Wild Orchids Read online

  And then she did something that nearly made me burst into tears in front of our guests.

  She was the last one to arrive. I was filling plates with corn on the cob and barbequed chicken when she came in, looking and smelling like a woman, and I can tell you that it was a relief to see a female in something besides blue jeans and a T-shirt. She had her hair all fluffed out and she wore big gold earrings and tiny sandals, with her toenails painted pink.

  She was holding a wooden box in front of her as though it contained something fragile. I assumed it was a cake and held out my hands to take it from her, but I heard Allie whisper, “Oh, Lord,” then Nate’s grandmother said, “Heaven be merciful,” so I put my hands to my side and looked at Jackie. She just shrugged to say that she had no idea what was going on.

  Tessa, the kid who usually stayed on the outskirts, ran forward, stopped in front of Dessie, and said, “May I open it? Please? Please?”

  I didn’t know what was going on but my curiosity meter just about broke its dial.

  When Allie began to grab the plates and glasses on the round iron table, I thought she might throw them on the ground, but Jackie took them from her. Dessie stood there waiting, holding the box until the table was clear, and only then did she set the box down in the center of the table.

  Dessie stepped back, smiled at Tessa, and nodded.

  After a smile of triumph sent to her mother, Tessa stepped forward and put her hands on the box. The bottom of the box was a flat piece of wood, about a foot square, and the top, a fourteen-inch cube, was set over it.

  Jackie came to stand beside me. The box had the word front on it and that word was facing me. I watched with wide eyes as Tessa slowly lifted the wooden cube straight up.

  I had, of course, figured out by now that since Dessie was a sculptor, one of her pieces was probably inside. And since she was so famous it was no surprise that people were in awe of her work.

  But nothing on earth could have prepared me for what I saw when Tessa lifted up that lid. Before me was a small clay sculpture of the head and shoulders of two women. The younger one was smiling and looking down at something, while the older woman was looking at the younger one, love in her eyes.

  They were Pat and her mother, their likenesses and expressions perfectly captured.

  If Jackie hadn’t shoved a chair into the back of me, I would have collapsed. No one said a word. I think maybe even the birds held their breaths as I looked at that piece of clay. It was them; it was the two women I had loved more than my own soul.

  I reached out to touch it, to feel their warm skin.

  “Careful,” Dessie said. “It’s still wet.”

  Drawing my hand back, I had to take a few breaths to calm myself. Jackie was standing behind my chair with one hand on my shoulder, her fingers pressing on me, giving me strength.

  I managed to recover enough to look up at Dessie. “How…?” I got out of my dry mouth.

  She smiled. “Internet. You’re a famous man so you’re all over the Net. I ran off copies of photos of your late wife and mother-in-law and…” She glanced back at the sculpture. “Do you like it?”

  My throat was swelling up and I could feel tears behind my eyes. I was going to make a fool of myself!

  “He loves it!” Jackie said, sparing me. “He’s mad about it, aren’t you?”

  All I could do was nod and swallow repeatedly as I looked at that beautiful piece of art.

  “I’d say this calls for champagne,” Jackie said, “and I need everyone’s help in getting it out of the ’frig.”

  I was grateful to Jackie for taking all those people away. She got all the guests, about a dozen of them, to follow her into the kitchen, and left me alone with Dessie. Moving a chair beside mine, she sat down, her hands on the table.

  “I hope it’s okay,” she said softly. “It was presumptuous of me but Pat’s Mother was one of the best books I ever read. I think I cried from page two to the last page. You made a heroine out of a woman who would otherwise have been forgotten. After I met you, I wanted to give you something to say thanks for what you gave me with that book.”

  I couldn’t speak. I knew that if I did, I’d start bawling. Reaching across the table, I took her hand in mine and squeezed. All I could do was nod.

  “Good,” she said. “It means everything to me that you like it. But this is just the clay so I can change anything you want to.”

  “No!” I choked out. “It’s perfect.”

  I could feel her smiling at me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the sculpture. I’d seen Pat smile just like that when she was reading my manuscripts. And I’d seen her mother secretly look at her husband and daughter with that face full of love. Had she ever looked at me like that? I wondered.

  But I knew the answer. Yes, she had, I thought, and I squeezed Dessie’s hand tighter.

  “Here they come,” she said, “so pull yourself together.”

  I smiled at that, wiped my eyes, sniffed a couple of times, then watched Dessie slip the top back over the sculpture. “Why don’t you come to lunch at my house on Sunday and let’s talk about casting it in bronze?”

  I nodded, feeling better, but not yet secure enough to talk.

  “You,” she said quietly. “Alone. One o’clock?”

  Turning, I looked at her and saw that this was more than just an invitation to a meal. She was telling me that if I was interested, she was. Yeah, I thought, I was, so I nodded, we smiled at each other, and stayed separate for the rest of the evening.

  But our physical separation didn’t fool Jackie. Approximately three and a half seconds after the last guest left, she informed me that my behavior toward Dessie had been “indecent.”

  “And what does someone of your generation know about decency?” I shot at her. “You run around in shirts the size of my socks, with your belly button exposed, and you think you know about decency?”

  To my extreme annoyance, Jackie gave me a cold little smile and walked out of the room.

  I didn’t see her again until the next morning, and I expected her to be slamming pots and pans around in the kitchen in a jealous fit. Why were women so jealous? I wondered.

  But Jackie wasn’t in the kitchen. Worse, there was no breakfast in the kitchen. I had to search that oversize house for twenty minutes before I found her. She was on the front porch and she was packing camera equipment into a big, padded backpack. She had on high-topped, thick-soled shoes that looked like they weighed twelve pounds each.

  “Going somewhere?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s Saturday and I’m taking the day off. It’s a gorgeous day and I’m going to photograph flowers.”

  I didn’t want to spend the day alone in that cavernous house. I’d had six years alone and a few weeks of being around people, and now I couldn’t seem to bear solitude. “I’ll go with you,” I said.

  Jackie gave a snort of derision and looked me up and down. I had on an old T-shirt and a baggy pair of shorts—my sleeping attire. And, okay, I’d put on a few pounds in the last years, but I knew there was muscle under there.

  “I’m going to be climbing,” she said, as though that excluded me. “And, besides, you don’t have the proper shoes or even something to carry water in.”

  She had me there. I’d never been much of a hiking-climbing person. Climb all day, look at some fabulous view for ten minutes, climb down. I’d rather stay home and look at a book. “Wasn’t there a store next to Wal-Mart called mountain something?”

  “Yes,” Jackie said, slipping her arms into her backpack. “But I’m sure the store doesn’t open until nine, it’s seven now and I’m ready to go.” With a little smile, she turned toward the steps.

  I gave a great sigh. “Okay, I’ll call Dessie and see what she’s doing.”

  Jackie stopped and turned back, looking as though she wanted to murder me. “Get dressed,” she said through clamped-shut teeth. “Blue jeans, T-shirt, long-sleeved shirt.”

  I gave her a mock salute a