Vintage Ladybug Farm

by Donna Ball

  Bridget said, shocked, “Noah!”

  He tossed the keys into the dirt at Lindsay’s feet and turned and strode away.

  Lindsay cried, “Then undo it, do you hear me? Do you know why they send eighteen-year-old boys to war? Because they’re too stupid not to go, that’s why! Noah!”

  He threw up his hands and didn’t stop walking.

  “Noah, come back here! We’re not finished!”

  She lunged after him, but Dominic caught her arm. When she tore her arm away, he stepped in front of her and took her shoulders. His expression was grim. “Lindsay Sue,” he said, “you know I’ve got more respect for you than any woman I know, but you need to hush, and you need to hush right now. Because if you don’t, you’re going to lose that boy forever.”

  Lindsay looked up at him, stricken, and he released her shoulders cautiously. “I’ll talk to him,” he said.

  Lindsay raised a trembling hand to her lips as she watched him go. “He’s just a boy,” she said, and her voice was low and tight and strained with the effort of keeping it steady. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t know anything but here. He was supposed to go to college. All these years, that’s all we worked for … He was supposed to go to college!” She drew a breath that sounded like a stifled sob. “He can’t make it out there on his own, any more than … any more than that stupid deer can. He can’t do this!”

  Bridget reached for her, but Lindsay turned and ran into the house, letting the screen door slam behind her. She caught herself against the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, and then her knees buckled beneath her. She sank to the floor, holding onto the stair rail, weeping.

  Cici and Bridget dropped down beside her on the floor and unfolded their wings of love over her. They held her and rocked her and didn’t say a word.

  ~*~

  Dominic came into the barn just as Noah threw a feed bucket against the wall. He stood and watched until the clatter died down, then moved forward. Noah turned on him with eyes that were defiant and wary.

  “First off,” Dominic said mildly, holding his gaze, “if you ever speak to the woman I love like that again, it’s going to be between you and me, and it won’t be pretty. Are we clear?”

  Noah jerked his gaze away, jaw tightening.

  “I said, are we clear?” His voice was like steel.

  Noah swallowed and darted a quick glance at Dominic. “Yeah,” he muttered.

  Dominic relaxed his shoulders and leaned back against one of the stalls. “Second, if you think a uniform is all it takes to make a man, you’re even more of a boy than your mother thinks you are.” He ignored the angry look Noah shot him and absently plucked a broken straw from the spider web in which it was caught against a post. “And she is your mother, not only legally, but because she’s earned it. She’s earned a lot of things from you, not the least of which is respect.” He twirled the straw in his fingers for a moment, then let it float to the floor. “Anyway, I happen to think she’s wrong about you. I think you’re more of a man than she gives you credit for, but it’s not running off and joining the Marines that’s going to prove it to her—or to anybody else, for that matter. It’s what you do when you leave this barn.”

  Noah looked at him for a moment, allowing a small amount of puzzlement to seep into his gaze, and Dominic’s held steady. He said, “Isn’t it?”

  Noah scowled and looked away.

  “So,” Dominic said after a moment. “Two weeks, eh?”

  Noah nodded cautiously.

  Dominic gave a small, smothered chuckle and a shake of his head. “Parris Island, the paradise of the South. A vacation experience you’ll never forget.”

  Noah looked at him cautiously. “You were in the Corps?”

  “Semper Fi.”

  Noah studied him for a moment. “You’re not going to try to talk me out of it?”

  “It’s not my place. Besides, son, if you’ve signed those papers, you’re government property now. Like you said, it’s done.”

  Noah said, relaxing a little, “It’s what I want. Those women—and I’m not saying anything against them—they can’t understand that. “

  Dominic nodded.

  He gave an uncomfortable shrug. “You know I didn’t come from much. But my great grandpa was a hero in World War II, and I guess ever since I found that out, it’s made me think a little different about myself.” He darted a quick glance toward Dominic. “Maybe I’d like my kids to think different about themselves someday, too.”

  He was silent for a moment. “So I studied on it, and the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t see myself going to some fancy college and hanging out in art museums and when it was done, then what? All that money, when nobody around here has any to spare, and when it’s done, you’ve got nothing. The only reason those colleges even wanted me was because I had a good story. You know, orphaned and uneducated and all that. It didn’t seem like any of it had anything to do with me, or who I wanted to be.

  “And then last summer, when I worked in Washington at Derrick’s gallery, it all started to make a little more sense to me. The people that came in there, they weren’t the kind of people I wanted to be, or even hang out with. I mean it was fun and all, and I learned a lot, but mostly what I learned was that the world was so much bigger than I ever thought it was. And there were important things to do in it I never thought about before.”

  Dominic just listened.

  “And then I met this solider over Christmas, and we talked a lot. I guess that kind of stayed in my mind. But I knew how much my mom wanted me to go to college, and it’s hard to disappoint somebody you …” He shrugged uncomfortably. “You know, care about. But when the recruiter came to school on Career Day a couple of months back, I took home the papers and studied them and got on the computer and studied more, then I went in to talk to them. It just felt right.” He straightened his shoulders. “I’m sorry I hurt her. But I’m not sorry I signed up.”

  Dominic was thoughtful for a moment. “That might be something she’d like to hear.”

  Noah was silent for a long time. And then he glanced at Dominic. “You were really in the Marines?”

  Dominic gave a rueful smile and pushed away from the wall. “I was. And let me tell you, boy, you sure picked a hell of a way to see the world.” He started to leave the barn and then looked back. “Act like a man,” he told him.

  In a moment, Noah nodded.

  ~*~

  Sunset. Lindsay stood alone at the edge of the vineyard, watching the breeze ruffle the pale undersides of the leaves, tasting the evening that crept into the air. A crow cawed overhead, and the shadows on the hillside lay still and purple. Dominic came up beside her and just stood there silently for a while, his hands clasped loosely behind his back.

  He said, gazing over the vineyard, “I didn’t talk him out of it. I wouldn’t have if I could have. The boy wants to serve his country. It’s his right. And if you want to hate me for that, it’s your right.”

  Her makeup was worn off, her hair had come down from its pins, and her eyes were tired of crying. She still wore the ruffled blouse and flared skirt from the suit that she’d worn to graduation, but she was barefoot. The breeze caught her skirt and tangled it briefly around her legs. She reached into her pocket and took out a wrinkled paper.

  “Noah’s personal essay for college,” she said, looking down at it. “The one he never would let me read. He gave it to me this afternoon. We had a talk.” The smile that ghosted her lips was fleeting and filled with an achingly tender combination of pride and sorrow. “Do you know he got into every college he applied to?”

  Dominic said, “They’ll still want him in three years.”

  She glanced at him, then back at the paper. “The essay is all about us and this place and the life we’ve built here …” She smiled quietly to herself and the glance she gave him was on the border of being shy. “About me. I guess he was embarrassed to show it to me. Boys can be silly like that.”
/>   “Yes,” agreed Dominic gently, “they can.”

  She looked back down at the paper. “The last part is, ‘I don’t know where my life will take me. I don’t guess anyone does. But the one thing I do know is that, because of them, I’ll always be able to find my way home.’”

  She folded the paper, smiling sadly, and tucked it back into her pocket. They stood together for a long time, not touching, just standing and watching the vines.

  Then she said, “I don’t hate you.”

  He looked down at her. “I’m glad.”

  She turned to him. “I think I love you.”

  He said, softly, “I’m glad.”

  She went into his arms, and they held each other quietly until the evening leached all the color from the sky.

  ~*~

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Home Front

  They planted their garden; they tended the vines; they picked berries. They fed the chickens and cleaned the coop and weeded the flower beds. They painted the steps and washed windows and polished floors. They focused on the things that didn’t change, because they didn’t want to look too closely at how much everything was about to change. And how soon.

  Ladybug Farm entered a state of barely controlled chaos. Lori moved in for the summer while Mark attended orientation sessions for his new job and searched for apartments in San Francisco. Bridal magazines and color swatches were scattered all over the house. Noah was constantly in and out, slamming screen doors and thundering up and down the stairs as he tried to balance a dozen good-byes to people all over the county with the last minute details of packing up four years of his life and preparing to move on to his new one. Lindsay pretended to be on board, or at least supportive, but she spent far too much time on the USMC website, viciously clicking the mouse and muttering things like, “Savages!” and “Brutes!” Sometimes when she was in the midst of one of these self-tormenting tirades, Dominic would come looking for her on the pretense of needing help tying up vines or running hoses or aerating soil. He would put a shovel in her hand and dirt would fly, and before long, she was calm again and almost rational.

  Bridget was in the midst of a jam-making frenzy, because if one thing was certain it was that time and fresh berries wait for no one. Ida Mae grumbled about the mess the two young people were making all over the house and spent more than the usual amount of time making cookies, which disappeared as fast as she served them. And Cici’s battle with the roofers veered into the red zone.

  “What I’m trying to tell you, Ms. Burke,” explained Leroy L. Squire, head roofer, with an exaggerated show of patience, “is that they don’t make these kind of tiles anymore and even if they did, you’re not going to be able to get an exact color match for a roof that’s over a hundred years old.”

  “And what I’m trying to tell you,” said Cici through gritted teeth, “is that there is absolutely no excuse for a simple patch job to take five—count them, five—months to complete. We’ve lived through the banging and the sawing and the mess long enough. I’m not going to have tarps and piles of shingles all over the yard on the day of my daughter’s wedding!”

  He inquired politely, “When is she getting married?”

  “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that I want a roof on my house. And I want it now!”

  He nodded sagely. “Well, now, as to that, the fact is, we’ve just about got her done. It wouldn’t have taken near as long if we hadn’t had to search all over the country for them matching tiles. Now, if you’d just let me go ahead and put tin on the porch all the way around, you’d have plenty of tiles left over to fix the main roof and it’d look real nice, too. You see that all the time on these old houses, nice tin roofs like that.”

  “You are not an architect!” she practically screamed at him. “You don’t get to make design decisions. This is a historic house. This is a Jackson …” She struggled to remember the name Mark’s father had rolled off so readily. “Jason, I mean, Jason Anderson original structure, a part of Virginia history, and you’re not going to just throw a tin roof on it because it’s convenient, is that clear?”

  He said, gazing over her head at the problem in question. “Yes’m, I guess so. But I sure don’t know what you expect me to do about it.”

  Cici drew a long, calming breath. “I’ll tell you what you can do,” she said. “You can pack up your tools and you can leave.”

  He looked surprised. “But don’t you want us to—”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t.” She turned and marched up the steps. When she reached the porch, she looked back to where he still stood, agape, and repeated sternly, “Tools. Leave.”

  She stormed into the parlor and started scrambling through the highboy where Bridget kept odd notes, receipts, and business cards that hadn’t yet been filed away in the office. Ida Mae was running a feather duster over the grand piano and looked up when Cici started unloading papers.

  “What’re you tearing up those drawers for?” she asked. “You lose a nail file?”

  “I’m looking for that card Paul gave us. I know Bridget put it in here.”

  “Well, you’re making a mess that I sure hope you plan on cleaning up.”

  “Wait a minute, here it is.” She sank back in triumph, the business card in her hand. “Lincoln Crebbs, General Contractor. “

  Ida Mae gave a snort of derision. “I hope you ain’t planning on calling that crook.”

  “He’s not a crook. He’s Paul and Derrick’s general contractor. And if he can’t take the time out from building their Taj Mahal to come over and look at our roof, I’ll bet he knows somebody who can.”

  Ida Mae grunted. “Yeah, well, good luck finding him. They already tried to put him in jail twice. Now I hear the police are hunting him down again for taking some poor woman’s money and leaving her with a house falling down.” She peered at Cici scornfully. “Don’t y’all ever listen to the radio?”

  Cici looked at the card in her hand, an awful feeling creeping over her. She repeated carefully, “Lincoln Crebbs.”

  “I heard you the first time.”

  Cici demanded, “Ida Mae, are you sure?”

  “’Course I’m sure. Why would I make something like that up?”

  “Umm,” Cici murmured as she hurried out of the room, “I think I’d better call Paul.”

  ~*~

  Paul and Derrick had settled into the routine of the B&B with surprising ease, despite the fact—or perhaps because of the fact—that their hostess was rarely in evidence, and when she was around, she talked far too much and far too long about her precious grand-triplets. She made an excellent breakfast, however, which they often enjoyed on the garden patio, safely away from the flight path of the hummingbirds, and she always put out a platter of warm cookies in the afternoon, with wine and cheese in the baroque-velvet parlor, promptly at five every evening. In between times, she graciously offered them the use of her kitchen, and they were amazed by how much better a luncheon salad tasted when the lettuce was plucked from the garden twenty steps away, or how exquisite a simple supper of broiled fish and potatoes could be when the ingredients had been purchased fresh from a local market only hours previously. Paul speculated that he might take up gourmet cooking in his retirement. Derrick observed that gardening might not be nearly as pedestrian a hobby as he once imagined.

  They had, of course, been devastated by Noah’s announcement and had spent hours going back and forth about the matter—with Lindsay, with Cici, Bridget, and with each other. Finally, they agreed that, as tragic as the whole thing was, there was nothing they could do except to be there for Lindsay. And surprisingly, perhaps, their outrage seemed to have a steadying effect on Lindsay, as every time she talked to them she seemed to grow a little closer to acceptance. It was as though as long as she knew someone still was upset about it, she didn’t have to be.

  But with all that was going on at Ladybug Farm, they tried not to insert themselves into the confusion any more than necessary. They took Lori
to lunch in Staunton but were dismayed when she spotted a white muslin beach shift in a store window that she claimed was exactly the kind of wedding dress she had in mind. They found a local organic wine and brought it to dinner at Ladybug Farm, and everyone seemed happy that it wasn’t very good. Paul and Derrick were happy that the ladies always kept a bottle of drinkable wine in reserve for emergencies.

  They wandered the countryside during the day, visiting the antique shops, photographing the scenery, taking in the local color. In the afternoons, they enjoyed socializing with the other guests, sharing a fine local cheese they found or introducing a neophyte to a sophisticated new wine. Sometimes they would dabble around in the kitchen, experimenting with flavors, and come up with a platter of hors d’oeuvres to serve in the garden at cocktail hour. They met all kinds of interesting people, which, being the social sort themselves, was essential to their well-being. Because Miss Amelia was always going out of her way to accommodate them and often worked far into the night trying to keep up with the needs of her guests and the needs of her daughter’s new babies, they didn’t mind helping her out now and again by filling the bird feeders or taking reservations when she was away from her office. In fact, they rather enjoyed it.

  As a gift to their hostess, Derrick bought proper art lights and arranged the little gallery in the foyer in a much more well-merchandized way. He even picked up a couple of primitive paintings that he liked from a local artist, added a zero to the price he paid for them, and hung them for sale beside Noah’s and Lindsay’s work. A young couple from Atlanta bought one of the primitives three days after he hung it, and that very weekend a woman who was redecorating her country house bought Lindsay’s painting of the fox. Amelia was beside herself with excitement and wanted to share the profit with Derrick; Derrick just smiled and waved her away. “My dear,” he assured her, “this is what I do.” And he discreetly added another zero to the price of Lindsay’s flower basket painting.