Steady (13 page)

Ms. Stone looked at her, concern mixed with steel in her eyes. “Nothing beats a failure but a try, Katrina,” she said. “You’re no spring chicken; you can’t afford to wait too long to start.”

Katrina just shook her head at that, making a face. She wasn’t that old. Did she look old? “I know, and I promise to give it some thought.” Apparently satisfied, Ms. Stone moved on to a new topic.

“I’ve heard that the new kid, you know, the one that just built that odd house down the street from you, is heading up the competition this year. Is that true, dear?” she asked.

“Yes, it is,” Katrina responded.

“Is he any good? I don’t want the taxes in our neighborhood to increase. My taxes are fixed, of course, I’m a senior citizen, but we must be mindful of others who have gotten used to the lower rate.”

“I’m sure the committee wouldn’t have chosen him if he wasn’t good. I know for a fact that the committee members have seen his work. They were impressed with what they saw, although I haven’t seen it myself,” she said, passing the other duck over to Ms. Stone.

“Does he have any idea of the amount of work that goes into the competition?” she asked.

“Don’t know. I sure hope so.”

“You know, these young people think they know everything nowadays. They don’t think experience is necessary anymore to do anything,” she added, like she and Katrina were the same age. Mrs. Stone was pushing her early seventies.

“I know,” she said, going along with the conversation, having found it was easier that way. She used to argue, and tried talking back one time, when she’d been younger. That hadn’t gone well. At all. She hadn’t tried that again. Live and let live was her motto for today. She looked around the yard, taking in what was left to do before she could finish and head over to the godfathers. She had promised them dinner.

***

Later that evening, after she got back from the godfathers’, she dropped her purse and keys onto her kitchen counter and went out to her deck, taking a seat at her favorite spot on the top step, relaxing. Her mind went back to something Mrs. Stone had said earlier. She still hadn’t seen Will’s backyard. Between her behavior at the party and her losing the competition to him, she couldn’t bring herself to go over and ask him for a tour. There was more to that sore-loser comment than she cared to admit. She’d gone out her front door twice with the intention of walking over to his home and knocking. “Show me the great backyard, Will,” she practiced saying, but she never made it past her yard.

You could go look now; he’s not home
. Where had that thought come from? She knew he wasn’t home, or at least his home was dark when she’d driven by earlier. He usually worked late on the weekdays, and who knew where he was on the weekends. Knowing him, he was probably off somewhere playing with one of his girls, cycling, or maybe both. She’d seen them riding with him sometimes.

See, Katrina, all that monitoring of him is paying benefits, and not so stalker-like after all,
she told herself.
You could go check again, make sure he hasn’t returned, and then go take a look at his yard, see for yourself
. Maybe she should, just to see for herself without him around to make her nervous. The more she thought about it, the better the idea seemed.

She really did need to find out what she was working with, right? After all, her name and reputation would be attached to this project. She should check him out before she officially committed. It was the smart thing to do. She stood up, her feet taking her into the backyard, around and out the side gate and over to Lola’s front door. She looked over at Will’s place again; it was still dark. She hoped that meant it was the dark associated with him not being home, not the dark associated with sleep. He couldn’t be asleep; it was too early for Will the adventurer. She knocked on Lola’s door and stood there until it opened.

“Hey, Oscar, is Lola home?” she asked, peering over his shoulder.

“Hey, Katrina,” he said, giving her a smile. “Lola!” he hollered.

“What?” Lola said, walking toward the door. Oscar stepped aside so Lola could see Katrina. He then left them alone.

“Hey, Katrina, what’s up?” Lola asked as Katrina opened the door and walked in.

“Nothing much,” she said, grabbing Lola’s hand and walking past her, dragging Lola along behind her. She walked them straight to Lola’s back door and out, continuing to pull Lola behind her. Once outside, Katrina turned to face her.

“I was thinking that this would be the perfect time to tour Will’s backyard; you know, to take a look around. I just checked his home and he’s not there.”

“So, out of the blue, you’ve decided that now would be a great time to sneak into his backyard,” she said, shaking her head in wonder. “Girl, you’re crazy. It’s those fertilizer fumes. I’ve told you time and time again to lay off them, but do you listen?” She placed her hand on Katrina’s forehead. “You don’t feel warm,” she said. Katrina swatted her hand away.

“I’m not kidding. I need to see his backyard. He has agreed to lead the competition, and I’m going to agree to work with him. It’s imperative that I see what his abilities are, and what better way than by getting a good look for myself, especially when he’s not around,” she said, walking toward Lola’s back fence.

“So now it’s
imperative
,” Lola said.

“You don’t have to come; I just need you to play lookout,” Katrina said.

“Look, Katrina, this is trespassing; you
are
aware of that little fact?”

“How is this trespassing, Lola? I am in your yard all the time, and some of the other neighbors’ yards all the time. Most times, I don’t have their permission. They know me.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night,” Lola said, hands going to her hips.

“Hey, he is my neighbor, right? He and I will be working together, and I bet he would understand why I would need to check his yard out. He would consider it doing my homework, research. He’s a big-time businessman; he would understand that logic, right?”

“You could ask him, Katrina; I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

“Why wait? Who knows when he’ll be home, anyway. And what’s that expression you always use? Oh, I know, there is no time like the present.”

Lola didn’t immediately answer, which was a sign that she was giving in.

“Come on, Lola, you don’t have to come in; just tell me when he gets home. Use your cell, send me a text, and I’ll leave.”

“Katrina, if it isn’t trespassing, then why do you need a lookout?”

“He works so hard; I wouldn’t want to interrupt his evening, give him a scare, so I just want to be gone by the time he gets back.”

“You are something else. I’ve told you that more than once, but you’re my girl. So hurry your ass up,” she said, walking back to the front of her home.

“Don’t forget to text me. One word, ‘him’, and I’ll leave. I promise. Thank you, oh, great one, Super BFF, always got my back, my one and only,” Katrina said, reciting a steady stream of praises to Lola’s back.

“Shut up,” Lola said. Katrina giggled. She knew she could count on Lola. She walked through the back gate and out into the greenbelt. It was quiet. It was always quiet except for the occasional coyotes crying or an owl hooting and crickets chirping. The homes on this side of the street backed up to a greenbelt. No homes were built across from her or her neighbors’ backyards—protection for St. Paul the Salamander and his habitat, which was in the creek that ran behind their homes. So no building permitted around him.

Most of her neighbors had some kind of lighting to illuminate their yards after dark, but it wasn’t completely dark yet and wouldn’t be for twenty to thirty minutes. She passed by the Sheppards’ home next to Lola’s before coming to a stop in front of Will’s back fence. Of course, his gate wasn’t the usual run-of-the-mill fence; it stood about ten feet high, and was made with a nice wood design. You could count on him to be different, she thought, checking the gate’s latch; it opened, and she pushed the gate open a little and stepped inside, looking around. “Wow,” she whispered under her breath. “This is more than just a garden; this is art.” She wondered if that made him an artist. God, she hoped not; this was hard enough to swallow.

His yard was huge, his house smaller than some of the others on her street. She’d guess it was because it was eco-friendly and all; small home, small footprint. She stood facing the back of his home gazing at what looked like floor-to-ceiling windows running the length of it. An overhang extended from the roof, for cover or shade, she imagined. He could probably see his complete backyard from anywhere in his home.

To the left of his home, taking up almost half of his yard, was a beautiful light-grey gravel bed, raised, with large boulders placed strategically throughout, some leaning on their sides, others standing three feet in height; some were in groupings, and a few stood alone, like rocks in water. The gravel had been raked into some type of design. She walked closer to get a better look; yep, it had been raked, all right, the design resembling ocean waves, swooping and curving. How had he managed to make those? Had to have had a special rake of some kind.

Shrubbery ran along the fence line, relatively new and small in size, but once it reached its full height, it would completely cover the fence. Katrina knew that species of shrubbery grew tall. It would feel like living in his own private world, his own personal enclosed oasis. Looking over to the right back corner of his yard, she found a waterfall, a couple of feet in height, beautiful in its design. A huge flat stone served as the lip, sending water spilling onto the rocks below and then running into a small pond at the bottom that was filled with fish. Gold and orange koi looked up at her as she gazed down at her reflection in the pond. How had he managed to make all of these features feel and look as if they belonged here and had been here for ages? He hadn’t lived here that long, yet these features felt like a natural part of the landscape.

Next to the small pond and closer to his home stood what looked to be some kind of outdoor living room. It was completely enclosed, with two doors leading to it, like saloon doors of old, but Japanese in design. The doors were open, beckoning her. She walked through them to find walls made of smooth brown wooded planks. The room was about the size of her bathroom, and covered with a ceiling made of the same wood planks. Two small lanterns hung from overhead, giving the space a warm glow. A large wooded seat was attached to the lower back wall, protruding outward, large enough to seat two or three people. Katrina felt a little wet and looked upward to see mists of water coming from tiny spouts attached to a cord running along the ceiling. This feature had to come in handy on one of their hotter-than-hell summer days.

She looked up again, staring at the lanterns that hung suspended from the ceiling, taking in the chimes that hung from the top alongside the lanterns. She touched one and was rewarded with a low chime. She liked this space, really liked this space, and contemplated how she might recreate something similar in her backyard. She turned around and walked out.

The patio outside near what she assumed was the back door was covered in a beautiful stone and was smooth to her touch. She stood with her back to his home and looked at his garden again, her position closer to how he viewed it from inside. There were lanterns and solar lights at various points of the garden, following a small path throughout the whole of it; a few lanterns hung from decorative poles, too. She now understood the reason for John’s push for him to lead, why the committee had been so impressed. So was she, finally understanding how it had excited them.

She jumped as her cell vibrated in her pocket and scooted back in the direction she’d come just as the lights came on in his home and the man himself stepped into his living room. Shoot, she thought, Lola was going to get her caught. She slipped out his back gate, hoping he hadn’t seen her, but not waiting around to find out. She walked quickly back over to Lola’s.

“You should have texted me sooner; I almost got caught,” she said as soon as Lola came into view.

“Sorry, my cell’s battery was low; I had to find Oscar’s. But I thought you said he wouldn’t mind you being back there?” Lola said.

“No grief, Lola,” she said, holding up her hand up. “I had enough of a shock seeing the lights come on in his home.”

“Well, what did you think?”

“Think about what?”

“His backyard. You know, the reason for this clandestine trip.”

“Oh, it was beautiful, and you can’t know how much I hate telling you that,” she said. “Anyway, thank you for being my lookout,” she said, walking out of Lola’s back gate and back over to her home, quiet now, her mind still in Will’s backyard.

He had an eye, that was for sure. Okay, so he could design a backyard, okay, a beautiful backyard, but could he duplicate it on a much larger scale? Within a budget, with volunteers, sticking to a schedule? She still had her doubts that he really understood what he was getting himself into, beautiful backyard or not.

***

Will was tired, ready to crash on his couch. He and G had spent the day fishing after a long week at work. He walked into his home and turned on the lights, and his eye caught movement in his backyard. He turned to see the back gate closing. Was that Katrina? He’d seen someone dart out his back gate, and it looked liked her, her signature hat, ponytail protruding from the back of it, giving her away. He walked out the back door and looked around. No sign of her now. What would she be doing in his backyard, he wondered. Who knew with Katrina? She was turning out to be nothing if not interesting.