On the ride back, I glanced every so often at the package sitting between me and Rich, anxious to read the paper inside the pot. What did it say? Did the pot itself have any meaning?
I dropped Rich off at his house and, after giving some well-deserved attention and dinner to Scout, sat down on the sofa and opened the folded paper. In his precise, block printing was another carving lesson.
To begin the piece, start with the design. Your perspective is yours alone. Patterns, ideas, and inspirations are everywhere, sometimes in the most obvious places. See things with a child’s unspoiled vision. Don’t take anything on face value. Study your subject completely, then try to visualize your carving. Use all five senses to experience the object you want to carve. The more you learn about your subject, the more truthful your work. Remember, there are no rules, and in the end there are no shortcuts. Take your time. Don’t let your goal keep you from relishing the journey.
I read it two more times, knowing he was trying to tell me more than just how to make a good carving. But if there was any hidden clue in this ambiguous message, it was flying right over my head. With the note stuck in my purse to show Gabe over dinner, I headed out to the truck. Scout followed me and sat expectantly next to the passenger door.
“Scout, go back,” I said, pointing to the yard. He sat and stared at me, his face longing. “Back,” I repeated. He whined deep in his throat.
“I’m sorry, fella, I know I left you alone all day, but tomorrow will be better, I promise.” I stooped down and slipped an arm around his shoulders, giving his chest a vigorous scratching. “I’ll be home soon. Guard the house.” He walked dejectedly over to the front porch and flopped down, his eyes accusing. The guilt worked enough to make me feel terrible, but not terrible enough to change my mind.
During dinner, I told Gabe everything that had happened at the funeral and later at the James Dean Memorial and Parkfield. He read the note, studied the small pot, running his thumbs over the glossy lip, his face thoughtful but calm.
“What next?” he asked.
“Find the seller or possibly the maker of this pot. Maybe that’s who he wants me to talk to. I’m getting the drift of this game now. It’s sort of like a scavenger hunt. I’m going to drop it off at Barnum’s Craft Gallery, over in the old Springfield Dairy building. The manager has been involved with local potters for years, so maybe he’ll be able to identify this person with the initials A.N. I’m assuming that’s who Mr. Chandler wants me to see.”
He smiled and ate a bite of ravioli. “Good solid detective work.”
I smiled back, pointing a soft bread stick at him. “Did it hurt you to say that, Chief Ortiz?”
“Only a little.”
After dinner he drove me to Barnum’s, where, fortunately for me, Geoffrey Renault, the manager I’d mentioned, was working that night.
“Set it behind the counter,” he said after I explained my problem. “It doesn’t ring a bell right off, but I’ll take a closer look at it after things slow down a bit.” He ran twig-thin fingers through his red shoulder-length hair.
I glanced around the room crowded with customers. “Thanks, Geoffrey. I’ll come by after the city council meeting. You’re open until nine-thirty, right?”
“Righto, sweetie. You tell Dove and the rest of the ladies to kick some council butt. I’m rooting for them.” He gave Gabe a mischievous smile. “Quite the radical family you’ve married into, Chief Ortiz.”
“Tell me about it,” Gabe said.
When we arrived, the council chambers were almost full. I spotted Dove in the front row with at least fifty senior citizens. She caught my eye and waved at me and Gabe, then held a raised fist over her head.
We took seats in the second to last row. “I am not optimistic about the next two hours,” I said.
“I’m sure they’ll come to a mutual agreement,” Gabe said, patting my knee.
He was wrong.
During the next two hours, person after person stood up and testified in favor of keeping the museum where it was. But there were also almost as many saying that the city needed the money and the Historical Museum was nothing but a useless drain on the city’s budget. Some man called it a play area for bored, rich old ladies with no lives. Edna and Big John Rutledge had to physically hold Dove back on that one.
After hearing all the testimony, the council voted. The count was three to three. The deciding vote was Mayor Davenport’s.
With a serious, pseudo-concerned expression on his tanning-parlor brown face, he voted to sell the museum.
A roar went up from Dove’s group in the front row. From somewhere a tomato flew across the room and landed with a juicy smack on the table in front of the mayor.
While he stood up sputtering, trying to gain control, Gabe swiftly moved into the crowd, followed by five or six patrol officers who seemed to appear from nowhere. In minutes, the agitated seniors had been gently herded outside.
I caught up with Dove on the courthouse lawn. “Are you all right? Did you throw that tomato?”
Dove shook her head in disgust at an elderly man in a French beret arguing with a patrol officer, trying to convince her to handcuff him. Gabe stood behind the officer, trying to suppress a grin. “I warned Elmo no vegetables, but he got overly excited. Said it was one of them flashbacks from the sixties. He was a teacher up there at Berkeley. You know how they loved tossin’ good food at folks back then. Crazy old coot. I think he just took too much heart medicine.”
“I’m sorry you lost,” I said, putting an arm around her shoulder. “What are you going to do now?”
She smiled. A smile that made me very, very nervous. “Don’t you worry about us. We’ve been through worse, this group. We have a backup plan. We’re all meeting at the museum in ten minutes.”
“Do you want me and Gabe to come?”
She patted my hand. “No, you go spend some time with your husband. This business about you living apart isn’t good.”
“We’re doing fine. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“Count on it, honeybun.”
After the crowd was dispersed and Mayor Davenport managed to sneak out the back door of the council chambers without having to face his irate former supporters, Gabe and I walked back to my truck parked five blocks up a dark side street.
“What happens now?” I asked when we reached my truck.
“The historical society will probably have to put all the displays in storage somewhere until they can find another facility.”
“It’s not fair.”
“No,” he said, pulling me to him, “it’s not. It’s politics and it stinks, but the city council and the mayor were elected by the people of this town to make this kind of decision. Dove and her friends fought hard, but in this case, they lost and they’re going to have to accept it.”
I laid my head against his chest. “I really want to do something to help them, but for the life of me I can’t think of what.”
He took my face in his hands. They were warm and sure and made me want to stand on this dark street forever just to feel his thumbs stroke my cheeks. “Querida, as bad as I feel for their plight, right now all I want to do is kiss you and imagine what I would do to you if you were coming home with me.”
I had to admit his plan had definite appeal. “Maybe I’ll drop by the house for a few minutes before going back to Morro Bay. What did you have in mind?”
He tangled his fingers in my hair and pulled my head back, kissing me hard. The salty-sweet taste of his tongue and the solid feel of his hips pressing me against the truck’s passenger door was familiar, but it took my breath away nevertheless.
Then I remembered Geoffrey and the pot. Abruptly I pulled back from him. “What time is it?”
With a slightly annoyed look on his face, he checked his watch. “Nine-thirty-five.”
“Shoot, I have to try and catch Geoffrey. I need to find out who this potter is.”
“Couldn’t you do it tomorrow?”
“I suppose,” I said, feeling chagrin at interrupting the romantic moment. “But it would bug me all night. Look, I could come by afterwards.”
“Forget it,” he said, his voice cool. “I have to get up early anyway. Give me a call when you get back to Morro Bay.”
He walked around the front of the truck and opened the driver’s door. “You’d better get moving or you’ll miss your friend.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, standing on tiptoe and kissing his jaw. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“Drive carefully,” he said, his expression neutral. That bothered me even more than anger.
“You, too,” I said to his back as he walked away. Guilt ate at me, not to mention the desire he’d stirred that would now simmer all night, but the lure of finding out one more clue about this mystery man was irresistible. More irresistible, apparently, than making love to my husband. For the first time I really began to wonder whether I would have been better off letting the government have the inheritance. Let Tess and her sons and Beau be angry with Uncle Sam instead of me and not create yet another tiny fissure in my delicate cliff of a marriage.
I caught Geoffrey walking out to his Volkswagen Beetle, carrying the box holding my pot.
“I wondered what happened to you,” he said, holding out the box. “I left a message at your house. I’m sorry, but this pot was not created by anyone I’ve seen or represented, but I’ve only been here on the Central Coast for ten years, so take that into consideration. It’s exquisite, though. If you find out who did it and they’re interested in showing in a gallery, send them down.”
“Thanks,” I said, cradling the box against my chest. “I’ll do that, when all this is over. But you know pottery in this area better than anyone so you were my biggest hope. Any suggestions about where I should go next?”
“Thanks for the flattery, but there are lots of people who are more knowledgeable than I am. Have you tried the people in Harmony?”
Harmony was a little town north of Morro Bay. Infinitesimal was probably a better description. With a population of about thirty-five, give or take a cat or two, the town consisted mostly of artists and craftspeople who sold their wares in the old Harmony Valley Creamery buildings.
“That’s a great idea. I’ll do it tomorrow.”
He looked at me sympathetically. “Heard about what happened at the council meeting. Please give my condolences to Dove.”
“I will, but don’t count them out yet. If I know my gramma, there’s an ace or two she hasn’t played yet.”
“Good for her,” Geoffrey said. “Tell her to let me know if she needs bodies to walk a picket line. Me and some of my friends could dust off our radical chants and modify them for the occasion.”
I laughed at the eager look on his middle-aged face. “I’ll pass it on. You may be getting a call.”
“Power to the People,” he said cheerfully. “Just have her make sure to stock up on bottled mineral water and low-fat bagels. We’re too old to be protesting on empty stomachs and we definitely don’t want to dehydrate.”
“You wild and radical guy, you. Thanks again.”
Back in Morro Bay, I called Gabe immediately, an apology and detailed plan of future physical appeasement ready. The only reply I got was from the answering machine.
“I’m back and okay. See you tomorrow,” I said, slightly irritated. Where was he? Why demand I call the minute I arrived safely when he wasn’t even there to take the message? Or maybe he was there. I pictured him sitting there listening to my voice, and that really pissed me off. Fine, play your stupid games, I said silently to the phone.
Then I called Elvia and updated her on the developments and whined as one only can to a very old girlfriend about how annoying men are.
“And you’re bugging me to make it permanent with Emory,” she said.
“Yes, then we can suffer together.”
“I’m telling you, gringa blanca, if you keep them at a distance, they treat you like a queen. Show them any weakness, and they’ll have you scrubbing floors and slapping out tortillas in no time flat.”
I sighed. “Gabe mops the floors in our house.” The thought of his kiss and what I knew came after was making me really regret my decision to choose following another clue rather than go home with him.
“Go to bed,” Elvia said. “Watch Jay Leno. He’s the safest man I know. Gabe’ll get over it and be moaning mamacita at you again before you know it.” She paused for a moment. “And, Benni, be careful. You’re the only best friend I’ve got. Buenos noches. ” She hung up with a sharp click.
“Back at ya, mi amiga, ” I said softly to the dial tone.
The next morning I walked uptown with Scout and had breakfast at a small cafe called the Egg Place. When I finished, it was only nine o’clock. I wasn’t sure what time the pottery studios in Harmony opened so I decided to walk back down to the bookstore on the Embarcadero. I hadn’t yet bought a card for Dove for Mother’s Day, so this seemed a good time to work that into my schedule.
Stopping by the house for a bathroom pit stop, I found a message blinking on the answering machine. Rowena Ludlam’s voice crackled on the tape.
“I don’t know what kind of joke you’re playing, young woman, but it’s not a bit funny. This ain’t my brother Jacob. He ain’t a stinkin’ lizard.”
She hung up the phone with a loud click.
He wasn’t her brother? He wasn’t a lizard? What in the heck did she mean by that? I quickly dialed her number. She answered on the sixth ring.
“Mrs. Ludlam? This is Benni Harper, the person who—”
“I know who you are. What’s the idea of sending me a picture of this strange man? What kind of scam are you trying to pull? I don’t have a penny but my Social Security, so don’t think you can get anything out of me.”
“Mrs. Ludlam, I assure you this is not a scam. That’s the man who died, who owned this house. Are you sure it’s not your brother? I mean, you haven’t seen him for over thirty-five years. People do change.”
“They don’t grow fingers, do they?” she snapped.
“Huh?”
“This man has all his fingers. Jacob lost his right forefinger in a bicycle accident when he was four. Like I said, he ain’t a lizard.”
“I’m sorry. I . . . I don’t know what to tell you.”
“You can tell me what happened to my brother and why this man has his name.”
“I’ll look into it and call you. I promise.” I hung up before she could answer, my heart like a clenched fist in my chest.
Who was buried in that coffin? And where was the real Jacob Chandler? What did all this have to do with me?
I left the house and started walking, hoping the brisk, morning air would clear up some of the confusion this latest revelation had caused. I walked the length of the Embarcadero twice, Scout following me, tail and ears up, his whole body reveling with the pure joy dogs take in this simple activity. When I passed the bookstore—Joe and Leslie’s Seaside Books—for the second time, I remembered the card I had intended to buy before Rowena Ludlam’s phone call.
The store sat at the end of the Embarcadero in one of the newer gray wood buildings. Next door, from the tiny Morro Bay Aquarium, the sound of barking sea lions and honking seals echoed through the clammy morning air.
It was ten o’clock when I reached the front door just as the clerk was unlocking it.
“Good morning,” she said, her genial voice welcoming. “If there was a prize for being first, you’d win it today.” She held the door open for me.
“Thanks,” I said, walking in. “Do you carry greeting cards?”
“Best selection in town. Over by the romance novels, back wall.”
I slowly perused the cards, feeling as I did every year at this time, a thick, sad feeling that lodged somewhere between my heart and my stomach. To be honest, I didn’t think a lot about my mother. When your mother dies so early and you have someone who is as warm and loving a substitute as Dove has been, yo
u don’t feel as set adrift as you might had you been left literally alone. I’d always had someone there to feel my forehead when I had a fever, argue with about cleavage in prom dresses, and cajole about later curfews. Dove knew children, knew how to raise them, and she loved me as fiercely as if she’d born me herself. I had no doubts about that. The hole left inside me when my mother died had almost been filled by Dove’s love and intense protectiveness. Almost.
This time every year, when I had to choose a card to express my sentiments to the woman who for all intents and purposes was my mother, it always hit me like a swift, unexpected blow that she wasn’t really; she was my father’s mother. Every year I bypassed the cards printed especially for mothers and studied the cards made for grandmothers. It never failed to occur to me that I’d never bought a Mother’s Day card in my life and never would.
I grabbed a four-dollar Hallmark covered with violets, Dove’s favorite flower, and walked quickly away from the card section. I wandered through the store, picking up a few paperback novels that looked interesting to help kill the long evenings I still had left in Morro Bay. At the counter I asked the friendly, peppery-haired lady, “So, are you Leslie?”
The woman smiled. “Oh, no, my name is Eleanor. Eleanor Newhard. Leslie and Joe haven’t owned this store for about a year now. They sold out to me and bought a sailboat. Last I heard, they were in Fiji somewhere.”
“Sounds like a dream come true.”
“Not to me,” she said, shaking her head as she rang up my purchases. “I’m living my dream now, just wallowing around in books. Of course, that’s how I’ve spent my whole life. I was a librarian in Long Beach before I bought this store with every penny of my retirement fund. If it doesn’t work out, guess I’ll have to hire out as a fish cleaner on my little brother’s boat.”
“Your brother’s a fisherman?”
“Has been his whole life. So was our father. Ray owns a party boat now. He hasn’t done commercial fishing in years. Too old and too many regulations, he says.”
“Have you been in Morro Bay long?”
“Two years. I volunteered at the Morro Bay Library for a while, then I started working down here for Joe and Leslie. When this place came up for sale, I said, ‘What the hay, I’ll give it a whirl.’ Now I have all the books in the world and no time to read them.” She smiled at me and handed me a shiny red bag. “But I love it. Everyone in town comes in here or the library eventually. There’s not much that goes on around these parts that I don’t know about.” She smiled at me. “Ms. Harper, new heiress.”
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