Touching Stars (23 page)

“No, if at first you don’t succeed, you might not have a lick of talent, but that’s not enough of an excuse to stop.”

“I don’t have a lick, a squint or a sniff of talent.”

“Then it’s up to you to show the boy he can do something better than you can. Good for his ego.”

“Just show him my stitches from the last time.” Gayle leaned over to point them out. “Where are they?”

“You don’t think we’d leave stitches that sorry in a quilt going up on the wall, do you? Those stitches were so long, they’d like to reach out and loop themselves around the necks of anybody passing by. Death by sloppy quilting, that’s what it would be.”

The women laughed. Even Noah, who seemed to be trying to hold on to his bad mood, smiled a little.

“The innkeeper needs to leave her mark,” Helen said.

“Fifteen minutes. That’s all I have.”

“Long enough for me to tell you some more about the people in that old house over yonder.”

“What house?” Noah asked. Cathy had already settled him beside her, and handed him a thimble and a threaded needle.

“Where the dig is?” Gayle asked. “The old Duncan house site?”

“That’d be the one.”

Gayle made a mental note to share Dillon’s play with Helen. She took a chair beside her tormentor, and took the needle Helen handed her and a thimble tight enough to cut off the circulation in her fingertip.

“Now you and Noah take a good look at what I’m doing.” Helen poked the needle straight down through the quilt layers, using the thimble on her middle finger. “See, my other hand’s just underneath, and the minute I feel the tiniest prick I bring the tip up like this until I can feel it with my top thumb, then repeat. See how little fabric each stitch covers? See how the needle rocks?” She demonstrated.

Gayle watched. “That’s exactly what I did last time.”

“I wouldn’t quite say exactly.” Helen’s eyes sparkled.

“It’s harder than it looks,” Noah said after trying a few stitches. “This is going to take some practice.”

“You got a quilt right here to practice on any time you want. Nothing to stop you.”

“Yes, ma’am. I might just do that.”

“You’re raising a sensible boy,” Helen told Gayle. “That’s what Miranda Duncan did, too. All those years after the war, when those vultures in the North took advantage of folks here in Virginia. Robby Duncan—he was her son—must have seen it all. The men who could hardly get around afterwards, the farms and houses people couldn’t hang on to. He took a good look around and realized that his mother needed cash more than she needed his labor. Richmond had burned, and the city was crying out for workers to help rebuild it. So once their first harvest was in after Sheridan came through, he took off. He wasn’t but a boy, but somehow he earned enough money to help his mother get the farm back on its feet.”

“I like a boy who’s good to his mother,” Gayle said, glancing up at Noah.

Helen went on. “And when he was in his twenties somewhere, he came back for good and started his very own hardware store down in Woodstock. My daddy shopped there, and when he needed credit, Robby Duncan never said a word about it. Just wrote it up and handed over whatever Daddy needed like he’d been paid with real money.”

“I guess the store’s gone now,” Gayle said.

“He didn’t die a rich man, but he had enough to see him and his family through hard times. They went on to other things and other places.”

“That’s interesting. Is that what you were going to tell us?”

“That? Nothing like it. I was going to tell you a story my grandmama told me. About one year after the war ended, Mrs. Duncan did something bordering on strange. See, her husband had died in the War of Northern Aggression, and he was buried in an unmarked grave on some battlefield, so she didn’t have a body she could lay to rest in her church graveyard. But she went ahead, got a plot and erected a tombstone for him, all the same. And when
she
died, she was buried underneath it.”

“That wasn’t so uncommon, was it?” Cathy asked. “And, Helen, up north where I grew up, we called that war the War of Southern Rebellion, just so you know.”

“Call it anything you want,” Helen said. “Just be sure you call it a sad day in history. And yes, it wasn’t so uncommon to have a grave with no body in it. Especially in those times. But the tombstone? Now that was the oddest thing. See, other people, someone dies, they put something on the tombstone about missing them, or a bit of their life, or something from the Holy Bible. But not Mrs. Miranda Duncan. She paid a stonecutter what was a lot of money for those times, and had him carve some lines from Shakespeare.”

“Shakespeare?” Gayle asked.

“Something long, too, if I recall the story right. Needed a mighty large stone. Some folks thought it was an unholy scandal, at worst, or a sign she was losing her mind from hard work and sorrow, at best. To spend good money that way on a heathenish epitaph.”

“That seems harsh,” Cathy said.

Helen put down her needle and flexed her hand. “It didn’t much matter. Miranda Duncan never changed a thing on that stone, not in all the years she lived after that, and when she died, her son made sure her name and dates were added, but that was all. He refused to change a word. I guess he knew what she meant by it all, even if nobody else in town understood.”

Gayle wondered just what quotation Miranda had chosen, and what it said about the woman and her marriage.

For a moment she tried to imagine her own headstone. Gayle Fortman, beloved mother? It seemed perfunctory, but what else could be said? She was a modern woman and had never felt she needed a man in her life in order to be whole. But somehow, this sudden picture of a solitary grave haunted her.

“Did you prick your finger again?”

Gayle realized Noah had addressed her. She pulled herself back to the present and forced a smile. “Nope, I’m okay. Perfect.”

But she wondered.

J
ared didn’t know if Brandy was pregnant or not. He hadn’t asked her again, and she hadn’t volunteered the information. He was perfectly aware that this was immature and irresponsible. He knew that if she was pregnant, they had to face it quickly, pull their parents into the discussion of alternatives and make a choice they could all live with. But that course of events was so terrifying to him that he had fallen back on the other alternative—pretending none of it had ever happened.

He was pretty sure Brandy would tell him when something changed. He also knew that her feelings about the situation were different than his. She hadn’t tried to get pregnant. She’d handed him the condoms herself. When she’d realized the first batch was past its prime, she’d even bought new ones. But if she
had
gotten pregnant, he was pretty sure she would view it as a sign. She wanted him to stay in Virginia. She wanted to be a wife and mother, and if fate had handed those roles to her, she would gratefully accept them.

By taking on more jobs at home, he had managed not to spend much time alone with her in the week since she’d dropped the bombshell. When they had been together, she hadn’t brought up the subject, and neither had he. Most of the time they’d been with Lisa and Cray, anyway. And even though both their friends knew the score, they were too smart to bring it up when Jared and Brandy were together.

This morning, after his talk with his father about the letter, Jared realized he had to clear the air on the Brandy front, too. His life seemed filled with things he didn’t want to talk about, but this could no longer be one of them. Not knowing was driving him crazy.

Brandy wasn’t waiting for him when he pulled up to her house. Every morning she’d been either sitting on the porch or pacing the driveway, and now he had visions of her inside, hanging her head over a basin and moaning with morning sickness. He’d done a little research on the Internet, just so he could watch for signs. He knew that was one of the least charming.

Mrs. Wilburn called for him to come in after he rapped on the door. He found Brandy’s mom at the kitchen table, a traditional Southern breakfast laid out in front of her, complete with grits, fried green tomatoes and sausage gravy on biscuits. He figured if Brandy had managed this, they had nothing to worry about.

“She’s late getting off this morning. I had to wake her up twice.” Mrs. Wilburn gestured to the seat across from him. “I’ll get you a plate.”

“No thank you. I helped with breakfast this morning. Mom and I made apple pancakes.”

“I would love that job. I ought to run an inn, only I’d eat twice as much as I do already.” She smiled, and he noted how much like Brandy’s her smile was. “I don’t know why Brandy was so tired this morning. You haven’t been keeping her up late this week.”

Being tired in the mornings was another sign of pregnancy. Jared wished he hadn’t consulted WebMD. As it was, he’d had to lock his door to make sure none of his brothers barged in on him in the middle of “Finding Out You’re Pregnant.”

“She’s been staying up late reading,” Mrs. Wilburn said. “I guess that’s it.”

“Reading?” He realized he sounded as surprised as if Brandy’s mother had said she’d stayed up late conducting experiments in astrophysics. “I mean, I didn’t know she was in the middle of a good book.”

“She’s reading up on child development.”

He didn’t know what to say.

“You know, what to expect from fourteen-year-olds. For camp.” She gave a low laugh. “She’s not much older than they are. She still seems like my little girl.”

He imagined telling this woman that he might well have impregnated her little girl. He imagined phoning in the news from, say, China or the North Pole.

Brandy spoke from behind him. “Jared, I didn’t know you were here.”

He turned so fast he nearly upset his chair. “I didn’t hear you coming. I just got here.”

“Sorry I’m late. I just couldn’t get going this morning.” She seemed to be at the end of weaving her hair into one long braid. She went to her mother and asked her to put an elastic band around the end for her. Mrs. Wilburn fiddled with it a moment; then Brandy straightened.

“I’m all ready.”

He thought she looked good. Not like somebody who had been up all night fighting the effects of an invader in her trim body. She wasn’t pale. She wasn’t waving away the odors of Mrs. Wilburn’s substantial breakfast. In fact, she reached over and grabbed a biscuit off a serving platter and a paper napkin to go with it.

“Want one for the road?” she asked him.

He didn’t, but he was relieved she did.

“I always seem to be hungry these days,” she said casually. “But I’m not going to overeat no matter how hungry I am.” She looked pointedly at her mother.

Some women had morning sickness; some got increasingly hungrier. He was disheartened.

“You two have a good morning,” Mrs. Wilburn told them, ignoring her daughter’s barb. “Jared, you come for dinner one of these nights. I’ll make fried chicken. It’s a specialty of mine.”

“Eating fried chicken is her specialty,” Brandy said in a low voice as they left by the front door. “Mounds and mounds of it.”

“Give her a break, why don’t you? I like your mother.”

“Don’t start on me, Jared. I’m not in the mood.”

He told himself she was not unusually irritable. And that when he got home he was going to block WebMD from his computer forever.

In the car, he started to turn the key in the ignition, then jerked the keys out and dropped them on his lap. He couldn’t stand this another minute.

“Have you started your period?”

She looked up from spreading the napkin on her lap. “Well, it’s so nice of you to ask. I didn’t think you remembered.”

“I haven’t thought of anything else.”

“You mean like an excited expectant father? Or like somebody who thinks his life has been ruined?”

“Like somebody who’d like an answer so he can start planning.”

She bit her lip. “I had cramps day before yesterday. I thought for sure I was going to start. Then they went away.”

“So what does that mean, do you think?”

“I don’t know. I’m late sometimes, but not usually this late.”

“Maybe you ought to take a pregnancy test.”

“I’m waiting. Since I’m not regular, we have to figure differently. The test only works after about two weeks since, you know, you made love. It hasn’t been that long yet. And maybe I got pregnant some time after that, which makes it even harder to tell.”

“You did the math?”

“Yeah. Maybe after the weekend, if nothing’s happened, we should buy a kit. We might be able to tell by then.”

He rested his head against the back of the seat and closed his eyes.

“It’s not the end of the world,” she told him. “Maybe it was meant to happen. And if it was, we’ll be fine. We could live at the inn, or here with Mom and Dad. Dad’s always looking for people to sell cars for him. You could work your way up to manager before long. You’d be good at it.”

Jared tried to imagine a life selling Buicks. Going on test drives, extolling the virtues of brake systems and entertainment packages, weren’t on his list of career choices. Maybe he would change and someday that would be the dream he most wanted to fulfill. But right now, Mr. Wilburn’s car dealership sounded like prison.

“We’ll take it one step at a time,” he said.

“But you’re going to marry me if I am, right? You’re not going to leave me to face this alone.”

“I won’t leave you alone.”

“Good, then let’s not worry about it. Whatever happens will happen.”

Somehow, he didn’t find that comforting.

Since it was Friday, archaeology camp was extended to include another campfire cookout. Eric had seen Noah and Gayle head out with the campers’ lunch, return and leave again around five o’clock with dinner supplies. He’d spent most of the day destroying the interior of the old garden-shed apartment, and even though he was exhausted, he was exhilarated. His father was a talented carpenter, and together the two Fortman men had remodeled Eric’s childhood home, his father’s flagship store and the family’s lakeside vacation cottage. His father might be something of an autocrat, but he had taught his son everything he knew.

Now it was time to knock off. About one o’clock, Gayle had brought him a plate of luncheon leftovers. Since lunch was usually something he scrounged on his own, this was a treat, warranted, he guessed, by his hard work. She had issued a casual invitation to the campfire to eat dinner and watch the second act of Dillon’s play, and he had accepted.

He cleaned up what he could, then crossed to the inn to shower and change. Since he’d been up and out of his room too early to catch her morning call, he phoned Ariel for the usual Weather Woman update. By now he was pretty sure she was making up these incidents, but he didn’t care.

“Weather Woman came in last night wearing a bright blue sari and a red dot on her forehead. She said she thought it would be fun to point out to the viewers that the weather had been as hot here yesterday as it was in Calcutta.”

Eric laughed. “And somebody made her change?”

“Thing is, she didn’t really know how to wrap it, or what to wear under it. One of the cameraman stepped on the hem, and she came apart in the studio. We saw a lot more of her than anybody wanted to, except maybe our anchor, who helped her wrap back up on the way to the dressing room. Slowly, from what I hear.”

He perched on the edge of his bed and imagined what Ariel was wearing, and what she was doing as they talked.

“I missed hearing from you this morning,” he told her.

“Eric, you sound better. How are you feeling?”

“I’m getting stronger. I’ve gained some weight.”

“How about your head? In a better place yet?”

“Slow steps, I guess. I quit taking the sleeping pills.”

“You’re sleeping all right?”

“When I’m not dreaming.”

She was silent for a moment, as if she was trying to figure out what to say to that. “I miss you. Why don’t you come out here for a good visit? If you have bad dreams, I’ll just wake you up. You’ll be right beside me.”

Expectation swept through him at the thought. Los Angeles, boiling over with places to explore, fascinating people. The city and the surrounding area could keep him occupied and stimulated for a lifetime. And Ariel thrown into the bargain. Temptations hard to resist.

“No?” she said when he didn’t answer.

He stared up at the ceiling. “The boys expect me to be here for the rest of the summer. I can’t let them down. That’s one thing I’m good at that I shouldn’t be.”

“Oh well.” She sounded disappointed.

“And Gayle’s renovating one of the cottages on the property to accommodate guests. I took over today.”

“You sound very at home.”

The words had been said with polite goodwill, but he sensed an undertone. “I’m just working hard to make up to them for all the times I haven’t been here.”

“Them?”

He realized what she meant. “My sons, Ariel. Gayle and I are divorced. After the marriage ended, I wasn’t
supposed
to be here for her anymore.”

“Just keep me up to date, sweetie. If the ex and I are going to compete for your favors, at least give me a running start.”

He was smiling when he hung up. Having Ariel want him was as much a boost to his mental health as a couple of years of therapy.

The campsite was bustling when he arrived. Dillon immediately dragged him over to a pegged-off rectangle where the kids had spent the week digging test pits to see if they were really over the trash pit or not. He explained that they had learned how to be careful, how to make measurements and take notes, and now they were finally getting to the neat stuff. He showed Eric the neck of a handblown bottle that had probably contained some variety of patent medicine and a Bakelite comb with half the teeth missing, the big artifacts of the day.

The kids were already filling their plates when Dillon finished the tour and took off. Eric waved to Gayle, who was dishing up baked beans and macaroni out of stainless-steel chafing dishes. He knew she had discovered that letting them get their own food for the first round meant a lot of waste. The heat had given her cheeks a rosy hue, and she was relaxed and smiling as she chatted with the kids.

He stood back and watched, enjoying the show and waiting for the campers and counselors to finish before he barged in. Travis, in cargo shorts and the same dark green T-shirt that all the kids seemed to be wearing tonight, came to join him.

“Nice shirt.” Eric silently read the slogan.
Shenandoah Archaeology Camp. Dig it?
A boy and girl in Indiana Jones–style fedoras stomping on twin shovels filled the rest of the space.

“One of last year’s campers designed it. I gave them out today.”

“Clearly they’re a hit.” Eric folded his arms and leaned against a tree trunk, averting his gaze from his ex-wife.

“The kids have to survive the first week to get the shirt. So far nobody’s dropped out.” Travis called out something to one of the campers, a girl with a buzz cut and multiple hoops in both ears. She gave him a shy smile and shrugged in answer. Eric figured that as soon as Buzz Cut’s parents turned their backs, tattoos and nose rings were next on the list.