All right. As far as he knew, Eloise had never been anywhere in the house or looked in any direction where she could have seen these things. Now, if she showed up, she would be whoever she was with no input from him or his memorabilia, no information she could borrow to build on. She wouldn’t know of any resemblance or be burdened by it. She wouldn’t even know Mandy’s name.
Was he being rational? By now, that was becoming a very cloudy issue.
He made his way downstairs in time to hear Shirley knocking on the kitchen door.
“Knock knock?” she called.
“Come in.”
She had the mail and set it on the counter. “Good morning, Mr. C.”
“Good morning.”
“I’m going to shut down the pond skimmers today and I’m making a dump run if you have anything you want to throw out.”
“What’d we do with those patio tables that were out on the deck?”
“I put ’em in the barn.”
“We may need to move them into the dining room.”
Her eyebrows went up slightly. “Okay.”
“I want to set up the dining room like a restaurant, set up some tables to walk around and turn in different directions and talk to people sitting there, you know what I mean?”
She went into the dining room to get the concept. “A restaurant?”
“Not for real. Just for training purposes.”
“Oh.” Her eyes were lingering on the walls and shelves with empty spaces they didn’t have before.
“And I’m thinking about that barn. We could use all that floor space if we got it cleaned out, got all that straw out of there, all the junk and the animal stuff. And all that old magic stuff could stand to be gone through and stored more safely.”
She nodded, taking just enough steps to give her a view of the living room, then turning back again. “That’ll give me plenty to do this winter.”
“I might have some help for you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Eloise?”
“What do you think?”
She wasn’t overjoyed. She took one more look around the dining room and then, wincing a bit, ventured to ask, “You realize she has a drug problem?”
“I’d like to know anything you can tell me.”
“Well, you saw her for yourself, the condition she was in, and when we were alone in the bathroom she told me she had a little problem with drugs that day.”
He considered that and nodded. “I guess that’s what you’d call it.”
“And you’re sure you want to hire her?”
“She’s very talented. I’d like to help her with her career if I can, and in exchange she can work on the place—if you’re agreeable.”
Shirley was trying to act agreeable but looked constipated. “With me?”
“You’re in charge. You can set her to work on that barn for starters, and it’s okay if you give her the dirty work. I want to see how much grit she has.”
“And what if she’s just a flake?”
“It won’t take long to find out. And I want you to tell me either way.”
She just wagged her head, dark thoughts behind her eyes. “You’re the boss.”
The phone rang a double ring.
Dane checked the wall clock. It was nine o’clock, on the button.
They went to the front window.
“Oh, Lord,” said Shirley.
It was the blue Volkswagen.
chapter
24
Know how to handle a pitchfork?” Shirley asked.
“Sure,” said Eloise.
“How about a rake?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, we’ll see.” Shirley handed her both, along with a wide aluminum dustpan. “Okay, start with that corner stall. Pitch all the straw out into the middle area here and then rake the stall clean. Go through all the stalls on this side and then do the other side, and then we’ll come through here with the trailer and pick up all the straw and haul it out to the compost pile. Once we get all the straw and manure out of here we’ll start dealing with the junk.”
And have it all done before noon? Eloise didn’t want to sound lazy so she didn’t ask, but she wondered.
They were standing in the barn, a huge block of cold, very old air with four walls and a roof built around it. The main floor was a gym-size expanse of trampled straw and manure dust, and along each side were five stalls that used to hold horses and cows but now held junk that had to have been here as long as the air: big tires with no wheels, big wheels with no tires; engine blocks and a transmission with the gearshift sticking out of it; a ringer washer—what’s a barn without an old ringer washer?; a three-bladed plow; a big, circular saw blade that scared Eloise just standing still; an old, delaminating desk and a gray couch that used to be blue, peppered with mouse droppings; a mound of old carpet in a corner—at some point, she would have to lift that stuff up and she just knew a zillion mice were going to scurry out. Even though winter was coming on, some diehard flies were still buzzing around.
The only thing new in here was a mountainous island of crates, trunks, cases, and containers resting on pallets and shrouded in tarps in the center of the floor. That had to be Mr. Collins’s “unfinished movie,” all the “years and dreams and concepts” he talked about. It was sad to think that all that stuff might end up like the engine blocks, the tires, the plow, and the mousy couch: left behind, forgotten, with no one ever coming back for them.
“You work here until noon, then you clean yourself up and have lunch with Mr. Collins,” said Shirley. “I’ll be back to check your work, so don’t disappoint me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Shirley turned to leave, then turned back with another thought. “Where are you from?”
“Umm … Coeur d’Alene, I guess. Or maybe Hayden.”
Shirley made a little face, and Eloise couldn’t blame her. “Well, which is it?”
Eloise smiled at herself. “Guess it depends on when I was there.”
“I thought you were from Las Vegas.”
Las Vegas?“No, I’ve never even been there.”
Shirley thought that over. “Huh. But you’re some kind of magician?”
“I hope so.”
“Well, work your magic here. We’ll see how you do.”
She went out through the big door at the far end and closed it after her.
Sigh. That was a downer. Shirley was so nice the first time they met. Today she seemed perturbed for no reason Eloise could figure out and treated her as if she’d never used a pitchfork or even a rake before, as if she’d never even workedbefore. What brought that on?
Well, all Eloise could do was her best.
Eloise sized up the first stall, laid a plan as to where to start and how to keep from going over the same area twice, then got into it, raking the stuff into piles, stabbing big slabs with the fork, and flinging it out the stall door.
Nothing new about this. The pitchfork felt natural in her hands, as if she really had used one before, and the smell of the straw, the old barn, even the dust were exactly as she remembered them from the life she was afraid to think about. The questions Mr. Collins asked her when she first arrived played through her mind: Ever worked on a ranch? Know anything about horses? Can you drive a tractor? Ever done any plumbing or carpentry?She felt just this side of being a liar and may have looked like one answering yes every time, but it was the truth and that was just so weird. If she’d never grown up on a ranch and learned all this stuff, how did she know it now?
Her only answer was to dig in and keep pitching toward the stall door. It was a lot easier to pitch and rake hay and horse poop than figure out how she could have acquired skills she could not have acquired in a life she could not have had. The work, right there in her hands, she could understand. She could do that, and hopefully do it well enough to please Mr. Collins.
Dear Lord—she flung another forkload of straw out the stall door— I only ask one thing of You: don’t let me mess up.
She finished the first stall, then the second, then the third. She was sweating now, feeling a little crusty with the dust, and hoping she was doing all right. She thought she was. She stretched her back, gently stretched the work curl out of her fingers, and got going on the fourth stall.