Scent of the Roses, page 5
So, okay. Maybe it was also the slightest bit empty and dull, but she could stand that. Couldn’t she?
“Don’t even think about it, dog!” she murmured, reluctantly tickling her behind one velvety ear. “I don’t do relationships, see? I’m too much my father’s daughter.”
Living with her father, Scout had been able to observe firsthand exactly the types of behavior least likely to contribute to a healthy relationship. Unfortunately, whoever said children learn what they live was not entirely wrong. Over the course of her thirty-six years, she had put together a depressingly impressive record of broken relationships and failed friendships.
Or do I mean impressively depressing? she wondered, as another wave of irrational hysteria hit her. And really, when she thought about it, wasn’t it all just an advanced type of performance art, anyway? Just another art form for her to exploit. Just one more piece of the genetic legacy she’d inherited from her artist father.
It had been her father’s art that had brought them to Oberon in the first place. His work – always very much in the plein air style–3was just beginning to gain popularity, at the time. And Oberon, with its thriving artist’s colony and exquisite natural beauty, seemed like the ideal location for Gil Patterson to base himself.
Her father had been creative and charming, witty and – upon occasion – surprisingly perceptive. When she announced, at the age of ten, that she was changing her name to Scout, after the heroine of To Kill A Mockingbird, her father had encouraged her. Although he did draw the line at her suggestion that he change his own name to Atticus so that they’d match.
The truth was, she needed to be Scout, a girl who knew who she was and wasn’t afraid to fight for what she believed in, rather than Jen.
Jen Patterson was a girl who – more often than not – wasn’t sure who she was, or where she belonged. A girl whose own mother hadn’t wanted her. Scout didn’t have a mother either, but she seemed to get along just fine without one.
Most of the time, however, her father had been amazingly obtuse. He seemed genuinely incapable of understanding why Scout might be less than thrilled when he presented her with yet another new set of stepsisters or brothers. Or how they, in turn, might fail to be completely enamored of her.
By the time her father had married for the fifth and final time, Scout had the drill down pat. She figured she could handle anything this new stepfamily threw at her. She couldn’t have been more wrong. Caroline turned out to be the closest thing to a mother she would ever know, and Scout couldn’t help but love her. She’d even grown to love beautiful, blond, cool-eyed Lisa, although the relationship between them had never been an easy one.
She thought again about that portrait of the two of them in the foyer – she could still remember the joy that had been behind the brilliant smiles her father had captured all too well. She closed her eyes against the pain her memories brought her. It didn’t do any good to go on living in the past like this, except…there didn’t seem to be anyplace else for her to go.
For almost twenty years she’d tried to run away from her past, only to end up here. Right back where she’d started.
Her dad was dead, and Caroline was dead, and Lisa was who-knows-where. Probably dead as well. And Scout was back where she had no business being. Home at last.
1 The red-marble hearthstones here are a nod to the ones in my grandparents’ house. Caroline’s house itself is based on the house of a friend of mine from high school. It was a great house!
2 Yeah, I said it. Nowadays, I know a lot of readers don’t care for the word moist, but back then it was a perfectly respectable word. Still is in my opinion.
3 Plein Air Painting is a fancy way of describing painting that is done outside. I studied art in school and my mother and grandfather were artists, so I thought this was a commonly used phrase. Until people kept asking me about it. So, IYKYK, and if you didn’t—now you do.
4
“Scout? Can you hear me? Come back, now.” Marsha’s voice called her out of the thick, groggy darkness that had obscured her sight.
As her vision cleared, Scout’s heart began to pound. What. Is. Happening? Only an instant earlier, or so it seemed, she’d been in study hall, her mind doing its best to drift away from the history text she was supposed to be reading. Now she was here, on a couch in the nurse’s office.
The familiar, sharp-sweet scent of antiseptic made her stomach flutter. Desperate to make sense of things, she tried but failed to pierce the darkness that stretched within her mind, wide and impenetrable, between now and a moment ago.
A very long moment, to be certain, but just the same –
“Scout!” Marsha repeated, more urgently, her freckled forehead creased with worry.
“Marsha? Wh-what’s going on? How’d I get here?”
Marsha shrugged and looked away. “Well, uh, you sorta passed out. Tell me, what’s the last thing you remember?”
Scout dragged her thoughts back through what suddenly seemed like a thousand years of blankness. “I don’t know. I think I was trying to study. But then Claire and Amy started arguing about some stupid old song, but I don’t— No, wait. I do remember that part. It was Mandy. Claire was claiming it was about some girl named—”
“Okay, okay,” Marsha waved a hand to silence her. “Stop. That’s enough. I got it. Damn. I was afraid it was something like that.” She chewed on her lip for a moment before continuing. “Okay, listen. Don’t worry, all right? Everything’s going to be fine. I promise. It’s just that… Well, the nuns kinda think you might be on drugs, or something.”
The nuns? A faint alarm began to ring in Scout’s mind. No. That’s wrong. I don’t belong here. I need to leave—now. She shifted on the couch, squirming beneath the intolerable, warm heaviness that had settled in the region of her heart. There was something horribly familiar, yet still not quite right about this conversation.
“Drugs? Just because I fainted? Come on, Marsha, that’s stupid!”
“I agree. But, you see, you didn’t exactly lose consciousness. At least— Look, I’ll explain everything later, okay? Just for now, if anyone asks, tell them you were sick. Or, no, wait, I’ve got a better idea. Tell them you were asleep. And you were, like, sleepwalking or something. You can do that, right?”
Sleep? I am asleep. I have to be. Because it’s been years since high school. This has to be a dream.
But even knowing that, Scout still couldn’t pull herself away. The dream continued…
“What are you talking about?” she demanded. “What’s going on?”
The arrival of Sister Mary Francis, the school’s tall, grim faced vice-principal forced them to cut their conversation short.
“Miss Quinn. You have someplace else to be, I presume?”
“Yes, Sister.” Marsha’s voice exuded polite innocence. “I was just so worried about Scout.”
“Yes. So are we all. You may go now.” The nun turned frosty eyes toward Scout. “Miss Patterson, your stepmother is here to take you home.”
Caroline?
Scout’s eyes flew open. She all but sprang off the couch. Her sudden movement dislodged the cat who’d been sleeping on her chest. She recognized where she was now. Home.
No, not home, she reminded herself sternly, merely back in Oberon. And it’s happening all over again.
That was no dream she’d just had; it was a flashback. A memory. One long suppressed and best forgotten, like so much of that year. But, once upon a time, the whole sorry scene had actually taken place. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing – in and out, deep and slow – until the bitter tide of betrayal began to subside. Until her thoughts grew quiet, and her mind clear.
As the last tattered shreds faded from her consciousness, her heart shuddered back into a slow, leaden rhythm. Sighing, she opened her eyes and looked around, once more. Sunlight streamed into the living room. It was morning. Thank God. The big orange cat whose nap she’d disturbed licked at one paw, and then glared at her from the coffee table. 1 Several more felines had arranged themselves around the room, in various attitudes of watchfulness. They were all but motionless, except for the hypnotically regular flicking of their tails, and the occasional blink.
The dog lay on the floor beside the couch, eyeing the cats with an anxious look on her narrow face, and every now and again venting her unease in a sporadic whimper. Suddenly, apparently in response to some sound Scout couldn’t hear, all six cats jumped to their feet and left the room. She got up more slowly, as did the dog, and together they stumbled after the cats.
In the kitchen, Robyn was busy getting ready for work – the summer intern position at a local nursery which Scout had heard all about, at great length, the night before.
“Oh! Hi, there. Good morning. Care for some coffee?” She smiled brightly at Scout as she spooned cat food into a collection of plastic bowls. The cats twined impatiently around her ankles.
Scout had found Robyn’s perkiness hard enough to take the previous evening. First thing in the morning, after a too-short, too restless night, it was unbearable. Somebody is going to kill this woman, for sure. I just hope it isn’t me. She cringed as the bowls hit the floor with a series of thuds. But no promises; it just might be…
A look of concern crossed Robyn’s face. “Ooh, do you have a headache? There’s some feverfew tea on the shelf over the sink if you want some. It always helps me. I didn’t wake you, did I? Or are you just not a morning person? Mornings I’m always in a rush, and I never notice how noisy I’m being until I’ve gone and woken everyone up.”
Robyn reminded Scout of her own younger self; except she was pretty sure she had never been so perky. Not by miles. Still, they were about the same height and build, with nearly identical hair color. In fact, Scout realized with an eerie shock, Robyn bore an uncanny resemblance to the portrait hanging in the foyer.
She looks more like teenage me than I do.
Scout shook her head. “I was getting up anyway,” she lied, as she poured herself a cup of coffee. It looked way too weak. She collapsed at the table and studied Robyn as she continued to putter around the kitchen.
“Well, okay,” Robyn said, as she tossed her dishes in the sink and began washing them vigorously. “But, you know, it’s probably quieter upstairs. I mean, if you did want to sleep in and all. At least that’s what Caroline always said. But I guess you’d know that, wouldn’t you? I mean, since you lived here before. You’ve probably thought about that already, huh?”
Scout nodded absently. She sipped her coffee. Damn. It was too weak. She couldn’t help but wonder whether the physical similarities between her and Robyn were all in her own overwrought imagination, or whether Caroline could have noticed it, as well.
How did that make her feel? Had Robyn’s relentless cheerfulness begun to make her think better of Scout? Was that what led to her being included in Caroline’s will? Or had she something else in mind?
“So, it looks like I’m going to be late again tonight. And we’re almost out of cat food.” Robyn’s remarks snapped Scout out of her reverie. “So, do you think maybe…?”
“Oh. Right.” Picking up the cue in Robyn’s tone, Scout smiled. “Sure, no problem. Why don’t I pick some up while I’m in town today?”
“They’re pretty fussy.” Robyn looked suddenly doubtful. “But I’ll leave an empty can out by the door, so you’ll know what brand to get.They’ll eat fish, chicken, liver and beef, but not turkey. Oh, and nothing shredded or sliced.”
Huh? “Oh, uh, right. Sure. Got it.”
“Okay then. Cool.” Robyn grabbed her things and all but skipped to the door. “Well, I’ll see you later.” And she was gone. Leaving Scout to the silent stares of the cats.
Nothing shredded or sliced? Gimme a break. Never mind the dog, whatever was she going to do with all these friggin’ cats?
“When do you think she’ll show?” Lucy asked, a little too casually.
Marsha regarded her friend with a wry smile. Lucy had been fidgeting ever since she got here this morning. It didn’t take a psychic to figure out who she was talking about. “Scout, d’you mean? Well, Ginny said sometime this week. And today’s Friday, so soon, I guess.”
“It’s not like there’s any reason that we have to see her though, right?” Lucy brightened at the thought. “I mean, not if we don’t want to. It’s not like Oberon is that small a place, or anything.”
“Lies and malicious falsehoods.” Celeste slid into the seat next to Lucy. “Who says Oberon’s not small? Of course, it is. That’s a big part of its charm.”
Lucy sighed. “All I meant was, it’s not so small that you can’t avoid running into someone if you don’t want to see them.”
“Oh.” Celeste thought about this for a moment. “So, who is it that don’t you want to see?”
“Nobody,” Lucy insisted. “Nobody at all. I was just making a point.”
“Lucy’s in a very philosophical mood this morning.” Marsha couldn’t resist teasing. “Why don’t you give her a reading, Celeste? Maybe it’ll cheer her up.”
Celeste’s face brightened. She took out her cards and began to shuffle them.
“Yeah, that’s just what I need.” Lucy glared at Marsha and resumed tapping her fingers on the edge of the table. “Thanks, Marsh. You’re a real pal.”
“Not a prob, Luce. Anytime.” Hiding her smile, Marsha glanced idly out at the street, searching with her mind for the source of the restlessness she was once again feeling. She was aware of the conversations eddying around her, but she tuned them out with practiced ease.
She took a deep breath and let her eyes unfocus. The energy patterns that revealed themselves told her nothing. Everything appeared just as it should be. Suddenly she stiffened. Had there been a flicker of awareness just then? Rather like a car, whose motion you barely detect as it disappears into a blind spot.
She searched again. And once again, she encountered a curious blankness. It was like being on the wrong end of a two-way mirror, she was sure there was something there, she just couldn’t see it. She snapped her attention back to normal, but she could still see nothing that would explain the curious sensation she had just experienced.
A slight breeze ruffled the sage in the planters and set the nasturtiums nodding on their stems. A few cars drove slowly along Main Street. People moved up and down the block. A middle-aged couple, obviously tourists, paused in front of an art gallery. A young mother dragged a reluctant child along behind her. Two women examined antiques in the shop window across the way. A huddle of teenagers, out of school for the summer, sauntered down one side of the street, seeming to take no notice of a second group of teens on the opposite sidewalk. A tall, strikingly blond woman walked her dog.
She looks like Diana, Goddess of the Hunt, with one of her hounds, Marsha thought, watching the way the woman’s head turned from side to side, as though she were testing the wind for the scent of prey. She smiled in amusement, all that’s missing is her bow, and a quiver full of arrows.
A belated shock of recognition went through her, and she gasped. She knew that lithe, loping stride, the alert twisting motion of the head. The streaked mane of hair might be a little shorter than she remembered it, but she would have bet anything that behind those sunglasses, a familiar pair of bright hazel eyes was coolly scanning the streets they hadn’t seen in twenty years.
“Well, holy shit,” Marsha whispered softly. “Speak of the devil.”
Scout stalked along the sidewalk, trying not to notice the irritating way the dog stuck to her side. Like she’d been glued there. It was a perfect morning, she thought. Sunny and warm, but not too warm. With just the slightest gossamer hint of a breeze. Much nicer than she’d expected for June.
Summer, as she well remembered, was not necessarily the warmest season here along the coast. More often than not, it was cooler and foggier than either spring or fall. Still, she had always been able to tell when it finally arrived. There was a peculiarly summer scent given off by the vegetation. Or perhaps by the earth itself, after it had steeped in sunshine for enough hours at a time. A musky, faintly dusty, dried-honey fragrance hung in the air. Scout breathed it in and a wave of nostalgia hit her so hard, she had to actually stop for a moment and catch her breath.
Across the street, she saw a shop whose adjoining terrace was set with umbrella-covered tables. According to the sign hanging over the door, the place was called The Crone’s Nest. That didn’t exactly scream restaurant, but Scout could smell breakfast on the breeze, and she steered herself toward it. She was in desperate need of something a good deal stronger than that brown bath water Robyn had brewed. It would take some serious caffeine to get her brain in gear today.
The Crone’s Nest? Sheesh. Only in Oberon. Nowhere else, she was sure, would you find a place with a name like that. Just as she reached for it, the door of the shop burst open. Scout found herself enveloped by a cloud of sandalwood scent, quantities of emerald-green silk, a profusion of clinking bangles, all topped by masses of red-brown hair that could only belong to one person in all of Oberon.
“Marsha? Is that you?”
“Of course, it’s me,” Marsha chuckled, as she pulled away. “But you! Here, let me look at you.” She ran her hands through her heavy hair, holding it out of her face, and Scout couldn’t help but notice that her short nails were painted a deep, iridescent blue that glinted in the sunlight.
Marsha gazed at her intently for a long moment. Just as the scrutiny was beginning to make Scout uneasy, Marsha shook herself, in a way that brought to mind a small and impatient dog. Grabbing Scout by the wrist she began to pull her into the shop. “I only heard yesterday that you were coming. It’s so good to see you! C’mon, we gotta talk. What do you want, coffee? Some tea? Chai maybe? No, wait. I know. A latte, right? I see you have your hound with you,” she giggled, seeming almost as giddy as Robyn. “Don’t worry, you can bring the dog in. Have you named her yet?”
