“Thing is, I met a girl today. At the coffee place.” Lucy continued filing her nails, while the rest of them stood around the kitchen.
“Yes? And?” Gwen finally blurted out.
“I didn’t think you were listening.” Used to being the baby of the house, Lucy was always off guard at being taken seriously. Her brows furrowed as she pulled together the thought that she’d thrown out so casually. “I said I needed an extra shot because they always make the cappuccinos so weak, and this girl said, yes, not like in Europe. I asked her where she was from, and she said from Florida, by way of London and France. She learned to be a barista there. Born in the Caribbean. You should have seen the pattern she made in the foam — a perfect leaf. I think she said she’d studied political science at Berkeley. She wore the most beautiful canvas shoes from India, embroidered with all these sequins and—”
“Does this sound as bad to anyone else as it does to me?” Gwen asked, already turning away.
Mrs. Girbaldi sighed, tearing lettuce leaves, so much they had enough to feed twenty. “Let the girl talk.”
“And she’d want the job why?”
“Oh, I forgot the whole point of the story — she got fired while I was there. She was crying, and I offered to take her for a sandwich to calm down. She hadn’t eaten the whole day and was starving. She was hysterical — said she couldn’t pay the rent that was due. She owed money to some boyfriend, something like that.”
“I don’t think so.” Gwen continued peeling potatoes.
“Why did she get fired?” Claire asked.
“That was what was so strange. There was some old guy who came in every morning whose eyesight was failing, and she always brought him his coffee. That morning she took off with his briefcase — just left the store. The manager accused her of stealing until the old man came back and explained that she had returned it to him. She told the manager to f— off anyway.”
Claire felt determined about something for the first time that day. “I don’t want you giving up your job.”
“I should to be here with you,” Lucy said without conviction.
“This coffee girl isn’t the kind of person we are looking for,” Gwen said finally, wiping her hands on a dish towel.
“Why not?” Lucy said.
“Remember when Mom was out of bay leaves? And you went outside and picked leaves off the tree, insisting they were bay leaves?”
Lucy’s face turned blotchy. “What are you talking about?”
“And Mom thanked you and pretended to put them in the soup?”
“Oh, my God. I was six years old!”
“For all you knew, they could have been oleander. You could have killed us all,” Gwen said.
“Can you get hold of her?” Claire asked.
“Who?”
“The coffee girl!”
“I know the apartment I dropped her off at. But she was moving out,” Lucy said. “Maybe I should drive over now? Get her name and cell number.”
“You don’t even know her name?” Gwen said.
“Minna. I think her name’s Minna, okay? It’s not like she wants the job. Bay leaves!”
The whole plan unraveling, the girls arguing, Claire’s chance to stay at the farm taken and replaced by an unwanted, cobbled second childhood in a condo in Sacramento. “Go talk to her. I have a feeling about this one.”
Lucy got her keys.
“What about dinner?” Gwen said.
“I lost my appetite.” Lucy slammed the back door.
* * *
Mrs. Girbaldi hummed as she cut cucumbers. One of the traits Claire loved in her was her cool unflappability. Nothing, including their family squabble, affected her.
“Take it easy on Lucy,” Claire said to Gwen. “She’s still fragile.”
“How long does she get away with that excuse?” Gwen banged the oven door shut on the potatoes and left the room. Despite her maternal solicitude, her taking charge, her furious cleaning and cooking in the house, she chafed against her self-appointed role.
“She’s mad about me hiring a girl. Thinks it will interfere with me selling the ranch.”
“Will it?” Mrs. Girbaldi was never sly about getting to the point.
“As if that’s the only way she can be happy.”
Claire turned away to set the table. Knife, fork, spoon. Knife, fork, spoon. Raisi’s love of routine now her own. The farm would go on for a while longer, and she would go on for a while longer with it. She banged the glassware down on the table so hard it was in danger of shattering. Gwen and Lucy weren’t the only ones with a temper. Sometimes people simply didn’t understand what it was that created and sustained them. Regardless, this girl Minna would have to do.
Chapter 3
After an uneasy dinner spent listening for Lucy’s return, the dishes had been cleared away, and Gwen, still angry, watched a movie while Claire played gin with Mrs. Girbaldi, pretending not to notice when she cheated by fudging on their long-running scorecard. Mrs. Girbaldi was on her third cocktail by the time Lucy returned with the girl from the coffeehouse. Driven by different motivations each, they rushed from different rooms of the house to gather in the entry hall to satisfy their curiosity.
The afternoon had blued to evening, and the only thing that illuminated was the small, overhead light from the open passenger door, as a tall, lanky form stretched out her legs. The girl stood in the driveway, turning once, and then again in a full circle, appearing satisfied as she surveyed the grounds around her as if she owned the place and had merely come to check on things, perhaps take a retreat, rather than to be in service there. They stood in line for inspection and greeting.
Claire admired this sense of confidence. What struck her first as the girl walked toward them was that, despite the dusk, she wore dark, oversize sunglasses, and this gave her both a glamorous and a pitiful air, making it unclear whether they were being visited by someone famous, determined to hide her identity, or, conversely, a blind person hopelessly dependent on the whims of strangers. Transformed, ebullient, Lucy bent her head near the girl’s, whispering something low enough for only her to hear, and both of them giggled with the air of conspirators, reinforcing the feeling of her being just another in a long line of the girls’ many friends who had come visiting over the years. Claire had to remind herself that the two had only just met, their intimacy seemed so natural, and this was yet another thing in the girl’s favor.
When she entered the hallway and stood under the light, at last taking off the sunglasses, a moment’s hush enveloped them. A perverse sense of pride went through Claire at Lucy’s having felt no need to inform them that the girl was black, or at least biracial. She held out her hand. “Hello, I’m Minna.”
The first to break the spell, Claire moved closer to shake her hand, first lightly, then more forcefully, cupping her frozen, thin fingers in her own. “You’re ice-cold! Poor thing. Where have you been?” Claire felt an immediate desire to protect and moved closer still, wrapping an arm around Minna’s shoulders as if offering refuge to one distressed — the girl had a vulnerability that evoked maternal instincts. Taller than Lucy, her body, although slender, gave an impression of muscularity. She had powerful, wide shoulders, and long, tapered fingers that looked as if they held musical promise. Her skin glowed the shade of coffee with milk stirred in, and her brown hair had the sleekness of being straightened and held to a shape not of its own volition.
“Come in, come in,” Claire said, trying to erase the impression of their inspecting her by further and further kindnesses, ushering the girl into the family room, corralling her into the most comfortable chair, fluffing a pillow behind her back, offering a footstool, a bowl of long-preserved, dusty mints. In the girl’s presence, the mints appeared hopelessly provincial. Behind her, she could hear Mrs. Girbaldi’s throat clearing as if to say, Who is interviewing whom?