Three Dirty Women and the Shady Acres
“Oh for goodness sake, hold your pants on, Mr. Taggart!” Hazel Jurik’s voice descended into irritation at the sight of the old man standing by the broken concrete birdbath.
The wizened old man looked around, startled, his mouth white around the mouthpiece of his bagpipes. Not waiting for Hazel to reach him, the man inhaled deeply and prepared to blow. Until two years ago, Taggart had proudly marched with his pipes in the town parades. That last year had been a disaster, and had clued all of them in on Taggart’s condition. Memory impaired, he hadn’t even begun to play two notes related to each other, much less something that could be called music.
Taggart’s features settled into defiance, and he began to play. The wail that resulted confirmed what Korine McFaile, Amilou Whittier, and Janey Bascom had feared was about to happen. All three partners in Three Dirty Women Landscaping, Inc. covered their ears, Amilou muttering under her breath.
Hazel’s high heels left dimples in the soft bare earth of the sparsely turfed lawn as she closed in on the man. For his part, Olan Taggart glared furiously at her from under faded bushy eyebrows. Still blowing on the pipes, he executed an about face with military precision and marched away from the advancing woman. Spindly bare legs strutted beneath the hem of his kilt. Behind Taggart, hanging from a stout limb of the venerable white oak which gave Shady Acres its name, an empty bird feeder swung time with his mournful step.
The stiff breeze coming off the ridge tore slivers of dull brown leaves from the oaks and chased them across the lawn. Korine pulled the collar of her pea coat up around her neck as she watched the fuming woman who, a moment before, had been the sweetest, kindest administrator a nursing home could ever want to see.
Korine had come by early to talk with Hazel about the facility before her partners arrived. The visit had set her mind at rest about her mother-in-law. When the time came that Dora McFaile needed more care - as it most certainly would - Shady Acres would be a good choice. Dora had moved in with Korine six months before, after she’d set the stove on fire in her own house. If Korine hadn’t developed the habit of stopping by a couple of times a day to check on Dora, the entire building might have burned to the ground.
Dora’s remaining son, Cal, had seen nothing wrong with this behavior. Despite the signs, he had refused to stand behind Korine’s decision to confiscate Dora’s car keys, or to consider any medical care other than regular doctor’s appointments. With Cal down in Charlotte, Korine’s son, Chaz, in Savannah, and the other grandsons scattered to the winds, Dora’s care fell to Korine. Most of the boys supported Korine - especially her son, Chaz, her favorite nephew, Dennis, and his sweet wife over in Knoxville - but Cal remained argumentative every step of the way.
Korine’s husband Charlie had once summed up Cal’s personality by saying that his younger brother would debate the birds right out of the trees. Remembering her husband’s exasperation with his younger brother, Korine smiled ruefully as she watched Hazel try to coax the bagpipes away from Mr. Taggart. When the time came to talk to Cal about Dora, Korine would have a fight on her hands.
Mr. Taggart glared up at the ramrod-straight administrator as he jabbed his outstretched finger at her chest. Hazel retreated a step, then replied, her hands rigidly at her sides. She must have been very good at talking people down, because whatever she said seemed to work the trick. Mr. Taggart’s face lost some of the ruddy hue that had begun to alarm Korine. He wasn’t so relaxed that he didn’t whip the chanter to his pipes out of Hazel’s way when she reached for it.
“Hasn’t lost his temper, has he?” asked Janey Bascom. She’d jammed her hands into the pockets of her red canvas jacket trying to keep them warm in the fall breeze. The color complemented her creamy brown skin, while the cut emphasized her slimness. Korine gave a thought to wishing she could look like she had in her thirties, but then decided that she would rather endure a few wrinkles and the smattering of gray gracing her brown curls than be thirty all over again. The past twenty-odd years held precious memories that she wouldn’t trade for anything.
Hazel caught the unfortunate man by the elbow and steered him firmly back toward the building. The plaid of his wool kilt fluttered as Taggart stumbled after the administrator, leaving Korine, Janey, and their third partner, Amilou Whittier, with a fit of the giggles. Stepping over the threshold, Hazel put her hand to Taggart’s back, still urging him forward.
“Does that answer the age-old question, or do we need to check out a few more Scotsman?” Amilou asked. One carefully darkened eyebrow disappeared under her honey-blond bangs. The bright flash of baby blue boxers had confirmed what Korine always suspected. At least one Scotsman wore something more than tartan between himself and the rest of the world.
Janey’s creamy brown skin acquired a rosy hue even as her lips curved into a shy smile. The subtle reaction warmed Korine. There had been a time when Janey wouldn’t have dared smiled at a joke like that. Her disastrous first marriage had crushed much of Janey’s natural sense of humor. Fortunately, she had found the strength to escape Darnel’s abuse. She’d exercised much better judgment the second time around. Janey called her present husband her knight in shining armor. Korine couldn’t think of a better way to describe Police Chief J.J. Bascom.
Korine again dragged her attention back to the matter at hand. “Well, until Hazel gets back and can tell us what she wants out of all this…” Amilou gave up trying to finish her statement, evidently for lack of inspiration. Years of poor upkeep by so-called lawn care services had left what grass there was scalped and scanty. There were no ornamental plantings to speak of. The first owner had run out of money soon after putting down the imported marble on the floors of the home. Recently acquired by an out-of-town company -- one reportedly better managed than the last owner – things were changing at Shady Acres. It was to be hoped that Hazel would give them good news when she got to the budget part of the proposal.
“Maybe more to the point, what would a Scotsman like in his garden?” Amilou asked. “Mr. Taggart used to have a terrific vegetable patch alongside his house.”
Janey shook her head. “I don’t think the residents can handle that. My vote is for a nice walking path through a restful garden.”
“Not all our residents are as challenged as Mr. Taggart,” Hazel said as she rejoined the three women.
“I agree with you,” Amilou said. “Just because these folks are retired doesn’t mean they’re dead and buried. Most of them had little garden plots at home, no reason that they can’t have them here as well. Although,” she added judiciously, “perhaps you ought to make certain that Mr. Taggart’s plot is well away from the building in case he decides his plants need music to help them grow.”
Amilou reached up and plucked her pencil out of her smooth ponytail. She made a note on her clipboard. “It’s fairly level out by the staff parking lot in back. The soil isn’t too bad. Truck in a little garden mix, put some borders up for raised beds, you’ll be set.” She paused and pointed down the hill toward the duck pond. “But Janey has a good point. A relaxing walking space would be good here too.”
Korine added her voice to the chorus. “The pond would be a good destination, but we’ll need to do something more than plunk a path in to make it work. I’m thinking a series of benches and beds to draw them onward.” Korine was rewarded by a quick look of gratitude from Janey.
Amilou had a slight smile on her face as she made another note on the clipboard. She looked up, saw that Janey had gone on ahead with Hazel, and winked at Korine. The two of them had been friends for so many years, it seemed that they were always on the same page – or had been until the summer two years before when Amilou’s husband, Greg, had died mysteriously. Their friendship wasn’t as close as it had been, but moments like these gave Korine hope that they could finish mending the breach between them.
“Get me a drawing I can take to Mr. Owens,” Hazel said as Korine and Amilou caught up with the other two in the parking lot behind the building. “Quite frankly, a lot of it depends what sort of mood he’s in and how many of our residents stay more than a month. Not to mention if the insurance companies have consented to pay the claims.” She shook the women’s hands briskly.
Trying not to show her surprise at the abrupt dismissal, Korine said, “We’ll get a proposal to you along these lines. I think we’ve discussed just about everything.”
“There is one more thing. We’d like a fenced area outside the door to the secure unit.” Hazel caught the tail end of a startled look on Amilou’s face and must have interpreted it as censure.
“We really do keep better tabs on our residents than you’d think.” Shady Acres had been placed on the state watch list due to the death of one of their residents during the first cold snap of the year. Hazel had been frank with Korine when she’d asked about Maris Falkirk’s untimely death. The woman had wandered out an unsecured door. She’d been found hypothermic and unconscious under the tall weeping willow by the front gate to the property. Even though taken immediately to the hospital, she’d died two days later.
“I know, it sounds bad, not being able to keep track of our residents. Someone is opening the locked door in the secure wing and the residents take to the open air like lemmings. It’s happened so many times in the last month I don’t know what to do. At least if we had a fence there, it would be an additional hurdle for them to cross before they got out on their own.”
“Buster Klein down at the hardware store could help you, I’m sure,” Korine said. The Hardware store in town had recently branched out into various services, trying to compete with the big warehouse hardware store that recently opened up on the freeway on outskirts of the next town over. In the course of the past year, Buster had gotten to be a good friend. She’d love to give him more business. “You need his number?”
“Would you mind taking care of it? You can bundle the cost in with the landscaping.”
Hazel handed Amilou a folded sheet of paper. “Here’s our budget. It’s not as much as I wanted, but really more than I thought Mr. Owen would let us do.” She looked over her shoulder. “I’d better get back inside and see if they’ve managed to settle Mr. Taggart down. He’s pretty agitated today.” The trace of worry clouding her brow robbed the woman’s words of any hint of shortness.
“We’ll get this to you by the early part of next week,” Korine promised.
As Hazel reentered the building, the three women surveyed the lie of the land. A soft slope ran from the squat one-story building down a short ridge to the road. Falling away from the ridge on the north side was a tangle of tall evergreens and the usual accompanying forest undergrowth. The south side had a cleaner look to it, having been cleared when Shady Acres was built. The lawn ran down to the pond at the bottom of the hill.
The oaks from which the home had gotten its name lent their leafy bowers to softening the look of the place. The largest of them stretched up and over the east wing of the building, and reached down to welcome the drive as it wound its way up the hillside. There weren’t many oaks around Pine Grove, which, appropriately enough, had more pines and other evergreens than hardwoods. These oaks were significantly old. Probably planted by a farmer to shade his homestead well over a century ago, they lent a serenity to the hill with their swaying branches. The property had a lot of potential.
“That needs a circular bench around it,” Amilou said decisively, pointing to the largest tree. “And some of those limbs don’t look too firm. Maybe we need to call Frank and have him come have a look?”
Janey nodded. “I’ll do that,” she said. Frank Cornelius was an arborist that the ladies used from time to time when they needed a good tree consultant.
The women walked together to Amilou’s car where Amilou made a few more notes in her notebook before unlocking the door for Janey. “They really missed the boat when they took all the trees off that part of the ridge,” she said with true regret. She checked the budgeted amount Hazel had given them. “We won’t have enough to add any up there if we do all the rest we’ve talked about.”
“It’s actually better this way. If we put trees in, it wouldn’t be long before the garden plots you were talking about got shaded out,” Janey pointed out. “The one tree is beautiful all on its own.”
All three women turned to look at the beautiful tree. The wind had gentled to a light breeze, which fluttered the oak’s branches. Smiling, Korine turned back to Janey and Amilou.
“You packed yet?” Korine asked Janey.
“It’s been so long since I was home, I don’t even know what to wear there. Memaw will kill me if I don’t look nice for her friends.”
Janey was leaving for Louisiana Sunday to visit her grandmother for a long weekend. As well as Korine knew her, she had never met Janey’s family. In all that time, none of them had come to Pine Grove. No one came when Janey went through her divorce. No one came when she remarried. Korine had assumed that Janey was pretty much alone in the world. The announcement that Janey would be going home to visit her grandmother had been accompanied by an uncharacteristically chilly glance declaring the topic closed for future comment.
“Korine, you call me in the morning and we’ll meet to see what we can put together.” Amilou turned to Janey. “You won’t have a lot of spare time getting ready for your mysterious trip back home, so we won’t count on you.”
Only Amilou could get away with talking like that to people, Korine thought.
“But if you have any great ideas, you’ll have our phone numbers with you, right?” Amilou added.
“I know them all by heart,” Janey laughed. “And I’ll have plenty of time to think about things while I’m driving.”
Everything decided, the women got into the cars to head home. As Korine steered her way down the drive, she had a vision of Shady Acres as it could be, banks of azaleas alight in spring, crocuses popping up to greet the warming sun. An oriole heading south for the winter flew overhead as she approached the pond and left her a reminder of the of life splashed across her windshield. She hit the windshield wiper fluid button and made a mental note to add birdfeeders and lots of berry-bearing shrubs to the mix. Dora spent an inordinate amount of time documenting the birds which visited her feeders each morning. Windshields not withstanding, folks here might appreciate the same opportunity.
She turned
out onto the highway and accelerated. The clock on the dash read eight after five
. Reaching down, Korine pulled her grocery list out of the pocket on her
door. Milk, butter, bread, and Dora’s medicine. That last made the trip
necessary even though she knew Lorraine
would be impatient to get home to her family. Even though
Korine ran through the contents of her freezer in her mind. They needed chicken to have with dinner too. Korine took the turn-off into town. A quick stop at the Wynn-Dixie and she’d be home.
The aisles were crowded with folks getting ready for the weekend. Korine steered her cart around a woman pushing a basket with three raucous children hanging off the side. She saw Sarah Jane Jenkins at the end of the row and slowed down, hiding her head behind a stack of canned pumpkin. She didn’t have time to stop and pass the time of day with the biggest gossip in town.
Once Sarah Jane was safely past, Korine grabbed the items she needed and ran her cart over to the pharmacy.
Sarah Jane stood at the counter. She looked up from putting her wallet back in her purse and spied Korine. She picked up the small bag and waggled it in the air. “I’ve got to get up and give this to the nurses,” she said, as if Korine had accosted her. “I wish they’d give me more warning when they’re going to change mother’s medicine. They want to start her on this tonight.”
As she waited for the pharmacy worker to slap the label on Dora’s pills, Korine watched Sarah Jane’s back as she bustled toward the front of the store. Sarah Jane’s mother, Mrs. Lawson, didn’t have Alzheimer’s. Far from it. Sharp as a tack, and twice as spiteful, she gave her daughter daily hell for ‘putting her away’. Sarah Jane’s mother stridently asserted that she was perfectly fine, conveniently forgetting that her arthritis was so debilitating that she needed help to do the littlest thing. Both Sarah Jane and Korine had their hands full. A flush of shame at avoiding the other woman bloomed in Korine’s heart. On the other hand, Korine reminded herself as she signed the credit card receipt, she might be forgiven for thinking her own troubles were as much as any one human being could handle in one day.
Turning, Korine ran right into the person behind her in line.
Colleen Taylor, Doc’s pretty young nurse, spluttered an apology. “I’m so sorry Mrs. McFaile. I didn’t leave you enough room.”
“I should have looked where I was going,” Korine apologized in turn. “How are things in the office?”
“Busy as anything. This flu outbreak is so early in the year, I don’t know what winter will be like.”
“You look a little peaked yourself.”
Colleen leveled a look at Korine that would freeze a margarita in its glass. “Thanks.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Korine protested.
“It’s all right. You’re just the fifth person since I walked in the door to tell me that,” Colleen sighed.
“I see you’ve got plenty of Tylenol in there,” Korine indicated Colleen’s basket. Three bottles rested there next to frozen vegetables, a roast chicken, and a bag of chocolate candies.
Colleen laughed. “Not all for me, I can assure you. Doc’s got me delivering medicines to some of the older folks who can’t get out because of the flu. Tylenol is one of those things they can’t do without.” She consulted a prescription in her hand, then handed it over the counter to the Pharmacist.
“How’s the older Mrs. McFaile?” Colleen asked.
Doc’s nurse had always been a likeable young woman, very solicitous and helpful during Dora’s office visits. Tonight, Colleen’s searching look seemed intrusive. She’d hesitated slightly before she said Mrs. McFaile, as if she had started to say something else and changed her mind. Her thinly tweezed eyebrow cocked a little too sardonically for Korine’s taste.
Taken aback, Korine shook off the irrational feeling that Colleen’s friendly manner masked something mean-spirited. Dora’s paranoia must be catching. She shook off the sensation. If she didn’t, her next stop would be Klein’s hardware to pick up extra padlocks for the door.
Not that
she’d need the locks once she finished talking to Buster. Soon after
Korine had gotten back from
“Not bad,
considering,” she said, hauling her mind back into the grocery store and
out of the front seat of Buster’s car at the end of their last date. To
her credit, Korine found that she wasn’t blushing. “It’s been a
fairly good week. I don’t know what we’d do without
“She stays with Mrs. McFaile when you’re gone?”
This time
there was no mistaking the intensity of Colleen’s interest. Korine took
a mental step back. Perhaps Colleen was so tired of working in Doc’s
office that she was eyeing this sort of job for herself. Korine had plenty
of help with
“Speaking of which,” Korine said hastily, “I’d better get on home.”
Korine turned away as Colleen mouthed a startled good-bye. Rationalizing her unaccustomed rudeness, Korine reminded herself that she really did need to get home to check on Dora. Pushing her cart up to the checkout stand, she unloaded the few groceries she had and pulled out her wallet.
Collecting her change, she scooted out to her car and started the motor. The fifteen minutes she’d spent in the store wouldn’t make that much difference, but that didn’t make Korine feel any less guilty. She pressed on the gas and made the turn for home.
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