A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [9]
“Dry rot,” objected Cici.
“Too many old people,” agreed Lindsay. “How about Seattle?”
“Yuk!” Bridget shook her head. “Too rainy.”
“But lots of bookstores.”
“And coffee.”
“And men.”
“But they’re all geeks.”
“But rich geeks.”
“And a rich geek in hand is worth two in the pocket.”
“Depends on which pocket.”
Then they were laughing, and pretty soon they were laughing so hard they couldn’t talk, and before long they were laughing and crying, and spilled whiskey mixed with spilled tears as they tumbled together in an embrace. “I love you guys,” Bridget sobbed. “I love you.”
“You’re going to be okay, Bridge. We’re going to get you through this. You’re going to be okay.”
So they held each other and cried together, and after a long time Bridget’s muffled voice said, “Tennessee.”
Cici pulled away, looking at her in some puzzlement. “What?”
Bridget wiped her swollen eyes, and Lindsay pushed back the strands of pale hair that were caught in the moisture on Bridget’s face. “Tennessee,” she repeated thickly. She fumbled for a tissue and blew her nose. “It’s got mountains, beautiful farm country, horses . . .”
“Dollywood,” added Lindsay.
“Elvis,” supplied Cici.
And they all smiled.
So that was how it began, as a game to comfort a grieving friend on a dark winter day, just one of those things people fantasize about but don’t really intend ever to do. But it was brought out more and more often during the coming months. Cici would run across a listing that would send them off to the Internet for a virtual tour: plenty of room for Bridget’s herb garden here, but the kitchen was too small; this one had a swimming pool but they hated the bedrooms; that one was big enough but had no garden space. Then they started spending Sunday afternoons riding around, looking at properties; not every Sunday, but occasionally. It was something to do, a way to help Bridget through a difficult time, nothing more. Or at least that’s what they told themselves. But gradually, without any of them really being aware of it, they started to take the idea almost seriously. Somehow the game traversed the line in their minds between fantasy and reality and became something very close to a plan.
And until that Sunday afternoon in the Shenandoah Valley, none of them even realized what had happened.
3
In Which a Plan Is Made
Back to August
Back at the Holiday Inn in Staunton, Virginia, an hour’s drive from Blackwell Farm, they piled together on the king-size bed in Cici’s room in their crop-legged PJs and robes, watching the photos Lindsay had taken that afternoon scroll across the screen of her laptop. They drank white wine from water glasses and shared a box of Lancaster County chocolates while Cici, wearing oversize reading glasses, scribbled absently on a legal pad, and Bridget, having recently discovered the joys of wireless Internet access, surfed the Web for information about their surroundings.
Lindsay said, without taking her eyes off the slide show on the computer screen, “Amish country. What’s next for us? Red hats and early-bird dinner specials?”
“Maybe for you two.” This from Cici, who spoke without looking up from her figures. “I was planning to be a cancan girl on the Moulin Rouge.”
“I like the early-bird specials,” Bridget said.
“We could go to the Moulin Rouge,” Lindsay said. “We used to have great vacations. Ireland, the Grand Caymans, remember that cruise we took to Antigua?”
“I’ve been to the Moulin Rouge,” Cici said. “You’d hate it.”
“Oh yeah?” Both Bridget and Lindsay looked at her with interest. “When?”
“In 1996,” Cici said. “That two-week tour we took of France? You two went on the excursion to Giverny, I went to the Moulin Rouge. It was a rat hole.”
Lindsay groaned. “Now I know we’re getting old. Not only is the best part of our lives behind us, we can’t even remember it.”
“Speak for yourself, Missy.” Bridget tossed a foil-wrapped chocolate at her, which Lindsay caught and began to unwrap.
“It’s true, you know,” she said. “Women were never meant to live past menopause, evolution-wise speaking. Once a