The year of the Lucy

CHAPTER ONE

MIRELLE STRUGGLED against returning consciousness because it would end the delightful sequence of dream. Eyes half-opened, she lay on her stomach, feeling out the day ahead of her as she often did, trying to decide if getting up was really worth the effort. Sometimes she knew in advance that it wouldn't be. Today, the coolness from her open bedroom window, a patch of brilliant blue sky seemed propitious auguries. Something else, however, niggled and she cast her mind back to the lingering aura of the dream that she had been so reluctant to leave.

She mumbled with pleasure to herself as she recalled a fleeting part of the sequence. It was a dream that she had often had before, reaching only a certain point before wakefulness dissolved it. When Steve had been away on a long swing around his territory, or when she was particularly annoyed with him, she would deliberately conjure the opening scene of that dream in erotic revenge.

This morning it had merely arrived within her unconsciousness. Mirelle closed her eyes, hoping that she had not passed sufficiently into the day that she could not return to the dream. She imagined herself back where she had left and tried to progress to the next episode.

"Mom!" A strident yell shattered her efforts. "Where are my clean socks?"

"That tore it." She rose to her elbows, turning her head over her shoulder toward the bedroom door. "In your drawer. Probably under the school pants you crammed in there yesterday when I told you to straighten your room."

"They are not… oh, yeah," and Nick's voice, starting from a roar, dwindled abruptly to a chagrined mutter. If Nick were dressing, she'd better rise.

Well, thought Mirelle, I'll pick up the dream tonight where I left off. She threw back the blankets, grinning at her reflection in the mirror over the double chests. Seeing Steve's unused bed in the reflection, she wrinkled her nose at it. Never around when you want him. Why can't he have a promotion into the main office? She sighed, turning on the hot water tap to soak her cloth. Grumpily, she regarded herself in the cabinet mirror.

The face that returned her sleepy stare had a livid crease mark across one cheek where she had lain on a blanket fold. She rubbed at the mark with the hot cloth, reddening her prominent and slightly slanting cheekbones. Subjectively she hated this inheritance from her Hungarian father. The clear ink-blue eyes and corn-silk hair were also his legacy but these were common enough. She wore her heavy hair straight, just below shoulder length, clipping it back from a center part with barrettes. No hair style, elaborate or plain, would ever soften the set of her eyes above those distinctive Magyar cheekbones.

When she reached the kitchen, the floor and cabinets were already awash with mushy designs of cereal and spilt milk. She blinked furiously, trying to clear sleep from her eyes as she filled the kettle, measured coffee into the pot. She could hear the TV set going and only hoped that the troops were well supplied so that this morning, at least, she might have the first cup of coffee in quiet.

She was not, by nature, an early riser like Steve and Roman, her eldest son. Fortunately Steve enjoyed puttering bright-eyed by himself in the morning and Roman was now old enough to use such energy delivering morning papers. When Steve was away, as he was so often, Roman could be relied on to wake the children in time to dress for school, now that all three went full time. The years of dutiful rising with alert babies had been endured and were now behind her. In Mirelle's estimation, the luxury of an extra half hour's sleep was well worth the messy kitchen. And there were even mornings when riot and rebellion did not erupt before she had consumed the first of her many morning cups of coffee.

"I want Channel 3," screamed Tonia in a piercing treble.

"Well, you can't have it," replied Nick in a bellow which provoked Tonia to repeat her order an octave higher.

Will he never learn to handle her as Roman does? Mirelle squirmed, wondering how long she could ignore the wrangling.

"No one can hear a thing," cried Roman, loud enough to make himself heard, but in a placating voice. "Tonia, you have fifteen more minutes to watch than we do. You sit and eat."

"But that isn't fair."

"Eat," Roman repeated authoritatively.

He sounds just like his father, Mirelle thought, holding her breath, wondering if Tonia would subside, and adoring her diplomatic Roman. If Nick will only keep still all will be well.

The kettle whistled inopportunely though she got it off the heat with amazing speed. Not quickly enough, however, for she could hear footsteps on the TV room steps: Tonia to deliver her complaint in person now that Mommie was among the living.

As she poured water into the drip pot, Mirelle realized she had hunched her shoulders in anticipation of Tonia's demands.

"Not a word, Tonia," Mirelle said, taking the initiative. The injured expression on Tonia's pretty face altered to incredulous. "You do have more time before school so they have choice of channel now!"

Immediately her daughter's face crumbled but seeing that Mirelle regarded her with stolid impassivity, Tonia retired in sulky tears to the TV room. Apprehensively, Mirelle held her breath but all she heard was the scuffle as Tonia arranged her chair. She wondered if Roman might be gagging Nick with a firm hand or a subtler form of fraternal blackmail.

There was something to be said in favor of the English system of nursery and nanny, Mirelle told herself. Something, the sane observer in her mind replied drily, but not too much, ducks. Mirelle's nanny had been a Yorkshire lass, stern, impartial and unaffectionately devoted to her charges. As Mirelle raised her own children, she'd often noticed, with grim amusement, her tendency to do the diametric opposite of what Nanny would have done. Abruptly, Mirelle cancelled this train of thought, as she always did when vagrant thoughts brought back associations with that period of her life.

The coffee had dripped down and, as she carried pot and mug into the dining room, she caught the flash of yellow between the houses on the crest of the hill two blocks above their house.

"Bus, Roman!"

Her summons precipitated a thudding on the steps, a slap-slap of hands on the wall by the closet door, more thumps culminating in a rattle and the decisive bang of the front door. From her view out the dining room window, she saw the lanky form of Roman charging down the lawn. He and the bus converged on the corner of the street. There was no perceptible halt in the bus's movement as Roman swung through the open door and the bus maneuvered past the stop.

"Well, he never does miss it." Half an hour more and the house would be hers until 3:30. The joys of motherhood consist mainly of the times the children are NOT in evidence. "Not precisely true," Mirelle amended candidly because she did enjoy her children's company: only not all three at once.

"My hair won't part," sobbed Tonia from the doorway. Automatically Mirelle held out a hand for the comb and concentrated on Tonia's hair, as thick, silky and tawny as her own.

"Wear the corduroy jacket, duckie, it's chilly," she said as she fastened the heavy barrette in place.

"It'll be boiling by lunchtime and then I'll have to carry it home," said Tonia in a petulant voice.

"So be hot by noon but wear the jacket now when you need it. 'Sides, the day I see you carrying anything home…" Mirelle leaned around to glance at the pert face and smiled. Tonia tried to glower but failed. Exuberantly she threw her arms around her mother's neck, kissing her cheek. Some of Mirelle's irritation with the early morning hassle vanished with the sweet pressure of her daughter's arms.

"There. You're groomed and lovely. Go watch Channel 3. NICK!" Mirelle raised her voice in a tone loud enough to pierce the canned laughter of the TV. "The bus'll be here any minute."

"Aw, Mom, Roman's just left."

"And if Roman's just left, can yours be far behind? Get going."

Another sequence of clatter, thud, slap, rattle, bang and Nick, sauntering indolently, made his way to the bus stop.

"Two down, one to go," said Mirelle in an effort to rouse herself. The coffee was just cool enough to drink. The morning paper had been strewn over the dining room table by either Nick or Tonia because Roman always left it folded for her. She managed to restore the sheets to order and started leafing through as she sipped her coffee. Another flash of yellow through the trees, a grinding of gears and Nick was off.

Mirelle blinked again and again, trying to clear her eyes of sleepy winkers, enough to see the print. Nothing horrendous caught her attention in the main section. She arrived, unstimulated, to the funnies and forced herself to read all the comic strips. Thus she saved the daily horoscope till the last. A bad forecast would spoil the lingering pleasantness of her dream. She grunted over the ambiguity printed under her zodiacal sign, and decided that her initial impression of a nice day was not going to be star-crossed.

"Tonia, turn off the TV and get out to the bus stop. Now!"

"Aw, Mother."

"I am not, I repeat, I am NOT driving you to school again this week."

"Gee, Mother, in the middle of such a good cartoon." But the fact that Tonia's voice was coming toward her indicated that the child had given in to the inevitable with only a token struggle. Mirelle caught a glimpse of Tonia in her jacket, heard the door politely closed and then saw Tonia, skipping across the lawn. Her bosom girlfriend of the moment waited at the bottom of the hill and the child's wide-armed gesture of greeting proved that TV was already forgotten.

Mirelle poured herself more coffee, flipped the paper over and started to re-read it with considerably more attention and understanding than her initial attempt.

There wasn't much of interest in it and she sat brooding over the classified section. Maybe, Mirelle mused, she should have taken on that substitute art teacher's job. She'd have got used to being stared at by the children in time. She might even learn how to talk in front of groups. The hours were compatible with her desire to be home when her children were, and the salary was tempting. But - there was the other side of the coin: the necessary 'education' courses to be taken at night to qualify for Delaware teacher certification, the tales of the rougher elements in all the high schools, her own antipathy to large groups and its necessary social involvement. She didn't need to work: they were finally solvent and there was always her inheritance which Steve would only let her spend on herself anyway.

Let's get away from that topic, Mirelle told herself sternly, wondering why her mind kept wandering into controversial areas this morning.

No, she didn't need to work. She needed to get to work, down in the studio. There was no excuse for her malingering. She had promised herself all during their early infancy and childhood that, once the children were all in school, she would spend some time each day in her studio. Here it was spring of the second year in which Tonia was a full time student and she had turned out no more than a few soup bowls, some figurines for the family creche scene and obligatory gifts.

All those years when she had had to balance duty and desire, when she had had no special place to work in or to store incompleted pieces, those times accused her of present procrastination.

Mirelle looked out the window. The day with its fresh lovely blue sky, the burgeoning chartreuse of leaves filming the woods beyond and the young trees of the development, the moist freshness of the air, was not to be wasted on brooding. Mirelle rose with a sigh and went down the steps to the lower corridor. The lefthand door opened to the TV room; the right one to her studio was ajar. The unfinished clay bust on the potter's table accused her, too. How long ago had she started that? She grimaced. It was not a day to cope with 'him'. 'He' was not behaving. When inanimate objects of your own creation flout you outrageously, let them sit neglected until they have learned the error of their ways and become pliant.

Mirelle flexed her long fingers thoughtfully as if they were shaping the recalcitrant material and then she shook them to get rid of the unconscious urge. She knew this was not a day for modeling. Her inner restlessness was not in that direction.

"I'll go horseback riding," she announced to herself out of a totally unsuspected longing and realized that physical exertion was exactly what she needed.

"Of all the half-baked procrastinations," she was exclaiming in disgust a few hours later. She was sprawled on the ground, looking up at the chestnut who had just managed to shed her. "I might just as well have fought the clay all morning instead of you, you clayhead," she told Boots.

She got up slowly because the toss had knocked the wind from her. The chestnut eyed her coolly, shifting his front feet and snuffling as he jiggled the bit in his mouth.

"It isn't as if we didn't know each other well, Boots, or maybe that's why," Mirelle said, half-scolding. She gathered the reins, pleased that she had at least remembered to hang on to them when she felt herself tumbling. "You might warn me that this is your week for shying at logs you know as well as your own stall. Come on, Boots."

She reached for the stirrup iron and the gelding sidled away from her, but she had her fingers round the metal and, with a quick forward step, she vaulted up, only then aware of a lack of resilience in her left ankle. But she was mounted and quickly jammed her feet into both stirrups.

On her way back to the stable, she concentrated on Boots' behavior, bringing him on the aids in every pace, making sure that he played no more silly tricks on her. He was fresh, having had no exercise since the previous Sunday and he was still young enough not to be as jaded as most riding school hacks. Mirelle was a capable rider, and thoroughly enjoyed the tussle of skill over brute strength. When she dismounted at the stable yard, she realized that she must have wrenched her ankle badly in the toss, for it would barely support her.

"Boots shed you?" asked Mac, the stableman, without a trace of sympathy. "You're all covered with leaves," and he obligingly started to brush them off. The operation took longer than Mirelle felt necessary.

"Thanks, Mac," she said, adroitly turning. "This is Boots' week to spook logs."

"He's fresh, he is," Mac agreed while Mirelle mused that the chestnut was not the only one. She fished in her jodhpur pocket for her money and paid Mac.

"Be back again soon, Mrs. Martin. You haven't been as steady as you used to."

"Takes money, Mac, and I prefer to see Roman and Nick riding. I'm getting too old to risk the occasional toss now."

"Pay attention, then," said Mac with a snort.

"I know. My own fault. See you."

He waved her off as he led the gelding into the dark barn. She limped over to the Sprite.

As she eased herself into the seat she grimaced at the thought of having to shift with the bad foot. She drove out of the stable yard, evading the muddy pits and enjoying the Sprite's light handling.

At least you can't throw me, she thought and just as instantly regretted the statement. The sudden sharp crack and explosive whistle could mean just one thing. She grabbed the wheel tightly as the car, which she was swinging onto the highway, bucked against the deflating tire. She fought the wheel, slowing down on the shoulder of the road. Swinging her legs out from under the steering wheel, she stood up, immediately losing her balance as the weakened ankle collapsed. Swearing under her breath, she limped back to look at the flat.

"Of all the unkind cuts." She appraised the damage with disgust. "Well, pal, we're both lame." She balanced herself against the low chassis and began to unscrew the spare tire.

The sound of crunching gravel attracted her attention and she was startled to see a blue Thunderbird coming to a stop just behind the Sprite.

"Hi, there. Saw the tire go. Then, when you started hobbling, I realized that the female was truly in distress," said the driver as he got out.

In a slim-cut, finely tailored black top-coat, a jaunty snap-brim Stetson on his head, her rescuer looked an unlikely type to respond to her situation.

"I'm usually a disgustingly competent female," she said, grinning in appreciation.

The man was taking off hat and coat, poking them into the opened window of his car.

"Such independence puts Boy Scouts out of business," he said goodnaturedly. He crouched down by the damaged tire, trying to determine the point of puncture, then straightened, dusting his hands off. Instinctively she glanced at them, noticing the very short clipped nails, the blunt tips of the long fingers. "The wheel's covering the puncture. Nail probably, because your tread is still good. Where do you hide the jack for this overgrown bathtub?"

"Boy Scouts are supposed to be polite, not condescending," she said, grinning maliciously, "not that you should talk with that overbuilt, overpowered, overpriced…"

"Yah, yah, yah," he said, laughing back, his eyes crinkling at the corners, his grin boyishly lopsided.

Steve's eyes used to crinkle like that, Mirelle thought irrelevantly. But Steve used to laugh a lot more than he does these days. She silently cursed competitive business and sales quotas.

"I'll get the keys," she said, shifting balance so she could make her way along the side of the Sprite to the driver's side. _ Her good Samaritan touched her shoulder lightly.

"Get off that ankle and make like a lady executive," he said. He took her by the hands and assisted her to the grassy bank above the shoulder.

Her laugh turned to a groan for an injudicious movement tweaked her foot as she sat down. It took her a moment's hard concentration to fight back the tears. When she looked again, he was opening the trunk and getting out the necessary tools.

"You don't seem to need directions," she said.

"Oh, I had one of these runabouts. Surprising how quickly one remembers the idiosyncrasies of the beasts."

"I see you've also graduated to the tender supervision of the AAA."

He glanced up startled, and then looked over his shoulder at the telltale emblem on his car license. He grinned.

"There's a difference or two between this bathtub and that behemoth. Particularly when it comes to wrestling jacks and tire lugs." He had removed his suit jacket and, although Mirelle thought he must be in his forties, he was lean and quick of movement. "It does me good to recall, however briefly, my lost and carefree youth."

He made short work of loosening the bolts, raised the car on the jack, and removed the flat. Mirelle's sculptor's eye noticed the play of muscles across his back, the long line of his leg in the stretched fabric of his pants. A receding hairline emphasized the shape of his handsome head. His dark brown hair was worn long in the back and showed silvery at the temples and above his well-shaped ears.

"Do I pass, ma'am?" he asked and she realized that he had become aware of her scrutiny without being embarrassed by it.

"I only patronize well-dressed mechanics…"

"One does have confidence in the dapper workman…"

"… Who uses Brylcream…"

"… Smokes filter-type cigarettes…"

"… Brushes when he can with Gardol…"

"… And drives a wide-track Pontiac…"

They laughed together. Then, with a flourish, he released the jack and the Sprite settled to the ground with a puff of dirt. Mirelle tried to rise, struggling awkwardly. He was at her side in one long step, holding out his hands.

"You really have wrenched it," he said with a low whistle.

Suppressing an irresponsible yearning that he'd sweep her in his arms and deposit her, preferably in his car, Mirelle allowed him to help her limp to the Sprite. When she started to swing her legs under the wheel, he caught her by the knee and, over her protests, deftly removed the jodhpur boots. She pressed her lips against the pain. Under the heavy athletic sock, the swelling was apparent.

"I got tossed," she said ruefully as they both examined the injury.

"The beauties of spring, no doubt, distracted you," he said, grinning up at her, his lean attractive face alive to the humor of her situation. His eyes, she noticed, were grey blue and he was tired.

"No, it was Boots' week to spook at dead tree branches."

He rose in a lithe movement and retrieved his coat from the back of the Sprite. He took the handkerchief from the breast pocket, a large red silk square. Deftly folding it into a length, he tied it in a brace around her foot.

"That's a good handkerchief."

"We Knights of the Road use nothing but the best," he said glibly, fastening the knot securely. He rose, brushed off his dusty knee and regarded her expectantly.

"It does feel better strapped this way."

"Do I give the old Scout Master's words of wisdom on sprains?"

"Hardly necessary," Mirelle said with a laugh, suddenly at ease again with his flippancy. "One of my favorite pastimes is ankle-bending. I'm surprised they bother to swell anymore."

She swivelled around and put her foot gingerly on the clutch pedal.

"Your boot, madam." With a cavalier bow, he presented it.

"Monsieur, vous etes un vrai chevalier," she heard herself saying.

"Enchante," he replied and his lips twitched as he noticed her flush. "Seriously, though, shouldn't I follow you to make sure you can drive all right?"

"Oh, I haven't all that far to go," she said hastily. "I'll make it. But your handkerchief…"

He waved aside that consideration. "Remember me the next time you play tisket-a-tasket."

Before she could protest, he had turned and strode back to the Thunderbird. Gingerly she started the car, wincing with pain as she pressed the injured foot down to shift to second.

He did follow her down the highway, all the way to Silverside Road where she turned off. She saw his farewell salute as the Thunderbird proceeded straight on, toward town.