Part 3 (1/2)

”Well,” Neely said. ”Sort of.” Willie probably referred to Dad's cousin, William Logan. She'd didn't know Willie very well because Mom didn't seem to like him very much. So even though Willie and his wife, Brenda, lived in the Salinas valley, which wasn't all that far away, there'd never been much visiting back and forth. ”I know Mom doesn't like Willie very much because she thinks the land in the valley ought to belong to us instead of to him,” Neely said.

”You got it,” Lucie said. ”But do you know why?”

”Not really.”

”Well, what happened was that when Dad was away living in Berkeley, at the university at first and then with Mom after they were married, Willie came here and lived with Grandpa and helped out with the motel and the Salinas farm, and then after Grandpa died Willie claimed that he'd been promised the Salinas valley land. But the thing is, Grandpa's will didn't say so. The will left everything to Dad except for a few thousand dollars to Willie. So legally Dad could have kept the property. But he didn't because Willie didn't have zip, not a red cent, and Dad did inherit this place and the motel. And Willie had lived with Grandpa and helped him out for so long. But Mom thought we should have had the farm, too, and now that it's making a lot of money it really bugs her that Willie has it all. Especially now with Aaron in medical school and me in college and you and Grub still to educate.” Lucie shrugged and sighed and then she laughed. ”The thing is, Mom loves Dad for being a softhearted old cream puff, but sometimes she hates him for it too.”

Neely couldn't help grinning, too, even though she was still sniffing and sobbing a little. ”I know,” she said. ”Like how mad she got when he tried to get her to be the one to fire Angie.” Angie had been a maid at the motel who kept stealing lipsticks and eye shadow from the guests. ”I mean, Dad just couldn't do it even after he'd caught Angie red-handed.”

”Right,” Lucie said. ”Red-handed and red-lipped too. That's Dad all right. He's just too softhearted for his own good.”

”Then you don't think they're going to get a divorce?” Neely asked.

”Nope. Never. Believe me, Neely. Connie and John Bradford are not getting a divorce. Not now, not ever,” She got a Kleenex out of her purse and gave it to Neely, turned on the ignition, and drove on up the driveway to the house.

Watching Lucie gun the car up the steep graveled driveway and then maneuver skillfully into the narrow s.p.a.ce between the garage and the oak tree, Neely suddenly felt a lot better. Lucie was so sure and certain about everything, maybe she was right about Mom and Dad too.

At dinner that night everything did seem pretty much okay. Lucie talked about her summer job at the university and her latest boyfriend, and Mom got out the new pictures of Julie and Ted's baby and talked about how sad it was that Julie and Ted and her only grandchild lived so far away. Everyone talked a lot except Grub, but at least he was there at the table.

Grub had come out of his room just before dinner, and during the meal he even listened to Neely's plans for Robinson's funeral and said okay. He looked pretty much all right. The red was almost gone from his eyes and his eyelashes were dry and furry again. The rest of the family seemed to think he was entirely back to normal.

That night when Neely was getting into bed Lucie stuck her head in the door and said, ”See, I was right, wasn't I? No divorce, and Grub's just fine.”

And Neely said, ”Sure, Lucie. You're always right. Everybody knows that.” But actually she wasn't so sure. Oh, Lucie was probably right about Mom and Dad. After all, she had known them a lot longer than Neely had, and besides she'd taken all those college courses with t.i.tles like ”Marriage and the Family,” so she probably was pretty much of an expert on things like parents and divorce. But she wasn't an expert on Grub. n.o.body in the world knew Grub as well as Neely did, and she was pretty certain that Grub wasn't anywhere near as okay as Lucie seemed to think he was.

Chapter 14.

THEY HAD THE FUNERAL THE FIRST THING THE NEXT morning. Grub picked out a place for the grave between the chicken run and the rabbit hutch, and Dad helped him dig the hole. Lucie helped Neely decorate the cardboard coffin and Neely finished painting Robinson's picture on the tombstone she'd made from the central panel of an old chair back. Then the whole family made a procession around the property carrying the coffin and stopping in all the places Robinson had liked best-such as the arbor where he often slept on the sunny end of the picnic table and the vegetable garden where he liked to hunt for gophers. While they walked they sang We Are the World, which Grub said was Robinson's favorite song.

Grub seemed to handle it very well. He didn't cry, at least not out loud. Not even when Dad put the coffin down into the grave. When it was over everyone hugged him and said how brave he'd been and how proud they were of him. Neely said it, too, but she didn't mean it. What she really was feeling was worried.

Something was definitely different about Grub. Something hushed and deadened. She saw it in his eyes and in the tight way he held his mouth when they were all hugging him. But there was no use mentioning it to the others since they obviously thought everything was okay. And Neely also knew there was no use trying to ask Grub about it because he probably didn't understand it himself.

Lucie stayed almost until dark on Sunday and she and Neely had another talk while they were weeding the garden. At first they talked about Grub, and Lucie sort of said ”I told you so” about how quickly Grub was getting over Robinson. Neely didn't argue. And then, mostly to change the subject, she started talking about Willie and Dad and the valley property. ”I guess there wouldn't have been any problem if Dad had come home after he finished college,” she said. ”Why did Dad stay in Berkeley instead of coming back to the coast?”

Lucie laughed. ”Good question. You know how he's always raving about the 'old homestead' and how he was born with the wild and wonderful Big Sur coast in his blood. But he just wasn't cut out to be a Salinas valley vegetable farmer, and that's what Grandpa wanted him to be. What Dad really wanted to do was teach literature at the university. But then before he finished graduate school he married Mom and they bought the bookstore instead.”

”Yeah,” Neely said. ”I know about that.” She'd heard a lot about the bookstore from Mom and Dad, who seemed to remember it quite differently. Dad's bookstore memories seemed to be about meeting interesting customers and reading all the great books, and Mom remembered worries about money and paying taxes.

It wasn't until they'd pretty much covered the subject of the Bradfords in the pre-Neely-and-Grub days that Neely brought up the Hutchinsons and Halcyon House. The first thing she asked was if Lucie had ever met any of the Hutchinsons.

”Me?” Lucie said. ”No, I never did. How old do you think I am, anyway? Dad remembers seeing all the cars going up to the mansion when he was a little boy, and then when he was a teenager I think he met Harold the third and his brother a few times. But even by then the family had stopped spending very much time on the coast. I think it was in the sixties, after Harold the second died, that they really stopped coming to Halcyon altogether. I don't know why exactly. Maybe they couldn't afford to come, or maybe they just weren't as crazy about the place anymore. What made you think about the Hutchinsons?”

”Oh, I don't know.” Neely was a little disappointed that Lucie hadn't much information that was new and exciting. ”I was just wondering.”

It wasn't until Lucie left to go back to Santa Cruz that Neely had a chance to talk to Grub. She found him in his room sitting on the edge of his bed, not reading or playing with anything. Just sitting. When she stuck her head in the door and said, ”Hi,” he smiled and said, ”Hi,” back. But the smile wasn't real. He was in a mood, all right. A bad one.

Neely came in and sat down at the end of the bed. ”Look,” she said. ”I'm bored. How would you like to play a game of checkers? Or dominoes? Or maybe Scrabble?”

Grub looked all around before he answered, as if he hoped a good answer to Neely's question were written somewhere on the walls of the room. Then he shook his head and said, ”No. I don't feel like playing a game. Not right now.”

Neely began to feel frustrated. ”Well, what do you feel like then, you little dweeb? Just sitting there moping all evening?”

”I'm not moping,” Grub said. ”I'm going to...I'm going to...read a book.” He got up off the bed, went to his bookcase, and picked up a book-without even looking to see what it was. ”See. I'm going to read this book.” He held it out toward Neely and smiled.

There was something so pitiful about Grub's phony smile that Neely felt guilty for getting mad at him. ”Okay,” she said. ”Read your book. But let's do something special tomorrow. Okay? Something fun.”

”Okay.” Grub nodded, but his eyes said he didn't much care one way or the other. ”Like what?”

”Well... Neely racked her brain, and came up with: ”Hey, I know. Tomorrow's Monday. We could go to Halcyon House.”

Grub looked up quickly. ”And go inside?” he asked.

”No. Not inside. We can't do that anymore. It's too...dangerous.”

”Oh.” Grub shrugged and turned away.

”Well,” Neely said. ”I don't know. We could just go there and see about it. We could visit Lion and see about going inside.”

”Okay.” A spark flickered in Grub's eyes. ”Let's go see about it.”

Chapter 15.

BUT THEY DID GO INSIDE HALCYON HOUSE THE NEXT DAY because, as it turned out, nothing else worked. Nothing else-not playing with Lion or watching the tadpoles, even though they were beginning to grow hind legs and were pretty interesting, or making up a new game to play in the stable-did very much to change Grub's mood. It wasn't until Neely suggested that maybe they could go back inside the house again, just for a little while, that Grub began to pull out of it.

”Okay,” he said, turning quickly to look at Neely. ”We'll just stay for a little while.”

”Right!” Neely said as they climbed up the wisteria vine and made their way carefully across the slippery s.h.i.+ngles. ”Just for a little while-and for the last time. That's for sure.”

Opening the window was a little easier, but it still required quite a bit of tugging and pulling, and while Neely was still working at it Grub squeezed through ahead of her. She was just starting through herself, on her stomach, when from inside the room she heard Grub saying loudly, ”We're only going to stay a little while today.” But by the time she'd scrambled to her feet he was going through the drawers of the dressing table, and when she asked who he'd been talking to he only shrugged and smiled and said, ”Myself. I was just talking to myself.”

They started at the top floor ballroom that day and really didn't stay very long, at least not up there. Just long enough for Grub to play one record and for Neely to walk quickly around the long room, stopping briefly to look out the window behind the bandstand. The one with the window seat in front of the great view down into the canyon and then on out to the ocean.

On the other floors, too, they moved fairly quickly. As they entered each room Grub ran around opening drawers and cupboards and making comments about what was inside. He found old clothes and papers mostly, but sometimes interesting things like a hairbrush and mirror set with tarnished silver backs, a beautiful crystal paper weight shaped like a rose, and a collection of fancy perfume bottles.