If Ever I Fall (Rhode Island Romance #1) (3 page)

“Thank you, but I’m
not hungry.” Willa stood up from the table. “I’d like to see the apartment. Would
you mind showing it to me now?”

“No problem. You
might as well bring your overnight things with you. I’m guessing that you’ll
want to stay there. When spring comes, I’ll help you get this house opened up
and aired out.”

Bundled up in her
coat once more, on the verge of exiting the house, Collette turned to Willa and
said, “You don’t remember me, do you. But I remember you. You were a funny kid.
When all the other kids in the neighborhood were playing outside, you’d be
sitting on the front porch, lost in your books.” Her mouth quirked in a
reflective smile. “Your aunt had a hammock strung between the two silver maple
trees in the backyard. I could see you from my kitchen window. You’d just lie
there sometimes, so still you were like a statue, just looking up into those
trees. It was almost like you were counting all the leaves on the branches or
something.”

“I was.”

“No kidding!”
Collette laughed, looking a little awestruck. “I think that hammock’s still
around. You’ll have to dig it out this summer.”

Willa felt her
features relax, a vision of lounging on the hammock beneath the shade of those
beautiful maple trees capturing her thoughts. “I will definitely do that,” she
said, hearing the wistfulness in her own voice.

Collette cocked her
head to one side. “You know, Willa. I was kind of surprised that you decided to
move here without seeing the place first. And in the wintertime, too. You chose
the worst time of year. But I guess if you’re looking to escape from something,
or to discover something about yourself, this is just as good a place as any.”
Leaning forward, she gave Willa a quick, impulsive hug. “Welcome to the
neighborhood.”

When
Willa returned from her walk, she noticed two familiar cars parked in
Collette’s driveway. Mercy and Shirley were visiting. She paused at the bottom
of the outside staircase that led to the apartment above the garage, distracted
by a fluttering of movement visible through Collette’s living room window.

There was Collette,
banging on the window, waving her arms in a frantic motion, urging Willa to
come over.

Willa’s heart
skipped a beat, panic chasing her steps as she rushed towards Collette’s house.
Had something bad happened? It was hard to tell from Collette’s expression; the
woman looked like she was having some kind of fit the way she was jumping up
and down and flinging her arms about. Behind her, Willa saw Mercy and Shirley
in an equal state of commotion.

“What’s going on?”
Willa asked in a gasping voice as she flung open the front door. “Is everything
okay?”

Collette, Mercy and
Shirley turned to face her. All of them spoke at the same time. Between the
laughter, the hollering, and the happy dances around the living room, Willa
couldn’t pick out a coherent string of words from any of them. She pressed her
hand to her chest and sat down on the edge of the couch. At least no one was
hurt.

The relief she felt
at that moment made her realize just how much these women had come to mean to
her in the three short months she’d known them. They were her friends. She’d
never had friends before. Colleagues, yes, casual acquaintances, yes, but never
this. This was a brand new emotion, and she didn’t know what to do with it. So
she sat and watched and waited until the women had calmed down enough to speak
in logical sentences.

“I got a phone
call—”

“The home show
people called Shirley—”

“Remember that
contest we all entered—”

Willa raised her
hand in a stopping motion. “Can just one of you talk, please? It gives me a
headache when too many things are thrown at me at once.”

“Oh, right,” Shirley
said. “Sorry, hon.” She looked at Mercy and Collette for permission before
continuing. “You remember that contest we entered at the home show last month,
right?”

Willa frowned,
recalling the day in early March when she and the girls had gone to the Rhode
Island Home Show. Mercy had been looking for ideas for a kitchen remodeling
project. Shirley was looking for her next husband. Collette and Audrey had agreed
to go because it was “something to do on a Sunday”. Willa hadn’t wanted to go
at all; she usually wasn’t comfortable in large crowds or places where there
was too much light and color and noise. She’d reluctantly agreed to go only
after Collette pointed out that Willa was a homeowner now with a house that
needed repairs. It would be a good opportunity to scout out some remodeling
contractors.

“I don’t remember
entering a contest,” she said.

“
You
didn’t.
We did,” Collette said.

Willa scanned their
expectant faces. “Did one of you win something?”

Mercy clapped her
hands together. “
You
did!”

“How is that possible?”

“Each of us filled
out an entry slip and put your name down,” Shirley explained. “But we wrote in
our own phone numbers, just in case.”

“You didn’t have a
phone yet,” Collette pointed out.

“Okay. So… What did
I win?”

They all began
talking at the same time again, but it was Collette’s voice that overpowered
the others. “A friggin’ home renovation, that’s what,” she crowed. “The
whole
house!”

“What?”

“And that’s not
all,” Mercy said. “You’re going to be on a TV show!”

Alarm shot through
Willa’s body. She looked around the room, searching in the corners. “Is this a
joke? Are you recording this right now?”

Collette plopped
down beside her on the sofa and set her hand on Willa’s knee. “No, hon,” she
said in a soothing tone, recognizing Willa’s anxiety. “It’s not a joke. Let me
explain. Quiet, Mercy,” she scolded when Mercy began to chatter. “We’ve made
Willa upset. Let’s all calm down now.”

Mercy and Shirley
sat on the loveseat across from the sofa. Shirley gave Willa an apologetic
smile. “Sorry, hon. We’re just so excited for you.”

Willa took a deep
breath and released it slowly. In her mind she pictured blue sky and a
lighthouse. Gradually, she felt the anxiety ebbing. “I’m good,” she murmured.
“You can finish talking now.”

“This is what
happened,” Collette said in a soft, measured tone. “The big contest at the home
show was a total home remodel. All of the premium show sponsors contributed.
But the biggest sponsor is the HOME channel. They’re filming the project for
this new series. What’s it going to be called again, Shirl?”

“I didn’t catch it,
I was that excited. Something Rossetti? Two brothers. General contractors, I
think.”

“Did you write
anything down?” Collette asked with forced patience.

“Oh, right.”
Shirley dug into her jeans pocket, retrieving a folded note. She nudged Mercy.
“Get my reading glasses from my pocketbook, will ya?”

“When are you going
to face the facts and get bifocals,” Mercy grumbled good-naturedly as she
walked over to the entryway table to fetch the glasses from the side pocket of
Shirley’s purse.

“After I marry my
next husband,” Shirley retorted, fluffing her shoulder-length, bottle-red hair.
Once the blue-framed glasses were in place, she held the paper at arm’s length
in front of her and read, “Veronica. Monday. Three o’clock. That’s when the TV
series field producer is coming to meet you,” she informed Willa, peering at
her over the rim of her glasses. “She’s driving up from New York to see the
house and to review everything with you.”

“I don’t want to do
this,” Willa said.

“Willa—”

“I didn’t enter
this contest. You girls did. Why don’t you have one of your houses done
instead?”

“Think, Willa,”
Collette implored. “Pauline’s house needs some major work. This is something
you needed to do anyway.”

Willa stood up from
the sofa and stalked across the room to the fireplace. She folded her arms
tightly across her chest. “On my own time,” she muttered. “And not on
television.”

The three women
remained seated, watching her as she paced back and forth. After a couple of
minutes, Mercy said, “We don’t know all the details around this, hon. You can
meet with the producer and have all your questions answered. If you don’t like
their plans, I’m sure you can back out.”

“I don’t have her
number anyway,” Shirley added, reading over her scribbles. “Or her last name.
So there’s no way to reach her.”

“You were just that
excited,” Mercy jibed.

“Good thing it was me
they called.
You
would’ve peed your pants.”

“Geez, you two.
Knock it off already.” Collette pushed herself off the couch. “I gotta get to
my chores. Come back at six for supper, okay?” She included Willa in her
directive.

Willa gave a brief
nod of her head, muttered her goodbyes and walked out of the house.

Since
January, she’d only ventured inside her aunt’s house to take a bath. It had
become a weekly ritual. There was just a walk-in shower in the garage
apartment. Pauline’s bathroom had an old claw foot tub, deep enough that the
water came up to Willa’s chin.

She relished her
bath time. She became a connoisseur of minerals and salts, oils, lotions and
candles. It was an unfamiliar luxury.

She’d used the
kitchen once, but that had ended in disaster. The oven was old and finicky.
Every batch of cookies had come out either raw in the center or burned into a
hard black lump.

Now she stood at
the kitchen window, gazing out at the backyard. The grass was still brown, the
tree limbs bare. She pictured her aunt standing in this same spot, looking at
this same view. Pauline Cochrane had lived in this house for over sixty years,
and Willa had spent only one summer here…

“You look like her
when she was your age, you know.”

Willa spun around
to find Collette leaning in the doorway. The other woman had a photo album
tucked under her arm. “Let’s sit down,” Collette said, nodding towards the
breakfast nook. “I want to show you something.”

Silently, Willa
followed Collette and sat down across from her. Collette opened the album to
the first page and pushed it across the table. Her finger touched the corner of
a black and white photo as she spoke. “This was Pauline when she was about five
years old. That’s your grandmother beside her. It was taken in front of this
house.”

“The house looks
different.”

“This was taken
before the hurricane of 1938 that almost completely wiped out this area. This
house was one of the few that survived. But it took out the carriage house that
used to be where the garage is now. And the section here. That was the original
kitchen, I think.”

“How old is this
house?”

“It was built in
1920. A summer cottage. Pauline said back when she was a little girl you could
see the water from here, but the trees and other houses eventually blocked off
the view.”

“If my grandfather
was so well-to-do, I’m surprised they didn’t have a house closer to the beach.”

“Pauline said her
mother was afraid of the water. Her father liked to go sailing and fishing. Her
mother liked to garden. This place was a compromise. Good thing, too. I don’t
think it would still be standing today if it’d been closer to the beach. And
here’s Pauline and her fiancé. This was taken about a month before they were
supposed to marry. She was nineteen.”

Willa leaned
forward, studying the couple in the black and white photo. They looked so
young. They both wore jeans, rolled up at the bottom, and what appeared to be
matching plaid shirts. “Was he Italian?”

“Yes. Al Fanara was
his name. He was studying to be an architect. She said he had plans to gut this
place out, turn it into a real family home. Their wedding would’ve been in September
that year. He’d winterized the downstairs, added all that paneling and
carpeting. It was supposed to have been a temporary fix until they could afford
to remodel. See the paint on her cheek? They were painting the kitchen. The way
she used to laugh when she pointed out that paint smudge made me wonder if it
was just painting they were doing in the kitchen that day!”

Willa smiled. Her
body, which had been held in taut suspension since leaving Collette’s house an
hour ago, began to relax. “They were an attractive couple. He looks so tall.”

“Close to six feet.
She was about your height then. Five four? He called her his little mouse.”

Collette flipped
through a couple pages. “Here are the pictures from her first trip to Europe.
She loved to travel. That and working in her garden were her two favorite
things. It really wasn’t until the last three years that she spent more time
inside this house than out.”

“I remember…” Willa
closed her eyes, memories of a long ago conversation lurking in a dusty corner
of her mind. “I remember sitting here that night my father and I arrived. We were
looking at these same pictures I think. She was talking about…Venice.” Her eyes
flashed open. She beamed at Collette. “She said that was her favorite place. I
think I remember only because of the way she described a glass factory, the way
the glass was blown into different shapes. That fascinated me. I remember her
putting her hand on top of my head and telling me that someday she’d take me
there.”

“She wanted to take
you lots of places.”

Willa grimaced. “My
father wouldn’t allow it,” she guessed.

Collette nodded in
agreement, her eyes sad. “To the very end, she’d tell me how much she wanted to
get you here, away from his control. Even if it was just for a holiday. He
wouldn’t let her communicate to you directly. He said you were busy with your
important work and couldn’t have the distraction. She just wanted you to have a
normal life.”

“Normal is something
I’ll never be,” Willa said, giving a harsh, self-deprecating laugh.

Collette tipped her
head to one side as she studied Willa. She quirked a smile. “Nope. You’re
definitely not normal, whatever that means these days. You’re Willa. And you
are very lovely and unique.”

Willa pressed her
lips together, tamping down a swift denial. Collette and the girls often said
things like that. They had learned her quirky mannerisms pretty quickly, the
awkward, clipped way she had of speaking most of the time, the way she’d stare
into space, distracted by some random thought or daydream. She’d once overheard
two of her students talking about her. “Just shows that brains aren’t
everything,” one of them had said. “She’s like an automaton.”

Her odd behavior
hadn’t seemed to bother the girls at all. They had taken her into their fold just
as she was. There was no pretense with them. They spoke their minds. They
teased one another; they argued good-naturedly with one another. They laughed a
lot. They cried a little. They were a puzzling, relentless presence in this new
life that Willa was learning.