This Place of Wonder (39)

“Maybe it’s worth it?”

“I reckon, but some women are just more vulnerable than others.”

“You think Meadow was more vulnerable?” I can’t quite hide the surprise in my voice. “She’s so strong. So sure of herself.”

“Well, she’s over fifty years old, and she’s made a name for herself, found her place in the world. She wasn’t always like that.”

I take a sip of tea. “What was she like when she first came to you?”

“When she first came to the Buccaneer, she was about as broken as girls get. She was so haunted, and skinny, and rough around the edges, like I said. Didn’t know how to set a table properly or hold a fork, things like that.”

A memory of my own surfaces, my first job in a restaurant, where I had to be shown how to lay out a place setting, and learn what all the utensils were. It shamed me, but a lot of us, new employees to the restaurant world, didn’t know when we first arrived.

Trudy settles her body more fully in the chair. The cat leaps up into her lap. “She was jumpy and anxious to please, which made her a good employee, you know. She has a gift for food, knowing what will taste good, what goes together, and she could work fourteen hours a day without blinking.”

“What about Rory?”

“Who?”

“The baby.”

“I didn’t see her a whole lot. Tina was good to her, kept her clean, but I got the feeling that she didn’t really . . .” She frowns.

“Want her?”

“Not that exactly, just that the baby was more like a pet or something. Like she could board her if she was busy.”

A thread of sorrow winds through my heart. Poor Rory. I think of her with her own two girls, how loving she is. We didn’t have any kind of relationship—my choice, because I didn’t think it would be right to get involved with her daughters—but I heard stories about her, about Maya, about the family. Rory always seemed to get short shrift from Meadow, but Augustus was very present in her life and in the lives of her children.

“Did you know Maya?”

“Sure. She’s had a bit of trouble herself, from what I hear.”

“Yeah, unfortunately, I think she has.” I tap my pen backward on the paper, and realize what I’m doing, then stop. “Did you know Meadow when Maya went to live with them?”

“Yeah. We stayed pretty tight through all of that. Up until after they got married, as I recall, and even then, we’d get together for breakfast, or she had me up to the house on the hill, though I got to where I didn’t like it much.”

“Why?”

“I just didn’t belong, really. They were a lot of fancy people, all a lot younger than me, and it was just . . . not really that much fun after a while.”

It occurs to me that she’s much freer with detail than I expected. Despite her threat to call Meadow, she’s speaking more like a disappointed mother than anything else. “Do you still spend time together?”

“Hell no. She’s got no time for an old boss. We haven’t really had much contact in a long time, probably since she divorced Augustus.”

I draw a spiral in my notebook, letting ideas rise. With a deliberate shift in my body language, I lean back on the sofa. “Tell me about Maya. Do you remember?”

“Well, when her mother died, it was a big scandal. Poor kid was left in the apartment when the mom OD’d, and she couldn’t work the lock to get out. She was stuck there for three days, until somebody heard her yelling and finally got her out.” She shook her head. “Can you imagine?”

I have never heard this fact. For a moment, I hate Augustus with a fury that fogs my vision. “Where was Augustus?”

“Married to Meadow. Just up and left that wife when he got tired of her, like he did with Meadow twenty years later.”

“That’s horrible.” I can’t resist this personal thread. “What happened when Augustus left Meadow, do you know? They seemed to have such a good marriage.”

She nods, coughs for a minute or two, then: “He was a womanizer. That’s what they do, womanize. It’s like asking why a snake bites.”

It feels facile, but maybe it’s true.

“Augustus left his first wife for Meadow, after all. How can you trust a man who does that?”

I can’t think of a reply.

“Meadow favored Maya over her own daughter. She said she didn’t, but you could see it in the way she talked to them, the way she talked about them.” Her mouth twists. “I think she felt guilty for breaking up the marriage.”

We’ve wandered off track, and although the things I’m learning are great, I also want to get back to the main idea. “You have no idea where she came from? Or what her life was like?”

“Sorry.” She strokes her cat.

I chew my lip a little, wondering if Rory knows anything. If she’d talk to me.

“Thanks for your time,” I say, closing the notebook. “I don’t really have anything else.”

“You’re welcome, dear. Come back anytime.”

I stand, gathering my things. “I might take you up on that.”





Chapter Nineteen


Meadow


“What if we head over to Peaches and Pork this morning?” I say to Maya over breakfast. She’s devouring her eggs and toast and the grapefruit sections I dusted with turbinado sugar.