Angel Song (6 page)

Ann could think of absolutely nothing to say. She took a deep breath, then concentrated on proper diction with each word. “There’s been a little change of plans. Sarah’s not going to graduate tomorrow after all.”

“What? You flew all the way down there, and she flunked her last semester of grad school? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“No, she didn’t flunk. There was . . . an accident.”

“Accident?” Her voice took a serious tone, but she was obviously still waiting for the punch line. “What happened?”

“A car ran a red light. It crashed right into the driver’s side. Sarah . . .” Just saying the words brought back pictures of Sarah’s pale face against the sheets, the blood, the humming. “She didn’t make it.”

Jen gasped. “No.”

Ann took another breath to make certain she could speak before she tried again. “The funeral is Monday. I don’t think I’ll be back to the office until Wednesday afternoon sometime.” Funny, once the focus of the conversation turned from the accident itself to getting things done, it became easier to speak.

“Oh, Ann.” Jen’s voice was quiet now. “I’m so sorry.”

Ann looked toward the counters piled high with food and said, “Me too.”

There was a full minute of silence. Even the ever-bubbly Jen had been shut down by this news. Finally, Ann said, “Now, back to business. Why did you say you were trying to reach me?”

“Oh, right. It seems that you, Miss Fletcher, received a phone call from none other than Mr. Patrick Stinson himself.”

“You’re kidding me.” Ann thought back to the surprise of meeting him on the airplane. It felt like a lifetime ago. “What did he say?”

“Not much. He didn’t want to talk to anyone but you. I’m gathering you had some sort of an encounter?”

“I don’t think it would qualify as an encounter exactly.”

“You must have impressed him during whatever it was. He asked for your cell number. I told him I wasn’t allowed to give out personal information. Margaret almost killed me when she found out I did that, but hey, I’m not going to be the one to give your number to some stalker, right?”

“Thanks, Jen, I feel much safer knowing you’re on my team.”

“I know, right? I’ve got your back. Margaret got all freaked and I honestly thought she was going to stroke out right here in the office. Then”—she began to speak so softly Ann could barely hear her—“I noticed she’d been back in her office with the door closed for a while, so I made up an excuse and went in there ‘looking for a file.’ Guess who she was talking to?”

“Jen, you sneak.”

“Hey, a girl’s got to do what she’s got to do. I walked in just in time to hear her say that Marston would be
very
interested in pitching the staging for his newest building. She was glaring at me and motioning with her head for me to get out of there, but I stalled as long as I could. So long, in fact, that as I was walking out the door, I heard her say, ‘Only Ann?’ in that screechy voice she uses when she’s stressed. I’m betting he told her he would only work with you.”

“Really?”

“Yep. And if Margaret’s looks could kill, I’d be a dead woman right now, but she hasn’t said anything about it yet.”

“Jen! What if she’d come out and fired you on the spot?”

“Oh, she’s so engrossed in the idea of getting a project from Patrick Stinson that she’s already forgotten about me. Hey . . . just an FYI . . . The rumor I’ve heard is that he can get a little, uh . . . aggressively friendly with the females he works around, and he works around a lot of females. I’m sure you can handle him, but just so you know.”

“Thanks for the down low. If I end up working with him, I’ll be sure to keep him in line.”

“No doubt.” Jen laughed. “Anyway, Margaret’s been practically dancing around since he called, in spite of everything else.”

The thought of Margaret dancing would have made Ann laugh at any other time. Today, it didn’t. “In spite of what else?”

“Well, you know, the Beka thing.” Jen paused for just a second. “I mean, Beka called you, right? I assumed that she would have called you already.”

“What Beka thing?”

“Margaret called Beka into her office first thing this morning, before all this, and told her that as of the end of the month, she was being laid off.”

“She did what?” Ann jumped to her feet. “Transfer me back to Margaret.” Beka had been Ann’s best friend since their days as classmates at Parsons. Unfortunately, Beka’s relationship with Margaret had always been tense, making her an easy target.

“Don’t tell her I told you
anything
, okay?” Jen’s voice dropped even lower. “You know how she gets.”

“Not a word, I promise.”

“Right. Hold on just a minute.” There was a long, classicalmusic-filled pause, during which time Ann was sure that Jen was filling Margaret in on what had happened to Sarah. She was equally certain that Margaret wouldn’t mention it. The line clicked.

“Ann, amazing news. Patrick Stinson called here and he wants Marston Staging to pitch Stinson Towers. I’ve already started preparing for the meeting. I want you to be the lead designer on the project.”

She
wanted Ann to be the lead designer. Right. Did she really think Ann wouldn’t find out that Patrick Stinson had asked for her specifically? Well, two could play this game. “All right. Of course, I’ll want Beka working on the presentation with me.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” She offered a dramatic sigh. “Beka, unfortunately, will be leaving us in a few weeks. She’ll need to be working on her own projects until then, getting them finished. But I’ll work alongside you every step of the way.”

“Beka’s leaving? Did she find another job or something? She hadn’t told me she was leaving.”

“Times are hard, and I’ve had to make some hard decisions.”

“Margaret, if you’ll remember, I took a significant pay cut last month to keep something like this from happening. Beka does amazing work, and you know that she needs this job; she needs the insurance more than anyone else in the company.” Beka’s daughter had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and the treatment costs alone were staggering. Margaret knew this well enough, but as usual, Margaret acted on Margaret’s best interest.

“Look, I don’t want to cut Beka loose any more than you want me to. Last month I thought I’d found an investor, someone who would act as a silent business partner, but that fell through. Now I’m faced with the hard reality of today’s economy. Unfortunately, Beka is a casualty.”

“What if we land the Stinson job?”

“Then we would reevaluate, of course.” She paused a moment, letting that one sink in. “I’m sure you’ll do whatever it takes to make sure we get it. In fact, I’ve already found some photos of their most recent project. I’ll e-mail them over to you so you can take a look. I want you to take what’s been done and do it two steps better.”

“Two steps better. Definitely.” Ann spit out the words, hardly even knowing what she was agreeing to.

“I expect no less, even though I understand that you’ve had some,
issues
, there. I know it’s very difficult, and I know you’re overwhelmed, but this is important.” Margaret paused for a split second, and Ann almost thought she was going to offer condolences. Then she said, “I’ll leave you to get to your work,” and the phone went dead.

Okay then
.

Ann punched in Beka’s cell number, barely waiting until Beka answered before she said, “Why didn’t you call me?”

“Oh, honey.” Beka was speaking softly, obviously to keep from being overheard in the office, but also just as obviously choked with emotion. “How could I burden you with this right now? It’s been less than twelve hours since you called to tell me about Sarah. I couldn’t dump this on you too.”

“That’s what friends are for.”

“You just take care of yourself, okay? I’d give anything if I could be there; you know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know.” And she did know. She also knew that she needed to do something for Beka, and she would, no matter what it took.

Tammy stroked her son’s hair and sang softly long after he’d cried himself to sleep. Only now was he starting to understand the truth—that Sarah was gone and was never coming back. The realization had come slowly, then hit hard. He’d sobbed until his strength failed and he could do nothing but whimper as sleep finally claimed him. “Rest well, my sweet darlin’,” she whispered, then leaned forward to kiss the top of his head. Still, she didn’t leave his bedside.

How could they go on without Sarah? She had been like the third member of their family, her life so much a part of theirs that things would surely implode without her.

Tammy thought back to a cold winter’s night just last year. Sarah had poured hot chocolate for the three of them from a beautiful hand-painted cloisonné pitcher. Tammy had run her finger along the graceful curve of the handle. “This is beautiful.”

“Thanks. It was my great-great-grandmother’s. Her father painted china back in the old country. It was the only thing she brought with her when she moved here.”

Keith took a sip of his hot chocolate. “It makes good hot chocolate too.”

Sarah smiled at him. “I think so too, Keith. It makes the best hot chocolate.” She used a napkin to wipe a drip from the spout. “It’s not worth anything really, but I love the history behind it.”

A moment later Keith stood up from the table, stumbled on the leg of his chair, and knocked the pitcher to the floor with a crash that echoed through the kitchen. Fragments of china lay in a pool of cocoa at his feet. Sarah gasped and threw her hand over her mouth. Her eyes were wide with the horror of it.

Keith bent over the mess on the floor. “I’m so stupid. So stupid. I ruin everything.”

Sarah walked over to him, the hint of tears glistening in her eyes. She knelt on the floor beside him and enveloped him in her arms. “Thank you, Keith.”

He looked up at her, the surprise of her words enough to temporarily stop the meltdown. “What for? It was pretty and special and I broke it.”

“Well, you’re right about the pretty and special part.” She took a deep breath, and Tammy knew she was fighting for control. “And I’ve been thinking for a long time now that something so beautiful shouldn’t be kept up on a shelf where no one ever sees it except on those rare occasions when we drink hot chocolate. I’ve been thinking about breaking it and taking it to an artist friend of mine who makes mosaic tiles. That way I could put it somewhere that I’d see it all the time. It could make me happy every day.”

“Really?” Keith wiped his eyes. “Do you mean it?”

“Absolutely.” Sarah gave a firm nod of the head. Tammy suspected she was trying to convince herself. “Now, you go wash the sticky off your hands while I gather the pieces. Just you wait and see—it will be beautiful.”

Two weeks later Sarah brought over a small mosaic tile and presented it to Keith. She had a similar one on her kitchen counter at home, but Keith’s had the teapot handle, intact, sticking out from it. “Keith, I want you to put this someplace where you can always remember. Even something that appears broken, in the hands of a master artist, can be made into something more beautiful than the original.”

“Like Jesus does for us,” he’d said in his unique and simple faith, then set the tile on his dresser in the display stand that Sarah had brought him. Even now in the dark, Tammy could see its outline on Keith’s dresser. He rubbed his fingers across that tile on days when things were going wrong. “It reminds me,” he would say.

“I need that reminder too,” Tammy whispered as she walked from the room. She wasn’t certain how she could face the next few days bearing the weight of her grief. And Keith, well, he was going to be so difficult as he continued to work through all this. Today he had vacillated between asking her, “Why you sad?” and all-out wailing because he missed Sarah. It was likely to be relived over and over in the next few days. Tammy didn’t feel like she had the strength to face it.

She made her way to the kitchen and began unloading the dishwasher, flashes of Sarah playing through her mind. The image that seemed to hover in her mind the most was of Sarah at her kitchen table, her blonde hair sticking out in all directions from her messy bun, wearing a T-shirt, sweatpants, and glasses that looked like Sarah Palin’s. Large textbooks were spread out all around her on the table, and she had a pencil in her mouth, another in her hand, and a third behind her ear. She always looked so tired during finals or when she had a paper due. How often had Tammy envied her? What would it be like to work yourself to the point of exhaustion and actually move toward a goal in the process?

With Keith, homeschooling was the best option, which made working from home her only means of income. She enjoyed her sewing business, but she had no hopes of a better education, of a better job, or of ever having money left over at the end of the month.

She parted the curtains that looked toward Sarah’s house. There was a light on in the kitchen and the dim glow of the television in the living room. Poor Annie. Suddenly Tammy felt selfish for feeling so sorry for herself. She still had Keith. And Ethan. Ann was left alone with no family at all. Tammy couldn’t begin to imagine it.

She needed to do something to help Ann, but what? She thought of the pillows she’d been making for Sarah and decided she would make them for Ann now, just so she would know that there were still people here for her, people who would help her in any way they could. Tammy knew she wouldn’t sleep tonight until she finished them.

In her sewing room, she looked at all the alterations she needed to finish by tomorrow afternoon. They would have to wait. For now, she pulled out the fabric she’d chosen just a few weeks ago. At the time, the bright colors had seemed so appropriate. Sarah was graduating; her sister was coming to visit for the first time in years. It held all the colors of new starts and happy beginnings. Now they seemed so wrong. But they would have to move past that, because Sarah would want them to be happy. Maybe, by this one little gesture, Annie would get a measure of cheer.

It was after one in the morning when Tammy finally stood up and walked through the kitchen to the laundry area. She started a load of darks, then walked over to the stack of Keith’s crayon drawings.