The Blossom Sisters

by Fern Michaels

  Violet clapped her hands over her ears when she heard the first bang on the front door. Her sisters did the same. Outside, Wilson howled and barked, the sound loud and shrill enough to set the sisters’ teeth on edge.

  “My legs are cramping,” Iris grumbled.

  “Mine, too,” Violet added.

  “I know you’re in there, Granny, so open the door. Wilson needs a drink. I’m sorry! I really am. Please, open the door!”

  Winifred, the sisters’ basset hound, took that moment to waddle up to the door. She barked, a charming ladylike sound that pretty much said, Welcome.

  “Damned dog! Now for sure he knows we’re in here,” Violet hissed. “I really have to get up now, or I’m going to faint.”

  “If you’re going to faint, do it quietly,” Rose shot back.

  More banging and more apologies ensued. The sisters turned a deaf ear.

  Winifred turned and started to waddle toward the kitchen. “Oh, my God, he’s going to the back door. All he has to do is smash the glass, and he can open the door,” Iris said, momentarily forgetting all about the cramps in her legs.

  “Gus wouldn’t do that,” Rose said. But her tone of voice indicated that she wasn’t sure if what she had said was true or not.

  “He’s not going to give up,” Violet said. “That has to mean the reason he’s here at this hour is important, at least to him. Maybe you should just open the door and talk to him through the screen. Tell him you were just getting ready for bed or something. You and he are estranged, Rose. I don’t think Gus is here just to make nice. Just open the door and tell him to make an appointment to see you. That way we can, you know, just let him see what we want him to see.”

  “That sounds like a plan. For God’s sake, do it, Rose,” Iris said.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “No, not really,” her sisters said in unison.

  Rose heaved a mighty sigh as she made her way through the dark house to the kitchen, her sisters following behind. She didn’t even bother to turn on the light when she opened the door. She tried to make her voice as cold and unfriendly as she could when she said, “Please stop banging on my door, Augustus Hollister. Why are you here? What do you want?”

  “I need to talk to you, Granny. It’s important.”

  “Well then, young man, I suggest you make an appointment,” Violet, the bossiest of the sisters, said coolly. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve retired for the evening.”

  “It’s not that late. You guys are night owls. Look, I need to talk to you; it’s important. If it weren’t, I wouldn’t be here, especially in that yellow sardine can that masquerades as a car.” The desperation in Gus’s voice was getting to the sisters, but they held their ground.

  “Tomorrow afternoon around five-fifteen will work for us. I hesitate to remind you, but you do have a wife. Shouldn’t you be discussing your important business with her?” Rose asked defiantly.

  “That’s why I’m here. She kicked me out, stole my car, and is threatening to get a restraining order against me. I need to borrow your van to bring my luggage here. Elaine packed it up and left it on the deck. She changed the locks on all the doors and said she’d call the police if I went back. Elaine does not want to be married to me any longer. So I need to stay with you until I can find a place of my own.”

  “You have a place of your own! I know because I bought it for you and put your name on the deed. So now we’re good enough for you! What’s wrong with this picture, Augustus? You cannot stay here with us; stay at your office if you have to.” Rose reached behind her for the keys to the van, which were hanging on a hook. She opened the screen door a crack and dropped the keys on the stoop. “Be sure to bring it back in one piece.” Her tone was troubled but not unkind.

  “Will you at least let Wilson stay here with you?” Gus pleaded, his voice cracking with emotion.

  The sisters looked at one another. Iris and Violet shrugged, which meant, okay, open the door and let Wilson in. Rose opened the door, and Wilson bounded into the kitchen. Rose closed and locked the door, then turned to face her sisters.

  “Girls, that was so cruel, what I just did. Gus is my grand-son.”

  “Need I remind you that he is the grandson who turned on you after all you did for him and chose that gold digger over you?” Iris said.

  “He’s young, and he was in love. We all make mistakes at some point in our lives. Gus just made his mistake earlier than most people,” Rose insisted as she tried to defend her grandson.

  “Give it up, Rosie,” Violet said, wrapping her distraught sister in her arms. “Let’s get Wilson settled and have some cheesecake. We need to talk this over and come up with a plan where Gus is concerned.”

  “We can’t let him in the house, that’s the bottom line,” Iris said. “Not tonight, not tomorrow, not anytime soon. If we do, it’s all over.”

  “We know all that, so will you please stop reminding us?” Violet grumbled.

  Chapter 2

  GUS HOLLISTER LITERALLY TOOK THE TURN INTO THE DRIVEWAY of the house he had shared with his wife on two wheels. Wife? Ha! His grandmother and the two aunts were absolutely right, and he was totally wrong. Gold digger was Elaine’s new name. It had probably been her name all along, and he had just been too stupid to see it. God, how had this happened? When he’d gotten up this morning to leave for work, Elaine had kissed him with such passion. What a sap he was.

  “Well, baby, my eyes are open now, you . . . gold digger!” he snarled as he ran around to the back deck and started to haul his six suitcases down the steps, across the yard, and over to the van. Damn, who knew he had so much stuff? Four trips later, carrying the last duffel bag and dragging Wilson’s pink laundry basket, Gus stopped to catch his breath. Sweat dripped from every pore in his body. Talk about being out of shape. He took a moment to wonder if he was going to have a heart attack. If that happened, the gold digger would get all his insurance money. Screw that! First thing tomorrow, he was going to change his will and the beneficiaries on his insurance. He’d leave everything to Wilson. “Bitch!” he seethed.

  How did undying love go to deep hatred in sixteen hours? He needed to read up on the rules of gold digging.

  Gus settled himself behind the wheel of the rickety van. Rickety my ass, Gus thought when he turned the key in the ignition. The engine purred like a kitten. He frowned when he realized it sounded better than the engine on his beloved Porsche.

  Gus sat for a moment, the soft purr of the engine almost lulling him to sleep. He reached across the seat, but Wilson wasn’t there. He wanted to cry at what was happening to him. All in the name of love.

  The roads are quiet tonight, Gus thought as he steered the cumbersome van down the highway. As if by rote, he finally took the turnoff that led to his office. The thought of lugging his suitcases and the duffel bags up the steps to his office almost made him turn around and leave. Damn, I am tired.

  An hour later, all his belongings were stacked up in his office. Wilson’s laundry basket remained in the van, to be dropped off at his grandmother’s house. It would have to wait until morning. That’s when it hit him like a bolt of thunder. He hadn’t done his own taxes!

  Shit! Shit! Shit!

  Gus fired up his computer, tapped furiously, and hit the PRINT button. He filed for an extension. And his gold-digging wife could just file her own damned taxes. No more joint anything where she was concerned.

  Gus turned off the computer, ripped off his suit jacket, wadded it into a ball, and lay down on the floor. He was asleep in a nanosecond.

  It was dark out when Gus rolled over and groaned. He was disoriented, and then he remembered where he was. He groaned again as he struggled to get up. He peered down at his watch: five-ten. His only option under the circumstances was to head for the Hampton Inn and rent a room. Every muscle in his body screamed as he opened his suitcases and pulled out casual clothes, clothes that were wrinkled and messy. He jammed the clothes and his toiletries into a duffel and left t
he building. He’d given all his employees the rest of the week off in appreciation of all their hard work during tax season, so he had no worries about his staff seeing the disarray in his office.

  As he was making his way down the stairs, Gus made a mental note to call a locksmith to change all the locks on the office building. It was going to be a pain in the butt, but there was no way he wanted his gold-digging wife to have access to the building.

  Since it was just the beginning of the early morning rush-hour traffic, Gus made good time to the Hampton Inn. The drive over, registering, and trekking to his room took all of twenty minutes before he was headed for the shower in his new home away from home. He used up another twenty minutes showering, shaving, and dressing before he headed downstairs to order breakfast. He was starving, which surprised him. How can I eat like this with a broken heart? He amazed himself at how he wolfed down three eggs, two rashers of bacon, six pancakes, and a dish of fresh fruit. By the time he ordered his second cup of coffee, he felt almost normal.

  Gus’s thoughts were all over the map as he sipped at his coffee. He had shifted mental gears so many times, he was forced to pull a pen out of his jacket pocket along with the little notebook he always carried. More often than not, he never scribbled anything in the little spiral book. But, for some reason, it was comforting to carry it. Within minutes, he had a long list of things he had to do. He scribbled the word immediate in capital letters. First, though, he had to go out to the farm and drop off Wilson’s gear. Then he had to sit down and have a talk with his grandmother and the two aunts. He felt a lump the size of a lemon lodge itself in his throat. He had to make things right with the three of them, no matter what.

  Gus called himself every name in the book as he contemplated his list. He loved those old gals more than life itself. Then he turned on himself, and he was back to square one. If they refused to listen to him, to forgive him, he didn’t know what he would do. Dig a hole, crawl in, and wait for his gold-digging wife to toss in the dirt? “Well, that’s not going to happen,” he muttered to himself as he signed the bill the waitress set in front of him.

  It was seven minutes past seven when Gus exited the Hampton Inn and crossed the parking lot to where he had parked his grandmother’s van. He climbed in and headed out to the farm.

  The Blossom sisters, Rose and the twins—Violet and Iris—stood in the kitchen eating cooked oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar and real cream. The dogs sat at their feet as the women ate, mumbling and muttering among themselves.

  Rose, the oldest—Gus’s grandmother—waved her spoon in the air. “Augustus will be here shortly, I guarantee it.” She reached for a strip of crisp bacon and broke it into two pieces. She handed one piece to each of the dogs.

  Violet, two minutes older than her twin, Iris, said, “We agreed that we weren’t going to let him in. Please tell me you aren’t having second thoughts, Rose.”

  “You aren’t, are you, Rose?” Iris hissed.

  “No, I am not having second thoughts, but I don’t see why he can’t at least come into the kitchen. We do need to talk to him; at least, I do. If we don’t talk to him, he’s going to keep coming around until we do. Do you all want to live in fear of that happening? We won’t get anything done. Who knows what he’ll see.”

  “Rose has a point,” Violet said. Violet liked to think that she was the voice of reason among the three of them. “I say we allow him into the kitchen, tell it like it is, and send him on his way.”

  The pessimistic one of the threesome, Iris, looked at her twin and said, “And you think Augustus is going to settle for that? He needs us now. No, that’s not right, he wants us, now that his gold-digger wife put the screws to him. Just remember how we all felt at Thanksgiving and Christmas last year. You play, you pay,” she said heartlessly.

  “Well, that’s not very Christian, Iris,” Rose said.

  “Do I have to remind you that you were inconsolable during those two holidays?” Iris asked in the same heartless tone.

  Rose sighed. Her plump body started to tremble as she remembered how distraught she’d been without even a phone call or a card from her grandson during the holidays. “All right, all right! I am hearing you loud and clear. Let’s just finish our breakfast and get on with the day.”

  Violet wasn’t about to let up on her sister, knowing sooner or later she’d waffle one way or the other. “Easy for you to say. Do I need to remind you that your grandson has our van? We need the van, Rose. Read my lips. We-need-the-van! Henry will be here at eight-thirty to take the first load to the post office. He does not like to wait, as we all know.”

  Iris slammed her fist on the table. Both dogs reared up at the sound. “The girls will be coming to work at nine o’clock. Lulu took the golf cart with her when they left yesterday. What are we going to say if Augustus is here when they arrive?”

  “Just say we’re having an old-lady bingo day,” Rose huffed as she dumped the rest of her oatmeal down the garbage disposal.

  Wilson raced to the kitchen door, Winnie hot on his heels. Both dogs barked.

  “I think your grandson has arrived.” Violet sniffed as she, too, disposed of her uneaten cereal at the sink. Unlike her sisters, Iris finished her cereal before proceeding to load the dishwasher. “Shall I make another pot of coffee?”

  “Don’t bother, Iris. Augustus won’t be here long enough to drink it,” Violet said. “Right, big sister?”

  Rose wanted to cry, but she bit down on her lower lip. “Let’s just hear him out. Then we’ll send him on his way. We don’t want to have any regrets later on, do we?”

  Gus knocked on the kitchen door. Rose opened it. She had to fight with herself not to reach out to hug her grandson. “Come in, Augustus. We have fifteen minutes to talk, then we’re expecting some friends. Please be quick.”

  Gus stepped into the old familiar kitchen. He noticed that it had been upgraded at some point. He should have known that, but he didn’t. Everything was bright and cheery, with spanking-new, state-of-the-art appliances. He marveled at the built-in coffee machine.

  “Coffee?”

  “No, we don’t drink coffee; we drink herbal tea. It’s supposed to be good for old people’s digestion. With lemon,” Violet said, frost dripping off her words.

  “Okay, I’ll take that,” Gus said, sitting down at the table.

  “We’re fresh out. Today is grocery-shopping day,” Iris said.

  Gus shrugged. He could see the three of them weren’t going to give an inch. “I brought the van back. Here are the keys. Thanks for the loan,” Gus said, sliding the keys across the table to where his grandmother was sitting. “The van sure runs nice.”

  “We had it tuned up recently,” Rose said flatly.

  Gus stared at the unfriendly faces of the three sisters glaring at him. Once, those same faces had been full of love. For him. Once. He cleared his throat and folded his hands. “I . . . I want to tell you that I love you all. My love has never wavered. I got derailed and . . . and I’m sorry. I don’t expect you to believe me, but I had this plan that I was going to make our situation better this week, regardless of what Elaine said. I just needed to get through yesterday. I know I hurt you, but that was never my intention. I was so . . . so blinded, I just couldn’t see straight. Elaine became my world, twenty-four/seven. She was my siren, and, unlike Odysseus, I didn’t have any protection against hearing her song.

  “I can’t unring the bell. I would if I could, you know that. If you want me to get down on my knees, I will. All I can say is I’m sorry. And, I have a confession to make as well, and when I do, I know full well that you are going to boot my ass out of here. But I’m going to tell you anyway.”

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t tell us. Maybe you should just leave before we do boot your ass out of here,” Violet snapped.

  Before anyone could say anything else, Gus blurted out that he’d put Elaine’s name on the deed to his house.

  The three women rose from the table as one and leaned across
until their faces were inches from Gus’s.

  “You did WHAT?” the sisters said in unison.

  “She . . . she had this . . . this way of kissing me that . . . it was like I had no will of my own. I just did it.”

  “This is just too pitiful to listen to,” Iris said. “I cannot believe you turned into such a wuss. I can’t deal with stupid; I’m leaving.”

  “I don’t expect you to understand; you’re old,” Gus said.

  The Blossom sisters were on him then like fleas on a dog, pummeling Gus as they attempted to yank him from his chair and push him to the door. All three of them were screeching at the top of their lungs about being old, working their fingers to the bone so he could have a good life, and how they knew what sex was all about because they’d had some of the best sex in the universe during their earlier years. It was Rose’s voice that drowned out everyone else’s. “And you gave it away to that . . . that person! Shame on you, Augustus Hollister! Now leave my house!”

  “I will not leave this house until . . . until . . . Okay, I’m going.” Tears burning his eyes, Gus got up from the table and headed for the kitchen door. He turned around and said, “Will you at least keep Wilson until I can find a place that will accept dogs?” His eyes were wet and burning so badly, he could barely see.

  “Yes,” Rose said. “Did you bring his things?”

  “I did. I put them by the back door. I’ll get them. Granny, I’m sorry, really sorry. I don’t know what else to say. If you need me for anything, you can reach me at the office or call me on my cell phone. If you still have the number.”

  “Don’t you have that all a little backward, nephew?” Iris said. “Why would we need you? You’re here. That means, as usual, you need us. Does it look to you like we need you? Not from where I’m standing, it doesn’t. Do we need him, girls? Tell us, what’s wrong with this picture?”

  Gus struggled to find his voice. Why in the damned hell had he thought his family would welcome him with open arms and make his world right side up again? Why? Because they had always done it before. They were his cushion, his buffer, his safety net. In a million years, he never thought they would turn their backs on him. The realization that they had just kicked him to the curb hit home like a freight train running over him at a hundred miles an hour.