Man With A Message

Mariah closed her eyes again, shuddering as she recalled her poor display of gratitude. His face had been familiar, but she couldn’t quite put a name to him. “I think I’ve seen him at school, or around somewhere….” And then she sat up as it hit her. In the kitchen at the Manor, talking to the man in charge of the renovation.

“He’s part of the construction staff at school,” she said.

Parker’s smile waned. “I was hoping he was young and handsome.”

Mariah was confused. “He was young. And if you like that rough look, he’s handsome.”

Now Parker appeared confused. “But I have regular appointments for all the Ripley Construction guys, and the youngest one’s in his late forties. Three brothers and two brothers-in-law.”

“Guys who work construction,” Mariah asked in disbelief, “get massages?”

Parker shifted her weight impatiently. “Well, of course they do. Massage is very sensible. They sling around heavy stuff all day long, reach and bend. It’s very forward-thinking of their boss to see that they have weekly appointments.”

“This man was probably in his early to middle thirties,” Mariah insisted. “And…” Her attention drifted for a moment as she recalled waking up and looking into his eyes—a soft hazel. “His eyes were hazel.”

“Cam Trent?” Parker said, suddenly animated again. “The plumber? I know he’s the plumber on the job because my office is near Whitcomb’s Wonders. I’ve gotten to know all the guys a bit.”

“Whitcomb’s what?”

“Wonders. Guys who can do anything.” Parker hugged her as if to congratulate her. “He’s gorgeous! And smart. He’s getting an MBA from Amherst. Wants to be a developer. Addy told me all about him.”

Parker was so enthusiastic that Mariah had to put a stop to her sister’s considerations of romance immediately. “Well, he’s not going to want anything to do with me. I hit him.”

“You what?” Parker was as horrified as Mariah had hoped.

“I hit him. When I woke up, he was half lying on me, kissing me—or so I thought. By the time I realized he was just…well…I’d already hit him.” She wasn’t being entirely honest, but it was all her sister had to know for now.

The doctor reappeared with a bottle of painkillers on the chance that her headache worsened.

Parker took them from him and introduced herself.

The doctor held up two fingers and asked Mariah how many she saw. When she answered correctly, he asked her name. He listed three items, then asked her to repeat them. She did.

He told Parker to wake her every four hours to test her awareness. “If she seems confused or uncertain, bring her back in.”

Parker drove home to her duplex across the street from the grade school. She held Mariah’s arm solicitously as they walked from the car to the front door.

“How’s the head?” she inquired as she unlocked the door.

“A little woozy,” Mariah admitted, “but not awful.”

The lock gave, and Parker pushed the door open and reached in to flip on a light. Sheer fabric festooned the living room, leading from a ring in the middle of the ceiling and catching in drapery loops in each corner of the room. Large, colorful pillows lay strewn around the Japanese-restaurant banquette—her sister’s creative approach to a “conversation area.” A filigreed cage held a fat aromatic candle, which Parker went to light as Mariah eased herself onto the banquette.

“Lavender and chamomile for serenity,” Parker said as the wick caught flame. “In fact, if we mixed chamomile with oil of basil, it’d probably be better for you than whatever’s in here.” She rattled the bottle of painkillers. “But I’ll get you water for your pill, and I’m sure you’ll feel better before you know it.”

Mariah wanted to believe that. Much as she loved her sister’s company, she always felt as if she was in purdah with the rest of the harem when she came here, waiting for the sultan to make his nightly choice of woman.

“I know you hate the hammocks.” Parker’s voice drifted back to the living room as she disappeared into the kitchen. She returned with a glass of water and the bottle of pills. “So we’ll sleep down here. You can have the couch and I’ll use the beanbag. Want a cookie?”

“No, thanks.” Mariah sat up to take her pill, then handed back the water. “There’s no reason for you to stay downstairs, Parker. I’ll be fine.”

“No, you might need me.” She put the glass and pills on the low table and sat beside Mariah. “This happens so seldom that I hate to miss it. You’re usually the one who rescues me.”

Mariah stretched her legs out in front of her and leaned sideways onto Parker’s shoulder. “A little financial help now and then hardly constitutes rescue.” Mariah had sent her sister money when her first husband had run out on her and left her owing back rent and many overdue bills. Parker’s second husband had supported a mistress on the side with money Parker made waiting tables while she went to school to learn massage. He, too, had abandoned her when the mistress’s former boyfriend came looking for him.

“You have to make better choices in men, though,” Mariah said sleepily. “Stop supporting them and find someone who’ll work with you for a change.”

Parker put an arm around her and sighed. “I know. It’s just that all that sunshine and harmony we got from Mom and Dad really sank in with me. You were more resistant. You’re probably a throw-back to Grandma Prudie, who loved them both but was convinced they were crazy.”

Grandma Prudie had been their father’s mother, an Iowa farmwife who related to the earth, all right, but only because it bestowed the fruits of an individual’s labor. She thought her son and his wife’s belief in the earth’s unqualified bounty, in man’s intrinsic goodness and life’s promised good fortune were poppycock. And she’d said so many times before she died.

Mariah had loved her parents’ generous natures and their obvious delight in everything, but she’d never been able to understand such innocence in functioning adults. Until she’d finally grasped that—whether deliberate or simply naive—it brought them aid from everyone. Neighbors admired their sunny dispositions and gave them things—firewood, a side of beef, help with bills—so that they could maintain a lifestyle everyone else knew better than to expect. This had confused Mariah for a long time, until she concluded that it was still proof of man’s basic goodness—his willingness to support in a friend what he knew he couldn’t have for himself.

“I feel that my life’s been very blessed,” Parker continued, “and that I have a lot of blessings to return. So I try to help those in need.”

Mariah yawned. “Yeah, well, some people are just in want, Parker, not need. It’s noble to help, but not to let yourself be used.”

“I know. I’m off men for a while. How ’bout you?”

“I’m off them forever.”

“That isn’t healthy. You want children.”

Mariah sat up to frown at her. “Park, have you missed the last year of my life? I’m not going to have children.”

Parker took advantage of the moment to place a pillow on the banquette and reach into a bamboo shelf for a folded afghan. She pointed Mariah to the pillow and covered her with the crocheted blanket.

“I know you’re not going to give birth to them, but there are other ways to get them. Just because Ben wouldn’t do it doesn’t mean you can’t do it on your own.”

Mariah was about to shake her head, then decided that would not be a good idea. She simply placed it on the pillow, instead. “I don’t want them anymore. It’s just all too much trouble. Children should have two parents, and men are just too determined to form a dynasty, you know?”

“Well, Ben was. But that doesn’t mean they all are.” Parker’s voice suddenly changed tone from grave to excited. “And a gorgeous plumber has just breathed life back into you! It could be fate has plans for him to give you more than simply oxygen.”

Mariah groaned and leaned deeper into the pillow. “Park,” she said, her sleepy voice muffled. “Don’t even start.”

She drifted off to her sister’s reply: “Sometimes, Mariah, fate moves whether we’re ready or not.”

HANK WHITCOMB HAD ARRIVED to work with the cleanup crew. Cam met him in front of the carriage house while carrying his tools back to his truck. He’d long ago walked Brian to the Lightfoot ladies’ residence on the other side of the campus, where they’d taken all the other children when the water cleanup had proved too noisy and disruptive for them to stay. It was 2:00 a.m.

Talking with him was a small, very pregnant dark-haired woman with a camera around her neck and pad and pen in the hand she held up to stifle a yawn. She was Haley Megrath, Hank’s sister, and publisher of the Maple Hill Mirror.

She and Hank came to his truck as he set his tools down on the drive.

“Hi, Cam,” Haley said with another yawn as she walked past him toward the steps. “You’d think people could have their crises during the day, when plumbers and reporters are awake, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, you would. Maybe the Mirror could launch a campaign toward that end.”

She waved and kept walking. “I’ll see what I can do. ’Night, guys.”