The Auction a Romance by Anna Erishkigal Page 4

  Adam looked relieved.

  "Eva believed if we hired the best help, it would make up for our shortcomings as parents," Adam said. "We had a lovely older woman who loved Pippa as though she was her own, but then Mrs. Richardson retired, and the governesses we hired since then all up and quit. I think that's what finally drove Eva over the edge, being forced to actually be a mother."

  He cut into his pikelet and pushed it around his plate, but I'd noticed he often didn't finish his meals. I bit into my own blackened pancake, and then reached for the canister of icing sugar.

  "My mother is the domineering type," I said. "She was always there, but nothing I did could ever please her. My father got sick of it and finally left, but she wouldn't let him see me, so eventually he just left Australia and went home."

  "Do you hate him?"

  I gave Adam a wistful look.

  "I blame her for driving him away."

  Adam opened his mouth as though to ask another question, but thankfully interpreted my crossed arms to mean 'back off.' We ate in silence until he glanced at his watch.

  "I have to go," Adam said. "I have a plane to catch to Sydney."

  "I'll tell Pippa you got up to make her breakfast," I said. "She'll appreciate it. I'll make sure she understands."

  Adam stood up and grabbed the charcoal suit jacket he'd hung over the back of his chair. He slipped his arms into the sleeves and began to fumble with his tie.

  "Here, let me," I said.

  He froze as I touched the narrow strip of silk which was far more expensive looking than any article of clothing I owned. The fabric slipped luxuriously through my fingers as I stepped closer and caught the light scent of aftershave.

  "The hungry fox chases the rabbit twice around the tree—" I wrapped one end twice around the other. "—Under the root, and over the branch, the rabbit escapes by jumping in his hole." I slid the fat end through the knot and tightened it perfectly beneath his collar.

  Adam's hand slipped up to capture mine. He held it, where I'd tightened the knot, pressed into his chest right above his heart.

  "That's quite the rhyme," he said.

  My heart beat loudly in my ears as I became painfully aware of how very tall and male Adam was. Gregory had been handsome in the manner of a yearling racehorse, but in the paddock, Adam would be a stallion.

  "I'm a primary school teacher," I said. "Or at least I will be, once I find a permanent job. But one of the schools where I did my practicum was an all-boy's college preparatory academy."

  Adam squeezed my hand.

  "Take good care of Pippa while I'm gone," he said softly. "I may not be the greatest father, but everything I've done, I've always done for her."

  This was not a come-on, but a plea from a worried dad. I suddenly felt ashamed of lusting after the man like a mare in heat. Adam was only interested in somebody to care for his daughter.

  "I will," I said. "You have my word."

  Adam nodded and held my hand a little longer than was necessary, and then he broke away, the skittishness he'd exhibited earlier suddenly returned. I recognized it as the discomfort of an until-recently married man around a woman who was not his wife. Until Gregory had dumped me, every time a man had paid attention to me, I'd scampered away, thinking I must somehow be betraying him.

  Adam gathered up his briefcase and his travel bag.

  "Adam?" I asked. "I, um … when I first woke up, I saw lights down by the river."

  Adam grinned.

  "Those are the Mimis," he said. "Fairies. Ask Pippa about them. She'll tell you all kinds of stories."

  "Fairies?" My eyebrows shot up with disbelief. "Really?"

  Adam laughed.

  "I highly doubt it! That's just what my mother called them when we were kids. We never did figure out what they are, but the lights only appear at certain times of the year. I suspect they are fireflies emerging from their nest."

  I remembered Pippa telling her dog that the fairy queen had brought me here to make her father happy. Her clever grandmother must have leveraged some real-life natural phenomena to turn Pippa's relocation after divorce into a magical experience for her.

  "Goodbye, Adam," I said.

  I watched as he pulled the dust cover off his silver Mercedes SLX, got into the car and drove away into that other world where Adam was a man of privilege. The promise of dawn brightened the eastern sky. Off to the west, the Milky Way jutted straight out of the horizon like an enormous belt of stars. It was pretty here, with no sound but the peeper frogs and the chirp of crickets to break the peace.

  "I could get used to this."

  Chapter 4

  I don't know what I'd expected when Pippa woke up to find her father gone, but it was anything but the blasé acceptance with which she ate her breakfast and chatted amiably with her dog. Thunderlane crept under the table, his tail thumping as he waited for the 'gifts' Pippa slid to him when she thought I wasn't looking. Having tasted Adam's attempt at pikelets, I pretended not to notice the more charred portions disappear into the dog's mouth.

  Thunderlane didn't care. Food was food. Especially people food slathered with butter and jam.

  I coached Pippa to take her morning yellow pill, and then got up to clear away the empty dishes.

  "Wait!" Pippa called as I reached to remove her father's plate. "I'm not done yet."

  Okay. Perhaps not so blasé? I set Adam's plate back down and moved to wash my own dirty dishes. Pippa grimaced as she swallowed her morning dose of Risperdal.

  "What would you like to do today, nipper?" I asked.

  "Mrs. Hastings asked me to bring you over to meet her," Pippa said.

  "When?"

  "This afternoon."

  I herded Pippa to her bedroom to get dressed. It had the look of a boy's room hastily converted into a girl's, with an expensive-looking pink and white designer bedspread that clashed against the dark blue painted walls and navy gingham curtains. It had a single closet and a small, wooden bureau, and underneath the window a sturdy dark-painted desk overlooked the courtyard.

  "This used to be your daddy's room, ay, nipper?"

  "No," Pippa said. "This room belonged to Uncle Jeffrey."

  "Your father has a brother?"

  "Not any more." Pippa's face fell. "Uncle Jeffrey died last autumn. And then when my grandpa found out, he died too."

  A lump rose in my throat. This poor kid couldn't get a break.

  "How?"

  "He was a soldier in Af-af-af…"

  "Afghanistan," I said. "How did he die?"

  "He just disappeared," Pippa said. "Grandma said his helicopter got shot down and the bad men stole his body."

  Pippa pointed to some pictures mounted on the wall. They were not pictures of a soldier, but the usual candid snapshots of a gangly middle-schooler and poorly taken state-school portraits. Amongst the pictures was one of a tall, stern-looking man who resembled Adam standing behind two golden-haired boys of equal height. I scrutinized the picture, trying to figure out which boy was Adam.

  "They were twins?"

  "Yes."

  I exhaled. Adam had not said a word about his brother. Pippa lost all semblance of chatter as she picked out an outfit, solid purple with a pale lavender sparkly unicorn emblazoned across the front. Her silence grew stifling, so I decided to draw her out.

  "Is that your Grandpa?" I pointed to the older man in the picture.

  "Yes," Pippa said. "Grandma said he died of a broken heart. Grandma missed him, so she got sick and died too."

  And I thought that -I- had things bad…

  "Do you miss your Grandpa, honey?"

  Pippa paused putting on her socks and pulled her knees into her chest.

  "Grandpa didn't like Mommy." Pippa's voice grew small. "So we didn't visit. Grandma always came to visit us."

  I sat down next to her.

  "Sometimes adults have disagreements," I said. "But that doesn't mean he didn't love you. He just didn't know how to show it."

  Pippa nodde
d, but her body language conveyed she distrusted my assessment. What did I know? Maybe her grandfather had disliked her? Pippa didn't look like Adam, so if she resembled her mother, that dislike may have transferred over to her child.

  I gave Pippa a hug.

  "Get moving, kiddo," I said. "Didn't you say we were supposed to go visit Mrs. Hastings today?"

  Pippa instantly perked up. Whoever this neighbor was, she and Pippa obviously got along.

  The phone rang as Pippa tied her shoes.

  "I'll get that." I hurried down the hallway to grab the extension in the living room. "Hello? This is the Bristow residence."

  "Is this Rosamond?" a feminine voice asked.

  "Yes, this is Rosie." I didn't recognize the voice.

  "This is Linda Hastings, your neighbor across the street. I wanted to invite you and Pippa to come over for lunch today."

  "Yes, we would love that." I felt relieved. It was one thing to be told the neighbor had offered to help you, quite another to call up a total stranger and invite yourself over for a visit.

  "Come on over around eleven thirty," Linda said. "Pippa usually helps me in the garden, and then we'll make lunch with whatever Mother Nature gives."

  "Okay," I said. "We'll see you then."

  Pippa came bounding out of her bedroom with Thunderlane at her heel.

  "Was that Mrs. Hastings?"

  "Yup."

  "I knew it was her!" Pippa grinned. "She always calls at exactly nine o'clock."

  That left us with two and a half hours to kill. One of my jobs was to get Pippa current in her school work. For some reason, Adam had pulled her out of school and brought her here, but never enrolled her in the local primary school. I couldn't help but wonder what he was running from…

  "Do you know what I want to do?" I asked.

  "What?"

  "I studied in college to be a teacher," I said, "but I'm kinda new at it. I was wondering if you'd help me out?"

  "You want to play school time?"

  "Yes," I said. "You'd be starting fifth year, right?"

  "Fourth," Pippa said. "I started the year after Daddy was stationed in Saudi Arabia. They said I was too little to start school, but when I got home, Mommy insisted they move me up to the right grade. I keep falling behind, so they said they will hold me back unless I can get caught back up again." Her lip trembled. "The other kids all say it's because I'm stupid."

  I bit my tongue before I could ask 'why the hell didn't your parents make you start school on the Australian schedule?' For all I knew they'd made a command decision that delaying a year would be better than sending their daughter to school in a misogynistic country that hated women.

  "Do you speak Arabic?"

  "Only a few words," Pippa said. "I don't remember much. Only that it was hot and Mommy hated it because she wasn't allowed to drive a car."

  Pippa fished out her schoolbooks and we spent a pleasant two hours reading. Despite the fact she'd started late, she effortlessly answered all of my grammar questions. Perhaps she was behind on her other subjects? I would test her subtly, for who wants to spend their summer doing drills?

  At five minutes past eleven I announced it was time to get ready for our 'lunch date.' I made certain I looked presentable for lunch with a seventy-two year old woman. Pippa scampered onto a path which led across several pastures which had already turned golden from lack of rain. Across the street was a different kind of gate. Pippa tied it securely shut behind us.

  "Mrs. Hastings keeps sheep and goats and alpacas," Pippa said. "Make sure you always tie the gate or the sheep could be hit by a car. They're not very smart, you know."

  Thunderlane barked and raced off to herd some black-faced sheep.

  "No, Thunderlane!" Pippa shouted. "Bad doggie! It's too early for them to go back to the barn!"

  The dog cut back and forth, nipping at their tails, but not enough to hurt them. The instinct to herd was bred into the Australian Shepherd, which was why so many families favored them to keep their children out of mischief.

  We left the relieved sheep. The next pasture contained stately alpaca which had been recently shorn, leaving only tuft balls of wool on the top of their heads, their tails and their ankles. Every single alpaca displayed a different hairdo and some of the smaller ones wore ribbons. Their camel-like faces turned to watch us pass.

  "They look like gigantic poodles," I said.

  Pippa giggled.

  "Mrs. Hastings gets creative when she shears them."

  She paid a wide berth around the next pen which contained a black male sheep with four horns which stuck out of his head like the devil on a tarot card.

  "That's a Jacob's Ram," Pippa whispered. "Azazel's really mean, so don't go into his pen."

  The final gate was of woven sticks supported by a lush, green arbor of buttery yellow roses which smelled lightly of … licorice? It appeared as though the roses had been coaxed to grow upwards and create the lattice. Pippa shut the gate behind her. I realized we stood in a well-watered patch of emerald green marijuana which towered above us like a cornfield.

  My mouth dropped open as I touched the slender, seven-leaved plant.

  "Is this…"

  "Hemp," Pippa said nonchalantly. "Mrs. Hastings says someday it will save the world."

  She skipped happily through the cannabis plants, her blond pigtails bouncing behind her as Thunderlane ran after her, his black tail wagging like a jolly roger. I broke off a leaf and raised it to my nose. Yes … and no. Something about the scent was not quite on-point. Not that I would ever admit I knew what real marijuana smelled like!

  Mrs. Hastings's house was a ranch-style house, painted white, the same approximate vintage as the Bristow's, but from there the houses were radically different. Wisteria and trumpet vine crept up to cover every bit of vacant wall, and in front of the picture window, two meter tall hollyhocks shaded the glass from the summer sun. A large white peacock strutted across the emerald green lawn, stalked by a calico cat who appeared fascinated by the bird's long tail. The peacock cried out, 'help' and flared its tail into a magnificent lacey fan.

  "That's Shah Jahan." Pippa pointed at the peacock. "He's named for a famous Mughal emperor."

  She ran up to the front door and let herself in without even knocking. I stared at the colorfully painted red door. Someday, when I found a home, I'd always dreamed of having a door that color.

  "Ah, come in!" the voice I'd heard earlier called. "I was just feeding Humpty and Dumpty."

  The scent of fresh-baked bread hung heavily in the air of a kitchen which would have been a twin for Adam's had the cupboards not been painted a bright sunshine yellow. At a huge, rough-cut slab of a wooden table sat a woman who did not look anywhere near the 72 years that Adam had claimed. Her waist-length tresses were purest white, and in her hand she held a tiny baby bottle as she fed a foxlike creature wrapped up in a dish towel.

  "Mrs. Hastings?"

  "Linda, please. And you must be Rosie?"

  "That would be me."

  As she turned towards me I spied something crawling in her hair.

  "Eek!" I shrieked. "You've got …"

  I pointed at the creature, my mouth agape with disbelief.

  "Bats," Pippa giggled.

  "That's just Dumpty," Linda Hastings said. "Humpty's little sister. They became orphans when their camp got hit by lightning."

  The flying fox peered out from the safety of Linda's hair with inquisitive dark eyes. But not for the fact its long arms contained a hook-like claw at the end of leathery wings; it otherwise resembled a tiny reddish fox pup. Her little brother Humpty squeaked with frustration when Linda removed the bottle from his mouth.

  "Pippa!" Linda called. "Could you please go check the nests to see if the chooks have left us any eggs?"

  Pippa grabbed a basket and headed out the back door. A joyful bark indicated Thunderlane had run around the back to meet her.

  "Come, sit." Linda rubbed her hip. "I fell off a ladder and the doctor sa
id I'm supposed to stay off my feet. Not that I listen, mind you."

  She gave me a mischievous wink. She was a slender woman, with delicate wrists and long fingers which absent-mindedly stroked the bat wrapped up in the towel. She wore a bright pink Indian kurti shirt with white embroidery around the yoke and yoga pants which stopped just below her knees. She wore no shoes, and every one of her toenails was painted a different color.

  "So tell me, Rosie, what did Adam offer to entice you to come all the way out here?"

  "Five hundred dollars a week," I said.

  "That's not much when you get back to Brisbane. I told him I thought he should offer you six hundred a week."

  "It includes room and board, plus a bonus at the end of the summer." I stared at the two orphaned fruit bats as they wrapped their wings around one another for warmth. "Besides," I said more softly, "I needed the work."

  Linda stared past me, her expression thoughtful.

  "I'm glad Adam agreed to interview you," Linda said. "I'd never seen him so distraught as the day Eva showed up at his mother's funeral and made a scene."

  "He made it sound like Eva abandoned Pippa?"

  "She did," Linda said, "but I guess she doesn't see it that way."

  She reached across the table to grab a heating pad before I could say, 'here, let me get that for you.' The bats squeaked, a lonely, plaintive cry, as Linda wrapped them in a receiving blanket and tucked them into a basket.

  "Had you ever met Pippa's mother before that day?" I asked.

  "Only once," Linda said, "at Adam's wedding. She was a beautiful girl, but I could tell Adam was making a mistake."

  "Why?"

  Linda's expression grew wary. I realized I had overstepped my bounds.

  "Sometimes doing the right thing is not the right thing to do," she said.

  Pippa came skipping back in, carrying a basket full of eggs.

  "And what did the ladies have for us today?" Linda asked.

  "Six eggs," Pippa said. "Enough to make a frittata."

  Linda Hastings stood and clutched at her hip. I could see from her grimace she resented the fact her injury slowed her down. She was lucky, at her age, her hip hadn't broken.

  "Let me help," I said.

  Linda waved away my hand.