A Year on Ladybug Farm #1 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  In the Beginning

  Chapter 1 - In Which the Ladies of Huntington Lane Go Looking

  Chapter 2 - In Which a Dream Is Born

  Chapter 3 - In Which a Plan Is Made

  Chapter 4 - Auld Lang Syne

  Spring - Starting Over

  Chapter 5 - Moving On

  Chapter 6 - In Which Help Arrives

  Chapter 7 - Settling In

  Chapter 8 - In Which Bridget Gets into a Jam

  Summer - Growing

  Chapter 9 - In Which the Earth Moves and the Roof Caves In

  Chapter 10 - In Which the Ladies Find Religion

  Chapter 11 - A Few Minor Adjustments

  Chapter 12 - On Farming

  Chapter 13 - In Which All Their Problems Are Solved

  Autumn - Harvest

  Chapter 14 - In Which Preservation Is Paramount

  Chapter 15 - On Children and Other Creatures of the Wild

  Chapter 16 - In Which Ghosts Come in from the Cold

  Chapter 17 - In Which Bridget Has a Very Bad Day

  Winter - Home

  Chapter 18 - In Which an Ill Wind Blows No Good

  Chapter 19 - Mixed Blessings

  Chapter 20 - The Lights of Home

  Chapter 21 - In Which Miracles Happen

  Starting Over

  A grin spread over Lindsay’s face, and Cici’s, and Bridget’s. Then Lindsay grabbed the laptop with its scrolling pictures, hugged it to her chest, and cried fervently, “Oh my God, I love this house!”

  Cici fell on her, embracing both her and the laptop. “Me, too!”

  “I love it more!” exclaimed Bridget as she flung herself into the melee.

  They separated after a breathless moment and sat there with fingers entwined, letting the enormity of the moment sink in.

  “Okay,” Cici said at last. “This is serious.”

  “Totally.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “It’s a huge risk.”

  “Imagine that!” Lindsay grinned. “Taking a risk at our age!”

  “If we’re going to do this, we’re going to have to be committed. We’ve got to promise each other we’ll give it at least a year.”

  Bridget said, “It is like starting over. Like getting a bonus life. We can do this, I know we can.”

  Cici raised her right hand and insisted, “One year.”

  Bridget repeated solemnly, raising her hand, “A year.”

  And Lindsay followed suit. “A year.”

  They clasped hands in midair, eyes shining, the excitement in the air as thick as honey.

  “Okay then,” Cici said. She pulled her legs into a semi-lotus position, took up her legal pad, and picked up her glass of wine. “Let’s make a plan.”

  And so they did.

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’

  imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business

  establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control

  over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2009 by Donna Ball

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form

  without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  eISBN : 978-1-101-01470-7

  1. Female friendship—Fiction. 2. Shenandoah River Valley (Va. and W. Va.)—Fiction.

  3. Dwellings—Maintenance and repair—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3552.A4545Y43 2009

  813’.54—dc22

  2008034288

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  This book is for Shannon, Libby, and Janet . . .

  Who sat on my porch, listened to my stories,

  and said, “You should write a book.”

  And for Gisele, who went for a walk one

  morning and brought back a fawn

  And for Karen, who never stopped believing

  And for Jennifer, who extended her reach

  And for Jackie, who brought us all home.

  You are the women of Ladybug Farm.

  Cheers!

  In the Beginning

  1

  In Which the Ladies of Huntington Lane Go Looking

  August

  “Well,” said Cici, stepping slowly out of the car. “It certainly is big.”

  “And old,” agreed Lindsay, getting out of the passenger side.

  Bridget got out of the backseat and drew in a breath. “Good heavens. It’s—Monticello!”

  Cici and Lindsay glanced back at her, then turned their eyes forward again. Cici pushed her sunglasses up into her hair to better assess the megalith of faded brick and painted Corinthian columns that sprawled before them. In the foreground stood a tangled and overgrown rose garden. In the background, sheep grazed in a meadow that seemed to sweep all the way to the Shenandoah mountains. On the deep front porch, which was partially obscured by giant boxwood tangled with Virginia creeper, a woman in a blue pantsuit waved to them. The three women waggled their fingers back.

  “Okay,” said Bridget, “we’re just looking, right?”

  “Of course we are,” said Lindsay.

  “Absolutely,” agreed Cici.

  “I mean, this isn’t serious.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Not even close.” Cici flipped the sunglasses back down over her eyes, finger-combed her honey blonde bangs back into place, and straightened her shoulders. “Let’s go.”

  Three doors slammed in a rhythmic concerto, three purse straps were slung over shoulders, and three pairs of legs strode forward. Viewed from a distance, they could have been sorority sisters in their designer jeans and walking shorts, slim tanned arms swinging gracefully at their sides, casually coiffed hair glinting in the sunlight. Bridget, the oldest of the three by a couple of years, was shorter and slightly rounder than the other two, but no one could
pull off a pair of kitten-heeled sandals and fuchsia toenail polish like she could. Lindsay wore her auburn ponytail pulled through the band of a baseball cap, and a close-fitting T-shirt that barely skimmed the top of her jeans. There was a time when, as a college student, she couldn’t have afforded the special-edition Vera Bradley Sunshine and Shadow quilted backpack bag she carried by one strap across her shoulder, but no more. Cici was blue-eyed and covered in freckles, head to toe. She had the legs of a dancer, which looked twice as long and twice as lean in her CKs, and was tall enough to have been a basketball player. But she wasn’t. In fact, none of them were what they appeared to be from a distance.

  It was not their clothes, their sizes, or their accessories that gave them away as they came across the lawn toward the wide front steps of the big house. It was the way they moved: with ease and confidence, and a kind of unconscious pride in being female that no one has when she’s twenty. You’re not born with a walk like that. You have to earn it.

  They had already gotten their degrees—in liberal arts, education, business, and good old-fashioned survival. They had not only written mortgages, but had paid them off. Each one of them could soothe a teething baby, write a letter to the editor, and bake a soufflé—usually all at the same time and without interrupting anyone’s dinner to complain about it. They had elected seven presidents, picketed for paid day care, campaigned for national health insurance and secured parental leave policies at workplaces across the nation. They had saved the ozone layer, the whale, and the Southern hemlock, all while keeping their streets safe from drunk drivers, their schools safe from drugs, and their sons safe from war. They had raised families, raised funds, and raised their share of hell.

  Now they were moving on.

  Just as, upon close examination, a few of Cici’s freckles might have been revealed to be age spots, the ladies could not help noticing that the painted porch, which had looked so stately and inviting from a distance, was actually cracked and peeling. Bare wood was showing through in places on the steps. Cici scuffed up a square of paint with the toe of her sneaker and murmured, “I can fix that.”

  The woman in the blue pantsuit came forward with a big smile and her hand extended. “Hi, I’m Maggie Woodall with Woodall Realty?” She said it with an uplift in her voice, like a question.

  “Cecile Burke,” replied Cici, returning a firm handshake. “People call me Cici. I’m the one who called. These are my friends Lindsay Wright and Bridget Tyndale.”

  They exchanged greetings all around and Bridget said, “It was good of you to come out on a Sunday.”

  “Not at all, not at all! That’s what I do!” She beamed at them as she handed out business cards, a heavyset woman with a short red haircut and eyeshadow the color of her pantsuit. “I’m so glad you called. This is such a unique property, I just love showing it. Cici, didn’t you say you were a real estate agent back in Baltimore?”

  “Just outside,” agreed Cici, and dug out one of her own business cards.

  This seemed to make Maggie very happy. “I offer three percent on referrals,” she said. Her smile traveled from one woman to the other. “So. Which one of you ladies is looking to relocate?”

  “She is,” Lindsay said

  “She is,” Cici said.

  Bridget apologized, “We’re really just looking.”

  Maggie’s professional smile barely wavered. “Well then. Shall we go inside?”

  Lindsay was already snapping the shutter of her digital camera. “Is it okay to take pictures?”

  “Of course. You won’t see anything like this anytime soon. Sixteen acres, fenced and cross fenced, plus outbuildings, livestock, and attachments, as we say in the business.” She turned what looked like an old-fashioned skeleton key in the brass-faced lock of a tall set of carved mahogany doors and stepped aside to usher them in, her arm flung wide like a game show host. “Here we are!”

  “We’re really just looking,” Bridget began as she stepped inside, and then didn’t say anything else. Neither did Cici, as she followed her over the threshold, and even Lindsay lowered the camera and just stood there, looking around.

  The central feature was a curved staircase, easily wide enough for four people to pass at once, that swept into the room from a landing twenty feet high. On the landing was a round window of blue stained glass. A matching window was on the ground floor, at the opposite end of the room. There were tall clerestory windows and a walk-in fireplace surrounded by antique brick in a fan arch. The ceiling, Cici noted, looked like pressed tin, and the floor was wide heart pine. The view through the windows was of rolling green and blue purple mountains, and the smell was of aged wood and sunshine . . . and dust, of course. Lots and lots of dust.

  “I’m afraid you won’t find the place exactly spic-and-span,” apologized Maggie. “It’s been closed up for over a year while the lawyers tried to decide what to do with it after the death of the owner, Mr. Blackwell. He was ninety-two, bless his heart, and lived here all his life. They did an initial cleanup when they cleared out the house, but I don’t think anyone has been back in here since then. No living relatives, you know, and the will stated the proceeds of the property sale will go to various charities and local churches.”

  Something crunched underfoot as they moved forward, and Bridget looked down. “What’s that?”

  The floor was littered with hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny shelled corpses. “Ladybugs,” explained Maggie matter-of-factly. “They’ve just been horrible the past couple of years. Somebody told me the university released them to try to control some kind of aphid problem, and they started breeding out of control until they became more of a problem than the aphids! They’re just everywhere.”

  Bridget made a face and tried to step around the bodies, but with no success. She moved toward the window, where a flock of ladybugs took flight as she passed. Bridget gasped and ducked, covering her platinum bob with her hands. “The warm weather causes them to be more active,” Maggie observed, “but we get them all year long, even in the dead of winter. So, are you ladies on vacation?”

  “Hmm,” Cici agreed, moving around the room. The ceiling had to be fourteen feet high, and the windows had the wavy look of leaded glass. “We drove up through Lancaster, and are taking the scenic route back home.”

  “Oh, Amish Country. Don’t you just love it? All the floors are heart pine,” Maggie pointed out, “and the wainscoting on the walls is wood, not framed plaster. That’s one thing about these old houses. They didn’t take any shortcuts.”

  Lindsay raised the camera and started snapping shots of the staircase. “Isn’t that gorgeous?” Maggie said. “Can’t you just see ladies in big hoopskirts going up and down those stairs—just like Tara!”

  “How old is the house?”

  “Well, probably not as old as Tara,” admitted Maggie. “I think it was built around 1900 by Abraham Blackwell, and it never left the family. The Blackwells were in phosphates, quite well-to-do. The house was a real landmark in its day. Copper pipes, gaslights, indoor bathrooms, all the best of everything. Hear tell, it even has its own ghost! Don’t you just love those glass doorknobs?”

  Cici grasped the doorknob of a glass-inset door that led to a small enclosed porch, and the knob came off in her hand. Maggie looked dismayed, but Cici shrugged. “I can fix that,” she said, and loosely pushed the knob back into its opening.

  “Well,” declared Maggie cheerfully, “shall we go upstairs?”

  Six sun-filled, high-ceilinged, wide-plank-floored bedrooms and several thousand ladybugs later, they descended the staircase. Bridget kept absently brushing at her shoulders and hair, as though trying to rid them of ladybug scales. Lindsay snapped a shot of the stained glass window and of the big, dust-fogged chandelier overhead.

  “All the wardrobes stay,” Maggie pointed out, “since the one thing they didn’t tend to do in the 1900s was build walk-in closets. There’s some other furniture stored in one of the attics, too, I think, but all of the good stuff was
sold at auction.”

  “There’s nothing to putting in a closet,” Cici said, “and the rooms are definitely big enough.”

  “You could take that little hallway that connects the two rooms at the back and turn it into two nice-size closets,” Lindsay pointed out, adjusting her lens for another shot. “One for each room.”

  “Of course the wardrobes are beautiful,” Maggie said. “They add a lot of character.”

  “We’re really just looking,” Bridget insisted gently, as though she felt she needed to soften the blow.

  “Can you imagine the work it would take just to keep this place clean?” observed Lindsay. “How would you even dust that chandelier?”

  “Mr. Blackwell had a woman live in, but you could probably get away with having somebody come in a couple of days a week. It’s really not that hard to find household help around here.”

  “Not to mention the heating bill,” Cici said. “What is it, an oil furnace?”

  “Actually, no. It’s quite ingenious, really—a wood burning furnace in the cellar heats this whole house. With the fireplaces, of course.”

  “So as long as you don’t run out of trees you’re all set,” Bridget said, and Maggie chuckled.

  “To tell the truth, the first thing I would do is put in central heat and air,” she admitted.

  Lindsay turned on the bottom step to get a shot of the landing, catching the newel post with her hand as she did. The carved pineapple post cap came off in her hand and she flailed for balance. Maggie gave a little cry and lunged toward Lindsay as the pineapple flew from her hand. Bridget ducked, and Cici caught the cap in midair. Lindsay saved herself, and her camera, by grabbing the newel post, which gave an ominous crack, but held. Maggie breathed an audible sigh of relief. Bridget exchanged a wide-eyed look with Lindsay. Cici raised an eyebrow, gave the carved pineapple a little toss in her hand, and said, “I can fix that.”