The Geranium Girls by Alison Preston Page A

sets?”
    “No. It doesn’t matter. It’s just a post office shirt. This’ll sound crazy, I know,” Beryl went on, “but you didn’t attach a collar to Jude when she was over here visiting, did you?”
    Rachel laughed again, this time heartily and she spilled a little of her own drink.
    “No, Beryl. No, I didn’t, but I did notice the collar. Are you all right, dear? I’m sorry for laughing. It just seems like such an odd question.”
    “Yeah, I know it is.”
    Beryl didn’t know whether to confide in her or not. Maybe there was a screw loose under those snow white curls and it was Mrs. Frobisher herself wreaking havoc in Beryl’s yard.
    “Have you seen anyone, Rachel?” she asked. “Anyone around my house besides me? Besides me and Jude?”
    “I don’t think so, dear.” Rachel pondered the question. “Let me just think a minute.” Her forehead wrinkled as she looked backward in time, searching for something that would be of help.
    “Just the old woman, I guess, and that would have been last week sometime, maybe even the week before, the last time I saw her. Since I stopped working, the days aren’t as structured as they were and one week pretty much runs into another. Yes, just Clive’s mother. At least I assume that’s who she is. She’s the only one I’ve seen, dear.”
    A silence surrounded Rachel Frobisher’s words, like a picture frame. The words hung between the two women in the clear air.
    “Clive’s mother?” A coolness flowed down over Beryl’s face. She pictured Gatorade running over the coach’s head when the Blue Bombers won an important game. It was like that. Only this was in slow motion and it turned warm very quickly.
    “Yes,” Rachel said. “Does she do some gardening for you?”
    “Clive doesn’t have a mother,” Beryl said.
    “Oh?” Rachel looked shaken. “I see her there in his yard. Who is she? An aunt? I…I just assumed…”
    “I don’t know who she is, Rachel. I’ve never even seen her. But I have a feeling that she isn’t anyone, I mean, anyone that’s supposed to be there. Anyone Clive knows.”
    “What do you mean, Beryl?”
    “I don’t know for sure.”
    This bright new knowledge spun around inside Beryl’s head till she felt dizzy and very tired. She didn’t want it, any of it. She wanted to go home and lie under a blanket on the couch.
    “What did this person look like?” she asked in a flat voice, placing her drink on the ground beside her chair. She didn’t want it, either. It was too sweet, sickly sweet. It reminded her of the wine she and her friends used to get their hands on when they were teenagers. Wine with names like Prince of Denmark. They’d drink and then sometimes they’d barf.
    “Let me see,” Rachel said now. “The woman was tall and slim, I know that much.”
    “Who isn’t?” Beryl muttered.
    “Pardon?”
    “Nothing, Rachel. Go on. Please.”
    “I didn’t see her up close.”
    Rachel looked as if she was struggling with a picture inside her head. “I’m sure I’ll see her again soon, so I’ll pay better attention and give you a full report. Maybe I’ll introduce myself.”
    “What was she wearing?”
    “A dress. She always wears a dress. An old-fashioned flowered one, now that I think of it. And her hair is grey and pulled back in a bun at the base of her neck. Very old-fashioned, as I say.” Rachel looked down at her own overalls and fluffed out the cloud of white hair around her face.
    Beryl smiled at her. “Not like you.”
    Rachel smiled back. “She has big feet,” she said. “Too big for the rest of her. Or maybe it was just the shoes she was wearing. Clumpy big things. Usually if you see someone of that age in a dress their footwear goes along with it. You know, ladylike. Not great thunderous shoes.”
    “Thunderous?” Beryl hoped that Rachel wasn’t creating someone just to please her. She didn’t doubt that there had been an old woman. But she didn’t know Rachel well enough to know if