Page 35 of The Botanist's Assistant
The day passes remarkably quickly, and at five thirty p.m., Margaret retrieves her sack supper and drives to the address Joe Torres provided. It’s in a fancy neighborhood at the edge of town where houses sprawl over grassy lots dotted with pine and cypress and expensive cars sit in driveways. The problem is not just clothes, Margaret realizes, it’s that a twenty-year-old Toyota pickup parked on these pristine streets would be like a flashing sign announcing,This Person Couldn’t Afford a Garden Shed Here.
Margaret cruises slowly past Blackstone’s house, a two-story Tudor-style home with red brick, a pitched roof and crisscrossing half timbers that remind her of an English country home. Only the roof has been reduced to tar paper, three-quarters of the brick facade is tumbled on the ground as if an earthquake had struck and there is a huge dumpster full of what looks like broken drywall, lumber and possibly a discarded bathtub parked in the driveway next to Blackstone’s Lexus.
That explains the white dust on Blackstone’s turtleneck—and possibly the need for more money. How much would a remodel like that cost?
As Margaret passes the house, the front door opens and a woman shoos a large black poodle outside. The woman is short with brown hair pulled into a long ponytail. She wearsdark yoga pants, a green sweatshirt and a scowl on her face. She glances at the pickup and Margaret quickly turns herhead toward the front of her vehicle as if she’s a motorist with an exact destination in mind rather than a meandering snooper.
She’s never met Amy Blackstone, but she is taking no chances that the woman wouldn’t report a broad-shouldered woman driving a small blue pickup to her husband and he would recognize Margaret.
She takes a quick right turn at the next intersection, then a left and another left, driving out of the neighborhood and parking near a boutique coffee shop, which seem to be on every street corner these days. A few people are out front sipping coffee and eating sandwiches at wrought-iron tables. Margaret’s stomach growls, reminding her it is time for her own dinner. Plus, she needs time to think.
She rolls down the truck window and fishes her sandwich and the jar of milk from the paper sack. Laughter and conversations drift in Margaret’s direction as she eats. Not a single diner seems to question why a woman would eat in her truck when there was a café right next to her. It gives Margaret an idea.
She drains the last of the milk, wipes the crumbs from her lap and neatly folds the paper sack and the waxed paper to be used again. She locks her truck and heads on foot back to Blackstone’s neighborhood. Her disguise will be not her outfit but her age. Spot a gray-hair wearing shabby clothes, eating a homemade tomato sandwich next to a café or asking too-personal questions and everybody will think:That’s what happenswhen you get old. They won’t assume “robber” or “spy” like they might about a younger person. Perhaps the CIA should only hire older people to do its clandestine work.
Still, she is nervous when she rings the first doorbell at a sprawling white board-and-batten house that looks like it belongs on a ranch in Texas. She wipes sweaty palms on her skirt.
The door is answered by a woman in an ivory pantsuit. From what Margaret can see behind her, it appears the entire house along with all its contents and possibly its inhabitants are garbed only in shades of white.
“Hi, um, my name is…”
The words clog in Margaret’s throat. She’s forgotten to pick a pseudonym.
The woman cocks her head expectantly.
“My name is Forsythia.”
As she left for work this morning, Margaret noted a few black-spotted leaves on her forsythia plant, which could indicate a fungus issue, and now it’s the first name that comes to her mind. The woman, however, seems to accept the odd sobriquet. “How may I help you?” she asks.
Margaret stumbles through the story she concocted. She’s a grandmother scouting neighborhoods for her grandson, who is a very busy doctor and has just secured a new job in the area. The woman, while sounding helpful, is the exact opposite. She says the best part of the neighborhood is that it is quiet and everyone keeps to themselves.
A bald man in an impressive colonial pronounces that the HOA “has too many rules” and that he, personally, has no usefor anybody who lives here. His mustachioed next-door neighbor claims the community is nice except for those who flout regulations and gives a glance toward the neighbor who complained about the rules.
“Just look at the height of his grass, a full inch over regulation,” he says of his neighbor’s lawn.
Margaret is feeling desperate.
“What about the house over there?” She points toward the Blackstone home, which is across the street and three houses down. “They seem to be doing quite a bit of construction work.”
“Oh, them,” the man says. “Young family. Three kids. They missed their HOA fees for eight months. We almost had to start a lien process against them, but then they came up with the cash. My wife heard he was a professor and that he’s got some big invention in the works. You know how girls talk.”
He winks at her. Should she wink back?
Lucky for Margaret, the man rambles on.
“They’ve got a pretty tasteful remodel going, I’ll say that. Black marble entryway, gold fixtures. Chandeliers, a fireplace in the bedroom. French château exterior, which fits the architecture here more than that horrible Tudor. As a member of the board, I had to review the plans. If you ask me, the wife wears the pants in that family. Is your grandson married?”
The speed of the question throws Margaret off.
“Yes, um. He and his partner have been together five years. Lovely man. Basil. No children, though.”
Why did she make her imagined grandson childless and gay with a spouse named after a shiny, ovulate-leafed herb?
The man beams. “We welcome everyone here. We don’t see differences.”
Which means, of course, that they do.
“Well, thank you for your time,” Margaret says. Nervoussweat is trickling down her back and between her breasts. “I’ll let my grandson know.”
