Prospect Street (27 page)

Faith walked her mother to the door. “You're easier to talk to here, Mother. I know this house holds terrible memories, but when you're here, I feel like I know you better and better.”

“One terrible memory and many good ones. They don't balance, but maybe I'm coming to terms with all of them.” Lydia leaned over and kissed Faith's cheek, a gesture that was, in itself, unusual.

Faith stood in the doorway watching until her mother drove away. And when she was gone, Faith continued to stand there, thinking about the woman who had traded passion for familiarity and now, at sixty-six, clearly wished that she hadn't.

Faith wondered what Pavel was doing that night.

A
lec the Can Man still showed up intermittently to help Alex, and between them they had nearly cleared the backyard. Over the weeks Faith had grown fond of the older man. He arrived sober, worked hard, and guided her son with humor and tact. The Can Man had chosen a life on the streets, but he hadn't been destroyed by it.

On Wednesday afternoon he'd arrived just as Alex got home from school, and the two were already outside. Usually Faith went down to pull her own token sprigs of ivy, but this time she was delayed by a phone call from a counselor at the middle school.

It was some time before she joined the gardeners, and by then she was feeling anything but festive. Not only had the phone call been sobering, it had pointed out her isolation. She should have been able to pick up the receiver again to ask somebody for help, but in the end, she hadn't been able to think of a single person who could answer her distress call.

“One more hour,” the Can Man told her when Faith finally made her way through the door, “and every last scrap'll be gone. You wait and see.”

The garden already looked denuded. The ivy had held it together. Without it weaving tree to tree, bush to bush, nothing much remained.

Faith had looked unsuccessfully for a description of her grandmother's garden. Now she was going to have to use her own best guesses to replant. “Can you identify any of the dead trees? Or is that impossible?”

“Try a nursery.”

“I guess I'll have to.”

“What will you do?”

Faith looked over to see Dottie Lee standing at her usual gap in the hedge. Faith beckoned her to join them. “Call somebody to identify the dead trees. I'd like to incorporate some of what Violet planted. It's just so sad that it's all so…” Faith shrugged.

“Dead, I believe.” Dottie Lee picked her way carefully through the shrubbery and over what remained of a stone wall. “Dead is the word.”

“Dreary. Depressed.”

“Devastated.” Dottie Lee nodded. “Definitely.”

Faith laughed. “You don't remember anything, do you?”

“My dear, this garden is as clear to me as a summer's day. A summer's day in a cooler city, of course, not here in Georgetown, where the heat fogs everything.”

If her life had depended on it, Faith wouldn't have been able to describe her McLean backyard in any detail. She was amazed at Dottie Lee's memory.

The Can Man started down to the bottom of the yard. “C'mon, kid. We've got ivy to pull.”

Faith watched the two head toward the back of the lot. It was a downhill slope, but evidence of clever terracing was still visible. The bottom plateau was the only one left to weed. She watched them don heavy gloves. Poison ivy was a threat, but so far they had avoided direct contact.

“Let me get a pen and tablet,” Faith said. “Will you wait here a moment? I want to sketch what you remember.”

Dottie Lee was still waiting when Faith returned. Before the
trip back, Faith had tried a quick call to Billie's house, but no one had answered. That morning Remy had asked if she could go to Billie's after school, and Faith had agreed to it, but the rules had changed while Remy was away.

Dottie Lee was watching the two males down below. “I believe they're about to have an epiphany.”

Faith had experienced one too many epiphanies that day. “I'm not sure I can use any more surprises.”

“I hear your doorbell.”

Faith realized it was true. “I'm sorry. I'll be back. Will you wait?”

“I'm not going anywhere.”

Faith raced up the stairs again. Pavel was just retreating down the sidewalk when she flung open the door, panting from exertion. “Hey there. I was out back.”

He turned. She watched his eyes light, and her body warmed instantly in response. “I thought you weren't home,” he said.

“Me? I'm almost always home.”

“Not last Friday night.”

That surprised her. “How do you know?”

“I stopped by. I guess Alex forgot to tell you. He remembered to tell me you were on a date.” He didn't sound jealous, but there was a definite hint of disappointment in his voice.

“Party at the French embassy with an old friend,” she explained.

“Your hair looks great.”

She raised her hand without thinking, finger combing it into place. “Thanks.”

“I just wondered if you and the kids wanted to go out for spaghetti tonight.”

“I can't. I have to have a heart-to-heart with Remy. No one will be in the mood to eat afterward.”

He was up on the stoop now, and she motioned him inside. She felt pleasantly flustered.

“Troubles? Want to tell me about it?”

For a moment she wasn't sure what he meant. Then she re
alized he was talking about Remy. “You don't want to hear.” She started past him, but he held her still, one large hand cupping her arm.

“Try me.”

His hand was warm, just a little rough. A workingman's hand, she thought, although he was probably worth more money than King Midas. A hand that rubbed along her nerve endings even when it was perfectly still.

She looked up at him. The kindness in his eyes was mixed with something steamier, something related to the way they were standing and not to anything she'd said.

“Remy's failing school. Her counselor called me. She's
failing.
She's not doing homework. She doesn't have any friends. Billie, the one friend she does have, is a bad influence. I think that about covers it.” She paused. “Oh, and her chorus teacher says she's a musical genius. She has perfect pitch. I nearly forgot.”

His hand slid along her arm to her shoulder, then to her nape. He began to squeeze. Release. Squeeze. “Not many people have perfect pitch, Faith.”

She stared at him for a moment; then she laughed, and it rumbled from her chest, smoky and dark. She couldn't help herself. “Thanks. Silver linings, huh?”

“What are you going to do?”

She was going to stand there and let him rub her neck until she died of old age. She was going to stand there until she dissolved into a warm puddle of contentment, into a warm, flowing stream of pure sexual delight.

“Will talking help?” he asked, when she didn't answer.

“I can't think while you're doing that.”

“I'm sorry.” He dropped his hand.

She took it before he could pull away and threaded her fingers through his. “Because it felt so good, Pavel. I was just thinking a little while ago that there wasn't
anybody
who could make me feel better.”

“Comfort, huh? I guess I'm good at comfort.”

She suspected he was good at other things, as well. Pavel
was a man who loved to touch and be touched. Even when she brushed his body by accident, the way he unconsciously moved in reaction, the slow undulation of his muscles, the contraction of his skin, seemed a sure indication that he was a man who expressed himself best physically.

That was the wrong subject to dwell on. “Dottie Lee is waiting for me in back. Come with me and say hello.”

“I don't want to interrupt.”

She refused to let go of his hand, even though holding it made a statement. “Please don't go. She'd love to see you. She likes you.”

He didn't seem convinced. “On one condition.” He tugged her toward him. She came easily. “You go out with
me
this weekend. No kids. No friends. Just you and me.” He leaned down until they were face-to-face. It seemed to take him a long time. He rubbed his nose lightly against hers, a feathery touch that promised more if she wanted it. She lifted her lips and closed her eyes.

His lips were warm and not at all casual. He dropped her hand and pressed against her waist to bring her closer. Resistance seemed inhospitable, so she swayed against him. Since her hand was free now and needed a place to rest, she rested both hands on his shoulders, her fingertips lightly brushing his neck.

For a moment, just the briefest moment, she forgot to hold up the world. She let him hold it up for her, let him warm the hollow spaces in her heart, let the bulk of his body cradle hers.

The door slammed behind him, and, startled, she stepped back. So did Pavel. Right into Remy's path.

“Great,” Remy said. “You can't do that somewhere else?”

Faith took a much needed breath. She had nothing to apologize for. Even now, with Remy glaring at her and her heart pounding madly, she knew it. “I've been calling you at Billie's.”

“Well, I wasn't there. We were walking around. I just came home to get something.”

“You're not going anywhere.” Faith looked at Pavel. “Dottie Lee's waiting for me downstairs. Would you mind entertaining her for a minute?”

He nodded without a word and started toward the kitchen and the basement door.

“Too bad entertaining old Dottie Lee's not as much fun as entertaining my mother, huh, Pavel?” Remy called after him.

Faith watched him struggle briefly, clearly trying to decide between a response and silence. “You know, Remy,” he said after a pause, “this is a hard time for you. I can understand that. But I'm tired of watching you browbeat your mom. I happen to think she doesn't deserve it. Lay off her.”

“You don't have anything to say about anything around here. You're not my father!”

“For which I'm relieved, because if I were, I might turn you over my knee. And I don't really believe in child abuse.”

Remy's eyes widened. Pavel disappeared down the basement steps.

“Did you hear what he said?” Remy demanded.

Faith was trembling. She'd wondered how she should deal with her daughter. Now there was no question. “I heard what
you
said! How dare you treat a guest in our house that way?”

“A guest? He was kissing you! That makes him more than a guest!”

“Remy, we aren't going to talk about me. This time we're going to talk about you. About the fact that you're failing school, talking back to teachers. You seem to think that just because your life's changed, everything you learned before doesn't matter. But there is never any excuse to quit trying, to be rude, to lie.”

“What do you mean lie?”

“I ask you every night if you've done your homework, and every night you say yes. I got a call from your counselor today. According to her, that's a lie.”

Relief flicked across Remy's face so quickly that Faith wasn't even sure she'd seen it. “The homework's stupid. I know that stuff backward and forward. I'm not doing busy work.”

“If you know it backward and forward, why are you failing tests? Do you think you're too good for public school? Is that it? Or are you trying to prove how awful your life is? Are you
trying to make your daddy and me feel even worse than we already do?”

“I don't care how you feel! I hate school. I hate the kids, and I hate the teachers. Nothing's the same as it was. Nobody there likes me.”

“Because you're not trying.”

“Why should I bother? I had friends. They're all gone now.”

“You haven't made an attempt to get together with your old friends. When they invite you to visit, you refuse. You won't have them here.”

“They know! They know everything.”

“If they're your friends, they'll still love you.”

“I don't need friends. I had friends, and what good did it do? There's nothing they could do to make this better. Daddy was your friend, and look what he did to you!”

“He hurt me. I'm not pretending he didn't. But friends forgive each other. Someday, when the worst of this is over, maybe I'll be able to forgive him, too.”

“Bullshit! I don't believe that. That's just something you're saying. It's all lies. Everything is lies.”

Faith didn't know how to reply to that. She and David had raised Remy and Alex in a black-and-white world, not realizing that at the first sign of gray, their daughter wouldn't know where to turn.

“You're on restriction until further notice,” Faith said. “I have to be sure you're studying and doing your homework before I'm going to let you out of my sight. Until I am, I'll be picking you up and bringing you home every afternoon.”

“You can't keep me in prison.”

“I can sure try.”

“What'll I tell…Billie? You want me to have friends, but you're keeping me away from the only friend I have.”

“I have some concerns about Billie. For the time being, if you want to see her, you can see her here, in this house.”

“She won't come. She says you're weird, that you hang around too much and won't leave us alone.”

“Well, if she thought it was bad before, she's going to be really unhappy the next time.”

“I hate you! And I hate that man! Keep him away from me. Kiss him somewhere else!” Remy turned and ran up the stairs.

 

“I found it!” Alex shouted when Faith had recovered enough to join everyone in the garden.

There was only one thing Alex had been looking for. “Violet's autograph?”

Dottie Lee was still waiting. “He'll show you.”

Pavel gave Faith a sympathetic smile. “Things go okay after I left?” he asked.

“I don't think they'll go okay until she's twenty-one.” She started toward the bottom of the garden, where Alex was kneeling in what looked like a depression in the ground.

“Look, Mom!” He pointed.

Pavel joined Faith, and together they stooped beside the boy. “Where?” Faith asked.

The Can Man was still clearing ivy at the bottom of the lot. Alex pointed. “Right there.”

What looked like a stone patio covered the ground in a section about ten feet square. The rectangular, moss-covered stones had been carefully sunk without gaps between them, and even now they were almost perfectly level. In the center, though, was an old mill stone, and in the gap between the round mill stone and the rectangular pavers, tall weeds had taken hold. Alex had pulled enough of them to make a path for her to see the millstone clearly. Violet had carefully chiseled her name over the square hole where an ancient axle had powered the wheel.