For the very first time since the kidnapping junket, their eyes meet, Sara’s hand still gripping the mahogany leg. Rachel gathers her into a hug. “I’m so sorry.”
“Oh Rach,” Sara Beth begins. “It’s my fault. I can’t do anything right.” Her fingers have been wrapped tightly around the cabriole leg. She tosses it in the dirt and takes a deep breath. “My antiques, my dream, and oh my God, I thought this summer I’d lost you. My best friend. And now Mom. Everything’s broken. Everything’s gone.”
“You can start over.”
“Oh, please.”
“Is there much left?”
“Bits and pieces. There’s a table and chairs that were in the back. And Tom pulled out a chest of drawers and a few other pieces. They’re in storage now. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Tom told me about the new house.”
“You talked to him?”
“I saw him in town last week.”
Sara Beth leans against the fence. Her shoulders dip, her face is drawn. “I had these plans,” she says. “Like a bridal registry service to the engagement notices in the paper. Wouldn’t that be sweet? Registering to receive a beautiful antique for your home? And I planned to speak at The Historical Society about what I do, how I help bring history and family stories into a home. The same way Mom did.” Her voice drops. “So now what? Everything’s screwed up.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is. First my pregnancy. My marriage. Then us. And now this. And, okay, I’d talk to Mom sometimes, all right? And it really felt like she heard me. Maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t care. I felt her. Now, nothing.”
“You’re not crazy. Come on,” Rachel insists, pulling her friend toward their cars. “There are a lot of people who would disagree. Who really admire all that you’ve accomplished.” She glances at the charred remains behind them, knowing the time has come. If ever a wish was put to the test, this is it. “Let’s go. I’ll follow you down to Whole Latte Life and we’ll talk there. Okay?”
“Any place would be better than here right now. Jesus, Rach. I did this.”
“Shh. Stop that now.” Rachel dawdles in her car as Sara Beth backs out of the driveway. Her new historic home is on the way to the coffee shop. She’ll have to drive right past it. Please, Rachel thinks, please notice the changes and stop there. All Rachel has to do is give her a few minutes head start before putting her car in reverse.
Sara Beth drives down Old Willow Road, slowing near the covered bridge. Coming out the other end, the view of her new home on The Green is bittersweet. All the happiness it brought turns cruel. She pulls over and pushes her sunglasses on top of her head to get a better look and wouldn’t you know it? A cardinal flies right in front of her. Which is really weird, because it could be another one of those signs, that’s for sure.
Her mother used to tell her that when a cardinal crosses your path, it’s like a little Christmas ornament, any time of year. You were in for a treat. That’s how much she’d loved the holidays. So maybe Mom’s not completely gone then. That’s when she notices the new curtains hanging in the paned windows.
Delicate white lace curtains.
She turns into the driveway and sees they are the same type of pretty curtains she planned on hanging with her mom, letting the sun shine through. But shouldn’t the owners be packing up? A cast iron coin bank set on the interior windowsill, framed by those lace curtains, makes her step outside and lean against the car. It looks exactly like the horse bank she donated to the Savings and Loan. She steps closer and looking in past the curtains, sees Melissa’s mahogany double pedestal table, the one that Sara Beth found for her, in the center of the room.
Okay, something’s definitely up, something that makes her walk quickly to the door. It inches open onto warm colors and the lingering smell of fresh paint.
So this is new, this learning what it feels like falling into a dream.
First there are only colors. Browns that never glowed as beautiful as they do through tears. Beneath the mahogany, oak, cherry and pine antiques spreads a sea of gold and burgundy in an old oriental carpet. A huge vase of fresh dahlias and zinnias and small sunflowers, yellows and pinks and reds, graces a hand-stitched white lace runner atop Melissa’s dark table. Beyond that, the three children’s striped tiger chairs from Parks and Recreation stand lined in a perfectly straight row. The library’s oak country table is set beneath the side window, too. Her life flashes before her, every good deed returned in beautiful technicolor.
She walks slowly into the room. There is more. Whole Latte Life’s coat rack stands inside the door, right where a coat rack should be. A painted old mirror from her neighbors hangs beside it. From the top of her white Sotheby’s snake foot candlestand, she picks up the ornate picture frame she gave to her niece during the Fourth of July sale at her antique tent.
Well. She sets the frame down and leans her back against the wall before sliding down into a crouch with her arms wrapped around her knees. Someone pulled off a blessed miracle. Through her tears, her blurred gaze lingers on the heavenly white lace curtains until there is something else. There is Rachel standing in the doorway with her easel under an arm.
Oh her grin is wicked as she steps in and opens the easel, the one she does her best sketching on. It looks perfect set up near the window where sunshine will fall on the paper.
“This is for you,” Rachel says.
“Me?”
“For your shop. Didn’t you want to open by the fall? Lots of leaf-peepers will be passing through. They love to antique, too.”
“What about your sketching?”
“Oh don’t worry. I’ll be your first customer.”
Sara Beth still crouches, leaning against the wall, her long skirt reaching her feet. “You did this for me, didn’t you?”
Rachel turns around. “Do you recognize it? Tom and I gathered it from a lot of people. They’re all paying you back.” She slides into a crouch beside Sara Beth. “It’s the best we could do on short notice. But it looks pretty amazing, don’t you think?”
A collection of brass candlesticks is artfully arranged on a cherry hutch. All the brass in the room glows, the drawer pulls, the door knockers. The woods are polished to deep liquid hues. “Why?” Sara Beth asks, brushing tears from her face.
“It’s simple. Everybody loves you Sara. Don’t you know that? We’re all here for you.” Rachel eyes her closely. “You don’t see it, do you?”
Sara Beth shakes her head no, afraid to talk, to jinx anything.
“Well mostly it’s that you’ve been a best friend, all my life. Ever since that day in eighth grade when I didn’t know anyone in this town.”
Sara Beth presses her fingers beneath her eyes, trying to stem the flow of tears. “But I hurt you this year.”
“Yes, well. I knew, really, that New York wasn’t about us. We all knew something else was happening. Tom, and your sister. And anyway, I thought we figured out all that stuff when I kidnapped you. This is what friends do.”
If ever anyone wanted something, she wants desperately this: To believe Rachel. Has her life really been restored? The shop is filled with the touch of love that she could never have accomplished herself because it comes on olive branches and silver platters and in outstretched arms.
Her gaze sweeps the room, recognizing the framed print of kittens lapping up milk and a wooden footstool among the pieces she gave to friends over the years. The framed daisy chain hangs beside a sunny window. But the cherry hutch and a pair of oil paintings depicting thoroughbred race horses are not familiar. There are a few other new pieces, too. “How did you do this?”
“I made some phone calls to the girls. You know, Melissa, Margaret, Helen. Oh, and Aimee and Sharon helped. Let me tell you, we had a great Girls’ Weekend Out. We even brought our sleeping bags, some music. And the food! Pizza, and dessert, Helen makes a mean cheesecake! Well. You missed a really fun one.”
It’s all in her smile: the past weekend
of everyone painting into the late hours of night, of frantically building an interim, spare collection of furniture, of hanging curtains and washing windows and decorating during sunny afternoons. Of eating and laughing, maybe dancing too, to some old rock and roll tunes, celebrating for Sara.
“You did too much,” Sara Beth insists. “You must be exhausted.”
“But it was fun!” Rachel explains. “We even decided to do them more often. When one of us needs a room wallpapered or a change in decorating. Or a life adjustment? We’re really good at it. Girls’ Antique Weekend or Beach Weekend or Book Club Weekend or hey, Drown Your Sorrows in Cake and Ice Cream, Maybe A Cosmopolitan on the Side Weekend. Whatever! Oh. And your husband’s got connections too. The homeowners let us do all this before your closing, under the circumstances.”
“Tom knows about this?” The antique woods reflect pools of mysterious history. This holds his touch too.
Suddenly Rachel pulls her to her feet. “There’s some stuff in the other room.”
“More?”
Rachel leads her through the furniture tastefully arranged in the large room. The small quantity can never match what she lost in the fire, but still they gathered enough exquisite pieces to get her started on a part time basis. Off to the side in the second room, Aimee’s touch is evident in an antique cream lace wedding gown hanging on a slender mannequin, and near it, a white sheet covers a small antique. It sits beside the window under bright sunlight.
“We left this one for you to uncover.”
Sara Beth’s hand rests on the sheet covering the piece of furniture. Rachel nods to her and beneath the sheet she sees the gold swirled velvet first, then the oak arms. It is the Morris chair from her mother, from all those years ago. Her hand moves across the soft velvet, velvet that has grown even softer with time and memories of sitting safely there growing up in an old farmhouse, of her own daughters rocking in it, happy.
“Tom pulled it out that day with the Fire Chief, and we had it professionally cleaned. It wasn’t too badly damaged. Mostly soiled.”
Sara Beth is safe again, right now, in this moment. Her fingers touch the smooth dark arms. The worst time of her life, losing her mother, comes back now to give her incredible strength. She crouches to inspect it, thinking of the red cardinal that drew her eye here. “I can’t sell this.”
“Oh believe me, we didn’t think you would.”
Sara Beth stands and walks to the windows. Her fingers touch the lace curtains as she considers her life reflected in these rooms.
“We tried to pick the right colors and pull it all together like you would,” Rachel says.
The walls are freshly painted a warm taupe, the crown molding and window frames a pale cream. Refinished oak floors glisten golden beneath the old oriental carpet. The wedding gown’s long lace train is splayed over it.
“Helen made the curtains from the lace you and your mom had bought, and the gown? Well, that’s Aimee. Melissa went to a couple auctions and watched the classifieds so we could all pick up some new pieces to build your inventory. Oh, and the stuff pulled from the fire? A woodworking shop refinished them and is delivering them here tomorrow.” Rachel walks over to the window, moving aside the lace and opening the view to The Green. “So you see? I had a lot of help.”
“Maybe,” Sara Beth says. She sits down on a velvet settee, one of the new pieces. “But without you, I wouldn’t have this shop today, would I?”
“But do you like it? You’re so quiet.”
The lace curtains draw her back to the window, her fingers unable to resist touching their delicacy. They bring back the memory of her mother lifting the lace out of an old trunk at a tag sale. She remembers still the blue skies of that morning. “I’m afraid to say how beautiful it all is. I’m afraid someone will wake me up or take it away or say Oh sorry, you misunderstood.”
“It’s yours, don’t worry.” Rachel gazes at the rooms. “And you know something? When I did all this, I began to understand what happened to you in New York. I felt your passion in these rooms. So did Tom. We all felt incredibly driven. And yeah, I’d say I definitely felt Elizabeth. This was so meant to be, and her spirit is here.”
Sara Beth’s hands touch different pieces chosen specially for her. “I want to smile and laugh and get down on my knees and cry all at the same time. But especially I want to thank you.” Her voice drops then. “For granting a wish I didn’t even dare consider.”
“You’d have done the same for me.” Rachel laughs, and makes Sara Beth laugh too. It feels good, and light and clear. “Hopefully you won’t have to, but…”
“Oh I would, if you needed me to. I swear I would.”
“Well. Okay.” Rachel takes a deep breath. “But instead, how about a latte?”
“My treat.” Sara Beth loops her arm through Rachel’s. “You might think this sounds silly. But I’ve been waiting all summer for this.”
“For a coffee?”
“You have no idea.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The rest of her salvaged furniture had been delivered, and for the next couple days, Rachel helped set up Sara Beth’s shop. Thursday morning, they ended up back in Whole Latte Life for a much needed break.
“You’re still in that frame of mind,” Sara Beth says, glancing toward the waitress. Rachel sits across from her wearing faded Levi’s and a yellow top. Her blonde hair is twisted back into a French braid, the journey necklace on her neck. “I can see it.”
“What frame of mind is that?”
“Beach bum. It’s written all over you.”
“You’re right. Now that things are better here, with you, I can’t get that little Anchor Beach out of my mind. It’s really gotten under my skin.”
“Isn’t there a song like that?” Sara Beth sits back and does a little shimmy in the booth while humming a familiar tune.
Rachel grins. “And your point is?”
“My point is, you’ve got him under your skin.”
The past two evenings, when they sat on Sara Beth’s deck under the moonlight, Rachel told her about Michael, including the night at the Seahorse Café that ultimately pushed the two friends back together, and his story of killing someone, along with her worries about his hypervigilance. She wondered if he’d get it under control or if it would push even her away.
“How can he control it?” Sara Beth had asked. “Is there some trick?”
“Therapeutic tools. Self-talk, exercise, replacing worries with self-nurturing, self-soothing things, thoughts.”
“Well, sweets. He is,” Sara Beth assured her. “That’d be you.”
Rachel glances around the familiar coffee shop now. “He is under my skin, but still. Life is so peaceful here. Do I really want to leave that behind?”
“Only you can answer that one, Rach. You’ll know when you have to.”
“He wanted me to come back last Sunday, but with the teacher’s orientation and setting up your shop, I can’t go until tonight.”
“You talk things out with him. Maybe that’ll help.”
“I will. But I’m glad I stuck around here, too. To see that you’re all right.”
Sara looks out the window the way she has a million times before with her friend. “I am all right. Thanks to some amazing people in my life.” She squeezes Rachel’s hand and senses, in another way, that it is time to let go.
“Go easy on Tom,” Rachel says. “He loved your mom too. He never meant any harm that day.”
“I know, Rach. It’s just, well, it’s easy to blame. But I know.”
The waitress finally sets a chocolate birthday cake topped with two lit candles between them. Another waitress places a big silver carafe of coffee and two mugs on the table.
“What’s this?” Rachel asks.
“I never did get to wish you a happy birthday that May weekend. So I’m doing it now.”
“No way.”
“Way.”
“Only if it’s a joint celebration, then.”
&nbs
p; “How else would we do it?” The waitresses sing a quick verse of Happy Birthday, leaving them to blow out the candles.
“Make a wish,” Rachel says, leaning forward on her folded arms and gazing into the two flickering flames.
“I wish for love. For you. It’s worth it, Rach.”
“Well, okay. And I’m going to wish on you. All the success and happiness you deserve.” Rachel puffs out the candles.
“Thank you,” Sara Beth tells her.
“In a strange and mysterious way, thank you. If it weren’t for your weekend escape, I would never have met Michael and wouldn’t be going back to Little Gull for a couple more days. Michael has it rented until Saturday.”
Sara Beth slices the cake, putting the biggest piece on Rachel’s plate. “You’re the best girlfriend in the world. And I’ve been meaning to buy you a gift, something special for your fortieth. So I want to take you to this shop where I found a perfect painting, and if you like it, and the whole idea of it, it’s yours. My treat.”
“You don’t have to buy me anything,” Rachel answers, tasting a wisp of frosting.
“Well, the thing is, if you get it, I’m getting one too. So it would be cool, we’d both have the same painting,” Sara Beth says around a mouthful of cake. “I think you’ll really like it.”
The door to the coffee shop opens and a customer walks in behind Rachel. Sara Beth squints, trying to place his face. He is tanned, wearing cargo shorts, a faded polo shirt, boat shoes and a baseball cap turned backwards. A light beard covers his face. When he pulls off his aviators, his dark eyes scan the room until they stop at hers.
Oh she knows, suddenly, exactly, precisely, who it is approaching their table; New York is written all over him. “No way!”
“What’s the matter?” Rachel asks right as Michael taps her on the shoulder.
“Way,” Sara Beth answers herself, grinning widely.
“Is this seat taken?” Michael asks, removing his cap and running his hand back through his dark hair.
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