Secrets (7 page)
Lance had softened the saffron threads with wine and crushed the fennel seeds, sauteéd the garlic and shrimp with a touch of cognac, then prepared the pasta and broccoli. It wasn’t complicated. As Conchessa had taught, the quality of the outcome lay in timing and seasoning and prayer.
“You don’t have to be fancy to be striking. Do it simply. Do it well. Do it with love and adoration. That makes it an offering.”
He loved having her words in his head. Though she had no chef ’s credentials and imparted none, in three short weeks she had tempered the epicurean excesses he’d learned from Nonna Antonia. Conchessa didn’t use any ingredient not readily available or grown in the convent’s garden. He appreciated her simplicity, but also Nonna’s New York extravagance. He could incorporate both. If he were staying, he’d start an herb garden of his own and create masterpieces both simple and fancy.
For now, he dished the meal onto two plates, gave each dish a fork and napkin, and carried them outside. Rese looked up, a bemused expression on her face. Baxter wore the same. Good grief, they’d fallen for each other. Lance lowered one of the plates to Rese with the napkin caught underneath.
She took it, surprised. “I didn’t expect delivery.”
He settled onto the ground and gave Baxter a nudge with his knee, getting a reciprocal tail wag. “I didn’t expect nursing care for the con dog.”
Rese laughed, and Lance couldn’t help watching her. If someone had told him the first day she was capable of that sound he would not have wagered money on it. Maybe it had been a really bad day, and that accounted for her lack of culinary enthusiasm. Even he had a slump now and then. But he’d put extra care into this effort.
She took a bite, chewed and swallowed, then proceeded with the next. He waited, but she didn’t say anything, bite after bite. What was her problem? She’d even requested this meal!
Well, he was certainly not going to ask how she liked it. He ate his, satisfied that it was both balanced and delicious. Maybe she’d killed her taste buds eating all that packaged junk. Maybe she didn’t know food was supposed to taste good. She finished it without a single comment. He couldn’t help sending her a puzzled gaze.
“What?”
“Did you like it?” He ought to bite his tongue out.
She said, “Both meals could work for specials—if I decide to do that.”
Lance swallowed the desire to shake her, took her plate with his, and strode into the kitchen. He washed them at the sink, then toweled his hands dry.
As he climbed the stairs, his phone rang. The jolt of anxiety made his fingers clumsy as he dug it from his pocket and saw his parents’ number. Bad news? He’d just gotten started. Surely God would give him time…
“Lance here.”
“Hey,
mon
?” The greeting rolled off with the musical intonation of Chaz’s Jamaican accent. “You went to Rome and they didn’t make you pope?”
He could hear laughter in the background. Anxiety drained like sand from a sieve. “Not Rome, Genoa.” Chaz hadn’t been there when he’d flown back home, gathered his bike and his dog, and headed for Sonoma. Lance had been purposely vague with those who were there, and they’d probably put Chaz up to this call. He didn’t like keeping things from them, but Nonna’s wish was clear. This was for him and no one else.
“What are you doing on the wrong side of the country?”
“I’m working.” Lance reached the attic and surveyed the challenge before him.
“There’s no work in all the Islands of New York?” It comforted Chaz to think of the burroughs as islands.
Lance smiled. “Not like this.” Mostly without pay and for undisclosed reasons.
“You’re crazy, mon. You should come home.”
“You sound like Momma. She standing behind you?”
Chaz laughed his slow, rolling laugh. “Giving me the evil eye. You know—the one that means no food until I find out what you are up to.” There was a commotion, and he heard Momma in the background, then Chaz laughing again.
Lance had a pang of homesickness. He’d been pretty scattered the last few years, and it would have been nice to stay put for a while. But he was doing something important, more important than Momma or anyone else knew. “How’s Nonna?”
“Not good.”
His heart lurched.
“She tried to slap a nurse.”
He tipped his head back with a grin. Desperation and fury, no doubt. But if she was strong enough to have a temper …
Thank you, Lord
. “Keep an eye on her for me, Chaz.”
“Two eyes. I see better that way, mon.”
Lance laughed. “Yeah. Me too.” He’d need both eyes and all his wits to handle this situation. But the call had reaffirmed his intentions. No irritations would weaken his resolve. Not with Nonna still so debilitated. Her words from the letter written to Conchessa years ago came back to mind.
I cannot give you names or details but I feel it in my heart, a storm worse than nature. I fear we will lose everything
.
W
atching the young people next door made her feel strangely insubstantial, as though seeing the world she would leave, a play progressing without the players from the previous scene. It was an unusual thought. The pneumonia in her lungs had eroded her strength and left her bored and reflective—vaporish. Not her accustomed mode at all.
But to have Ralph’s house occupied by strangers—young people making it something different, something new—gave her pause. Even if hours in bed hadn’t driven her nearly batty, her condition certainly provided an excuse to take an interest in the goings-on next door. A nosy old busybody? No, a sick old woman with a view. Evvy chuckled, coughed, then hacked.
Oh, for a good deep breath without coughing, and a doctor who didn’t look at her as though she might wither up and sail off on the next breeze. X-rays, antibiotics, this and that top-notch treatment. Her adverse reactions to all the drugs so far brought it down to her own constitution and whether it cared to carry on.
Just now the little drama next door gave her something to ponder, and that was good. Once she lost interest in life, she would take the chariot ride and welcome it. She might just nudge the driver over and take the reins herself.
Here comes Evvy Potter, Lord, ready or not
.
She was not morose. Her friends called regularly, and the more mobile of them came to visit, but risk of contagion, since she couldn’t tolerate the antibiotics, had put a damper on her social life. No, she was glad for the distraction of the dark-haired woman working like a hired man with her tools in her belt and brogans on her feet. Evvy was itching to see what had been done inside, but … if it was too different, would it be painful?
Stuff and nonsense. Change was a fact of life; to let it cause pain was a weakness she didn’t possess. A momentary, mellow pining after better days couldn’t be helped. Beyond that? No Pitiful Pearl, she. Each day had something, some small moment to gather in like a bubble on her wet palm.
And the little vignette played out in the next door garden had given her that moment. She chuckled, stepping back from the window. It didn’t drain her to stand there as it had before. She was improving, despite dire warnings from the doctor when she refused another antibiotic that would inflate her like a blowfish or spread a rash over parts better left unmentioned. She almost felt well enough for some fresh air. But she’d promised to rest a few more days, and she could ponder the tension that had been almost palpable in the scene she’d just witnessed.
She laughed softly, thinking of Ralph and his frequent exasperation, though he was too courtly to give full vent. It was bittersweet to recall. She hadn’t seen him in so long, being too ill to risk a visit. Soon, perhaps, God willing. She sighed. All things in their time.
Just as Rese settled in to finish staining the trim, the chandelier arrived. This was not going to be a personally productive day. But she had enough experience to roll with it. She maneuvered the ladder beneath the socket, then went and called Lance down from the attic. She could install it, of course. But this was a chance to test his boast before she turned him loose on the kitchen fuse box and the wiring of the carriage house. She’d see whether he was just blowing electrical smoke.
When he joined her, she handed him the tool that stripped and cut wires. Maybe it was unfair to keep doubting him, but in spite of the positive references, she couldn’t help it. Something niggled inside, and Rese knew better than to ignore it. When a situation seemed too good to be true, it usually was. Lance showing up with the skills he claimed was just not quite believable.
He took the tool. “Did you shut the breaker off?”
She sent him a scathing look.
He climbed up and trimmed the wires, stripping the ends free of old plastic.
So he knew what the tool was for. “Make sure you get off any corrosion.”
“Uh-huh.” He stuck the tool in his back pocket. “Okay, come on up.”
“Up?”
“Bring the fixture.”
Two of them on the ladder? She shifted the chandelier’s weight. “I’m not sure that’s safe.”
He looked down. “My intentions are strictly electrical.” She glared. “I mean for the stability of the ladder.”
“Well, neither one of us can hold and attach that monster alone.”
Valid point. She climbed up with the heavy bronze chandelier until her feet filled the left half of the rung he occupied. Thankfully he was not a big man like her father. Their combined weight was probably not much more than Dad’s alone. But there were still two of them, and she was trapped between Lance and the ladder, holding the chandelier up as he connected the wires and twisted the wing nuts.
She would have preferred to let him hold, but she hadn’t set it up that way. Rethink her strategy? No, she still wanted proof. Trapped like that, she smelled the attic in his shirt. How many times had she smelled like old musty rooms? Maybe she did right now. That, or sweat and wood stain. She’d take that scent over—
“Screwdriver.” He said it like a surgeon, and she had never liked to play nurse.
But she pulled the tool from her belt and handed it over. As he attached and tightened the anchoring bolts, she held the chandelier steady until he lowered his arms slowly with a hint of amusement. “Bulbs?”
She looked down. “I’ll have to get them.”
He held her elbow as she stepped down a rung. She pulled it away. Couldn’t he tell she’d been on ladders all her life? She just didn’t care to share them. It was tempting fate to use equipment as it wasn’t intended. She reached the floor and called up, “I can do the bulbs myself.”
“Fine.” He came down and handed over the screwdriver. “I need to know about some items in the attic.”
She slid the tool into its slot in her belt and said, “Show me.” Curious to see what he’d found and how much progress he’d made, she followed him up.
He led her to the wall and pointed to a half dozen rolled woolen rugs. One was spread out across the others. “They’re in decent condition if you want to clean them up. They were wrapped in mothballs.”
She could smell that, an odor she adored in spite of its toxicity. The floral colors would work for several of the rooms. “Great.”
“Where would you like them?”
“The second-floor landing.” She looked around. “What else have you found?”
“Not much. A vase.” He handed it to her. “Most of the stuff is garbage. Makes you wonder why folks don’t throw it away in the first place.”
“Maybe it was still good when they stashed it here. Or had sentimental value.” She looked at the vase, painted with wild flowers, tipped it up and studied the bottom. There was faint writing there, and she angled it to the light bulb. A signature. Probably the artist. “I wonder who Flavio was?”
Lance snatched it. “Who?”
“It says Flavio on the bottom. The artist, I guess. It looks hand painted.” Rese glanced around the attic again. “I’m surprised it’s survived up here. I would have thought everything of value had been looted.”
Lance’s fingers tightened on the vase, a frown creasing his forehead.
“What’s the matter?”
His smile looked forced. “Nothing.”
She searched his face, not nearly gullible enough to believe that. “You’re upset about something.”
He handed the vase back. “I hate the thought of vandals and thieves. Things of value lost to greed and stupidity.”
“I doubt there’s anything in here that’s seriously valuable.” She turned the vase in her hands. It looked and felt old, dimmed by a black film, though Lance must have wiped it off. There were no doubt years of dust inside.
“Where was this?”
“Tucked in between the eaves behind the newspapers. Probably full of spiders.”
She shot him a glare, then turned the vase upside down and shook it.
He laughed. “I already did that much. No spider with any decent web would dislodge so easily.”
She felt the narrow channel of the neck, considered the wide bowl beneath and imagined too clearly exactly what he described. When he reached for the vase, she handed it over.
“I’ll clean it out for you.”
Rese took a few steps deeper into the attic, rested her hands on her hips. A case of canning jars and an old bike might bring something at the antique store. A chewed-up vinyl chair probably housed mice. Lance might be teasing about the spiders, but she was glad he’d tackled this job. “Anything else?”