Chapter 5. Callan
Callan
Lenore French has a way of leaving her mark on everything.
I don’t mean that in the figurative sense.
When I arrive at the farmhouse for work the next morning, it looks like a bomb went off in the kitchen.
Dried goods crowd the counter. Yesterday’s donut box sits open, a coconut crumble and a raspberry jam left behind.
There are crumpled-up paper towels and an empty can of tomato sauce, and the sink is already piled with dishes—I have no idea how one woman is capable of generating that many dirty dishes within twenty-four hours.
Hot water flows from the tap unfettered. The farmhouse is on well water, but that doesn’t mean it should be left running when there’s no one in the kitchen. I crank the handle to shut it off.
“I was using that!” her disembodied voice cries.
Lenore emerges from the downstairs bathroom seconds later, wearing a matching pajama set with a sheet mask on her face; she might look like the killer in a slasher movie if it wasn’t for the fuzzy pink headband holding her bangs at bay.
“How were you using it if you were in a completely different room?”
She stomps into the kitchen, bare feet slapping against the linoleum. “I was waiting for the water to get hot.”
“Oh, it was hot,” I assure her.
Lenore cranks the faucet back on and tests it with a finger before sticking a mug under the stream. I watch, bewildered, as she peels back the foil seal on a tub of instant coffee and spoons the grounds into her mug.
“I thought you were a barista.”
She wheels around. “How do you know that?”
“How do you think?” I say. “Damien told me.”
“It’s temporary. Just until I figure some things out.” Self-consciously, she folds her arms across her chest, but it’s too late—her nipples are visible through the satiny tank top. It doesn’t help that her drawstring sleep shorts also leave little to the imagination.
What were we talking about again?
I rip my eyes away, making it a point not to stare at her body, but that leaves me staring at the mess around the kitchen. “I wasn’t judging,” I say, unconvincingly.
Lenore tracks my gaze. “There weren’t any trash bags,” she explains, tossing a hand at the cupboard beneath the sink, one arm still covering her breasts. “I forgot to get them at the store.”
“I have some in the outbuilding. I’ll grab you a couple.”
I take advantage of the short walk across the property to talk some sense into myself.
Damien would likely try to murder me with his bare hands if he saw the way I was looking at Lenore, let alone the thoughts I’d been having just now.
Not that he would succeed—the metabolism in that family combined with his rather stagnant desk job as a warehouse manager has prevented him from packing on any real muscle, but attempted murder would certainly put a damper on our friendship.
On the phone yesterday, he said he was worried about her, which sounded like the usual overbearing big brother thing, but I’m starting to get where he was coming from.
Back when Lenore left for college nine years ago, her whole idea was going to New York to “make it” as an artist. By that time, her watercolor illustrations were already impressive, and she must’ve improved even more over the course of a four-year fine arts program.
I would’ve expected her to have landed steady work illustrating children’s books by now, something like Beatrix Potter, quaint New England scenery and migratory birds wearing pilgrim bonnets.
Instead, she’s making macchiatos for hedge fund managers on their way to Wall Street every morning.
I return to the house to find Lenore changed into jeans and an oversize sweatshirt that says BARNARD COLLEGE.
The face mask is gone, leaving her skin bright and dewy.
With her fingers looped through the handle of her coffee mug, she gestures at the ceiling.
“Do you suppose they’ll gut all of this? ” she wonders aloud.
I look up. Rough-hewn beams are exposed overhead, the tannins in the wood having darkened it to near black over the course of centuries.
The cupboards are rustic, with wrought iron fixtures, which Gabrielle once told me were custom-made by an actual blacksmith to match the historic character of the home; in my thirteen-year-old brain, that information had conjured up images of a massive, bearded man pounding at swords on an anvil.
Maybe that was her intent, to capture my imagination.
“Maybe some of it,” I say.
Lenore knits her brow like she’s not reassured and raises her mug to her lips, blowing on it. I bend to open the cupboard underneath the sink, shaking out a trash bag to line the small plastic bin.
“How’s Duke?” she asks.
I stall, staring at an empty bottle of Pine-Sol.
I’m surprised she even remembers my dog’s name.
Duke was little more than a puppy when she left for college, maybe five or six months old, at the time.
I brought him around to the farmhouse once and he chewed through her gran’s gardening boots, so that was memorable, I guess.
“He’s getting older now, having some problems with his hips.” I shut the cupboard and straighten to my full height. “I used to bring him out here with me to let him run loose on the property, up until last year. My dad keeps an eye on him for me now, whenever I’m here.”
Lenore lowers her mug. “I’m sorry,” she says, and it sounds like she means it.
I lean my back against the counter beside the stove, keeping some distance between us. “It’s all right. Duke keeps Dad on his toes, you know.”
My father was the groundskeeper at French Hill Farm for something like nineteen years—right up until he lost a few fingers to a log splitter, which put him out of commission.
It’s been hard on him, I think, to step back from his work.
Even harder since Gabrielle passed. His devotion to the French family extended beyond his work, bringing her groceries and running errands after her initial diagnosis, and then making day trips to visit her at the rest home down in Connecticut after she could no longer live alone.
It wasn’t that he had any romantic interest in her.
Dad’s had little interest in dating since the divorce, and Gabrielle was quite a few years older than him anyway.
Maybe he felt that he owed her, or maybe it was simply that sense of kinship with your neighbor that comes from living in a small town, knowing everyone by name.
After the accident, the position was filled provisionally for a few seasons before Damien called to ask whether I wanted the job.
At the time, I was working sales at the local hardware store and mowing lawns on the side to pay my dad’s bills on top of my own.
I suppose I also would’ve described my situation as temporary, though I didn’t have a college degree or talent in spades.
I’ll be lucky if the new owner decides to keep me on as groundskeeper.
“How’s the coffee?” I ask.
“To be honest,” she says, the corners of her mouth downturned as she deposits the mug on the counter, “not great.”
Damien asked me to keep an eye on her. I don’t know what he expects, but the least I can do is make her feel welcome. “I’m heading to the Penalty Box with some friends tonight after work,” I say. “You’d be welcome to join, if you don’t have any plans.”
Lenore crinkles her nose. “You’re going to watch the game?”
“I mean, I’m not going for the game, personally,” I say, hand pressed to my chest. “But yeah, there’s probably one on.”
“Who all is going to be there?”
I shrug. “Simon. Dillon, who I don’t think you’ve met.
Maybe Jesse and Shelby.” We used to go once a week, a way for everyone who didn’t leave for college to stay connected after high school, but then people started getting married, having kids, working real jobs.
Now that we’re almost thirty, it’s maybe once every couple of months.
“Shelby Murray?” she asks.
“Her last name is Hackett now,” I remind her.
Lenore purses her lips in consideration. “Maybe. Let me think on it.”
“It’s no pressure,” I say. “We’re headed there around six, if you decide to join. Look for us in the corner booth over by the pool tables.”
I make a pit stop at home after work to shower and change.
It’s a relatively modern Cape Cod–style build on a quiet residential street, nowhere near as stately as the French farmhouse, but we’ve got an acre out back, and a driveway long enough to park both our vehicles and the flatbed trailer.
Before heading inside, I make a quick detour to the mailbox, which is overflowing with junk mail—unsolicited catalogues and credit card offers.
Duke extracts himself from the couch with a groan and pads across the room to greet me.
“Home,” I call out, stooping to scratch him behind the ear with my free hand, where his fur always gets a little ratty between grooming sessions.
I’ve got paperwork claiming that he’s a field line golden retriever, but there’s always been something a little suspect about the almost russet color of his fur.
He snuffles around the envelopes in my other hand, leaving a wet nose print on the paper, then draws back with a snort.
I move into the kitchen. Duke’s nails click on the hardwood floor as he follows at my heels. Through the sliding glass door, I can see the back of Dad’s head in one of the Adirondack chairs on the deck, a longneck bottle of beer in his hand. He must not have heard me come through the front door.
I stand over the trash can with my boot pressed on the pedal to hold it open, reading the return address on each piece of mail and tossing them one at a time. I tear open an envelope that says past due and scan the billing summary inside.
I open the sliding door to the back porch. Duke rushes past me, clobbering against the Adirondack chair in his enthusiasm and knocking the beer out of my dad’s hand in the process. The bottle lands on the deck with a clatter, sudsing everywhere.