Tribute

up, and got grounded for two weeks. Two weeks, and it was my first and last black mark in school. Talk about harsh. Hmm.”
    “I bet they still have them,” she said when he rolled the barrow down again. “And future generations will find them in the attic.”
    “You think? Well, they did show considerable promise and a very healthy imagination. Want to go for a ride?”
    “A ride?”
    “We can go get some dinner somewhere, catch a movie.”
    “What’s playing?”
    “Couldn’t say. I’m thinking of the movie as a vehicle for popcorn and necking.”
    “Sounds good,” she decided. “You can put the wheelbarrow back in the barn while I wash up.”
    WITH HER NEW WIRING APPROVED, Cilla watched Dobby and his grandson replaster the living room walls. Art came in many forms, she decided, and she’d found herself a pair of artists. It wouldn’t be quick, but boy, it would be right.
    “You do fancy work, too?” she asked Dobby. “Medallions, trim?”
    “Here and there. Not much call for it these days. You can buy pre-made cheaper, so most people do.”
    “I’m not most people. Fancy work wouldn’t suit this area.” Hands on hips, she turned a circle in the drop-clothed, chewed-up living space.“But simple and interesting might. And could work in the master bedroom, the dining room. Nothing ornate,” she said, thinking out loud. “No winged cherubs or hanging grapes. Maybe a design. Something Celtic . . . that would address the McGowan and the Moloney branches.”
    “Moloney?”
    “What? Sorry.” Distracted, she glanced back at Dobby. “Moloney would have been my grandmother’s surname—except her mother changed it to Hamilton just after Janet was born, then the studio changed it to Hardy. Gertrude Moloney to Trudy Hamilton to Janet Hardy. They called her Trudy as a girl,” she added and thought of the letters.
    “Is that so?” Dobby shook his head, dipped his trowel. “Pretty, old-fashioned name Trudy.”
    “And not shiny enough for Hollywood, at least when she came up in it. She said in an interview once that no one ever called her Trudy again, once they’d settled on Janet. Not even her family. But sometimes she’d look at herself in the mirror and say hello to Trudy, just to remind herself. Anyway, if I came up with some designs, we could talk about working them in upstairs.”
    “We sure could do that.”
    "I’ll do some research. Maybe we could . . . Sorry,” she said when the phone in her pocket rang. She pulled it out, stifled a sigh when she saw her mother’s number on the display. "Sorry,” she repeated, then stepped outside to take the call.
    “Hello, Mom.”
    “Did you think I wouldn’t hear about it? Did you think I wouldn’t see?”
    Cilla leaned against the veranda column, stared across the road at Ford’s pretty house. “I’m good, thanks. How are you?”
    “You have no right to criticize me, to judge me. To blame me.”
    “In what context?”
    “Save your sarcasm, Cilla. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
    “I really don’t.” What was Ford doing? Cilla wondered. Was he writing? Drawing? Was he turning her into a warrior goddess? Someone who would face down evil instead of calculating how to stretch the budget to accommodate handcrafted plaster medallions, or handle a motherly snit long-distance.
    “The article in the paper. About you, about the farm. About me. AP picked it up.”
    “Did they? And that bothers you? It’s publicity.”
    “‘McGowan’s goal is to restore and respect her neglected heritage. Speaking over the busy sounds of banging hammers and buzzing saws, she states: “My grandmother always spoke of the Little Farm with affection, and related that she was drawn to it from the first moment. The fact that she bought the house and land from my paternal great-grandfather adds another strong connection for me.” ’ ”
    “I know what I said, Mom.”
    “‘My purpose, you could even say my mission, is to pay tribute to my heritage, my roots here, by not only restoring the house and the land, but making them shine. And in such a way that respects their integrity, and the community.’”
    “Sounds a little pompous,” Cilla commented. “But it’s accurate.”
    “It goes on and on, a showcase during Janet Hardy’s visits for the luminaries of her day. A pastoral setting for her children, now peeling paint, rotted wood, overgrown gardens through a generation of neglect and disinterest as Janet Hardy’s daughter, Bedelia