Сьюзен Виггс – That Summer Place: Island Time / Old Things / Private Paradise (страница 2)

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Old Things

Jill Barnett

Dear Reader,

Have you ever visited a place you’ve never been to before and found that you felt as if you were home? That’s what happened to me the first time I came to the Pacific Northwest. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I stepped off a ferry and found a paradise.

A few months later I’d bought a house overlooking a lovely harbor where the eagles fly and the sailboats drift by, where there is a sense of utter peace and quiet. Although I was born and raised on the West Coast, for me, my small chunk of this wonderful island is the most beautiful place I’ve ever lived.

Writing about an area that has captured my heart so completely has been very special for me. Oh, I’ve written about islands before. I’ve set four books on small islands and have even joked that I must have been an island in a past life. But this is my first contemporary work of fiction, and it’s set in a place where I live.

I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to write for a collection with two fabulous and talented Northwest writers, who are now my good friends. Both Susan and Debbie welcomed me here with open arms and graciousness.

So I hope, as you read the stories, you will see a little of what we get to see every day—trees so lush and tall they can block out the sunshine, water so still you are afraid to breathe, and sunrises so perfect you think you must have dreamed them.

Enjoy!

Jill Barnett

c/o Rowe Enterprises

P.O. Box 8166

Fremont, CA 94536

To the readers who wanted an older couple,

particularly to Barbara,

who wrote and sent me one of the

funniest poems I’ve ever read.

One

San Francisco, 1997

Catherine Wardwell Winslow spent a week last winter at a time management seminar where the experts stood up on a big stage and told her that Wednesday was the slowest day of the work week.

They lied.

Catherine rested her chin in her hand and stared at her phone. It was a Wednesday, barely nine in the morning, and already four of the five phone lines were frantically blinking. She didn’t know which one to answer first. So she didn’t answer any of them.

Her life would be so much easier if she were one of those robots you see in the cartoons, the kind with slot machine eyes, a ball-bearing nose, and those spindly metal arms and slinky legs that jerk with every movement.

Like Rosie the Robot in The Jetsons.

But Catherine wasn’t in a space-age home that looked like the Space Needle. She was in her San Francisco office on the third floor of a restored Victorian. The building was just one of many candy-colored, gabled houses on a steep and narrow street that now held offices for dentists, attorneys and other professionals.

The last line buzzed obnoxiously and began to blink like the others. She groaned and closed her eyes to escape. Her imagination took over. In her mind’s eye she was Catherine the Robot rolling around her office on feet made of rollers that looked like brass sofa balls. She jammed report folders under her robot arms with the clawlike hands of a carnival toy machine, then she spun around her messy office, grabbing files and reports, adding up cost sheets and filing.

But the more paperwork she handled, the larger the piles on her desk grew. So the faster she rolled, here and there.

Hectic. Hectic. Hectic.

The desk phone suddenly morphed into an old fashioned black switchboard. The switchboard was filled with little glowing golden dots that blinked and buzzed and only stopped if she stuck one of a hundred black spiderlike plug cords into them. No matter how fast she plugged in the cords, the telephone lines kept flashing away like those warning lights at railroad crossings.

Warning overload! Warning! Warning!

Then…

Pow!

She suddenly blew up in a cloud of springs, bolts and flying nuts.

“Are you all right?”

Catherine sat upright in her desk chair, startled. She blinked. Myrtle Martin, her secretary of fifteen years, was standing in the doorway, staring at her.

“I’m fine.” Catherine quickly looked down, embarrassed. She busied herself by shuffling the papers all over her desk.

Myrtle gave Catherine’s desk a pointed look, then shifted her gaze to the blinking lines. “You aren’t answering the phone.”

“I know.” Catherine spent an inordinate amount of time fiddling with an already neat stack of the papers. She felt as if she had just blown up, like her nuts and bolts were scattered from here to kingdom come.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for my nuts,” Catherine muttered.

“You divorced your nuts eight years ago,” Myrtle said without a beat, then closed the connecting door.

Catherine shook her head and bit back a smile. She picked up a handful of papers and tapped them on the desk until their corners were neatly aligned.

Myrtle was staring at her.

She glanced up trying to look calm and collected and in complete control, as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

Her secretary just stood there with her rigid back pressed against the door jamb, a knowing look on her face.

It was impossible to ignore her. Impossible because Myrtle Martin had a new hair color. Orange. Blindingly bright orange.

Catherine never knew a hair color could actually hurt your eyes. For just one instant she had the sudden urge to whip out her sunglasses.

Back in January Myrtle had dyed her hair jet black, painted a mole on her cheek and drawn on thickly-arched, Night-of-the-Iguana eyebrows, then wore animal prints and huge faux diamonds. At the time she was dating a Welshman named Richard.

Myrtle walked toward her with one of her “you-need-me-to-tell-you-exactly-what-you-need-to-do” looks. She had been gone for two weeks and the office looked as if she’d been gone for a year.

Catherine braced herself for a lecture, but instead Myrtle just hitched her hip on the desk corner, picked up the phone, and began pressing buttons. “Ms. Winslow is unavailable today.”

Poof! Line one was gone.

“Ms. Winslow is in a meeting and cannot be disturbed.”

Line two gone.

“Ms. Winslow will get back to you as soon as possible.”

Line three gone.

Line four got the same treatment.

She punched line five. “Yes? Uh-huh. That’s right. Who? Oh, hi! Yes, I’m just fine. Uh-huh. Uh-huh…I changed it last night.” Myrtle smiled and patted her French twist. “Red Flambeaux. Yes, it’s very vibrant. I like color, too. Catherine? Yes, she’s right here.” Myrtle studied Catherine for a long moment. “She’s wearing a suit…of course. Black,” she added as if she were describing cockroaches.

Catherine glanced down at her tailored black suit and frowned. She liked this outfit; it fit her mood.