Chapter Eleven

I met my mother in front of a house on Oak Street. How perfect could that be? Every town has an Oak Street. Hearts of oak, the Old Oaken Bucket, Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree.

The street name would have been perfect. The house wasn't. The living room was an awkward rectangle, the bathrooms tiny and inconvenient.

As I might have anticipated, my mother was less than patient with my quibbles. If she'd been more of a stranger, she'd have had to listen quietly. As it was, she argued— until I commented that I could easily switch realtors. "In fact," I said, "I could go to Russell & Dietrich. They'd laugh all the way to the closing." After that, Mother seemed to understand that if I said I just didn't like the house, it wouldn't do to quarrel with that feeling.

So our first evening out, we came up with zip. Mother had lined up four houses to see; and I had objections to all of them.

"The couple I showed your house to this afternoon seemed to like it," she said, before climbing into her new Cadillac. But by that time all I could think of was getting back to that house.

As I let myself in, I was shivering. The evening had cooled down very quickly, and I knew our warm weather was about to end for the season. As I tickled Madeleine behind the ears, I admitted to myself that our failure was actually a relief to me. If the house-hunting process had been too easy, I would have mistrusted it. It would take forever to sell this place, anyway.

I was sure of that until about eight o'clock the next morning, when Mother phoned to tell me that the people who'd seen my house the afternoon before had called her with an offer.

"What?" I gaped at the telephone.

"What can I say? They saw it, they liked it, they made an offer. It isn't even an insulting offer." It wasn't. It was actually a little more than I had been willing to settle for.

Suddenly, I felt as if the ground were falling out beneath my feet. I was terrified. I was losing my life.

"Roe?"

"Sorry. Just... having misgivings."

"You don't want to withdraw the house?" Mother was trying not to sound outraged.

"No. No," I said, trying to stiffen my spine. "No, I need to move. I just... when do we let them know?"

"You mean, you accept the offer?"

"I guess I do," I said, surprised to hear my voice saying the words. "I can't think of how not to. I just thought it would take months to sell this house. Months."

"Me, too," my mother said. "But this couple wants to live in the country. The house looks beautiful now. They have a son who loves to hunt. The man's father is coming to live with them, and he needs the apartment above the garage."

"Well. Counteroffer for two thousand more dollars," I said, hearing my voice as if it were coming out of someone else's mouth. "If they'll come up with that, I guess we've got a deal."

"There is one snag."

My heart gave a lurch of hope. "Oh?"

"They need it now."

"What?"

"They need the house as soon as you can get out of it. If that's before we can arrange a closing, they'll pay rent. It's a domino situation. They've sold their house, the grandfather has just retired and is driving down in a van full of his stuff, and they have nowhere to put him when he gets here."

"He can't just drive up and settle here in the yard."

"No, Roe, what I meant was that he can sleep on their couch, but that's going to be pretty unsatisfactory for more than a week or two."

"So, I need to find an empty house. And buy it."

"Or we need to work something else out. Of course, you can stay with me and John for as long as you need to, but I know you don't want to put your things into storage if you can help it."

We discussed the situation for a few more minutes, and Mother agreed to get together another lineup of houses to see that afternoon. I thought I'd calmed down, but I was still shaky when I hung up.

I thought of calling Robin.

No, I would not lean.

To my disgust, I began crying. I'd done fine on my own, just fine, until I'd met Martin and decided to marry him. Now, here I was, aching to have a man to talk to, used to having someone around to consult with, used to having a companion to share every little thing. I had missed that acutely over the past year.

The phone rang again. I was almost scared to answer it. But I did, since I am an optimist.

"Hey, this is Carolina," said her accentless California voice.

"How are you?"

"Busy as hell. I just wanted to let you know I did talk to Sarah, and she says she just opened the door, said, ‘Thirty minutes till you're due on the set, Miss Shaw,' and shut the door again."

"No reply?"

"No, she didn't hear Celia say anything, and the light wasn't on in the trailer."

No, it wasn't until Barrett had opened the door wide enough to let in sunlight that he'd seen the body. I thanked Carolina and hung up.

The clock was telling me I'd be late for work. I finished yanking my clothes on, determined to go in to work as usual. I brushed my hair carefully, hoping its length and volume would obscure my bruised face and my hickeyed neck. As I hurried out to my car, unlocking it with a click of my keypad, it did cross my mind to wonder if I had managed so splendidly before I got married. Hadn't I always been looking? Hadn't I always longed to have someone to share my life with? Hadn't I always assumed I would find that person, sooner or later?

I had. And he'd violated the dream by dying on me.

I was back on a more or less even keel after I'd been at work for an hour.

Probably it was inevitable that I'd have emotional spasms of grief for some time to come, right? For the first time, I wondered if it would ever be over. Surely I'd grieved and raged enough. I'd waited almost a year to even look at another man. Granted, when I'd looked it had been more like an immersion, but I had not even thought about men until Robin reentered my life.

I was broody and worried about the house situation, but not tearful, when Robin called.

I seldom get calls at work, of course, and I was a little surprised to hear Robin's voice on the other end of the phone.

"Roe, hey, I'm back at the motel. Listen, are you free for lunch? I need to talk to you."

"Um, I guess so. Beef ‘N More?"

"No." I could practically hear him shudder. "There's a pizza place on Kenneth Road. It used to be okay."

"Yeah, Trixie's. That would be all right. I get off work at twelve-thirty. Is that convenient?" It wasn't Robin's fault I'd spent the morning castigating myself for my longing to throw myself into his life.

"Sure. Is something wrong?" He didn't sound as though he really wanted to ask. I guess I hadn't been as successful as I'd hoped in keeping my voice neutral.

"I'm just fine," I said independently. "I'll see you then."

He might have sounded a little puzzled as he said goodbye, but that was okay.

As I was working the return desk, Mark Chesney came in. He was looking good today, wearing what seemed to be his work uniform of pressed blue jeans and an oxford-cloth shirt. He was carrying a small box.

"Aurora!" he said, looking as astonished to see me as I was to see him. "What are you doing here?"

"I work here," I said, trying not to sound too "duh." "You knew that, Mark. It's in the script."

"Sure," he said. "So, in real life, you really do..."

"Work in the library," I finished, trying to sound as matter-of-fact as possible.

"Okay," he said, still faintly stunned. "Here, ah, these are books that Celia had in her trailer. I guess she checked these out before we started shooting. And I brought some paperbacks that were lying around, in case the library can use them."