I hauled myself up the stairs, dumped my things in the living room, and dropped the mail on the kitchen table. Despite the decaf, I was wired. Maybe I shouldn’t have cleaned out the mailbox at the foot of the driveway. It was mostly junk anyway-catalogs, campaign literature, and flyers from cleaning services and house painters. I always wondered if they targeted my house. Good grief, that hovel needs a coat of paint.
My house is the most modest in the neighborhood. Wetlands restrictions and the nearby bird sanctuary saved my little bungalow from spec contractors who’d cock it up with fake dormers and stone facing and then try to flip it to some middle manager who’d sweat the mortgage until he thought he could palm it off on someone else. I told myself the neighbors silently thanked me for maintaining the character of the place, but couldn’t be sure since I didn’t know any of the neighbors, so I never had the opportunity to ask.
On my left was a formerly noisy guy who’d either grown up, gotten married, or died; I hadn’t seen or heard him all winter. That’s the way it was in the suburbs if you had no PTA or country-club connections. You could be almost as anonymous as you were in a big city.
I trashed the solicitations and the mailings from grinning office seekers with jackets not so casually thrown over their shoulders. Problem was, I couldn’t toss the bills. Dirty Business was doing okay, but I was still getting used to the challenge of being flush for half the year and rolling change the other half. I wasn’t eating cat food, but it had been a long time since I’d treated myself to a splurge. That was the real reason for my trip to Titans. But that plan had backfired when Lucy didn’t show and a dead guy did instead.
I checked my cell messages again. Nothing from Lucy. I wasn’t worried about her, just curious. And maybe a little jealous. I hadn’t been in a relationship for over a year, and if anyone had asked I would have said that was okay, I had my hands full running a business. But I hadn’t had an adventure for even longer-and I was due.
There was just one call from Anna, my sometime assistant. I left Lucy another message, then checked my home phone just to make sure she hadn’t tried to reach me on that number. Zip.
It was midnight. Fatigue was setting in; bills were staring me in the face. I thought of opening them, but… Screw it, they’d be here tomorrow. The article for the Bulletin would bring in a few bucks, and more important, maybe a client or two. Hector and Bernie were right about that, publicity was key. And first thing in the morning I’d call on Caroline Sturgis, my rich suburban matron.
I meant to wake up at six and get a run in before driving to Caroline’s. Instead, I slept in until after eight when I heard a key in the front door and Anna Jurado sang out my name, “Meez Pohlah!”
March through October is garden season in my part of Connecticut. For those eight months the newlywed team of Anna and Hugo Jurado worked for Dirty Business. I couldn’t afford to pay them the rest of the year, and they generally returned to Mexico anyway, but for those months we were a real company, not just a woman with stationery and business cards who still felt a little like a fake. Hugo was a master in the garden and helped me hire temporary workers when I was lucky enough to need them. Anna made appointments and kept the books.
I ran my fingers through my hair, pulled on a sweatshirt over my pajamas, and went into the kitchen to greet Anna. She was resplendent in a tomato-red track suit with white jeweled stripes down the sides puckering and threatening to give in to fabric fatigue.
“¿Qué tal?” I asked, starting to make coffee.
“I am very well, thank you very much. And how are you today?” Anna and I played this little game practicing our language skills on each other. If we’d been keeping score, she’d have been killing me.
She and Hugo were married less than a year ago in a ceremony that made the local paper, not because they were members of Springfield’s elite, but because they, and I, had been players in the biggest news story to hit the town since the hurricane of 1938.
I willed the coffeemaker to speed up. My appointment with Caroline was for nine o’clock and I had a twenty-minute drive to the Sturgis home. I didn’t want to be late. Anna saw me eyeing the clock and shooed me out of the kitchen.
“Get dressed. And fix your hair. I will bring you the coffee when it’s ready.”
It says something about my current grooming habits when the cleaning lady is giving me beauty tips. I hadn’t totally gone to seed. I still worked out religiously-that part hadn’t changed since my move from New York-but I had to admit my hair was getting a little shaggy. It was just easier to pull it into a ponytail and put on a baseball hat. And like most gardeners I had perennially grubby hands.
I took a quick shower and pulled on jeans, a boy’s thermal T-shirt, and the hoodie I wore the previous night. Back in the kitchen I twisted my wet hair into a knot and fastened it with a big clip. Then I took a fistful of bangs and distributed them evenly across my forehead.
“That’s a very attractive look,” Anna said, handing me a mug. “You look like you are going to deliver newspapers on your bicycle.”
“Gracias.”
It was the kind of crack I expected from a woman in full war paint and rhinestones at breakfast. And Anna wore her plus size regally; where I neurotically counted every calorie that passed my lips, Anna happily indulged in whatever culinary delicacy struck her fancy, with no shameful morning-after guilt, no slavish adherence to slimming black. More to love, she’d say. I was trying hard to adopt her philosophy.
“Kids don’t do that anymore,” I said, shaking some cereal into my coffee, “deliver newspapers. Nowadays, they have Internet consulting gigs. I met a ten-year-old last week who had classier business cards than I do. Ivory laid stock-looked like Crane’s, for crying out loud. She was leaving a stack of them at the Paradise Diner in a little metal holder near the real estate booklets. Eerie.” I poured more coffee over my cereal.
“That’s disgusting. You should eat something more substantial than that.”
“I’m multitasking.” I spooned the concoction into my mouth. “I had a big breakfast yesterday; I have to be in Greenwich by nine,” I said, checking my watch. I took a last spoonful of cereal, grabbed my backpack, and bolted down the stairs. “I’m outta here.”
“Are you going to see Mrs. Sturgis? Make sure you get one-third upfront,” she said as I flew out the door. Always looking out for me. “Usted nunca…” she started to yell, “you never remember.”
I’d try. But Caroline Sturgis was one of those women who didn’t think much about money because apparently she’d always had it. She always paid, but she always paid late. Last year Anna had suggested we start charging her one percent interest; we did, and she still paid late. Bills were minor annoyances to her.
Caroline lived one town over, where the house numbers were harder to see because the front doors were so far from the road, and the mailman could listen to an entire pop song in between deliveries because the mailboxes were that far apart.
The Sturgis home had been designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright-poor guy, he was probably ninety years old and still referred to as a student. Caroline’s place was magnificent-lots of levels, built-ins, and fireplaces-and all natural materials: stone, wood, and slate.
The long, wooded driveway led to the side of her house and the deck, which faced a private pond. To the right of the house was a small garden and a shallow reflecting pool. Beyond that were Caroline’s tennis court and a large barn renovated to serve as a guesthouse. On the fringes of the property was the town’s arboretum.
It cried out for Prairie or Asian garden themes, but Caroline wouldn’t hear of it, preferring annuals and a cottage look more suitable to a New England saltbox. It killed me. And if the “student” was still alive it’d probably kill him, too.
Last year she’d let me test one perennial grass in a container near her tennis court, so I had my fingers crossed I’d get to push the envelope again this year and go beyond mere petunias and alyssum. It could be a notable addition to my résumé, the way the Peacock house had been last year.
I pulled into the Sturgises’ driveway through two stone pillars topped by Mission-style light fixtures. Following the drive around to the left, I continued about a hundred yards to a separate three-car garage. As I was getting out, the garage door opened; the driver was just as startled as I was. He leaned out of the car, with a stunned expression on his face, and backed out a little too fast, kicking up pea gravel and spinning his tires. He put the car into drive and pulled out, crushing some snowdrops at the side of the driveway.
Inside, Caroline heard the tires squeal and came to the screen door to see what was up.
“Hi, Paula,” she said, shielding her eyes and watching as the car pulled onto the road. “I don’t know why he has to drive like that. He can’t be late; he’s been reading the paper for the last forty minutes. C’mon inside.”
He was Grant Sturgis, Caroline’s husband. I just caught a glimpse of him, but he looked slightly familiar. Caroline thought we might have met at the opening ceremony for a garden I restored, but with his bland features and sandy hair, Grant could be mistaken for almost any slight, not unattractive, thirty-to forty-year-old man. Generic, both-hands-in-their-pockets guys who could be found in every restaurant, mall, and private club in the country.
Caroline, on the other hand, had a spark. True, it was currently hidden under a velvet headband, and the safe suburban armor of flats, slacks, cotton shirt, and sweater tied around her neck, but it was there. And in danger of combusting, if she kept feeding it alcohol.
I’d met her two years ago. She was dropping off and I was furnishing my new house at the Springfield Historical Society’s Thrift Shop. We shared a few laughs over some of the merchandise-long, skinny prints of big-eyed children, crafts projects gone horribly wrong. We also shared a fondness for the two older women who worked there, known affectionately as the Doublemint twins because time and friendship had turned them into carbon copies of each other.
When Caroline found out I had a garden business she squealed that I was just the person she was looking for, although I had a feeling she was lonely, and anyone that day would have fit the bill. We went back to her place and after a brief discussion of the colors she liked we had a handshake deal. I would plant a thousand spring bulbs all around her tennis court. It wasn’t my idea of a beautiful design but clients were hard to come by, especially in September, so I said yes. Each year I encouraged her to be more adventurous.
My entire house could have fit in Caroline’s kitchen, and on the spotless marble countertop was a pitcher that experience had told me was filled with mimosas. Strong ones.
As the client, Caroline Sturgis could get as highly smashed as she wanted to at nine in the morning. Good sense and something my doctor had said to me at my last checkup about “high liver enzyme levels” kept me on the straight and narrow. A big part of my last job had been social networking and that had inevitably involved a certain amount of drinking, but those days were over, especially now that I had a mortgage and two employees counting on me to make payroll. And I couldn’t afford to be fuzzy-headed if there were power tools around.
Caroline poured herself a tall one and me the same despite the fact that I’d waved my hand over the heavy-bottomed tumbler she’d set out. I moved the glass to one side and set up my laptop to bring up the garden rooms I’d envisioned for her property. The screen quickly filled with pictures of small shrub and perennial beds I thought would work for the various spots in her garden. She pretended to pay attention but I could see her mind was elsewhere. Right then it was on her drink, which she downed as if it was straight orange juice.
“Caroline, is this a bad time? I can come back later.”
I didn’t really want to, but I needed her full attention or else she’d revert to impatiens and petunia mode, instead of even considering the more substantial changes I was proposing.
“No, no. Don’t go. This is as good a time as any. You’ve done all this work and here I am daydreaming.”
If it was a daydream, it wasn’t a pleasant one. Caroline’s normally smooth forehead was as wrinkled as a Klingon’s and there were two deep grooves in the shape of the number eleven at the top of her nose.
She let me drone on about ornamental grass, Russian sage, and rudbeckia, but she was lost in thought and it wasn’t from weighing the benefits of miscanthus versus fountain grass. I worried about mixing business with personal stuff but decided to ask her what was the matter.
“I just feel so useless these days,” she said. “Molly’s away at school and Jason will be leaving in January. And Grant’s been traveling so much lately. He just got back from a week in Boston, and now he’s off to Chicago for four days. I guess that means his business is doing well but I thought we’d have more time together now that the children were older, not less.”
When it came to relationship advice my specialty was “Screw him. He doesn’t deserve you.” That worked pretty well for most of my single New York friends. Here in the ’burbs I was in uncharted territory. I didn’t have the first clue as to how to comfort an empty nester.
“I take a few classes…” she said, trailing off. “Mostly to get out of the house and see people.”
My laptop went into sleep mode; I pushed it back a few inches. I was antsy to get back to work but it was pointless until Caroline finished unburdening herself.
“What kinds of classes are you taking?” I asked. Part of me really cared.
“What haven’t I taken?” She threw her head back, laughing and rolling her eyes. “Real housewife stuff. You’ll think they’re silly. I guess they are.”
“No I won’t. Tell me.”
“This year, glassblowing and wreath making. I drive to the city for the glassblowing class and take wreath making at Mary Ellen’s Craft Shop in New Canaan.”
“They’re not silly; my mother does a lot of that stuff.” She winced. Wrong move-what woman wants to be compared to her friend’s mother? I regrouped. “That’s impressive. I’m not good with my hands except for digging. So what have you made?”
“Nothing. That’s just it,” she said, recovering from the insult and pouring herself another drink. “I lose interest. I have a room filled with half-finished projects-shell art, calligraphy, pottery. That hobby room is a shrine to my failures.”
“You shouldn’t think of it that way. At least you’ve tried.” I took a sip of the mimosa, just to be sociable. There was dead silence for a minute. Trying to empathize, I told her about the tag-sale treadmill in the garage that silently mocked me every time I pulled out of my driveway. “And who doesn’t have an unfinished scarf or poncho in her closet?” I said. “Although if you’re talking about baby booties from fifteen years ago, you might want to pitch them.”
She finally cracked a smile. “I can’t seem to throw any of it out. The potter’s wheel I bought after I saw the movie Ghost for the twelfth time. The loom I searched all over the Internet for. I was so happy when the box finally arrived, and I made exactly one ugly potholder with it.”
“Have a tag sale or take them to the thrift shop. The twins would be thrilled to have them. And dumb schmucks like me will be happy to assume the burden of ownership until they realize they aren’t going to use them either. Maybe there’s really only one potter’s wheel and one loom,” I said, “like they used to say there was only one fruitcake that was passed around and regifted during the holidays.”
Caroline was laughing and sniffling now, finishing one drink and instantly pouring herself another. She made a move to refill my glass then realized she didn’t need to.
She’d snapped out of her funk, but drinking at this rate, what was she going to be like by noon? If she wanted to drink herself stupid by lunchtime that was her call; it wasn’t up to me to give her advice, but that didn’t stop me. I repositioned my laptop and slightly, unnecessarily, moved her glass just out of her reach.
“You’re a big girl, Caroline, you know what you’re doing. But maybe you’re focusing on keeping your hands busy when you should be thinking about keeping your mind busy.” Which she couldn’t do if she was plastered.
She stared blankly into space.
“Forget it. I don’t know what I’m talking about,” I added quickly, fearing I’d overstepped the bounds of our quasi-friendship. “I’m just trying to be solutional. That’s my nature.”
“No. You’re right. That’s it,” Caroline said, the light dawning. She raised her glass to toast me, and I obliged by taking another small sip from mine. “So what do you think I should do?” she asked, reminding me of the eager interns we’d had at my old company.
“Well, first you need to decide what you want in your garden.”
The lines on her forehead disappeared as if they had been Photoshopped out. She reached for drink number four, but didn’t take a sip, and I could tell Caroline was busy plotting some activity other than merely saying yes or no to my designs for her property. She nodded absentmindedly at almost everything I suggested and I began to wonder if she was really agreeing or was just wasted.
A scratching sound came from another room.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s my houseguest,” Caroline answered, sliding off her high-backed kitchen stool. She crossed the kitchen floor on unsteady, ballet-slippered feet to open a narrow door that led to her mudroom. Out popped a small white dog.
“There you are, precious. Did you miss your Auntie Caroline? Paula, this is my new friend, April.” A small white Maltese that looked very much like the one I’d seen at Titans two days earlier in the care of a full-figured redhead.