Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody - Barbara Ross

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identity she’d had back then.

      “I don’t think the tractor trailer analogy is overstating,” she said to Helen.

      “That’s not the part I object to. It was the part where you said you were riding along happy and oblivious. You were neither. You knew Francis didn’t love you. You knew he would leave you someday. You were a nervous wreck, at least the last two years. You were willing to do anything to try to make him happy, including gutting a kitchen you loved. Including signing that loan. I’ve never been angry with Francis for leaving you, although the way he left was horrible. I’ve always been furious about what he did to you before he left. The way he made you feel about yourself.”

      Jane was silent for a moment. They’d never really talked about it quite this way. “I don’t see what this has to do with my dilemma about Harry Welch,” she finally said.

      Helen drank the last of her wine. “I say go for it. If, and only if, you are ready to leave the past in the past.”

      “And you won’t say anything to Phyllis?”

      Helen held up three fingers on her right hand. “Scouts honor. It’s between the two of you.”

      “I’ll think about it,” Jane answered.

      “Good,” Helen said. “How was your visit to Walden Spring?”

      “Interesting. I got a tour of the buildings and then there was a food fight. Paul Peavey wants to me to move in.”

      “There was a what?”

      “A food fight. That’s the sort of community problem he wants me to help him address.”

      “Why would you need to move in to do that?”

      “He wants me to experience the community in order to diagnose the problem.”

      Helen sat up even straighter. “The problem, I would think, is senior citizens flinging food around their dining room.”

      “That’s the symptom, not the cause.”

      “I suppose. Will you do it?”

      “Yes.” Jane had not been certain until that moment, but now she was. “Yes, I will. I’ll move in tomorrow.”

      Chapter Four

      Tuesday, August 7

      At eight-thirty the next morning, Jane called Paul Peavey and told him she was in. He sounded pleasantly surprised. She packed a suitcase; put together a canvas shopping bag full of staples; loaded her laptop, book, and assorted paraphernalia into another tote bag; and stopped the newspapers.

      When she drove up, Walden Spring looked as serene as it had on the website. It was hard to imagine yesterday’s melee had been real.

      The guest unit turned out to be a Hawthorne. It was on the fourth floor in the first building, the one attached to the archway and Peavey’s office. The balcony faced the quad—not the best view, but Jane could also see the golf course if she looked over the balcony’s left side.

      Regina Campbell led the way with the same chattering narrative as the day before. She gave Jane a keycard. “This will open your apartment, as well as your foyer downstairs and the other residential foyers. If you decide to buy, then you’d get one with your photo on it, which will be your Walden Spring ID card.”

      Jane walked her to the door. They stood in the hallway outside the apartment.

      “Who else lives here?” Jane gestured to the three other doors that surrounded the elevator bank.

      “Those units are empty,” Regina answered. “Some of our last inventory. It’s my job to sell them.”

      “Do the problems in the community make it difficult to sell the units? ” Jane asked.

      Regina’s normally animated face went still. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She left without saying good-bye.

      Jane explored the apartment, examining the small appliances the real estate company had left there for the convenience of prospective buyers. She did the bits of unpacking she needed to do—clothes in the beautifully designed closet; coffee in the cupboard; milk, butter, and bread in the big, stainless steel refrigerator. At ten o’clock Jane went out on her balcony and looked at the green quadrangle below. Morning activities were about to begin. People scurried across the quad—or progressed at whatever pace their bodies allowed. She headed for the art room.

      * * *

      Evangeline opened the window in the art room as Jane arrived. The group in the room was even more heavily female than the day before. In fact, Maurice was the only man. “Such a lovely day,” Evangeline announced. “Landscapes?”

      The women all made positive noises, but Maurice sighed heavily. “Jeez, not again.” They packed up their supplies and easels in a kind of kit and grabbed the folded campstools that were lined up along the wall.

      “Welcome back, Jane,” Evangeline said. She was dressed like a gypsy—colorful skirt, long silver earrings, headscarf. “I wasn’t sure you’d return after yesterday.”

      “Glutton for punishment,” Maurice mumbled.

      Jane explained she was staying in the guest unit while she made her decision.

      “Wonderful. Do you have your own art supplies? We have loaners.” Evangeline fixed her up with a kit containing paints, palette, brushes, canvas, and a folding easel. Jane grabbed a campstool and lined up with the rest. Evangeline took her place in the front of the line.

      “Where to?” one of the women asked.

      “The fifth hole is stunning this time of day,” Evangeline answered.

      Evangeline led the way, walking swiftly on sure feet. The group stuck to the golf cart path. The terrain was hilly, and Jane wondered why Evangeline had picked a spot so far away. She slowed down and waited for a quite elderly lady as they climbed the last hill. Jane took the woman’s campstool and artist kit and added them to her own.

      “Thank you, dear,” the old woman boomed. “I’m Ethel.” She was tiny, with the most improbably deep bullfrog voice. Even allowing for age, she could never have been very big. Her voice had a unique quality, not the rasp of whiskey and cigarettes but the natural timbre of a much larger person.

      “I’m Jane.”

      “Can you guess how old I am, Jane?”

      At what age did people begin asking this question? There was only peril in the answer, whether one guessed too old or too young.

      Fortunately, Ethel answered without waiting for Jane. “Ninety-one.”

      They came over the top of the rise, where the rest of the artists were setting up. “Well,” Ethel said with satisfaction, “always a beautiful view.”

      It was, indeed, a gorgeous spot. The hill rolled down to an egg-shaped green. A charming bridge crossed a water hazard. Beyond that was a thin line of trees and then the fairway for another hole. A little cottage lay nestled, surrounded by bushes, on the far side of the fairway. The wet summer had worked its magic and everything was a different, brilliant shade of green.

      But that wasn’t the view the artists were focused on.

      Below them, the grounds crew had arrived in a cart towing a ride-on mower. They were the same four who had broken up the food fight in the cafeteria the day before. They heaved themselves from the cart and went about their business, unloading the mower, grabbing edgers and hedge trimmers. Three of the four took off their shirts. The gasp from the artist group was audible.

      “Hey, Karl,” Evangeline yelled.

      The fourth man waved back. “Hi, Mrs. Murray!” Then he too removed his shirt, turned around, and dropped it in the golf cart.

      “My God.” Jane hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

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