Hollyhock Ridge (13 page)

“I’m looking for someone to set up and manage a real spa in
the basement of the Inn,” she said. “I thought you might be interested in the
position.”

“No, but thank you for considering me,” Claire said, as
politely as she could.

“You’d rather do this, then,” Gwyneth stated, with a curled
lip.

“I’m doing this as a favor to my cousin,” Clair said. “I’ve
applied for a position at Eldridge, so I’m waiting to hear from them.”

“As a secretary?”

Her incredulity was insulting, as was her obviously low
opinion of secretaries.

“In the drama department,” Claire said. “Teaching theater
students how to do hair and makeup.”

“Oh,” Gwyneth said. “I guess that makes sense.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Claire said.

“I could pay you more,” Gwyneth said.

“I appreciate the offer,” Claire said, “but I’m committed to
Eldridge.”

“I need someone immediately,” Gwyneth said. “I’ve got a
writer’s group coming in September for a retreat and I told them I had a spa.
That temporary tent thing in the basement is not going to cut it with these
people. They’re expecting walls.”

Last month Claire had designed and erected a temporary spa
space in the Inn’s basement for a weekend seminar Gwyneth was hosting. With
only twenty-four hours of advance notice, Claire had created what she thought
looked like an ethereal angel camp, using white sheets and mood lighting to
create private individual massage spaces. It was fine for a weekend, but wasn’t
meant to be used long term. A scandal had interrupted the seminar, and as if it
had somehow been her fault, Gwyneth had never paid Claire for the work.

“I’m sorry,” Claire said. “I’ve committed to do this until
Sean comes back and then I’ll start at the college. I don’t have time to do it
for you.”

“You could work in the evenings.”

“I’m sorry, Gwyneth, but I can’t do it,” Claire said. “I
hope you can find someone.”

“I don’t see why you couldn’t work on it in the evenings and
on weekends,” Gwyneth said. “I could pay you quite a bit.”

“I’m turning you down, Gwyneth,” Claire said. “I know that’s
not what you want to hear but it’s not about money. I just flat out don’t want
to do it.”

“I can’t believe you people,” Gwyneth said, before she left
in a huff. “You can’t even pay people to work in this town.”

Claire bit her lip and resisted the urge to follow her out in
order to tell her exactly what she thought of rich brats who return to Rose
Hill and expect everyone to bow down and lick their loafers.

‘You people,’ Claire thought. ‘What nerve. I wouldn’t work
for that woman if I were flat broke and she had the last job in town.’

Claire then had another thought. What if Gwyneth sabotaged
her job prospects at Eldridge? She was on the board of trustees, after all.
Claire called the human resources department and left another message, asking
them to call her. She wanted some reassurance that this position was actually going
to happen.

Claire had quite a bit of money saved and invested, both
from the sale of her California condo and the large sum she had earned while
working for Sloan Merryweather. If she was careful about spending, she could
live on the interest, probably for the rest of her life. That is, if she quit
ordering expensive shoes that she would probably never wear; that wasn’t going
to be easy. Just thinking about not shopping made her want to shop, made her
feel deprived and pitiful. There was no harm in looking around for a while, she
thought, as she opened the browser on the computer. She didn’t have to buy
anything. Besides, she might have missed a new mark-down while she was at lunch.

When Kay returned to work, her thoughts were still churning
over Matt’s visit. She stopped long enough to exchange pleasantries with the
security guard downstairs, the maintenance man leaning on his mop, the woman
working at the utility board office, and the three people standing in line to
pay their water bills. Upstairs, she popped in to the city treasurer’s office,
which was across the hall from hers, to let Lucille know she was back from
lunch, and they enthused about the great weather.

She had left the door to her office open while she was out,
and when she reached her desk, she found something curious on top of it. It was
made from a long metal bolt with a wing nut screwed on at the top and a fat nut
at the bottom. To that wing nut, someone had welded on two more wings. The
wings had been dabbed with white paint and the flat top of the screw with
yellow. The bolt itself was painted green and the nut was painted a terra cotta
color.

It was a miniature daisy in a tiny flower pot.

Kay felt her face grow warm, and a flush of something like
happiness spread throughout her. She had no doubt who had made the thing and
placed it on the middle of her desk.

What a dear man.

‘But what am I going to do about it?’ she asked herself.

Matt was not going to be happy if she and Sonny got
together, and the town gossip machine could run for months on the fuel that
situation would provide. It could, in fact, have a negative effect on her
campaign. How could she let Matt down gently, encourage Sonny, albeit slowly,
and maintain peaceful relations with the whole Delvecchio family?

And who was to say Sonny had serious intentions? He hadn’t
actually professed his undying love to her, and how could he, so early in their
so recently developed close friendship? It could all go completely south, she
could end up with neither man, and be humiliated in front of the entire town.

Kay felt hungry. She had just eaten a big lunch, but the
urge to consume food was powerful. She knew there would be donuts on the coffee
cart in the hallway, left there for staff and visitors. Without questioning her
motives, Kay picked up her tea mug and walked briskly down the hallway to the
small kitchen at the end. As she passed the coffee cart she noted muffins on a
plate, but no donuts. On the kitchen counter sat the Fitzpatrick’s Bakery box,
but it held only muffins, not donuts. She was craving a donut. A chocolate
glazed ring, in particular. The muffins looked fine and were probably good, but
they weren’t what she wanted.

Back in her office with her tea, she called Fitzpatrick’s
Bakery.

Melissa answered.

“Good afternoon,” Kay said. “I notice we have muffins today.
Did someone change our standing order?”

“Bonnie’s at the beach and I’m afraid of the deep fat
fryer,” Melissa answered. “I got burnt once and I ain’t doing it again. Are the
muffins bad?”

“I’m sure they’re fine,” Kay said. “Not to worry; I was just
curious.”

After she hung up, Kay looked at the stack of invoices on
her desk that needed to be approved and passed on to the city treasurer. She
also needed to review the minutes from the last City Council meeting in order
to prepare an agenda for the next one. A light was blinking on her phone,
notifying her of waiting voicemail messages. Her daily to-do list was
paper-clipped to her desk blotter, with only half of the items crossed off.

She considered the flower Sonny had made for her, and then
put it in her desk drawer.

She thought about donuts.

Donuts and cold milk.

On impulse, she picked up her handbag and walked across the
hall.

“I have to drive to Pendleton,” she said with an exaggerated
sigh.

“The courthouse will be a nightmare at this time of day,”
Lucille said. “You probably won’t get back by closing time.”

“Maybe I’ll get lucky,” Kay said. “See you in a bit.”

She said good-bye to everyone downstairs, relating loudly
that she had to go to the Pendleton courthouse, and then she walked up the hill
to her house. She was out of breath by the time she reached her car, and had to
lean on it for a minute to rest.

‘I’m the last person who needs to eat a donut,’ she thought.

Once she was in her car, she caught a glimpse of herself in
the rear view mirror.

“I don’t care,” she said. “I want them.”

Twenty minutes later she was alone in her car in the parking
lot outside the Pendleton Megamart, with six chocolate iced glazed donuts and a
pint of cold whole milk. It was heavenly. By the time she returned to her
office she felt full, overfull, actually, and sleepy, but most importantly, she
wasn’t afraid or worried. She felt sated, comforted, and relaxed. Very relaxed.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a pleasant haze, her thoughts insulated
from anxiety by the sugary comforter wrapped around her nerves.

By four o’clock she had a headache, felt sick at her
stomach, and had begun the next emotional stage of coming down from a fatty
sugar high, which was reproach and disgust. This was followed by worrying Sonny
would show up at her house in the evening, or that Matt would, or that they
both would.

She called her friend Dottie at the library and arranged
dinner out and a movie in Morgantown with her and Georgia. She would enjoy
their company, but more importantly, she could avoid having to anticipate
anything awkward happening, or having to deal with uncomfortable feelings.

Plus there’d be candy at the theater, and her friends didn’t
judge or scold.

Claire was walking down Rose Hill Avenue when she saw the
most peculiar thing: Knox Rodefeffer, dressed in his daily uniform of navy
blazer and khaki pants, was standing on the grassy verge between Fitzpatrick’s
Service Station and the Dairy Chef, picking up and throwing rocks at a large
black sedan with darkly tinted windows and a Maryland license plate, that was
idling at the curb.

People on the street had stopped and were staring. Across
the street, her cousin Patrick was watching from the front stoop of the Rose
and Thorn, and customers in the Dairy Chef were watching through the window.

“Leave me alone!” Knox screamed, as he threw a small rock
that bounced off the car’s exterior. “Stop following me!”

As he picked up another rock, the front wheels of the car
turned, and the car rolled up over the curb toward him. Knox screamed, turned,
and ran away, between the Dairy Chef and the service station, to the alley
behind it. Claire was amazed to see how fast the tall, ungainly man could move.

The car backed out onto the road, rolled forward, and took a
right at the corner of Peony Street and Rose Hill Avenue. The driver didn’t
seem to be in a hurry, and the slowness of the car’s pursuit of Knox was
somehow more sinister than if the tires had screeched and they had sped away.
It was as if the driver knew Knox couldn’t sustain his run all the way up the
hill to his house, so there was no hurry.

Claire looked at Patrick, who was shaking his head as he
went back inside the bar. Even though she disliked Knox with a fervor usually
reserved for hairy-legged spiders and cat-calling construction workers, she was
concerned for him.

And she was curious.

Her shoes precluded running, so she slipped them off and put
them in her handbag. She started off at a trot, but when she got to the corner
of Peony Street, she saw the car turn right onto Morning Glory Avenue at the
top of the hill, where Knox lived, and started to run.

She decided to cut up through the alley behind Sunflower
Street, where she thought she’d see Knox ahead of her. He was, however, nowhere
in sight. Surely he couldn’t have made it home already. She watched as the
sedan cruised by the end of the alley up on Morning Glory Avenue.

She slowed to a fast walk in order to look for where Knox
must be hiding, somewhere along the alley. She found him behind some bushes
near Lilac Avenue.

“What’s going on, Knox?” she asked him.

“Do you see a black car anywhere nearby?” he asked her.

He was trembling so hard the branches of the bush were
trembling. His face was pale and he was sweating profusely.

“They’re cruising down Morning Glory Avenue, looking for
you,” she said. “Do you owe somebody money, or something?”

Knox stood up and brushed himself off, trying to look
important and indignant, which was hard to do with leaves in your hair, or what
passed for hair in his toupee.

“What, are you spying on me?” Knox said. “Hoping to get some
dirt to tell your federal agent friends?”

“You’re welcome,” Claire said. “I was concerned for your
safety, but now, not so much.”

Just then, the sedan turned onto Lilac Avenue and rolled
toward them. Before Claire knew what was happening, Knox had shoved her out
into the street in front of the car and took off up the alley on the other
side.                                                                                                                                                                                     
                    

Luckily for Claire, the car was rolling so slowly that it
was able to stop before it hit her. Claire removed her hands from the front of
the hood and stepped out of its way, but not before she’d got a good look at
the man in dark glasses behind the wheel. As the car sped away, Claire cursed
Knox loud and long, using as many course adjectives as she could think of to
modify the words “son of a bitch.”

In the midst of her rant, she heard someone nearby clear her
throat, and turned to find Sister Mary Margrethe standing in a flower bed in
front of Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Sister M-squared, as she was called,
shook her head and waggled her garden-gloved finger at Claire.

“Sorry,” Claire said, feeling her face heat up with mortification,
mostly because it was not the first time she had been caught swearing by this
particular nun.

When Claire arrived home at six o’clock, Laurie’s truck was
parked in front of her house. In the living room, Laurie had the front cover
off of the old upright piano, and was tuning it. Her father was sitting in his
recliner, with her Boston terrier, Mackie Pea, and the black kitten she’d been
calling “Junior” curled up on his lap.