Earnest (2 page)

C
HAPTER
1

A
nna Sullivan pulled up in front of her beloved Victorian house. Well, it wasn't really hers. She rented it with two other business owners, and they were saving up to buy it, but in her heart she owned it. As on every Monday morning, her ancient van was loaded with wholesale flowers and plants from Seattle, and Anna would have to lug them into Plant Parenthood, her shop on the first floor. Earnest leapt to the street, happy that he'd had a ferry ride, as Anna lifted two buckets of roses.

“Good morning, dear house,” she whispered as she and Earnest started down the sidewalk.

Good morning, dear Anna,
she imagined the house whisper back. In Anna's mind the house winked for good measure and added,
Enjoy this beautiful autumn day!
A crow flew across the house's half-acre front lawn and landed on the white porch railing.

In a historic town of old clapboard buildings, the house stood on the main street like a dignified dowager. Built by Gamble's first attorney, she had two stories and lots of gingerbread. Her fourth owner had been Anna's grandmother, with whom Anna had lived as a child until Grammy died and the house was sold. When Anna talked with the house, she always responded as Anna imagined Grammy might have. In Anna's mind, Grammy and the house were one and the same.

Grammy's spirit lingered in the turret, redbrick chimney, old wavy-glass bay windows, and flower boxes of lobelia and geraniums. She was in the sky-blue paint and the white curlicue brackets adjoining posts along the front porch. Her humor showed in the lion's puzzled face embossed on the front doorknob, and in the doorbell, which was the round black tongue of a small brass bear. Grammy's love of football remained in the porch's beadboard ceiling hook, from which she'd hung a giant Huskies banner on University of Washington game days.

Though willowy, Anna was strong, but even so, carrying buckets of sloshing water into the house took effort. She set them down to give her hands a break before hoisting the roses up the porch steps. As her loyal protector, Earnest plopped down by her red ballet flats while she flexed her fingers and smoothed down the little tufts that sometimes appeared in her hair whether she liked them or not. As she picked up the buckets again, she heard from across Rainier Avenue, “Hey, Anna! Wait up!”

Waving to her were Lauren, who owned the beauty salon and used bookstore on the house's second floor, and Joy, whose gift shop was on the first floor at the back.Though old friends, the two women were opposites. Six foot two, brunette, and ruler thin, Lauren was like a shy giraffe, but put a pair of styling scissors in her hand, and she became a confident lion. Joy was five feet tall, bleached blonde, plump, and feisty. When business was slow, she worked on
Wild Savage Love,
a bodice-ripper novel featuring her ex-husband as the villain.

Joy stopped to look at pastries in the Sweet Time Bakery's window, but Lauren dodged a cab speeding to the ferry and jaywalked across the street. At the end of the sidewalk, she slipped copies of her September poem into a Plexiglas box attached to a metal pole, which she called her community poetry post. As she reached Anna, Earnest got up and gave her a proper sniff.

“I wish I could help you unload, but I've got a full foil in ten minutes,” Lauren said.

“No problem. I'll manage,” Anna said.

“I'm desperate for coffee.Want a cup?”

“Sure.”

Overhearing them, Joy followed, her face flushed, a giant canvas tote bag in her arms. “Be careful with our Mr. Coffee. He's started rebelling. You have to smack him on the lid to get him to turn on his light.”

“I guess we need a new one.” Lauren knitted her eyebrows.

“I'll check out New to You this afternoon,” Anna offered.

“I don't want to use some stranger's nasty old used Mr. Coffee,” Joy said.

“We have to save every penny for the house,” Anna said.

“If Anna can't find a nice one, I'll go to Macy's. Deal?” Lauren asked Joy.

“Okay,” Joy said.

But Anna was reluctant. The sooner they saved money, the sooner the house might be theirs.

At their monthly finance meetings, they combed their bank accounts like misers and plotted how to approach their landlady, Mrs. Blackmore, whom they called Mrs. Scroogemore. She should be glad for them to take the house off her hands since she couldn't bother with repairs. In the kitchen, the lights flickered, and you had to be an expert at wielding a plumber's friend to coax the sink to drain. But once Mrs. Scroogemore learned of the women's interest in the house, she'd milk them for every cent they had.

“I've got to rush. See you at lunch.” Lauren ran up the porch steps on her size-eleven feet, her feather boa streaming behind her long vintage skirt. She disappeared into the house.

“Let me help you,” Joy offered.

“Thanks, but you're carrying enough.” Anna grabbed the handles of her buckets and hauled them through the front door.

Joy turned left and went to her gift shop. Anna turned right, passed the oak newel post, and walked down the hall. As Earnest followed, the stained glass windows cast red and gold rectangles on his fur. Anna wiped her feet on her straw welcome mat and opened Plant Parenthood's door—and the fresh smell of flowers and plants hit her like a gentle breeze. In one breath, her morning changed from fall to spring.

When Earnest stepped inside, he changed too—from a dog to the guardian of Anna's magic kingdom. She liked to think that gnomes, wood nymphs, sprites, and trolls would be at home in her shop. With love and care, she'd transformed what had been Grammy's adjoining dining room and parlor into a fantasy forest of plants and flowers. You could imagine a unicorn disappearing into the greenery, or Tinker Bell flying through the air and landing on a rose bud.

In the center of the rooms were old tables and chests that Anna had rescued from the New to You Shop and she and Jeff had painted Chinese red, Prussian blue, and emerald green. On the wood surfaces, she'd set Buddhas, folk-art angels, carved animals, and brightly glazed pots of orchids and African violets. Around the bay windows were her larger plants:
Ficus benjaminas,
scheffleras, philodendrons, tree ferns, and palms.

Edgar, her rubber plant, who was not for sale, stood like a sentinel in the corner next to Constance, her favorite feathery fern, who resided on her own oak pedestal. Anna had filled the windowsills with colored glass vases of flowers,jars of Earnest's dog biscuits, and pots of small carnivorous plants, such as bladderworts and Venus flytraps, which Tommy, a neighborhood kid, stopped by to check for captured insects.

Anna set the roses in her refrigerator, and she and Earnest went back for more flowers and plants. Eight trips later, the lilies, freesia, and carnations were cooling with the roses, and the heartier mums and sunflowers were in buckets on the floor. With orange-handled scissors, Anna snipped the rubber bands around each bunch of blossoms and spread them out to give them breathing room.

His escort duty over, Earnest settled down to nap on his round green pillow, which looked like a giant lily pad. Soon he was on his back, snoring, with his paws in the air. If someone set a slab of wood on them, he could have been a bridge table.

 

At her workspace behind the counter, Anna started on voicemail orders that customers had left yesterday. Monday morning was her busiest time. She placed hydrangeas and irises in a vase for Mr. Holloway because they were his wife's favorites and she was having surgery. To boost Mrs. Holloway's spirit, Anna added four free irises, though Jeff, who'd said her shop was not a charity, might disapprove.

As she was tying purple ribbon around the vase, Earnest got up and paced the room. “What's the matter, Sweetie?” Anna asked as a man came in, wearing sunglasses, tasseled loafers, and a polo shirt with a tiny alligator on his well-toned pec.

“I meant ‘Sweetie' as my dog, not you,” she said, smiling.

The man didn't look at her. He shuffled to her counter, his gaze downcast, and fingered his house and Porsche keys like worry beads. As Earnest came over and checked him out, the man said, “Er . . .”

Finally, he managed, “I want something special for my wife. Um . . . she just got on our neighborhood watch committee.”

So
.
Your neighborhood watch committee! Not exactly the pinnacle of every woman's dreams.
Anna read the signals. She'd dealt with so many guilty husbands that she'd designed the Virtue Special, a bouquet for them to give their wives to mend their marital fence.

“How about some beautiful lilies? Women love them,” she said.

“Um . . . sure. That sounds okay.”

“Here. I'll show you.” As Earnest returned to pacing, Anna went to the refrigerator and pulled out her bucket of lilies, which radiated innocence. “I like to mix these with baby's breath.” She pointed out the clouds of equally innocent tiny white flowers in their bucket on the floor. “If you'd like to wait, I can have the arrangement ready in a few minutes.”

“Good.” He walked to the window and looked out at the sunny day. “Do you smell smoke?”

Anna sniffed. “It's Mr. Webster down the block. He refuses to pay for garbage pickup so he's always burning trash. We've gotten used to it.”

She counted out a dozen lilies, snipped their stems, and worked puffs of baby's breath out of a clump.
Thank goodness Jeff would never need a Virtue Special. He'd never betray me,
she thought.

“Do you want a gold or silver ribbon?” she asked the man. When he didn't answer, she looked up. He must have sneaked off to call his girlfriend.

Anna was filling a glass vase with water when Earnest walked out of the shop and crossed the hall to the kitchen door. He sniffed the crack below it as if someone were sautéing sirloin on the stove.

That's odd. Earnest sticks to me like lint.
“It's too soon for lunch, sweet boy,” Anna called. He could be a promiscuous glutton.

Ignoring her, he sat in front of the door and stared at the knob. His gaze seemed to will it to turn and let him inside.

“Earnest, you had a big breakfast. Come back.” Anna put a lily into the vase.

Earnest didn't budge.

“Maybe he needs an obedience class.” The man walked back into the shop.

No, Earnest was thinking something, and he seemed to be getting worked up. He whimpered and insisted in no uncertain terms,
I want in the kitchen.

“Just a minute, Earnest. Let me finish this first.”

He whined again, louder and more forcefully.
This is important! I want in the kitchen! NOW!

Earnest scratched the door, his first-ever destructive act and so out of character that Anna became alarmed. She set a lily on the counter and told the man, “I'll be back in a second.”

As she hurried into the hall, she demanded, “So what's the
matter,
Earnest?!”

His barks were almost loud enough to shake the windowpanes.
HURRY! HURRY! NOW!
He clawed deep, sweeping scratches into the door.

When Anna opened it, black smoke billowed in her face. She coughed like she'd never breathe again. Her eyes watered so she could hardly see, but she made out flames crackling across the kitchen. The red-checked café curtains were burning. So was the cabinet that held the fire extinguisher.

As Anna blinked against the smoke, she screamed, “Joy! Lauren! Fire! Fire! Everybody get out of the house.” She slammed the kitchen door and herded Earnest to her shop. The man was gone. She grabbed her purse and slammed her own door. As she groped down the hall, all she could see was smoke.

Earnest took her wrist in his mouth and led her, slow and steady, toward the porch. Choking, she shielded her face with her hand. Her eyes stung, and tears streamed down her cheeks. Again she called to Lauren and Joy.
What happened to the guilty husband?

Anna was the first to reach the front door. When Earnest got her to the porch, she gulped fresh air and coughed. Her hands shook as she grabbed her phone and punched 911. “Good boy, Earnest!” she managed.

She leaned down to thank him for getting her out, but he was gone. She turned around. Earnest was running back toward the front door.

Anna lunged to grab him, but he wriggled away and disappeared into the house, surely to find Lauren and Joy. “Oh, no! Earnest! Earnest, come back!”

“Nisqually County 911. What emergency are you reporting?” asked the dispatcher.

Earnest vanished in undulating waves of thick black smoke.

C
HAPTER
2

J
eff looked around the meeting room of Gamble's city hall. The room shouted “institution.” It could have been a prison cafeteria. The walls were pea-soup green; the linoleum, speckled gray; the ceiling's acoustical tiles, sickly off-white. Sunlight worked its way around the edges of the closed venetian blinds that covered the only window.

Worse than the cheerless surroundings was the palpable tension left over from earlier meetings. It seemed to hang around like a bad-tempered ghost.
You could almost serve up the tension on a platter,
Jeff thought. He didn't like stress, but who in this world could escape it?

Though he considered himself as strong and tough as most men, he also wasn't wild about unpredictable situations that were crucial to his career. This morning's meeting with the Gamble city planner assigned to Jeff 's new project, Cedar Place, could lead to success, but it could also end in failure and spin his work out of control—
though no one has much control over anything
. No matter who you were, control was an illusion.

Especially when dealing with Gamble's staff, who were notorious for being erratic. The planner assigned to Jeff 's project could be a bastard or an angel, and he'd never know which till the meeting started and he faced a gantlet or a marshmallow. And the planner had all the power over whether or not Jeff got his permits. That was the hardest part for him to take. He'd worked hard on the architectural drawings, tried to anticipate objections to the project, and put his creative ducks in a row. Though he was as prepared as possible, anything could come out of left field and derail his effort. Today was uncertain.

Jeff brushed Earnest's fur off his gray Dockers. He'd run the sticky roller over them this morning, but Earnest had an endless supply.
Small price to pay for the world's greatest dog,
Jeff thought as he opened his briefcase next to the stacks of papers he'd set down on the table.

As required for a building proposal, he'd brought seven copies of all drawings and supporting documents, including the demolition and building permit applications and the plans for the site, landscape, construction, engineering, and storm drainage. He pulled sets of elevation drawings out of cardboard tubes and wrestled with the papers' curling edges, which were the bane of an architect's existence.

Jeff glanced at his elevation drawing of the building's front. Cedar Place was meant for commercial use. He'd had a hell of a time dissuading his client from the hard-edged box she'd wanted to rent to Shell Inc. for a chain drugstore, which Gamble's citizens would have hated. Now instead of the box, Cedar Place would have two stories with alcoves, decks, and dormers. The roof would have interesting angles, and classic cedar shingles would cover the exterior walls. There would be as many skylights and multi-paned windows as the city's code allowed. Though the building would be new, its Pacific Northwest architectural style would blend in with historic structures around it.

Jeff had put his heart and soul into the design, and he hoped the building would become a destination spot. Its nine spaces would go to small restaurants and shops that would draw in tourists, for a needed boost to Gamble's economy. Then there was the large space that Jeff and his client had invited the island's Kids Discovery Museum to move into at a highly discounted rent, and as of now the board was ecstatic about it. Jeff's design would improve many lives.

Including his. He smiled to himself. For months he'd wanted to marry Anna and start a family. The raise he expected to get from carrying out the project would make him financially stable enough to propose.

As Jeff straightened his papers into orderly piles, two fire engines and a medic unit rumbled down the street with sirens blaring. Surely old Mr. Webster was beating back flames at his fire pit in his baggy pants and undershirt again. Last spring he'd burned six months of
Gamble Crier
s at once, and ashes had fluttered over his head like bats and brought the neighbors running—for the umpteenth time.

The sirens added to Jeff 's tension. He mopped his neck with the Valentine's Day handkerchief Anna had embroidered with hearts and their initials. As he took off his glasses and cleaned the lenses, anxiety nibbled his stomach.

Here we go
.

 

Bristling with self-importance, the man Jeff assumed was the planner assigned to Cedar Place strode into the meeting room. He was maybe forty, dark haired with a broad flat nose. He wore rings on all his stubby fingers, and hair sprouted from his knuckles. The word “gorilla” came to mind. His beard was a jungle of hair that a flea would need a machete to hack through. His eyebrows looked like the clumps of moss that Earnest liked to bite.

“Randy Grabowski.” He extended a clammy hand.

“Jeff Egan.”

“I've been looking at your preliminary plans. You're ready to submit a formal application?”

“As you can see.” Jeff gestured toward his papers. If you spread them out in a single layer, they'd cover half a basketball court.

Metal chair legs scraped on linoleum. Grabowski sat across the table from Jeff and sniffed with what seemed like disdain. Jeff prepared himself not to like him. Condescension was no way to start a meeting.

Grabowski said, “I'm sure you realize we can't guarantee permits.”

“Every architect knows that.” Jeff 's smile shone at about three watts.

“We'll study your application and go from there. As you also know, our concern is that your building complies with the city's master plan.”

“The property's zoned for commercial development. That's exactly what we're trying to do,” Jeff said.

Grabowski smoothed his hand over his beard—it had to be infested at least with lice, but roaches could be hiding there. “You're planning nine small units and one large one, right?”

“Yes.”

“Anybody lined up for them yet?”

“Not specifically for the small, though we've got some ideas. We'd like for Cedar Place to draw people to galleries, nice shops, places to eat,” Jeff said.

“What about the big space?”

“My client agreed to let a nonprofit have it for below market rent. We're talking with people at the KiDiMu. If that falls through, we'll ask the senior center.”

Jeff had expected this revelation to sweeten Grabowski's attitude, because planners were supposed to love community support. But all he got was, “So the KiDiMu's not a done deal?”

“The plan's in the pipeline. Nothing's signed yet.”

“Let us know when you've got a firm commitment,” Grabowski said with the animation of concrete.

He picked up the elevation drawing of the building's front and barely looked at it. “You'll have to run this project by the planning commission. They don't support everything that comes in.”

“Most people have a preliminary talk off the record with them first. Have you done that?” Grabowski asked.

“No. But I'll be glad to meet with them.” Jeff sounded willing, though he was gritting his teeth.

Grabowski shrugged and held out the drawing at arm's length, as if plague were nesting in the paper. He tossed it to the table. “If the commission doesn't like your project, whatever you say to them won't make a lot of difference.”

Was Grabowski trying to antagonize him? Or taunt him? For Cedar Place's sake, Jeff smoothed down his raised hackles.
No point alienating the jerk from the get-go.

Grabowski leaned forward, his fists palm down on the table, his rings in a brass-knuckle line. “Let me tell you my main concern.”

Whoa.
Jeff braced himself.

“You're aware that you want to tear down a historic house,” Grabowski said.

“It's in bad condition. Nothing's up to code. It wouldn't make financial sense to renovate it.”

“I'm not sure the historical society would agree with that.”

“We have engineers to vouch for what the termites have done,” Jeff said. “Making the house first class again would cost a fortune.”

“Sometimes money's not the only point.” Grabowski arched a mossy eyebrow. “You should expect some opposition. It's not going to be an easy ride.”

Jeff mopped his neck again. “How long do you think the permits are going to take?”

“Remember, no guarantees.”
Taunt, taunt
.

“So
if
we get permits,” Jeff backtracked, “how long for them to go through?”
Gamble's planners are known to work at the speed of narcoleptic snails,
he'd have liked to have pointed out.

“Sometimes the process is fast, but I just signed a bulkhead permit that took four years.”

Grabowski got up and raised the venetian blinds, and dust motes flew through shafts of sunlight. “You know, Cedar Place seems worthy enough.”

Jeff grabbed on to “worthy's” glimmer of hope.

“I wouldn't mind some new stores downtown. We've been stagnant for a long time. We could use some new blood,” Grabowski said.

“That's nice to hear.”
Very nice.

“Yeah, but you need to get ready. Lots of folks want things to stay the way they are.”

Jeff couldn't fool himself. Opposition was coming, and, unlike a leopard, Grabowski could change his spots tomorrow and decree that Cedar Place would be a blight on downtown. Nothing was sure. Nothing would be settled for months. To get a permit, a long road lay ahead, and Jeff would be dodging plenty of potholes.