"I"d rather get our own," the woman says. "We already registered for them, anyway." Isabel sees a diamond ring on the woman"s hand but no band, and notices that the man"s not wearing a ring. Yet.
"It"s a straightforward plan," Isabel says. "Everything on one floor, no stairs. Fenced backyard, too. Great for kids . . . I mean, if you"re planning on starting a family."
There"s a silent exchange between the couple and finally a small smile breaks out on the woman"s face.
"Yes," she says. "We are."
"What about the porch?" the man asks. "Was there a problem?"
"What? Oh, no," Isabel says, blithely waving her hand. "A couple of boards were old and I decided to replace the whole thing. Although if you"d prefer to finish it up yourselves, I could take that off the sale price."
The woman is shaking her head. "I definitely want that fixed before we move in. It"s not going to work for me if we have to do it ourselves." She frowns.
"No problem," Isabel says brightly. "I was planning on having someone come out and take care of it soon anyway." She"ll flip through the Yellow Pages the minute they"re out the door.
She walks them back to their car, answering a few more questions about the neighborhood. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Bettie moving throughout her house.
"The neighbors are great," she adds hastily. "And everyone is always around to lend a helping hand."
"It"s a great house," the man says, nodding. "We"ve relocated to the area for work and have been looking for the right place. If you want to send me the papers, I"ll take a look and we can go from there. I can get you whatever information you need if you"re running a credit report." The man holds out a hand. "I"m Dan Frazier. My girlfriend-I mean, fiancee-is Nina."
"I"m Isabel Kidd." They shake hands. Then Dan and Nina get into their car and leave. Ohio plates are on their car.
The minute the car turns the corner Isabel lets out a squeal. She sold her house. She sold her house! Isabel can"t quite believe it and of course n.o.body"s signed anything yet but for all practical purposes, she"s sold it.
She can quit her job. She can tell her boss and Jimmy Beall to shove it, she can take a cruise around the world. Isabel is ready to dance a jig right there on her lawn.
Next door Bettie Shelton"s front door opens. Perfect timing. Isabel can picture how it would have gone down if Bettie had come out a moment earlier. Well, there"s no point in worrying about that. It couldn"t have gone any better than if she had planned it.
She watches as Bettie steps onto her porch, an electric fan hat on her head, gardening shears in hand. On her feet are green plastic clogs.
Other than that, Bettie is buck naked.
Bettie does a stretch and gives Isabel a solemn nod. "Finally starting to cool off!" she hollers. "This October air is bracing, isn"t it?"
Isabel claps a hand to her mouth. On the one hand, she could pretend everything is normal and let Bettie make a fool of herself. It would certainly be fair payback after all these years. But as Isabel watches Bettie whistle and begin to clip the hedge near her front door, she realizes that at any second Bettie is going to bend down and treat them all to a posterior view of her privates. Before she knows what she"s doing, Isabel has crossed the lawn and draped herself over Bettie"s naked body.
Bettie tries to fend her off, annoyed. "Isabel Kidd, what in the world . . ."
Isabel looks around. Everyone is home now, the work and school day over, milling about as they take care of their lawns or prepare for an after dinner walk. Isabel grabs the welcome mat and uses it to shield Bettie from the view of pa.s.sersby who are gawking from the sidewalk. "Bettie, did you forget something? Like clothes?"
Bettie snorts and then looks down. "Oh boy."
Isabel keeps her eyes averted.
Bettie tosses her hedge clippers aside and grasps the welcome mat, stiffly wrapping it around her body. "Excuse me," she says primly, and steps back into the house.
Some of the neighborhood kids are gathering on the sidewalk and giggling. "Beat it," Isabel tells them. A few of the kids roll their bikes a few feet back but n.o.body leaves.
"Oh, they"re just watching what you"re doing," Bettie says, reemerging from her house in a brightly colored muumuu and wool scarf. She gives them a cheerful wave, which sends the kids into a chorus of giggles.
Isabel raises an eyebrow. "I"m not doing anything," she says. "I think they"re hoping to catch more of your little show."
Bettie sputters. "Well, I never . . ."
"Hey!" Isabel snaps at two whispering boys leaning on their bikes. "Show"s over! Go home!" Isabel recognizes one of the boys from down the street, the redheaded mastermind who managed to rally the whole neighborhood to put up the clubhouse in Lucy Fitzpatrick"s yard. The boys roll their bikes back again but don"t leave.
Bettie frowns in disapproval. "Isabel Kidd, you"re not being very friendly."
"Don"t you have some gardening to do?" Isabel gives her a pointed look until Bettie picks up her hedge clippers. She can"t resist adding, "Besides, it looks like I"ll be moving soon. I just got a full-price offer on my house." She doesn"t mean to gloat, but she can"t help it.
Bettie takes a long look at Isabel and then at her house. "No kidding. Well, good for you," she finally says. She starts clipping a clump of evergreen near the doorway. "American Boxwood. Hardy stuff. Bill helped me put this in, remember?"
"Vaguely." Isabel wonders how much she should ask for the furniture. They"ll be saving her the trouble of selling it herself, and she"ll be able to use everything until the last day she"s there. She decides that she"ll give them a good price, throw in a few things for free, too.
"Impervious to cold weather, pests, and disease resistant. Yes sir, this was a good recommendation." Bettie snips at a stray branch near Isabel"s feet. "How is Bill these days, anyway? I don"t see much of him anymore. I still need to thank him for helping me with my gutters last winter." She clips another branch.
It takes Isabel a moment to register this. Bill? Isabel looks up at Bettie"s gutters and sees that they"re rusting in spots, stuffed with leaves and other debris. One section is sagging heavily while another looks brittle and thin. Bettie probably hasn"t had anyone else work on her gutters since Bill died.
Bettie prattles on, unaware of Isabel gaping at her. "Ingrid Olson is so jealous that Bill"s always helping me out. So handy around the house and he"s my dentist! He always gives me extra toothbrushes and those little tubes of toothpaste for free, too. I tell him not to bother with the floss, because life"s too short, you know?"
"Bettie," Isabel says slowly. "Bill pa.s.sed away. He was. .h.i.t by a truck. Remember?"
Bettie stops and stares at Isabel. "What?"
"Bill. He died. Four years ago."
Shock fills Bettie"s face. "Bill isn"t dead. That"s a horrible thing to say, Isabel!"
"I think that maybe you should see a doctor . . ."
"I"m not the one who needs to see a doctor-you are! You"re the one who thinks your husband is dead!" Bettie throws the hedge clippers into the bushes and marches into her house, slamming the door behind her.
Now what? Isabel has lived next door to Bettie all these years and she doesn"t know who she should call. Bettie knows everyone in Avalon, but Isabel isn"t sure who"d be considered a close friend. This is a private matter, something that only someone close to Bettie should know about. Isabel doesn"t even know if she has any family anywhere-it"s never once come up in conversation.
Isabel wonders if she should knock on the door and then decides against it. What would she say? Bettie"s confused and upset, and it"s not like Isabel"s going to break out the obituaries to prove Bettie wrong. Isabel turns back to her house, unsure of what to do.
"Wow," she hears the freckly redheaded kid say to his friend as they begin to pedal away. "That was better than TV!"
"That should do it," Yvonne says, standing up. She"s at the Avalon Cut and Curl where she"s installed and plumbed their new pedicure ma.s.sage chair. She runs the water, hot and cold, then drains it. Mavis Lipinski, the owner, beams.
"Oh, it"s perfect! I don"t know how to thank you, Yvonne."
Yvonne smiles and hands her an invoice. "This should do fine, Mavis." She begins to pack up her things.
"But I want to do something more. I mean, you rushed over after Hillshire Plumbing canceled and saved us in a pinch. And we have back-to-back pedicures scheduled tomorrow!" Mavis scrunches her face, then snaps her fingers. "How about a pedicure? You can be the first one in our new chair!"
Yvonne sticks out a foot, clad in a heavy work boot. "Thank you, Mavis, but I"m not exactly wearing the right kind of shoes today. I"ll schedule something in the future and bring my flip-flops."
"What about a manicure?" Mavis offers.
Yvonne studies her nails. She wouldn"t mind a manicure, but it"s pointless. Her work is too hard on her nails, so it"s easier to keep them short and buffed, polish-free. She wiggles her fingers and Mavis laughs.
"Well, so much for that," Mavis says. Then her face brightens. "I know! We just got in a fabulous gel mask that we"ve been using for all our facials. It has real rose petals in it. So hydrating and it tones the skin-oh, I promise it"ll be worth it!"
Yvonne snaps her toolbox closed. She"s done for the day, but that"s not a good thing since it"s only two in the afternoon. Her jobs have slowed to a trickle, cancellations coming in left and right. She still hasn"t figured out why. A little treat might be nice.
"Okay," she finally agrees.
Mavis claps her hands. "Perfect! Come on back to the aesthetician"s chair and we"ll get you set up."
For the next ten minutes Yvonne"s face is cleansed, ma.s.saged, inspected, and then finally covered with a thin layer of gel. A warm eye mask smelling of rose water is placed over her eyes, plunging Yvonne into darkness.
She lets out a slow breath. She can hear women buzzing around her, talking, gossiping, laughing. The Cut and Curl is small, with one side for beauty and nails and the other for hair, so it"s easy to hear everyone and everything. Yvonne feels safely invisible, comfortable in the company of these women but grateful she doesn"t have to say anything. She feels herself relaxing for the first time in days, relishing the quiet time.
She overhears women talking about their children, about the latest celebrity news, about talk of a new restaurant coming to town. Someone pans the latest community theater production, saying the lead was overly dramatic and not even from Avalon, but from a neighboring town instead. There"s a whispered conversation about an affair, about a teenager being sent off to juvenile detention, about upcoming vacation plans. And then she hears, unmistakably, her own name come up in conversation.
"She was just here," someone is saying. "Pretty girl, but I"ve never heard of a girl plumber before. It"s strange, don"t you think?"
"Maybe she"s one of those lesbian types," another person suggests.
"Well, I have it on good authority that she"s seeing one of the Hill boys," someone says. "Odd, isn"t it?"
There"s a murmur of a.s.sent.
What"s so odd about it? Yvonne wonders. So she"s a plumber. Big deal. Plumbers are ent.i.tled to a little romance, aren"t they? She feels the skin on her face pull as she replays the conversation in her head. Hill boys? Hugh has brothers?
"Sleeping with the enemy," someone else t.i.tters. "I hope she knows what she"s doing. Remember what happened with Fred Mackie?"
There"s a round of tsks and sighs. "Such a shame," someone says sorrowfully.
Yvonne can"t stand it anymore. She pulls off the eye mask and sits up. "What happened with Fred Mackie?" Her face is tight from the gel and it comes off more biting than she intends. The women eye her in surprise, then look away in embarra.s.sment when they realize who she is.
Mavis comes rushing over with a hot towel and promptly dumps it on Yvonne"s face. "No talking, ha-ha! Let"s soften this up and then we"ll wash it off." Yvonne can hear her hissing reprimands at the other women.
Yvonne wipes the mask off her face with the towel and hands it back to Mavis. "Who"s Fred Mackie?" she asks again.
"Fred Mackie was a handyman," Mavis says. "He did all sorts of jobs-"
"He was wonderful," one woman says. "And so reasonably priced. And they chased him out of town!"
"Remember when my bas.e.m.e.nt flooded?" Another woman is reading the bottom of each bottle of nail polish. "Oh, I can"t decide-Pa.s.sion Pink or Romance Red? Anyway, I don"t know what I would have done without him. Our sump pump was broken and he came over in the middle of the night to take care of it."
"He installed the shelves in my garage," someone else remembers. "And helped us get some new shingles on the roof when my husband was recovering from hip surgery. You should definitely go with the Romance Red, Nettie."
"He did a lot of plumbing, too," Mavis tells Yvonne. "We used him a lot because he was a jack of all trades. He could fix anything."
One woman with a head full of foil nods her head. "But then Hillshire Plumbing got wind of it. Fred was doing a lot of plumbing jobs, and they didn"t like him getting all the business."
"Hillshire"s been in these parts forever," Mavis explains. "Been in Joan"s family for several generations. She used to have us do her highlights, but she hated sitting in the chair, didn"t like the chitchat. I think she"s finally let the gray kick in."
"You can"t fight Mother Nature," a woman says, patting her silvery head that"s being blown out. "But I happen to like my grays. Gets me a better seat on the bus."
Another woman with her hair wrapped up in a towel is flipping through a magazine. "A couple of years ago Hillshire Plumbing started having problems, so that"s when they decided to go after the little guys who were doing well, like Fred."
"And Hank Carter . . ."
"And the Woodsen brothers . . ."
Yvonne looks at the women. "What do you mean, go after the little guys?"
Mavis looks guilty. "They offered lower prices. Free inspections and estimates. They came by and gave us all sorts of goodies-" Mavis nods to a calendar on the wall. "Pens, keychains, those little flashlights. Basically it was hard to say no."
Yvonne has a business card, and that"s it. "But you called me," she points out.
Mavis nods. "Because they called this morning to cancel. I was like, excuse me, but you can"t cancel because we already have a full appointment book! I couldn"t believe it. They couldn"t have cared less and weren"t going to send someone out until next Wednesday. I told them no way, I"d find someone else, and hung up. It"s like they drove everybody away just so they could get our business, and then they don"t even show up to do the work!"
Normally this sort of thing doesn"t bother Yvonne, because it is just business. It"s all about supply and demand, customer service, pricing. If someone has a plumbing emergency, they"re going to go through every number in the book until they find someone who can help them.
But why is everyone still looking at her funny?
Mavis dabs a cotton ball over Yvonne"s face, something cool and crisp that makes her skin tingle. The silver-haired woman has finished with her hair appointment but isn"t budging from her chair. "You are being careful, aren"t you?" she asks in a low whisper. "You have protection, right?"
There"s a t.i.ttering among the women. Mavis is furiously shaking a bottle of moisturizer, her eyes cast upward to avoid eye contact with Yvonne.
Yvonne pinks, unsure of how her s.e.x life became the topic of conversation. "That"s a bit personal, don"t you think?"
Mavis clears her throat loudly in warning to the ladies. She begins to spread the moisturizer on Yvonne"s face in a sweeping motion. "Just relax now . . ." she croons in an obvious attempt to change the subject.
Yvonne touches Mavis"s arm. "Mavis, come on. What"s going on?"
Mavis sighs. She wipes her hands on a towel and helps Yvonne sit up, casting a nervous glance around the salon. "We"re not talking about that kind of protection. We heard rumors that they roughed up Hank Carter when he came out of the pharmacy. Pushed him around, scared him a bit. You don"t know with those Hillshire Plumbing folks, that"s all. Maybe carry some-I don"t know-pepper spray or something, just in case. I don"t think they would go so far as to actually hurt you, but who wants to find out, right?"
Heads are bobbing in agreement.
"You should get one of those Taser things," Nettie suggests a bit too enthusiastically. "I always wondered what it would be like to Taser someone. Show a perpetrator that, and I bet they"ll head in the other direction, you know? Zap!"
"That"s enough, Nettie," Mavis says, shooting her a look. "We don"t want to scare her."
"It probably doesn"t help that you"re a girl," someone else says. "If anything that probably makes them madder, right?"
"I never thought about that!" someone gasps. "Oh, do be careful!"
Yvonne doesn"t know if the ladies are right or just bored and in the mood to come up with some dramatic worst-case scenarios. Either way, tiptoeing around with a container of pepper spray much less a Taser is not how Yvonne does things. She thinks about the note, the open door, the cancellations. She doesn"t know what"s been going on but she"s sure as heck going to find out.
"I find it hard to believe that one more plumber in Avalon is going to make that much of a difference to them, but I"m going to go over and introduce myself." Yvonne gathers her things. "Does anyone know where their office is?"
Mavis fishes around in a drawer and comes up with a tape measure. She taps the plastic casing. "That"s their address."