Zonked in the Zucchinis (Lovely Lethal Gardens Rewind #1)

Chapter 24

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D oreen walked into the old folks’ home out in Glenmore called Sunnyside. It had an interesting winery-estate feel, making her think that they would all be in their cups. With half a smile she dismissed the thought, then walked in, introduced herself to the woman at the front desk and asked to speak to Lily Dale.

The woman nodded and stood up. “Let me see if she is doing okay and if she is up for a visitor.” When the woman returned, she seemed surprised. “She is quite excited to see you. I will take you to her.”

“Good,” Doreen replied, with a bright smile. She followed the receptionist to see Lily Dale, who was sitting at a small bench, looking out a window. The receptionist left them alone without another word.

As soon as Doreen came into view, the other woman turned, looked at her, and nodded. “Oh, you look exactly as I expected you to.”

Doreen chuckled. “Normally I would have the animals with me, but I understand they are quite restricted in this home.”

“I know,” Lily replied, “though you could probably get away with one, if they were therapy animals.” As she mentioned that angle, she looked inquiringly at Doreen.

She shook her head. “No, they don’t fall into that category at all.”

“Too bad,” Lily murmured, “because I know most of the people here would absolutely love to see them.”

“I could consider bringing them down sometime, maybe to meet everyone outside,” she mentioned, looking around. “I do know that pets or animals are allowed in other homes, like Rosemoor.”

“Yes, but it’s got to be on management’s time frame, the management’s rules, and all that good stuff,” Lily stated, with a headshake, as Doreen pulled up a chair nearby. Lily spoke up as soon as Doreen was seated. “So, I heard through the grapevine that you’re looking for answers to some questions.”

Doreen nodded, wondering which of the Rosemoor crew had somehow gotten to Lily first. “I do have some questions, and I’m hoping they aren’t painful for you.”

Lily Dale looked at her and snorted. “At my age, the only thing painful is not being able to go to the bathroom,” she muttered. “I’ve been through so much in my life that I really don’t care about the past anymore. I’m happy to go when I’m called home, and I will leave nobody behind.”

“You don’t have any family?” Doreen asked.

“Not left alive anymore,” she replied. “They all went before me, and it really sucks to be the last one.”

“I am so sorry,” Doreen whispered and meant it because it would be rough to be the only one left.

“So, who is it you want to ask me about?”

She hesitated a second, then said, “Rose.”

Lily’s face pinched. “Good God, now that’s a name I haven’t wanted to think about in a very long time.”

“I’m sorry, and I understand it was a difficult time for you back then.”

“Sure, it was, but I can’t really blame Rose. She was beautiful, and the men were all over her. So, as much as it’s easy to blame her for having an affair with my husband, the real betrayal was by my husband, who had an affair with her.”

Lily had such a calm and matter-of-fact approach that Doreen had to appreciate how far this woman had come from that time of betrayal in her life. “I do understand that,” Doreen acknowledged. “I’m really very happy that you’ve come to a point in time of finding peace with it all.”

“You’re not really given a lot of choice in these matters,” Lily declared, looking at Doreen. “Didn’t you have something similar?”

“I did,” Doreen confirmed, not surprised, knowing that the gossip touched everyone.

“Did you kill him?” Lily asked, obviously hearing of Mathew’s murder.

Doreen chuckled. “No, I surely did not.” Wow, the gossip in this town was brutal.

“But you wanted to though, right?” Lily asked.

“I never really got to that point,” Doreen admitted. “I was so shocked and flummoxed, trying to figure out this change in my own life that I wasn’t too worried about ending his,” she shared, with a smile. “And because I had quite a mess of things to adjust to, I really had no time or energy to hate anyone.”

“That would have been a lovely option,” Lily noted. “ Hate , I mean. Because I did, to be honest. I hated Rose for a long time, but not as much as I hated my husband. He’s the one who ultimately betrayed me. Rose betrayed basically everyone, but not with a mean spirit. She just didn’t care. She was out for a good time, not a long time, and nothing involving commitment. That just wasn’t her thing.”

“Interesting,” Doreen replied. “I don’t know that much about her, only the bits and pieces people have shared.”

“Is she still alive?” Lily asked, eyeing Doreen intently.

“No, she’s not.”

“See? Some satisfaction can still be had here.” Then she chuckled. “Maybe that is reality telling me how I haven’t dealt with all that mess as thoroughly as I thought I had.”

“Nothing like having a trigger out of the blue to bring back memories you would just as soon do without.”

“I never did remarry, you know? I couldn’t really trust anybody after what happened.”

They shared a comfortable silence between them for a moment. Doreen could certainly understand the other woman’s position.

“What happened to Rose?” Lily asked, turning sideways to face Doreen.

“Breast cancer. She died about a year ago.”

“Only a year ago? Wow.” Lily appeared deep in thought for a few moments. “She disappeared, you know? And then she was out of sight, out of mind. I tiptoed around town for the longest time, afraid I would see her, afraid I would see them together,” she shared. “It was really hard because I just didn’t want to run into her. Eventually I realized that it was controlling my life, and I needed to get a handle on it.

“So, at some point, I just decided I didn’t need that thought process in my world. I decided that, if I saw her, fine, and, if I didn’t see her, whatever. I would be the casual one with the Who cares, I didn’t love him anyway attitude. Yet, on the inside, I was dying. The good news is, I eventually got over it,” she stated, “and I did end up having another relationship with a wonderful man.”

Doreen smiled, happy to hear it. “But you never married him?”

“No, I sure didn’t, and he understood. He told me that he didn’t need to be married to me to be loyal and committed to me. If it was something I felt strongly about, he didn’t want to push it.” She stopped and looked at Doreen. “Eventually I came to realize that not remarrying because of that betrayal meant that I had given away far more power than was deserved.”

“To her or to him?”

“Both of them,” she snapped. “Good Lord, that came out far sharper than I intended. The woman is dead and gone, so why do I feel this way?”

“Love is a complicated thing,” Doreen said. “One of life’s mysteries, I guess.”

“Speaking of mysteries,” she asked, “why are you going to all this effort asking about her now?”

“I’m trying to find a man, Bartlet Jones.”

“Oh my, he was another married man who Rose had an affair with, wasn’t he?”

“I’m not sure he was married, but, yes, Rose had an affair with him too,” Doreen confirmed. “And he disappeared about fifty-odd years ago.”

“Fascinating,” she murmured. “What happened?”

“That’s unknown. For all I know he committed suicide, or had an accident, or just moved away and started a whole new life. Nobody seems to know.”

“Several men were interested in Rose back then. She was just one of those femme fatale types,” she burst out. “You knew you were in the presence of something unbelievable when she walked by, and she’s the only person I’ve ever met who was like that.”

Doreen kept quiet, just letting the woman talk.

“And yet I’m sure many others are in the world with that same presence, but Rose was the only one I ever met with that aura,” she shared. “It was just bizarre. Because of who she was, the way she acted, and the way she carried on with men, she created lots of talk, and everybody was always talking about her.”

“I can imagine,” Doreen muttered, not wanting to interrupt.

“We had all kinds of names for her back then,” Lily noted. “And honestly, I think she reveled in it. She didn’t seem to mind being called those names. She would just laugh and say it wasn’t her fault that the men liked her. The trouble was, Rose liked the men back, and there didn’t appear to be any boundaries. Back then especially, it was quite something to have a woman to be so carefree about it all.”

“So, I have a question for you,” Doreen began. “Do you think Rose charged these men for her time?”

Lily looked at her, caught completely off guard, then burst out laughing. “Oh my, that’s a thought I’ve never had, but, if she did charge, she would have made a freaking fortune because the men just couldn’t leave Rose alone.” She giggled again. “I never considered for a moment that maybe she was in the industry.”

“But wouldn’t that have been perfect? If you think about it,” Doreen noted, with half a smile, “maybe it was a business opportunity for her.”

That sent the other woman off into gales of laughter. “Oh my, I am so glad you came to visit. I really hadn’t even considered that.”

“Now that she’s passed and her affairs are out in the open, maybe it’s something that should be considered. If she had that attractiveness to men, maybe she put it to good use.”

“Wow,” Lily exclaimed, and then she giggled again. “I don’t know what to say. As far as I know, she gave it away freely, but what do I know?… Apparently I was the last to know about her and my husband, so I wasn’t nearly as aware as people thought I should have been.”

“Everybody thought you should have known?” Doreen asked.

“Yes, how about you?”

“Oh, yeah, same thing. Everybody thought I should have known or assumed I did know. Everybody thought that I should have expected it because, in that world of affluence, men were men and, as such, were entitled to do whatever they wanted,” Doreen repeated, with a wave of her hand, “particularly rich men.”

“Oh goodness,” Lily muttered in disgust.

Doreen nodded. “As if it was just nothing, you know? As if vows and promises are meaningless.” Doreen smiled. “As we both found out, they don’t mean much to a lot of other people.”

“That’s true,” Lily agreed, “very true. But now I can’t keep thinking about what you asked. Never for a moment had I considered that she was charging these men. I don’t think she was, but you have definitely given me something to consider,” she said, with a smile.

Doreen added, “It just was something that occurred to me. With so many different men spending time with her back then, I still think it could be a valid question.”

“I don’t think so, but I really don’t know,” Lily murmured. “If she was getting money from all those men, then why did she work?”

Doreen shook her head. “Do you know what happened when she disappeared and dropped out of sight or whatever?”

“I always thought she got pregnant,” Lily replied. “And honestly, back then, that was to be expected. It’s not as if birth control was accessible everywhere, and, if she did get pregnant, it would have been that much harder for her.”

“True,” Doreen replied. “I only know of her husband, Milford, the man she was married to when she died, and they don’t have any children. Maybe Rose had a child out of wedlock but the child died or maybe it wasn’t an easy pregnancy and she miscarried. Or maybe she came close to losing her life, and that’s even what caused her to change. I don’t know,” Doreen said, looking back at Lily.

“You’ve definitely brought up some ideas I hadn’t considered,” Lily noted. “It would be an interesting trip down memory lane to give it all some thought though.”

“Maybe you should,” Doreen agreed, with a smile. “You appear to be well adjusted to everything that happened.”

“It was a long time ago,” she stated, looking at her. “I’m just grateful I found the new relationship I did.” Then she laughed. “And maybe you don’t know this, but my husband did come around at one point, hoping I would take him back.”

“Oh, now that’s interesting,” Doreen said, giving her a smile. “And I gather you declined?”

“That’s a nicer way of describing how that went.” Lily laughed. “By that point in time, I had already met up with the partner I stayed with for the rest of his life. Gordon died a few years back,… and life hasn’t been the same ever since. Not the same at all.” And, with that, she returned to the melancholy tone she’d had when Doreen first arrived.

“Of course not,” Doreen agreed, “but at least you found one true love.”

“And I think that was the trick too. If my ex-husband hadn’t had the affair and hadn’t hooked up with Rose and hadn’t made my life so very painful and so very difficult,” she began, “I probably wouldn’t ever have found Gordon. So, for that…” She stopped and shook her head. “I guess for that I owe Rose my thanks, and that is something I didn’t think I would ever say.”

“Yet I can see that,” Doreen noted. “It’s a good place to come to now.”

“It is, indeed,” she murmured. “It is, indeed.”

Doreen continued. “So, tell me about this other friend of yours who was also affected.”

“Oh, Sandra. Sandra Brown.” Lily nodded. “It was much harder for her. She didn’t find another partner to her liking, and, when her husband came crawling back, she took him back, mostly because she was so lonely and had loved him so dearly. I don’t think it was ever the same afterward, but she did find some level of happiness and peace in her life.”

“Interesting that she took him back.”

“You’ve got to think about the times way back when. It wasn’t that men were allowed to do that thing without attracting negative attention, but, in Sandra’s case, she found it better to still be married than to be divorced.”

“And yet not for you.”

“No. Goodness no. I would rather have stayed single for the rest of my life than to be with a two-timing lying son of a gun like that.”

Doreen chuckled. “And you found that special someone who loved you for you.”

“I did,” she stated, “though I’m so sorry I didn’t meet him earlier in my life. It would have made a huge difference to me.”

“If you had met Gordon and your husband-to-be at the same time, do you think you wouldn’t have married your husband?” Doreen asked.

“Oh no, definitely not,” Lily declared. “That’s a given. But I was young, single, and stupid, and it seemed as if the whole goal for young women back then was to get married. Otherwise you were seen as an old maid, unwanted and left sitting on the shelf.” She gave a sad shake of her head. “Thankfully times have changed, and now, if you’re divorced, you can go get married again and again if you please. But back then, you only got remarried if you were literally a widow,” she explained. “Until then, you were a divorcee, and God help you,” she muttered. “Regardless of the details, the shame rested with the woman, who was seen as unable to keep her husband at home.”

“Do you think Sandra would be open to talking to me about it?”

“It’s possible, and I do see her every once in a while. If nothing else we did stay friends because of that, even when I encouraged her not to take her husband back. Yet, at the time, she told me that she didn’t think she could be alone.”

“It’s not for everybody,” Doreen noted. “And we can’t always know exactly what’s going on in somebody else’s world. Sandra made a choice, and hopefully she was happy with it in the end.”

“She wasn’t, but I think, for her, it was still better than the alternative.”

“So where would I find her?”

“She still lives in the same house she shared with her husband. I told her that she should move in here, but she still thinks she might not be fully welcomed. Her life changed so much afterward, when they were separated, and she was ostracized from so many things. Then, once she was back with her husband again, while there was talk for a while, eventually that died down, and she got her life back. So, for her, it was the lesser of two evils.”

“Sad to think that’s how the world works,” Doreen muttered.

“Very sad, but it is definitely how the world worked back then. It was seen as much better to stay with a cheating husband than to be a divorcee,” Lily shared, “so Sandra made her choice, and I made mine. There were pros and cons to each, but I think it really came down to our personalities and what we each were willing to endure.”

“Yes, that makes perfect sense to me. On another topic, do you know anything about Rose having a sister?”

“Yes. She definitely had a sister, maybe still does. I don’t know what became of her.”

“Did your husband not tell you about her?”

“No, trust me that Rose was not a topic of discussion between us. Who did she end up marrying anyway?”

When Doreen told her about Milford, Lily stared at her. “Good God, you’ve got to be kidding.”

“Not kidding.”

“Rose would never have had anything to do with him in the prime of her life,” Lily stated. “I still can’t believe it.”

“And yet they spent about fifty years together, the last twelve or so married.”

Lily stared at her, still shocked. “Gosh, that makes no sense to me. For that many years? They’d had been together while she was seeing my husband too? Then again, I think a lot of men were seeing her at the same time.”

“And why are you surprised that Rose chose Milford?”

“For one thing he was poor and wasn’t the best-looking man around. He may have been a good man, but he wasn’t her type, you know? He wasn’t exactly the heartthrob type she usually went for. She was accustomed to having her pick of the men around her all the time, and Milford doesn’t seem to fit the pattern at all.”

“And yet she stayed with him.”

“There had to be a reason,” Lily stated, frowning at Doreen. “Believe me that the only reason she would have stayed with him was if he had something on her or was doing something for her.”

Lily may have dealt with some of her anger issues, but she wasn’t necessarily unbiased in her assessment. So Doreen thanked her for her help and headed off to contact her friend.

When she got Sandra Brown on the phone, Sandra suggested, “I can meet you in a coffee shop or something. I don’t get out much, but I would prefer not to have this conversation in the home of my husband.”

“Of course,” Doreen agreed. She wondered just what that meant in this instance, but, hey, she was up for it.