“What I really need is a shower,” she said, shaking her top as if to fan herself. “How’s the water pressure these days?”
“Acceptable. Not strong, but steady.”
“In the old days it was a hopeless trickle. Which made it no picnic trying to wash off the smell of goats. This way.” She turned them toward the rear entrance to the courtyard.
“I can imagine. So you grew up here?”
“I was seven when we came and when I left ten years later, I was all Scarlett O’Hara about it— ‘As God is my witness, I’ll never go smelly again!’”
Marcus smiled. She joked about things that he could tell clearly troubled her. “And you haven’t been back since?”
“No. It’s been eighteen years. That sounds bad, I know, but Aurora and I have a rocky history.” The cart stalled in the grass of the courtyard. Chickens squawked their objection to the interruption. He used force to get it moving again.
“My whole goal is to help her without getting into heavy battle.” She bit her lip, clearly worried. “I’ll be walking on eggshells—free-range eggshells.”
He smiled at her quip. “She clearly needs your help, so maybe if you focus on what you’re here to do…”
“‘Busy hands are happy hands’?” She grinned. “Is that your professional advice?”
“It works.” He paused. “Frankly, a psychology practice built around folk wisdom is as sound as any other.”
“So, ‘a stitch in time saves nine…people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones…an apple a day keeps the doctor away’? Like that?”
“All valid, depending on the issue.”
“Interesting, Doctor B.” She tapped her lips. “Got one for David? ‘Straighten up and fly right’ maybe?”
“Too directive perhaps.”
“Also very military-schoolish. Then how about a parenting one for me?”
“Hmm. Maybe ‘a watched pot never boils.’”
“Nice try. Patience is not one of my virtues.”
“Something to work on then.”
“You shrinks, always with the assignments.” She sighed. “So how much do I owe you for the session?”
“No charge. Consider it part of the bell service at Harmony House.” He held the door for her to step into the hallway. He realized he was enjoying talking with her. Other than lunches in town with Carlos, he didn’t have many lighthearted social contacts, so this was…pleasant. And she smelled like spring.
STEPPING INTO THE COOL hallway of the owners’ quarters, Christine’s smile felt easy for the first time since she’d arrived. Joking around with Marcus had been fun. He’d been taken aback at first. She came on strong, she knew, loud and chatty and nosy, while Marcus was quiet and self-contained, a still pool happy to remain ripple free. He’d joked back, though.
The wooden floor creaked in a familiar way as they walked past the tiny kitchen, Aurora’s bedroom—its door closed—the bathroom, the spare room, then Christine’s old room.
“This is it,” she said, turning the cracked ceramic knob, her heart doing a peculiar hip-hop. The room would be different, of course, after eighteen years. Countless residents had stayed here, she’d bet. But when she stepped inside, she saw it was exactly the same as when she’d left it.
“Oh, my God. Nothing’s changed.”
“It’s very…pink,” Marcus said, pulling the cart inside.
“Bogie painted it for me. It was my princess room, like what I figured Susan Parsons would have. She was the most popular girl at school.”
“Susan from Parsons Foods? She’s married to the mayor, I believe.”
“She was queen back then, so of course she’d marry the mayor.” She ruled the girls who mocked Christine and the other commune kids.
Christine ran her hand over the pink polyester bedspread with the ruffles she’d sewn herself. “I made this, you know.” She touched the sagging canopy netting attached to four broom handles. It looked ridiculous, as did the papier-mâché French Provençal frame around the bureau mirror and the pink fur-padded stool she’d made. “This was my haven. Aurora called me Rapunzel and made fun of me for expecting a prince to save me.”
“Is that what you wanted?”
“Not really, but that didn’t matter to Aurora. Fairy tales were sexist—the girls passive chattel to be bought or rescued.”
“Pretty heavy rhetoric for a seven-year-old to absorb.”
“All I wanted was our cute apartment, my little Catholic school with the neat plaid uniforms and the strict nuns.” Everything squared-off, peaceful, predictable.
“What brought you here?”
“Bogie talked Aurora into it. They’d been friends years before and ran into each other and he got her all fired up.”
“But you not so much?”
“God, no. There were power-outs constantly. No TV. No privacy. People moving in and out.”
“Not to mention no water pressure.”
“You’re getting it, yeah.” She’d been babbling, but it helped ease how strange she felt being here again. She liked how Marcus honed in on her while she talked, really listened, as if the details were vital to him.
“Everything okay?” Bogie stood in the doorway.
“My room’s the same,” she said, still amazed.
“That’s Aurora. She sits in here and thinks about you.”
“You’re kidding. She always laughed at my princess stuff.”
“We’re sure glad to have you home again, Crystal,” Bogie said. The affection in his gray eyes tugged at her. He sounded as though she was here to stay. That made her stomach jump.
Just for the summer, she wanted to remind him, but couldn’t, not with that happy look on his face.
“Well, I’ll let you get settled.” He ducked his gaze, then retreated. That was Bogie’s way, to slip off, disappear, as if he wasn’t worthy of people’s time or attention. How sad. She would spend as much time with him as she could, she decided.
Marcus helped her off-load the bags and equipment.
“The office stuff looks ridiculous in here, huh?” she said, looking around at the desk, computer and printer. “Actually, the only phone is in the kitchen. I’ll have to set up in that alcove if I want to be online at all.”
“The drugstore in New Mirage has computer terminals at the back where the post office is. It’s DSL. That’s what I use.”
“I wonder how hard it would be to get DSL out here. Of course, Aurora thinks computers are a plot to destroy our minds.”
“Should we move the equipment to the alcove?” he asked.
“I’ve kept you too long already. Thanks for the help, Marcus. And for listening to me jabber.”
“It was my pleasure.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” she said, studying him. “I make you jumpy, don’t I? You keep backing away.”
“No.” He looked surprised at her words, then seemed to ponder them. “I haven’t had much social interaction lately….”
“And you prefer it that way?”
He didn’t answer, but she