Framed (7 page)

Warm smiles returned her greeting. They were a curious couple. Dressed in several layers of mismatched clothing, they leaned on each other like the two halves of an archway. Sue couldn’t imagine them apart from each other. Perhaps, over the long years of their marriage, they had grown so intertwined that one could not stand without the other.

Certainly, Linda could barely stand without Walt. Some cruel blow, a stroke perhaps, had twisted her body until her right ear touched her shoulder and her shoulder nearly touched her hip. She looked sideways at the world through eyes that paradoxically shone with intelligence and good humor. Whatever damage had been done to her body had spared her mind; she was quick and more alert than many people far younger than her eighty-odd years.

Walt, on the other hand, stood straight as a flagpole, though his hands had a constant tremor. He carried Linda’s voluminous purse across his chest like a bandolier, and often enough, he carried her cane as well. He doted on her as if she were the most precious thing in the world. And probably, Sue decided, she was. His arm curled around her like a bird’s wing.

“What can I do for you lovely folks today?” she said.

“We came to see our trees,” Linda teased.

“Well, come on, they’re right over here in the corner, where they can get a little bit of sun.” Sue led the way. An oversized planter held a pair of potted palms that had once belonged to the Costas. When they’d moved out of their big old farmhouse and into a condo, they put a large assortment of plants out for the neighbors to adopt. Elsie, arriving late at their house, had picked up the last planter, with the sorry-looking palms dropping their last leaves in her car. Not knowing what else to do with it, she brought it in to the gallery to fill an empty corner.

The palms thrived in their new home. They’d responded to a little pruning, some fortified soil, and a bit of judicious fertilizing by growing fresh leaves and adding several inches in height. Twice a week, the staff supplied them with water and gave the planter a quarter turn to keep them upright. Elsie even talked to them, calling them by the names of their former owners.

Sue moved aside one of the armchairs and pulled the planter on its casters out from the wall. “And look what they’ve been up to! Walt and Linda are having babies!”

“Oh, at our age!” Linda giggled like a schoolgirl.

“I told you we still have the right stuff.” Walt puffed out his chest and grinned down at his life partner. He helped her to a seat and then, with grave dignity, accepted the other armchair.

“So, what can I do for you today?” Sue pulled over a wooden chair and sat down to face them.

“Well, our nephew’s son is getting married,” Linda began.

“Which one is he?” Though she could never sort out the Costas’ many relatives, she knew they liked to talk about them. They seemed to be related to most everyone in town. Those who weren’t relations they knew well.

“To tell the truth, he’s more like a grandson. Our daughter Angela raised him after that awful car crash when he was young, so he grew up with our grandchildren Shelley and Tony. He’s a policeman, you know.”

“Tony’s a policeman? I thought he was a dentist.” Sue was confused at this spate of information.

“Yes, Tony’s a dentist,” Linda explained patiently. “Tommy is the one who is a policeman. Anyway, he’s getting married, and we wanted to get him something for their new apartment. What do you suggest?”

“How about the wedding photo? You know, the kind people are doing now, with the big wide border for people to sign. That’s very popular. All you need is a nice picture of the couple.”

“What’s wrong with a good old-fashioned guest book?” Linda objected. Walt nodded in agreement. “What else do you have?”

“Well, let me think. We have some nice romantic prints here that the artist will personalize for them, if you like any of them.” Sue showed them half a dozen choices of relatively small prints, ranging from cute to classic, that were popular wedding gifts.

“Do they come framed?” Walt asked.

“No, they don’t. You could frame it for them, but many people give a gift certificate for the framing, if they live near us. That way they can choose what they like.”

The old couple consulted each other’s eyes and came to a decision without speaking. “Okay, we’ll take the one with the rose,” Walt said. “What will the framing cost?”

Sue mentioned a price range, and Linda promptly chose the high end of it. Just by looking at them, no one could guess they were extremely well off. “Let them get something really nice. You’ll help them, won’t you, Sue?”

“Of course. Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of them. Now, what names do you want on the print?”

“Tom and Donna.”

Sue took her time writing out the order, checking the spelling even on the simple names. Then she made up a gift certificate for the specified amount. “Do you want me to fill it in for you?”

“Yes, please,” Linda said. “Make it to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas DiAndreo.”

Sue did so, and then she exclaimed, “Oh! You mean Tom DiAndreo is your grandson? I know him! He’s a cop here in town.”

The Costas beamed at being able to surprise her. “You mean you didn’t know that?”

“I know Tom, I didn’t realize he was your grandson. Your nephew’s son, I mean. I didn’t know he was related to you.”

“Well, now you do.”

“He’s a good cop,” Sue added, mindful of his help with Jemmie.

Walt confided, “He wants to be a detective for the state police. So if you have any crimes that need solving…”

Sue grinned. “If I do, I’ll be sure to call him. Please give him my congratulations, would you? And we’ll call you as soon as the print comes in. It should be here by the end of next week.”

She helped Walt assist Linda to the car, chatting to make it seem as though she was prolonging the visit rather than providing an arm to lean on. He tucked his wife into her seat, made sure her seatbelt didn’t pinch, and with a wry chuckle let Sue slip her hand under his elbow. “I see you, young lady!” Linda sang out. “Don’t you go stealing my man!”

“He’s worth stealing,” Sue shot back. “But I don’t think I stand a chance against you.”

Walt cackled, an old man’s laugh full of good humor. “Either she won’t let me out of her sight, or I’m too infatuated to look at anyone else,” he said. But his eyes were soft and deep with worry and devotion. Sue watched him drive away and discovered her own eyes were moist. The courage of those two as they faced the end of their lives never failed to move her. Though Sue loved them, she could never see them without a pang of loss for her beloved Peter.

She went back inside, placed the order on Ginny’s desk, and returned to the job she had so eagerly abandoned half an hour earlier. An assortment of aquarium gravel sat in plastic bags on the worktable downstairs. While she was working with the Costas, Elsie had cut the mats Sunny had finally decided on and mounted the print as well. It lay next to the bags of bright-colored gravel, along with a tub of tile grout.

“Thanks, Elsie,” Sue began. “I guess I have to get on with it, don’t I?”

“I’ll do it, if you want,” Elsie offered without any enthusiasm whatsoever.

Sue would have loved to accept the offer, but Sunny had asked specifically for her to do it. Where had Sunny come up with the zany idea to glue colored bits of stone to the driftwood frame? Well, at least Sunny had given up demanding she paint or dye the beach stones. Now she just wanted them nestled amid the gravel.

Sue sighed before she dug into the grout and applied it to the frame. The driftwood was the only good part of the package, and now it would be covered with neon shades of stone chips. Well, the customer was always right. Wasn’t she?

An hour and a half later, she straightened her stiff back and studied her creation. Elsie cast dubious eyes at it, too. The two friends burst into laughter. “It’s not really that bad, is it, Elsie?” Sue pleaded.

Elsie shook her head. “No. It’s worse. But that’s Sunny. She’ll love it.”

“What do you think? Should we make up a bunch of these to sell? I bet the world is just crying out for frames like this. Don’t you think they’d fly out of here?”

“Oh, sure. On the business end of Ginny’s broom!”

When they had finished their chuckle over that idea, they stored the embellished frame on a metal shelf to protect it from accidental bumps. By then it was time to close up the shop, so they put away their tools, shut down the computerized mat cutter, and turned off the air compressors before locking up.

“Have fun with the dog tomorrow,” Sue said as they got into their cars.

Chapter Ten

Maculato needed a serious workout, Elsie decided. The dog was just beginning his second year, and after having been cooped up all winter, he was so giddy at getting outside into the lovely spring weather that he couldn’t decide whether to chase his tail or hightail it into the woods. To tell the truth, Elsie was just as glad to have an excuse to get out of the house on her day off. She called an acquaintance to ask for permission to train the dog on his land. The permission duly given, she sprayed herself and Mac against the ubiquitous bugs, put him into the truck, and drove west toward Temple Mountain.

Just before the top of the pass, she took a right turn and headed north along a winding road bordered by thick woods, which were broken only by the occasional house. Most of them were new construction, with wide lawns and curving, paved driveways carved out of the forest. These houses had no actual residents; the owners were away from dawn to dusk at their jobs in Boston or Worcester. Sometimes they even lived in New York City from Sunday night to Friday evening, returning to spend the weekend in their oversized, overpriced mansions. Elsie much preferred the cramped old house she shared with Frank, despite its problematic wiring and its century of history, to these new-fangled bloats of modernity.

Never mind that. She counted three driveways beyond the amazingly pink house with the three-car garage, and then watched for the break in the stone wall on the left side of the road. She pulled into it, careful to angle the truck so its sides didn’t scrape on the granite boulders some farmer had pulled out of the soil a hundred or more years ago. The young trees encroaching on the old wagon ruts showed that this had been pasture for cows or sheep as little as twenty-five years ago. Mac whined and pressed against the cage door as Elsie shut off the engine and came around to the back to snap on his leash.

A sudden silence fell as he leaped to the ground and began to snuffle around. Birds that had been advertising their availability flitted away. Elsie wanted to get Mac farther from the road before she released him, in order to keep distractions to a minimum and to prevent an accident. “Mac, come,” she ordered. He sniffed a promising pile of debris one more time before turning to follow her up the wagon track.

The ruts led uphill, away from a small stream that gushed over rocks and exposed roots. Mac strained at the lead and got himself tangled in brush and branches every couple of minutes. After a ten-minute walk, they scrambled over another stone wall and into an abandoned apple orchard. This part of New Hampshire was rife with them, remnants of a once-thriving industry that eventually died because of the famous Yankee independence: where Washington State apple-growers banded together to promote their crop, stubborn New Englanders tried to go it alone. As a result, they lost out on volume discounts from the manufacturers of the necessary pesticides, and they lost out in terms of the power that comes from the united voices of many growers. They couldn’t or wouldn’t band together for their own good, so most of them went under. Literally under, in many cases—what had been orchard was often turned into housing lots, with names like “Orchard Row” or “Appletree Estates.”

On this land, however, the orchard had just been allowed to fall into ruin. Grapes and brambles dragged some of the old trees into hummocks of green, providing shelter for birds and small mammals. Others, their once-pruned limbs thick with water-sprouts, stood lost among a riot of descendants. Deer had created paths that meandered among the trees. Elsie had to admonish Mac when he wanted to roll in their droppings. After a while, she came across the narrow lane the landowner mowed several times a year and followed it across a hay meadow and down into a wood.

Here at last she let Mac off the leash, holding his muzzle in her hand while she gave him his orders. “Mac, find a bird,” she repeated several times, hoping he would remember his lessons. “Good boy. Move out! Find a bird!” She let go and gestured him ahead. The dog leaped away, head down and docked tail wagging.

He found some interesting scent, paused, and fell into the classic point position. Elsie hurried up to him, patted him without saying a word, and went to her knee beside him to see what had his attention. All she could spot was an orange salamander wriggling its way along the forest floor. Mac whined and nudged her hand. She raised a warning finger and refused to give him a treat. “Find a bird,” she ordered again, rising and sending him off.

This went on for nearly an hour. Mac found more deer droppings, a pile of fox scat, several frogs, and an empty eggshell. Elsie responded, “Leave it!” to each of them. She snapped the leash back on him and they started back toward the hay meadow. They picked up the mowed lane again and followed it where it led alongside another of the ubiquitous stone walls, under the shade of old oaks and sugar maples. The day grew warmer. Elsie was thinking about returning to the car when Mac came to a sudden stop and pointed. Taking every precaution to make no noise, she poked at the tufts of grass with her walking stick. The dog quivered.

“Whoa,” she ordered under her breath and poked some more.

Mac couldn’t stand it anymore. He sprang ahead into the young grass at the foot of the wall, pulling the leash out of her hand. A small brown bird erupted from her nest. She started to flutter as if her wing were broken, but when Mac got too close, she lifted in flight and headed into the wood. Mac, too inexperienced to know better, took off after her, leash flapping behind him.

Elsie yelled to him, but he was too excited to heed her. He didn’t even respond to the dog whistle she’d been using to call him. Off he went, deeper into the wood, with Elsie losing ground at every step.