The Cottage on Juniper Ridge (3 page)

“I didn’t think it up,” Chita said. “I read it.” She put her cup on the carpet, and then, balancing her plate on her lap, reached for the book she’d brought in. “I’d like us to read this for the new year.”

She passed it to Cass, who held it at arm’s length and squinted at the title.
“Simplicity?”

“It’s not a novel,” Chita said.

“Oh.” Cass was obviously disappointed and handed it to Juliet.

“We just got this in at the bookstore,” Juliet explained. “It’s Muriel Sterling’s new book.”

“I love her books,” Charley said.

“This one is all about simplifying your life,” Chita told them. “She talks about discovering what’s important and learning to shed what isn’t.”

Was this some kind of decluttering, purge-your-closets book? Stacy felt herself squirming.

“You mean having fewer things?” Juliet asked.

“Having less, period. Less stuff to deal with, less stress, less craziness in your life. I’m only halfway through it but there are some really good ideas in here.”

“Well, it’s your pick.” Stacy knew her tone of voice probably betrayed that she was less than thrilled with the selection.

“I think it’ll be worthwhile,” Chita said. “I mean, we’re always talking about how busy we are.” She shot a look at Juliet. “And how tired.”

“This will only help me if it comes with a bottle of vitamins and a live-in nanny,” Juliet quipped. “But I’d love to read it.”

“And if it’s by Muriel we know it’s going to be worth reading,” Cass added.

Chita smiled. “I think this book could change our lives.”

Change. Stacy wasn’t fond of it...unless it was good and it was happening to her. And she wasn’t sure there was going to be anything all that good for her in this particular book.

“I think it’s a great pick for the new year,” Juliet said.

“Sounds great to me,” Charley said.

“Me, too,” said Cass.

“Me, too,” said Chita.

“Anyone want more eggnog?” Stacy asked.

Chapter Three

Life should be a joy, not a burden.

—Muriel Sterling, author of
Simplicity

J
en was rushing down the street, late for
lunch with her sister, when her cell phone rang. It was her friend Ariel.

“Hey, a bunch of us are going to try that new restaurant in
Belltown Friday night. Want to come?”

A night out with the girls would have been a welcome change
but... “I can’t. I have—”

“A candle party,” Ariel finished with her. “All you do is work.
Nobody sees you anymore.”

“I know.” Boy, did she.

“I’m not sure why I bothered to call,” Ariel complained.

She was one of the few who did keep in touch. Most of Jen’s
other so-called friends had given up. “I’m glad you did.”

Ariel gave a snort of disgust. “You’re in deep shit with
Caroline for missing most of her bachelorette party.”

“I know, but I had—”

“A candle party. There’s more to life than work. And you’d
better realize that before you don’t have any friends left.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Jen said. “Glad to see you’re so
supportive.” And understanding. Not. She couldn’t help it if she had bills to
pay and a failed starter marriage to recover from. And family obligations.

“You wanna talk supportive? Who got you through your divorce?”
Ariel demanded. “Who hosted your first candle party?”

Actually, her sister had. She’d been there for Jen when she was
going through her divorce, too, but this wasn’t the time to point that out.
Anyway, she wasn’t the total scum girlfriend Ariel was making her out to be.
“Yeah? Well, who’s always been your designated driver whenever you wanted to go
out dancing and get drunk?”

“Saint Jen, who I guess is now too good for her old
friends.”

“I’m just busy!”

“If you’re too busy for your friends, you’re too busy,” Ariel
snapped, and ended the call.

Jen stared at her phone in disbelief. What was that? Had Ariel
just dumped her over the phone?

The clock on her phone screen told her she didn’t have time to
stand around trying to figure it out.

Late. It seemed as if she was constantly running to something,
constantly trying to catch up with her own life. But, like a dog chasing its
tail, she never seemed to. She picked up her pace.

“So you finally got here,” her older sister, Toni Carlyon,
greeted her as Jen approached their table at the Pink Door in Seattle’s Post
Alley.

“I’m lucky I could get away at all.” Jen took in the antipasto
platter sitting on the table. “Aw, you ordered my prosciutto.” She hugged Toni,
then settled in her chair and snagged a slice of meat.

“Of course,” Toni said. “I always watch out for you, baby
sister.”

Watching out for and bossing around were synonymous in her
sister’s mind, but Jen let it slide. Bossiness was unavoidable when your sister
was five years older than you. This lunch was a command performance, and Jen
suspected she’d be getting a sisterly lecture along with the meal Toni had
offered to buy her.

She could feel her sister’s eyes on her as she gave the
waitress her order.

“You look like death on a stick,” Toni said once the waitress
was gone. “Mom’s right. You
are
going too hard.”

Jen opened her mouth to say, “I am not.” Instead, she said, “I
hate my life,” and burst into tears.

Toni set her glass of wine in front of Jen. “Drink this.”

“I have to go back to work,” Jen protested.

“Drink it, anyway.”

Jen managed to stem the tears enough to take a sip of wine.

“Jen-Jen, you’ve got to stop doing so much,” Toni scolded.
“Start saying no.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Think like that old Nike commercial and
just do it.
”

Easy for Toni to say. Yes, she was busy with her husband and
her children, but when it came to work she could set her own hours. Toni wrote
for women’s magazines, focusing primarily on family issues. If she didn’t feel
like working she could take a day off, go to the gym, maintain her size-six bod,
touch up her blond highlights.

Jen had given up on highlights. She hadn’t been to the gym in
months and she wouldn’t be able to take a day off until...2043. “I can’t,” she
wailed. Now diners at the other tables were staring at her. She gulped down some
more wine.

“You take on too much, Jen-Jen,” Toni said. “Tell your idiot
supervisor to plan the rest of the office Christmas party without you.”

Right.
“You would never last in
corporate America,” Jen retorted.

“At the rate you’re going you’re not going to last, either,”
Toni said. “You don’t have time for your friends anymore and you barely have
time for your family. That’s not you.”

Toni had a point. “I don’t know what to do,” Jen confessed.
“Every time I look at my calendar I want to run away from my life.”

“Have you finished the book I gave you yet?” Toni asked.

“No. I keep falling asleep.” Jen shook her head. “Pathetic. I
used to love to read.” Heck, she used to love to do all kinds of things. She
used to love going out with the girls on the spur of the moment or catching a
movie, walking around Green Lake with a friend on a sunny day. Or...breathing.
She barely had time for that these days. “Sometimes I wish I could sell the
condo and move to a small town somewhere and just start over. Maybe write a
book.” She’d always wanted to try her hand at writing...something. These days it
seemed as if everyone was writing a book so it couldn’t be
that
hard.

“I’ve heard life is slower in a small town,” Toni said, “but I
don’t believe it. These days everybody’s busy. But certain somebodies are busier
than others. Too busy,” she added, raising an eyebrow at Jen.

“If you think I want to be running around like a roadrunner on
speed you’re crazy,” Jen informed her, “but I have to. I’ve got bills to pay.”
Obviously, her friends didn’t get that.

“That’s the American way,” Toni said with a frown. “I wish I
could help you out but my car’s on its last legs and we found out yesterday that
Jeffrey’s going to need braces. It’ll be a few months before our budget adjusts
to the shock.”

“I wouldn’t dream of taking money from you, anyway. But if we
had a rich uncle I’d have no qualms taking some from him.” Jen sighed. “Working
two jobs is getting old. You know, sometimes I wish I’d been born in a simpler
time, when people weren’t so busy.”

“You can’t go back. Sometimes I’d like to, though. I watched
this old movie the other night about a family living during the Depression and I
felt downright jealous.”

“Of people living in the Depression?”

“Not of the money thing. It was all that family togetherness
that got to me.” Toni rolled her eyes. “Even when my family’s together, we’re
not. Jeffrey’s off in his room playing games on his computer, Jordan’s always
texting. Wayne’s on his laptop, doing work. I hate it. Oh, and there’s another
expense. Jordan told me last night that she lost her cell phone.”

There was a fate worse than death, if you asked Jen. She
couldn’t
imagine
being without hers. “Part of me
would just as soon not replace it.”

Jen couldn’t help smiling. “Mom would agree with that.” Their
mother had never been shy about expressing her opinion regarding kids and cell
phones.

“Yeah, yeah. We didn’t have cell phones when we were kids and
we were fine. But it’s a different world now.” Toni reclaimed her wineglass and
took a sip. “I’d never admit this to Mom, but sometimes I wonder if all our
technology has really made our lives better.” She fiddled with the stem of her
glass. “Sometimes I worry that...” She paused and bit her lip. “My family is
drifting apart.”

“Of course it’s not,” Jen said, and shied away from the image
of a very bored Jordan trailing them through the gingerbread house exhibit a
couple of weeks before, texting her friends at every opportunity. When Jordan
was little she’d loved going out with the big girls. Now that she was thirteen,
not so much. But, Jen reminded herself, she hadn’t been excited to hang out with
the adults when she was that age, either.

“Oh, well,” Toni said. “That’s enough downer talk. Let’s figure
out what we’re getting Mom for Christmas.”

Talking about Christmas plans should have lifted Jen’s spirits,
but only served to sic her to-do list on her and make her edgy. She hurried
through lunch, gave her sis a quick hug and then speed-walked back toward the
Columbia Center building.

When she got halfway there, she stopped in midstride. What was
she doing?
Why
was she running like a gerbil on a
wheel? She didn’t want to go back to work. She wasn’t going to go back to
work.

She whipped out her cell phone and called her supervisor.
“Patty, I’ll be at home for the rest of the day.”

“Are you okay?” Patty asked, concern in her voice.

She was probably just concerned about whether Jen had found a
caterer for the office party yet.

“I’m sick. It must’ve been something I had at lunch,” Jen
improvised. No lie, really. She’d had something at lunch that made her sick—a
conversation about her life. She needed a break and she needed it right now.

“Okay, well, feel better soon,” Patty said. “Let us know if
you’re not going to make it in tomorrow.”

The only way Jen was going to feel better was if she got a new
life. She went home, flipped on her faux fireplace and settled under a blanket
on the couch with the book her sister had given her, starting with page one.
Again.

When was the last time you enjoyed your life?

“My honeymoon,” Jen muttered. No, wait. She’d enjoyed her life
since then. She’d enjoyed it...the first week after she bought the condo, when
she was spending money she didn’t have to furnish the place. The fun had lasted
until she saw the credit card bill.

If it’s been a while, then chances are you’re due for a
change.

Well, there was an understatement. Jen read on, learning about
the author’s big life change, how she’d lost her second husband and had to start
over. Left to figure out her finances and the rest of her life, Muriel Sterling
had sold her big house that she owed a fortune on and rented a friend’s
cottage.

It wasn’t easy letting go of that house. It represented so
much—the new life I’d begun with my second husband, security, happiness. But I
quickly learned that two stories of wood and stone don’t make a life. And owing
money on that place certainly didn’t make me secure. What I needed was freedom,
not merely from debt but from the past and from my unrealistic expectations. I
needed to be free to start again.

Free to start again, huh? Jen read on.

And so I ask you now, do you need to start over? The only way to
do that is to get free.

Get free? She’d just bought this place. But did she own it or
did it own her?

She shut the book and looked around her living room. Her couch
was white leather and had a matching beaded chair. Her Beckworth coffee table,
handcrafted from exotic demolition hardwoods, was her pride and joy. It hadn’t
been cheap but she loved it. Her decorations were from Crate and Barrel. They
hadn’t been cheap, either, and she had the high credit card balance to prove it.
She really liked this living room. She especially liked the fireplace. Her
parents’ house didn’t have one and she’d always been taken with the romantic
image of reading by a cozy fire on a cold day. And even though the fire going
right now was electric, it was still pretty, and it gave her living room the
perfect finishing touch. Except she rarely had a chance to enjoy it.

She really liked her bedroom, too, which she’d dolled up with a
vintage brass bed, a pink comforter and a spectacular multicolored gypsy
chandelier. It should have been a retreat, a place for sweet dreams, but often
she tossed and turned on that vintage bed, thinking about everything she had to
do.

The kitchen was another work of art and she enjoyed looking at
its sleek granite countertops. But she hardly ever cooked in there.

She gazed out the window at the Seattle skyline. Buildings
everywhere and gray skies.

“What am I doing here?” she asked herself.

* * *

Toni was up to her eyebrows in gift bags and wrapping
paper when her sister called. “Hey, I was beginning to think you’d run away,”
Toni said. “I haven’t heard from you since we had lunch.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“What a surprise.”

“What are you doing this weekend?” Jen asked, ignoring her
sarcasm.

“With ten days to go until Christmas? Shopping.” Most of her
shopping had been done by November, but she still had a few last-minute things
to purchase.

“Want to go shopping in Icicle Falls?”

“What?”

“I want to check out Icicle Falls. We can go up Friday and
spend the night. Come back late Saturday.”

Toni wasn’t spontaneous. She was a planner, and she had her
weekend all planned. She was going to the gym on Friday, then out to dinner that
night with her husband. Wayne was a programmer and sometimes it seemed he was
married to his computer instead of her. But come Friday, they were going to have
a romantic night out whether he wanted to or not. She’d already told him to
program that into his computer. Then Saturday she’d finish up her shopping.

“I can’t go until after Christmas.”

“Come on. Please? My treat.”

“You can’t afford to treat.”

“Okay, we can go halfsies, then we can both afford it.”

Toni propped the phone between her shoulder and her ear and set
to work, using a pair of scissors to curl the ribbon on the package she’d
finished wrapping. “Why are you suddenly in such a tear to go to Icicle
Falls?”

“Because I think I might want to move there.”

Toni dropped the scissors. “What? What are you talking about?
You just bought a condo!”