by Gail Sattler
When she’d gone out for lunch after church with Stan, she’d insisted on paying for her own burger and fries, and that had cut deeply into her grocery budget for the rest of the week.
She’d snuck a peek at the amount when Stan paid the bill for their extravagant dinner. The way she’d so carefully budgeted her groceries, she could have eaten for an entire week with what he spent on their one meal.
Still, she couldn’t begrudge him that. He worked hard for his money, and he deserved to spend it however he wanted. It had been an honor that he’d spent it on her. However, if he had any idea of how she struggled, he would insist on paying for everything until she was back on her feet. That was just the kind of friend he was. It would be kind, but it would also be another loan she couldn’t afford to pay back until she got a handle on repaying Uncle Henry. She could never accept money from Stan. He would refuse repayment, no matter what she did to try to persuade him. Taking money from Stan would start a downward spiral that began with kindness and ended their friendship. She couldn’t live without Stan’s friendship.
When he placed the heaping plate of spaghetti in front of her, she almost asked if she could have a doggie bag. Because she was so hungry, and because it had been so long since she’d eaten, if she ate even half of what he set before her, she’d be sick.
“I can’t eat all this. It’s too much.”
“Then eat what you feel you can handle. But I’m warning you, it better be enough to sustain you. Now eat.”
He sat down in front of her to lead a short and very sweet prayer of thanks for the food and that she was fine, and he watched her eat until the microwave dinged with his portion.
“You always tell me when you’re on a diet, but you didn’t say anything this time. If you ask me, you don’t need to go on a diet.”
Her fork froze in midair. “Diet?”
“I’ve seen that you’ve been losing weight lately. I hope you’re not planning on losing any more. Your pants don’t fit right anymore.”
Her cheeks started to burn. “You’ve been watching the way my pants fit?”
He broke out into a playful grin. “Yeah. Us guys do that.”
“What do you mean, ‘us guys’? What other guys?”
The grin dropped. “No other guys. I’m just saying.”
She wanted to ask him what it was, exactly, that he was just saying, but the concept that Stan paid such close attention to her figure made her too nervous.
“I liked the way you ate when we went out last night. We’ll have to do that again.”
“The way I ate?”
The grin returned. “Yeah. You, uh, looked like you were really enjoying it.”
The lobster was great, but way beyond her budget. Especially now. “Yes. I enjoyed it. It was a very pleasant surprise.”
“Why don’t I take you someplace else next weekend, and we can see what other surprises you might like?”
“I guess so.” Something about his eyes made Amber feel there was some hidden meaning behind his question, but then he grinned, and she lost all ability to think. When Stan could do that just by smiling at her, it was time to change the subject. “I saw that Andy gave you the new envelope. I think we should see what it says.”
Stan shifted in the chair and pulled the crumpled envelope out of his pocket. He made short work of tearing it open, and slid the new note to her across the table. Again, like most of the others, it was constructed from words cut out from the Gazette.
Since it would be upside down for Stan, sitting opposite from her, Amber read it out loud.
In Winter we skate on a rink.
In Spring we have f lowers of pink.
Summer is hot.
Autumn is not.
And gnorman is gone in a blink.
Stan stared at the note in the center of the table. “Is it my imagination, or are they getting worse every time?”
“It’s not your imagination.”
“The clues are getting worse too. This doesn’t make any sense.”
Amber looked up at Stan as he read the note for himself, realizing he was reading upside down. Not that it would have made any more sense right side up. It was still just as meaningless.
She reached and turned it around for him.
His brows knotted as he read it again. “If we followed the time line of this one, that means Gnorman is going to stay in Andy’s yard until fall, then disappear. We know that’s not likely to happen.”
“I agree. It can’t mean that. Maybe it just means as sure as the seasons are predictable in their pattern, the same with Gnorman disappearing.”
“Which doesn’t help us one bit.”
She should have read the note again, but instead, Amber watched Stan while he concentrated on the alleged clue.
Usually she could figure out what he was thinking, but lately, she couldn’t. Her thoughts returned to their earlier conversation. She didn’t know what to make of his comment about watching the way her clothes fit. Contrary to his stated opinion, she did need to lose weight. She was always five to ten pounds more than what the books said she should weigh, but she’d never been able to lose it. She wasn’t trying to lose weight now, only trying to make her food budget stretch until the garden club committee paid her for at least some of the flamingos.
Nor could she comprehend what Stan meant when he said he liked the way she ate. While she’d thoroughly enjoyed the meal, from the appetizers to the last bite of lobster she’d swiped out from under him, for most of the meal she’d put on an exaggerated show of how good everything was, closing her eyes and puckering her lips, hamming it up because of the disguise. Acting a role. Simply having fun.
Even Stan had acted different than usual. Instead of the usual good ol’ Stan, he really had acted like they were on a date, which was ridiculous, but so much fun.
The whole night had been fun until she thought he was going to kiss her good night.
Stan pressed his index finger to the note and raised his head. “I don’t think this thing about winter is a valid clue. I don’t think this could mean any private rinks people make in their yards, so there’s only one real noteworthy rink in town, at the community center, and it’s long melted.”
“Mayor Woody says he wants to put it in the budget to build an indoor rink in Bloomfield.”
Stan snorted. “Ain’t gonna happen. There aren’t enough people here to use it often enough to make it pay for itself. Now back to this note. It skirts summer and fall, but it does mention flowers, which for a garden club is really important. But to just say flowers in general, for a garden club, is pretty nonspecific.”
Amber tapped one finger to her lips. “But it is specific about the flowers being pink. Except that everyone has pink flowers somewhere in their garden.”
“Except you.” His cheeks tightened, like he was trying not to laugh.
Amber looked around for something to smack him with, but he pushed the chair back and laughed anyway when she reached behind her, pulled the dishtowel from the handle on the oven door, swung it at him, and missed.
“I have some flowers. They just haven’t bloomed yet. When they do, maybe some of them will be pink.”
“I don’t want to ask why you don’t know what color flowers you have in your garden. Everyone else knows what they’ve planted. My mother even has a specific color scheme every year. Except for the roses. But all the annuals are always one color. This year they’re all . . .” his voice trailed off.
“. . . pink . . .” they said in unison.
For the first time they figured out where Gnorman was going to be, before he got there.
Now to figure out what to do about it.
Chapter Eighteen
Amber always enjoyed going to Stan’s parents’ house. They were still together, still happily ma
rried, and seeing the two of them together, in the same house they’d owned since they were married, next door to the house where she’d grown up, always made her feel grounded.
Still, a huge degree of sadness always weighted her down when she visited, even though she hadn’t lived there for seven years. She doubted she’d ever get over the loss. After she graduated from college her parents went to visit her mother’s family when her grandmother’s heath began to fail. Once there, they found they enjoyed the difference from tiny town to mega-metropolis and made the move permanent. Amber had been happy for them, even though she missed them terribly. The worst day of her life was when she got the call from her mother’s brother, Uncle Henry, telling her that her parents had been killed in an automobile accident.
If it hadn’t been for Stan and his parents, she didn’t know how she could have made it through that.
Even still, nearly every time she came to visit Kathy and Frank, Kathy pointed out the old garden shed that the new owners never did tear down. Her mother had marked both her and Stan’s height on it every year until they both stopped growing. As a child, it had been fun. As a teen, it got rather embarrassing.
Just like always, Kathy gave her a big hug when she walked in the door, which Amber often thought odd. Kathy didn’t hug her son when they visited, but she hugged her ex-neighbor.
“What brings you two out here? Did you find your little gnome?”
Like everyone else, the first thing people asked about was the gnome. So far, no one had asked about the trophy, which really was the most important of the two missing items. Every time someone asked, she had to assume that everyone thought that Gnorman and the trophy naturally went along as a set. The garden club members never really saw one without the other. When the trophy wasn’t in someone’s garden strapped to Gnorman’s hand, it was in a case at Pamela’s home. As president, she kept all the club’s archives. When Gnorman wasn’t proudly displaying the trophy, he lived in Amber’s backyard. Until he started running around town, of course.
Amber smiled politely. “We haven’t found him yet, but Stan and I think we’re close to finding out who’s been doing this. I wonder if you could do us a favor?”
“Anything.”
Stan stepped forward and held out the box he’d been carrying. “Amber made a special garden ornament shaped like a squirrel and some flowers, and she’s hoping to attract butterflies with it. We’re wondering if we can keep it in your yard for a few days to test it out.”
Amber quickly turned away so Kathy wouldn’t see her face. At first she had wanted to attract butterflies, but her creation hadn’t looked like it did now. She had a live Butterfly Bush in a planter, with the squirrel on the side reaching into the bush while he climbed the planter. Stan had switched the real plant with a jumble of wires and ceramic flowers meant not to adorn, but to mask. In the conglomeration of fake flowers, he’d hidden a small surveillance camera that transmitted to the receiver that was now hidden under the mulch in the planter, which used to be filled with potting soil.
At first they had planned to tell his mother what they were doing, but at the same time they both realized how much Kathy liked to talk. Amber had learned at a young age not to trust her neighbor with a secret because Kathy never could keep one. The quickest way to spread news around Bloomfield wasn’t to take out an ad in the Gazette, it was to tell Kathy.
They were pretty sure the Gnome Gnapper was a member of the garden club. If they told Kathy about the hidden camera, the Gnapper would know before sunset. Then, all their hard work would be for naught.
If Kathy didn’t know about the hidden camera, all they had to do was wait.
Kathy made a strange face at the sculpture, but Frank walked up to it and touched the ceramic flowers and poked at the wire supports. “Why do you think this would attract butterflies? They don’t look like real flowers, and they have no scent. I don’t think it’s going to work.”
Amber gritted her teeth. She’d told Stan that no one would believe it. She didn’t know much about flowers, but she did know about butterflies. However, Stan convinced her that only real wires would support the camera and keep it aimed where they needed it, and they needed a spot to hide the receiver if they couldn’t keep it in the house. The arrangement had become uglier and uglier as Stan worked to get it how he needed it. Now if anyone besides his parents saw it, she would faint again, only this time from embarrassment.
“I’m hoping the color will do it. If it doesn’t work, I’m going to change the colors until I get it just right.”
This time Kathy took a poke at one of the flowers, then touched the ceramic squirrel. “I don’t know about this.”
Stan gave his mother a huge, wide-eyed smile, something no mother could say no to. “Please? This is really important to us.”
Both his mother and father quirked an eyebrow at the same time, almost like they’d practiced, but Amber knew they hadn’t. Most of the time they didn’t have a clue that they both did the same thing at the same time, often finishing each other’s sentences. Amber had to wonder if it was a casualty of living together for so many decades.
“Us?” his mother quipped.
“Yes. You know how I’m always trying to help Amber with her garden. We think butterflies would make her garden happier. Also, if this works, she can make more so other people can put them in their gardens too.”
Amber tried not to choke. They’d rehearsed what they were going to say, but Stan was going way over the top with it. Especially since she’d seen better artwork at the garden club’s summer preschool craft program. There was a reason Stan was a mechanic.
Frank looked down at the project. “I don’t know. It really won’t match Kathy’s color scheme this year.”
“It’s really important to us.” Despite his father’s protests, Stan carried the statue into the backyard. Amber and Kathy watched while Frank disagreed with everywhere Stan tried to place it. She knew Stan was trying to aim the camera to take in the biggest scope of where the Gnapper could leave Gnorman, but she had a feeling that Frank wanted to get it as far out of sight as possible.
Rather than watch the father/son debacle, Amber followed Kathy back into the house to help make some tea.
“Please tell me that Stan put that arrangement together, and not you.”
Amber sighed. She couldn’t tell Kathy the complete truth, or they would never get to the bottom of the problem. “Let’s just say that I started it, and Stan finished it.”
“I don’t understand. He’s got much better taste than that. Look at his house. I have to admit I was surprised, but it proves he’s got a sense of style.”
Amber nibbled her lower lip. She didn’t want to say too much, but she couldn’t lie. “I might have helped him decorate his house.”
“Of course you did. We knew you helped him, but we never knew how much.” Kathy’s hands froze on the teapot. “Just exactly how much of his house did you decorate?”
“I think I’d rather not say.” Too late Amber realized that she’d said more with what she didn’t say, than what she did.
A silence hung while Kathy digested her son’s lack of artistic ability and failure to coordinate colors. Amber had helped him choose his furniture, and she’d coordinated the colors, both for his house and garden. The only thing she didn’t do was dress him. It didn’t take a lot of coordination to match jeans and a T-shirt and put coveralls on top.
Although, when they went to church on Sundays, and then on their non-date last weekend, he sure did look good, and he’d done that on his own.
Either he wasn’t as bad as he led her to believe, or he’d asked for help from the sales staff. Or perhaps he bought his outfits from the sale flyers and bought exactly the outfit pictured so that his good clothes were put together by the professionals who dressed the models for the photo shoot.
Next time he
went shopping, Amber planned to ask to see the flyer.
Kathy tilted her head and studied her. “What are you smiling about?”
Amber felt her cheeks warm up. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I was thinking about something else. I think the kettle is boiling.”
Kathy poured Frank’s tea and added just the right amount of milk for Frank, while Amber poured Stan’s tea, adding a spoon and a half of sugar, just the way he liked it.
Frank and Stan appeared to have finally agreed on the best location for the hidden camera, although Stan didn’t appear to be quite satisfied.
They made small talk and caught up on the events of the past week, and as soon as the cups were empty, Amber and Stan left.
After being in Andy’s yard for three days, Gnorman’s time there was nearing an end. When Gnorman found his next new temporary home, they would be ready for him.
Chapter Nineteen
Stan rubbed his hands together in anticipation of what they would find.
Sure enough, Gnorman appeared in his parents’ yard, as anticipated.
Normally Amber enjoyed visiting Stan’s parents, but this time it had almost killed her to find some excuse to make them stay inside the house while Stan ran into the yard to switch the memory card in the receiver. Now that they were back at Stan’s house, she could hardly wait to find out who had been taunting them with Gnorman’s escapes.
“I can’t believe your mother didn’t notice when Gnorman appeared in the backyard. She said she was home for most of the day and didn’t hear or see a thing.”
Stan pushed the card into the slot. “It doesn’t surprise me that Dad noticed Gnorman first.”
“I know. I thought it was funny when he said how badly the hippie costume clashed with your mother’s pink color-of-the-year scheme.”
Stan couldn’t stop his snicker. “It was funnier watching my mother. I really thought she was going to lose it. She said it had to be some kind of hint that they were getting old. But really, if you do the math, my parents would only have been kids in the hippie generation. It’s hard to believe that the activists of that generation are now retired grandparents.”
