Clouds (3 page)

O
kay, okay,” Shelly said several hours later at Meredith’s apartment. “We’ve eaten your lasagna, and we’ve endured your Vivaldi music, but before I eat a bite of this cheesecake, you must tell us: Who is he, and do I know him?”

“What are you talking about?” Meredith flipped back her straight blond hair. It was cut in a bob with the ends running along her chin line. Her hair was naturally as brown as Shelly’s, but Meredith had begun to color it in high school and had kept up with the “midnight sun” shade of blond for so long that even her family members had a hard time remembering what she looked like as a brunette. The blond fit her personality—artistic, sweet, and feminine. Meredith had always had her choice of boyfriends. Shelly could only imagine which one had finally caught her sister’s attention long enough to win her heart.

“Mom said you had some news for us,” Shelly said, putting down her fork and giving Meredith an engaging smile. “So?
We’ve waited long enough. Tell us. Who is he?”

Meredith giggled. “Only you would think it’s a ‘he.’ There’s no romance involved. It’s all
work
.”

Dad leaned back in his chair with a satisfied look on his face. He had a broad smile like Shelly’s and warm brown eyes like hers. Perry Graham was the same height as his wife, but she looked taller now that they were growing older because Perry was balding and Ellen wore her short, gray hair full on top.

“You got the job,” Dad said, quickly taking Meredith’s clue. “Good for you, darlin’. We’re proud of you.”

“What job?” Shelly asked.

“At G. H. Terrison Publishing. You’re talking to their newest acquisitions editor for children’s products.”

“Good for you, Meri!” Shelly lifted her fork in a salute before plunging it into her cheesecake. She knew this had been her sister’s dream for some time, and Meredith had been diligent in pursuing the position.

“When do you start?” Dad asked.

“Next week.”

“Is this the New York publisher?” Mom asked.

“No, that one never called back. Terrison Publishing is headquartered in Chicago.”

“Will you have to move there by next week then?” The worry lines started to form on Mom’s forehead.

“Yes and no.” Meredith got up and brought the pitcher of water to the table to refill everyone’s glasses. She seemed to be enjoying her little cat-and-mouse game much more than the rest of them. “I’m moving but not to Chicago.”

They waited.

Meredith sat down and spilled all her news. “I get to work at home. I’ll only have a few trips to Chicago every year. But I’m not going to live in this apartment. Remember that little
cottage by Camp Autumn Brook on Whidbey Island? It’s available! I can move in next week, and the best part is the rent is less than I pay for this little box.”

Something inside of Shelly did a flip-flop. She loved that cottage. She was the one who had found it years ago when their family went over to nearby Whidbey Island for a picnic. Shelly had taken off on a hike with her elder sister Molly. That’s when Shelly had found the cottage at the end of the lake.

Happy purple pansies and slender white Shasta daisies popped their heads out of the flower boxes that lined the front porch. Two rocking chairs waited for company. The window on the second story had shutters with a cutout in the shape of a tulip. Shelly christened it “Tulip Cottage” and for years talked about it as her cottage by the lake.

“How in the world did you manage to rent Tulip Cottage?” Shelly asked, an edge of hurt in her voice.

“Didn’t I tell you? I called the camp. They have a new director, and he said he would keep his ears open for me. That was about a year ago. Then a realtor called today and said someone had given her my name regarding the cottage. The tenants are moving out tomorrow.” Meredith laughed. “It’s all too good to be true. Somebody pinch me!”

Shelly wanted to pinch her, all right. Ten years ago she would have. But they were grown women now. Friends. More than friends. Sisters. She should be happy for her sister. Her friend. After all, Shelly had been living her dream of being a flight attendant for five years now. Wasn’t it time Meredith had her share of fairy dust sprinkled on her?

Mom, Dad, and Shelly stayed long enough to congratulate Meredith, help with the dishes, and hear the details about her new life. Shelly did a commendable job of being supportive and excited for her sister.

When they drove home, it was dark. Shelly felt strange sitting in the back seat of her parents’ car again. It was as if her adult years had vanished and she was once again the child. Dad had always driven a Buick. This one was new, but the view from the back seat felt the same as it had that night when she was thirteen and had sat here on the way home from her junior high graduation party. Jonathan had sat next to her, nervously fidgeting in his black dress slacks and white starched shirt. He had taken off his necktie, tied it around his head sometime after the group photo was taken, and worn it that way during the entire party.

Shelly had chosen a blue dress for her graduation and the party. She had loved that dress. It was one of the few that hadn’t been a hand-me-down. She had found it at the mall on a shopping trip with Mom, and it wasn’t even on sale. Mom watched her try it on and then in her matter-of-fact way, she stated, “This is your graduation dress, Shelly.”

Shelly remembered sitting in those stiff folding chairs at graduation and then walking up to receive her diploma in that ravishing blue dress. That’s what it was, ravishing. Gorgeous. Stunning. She was sure it was the most elegant dress ever made. She was Princess Shelly, and at the graduation party she had believed it to be so.

Even in the back seat of Dad’s old Buick on the way home from that party, Shelly remembered sitting demurely, sure that Jonathan would finally notice how stunning she looked. The scent of Dad’s pine-tree air freshener collided with Jonathan’s adolescent sweat. Mom rolled down the window an inch.

Just as Dad turned onto Sycamore and headed up the hill to Duchess Place, Jonathan faced Shelly and said, “Why do girls wear stuff like that?”

He might as well have told her he hated her dress, that he hated her. His hapless comment crushed her. She decided then
and there that she would never speak to this insensitive male again.

Of course, she did speak to him again. They ran a neighborhood business together that summer. Anyone going on vacation who wanted his pets fed, plants watered, mail collected, or lawn mowed could hire Shelly and Jonathan. During one week they had had eleven houses to watch, which included seven dogs to walk and feed.

Shelly looked out the window of Dad’s car as they cruised down Sycamore Drive and remembered the Klackameyer family, who used to live there in the white stucco house. Their dog, Mac, discovered the neighbor’s trash the week Jonathan and Shelly were watching him, and the silly little Scottie nearly choked on a chicken bone. Jonathan had been so worried about the dog that he had taken Mac home and kept him in a box in his room.

The next morning Shelly awakened to Jonathan’s whistle: two short, one long. She went to the window and pushed it open the rest of the way. The green bucket was coming toward her, swaying on its tight rope. Inside was a note: “Send dog biscuits.”

Shelly signaled that she understood and ran downstairs for the box of doggie treats. Certainly Snoopy, their dachshund, wouldn’t miss them, not at five-thirty in the morning. She loaded the box into the bucket and hoisted it back over to Jonathan’s attic window. The bucket disappeared inside. Shelly went back to bed.

That afternoon the Klackameyers had come home early and, in a panic that their dog had been stolen, called the police. Shelly heard they were home. She got Jonathan, and they ran over with the dog. Jonathan told the police and the Klackameyers about the chicken bone and how he saved Mac’s life. Right then, the little Scottie decided to regurgitate all the
dog biscuits Jonathan had been feeding him since early that morning. That was the last time Shelly and Jonathan watched the Klackameyers’ house and the last time they were let near the naughty Scottie.

Their summer business hadn’t been a complete disaster, though. They each managed to walk away with more than two hundred dollars. Shelly saved hers. Jonathan bought himself a puppy. It was a cocker spaniel he named Bob. Bob had more personality than any dog Shelly had ever known. He loved to go to the tree house with them and he barked at every bird that ever came across his path. The only thing Bob didn’t like was the one rather traumatic ride Jonathan gave him the week he bought Bob. Jonathan wrapped Bob in an old towel and sent him in the green bucket down the zip line into Shelly’s bedroom. Bob was so frightened, he nipped at Shelly’s hand when she tried to take him out. They never told either of their parents, and they never tried to pass live creatures down the zip line again. Except the one time Jonathan sent a toad to Shelly inside an empty Chips Ahoy bag.

Shelly snapped out of her reverie as Dad edged the Buick into the garage, carefully heading for the lemon yellow tennis ball hanging from the ceiling on a long string. He had put it there years ago so Mom would know how far to pull the car into the garage. When the tennis ball touched the windshield, the car would be in perfect position.

“Such good news about Meredith,” Mom said as she climbed out of the car. “Looks as if we’ll be able to move some of her things out of here just in time for you to move your boxes in.”

Shelly looked around the two-car garage, which was an unusually large size for their forty-year-old house. Still, only one car could fit inside because the rest of the space was devoted to storage.

“I don’t really have a lot,” Shelly said. “I left quite a bit behind in Pasadena for Alissa.” At the time she had packed quickly, and it seemed logical to simplify her life by bringing back home only what she absolutely wanted to keep. Now she was having second thoughts. Her old roommate would give back some of the furniture, Shelly was sure, but it wasn’t likely to fit in the garage. Even after Meredith pulled her extra boxes out.

For the first time, Shelly felt a sense of loss from this move. She had never thought of herself as materialistic. Her life as an on-the-go flight attendant didn’t give her much time at home to become attached to her belongings. Now that they were gone, she missed them.

“I have an early morning breakfast,” Dad said, once they were inside the house. He hung his keys on the wooden holder by the back door and turned on the night-light in the hallway. “Do you ladies have plans?” Before they answered, he walked into the family room and turned on the television, clicking the remote to channel eight. His favorite news team was already five minutes into the nightly report. Shelly knew it would be useless to try to talk to him now. This was where he gleaned his best opening material for his Sunday morning sermons.

Shelly gathered the few bags she had brought in from her car earlier that day and carried them up to her room. With each step she wondered why this move had seemed like such a good idea a few weeks ago. It would have felt different if she had been coming home for a visit. Then everything would be wonderful and familiar in a charming sort of way. But with the thought of this being her abode for awhile, everything felt stagnant. She had fallen into a routine that was someone else’s, not hers.

Shelly flopped onto the bed in her room, feeling much more exhausted than she should.

What’s happening to me? I’m home for less than eight hours, and I’ve turned into a different person
.

She felt the same way the next morning as she unloaded her rental trailer, stacking her boxes into the already full garage.

It’s as if I’m admitting defeat. I left here determined to see the world and to make something exciting out of my life. Look where it got me. Right back where I started. The worst thing is, the only part of the world I’ve seen is Hawaii and Canada. Things certainly didn’t go the way I had planned
.

The exercise of unloading and the task of returning the trailer did her mind good. She needed to be busy. Shelly thrived on activity. She had a quick metabolism and could eat anything and not gain an ounce. She could stay up all night and still function at full capacity the next day. She even talked fast when she was excited.

Ever since she had driven into Seattle the day before, her metabolism seemed to have slowed down. She didn’t want to eat. All she wanted to do was sleep. She even kept her shoes on when entering the house. In Pasadena Shelly was fastidious about leaving her shoes at the front entryway and requested her guests to do the same.

Even though she wasn’t scheduled to fly for three more days, Shelly decided to go to the airport that afternoon and unofficially check in. The traffic into the airport at three in the afternoon was much thicker than she had remembered it. Parking was a bear, and by the time she arrived at the Sunlit Airlines office, she realized she would now be fighting the five o’clock traffic to reach home.

“I’m Shelly Graham,” she said to the clerk at the front desk, showing her ID card. “I transferred from LAX. I’m not sure about my schedule. They told me it would be updated. Do you have a new schedule for me?”

“Let me check,” the young man said. He went into the back office and returned with a handful of papers for her.

“Thanks.” She turned to go and then decided to sit down on the couch and quickly check the schedule. It would be better to discuss changes while she was still here. The papers included a copy of her transfer forms along with a questionnaire. The last paper in the bunch was her schedule for the end of August and September.

“Reserve?” Shelly said aloud. She rose to her feet and marched back to the clerk. “I need to talk to the supervisor. This can’t be right.”

“First cubical on the left,” he said. “You can go on back.”

Shelly made her way to the cubical and looked around the corner. “Excuse me.”

A short woman turned from her computer screen and looked at Shelly over the top of her half glasses. “Yes?”

“Hi,” Shelly said, trying to win a new friend with her smile. “I’m sorry to bother you. I’m Shelly Graham. I just transferred from LAX. My schedule doesn’t seem right. They listed me as reserve only. I have five years’ seniority.”