“Why, thank you for thinking of me, Kerry. I will try to swing by.”
Harry stuck her head around the mailboxes. “So, Kerry, you been out with the lead singer yet?”
Kerry blushed. “I did show him the University of Virginia.”
“You just keep being yourself, honey. He’ll soon fall head over heels.”
Kerry blushed again, then left, crossing the street to the bank.
“Where does the time go?” Harry shot envelopes into the boxes a bit faster.
“You’re too young to worry about time. That’s my job.”
Harry snagged another cinnamon bun. Pewter had the same idea. “Hey, piggy. That’s mine.”
“Oh, give her a bite.”
“Miranda, you were the person who didn’t like cats. The one who thought they were spoiled and sneaky and, as I recall, speaking of time, this was not but two years ago.”
Pewter, golden eyes glowing, trilled at Miranda’s feet, open-toed wedgies today à la Joan Crawford. “Oh, Mrs. Hogendobber, I looove you.”
“I’m gonna puke,” Mrs. Murphy growled.
“Now this little darling wants the tiniest nibble.” Mrs. Hogendobber pinched off some sweet, flaky dough liberally covered with vanilla icing. The cinnamon scent flooded the room as the bun was broken open. “Here, Pewter. What about you, Mrs. Murphy?”
“I’m a carnivore,” Mrs. Murphy declined. “But thank you.”
“I’ll eat anything.” Tailless Tucker wagged her rear end furiously.
Mrs. Hogendobber held a bit aloft, and Tucker stood on her hind feet, not easy for a corgi. She gobbled her reward.
The rest of the day held the usual round of comings and goings, everyone expressed an opinion on the Threadneedle virus, which like so many things reported on television was a fizzle. People also expressed opinions on whether or not BoomBoom Craycroft, the sultry siren of Crozet, would set her cap again for Blair Bainbridge now that he had returned from Africa and she from Montana.
At five to five Mrs. Sanburne reappeared. She’d stopped by at eight-thirty A.M., her usual. Post offices close at five, but this was Crozet, and if anyone needed something, either Harry or Mrs. Hogendobber would stay late.
“Girls,” Mim’s imperious voice rang out, “Crozet National Bank was infected with the virus.”
“Our little bank?” Harry couldn’t believe it.
“I ran into Norman Cramer, and he said the darned thing kept inserting information from other companies, feed store companies. Dumb stuff, but they immediately countered with the void commands and wiped it out quickly.”
“He’s a smart one, that Norman,” Mrs. Hogendobber said.
“Sure fell hook, line, and sinker for Aysha. How smart can he be?” Harry giggled.
“I’ve never seen a woman work so hard to land a man. You’d have thought he was a whale instead of a”—she thought for a minute—“small-mouthed bass.”
“Three points, Mrs. Sanburne,” Harry whooped.
“My favorite moment was when I played through on the eleventh at Farmington. Aysha, who never so much as looked at a golf club in her life, was caddying for Norman and his golf partner, that good-looking accountant fellow, David Wheeler. Anyway, there she was at the water fountain. She put the golf balls in the fountain. I said, ‘Aysha, what are you doing?’ and she replied, ‘Oh, washing Norman’s balls. They get so grass stained.’ ”
With that the three women nearly doubled over.
Pewter lifted her head as she lay on the back table. Mrs. Murphy was curled next to her, but her eyes were open.
“What do you think of Norman Cramer?”
Mrs. Murphy shot back, “A twerp.”
“Then why was Aysha so hot to have him?” Tucker, on the floor, asked.
“Good family. Aysha wants to be the queen of White Hall Road by the time she’s forty.”
“Better make it fifty, Murphy, she’s got to be in her middle thirties now.” Pewter touched the tiger with her hind paw. Murphy pushed her back.
“Have you seen Don Giovanni yet?” Mrs. Hogendobber inquired of Mim. “I was thinking about going tomorrow, Friday.”
“Loved it! Little Marilyn can’t stand opera, but she did endure. Jim fell asleep, of course. When I woke him he said his duties as mayor of our fair town had worn him out. The only event Jim Sanburne doesn’t sleep through that involves music is the Marine Corps band. The piccolo always jolts him awake. Well, I’ve got a bridge party tonight—”
“Wait, one question. What’s the lead singer look like?” Harry was curious.
“She was wearing a wig—”
“I mean the male lead.”
“Oh, good-looking. Now, Harry, don’t even think about it. You’ve got two men crazy over you. Your ex-husband and Blair Bainbridge, who I must say is the best-looking man I’ve ever seen in my life except for Clark Gable and Gary Cooper.”
Harry waved off Mim. “Crazy for me? I see Fair from time to time and Blair’s my neighbor. Don’t whip up a romance. They’re just friends.”
“We’ll see,” came the measured reply. With that she left.
Harry washed her hands. The maroon post office ink was smeared into her fingertips. “We should change our ink color every year. I get bored with this.”
“And you complain about taxes . . . think what it would cost.”
“That’s true, but I look at stamps from other countries and the postmark inks, and some of them are so pretty.”
“Long as the mail gets there on time,” Miranda said. “And when you consider how much mail the U.S. Postal Service moves in one day, one regular business day, it’s amazing.”
“Okay. Okay.” Harry laughed and held up her hands for inspection. “I wouldn’t want to waste any valuable ink on my fingers.”
“Let’s say you have rosy fingertips of a color not found in nature.”
“Okay, I’m out of here.”
5
The battery flickered on Harry’s truck, so she stopped by the old Amoco service station which, a long time ago, was a Mobil station. The ancient Coke machine beckoned. She slipped the coins in and then “walked” the curvaceous bottle through to the end, where the metal jaws opened as she pulled the bottle to freedom. She liked the old machines because you could lift the top up and put your hand into the cool chest. Also, the new soda dispensers were so bright and full of light, she felt she ought to wear sunglasses to use them. A nickle bought a Coke when she was tiny. Then it jumped to a dime when she was in grade school. Now they cost fifty cents, but if one traveled to a big city, the price tag was easily seventy-five. If this was progress, Harry found it deeply depressing.
Usually she headed straight home after work, but the horses grazed on rich pasture. She didn’t need to feed grain in the summer. The twilight lingered with intensity. Why hurry?
She absentmindedly nosed the recharged vehicle north up Route 810.
“Where are we going?” Tucker rested her snout on the windowsill.
“Another one of Mom’s adventures.” Mrs. Murphy curled up behind the long stick shift. She liked that part of the seat best.
“The last time she did this, we ended up in Sperryville. I’m hungry. I don’t want to go for such a long drive.”
“Whine, then. Get those sweet doggy tears in your eyes. That arouses her maternal instincts.” Mrs. Murphy laughed.
“Yeah, well, I can overdo, you know. I’ve got to save that for special occasions.” Tucker was resigned to her fate.
Harry clicked on the radio, then clicked it off. The Preparation H ad disturbed the soft mood of the fading light which blended from scarlet to hazy pink to a rose-gray laced with fingers of indigo.
She slowed at the turn to Sugar Hollow, a favorite spot in western Albemarle County for hikers and campers. The hollow led into a misty crevice in the mountain. No matter how hot the day, the forested paths remained cool and inviting. One could drive a car a few miles into the hollow to a parking lot, then walk.
A roar made Ha
rry hit the brakes so hard that Tucker and Mrs. Murphy tumbled off the seat.
“Hey!” The cat clawed back onto the seat.
A black blur skidded in front of them, hung the turn, and then violently sped down the darkening road away from Sugar Hollow.
Harry squinted after the cycle. It was the black Harley, the driver encased in black leather and on such a hot day. She’d gotten a good look at the bike when Blair had escorted the man out of Ash Lawn. No other motorcycle like it in the area, plus it had California plates.
“Bet he didn’t find Malibu in Sugar Hollow either.” Harry grimaced.
6
A cold front rolled huge clouds over the mountains together with a refreshing breeze. Although it was the beginning of August, the tang of fall tantalized. In a day or two the swelter would return, but for now Mother Nature, surprising as always, was giving central Virginia a respite.
Harry and Fair turned their horses back toward her barn. The black-eyed Susans swayed in the field along with white Queen Anne’s lace and the tall, vibrant purple joe-pye weed. Tucker ran alongside the pair. Mrs. Murphy elected to visit Simon, the possum who lived in the hayloft. A large black snake lived there, too, and Mrs. Murphy gave her a wide berth. The owl slept up in the cupola. The cat and owl couldn’t stand one another, but as they kept different schedules, harsh words were usually avoided.
Tucker, thrilled to have the humans all to herself, kept up no matter what the pace. Corgis, hardy and amazingly fast, herd horses as readily as they do cattle. This was a trait Harry had had to modify when Tucker was a puppy, otherwise a swift kick might have ended the dog’s career although the breed is nimble enough to get out of the way. Tucker merrily trotted to the side of the big gray mare, Poptart. She hoped that her mother would flirt with Fair. Tucker loved Fair, but Harry had signed off flirting the day of her divorce. Tucker knew Harry was usually forthright, but a little flirting couldn’t hurt. She wanted the two back together.
“—right over the ears. Funniest damn thing you ever saw, and when she hit the ground she yelled ‘Shit’ so loud”—Fair grinned in the telling—“that the judges couldn’t ignore it. No ribbon for Little Marilyn.”
“Was her mom there?”
“Mim and the old guard. All of them. Clucking and carrying on. You’d think she’d have the sense to get away from her mother and go out on her own.”
Harry drawled, “Thirty-three is a long, long adolescence. She could have stayed in the house she had with her ex, but she said the colors of the walls reminded her of him. So she moved back to that dependency on Mim’s farm. I know I couldn’t do it.”
“Sometimes I feel sorry for her. You know, everything and nothing.”
“I do, too, until I have to pay my bills, and then I’m too jealous for sympathy.” A cloud swept low over her head. Harry felt she could reach up and grab a handful of swirling cotton candy. “The hell with money on a day like this. Nature is perfect.”
“That she is.” Fair spied the old log jump up ahead that Harry and her father had built fifteen years ago, big, solid locust trunks lashed together with heavy rope that Harry replaced every few years. It was three feet six inches. It looked bigger because of the bulk. He squeezed Gin Fizz into a good canter and headed toward the jump, sailing over.
Harry followed. Tucker prudently dashed around the end.
“Who did win the class at the benefit hunter show?” Harry remembered to ask.
“Aysha, with her mother in full attendance and Norman cheering. You’d have thought it was Ascot.”
“Good. Say, did I tell you that Aysha was a docent up at Ash Lawn when I was there the other day?”
“She did go to William and Mary, didn’t she?” Fair recalled as he slowed to a walk.
“Kerry was there, too, a scheduling foul-up, and Laura Freely. Little Marilyn was in charge, of course, but what set the day off was that this biker came up and had to be escorted off the premises. . . .” She realized that in bringing up Ash Lawn, she would remind Fair that she’d been up there with Blair, which would provoke a frosty response. Her voice trailed off.
“A biker?”
“Hell’s Angel type.”
“At Ash Lawn?” Fair laughed. “Maybe he’s a descendant of James Monroe. What were you and Blair doing up there anyway?”
“Oh—Blair had never seen it. He wanted to do something relaxing.”
Fair’s lips clamped together. “Oh.”
“Now, Fair, don’t get in a huff. He’s my neighbor. I like him.”
“Yeah, Fair, lighten up.” The dog added her two cents.
“Are you serious about this guy, or what?”
Harry and her ex-husband had been a pair since kindergarten, and she knew his moods. She didn’t want Fair to sink into one of his manly pouts. Men never admitted to pouting, but that’s exactly what he did. Sometimes it took her days to pull him out of one. “Number one, I don’t have to answer to you. I don’t ask you questions.” She decided to attack.
“Because I’m not seeing anyone.”
“For now.”
“That was then. I’m not seeing anyone and I don’t want anyone but you. I admit my mistake.”
“Make that plural,” Harry wryly suggested.
“Well—I admit my mistakes and I repent them. You know you’re going to get over this and we’ll—”
“Fair, don’t be directive. I hate it when you tell me what I’m going to do, and feel and think. That got us into trouble in the first place, and I’m not saying I don’t have my share of faults. As wives go, I was a real bust. Can’t cook, don’t want to learn. Can’t iron but I can wash okay. I keep a clean house but sometimes my mind is untidy, and I forgot your birthday more times than I care to admit. Never remembered our anniversary either, for that matter. And the more you’d withdraw from me, the harder I’d work so I wouldn’t have to talk to you—I was afraid I’d blow up. I should have blown up.”
He pondered that. “You know—maybe you should have.”
“Done is done. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, and it’s not going to bring togetherness if you get pushy.”
“You’re the only woman in the world who talks to me like that.”
“I suppose the rest of them swoon, bat their lashes, and tell you how wonderful you are. Bet their voices coo.”
He suppressed a grin. “Let’s just say they shower me with attention. And I have to be nice about it. I can’t cut them to shreds over it.” He paused. “You make me so mad, I could—I don’t know. But I’m never bored with you like I’m bored with the, uh, conventional model.”
“Thank you.”
“Will you go with me to Mim’s party next Saturday?”
“Oh”—her face registered confusion—“I’d love to, but I already have a date.”
“Blair?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
“Dammit to hell!”
“He asked me first, Fair.”
“I have to line up for a date with my wife!”
“Your ex-wife.”
“You don’t feel ex to me.” He fumed. “I can’t stand that guy. The other day Mim was carrying on about his curly hair. So what? Curly hair? That’s a fine recommendation for a relationship.”
“Apparently it is for Marilyn Sanburne.” Harry couldn’t help herself. She wished she were a better person, but his discomfort was too delicious.
“Then I am asking for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve.”
“What about Labor Day weekend?” she teased him.
“Laminitis conference in Lexington,” he replied, referring to the hoof disease.
“I was only kidding.”
“I’m not. Will you save me those dates?”
“Fair, let’s just take it as it comes. I’ll say yes to the next summer party—someone’s bound to have one—and we can go from there.” She sighed. “Given the way the days are clicking off, I ought to say yes to Thanksgiving.”
“Tempus fugit,” he agreed.
“Do you remember Mrs. Heckler singing her congratulations to us?”
“Yeah.” She grew wistful. “Isn’t it funny what we do remember? I remember that old sweater Dad would wear every homecoming.”
“His Crozet football letter sweater.” Fair smiled. “I don’t think he ever missed a game. Your dad was a good athlete. He lettered in football, baseball, and didn’t he play basketball too?”
“Yeah. In those days I think everybody did everything. It was better. Healthier. Tenth-graders now are dreaming of their endorsement contracts. Doesn’t anybody play for fun anymore? Dad sure did.”
“What year did he graduate?”
“Forty-five. He was too young for the war. Bothered him all his life. He remembered some of the boys who never came home.”
“Thank God my father made it back from Korea—seems like no one remembers that war except the guys who fought in it.”
“I’m glad he came back too. Where would you be?” She urged Poptart over next to Gin Fizz, reached over, and punched Fair in the arm.
“Love tap? Mother, can’t you brush his hair with your fingertips or something?” Tucker advised. Tucker had been watching too much TV. She declared it was to study human habits, but Mrs. Murphy said there was plenty of that to study in front of her face. Tucker loved the television because it put her to sleep.
“Tucker, don’t yip so loud,” Harry pleaded.
“You’re hopeless!” The dog ran in front of them. She could see Mrs. Murphy sitting in the hayloft door. “The soul of romance.”
“You or Mom?” Mrs. Murphy laughed.
“A fat lot you know about love,” the dog replied.
“I know it can get you in all kinds of trouble.”
7
Harry was the first to notice it because she walked to work that Monday morning. The Harley, like a raven with folded wings, was perched in front of the post office. Although Tucker and Mrs. Murphy accompanied her, she had no desire to be alone in the P.O. with that man even if Blair did think he was nonviolent.
She peeped into Market’s store. “Hey.”
“Hey, back at you,” Market called to her.
Pay Dirt Page 4