In A.D. 93, the Roman poet Horace wrote: This is what I prayed for! A piece of land not so very large, with a garden, and near the house a spring of ever-flowing water, and up above these a bit of woodland. That's exactly what I had. And that's where I was going.
Eleven
I hauled myself up the stairs, dumped my things in the living room, and dropped the mail on the kitchen table. Despite the decaf, I was wired. Maybe I shouldn't have cleaned out the mailbox at the foot of the driveway. It was mostly junk anyway—catalogs, campaign literature, and flyers from cleaning services and house painters. I always wondered if they targeted my house. Good grief, that hovel needs a coat of paint.
My house is the most modest in the neighborhood. Wetlands restrictions and the nearby bird sanctuary saved my little bungalow from spec contractors who'd cock it up with fake dormers and stone facing and then try to flip it to some middle manager who'd sweat the mortgage until he thought he could palm it off on someone else. I told myself the neighbors silently thanked me for maintaining the character of the place, but couldn't be sure since I didn't know any of the neighbors, so I never had the opportunity to ask.
On my left was a formerly noisy guy who'd either grown up, gotten married, or died; I hadn't seen or heard him all winter. That's the way it was in the suburbs if you had no PTA or country-club connections. You could be almost as anonymous as you were in a big city.
I trashed the solicitations and the mailings from grinning office seekers with jackets not so casually thrown over their shoulders. Problem was, I couldn't toss the bills. Dirty Business was doing okay, but I was still getting used to the challenge of being flush for half the year and rolling change the other half. I wasn't eating cat food, but it had been a long time since I'd treated myself to a splurge. That was the real reason for my trip to Titans. But that plan had backfired when Lucy didn't show and a dead guy did instead.
I checked my cell messages again. Nothing from Lucy. I wasn't worried about her, just curious. And maybe a little jealous. I hadn't been in a relationship for over a year, and if anyone had asked I would have said that was okay, I had my hands full running a business. But I hadn't had an adventure for even longer—and I was due.
There was just one call from Anna, my sometime assistant. I left Lucy another message, then checked my home phone just to make sure she hadn't tried to reach me on that number. Zip.
It was midnight. Fatigue was setting in; bills were staring me in the face. I thought of opening them, but . . . Screw it, they'd be here tomorrow. The article for the Bulletin would bring in a few bucks, and more important, maybe a client or two. Hector and Bernie were right about that, publicity was key. And first thing in the morning I'd call on Caroline Sturgis, my rich suburban matron.
I meant to wake up at six and get a run in before driving to Caroline's. Instead, I slept in until after eight when I heard a key in the front door and Anna Jurado sang out my name, "Meez Pohlah!"
March through October is garden season in my part of Connecticut. For those eight months the newlywed team of Anna and Hugo Jurado worked for Dirty Business. I couldn't afford to pay them the rest of the year, and they generally returned to Mexico anyway, but for those months we were a real company, not just a woman with stationery and business cards who still felt a little like a fake. Hugo was a master in the garden and helped me hire temporary workers when I was lucky enough to need them. Anna made appointments and kept the books.
I ran my fingers through my hair, pulled on a sweatshirt over my pajamas, and went into the kitchen to greet Anna. She was resplendent in a tomato-red track suit with white jeweled stripes down the sides puckering and threatening to give in to fabric fatigue.
"¿Qué tal?" I asked, starting to make coffee.
"I am very well, thank you very much. And how are you today?" Anna and I played this little game practicing our language skills on each other. If we'd been keeping score, she'd have been killing me.
She and Hugo were married less than a year ago in a ceremony that made the local paper, not because they were members of Springfield's elite, but because they, and I, had been players in the biggest news story to hit the town since the hurricane of 1938.
I willed the coffeemaker to speed up. My appointment with Caroline was for nine o'clock and I had a twenty-minute drive to the Sturgis home. I didn't want to be late. Anna saw me eyeing the clock and shooed me out of the kitchen.
"Get dressed. And fix your hair. I will bring you the coffee when it's ready."
It says something about my current grooming habits when the cleaning lady is giving me beauty tips. I hadn't totally gone to seed. I still worked out religiously—that part hadn't changed since my move from New York—but I had to admit my hair was getting a little shaggy. It was just easier to pull it into a ponytail and put on a baseball hat. And like most gardeners I had perennially grubby hands.
I took a quick shower and pulled on jeans, a boy's thermal T-shirt, and the hoodie I wore the previous night. Back in the kitchen I twisted my wet hair into a knot and fastened it with a big clip. Then I took a fistful of bangs and distributed them evenly across my forehead.
"That's a very attractive look," Anna said, handing me a mug. "You look like you are going to deliver newspapers on your bicycle."
"Gracias."
It was the kind of crack I expected from a woman in full war paint and rhinestones at breakfast. And Anna wore her plus size regally; where I neurotically counted every calorie that passed my lips, Anna happily indulged in whatever culinary delicacy struck her fancy, with no shameful morning-after guilt, no slavish adherence to slimming black. More to love, she'd say. I was trying hard to adopt her philosophy.
"Kids don't do that anymore," I said, shaking some cereal into my coffee, "deliver newspapers. Nowadays, they have Internet consulting gigs. I met a ten-year-old last week who had classier business cards than I do. Ivory laid stock—looked like Crane's, for crying out loud. She was leaving a stack of them at the Paradise Diner in a little metal holder near the real estate booklets. Eerie." I poured more coffee over my cereal.
"That's disgusting. You should eat something more substantial than that."
"I'm multitasking." I spooned the concoction into my mouth. "I had a big breakfast yesterday; I have to be in Greenwich by nine," I said, checking my watch. I took a last spoonful of cereal, grabbed my backpack, and bolted down the stairs. "I'm outta here."
"Are you going to see Mrs. Sturgis? Make sure you get one-third upfront," she said as I flew out the door. Always looking out for me. "Usted nunca . . ." she started to yell, "you never remember."
I'd try. But Caroline Sturgis was one of those women who didn't think much about money because apparently she'd always had it. She always paid, but she always paid late. Last year Anna had suggested we start charging her one percent interest; we did, and she still paid late. Bills were minor annoyances to her.
Caroline lived one town over, where the house numbers were harder to see because the front doors were so far from the road, and the mailman could listen to an entire pop song in between deliveries because the mailboxes were that far apart.
The Sturgis home had been designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright—poor guy, he was probably ninety years old and still referred to as a student. Caroline's place was magnificent—lots of levels, built-ins, and fireplaces—and all natural materials: stone, wood, and slate.