“Sounds like a good plan.”
“Well, just goes to show.”
George stopped playing and beckoned to his wife. All the other men except for Ben surrounded him, plates piled high with food. In between bites, they were engaged in intense conversation, their voices low.
“Be right there, hon,” she called, and went on, “You’re gonna have a hard time believing this, but see that little old stream down there? Looks like nothing much, right? Well, this is a drought year, remember. A few years ago we had two winters in a row where it rained three months straight. The first winter, I just watched that water get muddier and faster and higher and didn’t worry at all. There had never been a flood here or close to one in the thirty-six years we’ve lived here.
“So when it happened, the fire department, the neighbors, we were all took by surprise. About 4:00 A.M. in pouring rain in February, it came over the top, where the riprap is now, and rolled down the street and wiped it out. Rolled through our lot and flooded our house, took out the garden and the fences, and rolled like the Mississippi down the next street. Took out that street, houses and all. Believe it? We had to evacuate for two days. The Red Cross set up a tent by the bridge and made free dinners and we all got tetanus shots. Took us six months to fix up the house, and the other street? Took them the whole year.”
“Amazing,” Nina said.
“Kind of thing supposed to happen once in maybe a hundred years. But the next year it happened again. Believe it? It did. This time it took out the bridge. We were all ready to evacuate, we had our stuff out of the house, so it wasn’t quite so bad as the first nasty surprise. Since then, that river has been sleepy as a baby. Probably never will get loco like that again.”
“Jolene! You get me some food!” George hollered over the din. The singing over, and whatever conversation they had going interrupted by their frequent trips to the buffet for food, the other men dissolved into the crowd.
“Comin’! So anyways, we thought we were back to normal except for that puke-producing riprap the county put in and the new bridge. So George started getting ready to sell the Back Acre, that’s what he calls it. Guess what happened. The county told us we couldn’t do it.”
“No.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jolene folded her arms. “Right after the Green River development got approved. Some new commission passed an ordinance after the floods. George and I heard nothing about it until it happened. We sure didn’t see it coming. The new law says you can’t build, you can’t remodel, you can’t do anything within two hundred feet of the river. We can’t subdivide.”
Nina said, “Were you home when the model home across the river burned down?”
“It happened in the middle of the night. I heard the fire trucks and looked out and saw the smoke, so I woke George up and we went out to see what was the matter. Just about the whole block got up to watch it. I hate to say it, but I was glad to see it burn. And I’ll tell you something else. I hope they decide not to rebuild. For thirty-six years I’ve come out my front door and seen a green hill and willows. I don’t want to see fancy houses that somebody else got to build when we couldn’t.” Her mouth was set. “I’d be full of hate and bitterness, watching George and the girls struggling because we couldn’t do the same.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Trust in the Lord. What else can we do? Well, I know you’d like to talk to me some more, honey, but maybe later, okay?”
Jolene gave Nina a pat on the arm and wended her way toward her husband, and Nina headed toward the food, thinking that she wouldn’t want to come up against Jolene in court. That woman would be a huge hit with juries.
The adult neighbors sat down at their table, and Nina noticed they fell naturally into groups.
On the left end of the table, the Hills, the Eubankses, and Ben Cervantes.
On the right end, Ted and Megan Ballard, David and Britta Cowan.
In the middle, Sam and Debbie talked to both sides.
Even the food had been set on the table with some invisible demarcations. On one side, Jolene’s “mac” dish along with Tory’s deviled eggs and a big bowl of potato salad; in the middle, platters of ribs and chicken; on the right, in front of Ted and Megan, the Thai and Greek dishes, green salad, fruit salad, and soy milk in cartons. The liquor was similarly split into beer on the left and wine on the right, except for the whiskey glasses in front of Sam and Britta.
Sitting down next to Ben, Nina filled up her plate with starchy food. She pushed her wineglass back and Ben opened a bottle of Dos Equis for her.
Surprise, surprise, Jolene was holding forth at this end of the table, while George shoveled mac and cheese into his mouth and Darryl, Tory, and Ben listened with consternation.
“
“The Cat Lady’s nuts, though. You can’t take somebody like her seriously,” Darryl said. “Remember when Debbie invited her to one of the parties and we all had to listen to her Twelve Points?”
Ben said, “I didn’t know she was that definite about what she saw.”
“Yessir, she was buying cat food at the market-they must give her a discount-and that’s exactly what she told me. She said she doesn’t know who it was but she thought it was men in the car.”
“But it wasn’t Danny,” Ben said uncertainly. “The kid, Danny’s friend Wish, says he and Danny were just trying to catch the guy.”
Tory pushed her hair back and scratched her head. “But if Ruthie saw that, and it wasn’t Danny, it’d have to be somebody else on this block.”
“That’s a good one,” George said. “Like who?”
“Like you,” Jolene said, and kissed him. “Maybe we should do a lineup,” she went on. “The Cat Lady might be able to pick out the bad guy.”
Tory looked around the table. Nina followed her eyes on each man: Tory’s husband first, big Darryl; George Hill, already tired out from playing a few songs, drooping a bit over his plate; broad- shouldered, compact Ben; Sam, ignoring his food and pouring himself another shot of Jack Daniel’s; Ted, talking animatedly to Britta and Megan about a hiking trip to New Zealand; and David Cowan, silent and birdlike at the far end of the table.
Hill broke the silence with a laugh. “It was probably Elizabeth,” he said.
“Please don’t hate me ’cuz I’m beautiful,” Tory said in a high voice, laughing too. She took her husband’s hand, and Nina saw Darryl wince.
Debbie said, “Hey. Watch what you say about my sister,” but in a joking voice.
Jolene said, “Aw, Debbie, it’s no reflection on you. It’s not your fault she’s got a burr up her ass.”
“She’s beautiful and smart and you’re just jealous.”
“She’s Miss Priss,” Jolene said, “but if she wants to come down the hill and slum with us regular folks, why, she’s welcome. As long as I don’t have to hear any more about keeping Robles untouched, now that she’s built her glass house.”
“Speak of the devil,” Tory said, and nudged Debbie. “Your sister’s here.”
At the gate, Nina saw a young woman in a soft gray sweater and black leggings, toting a leather purse. She waved to Debbie, who jumped up and opened the gate and hugged her, then led her, holding her hand, toward the table.
Elizabeth seemed unsure of her reception, and from what Nina had been hearing, she could understand why. But Darryl jumped up too, and went to her and Debbie with a bottle of beer in his hand. “Hey, there,” he said. “Glad you could make it.”
An awkward silence ensued. Tory was glaring after Darryl. Nina happened to glance at Ben and saw that he was glaring at Darryl too.
12
S OMETHING HAD CHANGED FOR NINA AS she ate dinner with the neighbors. Before, she had been an observer, but now she had become part of the party. It was like going to the theater and finding yourself on stage. She was involved in some sort of drama, and she didn’t know the story line yet.
Or maybe she shouldn’t have drunk that Dos Equis on top of the wine.
Elizabeth accepted the bottle. “Thanks,” she said in a low voice. “Hi, all. Sorry I’m late.” She had luminous skin and high cheekbones. She wore her shining black hair simply, in an old-fashioned straight bob with a fringe. On her the effect was ravishing.
“It takes a while to climb down from one o’ them big redwoods,” George Hill said. Jolene giggled at this.
Elizabeth went straight to Ben, sitting at the table, and put her arm around him. “I am so sorry,” she said. “Are you all right?”
“I’m all right. Thanks for the flowers,” Ben told her.
“Come sit with us-” Darryl started, but Megan called from the other side, “We saved a spot for you.”
Smiling, Elizabeth said, “I need to say hi to Megan.” She went to the group at the far side, and Ted and Megan made room for her between them. The loud conversations resumed, but Darryl seemed to have lost interest. He couldn’t keep his eyes off the beautiful woman at the other end of the table. Tory, beside him, was seething.
Why, he’s madly in love with her, Nina thought with dismay. Four kids under the age of thirteen, a devoted wife-how could he? No question, Tory must know, because Darryl was about as subtle about it as a chain saw biting into a chunk of hardwood.
Nina hoped he and Elizabeth weren’t having an affair. She had liked Darryl, before.
Ben, too, seemed distracted by Elizabeth’s presence, although he was not as obvious. Elizabeth didn’t glance down the table again. She set her bottle of beer aside and poured herself some soy milk.
“You know what?” Tory said suddenly. “I’m going home.”
“I’m not ready,” Darryl said.
“Then stay here, damn you.” Tory got up and went into the house, followed by Jolene and Debbie. Darryl started to rise, then sat back down again.
“She gets into these moods,” he said.
Nina ate some more of Jolene’s tasty pasta. The night was young, and she had a feeling that she’d better keep her strength up.
Jolene and Debbie returned from the kitchen without Tory and the party moved into a new phase as they all started moving around again. Nina helped carry endless paper plates and dump them into trash sacks while Sam and Darryl went out into the backyard, working on something. The kids ran back into the woods.
George took up his seat on the bench, picked up his guitar, and started playing, looking now and then at Britta, who hung on the deck railing.
