Woman in Blue

by Eileen Goudge

  What it meant exactly she didn’t know. But she suspected it was more than just that she was sexually deprived. And that troubled her. Because the last thing Kerrie Ann wanted was to break his heart.

  She walked in to find Lindsay, Grant, and Miss Honi seated around the card table, engaged in a spirited game of Monopoly. Lindsay looked up to inquire, “Where’s Ollie?”

  “He had to get home. He said to thank you again for dinner.” Kerrie Ann kept her face averted as she returned Lindsay’s jacket to its peg by the door, fearing her expression would reveal that her evening stroll with Ollie had been more than that. It was the same reason Ollie had ducked out early.

  Lindsay seemed a bit taken aback. “Really? I wonder why he was in such a rush.”

  Kerrie Ann shrugged. “Beats me.”

  But Lindsay wouldn’t let it go at that. “He must have said something. It’s not like Ollie to just take off without a word. I hope nothing’s wrong.”

  “He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.” Kerrie Ann spoke more abruptly than she’d intended, and when she looked around, she saw her sister wearing a perplexed frown.

  But Lindsay didn’t comment, for which she was grateful. All she said was, “Care to join us?”

  Kerrie Ann wandered over. “Who’s winning?”

  “Your sister,” Miss Honi grumbled good-naturedly. “She’s already got a hotel on Park Place and I can’t get off Baltic Avenue to save my life.”

  Grant smiled up at Kerrie Ann. “Monopoly brings out her competitive streak.”

  “I can see that,” said Kerrie Ann, her gaze dropping to the tidy bundle of colored bills at Lindsay’s place.

  “Don’t let her fool you,” teased Grant, “Behind that mild-mannered exterior is a will of iron.”

  “Which means she usually wins and the rest of us have to eat dirt,” laughed Miss Honi.

  “If only it worked that way in real life,” Lindsay said with a sigh. “I can get a hotel on Park Place, but I can’t seem to keep a hotel off my own land. Maybe I should just challenge Mr. Heywood to a game of Monopoly, winner take all. I win, he has to back off.”

  “What happens if you lose?” posed Grant.

  “I’d rather not think about that.” The party mood at once gave way to a more somber one.

  Kerrie Ann excused herself and was heading to bed when she heard Miss Honi say to the others, “Know what? I think I’ll turn in, too. All that food I ate is putting me to sleep. Why don’t you two finish without me? I already know how this is gonna end, and it ain’t pretty.”

  Miss Honi caught up with her in the hallway. “You ain’t seen my newest angel yet. It just come in yesterday’s mail,” she said, tucking her arm through Kerrie Ann’s. For Miss Honi, eBay was an even bigger weakness than fattening food. “Come have a look. She’s the prettiest one yet.”

  Entering Miss Honi’s private domain, Kerrie Ann felt, as always, like Dorothy stepping out of her black-and-white world into Technicolor Oz. It was a room as colorful and eccentric as Miss Honi herself, hung with lace curtains and decked with more bright, shiny objects than a Christmas tree. A dozen or more prisms suspended from lengths of fishing twine hung in the window, where they’d catch the morning light. The walls were hung with bright paintings depicting scenes of cozy domesticity. A full-length, gilt-framed mirror that might have come out of an Old West bordello was propped in one corner, reflecting the spray of peacock feathers in a brass urn opposite it. The double bed was covered in a quilted baby-blue spread and piled with throw pillows of every shape and variety, at the center of which was a lace-trimmed red satin one in the shape of a heart.

  But the thing that commanded the most attention was the glass display case that spanned one wall. It contained Miss Honi’s angel collection, a hundred or more angels ranging from the size of a thimble to ones too large to fit in the case (those were displayed on the dresser top) and made of every material from papier-mâché to the finest porcelain. They came from all over the world. “A regular United Nations,” Miss Honi liked to boast. Punched-tin angels from Mexico, painted wooden ones from Russia, spun-glass ones from Austria, and from Italy brightly colored ceramic ones. There was even a brass candleholder from Ireland with a ring of tiny cherubim that twirled when the candles were lit.

  “Don’t she have the sweetest face,” said Miss Honi, carefully removing the newest angel from the case and placing it in Kerrie Ann’s hand—a small one made of porcelain with amazingly life-like features. “Kind of reminds me of you when you were little.”

  “I’ve been called many things in life, but never sweet,” replied Kerrie Ann with a self-effacing laugh. She sank down on the bed, studying the angel cupped in her palm. It stirred a hazy memory from the past. She dimly recalled holding just such an angel in her then much smaller palm.

  “Don’t get me wrong; you were a regular little monkey. Weren’t nothing could make you stay put. Nothing but these angels. You’d play with them for hours on end. Once a wing broke off one of them wooden ones,” she gestured toward a grouping of carved balsa angels, some glued together in spots, “and you cried like there was no tomorrow. You told me you were sad ’cause she wouldn’t be able to fly back to heaven with only one wing.”

  “I must have been pretty young if I still believed in heaven,” Kerrie Ann said.

  “You don’t now?” Miss Honi looked sad for some reason.

  Kerrie Ann shook her head, handing the angel back to Miss Honi. “I’m not even sure I believe in God. The way I see it, if there is a God, He must be pretty fed up with me by now.”

  “No, sugar. God don’t give up on folks. Least of all the ones who need Him most.” Miss Honi brushed a stray lock of hair from Kerrie Ann’s cheek, tucking it behind her ear as she might have when Kerrie Ann was little. “We all done things we’re sorry for. But you got to look ahead. If you don’t believe in God, have faith in yourself.”

  Kerrie Ann smiled. “You sound just like Ollie.”

  “Well, that boy’s got a good head on his shoulders, even if you got him so cross-eyed he can hardly see straight.”

  Kerrie Ann gave a guilty start. She’d been so busy worrying about what her sister would think, it hadn’t occurred to her that Miss Honi had eyes in her head, too. And even though those outlandishly lashed, turquoise-shadowed eyes were filled with nothing but warm concern, Kerrie Ann felt the need to explain, “I’m not leading him on to feed my ego. I know that’s what Lindsay thinks, but it’s not like that. I … I really like him.”

  “Who wouldn’t. There’s a fella who knows how to treat a lady.”

  Kerrie Ann couldn’t have agreed more. “With most guys, I was lucky if they even remembered to wish me a happy birthday, much less thought to make me something.”

  Miss Honi smiled knowingly. “That’s Ollie for you. Been like that ever since I’ve known him. Though Lindsay tells me he went through a bad spell in high school when he fell in with the wrong crowd and ran wild for a time. Between you and me, I was glad to hear it,” she confided with a throaty chuckle. “A little streak of rebellion in a boy like that is like pepper on a steak—gives it a nice kick. Least we know there ain’t nothing soft about him.”

  Kerrie Ann thought about the firm stand he’d taken with her tonight. No, there was nothing soft about Ollie. “When I was that age I didn’t know what I wanted out of life. I just knew I wanted out,” she said.

  “And now here you are, right where you belong.” Miss Honi’s expression was so kindly that Kerrie Ann was tempted to crawl into that warm, ample lap the way she had as a child.

  But she knew she wouldn’t rest until Bella, too, was back where she belonged. “I just wish my little girl were here,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.

  Miss Honi patted her knee. “She will be.”

  “I don’t know. I may not get a second chance.”

  “Don’t you worry about that. Just be ready when the time comes.”

  “What makes you so sure they’ll give me another chance?
”

  Miss Honi, her lips curled in a small smile, gazed down at the figurine in her hand and answered the question with one of her own: “Why do you think God made angels?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “You’re sure you’re all right?” Grant eyed Lindsay across the Monopoly hoard.

  “Of course. I won, didn’t I?” She held up a fistful of colored bills.

  “I wasn’t referring to that.” He directed a meaningful glance at the darkened hallway down which Kerrie Ann had retreated a short while ago. The house was quiet; there was only the crackling of logs in the fireplace and gentle snoring of Chester at their feet.

  “Oh.” Her shoulders rolled in a small, resigned shrug. “You think I’m upset because my sister went for a walk with Ollie?”

  “You said it, not me.”

  She sighed and began sorting the pink, blue, and yellow bills into their proper receptacles. “Okay, maybe I was a little upset. I know Ollie’s a big boy and that he doesn’t need anyone to look out for him, but I can’t help feeling responsible to a certain extent. After all, I’m the one who threw them together. And the way my sister prances around half-dressed …” Lindsay crammed the last of the bills into the box with more force than was necessary. “Of course he’s going to be drooling over her—what man wouldn’t be?”

  “I can think of at least one.”

  She brought her gaze back to Grant. This was the first chance they’d had to talk, other than the banter exchanged at the dinner table and over the game. With a small stab of guilt, she realized she’d scarcely given him a thought all evening. Odd, she thought, when until now it had seemed as if all she could do was complain about the fact that they didn’t see each other as often as she would like. She smiled at him and reached for his hand.

  “I appreciate your loyalty,” she said, “but I also happen to know that my sister’s not your type.”

  Grant was too much a gentleman to say anything critical of Kerrie Ann, though his feelings were evident in the elaborate courtesy with which he treated her, the same that he showed Miss Honi and others whom he considered less cultured or intelligent than he. “How could she be when I have eyes for only one woman?” he said, his navy-blue eyes crinkling.

  She played along: “I wonder who that could be.”

  “Oh, that’s easy—she happens to be sitting in front of me.” He laced his fingers through hers. “And while we’re on the subject, may I remind you that it’s been some time since we’ve shared more than a nightcap?” He glanced once more toward the darkened hallway.

  “It might be awkward with my sister sleeping a few feet away.”

  “There’s always my place,” he reminded her.

  Lindsay smiled seductively. “Just name the date.”

  “How about next weekend?”

  “Sounds good.”

  He frowned. “Wait—no. Friday I’m flying to Seattle for a deposition, and I’ll probably have to overnight it.”

  “Are you free on Sunday?”

  “Sadly, no. I have my cousin Daryl visiting from out of town.”

  “You don’t want me to meet your cousin?”

  Grant shook his head, wearing a long-suffering look. “Believe me, I’m sparing you. Daryl’s a nice guy, but all he ever talks about is crop rotation and the price of grain and whether or not the Green Bay Packers are going to make it to the Super Bowl this year. You’d be bored stiff.”

  Lindsay thought, Why not let me judge for myself? But she didn’t comment. “What about the weekend after that?” she asked.

  Grant’s brow, beneath the boyish lock of hair that had slipped down over it, rumpled in dismay. “No good, either, I’m afraid. We go to trial the following Monday. I’ll be holed up the entire weekend.”

  They lapsed into silence, staring into the flames flickering in the fireplace. Finally Lindsay roused herself, folding up the Monopoly board and stowing it away in its box. “Let’s put our calendars together. I’m sure we can come up with a date.” She felt annoyed with him though she couldn’t think why. She should be used to his busy schedule by now. For goodness sake, it wasn’t as if he were chasing other women. He did important work, work that was noble, even. Why should he compromise that?

  “I’ll call you tomorrow, and we’ll set something up,” he said when it was time to go. He gathered her into his arms, where she stood with her head nestled against his shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent of his aftershave. It felt good just to be held by a strong pair of arms, knowing that no harm could come to her—in the moment at least. Then he pulled away, murmuring regretfully, “I should get going. Sure wish I didn’t have to, but …” he shrugged.

  At the door, they kissed good-bye. But as she watched his tall, lean figure disappear into the night, her thoughts strayed to another man, another night. She hadn’t seen or spoken to Randall Craig since, but she’d replayed their near kiss so often in her mind that it had taken on a life of its own, become emblematic of some key element missing from her life. She realized then why she’d been so irritated with her sister tonight. It wasn’t just because she felt protective of Ollie; it was the way Ollie looked at Kerrie Ann—the desire blazing in his eyes strong enough to incinerate anything in its path.

  Lindsay wanted someone to look at her that way.

  The following morning, as Lindsay was getting out of bed to go for her early run, she caught a flash of color out the window. A closer look showed it to be a man in a bright orange reflective vest peering into some sort of device set atop a tripod by the row of eucalyptus trees that marked the eastern end of her property. In her groggy state, she thought it must have something to do with the environmental study that had had a team of scientists tramping all over her land and the adjacent shoreline for the better part of the previous week. Then she realized what this one was up to and gasped. A surveyor—on her property!

  “What is it?” Kerrie Ann muttered sleepily from her bed.

  “Trouble, that’s what,” Lindsay replied grimly.

  Minutes later she was racing out the back door, wearing a pair of sweatpants, flip-flops, and her blue Patagonia jacket, which she’d snagged from the coatrack on her way through the living room into the kitchen. Chester, snoozing in his bed by the stove, brought his graying muzzle up as she charged past and quickly fell in behind her, trotting at her heels as she made her way across the yard and into the grassy field beyond. She was moving so quickly, the old dog had trouble keeping pace.

  When she finally reached the man in the orange vest, she was out of breath and had worked up a head of steam. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. Slowly he straightened to look at her. He was a middle-aged man with the beginning of a paunch, not at all threatening-looking.

  “Just doing my job, ma’am.” He bent down to give Chester a scratch behind the ears, “Hey, there, pooch. You’re not gonna bite me, now, are you?” Chester responded by wagging his tail.

  “Are you aware that you’re trespassing on private property?” she huffed.

  “That so?” He smiled as if he could argue the point but had decided not to. “Well, I’m sorry if I disturbed you, ma’am, but that’s actually why I’m here—to find out exactly where the property line falls.”

  “You won’t need that.” Lindsay jabbed a finger at his device. “I can tell you right now that you’re on my land. And as the owner, I’m asking that you leave this instant.” When he made no move to decamp, she said more hotly, “Well? What are you waiting for?”

  The man was wearing a navy bill cap emblazoned with his company’s logo, and he lifted it to scratch his gray crew-cut head before withdrawing a cell phone from a flapped pocket on his vest. “Let me call my supervisor, okay? This’ll only take a sec.”

  Lindsay fumed while he made the call. She didn’t buy for one minute that it was an honest mistake. Lloyd Heywood was trying to bully her, using any means at hand. Probably he thought that if he threw enough smoke bombs at her, eventually he’d wear her down. If that was the case
, he didn’t know her.

  When the man had concluded his call, he tucked the phone back into his pocket and said to Lindsay, “My apologies, ma’am. If you give me a moment to pack up my gear, I’ll be on my way.”

  “Thank you,” she replied in a frosty voice, then waited, hands on hips, while he folded his tripod and stowed the rest of the equipment in his carrying case. He lifted a hand in a halfhearted gesture of farewell as he ambled off, but she didn’t wave back. Her sister would’ve flipped him the bird, she thought.

  Kerrie Ann. As Lindsay started back toward the house, some of her irritation at having the morning’s peace and quiet so rudely interrupted spilled over onto her sister. She was still annoyed at Kerrie Ann for encouraging Ollie the night before when she knew perfectly well that it was wrong to do so. Was she on some kind of ego trip? Use him to boost her sagging self-esteem, then cast him aside when someone better came along?

  Lindsay paused to take a deep breath, allowing her rising emotions to subside. It was hard to stay angry with the day stirring to life around her. The underbrush rustled with the movements of her dog and whatever small creatures he was chasing as he charged about like a young pup, snuffling the ground and peeing on every other bush. Overhead, seagulls circled lazily, their reedy cries counterpointing the rumbling bass of the surf. It was shaping up to be a nice day, the sun coming up in a sky the clear blue of the ocean swells gliding into shore. This time of year, the fog that rolled in most mornings seldom lingered, and with the early-summer months nearly upon them, they were enjoying mild temperatures as well.

  Back at the house, she slipped on her Nikes and went for her morning jog, which helped let off more steam. But when she returned half an hour later, soaked with sweat and eagerly anticipating a hot shower, it was only to step inside to the sound of running water: Kerrie Ann had beaten her to it. She groaned and uttered a low curse.

  She was searching the pockets of her jacket for a Kleenex with which to mop her brow when her fingers closed over something hard and stubby instead: a cigarette butt. Kerrie Ann’s, no doubt. Her nose wrinkled in distaste. It seemed a symbol somehow of everything she’d been forced to put up with.