Life According to Lucy

He reached for a western-cut sports coat. “That’s what I said.”

“I mean—you’re going out with a woman.”

He grinned. “Yeah. Don’t wait up for me.” He kissed her cheek, then left, the scent of Brut trailing after him.

She slumped in her chair, feeling as if she’d slipped into some alternate reality. Her dad? On a date? Mom had been gone only a year—wasn’t that a little soon? Only yesterday he’d been a grieving widower. Now he was all decked out like Garth Brooks, telling her not to wait up for him.

She carried her cereal bowl to the sink and dumped the contents down the drain. Who was this woman anyway? Some floozy he met in a bar? He’d been married to her mother for thirty years—what was he doing dating someone else?

Part of her realized she was being totally irrational. Her dad was a grown man. He had a perfect right to date.

The thought did nothing to make her feel better. This was her dad. Dads didn’t date. Okay, some did, but not her dad.

Then an even worse realization hit her. It was Friday night and she was home alone, while her dad had a date.

On this pathetic note, she opened a beer and wandered out the back door to the potting shed. Her parents’ house used to be a carriage house for the big Victorian next door, which now housed a hair salon, a new age bookstore, a pottery studio and four upstairs apartments. A six-foot high wooden fence separated the two properties, though Mom had had lattice panels installed in two places so the folks next door could look in on her garden.

The showiest flower beds were in the front of the house, devoted to an ever-changing array of colorful annuals. But the backyard was home to Mom’s prized roses. She had over thirty bushes in every color imaginable, including a purple rose that was almost black. All the roses had names, which Mom had tried to teach Lucy, but of course, she couldn’t remember most of them now.

The potting shed resembled a kid’s playhouse, with real glass windows on either side of a bright blue door. Lucy guessed this was appropriate, since it was sort of her Mom’s playhouse. She shoved open the door and the scent of potting soil and peat, mingled with undertones of White Shoulders, engulfed her. She swallowed a lump in her throat even as she glanced toward the workbench that ran along the back of the shed. She almost expected to see Mom there, up to her elbows in dirt, grumbling about aphids or spider mites or something.

But of course, she wasn’t there. Only a jumble of clay pots, seed packets, fertilizer spikes and flower stakes crowded the workbench. She took a deep breath and stepped into the shed. The least she could do was try to get the place in order.

She set aside her beer and began stacking the clay pots. On a shelf, she found an old shoe box that held seed packets filed in alphabetical order. Ageratum, alyssum, asters, bachelor buttons, basil…She recognized the flowers from the pictures on the front. Probably some of these were meant to be planted in the beds out front, but which ones?

Underneath everything else, she found a spiral-bound notebook with a picture of a Japanese pagoda on the front. Garden Planner was embossed in gold beneath the pagoda. She smiled, recognizing a Christmas gift she’d given to Mom several years before.

She pulled an old bar stool up to the bench and opened the planner. Important Numbers was the first page. Along with numbers for garden club members, seed companies and a local nursery was the following notation, in Mom’s clear handwriting: When in doubt, call Mr. Polhemus!!

Mr. Polhemus was a leathery-skinned old man who tilled the beds each spring and delivered mulch for the roses. Mom swore by his gardening knowledge. During those last six months, when the chemo left Mom too weak to plant, he’d even come over one Saturday and set out the fall annuals.

The planner was divided into months. Mom had made notes to herself for each month. Lucy flipped though the pages until the notation for September caught her eye: Always remember the importance of having a plan.

Was Mom talking about gardening or life? She frowned. Maybe her problem was she didn’t have a plan. After all, would a person with a plan be sitting at home—in her dad’s home—alone on a Friday night?

She turned the pages in the book until she found a blank sheet of paper, then fished a pen from an old soup can in the corner of the workbench. Number one, she wrote, then chewed on the end of the pen, trying to decide what was most important.

Get a decent job, she wrote.

Number two: Find a decent man.

She looked at her list. Okay, so maybe she could stand to include a little more detail. Like what constituted “decent” in either category.

She closed the book and shoved it aside. It was all too much to think about right now. In one day she’d endured the humiliation of being evicted, then been forced to move in with her father, of all people. To add to her misery, her supposedly still-grieving dad was now out on the town with who knows what kind of scheming floozy. Honestly, why was all this happening to her? Had she been cast in some new kind of reality show? Sleeze-o productions presents, How Low Can You Go! starring the lovely Lucy Lake as Hapless Victim number one!

She wandered out into the garden. The streetlight on the corner cast a soft glow over everything. Traffic over on the Loop was a low hum, in harmony with the fountain that bubbled at the center of the yard.

Her feet crunched on the oyster-shell path Mom and Mr. Polhemus had installed two years ago. The beds themselves were outlined in white rock Mom had collected at a quarry near Austin. The roses were arranged by type: chinas in one section, teas in another, climbers in a third. Normally at this time of year, the bushes would have been covered in blooms, the air awash with the scent of roses.

Unfortunately, Lucy wasn’t the only one missing her Mom. The roses looked like they were in mourning, too. Their leaves drooped and the few blooms she found were riddled with holes from marauding bugs.

Mom had planted her favorites in a bed along the back fence. She stared at Mom’s pride and joy, a huge pink rose named Queen Elizabeth, a sick feeling in her stomach. It was hardly more than a thorny cane, its few leaves a sickly yellow. Mom would have a fit if she saw this.

She knelt and began yanking weeds from around the Queen, anger adding strength to her efforts. While her dad was out gallivanting around town with who knows who, it would be up to her to look after Mom’s garden.

She was struggling to uproot a stubborn clump of grass when a movement near the fence made her scream and jump back. Visions of giant rats or gophers filled her head as she frantically looked for some weapon. People weren’t kidding when they said everything is bigger in Texas. Houston’s tropical heat and humidity grew nasty pests not seen outside of horror movies.

A snuffling noise from the shadows called forth a whimper from her paralyzed throat muscles. Oh God, please don’t let it be a rat. Or a possum. Or a mole. Or…

The almost-naked rose canes vibrated as something pushed past them. She jumped back. Where was a good-sized tree when you needed one? Rats didn’t climb trees, did they? What about possums? “Go away!” she shouted, and made shooing motions in the direction of the flower bed. “Get out!”

The creature, whatever it was, kept right on coming. She knew any minute now it would burst from the bushes and charge straight at her. She would have run, but her legs refused to listen to her brain. If she ever did get going, she’d probably trip and land face-down on the path. The only thing worse than confronting a rat was confronting one on its own level.

She glanced toward the trellis windows in the fence, hoping to see one of the neighbors out for a stroll. Preferably carrying a weapon—hey, this was Texas, it could happen—but the alley was empty. She took a deep breath. Obviously, she’d have to look out for herself. So what else was new?

The only thing available was the clump of weeds in her hand, so she threw that in the direction of the movement.

In horror she watched as a small shape shuffled out from beneath the rosebushes. It raised its head into the light and looked at her, a pair of beady brown eyes peering out from beneath an overhang of orange-red curls. “Woof” the dog said, and shook mulch from its curly coat.

3

Little problems have easy solutions; for big problems, it’s probably too late.

LUCY’S ADRENALINE SURGE abandoned her, leaving her weak-kneed and feeling a little foolish. A dog? She’d been terrified of a dog?

Not just a dog, she amended as the canine in question shuffled closer. A poodle. A toy poodle. Evidence of a long-ago trim still lingered in the pom-pom on the end of its tail and its overgrown topknot.

A flood of sympathy drove out the last vestige of fear. “Oh, baby, how did you get in the backyard?” She glanced toward the alley gate, but it appeared to be latched. She squatted down and held out a hand to the pup. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

The next thing she knew, the pooch had its front paws on her knees and was licking her in the face. Who needed makeup remover with a dog like this? “Okay, okay!” She held the dog at arm’s length, fending off sloppy kisses. (Reminded her of a few guys she’d dated.) She checked for a tag and collar—no sign of either. While she was at it, she took a peek between its legs. “So you’re a girl. That’s good.” Considering her track record, the last thing she wanted was another stray male in her life, even of the four-legged variety.

She set the pup on the ground and stood. “I’ll bet you’re hungry.”

“Woof! Woof!” The pup raced toward the back door and stood with her nose pressed against it.

She laughed. “I take that as a yes.” The pup raced ahead of her into the kitchen. She opened a cabinet and started shuffling through the contents. “We don’t have any dog food. I don’t suppose you’d like a can of soup, would you? Or Lucky Charms? I think I remember seeing a can of tuna fish….”

When she turned around, tuna in hand, she saw that her furry visitor had somehow managed to open the refrigerator and was busy demolishing the rest of the sliced ham. The dog made loud smacking noises and wagged her tail at Lucy.

“If you hang around long, I guess we’ll have to buy a lock for the refrigerator.” She shut the door and dropped the shredded ham wrapper into the garbage, then filled a bowl with water and set it down for the dog. The pup attacked that with enthusiasm too, managing to splash water in a foot-wide radius around the bowl. When it finally raised its head, water dripped from its ears and chin.

Lucy opened a Diet Sprite and leaned against the counter, studying her visitor. “I guess I should take you to a shelter.”

The dog sat up straighter and gave her a reproachful look. The kind of look that made her want to plead guilty to some crime she hadn’t committed. “I thought only mothers could look at you that way,” she muttered.

“Okay, so I guess the shelter idea is out. But I’ll have to call around and make sure nobody is looking for you. You’re kind of a cute dog for somebody to abandon.”

The dog rewarded this comment with a tail wag. Lucy sat at the kitchen table and the dog climbed into her lap and began the face-washing routine again. She tried to fend her off and checked the clock. How did it get to be after ten? And where was her dad?