The Second Sister (20 page)

“Thanks!” she said, and set to work.

While Celia scribbled away, Daphne gave me a lesson on how to cut blocks using a rotary cutter and ruler
without
drawing blood and Rinda sat down at my sewing machine, trying to figure out why it was skipping stitches.

“Here's the problem!” she said triumphantly, holding something that looked like a big dust bunny between her fingers. “You could knit a sweater with the amount of lint in that bobbin case. Your tension was off too. Were you messing with those knobs?” she asked and then answered her own question. I guess the guilty look on my face must have given me away.

“Well, don't! Not for any reason! I've got them all set perfect now, you hear?”

“Yes, ma'am!” I said, snapping my fingers to my forehead in mock salute. Daphne guffawed, nearly swallowing the piece of nicotine gum she'd been chewing. Rinda didn't so much as crack a smile.

A few minutes later, Celia finished sketching out a new, much more interesting design for my quilt project and held it up so we could all see.

“Don't worry,” she said when she saw the look of concern on my face, “it's really not that much harder than the pattern you picked before.”

She'd kept the blank blocks as they were in the original, saying this would give me a good place to do some quilting or even some free-motion embroidery.

“Daphne can help you with that part,” she assured me. “She's got a real feel for free-form quilting and embellishing.”

I nodded, but honestly, I had no idea what she was talking about.

The rest of it made more sense to me. Celia had traded out those big, boring four-patch blocks with smaller nine-patch checkerboard blocks, each six inches across. Using her pencils, she had colored in some of the little squares within the blocks and left others blank, creating a secondary crisscross pattern that would stretch from one corner of the quilt to the other.

“See?” she said, looking up at me, her eyes bright. “Doesn't that look more interesting?”

It did. Even I could see that.

“You know,” she said slowly, tapping her pencil thoughtfully against her lips and holding her sketch at arm's length, “maybe we shouldn't leave those crisscross blocks white. I feel like I've seen that so many times. You can use any color you want as long as it's consistent through the pattern. Why not try something a little more daring? Is there a color you really like and think you look good in but are afraid might be too wild to wear to the office?”

I didn't have the heart to tell her that my entire work wardrobe consisted of navy blue suits and sensible shoes.

“Orange?” I said uncertainly, because it was the first thing that came to mind.

“Perfect!” Celia exclaimed. She grabbed a pencil from the box and started filling the previously blank squares in the blocks with bright orange. “See what it does to those blues? Not namby-pamby now!”

She was right about that. My dull, safe quilt design was coming alive! I couldn't wait to start sewing, but first I needed to find more and better—more exciting—fabrics to make it with.

Everybody helped. For close to an hour, we sat cross-legged on the floor of the sewing room “auditioning” combinations of fabrics, surrounded by piles and piles of blue and orange yardage pulled from Alice's stash.

“Stash,” I was informed, is the name quilters use to refer to their fabric collection. Apparently, the bigger the better. I was starting to see why. I bet we had to consider fifty or sixty blues before finding just the right fabric to use in my quilt.

“I've been quilting since I was a little girl,” Rinda said, “and I'm still trying to build up my stash. Won't be satisfied until I have achieved SABLE. I think I'm just about there.”

“SABLE?” I asked.

“Stash Accumulated Beyond Life Expectancy,” Rinda said with a grin.

Celia looked around at the piles of blue, orange, and white fabric heaped on the floor and her smile faded. “I guess Alice achieved SABLE,” she said softly, and her eyes began to well.

Rinda put an arm around Celia's shoulders. “Yes, she did, sweetheart. I know you miss her. We all do. But isn't it wonderful that Alice's stash is getting a new life?”

Celia blinked a few times and tried to smile through her tears. “It is,” she said. “I'm glad Lucy's here.”

Rinda squeezed Celia's shoulder and then looked up at me.

“So am I,” she said.

Chapter 28

W
hen the phone rang a week later, I thought it might be Daphne answering the message I'd left asking what kind of batting I should buy for my quilt. But it was Joe Feeney, calling from Washington. When I told him why I didn't have much time to talk, he started to laugh.

“High school kids? You're giving a speech to a bunch of high school kids?”

“It's not exactly a speech,” I said, shifting the phone from one hand to the other and reaching out to pet Dave, who jumped onto the sofa and started head-butting me. Now that he'd gotten used to me, he was getting to be an attention hog.

“It's more of a question-and-answer session about the American political landscape. Why are you laughing?” I asked, grinning. “I've been grilled by the hard-boiled members of the national press corps. You don't think I'm up to the task of taking questions from a bunch of teenagers?”

“It's just hard to picture you talking to a bunch of kids. I never thought you liked them.”

“What do you mean? Of course I like kids. And anyway, I'm doing it as a favor for my old high school civics teacher.”

“Well, that's commendable,” he said. “Molding the minds of the next generation and all; I've met some of them and they could use some molding. It's a nice thing. Very patriotic. I'm impressed.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” I said, scratching Dave under the chin, then reaching over and doing the same for Freckles, who had hopped up onto the sofa to make sure Dave wasn't getting all the attention.

“But you're feeling more settled in now, right? You sound a lot better.”

“I am. But it's still hard to make myself believe that Alice is gone forever, especially being here. Sometimes,” I said, almost to myself, “it feels like she's still here, standing in a corner or watching me through a window.”

“She's haunting you? That must be unsettling.”

“No,” I said, annoyed because of the skepticism I heard in his tone, but more annoyed with myself for being unable to explain what I meant. “It's not like that. It's more like she left some of herself behind in the walls and the floors and the books, like there's something she wants to tell me.”

“And she left behind clues?”

“Kind of,” I said. “Not exactly.”

“Huh,” he said. “Did you ever find out who she made all those quilts for?”

I shook my head. “No. I asked her friends, but they'd never heard her mention anyone named Maeve. They'd never seen the quilts before either, which is really strange because Alice always showed them her projects. I asked a few people around town, too, and even did an online search and spent a day combing through records at the library. Came up empty-handed. There isn't anyone with a first name of Maeve in the whole county.”

After studying both the quilts and the multi-aged sketches of the anonymous girl, I'd decided that Maeve must have been a sort of imaginary friend for Alice. But I didn't say anything about that to Joe. I felt guilty enough, thinking my sister had needed to invent a friend to fill the void left by our parents' deaths and my absence. I didn't want Joe turning it into some kind of joke. I don't mind him teasing me, but I didn't want him teasing me about Alice.

“Gosh, Nancy Drew! Sounds like you've got a mystery to solve! Good thing. You must be bored out of your mind up there. You need a project.”

“Actually, I'm pretty busy. Not crazy busy, just busy enough. Which is good. Speaking of busy,” I said, looking up at the kitchen wall clock, “I'm supposed to be at the high school by eleven and I haven't shoveled the driveway yet.”

“It snowed again?”

“Uh-huh. Another five inches last night.”

Joe made a groaning noise. “How can you stand it? I hate snow. Every inch adds a half an hour to my commute.”

“But there's no traffic here,” I explained. “And people know how to drive in snow without crashing into each other. It's actually kind of exciting when a big storm comes through. The wind howls and blows so hard that the windows rattle and the chimney whistles, but the whole world has been transformed. Everything is perfectly quiet, still, and wrapped in white.”

“Very poetic, I'm sure.”

“It is.” I laughed. “Stop being so cynical. I've even been thinking about getting some snowshoes.”

“Snowshoes? What are you, an Eskimo?”

“I like getting out into nature.”

“Since when?”

“Joe,” I said flatly, “can I help you with something? Or did you just call to make fun of me?”

“As it turns out, I do need your help,” he said. “Making fun of you is just an added bonus. Would you be interested in taking on a short-term consulting project while you're up there? We just took on a new client, a developer out in California who's putting in two big new subdivisions out in Orange County; fifty-five and up communities. It's not the kind of project we usually handle, but this guy has deep pockets and wants to hire the best.

“There are some issues with land use and water rights ordinances,” he continued. “Our West Coast office is handling the lobbying effort with local officials and the state legislature. We're going to need a marketing campaign to sell the citizens on the idea. Or at least keep them from fighting it. It has to look like a movement that sprung from within the community; you know what I mean. Very grassroots. We'll need a name that people won't associate with the developer or his money, call it the Committee for Affordable Senior Housing. Something like that.”

“Joe, I can't go to California right now. I've got to rack up as much residency time here as I can before I leave for DC, remember?”

“I don't need you to actually implement the campaign. Just craft the concept and message, work out the timelines, budgets, lists of key contacts and target audience, draft some language for editorials and letter-writing campaigns, that kind of thing. I just need a blueprint that my people can work from, Lucy. It's right up your alley and it'll give you something to do during your exile in the wilderness. And it pays ten thousand dollars,” he said. “No need to thank me. Think of it as my Christmas present to you.”

Ten thousand dollars? Lobbying definitely paid better than government work. But there was a reason for that. People who can afford to hire big lobbying firms have the money to buy the access and influence to change the rules and stack the deck. I didn't like the sound of what Joe was describing, a dummy committee and a high-dollar campaign that looked like a grassroots community movement but was really just a cleverly disguised marketing campaign, designed to help one very wealthy individual mold public opinion and reshape the law so he could become still wealthier.

Still, I thought as I pushed Freckles off my lap and carried my empty coffee cup into the kitchen, whether I helped out with this effort or not, the campaign would undoubtedly go forward and the subdivisions would be built. And the money would sure come in handy. My paychecks had stopped when the campaign ended. It would be nice not to keep dipping into my savings, not to mention earning some extra cash to buy furniture for a new place in DC.

I wanted a condo or town house that was no more than five metro stops from the White House and that also had outdoor space—real outdoor space, not one of those sad little balconies that make you feel like you're about to fall off the edge of the building as soon as you step out onto them. Getting what I wanted was going to take every dime of what Mr. Glazier was willing to pay me, plus a good bit more. Real estate in DC was incredibly expensive. I'd spent a lot of time on sites that sold patio furniture and had my eye on a kind of outdoor living room suite with a sofa, two side chairs, a coffee table, and blue-striped, all-weather cushions and a matching umbrella. It cost forty-six hundred dollars, but came with a lifetime warranty.

Joe could make fun if he wanted, but the last four weeks had taught me that I really was an outdoor person, that access to nature was central to my happiness. I wouldn't have an incredible lake view or a big yard with hundred-year-old trees when I moved to Washington, but with an extra ten grand in my pocket, I could create a beautiful outdoor oasis or pocket garden.

I turned on the faucet and rinsed out my cup.

“What kind of a time frame are we looking at?” I asked.

He sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah. That's the tricky part. I need it by December twenty-second. My client is leaving for a three-month world cruise on the twenty-fourth and wants to see everything beforehand. A package with research materials, proposed schematics for the subdivisions, and background information on the company is already on the way to you, rush delivery. Should arrive by three o'clock today, assuming the sled dogs don't get lost.”

“You expect me to start today? Joe . . .” I protested, but he didn't pay any attention.

“I'm flying to LA for the presentation on the nineteenth,” he said. “Thought I'd stay on and spend Christmas in Malibu. If you weren't busy serving your sentence in the Frozen North, I'd ask you to join me.”

“Joe, are you kidding? A full-scale campaign, something that's ready to present to a client, will take at least eighty hours!”

“Ummm . . . I'm thinking more like a hundred. Look,” he said, his tone turning from jovial to apologetic, “I know it's a lot to ask in a short time, but you're the absolutely best person for the job. Nobody on my staff has your instincts on this kind of thing—that's why I wanted you to come work for me. You understand how to organize people, how to cast a vision, and then get everyday Joes and Janes working together to make it happen.”

“Yeah, but you're not asking me to cast a vision for the common good. You're asking me to make people
think
they're supporting the common good when what they're really supporting is something that is only good for Mr. Deep Pockets Cruise Around the World Real Estate Developer.”

“Lucy,” he said, drawing out my name, his voice low and placating, “what's so terrible about creating housing options for senior citizens?”

“Tell me something: What's the price of the lowest-priced unit in this development?”

Joe was quiet for a moment. “Six hundred and twenty-two thousand dollars.”

“I'm hanging up now.”

“Wait! Don't!”

I didn't say anything, but I didn't hang up either. We've been friends a long time, so I at least owed him the courtesy of listening to him.

“Lucy, I could really use your help. We're swamped and half my staff is leaving on vacation in the next ten days.”

“But I'm
already
on vacation. Remember?”

“I know. But this isn't a real vacation, is it? I mean, it's not like you're lying on a beach in Hawaii. You called me yourself, whining that you were lonely and bored.”

“Okay, first off, I never whine. Second, that was three weeks ago. Now I'm enjoying the time off. Do you know how long it's been since I've had the time to even take a deep breath?”

“Couldn't you breathe deeply while you work? If you move your desk to the window you can stare out at the tundra and watch the reindeer herds running by.”

“Very cute. This may not be a beachside paradise, but there
are
things to do here and I'm busy doing them. Alice's friends helped me start making a quilt with her old fabric. Do you know something?” I said, hearing the surprise in my own voice as I asked and answered my own question. “I like them. Daphne is a high school dropout who quotes Shakespeare and has happy hour with chickens. Celia is a twenty-five-year-old middle school art teacher and is working on an installation for walls of the town hall featuring old dial-up telephones she's decorated with paint and beads and feathers and any other weird thing she can find. Rinda is a black, evangelical, recovering alcoholic who moved here from Chicago.”

I laughed. “I've got to tell you, Joe, these aren't the kind of people I thought I'd find in Nilson's Bay! But then again, I didn't expect to find myself here, ever again. That's why I like them, because we're all a little bit . . . off. We get together to sew twice a week. If I don't finish this quilt before I start my new job, I probably never will. And I
want
to finish it, as sort of a testament to Alice. This way, even after I sell the cottage, I'll have a piece of her. It will be kind of like we made it together.”

Dave rolled onto his back and stretched his front paws up over his head, signaling that he wanted his tummy rubbed. I squatted down and obliged him, smiling as he closed his eyes and started to purr.

“For the first time in years, I'm going to have a real Christmas,” I said. “With a tree, decorations, and everything. I'm even thinking of hosting a little party. The Swensons had me over for Thanksgiving. It would be nice to reciprocate.”

“The Swensons,” Joe said. “They're the ones with the son, right? Your boyfriend from high school? So you're going out with him now?”

“Peter wasn't my high school boyfriend,” I said, “and we are not going out. He's a nice guy with a nice family who was also Alice's lawyer. He was just elected to the town council.”

“Oh, no. So he's a politico?” A grumbling groan came through the line. “I know you dumped Terry Boyle, but I figured you'd take a little time before finding a replacement. Especially after all those very sage insights I made regarding your unfortunate relationship patterns. Luce, if you have to revert so rapidly to type, couldn't you pick a boyfriend who has at least some chance of making the cut long term? Somebody with at least a little ambition, who doesn't live on the dark side of the moon? Sure, I
guess
you could have chosen an even lower-level public servant from an even more remote region, but it's hard to imagine who—an assistant sheriff from the wilds of Wyoming? A dog catcher from Ketchikan?”