A Corpse for Yew (9 page)

After being sure all her plants were in good shape, Peggy let Shakespeare inside and set off for the day. It was still early enough that she could ride to the Potting Shed before she had to go to the lab. Being there would make the rest of it easier, she hoped.

Thinking about the Potting Shed made her worry again about what she could do to keep the shop open until the drought passed. She had no doubt the dry weather would go away. It always did. It was tough going for farmers and anyone who relied on good weather and plentiful moisture for their living. She just had to figure out a way to survive until rain started coming regularly again.

She waved to Mr. Stogner, who stood on the corner of College and Fourth streets. He was always out there, walking his spaniel as he ate Krispy Kreme donuts. The little spaniel had such a round belly, she thought Mr. Stogner must share with him.

Peggy loved watching the city come to life in the morning. She’d been raised with the smell of the sea and in a port town atmosphere, but now Charlotte would always be home. It was growing too fast for its own good and losing too much of what was important about living there, but these were only growing pains. She had no doubt the Queen City would thrive and find a way to grow even more beautiful.

Sam was already parked behind the shop, his pickup loaded with fertilizer. She was glad to see he had a job that day. She never had to worry about that aspect of the business, at least about it getting done. There was nothing Sam could do about the weather. The landscaping business was too slow to say they were making a profit, but they were hanging in there. It was nothing a few weeks of rain wouldn’t cure. In no time, Sam and Keeley would be swamped the way they normally were in the fall.

“You’re up bright and early.” Sam came out the back door with a bag of fertilizer on his shoulder. “The store won’t be open for two hours. Just come to hang out?”

“I suppose so.” She told him about Mai needing her at the lab. “I guess I came to get some equilibrium before I go. That old rocking chair always makes me feel better. I’m glad you convinced me not to get rid of it when we remodeled after the flood.”

“I knew you’d still want it to be here.” He grinned. “This way you can rock next to your own personal miniwaterfall.”

“You and Jasper did a great job on that. I wish we could’ve kept him on.”

“Me, too. But there’s not much call for ponds and such right now. Unless we turn into the Sahara down here, I’m sure it’ll come back again, bigger than ever.”

“Have you heard from him?”

“Yeah. He calls me once a week or so. He’s working with his dad right now, and he’s not happy about it. I didn’t know what to tell him about working with us again. Then it came to me!”

“Oh?” She raised a cinnamon-colored eyebrow. “Did you hear a different weather report than I did?”

“Probably not. But I’m going to need a hand with a new aspect of the landscaping business. I’ve been reading up on it, and I think it could save us until the drought passes.”

“Well, let’s hear it.”

“I’d like to oblige you, but I’m on my way out to Mrs. Foster’s place to fertilize her yard. She’s having me plant grass seed and fertilize it. She said she feels rain coming in her bones, and she wants to take the chance. I tried to talk her out of it. Not very hard, but I
did
try.”

Keeley pulled her car up beside them, her dark eyes narrowed as she rolled down the window. “Has he told you his idea yet?”

“No,” Peggy admitted. “He’s being secretive this morning.”

“I promise I’ll find you at lunchtime and we’ll talk.” Sam was halfway in the truck as he spoke. “Come on, Keeley, we’re already running late.”

PEGGY WALKED INTO THE SHOP through the back door and locked it behind her. It was over an hour before Selena would report for duty. Just enough time to enjoy a cup of tea and sit in her rocker beside the waterfall.

She wasn’t able to enjoy her favorite rocking chair as much as she had in the past. She’d thought giving up her position at Queens would give her more time, but instead she was busier.

Some of that was her parents being new to the area. She took them around and showed them the sights as much as she could. After leaving their farm, she knew it would be hard for them to adjust to the city. But even that didn’t truly explain her lack of time.

She heated some water on the little electric cooker and took out a tea bag, smelling it as she did. It was orange and spice, her own blend, leftover from the holidays last year. The cooker and teapot were covered in dust, mute evidence of their lack of use. She needed to take stock of her herbal teas as well as her life, and find out how she could spruce them both up.

Finally settled in her rocking chair, Peggy inhaled the aroma of the tea she’d made, sipping it from a Potting Shed cup. The little waterfall cascaded prettily from the rocks in the top pool into the middle and bottom ponds. A few orange koi she and Keeley had saved from certain doom during a wedding landscape project swam in and out through the current created by the waterfall.

She looked around her little shop and was very pleased with the changes brought on by the broken water pipe over the summer. When she’d first opened, she had used what she found there rather than spending money she didn’t have on specialized fixtures. Now the shelves were made to hold growing plants as well as seeds and bulbs. The hydroponic garden hanging from the ceiling gave the whole place a wonderful sense of life.

John would have loved it. She sipped her tea and rocked quietly in her chair. This dream that she was living, which sometimes seemed to consume her, would’ve been heaven for him. Her father loved to garden, but John was even more passionate about it. He could take the sickest plant and make it well. Their love of growing things was exceeded only by their love for each other.

Sometimes she was afraid she had glossed over the rough patches of their marriage and made John a saint. She pushed herself to remember the bad times as well, times they’d argued over his dangerous job or her refusal to quit working at the university. But even in those times, it had been their love that sustained them. She had loved him more in the years before his death than she had when they’d stood before the minister in Charleston to say their wedding vows. She wouldn’t have thought that was possible.

There was a loud pounding at the old glass door, which faced the courtyard. Peggy opened her eyes, wiping away tears, and glanced at the wheelbarrow-shaped clock near the door. It wasn’t time to open yet. She sneaked a peek around the counter and saw her neighbors from across the cobblestoned way peering into the shop, looking for her.

She wanted to ignore them, but knew Emil and Sofia from the Kozy Kettle Tea and Coffee Emporium never went away that easily. With a sigh for her short-lived peace, she gulped down the rest of her tea and went to answer the door.

Maybe it was just as well she didn’t have much time to sit and ruminate if she was going to end up crying and feeling guilty that John was dead. Sometimes she could go days without even thinking about him, thrilled to be with Steve and find her life so full.

Other times, she felt the terrible pain of losing him as though it had happened only yesterday. She didn’t know if it would ever be any different.

“Thank God you opened the door!” Emil Balducci pushed his bulky frame through the opening, his well-rounded wife right behind him. He curled his oiled, black mustache and looked around the shop. “You got any problems here?”

“What kind of problems?” Peggy looked around the shop, too.

“Termites!” Sofia put her white Kozy Kettle apron over her blond head and settled her gaze on the ceiling. “They’re jumping off everywhere at our place. God forbid it gets like it did that summer in 1962. They ate an entire village to the ground. People with wooden legs had to run for their lives!”

“Not to mention the damage they did to the water supply.” Emil proceeded to embellish the incredible tale of the Sicilian village where they’d lived. “We couldn’t drink the water for weeks.”

“People lay on the ground and died from thirst,” Sofia continued. “My Aunt Teresina’s tongue got so big, they had to tie it away from her mouth so they could give her something to drink.”

Peggy tried hard never to laugh at Emil or Sofia. They believed everything they said, from deadly goldfish that spared their village only because a priest blessed them to relatives who had qualities similar to Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. “I haven’t seen any termites, but it’s always possible.”

Sofia pulled a scarf from her pocket. “That’s why we brought you this. My cousin used it as an aphrodisiac, but all the termites died when she put it on, so she got out of helping people who couldn’t get married and started a business killing termites.” She handed the colorful scarf filled with white powder to Peggy. “You spread it around in here, and the termites will stay away.”

Peggy took the scarf carefully. “What about you? Don’t you need some of this in your shop?”

Emil shrugged his broad shoulders. He looked like a man who had been handsome in his youth, and acted like he had used it to his advantage. But that was a long time ago. “Ah, we called Terminix. We didn’t know if you could afford it with business being so bad.”

“It’s not
that
bad,” Peggy protested. “I think we’ll get by, even if we have to call an exterminator. But you know, the company we pay our rent to would’ve sent a termite inspector without you paying for it. It’s part of the lease agreement.”

Sofia stared at her husband for a long moment before she snatched the powder-filled scarf from Peggy and hit him on top of his black curls. “How many times I have to tell you to read the lease? Now we paid good money we didn’t have.”

“How was I supposed to know? You said we should do it!”

Sofia smiled at Peggy and patted her hand. “Don’t worry about the powder on the floor. I told you it is an aphrodisiac. It might be good for you to bring your Steve down here. You know what I mean?” She waggled her brows up and down.

“I’m going back to finish the baking,” Emil declared. “Can I bring you a muffin, Peggy? It will make up for Steve not paying you any attention.”

“No, thanks. I have to leave in a few minutes.” Peggy wasn’t getting into a strange discussion with the couple as to why they thought Steve was neglecting her. She
certainly
didn’t plan to talk about their love life.

Sofia shrugged. “Don’t worry. You bring him down here. He’ll want you.”

Emil’s laughter bellowed out of his barrel-shaped chest. “He’ll want you and every other woman after he gets a whiff of this! Sofia, you stay in the shop when you see him.”

Peggy closed the wooden door with the many-paned windows behind them and locked it for good measure. They were impossible. She’d have to think of some way to keep Steve from going over there for the next few days. She shuddered to think what the conversation would be like if they saw him.

By the time Selena came to work, Peggy had taken stock of everything they were low on in the Potting Shed. Some of it they used on a regular basis, like the house plant fertilizer and the new grow lights, but the rest she’d wait for until the stock got a little lower.

“This place looks great,” Selena enthused, putting her backpack behind the counter. “And it smells lemony. Not so much like dirt and plants.”

“I added a touch of lemon verbena to the floor cleaner. I couldn’t believe how dirty the floors were.” Peggy gave her a list of things to do if traffic was slow during the day. “Don’t worry about any of this if you have customers. But if it’s slow like it has been, the shelves could do with a dusting and some reorganization.”

Selena glanced at the list. “This could take me a week, even without any customers.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad.” Peggy put away her rocking chair. “And if you’re busy, don’t worry about it.”

“Does busy include studying for my chem test next week?”

“Not exactly. But you don’t have to do all of this in one day, so you can take some time to study, too.”

Selena sighed. “What’s going to happen to us, Peggy? How is the Potting Shed going to stay open making a hundred dollars a day?”

“I don’t know yet. Sam said he has some ideas. Let’s hope they’re good ones.”

“I’ll try and come up with some ideas, too. Maybe we can tighten our belts and cut some corners.”