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All Vivian could think as she put Andrew in her rearview mirror was that she was this close to packing up and leaving if it meant never having to see his face again.
It seemed she had a lot of thinking to do.
TWENTY
Vivian was right, as she hadn’t the energy to get out in the garden to harvest any of her own, Gretta was happy to have a load of fresh flowers to decorate the house with. The first order of business was collecting enough mason jars to stuff them in, and then the two of them set about making the house look and smell pretty.
The downstairs held a jar in every room, but it was the second floor that Vivian had been most anticipating.
“I only come up here a couple times a month now,” Gretta was telling her as they climbed the stairs together. She was taking them slowly, and Vivian was matching her pace.
When they reached the top, Gretta led the way, past Vivian’s room, to the door at the end of the hall. “This was our room for forty-two years,” Gretta said as she pulled a ring of old skeleton keys from her housecoat’s pocket and searched for the right one.
Vivian didn’t tell her that she’d already ventured inside that room, knowing it had been an invasion of the woman’s privacy. The fact that she kept the door locked confirmed that she must have forgotten that day, and to tell her she’d been inside would only upset her more than being there now already clearly was.
The lock made a metallic snap, and Gretta turned the brown tortoiseshell handle, opening the way inside.
“I like to visit Pete from time to time, update him on what’s been happening around here.” Approaching the six-drawer dresser, she placed her jar of flowers on top. “Pete was always was a bit of a gossip,” she said fondly.
Vivian would bet that wasn’t entirely true. Gretta was a pretty big one herself. If Pete had been anything like the men she’d met so far, he’d probably just joined her for entertainment.
“You haven’t seen my Pete,” Gretta stated as she picked up a frame and carried it over to where Vivian was standing.
Vivian clutched the jar of flowers she’d brought up to include with Gretta’s, as a kind of offering of respect, and angled her head so she could see better around them. “He was handsome.”
The photo was in black and white, but the detail was clear. It was an earlier photo than the one she’d seen before. Vivian would guess Pete was average height with a stocky build beneath a pair of dark tweed pants with a pleat running down the front of both legs and held up by striped suspenders overtop a white collared shirt. He had dark hair, combed neatly to one side, the shine of whatever salve he’d used to keep it in place catching the sun. He wore a fond smile reserved for the person behind the camera, which Vivian guessed was Gretta.
Gretta’s smile was wide and full of love. “Oh, he was the catch of the town back then,” she said as one bony finger petted the image of his dark head of hair. “All the girls were after him, but he only had eyes for one.”
Vivian smiled. “You.”
“No, Meredith Clinton, that tramp.” In typical Gretta fashion, what came out of her mouth was completely unexpected.
“Gretta!” Vivian choked on a laugh.
“Well she was!” she protested, then scowled. “Fine, she wasn’t. She was actually the preacher’s daughter. Gah! I swear she was too perfect to be real. Every hair in place, always a new dress, big tits, narrow waist. We all hated her.”
“Ohmygod.” Vivian was shaking her head in disbelief.
“Well, we did! She walked around here like she owned the place, just because her daddy was the preacher. Volunteering at soup kitchens and reading to the blind. Tell me one sixteen-year-old who likes doing that?”
Vivian couldn’t think of a single name. “That doesn’t mean she was a bad person.”
“That wasn’t the problem. She was toogood. It was nauseating. None of us could live up to that.”
Vivian understood. She’d run into people like that a time or two, too. They had a way of making you doubt yourself. “So what happened to her?”
“She got arrested for shoplifting, and her parents shipped her off to boarding school.”
“Are you serious?” Vivian questioned in disbelief.
“Hell yes, I am! So Miss Perfect wasn’t so perfect after all. After she was gone, I struck while the griddle was still hot.” Pressing all of the fingers on one hand together in a triangle shape, she made a jabbing motion, as if to strike at something like a snake. “I got my boobs in that year. Poor Pete never stood a chance.”
Vivian had no words. Gretta was…well, she was just something else. She’d never met anyone quite like her, but what a joy she was to be around. Unpredictable but full of unique charm that couldn’t be replicated.
“You’re a force to be reckoned with,” she agreed.
“You bet your ass.” Replacing the frame, she returned to Vivian’s side and stood back to view the room once more, nostalgia coloring a long sigh. “It’s hard to believe he’s really gone, even after all this time.”
