Page 42 of The Lost Hours
Lillian shifted her attention to Tucker, giving in to a fit of restlessness brought on by her memories of Annabelle that clung to her like a too-tight riding jacket. She placed her forearms on the table and leaned toward him. “Tucker, remember how you used to describe people and things to Helen so she could picture them in her head? It just occurred to me that Earlene has been here for over a week, and shared our dining table twice, but Helen has no idea what she looks like. Why don’t you describe Earlene to help Helen out?”
She wasn’t sure who looked more uncomfortable: Tucker or Earlene. Both looked as if they wanted to flee from the room and Earlene even had the knee-jerk reaction of sliding her chair back. But the tension in the room helped ease the ache around Lillian’s tired heart and bones, a diversion that made her look forward to something again.
Helen, despite her skill at determining people’s emotions, seemed more intent on joining Lillian in her game than sparing Tucker’s or Earlene’s feelings. She clasped her hands together and Lillian was afraid for a moment that she would actually clap. “Yes, please. But first, let me describe you the way that I see you and then Tucker can tell me if I’m right or wrong.”
Earlene looked down at her plate, a small flush coloring her cheeks. She took a deep breath, then glanced up at Helen and managed a small smile. “All right, I’m game. Go ahead.”
Helen closed her eyes, her long, elegant nails, tipped with her signature scarlet red nail polish, splayed on the white tablecloth. “If I make any mistakes, my only excuse will be that once I discovered that you were a horsewoman, all of my assumptions about you were clouded by the way I think a horsewoman should look.” She drummed her fingers on the table and took a deep breath. “Your voice is very soft, which makes me think that you’re petite—maybe five foot three or less. Your hair is very straight, and you wear it in a low ponytail, not because you particularly like it that way, but because that’s the way you’ve been wearing it since you were a little girl and needed to fix your hair so that it stayed beneath a riding helmet.” She smiled in Earlene’s direction. “How am I doing?”
“Keep going,” Earlene said, her eyes on Helen and her face closed.
“I think your hair is dark blond. When you’re in the sun it lightens up, but since you’re a genealogist I don’t think you’re in the sun that much anymore, so it’s dark. And I picture your eyes being blue or gray—something that goes with blond hair, although that’s just a guess.” Helen puckered her lips for a moment before continuing. “I think you’re very slender. I determined that by listening to you walk. When you limp, it doesn’t seem as if you’re throwing that much weight around, so I figured you probably don’t weigh more than a hundred and five pounds or so.” She held up her hand in Lillian’s direction. “I’m blind, remember, which means that I can freely discuss other people’s handicaps so you don’t need to say anything.”
Helen winked at Earlene. “I also noticed that you don’t like standing too close to people. Like you have an invisible barrier that prevents people from getting too near you. Like Tucker. Although he didn’t used to be that way.” She paused for a moment, as if realizing that she’d just spoken aloud, then turned her head in Tucker’s direction. “It’s your turn now. How did I do?”
Tucker was looking at Lillian, his eyes narrowed, recognizing her enjoyment in the proceedings but not begrudging her the rare pleasure, either. He placed his napkin beside his plate and faced Earlene, staring at her for a few moments before speaking. “Very good, Helen. You got most of it right. Her hair is what I call light brown but what I’ve heard referred to as ‘dirty blond.’ I imagine it will lighten up some if she stays in the sun long enough. Maybe I’ll have her give the girls lessons in the outdoor ring.” He gave Earlene a half smile, but Lillian wasn’t certain whom he was trying to reassure.
“Her eyes are actually light brown, almost gold when the light hits them. They tilt a bit at the corners when she smiles, although she doesn’t do that very often.” He took a sip from his wineglass before continuing. “I have noticed that she likes to keep her distance from others, but that’s to be expected. We’re strangers to her still. She hasn’t discovered all of our demons yet—not all of them, anyway. And she sure as hell hasn’t let any of hers out of the bag, either.”
Lillian shot him a look of warning. He pushed his almost-full wineglass away from him before sliding his chair back so that he could fully face Earlene. Her face was still flushed, her skin glowing in the candlelight.
“But you’re wrong about her height. She’s more like five foot six, but she has this habit of rounding her shoulders, which makes her look smaller. It’s like she’s trying not to be noticed, but it doesn’t matter. There’s something about the way she carries herself that makes her stand out anyway. It’s like she’s used to leading a parade or something, and that even without the parade behind her, she can’t help but walk as if she were still up front.”
Tucker leaned back in his chair, as if he were enjoying not being the center of Lillian’s scrutiny for an evening. He continued. “Oh, and forget what you said about her soft voice. That’s her ‘inside voice,’ to borrow an expression from the girls. You should have heard Earlene this morning in the ring. She was downright authoritative, although I can’t say for sure that she really ever raised her voice. I think it had more to do with the confidence she felt about what she was saying; she knew her stuff and she wasn’t afraid to let everybody know it.”
Earlene’s eyes were focused near her plate, her hands folded tightly in a fist that rested on the table’s edge. Lillian began to open her mouth to tell Tucker that he’d said enough, but she stopped. Tucker had never been cruel. Even as a young boy, when little brothers were expected to torment their older sisters, he and Helen had been more like best friends, inseparable long before Helen lost her sight. She watched as Tucker’s face softened, almost visibly backing off. It seemed to Lillian that he had recognized something in Earlene that reminded him of himself—another person recently and profoundly blinded, bumping into the world around them as they tried to find their way in new surroundings.
When he next spoke, his voice was soft. “She’s very beautiful, Helen, although I don’t think she realizes it. And maybe that’s an assumption on my part, too, because I also think of her as a horsewoman. As you know, most horsewomen are so into their horses that they don’t take a lot of time looking at themselves in a mirror.” Tucker gave his trademark half smile, which most women swooned over, but Earlene, who was still focused on her plate, didn’t notice.
“She appears to be delicate, but I’m not fooled. I’ve seen her work with horses, and they didn’t think she was delicate either.”
Tucker paused and Earlene looked up to meet his gaze. “Are you finished? I think Helen has a pretty good idea of what I look like now, thank you.” Earlene had released her fists and her hand went back to her collar, her fingers surreptitiously slipping inside, searching.
“Is there something wrong?” Tucker leaned forward, his eyes wary.
Earlene nodded, a frown between her eyes. “My necklace . . . I can’t find it. I wear it almost all the time, and I’m pretty sure I had it on when I arrived.” She stood and shook her blouse, but nothing fell out of the bottom. Her voice rose in pitch. “It’s gone.” She began looking around her chair on the floor, her movements jerky. “It must be around here somewhere.”
Tucker stood, too, and touched her gently on the arm. “Don’t worry. We’ll find it. I’ll tell Odella so that when she vacuums in here tomorrow she can look for it.”
Inexplicably, Earlene’s gaze met Lillian’s for a moment before she quickly looked away. “But I really want to find it now.”
“Is it valuable?” Helen asked as she stood, too.
Earlene shook her head. “Only to me. It’s sort of a family heirloom.”
Helen slipped off her high-heeled shoes and began rubbing her bare feet in an arc on the rug. “What does it look like?”
Earlene’s skin had gone from flushed to nearly white. “It’s . . . it’s a gold chain. With a little ornament hanging from it.”
Tucker had also begun searching, moving back his chair and peering under the table. “What kind of an ornament?”
Lillian watched as Earlene swallowed. “A gold figure. Of a woman.”
“Like a doll?” Helen stopped moving her feet and faced Earlene.
“Yes. Something like that.”
Seeming satisfied with her answer, Helen and Tucker continued to look, Tucker going as far as into the hallway to see if it had fallen off there.
