For My Daughters Page 12

  “Seaweed,” he said. “It makes a good mulch. It’s organic. And it’s free.”

  “You just go down on the rocks and gather it?”

  “Yup.”

  That explained the pitchfork he carried, but the pitchfork didn’t hold her attention for long. She was drawn to the patches of sweat on his shirt and, between its gaping front, his chest. It was broad, muscled, lightly haired. He was well built. Her lungs labored over that fact.

  She tried to remember the last time she had been so struck by a man, and couldn’t. It was remarkable, really. She saw men all the time. She saw attractive men all the time. She saw attractive men in swim trunks, and even, with the demise of the occasional pool party, a drunken man nude. But she hadn’t caught her breath in years and years.

  Not since Charlie, who had been good-looking in an intellectual way, with curly hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and an ego the size of Texas. Before Charlie there had been Ron, but as right as he was for her on paper, he hadn’t caused much of a spark.

  Jesse Cray didn’t cause a spark. He caused dozens and, in so doing, made her feel like a woman—and it wasn’t his looks, in the traditional sense. He was more craggy than handsome, more spit than polish, and though he was a solemn man, his smile was a killer.

  She wondered if it was the infrequency of it that made it so rewarding, but his smile wasn’t all that warmed her. There was the gentle, direct way he talked to her. He wasn’t pretentious or coy. He wasn’t flirting. He was just there, a man appreciating her for just being there, too.

  At least, she thought that was it. Not that she was the greatest judge, where men were concerned. She might be wrong. Still, she liked the way she felt.

  So she smiled. “Well.” She rubbed her hands together. “I should let you get to work.”

  He grew solemn again. “Will your mother be coming today?”

  “I’m not sure. My sisters are furious that she isn’t here already.”

  “How about you?”

  “I’m disappointed. I’ve been looking forward to seeing her. She implied that she’d be here when I arrived.”

  “Is she sick?”

  “No. Just lingering, I guess.”

  “Is she getting cold feet about living here?”

  Leah considered that, but she had no idea what her mother was thinking. Ginny was a mystery—a very pleasant, very proper and correct woman who kept her inner thoughts to herself. “Beats me,” she said finally.

  “I can understand why she might.”

  “I can’t.” At that moment, on that matter, she had no doubt. “This is the most delightful place I’ve ever been to. It’s beautiful. It’s refreshing. It’s exciting.”

  “There are people who’d disagree with you on that last one. They’d call it boring.”

  She shook her head. “I brought a pile of books with me, but each time I sit down to read, my mind wanders off, and before I know it, I’m up doing something else.”

  “Have you been in town yet?”

  She shook her head.

  “You should go. It’s nice.”

  “Do you go often?”

  “Every day. For food or supplies. It’s a surprising place.”

  She was bemused. “Surprising?”

  “Not backwoods like you’d think. The artists are a sophisticated bunch, and because of it, the support services are, too. The general store sells croissants. And the hardware store carries cappuccino makers.”

  “Does it sell any?”

  He shot her a crooked smile. “Sure. Artists love cappuccino. There’s a restaurant called Julia’s that specializes in seafood, but it has other interesting things, too. You should stop there. The owner is about your age. She moved here from New York three years ago. You’d like her.”

  “Sounds nice,” Leah said, though she wasn’t wild about running into town. She was feeling safe and content at Star’s End.

  “If you ever want to hitch a ride, give a yell.”

  Now that was a temptation, she thought, and smiled. “I will.” She started backing off. “Good talking with you. Mulch well.”

  She turned and walked as casually as she could toward the house. It was a challenge. She was flying high on something or other that had to do with curly hair and jeans, salty ocean air, and a heather garden planted with love.

  She had breezed past the pool and was approaching the French doors when Caroline’s angry voice brought her fast back to earth.

  nine

  ANNETTE WAS TALKING ON THE TELEPHONE, covering her free ear, while Caroline waved a piece of paper nearby.

  “This isn’t the time to be calling home, Annette! We have to decide what to do!” She whirled around when Leah came in. “Leah! Did you see this?”

  Leah took the paper from her hand. It was a note from Gwen. She had barely begun to read it when Caroline cried, “She isn’t coming today or tomorrow! Maybe Thursday, she says!” She whipped the paper from Leah’s hands. “The woman is selfish, arrogant, and deceitful. She’s impossible. What is wrong with her? Doesn’t she want to come? Was buying this place a big hoax? Doesn’t she realize that the only reason we’re here is because we thought she’d be here? She’s stringing us along, Leah, letting us dangle. This will go on for days. I just know it.”

  Leah was feeling a let-down, but none of the anger Caroline did. “Have you asked Gwen about this?”

  “Hah. Good question. Gwen was waiting on the front porch to take off with the Volvo the minute we got back. She didn’t so much as mention this. The lady knows which side her bread is buttered on. Where were you when Ginny called?”

  “I went for a ride,” Leah said, which was technically true. She wasn’t about to say she had gone shopping for clothes. She wanted her sisters to think that she had known all along the very best look for Star’s End.

  Annette had hung up the phone and joined them, looking exasperated. “What’s wrong with Mother? Why is she doing this? Doesn’t she have any respect at all for the fact that we have our own lives?”

  “Is Thomas feeling better?” Leah asked.

  “For now. God knows what’ll be in an hour.”

  Caroline drummed her fingers on the counter. “If we ever dared do something like this to her, we’d never hear the end of it.” In a mocking sing-song, she said, “Punctuality is important, girls. Reliability is important. People judge you on those things.” Her voice leveled. “Do you know that I’m usually early for appointments? It’s a joke around the office, but I loathe being late. Loathe? No, that tells only half the story. I can’t bear it. I start sweating if I think I’m running late. I tell myself it’s stupid, that the rest of the world doesn’t give a damn if I’m late because that’s the way life is, but so help me I can’t change.”

  Leah knew the feeling. She had to deliberately hold herself back, had to actually sit home for a few minutes, fully dressed and watching the clock, lest she arrive at a party at the prescribed time, which was more often than not before her hosts were ready.

  Annette said, “It’s been bred into us. When my kids have dentist appointments, we’re always there on time, even though I know we’ll have to wait to be seen. I get angry then, and I curse Mother, and I want to tell my kids, ‘What the hell, be as late as you want, if people want your company or time or money, they’ll want it regardless,’ but I can’t do it.”

  “So what do you do?” Leah asked. Since reconciling her own instincts with those of her mother was an ongoing issue for her, she welcomed suggestions.

  “I shoot for a happy medium,” Annette said. “I teach the kids that they shouldn’t keep people waiting, but I don’t make them crazy about it. We call the dentist’s office before we leave the house to see if she’s running on time. In the rare instance when we’re running late ourselves, rather than panic we call to alert them that we’ll be right along. Usually they tell us to take our time.”

  “Mother should have given us that choice,” Caroline grumbled, pushing her fingers through her hair. “I need a cig
arette. Does anyone have one?”

  “Not me.”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  “Swell.” She twisted toward the French doors, then twisted right back. “How long does she think we can hang around here waiting for her to come? We’ve already been here for one day, now she says she won’t arrive for another two, maybe more. What are we supposed to be doing?”

  “Spending her money,” Annette answered, grinning her way to the sofa and a mountain of bags. “I found some great things in town. Look at these.” Discarding bags, she draped a navy and turquoise lap quilt over the back of the sofa, and tossed pillows strategically about. “And this,” she said, more carefully removing newsprint to unveil a ceramic bowl glazed in a starburst of blues. “For fruit or candy.” She set it on a low ivory cube by one of the chairs.

  Leah thought the purchases were wonderful, and told her so.

  Caroline agreed, less angry at last. “They are incredible. So’s my painting.” She led them to the front hall, lifted the canvas, and held it to the wall.

  Leah came closer. “Un-believable. The colors are the colors of Star’s End. Absolutely perfect for this room.” She sighed, feeling no small amount of chagrin. “You two were busy.”

  “Ben told me Downlee was an artists’ colony,” Caroline mused, “but I thought he was being polite. I never expected to see work of this caliber.”

  Annette remained effusive. “You didn’t see the crafts I did, and I didn’t see the half of it. There must be eight more shops that I didn’t have time to visit. Downlee is full of surprises.”

  Leah thought of what Jesse had said. The fact that her sisters validated it was a validation of him, which made her smile. Feeling high again—in a state of reprieve, what with Ginny further delayed, and more relaxed—she looked from one sister to the other. “I think we should celebrate.”

  “Celebrate what?” Caroline asked. “Ginny still isn’t coming.”

  “Okay, so she isn’t coming. That’s her loss. She’s missing out on us, and she’s missing out on our discoveries, and besides, we’re spending her money. I think we should celebrate successful shopping.”

  Caroline made a face, but it had an affectionate twist. “You would.”

  Leah wasn’t being deflated. “I know it’s late, but have you had lunch?”

  “No.”

  “No.”

  “Want some?”

  “Gwen’s out.”

  “We can munch on chips.”

  But Leah didn’t want to munch on chips. “There’s good stuff to be had. I’ll make something.”

  “Really?”

  “Are you serious?”

  Leah was already heading back to the kitchen, where she uncorked a bottle of white wine and filled three glasses.

  “I never drink during the day,” Caroline declared. “I can’t concentrate on work.”

  Annette was warily eyeing the wine. “The last thing I want the kids to think is that I need a drink in the middle of the day.”

  “You don’t need it,” Leah proposed. “You’re having it because it’s a fun thing to do when you’re on vacation. The kids aren’t around to see. And you don’t have to concentrate on work, Caroline. You left people doing it for you back in Chicago.”

  “Yeah, and I’d put money on the fact that they’ll mess up. Somewhere, somehow, they will. I did not get a good feeling when I called there before.” Still, she raised her glass. “Cheers.”

  A short time later, Leah refilled their glasses. They were in bathing suits now, enjoying the midafternoon sun on the back deck, while they worked leisurely at the salade Niçoise she had made.

  “This is very good,” Annette remarked. “You did well.”

  “I like to cook. Not that this is cooking, really—”

  “It’s cooking,” Caroline insisted. “You boiled potatoes and green beans, and you made the dressing from scratch. Do you do this a lot?”

  “Nah. It’s not much fun doing it for one.”

  “That’s why I usually bring in take-out.”

  “But you have a valid excuse to do that,” Leah pointed out. “You’ve been in an office all day. I’m around the house more, so it’s silly not to cook. But it’s more fun doing it here. Mother’s kitchen is a dream.”

  “Just stay away from the fattening stuff,” Annette warned. “My thighs are gross.”

  Leah laughed. “They are not.”

  “They’re fat.”

  “Not fat,” said Caroline. “Just not eighteen anymore. Mine are the same. The Stairmaster can only do so much.”

  Leah studied her thighs, then her sisters’. “Objectively speaking, none of ours are bad. We wouldn’t embarrass Ginny if she had friends here.”

  Caroline snorted. “Not on the issue of thighs, at least. Lord knows theirs wouldn’t win any prizes.”

  “They’d be wearing bathing suits with skirts,” Annette drawled, but dropped the drawl in the next breath. “Look at us. We have a sleek maillot, a sexy bikini, and one that’s sedate and diagonally draped.” She sighed. “I’m glad Jean-Paul isn’t here. He’d be looking at you two, not me.”

  “That’s not true,” Caroline said.

  Leah agreed, with no small amount of envy. “He worships the ground you walk on. And if Mother were here, she’d approve of your suit long before she’d approve of Caroline’s or mine. She might ask us to change into something more decent, if she was expecting friends.”

  “Even if she wasn’t,” Caroline remarked. “Ginny is a prude.”

  Annette elaborated. “She has a narrow view of what’s proper. That view would say you have too much thigh showing, too much cleavage, too much nipple. She worries about what people think of her. She fears what they may say behind her back.”

  Leah thought back to childhood agonies. As painful as they had been at the time, she could smile about them now. “Remember when we were kids, how uptight she always was before we went to visit her parents?”

  “She wanted us to be the perfect little girls,” Annette began.

  “With dresses from Saks,” Caroline picked up, “and new shoes and our hair just so. Rollers—I remember rollers in my hair, which was, is, and always will be stick straight, which is why I wear it cut short like this, though Mother can’t understand that. I remember sleeping in rollers with sharp pink picks and wire middles digging into my scalp. What a nightmare.”

  “But the way we looked made a statement about her life,” Leah said. “If we looked beautiful, she had done something right. Same thing if we looked rich.”

  “We were rich anyway,” Caroline asserted, “so what was the point?”

  “The point,” Leah argued, “was that our grandparents were richer. Money was a big issue with them. Mother wanted to show them that she had married well.”

  “At our expense, no pun intended.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?” Annette echoed. “Leah, she made you so nuts about the way you looked that you became bulimic. Don’t defend her.”

  “I’m not. I’m just trying to understand her. She wanted her parents’ approval. Is that any different from what we want? I mean, why else are we here?”

  “I’m here,” Caroline said, sucking a black olive, “because Ben told me that if I didn’t come, I’d suffer the guilt for the rest of my life. He has a conscience. And he’s gorgeous, to boot.”

  “Speaking of gorgeous,” Annette mused, “has anyone taken a good look at the gardener?”

  Leah choked on a piece of tuna. She coughed, caught her breath, and took a mouthful of wine.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Holding a hand to her chest, she said, “Mother would die if she thought you were lusting after the gardener.”

  “It’s an innocent observation. He is gorgeous.”

  “He’s not bad,” Caroline remarked, sprawled comfortably in her chair now. “A little on the rough side.”

  “Gorgeous,” Annette insisted.

  “What about Jean-Paul?”

  “
Jean-Paul is magnificent. This guy’s gorgeous.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Magnificent involves the whole person. Gorgeous is just the facade. Jean-Paul is bright, talented, and gorgeous.”

  “So’s Ben. He’s beautiful through and through. This fellow is just the gardener.”

  “I think,” Leah said quietly, “that he’s a horticulturist. I’ve talked with him. He’s incredibly knowledgeable.”

  “He certainly fits in here,” Caroline reflected. “Ginny would do well to keep him on. He goes with the land—literally and figuratively.”

  “Like the pieces we bought today,” Annette said. “They capture something. I was talking with the craftspeople about it. They say it has to do with Star’s End.”

  Leah was intrigued. “In what way?”

  “This is the prettiest place around. Artists come here for inspiration.”

  “Really?” she asked with a smile. The idea of it carried a certain richness.

  “I got that feeling, too,” Caroline mused. “I kept getting glimpses of Star’s End in what I saw. The piece I bought was one of dozens, and that was only at the first gallery I went to. Everywhere I stopped, I caught the same feeling, the same energy, the same—” she struggled for the word, “the same passion.” Looking from Leah to Annette and back, she added a defensive, “That’s what I felt.”

  “Same here,” Annette admitted.

  “I wanted to talk more with the artists, but they only wanted to talk about Ginny.”

  “Same here! Wherever I went, they asked questions. It was eerie after a while.”

  “Not eerie. Annoying.”

  Leah thought of the policeman who had shown her to Star’s End that first night. He had been curious, too. “I suppose it’s natural. Downlee is a small place. Mother is a newcomer. They’re wondering what she’ll be like.”

  Caroline grunted. “At the rate she’s going, they may never know. When is she coming, for God’s sake?”

  The question was rhetorical. Leah knew nothing more than Caroline or Annette. They were all three in the same boat. It struck Leah that they hadn’t been that way in a very long time.

  Nor had they sat together, just the three of them, having lunch together, in a very long time.