“So what is her name?” the guy said, sliding over one seat closer to me. He slurped down the dregs of his coffee and wiped his mouth and his nose on his cuff. If I’d regained my appetite, I’d lost it again.
“Like she said. Her mother called her Babe.” I got up to leave.
“Where you going?” Babe yelled. “Pete’s got a new Nigella cookbook. He’s making converts with it. Two women already left him their phone numbers and asked if he did private parties. Can you beat that? Let’s just hope they were looking for baked goods.”
“I’m going to the nursery. Gotta pick up some orders, including yours. And I may drop in on Caroline. I’ve been trying to reach her. I may catch you on the way back. Otherwise I’ll see you tomorrow when I work on your planters.” I nodded briefly to the man at the counter, who was now staring at me in a way that made me glad I was leaving.
For some reason, I dragged my feet in the parking lot. I didn’t want to simply hop in my car and take off alone, so I sat there, fidgeting with my mirror, my seat belt, and anything else I could think of, waiting to see if Mr.-I-can-guess-your-name would come out soon. He didn’t disappoint. Two minutes after I left he emerged, holding his phone at arm’s length and shuffling towards a dirty white pickup that had streaks of rust on the side I could see and probably more on the side I couldn’t. He was trying to look casual but failing miserably. Neither of us was fooling anybody. I pantomimed searching for something on the passenger seat, in case he was looking in my direction, wondering why I hadn’t driven away. Then I turned off the engine and went back inside the diner, ostensibly to retrieve whatever it was I’d forgotten. I could feel his eyes on my back as the screen door slammed behind me.
Babe was surprised to see me back so soon. “It was the Nigella reference, right?” she said. “You’re having second thoughts? Dang, Pete could turn out to be a domestic god. I may send him to culinary school. It could be a very good business investment.” I shushed her and dragged her to the farthest booth in the back of the diner.
“Is he still there?” I asked.
“Who?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.
“Countertop Man, who wouldn’t know black honed granite from Black Oak Arkansas. Is he still out there in the white pickup?”
She looked again. “If I had my periscope, I’d be able to answer more intelligently, but from where I’m sitting, no Countertop Man.” She gave me a look that bordered on maternal. “Have you eaten anything today or just guzzled coffee and diet Red Bull? You’re acting kinda jumpy. Five dollars says you’re overcaffeinated.”
“Something is not right with that guy.”
“Tell me what you think over food, okay?” She ordered for me, a Paradise Special-eggs, pancakes, French toast, bacon-well done. And a large decaf.
“Make double sure it’s from the orange pot. No more high test for this girl.”
Five
I did feel better once I’d eaten. After the lunchtime crowd had thinned out, Babe came back to sit with me and brought over a plate of warm chocolate chip scones. She gave me one. Periodically I checked the door, waiting for Countertop Man to reappear.
“You know, everyone didn’t go to prep school,” Babe said, “and maybe he doesn’t have a meaningful relationship with his dentist.”
I’d had a crush on my dentist when I was little-until he hired that big blond dental hygienist. Barbara, I think her name was. I was only eight, but I was no fool. I knew what was going on and I hated her.
“And so what if he’s a con?” she said, breaking off a hunk of scone. “If he’s out, he’s paid his debt. What are those guys supposed to do-put themselves on ice floes? You gotta be open-minded.”
Between the deliriously rich scones and my memories of my first crush, I’d lost the thread of the conversation. Prep schools? Ice floes?
I was surprised to hear Babe talking this way. I’d never given ex-cons and prison recidivism much thought, even less than countertops, but it seemed that Babe had.
“You see those tables and chairs outside?” she said. “Look pretty good, don’t they? They’re con jobs-refinished by convict labor.”
“Are you kidding me?”
She wasn’t. She’d heard about the program from Ms. Baldino, one of the town librarians. Apparently all the benches at the library had been refinished by convicts, too. Who knew?
“They learn a craft, make a few bucks, and maybe find a different line of work when they get out instead of whatever got them locked up. Everybody wins.” I hadn’t realized convict labor still existed in this century. It seemed so Dickensian. But I suppose I was being naive. There were a lot of things I hadn’t experienced either chained to my desk in New York or buried in my gardens in Springfield.
After mopping up every last crumb on my plate, I got up to leave. Again I did reconnaissance in the parking lot. Countertop Man was gone, and I felt foolish for ever having been suspicious. Since it was later I went straight to the nursery and bagged the idea of going to Caroline’s. I would see her tomorrow.
I love nurseries, no matter what time of year it is. My new favorite was D’Angelo’s, forty minutes west of Springfield, on the other side of the Paradise. The owners did their best to make the place a destination even though gardening season was winding down. They geared up for Halloween with hayrides, a haunted house, mountains of pumpkins and ornamental kale, and a fall sale on perennials that would save me dough and time next season. As long as everything was well watered, fall was an even better time to plant than spring because it gave plants the chance to establish themselves before the growing season kicked in.
I pulled out my shopping list and dragged around a flatbed dolly with uncooperative wheels, piling on threes and fives of my favorites. I stalked the false lamiums.
No matter how hard I tried not to, I invariably fell in love with some plant or shrub that wasn’t on my list and would put me over budget or, worse, that I didn’t have an appropriate place or client for. Early in my gardening career I’d killed a few spectacular plants by making rash purchases. I still had their sap on my hands and mourned them every time I went to the nursery and saw a magnolia ‘Edith Bogue’ or a hibiscus ‘Lord Baltimore’ like the ones I’d killed-as if these shrubs knew what I’d done to their brethren, and would somehow punish me for it if I took one of them home.
I was struggling to lift a lovely but totally unnecessary Japanese cutleaf maple onto my cart when a white pickup pulled into the garden center. Was it the creepy guy from the diner? I hunkered down and hid behind the tree, kicking myself for not having chosen a wider shrub that would have made a more effective screen. I left my cart where it was and crawled on all fours behind a lush, and thicker, miscanthus. I peered around the plant and saw first, work shoes, then a pair of denimed knees, and a beaded belt that claimed the wearer loved, or more precisely “hearted,” Guatemala.
“May I assist you with something?” The man’s T-shirt identified him as a nursery employee. What could I say? “No, thank you, I’m hiding because I think I see an ex-con who doesn’t know a countertop from a kayak?” Nah.
“I think I lost something,” I lied and patted the gravel, which had by then had stuck to my hands and made little pockmarks in my palms. The nursery employee bent down to help me look.
“What was it?”
Yeah. What was it? Wallet? Keys? Nope, too big and too noisy.
“An earring…No! They’re both here! Boy, that’s lucky.” I grabbed both of my ears.
He stood and was polite enough not to ask the obvious question: Why are you still crouched on the ground if you didn’t lose your earring?
I mumbled something about my back, my age, my sciatica, and my inability to stand up fast without the blood rushing to my head and making me dizzy. I rattled off so many fictitious ailments it’s a wonder the man didn’t ask where my caregiver was.