The Garden of Happy Endings (2 page)

It was a bright orange Saturday in October, possibly the last sunny day of the year. She parked her car beneath an old monkey tree and let her dog, Charlie, out of the backseat. A long-legged black rescue with exuberant energy, he knew to mind his manners in crowds, keeping to her right side as they wandered toward the booths and tents set up on the lawn of the Unity church.

Just as they rounded the edge of the fair, ducking beneath the low arms of a pine tree, Elsa caught the scent of rotten apples. For a moment, she thought it came from an earthly cause, an apple that had fallen behind the booths or lay in the thick grass, forgotten in the rush to get everything ready.

There were certainly plenty of apples. Apples in baskets and apples in pies and apples floating in a tub filled with cold water for bobbing. Washington State was one of the premier apple-growing states in the nation, and local orchards had contributed heavily to the annual church festival.

It took place on the second weekend of October, when the leaves in the Seattle area hung on the trees like construction paper cutouts in shades of red and orange and yellow, and the worst of the winter gloom had not yet set in. The church, a small and humble building that boasted the stained glass art of a now-famous former parishioner, sat unassumingly in the midst of an arts-and-crafts neighborhood, where the houses—and thus the land the church sat upon—were commandingly expensive even after the real estate debacle.

The harvest committee rented booths to local farmers and craftspeople. It attracted a cheerful crowd of well-tended parents, their scrubbed children, and obligatory golden retrievers. The families played games and ate caramel apples and plumped up the church coffers better than any other single thing they did every year.

Elsa loved the fundraiser. It had been one of the first things she had created upon her arrival here as minister nine years ago. This year, the sun was shining, but the air was sharp enough that she wore a pink wool sweater and a pair of jeans with boots. She’d left her hair, crazy as it was, loose and curly on her shoulders, and she walked along the tables that were set up outside. Tents were erected over them, just in case.

As she moved down the center aisle, again she smelled the sulfurous odor of rotten apples. Insistent, dark. She paused, recognizing the warning.

Something was coming. Something dark and wicked.

She turned in a slow circle, looking for clues. Apples of ten varieties spilled out of baskets, along with pumpkins and squashes and piles of freshly baked bread. In the face-painting booth, Kiki Peterson carefully painted dragons on the face of a little girl wearing a fairy tutu. Next to them was a table set up to serve crepes made by Jordan Mariano, a vegetarian chef who attended the church. The menu offered roasted pumpkin and tomato
crepes, apples and sugar, or classic chocolate and cream. Nothing seemed amiss. No one who looked out of place. No—

“Reverend!”

Elsa turned, still half seeking. A tall man dressed in khakis and a gold shirt strode toward her. He was a member of the finance committee.

“How are you, George?”

“You have a minute, Rev? I want to talk to you about the shortfall in fundraising last week.”

“Let’s talk about that at the meeting on Wednesday, shall we?” She peered over his shoulder, seeking a possible escape. “It’s on the agenda—”

“But I don’t think the committee is taking it seriously.”

She touched his arm. “That may be, but let’s enjoy this beautiful day and talk about it on Wednesday.”

“But—”

“Excuse me.” She headed toward a bent old man sitting in the sunshine. “How are you, Eddie?”

He turned his nearly blind eyes toward her, wispy white hair springing out in Einstein fashion around his head. “If I was any better, I’d already be in heaven.”

She let him take her hand, and squeezed it. “Glad to hear it. How are the new digs?”

“Fine, fine. I have me a cat and some television, so what more does a man need, huh?”

He was eighty-nine, suffering from terminal cancer, asthma, high blood pressure, and crippling arthritis, but he put his love in things beyond himself, and that kept his spirits high. “I’m glad to hear it. I’ll be over to see the new place sometime this week, and we’ll say a blessing. How’s that?”

“Wonderful.”

A trio of girls in plaid shorts and T-shirts swirled over. “Reverend Elsa, we made you some dragonfly wings!” The smallest of
the trio held up the tissue-paper-and-coat-hanger wings, pale purple with green and purple glitter. Their faces, too, had been painted with dragons. She looked over to Kiki and winked.

The teenager smiled. “I can paint your face, too, if you want.”

“Oh, that would be so pretty!” the smallest of the girls said. She took Elsa’s hand and pulled her toward Kiki and the face-painting booth. “Please, Reverend Elsa?”

Elsa capitulated, and let them pull her down into the chair, their cool little fingers and hands touching her arms, her shoulders, her neck. Someone pulled her hair away from her face, gently, pressed it to her temple. “I’ll hold it so you don’t get paint on it.”

“Thanks, Alice.” She gave the tiny redhead a kiss on the wrist.

Alice wiggled happily. “You’re welcome.”

Charlie slumped onto Kiki’s foot. “Do you want a dragon or a rose or something else?” Kiki asked.

“I don’t know. What do you girls think it should be?”

“A flower!”

“A dragon!”

“A castle!”

Kiki laughed. “A castle? How about a unicorn?”

“Oooh, yeah!” Alice traced a spot on Elsa’s cheek, the touch as light as gossamer. “Right there.”

“Can I fix your hair?” Davina asked, tilting her head sideways. “I have a brush. I’ll be careful so Kiki doesn’t mess up.”

“I won’t mess up,” Kiki said. “I can do this in my sleep.”

“Sure, then,” Elsa said. “You can fix it.”

Kiki dipped her brush into a pot of iridescent white paint. Her extraordinarily long brown hair, straight and glossy, fell in a silky wash over one thin shoulder and she tossed it back. “Ready?”

“Ready.” Elsa closed her eyes as the liquid touched her cheek. The little ones fluttered their hands through her hair, and one hot plump body leaned into her, probably sleepy. The child suddenly
bent over and rested her head in Elsa’s lap. Gently, Elsa touched her back. The pink bubble gum smell of girl wafted around her.

“You’re going to be such a good mom,” Kiki said. “You’re so patient.”

“She’s not married!” Alice said, standing on one foot. “You have to be married to have a baby.”

Kiki smiled, a twinkle in her dark blue eyes. “Well, then she needs to get married.”

Elsa gave her a rueful grin in return. Kiki’s mother, Julia, had been trying to matchmake Elsa for months, one very nice man after another, but so far, there had not been a single second date. Julia said she was too hard on men, that Elsa needed to relax a little, but what was the point in that? Why spend your life with someone who wasn’t just right?

Except … she wanted children. She’d always wanted them, at least four, maybe six. It was beginning to seem as if that might not happen. She was thirty-eight, and running out of time. And as much as she loved her work, the congregation, and the children of others, she would really mind if she didn’t have a child of her own.

This, please
, she said, a soft prayer sent out above the heads of the sweet-smelling girls, whose hands touched her, patting her hair, painting her face.

This
.

It was only as she stood up that she again smelled the reek of disaster, deeper now, worse, like bloated fish. She swayed.

“You okay, Rev?” Kiki asked.

Elsa touched her arm. “Fine, thanks. Tell your mother I’ll see her tomorrow.”

“I will.” Kiki screwed the lid of the paint back on. Blue stick-on stars decorated her fingernails. “I think she’s lining up a new one for you.”

Elsa shook her head and left, putting a hand over her upset
stomach. She made her way through the crowd and walked into the church, to duck into the haven of her office. She closed the door, as if to leave the threat behind.

It was a small room, with a single window overlooking the grass and trees and a square of earth planted with chrysanthemums. The décor reflected her simple tastes, with airy white curtains that blew on summer breezes, and only a trio of simple photos on the walls, all in a line, memories from her travels. Glastonbury Tor, pointing into a dark heavy sky from the top of an English hill; a shot of a mile marker on the Camino de Santiago, with an abandoned boot on top of it; and a shot of an old man painting a canvas by the sea.

Below the photos stood a small altar table with a pillar candle and a vase she filled with fresh flowers. Today, they were striped pink and white carnations, and their peppermint aroma lent a sweetness to the air. Elsa lit a candle, asking for protection, for goodness to blow this miasma away. She asked for insight to assist those who might need her, and patience, and stillness.

When that was finished, she picked up the phone and dialed Joaquin, her oldest friend, who had once been her fiancé. He answered on the second ring. “Father Jack.”

“Walking, it’s me,” Elsa said. “I’m getting one of my warnings. Will you say some prayers?”

“Absolutely.”

“Thanks, I have to get back to the harvest festival. I’ll call you later.”

“It’s the fundraiser for the soup kitchen tonight. I won’t be back until about ten.” He said something over his shoulder, and Elsa imagined him talking to his secretary. “Your sister contributed a quilt. It’s amazing. She really needs to show them.”

“Which one is it?”

“It’s a garden, which makes it sound ordinary, only it isn’t.”

“Shoot a cellphone picture and send it to me.” Someone tapped on her door. “I’ve gotta go. Talk soon.”

* * *

A
thousand miles away, Elsa’s sister, Tamsin, knelt in a flower bed, using a hefty pair of garden shears to prune the frost-killed plants. In the high desert of Pueblo, Colorado, the sun could be very hot even so late in the season, but a giant old elm protected the backyard at high midday. Even so, Tamsin wore a sun hat and long sleeves and gloves to protect her pale white skin.

Any day she could spend in a garden was a good day in Tamsin’s book. She had restored every inch of the 110-year-old garden beds herself, reviving ancient peonies and climbing roses; Naked Lady lilies and a bed of poppies that bloomed like lush courtesans each June. Just now, there were only seedpods and withered flowers, so she gave the plants their haircuts, leaving coral bells and intriguing stalks to stand for winter interest. She pruned the roses mercilessly, trimmed the irises to fans of three inches, yanked up annuals and tossed them into the compost heap. It was hard work, sweaty and dirty, but that was what it took to make beauty.

Her husband, Scott, called to her from an upstairs window. “Tamsin, do you know where my black dress shirt is? I can’t find it.”

Tamsin rocked back on her heels, and pushed her hat off her hair so that she could see him. Her husband was a big man, tall and broad, and lately a little stout, though she didn’t mind. He worked hard as an investment banker, a career that had given Tamsin more luxury than she’d ever dreamed of. He played hard, too, with an epicurean lustiness that made her worry sometimes that he’d give himself a heart attack.

He was packing for yet another business trip, this one to Memphis. They were more and more frequent lately. Some, she suspected, were mainly gambling trips, high stakes poker games in back rooms in big cities. He loved gambling, and the black shirt was his favorite for poker.

None of her business. As long as he kept his head, what did it matter to her? “Check the dry cleaning in the downstairs closet.” She straightened, slapped dust off her jeans, and her mind drifted back to the garden. Maybe she should divide the peach irises next year. They were looking a little crowded.

“Hey, Tamsin,” Scott called again, and she looked up.

He leaned from the window and tossed her a small, colorful cloth bag, the kind you could buy at shops that sold Tibetan goods. It landed at her knee with a plop of dust. “What’s this?”

“A little something, that’s all.”

Smiling, she thought he must have made a good deal. Through the years both she and her daughter, Alexa, had become accustomed to surprises like this. The strings of the bag were tied, and she loosened them, pouring the contents into her hand. A pair of diamond solitaire earrings winked at her. Each was the size of a fingernail, and they glittered even in the shade, sending out rays of yellow and blue and violet.

Holding them cupped in her palm, she looked up. He was fond of surprise presents, but not this big. “What’s the occasion?” she asked in some bewilderment.

For a minute, he looked too sober, then his usual twinkle returned. “Maybe I just want to get lucky before I have to leave.”

She laughed, because it was acknowledged between them that Tamsin was by far the more sexual of the two. And lately, he’d been very stressed and busy with work. “Is that so?”

His hands hung loosely over the windowsill on the third floor of the red sandstone Victorian, one of the most beautiful in the city. Her pride and joy, this house, this garden, the tower room where she created her quilts. “Come upstairs, Tamsin,” he said.

“I’ll be right there.” She headed inside, tucked the earrings into the secret drawer in her bread box, and dashed into the downstairs shower. Clean, still damp, she wandered through the house naked and feeling deliciously wicked about it. There were benefits to an empty nest.

He waited on their enormous bed, tucked demurely beneath the sheets. His bearish chest showed some gray hair lately, and he had started shaving his head because he was balding. He was fifteen years older than she, but she still found him attractive. Loved his size, his twinkling blue eyes, his wicked sense of humor.

Tamsin took her time walking toward him, knowing her body was still in great shape, that he was immensely proud of her, and that this would be good, hot sex.

“God,” he said, holding out a big hand toward her, “I’m the luckiest man in the world.”