Saturday Morning (21 page)

Hope’s heart flip-flopped inside her chest. Whatever it was, it was bad. Really bad.

“Don’t look so scared.” She held up a small stick. “See that? It’s blue, my friend. Congratulations. You’re going to be a mother.”

She wrote a detailed account of everything that had happened. Her fingers flew over the keyboard. When she was through, she went back and edited the lengthy e-mail, deleting the names she had called Martin, the sarcastic remarks about his sanity, and whatever else sounded unmotherly.

Andy read her message one last time, then pressed Send. Her children had all been bugging her to know what was happening. Now they would know.

The teakettle whistle brought her out of her reverie. She dunked a tea bag with her special blend of tea flavored with lavender and waited for it to steep. The English china teapot, her favorite, held several cups, so one bag in a full pot made the tea weak enough for nighttime imbibing. She poured a cup full and drizzled in honey that, due to the hives being set in her lavender fields, tasted slightly of lavender also. Chai Lai jumped up on the counter and rubbed her head under Andy’s chin, her rumbling purr telling Andy she was in a loving mood.

The ringing phone nearly made her drop her teacup. She glanced at the clock—too late for Martin, too early for Morgan.

“Hello?”

“Mother, wow. That’s the biggest news that’s ever happened to our family. Why are you so against it? I think you and Daddy would have a wonderful life there. And I’d be able to visit a lot more often.”

Andy set her cup and saucer on a round lamp table and sank into the chair. She looked at the computer screen and wondered if she had accidentally edited out the part where she’d said how Lavender Meadows was finally supporting Grandma and Grandpa, and that they’d gotten a big order from Nordstrom and smaller, but still very significant, orders from other chain department stores.

“Yes, it is the biggest news that’s ever happened to our family. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s good news, and I don’t see how you can.” She had to make Bria understand why she felt the way she did. She hated to think that Martin would use Bria’s opinion against her, but she knew he would.

“But wouldn’t it be great to get out from under all that work on the farm and … ”

“All that
work
is work I love doing, or are you not aware of that? And have you forgotten that Lavender Meadows is supporting your grandparents, and that they would have to give up their home if we sold this place?” She had done her best to raise her children to think about things before they jumped in with both feet. Right now Bria was up to her waist in mental muck.

Bria’s voice went from wildly enthusiastic to embarrassed. “Um, I guess I forgot about that.”

“Did you also forget that this farm has been in our family for three generations and that you and your brother and sister stand to inherit it and the business?”

“Okay, you’re right. I really wouldn’t want to see you sell it,” she admitted. “How does Daddy feel about all of this?”

“He wants me to sell out, move to San Francisco, and be a fulltime wife that he can take to corporate parties.”

“Gag me with a spoon.”

“Exactly.” Andy rubbed her forehead. “Bria, would you call your father a workaholic?”

A slight chuckle came through the wires. “That would be an understatement.”

“Takes one to know one, right?”

“I take after him, but Mom, don’t you have a few of those tendencies yourself?”

“I never let things keep me from the three of you. I was always there when you needed me, and your activities came first.”

“That’s true, but you weren’t the breadwinner. Daddy did all he could with us when he was home.”

Interesting how age had given her oldest daughter a different perspective on things. When Bria was ten and in the Christmas play, she cried her eyes out because Martin couldn’t be there to see her put the star on top of the Christmas tree. And the day before she was to graduate from junior high, she called him in New York and told him he’d better be in that audience or she would go back to seventh grade. By the time she finished high school, she’d given up and had stopped asking him to come home for anything extra.

A sound clicked on the line. “Hold on, let me see who that is.” Andy pushed a button. “Hello?”

Bria’s voice answered. “It’s still me, Mom. Whoever that is can call back.” The slight impatience in Bria’s voice spoke of an oft-repeated lesson on how to work Call Waiting. When was Mom going to come up to speed on the technologies that were supposed to make her life easier? “So what are you going to do?”

“Pray. Can you think of something better?”

“Nope. I’ll pray too. Okay?”

“You’d better. Love you. Bye.”

Andy spent the next few days harvesting the last of the lavender crop. By the end of the week, her drying racks as well as her bins were full. Now she and her mother would begin making the sachets and potpourri for the Internet sales.

Andy didn’t tell her mother what had happened in San Francisco. She glossed over the house-hunting expedition and pretended that everything was fine between her and Martin. If her mother got wind of what was really happening, she would feel guilty and insist on selling the house, the farm, and the business.

Saturday morning Andy went over the quarterly sales report that her mother had generated on QuickBooks. The good news was that they were well into the black and had money to spend on new equipment. Lavender Meadows was growing at a rate that would require either more planting or buying from another grower. In the spring, she would start selling her field starts after transplanting them to gallon containers. She could also sell far more rooted plugs than she had.

So much to do.

She called up her database and entered the names and addresses of new people who had signed her Web-site guest book. A mailing list of nearly a thousand wasn’t bad for three years’ time.

When the phone rang, she picked it up without taking her eyes from the computer screen.

“Lavender Meadows.”

“Hi, Andy, this is Suzanne, your Realtor from San Francisco.” “Oh, hi.”

“I think I found you a place.”

“Oh?” Andy fumbled for politeness. “Really?”

“I’m going to send you the pictures I have. I snapped them yesterday when I took the listing. I have to tell you this property won’t
last long. It’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime chances, if you know what I mean.”

“So tell me about it.” Andy minimized her database and opened her e-mail.

“It’s a house, not a condo or loft, and it borders a garden. Grace Marchant’s Garden. Have you heard of it? It surrounds a series of stairs going down the north side of Telegraph Hill. I’ll be up front. The house needs some work, but it has everything your husband said he wanted.” She rattled off, “It’s twenty-four hundred square feet, three stories, but the top floor is a loft, sixty years old, with the kitchen, dining room, and living room on the main floor. Three bedrooms and two bathrooms are downstairs on the same level as the main entry. The main floor is open, so it has a surprisingly big area for entertaining, which your husband stressed was really important.”

Entertaining?
Oh, goody. I can’t wait to make a tray of hors d’oeuvres and put out the cocktail napkins.
“How much?”

“Four hundred seventy-five thousand, with conditions.”

“What kind of conditions?”

“First of all, it’s ‘as is.’ The woman who owns the house is quite elderly and incapable of making any repairs.”

“Okay, that’s understandable.”

“There’s more. She wants to pick the new owners. And she wants the new owners to adopt her cat. She’s moving to a retirement home and can’t take it with her. She also wants the new owners to promise to feed the parrots.”

“Parrots? I would have to adopt her parrots, too?”

“They are a wild flock of parrots that frequent the area.”

Andy thought fast. The price was right, and the size sounded right. Maybe if she flew down and took a look, she could get Martin to come around to her way of thinking. She flipped through her datebook. Bible study tomorrow morning and then—nothing. Could she
catch an afternoon flight? “Let me see if I can get a flight. If I can, I’ll e-mail you my arrival time. If I can’t, call me again when you have something else.” She said good-bye and hung up, then went to Outlook Express to check www.expedia.com.

She typed in her dates and destination and within a few minutes had a flight to SFO for the next afternoon. Not particularly wanting to talk with her husband, she sent him an e-mail.

She stared at the words she had typed and knew that he would know by the words
second home
that she was still wanting him to compromise. Was that throwing down the gauntlet or what? Adding she hit Send.

Never had she taken such a stand, but then never had she been forced to.

Chai Lai jumped into her lap as soon as she pushed the chair back from the computer desk. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.” Chai Lai stood up, put her front paws on Andy’s shoulders, and licked her face.

“Your tongue scratches.” Stroking the cat always calmed both of them. Andy leaned back in her chair, eyes closed, and called herself several highly uncomplimentary names for letting Suzanne’s call change her resolve to wait for Martin to miss her enough to give in to compromising.

Since coming home from San Francisco, she’d spent hours reading her Bible and praying.

Maybe Suzanne’s call was God’s answer to her prayers. Maybe He wanted her to swallow her pride and make the first move. And maybe
the elderly woman selling the house had been praying too. Praying for an animal lover to buy her home and adopt her cat.

So many maybes.

Andy glanced at the computer screen. The little dog icon was telling her she had an e-mail. She clicked her mouse and found Martin’s name on the screen. “Here we go.”

He gave her the address,

Andy studied his reply. Why couldn’t he have said something like, “I’m sorry, honey. I was a real jerk, but I promise I’ll make it up to you”? Because Martin never said anything like that. He never admitted to being wrong. She clicked the New Mail icon and typed a message to Suzanne to give her flight details and when she would be available. She was about to turn off the computer when she remembered the pictures Suzanne said she’d sent. “Please, please, please make it be what we need.”

She clicked on the little paperclip in the corner of the e-mail, caught her bottom lip between her teeth, and waited for the attachment to come up. The first picture showed the exterior. It reminded her of a stack of boxes. The second one was of the living room, which looked bleak but roomy. The others showed the bedrooms, baths, kitchen, and last but not least, the view. A truly magnificent view of the Golden Gate Bridge, across to Sausalito and even the Bay Bridge.

Andy turned off the computer and went outside, Chai Lai walking behind her. Fall was definitely in the air. She inhaled the sweet smell of lavender and wondered how she could survive the smell of smog and gas fumes. Then she reminded herself,
You will only be there five days out of a month.