A Year on Ladybug Farm #1 (4 page)

“Dollywood,” added Lindsay.

“Elvis,” supplied Cici.

And they all smiled.

So that was how it began, as a game to comfort a grieving friend on a dark winter day, just one of those things people fantasize about but don’t really intend ever to do. But it was brought out more and more often during the coming months. Cici would run across a listing that would send them off to the Internet for a virtual tour: plenty of room for Bridget’s herb garden here, but the kitchen was too small; this one had a swimming pool but they hated the bedrooms; that one was big enough but had no garden space. Then they started spending Sunday afternoons riding around, looking at properties; not every Sunday, but occasionally. It was something to do, a way to help Bridget through a difficult time, nothing more. Or at least that’s what they told themselves. But gradually, without any of them really being aware of it, they started to take the idea almost seriously. Somehow the game traversed the line in their minds between fantasy and reality and became something very close to a plan.

And until that Sunday afternoon in the Shenandoah Valley, none of them even realized what had happened.

 

Back at the Holiday Inn in Staunton, Virginia, an hour’s drive from Blackwell Farm, they piled together on the king-size bed in Cici’s room in their crop-legged PJs and robes, watching the photos Lindsay had taken that afternoon scroll across the screen of her laptop. They drank white wine from water glasses and shared a box of Lancaster County chocolates while Cici, wearing oversize reading glasses, scribbled absently on a legal pad, and Bridget, having recently discovered the joys of wireless Internet access, surfed the Web for information about their surroundings.

Lindsay said, without taking her eyes off the slide show on the computer screen, “Amish country. What’s next for us? Red hats and early-bird dinner specials?”

“Maybe for you two.” This from Cici, who spoke without looking up from her figures. “I was planning to be a cancan girl on the Moulin Rouge.”

“I like the early-bird specials,” Bridget said.

“We could go to the Moulin Rouge,” Lindsay said. “We used to have great vacations. Ireland, the Grand Caymans, remember that cruise we took to Antigua?”

“I’ve been to the Moulin Rouge,” Cici said. “You’d hate it.”

“Oh yeah?” Both Bridget and Lindsay looked at her with interest. “When?”

“In 1996,” Cici said. “That two-week tour we took of France? You two went on the excursion to Giverny, I went to the Moulin Rouge. It was a rat hole.”

Lindsay groaned. “Now I know we’re getting old. Not only is the best part of our lives behind us, we can’t even remember it.”

“Speak for yourself, Missy.” Bridget tossed a foil-wrapped chocolate at her, which Lindsay caught and began to unwrap.

“It’s true, you know,” she said. “Women were never meant to live past menopause, evolution-wise speaking. Once a woman’s childbearing years are over, her usefulness to the species is over. So if society treats us like castoffs, that’s why.”

“I resent that,” Bridget said.

“So do I,” Lindsay answered, “but it’s true.”

“Then tell me this,” Cici said. She appeared to be making some kind of graph on the legal pad, with long straight lines and lots of shading. “Who’s going to be raising all those change-of-life babies if all the women past childbearing age are dead?”

“Poor planning on the part of the evolutionary process.”

“Not to mention on the part of the change-of-life mothers.”

“And who do you suppose is going to be taking care of all the old men if all the old women are gone?”

“Oh they’d be eaten by a mastodon long before then.” Lindsay sighed. “In a way, life was a lot simpler before we all started living so long.”

Then, noticing the brief wanness that crossed Bridget’s face, Lindsay squeezed her foot and smiled apologetically. Bridget shook her head. “Actually, I was just thinking you’re right. You know that old saying—Lord, let me run out before my money does? It’s hard.”

Cici was looking at the slide show. “I think that was my favorite part of the house,” she said. “That stained glass window on the landing.”

“The marble fireplace in the bedroom,” Lindsay said, as the next photograph came up. “I’ve always wanted a fireplace in my bedroom. ”

“Well, you could have your choice in this house. They all have them.”

Bridget turned back to her own laptop. “It says here ladybugs are a sign of good luck. They used to be called “The Beetles of Our Lady” because in the Middle Ages the farmers believed they came in answer to a prayer to the Virgin Mary to save their crops from being destroyed by insects. That’s how they got the name ladybug.”

Lindsay said, tossing the foil wrapper from a chocolate toward the waste basket, “I’m eligible for retirement this year.”

Cici raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to take it?”

“I’m fifty-one years old,” she replied morosely. “Who retires at fifty-one?”

Cici said, “Shut up with your fifty-one, already. Talk to me when you’re fifty-four.”

Bridget raised her hand. “Fifty-eight.”

“My hair is falling out,” she complained.

“You’ve got gorgeous hair.”

“Everything I wear makes me look fat.”

“You’re a size six for Pete’s sake!”

“I’m growing hair on my chin.”

Cici adjusted her glasses and peered closely at Lindsay. “So you are.”

“I hate my life.”

“Welcome to the club. So. Are you going to retire?”

“God, I’m tempted.” She stuffed another chocolate into her mouth, and chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “But I can’t live on half pay. I can barely live on full pay. And what would I do? It would be like starting all over again.”

“I’d take it in a heartbeat,” Cici said.

“Are you kidding? You have a great job! You set your own hours, you get to walk around in other people’s houses all day, and every now and then you rake in a big fat commission.”

Cici just laughed.

“Well, what would you do if you didn’t sell houses?”

“Anything,” replied Cici. “This is a stupid job. There’s no point to it. I mean, there was a point to it when Lori was at home. It’s the kind of thing you can do and still raise a child, and you’re right—sometimes you can make a pretty good living. But with Lori gone . . .” Cici shrugged.

Cici’s daughter Lori was a sophomore at UCLA whose phone calls were growing almost as infrequent as her trips home, and whose tuition and living expenses were being completely funded by her father. The fact that her father, a Hollywood entertainment attorney whose glamorous lifestyle and celebrity clients only added to his charm, suddenly wanted to be her best friend no doubt contributed to Lori’s infrequent communications with her mother, not to mention her mediocre grades. But if Cici was hurt by this she worked hard at not showing it . . . except, of course, for the occasions upon which she referred to her daughter affectionately as “the ungrateful little brat.”

“It’s just a stupid, tiresome job. When you go home at the end of the day you don’t have anything to show for it. You haven’t made anything, you haven’t changed anything, you haven’t mattered. Something with my hands, that’s what I’d do. Something I could
see
.”

The people who knew Cici well—a short list, which was undisputably topped by Lindsay and Bridget—understood that she was a walking contradiction. With her cell phone pressed to one ear while she e-mailed with her BlackBerry and struck through clauses on a contract with her free hand, she was the quintessential twenty-first-century woman: She could build a high-rise in a Chanel suit and Jimmy Choos, give lessons in multitasking, and freeze the heart of the coldest competitor with a single unblinking gaze over the rim of her ebony-framed reading glasses.

But that persona was like a bodysuit that she pulled on at eight in the morning and peeled out of at five in the afternoon, when she would like as not pick up a sledgehammer and a hard hat and spend her happiest hours working alongside the construction crew on her latest house remodeling project. She mowed her own lawn—hatless, and in baggy shorts and running shoes, which was no doubt how she had gotten most of her freckles—she shingled her own roof, she built a gazebo in her own backyard while the neighborhood husbands, having been repeatedly and cheerfully turned down on their offers of help, gathered around with bottles of beer to watch and shake their heads in wonder.

If there was a petition to be drawn up, a plan to be presented, or a dispute to be resolved, Cici was your go-to girl. She coached soccer, headed the Arts and Music Society, and was chairwoman of the Library Fund Drive for ten years in a row. She was on boards and committees. She brought in guest speakers and organized charity balls. She was Cici, and she got things done.

But over the past few years it had become impossible not to notice that the Chanel suit came out less often, and the hard hat more. She joined fewer committees and took more vacations. More days than not, her BlackBerry never left her briefcase. She said that no woman past the age of fifty should be required to multitask. The truth was, she just wasn’t interested anymore. And neither Bridget nor Lindsay was really surprised to hear her say she was bored with her job.

“Oh my goodness, girls, listen to this!” Bridget sat up straighter, tapping a key on her computer as she read from the screen. “Blackwell Farm, Blue Valley, Virginia. Once listed on the
Virginia register of historic places
. . .” She glanced up to see their reactions, and then went on, “Blackwell Farm was once known for its regional cheeses, fruit jams, and
wines
. Its small runs and high quality made Blackwell Farm wines a favorite with collectors and restaurateurs alike in the sixties.” She looked up. “I wonder why Maggie didn’t tell us that?”

“She probably didn’t know.” Cici replied. “I’ll tell you something else she didn’t know. The tiles in the kitchen were hand-painted originals. The marble floor in the sunroom was real Cararra. And there’s a difference between
glass
doorknobs and crystal ones, and every interior doorknob in the place is cut crystal. That house is worth a fortune.”

“They’re
asking
a fortune.”

“Not really. A few cosmetic repairs, some updates, and a smart investor could double her money inside a year. And remember, there are no heirs. No one is motivated to fight for the asking price.”

The other two stared at her.

“It’s an eight thousand square foot brick house,” she explained patiently, “with antique heart pine floors, eight fireplaces, imported fixtures, a soapstone and brick kitchen
with
state-of-the-art appliances and imported tile work, a wine cellar, sixteen acres of valley with outrageous mountain views, outbuildings, orchards, a guesthouse—”

“Dairy,” corrected Bridget.

“Studio,” corrected Lindsay.

“It’s not a bad investment,” Cici said. “Some hotshot Washington consultant or software mogul wouldn’t blink at paying three, four million for a place like that.”

Two pairs of eyebrows shot up. “But it’s falling apart!”

“Well, there’s that,” Cici admitted. “But if it were fixed up . . .”

“I don’t think it would take that much to fix it up,” Lindsay said. “After all, the old guy lived there until—what did Maggie say?—a year ago? That means it’s at least fit for human habitation.”

“That kitchen,” Bridget said wistfully. “You’d feel like Emeril Lagasse cooking in a kitchen like that.”

“You’d have to hire a team of tractor drivers just to clean up the yard,” Lindsay said.

“High school boys,” insisted Cici.

“But wouldn’t it be something to bring that orchard back to life? And look, right here.” Lindsay hit the Pause button on her keyboard and a photograph of tangled spiky bushes overgrown in grass froze on the screen. “Those are raspberry bushes. And that whole hill behind them is covered in blueberries.”

“Raspberries are $6.99 a pound,” Bridget said. “Wouldn’t it be something just to walk out in the orchard and pick your own?”

“Or open it to the public and let
them
pick their own—for $4.99 a pound,” Cici said.

Bridget nodded. “Pick-your-own farms can make six figures a year.”

“Where did you hear that?” Lindsay demanded.

“On the Internet.”

“She’s right,” Cici said. “With the organic produce/natural foods craze, small farms are actually becoming profitable again.”

Lindsay looked from one to the other. “You’re not seriously suggesting that we finance the restoration of a hundred-year-old house with a farm stand?”

Nobody said anything for a moment. Then Cici answered carefully, “Actually, I don’t think anyone is seriously suggesting anything. But as long as we’re fantasizing . . .”

She turned the legal pad around so that they could see the chart she had made and the numbers written there. “Okay. Just talking, here. This is what I think we can get the place for.” She pointed with her pencil to the top number.

“And this is what I think I can get for each of our houses.” She pointed again, one by one. “Mine, Bridget’s, Lindsay’s. The total . . .” The bottom number made Bridget gasp.

“Now, the rest of this is just speculation and estimate. We know it’s going to need central heat, and upgrades to the bathrooms. Restoration of the outbuildings, including the dairy, I’m figuring at fifty dollars a square foot. It might be less depending on the cost of labor out here. Cleaning up the gardens and orchards, maybe two hundred hours at minimum wage. Of course we’d have to do an awful lot of the cosmetic work ourselves. But if you add up all the numbers, and subtract the outgoing from the incoming . . .” She drew a line under the final figure.

Two pairs of eyes went big. “Oh my God,” Bridget said. “We can afford this.”