Wild Orchids Read online

  But my dad wasn’t embarrassed by anything. One time he said, “I used to be normal. Long ago I was like your girlfriends’ fathers and was embarrassed by sex and other private matters. But when you go through what I did, it puts life in perspective.”

  Of course I asked him what he was talking about. What had he been through? But he wouldn’t tell me.

  So I had to control my anger over my father’s refusal to tell me about our past. And I had to conceal my resentment over the fact that my father and I seemed to belong nowhere and to no one. How much I envied my friends’ families. I used to fantasize about huge Christmas dinners with fifty relatives at the table. I would listen avidly to my friends describing the “horror” of their holidays. They told how this cousin had done that dreadful thing, and that uncle had made their mother cry, and that aunt had worn a dress that shocked everyone.

  It all sounded wonderful to me.

  My father was a real loner. He and Ford would have been great friends. They could have hidden inside books together. My father had his love for Harriet Lane who was long dead, and Ford had his late wife to love. That a sculpture of her could reduce him to tears showed how much he still loved her.

  Oh, well. Ford’s problems had bothered me until the Sunday I met Russell Dunne. With Russell, I felt a kinship that I’d never felt with another man. Physically, he was just my type: dark, elegant, and refined in a way that reminded me of my father. And Russell and I had so much in common, like photography and our love of nature. And we both liked the same kind of food. I hated the term “soul mate,” but that’s what flashed through my mind when I thought of Russell.

  After I got home on Sunday night, I spent about an hour in the tub. When the water grew cold, I got out, put on my best nightgown and robe, and sat on the little porch off my bedroom for a while. The night seemed especially warm and fragrant, and the fireflies looked like little jewels sparkling in the velvet air.

  Just having such sappy thoughts almost made me sick. When other females had said dopey things like that about some guy, I’d nearly barfed. I even refused to read novels that were about falling in love with a man. “Check his references,” I’d say, then close the book.

  Of course I’d done all the logical things with Kirk and had planned everything carefully, yet I’d still been hornswoggled. But at least I’d never rhapsodized about the color of his eyes or the “cute little way his nose crinkles.” Gag me with a spoon.

  I could have gone on and on about Russell Dunne, though. His eyes had little flecks of gold in them that caught the sunlight when he moved his head. His skin was the color of honey warmed in the sun. His beautiful hands looked as though they could play the music of angels.

  Et cetera. I could go on—and did in my thoughts—but I tried to force myself to stop. I really tried to get my mind off of Russell and put it on my work—whatever my work was. I was still waiting for Ford to tell me how he wanted me to help him with his writing, but he never said anything. Instead, I was a sort of housekeeper cum hostess. Basically, if Ford didn’t want to do it, it was my job.

  On Monday, the day after I met Russell, I had a hard time keeping my mind on anything. There was a lot to do outside, and I still hadn’t tackled the library and gone through the books in there. And of course I needed to go to the grocery. Also, I wanted to call Allie and set up a time for Tessa to come and pose for me so I could get my photography studio started.

  On Saturday my mind had been full of all the things I wanted to do, but after Sunday, I couldn’t seem to remember any of them. Instead, I sat at the kitchen table and spent what seemed to be hours looking at the little printer Russell had lent me. He’d slipped a pack of photo paper in my bag, and after fiddling with the machine, I managed to produce an index print showing tiny, numbered pictures of every photo on the disk. I sat there staring at the pictures until I’d memorized them. Maybe I was hoping that a photo of Russell would appear on the disk, but it didn’t.

  Ford came thundering downstairs sometime during the day—I hadn’t even put on my watch—and took over the printer. He had a real knack with machines so he figured out how to operate it in seconds. He punched buttons and out came a big photo of the picnic Russell had laid out on the sweet grass.

  I don’t know what got into me, but I shoved that disk back into the camera and pushed the little garbage can icon as fast as I could. There was something so private about that scene that I didn’t want anyone else to see it. And I knew that if I let him, Ford would make derogatory comments about our lovely picnic. Where was the fried chicken? he’d ask, thinking he was being amusing. The cooler full of beer? What kind of picnic was it with just a bunch of cheese and crackers?

  No, I didn’t want to hear his comments.

  In my haste, what I didn’t realize was that I was spiting myself. After I erased them from the disk, and burned the photos, including the index print, I had nothing for me to look at.

  But such was my euphoria that I didn’t get upset over my stupidity. Oh, well, I thought, I had my memories. And that thought nearly made me burst into song.

  I carried Russell’s card with his name and telephone number inside my bra, on the left over my heart. There wasn’t a minute of the day that I didn’t want to call him. But I had an ironclad rule: I didn’t call men.

  Of course I called Ford. I called him from the grocery on the cell phone he’d given me and asked if he wanted roast beef or pork roast. (He said, “I thought pork was cooked in a skillet.”) I called him from the fruit stand to ask if he liked yellow squash. (“This is a joke, right?”) And I called him from the service station to ask what kind of oil to put in the car. (“Don’t let those monkeys touch my car. I will change the oil.”)

  I could call Ford because I wasn’t trying to impress him. Long ago I’d learned that you never called men you really, really wanted. Not for any reason. If you saw smoke coming out of his house, you called his neighbors and got them to save him. But you don’t call a man.

  I’d learned this lesson from years of living with a handsome, single man: my father. Sometimes I thought he moved from one place to another just to escape the women who pursued him. I was eleven before I knew what a kitchen was. My dad and I never had to use one because single women gave us food. “I had this left over and I thought you and your adorable little girl would like some,” they’d say. One time I looked at the perfectly cooked casserole and asked how it could be “left over” when none of it was missing. My dad, who sometimes had a wicked sense of humor, had stood there and let the poor woman flounder about in her attempt to answer me.

  Truthfully, they didn’t care about feeding my dad as much as they wanted a reason to call and ask after their “favorite dish.” Always, but always, the women delivered food to my dad in their “favorite dish,” as doing so gave them a reason to come back. Or call. Then call again. When we moved into a town, it wasn’t unusual for my dad to change his telephone number four times in three months.

  So, anyway, when I was growing up, I made a sacred promise to myself to never call a man I was interested in. I was sure that a man as beautiful as Russell Dunne had calls all night long, so I wanted to be different, unique.

  I needn’t have worried because Russell stopped by the house on Tuesday afternoon. I quickly maneuvered him into my studio because I didn’t want Ford to see him. I couldn’t imagine Ford being gracious about another man being around “his” assistant.

  “I hope I didn’t interrupt you,” Russell said in that soft, silky voice of his.

  Why hadn’t I done something with my hair? I asked myself. “No, not at all,” I managed to say. I wanted to offer him food. Actually, I wanted to offer him my whole life, but I thought I should start with lemonade. But Ford’s meanderings were unpredictable so he could possibly wander into the kitchen while Russell was there.

  “So where are your photos?” he asked, smiling at me in a way that made my heart flutter.

  “You’ll be my first,” I said as I grabbed my dear F100, a