Humming a tune, Tara headed across the lawn toward the Spa. As she neared the porch, she could see that the front door of the spa stood open in Lizzie’s hand, and she was engaged in conversation with Gloria. Lizzie’s words drifted across the porch.
“…So, don’t say anything to Tara about it, okay?” Lizzie turned to leave and lurched to a halt, horrified to see her friend and boss on the porch. “Oh, hi…” she mumbled.
“Don’t say anything to me about what?” Tara asked.
Gloria stepped into the doorway. “I’m planning a— a thing for Winnie.” She said, tossing a nervous glance at Lizzie.
“A thing?” Tara asked, her expression dubious.
“Yeah, you know, a— m—makeover!” Gloria announced, seemingly proud of herself.
“A makeover!” Lizzie repeated.
Obviously, the girls were up to something, and Tara didn’t think it had anything to do with makeup. “Seriously? Since when has Winnie been interested in a makeover?”
“Well,” Gloria said, motioning with one hand, “With Homecoming next week, I thought— I thought it would be fun for her, you know, for the class reunion.” She smiled.
Tara turned and gave Lizzie a hard look, but her friend just nodded in agreement. Either they really were planning a makeover, or Lizzie was a very good liar. “And I can’t know about this, why?”
“You’d tell her.” Lizzie said.
“I would not!”
“Yes, you would. You always tell.” Lizzie stated, her tone bland and confident.
“It’s true,” Gloria added. “You get too excited and you give it away.”
“I’ve kept lots of secrets,” Tara objected.
“From Winnie?” Lizzie asked.
“Well… Okay maybe not, but—”
“No buts,” Lizzie said. “Did you need something? I didn’t expect to see you this morning.”
“Obviously,” Tara confirmed. “Where are you going?”
“I was just going to run some errands, but it can wait, come on in.”
Tara followed the women inside, still dubious about their intentions. Lizzie headed toward the large L-shaped sofa in the lobby, and Gloria settled in behind the reception desk.
“You come over too,” Tara said motioning to Gloria. “This concerns both of you.”
The women tossed each other a glance, as they joined Tara on the sofa.
“You may have noticed,” Tara began, “that I am losing my ever-loving mind.” She wasn’t in the mood to waste any time.
Her friends had the decency to object.
“No, you know it’s true,” Tara interrupted, raising one hand. “So, I’ve decided to hire some help at the Inn.”
Gloria and Lizzie fell silent, shock clear on their faces.
“Don’t just stare at me -- you look appalled.” Tara faltered.
“We’re just— surprised, that’s all.” Lizzie said, twisting one of her shiny black curls around her finger.
“Just surprised,” Gloria repeated.
Given the lack of conversation, Tara knew she’d caught them off guard. Maybe Lizzie wasn’t such a great liar after all.
“Can I ask why?” Lizzie asked, concern in her tone. “Did I do something wrong, is this because of my wedding? Because I can have it somewhere else—”
Tara waved her hands, as if to wipe the question away. “No, no, it has nothing to do with the wedding. Okay, maybe it does but not like you think. I want you to have the perfect day, and I just can’t keep up with Bella and the Inn. I need the help. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and your wedding is just a good reason to make the leap.”
“I could do more to help,” Gloria offered.
Tara’s expression softened and she glanced to Gloria’s pregnancy swollen belly, then to her face. “You’re a sweetheart, but soon enough you’ll have your own hands full.”
Gloria flushed and her hands came up to rest on her stomach. “Still, I can help fill in until then.”
“No, my mind is made up,” Tara said. She turned to Lizzie. “I just need to know if you’d like to take over the books for the spa, or if you want the new Inn manager to do them.”
“Manager!” Lizzie cried. “I thought you meant you were hiring a housekeeper, not a manager!”
Tara frowned. “Why is that so shocking?”
Lizzie and Gloria looked at each other, neither daring to say it.
“Because I’m a control freak?” Tara asked.
“Well, we weren’t—” Lizzie began.
“I know I am, it’s no secret.” Tara sighed, “But I’m exhausted.”
Her friends nodded in concession, and Gloria patted Tara’s knee in support.
“And I’m thinking of having another baby, so—”
Both women snapped to attention. “Another baby! Oh, Tara!” Lizzie exclaimed.
“Don’t do it,” Gloria said, her face serious. “Don’t you remember?” She pushed out her large belly, as an example.
They all laughed, and Gloria reached across her stomach to hug her boss. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Me too!” Lizzie agreed, then her joy faded. “But this will make Elliot even more intent on getting a family going.”
“He wants kids?” Tara asked. Elliot was great with Bella, but she always worried that the baby would ruin his expensive ties with her grubby hands or swipe something disgusting onto one of his fancy shirts.
“He really does.” Lizzie said, “But first, the wedding.”
“The wedding!” Tara and Gloria agreed.
Chapter Seven
Thomas pulled his sports car into his personal parking spot on campus, eager to continue their date. He turned off the ignition, then smiled, taking in Winnie where she sat in the passenger seat.
“You’ve been quiet,” he said.
“For the whole three-block drive?”
“You’ve made a liar out of me; I can’t tell what you’re thinking.”
She motioned toward the gear shift. “I was actually wondering how hard it was to learn to shift with the wrong hand.” She also couldn’t help but compare the sleek, foreign, sports car to the practical, bulky cars the folks back in Smithville drove. The little car was so different, so tiny, so… romantic.
“I’m sure in the UK, they consider it the correct hand to shift with.” He countered.
“Well, this isn’t the UK, is it?” she chuckled. “I can’t imagine trying to drive with the steering wheel, clutch, and everything, backwards. Where did you get this car anyway?”
“I bought it from a professor that was headed across country for a new job and couldn’t take it. I got a good deal.”
She glanced up at the soft-top convertible roof, then behind her into the tiny space behind the front seats. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in a convertible. Or a car with only two seats for that matter.”
“Yeah, no back seat for— you know,” he lamented, pulling a sorrowful face.
She grinned but couldn’t get past the thought of being hot and bothered with him in the back seat of a car.
“Shall we go in?” He asked.
She agreed, so he climbed from the car and circled around to open her door. As she straightened, he took the opportunity to pull her close and kiss her again. “Something about you in the moonlight gets to me,” he murmured.
“Me too,” she agreed, then realized she wasn’t making sense. Embarrassed, she pulled away to head toward the building.
“My office is this way,” He said, pointing the opposite direction.
“Oh— right,” she giggled.
They walked in companionable silence, and he took her hand. It felt warm and natural, personal and sexual. Evidently, Claudia was right. Winnie did get excited just holding hands. A wild party would likely undo her completely. She spoke up. “So, I hear you have quite the anti-war reputation around campus.”
Her comment caused him no concern as he released her hand to sort through his keys, looking for the correct one. �
��How’s that?”
They paused in the shadowy side door of a large brick building. “My roommate says you’re very well known for your protest rallies.”
He inserted his key in the lock and extended his arm to hold open the door for her. “It’s all true.”
She glanced up at him through her lashes as she passed, thinking about Claudia’s comments about how sexy he is.
“Is that a problem?” He asked.
“Not with me,” she said as they headed down a long dimly-lit hallway. “I was just a little surprised when my roommate knew who you were.”
“It’s not like there are thousands of us protesting here. Not yet, anyway.”
She shrugged. “I guess. I’ve never been to a protest.”
They stopped in front of a wooden door with a frosted window in the top. The name-plate said Thomas Kinkade, which shouldn’t have shocked her. However, somehow seeing it engraved in brass made Claudia’s accusations more marked. It made her feel uneasy, as if she were misbehaving. She glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone were watching.
Thomas searched his key ring again. “Why not?”
“Huh?”
He put the key in the door lock. “Why haven’t you been to a protest? It’s important work.”
She frowned, irritated by him for the first time. Given their conversations so far, he must have concluded that she really was completely backward and without conviction.
He picked up on her mood, and his face grew serious. “It’s not just you. A lot of people haven’t gotten involved with stopping the war.”
Now she was insulted. She was very concerned about the war. “You think your rallies, little groups of student shouting with cardboard signs, is stopping the war?”
He ignored her jab. “I’m not saying you’re bad, Wynona. People feel different ways, but if you care, if you want it to stop, you have to get involved. Like I said before, good men, flag-waving patriots, along with avid protestors, are being drafted and sent to die.”
“Flag-waving patriots? Is that what you think Roy is? Some mindless follower?”
He sighed, not wanting to spoil the evening by fighting. “Look,” he tried again. “I respect guys like Roy. They are willing to go wherever they’re sent.”
“Where they’re sent? And what did you mean by flag-waving patriot? Sounds pretty rude to me.”
He sighed. “You know as well as I do that it’s complicated. It’s not the guys going to fight that I have the problem with -- it’s the government. I don’t think it’s right to ask men to go die, when they’re too young to even vote for the people who make the policies.”
She had to agree with that. But Roy was old enough to vote. Of course, the only reason he hadn’t been drafted before now was because he chose to join ROTC. He’d be an officer in the Army when he graduated. Some people saw that as becoming part of the problem, not the solution. Maybe that was one of the reasons some students hated the cadets.
“Most of the students here are too young to have a voice but not too young to die.” Roy continued, unaware of her train of thought.
Thinking of Roy being killed, along with all the other boys like him, she had to agree. “Well, there wasn’t a lot of protesting going on back home, or maybe I would have joined in.”
The door opened with a long creak and it broke the tension. He grinned down at her. “I need to grease that. I think about it every morning when it’s quiet, but then during the day the halls are noisy and I forget.”
Winnie squeezed past him into the small office. The room was cluttered with a bulky battered desk, messy bookshelves, piles of papers, and several well-worn wooden chairs. There was no window, and the space smelled faintly musty.
Thomas cleared his throat. “Now that I’m seeing this like you must see it, for the first time, it’s kind of a sad office isn’t it?”
“Not at all,” Winnie lied, tossing him a hesitant smile. “It looks like an assistant professor’s office.” She was glad that he evidently didn’t bring girls here often.
He moved past her and turned on the light. Watching her scrutinize his domain, he perched one hip on the edge of his desk. “Once I finish my dissertation and graduate with my doctorate, I’ll be an associate professor, then maybe I’ll get an office with a window.”
She wandered over to read some of the titles of the books lining the shelves. “What’s your dissertation topic?”
“The complexities of interracial marriage.”
She turned to him. “Because the Supreme Court finally ruled that states couldn’t make it illegal?”
“Partly,” he said, rising to cross the room.
She watched him, feeling the sexual tension between them build as he neared. “What do you mean partly? What’s the rest of the reason?”
His hands slipped around her waist and he smiled down at her, his gaze resting on her lips. “Because you love who you love -- laws don’t apply.”
Feeling self-conscious, she ducked out of his embrace. A record player on one shelf caught her eye, and she wandered over to open it. “You listen to records here?”
He watched her, his head tilted to one side. “I do, it’s too noisy back at my apartment to really enjoy the intricacies of music.”
She picked up the record on the turntable, expecting to see a classical selection, instead it was the Beatles. “Intricacies? The Beatles?”
“Yeah,” he scoffed. “You’re holding history in your hands.”
She looked down at the little black record. “How so?”
“That’s Strawberry Fields Forever,” he exclaimed, as if that should explain it. When she didn’t respond and just flipped over the record to see the other side, he continued. “The Beatles released that last spring as a double A-sided single. See Penny Lane on side one?”
“Oh,” Winnie said, recognizing the title. “I love that song.”
“Well, it’s a cute song, but it’s not the rule breaker,” Thomas continued. "Strawberry Fields Forever has kicked off a whole new thing, psychedelic pop music. It’s divided audiences. You should see the promotional film clip they made -- it’s really weird. It has stop motion animation, jump cuts, and a weird mellotron opening.”
She looked up, drawn in by his excitement.
“There are timpani, banjos, trumpets, cellos,” he continued. “Here, let me play it for you.” He came to her side and placed the record over the spindle and set the needle arm down onto the record.
Music wafted from the speaker and into the room. Thomas took advantage of being alone in the building and cranked up the volume.
Winnie watched the record spin. She’d never had a record player of her own, but her mother had one. This was different though, because her mother only played scratchy old-fashioned music on hers.
Thomas slipped his arms around Winnie’s waist from behind, swaying with her to the music.
“What does Strawberry Fields mean? Are they talking about picking fruit, or what?” Winnie asked.
He laughed, his amusement shaking her along with him. “No, silly girl,” he said, “Strawberry Field is a gothic revival mansion in Liverpool, in John’s old neighborhood. It had been made into a Salvation Army children’s home, and he used to scale the walls to play with the kids there.”
She turned in his arms. “Really?”
“Mhhmm,” he hummed pulling her closer. “I guess he used to get into all sorts of mischief there, and the overseers would complain to his Aunt Mimi.”
Falling under the spell of the music, the man, and the story, Winnie grinned languidly. “I bet he did.”
Thomas leaned in to drop kisses along the length of Winnie’s neck. When he pulled back, her eyes had fluttered closed. “His aunt said the orphanage would hang him if he didn’t stop being naughty,” he murmured.
Her eyes blinked open. “Hang him?”
He pointed to the record player, and the words “Nothing to get hung about” rose from the speakers. “See? It’s telling a story from John’s c
hildhood.”
But Winnie was lost and far beyond hearing song lyrics. All she wanted was more of Thomas’s kisses.
* * *
Tara plodded up the walk to Winnie’s house. She opened the back door, wondering if her daughter had been behaving herself. But Bella sat in her high chair at the kitchen island with a crayon in each hand and several scribbled papers spread before her, and Winnie was busy stirring something in a mixing bowl.
Winnie looked up but didn’t stop mixing. “Hello, dear, how did the interview go?”
Tara plopped onto a stool next to Bella and picked up one of her crayon drawings. Black and white scribbles covered the page. “It went good, I think.”
“That stunk,” Bella said, pointing to her mother.
“What stinks honey? Do you need a diaper change?” She put the drawing down.
“No, that’s what she drew,” Winnie explained.
“What? I don’t understand.”
“Stunk!” Bella insisted.
Winnie banged her spoon on the edge of the bowl. “She drew a skunk.”
Tara looked again at the drawing. “This? Oh, it’s a skunk not a—” She looked from Bella to the drawing and back. “Why, it is a stunk isn’t it!”
“Stunk” Bella repeated, obviously proud of her artwork.
“I think she has it right,” Winnie chuckled, smiling lovingly over her shoulder at the little girl. “Don’t you, Bella.”
Tara’s heart melted. Here she’d been worried about Bella being good for Winnie, yet the little girl was sweet and charming and adorable. Why did she allow fatigue and self-doubt to overshadow the joys of motherhood? Well, that was all about to change, because she’d hired Blanche. Maybe now, she’d be able to relax and enjoy Bella.
“What happened with Marge’s sister?” Winnie asked as she returned her attention to her recipe.
Tara watched Bella scribble on a clean sheet of paper. “She was on time, talkative, friendly, approachable. She understands what I need. She’s a colorful thing though.” She picked up a crayon and drew her own skunk on a sheet of paper. “I hired her.”
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