Wild Orchids Read online

  After Dessie left Saturday night—or, actually, it was early Sunday—I fell into bed and slept hard.

  The next morning I studied the back of the cereal box and made no comment on Jackie’s snide remark about the little frogs and other beasties that Tessa and I had scattered about the garden. I didn’t even comment when Jackie said that maybe Dessie could make a frog with a mouth big enough that Tessa and I could hide inside it. I started to say that that was a great idea, but I knew Jackie was baiting me and trying to get me to—to what? I wondered. Not go to Dessie’s house that afternoon? Did Jackie want me to stay home and try out some of the new camera equipment we’d ordered together?

  Jackie and I had talked about how to open her business and we’d decided she needed to photograph some kids for free. We could use those pictures to publicize her work. She’d be able to get some people to drive to Cole Creek, but she was also going to need to do a lot of location shooting.

  We’d decided that Jackie could start her photography career by taking photos of Tessa. “And Nate,” Jackie said. “Don’t forget that he’s a kid, too. And pictures of him would certainly sell a lot of portraits.” As I was supposed to, I grimaced and pretended I thought Jackie was after young Nate. But, actually, I thought photographing him was a good idea. The art director of my publishing house knew some photographers in the fashion industry. Maybe they’d like to see pictures of beautiful Nate. If the camera loved him, he had a chance at a career that would support him and his arthritis-crippled grandmother.

  His grandmother had done well at selling the junk from the house. It seemed that there were people in the U.S.—and Europe, which surprised me—who wanted old Statues of Liberty, and they were willing to pay for them. When Nate returned from a day of hacking away at the man-eating jungle around my house, he packaged what his grandmother had sold and took them to the post office.

  On Sunday morning I was thinking of helping Jackie photograph both Tessa and Nate, and I knew I’d rather do that than spend the day with Dessie and be hit up for some giant bronze statue. Of what? Truthfully, after hearing Dessie’s descriptions of her previous sculptures, I liked Jackie’s big-mouthed frog idea the best.

  When it was time to go to Dessie’s, I just left. I started to say goodbye to Jackie, but I didn’t. What was I supposed to say? “Bye, hon, see you later”? And, also, I didn’t want to hear any more sarcastic remarks. I especially didn’t want to hear Jackie tell me about whatever I was going to miss that afternoon. Part of me wanted to tell her that if she had a vision to be sure and call me. But that was like telling an epileptic that if he had a seizure he should call.

  I took the car, leaving Jackie with the truck. It wasn’t until I got to Dessie’s that I realized I had the truck keys. I flipped open my cell phone to tell Jackie I had them, but then I closed the phone. I knew it was wrong of me to leave her with no transportation. I even knew I was being a throwback to a caveman for doing it. On the other hand, who could fight centuries of tradition?

  I dredged up a smile and knocked on Dessie’s door. She had a pretty house, even if it was a little artsy for my taste. All those wind chimes on the porch would drive me mad.

  When Dessie opened the door, I let out my breath. I hadn’t been aware of it, but I’d been dreading what she’d wear. Would it be cut down to her belt buckle? But she had on tan pants, fairly loose, and a big pink sweater with a high neck.

  “Hi,” I said, handing her the bottle of wine Jackie told me I was to take, and following her into the house.

  Right away I saw that Dessie seemed nervous about something. She had a table set up in her small dining room that was off her kitchen, with big double glass doors leading onto a brick-floored, covered patio. It was a beautiful day and I wondered why we didn’t eat outside.

  “Mosquitoes,” Dessie said quickly when I asked.

  “But I thought—” I began, but stopped. There were so few mosquitoes in the Appalachians that they weren’t a problem.

  She seated me with my back to the glass door, which made me feel jittery. As a kid, I’d learned to sit with my back to the wall because cousins tended to leap in through windows. All too often I’d been jolted when frogs, snakes, and various colors and textures of pond slime were dropped down my back through the open window behind me.

  We had just sat down to eat when a lawn mower was started just outside the door. The resulting noise made it impossible to speak.

  “Gardener!” Dessie shouted across the table.

  “On Sunday?” I shouted back.

  As she started to answer, she looked to the left of my head and out the glass doors, her eyes widening in horror.

  I twisted around just in time to see a young man push a mower across a bed of tulips. When he got to the end, the grass littered with chopped-up tulips, he turned to look straight at Dessie and smiled. A malicious smile. A jealous, angry-lover smile.

  It was that smile that made me relax. Maybe I should have been angry to realize that Dessie had been flirting with me because she was having a fight with her boyfriend, but I wasn’t. When I saw that she was attached, more or less, to a guy who was obviously quite jealous, all I felt was relief.

  I pressed the napkin to my lips, said, “Excuse me,” then went outside and spoke to the young man. I didn’t take time for small talk. I just told him that I wasn’t a rival, that it was business only between Dessie and me, and that he could stop razing the tulips.

  When he didn’t seem to believe that I wasn’t insane with lust and love for Dessie, I understood. To me, Pat had been the most beautiful woman on earth, and I never understood why other people didn’t think so, too. But Dessie’s gardener was young and I wasn’t, so he eventually believed me and pushed the mower back into the little shed at the end of the garden. I stayed outside for a few moments while he went inside. After a while, an embarrassed-looking Dessie opened the glass door. I noticed that her lipstick was gone so I guess she and the Lawn Mower Man had made up.

  “You can come in now,” she said and I smiled. Gone was the aggressive-salesman tone in her voice and gone was the flirt.

  I said, “Now can we eat outside?” and she laughed.

  “You’re a nice man,” she said and that made me feel good.

  We moved food and dishes outside, and we both relaxed and enjoyed each other’s company. Unfortunately for me, she’d read all my books so there was nothing new I could tell her about myself. But Dessie was full of stories about her life, both in L.A. and in Cole Creek. She made me laugh about what she’d been through when she was on a soap because the viewers thought she was the tramp she portrayed.

  I sipped beer, munched on little puffy, cheesy things she seemed to have an unlimited supply of, and watched her as I listened. The stories she told were hilarious, but they had an often-repeated quality to them, and there was a sadness in her eyes that I couldn’t figure out. I’d heard that she’d decided to stay in Cole Creek to pursue her real love, sculpture.

  I’m not sure what it was, but something wasn’t ringing true. There was a look of longing in her eyes that I couldn’t figure out. From the sound of her voice as she told the stories, she’d loved L.A., and loved her job. So why did she give it up? Couldn’t she have combined sculpting and acting?

  When I asked her that, she just offered me more of the little cheesy things. I said no, but she still jumped up to go get them. When she returned, she told me another funny soap opera story. By three I was getting bored and wondered if it was too early to leave. She must have sensed my restlessness because she suggested I see her studio. It was a separate building, big, modern, beautiful. Through a carved wooden door, we entered a small office, and on the desk was a photograph of two teenage girls laughing and hugging each other. They were Dessie and Rebecca.

  I’d almost forgotten that Rebecca worked for Dessie. I started to ask about her, but Dessie opened two wide doors and we went into a marvelous room. It was the size and height of a six stall barn, with light everywhere. Windows ran along one