“We’ll see what you say after.” On the sidewalk, Bodine put her hands on her hips, scanned the pretty town with its clever shops, restaurants, breweries. “I don’t have a single good idea in my head for my mother.”
“Something will click. I thought I was a discerning gift-giver, but compared to you, I’m a peasant. Honestly, Bo.” Always a happy shopper, Jessica hooked an arm with Bodine’s. “Those photographs you had enlarged and tinted for Cora, and that really lovely triple frame? It’s so perfect, so thoughtful.”
“I got the frame from Callen’s sister’s shop. They have great stuff. The Crafty Art.”
“I love that shop! Cal’s sister owns it?”
“She and her pretty adorable husband, yeah.”
“I’ve burned up my credit card in there more than once. But the gift’s really about the photographs.”
“The wedding picture of her and my grandfather’s a winner, and the one of the two of them with my mom is so sweet. Just the way he was holding both of them so close. It’s the one of Nana and Mom, with Alice as a baby, that may stir things up a little.”
When Jessica said nothing, Bodine added, “You can ask.”
“I know there are some difficult feelings about Alice. That she ran away when she was young.”
“The day of Mom’s wedding. Just lit out, left a bratty little note from what I can gather, took off in one of the trucks. Going to California to be a movie star.” Bodine rolled her eyes. “I know she sent a couple of postcards, then nothing. Not even one word to her widowed mother.”
Since the door was opened, Jessica poked around a little more. “I imagine they tried to find her.”
“Nobody talks about it very much, as it upsets Nana, puts her at odds with Grammy. I can’t blame Grammy for her hard feelings there, watching her daughter grieve and suffer all this time. I guess I can’t blame Nana for her feelings, either.”
They passed a man who wore reindeer knee socks outside his jeans and sleigh bells around his neck.
“Alice is her daughter, the same as my mother. Which puts Mom solidly between them, and that’s a hard place. So, not much talk, but kids know how to hear things, and we heard enough to know Nana hired a detective for a while, and they found the truck abandoned in Nevada, I think. And Alice just disappeared. It’s not hard to do, I guess, if you want to.”
“Brutal for Cora,” Jessica comforted.
“Yeah. Grammy won’t much like my gift to Nana, but I figure I’m offsetting that by digging out the christening gown her own grandmother made for her and having it restored and framed.”
“It’s such gorgeous work. And coming up with the little photos of all the babies who wore it was genius.”
Bodine paused in front of a shop. “I have my moments. Now, since I’ve often thought if I ever came across Alice Bodine, I’d want to punch her straight off, that’s enough about her. Let’s try this place, see if something clicks.”
Nothing did, but at Callen’s sister’s shop she hit gold.
“I should’ve known to come here first. I was hoping Savannah would be in today.”
“I come in here every time I’m in Missoula. I must have met her.”
“Really pregnant right now.”
“Yes! She’s wonderful. And now I have another Montana connection.”
Bodine held up a fancy ladies ostrich-skin clutch. “This is Sal. Purple’s her favorite, and this isn’t something she’d buy for herself. Isn’t practical.”
“Maybe not, but it’s beautiful.”
“We go back, me and Sal. She does love girlie.”
“Many of us do, and so does Chelsea. I’m getting her this scarf.”
Bodine eyed it—it looked like a painting of a Montana sky at sunset. “It’s more than pretty, but that’s not going to keep her neck warm.”
“It’s not about that.” Jessica swirled it around her neck, twisted this, flipped that, and had it looking like something out of a fashion magazine.
“How did you do that without looking? And don’t say you know where your neck is.”
“Mad scarf skills.” But she walked over to a mirror now, brushed her fingers over the thin, soft silk. “I want it for my own, so it’s a good gift.”
“I’d never find anything for anybody if that was my yardstick. I just … Oh!”
“What is it? Oh, the painting. That’s your house, isn’t it?”
“It’s the ranch house. There’s snow on the mountains, on the high peaks, but the fall flowers are in the pots and the beds. And the ginkgo trees have gone gold.”
The shopkeeper, sensing multiple sales, wandered over. “One of our local artists’ work. I love the vibrant color of the ginkgos, and the wonderfully sprawling lines of the ranch house, and how the sky’s showing red behind the mountains. It makes me want to sit on that old bench under the trees and watch the sun set.”
“What did the artist call it?”
“Serenity. I think it suits. That’s the Bodine Ranch. The family owns and runs the Bodine Resort, one of the finest places to vacation or just dine in the state. The family’s lived there, about an hour’s drive from Missoula, for generations.”
“You can just see the near paddock in the corner there, and there’s Chester sleeping on the front porch. Our dog,” Bodine said to the shopkeeper. “I live there. Bodine Longbow.” She offered her hand.
The shopkeeper flushed with embarrassed pleasure as she gripped Bodine’s hand. “Oh, well for goodness’ sake! Listen to me explaining it all to you. I’m so pleased to meet you, Miss Longbow. Stasha—the artist—she’s going to be over the moon you admired her painting.”
“I hope she’s just as pleased I’m buying her painting. For my mother for Christmas. You can tell her I admire her work very much, but it’s the ginkgos that sealed it.”
Bodine turned to Jessica. “On a crisp fall evening, on that bench under those trees, my father first kissed my mother.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” the shopkeeper said again, waving a hand in front of her face as her eyes filled. “That is so romantic. And this, this is like kismet, isn’t it? Oh, I have to call Stasha. Would you mind if I did?”
“Not a bit. You can tell her when my mother relates the story of that first kiss, she said it felt like her whole world had turned to gold, like the leaves overhead.”
Now the shopkeeper dug in her pocket for a tissue.
“How long would it take her to paint them in?” Jessica wondered. Then caught herself. “Sorry. I was thinking out loud.”
“Well, Jesus, Jessie, that’s the best damn idea ever! Could she do that?” Bodine demanded. “It’d be more of an impression of people, wouldn’t it, from the distance. I can get her photos of them from back then, but it wouldn’t be like she’d have to paint portraits.”
“I’m calling her right now. She lives right in town. I’m calling her. Oh my goodness.”