The Wildwater Walking Club (14 page)

I zipped up my suitcase again, and we headed for our suite. Tess sat down on the couch and pulled her laptop from her carry-on. Rosie turned on the television, and I started unpacking.

“Nothing,” Tess said.

“Wow,” Rosie said. “High sixties, low seventies for the whole weekend. Hey, can you check Marshburytownonline.org for the weather at home? I just want to make sure it’s hot and muggy, so I can gloat.”

“Holy shit,” Tess said a minute later.

“That bad, huh?” Rosie said.

“Holy shit,” Tess said again.

Rosie sat down on the couch beside Tess, and I dug in my suitcase for my toiletry case. Once I got myself relatively organized, I’d kick into vacation mode for the rest of the weekend.

“Noreen?” Rosie said. “You might want to come over here for a minute.”

I sat down on Tess’s other side. “What?” I said.

Rosie pointed.

On Tess’s computer screen, right below the local weather forecast and above the recap of the last Marshbury selectmen’s meeting, was a blurry close-up of me taking off my black ski mask. There was an arrow on my nose. Tess clicked on the arrow, and the video started. A hazy but identifiable me followed a ski-masked and unidentifiable Tess and her laundry detergent over to the fountain.

The video panned the length of clothesline long enough to read our signs, cut to the duct-taped mouth of the Revolutionary statue, to a sea of bubbles, and then back to the beginning again. “In a stunning reversal of roles, on the Marshbury town common, under the cover of darkness,” the voice-over said, “two as yet unidentified older adult female vandals were caught on cell phone camera by a couple of quick-thinking teens, who happened to be in the area.”

“Ohmigod,” I said. “Tess, you can tell it’s me.”

“Did you see how wide my hips look?” Tess said. “But, come on,
older
?”

THE NEXT MORNING AT BREAKFAST, THE THREE OF US CHECKED
out the people sitting at the other tables.

“I don’t know,” Tess said. “Seems like an awful lot of whiteheads here.”

“Stop,” I said. “There but for a bottle of dye go I—and you, too.” I looked around. “I don’t think most of them are that much older than we are.”

“Ohmigod,” Rosie whispered. “Don’t look now, but over there.”

Tess and I turned to look. A couple was unloading the contents of a canvas bag onto their table: his and her seven-day vitamin dispensers, soy milk, ground flaxseed, and finally, a bag of prunes.

“Are three enough?” Tess whispered. “Are six too many?”

“They call them dried plums now,” I said. “It’s all in the spin.”

“Shoot me,” Tess said. “If I ever walk into a restaurant with a bag of prunes, please just shoot me. And in the meantime, I hope we can at least manage to stay up a little bit later tonight. I can’t believe we were all asleep by six-thirty.”

Rosie took a bite of her lavender pear pancakes. “Cut us some slack,” she said. “It was really nine-thirty. But you’re right, we should have at least gone for that second glass of wine. Mmm, these are delicious.”

“I had the best dream last night,” I said. “It must have been my new dream pillow. I waded into the middle of the Marshbury common fountain and climbed up on a big soapbox….”

“Great symbol,” Rosie said.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m a good dreamer. Anyway, I gave this incredible clothesline speech. It was like I was channeling Sally Field in
Norma Rae
.”

Rosie took another bite of pancake. “Love that movie.”

I tried my lavender coffee cake. Amazing. “Yeah, me, too. But, back to my dream speech. I opened with that line about well-behaved women never making history.”

Tess stirred some lavender honey into her tea. “What was I doing?”

I took another nibble of lavender coffee cake. Beyond amazing. “You weren’t in it.”

Tess put her mug down on the table. “What do you mean, I wasn’t in it? The whole clothesline thing was my idea.”

“It was my dream,” I said. “I have every right to be in charge of it.”

“Settle down, you two,” Rosie said. “I do enough refereeing when I’m home.”

We studied our festival brochures silently.

“Okay,” I said. “It looks like the street fair opens at nine, and then the farm buses begin service to the farms from the street fair bus stop at nine-thirty, and the farms open at ten. There are four buses, A, B, C, and D, and each one goes to two of the eight lavender farms, and they run continuously till six.”

“Whatever,” Rosie said. “We’ll just follow you.”

“When does the winery tour start?” Tess asked.

“It’s self-guided,” I said. “So we can go anytime.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Tess said. “They drive you to the lavender but make you drive yourself to the booze?”

“Wait,” I said. “It says you can also taste the local wines at the
Wine & Beer Garden at the street fair.
A selection of two wines from each winery will be available for tasting and purchase
.”

“I like that,” Tess said. “It’s so much more efficient. If you factor in street fair shopping and eating, it’s total multitasking.”

“But the whole point is to see the vineyards,” Rosie said.

“No,” Tess said. “The point is to drink the wine.”

Tess’s and Rosie’s brochures were back on the table, and they were focusing on breakfast. I took another bite of my rich, buttery, exotic coffee cake.

“Okay, what else should we do while we’re here?” Tess asked.

“Who made me the social director?” I asked.

“You have great leadership skills,” Rosie said.

“So do I,” Tess said. “But I’m on vacation.”

I flipped my brochure over. “Ooh,” I said. “There’s a Puffin Sunset Marine Dinner Cruise. Let’s see, a two-hour tour, expect to see tufted puffins, rhinoceros auklets, and other seabirds.”

“I love puffins,” Tess said. “Whenever we took the kids to the aquarium, they were my favorite. Maybe we should go there sometime, just the three of us.”

“Right,” I said. “Like I’d go anywhere near water with you and your laundry detergent ever again.”

“I didn’t even think of that,” Tess said. “Bubbles in the aquarium would be genius. Imagine all the media coverage we’d get. We’d just have to figure out where to put the puffins.”

AS SOON AS
we finished breakfast, we headed for the street fair. The closer we got, the more we could smell the lavender.

“It’s like being wrapped in lavender,” Tess said. “It’s so sensual. Kind of sexy and relaxing at the same time.”

“I can’t figure out if it’s more floral or woody,” I said.

“Musky,” Rosie said. “To me, it’s almost musky. Hey, did you know
that the riverside washerwomen in Provence were called
lavandières
? They used to sing a song about while there are still clothes to wash, who needs men.”

“That’s so twisted,” Tess said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe we could stay here, find a river, and become Sequim
lavandières
. I read in the brochure that the Sequim-Dungeness Valley gets less than twenty inches of rain per year. It’s so close to Seattle, you’d think the weather would be the same, but they actually call this area the blue hole. The microclimate is remarkably similar to Provence. That’s why lavender grows so well here.”

“I can show you how to make lavender water,” Rosie said. “It’s great to spray on your sheets and towels before you put them in the dryer.”

“Excuse me?” Tess said.

“Sorry,” Rosie said. “I meant before you hang them on the line. You can also add it to the final rinse in your washing machine. Or spray it on your pillow before you go to bed, to give you peaceful dreams.”

“If you splash some on your temples, it’s supposed to help overcome exhaustion,” Rosie said. “It’s a natural insect repellant, too, and you can also use it as a mouthwash.”

“What can’t lavender water do?” Tess said. She stopped and looked at her pedometer. “Twelve hundred and three steps from Sequim Suites to the street fair,” she said. “That’s great. If we do five round-trips a day, we’ve got….”

Rosie and I looked at each other.

“Twelve thousand and thirty,” Tess said. “Boy, do you two need to do elementary school over again.”

We each paid our fifteen dollars for the farm tours at the ticket booth and pinned on our
FESTIVAL SUPPORT
buttons. “I can’t believe this is for all three days, including transportation,” Rosie said. “I bet Provence is way more expensive.”

“They probably gave us the senior citizen discount,” Tess said. “I bet it’s the only price they have.”

“Knock it off,” I said. “There are plenty of younger people here.”

I looked around to be sure. There were families with strollers, clumps of friends, plus couples of all ages and sexual orientations, most wearing shorts and T-shirts.

We joined the throng milling past rows of booths set up under colorful umbrellas along both sides of Fir Street. “Is it my imagination,” Tess whispered, “or are there lots of gay people here? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

Two women walked by wearing identical purple outfits and holding hands. “I think it’s a lavender thing,” I said while I looked at my power watch. “Okay, I say let’s do a quick walk up and down the street to check it out and then jump on the first bus to the farms.”

Even before you open your mouth, your feet are always a dead giveaway that you’re not from around here. After a stroll past the booths, we climbed aboard Bus B with a bunch of T-shirted people. I’d expected mostly locals, but the range of accents and foot
wear was fascinating. The woman diagonally across the aisle in front of me sounded Australian and was wearing an Italian two-toned red patent leather Italian sneaker, maybe Zagmani.

Across from her, a single fluorescent green and orange Puma Argentina was air-tapping in the center of the aisle. Last I’d heard, Puma Argentinas were hot in England, and neon colors were growing in popularity in Europe and heading this way. The Onitsuka Tiger, the Japanese sneaker worn by Uma Thurman in
Kill Bill
, were all the rage in the Netherlands at one time.

My head was filled to the brim with sneaker factoids I’d never need again. The first rubber-soled shoes, called plimsolls, were made in the early 1800s or possibly as early as the late 1700s. Goodyear made the first canvas and rubber Keds in 1892. Sneakers were mostly worn by athletes until Hollywood picked up on the fashion, first in the 1930s and then in a big way in the 1950s when James Dean started wearing his signature jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers.

I closed my eyes and listened to the chatter on the bus, accents blending together like the countless styles of athletic shoes, the myriad layers of the scent of lavender. I could pick out a voice that sounded like home behind me, plus a couple of southern accents up in front. I’d read that the Pacific Northwest accent was subtle but sounded slightly creaky, and unlike the rest of the country, people who lived there pronounced the vowels in
caught
and
cot
exactly the same. I listened some more, but I didn’t hear anyone creaking, or talking about caught
or
cots.

My phone rang. I fished it out of my purse. unavailable, the screen read.

“Hello,” I said. Tess and Rosie looked over at me.

“It’s Michael,” Michael’s voice said.

“Why are you calling me?” I said.

“Boy, do you have a double,” he said.

“What?” I said.

“Yeah, a dead ringer for you. She even lives in Marshbury. It’s all over the local news. Some nut and her friend covered the common with bubbles. They must have used one of those bubble makers.”

“Laundry detergent,” I said.

“Oh,” he said. “I didn’t see that part.”

“Listen,” I said. “I have to go. I’m in Sequim and my bus is just pulling into the lavender farm.”

“Where?”

I flipped my phone shut.

“I am so dying to know who that was,” Tess said.

Since Tess was sitting beside me on the bus, it was easy to elbow her.

“Ouch,” she said.

“It’s all over the news,” I said.

“Relax,” Tess said. “They’ll never find you here.”

“Us,” I said. “They’ll never find
us
here.”

“Wow,” Rosie said as soon as we stepped off the bus. “Lavender fields forever.”

There were rows and rows of undulating lavender, in gorgeous shades of purple, blue, white, and pink, stretching out as far as the eye could see. Most were in full bloom, but some of the bushes had been sheared to a mushroom shape, with bunches of lavender tied into bouquets and resting crisscrossed over the top.

“That’s to show a harvest in progress,” Rosie said. “Over there is where you pick your own.” Sure enough, there was a sign that said
U PICK
—$5/
TWIST TIE
.

“I don’t get it,” Tess said.

“You get as big a bouquet as you can get the twist tie around,” Rosie said.

“Ooh, I love a challenge,” Tess said.

My cell phone rang again. I fished in my purse and pulled it out.
UNAVAILABLE
, my caller ID said.

“Hello,” I said.

“You hung up before I had a chance to say what I needed to say,” Michael said.

“Fine,” I said. “Shoot.”

“Okay, well, it’s just that I’ve been wondering if we should give it another try. I’ve missed you. And, man, I just don’t know what to do with myself since I stopped working. I get up, I make coffee, I read the paper—”

“No thanks,” I said. “But maybe you should give Sherry a call.”

There was dead silence on the other end.

“Sorry,” I said. “That was beneath me. Okay, here’s the thing. You had your chance, and you totally, irrevocably blew it. I’ve moved on. And now I’m in the middle of an amazing vacation with some fabulous new friends. So if you’ll excuse me…”

As soon as I hung up, Tess put an arm over my shoulder. “We are fabulous, aren’t we? And you have a much more interesting social life than I gave you credit for.”

“Come on,” Rosie said. “Let’s go get a snack. We’ve got twenty minutes before the essential oil distillation demonstration starts.”

Tess rolled her eyes. “Yeah, don’t make us late for that,” she said.

TESS SMILED AT
two men who were wearing sandals and white socks pulled up to their shins and talking in some unidentifiable language. “Cute guys around here, especially if you like bald heads and ponytails. Maybe you should ask somebody for a date, Noreen.”

“Or you could,” I said. “Though, who knows, if I wandered around by myself, I might meet my soul mate coming out of the Porta Potti.”

Tess leaned back on her elbows. “Go ahead,” she said. “We’ll wait here. Don’t worry, what happens in Squid stays in Squid.”

We were stretched out at the edge of a huge field of lavender. “It’s almost like Dorothy in her field of poppies,” I said. “Pretty soon we’re all going to start getting sleepy and have to curl up and take a nap.”

“And probably get trampled to death,” Tess said as a woman tripped over her foot and excused herself. “Dorothy had a lot more personal space in that poppy field.”

“They’re all great, but I think this is my favorite farm so far,” Rosie said. She sat up and looked around. “Look, it’s like a series of Monet paintings—everywhere you look, there’s a new composition. I mean, whoever owns this farm has vision.”

“And let’s not forget the business angle,” I said. “They sell everything but lavender kitchen sinks in that gift shop.”

“And I totally love that picture of Jimi Hendrix over the cash register,” Tess said. “Who says brain cells lost in the ’60s don’t regenerate.”

My phone rang. I flipped it open.
UNAVAILABLE
, it said.