A Year on Ladybug Farm #1 (10 page)

A hesitation, and Cici compressed her lips.

“About that . . .” Lori had the grace to sound abashed. “I might have to change the plans . . . maybe we can talk later?”

Cici set her teeth and began to count to ten.

“Mom? You there?”

She forced a smile that she hoped softened her voice, although it hurt every muscle in her face. “Sure, sweetie. I know how hectic college life is. You just let me know.”

“Thanks, Mom. I love you.”

“Love you, too, baby.”

Cici replaced the receiver with firm and careful deliberation. Bridget glanced up from her diligent search through the telephone directory in the hope that their telephone number might be listed there.

“Everything okay?”

“Five thousand four hundred and eighty-three,” Cici said without turning. “That’s how many lunch boxes I packed. Sixty-eight thousand, nine hundred and eight Flintstones vitamins, seven hundred fifty soccer practices, sixty-two crepe paper costumes . . .” She turned, and made a sweeping gesture toward the telephone before she stalked away. “The telephone,” she declared, “is yours.”

Bridget called Kevin at work. “You should have seen the place when we got here,” she reported happily. “The shingles were falling off, there was a dump truck load of fallen branches in the yard, and it took two days to get through the first layer of dust! Cici says we’re going to have to replace the wiring before we can install the central heat and air, and we haven’t even started on the barns and the landscaping. Sometimes we can get the news out of Roanoke, but mostly we don’t have any television reception and absolutely no Internet. It’s like going back in time!”

Kevin said seriously, “I’ve consulted with a couple of my colleagues here, and I think we have cause to challenge your agreement with Lindsay and Cici. In fact, I’m not at all sure your purchase contract was bulletproof, so it’s entirely possible that you all could get your money back if you want to.”

Bridget actually moved the receiver away from her ear and looked at it for a moment as though she did not recognize the voice on the other end. “Why would we want to do that?” she said.

“Obviously, you didn’t know what you were getting into when you offered on the house. I doubt if parts of it are even up to code, and—”

“Oh, Kevin, really, stop it. I love this place! How could anyone not love it? There’s enough here to keep me busy for the next decade at least! Why would I want to leave?”

On the other end of the line, Kevin sighed. “Well, Mom, all I can say is I hope you appreciate what good friends you have.”

She laughed. “Of course I do! I love them.” And then she frowned a little. “Why? What do you mean?”

“Just that there aren’t a lot of people in this world who would do what they did for someone who isn’t even related. I mean, they both had great jobs, friends, and lives back in Maryland. But they gave that all up.”

Bridget caught her underlip between her teeth and glanced around uneasily. “That was what they wanted to do. What we all wanted to do.”

The silence that followed made Bridget realize how chilly the spring morning was, and she shivered. “Sure, Mom,” Kevin said gently. “Whatever you say. Listen, I’ve got to be in court in half an hour. You let me know if you change your mind about that place, okay? I really think we can make a case.”

“Kevin, you don’t really think—”

“Seriously, Mom, I’ve got to go.”

“Okay, honey, sure. You take care now, you hear?”

“Bye, Mom.”

Bridget hung up the phone, but it was a long time before she felt as cheerful as she had been before she dialed his number.

Lindsay dialed two of her friends from school before she realized they were still working. She had used her accumulated leave to depart six weeks early, but her colleagues would be frantically readying their classes for the year-end placement tests this week. For a moment she felt a stab of nostalgia. The mountains of paperwork, the parent–teacher conferences, the unutterable smells coming from the cafeteria . . . no sane person would miss them. She supposed it had something to do with the way zoo animals would return to their cages even when the gates were left open, and prisoners would re-offend in order to return to the familiarity of their cells. For good or bad, the smell of chalk dust was all she had ever known.

She called her sister in Fort Lauderdale instead, which was a predictable mistake.

“So how is everything in rural wherever?” Edith wanted to know, sounding busy.

“I wish you could see it. This has got to be the most beautiful place in the world. Everything is so green, and in the morning, the way the fog settles just above the treetops . . . I can’t even describe it, it’s so pretty. We have raspberry bushes and blueberry bushes and strawberries already getting ripe. The rose garden is unbelievable, and—”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Edith interrupted. “Do you have Mother’s onyx brooch?”

Lindsay blinked. “What?”

“You know, the brooch she used to wear on her winter coat. It had diamond chips all around it. I know I saw it after the funeral, but I never did find it among her things.”

Lindsay said, “Mother died three years ago. Why are you asking me about this now?”

“I just thought in the move you might have found it.”

“How could I find it? I never had it.”

“Well, you know she always wanted me to have it. She must have said so a dozen times.”

“I never wanted it. If you can’t find it, it’s probably still on her winter coat.”

“Well, I can’t stay on the phone all day. I’ve got a bridge game, and Harold’s going to be home from golf any minute wanting something to eat. I’m glad you’re having a good time. Bye.”

Since that day of gorging on mass communications, none of them had used the telephone once. They still did not know their telephone number, though they promised themselves they would stop by the telephone company office to inquire the next time they were in town. And no one could remember why it had seemed so important that they have telephone service in the first place.

The days had a different kind of rhythm here. They rose early, but they were never in a hurry. They never lacked for something to do—as evidenced by Lindsay’s list, which took up more and more pages of the blue-lined legal tablet—but they never felt guilty for simply sitting and gazing at the mountains. The very texture of their lives was different. Accustomed to going from their air-conditioned homes to their air-conditioned cars to their air-conditioned workplaces, they now slept with their windows open to all the sounds and scents of the night, dined in the open air, and worked all day in the sun. Once they had been accustomed to staying up for the eleven o’clock news and being shocked into groggy wakefulness by the shrill blare of an alarm clock; now they awoke with the sun and were in bed, exhausted, by dark. They had been on Ladybug Farm little over a week, and the lives they once had lived seemed like someone else’s memories.

“Okay,” Lindsay said, turning over a page in the tablet. “Not bad for the first couple of days. The downstairs is completely unpacked, the living room window frames are scraped and painted, and the staircase is finished.”

They had spent the past two days on their hands and knees and, one enormous curved stair at a time, used steel wool and sandpaper to scrape away the layers of dark, dull wax. Washing away the residue with mineral spirits, they applied a fresh coat of wax to each of the twenty-four stairs and the landing, and then buffed each stair to a high sheen by hand. The results were spectacular, but the effort had taught them a valuable lesson about the physical toll an excess of ambition could take.

“I don’t suppose . . .” She looked at the other two tentatively. “Anyone is interested in tackling the living room floors?”

The expressions her friends returned was the only answer she needed. “Right,” she said quickly, making a strike on the pad. “We’ll come back to that one.”

“You know what we really need to do,” observed Cici, cradling her coffee cup in both hands as she leaned back in the cushioned wicker chair. “We need to take a weekend and go antiquing. I’ll bet there are some great places around here where we could pick up some things that would really suit this house.”

The other two nodded agreement. As the interior of the house slowly began to take shape they couldn’t help but be struck by the enormity of the decorating task that lay before them. Bridget’s grand piano went into the front bay window. Cici’s damask wing chairs were arranged before the fireplace and Lindsay’s grandmother’s Queen Anne table went beneath the stained glass window. An occasional table here, a mirror there, and it hadn’t taken long to realize that their meager possessions were dwarfed by the oversize rooms of the mansion.

“The landing really cries out for a grandfather clock,” observed Bridget with a sigh.

“Paintings on the walls,” Lindsay said. “That’s what we need.”

“That’s what we have a resident artist for,” Cici pointed out, and Lindsay grimaced.

“I mean real paintings,” she said. “You know, from the period. The house should tell a story.”

Before moving, they had agreed that, while their personal bedrooms could be decorated in any style they chose, the downstairs areas of the house should remain true to the period. That was one reason that the downstairs rooms were so sparsely furnished.

Bridget said, examining a chipped nail, “Remember when we used to have time to do things like antiquing?”

“Anyway,” admitted Cici reluctantly, “we shouldn’t get any more furniture until we refinish the floors. And before we do the floors, we really should paint.”

“But before we pick a paint color we should decide on draperies,” Bridget pointed out.

“I think I’ll start taking down the wallpaper in my bedroom today,” Lindsay said, reaching for another muffin.

“I’d love to get started painting the porch,” Cici said.

“That’s going to be a nightmare project.”

“I know. But it’s kind of like—my gift to the old place, you know? Like when a woman goes in for a little shot of Botox, just a little around the eyes and the frown lines, and she walks out feeling twenty years younger. It’s all in the attitude.”

They nodded in thoughtful agreement, sipping their coffee.

“I finished cleaning out the herb garden,” Bridget announced after a moment. “You can mark that off the list. We’ll have tarragon, basil, and dill by June. And today I’m going to clear a vegetable plot. I bought a dozen seed packets the day after we bought the house, and I’ve been waiting all these months to get them in the ground.” She stood. “I’m going to warm up my coffee. Lindsay, can I pop that in the microwave for you?”

“Oh, thanks.” Lindsay handed her the plate with her buttered muffin on it, and dutifully marked “herb garden” off the list. “I really should start working on that rose garden, too. What do you think about moving that statue from the side yard and placing it at the end of the path in the rose garden?”

Cici looked surprised. “There’s a path there?”

Lindsay nodded. “I think there used to be a bench or something at the end of it, but it must have rotted away. Gosh, I’d love to have a landscape design of how this place used to be.”

“Well, I’ll be glad to help you move the statue, but it’s going to take about a ton of concrete cleaner to make it look presentable again. And I thought the next thing on the list was getting the dairy cleaned out so you could move your art things in there.”

“There’s no rush on that. I don’t exactly know how I want to set it up, and it’s going to be awhile before I have time to paint.”

“That’s odd,” said Bridget, returning from the kitchen. “The microwave doesn’t work.” She set Lindsay’s plate in front of her, the butter on her muffin still unmelted. “Sorry, Lindsay.”

“I’ll check the fuse box,” Cici volunteered.

“Better her than me,” Bridget confided after she was gone. “That basement gives me the creeps.”

“It’s not so bad,” Lindsay murmured absently, turning another page. “I think the wine cellar is kind of quaint.”

Bridget said softly, after a moment, “Does it ever scare you, what we’ve done? I mean, it’s so . . . big.”

Lindsay looked up, and reached across the table to squeeze her friend’s fingers. “No,” she lied. “Never.”

Bridget returned a smile that recognized the bravado, and appreciated it. She sat back, sipping the lukewarm coffee. “You know what would really be spectacular? To get the reflecting pool cleaned out and the fountain running again.”

“I can’t imagine what that would cost.”

“Probably just a pool pump. I was flipping through the telephone book last night and saw there was a hardware store in town. I bet they have pumps.”

“Girls!” Cici’s voice, muffled as it came from the cellar stairs and through the open door. “Come down here! You’ve got to see this!”

“Oh God.” Bridget rushed to her feet, only half kidding. “She’s found a body.”

The two women hurried inside and, slippers clattering on the stairs, rushed into the dimly lit cellar.

“What is it?” Lindsay demanded.

“Are you okay?” Bridget insisted.

Cici gave an impatient shake of her head, holding the hem of her robe off the dusty floor as she led the way forward. “I fixed the fuse,” she told Bridget. “But that fuse box is the first thing we’re going to have to replace if we expect to have central heat and air. But look.” Turning a corner, she pushed open an arched, stained plank door. “This is what I wanted to show you. I never even realized it was here. I guess the movers must have found it when they were storing our stuff down here and forgot to close the door all the way. I only noticed it because of the daylight coming through.”

“Good heavens,” said Bridget.

“Well, will you look at that?” Lindsay entered the room slowly, gazing about.

Cici had flipped the switch that illuminated the overhead light fixture, revealing a small chamber with a painted iron bed, a dresser, and a nightstand. The interior light was not really necessary, though, because of the glass-paned door that opened to the exterior of the house. A set of steps, all but concealed by an overgrown boxwood, appeared to lead to the back garden.