One Mountain Away (10 page)

She only moved her eyes. She didn’t move her head. In the past week she’d learned that lesson. When she awoke it was important not to move quickly, to let her body adjust and prepare. Then she could get up by degrees, swinging her legs over the bed in slow motion, pushing up an inch at a time until she was sitting on the edge. If she was lucky she’d remembered to put her purse beside her, and packs of saltines from Cuppa’s vast supply waited there for nibbling. If she didn’t move quickly, if she took her time slowly eating a morsel at a time, she would not have to run gagging to the perfect marble bathroom with its multinozzle shower and spa tub.

She wondered if there would be time for a shower after she finally rose. By now Charlotte would surely be asking herself why she had invited a stranger to her home. One look around had proved there was so much here worth stealing. The house was filled with valuable art; even this room had china figurines that were clearly not from the Walmart housewares department. Of course, Harmony had never stolen so much as a toothpick. Even the saltines in her purse were courtesy of her manager.

Fifteen minutes later she was on her feet and holding steady. The saltines had, as she’d hoped, calmed her roiling stomach. She debated a shower, and in the end, she couldn’t resist. Inside the marble-tile enclosure three separate sprays pummeled her from behind. The showerhead itself had more settings than Davis’s state-of-the-art flat-screen television, but the warm water made her nauseous, and she didn’t stay long.

She dressed in yesterday’s rumpled skirt and Cuppa T-shirt, which were all she had until she could get back to Jennifer’s apartment to rummage through her suitcases for something clean. She pulled her wet hair back from her face and fastened it with the same band she’d used last night. Then she went to find Charlotte.

She realized it was possible her hostess might still be asleep. Harmony had always been an early riser. She’d never had an opportunity to be anything else. As a child, if she wanted time in the family bathroom before school, she’d needed to get up at dawn, because once her father and brother, Buddy, were up, the house and everything in it belonged to them. In the summer she’d been required to get up by six to help Buddy bag newspapers for his route.

Since leaving home she hadn’t lived anywhere she could be comfortable sleeping in. Even when she had lived with Davis, she’d felt obligated to cook an early breakfast before he left for his office. He had never told her she had to, but he’d made enough snide jokes about “kept women” that she’d known better than to become one.

Charlotte’s house was easy to get lost in. Harmony paid attention as she tiptoed through the hallway looking for her hostess and still ended up in a mahogany-paneled study by mistake. She left that quickly, and later, the dining room, although she could swear she’d also seen a dining room off the entry way. A house with two dining rooms perplexed her. Separate dinner parties? Would the guests realize they had competition for their hostess from the other side of the house?

She found the kitchen at last, guided by the smell of coffee brewing. While she’d given it up, the smell was enticingly familiar, and her stomach behaved. She stepped in and saw Charlotte wearing a fuzzy bathrobe and standing at the stove.

“Good morning,” she said tentatively.

Charlotte turned and smiled at her. The smile was so welcoming that Harmony felt her tension ease.

“I hope I didn’t wake you while I puttered around in here,” Charlotte said.

“This house is so big, I think you could drill for oil and I wouldn’t hear you.” The moment she said it, Harmony wondered if she’d sounded critical, but before she could apologize, Charlotte laughed.

“On top of that, the builder did everything he could to soundproof the rooms. Maybe he thought it was destined for a large noisy family.”

Harmony moved closer, then took a seat at the island when Charlotte waved in that direction. “It’s an amazing house. Really.”

“I could say you don’t know the half of it, and I would be right. It goes on and on and on, and you haven’t even been upstairs. If you were wearing hiking boots, I’d give you a tour.”

Harmony relaxed a little more. “I really can’t thank you enough for—”

Charlotte held up her hand. “It was so little, Harmony. Were you comfortable?”

“More than comfortable. That’s the most wonderful bed I’ve ever slept in.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I think you might be the first person to try out the mattress.”

“It’s new?”

Charlotte hesitated just a moment. “Just unused. I don’t have many guests.” She held up a coffeepot. “Ready for some of this?”

Harmony shook her head. “I…I don’t drink coffee. I mean, at least not right now.”

Charlotte nodded. “Tea?”

Harmony wasn’t sure that she should have tea, either. In fact, she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to drink. “I…” She shook her head.

“Orange juice, then?”

“Oh, that would be perfect. But I don’t want to be any trouble.”

“Now if you’d been here yesterday morning, you might have been. My refrigerator was practically empty. But not today, so I’m delighted to share. Let’s figure out what we should eat. I have bread for toast, fresh berries, yogurt. I almost never cook anymore, but I can do that much.”

“This kitchen never gets used?” Harmony couldn’t believe it. She was a Food Network groupie, and she was pretty sure Giada, Rachel and Paula had never seen a kitchen better equipped than this.

“I know. It hardly seems fair, but I’m afraid it’s used only rarely,” Charlotte said. “And then mostly by caterers if I’m putting on a dinner party. The rest of the time I eat out or snack.”

Harmony realized she was actually hungry. In fact, she tried to remember when she’d last eaten. Yesterday afternoon, she thought. A Cuppa wrap purchased with her employee discount. She was going to have to do better—and fast.

“Everything sounds good,” she said.

“Wonderful. It sounds good to me, too. Let’s eat everything in one fell swoop.”

“Have you ever wondered what that means? Have you ever seen any swooping fells?”

Charlotte’s laugh was low, almost sultry, and somehow didn’t fit with her uptown bearing. “Not lately. Swooping fellows, maybe, in singles’ bars, but I haven’t seen any of those in decades.”

“They’re still there, only now they come with their latest blood test clutched in one hand and industrial-strength condoms in the other.” Harmony realized what she’d said and wondered if she ought to just take a vow of silence.

“Then I’m guessing that’s not how you got pregnant,” Charlotte said, after a brief pause.

Harmony hung her head. “How did you guess?”

“Well, I have a daughter. And while I had her a long time ago, I’ve never forgotten the thrill of morning sickness all day long. I figured it out last night.”

“No, I didn’t meet the father in a singles’ bar.” Harmony cleared her throat. “We were living together, but I moved out when I realized I wasn’t the only woman he was sleeping with.”

“And I’m guessing this was recent, and the reason you’re sleeping on a girlfriend’s sofa?”

Harmony nodded. “Three weeks ago. I…I didn’t know I was pregnant until last week, at least not for sure.”

“This must be a confusing time for you. And it probably doesn’t help that you don’t have your own place.”

“One of the baristas at Cuppa might know of a room for rent. She promised she’d check for me.”

“Networking, huh?”

Harmony looked up and made a wry face. “She’s not very reliable, but Jennifer’s lease runs out at the end of June, and she said if I haven’t found something else by then, maybe we can rent something bigger together.”

“So you’re making plans.”

“It will work out.”

Charlotte didn’t answer. She got food out of the refrigerator and turned down Harmony’s offer of help. She put bread in the toaster, then dished yogurt into bowls and washed berries to go with it, setting things on the island as she worked.

Harmony watched closely. Charlotte Hale was a stranger, but there were clues as to what kind of woman she was. She was middle-age, with hands that were well-cared for and hair that was probably touched up but naturally that deep shade of red, since it fit so perfectly with the creamy tones of her skin. Jennifer worked at an expensive salon, and she was always pointing out things like that.

Charlotte was probably around the age of Harmony’s own mother, but she looked much younger because she had time and money to take care of herself, and a belief that she had the right, something Harmony’s own mother lacked. She was probably from somewhere in the South, although Harmony guessed her educated drawl hadn’t come from here, but perhaps from someplace less “mountain,” like Atlanta or Charlotte. The latter would even explain her name. She moved with grace, but slowly, as if she wasn’t certain her body was up to the tasks she’d set for it this morning.

She was clearly rich. Unless she was the housekeeper for the real owner. Harmony smiled, because she was pretty sure that was not the case.

Charlotte closed the refrigerator. “Would you like to eat here? In the breakfast room?”

“Here’s great,” Harmony said. Her stomach was rumbling now, and the breakfast looked perfect.

“Oh, good. My choice, too.” Charlotte slid everything closer to her guest, and motioned for her to take a plate and dish up.

“When we finish, I’ll leave,” Harmony said, in case that hadn’t been clear. “And I’ll find a way back to my car. You don’t have to worry. Jennifer can—”

“There’s no hurry. Unless you have an early shift at Cuppa?”

“No, I go on at four. I just need to go back to Jennifer’s and change clothes before I go in.” Harmony dug into her breakfast, which couldn’t have tasted better.

“This is none of my business…” Charlotte had settled beside her and was dishing berries over a small dollop of yogurt as she spoke.

“You want to know about the baby, right?”

“Only what you want to tell me.”

Harmony wondered if Charlotte was part of one of those organizations that made it their mission to talk girls like Harmony out of abortion. She wondered if that was why Charlotte had invited her here, because she had guessed Harmony was pregnant and possibly alone.

That all made sense, although Charlotte wasn’t pushy, the way Harmony had imagined someone with that agenda would be. Somehow it didn’t really fit, because she didn’t seem to be selling anything.

“I wasn’t planning to get pregnant,” Harmony said. “I was pretty careful. I guess pretty careful wasn’t careful enough.”

“I’ve been there. I understand.”

Harmony thought maybe there was a sisterhood of “pretty careful” women who had been faced with decisions like hers. She was afraid to ask Charlotte’s story, although she wished she knew.

“Davis doesn’t know. I haven’t told him yet.”

“I’m sure you have a good reason.”

Harmony found herself relaxing again. “I guess I don’t want him telling me what to do. He likes to do that. When I lived with him, I let him. His place, his rules. But all my life, other people have told me what I should do, and now, well, I need to figure this out myself. Because this baby won’t matter nearly as much to anybody else as it will to me. So that means I have to be the one to decide things.”

“That makes sense to me, although you sound pretty certain the baby won’t matter as much to Davis.”

“He doesn’t like children.”

“So you’re pretty sure what he’ll say when you tell him?”

“He won’t be happy.”

Charlotte reached over and rested her hand on Harmony’s. “There’s good news. He can’t make you do anything you don’t want. Nobody can.”

“It’s just…well, it’s just going to be a little crazy for a while. I just have some hard thinking to do.”

“Right. Without interference.”

Harmony was glad to hear those last two words. “I’ve been thinking about making a list. You know, of things I need to do and things to decide. Maybe then I could figure them out faster. Check things off…”

Charlotte passed the plate of toast, and Harmony gladly took another piece. The bread was wonderful, and Charlotte had put real butter on it. She tried to remember the last time she’d had real butter on toast. Davis had insisted on olive oil spread because he wanted to live forever.

“What’s going to be at the top of the list?” Charlotte asked. “Have you gotten that far?”

“Finding a place to live.”

“Sounds like you have definite priorities.”

“That’s number one, for sure. I’ve still got to save up a little more, even if Jennifer and I get a place together. I’ve been working extra shifts, and I saved some money when I lived with Davis, but then I had car problems, and there was a month when Cuppa closed down while they finished the renovations.” Harmony wondered why she was telling Charlotte all this, and decided it was because Charlotte was listening. She couldn’t remember the last time anybody had really listened to her.

“I like the way you think,” Charlotte said. “You’ve got important decisions, but I’m guessing you want to be settled before you get too much further.”

“I need a better job, too. Something with regular hours and insurance. The baby deserves that. And once I have to pay for child care…” Harmony shook her head. “But one step at a time, right?”

“I imagine this is scary, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes.”

“May I tell you a story?”

As nice as it had been to have somebody listen to her, Harmony was glad to be out of the spotlight. “About you?”

“About me, yes. Because when it’s finished, I’m going to tell you that the guest room where you stayed last night, or any guest room in the house, is yours as long as you need time to figure things out.” Charlotte held up her hand to stave off Harmony’s protests. “Let me tell the story first, then we’ll get back to that. Okay?”

Harmony couldn’t say no. How could she refuse such a small thing, when in the past ten hours Charlotte Hale had made her feel like a whole person again?

* * *

Charlotte watched her houseguest’s expressions as she recounted the story of her grandmother’s funeral, the same one she’d written in her journal that morning before Harmony woke up. After finding Harmony in the car last night, that day had been very much on her mind, and sharing it with the young woman now seemed natural, although in her whole life she’d only told it to one other person.