“Barney, what’s wrong?” Des walked to the end of the path.
“Those damned idiots. If they think for one minute that they’re going to dictate who is riding in my car and who is not, well, I’m giving them something else to think about.”
“What are you talking about?”
Barney plunked herself down in one of the chairs on the patio.
“I am talking about the fact that the committee—and who put that crew in charge? I’d like to know—was trying to tell me what my agenda is for the parade. I have lived in this town all my life, I have gone to more July Fourth parades than anyone in that half-assed group has, and I know for a fact that the lead car gets to choose who rides in the back seat. Dan Hunter always got to pick who was being honored that year, and by damn, if they want Lucille to lead the parade, I get to pick who I want.”
“Do you know who you want to ride with you?” Des asked.
“Of course.” Barney waved one hand. “And that person is going to be in my back seat early on Wednesday morning, or there will be no classic convertible at the head of the parade.” She paused as if considering. “Strike that. The hell with ’em. Lucille and I will be there with bells on.”
* * *
Barney had calmed down enough to agree to meet with Greg, and when the doorbell rang at seven, Des answered it.
“Hey, Greg. Come on in. My aunt is in the front parlor.” Des showed him the way.
“Great. I’m happy for the opportunity to talk to you about your family,” he said as he followed her the short walk from the door to the parlor.
Des reintroduced him to Barney, then said, “Barney, Nikki is still in the attic, but she’s going to the park later with Mark and some friends. Allie is down at the theater and Cara left for a birthday dinner for Joe’s mother. I wouldn’t look for her to come back tonight.”
“Thanks, Des.” Barney smiled at Greg. “So hard to keep up with all my girls sometimes. Do come in and have a seat.”
Greg stood aside to allow Des to precede him, but she shook her head. “I’m on my way out, but I’m sure Barney will keep you enthralled. She’s the keeper of the family history and knows everything. Well, almost everything.”
“Oh, you’re not . . .” He looked confused.
“No, sorry. I do have plans, as I mentioned on the phone. But really, Barney’s a much more interesting subject.”
The sound of thunder coming up the driveway cut her off.
“There’s my ride.” Des kissed Barney on the top of the head and said, “I won’t be late. The farmer rises early in the morning.” With a little wave to Greg, Des left the house by the front door.
“Where to?” Des asked Seth, who’d remained seated on his bike.
“I thought you could maybe help me get a few things ready for Wednesday,” he said as he handed her the leather jacket. “You know, like help organize.”
“Organize what?” She put on the jacket, strapped on the helmet, and climbed aboard. “What happens on Wednesday?”
“The First Annual MacLeod Farm Fourth of July Bash.”
“You’re having a party on the Fourth?”
“Big cookout.” He started the engine.
“How many people?”
“Depends on how many show up.”
“Well, how many did you invite?”
Seth paused. “I dunno. What’s the population of Hidden Falls?”
He turned the bike around and headed for Hudson Street. From there, he turned right and took off for the farm.
“So what exactly do we have to do?” Des asked after they’d pulled into the driveway in front of the farmhouse.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a party before,” he confessed. “So I was hoping you could tell me what I should do.”
“This is your first gig ever, and you invited half the town?” She hopped off the back of the bike. “I hope you’re kidding about that.”
“More like most of the town.” He took off his helmet and held a hand out for hers.
“Great. Good planning, bucko.” There was something sweet about a guy who invited everyone he knew to his home to celebrate a national holiday, while at the same time being totally without a clue. “Let’s see if we can work up a game plan.”
The dogs raced merrily around the front yard when Seth let them out. They watched them play for a few minutes, then he whistled to bring them back, telling Des, “I don’t like leaving them outside if I’m not with them. Our new girl likes to chase cars.”
“Does the new girl have a name yet?” Des followed Seth into the kitchen.
“Yeah, she’s Belle now. Doesn’t answer to it yet, but hopefully she’ll get used to it.” He checked the dogs’ water bowls and refilled them when he found them half empty. “There’s no way to know what her first name was. Then again, new home, new life, new name.”
“I totally agree.” She pulled up a chair at the table and reached into her bag, searching for a pen. “We’re going to need a pad of paper.”
“There’s a yellow legal pad on the desk in the front hall.”
She went into the hall, retrieved the pad, and came back to the table. “Let’s do this thing.”
“What are we doing?” Seth took the chair opposite her.
“We’re making lists.”
“Lists,” he said flatly. “I thought you were going to help me figure out what I’m doing.”
“Exactly. And you do that by making lists. Work with me here, Seth.” She slid her feet from her sandals and pulled one leg up under her. “We need to zero in on how many people. Realistically, who do you know for certain is coming, as opposed to people who said maybe, or who were noncommittal?”
He started to rattle off names as she wrote them down.
“Okay, so how many of those people would you feel comfortable calling and asking them to bring something?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you need help. You have a rough idea how many people you invited, but you don’t know how many of them are coming. You can’t possibly prepare for X number of guests when you don’t know what X represents. So if you ask people to bring something, you’ll know if they are coming, and you can tell them what you need.” She picked a name on the list. “So you call this Jim Lister and you say, hey, are you coming over after the parade—”
“No, after the stuff at the park,” he corrected her.
“What happens at the park?”
“Games and things for the kids.”
“No games for adults?”
“That’s why we’re all coming back here. Baseball. Horseshoes. Maybe even touch football or rugby.”
“Sounds like fun. So okay, you call and you say, could you bring a salad? Or could you bring some drinks? That sort of thing.”
“I can do that.” Seth took the pad and checked off most of the names. “I can call these people this week.”
“Don’t wait on it, though. You don’t have all that much time.”
“Got it.”
Des stared at the list. “You really think all these people are coming?”
He nodded. “They said they would.”
“So how ’bout we figure out what you should ask them to bring? You don’t want fifty people bringing salad and no one bringing dessert.”
“Makes sense.”
“After you call everyone, you’ll have a better idea of how many to expect, so you’ll know how much stuff you need to buy. You think maybe, what, eighty people at the most?”
He snorted. “Maybe closer to double that.”
“You are a crazy man,” she muttered.
“Maybe, but we’re going to have one hell of a good time.”
She laughed and made a list of things he’d need, then together they figured out what he needed to buy and what he should ask others to contribute.
“Trust me, you’ll be glad you asked for help. You could go bankrupt feeding all those people. Do you know anyone who belongs to one of those warehouse clubs? You k
now, where you can buy things in bulk?”
“My sister does, I think.”
“Find out. I can go with you to shop, if you want.”
“I’d really like that. Thank you.” He leaned over and kissed her, a long, slow, sweet kiss that made her heart leap and her toes curl.
“Ahhh—you’re welcome,” she said when he pulled away.
He took her hand and tugged her to her feet. “It’s almost sunset,” he told her. “Let’s walk out to the vineyard. You get a perfect view there, right where the sun drops below the hill and sparkles on the pond down near the woods.”
It was another perfect night, and Des thought that walking hand in hand into the vineyard at dusk was the most romantic thing she’d ever done.
“The way the light plays off the trellises just takes my breath away. You’re so lucky, you get to see this every night.”
“Usually with a beer in hand instead of a beautiful woman, but yeah, not too shabby. And I’m happy to share the view with you anytime. It’s my favorite time of the day, and the invitation for you to spend it here with me is an open one.”
They stood at the edge of the rows where he’d planted his seedlings. She thought how wonderful it would be to watch those vines take hold and grow, to twine along the trellises, to see fat bunches of grapes ripen in the sun. She was filled with longing to see it happen.
He started to walk between the rows, holding her hand to take her along, pointing out the different varieties of grapes he’d planted, sharing his dream of one day turning the barn into a winery, making the MacLeod name a respected member of the Pennsylvania wine industry.
The thought that someone else might eventually walk these fields with him and share that dream suddenly made her overwhelmingly sad, and the feeling haunted her long after he took her back to Hudson Street.
* * *
“No emeralds, Nik?” Des sat at the desk in the office on Tuesday morning, paying the theater’s utility bills.
“Not yet, but I will find them.” Nikki danced into the office holding a long white Victorian-era gown up against her body. “How beautiful is this? I wonder who wore it. Do you think it could have been a wedding gown? Did they wear white wedding gowns long ago?” Without missing a beat, she said, “You know, if we ever did plays at the theater, we have a ton of clothes and things we could use as costumes. Of course, we’d have to do period stuff, like Our Town, but it would be so fun. I love to play dress-up.”
“Barney said you were welcome to try on anything you found,” Des reminded her.
“Oh, and I did. There are some beautiful, like, ball gowns. We had some really fancy ladies in our family, you know.”
“So I gathered from the portraits in the front hall.”
“Not just the ladies, either. There are fancy men’s suits. And stuff that I don’t even know how you would wear them. Underclothes and stuff. I have to go online and do a search.”
“If nothing else, you’re getting an education in fashion this summer.”
“I like clothes and things, I’m not going to deny it, but there’s more to life than pretty things, you know?” Nikki sat on one of the chairs in front of the desk, the white dress folded on her lap.
Des put down the pen, wondering where this was leading. “Do tell.”
“Did you know there are people who don’t even have clean water to drink or to take baths in or wash their clothes in? Can you imagine having to give your baby a bath in dirty water?” Nikki made a face. “Why should anyone have to live like that?”
“Excellent questions.”
“You know those hurricanes that hit all those islands? Some people still don’t have homes. They’re living in tents.” Nikki paused. “And other people—kids, even—are going there to help rebuild their houses and help dig new wells. I want to go, but Mom and Dad would never let me.”
“Who do you know who’s volunteering to do those things?”
“Well, Mark and his sister and a couple of the other kids in town. They’re leaving next Sunday for two weeks with their church group.” She sighed heavily.
Ah, so Mark has awakened Nikki’s awareness of social injustice.
“I never thought about stuff like that before. I never paid attention.” Nikki looked Des in the eye and said, “That makes me a really shallow person.”
“No, sweetie. It makes you someone who’s fourteen who’s been sheltered from a lot of the world’s problems. If you were truly shallow, you wouldn’t be concerned about it now.”
“Mark and his sister already knew. They went last summer to Haiti and helped build a house.”
“That’s very good of them. But you know, they live in a different environment than you.”
“I think theirs makes more sense. I think how many pairs of shoes you own or what kind of car your parents drive are stupid things to talk about. I think the kids here are smarter than the kids back home, no matter what Courtney says.”
“And what exactly does Courtney say?”
“She thinks that people who live in places like this are just too dumb to move to someplace cool. That it’s more important to live in places like L.A., where there’s a lot happening. She said she wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like Hidden Falls.”
“And you said . . . ?”
“I told her about the bluegrass concert we went to at the gun club back in April.” Nikki’s smile was pure mischief.
Des laughed. “I’m sure she was so jealous.”
“She was when I showed her the picture of Mark that I took that night, ’cause he’s so hot.” Nikki leaned closer to the desk. “You don’t have to tell my mom that I think Mark is hot, okay?”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
“Mark said you and his uncle Seth are like, together.”
“Sort of together,” Des corrected. “Or maybe it’s more like thinking about being together.”
“Mark said he’s the best guy in the world and he wishes he was his father and not his uncle. Or cousin, whatever.” Nikki leaned her elbows on the desk. “He said when his dad got mean and hit his mom, his uncle Seth went over there and picked his father up and put him in his car and told him to drive. Mark said all Seth said was, ‘Drive.’ That’s pretty brave, right? Seth was in some sort of special forces thing in Afghanistan and got injured trying to save some of the guys in his group, so of course he would be brave. That would make him a hero, right?”
“It would, yes.” Des could see Seth putting his own safety aside for the sake of someone else.
“Well, they gave him a medal for it, anyway. Mark saw it. He said it’s the bomb.”
“I bet it is.”
“Anyway, I’m going to the party out at the farm on the Fourth. All of my friends are going because all their families know Seth. We’re going to have the best time. I can’t wait. We never did stuff like this on July Fourth back in L.A. Dad and Mom usually just wanted to relax ’cause it was a day off for them.”
“Well, I predict you will in fact have the best time at the party. I know I’m planning on doing exactly that myself.”
“I love that our whole family will be there. I like us doing stuff together.” Nikki held up the white dress. “I think I’ll take this back up to the attic. And maybe give some serious thought to how I’m going to search for things up there this summer. Not just the necklace. I want to find some family journals, if there are any up there, and Barney said somewhere there’s a box of photos from the theater. I need a plan. We already started going through the pictures some people have given Barney. Everyone looks so festive and dressed up. This book about the theater is going to rock.”
Nikki got up and left the room, still chatting as she went into the hall.
“Des!” she heard Cara call.
“In here,” Des called back.
“Barney wants us outside,” Cara told her, appearing in the doorway.
“What’s up?”
Cara shrugged. “She didn’t say. She just said, go get your sister
s and bring them out here.”
Des followed Cara into the hall, where they met Allie. The three women filed out the back door.
Barney had turned Lucille around so the car was parked partly on the driveway and partly on the grass, and the top was up.
“What’s going on?” Des asked.
“I’m recruiting the three of you to give Lucille a bath. The parade is tomorrow, and she has to look her best.”
“Barney, not that I mind, but you do know there are car washes, right? There’s one out on the highway past the . . .” Allie’s words seemed to die in her throat when Des nudged her and gestured toward Barney, the look on her face enough to frighten the dead.
“Will you think about what you just said? You’re suggesting I trust Lucille to a bunch of strangers with those big fat brushes and all those harsh chemicals?”
“Sorry,” Allie apologized. “I lost my head.”
“I guess you did.” Barney pointed to the grass next to the car. “One of you can man the hose, one can do the soap, bucket, sponge thing, and one of you can do the chrome. I don’t care how you divvy up the work, but I would be ever so grateful to you if you’d take care of this for me.” Barney rubbed her hands, her expression softening. “The arthritis in my hands was a gift from my mother. I hope the genetic gods have spared the three of you from this family curse.”
“Hey, we’re happy to do it, Barney. Right, girls?” Des picked up the hose.
“Totally. We love Lucille, and I agree, no commercial car wash for her.” Cara went for the rags to polish the chrome.
“I’ll man the sponges.” Allie pointed to the bucket. “Des, spray some water in here and let’s get started.”
“Hey, me, too!” Nikki came flying out the back door. “I want to help wash Lucille, too. Mom, toss me a sponge.”
“I thought you were hunting in the attic,” Des said.
“I was, but this is more fun. The attic will be there later.”
By the time they’d finished, it was hard to tell who’d had control of the hose. All four were soaking wet and had traces of foamy white soap in their hair and on their clothes. Lucille was sparkling, her chrome polished and gleaming. Her tires had been scrubbed and not a speck of dirt remained anywhere.
The Sugarhouse Blues Page 25
