Morning Glory Circle (32 page)

“Aren’t you worried about the health department?” Scott asked.

“You mean Floyd?” Patrick said, and gestured with his head toward a booth along the side, where county health inspector Floyd Ransbottom raised a frosty mug to them at the mention of his name. “Banjo here’s been buying him beers since we opened, and I gotta tell ya, Floyd doesn’t seem too concerned.”

Scott shook his head and went down to the end of the bar to see if he could buy Ian a beer, but Ian waved him off.

“I can’t drink ‘til after dinner. I’m driving the bus mornings and afternoons again,” he said.

“That’s a long drive now,” Scott said, “and to a big school.”

“Have you seen that consolidated school?” Ian asked him. “It’s a massive thing. I don’t know how the kiddies find their way around it without a map. Full of computers and you can’t imagine what all. It’s all technology these days. Everyone’s on the wild world enter web.”

“Do you use the e-mail, Ian?” Scott asked him, knowing his former mentor hated not only computers, but any machine he couldn’t take apart and repair himself.

“No, son, let me tell you what I like to do. When I have a message for a fella, I like to use this thing I got called a telephone. It has a cord attached to the wall what connects it to every other house in the nation. Or I haul my fat arse over to where the person I want to communicate with hangs his hat, and give him my message personally. All these spoiled brats with their texturing and wee boxes and what have you, they may be richer than we were, but they are a damn site poorer in some ways, I can tell you; they’re not a smidgin’ brighter either, and that’s the shame of it.”

“No discipline problems on your bus, I imagine,” Scott said, knowing full well he was only winding the older man up.

“You got that right,” Ian said. “Every semester during the first week of school I put one of ‘em off the bus on the side of the highway and leave ‘em there. It makes an impression they don’t soon forget.”

“You don’t really,” Scott said, a little concerned.

  “No, I do, I really do,” Ian insisted. “I tell Delia the day I’m doing it, and she follows along behind and picks the child up. No harm, no foul. But it makes my point.”

Everyone in the bar laughed except Scott, who closed his eyes and wished he hadn’t asked.

Gwyneth arrived at the lodge and was horrified to find Caroline hanging dripping wet sheets on a clothesline draped across the great room.

“What are you doing?” she gasped, watching the water drip on the expensive oriental rugs and hardwood floors.

Caroline looked at her sister in exasperation as she climbed down the ladder she was using.

“I’m conserving electricity by not using the dryer,” she said.

“You have all those monks out here, why don’t they do some of the work?”

“It’s a long story,” Caroline said, wiping her brow, “and I know you wouldn’t understand, so I’m not going to try to explain it to you.”

“Oh, are they the beekeeping kind? I really hope they’re not the dog training ones; we just got rid of all those horrid beasts.”

“No, they are not beekeepers, or dog trainers, they are meditators, and I don’t have any help,” Caroline said. “I’m doing this all by myself.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I hardly think of you when manual labor is involved.”

Gwyneth smiled at her sister and took out her cell phone.

“I thought you said your cell phone didn’t work in Rose Hill,” Caroline said.

“I switched to the local provider. Turns out I now own the land on which their tower sits. My service, and service for all my staff, is now free and unlimited. They’d like to put up another tower between here and the ski resort, darling, and I told them I’d talk to you about it.”

“You never cease to amaze me.”

“Donald,” she said in dulcet tones to the person who answered her call. “Stop whatever it is you’re doing and bring Louise and Martina up to the lodge. My sister is having an emergency and we need you here. Call me on the cell when you get here and I’ll give you further instructions.”

“That’s really not necessary,” Caroline said weakly, as Gwyneth ended the call and gave Caroline a critical up and down look.

“Nonsense. Put on your coat, I’m taking you to the spa in Glencora. It’s not the Red Door, but it will have to do.”

“Gwyneth, I can’t go. I have the lunch dishes to do, and then I have to shop for more food. They only eat breakfast and lunch, and they don’t eat that much, but there’s so many of them.”

“My staff will see to that. Caroline, I despair of you, I really do. You need to hire people to do the menial tasks for you, so you can focus on the important things you are meant to do.”

“What I’m meant to do?”

“Yes, are you hearing impaired? You’re obviously near the point of a nervous breakdown and need your sister to guide you.”

“To guide me? Oh my Goddess,” Caroline said, covering her mouth with her hands.

“Stop blithering,” Gwyneth said. “Darling, tell me something. Would it kill you to run a brush through your hair? And I hate to say this, but you smell like a goat, and not the good, sweater-making kind. Is basic bodily hygiene against some spiritual principle you uphold, dear? Honestly. Your pores! You look like you haven’t had a facial in over a year.”

Caroline started laughing, and laughed so hard she snorted.

“You’re making an odd noise, Caroline,” Gwyneth said. “Please stop. It’s so unattractive.”

“The angels did hear me,” Caroline said, raising her hands up toward the ceiling, “but you’re the last person I thought they’d send.”

“That’s magical thinking, Caroline,” Gwyneth said. “There is no such thing as fairy godmothers or angels; there are only neuroses, disorders, social systems, and resources.”

Caroline came forward and wrapped Gwyneth in a big bear hug before her sister could stop her. Caroline was much taller, and she lifted Gwyneth off the ground, despite her sister’s protests.

“I honor the divinity within you, Gwyneth,” Caroline told her.

“That’s nice, dear,” Gwyneth said. “But you’re crushing the cashmere that’s upon me. Put me down now, please.”

Caroline put her sister back down and ran to get the ski jacket Maggie had lent her.

“My goodness,” Gwyneth said, as she attempted to straighten and smooth out her expensive coat. “Such a display.”

Gwyneth looked around the lodge speculatively with her inner interior decorator eye.

“She’s going to ruin this place if I don’t take her in hand, I just know it,” she said.

Just then, Gwyneth noticed a small man dressed in an orange robe staring at her from the hallway to the kitchen. He made prayer hands in front of his body and bowed low, smiling.

“Oh, hello,” Gwyneth said, making a little wave.

The man backed away from her, down the hallway, bowing the whole way.

‘That’s not so bad,’ Gwyneth thought. She quite liked the degree of deference shown to her in the bowing and backing, and the orange robe provided a real pop of color in the room.

Caroline came back with her coat on and said, “I’m ready.”

“You know,” Gwyneth said, as they went out to the waiting car, and her driver rushed to open the door for them. “I wouldn’t mind having a couple of those monks at my place.”

“I don’t know if you can split them up like that,” Caroline said.

“Well, at least ask them,” Gwyneth snapped, “before you tell me ‘no.’”

Mandy left the bakery with a plate of hot ham and cheese croissants on a plate, and popped in next door to the newspaper office. Ed was sitting at his computer, working on the web site. He grinned when he saw her, and she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before she sat the plate down on the worktable in the middle of the room.

“Still working on it, I see,” she said, looking over his shoulder, her arms sliding down around him in an intimate way.

“Yeah, but it just seems too easy.”

“Why does a thing have to be complicated,” Mandy said, sliding around to sit on his lap, facing him, “in order to be good?”

Ed lost himself in a long kiss, and the smell of her hair and skin, and only just remembered they were sitting in the window of the news office when someone honked their car horn outside and whistled.

“Whoa,” Ed said. “You better sit over there, out of my reach.”

Mandy jumped up and gave him another quick peck on the cheek before she sat down on a stool next to the worktable. Ed’s black lab got up off his cushion by the stove, wandered over, and stuck his nose under her arm, asking for some attention. Mandy rubbed his head and ears as he leaned against her in blissful ecstasy.

“You have the same effect on Hank as you do on me,” Ed said, and Mandy gave him a wicked smile.

“What are we gonna do Friday?” she asked. “I got the night off, remember?”

“Well, we could go out to eat, stay in to eat, play cards or scrabble. I could rent a movie if you’d like.”

“I want to go out on a real date,” Mandy said. “Just you and me.”

“What about Tommy?”

“He can stay with Delia or Bonnie. Bonnie’s got a new dog he can play with.”

“Alright then,” Ed said. “We’ll go wherever you want to go and do whatever you want to do.”

“You’re a great boyfriend,” she said. “I’m gonna put on a dress and high heels for you.”

“I can’t wait.”

Mandy sailed out of the newspaper office, waving and blowing kisses back at him. Ed caught the reflection of his own goofy grin in the window and rolled his eyes at himself. Hank was looking out the door after Mandy with his tongue hanging out, panting.

“I know exactly how you feel, son,” Ed said, and then shook his head. “I hope we know what we’re doing.”

Ava was sitting on the couch in her tiny family room, watching the baby boy sleeping in the basket. She was both happy and melancholy, as the baby fulfilled some inner longing she didn’t know she’d had, but at the same time reminded her of the pain she went through when Timmy was a baby, and she’d felt so alone and afraid.

Timmy had only been three months old when Brian disappeared. He’d said he was driving over to Pendleton to get some parts for a car they were working on at the station, and a week later he cashed a check in Miami that cleaned out their savings account. Some church people took up a collection to pay for a private investigator, but he didn’t find any trace of Brian.

Ava and Brian had been married fourteen years when he disappeared. Brian was charming and outgoing in public, but short-tempered and demanding at home. No matter how hard Ava tried, she couldn’t seem to do anything right in his eyes. If she got 99.99 percent if it right, that .01 percent she got wrong was what he cared about most. She did everything she could to be a good wife, but he cheated on her blatantly and repeatedly, drank too much, and wore her down with his insults and allegations. He was possessive and jealous, hated it when men looked at her, and accused her of trying to elicit the attention. He blamed her for having to give up his college baseball scholarship to marry her, and for burying him alive in Rose Hill. He complained bitterly about her to his mother, and drove a wedge between the two women that had yet to be removed.

After he left Ava was frightened and bewildered, but she was also secretly relieved. Sometimes, although she knew it was a grievous sin, she wished he was dead, so she could be free of worrying about him coming back and terrorizing her and the children with his bad moods and clever, cutting tongue. Dependant on his family and the church, with two small children and no income, Ava learned to play the part of the grateful, obedient daughter-in-law in order to please her rescuers. She’d leaned on Patrick too much, and knew that she was playing a dangerous game by allowing him to take Brian’s place, but she needed someone, and he was willing. They were lucky they kept their affair hidden as long as they did.

Patrick came in through the back door into the kitchen, and then stood at the doorway to the tiny family room.

“He looks just like Timmy, doesn’t he?” she asked him.

“He does,” Patrick said, and sat down on the edge of the easy chair across from the couch, so close their knees touched.

“He’s feeling better too,” she said. “He’s less congested today.”

“I’m worried you’ll get too attached to him, and then someone will take him away,” Patrick said.

“Over my dead body,” Ava said, in a fierce but quiet voice.

“It may just be a coincidence,” Patrick said. “The coloring, I mean.”

“He has the same swirl of hair on the crown as Timmy and Brian. And look,” she said, as she unfurled one tiny little hand and showed Patrick how his index finger was longer than the middle finger. “Brian and Timmy both have that.”

“They got that from Grandpa Tim,” Patrick conceded. “Maggie has that, too.”

“I don’t need a blood test to know,” she said. “He’s Brian’s.”

“He has a mother somewhere who’s probably frantic about him missing.”

“I think she must be dead,” Ava said. “I can’t tell you why I think it, but I do. He feels like an orphan.”