Love Letters From Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [6]
Before he had come to Ladybug Farm, it hadn’t occurred to Noah that a boy with his background should even want to go to college. A year ago he had to be wrestled into a shirt and tie for church services once a week. Now he complained that the school uniform—khakis, blue shirt, and maroon tie—made him look like a used car salesman, but he got up early every school day morning to iron his shirt himself, and he had proudly paid for the uniforms out of his own earnings. He had spent most of his life trying to avoid school out of boredom, and downplayed his own intelligence in a misguided effort to escape notice. Winning the Young Artist award had changed what he believed was possible. But having the opportunity to attend a school like John Adams had changed everything else.
The phone rang. Lindsay looked exasperated as Bridget got up to answer it. “People have been calling all day” she said. “Does everyone in the county subscribe to that magazine?”
Noah grinned. “Hey, we’re celebrities. Deal with it.”
Bridget said into the telephone, “Wait, Lori. I’m going to put you on speaker.”
She pushed a button on the wall phone and Lori’s voice burst from the speaker in an excited squeal. “O! M! G! You guys are rock stars! Have you checked the traffic on the blog?”
Bridget said, “Well, I’ve been kind of busy. I harvested two rows of carrots and dug asparagus and gathered three dozen eggs and that crazy rooster tried to kill me—”
“Sixty-one comments!” exclaimed Lori.
Bridget’s eyes widened. “Sixty-one?”
“Since this morning! I told you this would be a gold mine! I told you!”
Bridget said, “I’ll be right back! This I’ve got to see. Talk to your mom.” She rushed from the kitchen in search of her laptop.
Cici said, “How was the economics exam?”
“Aced it. Mom, listen. What we need to do now is get you on one of the local news segments—”
Cici choked on a laugh. “Doing what?”
“And Aunt Lindsay if you’re serious about getting your art school off the ground this is going to give you the boost you need.”
“What I need,” Lindsay pointed out, “is students.”
“It’s called synergistic marketing,” Lori went on enthusiastically. “And this is just the beginning. Is that boy there?”
Noah said, “Hey, kid.”
“Noah, listen. What I need you to do is ... oh, wait. I have a text.”
Cici demanded, “You’re not texting and driving?”
“Walking, mom. I’m walking to class and talking on the phone and I really have to call you back. This could be important.”
“Are you coming home this weekend?”
“I’ll call you back.”
“Don’t text and drive!”
“I love you guys. Call you back.”
“Good luck getting through,” Lindsay said. “The phone has been—”
But she was talking to dead air.
Noah called toward the phone, “Glad I could help!” and turned back to the magazine.
Cici shrugged. “Ah well, the price of fame. She’s probably fielding calls from Hollywood.”
“Hey there’s a whole other page of photographs,” Noah observed. “Nice one of the fountain and the patio.”
Lindsay and Cici shared a smile as they returned to their own copies of the magazine. The restoration of the fountain and the patio had been Noah and Lori’s Mother’s Day gift to them the year that Noah had decided to join the family permanently.
“Look at that vineyard,” Lindsay observed. “It’s as pretty as anything you could see in France.”
“Prettier,” Cici said. “They don’t have mountains in France.”
“Well, I think they have the Pyrenees.”
“Not in wine country.”
“Hey look,” Noah pointed out, trying, and not entirely succeeding, to sound casual about it. “My grandma’s paintings.”
Cici read the caption out loud. “‘The murals flanking the fireplace depict spring and winter views from the front porch of Ladybug Farm. They were painted in the 1960s by regional artist Emily Hodge, and uncovered during the restoration project.”’
“They could have mentioned that she was related to me.” Noah frowned a little.
“There wasn’t room to write everything, Noah. They had to save some room for advertising.”
Until the murals were uncovered, and Ida Mae had related their history, Noah had known nothing of his family,