offer. She thought of Marsh. She’d been doing that a lot lately.
“What’s the catch?”
“You have to help, and it takes time. But come September I’ll be unemployed, and I could work on it then. It’s dirty and messy.”
“What if Ken helped instead of me?” Wanda said. “I don’t think my knees will take it.”
“You think he’ll still be around?”
“I’ll get back to you on that.” Wanda looked down at the floor, then up at Tracy. “But you know, that’s a nice offer. I sure never expected it.”
“I like tile,” Janya said. “Perhaps we could do designs.”
“That would be cool. I saw some ideas in one of the books I got from the library.” Tracy ushered them into the kitchen and poured coffee into her best cups. “I’m thinking of doing tile on these counters, too. Now that I know how to install it. And up the wall for a backsplash.”
Wanda accepted her cup and saucer. “This sounds like more than a slow real-estate market. This sounds like somebody who’s moving in to stay. You put all this sweat equity into a place, you still want to see it torn down?”
“I’m a one-day-at-a-time kind of gal. If I’m going to live here, I just want it to be a place I like waking up in.”
They took the platter of sliced coffee cake into the living room. The others sank into comfortable chairs, and Tracy made herself at home on the sofa. She wasn’t sure how she would spend her weekends now that her big project was completed, but she thought relaxing with friends was a good start.
“I noticed the Lee-wagon was parked in front of Alice’s,” Wanda said. “That why she’s not here?”
“I knew better than to ask.”
“Have you spoken to her?” Janya asked. “Since lunch at my house?”
“I’ve spoken to Lee.” He had been polite, but she’d been glad to see that his interest in her had cooled, either because of their difference of opinion about Alice, or because he was no longer optimistic about selling her property. Either way, it didn’t say anything positive about him.
Wanda plopped two more sugar cubes in her coffee. “And what’s his story?”
“He says when she’s feeling better, I can visit. For now she’s resting. They think she had another stroke.”
“Really?” Janya didn’t sound convinced. “She was fine last Saturday when we were together. And if what you say is true, she destroyed the tablecloth before she came. Would we have been so blind as not to see she was distressed?”
“How did he act?” Wanda said. “Like he was really concerned? Or like he was hiding something?”
Obviously Tracy was not a good judge of character. Mr. Living Proof was stamping out license plates in California. “He acted…like he was acting.”
“Does this mean you’re no longer enamored of the hunky Mr. Symington?” Wanda reached for another slice of cake. “Me, I think he’s as high on the creep factor as a buzzard circling a car wreck.”
“Where do you come up with these expressions?”
“I was lucky enough to be born in the swamp, Valley Girl. You have some catching up to do.”
“Then you aren’t certain he’s telling the truth?” Janya asked.
“I don’t know what to think. Lee told me he stayed here in Palmetto Grove after his wife died because he wanted to take care of Alice. For his wife’s sake. He had to give up a good job in Atlanta. Would he do something like that if he didn’t have her best interests in mind?”
“Atlanta?” Janya asked. “He was moving the family that far away?”
“He said after Karen died, he just couldn’t do it. I guess he knew taking Olivia so far away would be hard on Alice, even if she didn’t need looking after.”
“You see, this is peculiar,” Janya said. “Because Olivia told me her mother had found a new house for them, but her father didn’t know. She told me all about the color they would paint her room, but she said the house was a secret.”
“Where?”
“I’m not certain, but not as far away as Atlanta. She said they drove there one day to begin painting. She said she would need to be in a different school, that the new house, the secret house, wasn’t right here in town.”
“Well, they could have driven to Atlanta, but that’s a long trip for a few coats of paint,” Wanda said. “And if so, why didn’t she say so? Olivia’s old enough to remember something like that.”
“She said the house had four bedrooms, and her mother