A Year on Ladybug Farm #1

by Donna Ball

  “In Baltimore?” Cici said.

  Lindsay nodded.

  Bridget said, “Wow.”

  “That’s what I said,” replied Lindsay.

  Again they waited, watching her, trying to read answers on her face. “And?” Cici prompted finally. “What did you tell him?”

  Lindsay shrugged. “Nothing. I was hardly even listening.” A quick smile. “After all, I don’t see how I can teach school in Baltimore when I live in Virginia, right?”

  It was meant to be reassuring, but they both noticed she didn’t quite meet their eyes when she said it.

  There was a shuffling and a clattering at the top of the stairs, and Ida Mae edged the door open, her shoulders sagging under the weight of a laden tray. “Got your lunch,” she announced, and it sounded like a challenge. “Although why you think I should be hauling food up and down them stairs at my age . . .”

  “That was sweet of you, Ida Mae,” Cici said as Lindsay and Bridget hurried to help.

  And Bridget insisted, taking the tray, “You didn’t have to make lunch, Ida Mae. I was coming to do it.”

  “Yours is on the stove,” she told Bridget. “Besides, I didn’t make it. Some of them women from the church brought by casseroles. Damn busybodies. Like we can’t do for ourselves.” She reached into the pocket of her apron and brought out some envelopes. “Some cards came in the mail, too.”

  “Which church?” Bridget wanted to know, and Lindsay took the cards.

  “Oh look, Cici, all these cards. Isn’t that nice?”

  Cici smiled weakly but did not reach for the cards. “Maybe I’ll look at them later.”

  Lindsay hesitated, then left the mail on the bedside table.

  Bridget said, “Do you want me to set your lunch up on the table here by the fireplace? You know the doctor wants you to get up four or five times a day.”

  Cici said, “It’s too cold to get out of bed. And it really hurts my back to sit in that chair. Do you mind?”

  “Oh honey, of course not.” Bridget fussed with pouring her tea and arranging the legs of the bed tray across Cici’s lap, and Lindsay tucked a napkin into the top of her pajamas. Ida Mae stirred up the fire.

  “It looks good,” Bridget said. “Are those pimentos?”

  Lindsay said, “Do you want me to read the cards to you while you eat?”

  “You two go down and get some lunch,” Cici said. “I’ll be fine.”

  Bridget squeezed her hand and Lindsay kissed her hair. “Make sure she eats,” Bridget said to Ida Mae and Lindsay gave her a worried look before she closed the door.

  “Well then,” said Ida Mae, straightening up from the fire and giving her a smug look. “Guess that’ll teach you. The roof ain’t no place for a lady.”

  Cici picked up her fork, set it down again, and leaned back against the pillows. “Will you take this away, Ida Mae? I’m really not very hungry.”

  “You’re feeling sorry for yourself, is what you are. And you’re not going to let that food go to waste—even if it ain’t as good as I could’ve made myself.”

  And, since it was apparent that Ida Mae was going to stand there, glaring at Cici with her arms folded across her chest until Cici ate her lunch, Cici took a couple of bites of the chicken casserole and drank some tea.

  “That’s my pie there,” Ida Mae said with a curt nod at the slice of pecan pie on the tray.

  Cici tasted it, and tried to smile. “It’s really good.”

  “Made it for Thanksgiving,” Ida Mae pointed out. “Of course, nobody was here to eat it, thanks to you falling off the roof.”

  “It wasn’t my idea, Ida Mae.” Cici put down the fork, balled her napkin atop the tray, and leaned back against the pillows again.

  Ida Mae took the tray and set it on the floor by the door. “I reckon you girls’ll be selling out, then.”

  Cici, trying to get comfortable, grimaced as she shifted her weight against the pillows. “What makes you say that?”

  “Plain as day, you bit off more than you can chew.” She shrugged. “A place like this, it’s way too much for a bunch of women to keep up with. Costs a lot, too. Sit up.”

  Cici eased herself forward and Ida Mae snatched a pillow from behind her head, pounding it with her fists. “And none of you’ve got jobs. Couldn’t help noticing. Sit up.” She replaced the pillow. “You got insurance?”

  “Why?” asked Cici warily. “Are you going to sue me for ruining your fruitcakes?”

  Ida Mae sniffed. “Your friend, Miss Priss, she don’t have none.”

  Cici stared at her. “Bridget?” Ida Mae refused to call any of them by their proper names. Lindsay was Red, Cici was Miz C, and Bridget Miss Priss. None of them had yet determined whether this familiarity was a sign of contempt or respect.

  “Can’t afford it,” Ida Mae informed her with a nod, “and her kids won’t help her out. Shoulda thought about that, I say, before you come out here and start climbing up on roofs.”

  Cici didn’t even bother to correct the non sequitur. She was too stunned, and worried.

  Ida Mae picked up the lunch tray. “You better go through your mail, too,” she advised over her shoulder, just before she opened the door. “There’s more in there than get well cards.”

  When she was gone, Cici reached for the stack of envelopes on the table, wincing a little with the effort, and thumbed through them until she found the particular piece that Ida Mae must have been referring to.

  “Oh, crap,” she said wearily, when she had read it.

  It was a notice from the bank, reminding them that their loan was coming due and payable in full in less than three weeks.

  In another couple of days, Cici was up and around, and feeling strong enough to face the damage in the sunroom. The three of them had to bundle up in coats and scarves to venture into the room, which, due to the many gaps and leaks around the plywood patches, was almost as cold as it was outside.

  For a long time Cici just looked around. An entire wall of windows was either missing or shattered. The paint was scarred. Bark, sticks, and debris littered the floor, along with a dusting of snow that had blown in or drifted in through the six foot, plywood-patched hole in the roof. When Cici brushed the snow away with her foot, she saw jagged cracks running through the painstakingly restored tile.

  “All that work,” Bridget said softly, and the compassion of regret was rich in her voice.

  “One step forward, two steps back,” Lindsay agreed sadly. “It’s always something.”

  And Cici said, “It’s going to cost a freaking fortune to replace those windows.”

  Bridget touched her shoulder lightly. “Let’s get out of here. I’m freezing.”

  But Cici didn’t move. She looked around, her face filled with disappointment and her posture defeated. “Look,” she said quietly at last, “I know you guys didn’t sign up for this.” A plume of frost wisped in the air as she blew out a breath. “I’m the one who said we could whip this place into shape in a year, I’m the one who did all the figuring, I’m the one who got your hopes up. Well, the year is almost over, we’re in so much debt I don’t know how we’re ever going to get out, and this place isn’t much closer to being fixed up than it was when we started. We’ve got a hole in the roof and a loan coming due, and it looks like I figured wrong. I’m sorry.”

  “Cici, come on—”

  “Cici, it’s not your fault—”

  Cici shook her head, eyes squeezed tightly and briefly closed as though to block out their words. “No. Listen, just the other day I was telling Lori how, when we’re away from home and we get all caught up in the excitement of a new lifestyle, we sometimes forget who we are, and we make bad decisions.” She looked at each of them somberly. “Well, we all have a really big decision coming up, and I think it’s important that we take some time to remember who we are, and what we really want, before we make it. This last year—well, it’s been kind of a whirlwind, dealing with one thing right after the other, and we’ve been so caugh
t up in all the new things that have been happening to us that, well, I’m not sure we’ve ever really stepped back to see the big picture. And the first thing we probably should take a long, hard look at is money. Things could get a lot worse, financially, and judging from what we’ve seen so far they probably will.”

  Again, there were quick murmurs of protest, and Cici held up a firm hand for silence. “Now, don’t you see that’s just exactly what women do, and exactly why we’re in this mess today.” Her voice was tight, bordering on harsh, and every word was clipped with frustration. “We just don’t face the facts. We say money doesn’t matter as long as we’re happy, money doesn’t matter as long as we’re together, we’re not going to let money affect our friendship, there are more important things in life than money . . . well, maybe there’s some truth to all of that but I’m here to tell you if I’d been a little more practical about the money part of this—if we all had—we’d probably all be sitting at home on Huntington Lane right now, surfing the Internet and watching Oprah, and turning up the thermostat whenever we liked. And if we don’t take a good, hard look at what we’re doing now, this time next year we might all be doing hair in a trailer park somewhere, and I’m not kidding.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence, then Lindsay said, sounding a little hurt, “We’re not children, Cici. We knew what we were doing.”

  And Bridget added, “I’m the one who got you both into this. If anyone’s to blame—”

  “Oh, Bridge, no one’s to blame.” Cici ran a hand through her hair with her free hand, and now her expression was simply wretched. “The thing is, since I’ve had some time on my hands the last couple of days, I ran some figures, and it’s not a pretty sight. I made copies for you both.”

  She drew another breath, winced, and touched her broken ribs, and added, “Anyway, we’ve got a few weeks before we have to make a decision. I think we should make each other a promise. Let’s use that time to think about what we, individually, really want, and not talk about it with each other. And, speaking for myself, whatever you decide won’t make me love you any less, and I mean that. You’ll always be my best friends, so don’t even let that come into the picture.”

  “Oh, Cici, same for me.”

  “You didn’t even have to say that.”

  “Then can we promise?” Cici insisted. “No talking about it, just thinking about it, until January first?”

  Lindsay looked at Bridget. Bridget looked at Lindsay. They both looked at Cici, and promised.

  But the moment of tenderness was shattered almost before it had begun by the sound of Rebel racing across the yard and barking at the top of his lungs, followed almost immediately by a cavalcade of tires crunching on the gravel drive.

  “What in the world?” They all turned to peer out the remaining bank of windows that faced the east side of the house. Two ladder trucks, equipment clattering, pulled up in front of the barn, followed by two pickup trucks with silver toolboxes in back, and a mud-spattered SUV. Doors opened and slammed, men in beards and hunting caps, flannel-lined jumpsuits, and leather work boots piled out of the vehicles and began to congregate in their yard, peering up at the barn roof, wandering around toward the sunroom. Cici recognized Jake Junior and Jake Senior, Jonesie, Sam and Deke, a deacon from the Baptist church, and two of the men who liked to hang around the lumber yard office, chewing tobacco and spitting into a coffee can. And, of course, Farley.

  She whispered, “Oh, my goodness” and hurried out to greet them.

  “Morning, Miss Cici,” said Jake Senior, and nodded politely to Lindsay and Bridget, who had followed Cici out with puzzled, rather alarmed looks on their faces.

  He turned and shouted, “Junior, Nathan, why don’t ya’ll get started cuttin’ up them limbs for firewood?” They waved a confirmation, and took a chain saw out of the back of one of the pickups. Deke and Sam started unhooking a ladder from one of the trucks.

  He turned back to them. “Sorry it took us so long to get out here, but we was waiting for the snow to ease up. Hear you got yourself a little bit of a mess.”

  Cici looked from one to the other of the men, feeling almost as lost as Bridget and Lindsay. “Well . . . yes, I guess you could say that.”

  “Brought a sheet of tin to patch up your barn roof, fix her up good as new. Hear you lost a few windows. Why don’t you show me what you got?”

  Too stunned to argue, Cici led him through the house to the sunroom. Along the way they picked up Ida Mae, who said, “I’ll put on a pot of coffee. You tell your boys to stop by the kitchen when they want some.”

  “Farley nailed up some boards to keep out the weather,” Cici explained as they reached the wrecked sunroom. “I really don’t know what more we can do until I’m able to get out and try to find some windows. Although where we’re going to match hundred-year-old windows, I don’t know.”

  Ida Mae said, “Why don’t you use the ones that are in the attic?”

  Cici stopped dead and turned to stare at her.

  “Used to be,” Ida Mae explained, “there was windows in the ceiling here, too. I remember Mr. B used to grow oranges and lemons here. Then the last time the tree fell on it—”

  Cici said, incredulous, “The last time?”

  “They decided to put a real roof in,” Ida Mae went on as though she hadn’t been interrupted, “and put what windows was left up in the attic.”

  “Yeah, I remember that.” Jake already had his tape measure out, pulling measurements from top to bottom and side to side. “Fifteen, twenty years ago, weren’t it?” He peered up at the ceiling, tested the sturdiness of a stud half exposed in the wall. “Don’t look like any structural damage was done, but ’pears there might be a little rot up there in the rafters. I’ll check it out. We got plenty of four-bys and three-quarter-inch ply out in the truck and a roll of roofing fabric. You want me to go up and look at them windows? If there’s enough, it won’t take us but a couple of hours to get ’em in, as much help as we got.”

  “I—thank you, yes, that would be great but . . .” Cici hardly knew what to say. “This is awfully nice of you, but, well, the thing is, I really don’t think we can afford to have all these repairs done now, and the plywood will hold through the winter . . .”

  He was already shaking his head, shuffling his feet, looking embarrassed. “Don’t you worry about it, Miss Cici. I’ll just put the materials on your bill, and you pay when you can. The labor, well, that’s just being neighborly.”

  And then she really didn’t know what to say. And because she was afraid that if she tried she would start to cry, she just said, “Um, I’ll show you the way to the attic.”

  “It was just like a movie,” Bridget said wonderingly.

  “From the 1950s,” agreed Lindsay.

  The work crew had stayed until dusk, and in that time had repaired the barn roof with weathertight seals, patched the sunroom roof with new decking and asphalt fabric, and replaced and caulked all of the broken windows. All that remained to be done was the cosmetic work.

  “I never thought—” Cici stopped, and shook her head as though to clear it. “I never expected anything like this.”

  The supper dishes were done, Ida Mae had gone to bed, and the three women sat on the sofa in front of the living room fireplace, their feet, dressed in wool socks and fleece-lined slippers, propped up on the coffee table in front of them. They shared a fringed throw for warmth, and, in deference to Cici’s pain medication, they sipped hot chocolate instead of wine.

  “Ask and you shall receive,” said Bridget, raising her cup in a toast.

  “More or less,” qualified Lindsay.

  “Well, look how much money we saved on replacing the windows,” Bridget pointed out. “They were stored up in the attic all this time.”

  “Yeah, but now we’re going to have to replace the entire roof on the sunroom,” Cici said, “and maybe the kitchen.” When the men had pulled up the broken part of the decking to replace it, they had discovered water damage
beneath the shingles, with at least one rotten rafter. The patch they had put in place would hold until spring, but no longer. “And if we restore it with glass the way Ida Mae said it used to be, we’re looking at a major expense.”

  “There’s no getting around it,” Lindsay said with a sigh. “This place is a money pit. We just lucked out this time.”

  Cici looked from one to the other of them, her expression somber. “I think there’s a reason why most balance sheets don’t include a line for ‘luck.’ ” She swung her feet to the floor, careful not to jostle her ribs, and picked up a small sheaf of papers from the coffee table. “I’m sorry,” she said, and handed a paper to each of them. “But you guys needs to know. I was going to show you this this afternoon, but then we got distracted. The top figure is what we have left in the household account. The bottom one is how much we owe right now. Below that is what it costs to maintain this house for a year. And below that is a breakdown—realistic, this time—of what it’s going to cost to continue the restoration.”

  All were silent for a time, studying the sheet. Finally Bridget cleared her throat. “Well,” she said, and nothing more.

  Lindsay looked up, her expression grim. “We can’t afford this place,” she said simply.

  Bridget had the stunned look of someone who had just walked into a plate glass window. “Cici, I know you’ve been really depressed lately . . .”

  Lindsay said, “Depression didn’t make up these numbers, Bridge. I just . . . I don’t think I realized it was this bad.”

  Cici said, “I sold real estate for thirty years. I’ve seen this happen over and over again. Clients make an emotional decision about a house with absolutely no idea about what it will really cost, and before you know it they’re drowning in debt. I of all people should have known better. I am just . . . so damn sorry.” There was such a ferocity to her tone that Lindsay immediately turned and hugged her, and Bridget reached across to squeeze her knee.

  “For the last time, this is not your fault,” Bridget said firmly. “We’ll figure this out.”