The Second Sister (28 page)

Chapter 37

B
y the day of the meeting, I was fine. I was over it.

The holidays are always a terrible time for single people—all that emphasis on family, kiddies dancing joyfully around the tree while Mama and Papa sneak a kiss under the mistletoe, all those sappy, sentimental movies on television, the equally sappy and sentimental carols crooned from every spot on the radio dial and every loudspeaker in every retail establishment—no wonder I'd been feeling emotional.

In previous years, I'd been working so hard that I'd been able to ignore most of the holiday hoopla until I'd hop on a plane to meet Alice at some nice, warm spot for a Christmas that had little to do with family dinners and nativity scenes and everything to do with lying poolside and working on my tan while simultaneously catching up on my e-mail. If not for Alice's insistence on our presence at midnight mass in whatever church was nearest to our hotel on Christmas Eve and the next-morning ritual of stockings and gift giving, I might not even have known it was Christmas. That would have been fine with me. Christmas is an insidious, emotionally manipulative holiday. What with Alice's death coinciding with the holidays, and the snow, and being back home for the first time in years, it was easy to see how I'd allowed myself to get sucked into it.

But now I was over that. Well and truly over it. I'm not saying that I suddenly turned into some unfeeling, insensitive pillar of salt. Nor was I doing a turnabout on my feelings about Nilson's Bay; on the contrary, I recognized that my coming home was a good thing, that it had helped me find a certain amount of peace regarding Alice's death, and even though I still hadn't unraveled the mystery of Maeve and probably never would, I had gotten some insight into my sister's life.

It was just that after a bit of reflection, I recognized the source of my melancholy and the season that had primed me to become emotionally vulnerable to Peter and his unkind and unfair commentary. Having recognized the problem, I was able to explain it rationally and prescribe myself an antidote, the medicine that never failed me: work.

And not just any work, though I did make some calls to the office in DC to see how things were coming along with the transition and I did check in with Jenna, but meaningful work that would help Rinda and others keep their jobs, would preserve an important though unrecognized historic building, and would protect the town from the economic and cultural ravages of a bunch of greedy people who didn't care a rat's rear end about Nilson's Bay and the people who live here.

Peter's sensibilities might be too delicate to fully engage on behalf of his constituents, but mine weren't. I've never backed away from a fight. And this wasn't just me fighting for the sake of it. Winning this fight would actually help my fellow man. If you can think of a better way to celebrate Christmas, the birth of the one who instructed us to love our neighbors as ourselves, then I'd like to know about it.

Our first big organizational meeting was set to take place that night. With the help and input of Mrs. Lieshout and the FOA—particularly Celia, since school had let out for the holiday and she had plenty of time, not to mention proximity since she was living with me—we had rewritten and reprinted the flyer, posted copies on every bulletin board in Nilson's Bay and the surrounding towns, crafted a press release and sent it to various news outlets in the county, and made phone calls inviting people to the meeting. We were ready. If everyone who said they were coming actually showed up, we'd have upward of forty attending, a pretty impressive showing in a town this size.

I'd also spent a lot of time doing research on the investment company that was buying the store—they were hugely profitable—and what had happened to the small businesses in other localities after the company had opened similar stores. A lot of them hadn't survived. I was boiling down that information and putting it into bullet points that could be handed to attendees and members of the press.

Though we didn't yet officially exist as a group, it was decided that Mrs. Lieshout would facilitate the meeting. I was sure that by the end of the night, she would be elected as chair of the Nilson's Bay Heritage Protection Committee and that the name, though still unofficial, would also be voted upon and adopted.

We'd done an amazing amount of work in a short time. Now we were just handling the final details of logistics and refreshments. Dinah had confirmed that she would bring three dozen of her fold-over fruit pies, Rinda was mixing and bringing a big batch of punch, and, with Daphne's help, I would bake a few batches of You Like-A Me Bars. We decided to do the baking at her house. Celia was out running a few last-minute errands, but would join us at the library that evening.

“Welcome to the asylum!” Daphne said when she opened the door. “Can I take your coat?”

It was an appropriate greeting.

The television was blaring, even though no one was watching it. The whine of a blow-dryer and the wince-inducing squeal of badly played violin music came from the general direction of the bedrooms. Ophelia and Portia, with beach towels trailing from their shoulders like capes, were running through the living room, shouting and leaping and whacking each other with long cardboard tubes that had once held wrapping paper.

“ ‘I have no words!'” Ophelia cried. “ ‘My voice is in my sword!' ”

She leapt onto a chintz ottoman and thrust the long cardboard cylinder at her sister's shoulder. Portia then jumped onto the sofa, nearly knocking over a table lamp.

“ ‘Yield thee, coward!' ” Portia shouted and started thwacking her sister repeatedly over the head, her expression full of murderous glee that quickly turned to frustration.

“Mom!” she whined as Daphne hung up my jacket. “Ophelia won't yield!”

“I don't have to!” Ophelia countered. “Malcolm dies offstage!”

“But he still dies! Mom!”

Daphne hung my jacket up and slammed the closet door. “Girls! That's enough! Go outside and play. Why are you so obsessed with
Macbeth
anyway, you little barbarians?”

“It's got the best fight scenes,” Portia said, hopping down from the couch.

“It's too violent,” Daphne said. “If you
have
to play
Macbeth,
then why not be the Weird Sisters instead? Suits you better.”

“But it's just me and Portia,” Ophelia reasoned. “We'd need a third witch.”

“Well, it's not like we're lacking in that department,” Daphne said in a half mumble. “Viola! Come out here and play with your sisters. They need another witch!”

The scraping of the violin ceased, mercifully. Viola came into the room with her instrument at her side and a scowl on her face.

“Mom! I'm too old to play
Macbeth
. And I've got to practice.”

“And
I've
got to be able to hear myself think,” Daphne said, clicking off the television set. “Seriously, Viola, take them outside to play for an hour or so. I'll pay you three dollars.”

Viola's forehead creased as she considered the offer. “Four,” she said after a moment. “And I get to do the ‘fair is foul' speech.”

“Five,” Daphne countered. “And you've got to check on the chickens while you're out there.”

“Deal,” Viola said and turned to her siblings. “C'mon, weird sisters.”

The girls bundled up and went outside. I followed Daphne into the kitchen and started unloading recipe ingredients from the grocery bags I'd brought. Daphne made coffee. A moment later, Juliet popped in, her hair sleek and shining, wearing a sweater and wool skirt with cute brown riding boots.

“Gotta run, but do I look okay?” she asked.

“Fantastic! Good luck!” Daphne made a kiss noise at her. Juliet grinned and disappeared.

“What was that about?”

“Juliet has an interview. She's applying for a summer internship at the state capitol this summer.”

“Yeah? That's great!”

Daphne pressed the brew button on the coffee maker. “When The Sloth heard she might be going away, he got all pissed and gave her an ultimatum—him or Madison. She told him to have a nice summer.”

Daphne threw up her hands.

“Hallelujah! Thought she'd never get rid of that loser!”

“Good for her! It's about time,” I said.

“Sure is. And I've got you to thank for it. Your talk at the high school really inspired her.”

Daphne opened the cupboard and pulled out two coffee mugs, humming to herself.

“You seem awfully happy today,” I said as I started unwrapping the sixteen sticks of butter that would be required to make four pans of bars—no wonder they taste so good. “Is this just because of Juliet? Or is something else going on?”

Daphne's eyes danced. She pressed her lips together and blew up her cheeks like a squirrel hoarding nuts, as if she was bursting to share her news.

“So you remember the truck driver who kept stopping into the store to buy jerky and M&M'S?”

“Daphne, no! You made a deal with yourself, remember? No more giant panda! You can't afford to get pregnant now, and even if you could, where would you put another baby? You're out of bedrooms.”

“No! It's not like that,” Daphne said, grinning as she filled the coffee mugs and handed one to me.

“His name is Myron. He's from North Carolina, but spends most of his time on the road. Anyway, he came into the store last week and bought some jerky like he always does, and we chatted a little bit like we always do, and then he asked me if he could take me out for a cup of coffee after work, and I said okay.”

Daphne pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and sat down. I left the butter to soften and went to join her, sipping coffee as she continued her story.

“So,” she said in a hurried and breathless voice, leaning toward me, “we walked over to the doughnut place and got some coffee and talked, and then he asked me if I wanted to see his truck.”

“Let me guess. His truck has a sleeper cab.”

“It does,” she confirmed. “But I climbed in anyway because he's really cute and nice and, by that time, I was feeling a little . . . well, you know.”

“Not good,” I said and blew on my coffee. Daphne went on with her story, ignoring my comment.

“So we get in the cab and he shows me the controls and how the radio and the refrigeration system works and then asks if I want to see the sleeper and I said okay—” I started to scold and she lifted her hand to stop me. “Hang on. Let me finish. Anyway, we climb in there. I just thought it would be a bed, but he customized it so there's cabinets and a kitchenette and a sofa and even a shelf for books! And what do I see on his shelf?” she asked, her eyes sparkling in anticipation of my answer.

“No,” I said,
thunking
my coffee cup down on the kitchen table. “No way!”

Daphne bobbed her head excitedly. “Yes! Yes way!
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
!”

“I can't believe it.”

“It's true! He had the sonnets and everything! Well, the second I saw those books, I went into full-bore, hard-core panda mode. I grabbed him and kissed him like there was no tomorrow. And then do you know what happened?”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “But I'd just as soon you didn't share the details.”

She shook her head hard, like a dog just come in from the rain.

“Uh-uh! No! I kissed him and he kissed me back, but just for a second. Then he pulled back and said that he thinks I'm beautiful, but he doesn't believe in premarital sex. Myron is a Baptist!”

“He's a . . . and you didn't?” Daphne bobbed her head again. “Really? And you're happy about that?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but it makes me feel like he's interested in
me
.” She pressed her palms urgently to her breast. “That he's interested in who I am, and what I like, and what I think—not in how quickly he can get me on my back. And do you want to hear something else? Something amazing?”

I nodded.

“He said he'd like to take me out to dinner the next time he comes through town. He said he'd like to take me out
every
time he's in town! And this summer, he wants to take me to the Shakespeare festival in Bailey's Harbor. And
then
he said he'd like to be my boyfriend. Can you believe that? He actually used the word—‘boyfriend'!”

She laughed, looking younger and happier than I'd ever seen her look before.

“Well, for a minute I just thought he was crazy. But I figured I knew how to bring him back to earth quick, so I broke the news to him; told him I had four daughters. Do you know he didn't even blink an eye? He just said we'd have to get more tickets for the plays!”

“He did? Daphne, that's wonder—”

I wasn't able to finish; she talked right over me.

“Isn't it? We sat in there for the longest time, talking. He told me about growing up in North Carolina, getting baptized in the same river where he caught catfish when he was little, and how he got laid off from his job in an auto factory and decided to go into business for himself driving trucks. I told him all about my life, and the girls having four different dads, and just . . . just everything! And he just listened.

“And then! You won't believe this, Lucy. He sat there and read sonnets to me. Sonnets! He's got this deep voice; it's like thunder rolling in across the bay. You know, I always thought that English accents were sexy, but until you've had a man with a beard and a deep voice and a North Carolina drawl read Sonnet one-sixteen to you, you don't know what sexy is. Oh, Lucy! I am in love! For the first time in my life, really and truly!”