Chapter 1
ACCOMPANIED BY THE sounds of scolding robins and the swish-swish of a
nearby watering system, Mai Fagan sneakered her way up the flagstones to
the California-style house high above the Victorian heart of Dubuque,
Iowa.
Brit Twitchell, owner of the low-slung house, wasn't expected home
until Thursday. Half an hour ago, Mai's old friend, Kathy Anker, had
pressed the house key into Mai's reluctant hand.
"Brit gives us his house key when he goes out of town,"
Kathy had said, "in case of an emergency at his apartment building.
He wouldn't switch on the alarm without telling us."
Kathy had a dental appointment, so if Mai was in a big hurry to see
her mother's possible new apartment, she'd have to get the key to the
apartment herself. Kathy's instructions were simple.
"Go down the hallway to the kitchen, get the key to A-4 off the
rack in the cabinet behind the purple glass dinnerware. Lock up on your
way out."
"You will arrange bail for me, won't you, if Neighborhood
Watch calls the cops?" asked Mai.
The cops, though, would probably take one look at her sweat-suited
bod and scraggly, blond-tipped hair, and run. Still, it was a relief not
to have to dress to impress.
When Mai had heard about her mother's accident, she'd left Kansas
City in a hurry. Now her other clothes and possessions were heaped in
her mother's living room.
Unlocking the Chinese red lacquered front door, she stepped warily
inside, half expecting a burglar alarm to screech its fury throughout
the quiet neighborhood. Peace, however, continued to reign.
Inside, the Twitchell house was a minimalist's dream, a Victorian's
nightmare. Mai rubbernecked her way along the bisecting white hallway,
her soles squawking on the sleek marbleized floor.
Sliding glass walls on either side of the hall displayed the four
rooms beyond them. On her right, the living room offered a gray stone
fireplace stretching to the cathedral ceiling, gray carpet and off-white
walls. That was it. No furniture.
If you looked closely, the gray-and-off-white dining room held
furniture: a glass and clear plastic table, matching chairs, and a giant
chrome chandelier that would look at home in The Museum of Modern Art.
To Mai, the setting cried out for watercress, smoked salmon and
chardonnay.
On her left, an office and a bedroom displayed off-white storage
walls, no doubt hiding computer and home entertainment clutter. In the
office, a couple of ebony drawers dangled from a glass-topped desk, and
gray filing cabinets flanked the mini-blinded window. Central to the
stark room, however, was the Herman Munster-size black leather desk
chair. Visitors might sit in virtually invisible chairs, but the master
would loom from the ghoulish depth of his black throne. The bedroom
offered a king-size bed with white comforter.
A pair of penguins would feel right at home here, thought Mai. All it
needs is a blanket of ice cubes.
An ant couldn't hide in the exposed rooms. With a shudder, Mai pushed
through the swinging door at the end of the hall, into the kitchen. Not
surprised, she found more white tile, white cabinetry and glass.
The entire back wall of the kitchen was glass, but she could
appreciate its use here because it looked out on a garden secluded by a
high white walla Betty Grable-John Payne Technicolor vision of
immaculate grass edged in vibrant flowers and small, artfully shaped
evergreens. A white-stone patio with a pair of white loungers bulged
gracefully into the manicured lawn. In the center of the garden, a white
fountain sent flares of sparkling water arcing into a circular basin.
The contrast between the cold artificiality of the interior and the
breathtaking natural beauty of the garden drew Mai to the glass division
between them.
Except there wasn't any glass.
Apprehensive and cautious, she stepped onto the patio. Had the house
been broken into during Twitchell's absence? Perhaps that explained the
decor, or lack of it--everything moveable had been stolen!
She paused, overlooking the enclosed garden, the only movement the
spray of the fountain and a higher, sprinkling arch attached to a green
garden hose attached to ... a naked man!
With a yelp--more of a squeak, because her voice stopped working in
the middle--she leapt backward into what should've been the doorway to
the kitchen, but wasn't. Erring to the left, she instead backed over and
into a large urn full of red geraniums.
Her feet waved in the air as she frantically struggled to free her
round bottom from the tight grip of the big pot, all the while keeping
an eye on the man half-hidden by a latticework of leafy shadow and
glittering spray.
"Take it easy, you idiot!" he roared. "You'll knock
over the urn and break the wall!" Lowering his voice, he continued,
"You'll have to get yourself unstuck. Just take it easy.
Please!"
The magic word did it. Lifting her gaze to the sunlit wall above
hose-man, Mai halted her struggle until the urn regained its poise.
Then, wriggling gently, she hoisted herself from the pot. Once on her
feet, she risked a quick glance behind her. The pitiful geraniums,
squashed, torn and matted, would need weeks to recover. And the seat of
her pink sweat pants was a batik print of crushed red petals and
greenery.
"Are you Brit Twitchell?" she asked, tensed for flight if
hose-man moved a visible muscle--and most of them were visible--but he
seemed to have taken root under the sheltering birch.
"Who the hell else would I be? Greenskeeper of the nudist
society's putting green? More pertinent, who the hell are you?"
Mai heaved a shaky sigh of relief and stared at the top of the wall.
Things could've gone a lot worse. "I'm Mai Fagan, a friend of
Kathy's. She had to go to the dentist, and I needed to see your vacant
apartment right away, so she loaned me your house key and I--"
Twitchell cut her off. "Okay, okay. You're not a housebreaker or
a pervert, so I don't have to vault over the wall or defend myself with
the hose."
Mai snickered and accidentally dropped her gaze. "I'm awfully
sorry about the geranium and I'll replace it, of course. I wasn't
snooping. When I saw the patio door was open, I thought the same thing
you did--somebody had broken in."
"Wait for me in the kitchen. I'll come in through the garage.
You can get the ice tea out of the fridge."
Before she finished filling two tall, lavender glasses with ice and
an evil-looking greenish brew she hoped was tea, Twitchell entered from
the garage, barefoot and dressed in a chambray coverall splotched with
damp. Mai had the uneasy feeling that was all he was wearing, but
he didn't look bad for a man of thirty-five or forty, with no shading of
an early pot belly from too many fast-food drive-throughs.
Squeamishly contemplating the soil-colored liquid in her glass, she
said, "Uh ... could I please have a little sugar for this?"
"Sugar? It'll kill you quicker than a cockroach. Alfalfa tea is
good for you ... and the spring water's tested eight times a day."
Tested by him, or the gnomes guarding the spring? Mai closed
her eyes, sipped cautiously, and said the best thing she could about it.
"It's alfalfa, all right." Then she said, "Are you a
fitness buff?"
A corner of Twitchell's mouth twitched and the dumb choice of word
hit her. A loose hair prickled the back of her neck, which felt warm.
"No," he replied. "I just do what I can to keep what
I've got as long as I can. Don't you?"
The question seemed sincere enough, but was that a yellow glint of
amusement in his blue eyes? Guiltily she recalled the pepperoni pizza
and diet cola she'd called brunch.
Of course she had been on a dead run for three days. She could
hardly be expected to check nutrition labels and censor additives.
"I have a problem," she said. "My mother broke her leg
three days ago and the hospital wants her out. She can't go back to her
house--too many steps. She'll be in a wheel chair and on crutches for
several weeks. I have to find a place for her to live that she can
manage, physically and financially. I called Kathy for ideas and she
said you had a vacant ground level apartment."
Instantly, Twitchell was all business. "I'll get dressed and
take you to see it. Help yourself to more tea--" Yes, there was definitely
a yellow gleam in the guy's eyes. "--or whatever you can find to
eat. I won't be long."
Mai almost told him her pepperoni pizza was holding out just fine,
then decided it wasn't smart to antagonize one's potential landlord.
Instead, she watched a hummingbird drink his or her fill from a hanging
feeder beyond the glass wall.
Hose-man reappeared wearing expensive gray wool tropicals and a thin
blue cotton v-neck sweater with nothing under it. She made a rueful
gesture at her own messy garb. "I've been moving, you see."
Why did she feel it necessary to explain her slovenly appearance?
Growing up in the 90s, she was the casual type, so why attempt to dispel
the image?
"You look fine for apartment hunting. Except maybe for the
geranium print. But nobody will see us. Come on, I'll drive and we can
talk on the way."
Mai followed him into the garage. He had an elegant stalk, and when
he gave her an elbow boost into the high passenger seat of a gray Jeep,
she decided his manners weren't so shabby, either.
She'd bet a Dunkin' Donut that Mrs. Twitchell was a tall, cool
blonde who favored gray cashmere.
On the way downtown, he said, "You don't sound like a Dubuque
native, Mai."
She smiled at his easy use of her first name. Maintaining a formal
facade with a guy she'd seen in the altogether would take some doing.
"I am, but I went to college in Missouri and stayed there. I
suppose I've incorporated a semi-southern drawl into my Scandinavian
lilt."
"Fagan sounds Irish."
"Yes," she replied, with enough finality he dropped the
subject.
"We'll take the scenic route. It's only a couple of minutes
longer. Are you planning to stay here long?"
"As long as Mom needs help. It seemed like a good time to make a
change." After all, one dead-end job is as good as another.
But when Flo Peterson was on both feet again, her footloose daughter
would be on her way--somewhere.
"What kind of work do you do?"
"This and that. Most recently, data entry for a small business
that's about to fold anyway." She added ruefully, "I guess I
won't add that to my resumé."
"I'm an independent insurance agent. Not glamorous, but at least
I don't have to get dressed--" He grinned. "--to go to the
office. It's in my house."
Ah, an opportunity. She'd been dying to ask about that icy house. And
his technique wasn't as crass as handing her his independent agent
business card. "The house is very unusual, and so different from
the garden. It's like the opening of The Wizard of Oz. Or was
that the idea?"
He shot her an approving glance. "My ex-wife fancied herself an avant-garde
decorator, so when our daughters left home, she went overboard. It used
to have furniture, though. We sold most of it last year during the
divorce. It didn't suit her new husband's Victorian house, and I sure
didn't want it. The garden is mine."
"It's like a picture book." Mai caught the wistfulness in
her tone. She hadn't lived in a house with a garden since high school.
"Unfortunately, it only lasts a few months a year. Next fall
I'll get a decorator in here to add some color and something to sit on,
although I've come to like minimalism. The inside glass walls will come
out, but at least they've trained me to put things away."
Recalling the closets she'd emptied in Kansas City days ago, Mai
shook her head in dismay. "I never thought of myself as a slob, but
next to yours, my lifestyle looks pre-history."
They parked in front of a square, yellow-brick building with all the
personality of a box of instant mashed potatoes.
"Speaking of redecoration," Twitchell said, "the
apartment has been cleaned and repainted since the last tenant."
Off-white, no doubt.
She was right.
"Two bedrooms, two baths--"
Halting in the doorway to the apartment, she was nearly run down by
the potential landlord, cutting off his spiel. "It won't do."
"But you haven't seen it."
She pivoted and looked up six inches ... to yellow-flecked blue eyes,
and peaked eyebrows that mirrored a v-shape brown hairline--receding,
but thick and crisp enough to invite fingering. "I see two sets of
two steps and three levels."
"A pair of simple ramps would give wheelchair access."
"Uh-uh. To be navigable, the slope of one would be long enough
to take up half the living room. The other one would pass right through
the kitchen without stopping."
"Sorry. I've been lucky and never had to deal with the
logistics."
"Do you have ground floor apartments on one level?"
He shook his head. "I'm not a rental agent. Just part owner of
this building, and of a warehouse loft that isn't ready yet."
"Then I'm desperate." Mai checked her watch. "There's
still time to call some agencies. If I hurry."
"You can use my office. It's the least I can do."
She started to refuse, but then he smiled, and she said, "You're
right."
By five o'clock, Mai had two appointments for the following morning.
She'd also talked to her mother and told her she wasn't coming to the
hospital tonight. Instead she'd spend the evening clearing a path
through the dumped-on living room. Now she rose, stretching, from the
massive black office chair, a poor fit for her five-foot four-inches,
and picked up her bag.
"You can't go yet," said Twitchell from the office doorway.
"Dinner's almost ready. In the kitchen."
Barefoot, he didn't look like a chef in his low-rise faded jeans and
tucked-in awning stripe shirt. The outfit became him, though, and Mai
felt frumpier than ever. "You cook as well as brew alfalfa."
She was afraid to ask what.
"Lacto-ova vegetarian. Okay?"
Even the lasting effect of pepperoni pizza had its limits.
"You're on. I'm starved."
"Whole wheat zucchini pizza, chamomile tea, frozen yogurt. I
didn't say I was a great meal planner."
Mai followed his slim hips to the kitchen and plunked her
geranium-print bottom in an invisible plastic chair.
Oh, goody! Pizza with gourds. On purple plates.
Oh, well, why turn down a dinner date with a guy who looked good
clothed or otherwise? He didn't appear to be on the make, so maybe
he was just lonely. Like her.
Time for polite conversation. "You said your daughters
left home recently. For college?"
Adeptly slipping a slab of the overloaded pizza onto her plate, her
host chuckled. "They're past that. Both are married and busily
producing their one-point-eight offspring." His casual glance
roamed her face, hair and sweat suit; the damned furniture didn't hide
anything. "They're about your age--mid to late twenties?"
"Uh-huh," she said, all at once feeling a sophisticated
twelve. Brit Twitchell had the looks and masculine appeal of thirty-five
or forty, but--
"You don't look it," he said. "Or maybe that's not the
compliment it used to be."
Sidestepping the comment, she said, "I think age is overrated as
a criterion," and reached for more pizza. It wasn't bad, for
gourds.
"So do I. But when you hit fifty and find yourself becoming a
grandfather ... Well, it makes you more aware."
Given the few seconds' warning, Mai covered her disappointment. She
should've known. Given the circumstances of their meeting, what guy
closer to her own age wouldn't have tried a pass by now?
"I'll probably feel the same--if I ever become a
grandfather." Unfortunately a piece of zucchini chose that moment
to slither off her slice of tofu-cheesy pizza and hit the white floor
with a splat. "I'll get it," she said, making a hasty reach.
"Sit still--" Brit swooped with his paper napkin at the
same instant and they butted--his head submerging to the eyebrows in her
thirty-six C's. "Uh--sorry," he said to her navel.
Mai drew a quick breath and expelled it in the first words that came
to her. "I'd better leave before your neighbors call the vice
squad." Recovering a trace of poise, she added, "Thank you for
the pizza. It's given me enough energy to shovel my net worth to one
side of Mom's living room, so she can get her wheelchair through
it."
"Does her house have too many steps?"
"Dozens, outdoors and in. And the bathroom is upstairs."
"If I can help, call me. Honest." Smiling, he held out his
hand. "Take my number."
Suspicion confirmed. His business card.
But Brit only reached for a pad on the counter, scribbled his phone
number on it and passed it to her.
In her car, Mai switched on the radio to drown out her thoughts. Brit
Twitchell possessed a devastating smile.
But then he'd had half a century of practice. |
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