Secondary Colors (2 page)

the area closest to the observer

Welcome to Aurora—the carved wood sign receives me—a place as familiar to me as my own name. Similar to my name, if heard enough, it becomes foreign. That’s what coming home after months away is like to me. It’s the same, but it’s not. It’s an illusion of home. I suppose that’s the way it’s supposed to be, otherwise none of us would ever leave.

We drive through the center of town, my eyes gulping in everything outside the window, passing at the pace you’d expect from a small town. I’ve missed it, the greenery, the charm of Main Street, the lake.

Tucked away from the world, Aurora sits dormant on the edge of the lake region, in the shadows of the White Mountains to the north. It’s the kind of town you wouldn’t know was there unless you’ve already been, hidden far beyond the stretches of Highway 93.

Back after my final days at UC Berkeley, with a degree in art history, I’m ready for my last summer living at home before moving to New York in the fall, ‘officially’ starting my life. Thanks to my favorite professor, I lined up an interview at the end of summer for a paid internship at a well-known and respected gallery.

“Are you happy to be home, Evie?” Taylor, mind reader, asks.

I watch her drive, her left leg bent on the seat, her hair blowing around like strawberry champagne streamers. She’s focusing on the road and singing along to some obscure folksy song. It’s pretty, but it’s putting my brain to sleep.

“Yeah, I am.” I grab her iPod, which houses some of my stuff, too, scrolling to the best band since the invention of music, The Strokes. “I wish it had worked out like I’d planned it. I didn’t want to pester you to give me a ride from the airport.”

She glances at me from the corner of her soulful brown eyes, a smirk tweaking her face.

“You know I’m happy to do it. What kind of person would I be if I left—you—stranded?” The words tumble out of her mouth, sputtering like a car dying on the side of the road. “Sorry,” she apologizes, her face scrunching.

Always reliable, she’s certainly earned the title of best friend and sister by choice. We’ve been through every milestone, birthday, relationship, and broken heart together. Where many friendships crumble, ours remains sturdy. We never let boys or pettiness get in the middle. When we were accepted to the same university, we decided not to let distance do it either. Though, I’d say we both really blossomed, growing apart enough to understand ourselves as individuals.

“It’s my own fault.” My head slumps back against the headrest. “I should expect this from her by now.”

“Your mom’s—” her voice trails off. She’s trying to find the right way to call my mom flighty.

“A flake,” I offer up.

“A go-with-the-flow free-spirit,” she corrects me.

“Code for flakey.”

She waves her hand in the air as if she’s swatting away the thought.

“And you couldn’t love her more.”

“Yeah, I do,” I grumble mockingly. Even though my mother’s the type to be forgetful, I never lacked for anything, except maybe a father. She always gave me double of everything, love, support, and encouragement, to make up for his absence in my life.

“Did you get the apartment packed up, alright?”

“Yeah,” I answer, rubbing the stiffness from my neck. “The movers are on their way and we’ll store everything until I move.”

Tay moved back home two weeks ago while I stayed behind to wait out the end of the lease and final inspection on our place.

We turn onto our private road, an infinite dirt driveway cutting through a thick birch, maple, and spruce-fir forest. Everything within a few miles belongs to my family, the lake included, and has for two hundred years.

“There’s a get-together planned for Saturday, boys, beer, boating, bonfire, all the important b’s.”

“Sounds stellar,” I comment on the verge of a yawn, stretching my legs and arms as best as the cramped confines of her hybrid Jetta lets me. After a six-hour flight stuck between two extremely chatty women and a long ride home, my butt is legally dead.

I plan to take a soak since I’m not expecting any major celebration of my arrival, maybe a quiet dinner, brought in from the diner most likely, because Mom’s pretty useless in the kitchen.

The car breaks from the claustrophobic limits of the forest into the wide-openness of our four acre lot. Most of it is bare of flowers and bushes. It was like growing up in a giant park, with green grass and well-spaced trees as old as the dirt they grow from. Trees rule eighty percent of the estate, sectioning off each home circling the lake by lush leafy forest.

We pass the horse paddock, the stables, the barn, and the carriage house before the lovely old Victorian at the edge of the water comes into view. Without the car coming to a full stop, I jump out and grab my bag from the backseat. I walk over to the driver’s side and lean into the window, giving Tay a one-armed squeeze.

“I’ll pick you up Saturday morning. We’re spending the whole day on the lake.”

“See you then.”

Drawn out, she says, “Bye,” then drives into the horizon.

I wave her off.

She honks the horn twice.

Allowing the blood to travel back into my legs and butt cheeks, I admire the house, the wrap-around porch, the lacey fringe, the turret. It’s a life-size dollhouse. Its beauty has faded over the years, though.

Once I’ve given it an appraising glance, I realize the dingy white paint has been given a fresh coat. In fact, the whole property appears improved. The blue hydrangea bushes around the front and sides seem healthier and hardier this year. The garden seems better tended and weeded. Our old carriage house appears to have been repainted and repaired as well.

Being such a timeworn property, it requires regular maintenance. My mother isn’t Martha Stewart, the nonconformist she is. She craves the arts and spiritual enlightenment, spending her time reading, sculpting, or practicing yoga and meditation. Housekeeping was never one of her top priorities.

I can’t wait to see her. I’ve actually missed her flighty craziness. I must be crazy, too.

I lug my over-sized duffle toward the porch, stopping shy of the first step when a rustling comes from my right. Bursting from a lavender bush, a black Labrador runs at me full force. I drop my bag and suck in a startled breath, readying myself for impact, but it skids to a stop at my feet.

“Well, who are you,” I stretch around to check its sex, “boy?” I ask with a high, sweet voice.

He pants happily when I bend down to scratch him behind the ear, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth.

“Max,” a male voice calls, “come here.”

Glimpsing over, I spot a man standing amongst the lavender, maybe a handful of years older than myself, his sun-stained skin sweaty and covered in earth.
The handyman I presume.
Max hesitates before toddling to his side and plopping his butt in the dirt.

Cleaning his hands with a rag from his back pocket, the stranger studies me with brooding ochre eyes—the fiery hue of maple leaves on the cusp of a New England autumn—nestled under thick, expressive eyebrows. There’s a beautiful sadness about him, a profound hurt suppressed inside.

We study each other interestedly. Neither one making an attempt to introduce ourselves. I’m always reserved when I first meet someone. It’s who I am. I’ve also never encountered anyone who watches me the way he is right now.

I continue up the porch and into the house, dumping my crap in the entryway. I chance an unobstructed view of the unaware gardener through the glass of the door once I’m safely behind it. When his eyes stumble on mine again, I step away.

I brush him off and take in the missed familiarity of home. Even the inside seems revitalized. The once loose wood details are nailed back into place, fresh paint coats the walls, the old planked floor newly polished.

Realizing my mom hasn’t ambushed me with kisses and hugs yet, I call out, “I’m home!”

She comes skipping down the stairs, a hand on the wood balustrade. When her bare feet hit the floor, her arms widen to welcome me into her embrace.

“Evie baby!” she cries as I jump into her arms and hug her to me tightly, inhaling her comforting maternal scent. It sounds childish, but it’s my security blanket. “Let me see you.” She holds me away from her, giving me a onceover then smashing me back into her chest. “You look wonderful,” she compliments me, rocking us back and forth.

“I missed you, Mama.”

“Oh, baby, I missed you, too.” Taking our time for a proper hello, we withdraw unhurriedly and move into the living room off the foyer. She keeps an arm about my shoulder. “Did you have a good flight?”

“I’m alive, so I’d say yes.”

We take a seat on the couch, facing the garden where the strange man raises a hoe clutched in his hands into the air and brings it down with force into the fertile soil. His muscles contract as they work the tilling tool into the ground, cultivating it for new vegetation, his gray shirt straining from the exertion.

I shift my attention off the distraction working in my front yard to Meredith beside me.

“Who’s tall, dark, and filthy in the garden?”

“Oh,” she glances out the window at him, “Holt.”

“Who
is
Holt?”

“Didn’t I tell you about him already?” Her flightiness rears its flighty head.

“Nope, can’t say you did.”

“Ah, well,” she mumbles, trying to work out where she should start. I know the vacancy in her expression well. “He’s the new groundskeeper.”

“You’re paying someone to work around the house?”

“Not exactly.”

“He isn’t doing it for free.”

“For room and board.”

She didn’t.

“Where is he rooming and boarding
exactly
?”

“I was in town trying to buy things for the house a few months ago. It’s been in need of work. I guess I came off as confused because he came to my rescue and helped me figure out what I needed. We got to talking. I found out he didn’t have a place to stay while he was in town. He seemed kind. And there was a lot falling apart around here, and he’s good with man work, so we made a deal.”

She did.

“You’re letting a drifter live in our home? How can you do that? What if he’s a serial killer?”

“You’re being dramatic.” She laughs softly and brushes strands of dark hair out of my face, sticking them behind my ear.

She’s always been like this. She does things most people would never consider doing. For example, letting a man she doesn’t know live in her home in the middle of nowhere.

“I’m being realistic. You have no idea who this guy is.”

“Evie, he’s been a real Godsend.” When she realizes I’m staring at her like she’s looney, she tries to justify her decision. “He’s not a danger. He’s—sad, maybe a little antisocial. He has a lonely aura about him. Whatever it was, I felt for the poor boy. I really did.”

Right, because that’s so much better.

“You’re too trusting.”

“You’re too untrusting, especially of men. It’s an unfortunate symptom of your father.”

Here we go again.

“Why do you always bring him into things? This has nothing to do with Dad.”

“Oh, baby.” She rests her hand over my cheek and pets the apple with her thumb. “Of course it does. It’s his leaving that makes you suspicious of men and unable to connect with others easily. You sabotage yourself.”

“Please, spare me your psychology babble, Mom.”

“Not to mention your inability to communicate about what he did to you. You’re detached.”

She always manages to bring him up. After traveling all day, I’m drained, physically and mentally. I’ll wave the white flag for now.

“Is there anything else I should know before it’s sprung on me?” I ask, praying there isn’t.

“I may or may not have given him your art studio in the attic.”

My shoulders sag.

“You didn’t.”

“Oh, it’s getting late.” She glances over my head to the clock, making note of the time. “I need to start dinner.”