Angel Falling Softly - By Eugene Woodbury Page 0,6
what I mean.”
“Not a family?”
“Oh, no. Single, early twenties. Very professional. Immaculately dressed. Quite attractive. The whitest skin you’ve ever seen. Rather a strange girl. No, eccentric, that’s the word. She wanted to see the place at night! Probably one of those supermodels you’re always reading about—doesn’t want to be seen in public. I didn’t recognize her. She drove up in this fancy car with her own chauffeur and everything!”
LaDawn lowered her voice to a whisper. “I shouldn’t be telling you this,” she said, patting her friend’s arm for emphasis, “but she paid six months all in advance. Wrote out a twelve-thousand-dollar check, just like that—like she was buying groceries! Can you imagine?”
“Ma’am?” said the checkout clerk, leaning over the scanner to get her attention.
“Sorry,” said Rachel.
LaDawn said, “Well, I’d better get going, myself.” She stopped and asked, “And how is Jennifer doing?”
“She’s doing fine.”
Such transparent lies no longer bothered Rachel when it came to greasing the wheels of social conviviality.
She pulled out of the parking lot and turned onto Sego Lily Drive.
Cottonwood Estates was the quintessential Salt Lake subdivision. Pluck this plot of earth out of the ground and deposit it outside the beltway of any Midwestern American city, and nobody would notice.
It was so unremittingly normal that the developers felt compelled to mess up Brigham Young’s commonsensical east-west, north-south street-numbering system with meandering mazes of ways, lanes, places, trails, circles, and avenues. She had to wonder when a neighborhood got too good for plain old streets.
Still, it was safe, quiet, and clean. The neighbors’ kids behaved. The neighbors’ pets did their business on their own lawns. Yes, she had in her youth sworn that she would never end up in a place like this, just as she had sworn she would never end up a bishop’s wife. But right now she was perfectly willing to sacrifice a small part of her principles for nothing jumping out and surprising her.
She drove up Larkspur Lane. There was the Lindstroms’ house. Mary had been second counselor in the Relief Society. Rachel missed her. But the Lindstroms were a young, upwardly mobile couple, and their future lay in Sacramento, not Salt Lake City.
An R.C. Willey furniture delivery truck was parked in the driveway and a pair of rusty pickups out by the curb. A small crew was busily trimming the lawn, washing the windows, sweeping the porch, flushing out the sprinkler system. This was a tenant LaDawn wanted to impress.
A supermodel, LaDawn had suggested. How did one welcome a supermodel to the neighborhood? Would a supermodel appreciate a loaf of homemade whole-wheat bread? Or would that be like giving a chicken bone to a cocker spaniel? She had no idea.
Rachel made the dogleg from Larkspur Lane onto Willow Way and up the driveway of their three-bedroom rambler. The garage door opened at a touch of the remote. She popped open the back door of the Honda Odyssey and hauled the groceries into the kitchen.
After dumping the groceries haphazardly on the table, she ran a glass of water at the sink and paused at the kitchen window. The lots bordering Dimple Dell Park were a cluttered no-man’s-land of yellow backhoes and concrete foundations. Men with sunburned shoulders and tool belts slung low around their waists marched around like a small army on maneuvers, making war with circular saws and air hammers.
One good earthquake would topple the whole street into the Dry Creek arroyo, to be carried away with the alluvial flow.
The front door opened and slammed shut. Laura tromped into the kitchen. Rachel asked, “How was school, Laura?” and began putting away the groceries.
“Okay.”
Rachel had read an article the other day about how to get a child to reply to such questions with more than one-word answers. She’d have to read it again.
Laura asked, “What’s with the Lindstroms’ place?”
“Oh, yes. I ran into Sister Gunderson at Smith’s. She said she rented it out.”
“Who to?”
“A woman, she said.”
“Any kids?” Laura got the orange juice out of the refrigerator and poured herself a glass.
“I gathered she was single.”
“So why’s she moving here?”
“I don’t know. LaDawn did say she was quite attractive. Like a model.”
“She’s a model? Really?”
“She said she looked like a model.”
“Oh,” said Laura, disappointed. She put the glass on the counter. “I’m going to Heidi’s.”
“Be home by five.”
“Yeah, Mom.”
Rachel returned the orange juice to the fridge. It was time to start thinking about dinner. She looked in the refrigerator and found the pork chops left over from Sunday dinner. A bell pepper, an