Luck of the Draw

Chapter 17 - From the Jaws of Defeat

With a pitiful sum of five hundred plus the hundred and thirty he had left, Teddy sat in his car pondering his next step. His plan, when he got back to the nursery, had not appealed to Mac, and with good reason. Mac had emphatically refused to listen to a deal whereby his customers could buy their trees now and they'd still be green and hold all their needles until well after Christmas.

He said he needed the natural decline of the trees to prompt last minute buyers who always paid the premium for waiting too long. NaturGro would kill that opportunity and besides, Mac had pointed out, they were all exactly the same size, or he had to order specific quantities of different sizes and that was horse puckey. No discount could change his mind.

Since he didn't succeed there his only option was a do-it-yourself approach. In either case he needed to get the product from his company, and since he had left his phone off to avoid reporting in, he had to have a positive reason for being late.

Teddy returned to town with sagging spirits. The final solution, a phrase he used because of its grim, historical meaning, was to do-it-himself and pray the company didn't find out.

He parked the car and walked a chilly few blocks to Dwarf's, went inside and asked where he might find Sally. The rude abuse from those overhearing his request just served to crush his spirit, and he left with directions and bent shoulders.

An ailing Atlas.

Sally's address on the edge of the downtown, was in a heavily treed section, now bare of leaves and revealing large single family dwellings circa the sixties. He checked the address and frowned. The house was on a double lot of about two hundred buy one hundred and fifty feet.

Large spruce trees dotted the rolling green lawn and a jet black driveway curved past a clump of them up to the front entrance. Teddy crawled slowly up the drive, gaping at the silent stone fountain and benches strategically placed among the trees, stopped the car beside a brand-new Lexus and stared in puzzlement at the house.

Stone and brick comprised the basic structure and a terracotta tile roof descended at a shallow angle from the second floor. The setting was like something out of an English film where the manor house sits alone on acres of rolling countryside, actual size of the lot notwithstanding.

"There must be six bedrooms," he murmured. He slowly exited the car and walked to the front door, taking in the immaculate landscaping. A large brass knocker clunked solidly when he let it fall and he could hear it echo inside the house.

A moment later the door opened and Sally appeared in a white silk robe of Japanese prints. Her hair was piled high and she wore gold sandals and large hoop earrings.

"Teddy Bear!"

He gaped.

"What are you doing here? How did you find me?" She stepped back, waving him inside out of the chill. "Never mind, I bet it was, Marion."

He walked stiff-legged into the huge, circular, Italian marble foyer. There were wall niches with tall, gold-framed nudes all the way around and a wide carpeted staircase curled up to the second floor opposite the door.

"My God! You live here?"

"I do." She took his arm and led him to a doorway he hadn't noticed and they entered a large bright atrium filled with vases of cut flowers and hanging baskets of ivy that trailed from large gold hooks in the glass ceiling.

"How- I mean... I don't understand?"

"What you mean is you can't relate this to the Sally from the Waterfall or Dwarf's."

She laughed and led him to a love seat facing the extravagantly manicured garden. "It's a hobby, Teddy Bear."

He stared at the plants, confused. "Not those." She laughed again.