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He reached for a western-cut sports coat. “That’s what I said.”
“I mean—you’re going out with a woman.”
He grinned. “Yeah. Don’t wait up for me.” He kissed her cheek, then left, the scent of Brut trailing after him.
She slumped in her chair, feeling as if she’d slipped into some alternate reality. Her dad? On a date? Mom had been gone only a year—wasn’t that a little soon? Only yesterday he’d been a grieving widower. Now he was all decked out like Garth Brooks, telling her not to wait up for him.
She carried her cereal bowl to the sink and dumped the contents down the drain. Who was this woman anyway? Some floozy he met in a bar? He’d been married to her mother for thirty years—what was he doing dating someone else?
Part of her realized she was being totally irrational. Her dad was a grown man. He had a perfect right to date.
The thought did nothing to make her feel better. This was her dad. Dads didn’t date. Okay, some did, but not her dad.
Then an even worse realization hit her. It was Friday night and she was home alone, while her dad had a date.
On this pathetic note, she opened a beer and wandered out the back door to the potting shed. Her parents’ house used to be a carriage house for the big Victorian next door, which now housed a hair salon, a new age bookstore, a pottery studio and four upstairs apartments. A six-foot high wooden fence separated the two properties, though Mom had had lattice panels installed in two places so the folks next door could look in on her garden.
The showiest flower beds were in the front of the house, devoted to an ever-changing array of colorful annuals. But the backyard was home to Mom’s prized roses. She had over thirty bushes in every color imaginable, including a purple rose that was almost black. All the roses had names, which Mom had tried to teach Lucy, but of course, she couldn’t remember most of them now.
The potting shed resembled a kid’s playhouse, with real glass windows on either side of a bright blue door. Lucy guessed this was appropriate, since it was sort of her Mom’s playhouse. She shoved open the door and the scent of potting soil and peat, mingled with undertones of White Shoulders, engulfed her. She swallowed a lump in her throat even as she glanced toward the workbench that ran along the back of the shed. She almost expected to see Mom there, up to her elbows in dirt, grumbling about aphids or spider mites or something.
But of course, she wasn’t there. Only a jumble of clay pots, seed packets, fertilizer spikes and flower stakes crowded the workbench. She took a deep breath and stepped into the shed. The least she could do was try to get the place in order.
She set aside her beer and began stacking the clay pots. On a shelf, she found an old shoe box that held seed packets filed in alphabetical order. Ageratum, alyssum, asters, bachelor buttons, basil…She recognized the flowers from the pictures on the front. Probably some of these were meant to be planted in the beds out front, but which ones?
Underneath everything else, she found a spiral-bound notebook with a picture of a Japanese pagoda on the front. Garden Planner was embossed in gold beneath the pagoda. She smiled, recognizing a Christmas gift she’d given to Mom several years before.
She pulled an old bar stool up to the bench and opened the planner. Important Numbers was the first page. Along with numbers for garden club members, seed companies and a local nursery was the following notation, in Mom’s clear handwriting: When in doubt, call Mr. Polhemus!!
Mr. Polhemus was a leathery-skinned old man who tilled the beds each spring and delivered mulch for the roses. Mom swore by his gardening knowledge. During those last six months, when the chemo left Mom too weak to plant, he’d even come over one Saturday and set out the fall annuals.
The planner was divided into months. Mom had made notes to herself for each month. Lucy flipped though the pages until the notation for September caught her eye: Always remember the importance of having a plan.
Was Mom talking about gardening or life? She frowned. Maybe her problem was she didn’t have a plan. After all, would a person with a plan be sitting at home—in her dad’s home—alone on a Friday night?
She turned the pages in the book until she found a blank sheet of paper, then fished a pen from an old soup can in the corner of the workbench. Number one, she wrote, then chewed on the end of the pen, trying to decide what was most important.
Get a decent job, she wrote.
Number two: Find a decent man.
She looked at her list. Okay, so maybe she could stand to include a little more detail. Like what constituted “decent” in either category.
She closed the book and shoved it aside. It was all too much to think about right now. In one day she’d endured the humiliation of being evicted, then been forced to move in with her father, of all people. To add to her misery, her supposedly still-grieving dad was now out on the town with who knows what kind of scheming floozy. Honestly, why was all this happening to her? Had she been cast in some new kind of reality show? Sleeze-o productions presents, How Low Can You Go! starring the lovely Lucy Lake as Hapless Victim number one!
She wandered out into the garden. The streetlight on the corner cast a soft glow over everything. Traffic over on the Loop was a low hum, in harmony with the fountain that bubbled at the center of the yard.
Her feet crunched on the oyster-shell path Mom and Mr. Polhemus had installed two years ago. The beds themselves were outlined in white rock Mom had collected at a quarry near Austin. The roses were arranged by type: chinas in one section, teas in another, climbers in a third. Normally at this time of year, the bushes would have been covered in blooms, the air awash with the scent of roses.
Unfortunately, Lucy wasn’t the only one missing her Mom. The roses looked like they were in mourning, too. Their leaves drooped and the few blooms she found were riddled with holes from marauding bugs.
Mom had planted her favorites in a bed along the back fence. She stared at Mom’s pride and joy, a huge pink rose named Queen Elizabeth, a sick feeling in her stomach. It was hardly more than a thorny cane, its few leaves a sickly yellow. Mom would have a fit if she saw this.
She knelt and began yanking weeds from around the Queen, anger adding strength to her efforts. While her dad was out gallivanting around town with who knows who, it would be up to her to look after Mom’s garden.
She was struggling to uproot a stubborn clump of grass when a movement near the fence made her scream and jump back. Visions of giant rats or gophers filled her head as she frantically looked for some weapon. People weren’t kidding when they said everything is bigger in Texas. Houston’s tropical heat and humidity grew nasty pests not seen outside of horror movies.
A snuffling noise from the shadows called forth a whimper from her paralyzed throat muscles. Oh God, please don’t let it be a rat. Or a possum. Or a mole. Or…
The almost-naked rose canes vibrated as something pushed past them. She jumped back. Where was a good-sized tree when you needed one? Rats didn’t climb trees, did they? What about possums? “Go away!” she shouted, and made shooing motions in the direction of the flower bed. “Get out!”
The creature, whatever it was, kept right on coming. She knew any minute now it would burst from the bushes and charge straight at her. She would have run, but her legs refused to listen to her brain. If she ever did get going, she’d probably trip and land face-down on the path. The only thing worse than confronting a rat was confronting one on its own level.
She glanced toward the trellis windows in the fence, hoping to see one of the neighbors out for a stroll. Preferably carrying a weapon—hey, this was Texas, it could happen—but the alley was empty. She took a deep breath. Obviously, she’d have to look out for herself. So what else was new?
The only thing available was the clump of weeds in her hand, so she threw that in the direction of the movement.
In horror she watched as a small shape shuffled out from beneath the rosebushes. It raised its head into the light and looked at her, a pair of beady brown eyes peering out from beneath an overhang of orange-red curls. “Woof” the dog said, and shook mulch from its curly coat.
3
Little problems have easy solutions; for big problems, it’s probably too late.
LUCY’S ADRENALINE SURGE abandoned her, leaving her weak-kneed and feeling a little foolish. A dog? She’d been terrified of a dog?
Not just a dog, she amended as the canine in question shuffled closer. A poodle. A toy poodle. Evidence of a long-ago trim still lingered in the pom-pom on the end of its tail and its overgrown topknot.
A flood of sympathy drove out the last vestige of fear. “Oh, baby, how did you get in the backyard?” She glanced toward the alley gate, but it appeared to be latched. She squatted down and held out a hand to the pup. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”
The next thing she knew, the pooch had its front paws on her knees and was licking her in the face. Who needed makeup remover with a dog like this? “Okay, okay!” She held the dog at arm’s length, fending off sloppy kisses. (Reminded her of a few guys she’d dated.) She checked for a tag and collar—no sign of either. While she was at it, she took a peek between its legs. “So you’re a girl. That’s good.” Considering her track record, the last thing she wanted was another stray male in her life, even of the four-legged variety.
She set the pup on the ground and stood. “I’ll bet you’re hungry.”
“Woof! Woof!” The pup raced toward the back door and stood with her nose pressed against it.
She laughed. “I take that as a yes.” The pup raced ahead of her into the kitchen. She opened a cabinet and started shuffling through the contents. “We don’t have any dog food. I don’t suppose you’d like a can of soup, would you? Or Lucky Charms? I think I remember seeing a can of tuna fish….”
When she turned around, tuna in hand, she saw that her furry visitor had somehow managed to open the refrigerator and was busy demolishing the rest of the sliced ham. The dog made loud smacking noises and wagged her tail at Lucy.
“If you hang around long, I guess we’ll have to buy a lock for the refrigerator.” She shut the door and dropped the shredded ham wrapper into the garbage, then filled a bowl with water and set it down for the dog. The pup attacked that with enthusiasm too, managing to splash water in a foot-wide radius around the bowl. When it finally raised its head, water dripped from its ears and chin.
Lucy opened a Diet Sprite and leaned against the counter, studying her visitor. “I guess I should take you to a shelter.”
The dog sat up straighter and gave her a reproachful look. The kind of look that made her want to plead guilty to some crime she hadn’t committed. “I thought only mothers could look at you that way,” she muttered.
“Okay, so I guess the shelter idea is out. But I’ll have to call around and make sure nobody is looking for you. You’re kind of a cute dog for somebody to abandon.”
The dog rewarded this comment with a tail wag. Lucy sat at the kitchen table and the dog climbed into her lap and began the face-washing routine again. She tried to fend her off and checked the clock. How did it get to be after ten? And where was her dad?
He probably hadn’t been out this late since the Milligan’s New Year’s Eve party two years ago. What if he got tired and fell asleep at the wheel on the way home? What if all this socializing was too much for him and he had a heart attack? What if a drunk driver crashed into him…?
What if he decided to spend the night with his mysterious date?
She pushed the dog away, clutching at her own chest. Maybe the pain she felt wasn’t a heart attack, but it was definitely a heart ache. “Don’t go there. Do not even think about it.” After all, parents didn’t really have sex lives, did they?
“Woof!”
The pup cocked its head to one side and looked up at her. “What do you know about it?” she asked.
You know you have sunk to a new low when you spend a Friday night talking to a stray dog. What was worse, she actually imagined the dog looked sympathetic.
She tried watching TV, but all that did was put the dog to sleep. While the pup snored on one end of the sofa, Lucy went out into the potting shed and retrieved her mom’s garden planner. Maybe something in there would tell her what to do for the ailing roses.
The book was full of notes about gardening, all written in her mother’s careful hand. But she didn’t see anything that would help her save the roses. She found information on when to prune (missed that one already) and when to spray (missed that one, too.) Nothing about what to do with sick roses.
Of course not. The roses were never sick when Mom was alive.
I’ll bet that gardener I met today would know what to do. She shook off the thought. She didn’t even know the guy’s name, and it wasn’t as if she had any intention of going near Kopetsky again to find out.
She continued flipping through the book. August 15: plant fall tomatoes and asters. Order pyracantha and euonymus for new bed along driveway. Buy vitamins for Lucy.
She smiled. Mom was always telling her to take her vitamins. To bundle up when it was cold. To think positive. She used to view her advice as meddling. What she wouldn’t give to hear it all again.
With a sigh, she flipped the book shut, but it fell open again to the phone list at the front. The underlined words leapt out at her: When in doubt, Call Mr. Polhemus.
Of course. Mr. Polhemus would know what to do about the roses. She reached for the phone and dialed the number. No one would be in this time of night, but she could leave a message. “Polhemus Gardens, Leave a message and I’ll call you back.” Mr. Polhemus’s voice was a familiar growl on the answering machine.
“Hi. This is Lucy Lake—Barb Lake’s daughter. Her roses aren’t doing very well. I wonder if you could come over and take a look at them? It’s an emergency. Thanks.”
She felt a little better when she’d hung up the phone. At least she’d done something. The dog woke up and crawled into her lap. Her fur was soft as silk and her tummy was warm against Lucy’s thighs. All in all, she found the animal’s presence strangely comforting.
DAD FOUND THEM there on the sofa, asleep, when he came in. Lucy woke, heart pounding, when she heard the door click shut. “Who’s there?” She demanded, clutching the dog to her chest. As if a fifteen-pound poodle would be much protection.
The light came on and Dad stood in the doorway. “I told you not to wait up,” he said.
Meanwhile, the dog proved her watchdog capabilities by lunging toward Dad and launching herself at his chest. “Woof!” But the effect was spoiled by her wildly wagging tail and lolling tongue.
“Who is this?” Dad ducked away from the dog’s kisses.
“She was in the backyard. I guess she’s lost or abandoned.”
“Friendly little thing, isn’t she?” He scooped her up and handed her to Lucy. “And you found her in the backyard?”
“Yes. She was back behind the rosebushes.”
He chuckled. “Just what we need, another redhead who’s crazy about roses.”
Lucy glanced at the dog. Her hair was the same color as her mother’s. Her gaze shifted to the clock and she came instantly awake. “Dad, it’s almost three o’clock!”
He grinned. “Yeah, can you believe it?” He stretched and yawned. “I’m beat. I’m going to bed.”
She stared after him as he shuffled down the hall. She wanted to call after him, to demand he tell her what he’d been doing, and with whom. She frowned at the dog. “I don’t like this. And I don’t like that I don’t like it. What kind of a lousy daughter am I anyway?”
The dog whined and laid her head against Lucy’s arm. This must be why people like dogs so much, she thought. No one will adore you the way a dog will. They don’t care if you don’t look good or make a lot of money or if you have evil thoughts. Keep the dog biscuits coming and they’ll love you for life. If only men were so simple.
ENTIRELY TOO FEW hours later, Dad was pounding on the bedroom door. “Lucy, wake up! Greg Polhemus is here to see you.”
She surfaced from beneath the covers, grunting. “What time is it?” She mumbled and groped for the clock.
“It’s seven-thirty.”
Why did he sound so cheerful? She hated people who were that cheerful before noon. “What does he want?” She stifled a yawn and slid back down under the blankets.
“He said you called him.”
“Hmmm. Yeah. I guess I did.” Who cared about old Mr. Polhemus when this bed was so nice and comfy….
“Aeeeee!” She leapt out of bed, swearing and lunging around for the cruel person who would stick an ice cube in her side when she was trying to sleep.
How about a cruel dog? And it wasn’t an ice cube, but a cold, wet nose. The pup sat on Lucy’s pillow and wagged its tail, the doggy equivalent of a grin on its face. “What are you so happy about?” Lucy snapped.
“Woof!”
She figured that remark had something to do with breakfast. Not bothering to look in the mirror, she ran a brush through her hair and pulled on the shorts and T-shirt she’d worn last night. Every time she’d seen Mr. Polhemus, he was in the same stained coveralls and dirty ball cap, so he wasn’t likely to notice what she had on.
When she staggered into the kitchen, her dad was sitting at the table with a guy who had broad shoulders and thick blond hair. The stranger was laughing at something her dad had said and didn’t see her coming in. She froze in the doorway. Why hadn’t Dad mentioned Mr. Polhemus had brought a man with him? A man who might possibly notice her wrinkled shirt and rat’s nest hair, not to mention her leg stubble.
She backed toward her room. She’d just duck in, change clothes, wet her hair and blow it dry again, shave her legs, put on makeup—
“Lucy! What are you doing back there? Come on out and meet Greg.”
Her legs moved automatically as she stared, goggle-eyed, at the man with her dad. He had on more clothes today, but there was no mistaking those broad shoulders and that smile. “Greg? You’re Greg Polhemus?”
He smiled and stood. “If it isn’t Miss Nothing.”
He actually stood up. Her mother would love that. Of course Lucy had known that already, hadn’t she? But where was the real Mr. Polhemus? “What happened to the old man in the coveralls?” she blurted.
His smile faded. “That was my dad. He died last year.”
Okay, could they just rewind and start over? She gulped. “I’m sorry.” That’s the way she liked to start every day—shoe leather for breakfast.
She dropped into a chair and the dog immediately vaulted into her lap. “Cute dog,” Greg said.
“Uh, yeah.” She rubbed the dog behind the ears. Anything to keep from looking at him. “Yeah. She showed up last night. I think she’s lost.”
He leaned over and patted the dog’s flank. He smelled like Irish Spring. The dog’s tail beat against Lucy’s side. “Maybe somebody dumped her,” he said.
Some man, she thought. She scratched the pup’s chin. “I guess if no one claims her, I’ll keep her.” After all, we women have to stick together.
