Road to Nowhere (16 page)

“ ‘Gold River Highway Funded,’ ” she read. “ ‘In another secretive Board of Supervisors meeting, Joe Esterhouse announced that the state has funded the unpopular and wasteful Gold River Highway extension.’ I think Luke is not happy.”

“I think he is not. But there’s no such thing as bad publicity. That was the only report anywhere about the road, but now the Asheville paper has picked it up and the word’s getting out. So I say, thank you, Luke. Anyway, there’s a pile of offers and contracts to go through.”

“It’s nice to be needed,” she said. “And Meredith says she will definitely be home next weekend for Easter.”

“Easter?” Wade checked his calendar. Easter was always huge.

“She would love to go rafting.”

“The outfitter’s going to be booked solid and I’ll be in the office the whole weekend, and I’ll need you here, too. I’ll get some tickets for later in the week.”

“We could have Meredith and Lauren show models.”

What a concept. “Do you think they would?”

“I could ask.”

“You’re pure gold, Corny. And genius, too.”

April 12, Wednesday

Louise was just beside herself. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d so looked forward to a morning.

Becky was cheery and Stephanie had been laughing, and even Serena was in. And they only had one appointment for all of them for the next hour.

“Is she coming?” Becky asked and everybody jerked around to look at the clock. It was still five minutes till.

“Of course she is.” Louise looked back at her books of styles. Well, she still was not one hundred percent sure about this. The more she looked, the more she wasn’t sure at all.

But that was part of the excitement! Her fingers were just itching to get started.

“There she is!”

They all saw her at once, stepping down the sidewalk as grand as the queen of England. Becky was at the door and swept it open, and Eliza swept in.

Oh, what hair!

“Eliza! What a treat it is to see you!”

“Thank you, Louise. So much.” Eliza was just glowing. “How I appreciate you doing this.”

“Thank you for coming!”

And Eliza smiled her smile that seemed like it had worlds in it. “Thank you for making me welcome.”

“You are welcome. You’re always welcome.” Louise put on her stern face for business. “And I said this is on the house. It’s my gift for you.” Then she giggled. “I just hope we can come up with something you’ll like!”

“I can hardly imagine what you think we should do. And thank you for your gift. I wouldn’t have money for a luxury like this.”

“Then all the more I’m glad to be doing it. Now, this is Serena, and Becky, and Stephie. Serena, you start her at the sink to wash and shampoo. Use the . . .” Louise put her hand up to run it through the lightning bolts of black and white and gray. This would be the first important decision. “Use the moisturizing one, the Glisten. And the cream rinse.” She’d never felt anything like it.

They settled her down in the chair and she leaned back, and Serena turned on the water. And while the girls washed and rinsed, Louise went through it all one more time.

No perm, of course. That wouldn’t be right at all, not for Eliza. And no coloring. There was nothing that could improve on those streaks of black and white. Just cutting and shaping. And if she couldn’t make something marvelous with what she had to work with, she didn’t deserve to ever touch a pair of scissors again.

She made her final decisions. She was ready.

Doctors, lawyers, funeral directors. Businesses might have hard times and close up, but those three couldn’t be got rid of.

Joe looked in the front door of the funeral home. The Chapel room was empty. Roger Gallaudet was in the back office.

“Joe?” Roger didn’t look particularly busy. “Well, what are you doing up this way?”

“Had a question.” He didn’t much want an answer to it.

“Go ahead.”

“About Mort Walker.”

“Oh, sure. What’s on your mind?”

“Gordon Hite says the doctor called it a heart attack.”

“I think that was the cause of death on the forms.”

“I suppose you didn’t think any different.”

Roger sat up and scratched his head. “What is it on your mind, Joe?”

“He was a friend. I’m just wondering if he was taken care of right. Some doctors might not look real close if they think they already know what they’d find.”

Roger was still scratching where his hair used to be. “Is there some reason you’re asking?”

“There might be.”

“That’s not a good thing, Joe. Are you thinking Everett Colony missed something? Or that he was covering something up?”

“I wonder if Mort might have died of something else than a heart attack.”

“Well, he had a big wound on his forehead, if that’s what you mean. I cleaned it up myself. But that was from his fall. He was up in the loft throwing down hay. And it might have been that the heart attack didn’t kill him but the fall did. That gash would have done it.”

“And the gash would have come after the heart attack.”

“Must have, Joe. Wouldn’t make sense the other way.”

“I suppose.”

“Well . . . now, he might have fallen, just from losing his balance. Then hit his head, and that caused the attack.”

“You could tell he had a heart attack?”

“No, of course not. Just from Everett filling in the form.” Roger was drumming his fingers on his desk. “Wait a minute. What are you talking about?”

“What I said. Did Dr. Colony make sure about that heart attack or just take it for granted?”

“I don’t question Everett Colony.”

“He knows his business.”

“He does, but that’s not what I mean. I mean I don’t tangle with him. He doesn’t like questions.”

It was enough. “Thank you, Roger. I’ll leave it at that. And Gordon Hite didn’t think it was anything but a heart attack, either?”

“Gordon doesn’t like trouble any more that Everett likes questions.”

“I suppose.”

They stepped back to look. The girls hardly knew what to say, but they all started talking at once, chattering and excited. But Louise knew exactly what to say.

“It’s perfect, Eliza.”

Eliza turned to see the mirror for the first time since she’d come in. Her hand flew up to her mouth and then she froze and stared.

Louise waited. Some people might not have known what Eliza was thinking, but Louise had seen that expression before. And she was so excited she could pop.

Black, white, and every gray and silver in between. But now each vein had its place. And it was all still long, but not wild. But it was wild. That hair always would be! Now it swept around her face instead of shooting out from it.

“It’s marvelous.” Eliza touched it, very carefully, feeling what had been done. “It’s splendid—Louise. I could never have imagined.” She laughed. “Is it really me?”

“More than ever,” Louise said. “Let me show you. It’s easy as anything to do. You’ll brush it back around this way, and just put about four hairpins under here, and two more here. See? That’s all it needs. And when you braid it up at night, it’s shorter on the sides.”

Eliza was still staring and staring. “How did you know?”

“It’s just what I do, dear.”

Eliza stood out of the chair and took Louise’s hands and held them, and looked right into her eyes. “You don’t even know what you have done.”

April 14, Friday

“Now, you let me know if you have any questions,” Wade said. “I’ll be right here all morning. And . . . let me check . . .” He looked at the map in his hand one more time before he handed it to them. “Yeah, looks good. The red stars are the models and they’re all unlocked. Just help yourself.”

And off they went. A newly promoted corporate vice-president from Asheville and his sales account manager wife. If Wade could have gone with them, it would have been a sale, guaranteed. On their own . . . seventy percent chance. But they were just the first ones in, noon on Friday, and the long weekend was only starting. He barely made it to his desk before the door opened again. Real fast glance back across the big room.

Young lady. Rugby shirt, new blue jeans. Real young, too young to be buying a house. Checking out the main room. College kid. Then a younger girl, her little sister.

Attractive girls. Knock-down ravishing gorgeous, actually, and then their mother came in, every bit as gorgeous and more. Wade was there.

“Hi, sweetie, you made it,” he said, and gave Meredith a big hug.

What days these had been. Planting, warmth, growth, and now the transformation of the whole forest. In the full year, of all the climaxes and riches, this moment had power that no other did. In just days the sky disappeared, the trees were absorbed, everything changed. Everything.

The leaves became everything.

And of all times, dear Louise—dearest Louise—had chosen this moment to work her own unfurling. Eliza would never have imagined, but just as the trees, she herself had been transformed! She still wasn’t sure of what it meant, but there was significance.

Now it was time to be out and be seen. She wasn’t ashamed, but she felt strange, displaced, that there would be attention. Did the trees feel this way?

“Well, Eliza! Is that you? What did you do?” Annie Kay even came from behind the counter to draw close.

But Eliza could only laugh. “I don’t know.”

“Well, who did that?”

“My friend. Louise, my dear friend. Look at me, Annie Kay. Would you ever have imagined?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“It’s spring. Everything is changing—and so am I!”

“Then I have a little surprise, too. Eliza, just stand there. I’ll be right back.”

Annie Kay hustled off, through the shelves and into the back rooms. Eliza stood. The smells of the place surrounded her, new and springlike. Flowers. Herbs. So many things. Then someone was coming back through the aisles, shorter than the tall shelves and unseen among them, but not unheard, and then bursting out right in front of her.

It was Jeanie. Jeanie, always so full of life and energy. Her hair was in a long braided tail and her eyes open and all-seeing.

“Jeanie!”

Jeanie put her hands on her hips, as she always did, and her voice was like the sharp silhouette of the mountains against the sky.

“Mother!”

“Yes, child?”

“What have you done to your hair?”

“Nothing.” She always felt like laughing with Jeanie. “Louise did it.”

“Who is Louise?”

“My friend.”

“I never know what you’re going to do next.”

Eliza had to laugh. “Neither do I!”

“What a day. What a beautiful day.” Randy was on the porch swing looking down over the front yard, which Kyle had just mowed yesterday, and Sue Ann’s tulips were as bright as light bulbs, and all freshly tended from where she’d been working all morning. “Sue Ann, why don’t you come out here and just help me enjoy it?”

“I will,” she said from inside the screen door. “I’ll be right there.”

Good Friday. Some years Easter was too early to really be spring, but this year the timing could not have been more perfect.

“There you are,” he said as she came out. “And look at that.” She had a tray of iced tea and a few little snacks. “I was thinking it had all been perfect before, but I hadn’t realized what I was missing.”

“It is beautiful out here, isn’t it,” Sue Ann said.

She’d worked so hard to get the tray ready that she hadn’t even gotten cleaned up from weeding and planting. She even still had her gardening sandals on.

“Now, don’t you move,” Randy said. He jumped up and ran into the house himself, right into the kitchen, and right back out in just a moment with a wet washcloth.

“What are you doing?” Sue Ann smiled as bright as the tulips.

“Making you a little more comfortable.” He slipped off her sandals, one at a time, and wiped off the bits of grass and dirt. “You’re always working so hard.” Then he got back to his chair and leaned back and there they were, the two of them, with a beautiful yard, and a comfortable house with a relaxing front porch, and a dear family, and each other.

“It is a beautiful day.” He handed her a cracker. “And a beautiful place to be enjoying it.” He filled up her iced tea glass. “And you’re the most beautiful of all.”

There was the Yukon pulling in. Smiling people getting out, strolling toward the office.

“Welcome back,” Wade said, opening the door. “Everything okay?” He couldn’t remember the wife’s name.

“Just wonderful,” she said.

“You saw everything you wanted?”

“So far,” the husband said. “I think we’ll just drive around some on our own.” Whatever their names were. Smith, whatever.

“Just help yourself. Did I give you that map? Yeah, that’s it. I’ll give you some more information, too, before you go.” Turn to Corny as the couple left. “Did they fill in that information sheet?” Another couple was coming up to the office.

“Lauren’s putting it into the spreadsheet right now.”

“Great.” Anyone who took the time to write down their address was already twenty percent sold. “You know, they don’t call it Good Friday for nothing.”

Turn to the windows. No, back to Corny. She was even better than the view.

“You know, I love this.”

“Selling houses, Wade?”

“I don’t know. There’s something about it all.” So then he had to think. “Forget Charlie. This is about building a place. People move in and they connect and live.” Right. “Their roads are here. The roads they’re on come through here, just like a real road.”

“Some people don’t want new roads.”

“Forget them, too. I don’t care if they show up with pitchforks and torches and arrest me. I’ve sold almost three hundred houses in here in four years. This fire’s lit, and they can’t blow it out now.”

Fool newspaper man, he’d done it again. Standing right there beside Joe’s truck. Waiting for him.

He pushed open the door from the hardware store.

“Joe! Well, what a coincidence, you just happening to be here. And I was wanting to ask you a few questions! Didn’t that work just right?”

“What do you want, Luke?”

“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you. It’s been almost two weeks since the board meeting and I never have got to ask you about the road.”