Sparkle

“I think it’s great you’re here. It’ll give us a chance to put our heads together and figure out what to do with the place at the same time.”

Poppy nodded. “I don’t even know why I came tonight. The curiosity bug just keeps getting to me. Who Maude Rose really was. How and why she picked us to give that stuff to, when I don’t remember her even speaking to me. In fact, I didn’t know she realized I’d defended her now and then. And I just…those jewels, you know? That whole thing’s still bowling me over.”

“I know. Me, too.” Bren, all her life, had felt easy around people, loved people in all their facets and colors and rainbow choices of personalities. But Poppy was a puzzle.

She’d looked nervous as a newborn colt when she’d first stepped in. Shed a dripping rain jacket at the door, dropped it. She was such a character, Bren thought. A full-grown ragamuffin. Gorgeous hair, all red and gold and blond, thick and glossy—but she wore it shaggy and rumpled, washed and dried as if it were polyester. The clothes appeared to be rejects from a rag bag—the jeans were too tight in the behind, dirty in the knees, thready at the hems; the flannel shirt was twice too big for her frame.

Poppy’s face fascinated her the most, though. Her dark eyes were bright with intelligence and sassy humor. She had a long, wide mouth, skin softer than a baby’s. The nose took up too much space. So did the chin. But there were so many contradictions in that face, so much character. Poppy seemed shamelessly irreverent, hopelessly blunt…so much her own woman, the way Bren had always wanted to be herself. Everything about Poppy seemed to capitalize a strong woman, unafraid to fight for whatever mattered to her…yet that essential gutsiness was shadowed by something else. Anger, Bren was almost sure.

Somewhere inside that brash, artsy package was a lot of anger at something. The way she walked, the way she moved, Poppy always seemed braced for someone to cut her or hurt her—and ready to lash out when and if anyone tried.

“Pink? You gotta be kidding me,” Poppy said when she saw the walls. She pushed out of her wet shoes, tromped around barefoot.

Bren hadn’t felt comfortable at baldly opening cupboards and drawers, but sheesh, as long as Poppy was doing it, she indulged in her curiosity, too. “Apparently it was rented furnished.”

“You guessing that by the crappy furniture?” Poppy said wryly. “Yeah, I’d guess the same thing. Thinking about an old lady trying to ease her tired bones on a cheap futon kind of makes me sick.” She spun around. “Did you see this?”

Bren nodded. She’d already noticed the picture on the far wall. It wasn’t a good print or even a poster. Just a picture cut out from a magazine of a stone hearth with a blazing fire. It put a lump in Bren’s throat. “Maude Rose never had the warmth of a real fireplace, I’m guessing.”

“Everything around this damn place makes me think she was so damn lonely that I’d like to hit someone. Pardon my French.” Poppy opened a kitchen cupboard. Bren came up behind her to view the contents. The two women exchanged glances.

The shelf held two plates, two cups, two saucers—all cheap, chipped pottery. But also on the shelf sat a half-used candle, rose-scented.

“Damn it,” Poppy said again.

Bren didn’t say it, but she felt the same way. The candle still had a whiff of that soft, vulnerable scent. Again she hurt for the old woman’s loneliness. For something inside Maude Rose that so few had ever seen. A softness. A yearning for something pretty, something gentle, something feminine.

“I’ve got to quit saying damn it around you,” Poppy grumped. “I think it’s because I know you’re a pastor’s wife. I mean, I swear. But not every two seconds.”

“It’s all right.”

Poppy started spinning around again. “Pretty obvious the furniture comes with the place. But I don’t think we should rent this place out—or let anyone else see it—until we’ve taken out some things. Like the candle. And the picture. And whatever else we find that belonged to Maude Rose that’s…”

“Personal.” Bren nodded. She shuffled through a handful of books on the stand by the TV. Dilbert. Garfield. Not reading books, just cartoons. On a wall shelf, she found records. Not CDs or tapes but old records—the kind that had to be played on a turntable. Only there was no turntable. Just the big, black disks. She read the labels to Poppy. “Night and Day, Frank Sinatra. Who’s Montavani?”

“Don’t know.”

“Cal Tjader. Ella Fitzgerald. Miles Davis. Wes Montgomery.” Bren recognized some of the names, not all. “I’d hate to think she loved this music and then had no way to play it.”

“Bren?”

“What?”

Poppy stood in the doorway of the bathroom. “I think we need a glass of wine. Or beer.”

“Oh, I can’t sta—” Bren clipped off her knee-jerk response. It must be the stranger living in her life that said, “Actually, I can stay for a while. And I think a little drink’s a good idea. Hmm, I’m trying to think of the closest place that might sell a bottle of wine—”

“Manny’s Bar. Maude Rose’s hangout. Which seems fitting. I’ll spring for it.”

By the time Poppy returned, she was soaked all over again, laughing at what a rotten, blustery night the storm had turned into. By then, Bren had filled a couple of grocery bags with things of Maude Rose’s. She wasn’t sure what to do with them but left them for Poppy to see so they could decide together.

“I guess I should have asked if you’d rather have a soda instead of something alcoholic,” Poppy said.

“You know,” Bren said mildly, “just because I’m married to a minister doesn’t mean that I don’t drink, don’t swear or can’t have a bitchy mood just like anyone else.”

“You just said bitchy.”

“Yes.” Bren glanced out the window. “And I see quite a bit of lightning, but none of the lightning bolts seemed to have shot me down, so I guess God must be in a forgiving mood today.”

Poppy squinted at her. “Was that a joke?”

“Oh, no. I never joke about God shooting me down with lightning bolts.”

Apparently that kind of teasing was what it took for Poppy to relax around her. Contrary to Bren’s claim, she really didn’t drink—at least, not normally. But when she started to sip that first glass, it seemed the right thing to do. It wasn’t that easy for her to relax around Poppy any more than the other way around. Slowly, though, they seemed to be finding their way around each other.

“So you left your jewels with Ruby,” Poppy said. “Mine, now, they’re still in my fridge.”

“Your refrigerator! You can’t be serious.”

“Can you imagine a thief opening the fridge for anything to steal? Besides which, I’ve just been so darn busy. I’ll do something serious as soon as I can catch some free time. Anyway, the point is, do you know what you’re going to do with your side of the loot?”

“No. Not yet.” She took another sip of wine, let the dry taste swirl on her tongue. “How about you? When you get that free time…do you have some ideas what you’re going to do with the money?”

Poppy was still opening and closing things as she drank, and so far she’d finished three glasses compared to Bren’s first three sips. “You know, my first thought on this place is just to find someone who needs a place. A kid graduating from high school, first job kind of thing. Someone wanting to live independent. Or needing to. But someone needing something cheap.”

“A girl, not a guy,” Bren said.

Poppy nodded immediately. “Yeah. I know we shouldn’t discriminate, but…”

“But it’d feel good to do something for a girl who needed help,” Bren added thoughtfully. “From what Cal Asher said, Maude had enough funds in the kitty to pay for several more months’ rent. So it wouldn’t cost us to hold on to the place for a while. Give us the time to find the right person.”

“I’m not sure how to guess who Maude Rose might have wanted here. Except…a girl who needs a safety net.”

“Yeah. And a girl who needs a little kindness passed along.” Bren found it astounding how easily they were talking about this. But she’d definitely noticed how Poppy had initially ducked the question of her inheritance. Before she could ask her again, though, Poppy motioned her closer.

“Bren! Look what I found!” Poppy had just topped her third glass—again—when she sloshed it on the scarred plastic table. Apparently she’d spotted something under an upholstered chair, because suddenly she knelt down and reached deep under there. She emerged with an old wrinkle-edged cigar box.

“Um, doesn’t look like much of a treasure. Maybe if you smoked,” Bren said doubtfully.

Poppy rolled her eyes. “It’s not about smoking, you silly. Cigar boxes are for hiding treasures.”

“This is a rule where?” Bren asked wryly, but they both bent over the box to view the contents. Neither touched. They just looked. There was a dried-up daisy. A newspaper with its name cut off, just a scrap of yellowed paper with the cutout date of November 7, 1984. A beach shell, broken. A photo of a couple from the ’40s, judging from their clothes, but it was so faded and crackled it was hard to tell. Another photo of a young man—skinny, scrawny, standing by a motorcycle, looking cockily as if he owned the world.

Slowly Bren said, “You’re right. They are treasures.”

“Impossible to guess what they meant to her.”

“No way to know,” Bren agreed.

“I guess we should throw it all away.”

“I guess we should. What else could we do with it anyway?” Yet Bren looked at Poppy’s face, sighed and said, “Okay, let’s just put it back under the chair for now. We’ll throw it away. Eventually.”

“I know we will.” Poppy put on her tough, defensive face. “Hell, how stupid to be sentimental about stuff like that. What difference could it possibly make now?”

“You’re so right,” Bren murmured. She tried to look away from Poppy, but for that instant—whether Poppy knew it or not—her eyes glistened when she saw that cheap dried flower. So had Bren’s. But then, Bren had no illusions about herself that she was tough. “Hey, Poppy…I didn’t mean to pry before. You don’t have to tell me what you plan to do with your jewels. I was just making conversation.”

“Hey, I wasn’t ducking it.”

She was, but Bren wasn’t about to call her on it. She watched Poppy toss back the rest of her wine. The Ms. Tough expression was back in place.

“I want to have my face fixed,” she said bluntly.

“Your face? What’s wrong with your face?”

Poppy rolled her eyes again. “Come on. It’s obvious. My whole life, I’ve been butt-ugly. But I always thought I just had to live with it. Now suddenly I don’t have to. And it’s not as if I need the money for anything else.” She scowled at Bren. “You don’t approve.”

“It’s not up to me to approve or disapprove.”

“But you think it’s vain. Frivolous. A dumb thing to do with the money.”

“I never said that,” Bren defended herself.

“You didn’t have to. It’s all over your expression. But you never had to live with a face like this. You don’t have my history. You don’t even know me—”

Bren said quickly, “Poppy, I’m sorry if I offended you. Or if you felt I was judging you. You just took me by surprise, that’s all. I had no idea what you were going to say.”

But Poppy closed down tighter than a threatened clam. She corked the wine, put attitude in her shoulders, carted her glass to the sink. She was obviously making moves toward leaving. “So what about you, anyway? What’d your husband say when you told him about your windfall?”

Now it was Bren’s turn to fall silent. Poppy turned. “Bren?”

Bren punched out cheerfully, “I haven’t gotten around to telling him yet.” It was her turn to leap to her feet. She aimed for the sink, figuring she’d wash both glasses. Oh, and check the contents of the refrigerator. Neither of them had looked inside to see if there was food that needed throwing out.

Poppy hadn’t moved. Was still staring at her. “Well, hell. I didn’t mean to ask some heavy, loaded question.”

“It isn’t a loaded question. It’s just a little different circumstance. It’s hard to explain.”

“No need to strain yourself. It’s none of my business.”

“I’m going to tell him. He’ll be really happy. I mean, who wouldn’t at such an extraordinary surprise—”

“Uh-huh. That’s why you didn’t tell him immediately, right? Because he’d be so happy.”

“It’s hard to explain,” Bren repeated uncomfortably.

They both left at the same time. Both had keys, lifted a hand to lock the door at the same moment. Went to take the stairs down at the same moment. Hesitated at the same moment before taking off in the pouring rain in opposite directions.

Bren couldn’t stop thinking how nice it had been between them for a while. Just talking together, more easily than either could ever have expected. It was as if the bond of Maude Rose had somehow paved the way for a friendship between them. They shared a secret. A secret that seemed to open the doors to communicating, talking about things they wouldn’t or couldn’t normally.

But that door had sure slammed shut fast.

Bren was still shaking her head—who could ever, would ever, guess that a woman who dressed as ragamuffinlike as Poppy would want plastic surgery? That vanity or looks was even a thought in her head?

And for herself…well, obviously she couldn’t just tell Poppy about her marriage. You couldn’t explain something like that in a single sentence or a couple of seconds.

Heckapeck. Bren had been trying for days, weeks and now months to explain to herself what the Sam Hill was going wrong between her and Charles. If she couldn’t figure it out herself, how on earth could she tell a stranger?

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