Broken Trust (3 page)

Petal’s face lit up. At least it seemed to
,
from what Nora could tell behind the rose glasses and that bird’s nest of hair. “Accountant?”

“Business manager, MBA, accountant—all that left-brain stuff.”

Petal squirmed like an excited child. “I knew there was a reason I met you up there. The universe introduced us to each other.”

Nora raised her eyebrows at Petal.

Petal clapped her hands. “I think we have an opening for
F
inancial
D
irector.”

Nora wanted to feel optimism and excitement at an opportunity
,
but she held back. “I already applied to
Loving Earth Trust
a month ago.”

“It’s a new opening,” Petal said
,
but the delight evaporated from her face. “Our
F
inancial
D
irector disappeared a few days ago and no one knows where she went.”

“She just disappeared?” Like the kachina on the trail?

Petal hung her head. “I think it might have been my fault.”

“I’m sorry,” Nora said and meant it.

Petal sat upright. “But this is like
my
redemption. Darla left, but you’re here and I found you.”

Nora tried not to get her hopes up. “That’s nice of you to say, but the Trust wouldn’t be hiring already, with your director only being gone for a couple of days, would they?”

Petal’s mouth turned down. “They were getting ready to fire her. Maybe that’s why she left. Anyway, her taking off without a word to anyone was the last straw. They already have an ad set to send to the paper and post on our site.”

Nora didn’t wish the old director ill, but this opportunity gave new meaning to the word
serendipity
. “Thank you for the head’s up. Will you do the hiring?”

Petal’s eyes sparkled. “Not really. But sometimes, I can suggest things.”

The girl’s excitement penetrated Nora. Maybe fate had jumped in and rescued her. “I’d love if you could get me an interview, Petal.”

Petal smiled. She resembled a playful elf. “Done.”

three

For the first time
in too long, Nora joined the morning masses on their way to jobs the following Monday morning. Constructive, worthwhile, paycheck-producing jobs. Nora needed to work, had worked since she was sixteen, even while earning top grades in college and grad school. The last year of unemployment had depleted more than her cash reserves.

But no more. Look at her
:
a
job! Loving Earth Trust wasn’t just a job, either. It was a dream position. She’d called the
E
xecutive
D
irector as soon as she’d returned from M
ount
Evans. He remembered her resume, called her in for an interview the next morning
,
and hired her that afternoon. Two days after her failure on the mountaintop,
Nora
felt her wheels gaining traction.

Sunshine blazed from the east, sparkling on the morning. Nora turned from her apartment parking lot onto Arapahoe Street, happy to see the students with book bags strapped to their backs making their way toward campus for their first classes. There was
something abo
ut people heading out for productive days, fresh from the shower,
hair and clothes spiffed. Ready, expectant.

Financ
ial
D
irector with Loving Earth Trust. Score!

While not as well-known as
t
he Sierra Club or
t
he Nature Conservancy, Loving Earth Trust had earned a reputation in Colorado for getting results. Founded in the early seventies to spearhead open space in Boulder, they’d done good environmental and restoration work through the years. More than raising money and wringing hands, the Trust produced science
that
influence
d
lawmakers to protect wild places. They sent volunteers out in the field for trail maintenance and landscape restoration. Now she was their financial director.

“And you get to come with me,” she said to Abbey, stroking his silky head as he sat in the passenger seat keeping a keen eye on traffic.

Boulder’s Flatirons rose to the west and Nora felt like saluting them. Flaming maples shouted good morning with their deep scarlet leaves contrasting
with
the golds and oranges of the less showy trees. She loved her town in all its outdoorsy quirkiness. The People’s Republic of Boulder. The land of bicycle commuters, hippies, audacious entrepreneurs. Liberal, green, often downright weird. Right where she belonged.

Nora’s phone vibrated and she flipped it open.

“How are you?” Abigail. Again. Loving
and
smothering
were the same in Abigail’s world. It didn’t help that Nora and Abigail were as alike as a Birkin
b
ag and a North
F
ace backpack. In Nora’s case, the backpack tended to be smattered with mud and repaired with duct tape.

“I’m the same as I was fifteen minutes ago, just a little closer to work.” Nora waited at a stoplight on Broadway in downtown Boulder and watched a young woman and man in business suits in earnest conversation. They cross
ed
the street in front of her, followed by a scuzzy gray-haired guy whose canvas pants barely stayed on his skinny hips. Behind them, two young women pedaled across in spandex biking shorts, colorful jackets
,
and helmets.

“What did you decide to wear? Did you pack a lunch? You’re wearing makeup, right?” Despite living in the woods in Flagstaff, Arizona
,
for the last year, Abigail hadn’t lost her high esteem for appearance. A magician, Abigail managed to look nearly perfect at all times.

Nora waited at the light. “
T
urquoise velour sweatsuit. Sauerkraut and sausage. The darkest, skankiest Goth I could shovel on.” Although Nora wore her copper hair straight around her shoulders, she’d
earlier told Abigail she wore a ponytail just to irritate her.

Abigail exhaled. “No need to get snippy. I’m only concerned.”

Nora rolled her window down a few inches to smell the fresh morning. “Sorry. I’m nervous. I’m wearing jeans and
,
sorry to say, not much in the makeup department. As for lunch, Abbey and I will probably take a walk.” Although Nora admired Edward Abbey, he
also
served as a good excuse to use a name that would forever irritate
Abigail
Stoddard
. Her mother would prefer she
’d
named
her dog
Fido.

“Jeans!
And y
ou brought your dog to work? Oh Nora.” Abigail couldn’t sound any more disappointed if Nora wore a bathing suit to a cocktail party.

“It’s an environmental trust. I’ll be hanging at the office with enviros, not power-lunching with the rich and famous.” She rubbed a pinch of Abbey’s soft hair between her fingers before
pulling her hand away to shift gears. “And Abbey will probably sleep on my office floor
all day.”

Abigail’s voice sounded distracted. “I know you were desperate for a job, but that place is not up to your standards.”

Nora pulled the hatch closed on her emotional cellar. She refused to let Abigail irritate her. “I wasn’t desperate.”

“If you say so. I’ve told you a hundred times you should have kept more of that money from the Kachina Ski sale instead of setting up that trust for me. In fact, you shouldn’t have set up that trust at all.”

The money Nora received when she sold the ski resort should be enough to keep Abigail in a decent living standard for the rest of her life. The problem was that Abigail enjoyed a higher-than-decent standard; if Nora hadn’t locked it down and kept herself as executor, Abigail might run through it too fast. It had happened before.

For her part, Nora didn’t keep much of what felt to her like blood money. She’d figured with her resume and business skills, even if she insisted on working in the environmental sector, she’d land a good job in no time. She hadn’t planned on a wrecked economy.

“This job is about perfect for me, Mother.”

“But the salary is so low.”

“Sadly, I’ll have to forego the spa weekends and month-long cruises with you.”

The sun dazzled the flower beds and brick pavers of downtown. Nora drove past the offices and shops, beyond the county buildings and library and out of town on Canyon Boulevard, along Boulder Creek.

Abigail probably thought Nora was serious. “If you’d get a real job you wouldn’t have to make those sacrifices.”

The paved bike trail along the creek gave way to a gravel path as the highway narrowed in the canyon. The creek rushed along, as happy as Nora to be going someplace.

“I’m almost there. Let me talk to Charlie.” At least he was proud of Nora working for the Trust. Charlie had been Nora’s buddy long before he ended up as Abigail’s fourth husband, a situation more bizarre than anything Nora had experienced—and she’d been in a vortex of bizarre.

“Charlie’s not …” Abigail trailed off. “Charlie’s not here.”

Nora nodded. He probably headed out early for his day of relatively harmless eco-terrorism. After his stint in Vietnam, Charlie had returned to his cabin outside of Flagstaff and did his bit for the environment by blocking forest trails with logs and rocks to keep dirt bikes and quads from shredding the forest.

“Tell him hi for me.” Nora’s stomach churned, like a kid on the first day of school. Where would this new adventure take her?

“Okay.” Abigail sounded unsure. “Nora, I probably should tell you …”

A voice interrupted Abigail. It sounded like, “Can I take your order?” Since Abigail usually didn’t venture from the cabin before her lengthy morning beauty regimen, it must be the television.

Just outside of the bustle of town heading into the canyon, a graveled clearing off to the side of the road supplied parking next to a bus stop. One person stood under the bus stop sign. Nora considered him. A shrunken old man, swallowed by a canvas work coat, he stared down the road as if watching for the bus …

The canyon walls disappeared and ice raced through her.

“I have a kachina for you.” She stood in a crowd in the Flagstaff courthouse lobby.

He touched her arm. A withered slip of a Native American, he wore a long, threadbare tunic, leggings
,
and moccasins that reached to his knees. Deep wrinkles lined his face like wadded parchment and skin sagged around his eyes.

“I have a kachina,” he repeated in that soft voice cracked with age.

“I don’t want to buy a kachina,” she said.

“Not to buy.” He reached into a canvas bag and pulled out a doll carved from cottonwood root. “For you.” The doll had a scary mask with slit eyes and a plug mouth. A bright blue sash fastened across his shoulder
…

Her two right wheels dropped off the pavement and Nora jerked the steering wheel to pull the Jeep back on the road. It fishtailed but righted itself.

“Nora?” Abigail’s voice squawked from the phone in Nora’s lap.

Nora grabbed
the dropped phone
. “Had some traffic.”

“Where are you now?”

Nora spotted a road side. “A couple miles past Settler’s Park. About to the Trust.”

Nora braked and turned left. She rumbled across a wood-planked bridge over the creek. Loving Earth Trust occupied a rambling old house in Boulder Canyon, butted up to the mountainside. Gables and windows, extensions and extra rooms jutted out at weird angles giving the place a disjointed feel. The picturesque front porch descended to a sparsely
grassed front yard with a rail fence separating it from the packed dirt parking area. Only three other vehicles sat there. Beyond the lot, a one-lane road ran along the creek bank
,
but it petered out after a couple hundred yards. A large wood
en
barn stood behind the house. Towering mountains and pines assured that the house stayed in shadow most of the time. It was beautiful, of course, but a chill goosed Nora’s flesh.

“Here we are,” Nora said. “Gotta go.”

“Have a good day, dear. We’ll talk soon.”

Too soon, no doubt.
That wasn’t fair. Abigail had been supportive and encouraging since Nora had moved from Flagstaff a year ago. At times, Abigail had been Nora’s only human contact.

Now it was time to start over. Be normal. Have a job. Friends. Maybe a social life. “Hold on, Cowgirl. Just start with a job, okay?”

If that went well, maybe she’d stop talking to herself.

She ran her fingers through Abbey’s fur. Good thing first days of work didn’t last forever. Too bad second days and then the first week and month, full of anxiety and nerves
,
followed. In no time, say a millennium or two, Nora would feel right at home.

She filled her lungs, imagining the air had magical powers to make her appear confident and smart. “Let’s go,” she said, pretending she talked to Abbey.

Abbey jumped out as if he’d been coming to work here every day for years. Nora leaned into the back of the Jeep and hefted out a bushy potted plant. She rested the terra cotta pot on her hip and steadied it with her arm. She had larger and heavier pots at home but thought this would work in an office. The long, wide, deeply green leaves rose from the pot and cascaded, leaving her room enough to peek over the top. She slammed the Jeep door shut.