Leota's Garden (33 page)

Annie rolled the frying pan and the melting butter hissed as it coated the bottom. She poured in the omelet mixture. “I’m hoping she’ll tell me more about herself.” She cast Susan a rueful smile. “My mother always said I was a lot like Grandma Leota. I’d sure like to find out what that means.”

Sam showed up at six o’clock with the promised friend. Annie noticed Susan’s eyes light up when she was introduced. Chuck Hauge seemed to think Susan was all he had hoped for as well. “Sam’s told me a lot about you.”

“Believe everything you heard,” she said with a cheeky grin. However, within half an hour, her mood was clearly dampened.

“What on earth is Sam thinking?” Susan said under her breath as she nudged Annie out of the way in the small kitchen and took ice from the freezer. “We have zilch in common. He’s got a master’s degree in business, for crying out loud. He’s been working for some computer company in Silicon Valley for the past year. He doesn’t say much about what he does, but he’s probably on his way to being a CEO. And here I am, a waitress. He reads the
Wall Street Journal
. I read the funny papers. He likes sushi. I like steak, well done. He likes classical music.”

“You like classical music.” Annie barely suppressed a smile.

“Yeah, when I have insomnia.”

Annie put the vegetable dip on a tray with crackers. “Classical music is supposed to raise the IQ.”

“He doesn’t
need
a higher IQ, and I’m a lost cause.” Susan rolled her eyes and shook the ice into a bowl. Scooping a handful of cubes into her soda, she glanced over her shoulder. “Can I get you anything to drink, Chuck?”

Annie grinned at her while putting more crackers on the tray. “There’s enough sugar in your voice to draw bees.”

“Shut up,” Susan said sotto voce. She fixed another soda, then headed back into the living room. “Sam’s days are numbered for getting me into this.”

Annie followed her and put the tray on the coffee table. Sam glanced at her from where he was standing near the windows, where Barnaby resided silently on his perch. “Pretty morose bird. No change, I take it.”

Annie shook her head. “Not a peep.”

Susan looked up sharply, her eyes darting flames at her brother. “Not a word.”

At Sam’s slow, taunting grin, Susan stood. “Why don’t we take a walk, Chuck? It’s only six blocks to the ocean.”

As soon as the door closed behind them, Sam left the window and sat on the couch, one arm resting along the back. “That couldn’t have
worked out any better if I’d planned it.” He gave Annie a slow, teasing smile.

Annie swallowed. “Maybe we should take a walk, too. The air is nice and cool this time of the evening.”

“I like it right here, where it’s warm.” He patted the sofa. “Why don’t you sit by me?”

Annie settled in the worn, overstuffed, orange chair Susan had bought from an upstairs neighbor, who had moved the week before. Crossing her jeans-clad legs, she rested her arms on the flat velvet. “This is nice.”

Sam just looked at her and shook his head, a rueful smile on his face. “I don’t bite, Annie.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

His eyes flickered and his gaze grew serious. “Let’s back up and regroup here. I’m not on the make, Annie. I’m not coming on to you so I can sow wild oats.”

“I know that.”

“No, you don’t. You’ve known me too long. Unfortunately. I wouldn’t blame you for thinking I was a complete jerk, considering some of the harebrained schemes I pulled a few years back. You were around enough to hear the fallout.” He leaned forward, his hands clasped loosely between his knees. “Look, Annie. I’ll put it plain and simple. If your father were anywhere around, I’d feel perfectly at ease telling him my intentions.”

Embarrassed, she looked away from the intensity in his eyes. “I’m flattered.”

“Flattery isn’t what I had in mind. Trust is a little closer to the mark.”

She looked at him again, dismayed. “I don’t distrust you, Sam.”

“Is that so? Then why am I sitting here, and you’re sitting way over there?”

If frankness was what he wanted, she would give it to him. “You still move as fast as you ever did, and I’d like you to put the brakes on. Right now.”

He sat back slowly. “Okay,” he said after a long moment. “So maybe I am in overdrive. The engine is a little heated. I’ll drop it down to first. Is that better?”

“Think about driving down a different road. I’m not going to get involved with you, Sam.”

“
Involved
.” His mouth tipped. “What a loaded word.”

“We’re friends. I don’t want to do anything to spoil that.”

He grinned. “Now there’s an age-old kiss-off if ever I’ve heard one. I’ve used it a few times myself.” His expression softened. “Okay. Friends, it is. Which means we can go out and have some fun instead of deciding on plate patterns. What would you like to do?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea.”

“We’ll just go and see what looks interesting. Late supper. Some swing dancing. A walk on Pier 39. Whatever.”

“What about Suzie and Chuck?”

“We’ll leave them a note.”

“I don’t know, Sam . . .”

“All right. We’ll stay here. Fine by me. Just the two of us. No television. I’ll try not to make a pass at you, but I can’t guarantee anything.”

She laughed. “You are incorrigible.”

He grinned. “That’s what all my teachers said. Now what’ll it be?”

She softened at the look in his eyes. Poor Sam. She hoped he wasn’t hurting as much as she had when her crush on him was in full bloom. “I’ll get my jacket.”

The Lord always left a way to escape temptation, and she intended to take it.

Chapter 12

Leota swept the small brick patio. It had been months since it had been done. The air was fall-brisk and made her bones ache, but she wanted the small area cleaned up before Annie arrived. It wouldn’t do to sit around like an old woman all the time and let Annie and her friends do everything.

Pausing, Leota straightened, admiring the work that had been done over the past month. The garden no longer looked unkempt and abandoned. The trees were pruned, bushes trimmed and shaped, vines thinned and tied to frames and trellises. And with one smile from Annie, that handsome young fellow who’d come with his sister had turned soil in the victory garden. He’d even mulched, then repaired the broken slats in the lattice.

Smiling to herself, Leota leaned on the broom, resting while she looked over the potted plants set here and there on the small patio and retaining wall. Some desperately needed repotting—another lesson for Annie, if the girl was so inclined.

“Grandma!” Annie came around the corner. “There you are. When you didn’t answer your doorbell, I figured you’d be out here.”

Leota felt warmth return to her bones as she looked at her
granddaughter. Annie’s blue eyes shone with love, and her smile lit Leota’s heart. “You’re early.”
Thank You, Lord. Oh, thank You.

“You don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course not.” Leota looked at what Annie had brought—a pipe with twisting metal curling out in various directions. “What on earth is that?” As soon as she said it, she worried she had hurt Annie’s feelings. What if it was an art project she had completed?

Annie laughed. “Whatever you’d like to think it is. Heat rays. Sound. It’s a metal sculpture. I bought it at a garage sale.”

Thank heavens. Someone’s white elephant, no doubt.
“What are you going to do with it?”

Annie bit her lip. “Well, I thought it would look interesting in the garden. I have some rustproof spray paints—yellows, oranges, and reds. It’ll look like sun rays.”

Leota looked it over again, trying to rouse some enthusiasm. It was the ugliest thing she had ever seen.

“Oh, Grandma, I’m sorry. I should’ve asked first. I can take it home.”

Leota laughed. Well, why not put it in the yard? The garden was no longer just hers anyway. It was Annie’s as well. Why not let her play in it? “I think it has potential. You plant it in the middle of the lawn, if you want.” She’d been curious to see what Annie would do when given a free hand. If this was the first hint, Leota knew she was going to be in for quite a show.

Arba Wilson’s children were playing in their backyard. One paused to peer over the fence. “What’s that thing?”

“A garden sculpture,” Annie said happily. “Would you like to come over and help me set it up?”

Leota felt a flicker of irritation. She didn’t want to share Annie.

“Could I?” The little girl jumped off the fence and ran up the back steps. “Mama! Mama! The lady asked me over. No, not the old one, the . . .”

In less than two minutes, the little girl, her older sister, and her brother showed up in the backyard. Leota stood holding her broom and watching. After a few minutes, her irritation wore off. Their enthusiasm amused her. How long since she had had children in this yard? Wasn’t that why she had planted the garden in the first place? To draw her children out of the house?

Arba came down the steps and stood by the fence, watching while her children chattered away and helped Annie dig a hole and set the pipe in it. “How’re you, Mrs. Reinhardt?” Arba smiled at Leota pensively. The expression on Arba’s face made Leota wonder if the younger woman thought she might sprout horns and breathe fire and smoke.

“Still breathing.”

Arba seemed nonplussed. “Well, that’s good.”

Leota shivered. The cooling air had sunk into her arthritic joints. “I think I’ll go inside.”

“They aren’t bothering you, are they?”

“Who?”

“My children.”

“Land sakes, no. Not as long as they’re with Annie. They can come through the gate next time.”

“What gate?”

Leota walked closer and pointed. “Back there. Of course, you wouldn’t know. Can’t see it for all those overgrown privet bushes. Should’ve been cut back ages ago. My husband put the gate in twenty years ago. I had a good friend who lived in your house. She died back in ’64. Her children sold the place.”

“Has anyone else used the gate since your friend died?”

“No. The next family had a baby and spent most of the time in the house. The couple stayed to themselves. Never saw much of them. Heard ’em, though. They screamed at each other night and day. Even had the police over there once to keep them from killing each other. There’ve been a dozen families in and out of that house over the years, and most didn’t even bother keeping the place up any more than you do. I guess they figured since they were renting, it was the landlord’s responsibility, but he never bothered, either. That’s why your lawn is all weeds now and the rest of the garden looks the way it does.”

Arba’s smile had disappeared. “I
work
, Mrs. Reinhardt. I work very hard. By the time I get home I’m too tired to spend time weeding and cleaning up a yard.”

“An hour a day, and you’d feel the better for it. There’s something about working with the earth that pours the energy you used up in an office back into you.” Leota leaned on the broom for support and looked at Arba squarely. “At least, it did for me. I worked in an office for years.
Took a bus
and
walked.” Her joints were beginning to ache more deeply. “And I know you work, Arba Wilson. Your children are always on their own, except on weekends.”

Arba’s shoulders stiffened. “If they’re bothering you, just tell me, Mrs. Reinhardt. I’ll make sure they don’t do so again.”

“Someone could bother
them
.”

Arba stilled, a worried look filling her face. “Has someone been bothering my children?”

“Not that I’ve noticed, and I’ve been watching them. They play very nicely by themselves, but they’re out front where anyone could see they’re not supervised. There are some bad elements around these days.”

Arba looked distressed. “I don’t have any choice, Mrs. Reinhardt. I wish I did. Every dime I make goes to rent, food, utilities, car expenses, and medical insurance. I don’t have anything left over.”

“Their father should help with expenses.”

“Their father!” Arba gave a hard laugh. “The court’s gotta find him first.”

“Did he run off?”

“He’s probably in L.A. Unless he’s in jail again. I’d rather scrape by like I am than have him back in our lives. We don’t need his kind of help, Mrs. Reinhardt. He put me in the hospital once and broke Nile’s arm because he got in front of the television while his father was watching some sorry football game.”

“Oh.” No wonder Arba had such strong feelings against the man. Who could blame her? “Got any relatives who could help you?”

“A sister on welfare. I don’t want my kids growing up thinking it’s all right to sit back and let the government take care of you.”

“Good for you. What about a babysitter?”

“Costs too much. I’d need financial assistance, and I don’t want to start down that road.”

“Then tell them to play in the backyard. They’ll be safer there.” Leota couldn’t take the cold anymore. “Or they could come over sometimes and watch my television. As long as it’s not that MTV.” She turned and started up the back steps. Each step was agony, her knees aching clear through the joints. She started to open the door and stopped. “By the way, what are their names?”