The Arrangement

By Diane DeVillers

Eve is a retired, baby boomer, who lives in Eugene, in the Pacific Northwest, Willamette Valley of Oregon. Every year she receives the same letter with a skeleton key with the request that she come to Catalina Island, off the coast of California. Every summer she leaves her home and well tended gardens in the hands of her good friend Vinnie, who lives in the back yard of her property in a canvas yurt. Their relationship for over a decade remains in flux, as both are fiercely; independent people and they enjoy the freedom of a counterculture lifestyle.
Eve is a self made, successful woman who knows her own mind. She comes from a generation of liberated women who supported themselves and sometimes chose careers over having a family. She was drawn out west to Eugene, because it’s been referred to as a smaller version of San Francisco and Madison WI, where a strong alternative lifestyle still remains. She reminisces about the good old days of the seventies, when she had her whole life ahead of her, living during an exciting time in American history, where men and women had casual love affairs and didn't ask for more beyond the moment.
Eve flies to Catalina Island, and turns the key in that door she knows so well. She then spends the summer with a former lover, reminiscing about the past and the decisions she made decades ago when America was being changed forever by the counterculture generation. They re-explore the island and listen to the local people, who still speculate about the mystery of the drowning of Natalie Wood, that happened in the Catalina harbor so many years ago.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Diane DeVillers
• Release date: Sep 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301117437

Diane DeVillers

I first came to Oregon during the early eighties and worked as a forester doing timber inventory in the Wallowa Mountains. I lived in my tent in a camp with five other mismatched timber cruisers. I worked in some of the most remote areas all over Oregon. Some of which were wilderness areas.After five years I went back to my former profession, working with people with disabilities. After twenty years, ironically, I became disabled myself and had to retire early due to symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis.It was then that I cleaned out my closet and found my old journals from the days when I first came to Oregon. As I sat there reading my journals, I chucked to myself and thought: this would make a good book. I wrote three books which are in "The Eve Chronicles". It I wouldn't have gotten MS I never would have had the time to write the book.The three books can be found as e books at Smashwords.com and any other place that sells e books.

Book preview

The Arrangement

Eve, a retired baby boomer, travels to Catalina Island under a special arrangement.

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Diane DeVillers

Copyright 2013 by Diane DeVillers

Cover design by Marti Dobkins

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to an actual person or events is unintentional.

Dedicated to

Mark Alaniz, my beloved

Table of Contents

Chapter One: The Letter

Chapter Two: The Trip

Chapter Three: The Room behind the Keyhole

Chapter Four: Eve in the Past Tense

Chapter Five: The World at the Bottom of the Glass Bottomed Boat

Chapter Six: The Cheese Stands Alone

Chapter Seven: Vinnie the Water King

Chapter Eight: Vinnie the Earth Mover

Chapter Nine: The Episode

Chapter Ten: The Dealer

Chapter Eleven: Billy Bob Surfer Boy

Chapter Twelve: The Oregon Country Fair

Chapter Thirteen: Opening Up

Chapter Fourteen: Dealing and the Poo Bears

Chapter Fifteen: The Hot Date

Chapter Sixteen: The Island Called Catalina

Chapter Seventeen: The Ocean inside the Shell

Chapter Eighteen: The Woman in the Mirror

Chapter Nineteen: The End Dream

Chapter One: The Letter

It was summer and Eve was well tanned from working in her raised beds and gardens, where she grew organic vegetables and flowers. Around the yard hung dozens of bird feeders filled with a variety of birdseed and several glass hummingbird feeders filled with sugar water. She wore her hair up in a ponytail and whenever it was humid, her hair had a fine fuzz halo that looked like an aura around her head.

The letter arrived like it did every year, written on the same handmade paper with matching envelope. The letter was written in elegant calligraphy with only a few paragraphs. Like every year, there was a gold charm to add to her charm bracelet. This year it was a tiny woman with a bird in her hand.

Inside the letter there was also a skeleton key wrapped in fine tissue paper. She put the letter and the key back into the envelope. Then she began to pack for a trip to Catalina Island, an island off southern California.

Eve put the letter and the key back into the envelope and looked out on the home that she had made herself in this beautiful part of Oregon. As she had for ten years, she would leave her little sanctuary for Catalina Island, off the southern coast of California.

For the next few weeks Eve prepared for her trip, packing her tiny suitcase and knapsack with warm weather clothes, her mandolin and the black bag from the closet. She made sure she followed the new flying rules about how much liquid she could carry, putting her shampoo into tiny plastic bottles for the trip.

Eve is retired and is still writing a novel. She also has become a good potter, something she took up since retirement. She made bright pastel-colored bowls and plates in her converted pottery room in her garage. The kiln sat in the corner where the finished product was baked until it was hard. Eve liked the part when she forms the clay with her own two hands. Her favorite color is bright yellow and it shows by all the yellow bowls and plates that line her kitchen cupboards that have no doors, so the shelves become a display case for her creativity.

She has lived the past 17 years in the same house she built on Moon Mountain, in the Pacific Northwest town of Eugene. She’d come a long way from when she was a forester in the early eighties, and the time with Joey on the Alsea River. Then came the summer in Gold Beach living Felix. After that she moved to Eugene to go to nursing school. Eugene is a multi-cultural, university town filled with creative people, artists, musicians, writers, and other green energy, globally conscious people, many of whom are from somewhere else. The university kept the small town full of many international students. Every night of the week there are many places to hear any type of music you prefer. The many bars and eateries in Eugene offer open mic, where all you have to do is show up and play music with other people or get a set for yourself. She used to play with the now defunct band called Nervous Rex, a retro, all original playing band that many had said reminded them of early Jefferson Starship. The band had split up when one by one the players had either moved away or because of, let’s say, personality clashes. A few had moved back to the Midwest or East coast from which they came.

Eve stood outside in the front pathway and soaked in the sun while she admired the lovely flowers that thrived in the rainforest climate created by the Pacific Ocean a mere hour and a half away. Her pride and joys were her hardy palm tree, calla lilies, dracaenas, rhododendrons, azaleas, and huge sword ferns and fluffy ruffle ferns. The winters were mild in the Willamette Valley, where it rarely got below freezing, but when it did freeze she had to cover the fragile plants with bed sheets.

Eve rented out the back acres of her property to Vinnie, a former band buddy who had built his yurt behind a row of arborvitaes. He was a gardener who ran his own landscape business. She often called him the man in the back yard. Vinnie’s tall with blonde hair and a lean frame. He had the large, calloused hands of a gardener, stained green and black from the soil and the weeding that he was constantly doing. He was a hardworking man and he came back every evening tired as a dog, with bumps and scratches all over his arms and legs. Vinnie was born in Arkansas, but raised mostly in Oregon. He had the personality of someone from the Bronx and talked rather loudly at times (hearing loss from running mowers, hedge trimmers and edgers all day). He talked with a somewhat strange mix of a southern and a New York accent. She always wondered where he had picked up the New York accent since he never lived on the East coast. She meant to ask him that one-day but so far it hadn’t come up. There were a lot of things she didn’t know about Vinnie, even though he had lived in her backyard for ten years.

She met Vinnie while playing at a jam down at Good Times, a local pub. He played a mean Dobro guitar and played out more than she did. Vinnie held a very special place in Eve’s world. She knew, if she wanted to, she could possibly take their relationship down that other path. But she liked just being friends: no complications, no disappointments. They kept it simple, they had their own space. Her motto was Don’t fix it if it ain't broke. They were both fiercely independent and at times had heated, intense discussions about politics or how the world was misbehaving at the moment.

Eve had a dozen potted plants growing in huge, terracotta pots just under the eaves and at the end of the driveway. A rhododendron plant had just bloomed in pink flowers. On the hill there were heathers and lavenders, and a snowbell tree, with tiny, white flowers buzzing with honeybees. Eve looked down at her charm bracelet with the new charm. It joined all the others: small figures of birds, flowers, women and girls, dolphins and fish, and an otter lying on its back eating an anemone.

She picked up the hose and started to water the fuchsia baskets in front of her living room window, placed specifically there to draw the hummingbirds. The pink and purple fuchsia attracted the most hummingbirds to their flowers. On cue a Rufus hummingbird flew close to her head and hovered above the fuchsia flower. His tiny wings sounded like the spinning wheel of a tiny motor. His body had a red rust color that gave him his name Rufus. He was very protective of his property range and chased off any other intruder, especially the bigger Anna hummingbirds that stay around all year round. The Rufus only appear in spring when they head north into Canada. In fall they make their way south to Mexico, where they spend their winters. She could relate to migration, since she summered in Catalina Island each year and returned home again to Eugene in fall.

Eve turned the sprayer to mist and tried to get the hummingbird to fly through the mist. He flew through the mist and then sat down on the feeder rail and started feeding the sweet nectar that she cooked up herself. The bird stopped feeding, and sat on the feeder railing spitting out a stream of nectar and then sucking it back up. She turned her hose on the calla lily and oxalis to mist them.

Eve saw the neighbor girl coming back from the school bus. Jasmine had Down’s syndrome. She was integrated into public school. She was the cutest little girl and had a spirit that was infectious. Jasmine waved and strutted on toward her house. She was wearing all pink today with a matching backpack and pink hair ties with tiny, pink balls. Jasmine was a diva and she doesn’t even know it. Some Saturdays, Jasmine came over and watched Eve spin her clay into bowls and plates. She was a quiet, but observant, presence, with an unassuming and pure spirit.

Eve saw Vinnie from the corner of her eye. She ignored him pretending she was busy doing her watering. He stood against the post by the garage watching her; his arms crossed and relaxed.

Hey, what ya doing? he called, when he obviously knew what she was doing.

Oh, I didn’t see you standing there. She turned the mist on him. He ran out of range and stood looking at her at a distance.

You really love watering your gardens by hand, don’t you? he asked, while scratching his arms that were covered in tiny scrapes.

Yes, watering is one of the things I enjoy.

You know, I could install a watering system with tiny drip tubes that go to each plant and flower bed. That way you could turn on the water and water the whole bunch in less time. He offered this knowing what her answer would be. They had talked about this topic many times before.

No, Vinnie, I enjoy watering them. It’s a time to bond with them, to touch them, move them around, and talk to them. It’s what makes them grow so well.

Suit yourself, he said. Vinnie moved away and went into the back yard.

She heard him start up his lawn mower.

He can have his watering system in the back yard if he wants, but in the front yard I’m the boss, Eve thought and then turned off the hose.

Vinnie had his own way of thinking and he didn’t care what others thought, but at least you always knew where he stood on any subject. No grey area. Vinnie was one of a kind. She trusted him, and that took a lot for her. She was naturally suspicious of most people, a requirement for a woman making her own way in society. She had a sneaky impression that Vinnie liked to rile her up, as he had the annoying habit of pushing her buttons. She knew how to handle him; though she had to remind herself not to overreact to his teasing. When she didn’t react, she could see