Ms. Miller and the Midas Man (10 page)

She leaned over to scratch an itch on her knobby little knee and, Gus noted, left no new paint on it.

“Good idea. What are you painting?” she asked, opening a drawer and removing her kitchen scissors. She took one of the small jelly jars she kept for her nephews to drink from out of the cupboard. “That’s a very pretty red.”

“I know. I picked it myself. Daddy said I could cuz it’s my new bedroom and I can paint it any color I want. Except black. And not the ceiling. He already painted that. It’s white. Oh-oh,” she said when they heard a pathetic whining noise at the door. “There’s Bert. He wants to come in too.”

“Ah—no,” she said hastily as Chloe started for the door. “Let me just show you how to cut these flowers and then you can go back out and play with him. Okay?”

As simply as she could, she explained to the attentive Chloe that the roots needed to be left in the ground. “And if you forget to bring scissors with you, you can hold the stem here and here and break it off, see? And they’ll still live awhile in water.”

“I’m not allowed to play with scissors like yours. They’re too pointy and I’ll poke my eye out. I have some that I can use, but they don’t even cut paper very good.”

“Oh. Well. I guess you’ll have to break the flowers off then, and be sure to leave the roots in the ground. It’s easy to do it that way too.”

“Are you going to play more music? Can I listen? I can hear it at my house, but I can hear it better here.”

“What about your daddy? Does he know you’re here?”

As if on cue, Bert let loose a bloodcurdling howl that had Gus’s knees buckling, and at the same time they heard Scott calling for Chloe.

They met at the back door.

“Chloe,” he said, an exaggerated frown clouding his handsome and usually jovial expression. “What have I told you about leaving the yard without permission?”

“I can’t,” she said, unabashed and unafraid of her father’s scowling countenance. “But if you open the gate, then it’s just one big backyard instead of two little ones,” she added brightly.

“No,” he said, shaking his head and entering Gus’s kitchen to get closer to his child. “The gate stays locked unless you have permission to open it. The other yard belongs to Ms. Miller. You have to have permission from Ms. Miller to go into her yard and you have to have permission from me to leave ours. Understand?”

“Permission. Permission. Permission. All I ever do is get permission.”

He put his hands on his knees and bent low, in to her face.

“I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is, kid. Everybody has rules they have to live by, remember? Some are to keep us safe. Some are just to help us remember to be polite to other people. We all have them, and you have yours, and you know there are consequences for breaking them.”

Chloe had a most wonderful frown. Her brows drew together in waves and looked like a little black caterpillar slinking across her forehead. Gus loved it. To see it pointed fearlessly at its adult version was very amusing. A soft laugh escaped her and both frowns turned her way.

“Do you have so many rules, too, Ms. Miller?” the girl asked.

“Oh yes,” she said, nodding vigorously. “Different rules. Big-people, adult rules. But yes, lots of rules.”

“Can I have a drink?” she asked. Scotty opened his mouth to tell her it was rude to ask for things at someone else’s house, but Gus stopped him with a hand.

“Sure. Juice okay?”

“What kind? I like apple best.”

“What luck. I have apple.”

When she moved away from the counter she’d been leaning against, Scotty saw the jelly-jar vase full of daisies, stood up straight to look out the kitchen window, then met her gaze with a doomed expression.

Gus would cherish that look till the day she died. He was mortified.

“Chloe,” he said, his voice filled with a dissatisfaction that caused an instantaneous knee-jerk reaction in Gus. “You didn’t pick Ms. Miller’s flowers, did you?”

“She sure did. Aren’t they pretty?” Gus said, cutting in before Chloe could understand that she’d done something wrong—despite her good intentions. “She got a couple roots with them this time, but we went over that and she’ll be more careful next time. Right, Chloe?”

“Right,” she said, smiling as she took the juice and swallowed it down in three or four big gulps.

Scotty was watching her, his eyes keen and searching, but he said nothing. Instead he waited for Chloe to finish her drink, reminded her to say thank you, and told her it was time to go home.

“But I wanna listen to the music,” she said.

“You can listen to it from our house.”

Hmmm...When Scott Hammond put on his father hat he was like a totally different person. Gus was fascinated. If
that man,
Scott Hammond, had had a foot in her door—not to mention his entire body—he’d have been combing the rugs for every feeble excuse he could find to stay and pester her. Principal Scott Hammond would have done the same thing in a smooth, relaxed businesslike fashion. But Daddy Scott Hammond seemed almost eager to leave, she noticed, watching him herd Chloe toward the door.

“Tell you what, Chloe,” she said when it was becoming clear that a revolt was imminent. “I’ll give you time to get home and find a comfortable chair or maybe a bed to lay down on, I’ll open my windows wide, and I’ll play a piece just for you. How’s that?”

“A piece of what?” she asked, unwilling to consider the proposal without all the information.

“A piece of music. I know a song about a girl who painted her bedroom red, but she was much, much younger than you. She was five.”

“I’m five!”

“Are you? I would have sworn you were...six, maybe seven.”

“No. I’m five.”

“Well, the girl in the song is five too. Would you like me to play it for you?”

“Yes,” she said, eager. “But don’t play a piece of it. Play the whole thing. Okay?”

“Of course. And you know, this is the kind of music that doesn’t have words. You have to close your eyes and relax and picture the girl in your head. Think you can do that?”

“Sure, I can. I can do lots of things in my head. Come on, Daddy.”

Daddy didn’t run off right away. He couldn’t take his eyes off Gus, who looked up and was immediately tangled in his web of enchantment and desire. He hadn’t forgotten about their kiss either. She could see it in his eyes—the heat, the passion, the memory of it. His lower lip slid between his teeth as if he could taste her there, feel her.

Her heart was pounding high in her throat, blood swooshed in her ears; she felt a little dizzy and her fingers were numb. She knew she was breathing—hyperventilating really. Her mouth was dry.

“Should I, um, wait? Long enough for you to clean her up?” A soft, nervous laugh. “She’s a mess.”

Silently he shook his head, then he finally said, “Three more hours and it’ll be bath time. An hour after that is bedtime. I’ll be out on my front porch by nine.”

It wasn’t as if she could respond with a “that’s nice” or a “goody for you,” because he wasn’t merely imparting the information, he was inviting her to join him, daring her to meet him there, tempting her to be with him.

He was gone before she could give him a specific answer, one way or the other. But with time to think, she settled on the other. Already she was more involved with Scott Hammond than she wanted to be. He was like a brain fungus. Anything more would be cruel and self-destructive. No, the best thing she could possibly do for both of them would be to avoid him like...like unscooped poop on a sidewalk. She should walk around him, jump over him, cross to the other side of the street if she had to.

Of course, if when eight forty-five rolls around and a person’s left wrist is aching from too much practicing that day and there’s nothing on television and she’s already read the same page of her book three times without comprehension and she’s longing for a breath of fresh, warm summer-evening air—well, what harm could come from stepping out on her own front porch for a moment or two?

She left the light off and was careful not to let the screen door slam. Rather than sit in one of the freshly painted wicker chairs with their bright kerchief pillows, where she might be easily seen, she lowered herself down on the top step and leaned against the wrought-iron railing.

The first time she saw her house, it had been a quiet summer evening much like this one. As often as she thought about it, she’d never been too sure if she’d fallen in love with the neighborhood or the house first. Both were such throwbacks to a time that was, in her mind, innocent and peaceful. A time when it was okay simply to be, without being
someone.
A time when rolling in the grass was encouraged, when twilight was magic and not a menace, when your neighborhood was as big as the world would ever get.

Had her life ever been that uncomplicated? Or were the memories of her early childhood really just dreams? When had roller skating on the sidewalk in front of the house been outlawed? When had violin practice taken precedence over swinging from the trees?

She loved this neighborhood. She loved that the men mowed the lawns on Saturday morning. She loved watching the children on their bikes and the impromptu ball games in the street. She loved her role as fussy old Ms. Miller, whose job it was to fetch their balls and skateboards from her flower beds and appear put out. She loved listening to the mothers calling suppertime, and the quiet when everyone was safe and sound in their beds.

She loved the idea that her neighborhood was only one of billions just like it, that people all over the world were doing the same insanely routine and infinitely normal things she could remember doing before her life slipped between the jaws of a vise. Mankind had gone on without her, but it hadn’t changed so much that she couldn’t find a place to fit in again. Nor had she been squeezed and molded into something it couldn’t embrace again, come to think of it.

Strange, that hadn’t occurred to her before—that maybe her music hadn’t changed her as much as she’d thought, that living differently didn’t necessarily make you different inside.

Truth be told, she hadn’t really done much thinking lately, just reacting. Everything seemed to happen so fast. The pain. The surgery. The looks. The pity. It all seemed like part of the swirling blue water in the toilet bowl, that disappeared along with her career in a matter of seconds. Then there was Tylerville and the children, and only now did her life feel calm enough for thought. For replanning, rebuilding...

Nearby, a screen door bumped closed softly. She cringed and scrunched herself a whole size smaller.

What was she doing? Reacting again. Cowering instinctively in the face of change.

Obviously she’d wanted to be there, wanted Scott Hammond to know she’d met his challenge, that she wasn’t afraid of him and that she wanted to be with him. Knowing he was on his front porch waiting for her had her blood sizzling with excitement, her nerves jittering with anticipation. She wanted him, she realized with an exhausted sigh. She did. Had, all along.

She lowered her head to her hands and rocked it slowly back and forth. She couldn’t fight him and herself.

The sound of his footsteps in the gravel drive had her jumping up. She did the Indecision Shuffle on the top step. Hide? Go inside? Stay?

He yelped when she sprang up before him at the bottom of her front steps.

“You scared me,” he said, his hands automatically reaching out to her.

“Sorry.” She shied away from his touch. It made pins and needles in her feet and fingertips.

“It’s okay,” he said with a soft laugh, moving his hands to his chest for lack of a better place to put them. “I didn’t think...I thought...” He started to laugh.

She wanted to laugh, too, but was afraid it would come out sounding a bit hysterical.

“Hi,” he said, starting over.

“Hi.”

“I’d invite you to walk but I want to be able to hear Chloe. How about a swing?”

A swing?

“Oh. On your porch...Sure.”

“She’s a pretty good sleeper normally,” he said, groping in the dark for her. They were between streetlights and visibility was poor. He was afraid he’d walk into her, knock her down. “But it’s still a new house and a strange town with different night noises.”

“I understand.”

He used her voice to pinpoint her and finally just reached out and took her arm. She startled.

“I’d have left the porch light on but...bugs, you know.”

“Oh, me too,” she said self-consciously, acutely aware of his light grasp. “I mean, that’s why I left mine off. The bugs. Too bad the moon isn’t full.”

The gravel crunched loud under their feet as they both realized a full moon would have been
very
romantic, and while romance was certainly in the air, the most significant emotion on their plate at the moment was an unmanageable awkwardness.

“Careful,” he said. “Chloe’s bike is here somewhere.”

“I saw the two of you earlier,” she said, picking her steps painstakingly. “You’ll be taking those training wheels off soon, she’s almost got it.”

“Maybe. She and her mother live in a condo, so she doesn’t get much chance to practice. And she forgets between visits with me.”

“Well, they say that once you learn, you never forget how.” She felt a slight tug on her arm and followed his lead to the porch, rattling on, “Liddy can still ride a bike. Before Todd came along, she and Alan used to take the other two boys for long rides in those little seats? On the back of the bikes? They had little helmets for them and everything.”

“Did you learn to ride?”

“No time,” she said, walking up the steps beside him. “I had to practice.”

He suspected there were many childhood activities she’d missed out on and that a listing of them would depress them both. He led her across the porch and offered her the swing, but didn’t sit down next to her.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Your flowers this afternoon? We had a little talk about picking other people’s flowers, Chloe and I. I’m sorry I didn’t say something to her earlier. I didn’t anticipate that she’d—”

“Oh. I wish you hadn’t.” She had to move. She couldn’t just sit there while he stood looking down at her. “I mean, I’m glad you did, but I wish you hadn’t. She...Her intentions were good.”