The Cottage on Juniper Ridge

by Sheila Roberts

  She spent forty-five minutes in the kitchen, and by the time she was done she had two grocery bags full of goodies for the Kindness Cupboard, the town’s local thrift store, which donated proceeds to various worthy causes around town. Okay, on to the bedroom.

  Dean came home and discovered her knee-high in a pile of clothes. “Having trouble finding something to wear?” he asked, and kissed her.

  “No. I’m purging.”

  “Purging,” he repeated as if it were a foreign word.

  “Yes, I’m getting rid of things I don’t need.”

  “Really?” He looked skeptical.

  She couldn’t blame him. She tended to go through phases. There’d been her cooking-class phase, when she’d taken lessons and then vowed to make something different for dinner every night of the week. That had lasted about a month before she’d decided it was way too much work and had gone back to making her old standards.

  Then there’d been her no-sugar diet—no baking, no treats, no ice cream anywhere in the house. Much healthier for them. But then they’d gone out to Zelda’s one night and she’d been seduced by the wild huckleberry pie.

  “Oh, well, a little sugar won’t hurt us,” Dean had reasoned.

  “Except my hips,” she’d said.

  “I like your hips just fine,” he’d assured her, and that had been the end of that.

  Then there’d been her exercise kick, her clog dancing classes, painting class (she was better at quilting). She’d tried numerous different activities with the best of intentions but never stuck with them.

  But this was important. She was going to stick with this.

  “I’m getting rid of stuff we don’t need or use anymore,” she informed Dean. “It’ll make life so much simpler.”

  “I’m all for that,” he said. “What about the attic?”

  “I’ll get to it,” she promised.

  “Wow,” he said.

  Yeah, wow. By noon the following day she’d gone through all the bedrooms, the linen closet and the hall closet.

  “My goodness!” exclaimed Janice Lind, who volunteered at the Kindness Cupboard. “You’ve been doing some serious cleaning.”

  “I have,” Stacy said. “I’m lightening my load.”

  “Have you been reading Muriel Sterling-Wittman’s new book?”

  “I have. How’d you guess?”

  Janice nodded sagely. “There’s been a lot of load lightening going on around here lately.”

  “It feels good,” Stacy said with a smile.

  She said as much to Cass when she went into Gingerbread Haus the next day to reward herself.

  “That is seriously impressive,” Cass said, handing over a gingerbread boy.

  “How are you doing with simplifying your life?” Stacy asked.

  “I’ve hired some new help. I’m going to start taking Fridays off and only coming in mornings on Saturdays. Just the thought of having that extra time is better than a sugar buzz.”

  “Did you end up hiring our new book club member?”

  “I did. She’s going to work Thursdays, Fridays and Saturday mornings. I’ll get some time off and she’ll have a part-time job so it’s a win-win.”

  “I’d say so.” Stacy paused for a moment. “You know, I wasn’t really in favor of reading that book, but now I’m glad we did. I got rid of all kinds of stuff I didn’t need. Even some of my Christmas decorations.”

  Cass’s mouth dropped. “No.”

  “Well, not a lot,” Stacy admitted. “But a bunch of stuff we haven’t used in a long time, things I’m not that crazy about anymore. And I unloaded a whole boxful of outside lights.”

  “That probably made Dean happy,” Cass said.

  Stacy smiled. “Oh, yeah.”

  But later the next evening he wasn’t quite so happy.

  She’d just finished cleaning up after dinner when Dean came into the kitchen. “Hey, babe, have you seen my old army jacket?”

  The one he hadn’t worn in ages? The one she’d taken to the Kindness Cupboard?

  “I can’t find it anywhere.”

  Uh-oh. This was not going to be a good conversation. Like a lawyer she started with a strong opening argument. “You haven’t worn that coat in forever.”

  “Well, I want to wear it tonight to the basketball game. It’s not in the coat closet. Did you move it?”

  She’d moved it, all right. What to do now? She could feign ignorance, say she had no idea what had happened to his old army jacket, but Dean wasn’t stupid. He’d search all the closets and find it in none, and then he’d be back here in the kitchen, demanding to know what she’d done with it.

  She switched tactics. She closed the distance between them and put her arms around his neck. “Deano.”

  His expression turned wary. “Oh, no. Why do I get the feeling I don’t want to hear what you’re about to say?”

  “You know how I’ve been getting rid of things, lightening our load?”

  She didn’t have to say any more. He looked at her as if she’d just told him the Seattle Seahawks had been sold. “No.”

  “I was only doing what Muriel Sterling said to do in her book. If you haven’t used something in three years, you should get rid of it.”

  This was met with incredulity. “You got rid of my jacket?”

  “You were glad to hear I was getting rid of stuff. Remember?”

  “Your stuff, Stace, not mine. Where does Muriel Sterling say you should get rid of your husband’s things without asking him? And I don’t have that much.”

  “Well, look at it this way. Now you have even less,” she said, trying to ease the moment. Okay, maybe it was more a case of trying to avoid admitting she was wrong.

  Her attempt failed. Dean grumbled once in a while, but he rarely got angry. Right now, he was angry. He stood in front of her, hands on his hips (instead of on hers), looking like a thundercloud with legs.

  “I don’t want less. I want my army jacket,” he growled. “Or maybe I should go through your closet and start getting rid of your clothes without asking. Or better yet, how about I get rid of that box of Santas? I’ll bet they didn’t go.”

  “I use them,” she protested. And she couldn’t remember the last time he’d worn that jacket. Why did he want it now, all of a sudden? Because she’d gotten rid of it, of course.

  “Well, I use my jacket,” he insisted, “and I want it back.”

  “But I took it to the Kindness Cupboard.”

  The thundercloud seemed ready to zap her with lightning. “I guess you’ll have to go there tomorrow and get it back.”

  Take back a donation? That would be tacky. “What do you expect me to say to Janice Lind?”

  “Say you made a mistake. Say you gave away something that wasn’t yours to give away.”

  He was looking at her steely-eyed, like a man betrayed. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll get it back.”

  “Thank you,” he said stiffly.

  She kept her hold on him. “Deano, I’m sorry. Am I forgiven?”

  The thundercloud vanished, blown away by a long-suffering sigh. “Yes.” Now his arms moved around her waist. “And I do appreciate you getting rid of household stuff we don’t use. But in the future, can you do me a favor and ask before you decide to dump my personal items?”

  She could do that. She nodded and they kissed. Dean wore a different jacket to the Icicle Falls basketball game. Problem solved.

  Except the next morning when she went to retrieve
the army jacket, she found that her problem hadn’t been solved at all. In fact, it had grown.

  “Not here?” she repeated weakly.

  “We send our clothing donations over to Goodwill in Seattle to get sold in one of their stores,” Janice said. “That way no one in town has to be embarrassed by being seen in something someone else donated. Your things, along with all the others we received over the past few days, got taken to Seattle.”

  Oh, boy. How was she going to tell Dean about this?

  She wasn’t. She was going to go over the mountains and scour every Goodwill in Seattle. She grabbed her cell phone and started making calls to her posse.

  Chapter Eleven

  Our friendships are one of our greatest treasures.

  —Muriel Sterling, author of Simplicity

  “I’ll get my mom to watch Jon,” Juliet said when Stacy called her. “How soon do you need to leave?”

  Ten hours ago. “The sooner, the better,” Stacy said. Just the thought of someone happily waltzing out of a Seattle Goodwill with Dean’s army coat was tying her stomach in knots.

  “Okay, I’ll hurry.”

  Her next call was to Charley. It was a long shot since Charley practically lived at her restaurant, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

  “I can be ready to go in ten minutes,” Charley said. “But I have to be back here before the dinner rush, so I’ll follow you over to Seattle. Plus, if we have more than one car, we can spread out.”

  Spreading out. Good idea. How many Goodwill stores were there in Seattle? Would they be able to cover them all in one day?

  Chita was working the assembly line at Sweet Dreams Chocolates, so there was no point in calling her. There was no point in calling Cass, either, since she couldn’t leave the bakery. Maybe Cecily could sneak away from work....

  No, Stacy argued. It wouldn’t be right to pull her away from her business, any more than it would be to bug Cass. Almost all her friends worked; they had more important things to do than take the day off to help her clean up the mess she’d made of simplifying her life. Fresh panic set in. Who else could she call?

  The answer to that was easy. When times got tough, a girl called her mother. Her mother lived in nearby Cashmere and could be at her house in twenty minutes. Of course, calling her mother would also include a healthy dose of unrequested advice. She’d have to endure a minicounseling session. But her mother would come through.

  Or not. “I have to take Nana to her doctor’s appointment today,” her mother said sadly. “Otherwise, I’d love to come to Seattle with you. What’s the occasion?”

  Stacy decided not to tell her. “Nothing, really. What’s wrong with Nana?” At the age of eighty-eight a better question would have been, “What’s not wrong with Nana?” Her grandmother had crippling arthritis, a bad heart and cataracts she refused to have operated on.

  “Nothing new. This is just a checkup. But you know how much Nana loves going to the doctor. Believe me, I’d much rather be over in Seattle having fun with you.”

  Fun, yeah. “It’s okay,” Stacy said. “I’ll catch you next time.”

  Stacy had barely ended the call when her cell phone rang. It was Cecily. “I heard from Charley that you need help. When are you leaving?”

  “You have to work,” Stacy protested.

  “I set my own schedule,” Cecily said. “Charley told me it’s an emergency and I want to help.”

  “Thank you,” Stacy breathed.

  “I’ll be over in fifteen minutes,” Cecily promised.

  Stacy’s cell rang one more time. “Hi. Stacy?” said a vaguely familiar voice.

  “Yeah, that’s me. Who’s this?”

  “It’s Jen, Jen Heath, your new book club member.”

  “Oh, hi, Jen,” Stacy said, donning a friendly I’m-fine-nothing-wrong-with-me voice.

  “I heard from Juliet that you need help finding something in Seattle.”

  Okay, this was embarrassing. She hardly knew Jen. “Well, um, yeah.”

  “I thought maybe you could use some extra help.”

  Look at the mess she was causing, dragging her friends over the mountain, pulling in people who were practically strangers.

  “Since I lived in Seattle, I could help you find your way around. You know, be a backup in case your GPS fails you.”

  This was no time to be proud. “Sure. Thanks. I’d love that.”

  “Great,” said Jen. “And I’ll call my sister. She lives on the East Side. Maybe she can check out the Goodwill stores there. When are we leaving?”

  “As soon as possible,” Stacy said. “You remember how to get to my house?”

  “I think so. Uh, the roads over there are clear, right?”

  They’d had snow the day before, but all the main roads were clear now. Still, Jen was new to Icicle Falls and might not have realized yet how efficient their road crews were. Obviously she wasn’t wild about driving in the snow. That was something she’d have to overcome if she was going to live in the mountains.

  “You’ll be fine,” Stacy assured her.

  That was more than she could say for herself if she didn’t find Dean’s army jacket.

  Within half an hour, Stacy’s team had assembled at her house for Mission Army Coat. They piled into two cars, Juliet and Jen with Charley, and Cecily riding shotgun with Stacy.

  “I’m sorry I took you away from work,” Stacy said as they traveled over the pass.

  “Don’t be,” Cecily told her. “I needed a break and I hardly ever get to go to Seattle. I just feel bad that this isn’t going to be any fun for you.”

  “Serves me right. I shouldn’t have gotten rid of Dean’s jacket without asking. I should’ve known it would have sentimental value.” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t have been happy if he’d gone through my closet and started purging my clothes, either. It was just that, well, I was on a roll. He never wears that jacket....” She let the sentence trail off.

  “I get it,” Cecily said. “Sometimes things don’t quite work out the way you planned.”

  Stacy wondered if Cecily was talking about her own life. She’d been in L.A. but had decided to move back to Icicle Falls after helping her family’s company, Sweet Dreams Chocolates, sponsor Icicle Falls’s first chocolate festival. The second chocolate festival had been an even bigger success, and it was mostly Cecily’s baby now.

  “But I believe things do have a way of working out,” Cecily continued.

  Stacy smiled at that. “I suspect you know this from personal experience.”

  Cecily smiled in return. “I do. I’m glad I closed my business in L.A. It’s nice to be home again.”

  “What was your business?” Stacy asked. Cecily had never talked about it, preferring instead to focus on her family’s chocolate company.

  “I ran a dating service.”

  “You mean you were...”

  “A matchmaker,” Cecily finished for her.

  “That sounds like fun,” Stacy said. She loved watching The Millionaire Matchmaker on TV.

  “Not so much. It got old fast.”

  “But helping people find each other sounds...I don’t know, noble.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Cecily said. “I had a gift for it. But I got burned out. I’m done matching up people.”

  “What about yourself?”

  “I’m especially done with me. Turns out I’m a lot better at putting other people together with the righ
t person than I am myself. Maybe my life would be simpler if I had a matchmaker.”

  “Even if she found you the perfect man, life would never be simple,” Stacy said. What if she didn’t find that jacket? Dean would forgive her, of course, but she’d feel terrible.

  “It’ll work out,” Cecily said, reading her mind.

  Stacy hoped so.

  A little over two and a half hours later, they were in downtown Seattle. Charley checked in via cell phone. “Jen’s sister is at the Bellevue Goodwill. She wants to know what the jacket looks like.”

  “It’s light green-and-sand camo and it has a patch with the name Thomas sewn on the front, above the pocket.”

  “Okay,” Charley said. “Jen tells me the big store is downtown, but there’s also a nice one in Ballard. Which store do you want us to take?”

  “Take the Ballard one. We’ll hit the downtown store,” Stacy said. Maybe, if they were lucky, they’d find the coat quickly.

  Or maybe they’d be there all day. “It’s huge,” Stacy muttered as they drove into the parking lot.

  “Hopefully, the men’s section won’t be that big,” Cecily said.

  It was. “Yikes,” Cecily said as they walked in.

  Yikes was right. The warehouse full of castoffs seemed to stretch on forever.

  Before them were miles and miles of clothes, shoes, books, lamps and small appliances.

  “Wow,” Stacy breathed, “look at this. Oh, my gosh, there’s even a collectibles section.” She’d always preferred to buy new items rather than deal with someone’s castoffs. But some of these were gorgeous.