Dave Zeltserman - The Caretaker of Lorne Field

“How wealthy?”

“I’d have to think millions.”

“Millions…” Helen Vernon whispered.

“Jesus,” Lydia said.

Minter pulled himself forward, a sheen of excitement flushing his round face. “Mrs. Durkin,” he said. “There’s quite a bit of work needed to get this started. We’re going to have to get approval from the town council. Also we need to line up investors and bring in the right business people. It’s going to take me a few days to consult with people and draw up contracts, but we should be able to talk more about this early next week. How does all that sound?”

Lydia started to nod, then made a face as if she’d been punched in the stomach. “My damn fool husband’s not going to go for this.”

“Of course he will,” Minter said. “I’ll talk to him. Why don’t we wait until I have more information and the contracts drawn up. Then I’ll sit down with him. Don’t worry about anything.”

He shook hands with Lydia and Helen Vernon. When Lydia reached for the items she had brought, Minter asked if she could leave them with him.

“I can’t do that.”

Minter raised a dubious eyebrow. “Why not?”

“He’d throw a fit if he knew I’d taken those. Nobody else is supposed to know about his secret hiding place.”

“I’m sure it will be okay.”

“No, it won’t be. I need those back. And you can’t let on that I ever showed you them.”

Minter opened his mouth to argue but saw it was useless. “I’ll have copies made instead,” he said. “Why don’t you wait here. I’ll let you know when they’re done.”

Minter gathered up the contract and book and left the room. Lydia sat back down in the chair. She looked down and saw her hands shaking. She couldn’t stop them.

“I’m shaking like a leaf,” she told Helen Vernon.

“I don’t blame you.”

“Pinch me. Make sure I’m not dreaming.”

“You’re not dreaming, hon.”

“You think he knows what he’s talking about?”

“I think so,” Helen said. “It makes sense to me. If people go to Salem for witches, why not here for our monsters, even if they’re nothing but a bunch of weeds? Lydia, honey, I think you’re going to become rich.”

“As long as my husband doesn’t screw this up.”

“Why would he do that?”

Lydia didn’t say anything.

“Honey, I’m sure Jack’s going to be as thrilled about this as you.”

“You don’t know how crazy he can be.”

“If Jack interferes with this, you’d have every right to have him committed!”

“I’ll do more than that,” Lydia said, a darkness passing over her eyes. “I’ll skin that old fool from head to toe.”

The door to the office swung open and Minter walked back in. “My receptionist is making copies now,” he informed them cheerfully. “It shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.”

“How much are you going to be charging for this?” Helen asked.

Minter smiled at her, but with his mouth only. “I believe that’s between me and the Durkin family.”

“I’m asking for her.”

Minter looked from Helen to Lydia. Lydia’s face was hard, rigid, something that might’ve been carved out of stone. Her eyes locked on his. “Nothing upfront. Just the typical fifteen percent management fee,” he said.

“That sounds awfully high.”

“It’s not,” he said. “And it’s not negotiable.”

“Fifteen percent’s fine with me,” Lydia said. “You work everything out and get my husband to go along with it, then you’ll deserve it.”

“Mrs. Durkin, we’ll work this out. Your husband won’t be a problem. Trust me.”

Minter’s receptionist stuck her head in and informed them that the copies were ready. Paul Minter took turns shaking hands with Lydia and Helen Vernon. When he took Lydia’s hand, he covered it with both of his own. His smile appeared genuine as he gave the back of her bony hand a warm pat. “I’m very happy you came in today,” he told her. “This is going to be a boon, not just to you and me, but to the whole town. I should be calling you early next week, but feel free to call me anytime before that.”

On their way out, Helen told Lydia to cheer up. “Honey, you just won the lottery. No reason to be moping like this.”

“I’ll cheer up after my husband proves to me he ain’t as big a fool as I think he is.”

Later that evening when Jack Durkin returned from Lorne Field, he stumbled through the doorway, sniffed, then yelled out whether that was pot roast he was smelling.

“Take your work boots off!” Lydia yelled back from the kitchen. “I don’t want you tracking dirt everywhere!”

“I’ll damn well do what I want in my own home!” he yelled back to her, but he did a couple of one-legged jigs while he pulled off his work boots. With only a slight hobble to his gait he made his way to the kitchen. Lydia stood by the stove stirring something in a pot. She frowned at him. He ignored it and breathed in deeply.

“You are making pot roast,” he exclaimed. “What’s gotten into you, woman?”

“Shut up, you old fool,” she muttered under her breath.

Durkin walked over to the stove, reached to lift the lid from a large pot that had been put on simmer. His wife slapped his hand with a sharp crack. “It’ll be ready soon enough. Don’t get in the way!”

Durkin brought the knuckle of his slapped hand to his mouth and sucked on it. He was in too good a mood, though, to let her usual cantankerous behavior upset him. Craning his neck so he could look over her shoulder, he saw that she had mashed potatoes in the pot she was stirring. “Yankee pot roast and mashed potatoes, huh? You find out I’m dying or something?”

“Don’t let it get to your head. Lester and Bert both been asking for it.”

Durkin stepped back from his wife. Her thin body was stiff as she stirred the potatoes, almost stony, but there was something close to tenderness softening the corners of her mouth. Something like that in her eyes, too.

“Hot as hell out there today,” he told her. “But I was able to get off my feet a few times. It helped. I ain’t feeling so much like a cripple right now.”

“So you napped on the job, huh?”

Red flashed for a moment deep in his skull-almost like a firecracker had gone off-but he swallowed back the insult he had ready for her. Something about the softness around her eyes and mouth made him.

Gotta give the old battle-axe credit, he thought, she knows how to push my buttons better than anyone.

“Nothing like that,” he said. “Had an extra spring in my step, that’s all. It must’ve been all that good food you served up for breakfast. Anyway, I finished all my weeding early and got to rest as much as twenty minutes at a time.”

“You gonna stand there jabberin’ all night?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Just had a good day, that’s all.”

“Why don’t you make yourself useful and set the table. Dinner’s almost ready.”

“Make myself useful? Saving the world all day ain’t making myself useful enough?” He again swallowed back the bile ready to be spat back at her. He turned away from her and muttered under his breath that he’d call the boys down to do that.

He started to leave the kitchen. Lydia reluctantly caught a glimpse of him over her shoulder. “Jack,” she asked, “how you planning to prove those ain’t weeds?”

He half-way faced her, a sly smile showing. “I’ll tell all of you over dinner,” he said. Then he left the kitchen. She heard him yell out to the boys from the hallway for them to come downstairs and help their mother.

Earlier that day when she had come back from seeing Paul Minter, Lydia sat at the kitchen table lighting up one cigarette after the next trying to calm her nerves. The reversal of fortune the attorney was offering seemed too far-fetched. Go from barely scraping by to being rich with a snap of a finger? Thinking about it, though, it made sense. People go all over for amusements. Disney World, carnivals, haunted houses, any little place that was odd and different. Why not here? And why not her? As Helen had said, it was like winning the lottery. But there was a catch. For them to cash in her husband would have to go along with it.