The Baby Season

As Grace closed the bedroom door behind her, Roxanne came face-to-face with her reflection in the long mirror that backed the door.

“Oh, my,” she said.

Her clothes were a wreck, streaked with dirt, splotched with something greasy, covered with tiny pieces of straw. The dry cleaner back home wasn’t going to be amused. Her fancy shoe—the one she hadn’t broken—was history. And her straw purse looked like something she should donate to the cats in the barn.

Bad as all that was, it couldn’t touch what she looked like above the neck. Straw-encrusted hair struggling to escape the ponytail, face sunburned and dirty, crimson and white and brown.

She turned away from the mirror. A cool shower would help. A shower had to help.…

She emerged sometime later with tingling pink skin and a mop of wet hair. A glance in the bathroom mirror revealed a face still colorful, but clean. A blow-dryer took care of the hair as long as she was careful to keep it away from her skin. Lotion helped with the burn. She didn’t want to use Grace’s cosmetics, and her own were still locked in the trunk of her car, so she’d have to go without mascara, her one concession to beauty. She didn’t need blush she thought with a smile, but when she found a tube of Vaseline, she smeared a little on her finger and gently applied it to her lips, sighing with relief. Heaven!

Wrapped in a towel, she let herself back into Grace’s bedroom and found a black dress laid out on the red-and-yellow quilt. Next to it were two pieces of lacy black underwear, the tags still attached.

Roxanne put on the black strapless bra and panties that fit like a second skin. She didn’t own any lingerie as beautiful or luxurious—it always seemed silly to spend money on something no one else ever saw.

Not even Kevin, thank the Lord. The swine.

The black rayon dress had an elastic waist and neckline and a full skirt that draped softly to below Roxanne’s knees. She cinched it at the waist with an incredible silver-and-turquoise concho belt she found lying beside the dress. She pulled the neckline down off her shoulders and looked in the mirror. Not too bad. Considering everything.

She left her hair loose on her shoulders, slipped her feet into a pair of Grace’s black sandals that were only a little snug and piled her own belongings into a pitiful heap on a chair.

She was ready to look for Sal.

Grace handed Roxanne a glass of iced tea the minute she entered the kitchen. “I knew that dress would look great on you,” she said.

“Thanks. I really appreciate the loan. It smells heavenly in here.”

“Doc said to remind you to keep drinking fluids and to take a couple more buffered aspirin. I put them out on the counter for you.”

As Roxanne swallowed the pills and hoped they would somehow magically make her skin feel less prickly, she said, “I don’t suppose Oz called?”

“Nope.”

“You waitin’ for Oz, you’ll be here a while,” Carl said as he pushed a wheelbarrow full of blue sacks of crushed ice into the kitchen. He started emptying them one by one into the large bowls that cradled the smaller bowls of perishable food. Looking at Grace, he abandoned his ice and went to stand beside her. “How you feeling, honey?”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“You look tired. Maybe Doc should—”

“No, Carl. Now, stop, honey. I’m fine.”

They exchanged a lingering look. Roxanne finally noticed that Carl wore a wedding ring identical in design to the one Grace wore.

“I just don’t want you overdoing it,” he said. “Doc said you have to take it easy this time.”

Grace patted his cheek tenderly, lifting a spoon from the pot of bubbling sauce to his lips. “Tell me what it needs.”

He tasted. “Salt.”

As Grace added a pinch of salt, she glanced at Roxanne and explained, “I’m pregnant,” she said. “I had a miscarriage last year, so we’re being extra careful this time.”

“Of course. Uh—congratulations.”

Beaming, Carl and Grace said, “Thanks,” in unison.

As they worked side by side, Roxanne thought to herself that Jack Wheeler’s house had a very nice feel to it. How wonderful it must be to grow up with kind people like these, in a house this warm and welcoming, with a father whose eyes flooded with joy when he caught sight of you.

Lucky little Ginny.

Even without a mother?

Well, as Roxanne knew, there was more than one way for a mother to absent herself. Her own upbringing had been adequate but formal. Her mother was fond of saying she just wasn’t demonstrative, as though being aloof was a commendable character trait. Roxanne had known she was an “accident” before she had the slightest idea what that meant.

If she ever got married and decided on having children, what kind of mother would she make? Would she be like her own mother or might she be more like her grandmother? The two of them represented opposite ends of the parenting spectrum. One was perpetually annoyed at any inconvenience, one was full of serendipity. One threw money at any problem, the other gave love. How could Roxanne tell what she would be like?

After downing the tea, she rinsed out the glass in the copper sink. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Carl shook his head as he moved his operation to a large metal kettle filled with cans of soft drinks. Grace said, “No, really, everything is under control. Why don’t you go on out? People are beginning to arrive.”

Roxanne turned in the direction Grace gestured and saw double French doors. Peering through the glass, she saw a large, enclosed courtyard paved with brick in a herringbone pattern, boasting a bubbling fountain and haphazard pots of flowers. Chairs were clustered around tables heaped with nonperishable food and piles of presents. Two huge creamy umbrellas created shade over half the area. The perimeter was dotted with more doors leading into other rooms and an arch open to the outside. A few people had arrived, and Roxanne searched for a sign of Jack.

Face it, she thought in a moment of truth, she’d been straining for a sight of him or the sound of his voice ever since entering the kitchen. She’d been pleased he’d thought about her sunburn, though she supposed that kind of concern went with being a doctor. Now she scanned the few assembled people. Jack wasn’t among them and she fought to hide her disappointment, even from herself.

Was she anxious to show him what lay beneath all the dirt and grime? Did she want to surprise him, intrigue him, the way he’d been surprising and intriguing her from the first moment he rumbled into her life?

“Now, who are you?”

Roxanne turned to find a small woman peering at her. She wore her silver hair cut short around a heavily lined face to which the sun and passing years hadn’t been kind.

“I thought I knew all of Jack’s friends, but you’re a stranger,” the woman added.

Roxanne introduced herself.

“I’m Sal. Glad to meet you, Roxy.”

Roxanne shook hands as she smiled at the friendly, wrinkled face of the woman staring back at her. All she could think was that this woman had to be close in age to the missing Dolly Aames. If she’d lived here long enough, they would have been peers, maybe even friends. Her mission, which had begun to seem daunting, suddenly came into focus. In a few minutes, she’d hopefully know more about Dolly.

Roxanne explained about her car. “I’m waiting for Oz to call,” she added.

“He won’t call this afternoon,” Sal said, shaking her head. “Lisa is in a state. The twins have colds.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Jack will have to go see them tomorrow.”

“You call him Jack? Everyone else seems to call him Doc.”

“I helped raise him,” she said proudly. “Once you wipe a kid’s nose, it’s hard to start thinking of him as a grown man.”

Roxanne smiled at the image that suddenly sprung before her eyes, of Jack as a child, with a runny nose. Had he looked like his daughter or did his daughter look like his wife? Why did she care? Anxious to get the conversation—and herself—back on track, Roxanne added, “Jack said you might be able to help me. I’m looking for someone.”

“Glad to help. I know most everyone in these parts. Bound to after all these years.”

“Great. The woman I’m looking for moved to California almost forty years ago. I think she ended up right here or very close by. Of course, she might have married and taken a new last name or moved away entirely. Anyway, I’m trying to find her. Her name is Dolly Aames.”

There was a heartbeat when the scant ten inches between the two women suddenly seemed to close to millimeters, then just as abruptly crack open like the Grand Canyon.

Sal blinked rapidly and said, “I’ve never heard that name. I can’t help you.” With a decisive nod, she let herself out into the courtyard.

Roxanne narrowed her eyes.

That hesitation had spoken as loud and clear as the sudden blanching of Sal’s face.

Sal knew something about Dolly Aames.

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