Pushing Up Daisies

hardly in a position to protest.

I spoke too fast, babbling incoherently about why I was the right man for the job, even though I wasn't sure what the job was. Stapley nodded sagely, occasionally smiling at one of my obscure gardening references, which I couldn't believe he actually got. (Ah, yes, what would Vita Sackville-West do?)

I was not optimistic, but less than hour later, he was giving me a hearty, politician's handshake and wishing me well on the job. Somehow I'd managed to convince him I could handle the restoration of Halcyon's garden. And he'd managed to convince me to do it for next to nothing.

'Here's a copy of our Halcyon file,' he said, handing me a bulging manila folder. 'Helen Cox at the library should be able to help you dig up a bit more. And the Society will hold a small event, just some wine and cheese, to raise funds for any new plants you may need. Give me a wish list and we'll see how much we can pry out of some of these old tightwads around here.' I was on cloud nine.

He led me out to the front steps of the building to say good-bye. From the corner of my eye I saw his eyes narrow at his neighbor's joyously tasteless holiday display.

'You won't be sorry, Mr. Stapley.'

'I have every confidence in you.'

I needed to celebrate. There might have been no one at home to party with, but Babe would fill in nicely. Things were quiet at the diner, just a handful of stragglers and some teenage boys working up the courage to flirt with Babe.

'You again?' Babe said, looking up from her book. She switched a wooden coffee stirrer from one side of her wide mouth to the other. 'You got nerve, after trashing my menu. What's with the cat-who-ate-the-canary grin?'

'I got it.'

'You didn't get it here.'

'The job. I got the job.' I looked at her suspiciously. 'Why aren't you more surprised?'

'Why should I be?'

'I don't know. I was. I'm not a native, and although I am incredibly talented, it's not as if I have a lot of experience.'

'Stapley's not a native either—he's only been here thirty years or so.'

'You guys are tough. Look, I'm not sure I want anyone else to know about it yet, okay? There may be a few noses out of joint that I got the gig instead of one of the established nurseries.'

'I won't say boo, but you should consider not walking around saying 'I got it! I got it!' if you don't want people to know.'

I smiled and spun around on one of the duct-taped counter stools, promptly banging my foot into a nearby seat and the man on it.

'Try not to wreck the place,' Babe said. 'The Bon Appetit photographer is coming later.'

I mumbled an apology, and continued. 'It was almost as if he was expecting me. I talked nonstop. I was sure I wasn't going to get the job, so I figured I had nothing to lose. I wowed him,' I said, moving from surprise to swagger in a nanosecond. 'Some of your voodoo charm must be rubbing off on me.'

Babe gave me a lopsided smile. 'Stick with me, kid.'

I banged my hand on the counter, this time sloshing my neighbor's coffee. 'I am so sorry. I'm not usually such a jerk. I just got a bit of good news.'

'So I gathered,' he said. 'Don't worry. Mum's the word.'

'My name's Paula Holliday. Can I buy you another coffee?'

'Gerald Fraser. That's okay. Nature's way of telling me I've had enough. I'll take a rain check, though. Congrats on the job.' He folded his paper, got up slowly, and made his way to the door. Sitting down, he looked fit and ready to spring, so I was surprised to see him move so stiffly out to the parking lot.

'Who's that?' I asked, after he was gone.

'Like he said, Gerry Fraser,' Babe said. 'Nice guy. Ex-cop. Comes in a few days a week. Walks over from Sunnyview.'

Despite the creaky moves, Fraser hadn't looked more than fifty, fifty-five tops. 'A little young to be in a nursing home, isn't he?'

'Injured on the job. Some sort of mandatory retirement.'

'Looks okay to me.'

'Now you're a doctor?'

'No, I'm a landscaping professional, dammit. And I'm celebrating! Give me a very large iced coffee, no sugar, skim milk, and don't be stingy, baby.'

She used the chewed-up coffee stirrer as a bookmark, and started making my iced coffee with the dregs of this morning's pot. I leaned over the counter on my elbows and motioned toward her book. 'Whatcha reading?'

'Biography of Jim Morrison. I was just a child, of course, but he and I shared a beautiful moment once. The man was a god, if you get my drift.' She raised her voice just a bit, so the booth full of raging hormones could hear her. It had its intended effect.

'So, uh, when do you start on that thing we're not supposed to know about?' she asked in a more natural voice.

'ASAP. I'm going over there now to get started. I've got research to do, and I want to make some sketches and collect soil samples first. In fact, better make that iced coffee to go.'

Stapley's file included directions to the Peacock house. I hadn't been to that part of town before—three-acre zoning kept out the riffraff like me, but Halcyon wasn't hard to find. As Babe had mentioned, it was weird, not your basic New En gland saltbox. There were turrets, spires, domes, and loads of tiny windows—a drunken collaboration between Nathaniel Hawthorne and Antonio Gaudii Cornet.

Back in the day, Halcyon had been snidely referred to as 'Peacock's Temple.' More recently, it'd been dubbed the Addams family house by local kids. They'd dare each other to egg it on Mischief Night, the night before Halloween, and I wouldn't have been surprised if more than a few of them had done the nasty in the Peacock's hidden, overgrown gardens. Apparently, Dorothy had been a good sport about both kinds of intrusions.

The iron gate was open, and one door was off its hinges. I rolled up the weedy gravel driveway and parked in a partially cleared spot on the right side of the house. I grabbed my backpack and took a quick inventory—plant identifier, camera, note pad, Stapley's file, trusty Felco nippers, Ziploc Baggies, labels, trowel, gloves.

Years of broken branches, leaves, and general garden debris littered the front garden. There was old storm damage, and one enormous rhododendron had rotted out from the center, splayed open like a blooming onion, but the good bones were evident. New growth struggled against the weight of the dying branches.

Although still comfortable financially, the Peacock sisters inexplicably hadn't engaged a landscaping service in years; and each year, Dorothy and Renata did less and less themselves. Stapley seemed to think the last time the lawn had been mowed Jimmy Carter was president. It looked it. Against the odds, scattered bulbs were coming out, peeking through the layers of leaf clutter. Another hopeful sign.

The early spring day was brilliant and chilly. It could have been fall, and I was as nervous as if it were the first day of school. 'Get ahold of yourself. There's nothing here but a bunch of half-dead shrubs,' I said out loud.

'I beg to differ' came a cool voice from behind a large arborvitae in serious need of pruning.

I must have jumped a foot. 'Hi. I didn't think anyone else was here.'

'Clearly. I used to live near here. I stop back sometimes, to see what's become of the old place.' She looked around. 'It's hard to believe all the Peacocks are finally gone. Flown the coop, so to speak.' So much for respect for the dead.

Halcyon's other visitor was a striking woman—of a certain age—with short auburn hair brushed off her face, the way you can wear it when you have luminous skin and perfect bone structure. Her arms were folded across her chest, holding a large clutch purse, and a woolen shawl was perfectly, effortlessly tossed over her shoulders in that irritating way that some women can pull off and I cannot, but hope to by the time I'm fifty.

'You've got your work cut out for you. In their prime, these gardens were lovely. So were we all, I suppose.'