by Terri Thayer
“Rocky sells her collages at Peddler’s Village,” Tammy said proudly. “She gets a lot of money for them.”
“I can see why.” April moved the page closer. She recognized one image. “Is this the Castle?”
“Yes,” Rocky said. “My aunt is getting rid of the Castle once and for all, so I’ve been doing a series on the building. That’s an old photo that I transferred onto organza.”
“Oh, that’s why it looks so ethereal,” April said.
“The Castle has always been an illusion,” Rocky said.
The stampers were quiet. Rocky’s words were somber, so different from the teasing just minutes before. April didn’t know how to transition back to the stamping night that Deana had set up.
“The collage is beautiful,” she said inadequately.
Piper lifted her arm and began tapping her foot on the floor. She was clearly ready to show her project. Rocky pulled her collage from April’s grasp and gave Piper the go-ahead, with a frowning expression.
Piper didn’t notice. She stood, holding her piece close to her chest. She turned it around slowly.
“How do you like my ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card?” She smiled at April, ignoring everyone else in the room.
April wasn’t prepared for what she saw and she had to swallow a gasp. The image was dark and sinister, nothing like its counterpart in Monopoly. Piper had taken the pretty tulip photo book and used a sponge to create a black-striped background on each page. She’d stamped delicate and wispy angels and dressed them in bright orange jumpsuits. Their wings were outstretched, but their hands looked oddly empty. In the spaces for the photos were pictures of a tow-headed boy, at various ages.
April searched for an appropriate response. Rocky beat her to the punch. “Drama queen, thy name is Piper,” she muttered.
“Be supportive,” Piper warned.
“Great balance, Piper,” April said finally, resorting to critiquing the card and not the contents. “I like the way you used dragging for the background. And your handwriting is amazing. Are you a trained calligrapher?”
Piper nodded. “I’ve studied.”
“Classes by mail that she found on the back of a match-book,” Rocky said.
“You should know. That’s where you got your art degree,” Piper said.
April felt panic. Why hadn’t Deana told her there was such animosity between these women? Maybe Piper wasn’t usually this mean. It could be because her son had been arrested.
Rocky was leaning back in her chair. She yawned loudly, fingering her ear as though to pop it. April could see these two were not used to sharing the spotlight.
The last page in the book was a depiction of a cell. “Jesse, getting out of jail.” Piper held up the card for all to see.
The image of the blond boy grinning into the camera was shocking against the dark jail cell.
Great big tears gathered in the corners of Piper’s eyes, hanging there like dewdrops off a rain gutter. Despite feeling sorry for anyone whose kid was incarcerated, April suspected the tears were as authentic as Ken’s medicinal marijuana card.
April felt that she had to say something. “Piper, great juxtaposition of images. Good use of irony.”
“Irony, schmirony. This is my life,” Piper shot back.
Rocky frowned at her. “Get over yourself, Piper. If you’ve come for sympathy, you’ve got the wrong group of girls. I believe it was my fence that your darling son drove his four-by-four through last winter.”
Piper looked around for another victim. “Ask Tammy what happened to her first boyfriend, April. He left town in a hurry.”
Tammy started to protest, but Rocky stepped in this time. “Tammy’s had one boyfriend. Lyle. Stuff it, Piper. Pick on someone your own size.”
Rocky picked up the project she’d been working on, dug out her car keys and stood. “Thanks, April, but I’m ready to call it a night. Come on, Tam, I’ll drop you off home.”
April stole a look at the clock. It was only nine, but this stamping event appeared to be over.
The rest of the group gathered up their cards and purses, studiously avoiding Piper’s gaze. Piper stood, tapping a pensive finger on her lips. She looked off into space. “April Buchert, right? I know that name.”
Something in her soft voice caught the stampers’ attention and they stilled. Noises abated. Like a wolf pack, they waited for the strike.
April caught her breath, steeling herself. She knew this moment would come. She just didn’t think it would happen so soon after she arrived.
“Buchert. Now I remember. Didn’t your father leave his wife for a man?”
CHAPTER 3
April took her hands off the wheel to scrub at her eyes; she’d spent all night preparing for this morning’s meeting and she now felt gritty and a bit euphoric. After the stampers had gone, she couldn’t shake the bad feeling left behind. She’d wasted time fretting, waiting for a call from Deana that never came and generally not doing the work on the project until finally knuckling down after midnight.
She made the turn off Main Street that would lead her deeper into the valley. The sample boards lay on the passenger seat. She couldn’t wait to show her work to the client. She’d had a creative brainstorm at about three in the morning, and now she was thrilled with the results.
Piper couldn’t have known, but she’d said aloud what had been bugging April since her mother connected the Castle to the Mirabella mansion. She was returning to the scene of the crime. That job had led to her father leaving her mother.
In her teenage April-centric world, she’d thought her parents’ marriage was fine. After all, they never fought.
Instead, her father had been away a lot that spring, and Bonnie had saved all her venom for April.
And then, her father ended the marriage and followed his heart. To Vince.
Everything changed the day he left. April felt the sting of humiliation daily until she finally escaped to art school and California.
The right-front tire hit the edge of the road, bringing her back to the present. April grabbed the wheel, heart pounding. The two-lane blacktop rose and fell over small rolling hills and snaked around wooded lots and farmland, following routes deer had laid out centuries ago.
She passed the house where Samantha Eggar had stayed during the making of the move The Molly Maguires in the late sixties. People still talked about how sweet and beautiful she was, just the opposite of that Sean Connery, who had not stayed locally, preferring instead to be secretly limoed in and out of Allentown each day.
The sun was out, dappling the verdant countryside. A hawk hovered just beyond the car, reluctant to give up its wobbly thermal.
She caught a glimpse of three chimney pots and a slate roof. Suddenly, around a curve, Mirabella came into view. Built on a ridge, the Tudor hunched over the country club and surrounding homes like a vulture, the wings threatening to sweep lesser homes into its maw.
The house disappeared as she turned onto the private road marked by a short metal sign with the Mirabella crest. As she drove, the road rose steadily. There were at least ten acres of grounds, mostly woods. The rich knew how to maintain their privacy—buy up all the surrounding land.
The driveway curved to the left when the house came back into sight. To her right, she saw the rolling bluegrass of the golf course.
She slowed and studied the façade. The siding was tan stucco studded with decorative half timbers. A brick walk led to a massive carved front door. Tudor wasn’t her favorite style, but she could appreciate the beauty of this house.
A crow squawked. This was where she would be working the next few months. This was the place where she could lick her wounds and repair the damage done to her by Ken. Work was the balm for her soul.
She always felt more comfortable in a stranger’s home than in her own.
Following her father’s instructions, April went off the paved drive and followed a dirt-packed utility road past the stucco garage and matching garbage can encl
osure. She pulled in next to her father’s pickup. He was standing on the first step of a brick porch leading up to a utilitarian door, hugging a clipboard to his chest. He was tugging on his bottom lip. “Hurry. Come on, let’s go,” he called out.
April reached into the passenger seat for her sample boards. She knew it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. “Good morning to you, too.”
“Hi, sweetie.” Vince, her father’s business and life partner, came from the truck and greeted her, a set of blueprints rolled under his arm. He had a broad, rubbery face that was friendly and open. He was nearly handsome, but his nose was a bit too big. The short sleeves of his blue oxford shirt showed off nicely tanned arms—a construction tan that probably stopped abruptly where his sleeves began. He was wearing the gold chain bracelet that April had helped her father pick out online for their last anniversary.
He smiled and hugged her with his free arm. She leaned in and squeezed him back. It had taken years to get used to the idea that her father shared his life with another man, but she really liked Vince.
“Don’t mind him,” he said to April, pointing to Ed. “He’s always like this on the first day of a new job.”
April had thought they’d been on this job for months. What would she be doing if the rooms weren’t ready for the walls to be finished? She felt a glimmer of unease. She’d jumped on her father’s job offer so quickly. Now she couldn’t remember if they’d talked about the details.
She stated her question. “New job? But I thought—”
Vince said, “New phase, I should have said.”
Protesting Vince’s earlier observation, her father commented, “I’m not like anything.” But his manner belied his words. He walked down the steps and back up them again. Pieces of nervous energy came off him like embers off a Fourth of July sparkler. Harmful, but only for a second. Bright, but no real danger.
April gave her father a quick kiss. “It’s good to see you,” she said. The last time they’d all been together was when Vince and Ed came to San Francisco in February.
“You too, hon. I’m glad you’re here,” he replied.
Vince smiled at him, but Ed reverted to form. “Listen, about Mrs. H. Don’t look her in the eye.”
April reared back, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice. “What is she, royalty or a pit bull?”
“Little of both,” Vince said. He and April shared a laugh, but her father wouldn’t budge.
“She’s a very important client,” he said.
“Come on, Dad. I’m a grown woman. I ran a successful design firm in San Francisco for ten years. I know how to present myself.”
“Yeah, in California,” Ed grumbled. “This is the Commonwealth. We don’t do things like you granola eaters.”
“Don’t worry, I traded in my Birkenstocks at the border,” she said dryly.
Even frowning with worry, her dad was a good-looking guy. Age became him. Or maybe it was being with Vince instead of her mother. His crew-cut hair was silver. He was over six feet, with a barrel chest. Today he was wearing an argyle vest and pink shirt.
Maybe she could tease him out of his mood. “When did you start dressing like a duffer?” she said.
He looked down. “Like it? Vince bought it at the Presidio Golf Course when we were out there visiting you.”
April punched his arm lightly. “So you do borrow Vince’s clothes? You’re practically the same size.”
Vince winked at her, on board with her joking.
“It’s my shirt,” Ed protested.
“I always suspected,” April said. She tapped her teeth innocently. “There’s so much I don’t know about the gay lifestyle.”
Vince said, “You probably know more about being gay than we do. We’re just living our life here.”
April grinned. “Well, I did march in last year’s Gay Pride parade. It was a hoot. I walked right next to a guy with this giant pineapple over his—”
Her father had heard enough. “Okay, April, not now. Mrs. H. could hear you.”
Ed started for the door, but Vince put a restraining hand on his arm. “Before we go in, I’ve got something to tell you,” he said. Ed stopped, his brow furrowing even deeper. Vince indicated they should move away from the door, so they went down the steps and onto the lawn. A stone elf smiled at them from the flower bed. April hoped he was a portent of good luck.
Vince said, “There was another drug raid on the Mirabella property, night before last, out near the Castle.”
Ed swore. “Damn Henry Yost. He’s always after the kids.”
Vince shook his head. “This is not just Henry compensating for the fact that he’s never passed the state trooper test. It’s serious.”
“How can the kids be having parties there?” Ed said. “The Castle has practically fallen in on itself. There’s only three walls still left standing.” He began to pace.
Vince shrugged. “Kids don’t need walls. Yost says he found cocaine, crystal meth. He arrested a couple of kids.”
“Piper Lewis’s kid,” April put in.
Her father frowned. “How do you know?”
April said, “I met a few of Deana’s friends last night. Piper was there and told us her son was out on bail.”
“Anyway,” Vince said, “I told Lyle to go ahead with the demolition this morning. We can’t take the chance that kids will party there again.”
“No, no, no.” Ed’s voice rose with each syllable. “We have to wait for Raico, the code enforcement officer, to give us the permits. Otherwise we’re going to be fined.”
April remembered that Ed had tried to get the code enforcement job. The officer was appointed by the borough council. He was given a nice salary for working part-time, making sure building codes were up to snuff. It was usually a reward for pleasing the council members in some other way. A patronage job, but one with authority behind it. A dangerous combination.
Vince said, “I think we should act now and ask for permission later.”
“Absolutely not,” Ed said.
Vince gave in. “It’s your job. But you’d better tell Lyle. Now.”
Ed dialed his phone, his face glum. April was struck by how much her father’s expression reminded her of the basset hound they’d had when she was little. The same sad eyes, the same forlorn expression.
Worry was his natural state. His parents had settled in northeast Pennsylvania, but they’d never left behind the lingering fears that Depression-era childhoods in the Bronx had fostered. Her grandfather had died before April was born, but her grandmother still lived on the family farm ten miles away. She played bingo seven days a week and cut hair in her one-chair beauty shop in the basement.
Ed said he liked to be prepared for the worst, but to April it seemed as though the worst rarely happened and in the meantime, he’d driven himself into a complete funk and brought down everyone around him.
Vince didn’t seem to be affected by Ed’s gloomy outlook on life. He could often cajole Ed into laughing at himself. It was the way April knew they were perfectly suited to each other. She felt bereft when she realized Ken hadn’t made her laugh in months.
Today Vince’s charms weren’t working on his partner. April felt her stomach tighten. There was more to this job than she’d been told.
Ed shook his head. “Damn voice mail.” His voice got louder as he left a message. “Hold off, Lyle. I’ll talk to the CEO as soon as I’m done with this meeting with Mrs. H. Don’t do anything until I call you back.”
“Let’s get this over with,” Vince said, ringing the door-bell. “I’ve got a half dozen unsupervised men on the Heights job. I need to get up there soon.”
Ed fumbled with his phone, dropping it before getting it clipped on his belt. They joined Vince on the porch.
April felt the fluttering of butterflies in her stomach that a new job always brought. She loved going inside homes, seeing how people decorated and assessing the architecture. Especially in older houses. What nineteenth-century artisans had been a
ble to achieve always humbled her.
April heard the clicking of heels. The door opened.
From the noise, April had expected to see a maid or a dog, but a tiny, elegant woman was behind the door instead.
She gestured impatiently, shaking the miniature wattles on her arms. “Don’t just stand there. Get inside. You’re letting all the cool air out.”
The heavy door closed behind them, blocking out all sound, and presumably, heat.
Judging by the size of the mansion, she was too rich. Judging from the size of her body, Barbara Harcourt had perfected too thin.
Wearing a navy blue skirt with gold chains across the waist, and a beige silk tank, she looked like a woman who was never without makeup. The silk tank gaped open at the neck showing off a sharp-looking collarbone. Even in this heat, she was wearing stockings with her heels. No one in San Francisco wore pantyhose.
She ushered them through a short hall with built-in cabinets into a kitchen that hadn’t been updated since before April was born. The floor was Mexican red tiles, worn thin at the edges, and the appliances were copper. This had been a working kitchen once upon a time.
As they came out of the kitchen, April saw a plastic tarpaulin covering a doorway and relaxed. The construction must be going on in the rest of the house. Her work might be in a bedroom or bath. The mansion had several large wings.
They entered an enormous living room, easily forty feet long. Mrs. H. took a seat on a white linen sofa and indicated that they sit opposite. The lights were dimmed, the shades on the bay windows drawn. April let her eyes adjust to the darkness. After the smoky hot outdoors, the cool air felt good.
Before they sat down, Ed pulled April forward. “Mrs. H, this is the designer I was telling you about. My daughter, April Buchert.”
Mrs. H’s eyebrows would have shot up if they weren’t already penciled in halfway up her forehead. She pursed her lips in a way that pulled every wrinkle into its designated place.
“Daughter?” She looked from her father to Vince and April and back again. “I didn’t know you had a daughter. Of course, why would I? I’ve been living in Europe for the last twenty years.”
