Secrets (31 page)
Rese swallowed the irony. A rock? When she felt anything but solid.
“You never move; you never wash away. You’re invincible, but I…” Silent tears slipped from Star’s lashes, down her temples, catching in her curls. “I can’t do this life thing.”
“Of course you can.”
Star shook with the tears coming harder. “Why couldn’t he see?”
“He missed something beautiful.” Rese took Star’s hand.
Star looked at her through pain-washed eyes. “Am I?”
“You’re radiant.”
Star closed her eyes and drew a ragged breath, then let it slowly out. “I am sun; I am rainbow. I am Star; see me shine.”
Rese swallowed. A rock. Never moving, never washing away. Unthinking, unfeeling; just there, existing. She didn’t want to be a rock.
Lance followed the voices to the Redwood and paused in the doorway. Star lay across the bed and Rese sat beside her. He couldn’t see Star’s face, but Rese looked troubled. Not his problem, in spite of Evvy’s lecture. She thought he was there for Rese, but he was there for Nonna, and these last days had strengthened that conviction. “This a private party?”
Rese looked up. “What do you need, Lance?”
“What’s the plan for furnishing the carriage house?” He hung his hands on his hips. “I could move out there tonight if I had something to sleep on.” And have undisturbed access to the hatch and whatever it hid.
Rese let go of Star’s hand. “I didn’t budget furniture for that.”
Star sat up and dragged strands of hair from her damp face. He must be interrupting some catharsis.
“You okay, Star?”
She smiled. “I’m radiant.”
Amazingly she was. Her smile had a poignancy he couldn’t help responding to with his own. He turned back to Rese. “I could use the hammock for a night or two.”
Rese frowned. “I have a sofa in my office and maybe a table.”
“Got a lamp?”
She nodded. “Probably.”
“Then all we need is a bed.” She would need that much for the next person, and he was not springing for furniture after all the work he’d done
gratis
.
“That won’t be cheap.”
Were they back to that again? He tried to penetrate her wall, see what she was thinking. She had wanted him out there, not in the house. She would need his room soon. Wasn’t it in her best interest to facilitate his move? “Order a mattress and make the frame.”
“Make it?”
“You can slap together something, can’t you?” How hard would that be for Rese Barrett, carpenter emeritus?
Her face brightened. He’d turned her switch back on, and some of the shadows fled. “I’ve never built that kind of furniture.” But he could see her wheels turning. A new challenge, a focus she needed and understood. And less opportunity to notice his landscaping.
She stood up. “The sofa’s small, just a love seat, actually.” She started out of the room. “It was left in my suite with a bunch of old stuff. I moved it all aside to set up the office.”
Aha. Lance hadn’t searched Rese’s suite, of course. But any mention of old stuff was important. He followed her downstairs with Star trailing along. Lance stopped at the door. Was he actually being permitted through?
“It’s in here.” Rese headed for the office. A quick glimpse showed him her bedroom was perfect, nothing out of place. The office, neat as well, though to the side, as she’d said, were pushed some extra things. The love seat was at least two decades old, quilted, with wooden arms and legs, definitely not the kind to curl up in. But it would work for something to sit on in his main room, good enough for him if not the guests she planned to house there eventually.
Rese took one end without asking his opinion. “Open the doors, Star. We may as well move it now.”
After placing it in the bare space, they went back, and while Rese grabbed a pillow and blanket, he searched through the other things she had. A side table and a dangerous looking lamp, and two pictures for the wall. One was a portrait of a man with an oval mat and ornate frame. Heart hammering, he slid it back with the other. The glimpse he’d gotten was promising indeed.
Star leaned over his shoulder. “That looked like you.”
He tipped his face up toward her. “Bad light, I hope. But maybe I’ll hang these. Have something on the walls at least.” He took the two frames and stood up. Like members of a parade, they marched the lamp, table, and pictures to his space. He set the pictures against the wall and said, “Help me with the hammock?”
The thing weighed a ton and, even with the new sling, would be no picnic to sleep on for long. They moved it into his bedroom where it looked strange. No breeze to sway it or branches overhead to dapple it with shade. But he could move out there now, and that was what mattered.
Rese stood a moment measuring the space with her eyes. “I ought to build a queen size.”
Thinking in terms of renting it, no doubt. He certainly didn’t need that size. “Whatever you want.”
She walked the room. “I have maple left from the shelves. I could frame in a closet.”
“Great. I’ll move my skeletons.”
She smiled. That had to be a first these last few days. They’d had very little interaction, with him tiling his roof and her doing whatever she had been up to in the house. He hadn’t made meals, and she hadn’t asked. He would resume when their guests came, but not before. Strictly business. But planning the woodworking seemed to have lifted her spirits. Maybe Brad was right. She couldn’t leave it behind.
Star was crouched at the pictures and looked from the portrait to Lance. It was dim with the single lamp, but her artist’s eye was not missing what he’d caught as well. A definite family resemblance. She stood up. “Too bad it’s so drab. You need color in here. I’ll paint you something.”
Beside him, Rese caught her breath. He said, “Sure,” thankful her thoughts had gone that way instead of making the portrait an issue.
“What would you like?”
“Anything.” There he was sounding like Rese. He amended it. “Nature. A landscape or still life.” Not that he could see Star painting a bowl of apples. But it didn’t matter. He’d offered an opinion at least. Shown an interest.
He ushered them out before more could be made of the portrait. But as soon as they were gone, he took it out and studied the face that had caught both his and Star’s attention. He couldn’t say it was an exact likeness. But he was definitely looking into the eyes of his past.
It was what she had wanted, what she’d stipulated from the start. But moving Lance out only widened the gap between them. He’d become a model employee. He did his work and showed respect: cooperative and appropriate, no more simmering hurt, but no exuberance either. It was as though his excitement for the project had evaporated.
She had fed on his ideas, drawn strength from his encouragement. Now that was gone, and the closer they came to opening, the more she dreaded it. To be honest it wasn’t only his professional excitement she missed. It was all the interaction.
She wanted him to ask for equipment, to hand her frothy chai tea and smile at her grumpiness. She wanted him to try out a dish on her and get frustrated when she didn’t praise it. She wanted him to sing and play and soak her with his gaze. But she had stopped all that to be in charge. Her throat squeezed.
Star circled an arm around her waist as they walked to the house. “Poor Rese.”
She stiffened automatically. “I’m fine.”
“Of course, you are. Nothing daunts the dauntless; no shaking the unshakable.”
Rese laughed, but it felt bitter. They went into the kitchen. She could have asked Lance to fix her a steamer. But he was in the carriage house now, not upstairs between her and the ghosts in the attic. Now he stood watch over the tomb. Only he didn’t believe the dead threatened them. They went to spend eternity with Jesus or without.
Maybe if she had someone invisible telling her what to do, she would do better. Her temples ached. She was not going to sleep.
Star yawned hugely. “The frogs are singing.” She blew a kiss and went up to her room.
Rese stood in the empty kitchen, listening to the creaks of Star moving about, then the silence of the huge old place. She almost wished for creepy moans, so she wouldn’t feel so alone. What was she doing?
Nothing. And it would drive her crazy. Clenching her hands, she went into her room. Instead of climbing into her bed, she measured it and recorded the dimensions, then went out to the shed and set up a workspace. She had leftover cherry from the banister that she could use for posts, and boards from the stairs for the headboard. It was good wood, and she had no intention of slapping something together, as Lance had put it. His bed would be her first piece of freestanding furniture, and she didn’t want to look at it with regret.
By the time morning light was creeping through the shed window and dimming the overhead bulbs, she had the posts turned and shaped on the lathe, grooved to insert the headboard and side frames that were measured and cut. The headboard would include a crowning piece she intended to carve. Nothing fancy, just a scalloped crest. She would pick up the hardware later. She pulled her goggles down over her eyes and sawed the footboard.
The shed door opened, and Lance leaned against it.
She raised the goggles and met his stare. “I hope you like cherry.”
He took in the boards and posts and sawdust, lost for words. At last he said, “You’re lucky no one called the police.”
“The police?”
“Do you have any idea how loud saws and lathes are?”
She looked over what she’d done. “Did I keep you up?”
His eyes trailed her head to toe. “Nah. Nothing like power tools screaming all night. Good thing Evvy’s ninety years old.”
Evvy was the nearest neighbor, and even if she had heard the noise, Rese could hardly see her calling in a complaint. The one to their left was an airline pilot, rarely home, who had come over once to suggest she keep the construction Dumpster out of sight. The couple across the street were night shift nurses at the hospital. They’d brought wine and asked that she not allow her guests to park in front of their house.
No one else was close enough to have been affected. But Lance probably did get an earful. She hadn’t thought of that. She brushed sawdust from her arm. “I’m sorry. I started working on your bed and just kept going.”
“Why don’t you sleep, anyway?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Bad dreams?”
“No. Once I get to sleep I’m fine.” And talking about it was making her wish she had.
His eyes narrowed. “So it’s surrender you don’t like. Losing control.”
“I haven’t analyzed it, Lance.” But his words struck a chord. She could sleep once she was past the falling part. Maybe it was being out of control, the thoughts and fears of what might happen if she wasn’t ready. She sighed. She had dealt with it so long, she’d stopped wondering why. “I didn’t mean to keep you up.”
“Not like the last time?” One corner of his mouth jerked.
She brought up her chin. “Last time you deserved it.”
He poked his tongue into his cheek. “But now I behave.”
A pang seared her. Yes, he behaved. She lowered her face before he could catch her grief. What was wrong with her? It had to be delayed strain from Dad’s death, the huge changes she’d made during a point of stress, giving up all she knew to begin something she was unsuited for. Great plan.
“You ought to get some sleep. I can stand the hammock another night or two.”
Her eyelids gritted. Her limbs hung like wet plaster. What little energy she had left drained from her. She pulled the goggles from her head and laid them down, then walked woodenly to the house.
Doubt billows in like fog.
Whispered suspicions bleed into my mind.
I cling to what I know.
With slippery ?ngers I cling.
L
ance headed for church, trying not to think about Rese. He hadn’t realized how bad it had gotten for her. He’d focused so hard on not noticing, that her pain this morning caught him by surprise. She probably thought she was hiding it. But he understood, now, the concern Brad had voiced. Rese wasn’t dealing with things in a healthy way.
