Larkspur (5 page)

When we got back to the grounds of the lodge it was still only half-past seven. We
experimented with one of the canoes. I grew up near the Finger Lakes in upstate New York, so I'd
done a lot of canoeing in summer camp. I instructed the great negotiator, and we paddled along
the western shore. The water was so clear we could see bottom--rocks and little speckled fish and
an occasional strand of waterweed in sharp focus. I had no idea how deep the water was.

We headed for the dock when we saw Janey Huff standing on it, waving at us.

"Hi! Miguel says the coffee's ready," she called as we slid across the last glassy yards.
"You two are up early."

"Normal business hours."

She helped pull the canoe alongside the dock and tied up for us as we clambered out.
"Want to go wind-surfing?"

"There's no wind." Jay retrieved the paddles.

"You could get the feel of it though." Her smile included me, too. "I'm a fanatic. It's fun
around six at night when the sea-breeze comes up. Otherwise this isn't the place."

"We'll try it," I decided. Why not?

We had coffee and a wind-surfing lecture in the lounge. Jay finagled a cup of herb tea.
About eight thirty the others started to come down, Denise first in a flowered pajama outfit and
twenty pounds of assorted rings. She looked heavy-eyed and drank two cups of black coffee
before she was capable of articulate speech.

"Somebody was playing a radio this morning. At dawn."

"Not guilty," I replied. "We didn't bring a radio. Against our religion."

She pouted as if she weren't sure whether I was teasing or not. I decided not to
tease.

"I listened to the weather report about half an hour ago," Janey confessed.

Not dawn.

Denise touched her forehead in an infinitely graceful gesture that indicated, what, pain?
anguish?
Weltschmertz
? "I'm a martyr to insomnia, darling. Could you use one of those
little earplugs tomorrow?"

Janey flushed. "Okay. Sorry."

It was clear that Denise was about to treat us to a detailed account of her nocturnal
thrashings. Fortunately Lydia bounced in, full of sparkle, and forestalled her. Lydia was wearing
a droopy skirt of mauve homespun and an off-white hand-crocheted top that showed her firm
arms. A chunky art major necklace hung over the crochet work, and her earrings looked like
medicine bundles. There were feathers in them. Surprisingly enough she did not look
ridiculous.

"Happy Fourth!" She beamed at us all impartially. "Janey darling, was that your radio at
dawn? So inconsiderate, my dear. You know Dai likes to sleep in."

"It was not. Dawn." Janey spoke through clenched teeth.

Lydia poured herself a cup of coffee from the gleaming urn, fiddled with the sugar and
looked at the cream. "Too rich for my blood," she murmured and trotted off toward the kitchen in
search of milk.

I sipped at my own brew, luxuriating in the cream. The real thing, full of calories and
cholesterol. Lovely.

Janey drank hers black, and she was scowling into it.

Jay seated himself on the raised hearth. "Where do you keep your board?"

"It's still on the roof of my car." She sipped again. "I could use some help unloading
it."

"Sure."

"Now?"

"Okay." He set down his cup of stewed weeds. "Coming, Lark?"

"Not before breakfast."

Janey bounced to her feet, restored to good cheer. "See you later!" Jay trailed her
out.

I peered into my creamy coffee. Was I perhaps losing my marbles? Prudence suggested
that I go wrestle with bungee cords.

"Such a pleasant young man," said Denise. "For a policeman."

I gritted my teeth. "I saw Dennis yesterday. It's a big fire. He thought he'd be gone
through the weekend."

"Dear Dennis," she said vaguely.

"Morning," Bill Huff growled from the doorway. "Coffee?"

I pointed.

Denise and I watched as Bill made his way to the urn. He managed to fill a cup, but his
hands were shaking. He drank where he stood, wincing, and poured another cup.

"Where's Lydia?"

"Here I am, darling." Magical Lydia, just in time.

"I need juice."

"They're setting up the buffet."

"Go swipe me a glass of tomato juice. And see if Domingo has any Worcestershire
sauce. Gawd." He sank into the leathery couch and spilled coffee on his bright yellow golf slacks.
"Gawd. I'm too old for this business."

Lydia had disappeared. She returned almost at once with a juice glass garnished with
parsley and a slice of lemon. "There you are, darling. Just what the doctor ordered. No, don't rub
the coffee in." He was dabbing at his knee. "There, there. Lyddy will take care of it."

Oh, ick,
I thought. I hoped Jay and Janey would have no problems with the sail
board.

Bill regarded his wife with pitiful gratitude and drank his tomato juice. After that he
seemed to feel better--well enough, at any rate, to acknowledge my existence and Denise's.

We talked for awhile of the fire burning fifty miles east in the national forest. Bill was
up on the latest details. It was, he reported, a crown fire--that is the huge old-growth timber was
'crowning,' burning up crown and all. Ordinarily a quick brushfire was good for a conifer forest,
because it cleared out the underbrush and killed off some of the insects that preyed on the big
trees, but a crown fire benefited nothing and left only devastation behind.

Llewellyn, dapper and neatly outfitted in cream slacks and a matching polo shirt, entered
as Bill was describing the fire. They were soon off on reminiscences of the Big One, a fire both
had witnessed years before. There was something constrained in Bill's response to Llewellyn,
though. It puzzled me.

Jay and Janey came in before I could decide what was going on, and I forgot about it in
the general bonhomie inspired by an inspiring breakfast. Domingo had produced a delicious
frittata.

We had finished breakfast except for our last cups of coffee when Angharad appeared
with an invitation--ladies only--to view her garden.

At first I thought she was making a joke, but Lydia's immediate enthusiasm and Win
D'Angelo's protests at being excluded persuaded me otherwise. It seemed they were all
passionate gardeners, innocent of irony.

I knew Denise was an herbalist. Dennis was always bringing her cuttings and always
making excuses not to drink the teas and tisanes she brewed for him. I'd seen the Huffs' heroic
landscaping at a cocktail party they hosted in May, but I'd assumed they owed the profusion of
spring greenery to Greenthumb, the local firm of landscape gardeners. Not so. Lydia, it seemed,
propagated irises and had once manufactured her own line of herbal cosmetics. Winton
D'Angelo, though Angharad was firm in refusing to let him come, grew prize-winning roses.

Janey Huff looked as if she'd rather be out on the lake, but she got up obediently when
the older ladies rose to go. I had to follow suit. I like to look at people's gardens, and, since I
moved west, I've begun to learn how to identify the native plants. They're so different from the
deciduous growth of upstate New York I find them fascinating. Even back home, though, I never
tried to grow anything more complicated than a potted fern, and I hate displaying my ignorance.
All the same, I went with the ladies like a meek sheep.

We strode briskly along the path to the cabin, retracing my steps. Grisly Ted was
standing on the porch as we came up and grunted something that was probably meant as a
greeting. We did not dally to chat with him. The garden lay behind the house in a clearing
protected by a deer fence.

I had to admit the Peltz's display was impressive. Almost entirely annuals and biennials,
the flower garden was then in the first riot of summer color. Petunias, pinks, cosmos, daisies of
all heights and colors including the Shasta daisy, brilliant Mission Bell and California poppies,
sweet peas, larkspur, hollyhocks, and giant sunflowers--I recognized those. There were other
plants I didn't know. I decided to trust they were licit.

Angharad insisted that her husband was a trained botanist. She was merely his
handmaiden. I thought she protested too much. There was no further sign of Ted. Perhaps he was
brooding over seed catalogs.

Denise and Lydia spent a lot of time exclaiming about the herb garden. It did smell good
and all that basil would be nice for pesto, but the herbs themselves were rather ugly. The bees
seemed to like them.

I found the vegetables more satisfying than the herbs and flowers. So, according to
Angharad, did the rabbits. She was stern about bunnies. The Peltzes ate a lot of rabbit stew. The
lettuces and other salad veggies in Mrs. McGregor's garden were interplanted in raised beds, with
marigolds to keep down the insects. Everything seemed to be flourishing, though the green corn
wasn't very tall. I sneaked a pea-pod.

It was almost eleven by the time we escaped. On the way back to the lodge, Janey and I
led the pack. Jay and Win D'Angelo had gone rowing on the lake. Janey and I put on our
swimsuits and piled into a canoe.

An ancient swimming platform floated well out in the lake and the four of us spent an
hour or so swimming and sunning. The water was so frigid three feet below the surface it was
necessary to climb out every ten minutes to thaw. We splashed a lot and laughed a lot, and I got a
sunburn.

After lunch I called Ginger. She and Annie had everything under control. No, she didn't
need me, but if I didn't show up in the bookstore by three Saturday I was dead meat. She had sold
a
Collected Shakespeare
to somebody heading north to Ashland. Dennis had sorted out
his fire crews, the blaze was trailed, the crisis over, and he was taking her down to Lake Siskiyou
for the fireworks. I applauded and made promises. Then I went upstairs to anoint my rapidly
freckling shoulders.

I wound up napping.

Jay woke me when it was time to take the sail board out for a spin. He caught onto the
trick of keeping the mast erect right away. Janey had a wet-suit and bobbed in the water giving
directions. She said we were her star pupils. When the breeze picked up around six we had
several flutters across the waves, but my shoulders burned through the long-sleeved cotton shirt I
wore for protection, and by the time we came ashore my legs were half-frozen from the knees
down. Winton D'Angelo, who was forty-five if he was a day, had pooped out early.

Miguel and a small cross-looking man I took to be Domingo, the cook, were already
setting up a buffet table on the veranda when we came back to the lodge. Jay and I showered and
changed very fast.

With my height I look like a walking Christmas tree in frilly dresses, but I'm not dumb
enough to buy frilly dresses. I slipped into a turquoise linen sheath that enhanced the color of my
eyes and contrasted nicely with my black hair. I wore straw sandals (for no poet in creation
would I swelter in pantyhose with the temperature above ninety), heavy silver earrings, and a
wide Navajo bracelet, silver with a turquoise setting, that Jay had given me at Christmas as a
guilt-offering for refusing to fly back East with me. I touched up my eyelids with turquoise
shadow.

Jay pursed his lips and whistled when I presented myself for his inspection.
"Classy."

"You look good enough to eat yourself, James B."

He grinned. "Who needs dinner?"

Being civilized guests, we wended our way downstairs. Everybody but Janey was also
tricked out like a fashion ad. The food was, as promised, lucullan. Jay could even eat some of
it.

We ate early, around seven, and drank and talked and milled around the lawn, waiting
for darkness and fireworks. Ted Peltz was there, dressed almost like a human being and very
subdued. Someone had trimmed his whiskers. He had eaten everything in sight, but I think
Someone was also rationing his drinks. Maybe
he
was. Maybe he was not entirely
stupid.

At any rate he caused no direct crises though he sulked in a lawn chair on the edge of the
gathering. Angharad fetched things for him like a well-trained gun-dog.

Miguel set up the bar as the sun sank behind the hills to the west. Twilight lingered. I
wished for fireflies. Jay and Janey and I took our beers down to the boat dock and looked at the
fireworks set-up then drifted back across the lawn.

Llewellyn was sitting with Lydia and Bill in a nest of lawn chairs. He smiled at me, so I
pulled an extra chair up beside him. Bill sat on my right.

"Pleasant day?" Llewellyn was drinking Campari and soda. He toyed with the stem of
his glass.

"Fantastic. This place is paradise."

"I thought all you young people liked fast boats and hot music." Bill, in a grumbling
tease.

"Your daughter supplied the entertainment."

"Dear Janey," Lydia murmured from the other side of Llewellyn's chair. "She looks like
a seal in that wet-suit."

That was unkind. Janey was only a little bottom heavy. I took a sip of beer and didn't
comment.

Bill gave a snort of laughter. "Barks like a seal when you jaw at her, too, Lydia. Better
lay off." He sipped at his scotch. "She's a good kid."

Lydia sighed and rose. "I know, darling. I wish she didn't live so far away. We don't see
enough of her." Janey worked in a small town up north in the Columbia Gorge, the better to
wind-surf. And, I suspected, avoid her stepmother.

Lydia strolled over to the others and sat by Denise. I could see Janey edging away from
her.

"Tell me something, Lark."

I looked at Bill over the rim of my schooner.

"Your mother's name, Mary Wandworth Dailey..."

"I know." I resigned myself to answering the inevitable question. "It's too good to be
true, but it's her real name. She was Mary Wandworth, and she'd published a couple of poems by
the time she and Dad married, so she kept both names. It's just a coincidence that they make her
sound like Wordsworth and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow."