Natural Born Charmer (9 page)

“Why don’t I just go in there and keep you company?” It sounded more like a threat than a come-on.

“Amazing,” she said. “A superstar like you still willing to help out the little people.”

“Yeah, well, that’s the way I’m made.”

“Forget it.” She grabbed her clothes, a towel, and some toiletries and headed for the bathroom. Once she was absolutely sure he wouldn’t try to join her, she shampooed her hair and shaved her legs. Dean didn’t know his mother wasn’t really dying, but he seemed more belligerent than sorrowful. She didn’t care what April had done to him. That was cold.

She dressed in a pair of clean but faded black bike shorts, a roomy camouflage T-shirt, and flip-flops. After a quick blast with his hair dryer, she pulled her hair up with a red ponytail elastic. The shorter ends refused to cooperate and straggled down her neck. For April’s sake she’d have added lip gloss and mascara if they hadn’t both gone missing three days ago.

As she came downstairs, she saw an electrician perched on a ladder in the dining room wiring an antique chandelier. The plastic had been taken off the living room doorway, and Dean stood inside, talking to the carpenter repairing the crown molding. Dean must have showered in the other bathroom because his hair was damp and beginning to curl. He wore jeans and a T-shirt that matched his eyes.

The living room extended the depth of the house and had a stone fireplace larger than the one in the master bedroom. A new set of French doors opened onto what looked like a freshly poured concrete
slab that jutted out from the back of the house. She headed for the kitchen.

Last night she’d been too unnerved to appreciate everything April had done here, but now she paused in the doorway to take it in. The vintage appliances, along with nostalgic white bead-board cabinets bearing cherry red ceramic knobs, made her feel as though she’d stepped back into the forties. She imagined a woman in a freshly ironed cotton dress, hair rolled neatly at the nape of her neck, peeling potatoes over the farmhouse sink while the Andrews Sisters harmonized in “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree” on the radio.

The fat white refrigerator with its rounded edges was probably a reproduction, but not the vintage white enamel gas stove, which had double ovens and a shallow, built-in metal shelf above the burners to hold salt and pepper shakers, canisters, maybe a Mason jar stuffed with wildflowers. The countertops hadn’t yet been installed, so she could see that the bead-board cabinets weren’t original but beautiful reproductions. The black-and-white checkerboard floor was also new. A paint sample taped to the wall announced the kitchen’s final color scheme: sunny yellow walls, white cupboards, bright red accents.

Don’t sit under the apple tree…

Light flooded the room from two sources: a wide window over the sink and longer windows that had been added to the squared-off breakfast nook and still bore the manufacturer’s stickers. A clutter of doughnut boxes, abandoned Styrofoam cups, and papers sat on top of a chrome kitchen table with a cherry red Formica top.

April stood with one hand resting gracefully on the back of a bentwood chair, the other curled around a phone. She wore yesterday’s ripped jeans with a garnet baby doll top, silver earrings, and sage green snake charmer flats. “You were supposed be here at seven, Sanjay.” She nodded at Blue and gestured toward the coffeepot. “Then you’ll have to get another truck. These countertops need to be installed by the end of the day so the painters can get in here.”

Dean wandered in. His expression revealed nothing as he made
his way to the doughnut box, but when he reached the table, the sunbeam dancing off his hair caught April’s, and Blue was struck with the crazy notion that God had created a special spotlight just to follow these two golden creatures around.

“We’re not holding up the installation,” April said. “You’d better be here in an hour.” She switched to another call, transferring the phone from her right ear to her left. “Oh, hi.” She lowered her voice and turned away from them. “I’ll call you back in ten minutes. Where are you?”

Dean drifted toward the breakfast nook windows and gazed out at the backyard. Blue found herself hoping he was trying to come to terms with April’s imminent demise.

April made another call. “Dave, it’s Susan O’Hara. Sanjay’s going to be late.”

The electrician who’d been wiring the dining room chandelier ambled in. “Susan, come look at this.”

She made a wait-a-minute gesture as she finished up her conversation, then flipped her phone shut. “What’s up?”

“I ran into more old wiring in the dining room.” The electrician’s eyes were all over her. “It’s going to have to be replaced.”

“Let me see.” She followed him out.

Blue dumped a teaspoon of sugar in her coffee and went over to examine the stove. “You’d be so screwed right now if she weren’t here.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Dean passed over the powdered doughnuts and took the only glazed doughnut left in the box, exactly the one she’d had her eye on.

A power drill screeched. “This kitchen is incredible,” she said.

“It’s okay, I guess.”

“Okay?” She ran her thumb across the words O’Keefe & Merritt on the front panel of the stove and threw out a lure. “I could spend the whole day in here baking. Homemade bread, a fruit cobbler…”

“You really can cook?”

“Of course I can cook.” The white enamel stove was a passport to another era. Maybe it could also be her passport to temporary security.

But he’d lost interest in food. “Don’t you own anything pink?”

She looked down at her bike shorts and camouflage T-shirt. “What’s wrong with this?”

“Nothing, if you’re planning to invade Cuba.”

She shrugged. “I’m not into clothes.”

“Now there’s a surprise.”

She pretended to think it over. “If you really want to see me in pink, I guess I could borrow something from you.”

His smile wasn’t all that friendly, but if she didn’t keep challenging him, he’d start confusing her with one of his sexual handmaidens.

April returned to the kitchen and closed her phone. She addressed Dean with cool formality. “The driver’s on his way with the wagon. Why don’t you check around outside and decide where you want it?”

“I’m sure you have a suggestion.”

“It’s your house.”

He regarded her stonily. “Give me a hint.”

“The wagon doesn’t have a toilet or running water, so don’t put it too far away.” She called into the hallway over her shoulder. “Cody, is the plumber’s truck out there yet? I have to talk to him.”

“Just pulled up,” Cody called back.

“What kind of wagon?” Blue asked as April disappeared.

“Something
Mrs. O’Hara
talked me into in one of her many e-mails.” He grabbed his coffee and the doughnut to go outside. Blue picked up a powdered doughnut and followed him through a refurbished laundry room to the side door.

When they reached the yard, she extended the powdered doughnut. “I’ll trade you.”

He took a big bite out of his glazed one, handed it over, and grabbed hers. “Okay.”

She gazed down at it. “Once again, I’m forced to live on other people’s leftovers.”

“Now you’re making me feel bad about myself.” He sank his teeth into the fresh doughnut.

They walked around the back. Blue studied the overgrown garden with her artist’s eye, imagining it alive with banks of color, maybe an herb garden by the iron pump, old-fashioned hollyhocks against the side of the house, a rope clothesline with laundry snapping in the warm breeze.
Gonna take a sentimental journey…

Dean inspected a shady area just beyond the garden. Blue joined him. “A covered wagon?” she asked. “A paddy wagon?”

“I guess you’ll see.”

“You don’t know yourself, do you?”

“Sort of.”

“Show me the barn,” she said. “Unless there are mice.”

“Mice? Hell, no. That’s the only barn in the known universe without them.”

“You’ve been very sarcastic all morning.”

“Gosh, I’m sorry.”

Maybe he was covering up his grief. For the sake of his soul, she found herself hoping.

A flatbed truck pulled in, carrying what looked like a small covered wagon heavily wrapped in black plastic. She stayed where she was while Dean walked over to talk to the driver. Before long, the man was slapping him on his injured shoulder and calling him “Boo.” Finally they got down to business. With Dean directing, the driver backed the flatbed toward the trees and began unloading the wagon. Once they’d jimmied it into position, he began stripping away the black plastic.

The body of the wagon was red, but it had bright purple wheels with gilt patterns on the spokes like a circus calliope. Painted spindles decorated the sides, and every surface displayed flowing vines and
fanciful flowers in bright blue, indigo, buttery yellow, and sunny orange. At the front of the wagon, a gilt unicorn danced on a royal blue door. The bowed top of the wagon formed a small overhang supported by lemon yellow gingerbread brackets. The wagon’s flat, spindled sides slanted outward from bottom to top and held a small window with miniature royal blue shutters.

Blue sucked in her breath. Her heart hammered. This was a gypsy wagon. A home for wanderers.

“Dibs,” she said softly.

As the driver pulled away, Dean tucked
his thumbs in his back pockets and circled the wagon as if it were a new car. She didn’t wait for him but pulled down a hinged step and climbed up to open the door.

The dark red interior was as magical as the exterior. Every surface, from the beams curving across the bowed ceiling, to the wooden ribs on the walls, to the panels between the ribs, had been painted with the same dancing unicorns, wandering vines, and fanciful flowers as the exterior. Across the rear of the wagon, a silky curtain trimmed in loopy fringe had been swagged at one side, revealing a bed that reminded Blue of a ship’s berth. Another bed formed a top bunk along the left side, with a painted double-door cupboard beneath. Small pieces of furniture had been upended for transport and wrapped in brown paper.

The wagon had two miniature windows, one in the center of the side wall above the table, and another over the rear bed. Both had white lace doll’s-house curtains drawn back with loops of purple braid. Near the baseboard on one side, a painted brown rabbit
munched a tasty tuft of clover. It was so cozy, so absolutely perfect, that Blue wanted to cry. If she hadn’t forgotten how, she might have.

Dean came in behind her and gazed around. “Unbelievable.”

“This must have cost you a fortune.”

“She got a deal.”

No question who
she
was.

Only the center of the wagon rose high enough for him to stand upright. He started unwrapping the protective paper from a wooden table. “There’s a guy in Nashville who specializes in restoring these caravans. That’s what they call them. Some record mogul backed out of the deal after he’d ordered it.”

Caravan
. She liked the word. It hinted of the exotic. “How did April talk you into buying it?”

“She told me it would be a good place to stick drunken guests. Also, some of my friends have kids, and I thought it would be fun for them.”

“Plus, you decided it would be a cool thing to own. The only gypsy caravan in the neighborhood and all that.”

He didn’t deny it.

She ran her hand over the walls. “A lot of this has been stenciled, but there’s some handwork. It’s a good job.”

He began poking around, opening the cupboard, pulling out the built-in drawers, and investigated a wrought-iron wall sconce shaped like a seahorse. “These are wired for electricity, so I’ll need to get some power out here. I’d better talk to the electrician.”

Blue wasn’t ready to leave, but he held the door open for her, so she followed him out into the yard. The electrician squatted in front of a junction box, the radio at his side playing an old Five for Fighting song. April stood a few feet away, holding a notebook and studying the concrete slab jutting from the rear of the house. Dean still hadn’t mentioned anything today about her leaving. The Five for Fighting song came to an end and segued into the opening chords of “Farewell,
So Long,” one of Jack Patriot’s ballads. Dean’s gait faltered, the change of rhythm so slight Blue doubted she would have noticed if April’s head hadn’t come up at the same time. She snapped the notebook closed. “Turn it down, Pete.”

The electrician glanced over at her but didn’t immediately move.

“Never mind.” April tucked her notebook under her arm and headed inside. At the same time, Dean set off for the front yard, his mission to talk to the electrician abandoned.

Blue poked around the overgrown garden. Instead of figuring out how she’d get into town so she could look for a job, she thought over what she’d just witnessed. “Farewell, So Long” came to an end, and the Moffatt Sisters’ “Gilded Lives” began to play. Even some of the adult contemporary stations had been playing a few of the Moffatts’ country hits since Marli’s death, generally pairing the songs with Jack Patriot’s “Farewell, So Long,” which Blue found a little crass, since they’d been divorced for years. She turned it all over in her mind as she headed inside.

Three men speaking a language she didn’t understand were in the kitchen installing charcoal soapstone countertops. April sat in the dining nook, frowning at a notebook page. “You’re an artist,” she said as Blue came in. “Help me with this. I’m great with clothes, but not as good drawing architectural details, especially when I’m not sure what I want.”

Blue had been hoping to snag another doughnut, but the box held only a dusting of confectioners’ sugar and a couple of jelly stains.

“It’s the screen porch,” April said.

Blue sat next to her and took in the drawing on the notebook page. As the men chattered in the background, April explained what she envisioned. “I don’t want this porch looking like it belongs on a broken-down fishing cabin. I see big sunburst windows set above the screening to let in plenty of light and moldings to break up all the height, but I’m not sure what kind.”

Blue thought it over and began sketching some simple trims.

“I like that one,” April said. “Can you draw the end wall for me? With the windows?”

Blue sketched each wall as April described it. They made some adjustments and came up with a more balanced arrangement. “You’re good at this,” April said when the workers headed outside for a cigarette break. “Would you mind doing some interior sketches for me? But maybe I’m assuming too much. I’m not exactly sure how long you’re staying or what your relationship is with Dean.”

“Blue and I are engaged,” Dean said from the doorway.

Neither of them had heard him approach. He set his empty coffee mug by the stove and walked over to pick up Blue’s sketch. “She’ll be staying as long as I’m here.”

“Engaged?” April said.

He didn’t look up from the sketch. “That’s right.”

Blue could barely resist rolling her eyes. This was an obvious gotcha on his part. He wanted to remind his mother how little she meant to him, to show her he hadn’t considered her important enough to let her know he was getting married. What a totally crappy thing to do to someone on her deathbed.

“Congrats.” April set down her pencil. “How long have you known each other?”

“Long enough,” he said.

Blue couldn’t keep pretending that what April had witnessed a few short hours ago hadn’t happened. “Last night was an aberration. Just so you know, I was fully clothed when I went to bed.”

April’s eyebrow formed a skeptical arch.

Blue tried to look demure. “I took a virginity vow when I was thirteen.”

“A what?” April asked.

Dean sighed. “She didn’t take a virginity vow.”

As a matter of fact, Blue had done exactly that, although even at
thirteen she’d had her doubts about keeping it. But she’d long ago made her peace with God, if not Sister Luke, who’d coerced her into the whole thing. “Dean doesn’t agree, but I think a wedding night should mean something. That’s why I’m moving into the caravan tonight.”

He snorted. April gazed at Blue for a long time, then at him. “She’s…lovely.”

“That’s all right.” He set down the sketch. “You can say what you really think. Believe me, I’ve said a lot worse.”

“Hey!”

“The first time I saw her was at a street carnival.” He walked over to inspect the countertops. “She had her face stuck through one of those wooden cutouts, so naturally she caught my attention. You’ve got to admit that face is something. By the time I saw the rest of her, it was too late.”

“I’m sitting right here,” Blue reminded them.

“There’s nothing exactly wrong with her.” April’s statement didn’t carry much conviction.

“She has a lot of other wonderful qualities.” He inspected the hinges on a cupboard door. “I try to turn a blind eye.”

Blue had a fairly good idea where the conversation was headed, so she ran her finger over the sugar in the bottom of the doughnut box.

“Everybody isn’t into fashion, Dean. It’s not some big sin.” Spoken by a woman who could have hopped up from the table at exactly that moment and waltzed down a runway.

“Once we’re married, she’s promised she’ll let me buy her clothes,” he said.

Blue’s gaze wandered to the refrigerator. “Are there maybe some eggs in there? A little cheese for an omelet?”

April’s silver earrings tangled in a ribbon of blunt-cut hair. “You’ll have to live with this, Blue. When he was three years old, he’d throw a fit if his Underoos weren’t a perfect match. In third grade everything had to be Ocean Pacific, and he spent most of junior high in
Ralph Lauren. I swear he learned to read by sounding out clothing labels.”

April’s trip down memory lane was a mistake. Dean’s top lip thinned. “I’m surprised you remember so many details from the blackout years.” He wandered back to Blue, and the possessive way he curled his fingers around her shoulder made her wonder if his engagement ruse might also be designed to send out the silent message that he had someone indisputably in his corner. He didn’t realize he’d fallen in with Benedict Arnold.

“In case Dean hasn’t gotten around to sharing,” April said, “I was a junkie.”

Blue had no idea how to respond to that.

“And a groupie,” April added bluntly. “Dean spent his childhood either with nannies or in boarding school so I could follow my dream of getting high and nailing as many rock stars as possible.”

Blue
really
had no idea how to respond to that. Dean dropped his hand from her shoulder and turned away.

“Uh…how long have you been clean?” Blue said.

“A little over ten years. Respectably employed most of them. Working for myself the last seven.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a fashion stylist in L.A.”

“A stylist? Wow. What exactly does that involve?”

“For God’s sake, Blue…” Dean snatched up his empty coffee mug and carried it to the sink.

“I work with actresses, Hollywood wives—women with more money than taste,” April said.

“It sounds glamorous.”

“It’s mainly a diplomat’s job.”

Blue could understand that. “Convincing a fifty-year-old soap star to give up her minis?”

“Watch it, Blue,” Dean said. “You’re getting personal. April’s fifty-two, but you can bet she has a closet full of minis in every color.”

Blue took in his mother’s endlessly long legs. “I’ll bet every one of them looks fantastic.”

He moved away from the sink. “Let’s go into town. I have some things I need to get.”

“Pick up groceries while you’re there,” April said. “I have food at the cottage, but there’s nothing much here.”

“Yeah, we’ll do that.” With Blue in tow, he headed for the door.

Blue broke the thick silence as Dean shot out onto the highway. “I’m not lying to her. If she asks the color of our bridesmaids’ dresses, I’m telling her the truth.”

“No bridesmaids, so no problem,” he said caustically. “We’re eloping to Vegas.”

“Anybody who knows me knows I’d never elope to Vegas.”

“She doesn’t know you.”

“Presumably you do, and getting married there is like admitting to the world that you’re too disorganized to come up with a better plan. I have more pride.”

He turned up the radio to drown her out. Blue hated misjudging people, especially men, and she couldn’t get past his callousness toward his mother’s fatal illness. She turned the volume back down to punish him. “I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii, but, until now, I couldn’t afford it. I think we’ll get married there. On the beach of some ritzy resort at sunset. I’m so glad I found a rich husband.”

“We’re not getting married!”

“Exactly,” she shot back. “Which is why I don’t want to lie to your mother.”

“Are you on my payroll or not?”

She sat up straighter. “Am I? Let’s talk about that.”

“Not now.” He looked so irritable that she temporarily fell silent.

They passed an abandoned cotton mill nearly swallowed up by undergrowth, then a well-maintained mobile home park, followed by
a golf course that advertised karaoke Friday nights. Here and there an old plow or a wagon wheel held up a mailbox. She decided to make a stealth attack on her fake fiancé’s private life. “Since we’re engaged, don’t you think it’s time you told me about your father?”

His knuckles tightened ever so slightly on the steering wheel. “No.”

“I’m fairly good at connecting the dots.”

“Un-connect them.”

“It’s hard. Once I get an idea in my head…”

He shot her a killer glare. “I don’t talk about my father. Not to you. Not to anybody.”

She argued with herself for only a moment before she went for it. “If you really want to keep his identity a secret, you should probably stop going all stony-faced every time Jack Patriot comes on the radio.”

He uncurled his fingers and draped them over the top of the wheel, the gesture a little too casual. “You’re overdramatizing. My father was a drummer in Patriot’s band for a while. That’s all there is to it.”

“Anthony Willis is the only drummer the band has ever had. And since he’s black…”

“Check your rock history, babe. Willis sat out most of the Universal Omens tour with a broken arm.”

Dean might be telling the truth, but somehow Blue didn’t think so. April had been open about her rock and roll past, and Blue had seen the way they’d both frozen up when “Farewell, So Long” came on the radio. The possibility that Dean might be Jack Patriot’s son made her head spin. She’d had a crush on the rock star since she was ten. No matter where she’d lived, she’d kept his tapes stacked by her bed and magazine pictures of him pasted inside her school notebooks. His lyrics made her feel less alone.

A city limits sign announced that they’d reached Garrison. A second sign just below it declared that the town was for sale and that anyone interested in buying it should contact Nita Garrison. She
twisted in her seat as they whipped past. “Did you see that? How can anybody sell a town?”

“They sold one on eBay a while back,” he said.

“That’s right. And remember when Kim Basinger bought that little town in Georgia? I keep forgetting this is the South. All kinds of weird crap happens here that couldn’t happen anywhere else.”

“A sentiment best kept to yourself,” he said.