Bleeding Heart (4 page)

So, naturally, it was Gwen I called first after my meeting with Graham Mackenzie.

“Wow! Good for you!” she said. “This is cause for celebration. Let me treat you to dinner at Donatello.”

“Right now?” I asked. It was nearly seven thirty, and I was defrosting a turkey burger for dinner.

“I’ll pick you up in ten minutes,” she told me. The impulsive side of Gwen has never changed. Nor has her generous nature. What time has tempered, though, is her girlishness and unbridled sense of fun. There’s a certain calculation in how she presents herself now that never used to be there. Just recently I realized she’s been adding highlights to her shoulder-length auburn hair. And after the hostess at the restaurant took our coats I saw that Gwen was wearing a leather skirt that barely covered her backside. But if what she wanted was for every man in the restaurant to take notice of her progress across the room, she got it.

“Thank God, you’re finally learning how to play the game a little,” Gwen said after we’d ordered and I began to give her the blow-by-blow of my meeting.

“What do you mean?” I asked, pushing the bread basket across the table. My friend, who has the metabolism of a triathlete, can eat anything and still slip into a size six without wiggling. “I was totally straight with the man.”

“Oh, come on!” Gwen said, buttering a slice of focaccia. “You
were playing hard to get. It’s the oldest trick in the book. And for good reason. It obviously works.”

“A part of me is still seriously conflicted,” I told her. “I hate what fracking is doing to the environment.”

“Fine. Feel a little guilty as you walk away with the biggest contract of your life. I think it’s great. And, no matter what you claim, I say you handled the situation beautifully.”

“It’s hardly a done deal. I still have to come up with designs that knock his socks off. And he knows his stuff. If he thinks a firm as well regarded as Coldwater is turning out the same old same old, then you know he’s expecting something pretty sensational.”

“Which is what you’ll give him,” Gwen said as our first courses arrived. “I have no doubt.”

I talked through the whole meal about the project, all the while silently debating whether to tell Gwen about Mackenzie’s not-for-profit. I’d thought of the gardens at Bridgewater House as soon as he’d mentioned the charity’s mission. The gardens were extensive, historically significant, and in a sad state of disrepair, including a beautiful old nineteenth-century greenhouse that had lost half its panes and was disintegrating into a rusted skeleton. I knew that a substantial amount of Gwen’s capital campaign was designated for outdoor restoration. Bridgewater House was a perfect fit for the Mackenzie Project—and a grant of that stature would no doubt help get Gwen’s fund-raising efforts off the ground at last.

“So what’s he like as a man?” Gwen asked over espresso and a plate of cookies. “Is he just all about making billions of buckaroonies—or does he have a soul?”

“You know, I don’t think it’s either-or with him. He’s definitely a high-powered person. And, no matter what he claims, fracking is evil. On the other hand—” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her about the charity and his dollar-for-dollar offer if I got the job.

“But is he someone I could hit up?” Gwen asked, cutting me off. “Would he be open to an ask, do you think?”

“Possibly,” I said. From what I knew about Mackenzie, he seemed like just the kind of person Gwen should be pursuing: someone with deep pockets, big ideas, and a plus-sized ego. Why was I hesitating? It was probably just what I ended up telling Gwen: “Let me see how things go with him. He certainly knows how to make a great first impression, but let me see if he comes through.” Still, something worried me about the idea. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

“M
army! Marmy!” Danny shouted happily as he dragged the heavy-duty tape measure behind him up the hill. Mara had locked the mechanism before handing it over to her son to play with while we investigated the birch grove farther up the incline. But Danny had somehow managed to release it, and now a long aluminum tail rattled behind him, the yellow plastic case bouncing around at the end like a pull toy.

“Be careful, Danny!” I cried without thinking. The tape was sharp as a razor. I’d nicked myself on it often enough. He stopped in his tracks, his wide grin suddenly uncertain. I realized as soon as I said it that I shouldn’t have intervened. I’d asked Mara as a favor if she could help me make a rough survey of Mackenzie’s property that chilly Saturday afternoon in late March, and she’d agreed to do so if she could bring Danny along. Though she seemed so young and inexperienced, I’d come to realize that she was a super-protective and self-sufficient mother. She didn’t want my advice. She’d made it pretty clear to me in the past that Danny was her business. Period. No trespassing.

“It’s okay,” Mara said as Danny’s mouth began to quiver, “you’re unbreakable. Right, bud? But your nose is totally disgusting. Get up here.” Mara squatted down as Danny ran into her arms. She pulled a package of Kleenex from her parka pocket. “Blow!” she said, hugging him to her as she covered the lower half of his face with the tissue.

I enjoyed watching the two of them together. They had the same dark brown hair, in Mara’s case cropped into a raggedy cap that fell slightly askew across her high, round forehead. Danny’s hadn’t been cut yet and it curled, cherublike, to his shoulders. When Mara was around her son, her defensive and closed-off attitude disappeared—as did the carefully maintained noncommittal expression. Seeing her with him allowed me a glimpse of a very different person—someone spontaneous and fun. I felt sad that she wouldn’t allow herself to be that way around me or anyone else she came into contact with at Green Acres. Clearly, something had happened to her—a bad early marriage or relationship, I suspected—that made her such a standoffish and solitary young woman.

“Hello, down there!” Eleanor called, waving to us from the side deck. The housekeeper had greeted us cordially when we arrived and invited us in for cookies and a cup of tea when we’d finished our work. “Warm brownies just out of the oven, if anyone’s interested.”

“Yes!” Danny said, his face brightening again.

“You guys go ahead,” I told Mara. We’d been at it for more than an hour, and the temperature was starting to drop off as the afternoon lengthened. I still had a lot of ground to cover, but Mackenzie had given me permission to walk the property whenever I wished. And I already knew that I’d need several additional visits to get all the readings I wanted. “I’m going to take some more photos before the light goes. I’ll see you up there.”

I watched them climb the hill, hand in hand, Danny galloping along beside his mom, obviously excited by the prospect of what awaited him in the enormous house above. I reached down to pick up the measuring tape that Danny had left on the ground. When I stood up again, I felt a rush of vertigo. The world wavered. Clouds scudding above the mountains in the distance looked suddenly ominous. A front was coming through—the forecast called for temperatures to be twenty degrees warmer by daybreak. Good news, really. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to explain my sudden uneasiness. I’d grown accustomed to being on my own outdoors. In fact, I usually cherished it. So what was this about? I wondered. But the sun was fading, and I didn’t have time to chase shadows. I forced myself to shake off the willies and keep moving.

I worked quickly, framing different shots of Mackenzie’s property in my viewfinder, seeing the many possibilities—and problems—that the land presented. For the most part, the gradient was at least twenty degrees, with just a few places where the slope leveled off. It began to occur to me that I was going to literally have to move the earth to create my own flat surfaces. Just how large those man-made terraces could be and how many the hillside could support would depend, I knew, on a number of variables, including underlying drainage and soil composition. I would have to bring in a landscape contractor for advice—and an environmental expert. Eventually, I’d need to consult with the EPA. I began to make a mental list of all the calls I was going to have to make on Monday morning.

By the time I started up to the house, a plan had begun to take shape in my mind. It was nothing I could even put down on paper yet. Just a sense of movement and form—like a flow of water over rock. A visual echo of the rolling mountains in the distance and the meandering course of the river through the valley.

I entered the house from the flight of stairs that led up to the
side deck, and followed the sound of voices down a long hall and into a brightly lit kitchen gleaming with brushed aluminum appliances and copper utensils suspended above a butcher block island. The walls were sunflower yellow, the counters thick blue slate. The floor was covered with glazed terra-cotta tile. Despite its size and elegance, it was a working kitchen, with open shelving lined with spices and mixing bowls. At the far end of the room, a long wooden table paralleled a large fireplace. Mara was sitting on a bench facing me. Eleanor was kitty-corner to her at the end of the table with Danny on her lap. Mara and Eleanor were leaning toward each other, obviously intent on whatever they were discussing.

“. . . be happy to check it out for you,” Mara was saying.

“That would be great, and maybe next time we can . . . ,” Eleanor began, but then, seeing me approach across the room, dropped her voice to a whisper. It struck me that the two women—who’d met for the first time that afternoon—appeared to be remarkably familiar and comfortable with each other. Especially considering that one of them was Mara. I was surprised and, yes, more than a little hurt that Danny—whom I’d yet to steal a hug from—was permitted to sit on Eleanor’s lap. On the other hand, I was pleased that Mara seemed to be able to loosen up and enjoy someone else’s company besides her son’s.

I gladly accepted the cup of tea that Eleanor offered and took a seat opposite Mara and in front of the plate of brownies. But my presence seemed to put a damper on the easygoing atmosphere. Eleanor asked politely after my progress.

“Well, I think we managed to get a good start this afternoon. Wouldn’t you say, Mara?” I asked, smiling across the table at her.

“Maybe,” she said with her usual shrug.

“Mr. M told me you should have the run of the place,” Eleanor said. “I’m here from nine to six or so every day but Sunday. You
don’t even need to check in with me, of course. But I’m happy to make you lunch or tea, if you give me a little warning.”

“That’s very kind of you,” I said. Eleanor had a soothing, melodious voice, tinged with the singsong lilt of the Caribbean. She emanated warmth. It was hardly surprising that Mara and Danny had taken to her so quickly. I sometimes forget how formidable I can be these days. Clipped, focused, no-nonsense.

“Oh, I love to cook! As I’m sure you can tell,” Eleanor said with a laugh, looking down at the gentle swells under her apron. “And I feel at such loose ends when Mr. M’s away on business.”

“He’s away now?” I asked, though I really didn’t need to. I could feel the lack of his presence in the house.

“In Europe. Then South America. The man has more frequent-flier miles than Santa Claus.”

“I love Santa,” Danny announced, reaching for another brownie.

“No way!” Mara said, grabbing his wrist as she swung her legs around the side of the bench. She stood up from the table. “We gotta get going.”

“Let me make you and Danny a goodie bag first,” Eleanor said, lifting the little guy into his mother’s arms.

“You really don’t—”

“You’ll be doing me a favor, dearie,” Eleanor replied. “Lead me not into temptation!”

I made a concerted effort to be more open and engaging with Mara after that. For one thing, I needed her help—now more than ever. We’d started spring cleanup and were fielding the usual calls about improvements from our regular customers. A row of red maples down the driveway. A fenced-in vegetable garden with raised beds. A rose arbor by the pool. It suddenly seemed that all our clients had a list of things they hoped Green Acres could get to that spring. For the first time, I let Mara handle some of these inquiries while I
worked at my computer on the plans for Mackenzie, my desk stacked with gardening books, magazines, and horticultural references.

I also wanted to push Mara a little. She needed to build a future for herself and her son, but she wasn’t going to get anywhere if she didn’t start to learn how to interact with other people first. I knew she was naturally bright and intuitive. She’d mastered the accounting software—which had taken me weeks to learn—within a couple of days of being hired. And she understood the basics of horticulture in a way that I think is unusual for most girls of her age. I knew that my own well-educated daughters, now both in their twenties, couldn’t begin to tell the difference between a hemlock and a white pine. Or the best weed-and-feed for lawns in our area. Or when to prune back woody shrubs. Mara did. Some of this, it’s true, she’d picked up from working at Green Acres for the last year—but by no means all. Typically, she deflected any of my questions about how she had come by such—at least for this day and age—specialized knowledge.

“That’s going to have to wait,” I heard her tell one client a week or two after our first site visit to Mackenzie’s. “No, not because we’re too busy. You gotta plant spring flowering bulbs in the fall. Yeah, that’s just the way it is.”

“You could have handled that with a little more finesse,” I told her when she’d finished the call.

“What do you mean?”

“Sugarcoat things a little,” I said, taking off my reading glasses. “Rather than saying ‘That’s the way it is,’ you could have said something like ‘We’ll be happy to put this on the top of our list for you in the fall. Bulbs are a wonderful idea!’”

“That’s not the way you talk,” Mara said. “You don’t sugarcoat anything.”

“Yes, but—,” I started to say, but then I had to laugh. She was right. In fact, when I thought about it, Mara sounded a lot like me on the phone. “I guess I’ve earned the right to be blunt. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘Do what I say—not what I do’?”

“Yeah,” Mara replied.

“Well, try it, okay?” I said. “By the way—what you said was absolutely correct, as you know. And that’s what matters most in this business. But a nicer bedside manner couldn’t hurt.”

I was working halfway into the night most days now, making endless notes, drafting ideas. I contacted Phil Welling, a site contractor I’d used on other projects and had come to like and trust. We walked the Mackenzie property together as I told him about the plan that was beginning to take shape in my mind.

“It’ll be a bitch to get done,” he said. “But you’re right. It’s the only way I can see you laying in gardens without eventually losing everything to soil erosion. But how are you planning to connect the different levels?”

“Retaining walls. Stone steps with wrought-iron railings. I’m visualizing a lot of custom-made ornamentation.”

“Even more reason to make sure you’ve built up strong, level foundations. I’m pretty sure I can make it work, but just to be safe I’d like to do some perk tests first.”

“Phil—I’m on spec at this point. I can’t pay you.”

“Yes, I know. But the word’s out that you’re Mackenzie’s only candidate. It’s a huge score for you, Alice. It’ll be the same for me if it happens—worth investing some money in up front.”

It was early enough in the season for me to concentrate on the Mackenzie plans and pay Mara to pick up the slack. She contacted our regular part-timers and worked out their weekly schedules for the season. She estimated most of the special requests and sent out quotes. She was putting in a lot of overtime and bringing Danny
with her on weekends. One unusually warm Saturday in early April when I had an office window cracked open, I heard their voices floating across from the greenhouse where Mara was hosing down the walls and cleaning out the seedling trays. We grew our own annuals and some of the perennials from seed that I special-ordered from heritage growers. It not only saved on cost, I found, but also cut down on disease and insect infestation.