Mr. Elliott Finds a Family

by Susan Floyd

  CHRISTIAN IGNORED the persistent ache behind his left ear and watched Bernie who dug furiously into the ground with a toy shovel and then chortled with glee when she found a huge beetle that raced to get out of the way. She reached to pick it up with two fingers, but it scurried past her and she followed, her little face pinched with her efforts to coordinate her eyes with her hands.

  “Bug!” she declared and looked straight up at Christian. His heart jerked. Caroline. His fist tightened and he felt the sharp rock jab into his skin. He opened his hand. Glenn had long since discarded his, but Christian examined the garden rock, really an oversize piece of amber gravel, that Bernie had so judiciously bestowed upon him. Bernie shrieked with excitement, chattering away as she continued to doggedly pursue the bug, trying alternately to step on and grab it until it managed to squeeze its body through a small hole and out of reach.

  Having been eluded, Bernie walked around in aimless circles. Her mind already searching for her next adventure. The steaming pile of compost looked promising.

  “Oh, no, you don’t, Bern-Bern,” Glenn said as he intercepted her, pulling her up against him, then giving her a big affectionate squeeze and a wet smacking kiss on her cheek.

  Christian felt slightly satisfied when Bernie screamed her protest and wriggled violently to be let down. Glenn obliged. Her mind now fixated on trying to move a small boulder, Bernie began to push.

  The two men stood awkwardly, both watching Bernie, who got tired of pushing and decided to defeat the rock by sitting on it.

  “I’m sorry about Carrie,” Glenn said finally.

  “Thank you,” Christian replied and took a sip of coffee. It was cold now and it still tasted awful. The second cup was worse than the first. No wonder Beth Ann put so much sugar in it.

  Glenn laughed.

  “What?”

  “She makes terrible coffee, doesn’t she?”

  “Is that why you didn’t take any?” Christian raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes,” Glenn admitted. “I let her keep one or two of her illusions. One is that it’s coffee in general that tastes so bad—not her coffee in particular.”

  “I think she might have an idea.”

  Glenn smiled. “Maybe, but that hasn’t made her want to learn how to make better coffee. She just adds more sugar and cream.”

  They fell silent again.

  After a moment, Christian asked, “Have you been friends long?”

  Glenn shrugged. “Depends on what you think is long. We’ve known each other since graduate school.”

  “Graduate school?” Christian felt an unflattering wave of guilt at his surprise. He would never have imagined Beth Ann would have gone to college much less received a higher degree. Caroline had no degrees he knew of.

  Glenn shot him a speculative look, then said, “Don’t know much about her, do you?”

  “Well—” Christian felt his face grow hot. Why was he so reluctant to admit he knew absolutely nothing?

  Glenn nodded. “She paints, teaches when she has to, but mostly holds together her little family single-handedly.”

  “Single-handedly?” Christian asked, a flare of something coming up from under his ribs. “She’s not married?”

  Glenn called out to Bernie who was now lying on the rock, her head lolled backward, the tips of her curls brushing the dirt. She sat up quickly and then toppled over sideways. She chortled, babbling at them unintelligibly, clearly emphasizing the last syllable, as if she were scolding them. She placed her hands on her hips to make her point.

  “No, she’s not married.”

  “Divorced?” Christian tried to make his voice casual.

  “Nope. Never married.”

  “So Iris has lived here all her life?” Christian looked around.

  Glenn shook his head. “No. From what I understand, she was a botany professor, a science artist. She came here from U.C. Berkeley to retire. Taught Beth Ann most everything she knows about art.”

  “Are you Bernadette’s father?” The question came out much more baldly than Christian had planned.

  Glenn took a long time to answer. He looked at Christian, his eyes guarded, and Christian knew he was being thoroughly surveyed. Finally, Glenn asked, “What would make you think that?”

  Christian felt as if he was negotiating one of the trickiest liaisons known to man. Then he shrugged and observed bluntly, “Bernadette called you Pop-pop.”

  “A nickname,” Glenn replied, his eyes watching Bernie’s progress, as she tried to balance on the rock, her baby gibberish supplying background noise.

  “What is she saying?” Christian couldn’t help asking when Glenn said something back to her.

  “I have no idea,” Glenn replied with an honest smile. “But we’re sure it’s something important and Beth Ann is a stickler for responses.”

  “Bernadette seems to talk well for someone her age.”

  “We think so.” Glenn laughed. “But then we also think she’s a genius.”

  “Did you know Caroline?” Christian asked, abruptly changing the subject. He wondered if Caroline would have found Glenn attractive. She had a way of fluttering from one handsome man to the next. She was very flirtatious, but he’d never thought to doubt her fidelity.

  Glenn glanced away and hedged. “I met her a couple of times. I wouldn’t say I knew her.”

  “Mommy!” Bernie squealed and ran to meet Beth Ann.

  “Bernie-Bern-Bern. What have you been up to?”

  “Gar-den,” Bernie said and then jumped up and said something rapidly before shouting “Bugs” and wandering off. She pressed her face against another rock, which left a dark smudge of dirt on her cheek.

  “You know you’re in charge of the cleanup,” Beth Ann told Glenn. “I just gave her a bath last night.”

  “It’s only dirt, sweetheart. It’ll wash off. So go paint. I’ve got things covered.”

  “Thank you.” She handed him a baby monitor. “Iris is sleeping for now. But she’s had a tough day. She’s going to be really hungry when she wakes up, so be sure to get to the kitchen before she does. She had all four burners going with empty pots on them last weekend.”

  “Again?” Glenn asked with sharp surprise.

  Beth Ann’s face tightened imperceptibly and she concentrated on staring at Bernie. “It’s not again,” she denied. Christian watched her turn away from Glenn and again wondered about their relationship.

  “Didn’t something similar just happen?” Glenn asked.

  “No. It was a mistake. More my fault than hers,” Beth Ann said dismissively.

  “Beth Ann, she’s nearly ninety.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Christian, an intensely private individual, had never seen a soul close up as fast as she did. It was as if she wasn’t even present anymore.

  “So,” she said, her voice cheerful, changing the subject. “What’s in the box in the hall?”

  “Mostly samples. Fred got a whole case of new paints. It’s a start-up brand, and he thought you might be feeling experimental. He wants a report on how the colors compare to the old faithfuls.”

  Beth Ann laughed. “My whole life is an experiment. I’ll call him tonight and thank him. You don’t know how much that helps. I didn’t know how much more I could squeeze out of a dry tube.” She glanced at Christian. “Watercolors,” she said briefly, filling him in.

  “Of course.” He nodded as if he knew what she was talking about.

  “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” Bernie said insistently.

  “Just a minute, Bern. I’m talking with Pop-pop.”

  Bernie was quiet for a quick second and then said more loudly, “Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy—”

  Beth Ann shot Christian another glance. He was amazed she remembered he was there, and his heart thumped louder as she gave him a rueful smile. “And I was the one who couldn’t wait until she said ‘mommy.’ Teaching her to talk seemed like a good idea then.” She chuckled, then turned to Glenn. “Can you get the
m lunch? I want to get as much done as I can before you take off.”

  “Will do.”

  “And...”

  “And?”

  Beth Ann looked around quizzically, past Christian, as if she had forgotten what it was she had say.

  “I’m having an Iris moment,” she laughed, and then slapped her forehead. “Oh, yes. There’s plenty of food. Make sandwiches—don’t cut the crust off for Bernie even though she’ll want you to. Give her turkey instead of peanut butter. I’m seeing if she’s allergic. Your choice of canned soup. Potato chips—”

  “Above the fridge.”

  “Only a handful after Bern’s eaten most of her sandwich or she’ll just eat potato chips and no sandwich or soup. And applesauce.”

  “Yes, sir.” Glenn saluted.

  Beth Ann made a face at him.

  Christian watched the exchange silently. It wasn’t as if she were being overly rude. After all, she had a life, and he had the eerie sensation of being plopped in the middle of it. She afforded him no special treatment. He frowned into the coffee cup. And he wasn’t certain if he liked that. He had always commanded attention, even as a young man. But of course, having Elliott as a last name didn’t hurt, and three generations of money probably helped. But here, none of that seemed to matter.

  Unlike most people who would immediately be trying to capitalize on the fact they had just been given a multimillion dollar software company, Beth Ann acted as if he had offered her a dead cockroach. So different from Caroline, who’d made it very clear from the very first moment they’d met that she was acutely, intimately aware of his existence.

  They’d met through Max, who had been introduced to Caroline at an exclusive private party. She was the love of his life, Max had declared, but then graciously bowed out when it became apparent that Caroline only had eyes for Christian. He’d been drawn to how earthy, and even rather naive, she was. He found her a refreshing change from bored debutantes. She was so eager to learn about what he was interested in, listening for hours as he talked about the company, the business.

  The next thing he knew, he was introducing her to his mother, and the two of them bonded quickly. His mother always liked projects and Caroline had no qualms about becoming one. Caroline relished, polished, and upheld her role as the future Mrs. Christian Elliott. Maybe a little too much. Still when Christian persuaded Caroline to elope, forgoing the large wedding that his mother was planning, she seemed almost relieved. He now realized why.

  He also knew that he had no idea what earthy was. If Caroline was earthy, Beth Ann was the magma that formed the earth. When he saw Beth Ann turn back to the house, he realized she was leaving and there was going to be no further discussion of the software company, of Caroline, of anything.

  “I need to talk with you.” Christian stepped forward and grabbed her arm to halt her.

  Beth Ann looked at him, then down at the hand that closed around her elbow. “Maybe later,” she said shortly, and tugged at her arm. He released her, understanding that she didn’t have to talk to him if she didn’t want to. He wasn’t even related. His resentment began to close his throat. Part of being married meant getting to know your spouse’s family, and he felt unrealistically that Caroline, by her secrecy, had robbed him of that. Here was a family unit, perhaps more unconventional than any he had ever experienced, but he greatly disliked the fact that he was categorically placed outside the inner circle.

  If he hadn’t felt so desperate, he would have laughed at the irony. His sister-in-law seemed reluctant to acknowledge his existence. Usually, Christian Elliott was begged to participate in the most exclusive of the exclusive, his family an integral spoke of the most prestigious circles in Southern California. Yet here he was, his feelings battered because some farmgirl artist person would barely look at him.

  “How much later?” he asked, forcing his voice to be casual.

  Beth Ann shrugged noncommittally. “I have to paint. I don’t often get the luxury of an undisturbed stretch of time. Glenn’s here until—” She looked at Glenn inquiringly.

  “I’ve got to be in Fresno by noon tomorrow to meet with a client.”

  “Glenn paints, too,” Beth Ann informed Christian.

  “So when can we talk?”

  Beth Ann glanced around. “I don’t know. How long are you here for?”

  He’d planned to be on his way to the Napa Valley twenty minutes ago, the documents signed and ready for express shipping to his attorney.

  “Indefinitely,” he answered.

  “Indefinitely?” Her voice squeaked. He saw that he’d rattled her and wondered why. She backed away from him, her eyes just barely shuttering abject anxiety. She shook her head. “You know, I can’t really think about this now—”

  With an abrupt turn she started to walk away. Christian followed her, giving a quick glance at Glenn who stood watchfully by, ready to insert himself if need be.

  “Give me a time and place. I’ll be there,” he said insistently.

  She was quiet and then stopped. Beth Ann looked back at Glenn who shrugged. She stared so hard at Christian’s shoulder he thought he might have dandruff. Then she heaved a big sigh. “Tonight. Los Amigos on Pacheco Boulevard. Seven o’clock,” she said wearily. “I’ll give you enough time for a dinner and coffee. Will you leave us alone then?”

  “Los Amigos at seven,” Christian agreed and held up the coffee mug in his hand.

  Beth Ann took it from him, peering into it. “You drank it,” she said in surprise.

  “Los Amigos at seven,” Christian repeated, not understanding the feeling of hope welling through him. “I’ll be there.”

  EVEN THOUGH her head was throbbing, Beth Ann worked for the rest of the morning. She took a small break for lunch and then went back to her attic for more. Really, what she spent most of her time doing was procrastinating. She straightened her files of reference photos. She organized the slides of her previous works. She studied them and looked around at the stuff she had been sporadically working on. Then she noticed the dust on the desk and decided to clean her work area.

  As the light faded into dusk, she had not picked up her paintbrush at all. She swallowed her frustration, closing her eyes to the throbbing in her sinuses. Lack of sleep, she excused herself, not to mention the events of the morning. She had been up for the past several nights with Iris, making sure she wasn’t wandering around the kitchen trying to roast marsh-mallows on the gas stove. Between that and Bernie’s advanced mobility and ever increasing curiosity, Beth Ann’s watercolors, which at one time had been a refuge, had been reduced to another source of anxiety.

  When Fred had called in March with the news that the Merced hotel was opening up its lobby to new artists, she had been less than enthusiastic because she had very little new work. Okay, she had no new work. But she’d promised Fred she would try, at least make a start back into the art world, as small as her local region was.

  The only thing she’d managed to do was discover how good she was at avoiding painting. Between family crises and sporadically teaching weekend classes for the city’s parks and rec department, there didn’t seem to be time. Now, as she looked at the half-finished paintings that hung around her, a few damp only because she’d accidentally spilt water when she was cleaning, she knew she couldn’t blame Bernie or Iris or the lack of paints anymore. She turned on the light, realizing suddenly how dim it had gotten. A single tap on the door gave her an excuse to formally stop.

  “Come in,” she called, trying to make her voice stronger, in case it was Iris.

  “Done yet?” Glenn poked his handsome head in.

  “Yeah. No light. My eyes are shot,” Beth Ann said guiltily, allowing the fatigue to creep back into her voice. She ran the water in the attached sink. Fred had run the plumbing up to the attic so she could do her work here. She pretended to wash out her brushes, and her water cans. “What time is it?”

  Glenn glanced at her big clock that read eleven twenty-four.

  “Batt
ery died. I haven’t changed it yet,” she confessed.

  “It’s just after six-thirty. You’ve got a date at seven.”

  Beth Ann pulled a face. “I can’t even imagine what he wants. If I weren’t so tired, I’d have a talk about it with you.”

  “Talk about it with me anyway.” Glenn sat down. “I’m dying to find out how things went. What did he say?”

  “Where are Bernie and Iris?” Beth Ann asked.

  “Bernie’s still zonked out and Iris is in her room looking at her pictures.”

  Beth Ann nodded. That sometimes absorbed Iris for nearly an hour. “Any crises?”

  Glenn shook his head. “Nope. Everyone seemed to be on their best behavior.” He looked at her piercingly. “So. That was Carrie’s husband?”

  Beth Ann stared out the round picture window that overlooked the garden and the big oak, another improvement courtesy of Fred. She watched the horizon scatter brilliant reds and oranges from end-to-end. She studied the color of the sky, a perfect French ultramarine blue, and watched the lights of an airplane track across it.

  “Yes,” she answered slowly. “That was Carrie’s husband. Did he stay long?”

  Glenn shook his head. “Nope. As soon as you left, he left, too.” He gave her a sly smile. “Though he did ask what kind of flowers you were partial to.”

  Beth Ann made a face. “You’re kidding.”

  “Would I kid about flowers? I think he wants to get on your good side.”

  Beth Ann was silent.

  “So, Bethy, why is he here?” Glenn probed. At her exasperated look, he admitted freely, “Yes. I’m under strict orders from Fred to report to him as soon as I know anything.”