The Carpenter & the Queen (15 page)

“I’m glad you like it.”

There were several long seconds of silence.
Paul chewed his lip. He hadn’t planned what to do after this. Maybe
he should just go.

“I’ll get out of your way now.”

“Paul?”

She looked into his eyes for a long time,
then put her arms around his neck and kissed him. Startled at
first, Paul stood still, his hands held midair. He hadn’t kissed a
woman—really kissed a woman—in so long he wasn’t sure he remembered
how, although it only took a second or two for him to respond and
understand what she was trying to tell him.

He put his arms around her and kissed her
back, forgetting Linda and any other woman he had known. Claire was
all he would ever want.

When they pulled back from the kiss, they
touched foreheads and laughed softly. Paul marveled at how more
than two months of self-doubt and fear could dissolve so quickly.
When he looked at Claire, she was the only woman on the planet. He
would take care of this woman and her son. He would marry her
someday, and none of them would ever have to be part of a broken
set again.

Paul caught a movement in his peripheral
vision. He and Claire, arms still around each other, turned to look
at Sam, who had just come down the stairs.

“Hi, Sammy.” Claire pulled away from Paul.
“How’s your game?”

Sam’s gaze held suspicion. “Fine.”

“Are you getting hungry? I think I’ll make
supper.”

She slipped her paint-speckled hand into
Paul’s calloused one and squeezed. “You’ll stay for supper?”

He gave her a lopsided grin. “Yeah.”

“I’ll get started. Why don’t you sit down.
Looks like your leg’s been bothering you today.”

Paul dusted the back of his jeans to make
sure he wouldn’t get the furniture dirty, then settled on the sofa,
resting his aching leg on the coffee table. Smiling, he listened to
Claire set a pan on the stove and rummage through the cupboards.
Someday, this might be their everyday experience.

He glanced at Sam who still stood staring at
him from the doorway to the stairs.

“Wanna show me your game?” Paul asked.

“No.”

Sam studied Paul for a few seconds more then
disappeared into his bedroom.

Paul sighed. He had always thought he would
win Sam over first, but as life would have it, now that he and
Claire were communicating, he and Sam were not. But there was time.
Nothing had been done hastily so far, and nothing would be after
this. Paul hadn’t won yet, but he was closer to victory than he had
ever been.

Sam suddenly appeared beside him and set a
boxed chess set on the coffee table. “Will you play a game with
me?”

“Sure.”

Paul opened the box, laid out the thin board
on the couch beside him, and helped Sam set up the pieces.

“This is my dad’s game. He bought it.”

“Sure you want me to use it?”

“You’ll be careful?” Sam stared at Paul so
intently that Paul understood how important his response was.

“Very careful,” Paul assured him.

“Then it’s okay.”

As they worked to set up the pieces, Claire
re-entered, carrying her queen.

When Paul looked up, she smiled at him and
held up the chess piece. Then, with ceremony, she placed the queen
on the tower platform of her new doll house. He hadn’t told her
that was what it was for, but somehow she knew.

Her hands on her hips, Claire surveyed the
castle and the queen for a few seconds. Then, turning to look at
Paul, she blushed, smiled, and wandered back toward the
kitchen.

When she was gone, Paul studied Sam and the
game board. A new strategy had just come to him.

“Do you know what the most important piece
is?”

Sam’s brows furrowed in thought as he
searched the box then pulled out a piece to show Paul. “The
king?”

“Well, yeah,” Paul admitted. “But there’s a
piece even more powerful than the king, and it’s one you want to
keep as long as possible.” He pointed to Sam’s queen. “You can
sacrifice all the other pieces before you sacrifice this one.”

“Does the king get lonely without her?”

Paul smiled and roughed Sam’s hair.
“Absolutely. He absolutely does.”

Epilogue

Satisfied the chicken and potatoes were
proceeding on schedule, Claire leaned against the doorframe by the
stove and closed her eyes. The chess queen Will had given her now
ruled over the most beautiful little castle she had ever seen. The
resin figure with her painted features and folded hands stood in a
conical tower, overlooking her kingdom below.

Claire gasped as another image came to
mind—the cold, disfigured woman in her drawing upstairs. She knew
what to do now—how to fix it.

Dashing up the stairs, she pushed open her
office door. Center stage sat her funeral scene, but the sight of
it didn’t bring the same wrenching emotion it had while she was
painting it. She was ready to paint something new.

In a few steps she was at the wall where she
yanked down her drawing, pulling paint off with it. Uncapping her
marker, Claire drew lines to connect the planned and unintentional
ones on the page. Five minutes later, smiling in satisfaction, she
recapped her marker. Her plan was complete.

At the easel, she removed the funeral
painting and replaced it with a blank canvas, leaning the completed
one against the wall. Then, with a binder clip, she attached the
drawing to the top right corner of the blank canvas.

She stepped back to survey the blank canvas
and imagine how it would look when completed. Although the drawing
was only black and white, she could see the paint colors and how
the piece would look finished.

An azure blue sky above would accent the
horizon line of wooded hills, golden green with spring growth. At
the bottom and sides, the rest of the castle was visible, including
a red and white wattle-and-daub detail. In the middle, on the
balcony of the sandstone tower with blue-gray roof, the woman, now
clad in a blue summer gown, let her blond hair twist in the breeze
while flower petals blew past.

Any trace of misplaced lines on the woman’s
face was gone now. Her bright blue eyes gazed back at Claire. But
beneath her eyes and nose lay the feature Claire’s inspiration had
redeemed.

With full lips and open mouth, the woman in
the tower was smiling.

An excerpt of a the first novel in a new
series by Michelle Lashier:

Time-Traveling Twins 1: Quivers and Quills

April 10, 2009

Columbus, Ohio

Jill Mason’s life was far too predictable.
As she studied the birthday cake she shared with her sister Joanna,
Jill knew exactly how the situation would play out. Dad would tell
the twins to lean over the dining room table and get closer to the
cake for the picture. After the first photo, he would take another.
Dad never liked anything—or anyone—on the first viewing. Mom would
sing “Happy Birthday” off key while Dad’s mustache twitched—the
closest he ever came to smiling.

And that’s exactly how it happened.

Someone in the world likely longed for such
familial bliss and tranquility. But grateful as she felt, Jill
couldn’t help wondering if she had been born for more than
this.

Atop the cake sat two molded candles
spelling out 25. After wincing through the birthday song, Jill
automatically leaned toward the number two. Having been born three
minutes after her sister, Jill’s designated candle since the twins
turned ten had always been the lower number. The system, created by
her mother, eliminated arguing over the birthday cake and had
worked quite well except for the twins’ eleventh birthday when
special clarification had been required. After that, birthdays sank
into another routine without even the adrenaline rush of arguing
over a candle flame.

Jill didn’t make a birthday wish. What was
the point?

Seated at the dining table in her parents’
home, Jill, Joanna, Mom, and Dad ate the cake in the comfortable
silence. Jill picked up the camera and flipped through the digital
images her father had just taken. She marveled again at the
resemblance between her and her sister, a similarity all the more
amazing since as children they hadn’t looked anything alike. People
expected all twins to look identical, even fraternal ones, and had
been surprised the girls were twins after noting the eight-inch
height difference when Joanna towered over Jill at age 13. But now,
Jill understood why people mixed them up. Their shoulder-length
hair, dark like their father’s, differed only in that Joanna parted
her hair on the left and Jill the right. Beyond their almost
identical trim figures, both had endured years of careful
orthodontia resulting in perfectly straight, white teeth and
too-broad smiles, even when they were unhappy.

Noting the differences required more careful
study. Joanna’s nose sloped to a sharper point, but more freckles
adorned Jill’s nose and cheeks. Jill had her mother’s blue eyes,
Joanna her father’s brown ones. Joanna wore every emotion on her
face, especially her eyes, although Jill imagined Joanna hid her
feelings better around strangers. In the photo, Joanna’s
discouragement leaked out the corners of her mouth and eyes in a
drooping effect. But the sight of Jill’s own eyes in the photo
disturbed her more. The sparkle of mischief she treasured had faded
to a sad, glassy expression that revealed how bored she felt.

“It’s so nice to be just the four of us,
isn’t it?” As Mom smiled, laugh lines spread around her eyes. Her
hair, which became blonder every year, framed her delicate
features. “Although I do love when you bring friends home,
too.”

“It
would
be nice to have
grandchildren some day.” Dad took a bite of cake without making eye
contact with anyone.

“Dad!” Joanna shot him a dirty look.

Dad enjoyed getting the family worked up,
something he had started for his own amusement years ago as a way
of coping with a household of women, Jill imagined. His joking
didn’t bother her too much, but it made her think. She had never
brought anyone home to meet the family. Only once had she
considered it, but the relationship dissolved before she could
extend the invitation. On the other hand, Joanna’s parade of
boyfriends resembled a Hollywood casting call for Mr. Right, but no
one got the part. Behind Joanna’s back, Jill and her parents
created secret monikers to keep her male interests straight. Chris
the Psychology Major had looked promising for a while, especially
in comparison to Sam with the Nose Piercing and Ricky from New
York. Mark the Writer positioned himself as a serious contender,
but he had dumped Joanna a month ago and she was the only one
surprised.

“Twenty-four was a rotten year.” Joanna
raised her class of milk. “Here’s hoping the next one’s
better.”

Joanna was in one of her dark moods. Jill
did a quick self-assessment and assured herself that despite her
own discontent she still felt much happier than Joanna. Love and
competition between the twins had been intermingled for so long
they were almost the same thing.

Jill raised her glass and clinked it against
Joanna’s. “I’ll drink to that.”

“Jill, how’s your self-defense class?”

Mom deftly changed the subject, but her
topic choice was unfortunate. Jill wished she could say, “Fine,”
and move the conversation on to something else, but her mother was
too good a therapist for that to work. Honesty and brevity were the
only responses that would hold off a deeper inquiry.

“I stopped going. I sort of beat up the
instructor.”

Mom’s eyes opened wider. “This I have to
hear.”

“He wanted a volunteer for sparring.” Jill
shifted in her seat. “He showed us how to spot an opponent’s
vulnerable areas, and let’s just say I noticed his pretty quickly.
He told me he wanted me to hit him as hard as I could . . . so I
did. And he cried.”

Mom and Dad both chuckled.

“Get this,” Joanna added. “After she made
him cry, he asked her out. But she didn’t go.”

Mom folded her napkin and ran her finger
along the crease. “Why not?”

“Jill’s holding out for someone rich.”

Nothing could have been farther from the
truth. However, Jill suspected Joanna fantasized of a rich patron
who would fund her writing and rescue her from a string of bad
jobs. Recognizing the opportunity to shift the focus of the
conversation to Joanna, Jill said, “Jo, have you told Mom and Dad
about what happened in your writing group?”

Mom took the bait. “I loved those two
stories you wrote. What did the group think?”

“They kicked me out.”

“What?”

“They hated the medieval story.” Joanna’s
voice took on a tone she probably meant to sound nonchalant but
instead came across as bitter. “They thought it lacked
‘authenticity.’ All plot and dialogue with no description that
pulled them in.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Mom scoffed. “I thought
the story had beautiful description.”

“Not the kind they wanted, apparently.”
Joanna shook her head. “You know what bugged Gordon? The
door
knob
. He said that if I have a character open a door, the
reader has to see the knob. He said I shouldn’t write about
anything unless I can describe it in detail.”

“Door knobs?” Mom made a hissing sound to
show her disgust. “As if those are important! Who looks at door
knobs?”

Joanna blushed. “I went to three home
improvement stores and checked out what they had.”

Jill felt her right eyebrow rise. “They have
medieval door knobs at the Home Depot?”

“Well, no . . . but I thought I could get an
idea of the mechanism. Books on medieval doorknobs are a little
hard to find.”