She made a mental note to call Mr. Robinson. At least no one seemed to have a claim, emotional or otherwise, on the emeralds. She doubted they’d bring enough, but whatever she’d get for them, it should make a dent in the repair bill.
Abby raised her head at the sound of a passing car that had slowed, then stopped as the driver leaned out the window to exchange a few words with a young woman who had been about to cross the street. The woman was tall and well built, with dark wavy hair pulled into an untamed bun at the nape of her neck. Short wisps of curly hair wound around her face, which, even from Abby’s perch on the porch steps, appeared open and friendly. She was dressed in a white sweatshirt and jeans, and she fumbled with the pins in her hair as she leaned forward toward the driver and patted him on the arm before he pulled away from the curb to continue down the road.
The young woman smiled broadly and waved as she crossed the road and made eye contact with Abby. “Mankind is one,” proclaimed her sweatshirt.
“Hi,” she called pleasantly as she walked slowly, deliberately, and with a very pronounced limp toward Abby’s front porch. “I’m Naomi Hunter. I live across the street.”
“Oh, of course. The new owner of Belle’s place.” Abby forced herself from her gloomy mental retreat and tried to return the cordiality. “I’m Abby McKenna.”
“Yes, I know,” the woman told her. “I remember you.”
“Remember me?” Abby frowned, trying to place the name, the face.
“Sure.” Naomi seated herself on the bottom step and stretched her left leg out in front of her. “Gosh, I remember as a kid, watching you and Miz Matthews’s grandson go trekking off on your bikes. I always thought there was something so… I don’t know, exotic, about you. Big-city girl with big-city clothes.” Naomi laughed without a trace of self-consciousness.
“I didn’t think any of the kids from Primrose even knew I was alive.” Abby laughed.
“Are you kidding? You and Miz Matthews’s grandson were an event. It was like summer didn’t begin until you arrived,” Naomi drawled softly, smiling at the recollection. “I always envied you your freedom, and the way you always seemed to be off on some adventure, you know? Sometimes I even got up early, just to watch you from my bedroom window. You’d be riding your bikes off into the early-morning mist, that wild red hair streaming behind you. I used to pray that one day, you’d see me in the window and wave me down to go with you.”
“Why didn’t you just come out and introduce yourself and come with us?” Abby asked, flattered and curious at the same time.
“I just never would have had the nerve.” Naomi shook her head, a few strands of hair sliding loose as she did so.
“Why not? Did I act snobby or something?”
“No, not really. You just never seemed to notice anyone. You and… what was his name?”
“Alex.”
“Right. You and Alex just always seemed to be in your own world, somehow. Like you didn’t see nothin’ or no one else.” Naomi slipped cozily into a little Southern vernacular. “Like you were in a bubble that just sort of floated around Primrose for two months or so, then disappeared.” Her eyes looked skyward. “Just sort of floated away until the next year.”
Abby sat in silence. It was exactly like that, she could have said. We were in our own world. It never occurred to either of m to seek out the company of anyone else.
“Besides,” Naomi continued, “I lived up on the other side of town, not down here where the old money lived. But I remember what it was like when I was growing up, when all the houses down here were so fancy, and all those genteel old ladies were still alive. Sundays, I’d ride my bike down here, like I was headed out to the cove. I’d ride real slow past this place.” She nodded her head back toward the house behind them. “When your aunt would have her fancy teas, in the warm weather, they’d all sit out here on the porch, all the fancy old ladies of Primrose, all gathered around that big wicker table, sitting on the edge of those high-backed wicker chairs. Are they still in there?” she asked, referring to the chairs and the table. Abby, fascinated by the accuracy of the young woman’s recollection, nodded that they were. “If you ever want to sell that set, you let me know, okay? Anyway, there they’d be, and it looked so elegant, you know? The old ladies in their white summer dresses and their big hats… it was right out of a picture book. Have you ever seen Victoria magazine?” Without waiting for an answer, Naomi plowed ahead, almost as if Abby was not there. “It was just like what you see in that magazine sometimes. Except the women in the magazine are always young and beautiful, and the women on Miz Cassidy’s porch were old. Not hard to imagine them being young and beautiful once, though. And the women on the porch were real, not models posing for a picture. They really lived like that, didn’t they?”
“For as long as I can remember, Aunt Leila did.” Abby nodded. “And she was beautiful when she was young. Tall and straight and regal.”
“Even as an older lady, she still had that elegance, you know?” Naomi twisted her body and looked thoughtfully toward the side of the porch, where the fabled teas had taken place. “I cannot tell you how many times I fell off my bike for staring over here instead of watching where I was going. Broke two fingers on my left hand once.” She held up her hand as if to show off her old injury. “And in the summers, you’d be there, too. You and Alex, all dressed up in white, a white straw hat on your head.”
“And white gloves.” Abby smiled fondly at the memory. “Aunt Leila insisted that I wear white gloves.”
“I’d be so jealous.” Naomi laughed again. “Wanting to know what it felt like to sit there, so grown-up like, being part of that… tableau.” She spoke the word tentatively, as if testing it for its sound. “Wondering what you all were talking about. Wondering what secrets you learned from those old ladies. When I heard Miz Matthews’s house was being sold for taxes, I had to have it. I bugged the bejesus out of Colin—that’s my husband—until he said yes. Got it cheap enough, but God knows we’ll put more into it than what we paid for it by the time we’re done with the repairs.” Abby grimaced, knowing full well just how much went into restoring these old homes.
“I don’t know.” Naomi glanced across the street toward her own house. “But I guess I thought living in one of these grand houses would make me feel grand somehow, too.”
“Has it?”
“Sometimes. I guess I thought living here would somehow make me more like them—the old ladies, I mean. Like maybe somehow some of their secrets were still in the house and that maybe when I got older, there’d be teas on the front porches again, only maybe this time I’d be part of it.” She sighed and blushed faintly. “You must think I’m really daft.”
“Not at all.” Abby shook her head. “I miss those days sometimes, too. I didn’t appreciate it then, but it was a gentler time. Mostly what I remember was being hot and uncomfortable and bored to death by the chatter. ‘Yes, thank you, Mrs. Chandler. I did quite well in school this past year.’ And ‘Thank you, Mrs. Evans, I am happy to be here.’ ‘Yes, it is quite humid today.’ ‘Yes, Aunt Leila’s garden is particularly lovely this summer.’ ”
“Don’t tell me that was all?” Naomi slapped her blue-denimed knee. “Here, all these years, I thought they were imparting their secrets of the genteel life.”
“In a way, I guess they were. If knowing how to serve a proper tea, bake a perfect sponge cake, and make authentic Devonshire cream counts for anything.” Abby pondered the lessons learned and their value in the grand scheme of her life.
“Can you do all those things?” Naomi grinned.
“Actually, I can.” Abby laughed. “Aunt Leila was a superb cook. And so am I, if the truth were to be told. Maybe I picked that up from her, without even realizing it. I remember watching her in the kitchen when I was little. She could make the most fabulous meals from the most simple ingredients. And she was a very thrifty cook. She used everything. I never really thought about it before,” she said thoughtfully, thinking back to her
college days, when she could stretch a lone chicken into two weeks’ worth of meals, “but I guess I was more influenced by her than I realized.”
“Well, maybe someday we’ll have tea together,” Naomi said wistfully, “you and me and Miz Matthews.”
“That’s a wonderful idea.” Abby stretched her legs down until they reached the top of the third step. “I’ll see if I can find Leila’s old cookbooks and see if I can bake a scone as well as she did.”
“Then you can show me, and I can reciprocate on our porch.” Naomi gazed across the street. “If it wouldn’t upset Miz Matthews too much, coming back to her old place.”
“That must have been terribly difficult for her, to have left that house.” Abby leaned forward thoughtfully, resting her elbows on her bent knees.
“It was a very sad day.” Naomi nodded. “I had such mixed feelings, being the one to move in while she was having to move out. On the one hand, I wanted the house—and we had the cash from the insurance company settlement; I was hit by a drunk driver a few years back, that’s why my leg is messed up—but on the other hand, I felt like Snidely Whiplash, foreclosing on the widow.”
“Well, from what I understand, your buying the house at least gave her money to live on and saved her from the humiliation of seeing the house go to sheriff’s sale, which would have been much worse for her. And someone would have bought the house. I’m sure she takes pleasure in knowing that the people who have it love it, just as she and her family did for so many years.”
“That’s what Colin said,” Naomi told her. “And Miz Matthews’s grandson, too, when he came to help her move out.”
“Alex was here then?” Abby’s head jerked up.
“Came down from Boston to help out with the move.” Naomi turned to look up at her. “Carried her things over to here and stored some other things—furniture and such—in the carriage house out back there.”
Abby’s toes began to twitch in agitation. “So he knows she’s been living here,” Abby said half aloud.
“Oh, sure. He moved her in and stayed for a few days.” Naomi studied Abby’s face. “How long’s it been since you’ve seen him?”
“Ten years or so.” Abby shrugged as if it was of no importance to her.
“Well, he sure did grow up nice.” Naomi grinned, her brown eyes twinkling.
“If he’s so nice, why was his elderly grandmother living alone in a house that’s falling down?” Abby snapped. “Where I come from, that’s not considered nice.”
“I meant he’s one fine-looking man.” Naomi watched for a reaction. “Tall and broad-shouldered. Really grew into his looks, if you know what I mean. You should have seen Janelle, down at the Primrose Cafe, when he’d go in for his coffee in the mornings. Why, she just about…”
“Was that the only time he was here? When Belle moved in?” Abby cut her off, not interested in Alex’s local conquests.
“No, he’s been back a few times. Not since Miz Cassidy passed on, though. I think back in the beginning of last summer, he was here for a few days. Think Miz Matthews said he fixed the plumbing in the front bathroom when he was here.”
“That’s the least he could have done,” Abby grumbled.
“Funny, you know, I always thought that you and he would…” Naomi stopped in mid-sentence, her words cut off by Abby’s frozen gaze. “Then again, maybe not.” She shrugged.
Naomi stood and brushed a few dried leaves off the back of her jeans. “I guess I need to get back on over to the house. My son will be getting up soon, then it’ll be time to run down to the school and pick up my daughter.”
“How old are your children?” Abby made an effort to be neighborly.
“My little girl will be five in a few months—she goes to the preschool down at the church. My boy is almost three.” Naomi smiled. “Just the right ages to make you want to pull your hair out half the time and smother them with kisses the other half. Now, listen, if you need anything—anything at all—don’t be hesitating to knock on my door. I’ll be baking bread tonight, so I’ll bring over a loaf in the morning.”
“That’s very nice of you.”
“I’ve been sending bread over to Miz Matthews—and Miz Cassidy, before her passing—since we moved here. And stew or soups, when I make a big batch. Seems the least I could do for them.” Naomi brushed off her acts of kindness as easily as she had dispatched the leaves from the seat of her pants. “Which reminds me of why I was stopping over here this afternoon. I usually do Miz Matthews’s laundry for her once a week. There’s a washer and dryer in the basement”—she gestured toward the house—“but I was afraid for her or Miz Cassidy to use the steps.”
“I’m glad you told me. I guess I would have been wondering where to take our stuff… though it seems to me that Belle did mention that you had been helping out. I’ll take a look when I go inside.”
“The dryer’s fine, but the washer stalls a bit between the first two cycles. I’d be happy to show how to get around that when you’re ready.”
“I appreciate that. Thank you, Naomi.”
“Just give me a call.” Naomi waved as she started toward the sidewalk. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad we finally met after all these years.”
“So am I,” Abby said sincerely. “I’m sorry it took so long. I would have liked to have known you, back then. And I want to thank you for taking such care of Aunt Leila. And of Belle.”
“Think nothing of it,” Naomi said with another wave of her hand. “It was just my way of paying them back.”
“For what?”
“For giving me dreams,” Naomi called over her shoulder as she crossed the street.
10
It was almost midnight by the time Abby checked all the locks on the doors and began to turn off the downstairs lights. She’d been in the sitting room at Leila’s desk all night studying the carpenter’s estimate, then had gone room to room, checking off those things she could do herself. Scrape peeled paint, strip old wallpaper, repaint the walls and the wood trim—how difficult could those things be?
The list was the size of a small manuscript by the time she finished, exhausting her by its overwhelming proportions. She tapped her fingers on the desktop in agitation.
What had she done back at White-Edwards when she had a massive project assigned to her?
She’d broken it down into manageable sections, focusing her energy on each section until the whole had been completed.
So I’ll go one room at a time, she told herself resolutely. I’ll finish one room, then go on to the next. If I take it little by little, maybe it won't seem so bad.
It’ll take months. She sighed, tossing her pen onto the writing surface. But then again, it doesn’t look as if I’m going anywhere in the near future. And maybe by the spring, the job market will have opened up and I’ll find something. The house will look better by then, and maybe I’ll be able to find a buyer. I’ll sell the emeralds and use the money to have the heavy work done, the things I can’t do for myself.
Cheered at having a game plan, at having found a use for her old management skills as well as for her overabundance of spare time, she snapped off the hall light and climbed the steps.
She paused at the top of the stairs, where a sudden whiff of lavender seemed to welcome her. With a sigh, she followed the hall to the right and carefully, almost reverently pushed open the door to Leila's suite of rooms.
Here, the scent of lavender was strongest, Leila having tucked sprigs in her dresser drawers, hung bunches from the drapery tie-backs, and filled porcelain bowls with potpourri, all of which combined to give a sweet yet spicy heaviness to the still air. Abby stood in the doorway for a long moment, trying to recall where the light switch was. She located the old wall switch, which clicked loudly as she flicked on.
Aunt Leila’s old carved oak tester bed stood along the near wall. The spread of palest yellow silk, embroidered with silken threads of dark green and purple to create a striped pattern of chain stitches, ran the l
ength of the bed and spilled onto the floor. Lacy shams stood across the front of the headboard, which was nine feet in height. A heart- shaped needlepoint pillow spelled out “Peace—Be Still” in dark burgundy letters through which wound some white flowers on shaded green vines.
The room remained exactly as it had been in Abby’s memory, with the porcelain dock and matching vases on the mantel and the heavy drapes of dark gold velvet blocking the light from the windows. There were paintings on one wall, a doorway leading to Leila’s bath on another. Yet another doorway to the right led to Leila’s sitting room, the second floor of the tower, and it was in this room that Abby had often sat with Leila on rainy nights or stormy mornings. Abby followed the worn carpet to the door and pushed it open.
The old Belter parlor set of the deepest crimson velvet and carved rosewood—Leila’s pride and joy—still graced the alcove formed by the curve of the tower.
She could almost close her eyes and see Aunt Leila perched on the velvet upholstery of the chair, like a princess in her tower, her reading glasses set upon her long fine nose, her legs crossed at the ankle. In her hands, she would hold what she laughingly called her family Bible—the silver-covered book she had brought from her mountain home in which she had preserved the precious photos of the family she left behind when she ventured east to marry Thomas Cassidy.
Leila would point to her siblings and name them, pausing over each to tell some story or other, so that by the time Abby was six years old, she knew their names and faces and the anecdotes that over time became family legend. There were Leila’s parents, the beautifully exotic Serena Dunham and her rancher husband, Will. And the only existing photo that Leila had ever seen of her maternal grandparents— Elizabeth, whose Cherokee name had been Song of the Wren, and Stephen Cameron, the Philadelphia blue-blood who had forsaken his birthright for the love of a woman who had, as a small child, walked the Trail of Tears.
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