Amateur Hour

Janice

“It’s in the middle of a cemetery,” Nina marveled, when they were parked in front of the store. “Graves, right in front of the place!”

Janice felt a flash of guilt. “I should have mentioned it, but I barely notice, anymore. Do you want to leave?”

“Are you kidding? What I want, is a photo. Several photos. I wish I had my sketch pad.”

“Well, I’ll bring you back,” Janice laughed. “It’s been around for more than a century. It’s not going anywhere.”

“She won’t mind, if I take a few pictures?”

“Lisa? No, she wouldn’t mind a bit. I’ll leave you to it, and go in and say ‘Hi’.” She could sense that Nina liked to work on some aspects of her art, alone. She hoped it didn’t also indicate that she was too shy to meet Lisa.

Janice needn’t have worried. Nina wasn’t five minutes behind her. She was diffident, at first, but warmed up, when Lisa was forthcoming in her answers to her questions about the church and the cemetery, and gave her leave to come back, whenever she liked to sketch and photograph.

“You’ve done some homework,” Janice teased her sister-in-law. “A year and a half ago, all you knew about this place was that it leaked, and had rats.”

“You remember Mr. Templeton, from the trail ride? He’s been invaluable, with the recorded history of the church. As for the rats, I have a patrolman now, to keep them out. Sheriff Grady’s around here, somewhere.”

“Sheriff Grady?” Nina was amused.

“He’s the best. He wandered into the barns, at home, and had picked off a rodent or two, before we found him. Tuck laughed at me, because I wouldn’t let him live, outside. Toni doesn’t want a cat, in the house, so I keep him here. He stays out of the way, but he’s friendly. Shut up, Janice.”

Janice’s snicker became a full guffaw, at this. She had jokingly recommended a shop cat, in the past. “She’s getting testy. Maybe we should look for some books,” she suggested, to Nina. “Commerce seems to soften her up.”

“By all means, Janice—find something to improve your mind,” Lisa retorted.

“Unlikely,” Janice replied. “You know I go straight for the junk food. What are you in the mood for, Nina?”

“A mystery, I think. Something cozy, and not too dark.”

“Those would be on the left wall,” Lisa smiled. The more horrific ones are on the floor shelves.”

Janice parted company with her friend, at the historical romance aisle, and was reading a blurb on the back of a racy, comedic paperback, when the front door opened to admit a striking blonde lady, and a teenage lad. Both were carrying covered trays of baked goods, for the little space that had been set aside, as a snack area.

She dropped the book in her basket, and approached the newcomers with a broad grin.

“This is getting to be old home week,” she greeted Toni and Rob.

Rob looked a little startled, at first, then he shook it off.

“It looks that way,” Toni agreed, likewise smiling. “This is a long way to drive, for a book, though, isn’t it?”

“I brought a friend, with me. Mr. Billie’s wife,” she elucidated, for Rob.

“I never met her, of course,” Rob said, in a lowered voice, looking relieved. “We didn’t meet teachers’ wives or husbands, but Mr. Billie was pretty okay. Still, for all intents and purposes, I’m Jimmy, Mr. Rawlings’ hired hand. I used to be Lisa’s nephew, but that story seemed flimsy.”

“Got it,” Janice nodded. “But, Jimmy, if you’re Tucker’s hired hand—“

“I’m not too good to help Toni deliver cookies. Mr. Rawlings pays me in cash; Toni pays me in books.”

He looked not only well, but positively cheerful.

“Go ahead and find some, honey. I’ll put these in the cases,” Toni smiled at the boy.

“Good to see you again, Mrs. Miles,” Rob said, extending his hand.

“Nice to meet you, Jimmy,” Janice winked, shaking it.

“He looks great,” Janice murmured to Toni, as Rob wandered off toward the computer books.

“He’s doing so well. Will’s his best buddy, and he idolizes Dad. I really hate to think what’s going to happen, when he has to leave us. But, for now, we’re enjoying him.”

“Too bad Tucker and Lisa can’t adopt him.”

“Isn’t it? Lisa is getting attached to him, just like she did to that stray cat, of hers.”

“I wouldn’t have pegged you for a cat hater, Toni.”

“I’m not. They’re just unpredictable, and Willie-T pulls on everything he can wrap his fat little fingers around. I’d rather he didn’t get scratched up, because he grabbed a cat’s tail.”

“Oh. I misinterpreted what Lisa said, then. She said you didn’t want a cat, in the house.”

“I pet the silly cat, every time I see him. He’s a real ladies’ man. There’s proof,” she said, nodding toward the left wall, where Nina had been perusing mysteries. Now, she was stroking and talking to a big orange tom, who was sponging up the attention.

***

“I really like Lisa’s store,” Nina remarked, on the ride, home.

“What do you like best? The setting, the cookies, or the cat?”

“All of it. I see why you keep going back. Was Lisa playing with you, though, when she told you to shut up and improve your mind?”

“Totally playing, yes. She’s the sister I never had. I have brothers. Plenty of brothers,” Janice chuffed a small laugh. “Lisa and I pick at each other, but she’s kindhearted.”

“I thought so, but I wasn’t sure. I don’t have any sisters, either. Not anymore.”

“I’m sorry, Nina.”

“I had an older sister. We were only a year apart. And, two brothers, both younger. All gone, now.”

“What happened?”

“Hurricane. Flash flood. It was pretty terrible. I don’t know how or why I survived, and for years, I wished I hadn’t — but then I met Teddy.”

“He helped you turn things around.”

“Everything! My life, my art. I used to paint some dark stuff, Janice — trying to work through the trauma, I guess. Teddy helped me to see beauty, again. To find balance.”

“Did you lose your parents, too?”

“No. They weren’t even there, when the storm hit. But, they never got over their own losses. They love me, still, but they couldn’t really help me, you know? I understand it — I understood it then. They went from having a houseful of children, to having only one. They aren’t much recovered, today.”

“Do you still see them?”

“Not often. I think it hurts them, to see me.”

Janice sensed Nina’s shrug, as her eyes were intent on the road.

“That’s a heavy burden, for a child.”

“Yeah, it is. I was thirteen, when it happened.”

“I can’t even imagine.”

“It’s the past. I’ve been blessed with the means to move forward, so I’m doing that. I’ve learned to see tools, when someone offers them, to me, and to use them.” She paused, for a long moment, then resumed. “Could I offer you one?”

“Sure.”

“It’s this, then: Empathy is a very strong and useful thing, to have, but you have to watch it. You can’t let yourself get sucked into someone else’s sadness, to the point where it drags you under, too. Personally, I’d rather you see my recovery, than my pain.”

“That’s wise advice. I’ll take it.”

It was wise advice, and Janice felt her respect for Nina increase. She had acknowledged her grief, worked through most of it, and come out the other side.

*******

Liam

Liam leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers behind his head, and gnawed on his pencil. On the desk, to his left was a stack of paper — printed copies of the photos Ted had helped him take of the graves, all neatly sorted by the dates that appeared on the stones. Next to the thicker stack was a thinner one, with pictures of the markers that couldn’t be read either because they were illegible, or so primitive that there was no writing to be found.

He’d generated a few spreadsheets on his computer, and, as he’d thought, when the student deaths were put into chronological order, new patterns had emerged. A malaria outbreak here, a bad season of dysentery, there… Groups of students of both sexes that had passed, for reasons unknown, on the same dates.

Some of those oddities had been explained in old newspaper clippings he had found. Food poisoning had been the cause, in one case. In another, a boating tragedy, on the river. It seemed, in the earliest coed era, the school grounds had been more accessible to the students, with chaperoned outings and activities, that included nature walks, boating excursions, and the like.

In the case of the boating accident in the article, two boys had drowned, in their efforts to help rescue girls from another boat that had tipped, spilling half of them into the water. The boys’ funeral had been attended by the Governor, and they had been lauded as heroes. The school, itself, had come under investigation, for inadequately trained staff, and lack of safety equipment.

That part of the story had vanished into the ether. Liam guessed that money had made it go away, as was usually the case, with scandals. The question was: whose money?

He was ruminating on this point, when he heard the lawnmower fire up, at some near neighbor’s house. He had to get a mower, or find some kid to mow. He could almost hear the grass growing, in the back yard, and the front was getting shaggy, too.

Liam grinned, to himself. He’d get a mower, and stick a bow on it, to tease Janice. She’d always sworn up and down that she liked to cut grass, when she’d been a girl.

Returning his attention to the question of who would have been likely to fund a cover-up, at the school, he asked his browser the simple question: Who owns New Canaan Academy, in Florida? The answer was less than enlightening: Ridgeview Educational Services, LLC. He was going to have to backtrack, to get a name. Obviously, the school had changed hands, since…

The mower sounded closer, almost as if it was in his own back yard. Something hard pinged against a window in the living room, and Spike set up a deep throated bark.

“What the hell…?” Liam rolled his chair to the window that faced the back yard, and pulled the curtain aside, to see a familiar figure, clad in cargo shorts and an FSU t-shirt, walking behind a self-propelled lawnmower. He was also equipped with a ball cap and ear protectors.

The scene was both comical and unnerving. Dr. Joseph Starkey was mowing his back yard. Liam dropped the curtain, as if it had burned him, and drew away from the window.

“What the actual hell?” he muttered. His Suburban was right out front. Why hadn’t the man rung his doorbell, or knocked? Or, called, even— surely, he had everyone’s phone number?

Who barged onto someone else’s property, without so much as a by-your-leave, and proceeded to mow their grass? It could be some misguided, attempt to be neighborly, but Liam seriously doubted that. For one thing, Starkey didn’t live in the neighborhood, as far as he knew. For another, it didn’t fit the man’s personality.

Liam simultaneously wished Janice was here, for her insights, and was grateful that she wasn’t. He would have to confront the guy, and if the conversation got ugly, it was just as well that Janice not to be subjected to it.

He peeped out the window again. Starkey was doing a good job, Liam had to give him that. Too bad he was going to have to stop him. Allowing him to continue, and playing dead, inside the house, would be a cowardly move, however.

He got up, went into the kitchen, dumped some ice into a glass, and filled it the rest of the way, with water. “Stay,” he admonished Spike, and opened the sliding glass door, armed only with ice water and dignity.

Starkey saw him, at once, and shut down the mower. He took his time, pulling down his ear protectors, and pausing to wipe his face with a bandanna that looked like it had just come out of the package. The sun and the heat had given his face a hectic color, that was even less flattering than his usual pallor.

Liam thought he looked like a boiled funeral director, but he set his face in friendly but confused lines, as the man approached, and offered him the glass, when he was near enough.

“Very considerate, Liam — thank you,” Starkey said, and took several swallows.

“It’s a hot day,” Liam replied, wondering just when they had gotten to be on a first name basis. He hadn’t gotten the memo. “Did I win a lawn service lottery that I wasn’t aware of, Joe?”

Starkey laughed, showing all of his too-white teeth. “Something like that. Word has it, from your neighbors, that you either haven’t a mower — or are perhaps too busy with other things, to tend your own grass.”

“I wasn’t aware that there was a homeowners association.”

“There isn’t.” Starkey took another drink, then smiled some more. “Just concerned colleagues and neighbors, of yours.”

“I’d like for you to leave, Joe. I’m working.”

“I dislike leaving a job unfinished.” Starkey turned to look at the center portion of the yard, a neat rectangle, about ten yards in width by eight in length, that had yet to be cut. “I could have that done in less than fifteen minutes.”

“Let me put it in clearer terms. You are trespassing. I will call the Sheriff’s office, if you don’t leave.”

“As you wish.” Starkey drained the glass, and handed it back.

Liam entertained the petty hope that the cold water, downed so hastily, had given him brain freeze.

He watched him push the mower to the gate, and followed him to the front of the house, all the way to a large pickup truck, that hadn’t seen a days work, since it rolled off the lot at the nearest Chevy dealership. With an irritable flick of the wrist, Liam chucked the remainder of the ice out of the glass onto the overgrown lawn. He set the glass down, then helped Starkey lift the mower — also brand new— into the bed of the truck.

“Much obliged,” Starkey remarked, closing the tailgate. He went to the door, hopped in, with a spry movement, and closed it. Under Liam’s gaze, he buckled up, donned a pair of Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses, and started the engine. “Tend your grass, Liam,” he advised, before putting the truck in reverse, and backing out of the driveway. Starkey put the truck in ‘drive’, and pulled away, trailing a plume of dark smoke.

Liam shuddered in revulsion, when he was out of sight.