Page 54 of The Party Line

“If I don’t figure out what I want to do with my life by January, then I’ll be a strawberry farmer. To be one of those, I need to know everything about the business.”

“Kind of like going to college, right?” she said as she followed me into the house.

“That’s right. Who knows? I might love strawberry work.” I started up the stairs with her right behind me.

“This place is even bigger than it looks from the outside,” she whispered as she tried to take everything in with one glance.

“Yes, it is, and that’s why I need help getting it put into shape,” I told her.

“My mama loves the vintage look. Maybe someday I could bring her here for a tour?”

“Anytime,” I said when we reached the top of the stairs, and nodded to the left. “That is Gracie’s room. I was using the next one for an office. This one”—I turned my head to the right—“is my room, andthe next one will be yours. Linen closet and bathroom are at the end of the hallway.”

“When you own something like this, why would you want to be a farmer?” she asked.

“I have to havesomethingto do. I need to feel like I am being productive.”

Was I grasping at something—anything—to give my life purpose? Or was I just making an excuse to spend the day with Connor?

“If you need to go see what’s going on in the fields, I can finish unloading. Just show me my room,” she said.

“Sounds good to me.” I opened the door and dropped the boxes on the floor. “This room probably hasn’t been cleaned or used in thirty or more years. If there’s anything in the closet or the drawers, just put it all in garbage bags. You’ll find clean sheets and bedding in the hall closets if you need them. That bed probably needs to be remade.”

“That thing”—she pointed toward the four-poster king bed—“looks like it covers ten acres.”

“Not quite, but you will have plenty of room to stretch out.” I opened a closet door to find it totally empty; same with all the dresser drawers. “I’d planned to have this closet cleared out for you, but it looks like you won’t have to deal with musty old clothing.”

Gina Lou dropped her bags and rushed over to wrap me up in a fierce bear hug. “Has anyone ever told you that you are an angel?”

I hugged her back and said, “No, they have not. I’ve been called a lot of things in my lifetime, but no one ever thought I had wings or a halo. I’m not even sure angels have red hair.”

“In my book, they do,” Gina Lou said with a sigh. “Where are the cleaning supplies and the washing machine?”

“Both are in the utility room. Cleaning stuff, broom, and vacuum are in the closet to the right of the washer,” I replied. “I can show you when we go downstairs.”

“You need to get out there to your Strawberry 101 class. Professor Connor might dock you a letter grade if you are late,” she said with asmile. “I’ll be fine. No, that’s not right. I’ll begreatright here. While you are learning to grow the berries, you might think about making strawberry wine as a side job. Mama and Daddy have a little patch at the end of our garden, and she gathers them for making jelly to sell to folks at the festival each year. She also makes a few bottles of wine every year for us to toast with on New Year’s Day and for other special occasions. The little kids get strawberry juice mixed with lemon-lime soda to give it a little fizz.”

Blessings come in strange places.

That was another of Aunt Gracie’s sayings. The memory of Jasper telling that story about him and Davis and Gracie making wine came to my mind. He’d mentioned that there was a cookbook somewhere in the house with a recipe. Then I thought of the wine that Connor had brought. Thinking of Aunt Gracie put a smile on my face. The feeling I had when Connor had fed me filled me with warmth.

“Good luck finding a cookbook in all this mess,” I muttered, shaking away the thoughts.

“What was that?” Gina Lou asked.

“I was just thinking out loud. Working at home with no one else around for months on end makes a person do that.”

“I hear you,” she said. “During those horrible months when we had to close the dining room in the restaurant and just do home deliveries, I missed the folks coming in and visiting with us. But I did have my family and thank goodness the whole bunch of us stayed healthy through it all.”

“Amen to that.” I followed her down the stairs. That’s when the door to the basement caught my eye. In the past, I had only been brave enough to walk down those creaky steps if Aunt Gracie was with me. I figured that if ghosts were really in the house, they hid out behind all the boxes of stuff that were stored down there, and the place still had a strange smell to it.

One time, I asked Aunt Gracie what was in the boxes, and she told me that the past was down there and packed away where it all belonged.According to her, you couldn’t ever get rid of the past, but you didn’t have to drag it out and let it ruin the future.

The door squeaked loudly when I pushed it open, testifying that it had been a while—probably not since the last time the exterminator sprayed the house—since anyone had forced it open. I groped blindly until my hand found a wooden thread spool attached to the end of a string and pulled hard, turning on a bare bulb that was so dusty it only threw off a dim excuse for light. Shelves on one wall held jars and jars of canned food, but the rest of the place had not changed in the past decades. A shiver chased down my spine when I thought of going through all the boxes that were stacked up higher than my head. I would have to clean out the whole place if I was going to store my first batch of strawberry wine next spring.

Chapter Sixteen

Aunt Gracie’s big floppy hat hung on the rack beside the back door, along with a couple of her aprons and a heavy coat. I put the hat on and tied the strings under my chin. Hopefully that would keep the sun from making a million new freckles.

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