“How do you make them look so—relaxed?”
Ellen laughed. “A whole college football season’s worth of fans staying here, for starters.”
Dave didn’t waste much time choosing. He parked his bag in a bright single room with a patchwork quilt-covered brass bed and came downstairs after Ellen showed him which bathroom to use. “Very nice. I’m sure I’ll be comfortable.”
“Until the others come, you can walk over to our house for breakfast,” Joan said.
“Or help yourself in the kitchen here,” Ellen said. “We keep it stocked for people who get up early and for days I don’t serve a cooked breakfast. I won’t be doing that until later in the week.”
She led them into the kitchen, where a woman who looked a little older than Rebecca was putting away supplies. “This is Chrissy. She and her mother have been working like troopers this week. Chrissy, Dave will be staying in the yellow room. Would you give him the key to his room, please, and show him where to find things in the kitchen? Then go home. You’ve done more than your share today.”
Joan was glad to see that Ellen didn’t depend on the honor system to keep her guests’ belongings safe. She wasn’t as worried about Dave’s things as about those of the others staying at Ellen’s.
Leaving Dave to Chrissy, Ellen excused herself to supervise Laura’s bedtime routine.
Dave was flirting openly with Chrissy now, who was responding as if he were an eligible bachelor. As far as Joan knew, he was, even though he was old for Chrissy. All Joan didn’t need now was to worry about hearts he’d leave behind in pieces. As she remembered, he’d generally had a string of girls hanging on his every word when he was in high school. Not my problem, she told herself. Chrissy was clearly old enough to look out for herself.
But what was Joan going to do with him? It wasn’t as if she could take more than a week off work to entertain him. She’d planned to take the last Friday off, and maybe part of Thursday, if things were under control at the senior center.
“I imagine you have things to do between now and the wedding,” he said, as if reading her mind.
“Well . . .”
“That’s all right. So do I. Mom and Dad left me something I need to check on while I’m in town.”
Of course. They wouldn’t have neglected him while leaving the house to her. Back when the accident had killed them both so suddenly, she must have known what went to Dave, but for the life of her, she couldn’t think of it now, and he didn’t say another word about it. All right, if he wanted to be mysterious, she could live with that.
And Dave, like Joan, had lived here that sabbatical year of their dad’s, when she was in sixth grade and he was a high school senior. He probably remembered more people in Oliver than she had when she’d first arrived here a few years earlier. If nothing else, he’d probably want to check out all his old conquests.
“But you have time for supper tomorrow?” She suddenly hoped he hadn’t already made a date with Chrissy.
“Of course. Will Fred and Andrew be there, too?” He sounded very relaxed asking about Fred, cop or no cop.
“Sure, unless Fred gets stuck with something.”
“Good. I look forward to meeting them. I haven’t seen Andrew since he was little.”
Maybe it would be all right, after all.
But soon it was anything but all right.
Chapter 5
True to his word, Dave kept out of Joan’s hair between his own arrival and that of the rest of the out-of-town family a week later. Oh, he came to supper, and he got along with Fred and Andrew. But during the day, he didn’t bother her.
On the first day after his sudden arrival, though, he showed up at the senior center near the end of the afternoon. Joan waved through the office doorway and went to meet him as he came through the activity room.
“So this is where you work.” He looked around as Elizabeth hadn’t bothered to do. Many eyes met his. The bridge players and handicrafters stared openly. “You run this place?”
Joan laughed. “They mostly run themselves. Everybody, this is my brother, Dave Zimmerman. He’s come for my daughter’s wedding, and I’m very glad to see him.” She knew the word had spread that she was worried about his coming. Let them wonder now.
A few people waved to him, and then they all returned to what they’d been doing. They wouldn’t stare anymore, at least not for him to see.
But Joan could feel their eyes on her back when she escorted Dave into her office. Annie, as she so often did, sat knitting and minding the telephone. The sweaters she knitted these days were considerably larger than the ones her grandchildren had worn only a few short years ago, when Joan took over the center, though the odd piece she was working on now didn’t look like anything that could fit one of them.
“Annie Jordan, meet my brother, Dave Zimmerman. He’s here for Rebecca’s wedding. Dave, we couldn’t manage this place without Annie. They pay me, but she does it for love.”
“Thank you for taking care of my sister.” He flashed her the smile with which he’d captivated high school girls when their family had lived in Oliver.
“We love her to pieces,” Annie said, smiling her own sweet smile and laying down her knitting to give him her hand to shake. He held it just long enough to be personal.
“What are you making?” he asked.
Annie held up the red thing Joan had wondered about. “A sweater for my daughter’s dachshund. That’s why it’s so long and skinny.”
He laughed.
“I’ll have to add a couple of straps to hold it on, here and here.” She pointed to the spots.
“Uh-huh. I learn new things all the time.” Pulling a slip of paper out of his pocket, he quickly sketched a low-slung dog wearing a sweater and carefully added straps where she showed him they should go. He tucked it back into his pocket.
“You let me know when you’re ready for knitting lessons,” Annie said.
“I might just take you up on that.” Again that great smile.
He’d already charmed the socks off Annie. How did he do it? But Joan could see how. Who could fail to respond to what appeared to be genuine interest?
She reminded herself that he had defrauded someone—several someones–to land in prison. Easy to see how he’d won their trust. Surely he wouldn’t pull anything on her stomping ground. But how could she be certain?
“I’ll leave you two to catch up,” Annie said. She slipped delicately out of the room.
Joan held up the schedule to her retreating back. “I want to give this to her.”
“Don’t worry about me.” Dave eyed the card players. “Maybe I’ll kibitz.”
“Good.” Half an hour later, she was ready to leave. By that time, he had the bridge players eating out of his hand.
“You never told us you had such a handsome brother,” Berta said, looking up from the ace, king, and queen of spades, plus some little ones. “Why didn’t you bring him by sooner?”
“He doesn’t live near enough. But he’s here for my daughter’s wedding.”
“Oh, that’s right. Will we meet your whole family?”
Not unless they all show up this early, Joan thought. “Dave’s the only family I have besides the ones you already know,” she said. “I don’t know who else will stop in here. My daughter, probably.”
“She’s the quilter, isn’t she?”
“That’s right.” Rebecca had brought her controversial Adam and Eve sleeping bag to the Oliver Quilt Show awhile back. And she’d helped some of the women there finish the edges of the orchestra quilt.
“And her fella’s the fiddler,” said Muriel, Berta’s lucky partner.
“Yes.” That was putting it mildly. Bruce Graham, Rebecca’s fiancé, had visited Oliver when he was competing in the high-powered International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. “I imagine you’ll have a chance to see both of them. But right now I want to take my brother home to meet Fred and Andrew.”
“You’ll like them,” someone said.
&
nbsp; “I’m sure I will,” he said, and they escaped.
Outside, he looked around. “Where’s your car?”
“Home. I need the exercise.”
“I can use a walk, too. After that bus ride yesterday, I’m about sat out.” He didn’t say where he’d come from, and Joan didn’t ask. He swung along beside her while they walked through Oliver’s little downtown. She wondered how much walking he’d been able to do in prison and imagined a crowded yard, with men standing around doing nothing. Old movies, she thought. I hope it’s better than that.
She pointed when they came to the church. “There’s the church where the wedding will be. I hope we can cram all the guests in there. Bruce’s mother had a list you wouldn’t believe. We haven’t heard from a lot of them, even this late. Maybe there’ll be some no-shows. I only hope they won’t all want to come this far.”
“Where do they live, anyway?”
“Bruce and Rebecca are in New York. His parents live in Ohio, but they have friends all over.”
“You could set up a big video screen out on the steps, like the major tennis matches.”
She laughed and led him into the park. He sniffed the cold air as if being outdoors felt good. How long had he been out of prison? She couldn’t bring herself to ask, much less how long he’d been inside. For all his charm, her original doubts were returning. What was she letting them all in for, having Dave here? How far could she trust him? Would even Rebecca’s wedding gifts be safe?
You’re borrowing trouble, she told herself. He promised. And he told me himself he’d been in prison. But wouldn’t he? He knows I’m married to a cop. He probably knows Fred could find out, so he told me the truth to look open and trustworthy. I can’t let myself think about it.
“There’s Ellen’s B and B,” she told him when they reached the other side. “We’re kind of in her backyard here.”
“Some backyard!” He looked back at the park they’d just crossed. “How big is it, anyway?”
“I don’t know how many acres the park has,” she said. “Fifty or sixty, maybe. There used to be a lot more trees, before the tornado, but they’ve planted saplings. They’ll grow.”
“It looks fine now.”
“My problem is that I remember how it used to look. They did cut up the wood to use in the fireplaces in the park shelters like the one over there.” She pointed. “Most of it’s stored somewhere else, but they keep some here where it’s handy.”
“I noticed.”
Dinner went well. Fred and Andrew treated Dave like family, not an ex-con, and Dave told stories about Joan as a child. She knew she’d be teased about them later, but right now she enjoyed hearing them.
As the days passed, she began to relax, or at least to trade mother-of-the-bride worries for any misgivings she’d been having about her brother. Elizabeth Graham called her several times a day with one complaint after another, and the people who mattered were beginning to arrive. Bruce and Rebecca came first, although Bruce managed only to drop Rebecca off before leaving to cope with his mother, back in Ohio. He hadn’t even had time to help open the wedding gifts Joan had been storing in Rebecca’s room.
* * *
Thursday evening after supper, a week after Dave arrived, Joan was trapped on the phone with Alex, who seemed to think she was supposed to be managing through Christmas, even though the orchestra was taking almost a month’s break.
“No, Alex, they’re not going to charge us extra for the music. We negotiated the extra time in advance. “
She found it hard to keep listening as Alex went though a laundry list of concerns about players she found less than fully cooperative with her musical priorities. Having long since learned that there was no point in suggesting that Alex take up her issues with the players concerned, Joan knew it was easier just to wait her out.
But she had concerns of her own. Rebecca was as full of nerves tonight as if she and Bruce hadn’t been together for years now. Joan watched Dave take her to a quiet corner of the living room for a chat. They were sitting with their heads together when she ended her call and tuned in to what he was saying to her daughter.
“So throw the guy over,” he told her. “Run off with me, instead.”
Rebecca actually giggled. “Oh, Uncle Dave!”
“Can’t you call me Dave? ‘Uncle Dave’ makes me feel a hundred years old.”
“Sure, Dave.”
“Much better. Now give me a kiss and don’t worry about old what’s-his-name, much less his mother.”
She giggled again and reached up to kiss him on the cheek, but he grabbed her, hard, and claimed a long, probing kiss. When he finally released her, she wasn’t giggling. Visibly shaken, she said, “I think I’d better go upstairs,” and escaped to her room.
Dave stood and looked after her, but made no attempt to follow her.
Joan trembled with fury. “How could you? Even you!”
Dave shrugged it off. “It was all in fun.”
“Maybe for you, but not for her. You keep away from my daughter!”
He backed away, open hands raised. “Sure, boss.”
It took every ounce of Joan’s self-control to turn her back on him. If he’d been anyone else . . . As it was, she followed Rebecca upstairs. “You all right?”
Rebecca was sitting in her room, which ordinarily functioned as a guest room. All around her were recently opened wedding gifts and the thank-you notes she’d begun writing for Joan to mail after the wedding. Now, though, she was pulling a hairbrush through her dark curls.
“Thanks, Mom. I’m fine. It’s not as if no one ever came on to me before. I didn’t expect it from my own uncle, that’s all.” Brush, brush, brush, the fierce strokes belied her calm words. Tears came suddenly to her eyes. “If you’re not safe in your own family . . .”
“Oh, honey!” Joan ran to her and hugged her. “Dave wouldn’t hurt you!” Or would he? Had he? That kiss hadn’t been innocent, no matter what he claimed.
“It’s all right, Mom, really.” Now Rebecca was comforting her mother. Joan’s face must have given her away. “Tell you what, let’s look at what you’re going to wear on Saturday.” She hopped up as if nothing were wrong and ran to her closet.
Bless her heart, Joan thought. What if it doesn’t fit? But maybe it will distract her. As for Dave, I’ll have to talk to Fred about him. “Sure, honey,” she said. “I’d love to.”
Rebecca unzipped the garment bag she had brought with her and pulled out something long in Joan’s favorite soft blue.
“I thought a light wool might be good for a winter wedding.”
Joan shed her work clothes and slipped it over her head. Wool it might be, but so light it floated. The simple neckline was low, and the long sleeves hugged her upper arms and floated down to her wrists. In the same way, the long gown clung to her upper body and relaxed in soft folds below her hips. “Rebecca, it’s beautiful! Where did you find the pattern?”
Rebecca smiled. “I didn’t. It’s my own design.”
“I should have known. And it fits exactly.”
“Mine is almost the same, only cream colored—looks a lot better on me than stark white. And I made Sally’s rose, because that’s what she looks good in.”
“Would you like to wear my pearls?”
“Oh, Mom, what a sweet offer. But you’d better wear them yourself. Bruce is giving me my own as his wedding gift.”
“Lovely. Does his mother know?”
“About the pearls?” Rebecca grinned. “I doubt it. It’s his money.”
“No, about the dresses—yours and Sally’s.”
“I told her they were being created especially for us by a New York designer. That sounded fancy enough that she couldn’t object. She didn’t ask who the designer was, and I’m not about to tell her.”
“Why did I ever worry about you?”
Rebecca hugged her. “Thanks for trusting me, Mom. It’s the difference between you and Bruce’s mother. She doesn’t think we know enough t
o do any of this, as if this were even the part that mattered.”
“I’m so glad you know that. Have you and Bruce met the minister?”
“Only by email and phone. We’ll talk to him tomorrow afternoon before the rehearsal. We haven’t had his usual premarital counseling, he says, but we had a good three-way phone conversation with him, and what he said and asked us made sense. He’s been a big help about Bruce’s mother.”
“How’s Bruce’s dad?”
“Busy. Fine, I guess. Seems supportive enough. But he doesn’t get in the middle when Elizabeth’s throwing her weight around. How can such a thin person throw so much weight around, anyway?” Rebecca was smiling when she hung her gown back in the closet. Joan reluctantly took off the blue wool and stroked its softness as she held it out to her daughter.
“Don’t you want to keep it in your own closet?” Rebecca said. “It’s not as if it needed any alterations. And it’s yours, you know.”
A happy thought. And as Rebecca had surely known, she had just the right shoes for it. “I’d love to. Are you coming back down?”
“No, I think I can use some time alone. But you know, in an odd way, I feel better now. Not as uptight as I was when Uncle Dave tried whatever he was trying.” Her dimple was showing.
I know exactly what he was trying, Joan thought, and so do you. “Okay. You know where to find me. And Rebecca, I love the dress. You’ve outdone yourself.”
She went downstairs to hang it in her closet and to hang her brother out to dry, but as she passed through it, the living room was empty.
Andrew wandered in from the kitchen. “You looking for Uncle Dave? He said to tell you he was going back to Ellen’s. Something about overstepping. Does that make sense?”
“Too much.” She turned her back on him and went into her room, giving the blue wool one last stroke before closing the closet door.
“You mad, Mom?” he called from the living room.
“Sorry.” It wasn’t fair to take her anger at Dave out on Andrew. She went back into the living room and curled up on the big leather sofa. “Not at you.”
Her Brother's Keeper Page 4