Flirting With Pete: A Novel

by Barbara Delinsky

  Inside again now, she started down the stairs. The closed doors on the third floor were a challenge indeed. She wondered if there were pictures of a young Connie in the boxes stored there. She wondered if there were pictures of long-lost relatives or of the farm in Maine where he’d grown up. His official biography offered little more information than the state and the date. She knew about a farm because it was one of the few things her mother had ever shared— and that, done only to explain comparing the man’s social grace to that of a donkey.

  Caroline Ellis wasn’t a bitter woman. The only times she had expressed her opinion of Connie was when Casey pushed her to it— and then, yes, she was biased, as she had a right to be. The man had loved her and left her, not so much denying that a relationship had taken place as seeming oblivious of it. Caroline had never asked for his help, but she would have been grateful if it had been offered. Once Casey was grown and self-supporting, Caroline had had no use for the man.

  Casey had grudges of her own. But there was a blood connection between Connie and her. That primal link justified her curiosity.

  She found it interesting that these boxes were packed up and hidden away behind closed doors in a place where anyone could pass by without seeing them. Some men of Connie’s stature would want to advertise their treasures, but that wasn’t him. He might be self-absorbed and myopic, but he wasn’t arrogant. She had to give him that.

  Then again, it was possible that he was the only one who ever climbed these stairs. Between the sofa behind its little wall of potted trees and the single chair outside, the place was the perfect spot for a lonely man to look out at a world he couldn’t access.

  That said, Casey refused to feel sympathy for him. If Cornelius Unger had been lonely, she decided as she headed downstairs, he had no one but himself to blame. He’d had a wife whom he ignored. He’d had colleagues who might have been friends as well, had he given them the slightest encouragement. He’d had a daughter who would have come running at the first invitation, and that was the truth, much as she hated to admit it. She might resent him, but she would have been there in a minute had he called.

  Feeling a great sadness, she trotted down again to the second floor. If Connie had been a different kind of man, she might have imagined that he had done up the blue bedroom for her. The only way he could have known blue was her color, though, was if he had given her a look now and again.

  Skeptical of that, she continued on down to the front foyer. Taking the hall on the left, she found the kitchen through an archway at the end. In stark contrast to the living room, it was open and bright, with white walls, white tile floors, and cabinets and tables of oak. The work area faced the back of the house, with sink and cabinets built around mullioned windows that were cranked open now, letting in a light breeze. An eating area sat before tall windows that looked over the front-yard trees.

  The table was round, with four captain’s chairs comfortably spaced. The chairs had cushions done in a large green and white check, a pattern that was repeated in café curtains, a basket filled with napkins, and a toaster cover.

  Casey was more comfortable in this room than in the others, although she guessed that it in part had to do with the smell of fresh coffee in a pot on the work island. Spotting a mug tree, she dropped her gum in a basket under the sink and poured herself a cup of the brew. She took several sips as she stood at the front window, looking out over the large rings of the café curtains. She imagined her father had often stood like this, half hidden here as he was on the attic sofa, wanting to see the world without being seen.

  On impulse, she pushed the rings to either side, opening the curtains wide.

  Satisfied to have put her first tiny mark on the place, she left the kitchen with her coffee and headed downstairs. Watercolor seascapes hung one after another on the cream-colored walls of the stairwell; the paintings were gentle and appealing. Casey admired them until she caught the artist’s name in the corner: Ruth Unger. Connie’s wife. Out of loyalty to her own mother, she turned away.

  Reaching the ground floor, she found a door on her right. Sensing that she was entering Connie’s professional space, she carefully tested the knob, cautiously turned it, and peered into a small reception area where patients would have waited until Connie called them in. One door led directly outside; it was locked and bolted. Another, at the opposite end of the room, led to Connie’s office.

  Not quite ready for that yet, Casey went back through the hall to the room on the other side of the stairs. The door here was open. This was the den. It was a cozy place, barely half the depth of the house, with only a shallow pair of windows high on the front. There was a sheltered feel, thanks to walls of dark green, lots of deep furniture, throw pillows, and a crocheted afghan. Intermingled with shelves of books were a television and a music system.

  Just then, head bowed, Meg came down the hall carrying cleaning supplies. She was nearly even with Casey when she looked up and jumped in alarm. Several moments passed before she returned from wherever her mind had been. Then her gaze fell to the mug Casey held, and she looked crushed. “You took coffee before I could ice it.”

  Casey smiled. “I cooled off, so hot was fine. The coffee is wonderful.”

  Meg’s face was transformed by the compliment. “I’m glad! Can I get you anything else?”

  “No, thanks. I’m all set.”

  “I really didn’t know he had a daughter. You don’t look any older than me, but he was so much older.” Her brows rose in fear; they were tinged the same auburn as her hair. “I mean, I’m not— I’m not criticizing him.”

  “I know that,” Casey said gently. “I’m thirty-four. He was forty-one when I was born.”

  Transformed again, Meg beamed. “I’m thirty-one. I was born in August. I’m a Leo. What’re you?”

  “Sagittarius.”

  “That’s such a good time of year. I used to make Thanksgiving dinner for Dr. Unger. I mean, he had other Thanksgiving dinners, but we always had a nice one here.”

  “With his wife?”

  “No. Just him. We always did it the night before, because he went up to see Ruth on the holiday itself. I always call her Ruth. She told me to. Why didn’t he have Thanksgiving with you?”

  “We weren’t close,” Casey said quietly.

  “Were you with your mother?”

  “And friends. There were always lots of us without families.”

  “That’s me,” Meg said with a false brightness. “No family but Dr. Unger.” Her brightness crumbled. “He was a kind man.” Her chin trembled. “I miss him.”

  “Maybe you’ll tell me more about him sometime.” In fact, Casey thought that was an excellent idea. If a scavenger hunt of Connie’s life was the game, Meg Henry definitely held a clue or two.

  Lips pressed together, Meg nodded. Still struggling with emotion, she continued through the room and went up the stairs.

  Watching her, it occurred to Casey that the grief she saw in Meg might well be the greatest that had been felt for the man, which was a totally sad state of affairs at the end of one’s life. Casey herself might have felt sorry for Connie if there hadn’t been anger to balance it out.

  Taking a breath, she sipped her coffee and turned back to the den.

  This was a place of relaxation. Everything about the room told her that, yet, for the life of her, she couldn’t picture Connie here. He was a formal man. Never once had she seen him without a shirt and tie. But he couldn’t have worn those in here. One didn’t wear a shirt and tie while watching Toy Story or The Last of the Mohicans or Sleepless in Seattle, and those were but three of the diverse collection of videos and DVDs on his shelves. Similarly diverse was his collection of books. Mixed in with aged leather volumes was a comprehensive group of popular novels and recent works of nonfiction, all with their spines creased or dust jackets frayed. Connie had read these books. Casey shuddered to think that he had kept abreast of the world beyond his immediate life by reading books and watching movies.

&
nbsp; Music was something else. There was a similarly used look to the LPs in the cabinet under the stereo components, but this collection was one-dimensional, fully in keeping with the elegant formality of the grand piano upstairs. Clearly, he had been a classical buff.

  Casey had never in her life played either the piano or an LP. Nor was classical music her preference. She liked bluegrass.

  So there was another strike against father and daughter as a compatible pair. Hair and eyes notwithstanding, they were clearly two very different people— not the least indication of which being Casey’s preference for openness and fresh air. She guessed that if his office was in the subbasement as this room was, she would find it confining.

  On a wave of bravado, she returned to the hall. At the end was a direct door to the office. She opened it, slipped inside, closed it. Pulse racing, she leaned back against the door and looked around. She half expected Connie to be there, waiting, watching.

  He wasn’t, of course. The office was empty. Easily the widest room in the house, it stretched all the way from one side of the building to the other. Like much of the rest of the house, it was done in dark colors and fabrics. She saw lots of wood, and shelves on every wall. Some of the shelves had cabinets built into their lower half; others went unbroken from ceiling to the floor. She caught the faint scent of wood smoke; a fireplace was nestled into the wall of bookshelves behind her, the poker now back in place with other tools on an iron rack.

  On her left stood a large desk with a tall leather chair behind it. A not so large conference table stood on the right, surrounded by six wood chairs with corduroy seats. In the middle of the room was a sitting area, with a long sofa on one side, a pair of large chairs on the other side, and a square coffee table in between. The sofa and chairs were upholstered a dark plaid and, along with the coffee table, sat on a needlepoint carpet of equally dark reds, navies, and greens, but Casey’s eye didn’t linger there. Inviting as the grouping was, she looked over it to a pair of French doors that stood open. But she didn’t linger at the doors either, handsome though they were. Her gaze went right on out through them, drawn by a vision of sun, flowers, and woods.

  When understanding hit her, she caught her breath. But if the gesture was a subconscious attempt to hold back, she failed. It was love at first sight. She was lost.

  Chapter Three

  Later, Casey might suspect that she simply had been swept away by the sun that dappled the garden, as compared to the dark of the office. Or that what she loved was that the garden was so not like her image of Connie. Or that having grown up with a mother who loved everything to do with the outdoors, the garden felt like home.

  Whatever, she was drawn inexorably there. Slipping through the screen door, she passed under a pergola onto a path of large stones. Mossy earth lay between them in what would be shade come afternoon, but the sun was high now, and it lit not only the path, but a large bed of flowers on her right. She saw varieties of whites grouped together, as well as varieties of pinks; beyond these were a cluster of purples and blues.

  A patio sat on her left before a pair of birches that branched wide and thick above trunks of peeling white bark. A stylish steel table with a glass top, circled by three chairs, stood in the middle of the stone floor, and in the middle of the glass top was a potted hyacinth of a purple-blue hue.

  Leaning close, she breathed in its scent. Then she straightened, turned, smiled. She wasn’t supposed to like what belonged to Connie, but she couldn’t help herself.

  The garden was surprisingly large, matching the width of the house at the start but steadily opening the deeper it went. Three tiers followed the rise of the hill. The first, where she now stood, was the most cultivated. Up a railroad-tie step to the second tier, the stone path climbed through more casual plantings— an assortment of flowering shrubs, a bubbling fountain, a pair of maples and an oak.

  The third tier was pure woodland. Here the path ambled upward past ground cover and evergreen shrubs, and hemlocks. Filling one of the back corners, as Casey assumed it had done for many score years, was a towering chestnut tree. Its trunk rose limbless until it reached the sun, where it spread into a crown of spring leaves and pink flowers. At the base of the chestnut sat a rustic wood bench.

  In the other back corner of the garden, a potting shed stood flush against the tall wood fence that marked the rear of the garden. Halfway between the chestnut and the shed was a door. Curious, Casey approached, unbolted it, and lifted the latch. Outside, as the lawyer had promised, was a brick-paved space large enough for two cars to park.

  Relocking the door, she wound her way back down through the garden. At the patio, she slipped into a chair, held her coffee to her middle, and marveled at everything around her. The garden was a gem— bright, beautifully cared for, smartly designed. Leafy trees veiled her view of the surrounding townhouses and theirs of her, yet there was no stifling sensation. The side walls of the garden were built of stone and covered with ivy. The smells were of healthy plants and soil. The air was pleasantly warm. She saw a pair of finches duck under one of the maples and slip through the bars of a cage that encircled a hanging tube of seed. They pecked for a bit and had barely flown off when another pair swooped in.

  Casey raised her face to the sun. Closing her eyes, she drank in its warmth. She breathed deeply, enjoying one quiet moment, then another and another. The angst of the office crisis faded, right along with the gripes she had with her father, the fear she felt for her mother, and the loneliness that sometimes kept her awake in the night. Here in the garden, she found an unexpected peace.

  Setting her fanny pack on the table, she slid lower in her seat and basked in the sun. She lifted her head for the occasional drink of coffee, but she was far more interested in listening to the stir of the trees, the chatter of birds as they flew in and out, the bubble of the fountain. This was an enchanted spot, justification in and of itself for the price of the townhouse. Casey might not know viburnum from vinca, but she knew that city gardens didn’t get better than this.

  The screen door slid open. She raised her head just as Meg emerged from the house with a tray. She carried it right to the table where Casey sat and began to unload goodies.

  Getting a whiff of something tantalizing, Casey sat straighter. “Oh my. Those croissants smell fresh. Did you make them?”

  “My friend Summer did,” Meg replied. “She owns the bakery down at the corner. I stop there every day on my way here. I’m sure you know the place,” she said, aiming a thumb toward Charles Street. “I mean, you’ve come here before, haven’t you?”

  “Actually, no.”

  “Not at night, when I wasn’t here?”

  “No.”

  Meg’s face was a kaleidoscope of emotions— changing from surprise to puzzlement to embarrassment in the wink of an eye. Seeming just as quickly to realize that she wouldn’t figure it out, she turned back to the tray of food. “I did make this,” she said as she pulled the cover off an omelet. “It has cheese, mushroom, and tomato. I’d have added onions, only Dr. Unger didn’t much care for onions.”

  Neither did Casey. “But I see chives.”

  “Just a few,” Meg quickly admitted, “but they’re totally fresh, and they’re organic.” As she talked, she set Casey’s coffee cup aside, poured an iced cup from a carafe, and neatly arranged sugar and cream. “We grow them over there by the shed. Jordan put in an herb patch that has chives and parsley and basil and sage and thyme. Dr. Unger never minded chives.”

  Casey didn’t know if she would. But the omelet looked delicious, and she was suddenly starved. Putting a green-and-white-checked napkin on her lap, she began to eat. Meg stayed only long enough to see her started, then went back into the house. Casey didn’t stop eating until the entire omelet, one and a half croissants, and a glass of orange juice were gone.

  Feeling decidedly pampered, she lowered herself to the warm stone and stretched out in the sun, pulled her cap over her face, and let the food digest. She hadn’t intende
d to fall asleep any more than she had expected to eat a huge breakfast, but by the time she woke up, the sun was higher, the table was cleared, and a fresh glass of iced coffee had been left.

  Shaking off grogginess, she sat up and looked around. Hers? So hard to believe. The question, of course, was what to do with it.

  Meg came out. She looked a bit neater now, as if she had done some fixing of her hair, her shirt, her socks. Her eyes were eager. “I was thinking I would make chicken salad for lunch. I do it with cranberries and walnuts. It’s really good.”

  “Oh, I don’t know if I can stay that long.” When Meg looked bewildered, she added, “I have my own place in Back Bay.”

  “Won’t you be moving in here now? There’s so much space, with the bedrooms and the office and the garden and the den. I could help make room for your things— you know, clean out his dresser. Oh, but you’d probably want to do that yourself. But you just tell me. I’ll do whatever you want— I mean, really, anything.”

  Casey figured that if anyone was going to touch the contents of Connie’s dresser, it should be his wife. “Has Mrs. Unger been by?”

  “Yes. But she didn’t take anything away.”

  “Not even personal photographs?” That would explain their absence.

  “I never saw any photographs.”

  “Maybe they’re in the storage boxes on the third floor.”

  Meg spun around at the sound of a distant buzz. Then she laughed at herself. “Just the drier. I’m rewashing the bedding from the master bedroom, so it’ll be fresh. It’s yours now.”

  Casey wanted to say that she had her own bedroom, but Meg left before she could get the words out, and it was probably just as well. The girl would be nervous if she thought Casey was considering selling the place.

  Hearing a quiet rattling— the vibration of her cell phone on the patio table— Casey pulled it from the fanny pack, flipped it open, and glanced at the caller’s number. “Hello, Brianna,” she sang, feeling suddenly light-headed. She and Brianna Faire had roomed together in both college and graduate school. Taking different jobs after graduation rather than setting up shop together had been a conscious decision.