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“Treating the garden to prevent insect damage is essential. Pests like aphids can be controlled with a spray of laundry soap mixed with...” Right when the pause drifted into awkward, Gio looked up from his paper and his lips moved, sure enough. “...nicotine sulfate.”
She’d seen—well, participated—in enough cheating in school spelling bees to know what was going on. Either Freddy was so nervous he needed someone to feed him lines or...
Or he didn’t really know what he was talking about. After all, this ought to be second nature to him, being a gardener.
It was a little thing. Just another tiny doubt. But what if there was something to it? What if she was being tricked by smooth words and a gleaming smile, just like all the dupes that Ma cheated in poker in her younger years?
After another ten minutes or so of tortured speechmaking, Lillian’s mother, stuffed into a plaid dress far too small for her, released Freddy from his agony by thanking him and asking people to step up for a copy of a sample gardening calendar.
As soon as the polite applause died down, Ginny bolted over to Freddy, who had collapsed on a bench. Better to head things off while Lillian was still helping her mother distribute leaflets.
“All right, Freddy,” she said, going right for the heart of it. “Let’s talk about your little secret.”
And whatever small part of her had been bluffing to see how he’d react fell away at the guilty look in his eyes. “What secret?”
“That you’re as much a gardener as I am. Which is to say, not very much of one.”
Freddy let out a laugh, but it was too thin in the middle, like when she tried to roll out a piecrust. “Come on. Did you taste those buckets of spring peas I hauled in?”
“Okay, then. Which crops do you plow under in the winter to ready the soil for the next season?” She didn’t know the answer either, but as long as he didn’t know that she didn’t know . . .
He swallowed hard. “Peas and beans?”
“That was a guess.” He didn’t deny it. “I’ll bet your family never had a garden. And you got a job as a gardener barely knowing the difference between growing a dill pickle and a dandelion.”
“You don’t grow pickles, Ginny.”
“Fine, so you’re alittlemore of a gardener than I am.” She folded her arms, trying to look like a cop in a movie. “What made you take the job at Miss Cavendish’s, huh? Hiding from the law? Dodging the draft? What’s under that eyepatch, anyway?”
He swatted away her hand as she reached toward him, which she probably deserved. “Just trying to make a new start. That’s all.”
That bumpedex-conhigher up on the list of possibilities. “You know, I always thought it was funny how a flyboy like you claimed to be the salt-of-the-earth farmer sort before the war. Didn’t add up.”
He motioned at her to keep her voice down, glancing over at the line of women about to swim toward him, Victory-garden calendars in tow. “Ginny, I told you. I came here to get away from my hometown. I needed work. Miss Cavendish needed a gardener. So I embellished my résumé. That’s all.”
And as much as Ginny hated to admit it, it didn’t sound like the load of bilge she’d expected from him. “Is that so? Why’d you drag Gio into it, then?” The kid had hidden the notebookaway and was munching contentedly on a sugar-dusted doughnut. His payment, probably.
“Because I was desperate for help. He checked out gardening books for me from the library too, back in the spring. That’s how I knew enough to get started.”
If he was telling the truth, it wasn’t a bad plan. Just like something she would have done. “Golly, I hope you didn’t embellish your résumé to plop yourself in a plane cockpit too.”
“Thankfully for everyone, you can’t fake flying hours or officer training school.” Another glance about, worry clear on his face. “Please, Ginny. You can’t tell Miss Cavendish.”
“Give me one good reason.”
Freddy’s eyes were pleading. “You’re just going to have to trust me. It’s what friends do.”
That’s when Lillian, fresh out of leaflets, rushed over in a flood of giggles and false compliments, and Ginny retreated to a bench a distance away, considering. It could be true. An ex-GI needing work and wanting something as far from combat as possible might make up some experience. It wasn’t all that bad.
That’s it. That’s why. The reason she felt uneasy was because she’d caught him in something small.
And suddenly, Ginny was fourteen years old again, watching as Pa and Lew headed out in the early morning fog, thick as burgoo, on theLady Luck, giving her the chance to ask Ma the question that had nagged at her for a year at least.
Made sense, of course, Pa not wanting to talk about it, pretending his bride was a woman of spotless reputation. But Ginny had heard enough to wonder. On Long Island, children were only hidden from rumors for a little while. And she needed to know. So she’d tiptoed up to Ma, offering to help with breakfast, and asked how, exactly, she’d gotten away with cheating at cards for so many years.
Instead of getting upset, Ma just dusted her hands with flour,pounding down the biscuit dough, and said, “Your pa’ll skin me if I show you the tricks.” Ginny almost protested, until her mother added, “Setup’s what I’m most proud of, anyway.”
“What d’ya mean?”
