Summer Breeze

by Catherine Palmer

  “This is not just any old pizza. This is my specialty—spinach-Parmesan pizza.”

  “Spinach!” Lydia cried. “Huh-uh. No way. I’m not eating pizza with spinach. I hate that stuff.”

  “I don’t like it either,” Luke said, looking at his mother with imploring eyes. “Can’t we have regular pizza, Mom? Grandma Finley can make her kind, but I want our usual.”

  “You won’t even recognize the spinach,” Miranda informed him before Kim could answer. “It melds right in with the cheese.” She paused in stirring her sauce to unwrap a chunk of white cheese and hold it out before the twins. “Now take a whiff of this, kids. This is heaven itself.”

  Luke sniffed, made a gagging noise, and grabbed his nose.

  Lydia took three steps backward, then began flapping her hands in distress. “It smells like vomit!” she wailed. “I’m gonna puke! What is it?”

  “This is true Parmesan cheese.” Miranda glared at the twins, who were now entertaining each other by pretending to throw up. Turning her focus on Kim, she stared in silence a moment before speaking. “Do your children always have to be so histrionic?”

  “Well, they—”

  “The production of real Parmesan cheese comes from a restricted area in Italy,” Miranda said loudly enough to cover the twins’ theatrics. “It’s really quite distinctive. The structure of the cheese is remarkable too. See? A true Parmesan will break into slivers. And I happen to love its delicate and fragrant aroma.”

  “Fragrant aroma?” Lydia was holding her nose and fanning her face. “Puke-o-roma is what you mean!”

  “Puke aroma!” Luke said, doubling over in laughter. “Get it, Lyd? Puke aroma!”

  Kim stood by helplessly as Lydia joined in her brother’s amusement. The cheese really did smell awful, and she could hardly blame the kids for their dramatics. In fact, she was thinking of opening a window to let in some fresh air.

  Clearly having decided to ignore the twins, Miranda had resumed her preparations. Between stirring the sauce, she began to coat the three circles of pizza dough with olive oil.

  “Wait,” Luke said suddenly. “Grandma, you’re not making all three pizzas with that white sauce, are you?”

  “I most certainly am. And if you’d like, you may begin grating this mozzarella cheese. Here’s the grater. I’ll need six cups. Lydia, take this knife and cut that tomato into paper-thin slices. Kim, if you would wash the spinach—”

  “Mom!” Luke cried, brandishing the grater. “Not all three! We want pizza the way we have it every Friday night.”

  “Luke, you agreed to this,” Kim reminded him. “We’re going to give Grandma Finley’s pizza a try.”

  “I don’t want it! It stinks, Mom. I don’t want spinach pizza that smells like vomit!”

  “Luke, please.”

  Kim headed toward her son, but Lydia stepped between them. “Leave him alone, Mom. Lukey doesn’t want to eat it. What if it makes him sick? What if his blood sugar goofs up?”

  “Lydia, you know that’s not going to happen.”

  “It might! We’ve never had white sauce before. It could kill him!”

  “Ricotta!” Miranda sang out. “If anyone’s listening to Grandma Finley, I’m ready for the ricotta.”

  Kim turned to find that the woman had already ladled thick, cheesy sauce onto all three pizzas. “Miranda, could you hold off for a moment? Spinach really isn’t a favorite with the twins, and—”

  “I’m not eating that junk!” Luke shouted. “I won’t eat it, and my glucose won’t be right, and I’ll get sick.”

  “Mom, do something!” Lydia’s eyes filled with tears. “Grandma Finley, stop putting on cottage cheese! We hate cottage cheese.”

  “This is ricotta, for your information. Wait until you see how the spinach and basil will blend into the white sauce. In fact, with the mozzarella and ricotta, you won’t even notice them.”

  “But they’re green!” Luke hollered. “The only green we have on pizza is tarragon. Mom, make her stop. She’s ruining our supper.”

  “What can Lukey eat tonight, Mom?” Lydia demanded to know, tears streaming. She stamped her foot. “He has to eat the right food, or he’ll get sick!”

  Kim reached for her daughter. “Now, Lydia—”

  “No, Mom! You have to help Luke. He’s your son. You can’t let Grandma Finley do this!” Sobbing, she shook her head at her mother and then turned and ran from the kitchen. “I hate you! I hate everything!”

  “Now look what happened!” Luke snarled. “Grandma Finley, don’t you even care about Lydia?”

  Miranda set her hand on her hip. “I’ll have you know I am famous for this pizza. It’s delicious. It’s made of the finest ingredients. And if you and your sister would stop carrying on like a pair of maniacs, you would find out how good something new can be.”

  “I don’t want something new! I want our same old pizza with tomato sauce and tarragon! I want everything to be normal!” With that, Luke hurled the cheese grater across the room. It slammed into a cabinet and fell to the floor, aluminum clattering on tile.

  “Luke!” Kim cried as her son stormed out of the kitchen. “Luke, come back here this instant!”

  “Hopeless,” Miranda announced as she began washing the spinach. “Your ineffectiveness as a mother astonishes me, Kim. Those two are completely out of control.”

  Her temper flaring, Kim pointed a finger at her mother-in-law. “You are the problem here, not me. You could see right away that the Parmesan cheese was going to be an issue, but you just kept on grating. No matter what anyone says, you insist on having your way.”

  “We had an agreement, Kim. If you give in to children, you lose all control.” She lifted her chin as she stared at her daughter-in-law. “Do you have any idea how easily a child can slip out of your hands? Do you know what it means to lose parental authority? Of course not. You’ve never had any power over those two. A good mother watches her young the way a hawk guards her nest. She never lets up for a moment. One wrong move and they’re out of her control forever.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Miranda, we’re talking about pizza here. It’s not as though my entire influence over the children rides on this one issue. I’m a good mother, and I happen to believe that it’s okay to bend a little. Do you have to make all three pizzas your way? Can’t you give the twins one or two crusts for themselves?”

  “Give an inch, and you lose them.” Miranda swung around and began to put spinach and cheese on the pizzas. “Believe me, Kim, without proper parental direction and control, a child can go off in the wrong direction. Maybe it’s pizza today, but you never know what tomorrow will bring.”

  Kim threw up her hands in disbelief. “Oh, this is ridiculous.” She didn’t know whether to start making fresh pizzas or go comfort her children. Deciding a decent supper would soothe the twins, she elected to let them console each other for now. “I’m going to make more dough,” she told Miranda, “so if you’ll please move your Parmesan, I’d appreciate it.”

  In silence, the women moved around the kitchen. As Kim began spreading tomato sauce on her newly made crusts, Miranda slid her pizzas into the oven one by one, then brushed by without a word on her way out of the kitchen.

  Kim pressed the fan button on the oven hood. Maybe she could diffuse some of the Parmesan aroma and at the same time drown out the memory of her mother-in-law’s insidious voice. As Kim worked, she gazed through the kitchen window at the lake. Gleaming gold and indigo, the water was as motionless as a sheet of glass. But when a fish leaped nearby, she instantly envisioned the magnificent and satisfying splash that would echo across Deepwater Cove if someone just happened to toss Miranda off the deck.

  Shaking her head at the thought, Kim knew it wasn’t funny. Still, imagining the expression on Miranda’s face gave her such satisfaction that she was still savoring it when she took Miranda’s pizzas out of the oven and put her own in to bake.

  When Charlie Moore pulled his golf cart to a stop in the Finley d
riveway that Friday evening, Derek was chopping weeds along his ditch. Though Derek liked his retired neighbor well enough, he had no desire to make small talk.

  All day he had been out on the water patrolling Party Cove and cruising the hundreds of inlets that rimmed Lake of the Ozarks. That didn’t take into account the several hours spent talking to investigators about the drowning of the as-yet-unclaimed and unnamed female. Her fingerprints hadn’t turned up any clues, nor had her dental information. Detectives were now discussing the possibility of hiring a forensic artist to create a facial reconstruction of the woman in order to help identify her. Derek found it hard to believe that there were no records of a missing person who fit the victim’s description. He had been working with other law enforcement agencies from the start, but they had made little progress.

  As if all that weren’t exhausting and frustrating enough, Derek had come home that afternoon to the bleak battleground of yet another family feud—a quarrel over pizza that had left Lydia in tears, Luke furious, Kim in steely silence, and his mother out on the deck lighting incense. The combatants had told him four versions of the same event, none of which registered in his tired brain, and that’s when he’d decided it might be a good time to attack the weeds in the yard.

  “Things are looking mighty fine around the Finley place,” Charlie drawled. He patted his dog’s head as he spoke. The two went everywhere together. “Glad we had that rain the other day. Greened up all the yards.”

  “Brought in a little cool weather, too. I sure didn’t mind that.” Derek studied the cutting end of his Weedwhacker. “Well, I guess this job’s done for now. I’ll need more line before next time.”

  “Isn’t that the way things are? It’s always something. The trimmer runs out of line. The lawn mower needs oil. The golf cart’s battery up and dies. The gutters get clogged with leaves. Spiders start to take over the eaves. A man’s work is never done.”

  Derek nodded. “Yep, and I’d better head back inside to check my honey-do list. It’s a mile long.”

  “How about taking a spin with Boofer and me first, Officer Finley? Couple of things I’d like to talk over. Would you mind?”

  Yes, he would, Derek thought. Listening to Charlie Moore—who had all the time in the world to do whatever he wanted and then drone on and on about it—was not Derek’s idea of fun. And no matter what Charlie wanted to discuss, Derek knew he wouldn’t be interested. The Moores were good people—helpful, kind, and considerate. But they put their noses in other folks’ business way too often for Derek’s comfort, and he wanted no part of that.

  “I’ll need to step inside and let Kim know,” he told Charlie, “and I have a feeling she’s got my evening pretty well planned out.”

  “Aw, we won’t take long. Just a turn or two around the neighborhood. Kim won’t even know you’re gone.”

  Derek frowned. He wasn’t going to get out of this. He could already see Charlie edging his dog onto the floor, dusting off the seat, and moving his flashlight to a compartment in the back. Well, maybe a trip in the golf cart would be better than heading back into the war zone his house had become.

  “Settle yourself right there,” Charlie said as Derek stepped into the cart. “I’ll tell you what—there’s nothing like a quiet ride around the lake of an evening. Boofer would tell you the same thing; wouldn’t you, boy? This dog and I take a sunset ride nearly every day. It’s gotten to be kind of habitual, if you know what I mean. A mail carrier establishes a routine, and it becomes a way of life. Not even retirement can put an end to that.”

  Derek leaned back as the cart began its excruciatingly slow journey along the narrow road that served the Deepwater Cove neighborhood. After a day in his Donzi—chasing reckless boaters and zipping from one mile marker to the next—the ride felt interminable. But Charlie wasn’t in the mood to push the cart for more speed, so Derek did his best to force his muscles to relax.

  “Moon’s already up,” Charlie intoned, pointing at the silver wedge that hung over the lake. “No sir, you just can’t beat a sunset on the water. Nothing prettier, to my way of thinking. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yep,” Derek said, stifling a groan. Depending on his shift, he watched the sun settle over the lake nearly every day. Long ago the array of pink, gold, and blue had ceased to fascinate him. Late afternoon to early evening was the time that parties could turn ugly.

  “The Hansen house sure looks nice,” Charlie commented as the golf cart cruised by. “That Brenda sure has a way with decorations. She put on the best Independence Day display of anyone in the neighborhood. Flags, bunting, wreaths made out of shiny stars. I never saw the like. Esther pointed out that Brenda had even planted her flower beds in shades of red, white, and blue. Sure enough, she was right. Esther usually is, of course.”

  He elbowed his companion, who mustered a chuckle. “Sounds like a woman,” Derek said. “Kim sure knows her own mind.”

  “Your mother does too. That must be interesting—living with two women. How’re you holding up?”

  This time Derek couldn’t suppress his sigh. “Things are a little tense, to tell you the truth. But we’re managing.”

  “Miranda takes good care of the twins. I see the three of them down by the lake swimming or loaded into her car heading to town. Miranda tells me they go to the library or the outlet mall, and she enjoys stopping by Bitty’s place at lunchtime for some of those California-style wraps. I guess the twins have a fondness for the fajitas, but Miranda prefers the vegetarian ones, since she’s watching her weight.”

  This was all news to Derek, and he found himself warming to the idea that his mother had embraced her new role so well. If “Grandma Finley” was doing a good job with the kids, why did she and Kim have so many problems? Both women were well liked, friendly, kind, and generous. Why couldn’t they figure out how to get along?

  “Those exercises she does on the deck have sure stirred up talk in the neighborhood,” Charlie told Derek. “Esther thinks Miranda is doing stretching drills to get out the kinks. But Kim tells me she’s performing some sort of Oriental ritual.”

  “I don’t pay much attention,” Derek said. “My mother was always a free thinker, willing to try just about anything. That goes back to her youth—the way she was brought up. Her parents were liberal-minded too. Not much concerned about rules. They never understood why I went into law enforcement.”

  “Beatniks, huh?” Charlie said. “Miranda’s a little younger than Esther and I. She must have fallen under that sixties influence—hippies, war protests, flower children. I was a mail carrier with a young family at the time, so I missed out on all that. Not to say I regret it, of course.”

  He was silent a moment as the cart rounded the western end of the subdivision and started back the other way. When he spoke again, it was with a tone of amusement. “I guess that would explain the incense.”

  “Is it bothering people?” Derek asked.

  “It’s no trouble. Folks were just wondering. It’s not every day you see a lovely woman swaying around, listening to flute music, and burning incense. Or maybe it’s the fact that most days Miranda exercises in her bathing suit.”

  “Her bathing suit?”

  “Well, she starts out in a robe.” Charlie glanced over at Derek and winked. “Mighty attractive lady, in my opinion. But some of the widows were getting a little nervous about the whole thing, especially after Lydia told Esther that her grandmother worships idols.”

  “Idols?” This time Derek sat bolt upright. “My mother does not worship idols.”

  “No need to worry. Esther has calmed the widows down, and now that you and I have cleared the air, well, it’s not going to be anything to sweat about.” Charlie steered the golf cart past an oncoming truck. “The real problem may be just around the bend here. I thought I ought to mention it to you—seeing how you’re an officer of the law and you might know about such situations. Of course, it doesn’t pertain to water, but all the same …”

  Derek was still
picturing his mother worshipping idols in a bathing suit when Charlie braked the cart a short distance from the smallest house in Deepwater Cove. Next door to a home that was up for sale, it sat at the far end of the cove, some distance from the docks, the commons, and most of the activity. It had probably been constructed as a fisherman’s retreat before the area was platted and built into a nice neighborhood. The covered deck was no longer quite level, and the shutters needed paint.

  “This house belongs to Brad and Ashley Hanes.” Charlie spoke in a low voice through the side of his mouth, as if confiding a deep, dark secret. “I know for a fact that they haven’t been paying their subdivision dues. And I hear they’re behind on their loan payments. That’s their business, of course. But what has come to be of some concern is the activity going on over there to the side of the house.”

  In the fading light, Derek could barely make out what appeared to be a poured foundation and a couple of framed walls. “Are they building something?” he asked.

  “Young Brad works construction, you know,” Charlie said. “He told some folks that he’s putting up a garage for his new truck. The vehicle isn’t here right now. You know, Brad spends his evenings over at that watering hole, Larry’s Lake Lounge, waiting for Ashley to get home from her job at the country club. But again, that’s their business. Trouble is, Ashley told Esther that they’re building this addition to hold a nursery for the baby. She’s not expecting yet, but she sure is hoping. That part is a secret, of course. Nobody knows but Esther.”

  Derek nodded. If the Hanes kids wanted to start a family, what did he care? For that matter, what was Charlie all fired up about?

  “You’ll notice they don’t have a building permit posted anywhere on the premises,” the older man continued in hushed tones. “Nobody wants to rain on their parade, but you can’t add or tear down anything in Deepwater Cove without a permit. It’s in the bylaws.”