Covenant

by Ann McMan

  “Maddie,” she finally managed. “It matters to me that you know how much this means to me. And not just the incredible offer—but the demonstration of trust and confidence it means you’re placing in me. It’s . . . humbling.”

  “I think I know,” Maddie replied. “But don’t give me too much credit. It’s just like Syd said: a no-brainer.”

  The phone on Maddie’s desk buzzed. They both jumped at the interruption.

  Maddie glanced at the wall clock. “I guess Peggy’s here. Excuse me.”

  She got up and went to her desk to answer the phone. “Good morning. When did you sneak in?” She listened for a moment. “She is? That’s great. Send her right on back.” She hung up and faced Lizzy.

  “A med school chum of mine is here—a child psychologist. She’s looking for remote office space in this area. And I thought I’d co-opt her to have a conversation with Dorothy.”

  “Great idea. Do you want me to scoot?”

  “Not at all.” Maddie waved her back into her chair. “I wanted you to meet her, anyway. If it works out, I thought she could use the extra office here.”

  Lizzy was impressed. It looked like Maddie had more than one idea in the works to expand their practice.

  Their practice.

  She’d always thought of it that way. Now there was every chance it could truly be theirs—if Lizzy could unravel the confusing situation with Tom. She was determined to figure it all out.

  A slender, olive-skinned woman with very short hair tapped on Maddie’s door. Her appearance was striking and faintly exotic. She was wearing stylishly cut clothes that still managed to look casual—and comfortable.

  “Excuse me, but the nurse up front told me I might find a singularly mirthless physician lurking back here, devising new ways to commit Medicare fraud. Have either of you seen anyone matching that description?”

  Lizzy stifled a laugh and got to her feet.

  “Get in here, nitwit.” Maddie crossed the room and gave her friend a warm hug. Maddie topped her by several inches. They both turned to face Lizzy. “Avi, meet my partner in crime and resident nurse practitioner, Lizzy Mayes. Lizzy, this is Avi Zakariya. Be careful not to look too closely into her eyes. Word on the street is that she’s a total shaman.”

  Avi crossed to where Lizzy stood and extended a hand. “My pleasure. I heard that any gig working here came packaged with hazardous duty pay. Is that so?”

  Avi had a nice handshake. Firm, but not bone crushing. Lizzy dropped her chin and lowered her voice. “Just avoid the office karaoke jams on Friday afternoons. They’re the worst.”

  Avi laughed. “Noted.” She flopped into a chair. “Are we sitting, or what?”

  “We’re sitting.” Maddie waved Lizzy back into her seat. “Did you get any breakfast?”

  “Nope. I left Roanoke at o’dark-thirty.” She looked around the office. “You got any bagels in this joint?”

  Maddie looked at Lizzy hopefully.

  “No bagels,” she answered. “But the last time I checked, there was a partial box of prehistoric Fruity Pebbles in the kitchen.”

  Avi looked at Maddie with a raised eyebrow.

  “So sue me because I never get stuff like that at home.” Maddie regarded Lizzy. It was obvious she had an idea. “When’s your first appointment?”

  Lizzy blinked. “Nine-thirty.”

  “Hallelujah. Mine, too. Why don’t we blow this pop stand and go get a quick bite to eat?”

  Lizzy was surprised. “You mean, all three of us?”

  “Sure. If this joint’s going condo, I want you to be equally responsible.”

  “You don’t have to ask me twice.” Avi stood up. “Who’s driving?”

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Dorothy was distracted. She kept stumbling over the transition from down-tempo E minor to double tempo A minor in the Beethoven piece they were practicing. After the fourth misstep, Celine realized today’s lesson was going no place. She decided to call it quits, and suggested that Dorothy go outside to help Buddy plant the vegetable garden. Dorothy jumped at the chance.

  At the doorway, Dorothy stopped and turned back to face Celine.

  “I’m really sorry. It isn’t that I don’t want to try to get it right. It’s just . . .”

  Celine stopped her. “It’s fine, Dorothy. Some days are just not conducive to practice.”

  “Really?” Dorothy’s tone was hopeful.

  “Really,” Celine lied. The truth was that in her experience, there’d never been any excuse not to practice. Her mother wouldn’t hear of it. “You go on outside,” she told the girl. “Ask Buddy if he wants to stay for lunch.”

  “Okay, Celine. I will.” Dorothy disappeared into the kitchen. Celine heard the patio door open and close.

  Celine. The word still reverberated in her mind.

  Convincing Dorothy to use her name, instead of continuing to call her “Dr. Heller,” had been a Herculean task. Celine felt the significance of Dorothy speaking her name any time the girl remembered to use it. It mattered that the two of them found some way to level the terrain that separated them in both age and life experience—especially now that Dorothy was staying with Celine. It might seem like a small thing to any onlooker, but Celine understood what an act of daring—and courage—it was for the girl to express any kind of intimacy with her.

  That was another departure from Celine’s relationship with her own mother.

  Of course, she quickly reminded herself, she was not Dorothy’s mother. But for right now, at least, she was Dorothy’s caretaker, and those lines sometimes became blurred.

  At least they did for her. She wasn’t sure about Dorothy’s perceptions. The girl said little about her status. Although she appeared to be very comfortable sharing space here in the old farmhouse that was still undergoing renovation. Most days, they moved around each other quietly. Dorothy had taken to getting up early so she could make breakfast for them before heading out to catch the bus for school. Celine had developed what she knew was an unhealthy fondness for Dorothy’s sweet scratch biscuits. And as much as she knew she should ask the girl to stop baking them so frequently, she understood the symbolic significance of Dorothy’s desire to gift Celine with something special. So Celine was willing to indulge her less-than-secret appetite for the hot confections, and express only modest concern for the integrity of her waistline.

  They’d meet in the late afternoons, after Dorothy had finished her homework, for piano lessons. Once those were completed, they’d make supper together. More often than not, it was a platter full of late season vegetables from the garden, garnished with cheeses and bits of cut-up fruit. They’d carry it outside to the patio, where they could sit in the shade beneath a large market umbrella. By that late in the day, the August sun would be low and hot. So most evenings, it was prohibitive to remain outdoors for very long.

  Celine would then retreat to her office to read or answer correspondence, and Dorothy would often retrieve her latest book and curl up on the window seat near the Steinway.

  The girl was a voracious reader and her tastes were exceptional. Celine marveled at the skill Roma Jean had employed to introduce Dorothy to the world of Southern fiction titles—all written by women. Carson McCullers. Lee Smith. Dorothy Allison. Eudora Welty. Olive Ann Burns. Sheri Reynolds. Sharyn McCrumb. Right now, Dorothy was engrossed in a book of Celine’s that she’d pulled from a shelf in the living room: Heading West by Doris Betts.

  Sometimes, they would watch a cooking show on TV—usually on the nights Byron joined them for dinner. Dorothy tended to enjoy competition shows more than straightforward, recipe-driven formats that were what she called too “cheffy.” She’d sit on the floor with Django, who always seemed captivated by whatever was happening inside the big, bright box. For his part, Byron liked to argue with the celebrity judges.

  “They’re nuts,” he’d bellow. “There’s no way that was the best dish. The plating was a nightmare. It looked like a five-car pileup. Wasn’t it a mess, Dorothy?”


  Celine observed that Dorothy would always agree with him, whether the plating had been bad or not.

  Byron would look at Celine with a smug expression. “See?” he’d say. “Dorothy agrees with me.”

  “I somehow think it’s less that she agrees with your opinions than she respects the trappings of your office.”

  That was essentially the way their evenings would unfold. Byron would always leave for home at a respectable hour. Sometimes, on weekends, he’d leave Django with Dorothy for a sleepover. But he never stayed the night himself—and hadn’t since Dorothy had come to live there. This change in circumstance created some logistical issues for the two of them. But whenever Dorothy spent the night with Henry at Maddie’s farm, Celine would join Byron at his home near Iron Mountain.

  Celine was gratified that Byron was being so tolerant of these arrangements, and doing so generally without complaint. Although his entreaties that she quit resisting his offers and agree to marry him were becoming more insistent.

  That wasn’t going to happen. She was determined. And she told him as much. Even when Byron insisted that getting married would immediately short-circuit the wagging tongues of the county biddies, Celine refused. She knew her limits, and taking a step like that exceeded them all. She cared deeply for Byron. More deeply than she’d cared for any man since Maddie’s father. But marriage, even to him, was likely to remain a bridge too far for her.

  For now, Byron reluctantly seemed to accept her protestations—even respect them. Celine feared the advent of the day he might cease to do so, but knew there was precious little she could do to forestall it.

  In the meantime, the three of them—four including Django, who was rapidly becoming Dorothy’s best friend—were slowly making their way toward something resembling a family.

  She tried for the tenth time to return her attention to the magazine she’d picked up.

  She scanned the listings in “Talk of the Town,” the event calendar in The New Yorker. It was a habit she’d acquired many years ago when monitoring the New York concert scene became an obsession. That had been especially true after she’d left Virginia and moved to Los Angeles, a city she always believed to be bereft of refinement—at least when it came to classical music.

  That belief was a prejudice she’d inherited from her parents, who never ventured more than a few city blocks beyond their known worlds at Juilliard and The Metropolitan Opera.

  It surprised Celine how much she missed New York. She and Maddie’s father had always managed to juggle their schedules to allow them to make frequent trips to the city for concerts or the ballet. Sometimes, Celine would go by herself, and reconnect with her former teacher at Juilliard, the virtuoso Joseph Bloch. It amazed her that he always made time to see her, and that, no matter how many years intervened, he still managed to recall every one of her foibles and proclivities. It had been his constancy and lack of judgment that single-handedly salvaged her love of music after she decided to leave Juilliard and enter medical school.

  The same had decidedly not been true of her musician parents.

  Celine redirected her attention to the list of upcoming concerts and recitals. The autumn promised to be a good season in town. Mitsuko Uchida was scheduled to appear with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall next week. It was an all-Beethoven program. There were two performances: one on Thursday and one on Saturday night. Her mind began to race ahead.

  They could drive to Charlotte and hop a direct flight. Be back on Sunday before suppertime.

  No. It was an insane idea. She’d never be able to get tickets this close to the event.

  But Uchida’s style was so mesmerizing . . . filled with emotion and veracity. Her light touch was subtle, full of passion and sheer tenderness.

  Just like Dorothy’s . . .

  She put the magazine aside and went in search of her cell phone.

  A former grad student of hers was the son of a trustee on the Carnegie Hall board. Celine had helped him land a plum residency at Presbyterian.

  It was time to call in a favor.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Nadine wasn’t too impressed with Michael’s menu.

  It was Thursday, and her turn to be sous chef in the kitchen at the inn. That was their deal: Michael cooked with her two nights a week at the café, and Nadine donned an apron two nights a week in his kitchen.

  “What is it you call this mishmash?” she asked for about the fifth time. She was peering into the flat pan with a look of displeasure. Steam wafting up from the stove had fogged the lenses of her wire-framed glasses.

  “Paella.” Michael stirred the mixture. “It’s Spanish. This version is Valencian. No shellfish.”

  “Well, whatever version it is, you’re burning that rice.”

  “I’m not burning it. I’m making soccarat.”

  “You’re making what?”

  “Soccarat. It’s the layer of caramelized rice that forms on the bottom of the pan.”

  “You can call it by any fancy name you want, but it smells burned to me.”

  “Trust me.” Michael spooned liquid over the chicken thighs and medallions of hare. “It’s the best part of the dish.”

  “You’re dreaming if you think anyone around here is gonna volunteer to eat something with rabbit in it.”

  “It’s not rabbit. It’s wild hare.”

  Nadine huffed. “Does it bump its fluffy little cottontail ass when it hops around? I call that a rabbit.”

  “Nadine? Will you please just roast the red peppers and make the sherry vinaigrette?”

  “They’re both done.” She walked back to her prep station and held up a hunk of Manchego cheese. “What do you want to do with this?”

  “Slice it up in little wedges and put it on a plate with some of that Serrano ham and a couple pieces of baguette.”

  “It’s a good thing you got some of that butternut squash soup left. I think I ought to make another batch of biscuits, just in case. You’re likely to need ’em.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence. But if you’re up for it, go on ahead. You know David will always eat any that are left over.”

  “Where is that boy, anyway? Normally he’s back here getting on my last nerve.”

  “He’s in town. Again. Third night this week he’s had meetings.”

  Nadine walked to a utensil cabinet and started rifling through its drawers. Loudly.

  Michael turned around. “What are you looking for?”

  “That cheese knife.”

  “What cheese knife?”

  “The one I always use. The one you keep hiding.”

  “I don’t hide any knives from you.”

  “Oh, no?” She held up an old, all-purpose Betty Crocker knife that was missing part of its handle. “Then why was this buried in the bottom of a drawer?”

  “Nadine, that thing is ancient and duller than a tablespoon. I think David bought it out of a bargain bin at Dollar Tree.”

  “It works great for cheese.”

  “That’s impossible. He used it to cut florist wire.”

  “That’s why it’s great for cheese. Especially these soft damn goat’s milk cheeses you gay boys seem so partial to.”

  “Okay. Whatever.”

  Nadine set about slicing the Manchego. Michael watched her work. Strangely, the world’s cheapest knife seemed to be doing the job just fine. She dispatched the cheese in record time.

  He should know better than to question Nadine. Except when it came to soccarat.

  The paella was coming along great. He hadn’t made it in years. Not since he’d worked at The Peninsula Grill in Charleston. The dish had been a seasonal mainstay there—although they always prepared it with clams and chorizo. He preferred this more traditional field variety. It was anybody’s guess how well it would go over tonight. But he figured Thursday would be a safe night to try something new. And they had a couple of guests from Richmond staying there. He hoped they might be a bit more adventurous when it came to
international fare.

  If the dish bombed, as Nadine was kind enough to predict, he always had her biscuits as a backup. He could pair those with anything else on the menu and have a hit on his hands—especially if he could coerce her into making some of her chicken and Andouille sausage gumbo. He had even procured a bit of tasso ham she could toss into it. She’d grumble that there wasn’t enough time to make it decent, but Michael had seen her pull the savory stew together in less than an hour—and still manage to create a stock with incredible depth of flavor.

  He glanced up at the big wall clock.

  They had more than two hours until the first seating.

  It was now or never. He was going in . . .

  “Hey, Nadine. Since you’ve been so fast taking care of all those sides, how about whipping up a batch of that gumbo you made last week?”

  Nadine looked at the clock. “We don’t have enough time for that.”

  “Sure we do. We have more than two hours.”

  “The broth will be weak.”

  “No it won’t. I got some tasso ham for you to add in.” He pulled out the big guns. “I ordered it special because I know how much you like it.”

  Nadine glared at him. “Don’t suck up to me, boy. It’s a waste of time.”

  He noted, however, that she retrieved a deep cast-iron skillet from the pot rack and slammed it down on the range.

  Michael tried not to smile. “The andouille is on the top shelf of the walk-in.”

  “I know where it is. You just tend to your burnt rice.”

  Michael decided to change the subject. “I think Sheriff Martin and Dr. Heller are coming in for dinner tonight.”

  “That so?” Nadine was dicing big yellow onions for her mirepoix. “I’m glad they’re getting out and not listening to any of the bad talk.”

  “Bad talk? Really?” Michael was alarmed by her observation. “What are you hearing?”

  “I ain’t hearing much of anything. Folks know better than to speak that mess to me. But Nicky said there were some of Nelda Rae Black’s people in the café last night, and they were going on about it. And one of them was that nasty Manfred Davis. Lord knows what he’s back in town for. But mark my words: it can’t be anything good.”