“Sure. I’d love to. Noon?”
“Noon is great. I’ll put my bike rack on my car tomorrow, so I can give you a ride home. We can probably cram it in the backseat now…” He trailed off, and Orla had the sense that cramming anything onto the leather seats of his car would put Spencer on edge.
She shook her head.
“I like the evening ride. There’s another hour of daylight, anyhow. Once the sun sets, I’ll get a few more hours of purple twilight. I wouldn’t want to miss it.”
“Purple twilight,” he murmured, smiling. “Sounds like a song. It was nice to meet you, Orla. I look forward to tomorrow.”
Orla offered a little wave and grabbed her bike from where she leaned it by a tree. She pedaled off, not turning to see if he watched her as she rode away.
Chapter 6
Orla
Orla leaned back on her bike, pulling her hands away from the handlebars and opening her arms wide. The blacktop rushed beneath her, the trees ticking by one after another, and up ahead the expansive blue of a cloudless summer day almost convinced her she could fly. She lifted her gaze from the road, the wind whipping her hair back, and laughed.
The opening night of Phantom of the Opera at the Old Town Playhouse had been a hit. The costumes she’d made were beautiful. Ginger, the lead actress, had gushed over the design and insisted she would appeal to the playhouse owner to bring Orla on full time as the costume designer. The mere thought of the possibility made her giddy.
Orla gripped the handlebars and opened her feet to the sides as she slowed and coasted into the dirt parking lot at Birch Park. As she rounded the welcome sign, she glimpsed a young woman at the edge of the forest. Around Orla’s age, with long blonde hair parted in the middle, and wearing a yellow t-shirt and shorts, she had looked lost for a moment, even fearful.
Orla pushed her bike into high weeds behind a tree and walked back across the lot to offer the woman help. Perhaps she’d gotten lost hiking.
The stretch of forest appeared empty.
Orla frowned, walked to the trailhead, and gazed down the grassy footpath. No sign of her.
“Hello?” she called out, but her voice was muffled by the sound of a car pulling in behind her. Orla turned to see the gold Corvette.
Spencer parked and waved out the window.
“Hey there, Orla Delaney Sullivan,” he called, before stepping out.
“A bona fide picnic basket,” Orla announced when Spencer plucked the basket from his backseat.
“My mother owns every food-related item ever created,” he told her. “Is it fondue you’re after? She’s got a set. Or how about a teasmade? No one wants to bother with a teapot anymore. That’s so 1950s.”
Orla laughed.
“A teasmade! I happen to love my teapot. Your mother sounds like an interesting woman.”
His eyes darkened, and then he smiled.
“Yes, she is interesting.”
“Does she work?” Orla asked, picking up the plaid blanket he’d brought folded in the trunk. The items made her want to laugh - they seemed pulled from an advertisement. Accessories for the Perfect Picnic, it would say in red, bold letters against a backdrop of blue sky, and a grassy field with a smiling, blonde, blue-eyed family.
“She doesn’t work. She inherited money after my dad died…”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Orla apologized. “That’s terrible.”
“I wasn’t even two. I have no memory of him.”
Orla followed Spencer onto the forest trail, thinking of her own father. He was big and loud and kind. She couldn’t imagine life without him. Her mother was his polar opposite, and yet somehow, they functioned together.
Spencer had traded in his tennis shorts for jean cut-offs and a plain white t-shirt. A red ball cap covered his blond hair. His white tennis shoes looked squeaky clean, as if he’d never worn them outdoors.
White rarely made an appearance in Orla’s closet. She’d thrown on flowery shorts, yellow Converse tennis shoes and a billowy black tank top. In truth, she’d gazed for a few seconds at the long red and orange dress she’d just finished making the week before. It was backless with slits up the sides and a plunging neckline. It was completely unrealistic for a bike ride or a picnic, but she’d considered it for half a second, mostly because it looked so lonesome hanging in her closet.
Orla walked ahead of Spencer, keeping her eyes peeled for the young woman in the yellow shirt, but not a trace of her remained. Orla pointed out a leafy tree fat with black elderberries.
“That’s an elder tree,” she told him. “You know, there were cultures who called the elder tree the Witch’s Tree. They believed every elder tree had a resident witch, and that a witch could turn into an elder tree.”
He plucked one of the black berries.
“Would this be her eye, do you think?” He popped it in his mouth, letting some red-black juice squirt between his lips.
Orla made a face and laughed.
“Does it taste like an eyeball?”
He shook his head.
“Not very sweet though.”
“Look.” Orla pointed to a tall beech tree. The eagle’s nest perched huge and gnarled in the high branches.
Spencer gazed at it for a long time. Orla studied the line of his jaw, his tan neck. He had the body of an anatomy model. Like Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man stretched out in a star, everything perfectly proportioned. Orla had an eye for proportions. A quality she’d inherited from her mother, useful in making and mending clothes.
He caught her looking.
“Do I have a stain on my shirt?” He examined the fabric.
She laughed.
“No. You’re very symmetrical. I was just noticing.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
“I’ve received a few compliments in my life, but symmetrical is not one of them.”
She grinned and shrugged.
“Life of a seamstress.”
He watched her for a moment.
“Orla the Seamstress. Has a nice ring.”
“And Spencer the what?”
“Spencer the hungry,” he said, grabbing the blanket and fanning it out. He shook it high, and for an instant the fabric covered her, darkened the forest, and then it slid down and she could see once more.
Rain poured over the windshield, and the wipers swished dizzyingly but couldn’t keep the glass clear. Spencer appeared relaxed, unaffected by the storm.
“Well, that was sudden,” Orla murmured, putting her hand on the armrest in the car and trying not to squeeze. She didn’t like thunderstorms, never had. Her father claimed she got lost once during a rainstorm when she was only a toddler. They’d been at the beach with friends, and she’d wandered down a sand dune, just out of sight. The rain came from nowhere, a deluge of sharp water that blurred the already dreamy quality of the sand dunes. Orla’s father had found her within minutes, clutching a tree and shrieking.
Orla had no memory of the day, but she couldn’t deny the unease that coursed through her during heavy storms.
“Wow. Did you see that one?” Spencer asked as lightning shattered the sky. For an instant the wet, leafy trees glowed white.
Spencer pulled down a long driveway shrouded by trees. Orla squinted at the mailbox, but could not read the name or number.