The Cottage on Juniper Ridge (12 page)

She set her cell phone back on the counter and realized that,
for the first time in ages, she didn’t feel so tired. She rounded up all her
Girls of America leadership material and put it in a box to mail back to Nancy.
And now she felt lighter. She should have resigned months ago.

That night her mother called, trying to guilt her into
attending a baby shower for her second cousin Juanita on Friday night.

“I can’t. I already have plans.”

“What plans?” her mother demanded suspiciously.

“Important plans,” she said. They involved a bubble bath and a
book. Oh, yes, she could get into this simple life stuff.

* * *

Stacy had spent the past couple of days going through
her house, taking stock of everything she had that she didn’t use. Was she a
hoarder in the making? That was a creepy idea. She picked up Muriel Sterling’s
book and went back to the chapter she’d found hardest to finish, the one titled
“Less Is More.”

It’s so easy to let our possessions multiply. And over time that’s
exactly what they do. I was shocked when I moved at how much I had to
pack—dishes, clothes, kitchen appliances and gadgets, linens, bedding,
decorations, many of which I hadn’t put out in years. I thought of people in
poorer countries who are happy with so much less. I thought of how much time and
energy it took to maintain all my things. They owned me as much as I owned them.
I went through all of them and reassessed their value. Anything I hadn’t used in
the past three years I got rid of. There was no space for them in my new house
and no room in my new life. I got rid of a lot and I can honestly say I never
regretted it.

Stacy shut the book and mulled over what she’d just read. Never
regretted it. Really? What did she have kicking around that she hadn’t used in
the past three years?

The drawer full of kitchen gadgets came to mind. She could
start there.

She went to the kitchen and opened the drawer. Okay, did she
really need that nutcracker? When was the last time she’d purchased nuts that
needed to be cracked? Hmm. Ten years ago. The whipped-cream whipper that didn’t
whip—that could go to some other sucker. The little umbrellas she was going to
use to make girlie drinks someday—she’d never gotten around to it, and she’d had
them for three years. She’d used that pastry sheet once and didn’t like it. She
always rolled out cookies and pie crust right on her countertop. And how many
latte pitchers did one woman need? How many little glass jiggers? How many
kitchen sponge holders? Oh, Lord, she
was
a
hoarder.

She spent forty-five minutes in the kitchen, and by the time
she was done she had two grocery bags full of goodies for the Kindness Cupboard,
the town’s local thrift store, which donated proceeds to various worthy causes
around town. Okay, on to the bedroom.

Dean came home and discovered her knee-high in a pile of
clothes. “Having trouble finding something to wear?” he asked, and kissed
her.

“No. I’m purging.”

“Purging,” he repeated as if it were a foreign word.

“Yes, I’m getting rid of things I don’t need.”

“Really?” He looked skeptical.

She couldn’t blame him. She tended to go through phases.
There’d been her cooking-class phase, when she’d taken lessons and then vowed to
make something different for dinner every night of the week. That had lasted
about a month before she’d decided it was way too much work and had gone back to
making her old standards.

Then there’d been her no-sugar diet—no baking, no treats, no
ice cream anywhere in the house. Much healthier for them. But then they’d gone
out to Zelda’s one night and she’d been seduced by the wild huckleberry pie.

“Oh, well, a little sugar won’t hurt us,” Dean had
reasoned.

“Except my hips,” she’d said.

“I like your hips just fine,” he’d assured her, and that had
been the end of that.

Then there’d been her exercise kick, her clog dancing classes,
painting class (she was better at quilting). She’d tried numerous different
activities with the best of intentions but never stuck with them.

But this was important. She was going to stick with this.

“I’m getting rid of stuff we don’t need or use anymore,” she
informed Dean. “It’ll make life so much simpler.”

“I’m all for that,” he said. “What about the attic?”

“I’ll get to it,” she promised.

“Wow,” he said.

Yeah, wow. By noon the following day she’d gone through all the
bedrooms, the linen closet and the hall closet.

“My goodness!” exclaimed Janice Lind, who volunteered at the
Kindness Cupboard. “You’ve been doing some serious cleaning.”

“I have,” Stacy said. “I’m lightening my load.”

“Have you been reading Muriel Sterling-Wittman’s new book?”

“I have. How’d you guess?”

Janice nodded sagely. “There’s been a lot of load lightening
going on around here lately.”

“It feels good,” Stacy said with a smile.

She said as much to Cass when she went into Gingerbread Haus
the next day to reward herself.

“That is seriously impressive,” Cass said, handing over a
gingerbread boy.

“How are you doing with simplifying your life?” Stacy
asked.

“I’ve hired some new help. I’m going to start taking Fridays
off and only coming in mornings on Saturdays. Just the thought of having that
extra time is better than a sugar buzz.”

“Did you end up hiring our new book club member?”

“I did. She’s going to work Thursdays, Fridays and Saturday
mornings. I’ll get some time off and she’ll have a part-time job so it’s a
win-win.”

“I’d say so.” Stacy paused for a moment. “You know, I wasn’t
really in favor of reading that book, but now I’m glad we did. I got rid of all
kinds of stuff I didn’t need. Even some of my Christmas decorations.”

Cass’s mouth dropped. “No.”

“Well, not a lot,” Stacy admitted. “But a bunch of stuff we
haven’t used in a long time, things I’m not that crazy about anymore. And I
unloaded a whole boxful of outside lights.”

“That probably made Dean happy,” Cass said.

Stacy smiled. “Oh, yeah.”

But later the next evening he wasn’t quite so happy.

She’d just finished cleaning up after dinner when Dean came
into the kitchen. “Hey, babe, have you seen my old army jacket?”

The one he hadn’t worn in ages? The one she’d taken to the
Kindness Cupboard?

“I can’t find it anywhere.”

Uh-oh. This was not going to be a good conversation. Like a
lawyer she started with a strong opening argument. “You haven’t worn that coat
in forever.”

“Well, I want to wear it tonight to the basketball game. It’s
not in the coat closet. Did you move it?”

She’d moved it, all right. What to do now? She could feign
ignorance, say she had no idea what had happened to his old army jacket, but
Dean wasn’t stupid. He’d search all the closets and find it in none, and then
he’d be back here in the kitchen, demanding to know what she’d done with it.

She switched tactics. She closed the distance between them and
put her arms around his neck. “Deano.”

His expression turned wary. “Oh, no. Why do I get the feeling I
don’t want to hear what you’re about to say?”

“You know how I’ve been getting rid of things, lightening our
load?”

She didn’t have to say any more. He looked at her as if she’d
just told him the Seattle Seahawks had been sold. “No.”

“I was only doing what Muriel Sterling said to do in her book.
If you haven’t used something in three years, you should get rid of it.”

This was met with incredulity. “You got rid of my
jacket?
”

“You were glad to hear I was getting rid of stuff.
Remember?”

“Your stuff, Stace, not mine. Where does Muriel Sterling say
you should get rid of your husband’s things without asking him? And I don’t have
that much.”

“Well, look at it this way. Now you have even less,” she said,
trying to ease the moment. Okay, maybe it was more a case of trying to avoid
admitting she was wrong.

Her attempt failed. Dean grumbled once in a while, but he
rarely got angry. Right now, he was angry. He stood in front of her, hands on
his hips (instead of on hers), looking like a thundercloud with legs.

“I don’t want less. I want my army jacket,” he growled. “Or
maybe I should go through
your
closet and start
getting rid of
your
clothes without asking. Or
better yet, how about I get rid of that box of Santas? I’ll bet they didn’t
go.”

“I use them,” she protested. And she couldn’t remember the last
time he’d worn that jacket. Why did he want it now, all of a sudden? Because
she’d gotten rid of it, of course.

“Well, I use my jacket,” he insisted, “and I want it back.”

“But I took it to the Kindness Cupboard.”

The thundercloud seemed ready to zap her with lightning. “I
guess you’ll have to go there tomorrow and get it back.”

Take back a donation? That would be tacky. “What do you expect
me to say to Janice Lind?”

“Say you made a mistake. Say you gave away something that
wasn’t yours to give away.”

He was looking at her steely-eyed, like a man betrayed. “Okay,”
she said. “I’ll get it back.”

“Thank you,” he said stiffly.

She kept her hold on him. “Deano, I’m sorry. Am I
forgiven?”

The thundercloud vanished, blown away by a long-suffering sigh.
“Yes.” Now his arms moved around her waist. “And I do appreciate you getting rid
of household stuff we don’t use. But in the future, can you do me a favor and
ask before you decide to dump my personal items?”

She could do that. She nodded and they kissed. Dean wore a
different jacket to the Icicle Falls basketball game. Problem solved.

Except the next morning when she went to retrieve the army
jacket, she found that her problem hadn’t been solved at all. In fact, it had
grown.

“Not here?” she repeated weakly.

“We send our clothing donations over to Goodwill in Seattle to
get sold in one of their stores,” Janice said. “That way no one in town has to
be embarrassed by being seen in something someone else donated. Your things,
along with all the others we received over the past few days, got taken to
Seattle.”

Oh, boy. How was she going to tell Dean about this?

She wasn’t. She was going to go over the mountains and scour
every Goodwill in Seattle. She grabbed her cell phone and started making calls
to her posse.

Chapter Eleven

Our friendships are one of our greatest
treasures.

—Muriel Sterling, author of
Simplicity

“I’
ll get my mom to watch Jon,” Juliet said
when Stacy called her. “How soon do you need to leave?”

Ten hours ago.
“The sooner, the
better,” Stacy said. Just the thought of someone happily waltzing out of a
Seattle Goodwill with Dean’s army coat was tying her stomach in knots.

“Okay, I’ll hurry.”

Her next call was to Charley. It was a long shot since Charley
practically lived at her restaurant, but desperate times called for desperate
measures.

“I can be ready to go in ten minutes,” Charley said. “But I
have to be back here before the dinner rush, so I’ll follow you over to Seattle.
Plus, if we have more than one car, we can spread out.”

Spreading out. Good idea. How many Goodwill stores were there
in Seattle? Would they be able to cover them all in one day?

Chita was working the assembly line at Sweet Dreams Chocolates,
so there was no point in calling her. There was no point in calling Cass,
either, since she couldn’t leave the bakery. Maybe Cecily could sneak away from
work....

No, Stacy argued. It wouldn’t be right to pull her away from
her business, any more than it would be to bug Cass. Almost all her friends
worked; they had more important things to do than take the day off to help her
clean up the mess she’d made of simplifying her life. Fresh panic set in. Who
else could she call?

The answer to that was easy. When times got tough, a girl
called her mother. Her mother lived in nearby Cashmere and could be at her house
in twenty minutes. Of course, calling her mother would also include a healthy
dose of unrequested advice. She’d have to endure a minicounseling session. But
her mother would come through.

Or not. “I have to take Nana to her doctor’s appointment
today,” her mother said sadly. “Otherwise, I’d love to come to Seattle with you.
What’s the occasion?”

Stacy decided not to tell her. “Nothing, really. What’s wrong
with Nana?” At the age of eighty-eight a better question would have been,
“What’s not wrong with Nana?” Her grandmother had crippling arthritis, a bad
heart and cataracts she refused to have operated on.

“Nothing new. This is just a checkup. But you know how much
Nana loves going to the doctor. Believe me, I’d much rather be over in Seattle
having fun with you.”

Fun, yeah.
“It’s okay,” Stacy said.
“I’ll catch you next time.”

Stacy had barely ended the call when her cell phone rang. It
was Cecily. “I heard from Charley that you need help. When are you leaving?”

“You have to work,” Stacy protested.

“I set my own schedule,” Cecily said. “Charley told me it’s an
emergency and I want to help.”

“Thank you,” Stacy breathed.

“I’ll be over in fifteen minutes,” Cecily promised.

Stacy’s cell rang one more time. “Hi. Stacy?” said a vaguely
familiar voice.

“Yeah, that’s me. Who’s this?”

“It’s Jen, Jen Heath, your new book club member.”

“Oh, hi, Jen,” Stacy said, donning a friendly
I’m-fine-nothing-wrong-with-me voice.

“I heard from Juliet that you need help finding something in
Seattle.”

Okay, this was embarrassing. She hardly knew Jen. “Well, um,
yeah.”

“I thought maybe you could use some extra help.”

Look at the mess she was causing, dragging her friends over the
mountain, pulling in people who were practically strangers.

“Since I lived in Seattle, I could help you find your way
around. You know, be a backup in case your GPS fails you.”

This was no time to be proud. “Sure. Thanks. I’d love
that.”

“Great,” said Jen. “And I’ll call my sister. She lives on the
East Side. Maybe she can check out the Goodwill stores there. When are we
leaving?”

“As soon as possible,” Stacy said. “You remember how to get to
my house?”

“I think so. Uh, the roads over there are clear, right?”

They’d had snow the day before, but all the main roads were
clear now. Still, Jen was new to Icicle Falls and might not have realized yet
how efficient their road crews were. Obviously she wasn’t wild about driving in
the snow. That was something she’d have to overcome if she was going to live in
the mountains.

“You’ll be fine,” Stacy assured her.

That was more than she could say for herself if she didn’t find
Dean’s army jacket.

Within half an hour, Stacy’s team had assembled at her house
for Mission Army Coat. They piled into two cars, Juliet and Jen with Charley,
and Cecily riding shotgun with Stacy.

“I’m sorry I took you away from work,” Stacy said as they
traveled over the pass.

“Don’t be,” Cecily told her. “I needed a break and I hardly
ever get to go to Seattle. I just feel bad that this isn’t going to be any fun
for you.”

“Serves me right. I shouldn’t have gotten rid of Dean’s jacket
without asking. I should’ve known it would have sentimental value.” She shook
her head. “I wouldn’t have been happy if he’d gone through my closet and started
purging my clothes, either. It was just that, well, I was on a roll. He never
wears that jacket....” She let the sentence trail off.

“I get it,” Cecily said. “Sometimes things don’t quite work out
the way you planned.”

Stacy wondered if Cecily was talking about her own life. She’d
been in L.A. but had decided to move back to Icicle Falls after helping her
family’s company, Sweet Dreams Chocolates, sponsor Icicle Falls’s first
chocolate festival. The second chocolate festival had been an even bigger
success, and it was mostly Cecily’s baby now.

“But I believe things do have a way of working out,” Cecily
continued.

Stacy smiled at that. “I suspect you know this from personal
experience.”

Cecily smiled in return. “I do. I’m glad I closed my business
in L.A. It’s nice to be home again.”

“What was your business?” Stacy asked. Cecily had never talked
about it, preferring instead to focus on her family’s chocolate company.

“I ran a dating service.”

“You mean you were...”

“A matchmaker,” Cecily finished for her.

“That sounds like fun,” Stacy said. She loved watching
The Millionaire Matchmaker
on TV.

“Not so much. It got old fast.”

“But helping people find each other sounds...I don’t know,
noble.”

“That’s what I thought,” Cecily said. “I had a gift for it. But
I got burned out. I’m done matching up people.”

“What about yourself?”

“I’m especially done with me. Turns out I’m a lot better at
putting other people together with the right person than I am myself. Maybe my
life would be simpler if
I
had a matchmaker.”

“Even if she found you the perfect man, life would never be
simple,” Stacy said. What if she didn’t find that jacket? Dean would forgive
her, of course, but she’d feel terrible.

“It’ll work out,” Cecily said, reading her mind.

Stacy hoped so.

A little over two and a half hours later, they were in downtown
Seattle. Charley checked in via cell phone. “Jen’s sister is at the Bellevue
Goodwill. She wants to know what the jacket looks like.”

“It’s light green-and-sand camo and it has a patch with the
name Thomas sewn on the front, above the pocket.”

“Okay,” Charley said. “Jen tells me the big store is downtown,
but there’s also a nice one in Ballard. Which store do you want us to take?”

“Take the Ballard one. We’ll hit the downtown store,” Stacy
said. Maybe, if they were lucky, they’d find the coat quickly.

Or maybe they’d be there all day. “It’s huge,” Stacy muttered
as they drove into the parking lot.

“Hopefully, the men’s section won’t be that big,” Cecily
said.

It was. “Yikes,” Cecily said as they walked in.

Yikes
was right. The warehouse full
of castoffs seemed to stretch on forever.

Before them were miles and miles of clothes, shoes, books,
lamps and small appliances.

“Wow,” Stacy breathed, “look at this. Oh, my gosh, there’s even
a collectibles section.” She’d always preferred to buy new items rather than
deal with someone’s castoffs. But some of these were gorgeous.

She drifted over to the long, glass case stuffed with glassware
and knickknacks. A pearlescent orange glass bowl caught her eye. “Carnival
glass. And do you believe the price? That’s a steal.” Her grandmother collected
carnival glass. That bowl would make a great birthday present for Nana.

“Maybe we should look at the coats,” Cecily suggested.

Oh, yeah. The coats.

They made their way to the men’s section, which was packed with
everything from shirts to pants. Cecily gestured at one long rack. “There must
be a mile of coats here.”

“More than that,” Stacy said. “But not many of them are army
jackets.”

It took them less than ten minutes to ascertain that Dean’s
jacket wasn’t there.
Did you really think you’d find it
right away?
Stacy asked herself. That would’ve been too easy, and she
suspected fate wasn’t going to be so kind to her.

Her cell phone rang. “Nothing in Ballard,” Charley
reported.

Figured. “Nothing here, either,” Stacy said.

“We’re going to head farther north. Jen says there’s one in
West Seattle you might want to try. She’s got the address in her phone.”

The address was conveyed, and Stacy and Cecily put it in
Stacy’s GPS. After she’d purchased that carnival glass bowl.

They didn’t have any luck in West Seattle, either. And Jen’s
sister, Toni, struck out in Bellevue and Kirkland. The search party finally met
at a Starbucks in the University District. By that time Stacy had consoled
herself with more purchases—two vintage Starbucks mugs, a Fitz and Floyd
Christmas plate and a Victoria’s Secret bra, still new with the tags on and just
her size. (Hey, if she didn’t come back with the jacket, this was something Dean
would appreciate.)

“Who knew you could find so many great things in thrift
stores?” she said.

Charley raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never shopped in a thrift
store?”

“Never needed to. I always thought they were kind of
grotty.”

“They are,” Cecily said, wrinkling her nose.

“But they’re the best place to shop when you’re a broke college
student,” Charley pointed out. “My roommates and I furnished our whole apartment
with stuff from thrift stores.”

“I can believe it,” Stacy said. “I had no idea what I was
missing.” Missing. Oh, yeah, Dean’s jacket. She frowned and stared morosely into
her coffee cup. “Where the heck is that jacket?”

“Someone might already have bought it,” Juliet said gently.

Good thing she’d gotten the Victoria’s Secret bra. She had an
awful feeling she was going to need it.

“We still have a couple of stores left,” Jen told them. “Toni’s
on her way to Bothell to look. And there’s the one on Capitol Hill.”

“Where’s that?” asked Stacy. The most she’d ever seen of
Seattle was the downtown and the waterfront.

“It’s not far from here,” Jen replied.

“Then let’s go,” Stacy said. Maybe she’d suffered enough. Maybe
this time she’d come up with that jacket.

The Capitol Hill Goodwill seemed to have a lot of young
customers. “There’s a community college nearby,” Jen explained as they hurried
over to the men’s clothes.

A couple of college-age boys stood pawing through the coats.
Stacy gasped as one of them pulled out a light green-and-sand-colored camo army
jacket. Could it be?

The kid tried it on. It was way too big for him. But it was
just the right size for Dean.

She hurried toward them and as she got closer she was able to
see the name stitched on the pocket.
Thomas.
“That’s
it!” she cried.

The kid was still wearing the jacket. He was about her son’s
age. Only her son was much nicer looking. This boy had brown hair gelled up into
a point—not a good style for someone with a long face—and tattoo art climbing up
his neck. He was too skinny and he wore ripped jeans and a T-shirt that had
obviously seen better days. He’d probably purchased it here. Now he glanced up
at her, surprised.

“That coat you’ve got, it’s my husband’s,” she told him. “We’ve
been looking all over town for it.”

“I guess he didn’t want it,” said the kid. “Since it’s
here.”

“It shouldn’t be. It was all a mistake,” Stacy explained.
“Could I have it?” He didn’t appear to be in any rush to hand it over, so she
smiled her lovable, mom-next-door smile and added, “Please?”

He made no move to hand it over.

“It’s too big for you, anyway.”

He frowned. “Not that big.”

Okay, that had been a tactical error. She tried to play on his
sympathies. “My husband was really upset that I got rid of it.” Anyone with a
heart, anyone who’d been raised properly, would give up a coat that didn’t fit
him in the first place.

This particular anyone had been raised by wolves. He shrugged.
“Not my problem.”

“It’s going to be your problem if you don’t give me that coat,”
Stacy informed him, abandoning her mom-next-door smile.

“Hey, in case you didn’t notice, this is a store. People buy
things here.”

“All right. I’ll buy it from you,” she said, opening her
purse.

“Lady, I haven’t even paid for it yet.”

“So, I’ll pay you not to pay for it.” She got a ten-dollar bill
from her wallet and held it out to him.

He eyed it, then he eyed her. Speculatively. “You really want
this coat, huh?”

Well, duh.
“I do.” She waggled the
bill temptingly.

“If you’d pay ten for it, I bet you’d pay twenty,” said the
scrawny little brat.

“Twenty?”

“Hey, I’ve gotta pay my tuition.”

“What are you majoring in, robbery?”

“Business.”