Sparkle

“Mrs. Price?”

“Yes, I’m here.” She clapped the receiver tighter to her ear.

“So…can you meet sometime next week? Say Monday morning, ten o’clock?”

“Yes,” she said.

When she hung up the phone, she was still bewildered how or why she could possibly have agreed.

Of course, she could go right in and tell Charles about the call this very minute.

She decided to do just that. She even took a brisk step forward—and then suddenly leaned back against the counter. She stood there without moving for a good long minute. Some instinct held her back. Maybe it was as simple as not wanting to interrupt Charles when he was already in an ornery mood.

Maybe it was something else.

She didn’t know. She couldn’t explain this silly, inexplicably strong intuition that she keep this information to herself…at least for now.

CHAPTER 2

When Poppy clomped up the steps to Cal Asher’s office, it was five minutes to ten. She was crabby at having her Monday workday interrupted and she’d forgotten her thermos. No one—at least no one who knew her—could possibly expect her to be civil without her caffeine quota, and she’d been too darn busy this morning to guzzle it.

She charged in the gloomy vestibule and promptly found another reason to scowl. She wasn’t alone. Someone else had obviously arrived ahead of her and was waiting to see Cal.

More annoying yet, the lone woman sitting there was…well, Poppy couldn’t immediately remember her full name, but she was pretty sure the last name was Price and that she was a minister’s wife.

Poppy liked to think of herself as tolerant, but in her heart she knew perfectly well she was allergic to churches. She had no problem with religion. Hell, she even had some herself, even if she tended to be quiet about it. But something seemed to happen to a lot of people when they attended church. They started turning into serial sinners, tended to claim their beliefs were the only right ones and then felt obligated—for God knows what reason—to push those beliefs on everybody else. Poppy knew everybody else hadn’t noticed it, but as far as she could tell, something about chronic church attenders turned normal people mean, besides. They took cuts in line. Shoved in the grocery store. Demanded to be taken care of first at the vet, the doctor, the dentist, as if their problems were more important than everybody else’s.

In principle, Poppy didn’t care what anybody did as long as they treated their pets well. But wasting a good work morning in a lawyer’s office with no one to talk to but a pastor’s wife…well, it sucked.

She plunked down on a hard-back chair and glanced at her Swiss Army watch, willing the minute dial to hustle along. She’d always been very good at doing, very bad at waiting. She hadn’t dressed up for this shindig because she was going straight back to work, but her one pride and joy—her mane of thick russet hair—was freshly washed. And she’d taken the trouble to throw on a sweatshirt without holes and jeans more reputable than most. Naturally she hadn’t bothered with makeup because she didn’t own any.

As a young teenager, she remembered believing all the advertisements zealously pushed on girls to make them think that makeup had the power to change their looks. Eventually she’d recognized that scam for what it was. Nothing was going to make her pretty. Makeup made her more vulnerable instead of less, because it drew attention to her potatoes-plain face. Better for people to think she didn’t give a damn about her looks than to reveal she was sensitive about them.

Poppy glanced at her watch again, discovered less than forty seconds had passed and jumped to her feet. Might as well look around, since she couldn’t sit still.

Cal Asher still practiced law in the old family home on Main Street. Everybody knew the story about how he’d been the sole holdout when the town council fought to renovate the rest of Righteous. The tall, skinny brick home was tucked between Our Way—the town newspaper—and various other commercial ventures, from Silver Dream to Marcella’s Expert Hair Salon.

Cal’s house stood out like the eccentric he was, inside and out. The parlor/waiting area may have seen an update in the ’80s, but that would have been the l880s, as far as Poppy could tell. All the furnishings would have looked elegant—in another century. Doubtful it had been dusted since. The big room was crowded with character—lots of furniture with feet, lots of cracked crown molding and blistered woodwork, lamps with fringe and dangling crystals. She accidentally caught a glimpse of a funny-looking woman with a disheveled mane of reddish hair—realized it had to be her in that wavy, gilt-framed mirror on the far wall and swiftly turned away.

She wasn’t ignoring the pastor’s wife. Just couldn’t see a point in starting a conversation with someone she had nothing in common with. And she kept fretting who Cal was going to see first—yeah, the woman had arrived before her, but Poppy was the one who had a ten o’clock appointment. For which she’d been early. And for which Cal was now two minutes late.

The far double doors were opened by a scrawny little guy wearing a bow tie. “Miss Thompson and Mrs. Price, come this way, please.”

Poppy tossed a startled look at the pastor’s wife. The woman shot an equally startled look back at her—then smiled. “I didn’t expect we would be called in together,” the woman said.

“Neither did I. I don’t understand anything about this,” Poppy admitted.

“Me either. I have no idea what I’m even doing here.”

Okay, Poppy thought. So the Price woman wasn’t the stiff-as-dried-mud preachy type she’d instantly assumed. But they were still from alien planets. Price was wearing a mid-calf-length dress, a print with little flowers and a tidy belt. Her wheat-pale hair swayed just to her shoulders, curling under, a style that suited her perfectly. Her posture was perfect. In fact, she could have aced the course in modesty and decorum—which Poppy couldn’t do if her life depended on it—and most aggravating of all, the damn woman was beautiful.

Their ages were similar; she had to be late 30s, early 40s. But she was one of those classic beauties, great bones, striking blue eyes, a tall, reed-slim figure. No hips. How could Poppy ever relate to someone who didn’t know what a hip was? And the darn woman looked that good without any makeup or artifice in sight. It was enough to make Poppy want to smack her upside the head, just on general principle.

Once ushered into Cal Asher’s office, Poppy quickly took the far leather chair and stretched out her legs, work boots and all. Ms. Prissy Price took the chair next to her and sat as if she were happy with a ruler up her spine.

Cal was just putting something out of sight in a side desk drawer. Poppy wasn’t born yesterday; she saw him rub an arm across his mouth, clearly wiping the last traces of liquor from the swig he’d just stolen. He smiled at both of them, looking much like a genial Mark Twain from a century bygone—give or take the rheumy eyes. “Ladies, if you don’t know each other, Poppy, meet Bren, and vice versa.”

They did a mutual obligatory nod, then quickly ignored each other. “I hope this won’t take too long, Cal, I’ve got a ton of work waiting,” Poppy said briskly.

“Ah, yes. Don’t we all.” With a dramatic flair, Cal slowly stood, shifted a bad print of hunting dogs to the side and turned the dials on a large wall safe. Eventually he pulled out two boxes—they looked like plain old children’s shoe boxes—and set them on his desk. “Do you ladies know an old woman named Maude Rose?”

“This is about Maude?” Bren said bewilderedly. “But she died several weeks ago.”

“Exactly. I was her attorney. Her estate was somewhat complicated because, well, Maude Rose tended to be a little on the complicated side herself. Certain situations had to be ascertained and resolved before I could contact either of you, even though you were both directly mentioned in her will.” Cal settled back in his old leather desk chair. “The state has always had the peculiar idea that a person’s bills should be paid and that no lien should remain on property or belongings before any legacies can be given away. Also, no one thought Maude Rose had any relatives, partly because she mentioned none in her will and no one ever saw anybody visit her. But that had to be verified, as well, before I could contact either of you. As you might suspect, when there’s money involved, it’s amazing how many shirt-tail relatives can suddenly show up out of the woodwork just in time to make claims.”

“Mr. Asher,” Bren said quietly, “if Maude Rose mentioned me in any way in her will, you can just give it to charity. I’m certainly not entitled to anything.”

Poppy rolled her eyes. How sanctimonious could you get? Not that she wanted anything of Maude Rose’s either. The town had treated the poor old woman like dirt. It had always infuriated her.

And Poppy was quickly guessing what this meeting was really about. Rose had no one, so obviously someone had to clean up her place and dispose of all her junk.

Hell. She’d roll up her sleeves if she had to. Better than have strangers—or people who’d been mean to her—paw through Maude Rose’s private things.

“Did you hear me, Poppy?” Cal asked.

“Nope. Sorry, I drifted off there for a second.” She straightened up, determined to pay more attention. The last thing she wanted was to cause this meeting to drag out any longer than it had to.

“Well now…Maude Rose felt folks treated her like a pariah. Of course, she was quite a liberal for these parts, marching for women and homosexuals and abortion and atheists and what all.”

Poppy didn’t want to interrupt, but damn, she could hardly let that go. “Uh, Cal? Being a supporter of women doesn’t exactly label one as a wild-eyed liberal these days.”

“Maybe not for you, Poppy. Your family has only been in this area for three or four generations,” he said with utter gravity. “But the point I was trying to make was, you know what people thought when they saw Maude Rose. It wasn’t just her politics. It was her walking down the public street in her bedroom slippers, wearing all kinds of gaudy jewelry, hanging out hours in Manny’s Bar. And though most weren’t aware, she’d been losing her sight for some time. Truth to tell, that might have contributed to how flagrantly she dressed sometimes and why folks were so sure she’d lost her noodles.”

“If she’d lost her mind—or her sight—that was even less excuse for how some treated her,” Bren said gently.

Cal Asher nodded. “Believe me, I know. Several times, the town council tried to have her put away. Had her tested to see if they could institutionalize her against her will. And then she was arrested twice last year for disturbing the peace. The mayor didn’t take it too kindly when she chose to burn her underwear in his front yard.” Cal scratched his chin. “I seem to have forgotten exactly what that was all about, but it sure got this town buzzing. Anyway…let me read you the paragraph in the will that Maude wrote specifically to you two.”

Cal opened his desk drawer, fumbled for his glasses and eventually found a pair to prop on his nose. Poppy doubted anyone could see through the lenses, they were so smudged up, but Cal was clearly into drama and he seemed determined to draw this out.

“‘People liked thinking the worst of me from the day I was born,’” Cal read. “‘Just like everybody else, I’d have lived decent if I’d had the chance or the choice. But I never did. My mom died too young and my daddy was a crook. I was selling my body before I was twelve to put food in my mouth, and I’ll be damned if I should feel guilty for fighting to survive. One person loved me for all I was, all I wanted to be, but Bobby Ray died a long time ago. Since then, I stopped caring. But sometimes it scraped hard when people were so mean. They didn’t know me. They didn’t try to know me. They were just in an all-fired hurry to decide who I was without ever even knocking on my door.’”

Cal glanced up to make sure they were paying attention, then read on. “‘But there was an exception. Two women in Righteous.’” Cal whispered, “She spelled exception wrong and quite a number of other words, too, but—”

“Just go on, Cal,” Poppy said. “We already know she wasn’t a Rhodes scholar.”

“I am, I am.” Cal cleared his throat and put on his speech voice again.

“‘The same two women stood up for me more than once. And for all the choices I never had, I’d like to give them each a choice or two. It isn’t payback, because kindness never pays back in real life. But I’m dead now, so I don’t have to worry about real life. And I like the idea of giving you two something for no other reason than that you was both good to me.’”

Cal glanced up again. He looked as if he’d like to spin this out a while longer, but it seemed he only had one more thing to say. “Short and sweet, she left you her jewelry, ladies.”

“Her jewelry?” Poppy’s jaw almost fell to the floor. She well remembered all the gaudy stones Maude Rose had piled on from her neck to her wrists to her ears and fingers. If there was a cheap rhinestone ever made, Maude Rose seemed to own it.

“Her jewelry?” Bren echoed and then abruptly chuckled. “I’m sure she meant well, Mr. Asher, but of all the people in the universe who have no use for costume jewelry—”

“It’s not costume.” And suddenly Cal stopped smiling. “There’s a story behind Maude Rose. Years ago, she had one of her regular johns pay her in bank stock. Seemed that bank stock belonged to his grandpa and it was for a bank that he thought folded during the Depression. Anyhoo…that’s what Maude Rose thought—that the stock was worthless—and she just put it in a box and forgot about it. But later, when her Bobby Ray died, she needed to clean up things, so she brought me this whole grocery bag worth of papers to sort through. It seems that bank had long revived, got a new name, been building interest for years. So it was at that point she knew she had some decent money. She wasn’t going to have to worry about her future anymore.”

“But I don’t understand,” Poppy interrupted. “I know she had that one-room apartment, but she always looked like a bag lady. No car. We’ve all seen her pay for groceries with change she’d count out one dime at a time. If she had money—”

“She was afraid.” Cal answered the question that no one had directly asked. “Once her lover died, she was afraid she’d be prey to thieves and gold diggers. So she chose to live in a way that would protect her from anyone knowing how much she had.”

He pushed one box toward Bren, the other toward Poppy, but then cautioned them both. “We’re not talking millions here, so don’t be getting your hopes up too high. All those baubles aren’t real. But even so, I think you’ll be plum surprised at what she left you. But…”

Before either could open their boxes, he waggled a finger at them. “I can’t tell you what to do, but I’m telling you this. Maude wanted you two to keep this quiet. She didn’t want your spouses or friends or family or anyone else to know about this. That’s why she insisted I set up this meeting with you two alone. Maude trusted no one. You can understand. People always used her roughly. And that was exactly why she wanted you two to hear about this in the privacy of this office with no one else here—so you’d have something you didn’t have to share. That no one knew about, so they couldn’t take it away from you. Something you could use for a little nest egg or to protect yourself or for something you never dreamed you could have otherwise. I can’t tell you how strongly she felt about this. She didn’t want anyone to try to influence you as to how you used your legacy from her.”

Enough speeches. Poppy couldn’t wait any longer to push the lid off her box. Hearing the whole story had almost made her believe the contents would be gorgeous…but no.

She’d seen all this cheap-looking crap on Maude Rose a zillion times. There were a couple of rings as big as her knuckle, earrings so heavy they’d tear out an earlobe. One bracelet looked like a cuff worn by a prisoner in a state pen, and a whole bunch of sparkly, glittery pins shaped like bugs and reptiles.

If it would save a puppy’s life, Poppy would happily walk down a street naked. It wasn’t as if she had any reason to be invested in appearance issues, with her looks. But man, it would have to be Halloween—and she’d need a snootful of Jack Daniel’s—before she’d ever wear any of this stuff.

“You’re sure this isn’t junk?” she insisted. “It’s hard to believe any of this is worth last year’s newspaper.”

“Some of it is definitely worthless. But not all.”

“But…” Poppy glanced at Bren, who finally couldn’t resist opening her box either. The jewelry was all different, but the array of dazzling sparklers in Bren’s box looked as if it came off the same Cracker Jack assembly line. Tasteless, bulky, big stones in an array of eccentric and crazy-shaped bracelets and brooches and rings.

Although Poppy normally couldn’t imagine having anything in common with the pastor’s wife, the two women shared a mirrored look of helplessness and humor.

“I think,” Bren confessed, “that I’m just too stunned to say much of anything.”

“If I might offer some advice,” Cal said, “I suggest that both of you take these things immediately to a jeweler to have them appraised. And then take them straight to a lockbox until you’re certain what you wish to do with them.”

“For my part,” Bren said, “I want to give them to a charity—”

“And of course you can do whatever you like,” Cal said. “That’s not my business. But I’d ask you to remember Maude Rose’s wishes. Most of her life, she felt trapped. She had to do things she never wanted to do. Because you were good to her, she wanted you to think about something you really wanted in your life that you never thought you could have. And to use the value of the jewelry for something that you really, really wanted.”

Poppy stood. She felt odd, as if she’d been slapped by a kiss. Not that there was anything bad about this unexpected windfall, but it was still a shock. She needed some time to wrap her mind around this whole goofy thing. Bren Price looked as if she couldn’t come up with anything more to say either.

Cal had a few more lawyer things to rant about before they could leave. “I need you both to sign some papers before you take the boxes. And I want to give you both a key to her apartment. The rent’s paid through the end of the month, and then—unless one of you wants the place—I’ll get a Realtor to do something with it. Until then, though, ladies, don’t be foolish. Get yourselves to a reputable jeweler as soon as you have a chance. And keep this to yourselves until you do.”

The women walked through the vestibule and out the front door at the same time. Once in the fresh air, Poppy took a healthy gulp of oxygen. Bren, quiet as the breeze, took a long second to catch her breath, as well.

“I just can’t seem to believe this,” Poppy said bluntly.

“Me either.”

“I can’t possibly go to a jeweler right now. I’ve got a whole day of work scheduled.”

“So do I. My husband doesn’t even know where I am. I can’t just disappear for another couple hours, not right now.” Bren added, “I keep thinking this is some kind of joke. That in another minute or two someone’s going to tell me the real punch line.”

“I have no use or interest in her apartment. But I’ll check it out as soon as I can get some free time. I don’t know if there are things to be cleaned up or if she has any personal, private belongings still in the place.”

“The same problem occurred to me,” Bren agreed. “I don’t like the idea of going through her personal things. But it just seems…respectful…to have someone who cared about her do the job. Assuming it hasn’t already been done.”

Poppy wouldn’t have used the word respectful, but she felt the same. “I don’t care if you do it or I do.”

“Same here.”

Neither seemed willing to push the other to a decision. They stood on the porch for a while longer until the awkward silence between them stretched like a too-taut rubber band. Poppy couldn’t think of anything to say to the other woman. It just felt weird leaving her, almost as weird as the impossibly strange last hour they’d just spent together.

Craziest of all—even kind of funny—was that Maude Rose must have thought the two were similar if she’d chosen them out of the whole population in Righteous to give her special legacy to. Poppy felt as much in common with Bren as a can of peas and had no doubt the other woman felt the same way.

“Well,” Bren said finally, “I have to get going. I’m sure you do, too, Poppy. Good luck to you.”

“Same back.”

And that was that, Poppy thought. She stashed the infamous box on the passenger seat of her mint-green VW and headed out of town—which only took a couple of minutes. Righteous was built in the curl of a hillside, with three main streets curved in a semicircle. Past Cal Asher’s office and the short sweep of stores, came the Baptist church, then Righteous Academy—a parochial high school—and then zip. Open road.

Two miles out of town, tucked in a nest of curly maples, was the sign for Critter Care. Web’s house stood a few hundred yards beyond the clinic. He could have walked to town, but the nature of the property made the place look secluded and protected.

Conscience nagged at her—the attorney was probably right about her needing to see a jeweler or at least to put the jewelry in some kind of protective place. But when Poppy climbed out of the car, she just felt stubborn about the whole thing. You couldn’t drop a bomb on a woman’s head and expect it to gently sink in. At least, nothing ever sank into her head that easily. She needed a few minutes to take it in, think about what it all meant. Besides which, she was already twenty minutes late for an appointment with Bubba.

An extraordinary number of dogs in Virginia were named Bubba. This one happened to be a thirteen-year-old black and tan with a really mean case of arthritis.

Heaven knew where the receptionist was—Lola Mae seemed to need a cigarette break every fifteen minutes—but Web was bent over the front desk when she charged in. Typically he looked as if he’d just wakened from a tryst with a lover—his jacket was wrinkled, his shock of dark hair rumpled, his chin haphazardly shaved. He shot her one of those God’s-gift-to-women grins. Poppy didn’t waste time taking offense, because Web couldn’t help looking like a George Clooney clone.

“It’s been hell on wheels around here since you left, Poppy. So what was the deal with the lawyer?”

“I can’t wait to tell you. It was just unbelievable.” But she could see at a glance there was a crying cat and a bluetick hound waiting for him, and her plate was just as full. “I’ll catch up with you later, okay?”

She headed straight in, past the reception desk. Her two rooms were off the left, with an outside entrance. Four years ago—after his second divorce—Web had plucked her from a life of misery behind a desk in an insurance office and conned her into being a part-time groomer for him. He’d kept adding hours as the clinic grew and her skills with it. Heaven knew, she had no formal education or training the way he did, but she’d long felt secure that she was a valued part of the clinic team. Primarily she focused on grooming, training and rehab—and jumping in whenever they had a difficult critter to handle. She loved the tough ones. And Web kept raising her salary, until she didn’t have time to spend the salary she had.

Truth was, Poppy had realized for some time that she loved animals more than people. More than herself, when it came down to it. And Web gave her a ton of freedom and encouragement to try things that worked. In this case, what worked for Bubba was a treadmill under water.

The contraption looked like a bathtub set below floor level—because she couldn’t very well lift the heavier animals. Bubba was a love. This was his third time, and initially he’d liked standing in the lukewarm water. Getting him to walk on the underwater treadmill was a way of giving him exercise without putting any pressure or weight on his old hips. It worked like a dream to limber him up.