Rosemary Harris - Pushing Up Daisies

“Have you ever considered adding some heart- healthy options to that menu?” I asked gently. “It might help business.”

“You gotta be kidding. I should take business advice from you? Just don’t eat the fries,” she snorted, dismissing my health concerns and substituting the word French for home .

I realized she was right and went back to the paper. The Bulletin carried a basic bio of Dorothy and her late sister, Renata. There was no mention of survivors. Archival photos of Halcyon and the garden were provided by the Springfield Historical Society. I’m something of a regular there, too, as well as at the diner. Not that I’m such a history buff, but designing on a dime is easier when you frequent the local thrift shops. And the Historical Society had a great one.

“I bet those old girls at SHS could even help you get the job,” Babe said. “The Doublemint twins?”

“Who says I need another client? I’d have to leave all this,” I said, barely looking up from the paper. But her arrow had hit the mark; my dance card was hardly full, as my almost daily presence here confirmed. Did I mention I’m a gardener? Zone 6. I’ve got my own small landscaping business, emphasis on small. I’m also a master gardener and periodically volunteer with local landscaping programs as part of the classes-and to drum up new business.

“Since we’re in advice- giving mode, why don’t you volunteer at Halcyon-that’d be a real community ser -vice. That place has been an eyesore for years. And it’ll move you into the high- rent district.”

Not a place I’d been visiting recently. The year before, a global media conglomerate swallowed up the boutique production company I worked for. My once-promising career as a documentary filmmaker had degenerated into endless speculations about Who Killed Diana. Or worse. Who killed some poor bastard no one had ever heard of.

That had been the catalyst for this new chapter in my life. I took the moral high ground-and my severance package-loaded up the car, and made an offer on the bungalow I’d been taking as a summer rental. Then I hung out my shingle-PH FACTOR, GARDEN SOLUTIONS. PH is me, Paula Holliday. PH is also the measure of how sweet or how sour your soil is. The name was supposed to be clever, but so far, few people got it. And few people called.

Every time the wolf seemed to be at the door, Babe chatted me up to one of her customers, so I had a handful of clients, which kept the bank happy; but working on the Peacock garden could definitely jump- start things for me.

“I’m not a licensed landscape architect. This may be out of my league.”

“And you think all the women around here who call themselves decorators have some kind of sheepskin? Can’t hurt to ask. Besides,” she said, “I need to clean that spot where you’ve been sitting for the last two hours.”

“I have a mother, you know.”

“She just called. She thinks you should go, too.”

I guess I had been hanging out at the Paradise a lot. Newly single, I dragged my feet going back to my empty house. It was one thing to be a regular, quite another to be a fixture. Babe waved away my halfhearted attempt to pay.

“Forget it. We’re still working off the plantings you did out in the parking lot. Get outta here. And good luck,” she called after me, betting I’d take her advice.

Outside, I inspected the beds I’d put in last fall. Not bad, and they’d look even better in a month or two. The diner’s LasVegas-style neon marquee was now surrounded by a tasteful assortment of foliage plants to harmonize with the tropical paint job. Very tiki bar. On the marquee was Babe’s thought for the week. This week’s was A CLEAR CONSCIENCE IS USUALLY THE SIGN OF A BAD MEMORY. Babe, in a nutshell.

I climbed into my Jeep, mulling over her suggestion. Why not? The girls at SHS may know something, and, if not, I’d treat myself to the vintage ceramic lamp I’d been eyeing the last few times I’d been in.

The Springfield Historical Society is located in a formidable brick building, early nineteenth century, with impressive white pillars and a great expanse of front lawn sloping down to the street. They’d approve of that tasteful description. Unfortunately, the own er of the property next door is one of those cheerful retired fellows who think even minor holidays need to be celebrated with a display of lights, hundreds of ornaments, and larger- than- life inflatables, so now the Historical Society is known countywide as the building near Holiday Harry’s.

I made a right at the giant bunny (Easter was coming), parked near the bicycle rack in the SHS lot, and picked my way down the stairs to the shop, sidestepping boxes of recent donations. That’s where I was, poking through the castoffs, when I overheard the news of an even bigger donation. Halcyon and all Dorothy Peacock’s property had been left to the Historical Society.

“Well, there really wasn’t anyone else to leave it to, was there, Bernice?”

I cleared my throat to announce myself.

“Hello, Paula. I almost didn’t see you over there.” In theatrical fashion, Inez Robertson covered the mouthpiece of the old rotary phone and pantomimed that she’d be off soon.

Inez and her friend Bernice were known locally as the Doublemint twins. They were lifelong friends who sported identical upswept hairstyles (Inez’s jet- black and Bernice’s Sunkist orange) straight out of the sixties, although it’s probably unfair to blame an entire de cade for their molded, shellacked heads. In addition to being the well- coiffed guardians of Springfield’s best junk, with the slightest encouragement they were good for a little local dirt.

“Paula, you should have seen that garden.” Without missing a beat, she hung up the phone and continued, with me, the conversation she’d been having with her friend. “Once a year, the sisters opened it to the public. All the local children were invited for games, and there were Shetland ponies that took us from one end of the garden to the other. Then there was a race through the maze and all sorts of treats and exotic candies. It was a wonderful tradition,” Inez added wistfully. “What a shame Dorothy couldn’t keep it up.” She patted her immovable hair for punctuation. “Their brother helped, of course.”

“The paper didn’t mention a brother.”

“I’m sure of it.” She tapped her chin, mentally flipping through years of town history. She slammed her powdery hand on the counter in triumph. “ William was their younger brother. He disappeared years ago. Went to Alaska or someplace. No one ever heard from him again. At least not as far as I know.”

“Well, whoever’s handling the estate will have to look for him,” I said, wondering when I could tactfully get around to the real reason for my visit.

“Now I remember. Margery tried to find him once, years ago, for some Historical Society function. Richard was just as happy she didn’t succeed. Probably jealous, the old fool.”

Richard was Richard Stapley, the Historical Society’s president; Margery was his wife. And now the house had been left in their care.

“William was a handsome boy,” Inez droned on, oblivious to my mounting impatience. “Quite a heart-breaker, too. He might have gone to Hollywood.”

Yeah, maybe he was James Dean, I thought meanly but didn’t say. I picked her brain some more about the Peacocks and local history, then when I couldn’t stand it any longer, I popped the big question. “Any idea what will become of the garden?”

I was not the first to ask.

“Well,” she said heavily, grateful for a new line of gossip. “People have been traipsing in and out since yesterday. I’ve seen three landscapers’ trucks this morning,” she said, unnecessarily puttering with the dusty costume jewelry in her display case. “I just hope it isn’t that awful Mr. Chiaramonte. I don’t know what Richard sees in him. He was here again this morning.” She wrinkled her nose as if there were any doubt what she thought of him.