The Older Woman (9 page)

British guy, he thought after a moment. World War I vet.

Okay.

He’d been peacekeeping with British soldiers. He could hang with this.

He kept reading, wading through the drawing room conversations. It was kind of like going to a party where everybody else knew each other. Not that something like that had ever fazed him. Even when he was a kid, Pop Doyle had always said he had never met a stranger. And he hadn’t, so he kept reading, kept absorbing information until he could form some kind of opinion as to why Mrs. Bee thought he was like this Michael Mont. So far, he didn’t have a clue.

He heard Mrs. Bee go out. After a few moments he heard her backing out the drive. He smiled to himself. That was some car. She must be going somewhere special if she was letting Thelma and Louise out on the road again so soon.

He continued to read, certain now of at least one fact. Michael Mont was pretty far gone on somebody named Fleur. The reason became obvious after a time. Fleur was another high-maintenance woman—in his opinion, the only kind worth having. Something was seriously wrong with a guy who could be happy with a doormat.

At one point he decided he wanted more background on this relationship, and he closed the book he was reading and picked up the first volume, thumbing through the pages again to look for Michael Mont’s name.

He found it after a time and began to read, but the most he was able to figure out was that Mont was kind of funny looking in the ear department.

Not exactly a flattering thought.

He looked up because the front screen door slammed. Mrs. Bee came and stood in the doorway again.

“Calvin?” she said after a moment. She was frowning.

“Something wrong, Mrs. Bee?” he asked.

“You were talking to Katie earlier.”

“Yes,

ma’am.”

“Does she…know about that magazine?”

“Mrs. Bee, everybody on the Eastern Seaboard knows about that magazine,” he said with as much truth as teasing. “Why?”

“Oh,” she said, still frowning. “I just didn’t want to make her…uncomfortable.”

He looked at her, not understanding. Meehan was nothing if not broad-minded. If anything, she’d gotten a kick out of Operation Spread Eagle. She hadn’t been the least bit uncomfortable.

“I don’t think you have to worry about that, Mrs. Bee,” he said.

“I just don’t want to remind her of her own problems. I wouldn’t upset that sweet girl for the world. I just wouldn’t.”

“I don’t understand,” he said—because he still didn’t.

“Well, she was so sick,” Mrs. Bee said, as if that explained everything.

He waited for her to elaborate. She didn’t.

“Meehan said to tell you she’d be coming over to see the magazine.”

“Oh, no!” Mrs. Bee said, clearly alarmed.

“Mrs. Bee…it’s okay. She’s not going to think—”

“Calvin, that magazine is just going to remind her of a very bad time.”

“What bad time?” he asked, because he was beginning to get a little alarmed himself.

Mrs. Bee looked at him, but she didn’t say anything.

“Tell me, Mrs. Bee.”

“I

shouldn’t

have said anything—”

“Mrs. Bee, I like Meehan. It’s better if I know what’s going on, don’t you think?

You need to tell me, so I don’t go saying or doing something even more stupid than usual. You know how we are, right? Hunt the hill and all that?”

Mrs. Bee sighed. “She had cancer,” she said after a moment. “Three years ago.”

Cancer.

Doyle tried to get his mind around the word. It was the last thing he expected to hear. His worst-case scenario had been that maybe she’d been hard-up for money at some point in her life, and she’d posed like Pitty-Pat What’s-Her-Name’s relative.

“In her…breast,” Mrs. Bee said. “She ought not be looking at a magazine like that. It’s just going to remind her. Lula Mae was right. This magazine thing is just going to cause trouble and heartache.”

Doyle sat staring at the Galsworthy book, fighting off questions like, How bad was it? This wasn’t something he should be discussing with his landlady. Even he could recognize that.

When he looked up again, Mrs. Bee was still standing in the doorway.

“I’m sure you’ll know what to do, Calvin.”

“
Me?
” he said, startled. “About what?”

“The

magazine,
Calvin.”

“Now wait a minute, Mrs. Bee—”

But Mrs. Bee was already in retreat.

“Mrs. Bee!” he called after her.

“You’re a good boy, Calvin,” he heard her call from somewhere deep in the house.

“I’m

not

that
good,” he said under his breath.

So what did Mrs. Bee want him to do? Ditch the magazine for her so she wouldn’t have to fib about it when Meehan came over? He didn’t even know where the damn thing was. He sat for a moment longer, then struggled to get to his feet. With considerable difficulty, he put Michael Mont and Fleur back on the shelf. He no longer had the time nor the inclination to worry about them.

In the process of dragging the dining room chair back to where he found it, he looked out the bay window. He could see Meehan on her patio, doing something with a bag of dirt and some pots and petunias.

I like her, he thought, watching her work. A lot.

And that means…?

He knew what it meant. It meant that he was standing here in his dented-up, notso-shining armor, ready to ride to the rescue. The only thing wrong with this picture was that he suddenly felt that it wasn’t Meehan who needed rescuing. It was him. He was getting to know her, and he didn’t want anything to happen to her—for his sake.

He took a deep breath. He should just go upstairs and forget all this. He would do exactly that—if he had the sense God gave a turnip. He began walking, across the room and into the wide center hallway. The ceiling fan waffled overhead, echoing his own indecision. He stood for a moment in the current of air. He could hear Mrs. Bee in the kitchen. He could go in there. He could go up the stairs. But, instead of doing either, he began to make his way toward the front door. He kept going, out onto the porch, down the steps and across the yard.

Meehan had to hear him coming, but she didn’t look up.

“Let me guess,” she said when he reached the edge of the patio, still not looking at him. “Another question.”

“No. Yes,” he abruptly decided. Her portable phone lay conspicuously on a nearby lounge chair. Handy, in case the boyfriend decided to call.

What the hell.

She put a handful of plastic foam packing “peanuts” in the bottom of a flower pot for drainage. Some of them stuck to her fingers, then blew across the patio in a sudden breeze. She didn’t try to chase them down. She just kept fiddling with the petunias.

“I want to know why you won’t go out with me,” he said bluntly.

“I’m older than you are,” she answered—as if she’d expected to have to go through this again, and she’d gotten her big guns all ready.

“Right,” he said. “Not much we can do about that.”

“The age difference is significant,” she said next—still without looking at him.

“Not to me it isn’t. Is it just me in particular, or do you have age requirements for all your friends?”

She didn’t answer him. She stuck another red petunia plant in the pot, then a white one, then carefully began pouring potting soil around them with a bent paper cup.

“The thing is,” he went on. “I like you. And I think you like me—so what’s the problem?”

“Bugs, I really don’t want to have this conversation.”

“The thing is,” he said again, anyway. “I can’t do a damn thing about when I was born, right? There’s no point in either one of us getting all bothered about it—”

“Bugs—”

“Now wait. Let me finish here. If you don’t want to go out with me because I’ve got it all wrong and you
don’t
like me and you
don’t
enjoy my company…well, I’m okay with that, and I won’t bother you. But if you don’t want to go out with me just because of the cancer thing, that’s something else again.”

She finally looked up at him.

“Mrs. Bee told me,” he said.

“What? That I’m a breast cancer survivor?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry I survived?” she said with a flippancy he didn’t think she felt.

“Sorry you had to go through all that.”

She was staring into his eyes. Once again he could feel her trying to decide whether or not he meant it. It was becoming increasingly clear to him that Meehan must have had to deal with a lot of liars in her time.

She abruptly looked down at the pot and began packing the dirt around the petunias with more force than necessary. Another breeze came through, this one strong enough to stir the wind chimes—glass, brass and bamboo. He could smell the fragrance of lemon again, and any other time he would have asked her about it.

“The other day,” he said. “When you were sitting out in the rain—”

“I told him,” she interrupted, reaching for a new pot.

“I…guess he didn’t take it too well.”

“He didn’t take it well at all. I…misjudged him. I thought I’d learned enough from past mistakes to be able to tell at least a little something about a man’s character. I was wrong.”

“Well, he did come back—more than once.”

“I told you. He didn’t want to feel guilty. He also didn’t much like the idea that I might be taking up with you.”

“What’s wrong with me?” he asked, grinning. “Besides the obvious, that is—”

He stopped because she was smiling.

All

right!

Doyle,

the

Magnificent, has done it again!

“This doesn’t have to be a big deal, Meehan. What I’m saying is if you want to go someplace and you don’t particularly want to go by yourself—”

“I don’t think I’m going to need any girlie magazines.”

“—I’m your man,” he finished as if she hadn’t interrupted.

She sighed and didn’t say anything—which he supposed was better than having her throw a flower pot.

“So what do you think?” he asked, because he was ever the one to push his luck.

“I think you want to get into my pants,” she said bluntly, and he laughed out loud. This was some woman here—high maintenance and then some.

“Your pants are safe,” he said, still grinning. “I swear.”

She wasn’t even close to believing him.

“Really,” he said, trying not to grin and not quite making it. “Anyway, you could outrun me.”

“That’s true,” she said, going back to her flowers.

“So what do you say?”

“Nothing.”

Nothing
is better than
no,
he thought.

“But you’ll keep it in mind.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” she said.

“Great!”

“Now, go away.”

“Okay,”

he

said.

“You’re an idiot. You know that,” she added.

“I’ve…had my suspicions,” he confessed. “So how’s Uncle Patrick?”

“Uncle

Patrick?”

“Yeah. You remember him. The one you were going to have to yell at.”

“I’m still going to have to yell at him.”

“Too bad,” he said, looking around at the sound of a car. He didn’t recognize this one—it wasn’t the bagel guy, at any rate. The car skidded to a stop in the driveway, and a young woman got out, a younger version of Meehan. She had a little boy with her.

Meehan gave a quiet sigh. “Now what?” she said under her breath.

They watched the young woman struggle to get the boy out of the back seat. Meehan walked forward, and Doyle went with her, trailing along behind. He had every intention of going back through the hedge where he belonged. He’d had too many family dramas of his own to want to get tangled up in somebody else’s.

“Do you know anything about kids?” Meehan stopped to ask him on the way. “Do you think you can keep Scottie occupied for a little bit, if his mother is all upset?”

“No problem,” he heard himself say without the slightest hesitation.

“I’d appreciate it.”

“No problem,” he said again.

She looked at him for a moment, then went to help. The young woman had apparently given up. She stood by the car, and Doyle realized that she was crying. He had to step back when she hurried past him toward Meehan’s patio, completely oblivious to anyone or anything in her path. She didn’t go inside the house. She abruptly sat down on the lounge chair, upsetting the portable phone. It clattered onto the brick patio. She made no attempt to pick it up.

He waited while Meehan got the little boy out of the car. She walked with him to where Doyle stood, holding him by the hand.

“This is Scottie,” she said. “Scottie, this is Bugs Doyle. He’s a soldier.”

“A real one?” Scottie wanted to know. In his other hand he was holding a small, red velvet bag with a drawstring.

“A real one,” Meehan assured him.

“Can he drive a tank?”

“He jumps out of airplanes.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Meehan asked, directing the question to the source.

“So I can get to the ground without having to wait for the plane,” Doyle said. Then, “Hey, Scottie. What have you got there?”

“Rocks,” Scottie said.

“Can I see?”

The boy looked up at Meehan to see if she had any objections, then let go of her hand.

“Okay,” he said. “But you can’t know. I have to tell you, okay?”

“Right,” Doyle said. “Can we sit down first?”

“Yes,” Scottie advised him.

“Over there?” Doyle pointed to Mrs. Bee’s picnic table.

“Yes.”

Scottie led the way. “You can’t walk fast,” he said.

“No.”

“You got hurt legs.”

“Yeah.”

“I got a hurt leg one time. Aunt Kate fixed it. I bet she can fix you.”

“I bet she can, too.”

He made a point of sitting on the far side of the table so he could see Meehan and—if he wanted to make a wild guess—her sister. Scottie hopped up on the stone bench and dumped his rocks out on the table. The kid had a nice collection—polished stones mostly, some fool’s gold, a few pieces of road gravel.

“Cool,” Doyle pronounced them. “Where did you get them?”

“Dan Nicholas Park,” he said. “Uncle Patrick took me to them. They got a merrygo-round. And a train. And rocks.” He rubbed his nose with the heel of his hand. “And bees,” he added.