Blossom Street Brides (18 page)

“Unfortunately, she took exception to a few of the words I chose to call Dietrich.”

“Did you apologize later after you’d had a chance to cool down?” Elisa had a quick trigger, but once she blew off steam she generally had a fast recovery.

“I sent them both a text with a mea culpa.”

Lauren knew none of this had been easy for Elisa. “Did you hear back from Katie?”

Her employer reached for a fresh tissue and held it against her eyes. “Katie’s due home for the summer in two weeks, and she let me know that she won’t be coming back to Seattle.”

This explained why Elisa was so upset. “Katie’s staying in Pullman? Does she have a job for the summer?”

“She’s going home with Dietrich … As for a job, I can only assume she’ll be working in the fields.”

Lauren hugged her friend and let Elisa cry on her shoulder. This entire situation was turning into a huge ordeal. Although she wanted to comfort her, Lauren wished Elisa had listened to Katie and Dietrich instead of trying to
make their decision for them. She seemed to think she could steamroll them into doing what she thought best, and clearly that hadn’t worked.

“Getting away for a few days will do us both a world of good,” Lauren said, hoping that was the truth.

“Away?” Elisa lifted her head from Lauren’s shoulder. “We’re going away?”

“The gem convention is in a couple weeks, remember?”

“Right. It slipped my mind. You’re coming with me.”

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

“I hope your weekend went well,” Elisa said, composing herself and changing the subject from the sensitive area of her daughter’s situation.

“My weekend was lovely. Rooster and I—”

“Who’s Rooster? You’ve never mentioned him before.”

“That’s because I just met him.”

His name seemed to amuse Elisa. “Doesn’t he get teased with a name like Rooster?”

Lauren had wondered the same thing, and she smiled as she recalled his answer. “I asked him and he said, if he was teased, it never happened more than once.”

Elisa smiled. “I haven’t met this new man in your life, and I like him already.”

“I like him, too.”
Like
, Lauren mused, was such a weak word. It didn’t come anywhere close to expressing how she felt about Rooster.

Elisa’s gaze widened. “My goodness, look at you. You’re positively glowing. This new guy must really be someone special.”

“Rooster is beyond special. I’m in serious danger of falling in love.”

“Really? After only a few days? This isn’t like you, Lauren.”

Elisa was right. This was an entirely new experience for her. “I’m sorry to be so happy when you’re so miserable,” she told her friend, “but I can’t help myself.”

“Be happy, please. I’m sure I’ll remember what that feels like again, one day, myself.”

Lauren’s cellphone chirped. Normally when on the job she would ignore it. “Do you mind if I get that?” she asked hurriedly. She hadn’t heard from him yet this morning. “It might be Rooster.”

“Go ahead. Far be it from me to stand in the way of young love.” Then realizing what she’d said, Elisa added, “Young love doesn’t mean I’m referring to age.”

After four rings, just before her cellphone went to voice mail, Lauren dug it out of her purse and answered. She didn’t recognize the number and had to assume it was Rooster phoning from a landline.

“Morning, sweetheart.”

It was Todd.

Lauren’s heart sank first with disappointment, then frustration. Both emotions warred with each other and she found herself unable to speak for the first few seconds.

“I’m calling from a line at the station. I thought you said you’d be in touch. I waited all day Monday. You’re normally so responsible. What’s up?”

He’d waited for her? After all the times he’d left her
sitting in a restaurant, all the times he’d left her dangling or just plain stood her up.

“What’s up?” she repeated. “I told you before, Todd, it’s over. This isn’t a ploy to get you to marry me, I’m sincere. I’m moving on, and I suggest you do the same.”

“You don’t mean it,” Todd insisted.

“Yes, Todd, I do mean it. Now, please, don’t call me again.”

She tried to be kind; she wasn’t angry, just determined, and all she could do was hope that Todd would believe her and leave matters as they were.

My knitting changed when I allowed myself to look up from other people’s patterns and instead started to watch the work build in my hands stitch by stitch. I stopped worrying about making errors and began wondering “What if …” New directions presented themselves.

—Kathryn Alexander,

spinner, knitter, and weaver

Lydia knew something was troubling Casey the minute her daughter slumped into her chair at the breakfast table. The teenager, who was by nature a chatterbox, didn’t say a word. Even Cody noticed.

“Morning, sweetheart,” Lydia said, and served up a bowl of old-fashioned oatmeal she’d cooked with plump raisins. Because the yarn store was closed on Monday for the holiday, she wasn’t opening until noon on Tuesday and took more time than usual with breakfast.

“Are you sick?” Cody asked as he dumped sugar and milk over his oatmeal, and when he thought Lydia wasn’t looking, he added two additional scoops of the sweetener.

“No,” Casey snapped. “Do I look sick?”

“No, you look mad,” Cody returned. “What did I do that was so terrible?”

Lydia delivered toast to the table. “Did you get out on the wrong side of the bed?” she asked, and placed her hand on Casey’s shoulder.

“What does that mean, anyway?” Casey shrugged off Lydia’s hand.

Lydia exchanged looks with Cody. He seemed to be saying he was glad he could escape. The school bus would pick him up in ten minutes, which was one reason he rushed to finish his breakfast.

“What does that mean?” Lydia repeated the question as she sat down across from her daughter. “I don’t really know. I never thought about it before. It’s something my mother used to say to me. I bet we could find out where it originated online.”

“I’ll ask Grandma.”

“Okay.” Actually, it was a curious question. “I know it has to do with being grumpy in the mornings,” she said, musing out loud. “From what I remember, it goes back to something from the Middle Ages about getting out on the left side of the bed, but I could be wrong. Mostly it has to do with being cranky.”

“I’m not grumpy, and I’m not mad,” Casey insisted, raising her voice.

Cody stood, shoved another spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth, grabbed a slice of toast and his backpack, and headed out the door. “What’s for dinner?” he asked, pausing in the doorway.

“I haven’t given it any thought yet,” Lydia asked. “What would you like?”

“Spaghetti,” Casey muttered, knowing it was Cody’s favorite meal and generally what he requested.

To his credit, Cody pretended not to hear his sister. “Can we have tacos and Spanish rice?”

“That’s a switch,” Casey said, louder this time.

“That,” he said pointedly, “is my
new
favorite dinner.”

“I’ll take hamburger out of the freezer right now,” Lydia told him.

“Thanks, Mom.” The screen door slammed as her son hurried to meet the school bus.

Seeing that Casey seemed to be in a bear of a mood, Lydia said nothing, preferring that her daughter reach out to her. She noticed that Casey had barely touched her breakfast. She swirled the spoon around the oatmeal a couple of times but didn’t eat. Lydia resisted placing her hand against the girl’s forehead to see if the teenager had a fever.

The silence was louder than a shouting match, and when Lydia couldn’t bear it any longer, she tried another tactic. “That reporter I met Sunday at McDonald’s is stopping by the shop this morning.”

Casey perked up slightly. “Will your picture be in the newspaper?”

Lydia couldn’t be sure. The reporter had wanted to do
the interview right then, but Lydia couldn’t. Not with Brad and the kids waiting for her, and so they’d arranged to meet this morning. “I doubt she’ll want more than a statement or two.”

“Didn’t she ask to take your picture or that of the shop?” Casey sounded offended that Lydia hadn’t been promised the front-page headline.

“She didn’t say anything about a photographer.”

“Oh.” As though terribly disappointed, Casey’s shoulders sagged.

“I’m not even sure why she wants to interview me. I don’t have anything to do with those knitting baskets.”

“But the yarn is from the shop.”

“I know. I’m convinced it’s one of my customers.” While Lydia recognized the yarn, most of which had been discontinued long ago, she hadn’t come up with answers. The wide variety of yarns told her that whoever it was had been a longtime customer. She’d asked several of her friends who frequented the shop but hadn’t gotten any help from that end.

Casey looked up. “I think it’s a wicked good idea.”

“I suppose.” It was a wicked good idea, she agreed. However, she wished whoever was responsible had thought to mention it to her.

“Come on, Mom. Everyone is talking about it.”

That was true enough. “It’s certainly gotten the shop a lot of attention, and we’ve gotten more business as a result … only …” She let the rest fade.

“Only what?” Casey pressed.

“Well … it’s a little embarrassing to have to tell everyone that I’m not involved. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful, but it would have helped to coordinate with me. In some ways, I feel blindsided.”

Casey sat up straighter, and her eyes brightened. “I think I know who it is.”

“You know?”

“It’s a guess.”

“Guess away,” Lydia urged. Her daughter could be insightful at times, and there was every possibility that Casey had thought of an angle that had escaped Lydia.

Casey leaned forward slightly, and in a conspiratorial whisper said, “Margaret.”

“Margaret?” Lydia repeated, and had to squelch the urge to laugh. “Well, maybe, but I doubt it.”

“Trust me. It’s Margaret,” Casey said, and then advised, “Keep an eye on her. She can be secretive like that. Grandma told me that when Margaret was a teenager she used to sneak out of her bedroom in the middle of the night and meet up with friends.”

“Grandma told you that, did she?”

“Yes. She tells me lots of things. You didn’t do that because you were the good girl.”

She was the sick girl, but Lydia didn’t bother to correct her.

“I’ll keep a watch over Margaret,” she promised, although if it was her sister it would be a complete shock. Margaret was many things, but this publicity ploy wasn’t her style. She had an in-your-face kind of personality. Going behind
Lydia’s back and delivering knitting baskets around the neighborhood didn’t sound a bit like her sister.

“Can you drive me to school?” Casey asked after glancing at the time.

“Okay.” As it was, her daughter had already missed the bus, and if she was going to get to school anytime close to the bell, it would mean Lydia would need to drive her. “Hurry.”

“I will.” Casey’s mood seemed only slightly more chipper. Any improvement was a plus, though.

Quickly, Lydia cleared the table and stuck the dirty bowls inside the dishwasher. She got the promised hamburger out of the freezer and set it on a plate on the counter and grabbed her raincoat and purse. The sky looked dark and brooding, which sort of matched her daughter’s mood.

Lydia was already in the car when Casey joined her. The teenager snapped her seat belt into place and expelled her breath as though she’d greatly exerted herself with the effort.

Taking a risk, Lydia asked, “Did you have another bad dream last night?” She hadn’t heard Casey, but then, if she hadn’t cried out, Lydia could have slept through it.

“Yeah,” Casey admitted.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

Although this dream had happened several times already, Casey had yet to tell Lydia what it was about.

“Are dreams true?” Casey asked a few minutes later.

Lydia didn’t have an answer. Like the question about the phrase “getting out on the wrong side of the bed,” dreams
weren’t something she’d given much thought to before. “I assume there must be different kinds of dreams. From what I’ve read, certain dreams have meanings.”

“Like what?”

“I’m not sure. I remember as a kid I once dreamed about going to school, and when I got there I realized I’d forgotten to get dressed.”

For the first time that morning, Casey smiled.

“I must have been feeling vulnerable about something.”

“Did you have the dream again and again?” her daughter asked.

“No. Are you having the same dream over and over?” For just a second, Lydia took her eyes off the road.

Casey nodded.

“It’s terrifying, whatever it is.” Lydia had never seen Casey as emotionally shaken as when she had this nightmare. Whatever it was seemed to upset her feisty daughter unlike anything else.

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

“Of course.”

“Can I visit Grandma this afternoon?”

“Sure, if that’s what you want.”

“I’ll take the city bus,” Casey said, which meant she wouldn’t be stopping by the shop or the house first.

Lydia pulled into the circular driveway leading up to the front of the school. She had to wait in a long line of cars with other parents dropping off their tardy children. “Give me a call when you’re ready to have me pick you up from Grandma’s.”

“Okay. Thanks, Mom.”

“No problem. I know how much you enjoy visiting your grandmother; she loves it when you stop by.”

“I wasn’t talking about Grandma,” Casey told her. “I meant about not taking it personally when I was cranky this morning.”

“Oh?” Lydia still didn’t know what she’d done to warrant special appreciation.

“You gave me emotional space.”

Emotional space?
Lydia couldn’t help but wonder where Casey had come up with that phrase. “You’re welcome. Have a good day.”

“I’ll try.”

When it was their turn in front of the school, Lydia stopped and Casey leaped out of the vehicle. Even before the car door closed, Lydia could hear a friend call out to Casey. Her daughter waved her arm, and soon the two girls raced toward the entrance just as the school bell rang.