Garden of Dreams (2 page)

Oh, God, save him from Harry's clichés, JD prayed fervently. He never expected any response to his prayers, so he felt free in wasting them as he liked. Harry had been more father to him than his own father had, but that didn't say a great deal. Harry meant well. He'd offered JD a home and a garage to work in when he'd first started out. And though he'd genially approved each new employee JD hired, helped locate new facilities when the company's sales took off, chewed gum and shot the bull with sales executives when JD didn't have time for them, Harry never really
did
anything. He didn't even have an official position with the company. His only ambition in life was to be friends with everybody.

JD couldn't formulate a response to Harry's naiveté before the intercom buzzed.

“A Mr. DiFrancesco to see you, Mr. Marshall. He's coming in. He's smoking.” Miss Hartwell's voice dripped disapproval even through the wires of the intercom.

Harry squirmed a little nervously as JD glared at him. “He doesn't like people telling him what he can or can't do,” he whispered as the door swung open.

JD didn't find that reassuring.

Shorter by some six inches than JD's modest five-eleven, DiFrancesco entered as if he imagined himself John Wayne in a pinstripe suit. JD detested him on sight, even if the cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth hadn't already pissed him off.

“This is a nonsmoking facility, Mr. DiFrancesco,” JD said icily. “We have too many valuable assets on location that can be damaged by smoke.”

The shorter man glanced around JD's spartan office. “Not that I can see.” He took a chair without asking and dropped cigarette ash into his trouser cuff just like in an old forties movie on TV. JD wondered where he found his tailor. MGM?

“I've come to inspect your operation, Johnny. We're making certain we've invested our money wisely. We'll start with the R&D department you expanded.” He glanced impatiently at his Rolex. “If you'll show me the way, Johnny, you can introduce me around before the staff goes home for the day.”

JD felt his blood pressure escalate to terminal. No one but his uncle called him Johnny. Rudely, he stood up, using the full effect of his greater height over the seated man. He hadn't spent all his time in the marines playing with computer documents. He'd built up a certain amount of muscle he kept in shape with regular workouts. He hadn't done it for the purpose of intimidating people so much as for a release of energy and frustration, but if his size threatened this slimeball, he wouldn't apologize.

“I've told Harry I don't have time for this. If you'll make an appointment with my secretary, I'll be happy to talk another day.” Without waiting for a reply, JD walked out, leaving his visitors staring after him. He thought he saw DiFrancesco's cigarette drop onto his expensive gabardine trousers. A pity it couldn't burn a hole in the devil's hide.

Slamming his office door after him, JD stopped at his secretary's desk. “I'm going home, Miss Hartwell, where I might possibly get some work done.”

Miss Hartwell covered the phone receiver with her hand and whispered, “It's the boy from Tempe, again. What should I tell him?”

To get the hell out of Tempe was JD's advice, but no one had asked him. Grabbing the receiver, he said curtly, “Marshall here.”

A quaky adolescent male voice asked, “Is this John David Marshall from Tempe, Arizona?”

“I haven't seen Tempe in sixteen years,” he replied impatiently, wondering what kind of joke someone was perpetrating on him now. It wasn't as if his fame and fortune preceded him as it did Bill Gates.

Following a moment's hesitation, the voice cracked anxiously. “Then I'm your son.”

“I know what you're going through, Nina,” the man behind the desk said sympathetically, leaning forward to show his earnestness.

Nina contemplated saying, “No, you don't,” but stopped herself. She'd just come from a confrontation where she'd insanely held a shotgun on the cell phone people, but a lifetime of caution came easier. That's why she was here, doing things the proper way.

Matt Home had a young politician's blond good looks and polished smile. Nina figured he had the county attorney's job locked up in the next election, and after that, the sky was the limit. In the meantime, he walked a careful line in the cases he took. She could see his agile mind weighing the pros and cons of this one.

“I'm doing this for Hattie,” Nina insisted. “I've put it off as long as I can, but the doctors say she'll never get better. Her lucid moments are fewer and farther between. It's not the money, Matt. You know that. Heaven only knows, there's little enough of that. It's the land. Hattie's life was that land. I can't let them steal it.”

“You can't stand in the way of progress, Nina.” Matt steepled his fingers against his chest as he retreated into a leaning position against the back of his leather chair. “I think we can keep the incompetency hearing fairly quiet. People know how hard you've worked to help Hattie. They'll understand this is just a legal maneuver. But the cellular tower has to go in there, Nina. It's the only suitable hill in the whole county.”

“They can put the blamed thing on top of the bridge, then,” she said emphatically as she rose from the chair. “If you won't do this for me, Matt Home, I'll take it to a lawyer in Paducah. There are plenty of people behind me on this one. I'll start a petition. And if I find you're working for those damned phone people, I'll tell the world how you're robbing a sick old lady.”

Matt rose with her, holding out a steadying hand. “Now don't go off half-cocked, Nina. We go a long way back. I've never seen you like this. Hattie's illness has been too hard on you. You're stressed out. You should take a break, have a vacation, get away from all this for a while. I'll have the papers all ready when you return. It will be very simple, very quiet, just a legal transfer giving you power of attorney. You don't have to worry about a thing.”

“I have to worry about a damned phone company coming in and tearing up Hattie's Hill while I'm gone. I'm not quite that much of a fool. You get those papers drawn up now, Matt. If you don't, I'm out of here.”

Furious for the second time that day, Nina slammed from the inner office on the second floor of the one and only bank building in Madrid, Kentucky.
Take a vacation
, she fumed.
Stressed out
. Hell, yes, she was stressed. But she damned well wasn't a hysterical female who needed placating. If she had any money at all, she'd hire an attorney in Paducah and have him research ownership of that mobile phone company. She'd bet a week's wages Matt Home was on their payroll.

Not stopping to gossip with Matt's secretary in the outer office, Nina stormed down the stairs, furious at herself for losing her temper, furious at Matt for treating her like a mindless infant.

He'd been one year behind her in school, for pity's sake. He knew damned well she was twice as smart as he was. She just didn't have the money for the fancy schooling Matt's family had provided for him.

Hitting the glaring sun outside, Nina stopped long enough to let her eyes adjust to the shimmering heat waves. Groceries, she reminded herself. Groaning that she still had to add shopping to a list of irksome chores, she headed across the street, promising herself a treat to make up for the day's frustrations.

***

“Just tell me if I can keep that refrigeration unit running another year, Nina, that's all I ask. I can pay the new registers off in a year if that unit doesn't kick out.”

Holding her paper sack of groceries with the precious box of Breyers chocolate ice cream ticking inside like a time bomb, Nina gazed impatiently at the Piggly Wiggly owner. As with Matt, she and Howard had attended grade school together. Except for thinning hair, Howard hadn't changed one iota from the mama's boy who'd sucked his thumb then.

“Howard, I'm not a psychic. I haven't any idea if your refrigerator will give out this year or next. But if you don't start setting it at zero, your ice cream won't be worth diddly-squat. I'm tired of taking home cream soup.”

“You told me when that other unit was about to crash,” he reminded her. “But you didn't tell me until after I'd already signed a new contract for roof repair. I don't want to make that mistake again.”

“Then you'd better start saving more money out of your profits for repairs to this ratty old building instead of spending it on new bass boats, Howard. That's what I tell my students. No one saves money against a rainy day anymore. It's spend, spend, spend. You'd do better to build a nest egg and pay cash.” Knowing she sounded like a prosy, frustrated spinster, Nina shifted the heavy sack from one arm to the other. She hated it when she sounded like this, but people never learned.

Somebody had to teach them. “And I'll give you one more piece of advice. You won't increase profits for that nest egg unless you start stocking the kind of items tourists expect in a real grocery store. Why can't you try some of that fancy Haagen-Dazs ice cream, or some of those Oriental vegetables they have in the Kroger up in Paducah?”

“My customers won't pay a dollar and a half for ice cream bars, and can you imagine Ethel and Harriet buying Chinese walnuts or whatever? Don't be ridiculous, Nina.”

“Chestnuts, Howard. They're water chestnuts. And they're good for you. The tourists would buy them.”

“Well, the tourists are only here three months out of the year, and I have to make a profit for twelve. Don't tell me how to run my business and I won't tell you how to teach school.”

Nina grinned and surrendered before that familiar attitude. “I know. You're running the place the way your daddy did, and what was good enough for him is good enough for you. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Good luck with your refrigerator, Howard. But you'd better take a look at that meat grinder Sadie's using. It's grinding mighty peculiar.”

She swung out into the parking lot, smiling at having thrown Howard into another dither. They'd grown up together in this town, and he still hadn't learned she knew how to push all his buttons. But then, his mama never had been real smart either.

She wouldn't let the level of intelligence—or lack thereof—in Madrid bother her today. She had half a gallon of ice cream in her sack to top off the double fudge brownies she'd just bought. After a day like today, she intended to reward herself with absolute decadence. If she had someone to share with, she would have added real whipped cream, but cream separated if it didn't get used up quickly. She couldn't eat an entire bowlful by herself.

She still hadn't quite got the hang of living alone. Aunt Hattie used to join her in these occasional bouts of indulgence.

They'd turn an old Andy Williams record up loud, sit on the front porch, put their feet up, and eat bowls of double fudge chocolate whipped cream surprises. This time of year, they'd cover it with strawberries. Then they'd laugh and make plans and just enjoy the sunshine.

Nina did that on her own now, pretending Hattie still sat beside her. She couldn't get over to Hopkinsville today to visit Hattie, so she would turn up Andy Williams and talk to herself about the plans for the new greenhouse. On Nina's teacher's salary, Hattie's dream of a botanical garden was progressing slower than a snail through sand, but Nina kept working at it. Even though Hattie didn't understand Nina's grand dreams these days, Nina still related her latest achievements when she visited.

Each summer she inched infinitesimally closer toward the basic assets needed for the garden. By building her own greenhouses she figured she could grow most of the more common plants needed in this area. So she worked hard, saved every penny, and dreamed.

Nina frowned as a rust-red pickup chugged into the BP filling station next door. Lowering her sack of groceries into her aging Toyota hatchback, she hollered at a teenager heading in the direction of the BP. “Billy, tell that driver he'd better have his engine looked at before he takes off.”

The teenager waved his icy Pepsi can in greeting. “Sure thing, Miss Toon.” Grinning, he glanced at the truck's out-of- state plates. “But he ain't gonna listen.”

Nina shrugged. That wasn't her problem. In her experience, men seldom listened when a woman told them something they needed to know. Examining the idea further, she supposed they seldom listened, period. She knew perfectly well the stranger stepping out of his pickup and filling up the tank would look at Billy as if he were some kind of backwoods con artist trying to rip him off for a valve job. She supposed she could go over there and inform him that Billy gained nothing by the warning, but that would lead to other explanations, and she didn't handle explanations well. People around here just accepted her warnings the way they accepted Miss Tansy's eccentric hats. Except for Howard, of course. He always wanted more.

As Nina cranked her engine, she glanced over at the small tableau at the filling station. Sure enough, Billy stood there earnestly talking to the stranger, while the stranger merely nodded with impatience. She didn't have her glasses on and couldn't see the man clearly, but judging by the long hair on the back of his neck and the athletic set of his shoulders beneath a tight black T-shirt, she'd say he wasn't a typical fishing enthusiast.