Dove in the Window

by Earlene Fowler

  “What?”

  “Start over somewhere else. Where you didn’t know anyone but me.” He watched my face, his blue eyes steady and waiting.

  I knew what he was asking and, to be truthful, I hadn’t ever thought about it. Except for a few fleeting moments right after Jack died, when I wanted to run as far away from San Celina and the Central Coast as I could, I’d never even contemplated living anywhere else.

  I was saved from answering by my cousin strolling into the kitchen smelling of Ralph Lauren aftershave.

  “What a marvelous picture of domestic bliss,” he said, walking over to the coffee pot. “I hope you both act this lovestruck in front of Elvia. Positive reinforcement is always helpful.”

  “You’re hopeless,” I said, standing up, not looking at my husband though I sensed his gaze on me.

  “Not hopeless, hopeful,” Emory countered. “Blissfully hopeful. Eternally hopeful. My faith would move mountains.”

  “Yes, but will it move one stubborn hundred-pound señorita ?” Gabe asked. “Pigheadedness is a trait that seems to run in the San Celina female.” He turned to me, his face neutral. “Refresh my middle-aged memory. What’s on your agenda for today, sweetheart?”

  “I’ve got to pull my shift giving historic house tours—two of them, actually. One to a group of Constance’s rich friends from the city. Then I’m going out to the ranch to see Dove. Then it’s the blessing of the animals tonight and watching you crown the new Miss San Celina. That’s about it.” Emory and Gabe looked at each other, then looked back at me. I started cleaning up the table.

  “Benni,” Gabe said, “Don’t start a fight with Dove about Mr. Lyons—”

  “Gabe,” I snapped back, “don’t tell me what to do with my family.”

  He held up his hands. “Lo siento, mi amor. Do what you want. See you tonight.”

  After he left, Emory sat quietly watching me clean up the kitchen. “He’s right, you know,” he finally said. “You should just leave Dove alone on this one.”

  I whipped around and shook a paring knife at him. “Don’t you start, too, Emory Littleton. I have to warn her about this man. My gosh, she’s been widowed for almost forty years. What does she know about men?”

  “She only raised a few of them,” he answered, leaning back in his chair. “I think she can take care of herself.”

  I threw the knife in the sink. “And I think you should mind your own dang business.”

  “Sweetcakes, much as I think you’re cute as a bug when you’re all riled up, this is gettin‘ old, real old. I think I’ll mosey on out of here until you buzz back down to earth.” He stood up and started for the living room.

  I sailed across the room and encircled his waist with my arms. “I’m sorry, Emory,” I said, burying my face in his chest. “Don’t be mad. But I just feel like I have to talk to her, that I’d be a rotten granddaughter if I didn’t at least try.”

  He hugged me tightly. “I know, kiddo. Just don’t push too hard, okay? You can be a might like a foamy-mouthed pitbull at times, you know?”

  I smiled up at him. “I’ll be diplomatic.”

  He tugged at a strand of my curly hair. “And I’m next in line to marry Princess Di.”

  The historic homes tour was a project that was a joint money-making venture between the folk art museum, the Historical Society, and the local quilt guilds. This week the homes had guild members wearing period costumes while they worked on quilts and other pioneer crafts during the tours. The tour itself consisted of ten houses and adobes within a one-mile radius with a stop at Elvia’s bookstore and coffeehouse at the end for refreshments and a talk on the county’s history by Mr. Bulfinch, the head of Cal Poly’s history department. A shuttle would be available six times a day for a side trip out to the folk art museum should anyone opt to add that to the agenda. There was also art by our women artists displayed at each home, as well as in many of the galleries downtown. We’d had a surprising number of reservations, considering it was the first week after Thanksgiving, but the Christmas frenzy had not entirely taken over the world yet, and people were in just a festive enough mood to travel and perhaps do a little early Christmas shopping, which of course was just what we were hoping.

  I finished both tours by one o‘clock and decided to grab a quick cup of coffee at Blind Harry’s before heading out to the ranch. I hadn’t seen Dove all day, but I didn’t think her turn guiding tours came until later in the week. As I dumped milk and sugar into my coffee, I couldn’t help but wonder what she and Isaac were doing today and hoped it wasn’t a day that Daddy decided to fix fence on the other side of the ranch. I looked over the crowded coffee house trying to spot an empty table.

  An auburn-haired woman in a yellow and brown calico dress from the Oregon trail days stood up and waved at me over the noisy crowd. I threaded my way through the chairs to the small round table in the back.

  “Hey, Benni Louise, set your old self on down here and rest up a spell. We’ve both done served our time in the support of San Celina history.”

  “Hey, Amanda Aurora Lucille Landry, I’ll do just that.”

  Amanda Landry, a local attorney with her own private practice, was named by a romantic and slightly batty southern mother who loved George Sand, mint juleps, and blues musicians—not necessarily in that order. Almost six feet tall with hair the color of cordovan leather, she was a native of the grand state of Alabama, a fact that was obvious the minute she opened her wide, Carly Simon mouth.

  “Ah think y‘all just have the cutest accents hea-yuh out west,” she said the first time we met when she joined the artist’s co-op a few months back. She made the most astounding pictorial quilts and vests that she’d been giving away to friends for years. Finally a friend in her quilt guild convinced her to start selling them, and though she told me the thought of going commercial just plumb tuckered her out, she did like the idea of her quilt creations being taken seriously.

  “And,” she said at our requisite meeting where we discussed the rules of the co-op, “Ah know you’n me are going to get along just fine, ‘cause Ah’ve been following your crime-fighting career in that rag of a daily paper since Ah got here. Not to mention that you tend to be one of the favored topics on the DA grapevine. Ah just told those ole graysuits, ’Hey, if y‘all do a better job at keeping them criminals behind bars, then itty-bitty cowgirls wouldn’t have to be rounding up the bad guys.’ ”

  I definitely had a fan in Amanda Landry. Her friendly relationship with the DA’s office came about before she set up her private practice with a substantial inheritance from her father, whom she cheerfully labeled the crookedest judge in Montgomery County’s history; she had worked in San Francisco as a deputy DA in charge of the sexual assault/ child abuse unit. She successfully prosecuted the nastiest bad guys this side of a Hollywood producer’s nightmare ... or dream, depending on their values. She accepted the same job down here in San Celina when she grew tired of big-city politics.

  “Small-town politics are so much more petty ... and fun,” she’d said with her hearty, slap-your-back laugh.

  She’d worked in the district attorney’s office until even small-town politics got on her nerves ... about a year. Luckily (according to her), old Judge Landry finally saddled himself a cloud and rode off to that great coon hunt in the sky, and she collected her long-awaited inheritance.

  According to Gabe, the DA was sorry to lose her. She’d won cases ... a lot of them. They’d taken to calling her “Queen of the Sex Team.” Now, because of her private income, she could pick and choose her clients.

  “So,” she asked. “What’re you up to? It has to be better than what’s back at my office—two wills, a yuppie adoption, and yet another lawsuit against McDonald’s. Guy claims they put too much ice in his drink and it cracked a tooth. For this I gave up rapists and wife beaters?”

  I told her I was going out to see Dove and, before I knew it, had spilled out the whole story about her and Isaac and my misgivings about him. Then I laps
ed into the whole Gabe/Wade thing, my worries about Wade being involved with Shelby’s death, what Olivia had said last night, and whether I should tell anyone. She listened intently, her intelligent brown eyes blinking rarely, leading me on with short, direct questions.

  “Shoot,” I said, pausing to take a breath, a bit embarrassed that I revealed so much. “No wonder the criminals hate you. I’ll be telling you my deepest, darkest sex fantasies next.”

  “Please, save those for Gabe,” she said, patting my hand. “You just needed to talk, and I was an understanding ear. That’s the thing, you know, about all human beings, including criminals. We all love to talk about ourselves, and that’s what cops and prosecuting attorneys count on, that eventually a criminal feels the urge to brag to someone about how they pulled one over on all us symbolic parental figures. Bragging trips them up more times than not.”

  “Well, sorry for bending your ear,” I said, standing up “Send me a bill.”

  “Don’t worry about it, girlfriend. It all evens out in the end.”

  I turned to leave, then stopped and said, “Amanda, I know this is probably a bit premature, but Wade’s so certain that they’re going to pin this on him ...”

  “Is he a scumbag? I don’t defend scumbags. That’s one advantage to being semi-independently wealthy with ill-gotten money.”

  “No. He’s a rednecked cowboy who deserves to be slapped upside the head about ten times a day, but he’s not a scumbag, and I don’t think he did it. I really don’t.”

  She nodded and sipped at her hot tea. “Tell you what. You call me if they charge him. I know the sheriff’s department, and they surely love to close their files as quick as possible, but I won’t let them railroad an innocent man.”

  “Thanks, Amanda.”

  Her reassuring words made the drive to the ranch a little less stressful. I didn’t realize until I’d talked to her how scared I was for Wade and how alone I felt in defending him.

  With all my relatives gone now, the ranch looked strangely and sadly empty when I parked under the white oak that shaded the front yard. Inside Dove’s clean, cinnamon-scented kitchen, I threw my sheepskin jacket on a stool and helped myself to some leftover roast beef and mashed potatoes. The microwave pinged at the same moment I heard Dove and Isaac’s voices on the front porch. I had just taken my first bite when they walked in, pink-cheeked and laughing.

  “Well, look what the north wind blew in,” Dove said, holding a basket of tiny pale green apples from her three pampered trees. Isaac carried two dusty orange pumpkins. A square black camera hung from a worn leather strap around his neck. “Hope you didn’t take all the leftovers. That was going to be our lunch.”

  I looked straight into her clear blue eyes and said, “Only his part.”

  A small chuckle erupted from his direction.

  Dove pinched her lips together and set the apples down on the white-tiled counter. “Isaac,” she said, not taking her gaze from me, “would you excuse me and Miss Smart-mouth for a minute?”

  “Sure thing, Dove.” Isaac placed the pumpkins carefully on the counter next to the apples and gave me a wink before he left. I glared at him, feeling the strongest urge to bounce one of Dove’s hard little apples off his white head.

  “All righty, little miss,” Dove said, whisking my plate out from under my fork. “We’re going to have ourselves a talk.”

  “Hey!” I said, reaching for my food. “Give that back.”

  “I’m not going to be a-talkin‘ to you while you’re eating. You’re just like your Daddy and won’t hear a word if you got your mouth full.”

  “Speaking of Daddy, what’s he think about you inviting a stranger to stay at the ranch?”

  “Your daddy is a heap smarter than his daughter. I own one third of this ranch and I’ve got the right to invite anyone I want to stay here.”

  “Gramma,” I said, “be reasonable. You don’t even know this man. He’s ... he’s ...” I threw up my hands in exasperation.

  She narrowed one blue eye at me. “He’s my guest, young lady, and I’ll expect you to treat him with respect. What is your problem? Where in the world did you ever get the idea that what I do and who I see is any concern of yours? I’m a grown woman, and you need to keep out of my business.” She threw my plate full of food into the sink, spraying brown gravy across her clean counter.

  “Me keep out of your business? Me!” I sputtered. “You, the queen of interfering—”

  She picked up an empty iron frying pan and slammed it down on the stove’s burner, causing a clang that rattled the whole stove. “Don’t you take that tone with me or I‘ll—”

  The door opened and the source of our argument walked back in. We turned to look at him as he strolled calmly across the carpeted living room and cupped his monstrous hand underneath my elbow.

  “I think we need to take a walk before you both say things you’ll most likely regret.”

  I jerked my elbow away. “Leave us alone, Mr. Lyons. This is none of your business.”

  He clamped his hand on my shoulder. “Ms. Harper, I wasn’t asking.”

  I jerked away again and looked to Dove, waiting for her to jump down his throat, to tell him that no one manhandled one of her grandkids like that.

  She just glared at me. “Do what he says.”

  Openmouthed, I turned around and ran out the door, so mad I could spit nails. I kept going through the backyard, the orchard, around the barn, and through the back pasture until I reached the path to the creek that meandered like a snake through the ranch. The cold autumn air cut deep into my lungs, but I couldn’t stop running. Underneath my feet, the dried leaves and grass crunched like toast. When I reached the creek bank I slowed down, picking my way carefully down the steep path to the water. I sat down on a large stone and watched the water bugs skim across the surface as my pounding heart slowed back to normal.

  The sound of the trickling water gradually soothed my raw nerves, and rational thought began to return. Why was I acting like such a spoiled brat? What was it about this man that set me so much on edge? Was I really afraid of Dove being hurt or was it that I didn’t want to share my grandmother with anyone? As I trailed a stick through the water, the chilled air caused me to shiver underneath my cotton shirt. How was I going to go back and somehow make amends for my childish behavior? I still didn’t like or trust Isaac Lyons, but Dove and everyone else was right. It wasn’t my place to dictate who she should see no matter how sincere my concern was.

  Behind me, the sound of breaking twigs and crackling leaves told me I wasn’t alone anymore. By the heaviness of the footfalls and the sound of his breathing, I didn’t have to turn around to see who it was.

  “Got a spare rock?” Isaac said, coming up beside me.

  I shrugged and didn’t answer, my noble and mature intentions of a moment ago shattered. It irritated me that he was again pushing his way in before I was ready to concede.

  He sat down beside me with a small groan, his overwhelming body filling the spot by the creek that had been my hiding place since I was a little girl. I resented his presence and wondered how he’d found me.

  “Dove told me where you’d probably be.”

  I ignored him and continued studying the trickling water. Above us, a Phoebe flycatcher flitted from branch to branch, scolding us like a cranky old aunt. I shivered again and in the next moment felt the heavy warmth of his fleece-lined leather jacket around my shoulders. I considered pushing it off, then decided that I might be stubborn and unyielding, but I wasn’t stupid.

  Finally he said, “Benni, I’m not going to hurt your grandmother. That’s a promise.”

  I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. The camera still hung around his thick neck. Did he ever go anywhere without it?

  “How do I know that?” I asked. “I don’t know anything about you.”

  He pointed to his camera and asked, “May I?”

  I shrugged. He slipped the lens cap into his shirt pocket and brought the camera
up to his eye. The shutter’s clicking was so soft, a deer could walk by unstartled. He didn’t ask me to smile, and I didn’t. He stood up and circled me, talking continuously as he snapped pictures.

  “You know, a good picture takes a strong subject as well as a strong composition. All the equipment and filters and talent in the world can’t make a subject interesting if there isn’t something substantial there to begin with.” His voice came from behind me, cajoling and demanding at once. “Look at me, Benni.” I twisted around and looked over my shoulder. He clicked a picture. “What a photographer leaves out is just as important as what he includes. Only then does the real picture, the real truth, emerge.”

  I frowned. He snapped a couple of pictures. “The truth as the photographer sees it,” I said.

  He lowered his camera and smiled at me. “Very good, Ms. Harper. I suspect you would have been an excellent student of photography.”

  I didn’t react to his flattery, still not trusting him, still waiting to see where this was leading.

  “I’ll tell you a secret,” he said, stepping with his long legs across the narrow creek. “No one really knows where good pictures come from.” I followed him with my eyes. He clicked another three or four shots and murmured, “Beautiful.” He looked at me over the camera. “How to find them is to always reach for the unsafe thing, the unexpected image. You have to disarm your subject as coldly as a soldier in battle. And after all that, sometimes they are just, pure and simple, a gift from God.” He lifted the camera back up to his eye. “Think of me in ballerina tights and toe shoes.”

  “What?” I said and laughed when the picture compulsively drew itself in my mind.

  He snapped off a quick rat-tat-tat, then grinned. “Gotcha.” He stepped back over the creek and sat down beside me. “Now, you’re angry at me even though you don’t know me. What can I do to change that?” The soft whir of the camera rewinding film sounded like a small frantic animal.

  “I think you’re using Dove,” I blurted out.