door to 3C opened, and there stood Levi Cooper in uniform. His forehead crinkled in a frown. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
Blue leaped over to Chief Grouchy and dropped the ball. When Levi didn’t understand, the dog picked the ball up again and dropped it. Repeated, not caring that Levi was staring at Faith like a python eyeing a mouse. Whatever little bonding nanosecond they’d had at the shooting range was obviously a figment of her imagination.
“Levi. What a lovely surprise. Are we neighbors?” Faith kept her tone bright and chirpy, but a blush was prickling its way up her chest. Granted, housing options were limited—the Opera House was the only apartment building in town, but come on.
“Are you moving in?” Levi asked.
“You can tell that? It’s astonishing. How did you know? Here, hold this.” She didn’t wait for an answer, just shoved the box at him.
“You’re moving in.”
“It’s like you’re psychic. Thrilling, really. You should stop scowling. You’ll need Botox before you know it.”
Blue was still dropping and redropping the ball, trying to clue in the dopey human. Faith had the door open now and reclaimed the box. “See you around, neighbor.”
She went into the cute little apartment, set the box down and then looked out the peephole. He was gone.
So Levi Cooper lived in 3C. That was okay. Free country and all that. They’d probably never see each other. Which was fine. Okay, yes, they’d see each other sometimes.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Blue was sniffing the corners. The dog had a point. This was their new place, at least for a while; Sharon had let her do a month-to-month rental, since some income was better than no income.
And the apartment was lovely. The floors were the original, narrow birch planks, soulfully scuffed from a hundred and fifty years of use, now polished to a high gloss. The actual theater part of the opera house was on the fifth floor; Faith imagined the third floor had been a workspace for set-making or costume storage or the like. From the front windows, not only could she inhale the glorious smells coming from the bakery, but she also had a glimpse of Keuka and a very nice view of the green.
The kitchen had granite countertops and an island, as well as a built-in wine rack. There was a tiny study where she could set up her computer and stalk potential mates for both her father and herself. And work, of course. In addition to the barn and the library courtyard, she’d had a request for a design from another vineyard across the lake, and two private homes.
The door opened and in came Goggy, holding a tiny box, and Levi, holding two much larger ones. “Look who I found!” Goggy crowed. “Levi Cooper, our chief of police!”
“I know who he is, Goggy,” Faith said. “Thanks, Levi.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, setting the boxes on the table. “Anything else I can do, ladies?”
“Oh, you’ve been wonderful!” Goggy said. “Hasn’t he been wonderful, Faith?”
“So wonderful.”
“Have a good day, then,” he said, smiling at Goggy. Not her, of course. Then he was gone.
“Thank you for doing this with me,” Faith said, giving the old lady a hug.
“Oh, honey, I love being needed,” her grandmother responded, her soft, wrinkled cheeks flushing a lovely shade of pink. “Thank you for asking me. I never had a girl, you know.”
“I do know.” Faith’s smile widened; Goggy often dropped well-known facts as if she was revealing them for the first time. “So you and Pops will be okay without me?”
Goggy turned the hot water on and began filling the sink. She didn’t believe in dishwashers. “We’ll be fine,” she said. “It was nice, having someone break up our routine.”
Guilt cartwheeled merrily through Faith’s heart. “I’ll stop in every day,” she said.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that. I understand,” Goggy said. She opened the first box and started setting glasses in the hot, soapy water. “I envy you. I wouldn’t mind having a nice new place like this and living by myself, either. Starting over.”
Faith looked at her, surprised. Not something you’d expect from an eighty-four-year-old woman. Or maybe it was exactly what you’d expect.
“What’s it like, being married for so long?” Faith asked, opening another box.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Goggy said. “Sometimes I feel like your grandfather has no idea who I am. I’m sure he thinks he learned everything there was to know in the first week we were married, and there’s been nothing new since. But there is! Sometimes I want to tell him about a book I’ve read or something someone said in church, and he barely listens.”
Faith made a sympathetic noise. “You got married when you were so young,” she said. Her grands had known each other only a month before they got married. Back when you did stuff like that.
“Don’t I know it,” Goggy said.
“You must’ve fallen in love right away.”
Goggy snorted. “Hardly, sweetheart. He had land, we had a little money, he’d just come back from the service, and our families approved.”
“Did you love him?”
Goggy’s face hardened. “What’s love, anyway?” She scrubbed a glass so hard Faith feared for its future.
“Want to sit down, Goggy?” Faith asked. “Let’s have some coffee and talk.”
Her grandmother looked at her, her eyes soft. “That’d be nice, honey. No one thinks I have much to say these days. Just you.”
Faith made the coffee, grateful for the Keurig and its speed. She set Goggy’s cup down in front of her and sat down next to her grandmother.
“I was engaged to a boy who died in the war,” Goggy said, and Faith choked, she was so surprised. Goggy patted her idly on the back. “His name was Peter. Peter Horton.”
Peter, Goggy said, was the boy from down the street, the milkman’s son. His mother was British, which made him seem very glamorous. They’d had an understanding—Peter would go off to war, “because that’s what people did back then, Faith, no matter if you were rich or poor. Even Hollywood actors went to war.” Upon his return, they’d marry.
He died in France, and Goggy hadn’t much cared much after that. John Holland, why not? She did want to have children. And there weren’t so many options for women back then.
“But I still think of him, Faith,” Goggy said now, her voice quiet and gentle. “Sometimes, I’ll be doing laundry or going up the stairs, and I wonder if he’d even recognize me. I wonder if we’d have been happy. I think we would have. He’d bring me flowers he’d picked in a field, and write me poems, and sneak looks at me in church.”
“He
