Something Buried, Something Blue

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  Blue Slayton, wearing khakis and a navy cardigan sweater, appears at the foot of a nearby driveway leading to a house that is, unlike the ones inside the gate, no simple cottage. Perched on a knoll above the lake, the grand, turreted gingerbread structure stood empty all summer. Odelia had mentioned that its owner, the renowned celebrity medium David Slayton, now resides mainly in Los Angeles, where he tapes his cable television reality series, Dead Isn’t Dead.

  Even Bella had heard of the show prior to her arrival in Lily Dale. She caught an episode over the summer and found David Slayton’s on-air persona to be the antithesis of the mediums she’d met here. His aggressive and arrogant method of relaying Spirit messages is hallmarked by dismissive impatience with his guests if they don’t readily recognize the lost loved one trying to communicate.

  Blue Slayton materialized one mid-September day as Bella was waiting here for Max’s bus. If she believed in ghosts—and around here, it’s hard not to, though she continues to wear her skepticism like a shield—she might have pegged him for one.

  He popped up out of nowhere in a spot she’d had all to herself on weekday afternoons. While a handful of Lily Dale kids attend the elementary school a few miles down the road, Bella is the only one who ever meets the bus here daily.

  Fortunately, the guy wasn’t a ghost. He was just a guy. A good-looking one, albeit a little too buttoned up, neatly combed, and unrumpled for her taste. She’d assumed he was around her age, but Odelia mentioned that he’s a few years younger, not quite thirty. He dated Odelia’s granddaughter Calla when they were young and both living in the Dale. From what Bella gathers, that relationship didn’t end well. Blue has never mentioned it. They see each other daily as she waits for the bus and he retrieves his mail, but their conversations are casual.

  Today, flipping through a stack of catalogs and envelopes, he glances idly at her car and then does a double take. Recognizing her in the driver’s seat, he comes over to her open window.

  “You drove today,” he observes, and she marvels at the clockwork precision of Lily Dale life in the off-season. Now that the crowds are gone and life has settled into a predictable rhythm, you can’t make a misstep without someone noticing. Most days, it’s nice to know people keep an eye out for each other, though she supposes the scrutiny might be intrusive under certain circumstances.

  “I have to scoop up Max and take him out to the animal hospital to get our cat,” she tells Blue. “She had spay surgery this morning.”

  “Yeah? That’s good. I mean, I’m guessing it’s good?”

  “It’s definitely good, since eight kittens are all we can handle, although the timing could have been better. I’ve got a houseful of guests on the way.”

  “That’s right, this is the wedding weekend, isn’t it?”

  She doesn’t remember telling him that. He must have heard about it from someone else. Not Odelia, though. She has no use for Blue Slayton and mentioned just yesterday that she’s glad she hasn’t run into him yet. “I don’t know why he’s still hanging around here at this time of year.”

  “He said he’s doing some work on the house.”

  At Bella’s comment, Odelia rolled her eyes. “That’s not true.”

  “Does Spirit tell you that?”

  “Common sense tells me that.”

  “Victorian houses need constant repair,” Bella pointed out mildly.

  “The Slayton house is no Victorian. It was built about fifteen, maybe twenty years ago after David went Hollywood. And even if it does need work, that man is rich enough to hire the world’s best contractor. His son doesn’t need to play handyman and can’t be any handier around the house than I am.”

  “Spirit or common sense?”

  “You saw him. Does he look like someone who’d be wearing a tool belt?”

  “Not exactly,” Bella admitted, thinking for some reason of the veterinarian, Drew Bailey. Now that man, even in surgical scrubs, looks like he’d be just as comfortable holding a hammer as a scalpel.

  She wouldn’t mind finding out if that’s the case and wonders if he’ll mention fixing the door when she sees him. If he does, she can say that tomorrow morning is a bad time, but maybe another day. If he doesn’t, well, she can always hire someone, or . . .

  Or park yourself outside Drew’s office howling like Chance?

  As the yellow bus rolls around the bend flashing its red lights, she reminds herself that her relationship with Drew Bailey is strictly professional and platonic.

  “Good luck with the wedding,” Blue tells her as he heads up the driveway with his mail. “Too bad it’s going to snow. But that’s Lily Dale for you.”

  Max bounds off the bus with a handful of other kids who live in the Dale. He and Jiffy Arden are each clutching rolled-up, rubber-banded poster boards that Bella recognizes as last week’s art projects. Now the boys are holding them to their eyes like telescopes, peering at the sky.

  “Not yet,” Bella hears Jiffy tell Max, “but we gotta keep looking.”

  Her son is dismayed when Bella waves him over to the car.

  “I want to walk home with my friends! We’re looking for snow clouds!”

  “We have to go pick up Chance from Doctor Bailey. You can look on the way.”

  Her mention of the veterinarian magically erases his scowl. Suddenly agreeable, he climbs into the car, shouting to Jiffy that he’ll see him later.

  “Okay,” Jiffy shouts back. “Don’t forget about the snowboards!”

  “Snowboards?” Bella asks as she pulls out onto the road.

  “Yep. Me and Jiffy are going snowboarding this weekend, so we need to go buy snowboards.”

  With an inner sigh, she decides not to waste her breath defusing the latest kid conspiracy. There will be plenty of time for that later.

  Max chatters on about the snow and school and Candy Corn, the animated Halloween movie being released today. Naturally, he wants Bella to take him to see it tomorrow. Apparently, all the kids from school are going to the Saturday matinee. Yep, every single kid, he insists. But he’s sounding drowsier by the second, and by the time Bella reaches the dirt road turnoff, he’s fast asleep.

  The first time she ever traveled this particular shortcut from Lily Dale to Lakeview Animal Hospital, she was a stranger in a strange land and had just begun to suspect that Leona Gatto had been murdered.

  Leona’s nephew Grant was at the wheel that hot summer night. Max, Chance, and her hours-old litter were in the back seat, with Spidey in urgent need of emergency veterinary care. Bella doubted the fragile runt would survive the journey.

  She wasn’t sure any of them would, as Grant, a stranger she’d just met, sped deep into a foreboding green tunnel of dense night forest.

  What a difference a season makes.

  Thinking of her mile-long to-do list, Bella presses the gas pedal.

  Weather aside, this wedding is going to be perfect, just as she promised the skeptically intrigued Grant Everard.

  “I never thought of Valley View as a destination wedding spot,” he said when she first mentioned it over the phone last month. “Especially considering what just happened there.”

  He was referring, of course, to Leona’s death and the subsequent murder investigation, during which a few other lives, including Bella’s, were in jeopardy. The case did make the local papers after the culprit had been apprehended, but the national media was fortuitously distracted by an exploding political scandal. Dubbed “Pantygate,” the salacious situation in Washington far eclipsed the obscure not-so-accidental drowning that had happened weeks earlier in a remote corner of western New York.

  “Most people don’t know about that, and they don’t have to. Think about it, Grant. People fly to islands in the Caribbean and South Pacific so that they can get married off the beaten path. After the summer, Lily Dale feels just as remote, but it’s a whole lot easier to reach.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but Valley View is no Bora Bora Four Seasons.”

  Trying no
t to resent the note of amusement, she reminded him, “Most people can’t afford the Four Seasons. We can position Valley View as a budget-friendly, picturesque wedding venue in the middle of nowhere, even though it’s not.”

  “That’s debatable,” he said, before telling her she might be onto something. “But the place needs a lot of work to bring it into the twenty-first century, and you can’t sink that kind of money into a maybe.”

  “I can help with the makeover,” Bella tells him. “I can plant some flowers, paint the walls, make some new curtains . . .”

  He laughed. “What needs to be done at Valley View will take heavier equipment than a trowel, a paintbrush, and a sewing machine. We’re talking about ripping out all the old plumbing, replacing the furnace, a complete electrical overhaul, professional landscaping. Not only that, but we’d need a decent website, an online reservations system, major advertising and promotion . . .”

  “Not all at once. We can start small. And I’ll take care of the most pressing cosmetic stuff before this wedding, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Have at it and send me the bills,” he said amiably. “We’ll see how it goes.”

  It was hard not to find his lackadaisical attitude maddening. To him, Valley View is nothing more than a nuisance and perhaps a mildly interesting experiment. To her . . .

  It’s home. I have to make this work.

  She brakes, spotting the familiar sign that reads, Lakeview Animal Hospital and Rescue.

  Bordered by woods on one side and acres of grapevines on the other, it’s little more than a clapboard hut. But within four cozy walls, Drew Bailey works miracles on sick or injured pets and strays.

  Today, Bella and Max find him in his usual scrubs and razor stubble, finishing a splint on a little brown duckling’s broken leg.

  “Guys, meet Bob,” he says.

  “Bob?” they echo.

  “Bob.”

  Max giggles. “That’s a crazy name for a duck.”

  “Well, what else would you like me to call him? It’s exactly what he does on the pond out back.”

  Puzzled, Max looks from Drew’s solemn face to Bella’s.

  “He bobs,” she explains.

  Drew confirms, “When he’s not laid up with a broken leg, anyway.”

  “He lives out back?” Max asks.

  “He did, but it’s dangerous. There’s a fox den out there.” Drew gently places the duckling on a blanket in a small cage and closes the door. Max peers in at him.

  “Are you going to keep him, Doctor Drew?”

  “No, but I’m sure someone will adopt him.”

  Predictably, Max turns to Bella. “Mom, can we—”

  “Sorry, no room at the inn, kiddo.”

  “But—”

  “Max, we can’t.”

  “Hey, Max,” Drew says over his protest, “you want to go visit Swash?”

  “Yes!” He dashes off in search of Swashbuckler, the chatty parrot who lives in a cage in the back room.

  Drew meets Bella’s grateful smile with an angled dark brow. “Come on, you really don’t want a warm, fuzzy duckling?”

  “Thanks, but no thanks. No offense, Bob,” she adds, and Drew grins the grin that sometimes makes her forget that he’s her vet and not her friend.

  Max always forgets.

  She was relieved when school started and her son no longer accompanied her to weekday appointments at the animal hospital. Every time they come here, he bonds as much with Drew as with his furry and feathered patients.

  On the way home, Max would ask her things like “But why can’t we adopt a baby goat?” and “Why can’t we invite Doctor Drew over for dinner?”

  Back in July, those questions seemed equally preposterous, but Doctor Bailey—Drew—has since made house calls to Valley View. And once or twice, after tending to the kittens, he’s stuck around to help them polish off leftovers or pizza.

  But it isn’t as if she’s ever actually cooked dinner for him.

  It isn’t as if he’s a friend.

  And it certainly isn’t as if he’s anything more than a friend, she reminds herself yet again.

  Steering the conversation back to the business at hand, she asks how Chance is doing.

  “Let’s just say she’s feeling no pain.”

  “That’s good.”

  “It is, but you might have your hands full for a while. She’s still loopy from the medication.”

  Uh-oh. “How loopy is she, exactly? Because I’m hosting a wedding at the guesthouse, and my hands are pretty full already.”

  “I didn’t know you did weddings.”

  “Neither did I, until I . . . um, found myself doing a wedding.”

  “How did this come about?”

  She hesitates, wondering if she should explain about Grant Everard and needing to make the guesthouse profitable in the off-season. But that’s a long and complicated story, so instead she simply says “Odelia.”

  He chuckles. “Now there’s a one-word answer that explains absolutely nothing, yet absolutely everything. Come on, let’s go see Chance.”

  He leads her past a bulletin board covered with fliers picturing lost dogs and cats as well as strays who need homes. His dream, Bella once overheard him telling Max, is to buy a large piece of property and turn it into a sanctuary for all the homeless animals.

  “Why don’t you just do it?” Max asked.

  “Because I can’t afford to.”

  “Why don’t you charge your customers more money?” he persisted with kid logic.

  “Because they can’t afford to pay more.”

  Some, Bella knows, can’t afford to pay anything at all. Yet she’s never seen the man treat a living creature with anything but the utmost tenderness and respect, regardless of whether it’s attached to an owner who can foot the bill afterward.

  Chance is in the small recovery room, lounging on a cushion in a wire kennel. Bella reaches in to pet her, and her green eyes pop open, pupils hugely dilated.

  “Hey, there, sweetie. Are you ready to come home?”

  Chance meows, rolls onto her back, and stretches, revealing a shaved belly with a small scar and stitches. Then she stands up, falls over, stands again, and walks into the wall of the kennel. She emits an offended meow, promptly crashes into the opposite wall, and meows again.

  Alarmed, Bella turns to Doctor Bailey. “Is she okay?”

  “Like I said, she’s loopy. It’ll wear off. Just keep her contained and keep an eye on her. I’m going to go get some medication for you to give her. I’ll be back in two seconds.”

  As he steps out of the room, the phone rings, and he calls over his shoulder, “Make it three seconds. I have to get that. Lorinda leaves early on Fridays.”

  Lorinda is his young vet tech assistant, who does everything from answer the phone to foster homeless animals in her tiny apartment.

  Hearing Drew’s brusque “Lakeview Animal Hospital,” Bella remembers why she found him gruffly intimidating when they met.

  He does come across that way at first, or when he’s in the midst of a pressing medical issue. But he has a soft spot for animals and children, and the moment Bella saw him in action with Chance and Max, she liked him.

  Of course, she changed her mind in the next moment, when his guard was back up. By then, so was hers.

  On that traumatic day, she and Max had already driven away from Bedford for the last time. Heartbroken, destitute, and homeless, she had no idea what was going to happen next. For her son’s sake, she’d pretended the road trip was a great adventure. But never in her life had she felt more terrified, or more alone.

  Then, out of the blue, there was Chance, sitting in the middle of the road. They had to pull over.

  Every time Bella recounts the tale in Odelia’s presence, that’s Odelia’s cue to remind Bella that cats are mystical creatures.

  “If she hadn’t popped up where she did, you and Max would be in Chicago right now with Millicent. You never would have found your way he
re.”

  But they did, after first finding their way to the animal hospital, where unflappable Drew took them all in stride: one ownerless, pregnant cat, one fatherless boy, and one shell-shocked widow with all her worldly belongings packed into a car that wouldn’t have made it to Chicago anyway.

  Troy Valeri, the mechanic who eventually fixed it, couldn’t believe they’d made it that far. “There was a bad storm that night. You’re lucky this car didn’t break down and strand you on a highway in the middle of nowhere.”

  Luck?

  Destiny?

  Chance? Chance?

  Thanks to you, we found our way to Lily Dale, Bella thinks as the aptly named feline head-butts her hand, nuzzling and purring loudly.

  Amid snatches of animated conversation between Max and Swash, Drew is all business on the phone discussing a client’s ailing pet.

  Parrots are chatty and ducklings are warm and fuzzy. Doctor Drew Bailey is none of the above. Yet he patiently answers the concerned pet owner’s questions and follows up with many of his own. He’s obviously concerned; the call is going to keep him a lot longer than three seconds.

  Bella checks her watch. Odelia has probably finished her reading by now and will be getting ready to head over to the guesthouse. She pulls out her cell phone, enters the password to unlock it, and presses the number she’s had on autodial since her first night in the Dale.

  “If you need anything at all, you just call me,” Odelia said. “I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night. I’ll answer.”

  Not, however, in the middle of the afternoon, when she sees most of her clients. Bella has learned that when Odelia tunes into the Spirit world, she tunes out the physical world.

  Like the other Lily Dale mediums, she has a small room in her house reserved for readings. There are no crystal balls or Ouija boards. Just a candle or two, a table and a couple of chairs, paper and pens, and boxes of tissues. Presumably, hearing from one’s dead relatives can make one weepy.

  Bella wouldn’t know firsthand. She hasn’t had a reading, despite repeated offers from Odelia and others.

  The only offer Bella might consider has come from Pandora Feeney, of all people. Insufferable in many ways and eccentric in even more, she’s the last neighbor with whom Bella would have expected to establish a bond—here, or anywhere else on the planet. But Pandora visits often, having owned Valley View Guesthouse before her ex-husband sold it to Leona Gatto after a bitter divorce. For all her faults, there’s something almost endearing about her.