting table leg, the damnable pickup truck that hit him, and that satanic plastic cone. But Earnest would definitely save in his heart forever steak, blackberries, Parmesan cheese, people crackers, and Granny Smith apples. He'd keep power naps, peewee soccer games, the Christmas boat parade, the library's reading program, his wizard hat on gotcha days, and his vile but beloved ball.

As a highly sensitive and intelligent dog, Earnest could separate wheat from chaff, and he would treasure what pleased him. Especially Anna and Jeff. He would never forget Anna's lipstick hearts on his forehead and Jeff's tireless tugs on Monty, Earnest's once-stuffed rabbit.

Anna and Jeff lugged the last flagstone that had been piled in the yard and set it in its proper place at the bottom of the front porch steps. Laying their new path from the street to the house had been like fitting together pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and the stones now depended on each other for a harmonious effect. If one were removed, the empty spot would jar the whole—just as taking Anna, Jeff, or Earnest from the family they'd become again would ruin it for all of them. When they rarely mentioned their months apart, they called it their “winter break” and changed the subject.

Now Anna and Jeff would finish the path by filling dirt between the stones and planting creeping mint—and then customers could find their way to the front door without slogging through mud. April Pringle had persuaded the Gamble Island Rhododendron Society to plant free rhodies, camellias, and azaleas in beds around the house, and Mr. Webster had donated a small madrona tree to replace the heritage one that had been lost. Once Anna and Jeff had time to seed the lawn and put in Grammy's plants that Anna had saved, the new yard, though smaller than the one they'd left, would be as beautiful.

Jeff stood up, offered Anna his hand, and pulled her to her feet. He put his arm around her shoulders and led her down the path to Lauren's poetry post and the picket fence, which they'd moved here with the house. When they turned around to look at it, Anna couldn't help but smile. The fight to save it had receded to a wisp of memory. The house standing on the lot Jeff found had erased the conflict.

The house looked dignified and proud, a dowager who'd seen plenty in her time, including a recent war between two perfectly good people, and a move from the property she'd graced for one-hundred-and-thirty-five years. She'd survived it all, and now she'd finally found an excellent resting place. Though a little of her paint was peeling and a few of her steps were uneven, she commanded respect.

Her gingerbread was intact, and her front porch offered respite from a busy world. Her old wavy-glass windows reminded that world of an earlier age. Anna had planted lobelia, nasturtiums, and geraniums in the window boxes so the house boasted color, like jewels. The lion's puzzled face embossed on her front doorknob suggested that the world was a perplexing place, but the bear's-tongue doorbell reminded everyone to laugh.

“The house looks good, don't you think?” Jeff asked.

“She got through the move like a trooper,” Anna said.

“I like our flagstones better than the concrete sidewalk that went to her before. It fits her better,” Jeff said.

Anna could tell from his use of “her” that he got it. Grammy's house was not an “it”—she was a “she.” Though made of wood and glass and bricks, she was like a living thing with a body and soul. For many more years, she would offer shelter as Grammy had. Grammy would live on in her, and from her turret windows, she'd wink at the world.

 

From the street, Anna could see through an upstairs window into Lauren's hair styling studio and used bookstore, which in a couple of weeks would reopen, along with Plant Parenthood and Joy's Gift Shop. Lauren was rolling buttery yellow paint on a wall, and Joy was brushing antique white onto the interior trim. Soon nobody would suspect there had ever been a fire.

Jeff had shocked Anna, Lauren, and Joy with news of Mrs. Scroogemore's offer to sell them the house for a dollar. He'd insisted on meeting her to pay it himself so Joy wouldn't have a chance to strangle her, and he'd told the three women that they each owed him thirty-three-and-a-third cents. His co-coach and attorney, Alan Biggs, had drawn up the papers for the sale pro bono, and Anna, Lauren, and Joy had pitched in their savings to buy the lot.

After Jeff arranged for the house mover, Joy quit comparing him to the Twit, and in
Wild Savage Love
she named a helpful British sailor “Geoffrey” after Jeff. Anna said that getting the house went way beyond too-good-to-be-true. It traveled to the realm of beyond-your-wildest-dreams.

What also went beyond Anna's wildest dreams was the love that had been poured into the house the last few weeks. Besides April Pringle, Mr. Webster, and Alan Biggs's help, others in the community had offered support. On work Saturdays, like today, Peggy LeClerc brought over complimentary sandwiches for lunch from the Chat 'n' Chew, and one afternoon Ted Carcionni stopped by with a new shiny red fire extinguisher. David Connolly, the Elder Hunk, arranged for a ten percent discount on renovation supplies at Chuck's Hardware, and that had lowered the materials' cost when Jeff had rewired the house. Dr. Nilsen presented Earnest with a doghouse won in an auction raffle, and he and Jeff set it on a brick foundation by the back door.

On moving day, Lloyd McGregor had stationed himself and his bagpipes in front of the lot, and, as the house arrived, had played “Amazing Grace.” The move really was an amazing grace, Mayor Maksimov pointed out to Anna. “Gamble was divided about this house, but now everybody's happy. The people hell-bent on progress will have Cedar Place, and you and your friends saved history. No one will forget the past.”

Now Anna embraced the past, present, and future. She'd decided that they were equally important because they were all part of the eternal flow of time. The good and bad of the past had formed her, and in the present she experienced the now. The future—well, Anna intended to swoop toward it like the butterfly had swooped across the lawn to greet her destiny. As the past, present, and future flowed into each other and blended together, Anna would hope for the best and expect even more.

 

At the end of their new stone path, Jeff took Anna into his arms and kissed her. In their past was happiness and misery, about like everybody else on earth, and in their present was a real, as opposed to a floral, smooch. In their future would be a wedding and children, to whom they'd resolved to be conscientious parents. And, of course, in their past, present,
and
future was Earnest.

He could not sit by and watch the two people he loved most in a clinch like that without expressing his opinion, which, like many dogs, had to do with joy. He rose to his paws, and, on his healing leg, he barely limped around Anna and Jeff, like he was drawing a magic circle that they could never step out of again. In that circle was the present moment, which Earnest seemed to know—as well as Grammy ever had—was a gift everyone was meant to enjoy. And in his circle, with that gift of the present moment, lived love.

I could never have written
Earnest
without the kindness and support of special people, to whom I owe sincere thanks.

First, my agent, Cullen Stanley, and my editor, Michaela Hamilton, stood behind me from conception to completion. Their presence made all the difference in my work. Steven Zacharius, my publisher, buoyed my spirit each time we met. Kristine Mills Noble again designed a beautiful cover. With grace, Karen Auerbach oversaw promotion, and Paula Reedy, production. Vida Engstrand's and Alexandra Nicolajsen's hard work and dedication were huge gifts.

When I needed expertise, generous people answered my calls for help. Kirkham Johns escorted me through the world of mediation. Jane Allan shared her knowledge of city planning. Fritz Jorg answered my questions about insurance, Luke Carpenter explained fighting fires, and Bill McClain was my soccer consultant. Janice Hill and Rachel Strohlmeyer, DVM, opened their big hearts and talked with me about Earnest's vet care. And Diane O'Connell contributed editorial wisdom that strengthened the story.

Almost everyone I consulted was a dog lover, but most especially my neighbors, Paul and Peggy Zuckerman, who talked with me about Maggie, their yellow Lab. Much of her now resides in Earnest, such as his lust for blackberries and his propensity to sprawl on his back in his flasher position. Paul's devotion to Maggie is everywhere in the book.

Other friends were there for me in one wonderful way or another: Jimmy Wolf, Debby Harrison, Linda Anthony, Wendy Hubbert, Marielle Snyder, Patty Johns, Natalia Ilyin, Kathy Renner, Gisele Fitch, Suzanne Kerr, Julie Valentine, Alexandra Kovatz, Darryl Beckman, Clell Bryant, and David Sackeroff. I can't imagine writing—or living—without them.

Finally, I am blessed with family who shored me up while I wrote
Earnest
. My niece and dear friend, Lonnie Matheron, was my personal poet laureate and the contributor to Lauren's poetry post. Bridget, my loyal German shepherd, kept me company in my office and provided constant support. And, most of all, John, my beloved husband, kept me going through months of work. I always say that I could never write a word without him, and that's the truth.