Secrets (30 page)
His wife, Patsy, who worked the shift with him, rarely came over. Pretty and petite with her blunt hair and pert features, she had more important things to do than worry over an old lady neighbor. Dennis did, too, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Not a thing, Dennis, thank you.”
“How’s the cough?”
“Lingering.”
“Are you eating? Sleeping well?”
She smiled. “All my bodily functions are in order.”
He glanced over his shoulder as Patsy opened the garage door and climbed into the car. “Well, if you need anything, you know where to find us.”
She nodded. That would be it, his check-in complete.
But he paused, then turned back. “Have you met the new neighbor?”
“Both of them.”
He raised his brows. “I thought it was just Rese Barrett.”
“She’s hired a cook. He’s making over the carriage house.”
“Oh. Well, I hope it’s not disturbing to you when they start bringing in guests.”
Her house being the nearest, she was the likeliest to be disturbed she supposed, but she just shrugged. “Why should it?”
“This little enclave has been residential since Ralph had the place. It’s different having a business there now.”
“It’s hardly a tattoo parlor.”
Dennis laughed. “Right. Well, I’ll see you then. Take care.”
Evvy watched him cross the street. He really was a kind man. And Patsy must have compassion of her own, working nights with ailing patients. She supposed it took a special person to minister healing in the still quiet halls after dark and retain any sort of good humor at all.
Evvy started to close the door when she saw Michelle from the church drive up. It would take three minutes at least to clear everything off the passenger seat to make room for her. Evvy stepped inside to grab her sweater. Dennis had thrown her off her preparation or she’d have had it on in readiness for Michelle.
Michelle bustled to the door. “Are you sure you’re up to this, Evvy?” Her long brown hair was swept into a ponytail that accentuated her broad, plain face. But such honest joy showed there, it was hard to notice even the sacks under her eyes and the mottling of the skin. The Lord had disguised an angel.
She must look as worn out as she felt, but she said, “The day I’m too weak to break open God’s word with the women of my church, you can bury me.” Evvy started down the walk, then paused.
“What is it? Forget something?” Michelle looked ready to bound back for whatever it was.
Evvy glanced at Ralph’s house. “I was wondering if we shouldn’t invite the woman next door.”
“I can clear another place.”
Evvy chuckled. Michelle’s car was like Mary Poppins’s carpetbag. Staples like soap and toilet paper someone might need, bags of clothing and canned goods, coloring books and crayons, and boxes of Bibles in the trunk.
“Maybe next time.” She wasn’t sure why the Lord had warned her off. A little more hoeing or mulching required? She was always wanting to plant the seeds before their time.
She climbed into Michelle’s passenger seat and nudged up against an enormous package of throw-away diapers. Never having used either sort, she was not without the imagination to know which kind she’d choose given the chance. Michelle squeezed in on the other side of the diapers and started the car.
As they passed Ralph’s house—she really had to stop calling it that—she wondered about Dennis’s comment. It hadn’t occurred to her to be bothered by the enterprise next door. Sonoma was no longer the farming community it had once been. It was the understated seat of viticulture. And that drew people in, people who needed lodging. What did she care if they slept next door? She’d lived too long to be petty.
But it reminded her again that she was surrounded by youth, with all their issues and all their gripes. The drama next door had been hard to miss—not that she had tried. It brought flavor to her day to watch them spar, but this last had been especially edgy. Whatever Lance had done, he’d almost lost his place.
And for some reason that didn’t feel right. Maybe it was an old woman’s foolishness, but she felt he was supposed to be there. For Theresa’s sake, or his own, or some other reason altogether, she couldn’t say. It was something in the way he walked through the garden, that pensive expression he sometimes wore. There was purpose in his presence there. No coincidence at all.
What careful strength in Nonno’s hands.
Pale half-moon nails waning into flesh as warm and tender
as the dawn.
Binding quickened vines, life clinging like a breath.
Gathering the dead with gentle care for the bounty they
once bore.
I
n a way the work was good. Two days in the spring air, expending his stress with a shovel and hatchet. With Rese detailing the carriage house, he’d rather be outside. Her oblivion to the hatch the first day had eased his concerns, and it was better now to keep his distance—as he should have from the start.
As detail-oriented as Rese tended to be, he’d been sure she would see the metal strip. But, recessed and disguised by the dirt he’d pressed back into the crack, it blended invisibly, as it was no doubt intended. Knowing it was there played on his mind, but he couldn’t make excuses for being in there without looking obvious. She would imagine interpersonal motives, and that was the last thing he intended.
Lance dug out the overgrowth of another leggy bed, more zealous in the discarding than he might be otherwise. There were a lot of timbers to put to use as he recalled, having resisted another look. He forced himself to wait until he could use them discreetly before opening it up again and attempting to pull them out.
The garden actually needed the work he was doing, and his seven months in landscaping qualified his overall approach. Building up and outlining the beds would keep them from overflowing the paths. Creating different levels added interest and drew some of the decorative plants nearer the eye—and nose. A big part of his replanting would be herbs.
“Cleaning up the garden?”
He looked up, but could not see the source of the voice at first. Then he spotted Evvy parting the hedge like a curious monkey peeking through jungle growth.
“Yes, ma’am.” He rested his hand on the shovel.
“Good soil there. Ralph mulched it.”
“I noticed.” That particular patch of ground had been wildly overgrown with weeds, but when he’d cleared most of it out, he’d seen why.
“That was his vegetable patch. Grew tomatoes like you never tasted.”
He didn’t argue, though he’d tasted some pretty fine tomatoes.
“Did she like the lasagna?”
He had to think back to when Rese liked the things he did. “She loved it.”
“Smart girl. This hedge could use some work. Know anything about trimming?”
He nodded. “I’ve done some.”
“I’ve a few others you could look at too.”
“I’ll do that.” He brushed a drop of sweat from his forehead.
“Sooner would be better.” Evvy snapped the hedge shut.
He watched to see if she’d reappear, then punched the shovel into the earth, bringing the rich loamy aroma to the air. It was great soil, and maybe he’d put some vegetables in as well. Then he shook his head. He wouldn’t be there for harvest, and somehow he didn’t see Rese doing it.
What would she do when he was gone? That depended on what he found, didn’t it? He sighed, left the shovel standing and took the shears from the garden shed. “Sooner would be better” sounded like an order, and Rese shouldn’t complain if he helped Evvy out. He was on the clock, but he wouldn’t record the time this took.
Evvy didn’t look at all surprised when he pressed through the break in the hedge to her side of the yard. He suspected the opening was intentional. Evvy must have read his thoughts. “Ralph cut it so I could come through. Wanted to take the whole hedge down, but I told him ‘good fences make good neighbors.’ ”
“Is that what it takes?” No wonder he’d messed up with Rese. He didn’t set good boundaries.
“She’ll come around, you know.”
Having spent years with Nonna, he was not surprised by Evvy’s intuition. Nor did he feel inclined to evade. “It’s better this way. We know our places.”
Evvy scrutinized him. “We are never allowed to give up, young man. You must fight the good fight to the end.”
Was there something physical that betrayed his tendency to quit and run? He hadn’t come there for the long haul. The trouble came when he mixed his motives, lost sight of his purpose. He slapped the handles of the shears together. An electric trimmer would have been nice, but in the plethora of power tools in Rese’s collection, he’d seen no trimmer. These shears might have been Ralph’s and could use sharpening.
“What’s the state of your soul?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me.”
He tucked his tongue into his cheek to keep from grinning. This one was a match for Nonna and Conchessa combined. Was it his fate to be chastised by every woman over seventy? “My soul is God’s. It’s the rest of me He wrestles with.”
She pointed one crescent finger. “Then your charge is clear.”
“What charge is that?”
“To win the world. One piece at a time.”
He snipped at the hedge. It badly needed trimming, but he suspected she’d brought him there more for the lecture than the work. “I do my part, Evvy, but it doesn’t always work out the way I intended.”
“That’s the Lord’s problem. He shouldn’t have made you so lumpy.”
“Lumpy?” He had to grin.
“Some pots are nice and smooth. Others are cracked and worthless. Most of us hold water but aren’t much to look at. It’s his job to smooth out the bumps. He’s the potter, after all.”
That might be, but he’d never been one to sit still for the process. Momma had pinched his ear more than once when he’d squirmed away from her washcloth. He wanted those lumps removed, but he tended to let the Lord know which ones and when.
After two hours trimming Evvy’s yard, he went back to digging out the beds. As he filled the wheelbarrow and rolled it around to the back of the carriage house, Baxter danced beside the wheel. “What—you think it’s a bike?” Lance dumped the dirt and grinned. “Fine. Jump in.”
Baxter leaped into the wheelbarrow and sat like a king all the way back to the bed. Lance tipped the barrow. “Now out.” Baxter jumped out barking. A new joy. If only it was so simple.
Rese ached in a way no heavy labor could cause. The grief she had stifled for months was breaking through. Brad’s visit four days ago had churned guilt and remorse for selling Dad’s company and now damaging his reputation. He had also undermined her confidence. Could she do this when everyone automatically doubted it?
Lance no longer teased, but she knew his opinion. And since he’d also stopped offering input and advice, her tension multiplied. What did she know about running an inn? What did she know about anything? She felt like a bad wire, surging and sparking, ready to short out.
Was this how it started with Mom? An overwhelming weight she needed to escape? Why not invent a friend or two? Especially since she kept pushing her true friends away. Rese didn’t like that thought. It resonated in what had happened with Brad and the others, with every friend but Star, even with Lance. He’d been scrupulously aloof in the days since their agreement.
The tiles had come for the carriage house roof. Lance would have settled for asphalt, but she wanted to match the villa. So for the last two days he’d fitted tiles, working for nothing more than the completion of his quarters. It was hard to consider that fair anymore. As strictly an employee, he should be compensated for his work, even if the offer had been his. It was her property and she would—
“I already cleaned it.” Star’s voice caught her by surprise.
Rese looked up from where she knelt wiping down the immaculate bathroom floor in the Redwood, reserved by a couple for the weekend.
Star crossed her arms and sat on the edge of the sleigh bed. “You’re making me paranoid, doing everything over. Like Maury obsessing on his paintbrushes.” She tipped her head back and threaded her fingers through her hair. “Did you put my brush in turpentine? Déjà vu. Did you put my brush in turpentine? Buh, buh, buh.” She shook her mouth.
Rese pulled her thoughts in and focused on Star.
“What did he think, I’m a child? I’m a moron? I’m a brain-deficient drug baby?”
“No one thinks that.”
“So he gets this ferret, right? And somehow it gets out of the cage. Somehow it’s out of the studio. And it’s, ‘Where’s my ferret, Star? Where is it?’ Like I’m the ferret godmother.” She sucked in a laugh that might have been a sob. “Like I turned it into a footman. Maybe I need a pedicure, so one ferret footman coming up.”
Rese went and sat on the bed beside her. “It’s all right, Star. Let it go.”
Star bunched her hair up. “I already cleaned the bathroom.”
“I know. And it looks really good.”
“No one’s even used it.”
“It’s great; I’m just … nervous.”
“Nervous?” Star collapsed on the bed. “You can’t be. You’re my rock.”