Go, Ivy, Go! (22 page)

DeeAnn and Mike hadn’t, but, surprisingly, Sandy had. “My friend Carla’s folks are trying to find a good place for her grandma’s sister to live, and I’m sure that’s a place they looked at. Carla went along and said it was really
gross
.
D
irty and smelled like week-old soup, and there was this big, heart-shaped
monstrosity
out front, all cracked and scabby looking, like some enormous creature had keeled over and
died
there.”

DeeAnn and Mike didn’t ask questions about why we were going to look at Heart of Home Hill, which was a relief because that meant we didn’t have to fudge and tell them Mac was thinking about writing a magazine article about the place. Although he
is
always looking for subjects for magazine articles, so it wouldn’t have been a real untruth anyway.

We had a fun evening visiting with them. Sandy showed me some of her teen-advice
columns from the newspaper. I got the bedroom I’d stayed in before, the one with the big old four-poster bed, braided rugs, and the beautiful watercolor of an empty cross that always gives me goosebumps. Mac got the bedroom farther down the hall. Next morning, after we all went to early church, the extra 7:30 service the church holds during summer months, I changed to the
outfit I’d decided on for today: loose, baggy top, elastic-waist pants, and shoes so sensible they could pass an IQ test.

***

I was familiar, from the time I’d lived with DeeAnn and Mike, with the route as far as Fayetteville, but I’d never been farther east into the Ozark Mountains. It was breathtaking country, wild and beautiful. The roads wound through deep ravines and around mountains heavily forested with oak and hickory, the trees on the highest ridges showing just a tinge of glorious fall colors to come. Creeks with waterfalls, a bridge over a river, a fish hatchery, some quaint small towns I wished we had time to stop and explore.

“Maybe we can come another time just for fun,” I suggested.

Mac had no comment, and I was reminded again that our relationship now had a cut-off date, the day when I remained on Madison Street and Mac didn’t. That gave me a pang, but I determinedly reminded myself that I should contact the insurance company again. I needed that money from the motorhome for a car. I’d have no transportation after Mac left.

We found the turnoff to Daniel Springs, and then the old brick buildings of the town itself. It looked as if it were trying to be touristy, with colorful paintings on store windows and banners across the street about a bluegrass festival. From the absence of traffic, the tourist appeal didn’t appear wildly successful, however. We didn’t see a Heart of Home Hill sign, or a cracked heart, and Mac finally had to ask someone for directions. I asked Mac if we could first stop at a station and fill the gas tank. Although what I really needed, of course, was the restroom for my makeover.

I took along my bag with items I’d borrowed from Tasha.

Chapter Nineteen

The restroom was clean but tiny, and I banged elbows and knees and even my chin as I squirmed into the items borrowed from Tasha. Afterward, the reflection in the small mirror showed my transformation wasn’t nearly as total as Tasha’s, but I looked less like me now. I hurried back to the pickup and slipped inside.

Mac gave me a look. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you’re in the wrong—” He broke off and peered closer. “
Ivy
?”

Hey, great! If it took Mac a second look to identify me, I’d surely fool any Braxtons skulking around Heart of Home Hill. Tasha’s wig covered my head, the hair longer and whiter than my own possum gray. A wide-brimmed purple hat flopped over my right eye, rose-tinted sunglasses with big purple frames hid the other eye, and padding inserted at various places changed my shape. Not exactly a flattering look, but I was going for disguise, not a fashion statement.

“I don’t want to take a chance on Drake Braxton recognizing me if we run into him again,” I explained.

Mac cast a surreptitious glance at my lumpy body. “Good job.”

So, following directions, we turned onto a paved but narrow road leading south out of town to . . . yes, indeedy, a hill.
A beautiful setting, actually. Grand old oak trees scattered on the grassy slope, a picturesque road winding up the hill, a Southern-plantation style building looming on top. It certainly didn’t look, as Sandy’s friend had labeled it,
gross.

A favorable first impression that deteriorated rapidly as we bumped across the pot-holed parking lot next to the building. Up close, the white paint was weathered and peeling like dead skin. The columns across the front retained some of their original grandeur, but various malignant looking additions to the sides and back of the building took away any semblance of elegance. The landscaping, overgrown and unkempt, might charitably be described as “natural.”

Definitely gross.

And there, just as Sandy had said, was the huge red heart looming out front. Probably not a great idea even when originally stuck out there, apparently to give some significance to the Heart of Home Hill name, and now, with paint faded and concrete cracked and scabby, almost macabre.

The parking lot held a few cars, employees perhaps, or maybe visitors on this Sunday afternoon. Out back, five people in wheelchairs occupied a concrete patio. It was not an animated group.

“This is Drake Braxton’s new business venture that keeps him so busy?” Mac asked doubtfully. “Why would he and that nephew with the plane fly down here for meetings?”

Good question. “It doesn’t look as if he could be getting rich off it.” I adjusted the brim of the hat lower on my eye. “So how are we doing this? You’re writing a magazine article, and I’m your assistant?”

Mac grabbed his camera and I, as assistant, dug out my notebook and pen, and we approached the front entrance. I put my foot carefully on the bottom step, partly because it was cracked and warped, partly because my padding had an unanticipated tendency to make a continental shift when I moved. I gave it a surreptitious adjustment. How did Tasha keep everything in place? She’d never mentioned this particular problem.

Inside, several people slumped on two saggy sofas watched a large-screen TV, and more people sat around two card tables. All but two were women. One woman suddenly reached across the table and snatched another woman’s cards with a screech of “Cheat!” The two women stood up, glared at each other, and then they sat down and the game went on. A carpet underfoot wasn’t threadbare, but it looked old enough to have known some Confederate boots. It could also, I decided as I peered closer, use a good cleaning.

Maybe Drake Braxton was making a tidy profit off this place by cutting corners on everything from maintenance to employees to meals? Although that didn’t explain his flying trips. There was definitely an old-soup scent, heavy on the cabbage. A door on the left opened to a small office where a middle-aged woman sat behind a desk looking at a computer screen. She appeared to be concentrating hard, and I thought that was a good sign until Mac muttered, “Facebook game,” about the sounds coming from the computer. She wasn’t so engrossed in the game that she missed our arrival, however. She stood up when we stepped through the doorway.

“Hello, may I help you?” She sounded pleasant enough. “Are you visiting one of our residents today?”

“No, we’re here to—” Mac paused as if recalculating how he wanted to present this magazine-article proposal so it wouldn’t sound as if he planned an exposé of the place. Which, after hearing a thud from somewhere beyond the group area, then another screech from the card players, I was beginning to think was what was needed.

The woman ignored the noise. She gave Mac a friendly smile, but her expression turned puzzled and a little wary when she looked at me. Was something wrong? I looked down and was horrified to see that something had shifted again. Now, where there should be only two bumps, there were definitely
four
. I hastily turned my back, pretended to look out the window, and shoved everything back into place.

The woman spoke to Mac. “You’re looking for a place for your mother, perhaps?”

I whipped around . . . oh,oh
,
another shift, which I covered with folded arms. I glared at her with my one usable eye. She thought I was Mac’s
mother
? I opened my mouth for an indignant objection, but I closed it when Mac smoothly took advantage of the situation and switched directions.

“Yes, Mother needs a new home. We were wondering about a tour. Would that be possible?”
      

“Yes, of course. I’m Linette Magnuson, and you are—?”

“I’m Oliver MacPherson and Mother is—” He paused as if undecided how to identify me. He hadn’t actually misstated his own name. Oliver is his middle name, although I’ve never known him to use it.

I had a middle name too, although I doubted Mac even knew it. A nice, ordinary one.“
Anne,” I said and left Mrs. Magnuson to supply whatever last name she thought appropriate.

I still wasn’t enamored with the idea of being Mother, but at least I didn’t have to take notes. I did a shoulder jiggle to get everything aligned, stuffed my notebook back in my purse and concentrated on Mother mode. I added a hint of limp as we left the office, which I thought was a nice touch until I realized it shifted my hip padding into an improbable pregnant look. I elbowed it back in place. How
did
Tasha manage this stuff? Mrs. Magnuson led us to an elevator tucked around behind the office, and Mac, ever the thoughtful “son,” helped me into it with a hand on my elbow and a sly bump of hip against mine. As the elevator creaked upward, Mrs. Magnuson went on at great length about what a wonderful place Heart of Home Hill was. Activities for the residents, nutritionally balanced meals, a wonderfully caring live-in nurse.

“Perhaps we could speak with her?” Mac suggested.

“Actually, today is a rare exception, and she isn’t here. She had a family emergency.”

“You’re the manager here?” I asked in my best old-mother squeak.
      

“Oh, no, I’m the office secretary. Mr. Braxton is our manager.”

She didn’t say anything about our meeting the manager, but I wiped my suddenly-damp hands on my padded thighs, half panicky that Drake Braxton would appear when the elevator door opened and target us with something more deadly than old soup.

“Mr. Braxton isn’t here today,” Mrs. Magnuson added. She smiled in a magnanimous way. “He works so hard that he does deserve an occasional day off.”

An absent nurse. An absent manager. Which left a woman playing Facebook games running the place while the residents fought it out in a card game. Hmm.

“Is that Arnold Braxton?” Mac asked, smoothly inventing a name on the spot rather than using Drake’s name.

“No, our Mr. Braxton is Dwayne.”

Dwayne Braxton, Beth’s father. That fit. She’d said he worked for Drake. Mrs. Magnuson expounded on his wonderful qualities as a manager while she unlocked a door to the left of the elevator. It was an unexpectedly pleasant room with a big window looking out on an expansive view of wooded hills and a cozy kitchen area tucked into one corner.

“For times when a resident wants a snack or light meal on her own,” Mrs. Magnuson said. “We value our residents’ needs, whether they want privacy or social interaction.” She opened a bathroom door. “We have showers only, no bathtubs. We’re very conscientious about the safety of our residents here.”

Are showers safer than tubs? I wasn’t sure. But probably cheaper.

There was also a desk, a twin-sized bed, a TV and a tiny closet.

“This is the room Mother would have?” Mac asked.

That question hadn’t occurred to me, but it was a shrewd one, because it made Mrs. Magnuson admit, “No, this room is already spoken for.” Smoothly she added, “The available room is being cleaned and renovated right now.”

But when we went back out to the hall just as a resident was coming out of her room, I got a peek inside it. Much different than the airy, nicely furnished room we’d just exited. Drab walls and a tiny window with a view of the peeling wall of one of those ugly additions, bed with a couple of bricks propping up one corner. What we’d just seen, I was reasonably certain, was a room reserved strictly for show purposes.

As we went back downstairs, Mrs. Magnuson and Mac discussed “Mother’s” needs as if “Mother” wasn’t present. I resisted an urge to kick some shins and stomp some toes. In the dining room, which Mac said he wanted to see, the old-soup scent was heavier than ever, but Mrs. Magnuson blithely ignored it and talked about the wonderful meals Heart of Home provided.

Beside a tablecloth with old stains, I asked, “What is that awful smell?”

Mrs. Magnuson patted my hand. “You smell something?” she said, with a look at Mac that sympathized with his having to deal with a mother who had smell hallucinations and undoubtedly other peculiarities as well.

But Mac unhelpfully said, “I smell it too.”
      

Mrs. Magnuson touched her chest and breathed deeply. “You know, now that you mention it, I do too. Perhaps an accident in the kitchen. I’ll check with them right away.”

I decided to take advantage of my position as the cantankerous mother who says whatever happens to come into her head. “What about the yard?” I asked. “Doesn’t anyone ever trim the bushes or paint anything?”

“We’re had a bit of a problem with the maintenance people this summer, so I must apologize that we do have a deferred maintenance situation at the moment.”

Hmm. I’ll have to remember that one. Sometimes my housework is in a “deferred maintenance” status.

Back at the office, Mac inquired about rates and Mrs. Magnuson gave him a price sheet. He asked about ownership, if some big corporation with far-off offices owned the Home, and was informed that this was a “family-owned enterprise.”

“The owners visit often and are as concerned and caring about all our residents as they are about older members of their own family,” she assured him.

“Well, we’ll keep Heart of Home in mind,” Mac said. “We do have some other places to look at. I want the best for Mother.”