“Thea! Order up!”
The waitress hurried to the rear to pick up Winnie’s wrapped lunch, handing it over just as a couple came in, cutting off any chance of further conversation.
Just as well, probably, Winnie thought as she got back into the truck, fending off Annabelle, who was also partial to steak and cheese burritos. The plan had been to head straight back to the house for a nap that would hopefully make up for her lost sleep the night before. Not stop at the pumpkin patch she’d passed earlier. Except who could resist the afternoon sun blazing across pumpkins as far as the eye can see?
Certainly not her.
Now, what she thought she was gonna do with them, she thought a half hour later as she lugged a half dozen of the suckers out of her truck bed, she had no idea. Especially considering she’d be back in Texas long before Halloween. And, once she’d rearranged them several times on the porch until she and Annabelle were satisfied, she realized they clashed terribly with the bright pink cosmos. Still, Winnie had always been impressed with how things could work together in nature that you could never pull off in, say, your own house. Or on your body, she thought with a grimace, recalling more than one unfortunate outfit she’d thought the very height of fashion at the time.
A breeze whooshed through the trees, like a soft laugh. Winnie took a deep breath, than another, letting the wind suck the tension right out of her, as she decided the earthy orange and purply pink actually looked pretty damn good with the vibrant blue trim on the doors and windows. So there.
At last she wolfed down her burrito, chasing it with a glass of milk, then collapsed across the unmade bed, barely kicking off her boots before she’d passed out. And who knows how long she might have slept if somebody hadn’t knocked on the door, maybe an hour later. Finger-combing her hair and trying to shake off the dregs of sleep, Winnie plodded in socks to the door, just as whoever was on the other side knocked again. A lightish knock, not the pounding one might expect from, say, a six-foot-something grumpy Irishman.
Throwing caution to the winds, she swung open the door to face a very disgruntled nine-year-old in a dusty hoodie standing on the porch, his bike collapsed in the dirt a few feet away.
“So who are you, anyway?” Robbie said, with the exasperation of somebody who’d been thinking about this for some time.
Chapter Four
Robbie didn’t know why somebody staying in the Old House bugged him so much. Especially since the lady’d said she was only there for a week. And she seemed okay and all, when he’d met her in the store. But why was she staying here? He asked Flo, but she was no help. All Robbie knew was that the lady’s being there felt worse than when Florita would come into his room without knocking.
Because this was where he could think about Mom all he wanted, sometimes even talk to her—even though he knew he wasn’t really talking to her, he wasn’t some dumb little kid who believed in ghosts—but he could say things to her he couldn’t to Dad, like about how much he still missed her and stuff. It was even okay if he cried, because there was nobody around to see him. Of course he thought about Mom up at his real house, too, or when he was out walking in the woods or riding his bike, but this was different.
All day at school, he kept thinking about how it felt like this lady was coming between him and Mom, even though he knew that was stupid. Poor Miss Carter, she’d had to tell him to focus like a million times.
So as soon as he got off the school bus, he decided to just go ask her himself. As soon as he did, though, he felt really dumb. Especially since the lady got this strange look on her face.
“My name’s Winnie,” she said, smiling and coming out onto the porch. She didn’t shut the door behind her or anything, but Robbie still felt like he was being kept out, which made him mad. Only then she said, “I’d invite you inside, but I’m sure you know you shouldn’t do that with a stranger,” and it freaked him out, a little, that she’d kinda read his mind. “You’re Robbie, right?”
He nodded, then said, “Why’d you come?”
“I saw a piece in a magazine about Tierra Rosa, and it looked so nice I decided to come see it for myself, and since you don’t have any motels or anything—”
“I don’t want you here,” Robbie said, his face getting all hot; as he looked away, the dog came up to him and licked his hand, like she understood how bad he felt.
Instead of getting upset or mad, though, Winnie slipped her hands into her pockets. “This is your hideout, isn’t it?”
Robbie’s face got hotter. Ten times worse, though, was feeling like he was gonna cry. “Sorta.”
“I didn’t know,” Winnie said softly, calling the dog to her. Not looking at him. “When I made arrangements to stay here, I mean. I had no idea this was your place.” She got quiet for a moment, then said, “I won’t be here long, though. I promise.”
“You said a week, back at the store.”
“I might leave sooner. I haven’t decided yet.”
Something in her face made Robbie feel like he was looking in a mirror, like she was as sad as he was, but trying real hard not to show it. Which made him feel bad, because it wasn’t like her fault or anything. Then he noticed the pumpkins.
“If you’re not gonna stay, how come you got all these pumpkins?”
Winnie laughed. “It was just one of those impulse things.”
“What’s that mean?”
“When you do something without thinking it through.” She sighed, then ruffled the dog’s fur. “I do that a lot. It’s a bad habit.”
Staring at the pumpkins, Robbie said, “Halloween useta be my mom’s favorite holiday.”
“Yeah? Mine, too.”
“You gonna carve faces in ‘em?”
“Probably. When I get back home, closer to Halloween. If I cut ‘em now, they’ll shrivel up too fast.”
“Yeah, I know.” He paused. “My mom died. Right before Halloween last year.”
“Oh, honey…I’m so sorry,” she said, like she really meant it. “My folks died, too, when I was about your age.”
He looked at her, curious.
“How?”
“In a car crash,” she said softly.
“Oh.”
He’d never known anybody else whose parents had died when they were still a kid. Maybe that’s why she didn’t go all stupid and act all embarrassed and stuff like a lot of other people did, either treating him all fake nice or refusing to look right at him. Before he knew what he was doing, he sat on the step beside her. The dog brought him a stick to throw.
“What’s her name?”
“Annabelle. Although sometimes I call her Dumbbell.”
Robbie almost laughed. He threw the stick for the dog, then heard himself say, “When Mom was sick, I’d come here a lot.”
“Just to be by yourself?”
“Yeah. And now it’s almost like…”
“What?”
He shook his head. He couldn’t believe he’d almost told her about feeling like Mom was here now. Like she’d moved into the Old House after she’d died. “Nothin’,” he said, shrugging. “I forgot what I was about to say.”
“I do that, too,” Winnie said. Robbie looked at her.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.