“‘Young lady.’ You flatter me, Mr Raynor.” I’d love to ask him how he became so grumpy, but maybe it’s just gravity pulling down the edges of his mouth.
“I think that’s a magnolia, and are they camellias way back there along the other fence?”
He nods.
“Mrs B tells me you’ve lived here all your life. She says you know everything.”
He harrumphs.
“How about that pizza oven?” I say. “They’re great fun.”
He shakes his head and I smile, not scared of an academic. I did the make-up for plenty of them when I worked for the network; shy experts commenting on this and that, fronting up for their five minutes of fame. Under all that importance, they’re as vain as the rest of us.
“I suppose you know your nickname.”
He narrows his eyes.
“We could always prove Mrs B wrong,” I say companionably, and let my comment hover in the patches of sunlight that dance and shift as a faint breeze moves through the garden.
Chapter 13
Lucy
The following Monday, I’m laden with grocery bags as I pass Jill’s. On impulse, I turn around and step back into her boutique. I rest my bags beside the counter and admire her window treatment, the green gown Dirk bought me now replaced with an off-the-shoulder orange jumpsuit in a stretchy kind of fabric. It’s eye-catching, but not my style.
Jill’s on the phone as I enter. She lifts her head but I shake mine. “Just browsing,” I mouth with a wave, and she nods and continues her conversation, her voice low and urgent.
I busy myself examining her rack of dark trousers, all surprisingly similar yet marvelously different.
“Yes, an ice cream cake,” Jill says. “But no, no tattoos. There are standards. An eighteenth is a formal occasion. It’s not all about you. It’s about family, too. If you get a tattoo; no cake and no party. Do you understand?”
She places the phone on the counter with a “tsk”.
“Teen troubles?” I say, but Jill fails to open up.
“My apologies,” says Jill. “I don’t normally make personal calls when I have customers.”
