The long, wooded driveway led to the side of her house and the deck, which faced a private pond. To the right of the house was a small garden and a shallow reflecting pool. Beyond that were Caroline's tennis court and a large barn renovated to serve as a guesthouse. On the fringes of the property was the town's arboretum.
It cried out for Prairie or Asian garden themes, but Caroline wouldn't hear of it, preferring annuals and a cottage look more suitable to a New England saltbox. It killed me. And if the "student" was still alive it'd probably kill him, too.
Last year she'd let me test one perennial grass in a container near her tennis court, so I had my fingers crossed I'd get to push the envelope again this year and go beyond mere petunias and alyssum. It could be a notable addition to my résumé, the way the Peacock house had been last year.
I pulled into the Sturgises' driveway through two stone pillars topped by Mission-style light fixtures. Following the drive around to the left, I continued about a hundred yards to a separate three-car garage. As I was getting out, the garage door opened; the driver was just as startled as I was. He leaned out of the car, with a stunned expression on his face, and backed out a little too fast, kicking up pea gravel and spinning his tires. He put the car into drive and pulled out, crushing some snowdrops at the side of the driveway.
Inside, Caroline heard the tires squeal and came to the screen door to see what was up.
"Hi, Paula," she said, shielding her eyes and watching as the car pulled onto the road. "I don't know why he has to drive like that. He can't be late; he's been reading the paper for the last forty minutes. C'mon inside."
He was Grant Sturgis, Caroline's husband. I just caught a glimpse of him, but he looked slightly familiar. Caroline thought we might have met at the opening ceremony for a garden I restored, but with his bland features and sandy hair, Grant could be mistaken for almost any slight, not unattractive, thirty-to forty-year-old man. Generic, both-hands-in-their-pockets guys who could be found in every restaurant, mall, and private club in the country.
Caroline, on the other hand, had a spark. True, it was currently hidden under a velvet headband, and the safe suburban armor of flats, slacks, cotton shirt, and sweater tied around her neck, but it was there. And in danger of combusting, if she kept feeding it alcohol.
I'd met her two years ago. She was dropping off and I was furnishing my new house at the Springfield Historical Society's Thrift Shop. We shared a few laughs over some of the merchandise—long, skinny prints of big-eyed children, crafts projects gone horribly wrong. We also shared a fondness for the two older women who worked there, known affectionately as the Doublemint twins because time and friendship had turned them into carbon copies of each other.
When Caroline found out I had a garden business she squealed that I was just the person she was looking for, although I had a feeling she was lonely, and anyone that day would have fit the bill. We went back to her place and after a brief discussion of the colors she liked we had a handshake deal. I would plant a thousand spring bulbs all around her tennis court. It wasn't my idea of a beautiful design but clients were hard to come by, especially in September, so I said yes. Each year I encouraged her to be more adventurous.
My entire house could have fit in Caroline's kitchen, and on the spotless marble countertop was a pitcher that experience had told me was filled with mimosas. Strong ones.
As the client, Caroline Sturgis could get as highly smashed as she wanted to at nine in the morning. Good sense and something my doctor had said to me at my last checkup about "high liver enzyme levels" kept me on the straight and narrow. A big part of my last job had been social networking and that had inevitably involved a certain amount of drinking, but those days were over, especially now that I had a mortgage and two employees counting on me to make payroll. And I couldn't afford to be fuzzy-headed if there were power tools around.
Caroline poured herself a tall one and me the same despite the fact that I'd waved my hand over the heavy-bottomed tumbler she'd set out. I moved the glass to one side and set up my laptop to bring up the garden rooms I'd envisioned for her property. The screen quickly filled with pictures of small shrub and perennial beds I thought would work for the various spots in her garden. She pretended to pay attention but I could see her mind was elsewhere. Right then it was on her drink, which she downed as if it was straight orange juice.
"Caroline, is this a bad time? I can come back later."
I didn't really want to, but I needed her full attention or else she'd revert to impatiens and petunia mode, instead of even considering the more substantial changes I was proposing.
"No, no. Don't go. This is as good a time as any. You've done all this work and here I am daydreaming."
If it was a daydream, it wasn't a pleasant one. Caroline's normally smooth forehead was as wrinkled as a Klingon's and there were two deep grooves in the shape of the number eleven at the top of her nose.
She let me drone on about ornamental grass, Russian sage, and rudbeckia, but she was lost in thought and it wasn't from weighing the benefits of miscanthus versus fountain grass. I worried about mixing business with personal stuff but decided to ask her what was the matter.
"I just feel so useless these days," she said. "Molly's away at school and Jason will be leaving in January. And Grant's been traveling so much lately. He just got back from a week in Boston, and now he's off to Chicago for four days. I guess that means his business is doing well but I thought we'd have more time together now that the children were older, not less."
When it came to relationship advice my specialty was "Screw him. He doesn't deserve you." That worked pretty well for most of my single New York friends. Here in the 'burbs I was in uncharted territory. I didn't have the first clue as to how to comfort an empty nester.
"I take a few classes . . ." she said, trailing off. "Mostly to get out of the house and see people."
My laptop went into sleep mode; I pushed it back a few inches. I was antsy to get back to work but it was pointless until Caroline finished unburdening herself.
"What kinds of classes are you taking?" I asked. Part of me really cared.
"What haven't I taken?" She threw her head back, laughing and rolling her eyes. "Real housewife stuff. You'll think they're silly. I guess they are."
"No I won't. Tell me."
"This year, glassblowing and wreath making. I drive to the city for the glassblowing class and take wreath making at Mary Ellen's Craft Shop in New Canaan."
"They're not silly; my mother does a lot of that stuff." She winced. Wrong move—what woman wants to be compared to her friend's mother? I regrouped. "That's impressive. I'm not good with my hands except for digging. So what have you made?"
"Nothing. That's just it," she said, recovering from the insult and pouring herself another drink. "I lose interest. I have a room filled with half-finished projects—shell art, calligraphy, pottery. That hobby room is a shrine to my failures."
"You shouldn't think of it that way. At least you've tried." I took a sip of the mimosa, just to be sociable. There was dead silence for a minute. Trying to empathize, I told her about the tag-sale treadmill in the garage that silently mocked me every time I pulled out of my driveway. "And who doesn't have an unfinished scarf or poncho in her closet?" I said. "Although if you're talking about baby booties from fifteen years ago, you might want to pitch them."
She finally cracked a smile. "I can't seem to throw any of it out. The potter's wheel I bought after I saw the movie Ghost for the twelfth time. The loom I searched all over the Internet for. I was so happy when the box finally arrived, and I made exactly one ugly potholder with it."