A shore thing, p.13
A Shore Thing, page 13
“I saw the article, Callie. Everyone saw it. Well, I would have seen it if I had the luxury of time in the morning—like certain people.”
Pow. Punch number one.
She continued. “I didn’t need to read it anyway. That article was all anyone wanted to talk about. I could not shop or bank or pick up children without someone, somewhere stopping me to discuss the SOS campaign.”
I bent to pet Moondoggy and he nudged my face with his wet snout. I returned the favor with a quick back-of-the-ears massage while balancing the phone between my own ear and right shoulder. “I’m so glad to hear that. We need all the support we can to make this happen.”
“You’re serious.”
“Of course. Did you expect anything less?” I said this knowing she probably did. Sheila always seemed to have an opinion about how I spent my time. She never got past the fact that I had moved beyond baby-of-the-family status into full-fledged adulthood.
“Callie, this isn’t a bake sale to raise money for kids in Africa; this is a war you are embarking on. People with money and a lust for developing prime land do not lay down their weapons at the first sign of retaliation. They turn up the heat.”
“Who cares?” Moondoggy sat, so I flipped through the stack of mail on my kitchen table.
“And have you thought at all about how dragging the family name through the mud will affect our parents and your siblings?”
Pow. Punch number two.
It was always about her or them. My sister had been annoyed with me since I was two and refused to allow her to dress me in chiffon. Oil and water. That’s how we’d always been. She broke in to my meanderings. “I don’t think you’re even listening to me.”
“On the contrary, I heard everything you said and I’m disregarding it.” I gave Moondoggy one more long stroke of my hand along his back, thankful for the friendly face that greeted me at the end of the day. “Sheila, you are the only soul in this town who seems to have a problem with me and/or this project.” I stuffed down the vague memory of Squid’s skepticism. “Even the architect and I have talked and he’s not standing in our way.”
Sheila snickered. “Well, of course not, Callie. He’s no dummy. He knows you don’t stand a chance of winning against his client, so why would he want to burn a bridge? There’s no doubt I’m right about that, and if you tell me he’s single and handsome, then I’ll know I’m right.”
Pow. Punch number three. Only this one hurt. It may have even done some damage. I watched as Moondoggy scampered away. The adrenaline that gave me the boost to drive home withered and disappeared. She was right, of course. Gage and I may have called a truce, his sister Suz may freshen up these walls and paint me something fabulous, but in the end, my new architect friend hoped—probably even prayed—that I would fail.
“Can I ask you a question, Sheila?”
“You may.”
“When all these people you talk about—the ones who approached you on the street about the newspaper article—when they mentioned my work with SOS, well . . .”
“Spit it out.”
“Did they sound unhappy? Were they upset about the community raising funds to buy the property?”
Silence.
“Sheila? Did I lose you?”
“No. I’m still here.” She sighed and in my mind’s eye her mouth and eyes were closed and she was breathing deeply through her nose. “If truth be told, they were surprised and excited. Every one of them.”
“Well good. I’m glad to hear that.” My eyes shut. “Sheila, I know you and I haven’t always agreed on environmental things, but I want you to know that I understand what I’m doing. It’s just so hard for me to worship God with one eye and watch while every last bit of his creation is destroyed with the other. Know what I mean?”
“Fair enough, I suppose.” Sheila’s voice lost its edge. I knew she felt the same, even if she didn’t have it at her mind’s forefront. “Let me ask you something, Callie.”
“Go for it.”
“Why in the world, if you have been sponsoring all those children, did you not share that with the rest of the family?”
And then I knew—the real reason for my sister’s late night call. Should I tell Sheila that I had hidden certain things in my life in order to protect myself from the opinions of my older siblings? And what if she learned that Bobby and Greta knew about my children in faraway lands? I had not set out to hurt her.
“Listen, Sheila, it just never came up. Come to think of it, Brenna and Blakey have seen their pictures when they’ve played in my bedroom. Hadn’t they mentioned it?”
She let loose an exasperated, motherly sigh. “They are children. Of course they didn’t mention it. I’m just disappointed that I had to read such important aspects of my little sister’s life on the front page of the newspaper.”
I frowned. “You mean the paper you didn’t have a chance to read today?”
“Don’t be so literal. You know what I mean.”
She meant I’d snared her in a white lie and she hated that. In the long pause, I wondered what it might be like to have a big sister to share things with. Although if I tried harder . . . “Listen, Sheila—”
“It’s late. Get some sleep, dear. I read that a cold snap might be blowing in this weekend, probably the last one before summer, and with all you are involved in, you will need your beauty sleep.”
“Sure. Thanks. Kiss the kids for me.”
We clicked off for the night and I couldn’t have been more grateful.
Chapter Eighteen
The flurry of interviews and phone calls and canvassing had made me more tired than a camp counselor after a night hike with a hundred ten- and eleven-year-old boys. Still, with several large sponsors pledging their support—including the possibility of a large contribution from the Otter Bay Banking Association—I could smell success on the horizon.
It was Friday morning and my other duty called, the one that helped me pay my mortgage. If Moondoggy hadn’t poked his nose beneath my comforter, I would have slept clear through the sunlight and my alarm and everything.
At the first sign of my eyelids lifting, Moondoggy whined and chased his tail. In dog language, I interpreted this to mean he wanted breakfast.
“C’mon. Let’s eat.” I padded to the kitchen, slower than usual. Why my dog would not interpret my body language and hush up was beyond me. “Okay, I’m moving.” I poured kibble into his dish and gave him fresh water, but he had disappeared.
I peered around the corner. “Moondoggy?”
He whined and stood nose to door at the front of the house.
I cinched my robe tighter. “What is it?”
He didn’t budge so I cracked open the door. No one there. No cat or errant bird. No one, yet when I tried to shut the door, Moondoggy threw himself against it. “Oh brother. Wait.” I gave him the command we’d practiced and he stopped short so I could slip onto the porch and investigate further.
There. A white envelope stood out among the green of my rain garden. The moist air licked my bare legs as I hurried to retrieve it. Unlike the foliage dressed in dew after a foggy night, the envelope felt dry to the touch. I glanced around, but saw no one.
Back inside Moondoggy continued to act agitated. “You are one perceptive pup.” My words did nothing to calm him or my own growing unease. It took some effort, but I finally coerced him to settle down and eat by hand-feeding him. He developed a one-track mind for his breakfast after that so I sunk into my couch, tore open the envelope, and read the note inside:
Leave the land alone, lady.
I turned it over. Blank. That’s it? Leave the land alone? My eyes narrowed. Or what? The sparsely worded note was in pencil, written as if done hastily in a moving car. I tossed it aside and watched it flutter to the wood floor.
Coward. I figured there might be some opposition to my idea to raise funds to buy the Kitteridge property, especially from the developer with plans to denigrate the land, but perhaps I had given him too much credit. I figured that at some point I might receive a phone call or an unannounced visit to the next SOS meeting.
But this? A threatening note left in my rain garden?
My cell rang, jarring the eventful morning. I touched my chest where my heart resided, neglecting to check the number on the screen. “Hello?”
“Callie? It’s Steph Hickey, from the library. Great news!”
Blood raced through my body. “Hi, Steph.” I steadied my breathing. “What’s your news?”
“The Friends of the Library have decided to hold a book sale the weekend after next and here’s the news: all proceeds will go into the fund to save the Kitteridge property! Isn’t that wonderful?”
A shaky smile found its way to my face. “That is good news, Steph. It truly is.”
“And already, a man from the valley stopped in and donated a very nice collection of books to sell.”
I nodded, my thoughts in a jumble. “That’s great. Really great.”
“I couldn’t wait to tell you. Remember, the rest of the prayer team and I’ll be praying! Enjoy your day, Callie. Ta-ta.” She clicked off.
What might a good book sale bring in? Seventy-five, maybe eighty dollars at best? I wagged my head. I had been fielding these types of calls for the past two days, thankful that so many had gotten behind the cause. Local businesses such as The Italian Bakery, Mott’s Shoes & Pearls, and Simka’s Shop on Alabaster Lane had all pledged significant amounts. Just last evening, only a day after my impromptu dinner with Gage, I learned that Holly over at the Red Abalone Grill had named an all-organic, dolphin-safe salad after me: the SOS Callie.
With a huff, I retrieved the unwelcome note from the floor and stuffed it into the pocket of my robe. Moondoggy laid at my feet and I brushed his fur. I felt my eyes flash. “I refuse to be scared off by a coward, Moondoggy.”
My companion only quirked his head, but somehow, I knew he understood.
GAGE
“WHAT ARE YOU SCARED of?”
Suz paced in front of Gage’s desk. “What if she doesn’t like my painting?”
“Callie?” He leaned back in his chair, wincing slightly at the squeak. He stretched out his arms, threaded his fingers together, and cradled his neck into his open palms. “She’ll love your work.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because she appreciates art, and what you do qualifies. Trust me on this, okay?”
She slowed her pacing. “I’m meeting with her this week and Tori will be babysitting Jer.”
“Tori Jamison?”
“You know any other Tori’s?” She grimaced, flashing her eyes at him. “Sorry to be short. I’m just nervous. Yes, Tori Jamison. Her mom works at the preschool—I think I mentioned that, right?”
He chewed his lip as he thought. “And I read that her father’s one of the new council members too. Busy family.”
“She’s a nice girl and Jer likes her, so she’ll be helping me out here and there.”
He released his hands, plopping them on the desk in front of him and leaning forward. “Good. If I can, I’ll stop in and check on them.”
Suz stopped pacing, her face filled with relief. She propped both hands on his desk. “Really? Thank you, Gage. I appreciate it.”
“Go on now.” He winked at her. “I’ve got work to do.”
She hesitated, her brow knit by new concern. “You’re moving forward on the Kitteridge property, aren’t you?”
He nodded once. “Yes. We’re in the design development stage and I’m ready to draw it up.”
“Is that hard?”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it hard, per se, but it is time consuming.” He turned the computer screen so she could see. “This is when all those drawings you’ve seen me working on are fed into the computer, and we’ll be able to see how far-fetched my plans might be. By the way, they won’t be.”
“You sound pretty confident.”
He turned the computer back around and shrugged. “Never let them see you sweat.”
“I see. So then what? You give it to the builder?”
“Almost, but not quite. After my client approves these plans—there’s usually quite a bit of back and forth in that phase—I’ll need to plot it all out to the highest degree of accuracy.”
She stepped back, casually crossing her arms. “Sounds intense.”
He nodded his agreement. “That it is. I probably won’t be much fun in the coming days, but I will help you as much as I can.”
“Do you run anymore? Swim?”
He pursed his lips. “That was random.”
“With all this work you’re going to need some kind of outlet to de-stress. I remember when we were kids, you would run for miles or swim at the park pool. Don’t you do those things anymore?”
“Rarely. Well, I do run when I can.” He thought back on the recent day when he found Callie’s dog. It took deliberate strength to keep from smiling over the memory. He shoved it away. “I haven’t been swimming in at least a year. Might drown if I tried now.”
“Maybe you can get back into it by teaching Jer like you taught me.”
“That’s right, I did. Wow. How did you remember that?”
“I may have been little but I remember a lot, like what a great teacher you were—unless a bikini strolled by. You left me hanging on the side more times than I count!”
“Categorically untrue.” He laughed.
She tapped her chin with a fingernail and peered at the ceiling. “Maybe I ought to rethink this idea of you teaching Jeremiah. Especially with that Callie around.”
His smile faded and he rocked forward, dropping his eyes to the work on his computer screen. “No worries there.”
“Why not?”
He exhaled a groan. “Don’t you have work to do?”
She forced a laugh into the awkward moment. “C’mon. I’m just teasing you, though I really am serious about you finding a way to let off some of that stress. You will try, right?”
Her face held the fear that both of them knew. Their mother died from a heart attack at fifty and that fact lived somewhere behind their quest for healthy foods and protectiveness of each other. Still, Suz didn’t need to keep meddling in his love life, now did she?
The phone rang and he reached for it but not before acknowledging his sister. “I will try. Promise. I have to get this.” He put the phone to his ear. “Gage Mitchell.”
“What do you know about this SOS group?” Redmond. His client cranked his gruffness up a notch.
He took a breath. “I know they’re a serious group of locals who are opposed to development on the Kitteridge land.”
“There’s nothing they can do about it.”
He thought about Callie and her plans, knowing Redmond was probably correct. “My understanding is that they are trying to raise enough money from the community to buy the property from the Kitteridges themselves. I agree that theirs is a tough hill to climb.”
“You got that right.” He swore. Twice. “This project’s been moving as it should from day one. Ain’t no little band of yokels going to stop it.”
“Any chance of their fight slowing us down?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“May I ask how far along escrow is? If they were to be able to raise enough money—”
“They won’t. And don’t worry about the other logistics—I’ve got that covered. You just get those drawings done and fast. Where are you on those plans? We have to be ready to pounce ASAP. We don’t want that group to think they’ll have any chance to win this fight.”
Gage swallowed. “I should have something to you by the end of the week.”
“Good. Do that. I’ll be in touch.”
They hung up and Gage fought off a swirl in his gut. Why did he sense that, despite his words to the contrary, Redmond was more worried than he let on?
Chapter Nineteen
Twelve cell phone messages. Twenty-eight e-mail messages. And a driver sped up to greet me at a stop sign on my way home from camp. After the long, hot weekend I’d just endured with two hundred kids and a laundry list of duties that left me caked with dirt and longing for a cool bath, the last thing I felt compelled to do was attend Sunday supper at Sheila’s house.
After missing last week, however, I saw no way out of it. I scanned all messages, answered two of them, grabbed a shower, and headed outside. The cool breeze brought on by a descending sun wrapped around me like a soft shawl, and I embraced every minute of my walk opting to leave the cell phone at home rather than endure its penchant for interruption.
Daffodils and tulips dotted the yard around Sheila’s sprawling home, but that pretty packaging did little to help me forget my sister’s late night phone call. Why did I let her bother me? My parents would be here after their latest trip, and I had not seen Brenna and Blakey since our last Sunday supper together. Reasons enough to chin up.
The door swung open at my touch and I stepped inside. As usual, the rest of the family had arrived before me and noshed on appetizers around Sheila’s massive kitchen island. Thankfully that meant Bobby and Greta were here, my allies in the often strained world of my sister’s home.
As the aroma of fresh baked food made my stomach tumble. My mother kissed my cheek. “Callie, my famous daughter! I’ve heard all about it. My you look . . .” She knit her brow. “Do you ever eat, my child? Come, come, and have some of Sheila’s feast.”
“Hi, Mom.” I glanced at my father who sat in a chair drinking a beer. “Hey, Dad.” I gave him a peck on the cheek, his smooth shaven skin cool to the touch. He smiled in his bland but congenial way, but said nothing.
My mother wore a scarf around her head, its colors reminiscent of an Impressionist painting. Her matching skirt swished as she moved. “Darling, we had the most fabulous time in Carmel. We visited every gallery and bakery in town and your father, the romantic devil, coerced me to walk for miles along the beach. You do know the sand is like powdered sugar, don’t you?”
