by Jo Macgregor
I bit down on the pencil, sinking my teeth into the soft wood as I tried to think of more advantages to living in Boston. Food. If I left, I’d totally miss the vodka-sauce pizza from Santarpio’s as well as the amazing ice cream parlors, especially the one three blocks down that served a flavor called Mexican Chocolate. Just the thought of that super-dark chocolate mixed with cinnamon and hot pepper in cold creamy deliciousness was enough to make me drool.
On the other hand, there were loads of things I didn’t like about the place: the noise, the ugliness of city living, and the lack of a beautiful view. Grabbing my list and coffee, I relocated to my window. In Pitchford, my view would be of endless trees and distant green mountains still frosted with snow, but here, my apartment faced another apartment complex.
In the parking lot below, a couple was having a fight. A woman in an open-topped convertible wagged her finger at a man who threw his hands in the air and stalked off to his car. Backing out of his spot, he lowered his window to get in a last yelled word and with spinning tires spitting gravel, sped out of the lot. The woman gave him a one-fingered salute. Crazy — I would have thought she’d be happy to get his parking spot; they weren’t easy to find in this part of town.
Also on the cons side of the list was the fact that I hated the long brutal winters here. Yes, Pitchford had freezing winters with plenty of snow, but snow in the city was different, nice for five minutes, and then it became a filthy, muddy mess with rivers of slush and pelting ice shrapnel that made walking a misery. I also wasn’t wild about the vitriol-spewing, bone-deep, take-no-prisoners fundamentalist religion that was sports in this city. For someone who had no clue about ball games, and even less interest, it could be hard, even isolating.
Isolation. That hit home because in Boston, I was deeply and profoundly alone. I didn’t feel lonely precisely, or at least didn’t feel it very much. I’d been flying solo for a long time, and I’d been emotionally and mentally disconnected from others for even longer. But recently, I’d become aware of an increasing tendency to navel-gaze and talk to myself. On Wednesday, I caught myself muttering out loud about the limp serrano peppers at the local Stop and Shop. I was at definite risk of turning into a mad cat lady — minus the cats, of course. I didn’t even have pets for company.
The cost of living in Boston was crazy — that was a definite disadvantage. If I was being honest, it was probably the killer blow. I couldn’t imagine landing the sort of job I’d need to pay for even this tiny apartment. Thanks to my parents, I had no student debt, but even so, money was a big factor in my decision. Then there were the other biggies: no job, no prospects, and no real network to help me out.
Also, no Ryan.
I missed him, no two ways about it. I missed his sense of humor and his hugs and his solid presence beside me when we went for walks in the woods or snuggled on the couch. I missed his kisses. It was time to admit, if only to myself, that I liked him. A lot. And he liked me. I could tell. And we could get together and do a whole lot of mutual liking if we were in the same place at the same time. The tip of my pencil hovered over the line between the pros and cons columns, unsure where to catalog this point. Part of me thought that a relationship with Ryan, a real relationship, might be wonderful, that with him, the juice might just be worth the squeeze. But another part of me — a raw, vulnerable, weak part — lived in fear of loving and losing again. I didn’t trust life not to betray any faith I placed in it.
I finished my coffee, black and bitter, the way I’d preferred it ever since my near-death experience back in December, the way Colby had always taken it. I’d spent ten years mourning the loss of him, but in the last few months, I’d grown up a little and healed a lot. I’d emerged from my cocoon of numbness, and I felt like I might just be ready to move on from the past, possibly even from Colby. I had a feeling I’d need to if I wanted to deepen my relationship with Ryan because juggling two boyfriends — one in this world and one in the spiritual plane — was bound to get all kinds of crazy.
I tallied up the pros and cons of my balance sheet. There were equal numbers on both sides, and only one that really tugged at me emotionally. Awesome. I was absolutely no closer to making a decision.
I flung myself onto the sofa and stared at the light fixture in the center of the ceiling. Two of its three bulbs were dead, and I couldn’t figure out whether the black mark on the ceiling beside it was a stain or a roach. I narrowed my eyes, squinting for better focus. Had it just moved? If so, it was bolder than me, stuck and stagnating here, pinned in place by the fear of failing or getting hurt again. The daily horoscopes printed beside the crossword puzzle in the newspaper caught my eye. Feeling like I was becoming more like my woo-woo mother by the day, I checked mine on the off chance that the stars would have some guidance for me.
You can’t swim to your future paradise if you’re still clinging to the shipwreck of your past.
Irritated, I flung the paper up at the ceiling, hoping to hit the black spot and answer at least one question of the many that were bugging me. Instead, the newspaper made it a scant two feet into the air then rained loose sheets down on top of me. I unearthed myself from my paper-and-ink shroud and checked the ceiling. The black spot was now on the other side of the light. I mentally added roach infestation to the right-hand column of my list.
There were now officially more cons to staying, but if I went back home with my tail between my legs, what on earth would I do with myself there? With a sudden burst of clarity, I realized that my problem wasn’t about having to choose between Pitchford and Boston; my real crisis lay in figuring out how to move forward with my life. I was almost twenty-nine years old and had nothing to show for it. No career, no savings, no home of my own, and no husband or kids, which according to my mother, were shortcomings indeed. I felt like such a failure. Worse, I felt like a cliché. I might as well be lurking in the basement of my parents’ house, playing Fortnite and hanging out on Reddit because I was little more than an overgrown teenager whining about my life while having no idea how to kick it into gear.
My phone rang. Startled, perhaps from the loud sound intruding on my morose meanderings or perhaps from seeing who was calling, I tapped the answer button.
“What’s up?” the upbeat voice on the other end said, and without waiting for an answer, continued. “Good news! I’ve found you a job.”
– 9 –
Saturday, April 7
Pitchford, Vermont
The woman who opened the door of the large brick house wore a hopeful expression. In her late thirties with neatly braided blond hair and wearing skinny jeans and a white linen shirt, she managed to look casually elegant in a way I could never pull off.
“You must be Garnet McGee,” she said.
“That’s me.”
“I’m Gwyneth Fletcher, Henry’s daughter.” She stepped out of the house, closing the front door behind her. “Come on. I’ll take you straight to him. He’s in his playroom with all his babies.”
His babies? I’d been told that Henry Mason, attorney-at-law, was in his seventies.
As we walked around the house to the back of the property, I snuck a look at my phone. That morning, I’d texted Agent Singh, once again offering to help with his inquiries, telling him I was even willing to drive down to Rutland and meet him at the FBI office there or at a coffee shop if he didn’t want to be seen with me at his workplace. Seeing no reply message, I shoved my phone back into my bag.
At the back of the Mason property, cedars, ash, and alders reached the bare bones of their branches up to the sky, but the maples sported a rash of red buds, the only spot of color against the dull grays and browns of the early spring day. Located in the center of the backyard, surrounded by the stumps of trees — felled to give it more sun, presumably — was a large greenhouse about twenty feet long by fourteen feet wide, with sides and a roof of opaque glass.
“This is where you’ll usually find my father,” Gwyneth Fletcher said.
“That’s his
playroom?” I asked, skirting a muddy puddle in the grass; it wasn’t for nothing that spring in Vermont was known as “mud season.”
“Yup.” She opened the door to the greenhouse and went inside, telling me, “Close the door behind you. Always close it behind you unless you want to see my father blow his stack. He needs to keep the temperature and humidity just right for the babies inside. Plus, he has to keep squirrels, rabbits, mice, and insects out.”
I stepped inside, shutting the door as directed, and almost reeled backward from the onslaught of color and fragrance. Orchid plants of every size, shape, and hue rested on every surface, hugged the walls, and peered down from hanging baskets. Gray roots fingered their way out of pots and stretched for the ground as though the plants longed to escape this tame confinement and return to wild, steamy jungles. I rotated on the spot, gazing in wonder at saucer-sized white blooms with acid green leaves, tiny florets of deep rust with frizzled orange beards, fuchsia blossoms with lemon hearts, buttermilk petals veined with scarlet, and violet tongues protruding below mottled black flowers.
Gwyneth grinned at me, and realizing my mouth was open, I closed it, even though breathing through my nose verged on unpleasant. The humid air held a heady mix of fragrances — raspberry, vanilla, lilac, jasmine, coconut and citrus — with a faint underlying odor of rot and decay.
“It’s kind of overwhelming, isn’t it?” Gwyneth said.
I gestured to the plants crowded around us. “These are his babies?”
“Yup. I sometimes think he’s more of a father to them than he ever was to my brother and me,” she said without rancor.
We threaded our way through the greenhouse, between double-tiered wooden benches stacked with a seemingly endless variety of orchids, and past a central workbench cluttered with bags of potting mix, spades, secateurs, a spray bottle, a watering can, and dozens of tiny plants growing in old cream cheese and yogurt pots.
“The temperature is kept steady with gas heating, and there’s an automatic system to maintain the correct humidity too. Those” — Gwyneth pointed to a couple of electric fans situated at either end of the greenhouse — “keep the air and moisture circulating, and if it gets too hot in summer, we can open the vents.” She pointed to the flaps at the top of the glass walls.
“Why’s the glass painted?” I asked.
“The whitewash helps to soften the light. Direct sunlight would burn the plants, especially in summer.”
I expected to find my potential new employer clipping leaves or perhaps crooning lullabies to his plants. Instead, he was lying fast asleep on a leather recliner in a small clearing at the back of the hothouse. He had sparse gray hair, a build that could most kindly be described as portly, and a deeply lined face.
“Dad. Dad?” Gwyneth said, gently shaking his shoulder.
Henry Mason startled awake, blinked in bewilderment, and glared at his daughter. “I wasn’t sleeping,” he said fiercely. “I was just thinking about the possible permutations of a bifurcated divorce process.”
“Sure, you were,” she said. “Dad, this is Garnet McGee, the person Ryan Jackson recommended to help you with your practice. Garnet, this is my father, Henry Mason.”
Her father pressed a button that moved the chair into a more upright position while he assessed me with eyes the color of an arctic iceberg. “I’d get up, but my foot is recalcitrant.” He flicked aside a tartan blanket to reveal a swollen foot in a thick sock and added laconically, “Gout.”
I stepped closer and shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Mason.”
He gave a harrumph that could’ve meant anything. “Well, don’t stand there hovering over me. Sit down, both of you.”
Gwyneth and I pushed aside a few plants — “Gently!” Mason growled — and perched on the closest bench.
“So, you’re a psychologist, are you?” he said.
“Nope. Several thousand hours of supervised professional experience, state and national Board examinations, and an official license stand between me and that title.”
“So what are you then?”
I gave him my brightest smile. “Looking for a job.”
He stared at me for a long moment. “Your eyes are different colors,” he accused.
I conceded the point.
“Were you born that way?”
“Dad,” Gwyneth chided at the same time as I said, “No.”
Before her father could ask any more personal questions, she continued quickly, “As Ryan probably explained, my father is an attorney, but he’s semi-retired.”
Mason gave a grunt of disgust. “I wouldn’t be if Meredith hadn’t abandoned me.”
“Meredith was my father’s secretary and assistant for many years and—”
“For over forty years. And then one day, she got it into her head to pack her bags and jet off to Wales, where she intends to squander the meager remainder of her years in some Podunk parish with an unpronounceable name. Left me all alone. Wales!” He thumped a hand on the armrest of his chair. “What’s Wales got that we haven’t, eh? Tell me that, if you please.”
“Her children and grandchildren, Dad. And if you don’t want to live alone, come and live with us already!” Gwyneth said. From her tone, I could tell they’d had this discussion many times before. Mason grumbled something unintelligible, while she told me, “The point is, her retirement leaves my father without administrative help. Even though he doesn’t have a full workload, he still needs someone to do his transcription and filing and run the odd errand. He has a weekly cleaning service, so you wouldn’t need to do anything like that. Mostly, he needs help digitizing his files and doing anything that requires the computer. I’m afraid Dad is a bit of a Luddite.”
“Don’t think I don’t understand the meaning of that word, young lady. I probably taught it to you,” he snapped.
“I’m assuming you can use a computer and that you know the basic packages?” Gwyneth asked me.
“Sure.” What I didn’t know, I could learn quickly enough.
Mason scowled at my confidence. “I could accomplish it myself if I put my mind to it. But what I can’t do is bilocate.”
“Bilocate?” I repeated.
“Be in two places at the same time. I like to go on fishing trips, but with Meredith cavorting with the Celts, there’s nobody to tend my babies while I’m away.”
Hoping to find some common ground with him, I smiled and said, “My father’s a fisherman too.”
“Bass? Trout? Pike?” he barked.
“All of the above.”
In truth, I had no idea what my father fished, only that from time to time, he disappeared to one or other fishing hole in New England and came back a few days later, declaring himself “rejuvenated and restored.”
“Catch-and-kill or catch-and-release?” Mason demanded.
“He lets them go.” That, at least, was his excuse for always coming home empty-handed.
“Casting rods and reels or spinning?”
“Sir, I’m no expert on angling, but I’m sure I could help you with your admin.”
“That’s great!” Gwyneth said. “My father also has the occasional case that needs a little investigation. Ryan said you have skills in that area?”
“He did?” I said, pleased by the endorsement.
Mason snorted. “I believe his actual words were that you have a talent for sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Now that sounded more like the sort of thing Ryan would say about me.
“Which does not sound like a positive character trait to me. How can you be sure you aren’t foisting a light-fingered miscreant on me?” Mason asked his daughter. “Have you checked her references?”
“Yes, and they were excellent.”
Silently thanking Professor Perry for coming through for me, I said, “Can I ask what you’re offering as a salary?”
Mason stated a figure so low that I laughed, earning myself a dirty look from under his beetling brows.
“
Dad, that’s not even minimum wage,” Gwyneth said, but then she suggested a figure that wasn’t a whole lot better.
“That’s …” What? Damned disappointing, a joke, a nope from me? “That’s lower than I was hoping for,” I said, surprising myself with my unusual tact.
“Kindly bear in mind that it’s a part-time position. Just some light paperwork and typing now and then, hardly anything to raise a sweat. How much could you possibly expect to be compensated for such light duties?” Mason blustered.
“It’s just that I’m looking for a job that will allow me to pay for a place of my own rather than living with my parents.”
“Been a sponger, eh?”
I opened my mouth to retort — his barb had struck a nerve — but Gwyneth clapped her hands together and said, “I’ve just had a fantastic idea! Why doesn’t Garnet move into the loft room?” Turning to me, she added, “It’s a small apartment really, above the garage. If we threw that in, would it sweeten the deal?”
“You bet it would,” I said.
The job might not be the most high-flying position in the world, but the income and flexible hours would allow me to investigate the Button Man, and with free accommodations thrown in, I’d be able to avoid moving back to my parents’ house.
“I’ll take you there now, if you like, so you can see it for yourself before you decide, but I’m sure you’ll love it. I used to live in it before I got married. All the furniture’s still there, though it’ll need a good clean, of course.” Gwyneth stood up and dusted the seat of her jeans. “We’ll be back in ten minutes, Dad.”