✶ ✶ ✶ ✶
The single-story ranch showed signs of disrepair all around, gutters sagging above siding the color of scrambled eggs. A sun-bleached lawnmower sat next to a shed in knee-high grass like an ironic art installation.
In the gravel driveway, a scrawny and shirtless teenage boy leaned across a lime green dirt bike, using a wrench on the engine. He straightened up and pushed his greasy orange hair out of his face, then started the bike up. It coughed bluish smoke out of its tailpipe for a few moments, then sputtered and died. The teen cursed and leaned back across the bike to try something different.
Laura Jean sighed. “Okay, I might have to get a little gossipy here, and I hate that, so let me just gossip on myself real quick. I got pregnant with the twins before I got married, I cheated on every single math test in eighth grade, and my mother-in-law still thinks Mark and I go to church every week but I’m pretty sure the last time we went was two Popes ago.”
Francine gave Laura Jean the sign of the cross with her cigarette. “I absolve you of all your sins.”
“Thank you. This is the Banderwalt family, they moved in last year. The place was a fixer-upper when they bought it and, well, they didn’t fix it up. The mother’s nice enough, a bit checked out, to be honest. She’s technically an invalid, I suppose. Father’s out of the picture. I think they split right before the move. There’s a little girl, Diana, but she’s a rare sight outside the house.”
“And our young mechanic friend here?”
“That’s Eric. In cowboy-speak, he’s the troublemaker ’round these parts. Mischief maker. Steals beer out of garages, sneaks around with a BB gun, you can see it leaning against the shed there. I will say, however, being the mother of two teenage girls tends to make me a little wary of teenage boys, so, you know, grain of salt.”
The gangly teenager gave up on the bike and chucked his tools inside the shed, securing the door with a rusted bike lock. Turning toward the street, he noticed them walking by, and delivered a thick oyster of spit into the gravel.
“Real charmer,” Francine noted.
“Yeah, well, back to Francine-gossip. Knocked any boots since the divorce?”
Francine grinned as they continued on. “What kind of depraved tour company are you running here?”
“Hey, don’t make me feel like a pervert. I just need to know what I’m working with.”
“What you’re working with is, no, I haven’t been with anyone, and haven’t wanted to be, either. Ben may have killed sex for me forever.”
“Don’t you dare say that! Are you still using his last name?”
Francine nodded. “Orthine.”
“Francine Orthine? Hon, you sound like a Twinkie ingredient!”
“I never liked it either. It’s just…a lot of paperwork,” Francine said, unconvincingly. “I do want to change it back to my maiden name, Haddix. I’m getting there.”
Laura Jean gave her arm a supportive squeeze. “I’ll call you whatever you like, but holy hell, Haddix is much better. Sounds to me like a French name, and French is sexy, which makes my matchmaking job that much easier.”
“I don’t remember hiring you for that.”
“It was in the fine print. Ugh, our next stop is my least favorite of all. Lori Asperski. She’s the self-appointed dictator in our little corner of the world.”
“The only two-story on the block,” Francine observed as they passed the bleach-white New England Colonial. Its immaculate side yard was edged with a low fence that contained a tidy chicken coop and a brown goat lazily chewing long strands of grass.
“Lori’s gotten even prissier since the Banderwalts moved in,” Laura Jean said. “She tried to get thirty-foot hedges put up next to the farm, but they would’ve touched the power lines so the village said no. That put Lori in a bad mood, but only for the last year or so. Remember that woman in the minivan?”
Francine nodded.
“One of Lori’s Hens. That’s what I call her army of sycophantic mommies. They never miss a chance to blow things out of proportion. I’ve been on their shit list lately too, because I got chosen as director of the Fourth of July parade. It’s a pretty big deal around here.
“Let me guess. Lori usually does it.”
“Correct. I’m sure she’s been going stir crazy and driving her husband, Dennis, nuts as a result, though you wouldn’t hear it from him. About as conversational as drywall, that man. Ah.” Laura Jean perked up as they left the Colonial behind for a brown split-level at the top of a long driveway. “Soviet territory at last.”
Francine noticed the house’s backyard met Ellie’s at the huge willow tree in the center of the block. Magdalena Durham lived a lot closer than she liked.
“Well? Don’t clam up on me now,” she prodded, eager to get some information for her detective case.
“Magdalena is Russian—which is totally fine. I’m just sayin’, when it comes to manners, you can definitely tell Baltic from Midwest. The woman’s not a hugger, but before last night I never had a problem with her.”
“She’s married to the big blond dude?”
“She is, indeed. Hollis is our police chief.” Laura Jean smirked. “So you noticed him, huh?”
“Don’t make this worse. I just saw them together at the party. They seemed troubled to me.”
“Okay, normally this would be too gossipy even for me, but since your safety could be at stake…”
“What?”
“Well, I don’t know how else to say it other than ‘mail-order.’ I’m not saying we saw a receipt, but Hollis has all but explicitly acknowledged it.”
“The guy looks like an American Gladiator. Why would he need a mail-order bride?”
Laura Jean shrugged. “Who knows? I feel for her, though, just a teensy bit. Imagine, you get crated up in Moscow, then, days later, someone crowbars the lid off and you walk out into the middle of American suburbia. Next thing you know, my annoying ass is bringing you welcome cakes and what-not. Speaking of which, I owe you a welcome cake. God, what are all those parade preparations doing to my manners?”
Francine wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw a pixie cut silhouette peering at them through the blinds of an upstairs window. The sight made her taste cranberry vodka all over again. She tried, with Laura Jean’s new information, to figure out how she could have offended Magdalena, but still came up empty.
“Aha.” Laura Jean interrupted her thought process. “We’ve saved the most interesting house for last.”
The final house on the block was another single-story ranch, with mint green siding and no distinctive features Francine could see.
“This is the most interesting house?”
“Tut tut,” Laura Jean teased. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s what’s on the inside that counts?”
“Okay, so what’s inside?”
“Two words. Mister. Mystery.”
“Mister Mystery?”
“The previous owners moved to Michigan a few months ago and the new owners aren’t moving in until mid-July, so they rented it out.” Laura Jean’s excitement peaked. “It’s the right bowl of porridge at last, Goldilocks. He’s not too old, not too young, quiet but sweet, and more or less handsome-ish, assuming one takes the time to look. His real name is Michael Bruno, but I think Mister Mystery is so much cooler, don’t you?”
Francine thought back to the man she’d seen smoking in a lawn chair. “Messy black hair?”
“Ooh! You met him already?”
“I didn’t meet him, just saw him at the party.”
“Lucky for you I’m so persuasive. That was the first social invitation I’ve been able to get him to accept all summer. I’m gonna try to go two-for-two and invite him to my barbeque tomorrow night.”
“Are you inviting me too?”
“You never need an invite from me,” Laura Jean scolded. “But yes. With bells on, please.”
“Is Magdalena going?”
“Well…yes. Close-knit community etiquette de
mands that I invite everyone. Maybe the two of you can bury the hatchet in a nice, fat bratwurst.”
“I don’t know...”
“I’ll have a poncho on standby, just in case she gets the itch to drench you again. Please, please, please.”
“Okay,” Francine surrendered. “Couldn’t turn out worse than last night, right?”
“God, I hope not!” Laura Jean took a moment to calm herself. “My girls have mentioned that I can be a touch overbearing at times. The name ‘Smother Goose’ may have been tossed around once or twice. So while you are definitely coming tomorrow night, no argument there, I’ll leave it up to you whether we invite Mister Mystery or not. Fair?”
Francine looked over her shoulder at the mint-colored house. Each dwelling so far seemed to be a kind of brick and mortar facsimile of the people inside. The plain, detail-free ranch fit the pattern well, giving away little about the not too old, not too young, quiet but sweet, more or less handsome-ish inhabitant.
She’d gotten a curious thrill upon seeing Michael Bruno the first night, but what if he was just another Ben? That wasn’t the impression she’d gotten, but of course she’d been wrong before.
“I’ll think about it.”
Chapter 4
I often think: “I wish I were a child again.”
[ x ] TRUE [ ] FALSE
“Alley-oop!” Francine knifed her hands under Charlie’s armpits and lifted him into the sink. The boy had become impossibly sticky and grimy in the last ten hours, but she was taking the cool-aunt route of letting him wash his black-bottomed feet in the sink in lieu of a full bath.
Ellie had been so engrossed in her travel itineraries, party planning, and a thousand other things, she’d failed to give Francine a crash course on childcare. Even the cursory spiel normally given to a teenage babysitter would’ve been nice: Here’s the number for pizza, don’t overwater the zinnias, Thursday is garbage day, and oh, here’s how to keep a seven-year-old alive.
That same seven-year-old was excitedly prattling on about how he’d had the “most amazing day ever,” though Francine suspected that was basically how Charlie saw every day in summer.
“…and I raced a Lego boat down the stream by the park and somebody carved a bunch of swear words under the slide there and then I used my allowance for the ice cream truck which I almost didn’t catch in time but then I did and I got a Bubble Play. That’s the cherry-ice baseball glove and the baseball in the middle is gum and it’s like hard as a rock but you can use it as a marble so it’s still good. And I got brain freeze but if you put your tongue on the top of your mouth it goes away.”
“Mmhmm…” Francine nodded as she scrubbed the soles of his feet with a sponge and some dish soap. It was fortunate the conversation wasn’t dependent on her responses, because her mind kept wandering back to San Francisco. And Ben. And all the little details of their life together. The memorized cocktail orders. The cologne he wore only on weekends. The birthmark on his left hip she said looked like a shooting star.
“And then I caught tadpoles at the pond. Oh, there are three ponds at the front of the neighborhood. Tadpole Pond, Snapping Turtle Pond, and Haunted Pond. Then I pretended there were ninjas and a robot attacking me but I got away, but then I fell and skinned my knee for real.”
“Mmhmm…”
Their mutual dislike of movies that let a phone ring for too long. The understanding that she’d eat any pickles that came with Ben’s sandwiches and he’d eat whatever olives came with her salads. The lullaby of his beating heart as they fell asleep together.
“Aunt Franciiiiine,” Charlie complained. “My feet are clean now.”
“Right, sorry.” She dried his feet with a dishtowel and hoisted him out of the sink. “Wanna do the honors?”
Charlie nodded, and eagerly dumped a packet of cheese powder into the waiting pot of macaroni.
“Mac and cheese is the fanciest, best food in the world,” he announced, stirring the yellow-orange goo.
“Fancy food for our fancy dinner.” Francine plated the rest of the meal. “We also have pan-fried beef cylinders, you might call them hot dogs, and a seasonal offering of, um, garden candy.”
“Veggies.” Charlie stuck his tongue out in disgust as he carried the plates over to the table.
Francine joined him with two glasses of lemonade. “All paired with a Minute Maid frozen concentrate, 1989. A fine vintage. It might not be the pinnacle of fine cooking, Bubba, but it’s definitely the pinnacle of mine.”
Charlie however, had no complaints, as he began to devour his hot dog.
Francine tried her mac and cheese, which, she had to admit, was pretty fantastic. One undeniable perk of babysitting was getting to dive back into the comfort foods of her own childhood.
“Being here with you makes me think of when I was a kid,” she said.
“You were a kid?” Charlie asked, while hiding some lima beans behind his last bite of hot dog.
“Yes, you little smart aleck. A lot like you, actually. I loved summer and hated lima beans.” She picked a pale bean from her microwaved vegetable medley and flicked it out the open window. “They’re almost as bad as green olives.”
“I hate green olives, too. So much.”
Francine smirked, ninety-nine percent sure the boy had never tasted an olive in his life. “Go ahead.”
Charlie enthusiastically chucked his own lima beans out the window.
“You will, however, have to eat some green things while I’m here. I have to be the adult every now and then. So what do we do with the rest of the veggies on your plate?”
Charlie thought hard. “What if we eat them real fast, then eat the mac and cheese to get rid of the taste?”
“Love it.” Francine held out a pinky. “Together?”
Charlie hooked it. “Go.”
They scarfed the mixed vegetables, then packed their mouths with mac and cheese. After they’d washed it all down with a gulp of lemonade, Charlie let out a loud burp, and Francine couldn’t stifle a laugh. “Okay, my little garbage disposal, I’ll clean the plates while you go throw on some pj’s. Giddy-up.”
“’Kay.”
He scampered off and Francine brought their plates to the sink, cranking open the window to let in the fragrant scent of a lavender bush. The nonsensical, sun-wearing-sunglasses thermometer clipped to the window shutter showed a temperature in the mid-nineties, even well after sunset.
While the wet, stagnant heat was inescapable, reminiscing with Charlie had offered Francine a brief respite from unproductive thoughts about Ben. But in the absence of interaction, she could feel the stormclouds gathering again. Not good.
“I get to explore at night,” Charlie said from the doorway behind her.
“Charlie! You have to stop sneaking up on me like that.”
“At least you didn’t swear this time.”
“Excuse you, mister. I never swore, and you’re supposed to be neck deep in pj’s by now.”
“I’m serious.” Charlie ran over to the sink. “I get to explore at night, just for a little bit. I forgot to tell you that when I told you my agenda this morning.”
“And I told you that you can’t substitute-teacher me on everything. Plus, I just scrubbed your feet clean,” she added, realizing she’d have to redo the dishes with a new, non-foot sponge.
“I’m not tricking you,” he promised.
Francine shut off the faucet and dried her hands. “Tell me with a straight face your parents let you do that.”
Charlie adopted a serious face and tone. “They let me do it. Exploring is the best at night. It’s not super hot and there aren’t any cars. I run around, maybe play Tag with other kids, maybe say hi to Ajax, and then I come home and I’m tired, so Dad can watch TV and Mom can drink wine without me bothering them.”
“I don’t know, Bubba.”
“You said if I’m cool, you’re cool. Remember?” Charlie held out his pinky for an emotional uppercut.
Francine narrowed her eyes at
him, but hooked the tiny digit. “Five minutes, starting now.”
Chapter 5
The only interesting part of newspapers is the comic strips.
[ x ] TRUE [ ] FALSE
Charlie exploded out the back door and rushed toward the willow tree, grabbing one of its whip-like branches to ride high into the night sky. Aunt Francine had only given him five minutes, but he wasn’t worried. He’d always been able to squeeze ten minutes out of five.
Launching himself from the willow branch, he landed on an acorn and didn’t mind the pain. A soft foot meant it was still June, a time of popsicles and stargazing and the certainty that school would never come again. July would bring camping in the backyard and running through sprinklers and collapsing on the grass to watch the big color bloom of fireworks. By the time August rolled around, a bare foot could withstand an honest-to-God nail. Arms and legs would be bronzed and faces wise with another summer savored. The adults might rule nine months of the year, but these months were for those who did a lot with a little, and never dreamed of more than a day well-spent.
He ran beneath the stretches of roadside oak trees, their leafy canopies punched with puzzle pieces of moonlight. He passed pet graves marked by cruciform twigs that wouldn’t last the winter in the backyards of houses he knew by the quality of their Halloween candy. Ancient elms, stirred by the nighttime breeze, dropped seed pods that spun like tiny helicopters in their lazy fall. Even the ground had something to say, speaking to Charlie’s still-tender feet with smooth carpets of clover, the chalky smoosh of dandelions, and the wet slide of a wild strawberry.
The night’s heat wrapped back around his skin as he slowed to a walk, breathing in the sweet smell of a freshly cut lawn. An owl glided above the surface of Tadpole Pond, out for the hunt. Short summer nights always gave the animals a frenzied urgency, pulling them down from their trees and out of their holes earlier than usual. Charlie remembered he didn’t have an abundance of time himself and veered back toward his block. Five minutes could only be stretched so far.
Hawthorn Woods Page 3