Life According to Lucy

“Pop always said you could find all the best things in life in gardens.”

She made a clucking sound with her tongue. “I don’t think he meant women.”

“You never know. He might have.” The way things were going, Greg figured he had as much chance finding a woman in a garden as he did anywhere else. And he spent more time in gardens. He opened a drawer and shoved the invoices inside. “Come on. I’ll drop you off on my way home.”

She pulled her sweater close around her. “You don’t have to go to any trouble for me. I can take the bus.”

He slipped his arm around her shoulders. “Come on. If you see any likely looking women on the way, you can point them out to me.”

She swatted at him. “You are a bad boy, Greg Polhemus.”

“Yes, ma’am. I work at it.”

He laughed as she began muttering under her breath in Spanish and led the way to the car. When he’d caught up on some of his jobs, he would make more of an effort to date. That house of his needed a family in it and he was tired of sleeping alone.

2

To dig is to discover.

LUCY COULDN’T BELIEVE she was moving back into her old bedroom at her age. She was supposed to be a strong, independent young woman. So what was she doing letting Dad rush to her rescue? She stared at the antique white bed and dresser her mother had picked out when Lucy turned ten. Her DVD player sat on the dresser next to the ballerina jewelry box Mom had given her for her thirteenth birthday. The bookcase in the corner held her collection of Sweet Valley High books and troll dolls.

She half expected her high-school best friend, Janet Hightower, to call and ask her for her notes from history, and had she seen that rad new guy in chemistry class?

She sighed and sank down onto the bed. Somehow, when she’d been planning her future, she’d thought she’d have been past all this by now. In fact, if the diary she’d kept when she was twelve had been accurate, she’d be living in a fifteen-room mansion in River Oaks with two perfect children, a millionaire husband who worshiped the ground she walked on and gave her diamonds “just because” and a silver Porsche in the driveway.

Which just goes to show that at twelve, she hadn’t known squat about real life.

She ran her hand along the end of the bed. When she bent over and pressed her nose up against the quilt, she could smell the faint scent of White Shoulders. Her mother’s favorite perfume. What was Mom up to now? Was she a young woman again, swooping around Heaven and flirting with all the men? Was she in some star-dusted greenhouse developing a new strain of tulip? Was she looking down wondering how the heck her daughter had managed to screw up her life—again?

“I’m going to get it together, Mom,” she said, in case Mom was listening. “I’m working on it.”

Mom laughed. Okay, it was only her imagination, but she knew if Mom was here, she would laugh. After gardening, Mom’s second favorite hobby was her daughter. “I’m going to find you the perfect man, don’t you worry,” she’d say.

Lucy groaned, remembering. Her mom’s idea of Mr. Perfect and hers hadn’t quite meshed. Lucy wanted men who flirted with danger. Bad boys who made her pulse race and her heart pound. Her oh-so-conventional childhood had made her long for darkly handsome rebels.

“Lucy! Where are you?”

“Back here, Dad.”

Her father appeared in the doorway, the ailing ficus in his arms. “I think this is the last of it,” he said.

“Thanks, Dad.” She stood and set the ficus by the window, then stepped back to survey her home-away-from-home. Except for the tree and the DVD player, it looked like she’d never left.

“So where are you working these days?” Her father took her place on the end of the bed.

“Um, I’m still doing temp work until I can find something more permanent.” She began unpacking her suitcase.

Dad made a noise that could have been a grunt. “I didn’t send you to college so you could do temp work.”

She gave herself credit for not rolling her eyes. “I’m an English major, Dad. Houston is full of English majors waiting tables and tending bar. There just aren’t that many jobs that call for quoting Emily Dickinson and analyzing Thomas Wolfe.”

“You ought to let me talk to the guys down at the hiring hall. They could get you into an apprenticeship program.” Dad was an electrician. “There are lots of single guys down at the hall,” he said. “You might meet somebody nice.”

“I don’t want to meet somebody nice.” She deposited an armful of T-shirts in the dresser and reached for the next stack.

“You want to meet somebody rotten?”

She smiled and shook her head. “I don’t want to meet anybody.” Not anyone her father would introduce her to. His idea of Mr. Right was probably even more straitlaced than her mom’s.

He leaned forward, worry lines etched on his forehead. “Honey, is there something you’re not telling me?”

“What do you mean?” She moved over and unzipped her garment bag.

“You say you don’t want to meet men. That doesn’t mean you want to meet women, do you?”

She dropped an armload of dresses. “No! Jeez, Dad!”

“I mean, not that I would care or anything. Not that I understand that sort of thing, but—”

“Daddy, I am not a lesbian.” She blushed. This was not the sort of conversation she ever pictured herself having with her father. She slid back the closet door and the scent of White Shoulders engulfed her. She blinked at the familiar houndstooth jacket in front of her. “What are Mom’s clothes doing in my closet?”

The bed creaked as he stood and came to stand behind her. “She started keeping some of her things in here after you moved out.” He cleared his throat. “Guess I haven’t gotten around to cleaning them out yet. I can move them into the attic if you want.”

He reached for the jacket, but she stopped him. “No, that’s okay.” She shoved the jacket and the clothes behind it to one side and hung her things on the rod. “There’s still room for mine. It’ll be okay.”

She looked at her cropped, red leather jacket next to her mom’s old houndstooth. Mom had never liked that jacket much, but now Lucy thought the two of them looked right at home together.

“Let me call the hall.” Daddy interrupted her reverie. “At least you could get a decent job out of it.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to be an electrician.”

“Why not? It’s good, honest work. Kept a roof over your head and food in your mouth for plenty of years.”

She turned away and rolled her eyes. Looked like she was in for lecture number seven on Dad’s top ten hits. So much for thinking the rent here was free. She’d forgotten about the listening tax.

She made a show of looking at her watch. “Gosh, look at the time.” She smiled brightly. “What should we have for dinner?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m going out.” He turned toward the door. “I’d better get a move on or I’ll be late.”

She followed him down the hall. Her first night home and he was going out? “I thought we were going to go through the potting shed tonight.”

“You do it, hon. I’m going out.” He disappeared into the bathroom at the end of the hall.

Out? Her dad? She shrugged and wandered into the kitchen. The refrigerator held a quart of milk, a wedge of green cheese, half a package of sliced ham that was drying out around the edges, a jar of pickles, a twelve-pack of Bud and three Diet Sprites. The cabinets yielded some crackers, a can of tomato soup, a box of Lucky Charms and a jar of peanut butter. Lucky Charms? She hadn’t eaten those since junior high.

She was digging into a big bowl of sugar-frosted oats and marshmallows when Dad came out of the bathroom. A cloud of Brut preceded him down the hall. She let out a whistle when he appeared. He’d traded in the khakis and bowling shirt for starched jeans and a striped western shirt with pearl snaps and gold stitching around the yoke. Light bounced off the glossy surface of his boots. “So what do you think?” he asked.

“I haven’t seen you this dressed up since Aunt Edna’s third wedding.” Comprehension slowly stole over her sugar-charged brain. “You’re going out,” she gasped.