Tribute Page 0,5

my tribute to you. I come from you, and through my father, from this place. I want to know that, and feel it."

"Dilly hated it here."

"I don't know if she did, always. But she does now."

"She wanted Hollywood-in big, shiny letters. She was born wanting it, and lacking the talent or the grit to get it and hold it. You're not like her, or me. Maybe..." Janet smiled as she sipped again. "Maybe you're more like Gertrude. More like Trudy."

"Who did you kill that night? Janet or Gertrude?"

"That's a question." With a smile, Janet tipped back her head and closed her eyes.

BUT WHAT WAS THE ANSWER? Cilla wondered about that as she drove back to the farm in the morning. And why did it matter? Why ask questions of a dream anyway?

Dead was dead, after all. The project wasn't about death, but about life. About making something for herself out of what had been left to ruin.

As she stopped to unlock the old iron gates that blocked the drive she debated having them removed. Would that be a symbol to throwing open again what had been closed off, or would it be a monumentally stupid move that left her, and the property, vulnerable? They protested when she walked them open, and left rust on her hands.

Screw symbols and stupidity, she decided. They should come down because they were a pain in the ass. After the project, she could put them back up.

Once she'd parked in front of the house, she strode up to unlock the front door, and left it wide to the morning air. She drew on her work gloves. She'd finish tackling the kitchen, she thought. And hope the plumber her father had recommended showed up.

Either way, she'd be staying. Even if she had to pitch a damn tent in the front yard.

She'd worked up her first sweat of the day when the plumber, a grizzle-cheeked man named Buddy, showed up. He made the rounds with her, listened to her plans, scratched his chin a lot. When he gave her what she thought of as a pull-it-out-of-his-ass estimate for the projected work, she countered with a bland stare.

He grinned at that, scratched some more. "I could work up something a little more formal for you. It'd be considerable less if you're buying the fixtures and such."

"I will be."

"Okay then. I'll work up an estimate for you, and we'll see what's what."

"That's fine. Meanwhile, how much to snake out the tub in the first bath upstairs? It's not draining right."

"Why don't I take a look-see? Estimate's free, and I'm here for that anyway."

She hovered, not so much because she didn't trust him but because you could never be sure what you might learn. She learned he didn't dawdle, and that his fee for the small task-and a quick check of the sink and john-meant he wanted the job enough that his estimate would probably come into line.

By the time Buddy climbed back into his truck, she hoped the carpenter and electrician she'd lined up for estimates worked out as well.

She dug out her notebook to tick her meeting with Buddy off her day's to-do list. Then she hefted her sledgehammer. She was in the mood for some demo, and the rotted boards on the front porch were just the place to start.

Part One. DEMO Chapter Two

With her hammer weighted on her shoulder and her safety goggles in place, Cilla took a good look at the man strolling down her driveway. A cartoonishly ugly black-and-white dog with an enormous box of a head on a small, stocky body trotted beside him.

She liked dogs, and hoped to have one eventually. But this was one odd-looking creature, with bulbous eyes bulging out of, and little pointed devil ears stuck on top of, that oversized head. A short, skinny whip of a tail ticked at his behind.

As for the man, he was a big improvement over the dog. The faded, frayed-at-the-hem jeans and baggy gray sweatshirt covered what she judged to be about six feet, four inches of lanky, long-legged male. He wore wire-framed sunglasses, and the jeans had a horizontal tear in one knee. A day or two's worth of stubble prickled over his cheeks and jaw in a look she'd always found too studied to be hip. Still, it fit with the abundance of brown streaky hair that curled messily over his ears.

She distrusted a man who had his hair streaked, and imagined he'd paid for the golden boy tan in