Linny's Sweet Dream List (8 page)

“Okay.” Her friend's voice was even. “Come on by the office. I'm free for the next half hour.”

James didn't blink an eye at her red face and raccoon eyes. He just gave her a sympathetic smile and waved her back.

Looking sharp in a cobalt blue linen pantsuit, Mary Catherine gave her a hug and pushed her into a chair. “I'm eating lunch. Join me.” She handed Linny a bottle of sparkling water and a handful of pistachios. She got busy with her own nuts, popping them in her mouth. Crick, crick. “Tell me.”

Fighting tears again, Linny told her story. Mary Catherine didn't seem as alarmed as Linny thought she should. “Isn't it awful?” she asked in a quavering voice.

“Probably not.” Mary Catherine took a long sip of her drink and belched daintily. “Good job on the negotiating the severance.”

Linny acknowledged the praise with a quick nod but, puzzled at her friend's calm take on her dire news, reiterated slowly, “I just lost my job.”

Mary Catherine cracked a nut with her teeth. “They did you a favor. You hated that job.”

Linny was stunned. She'd come in for a little compassion. Was that too much to ask? She spluttered, “But I . . .”

“Sorry, Lin. I'm not saying this well.” Mary Catherine shook her head, looking chagrined. “I know it's a shock, but good will come of it. You're going through a rough stretch of road, but you're tough. You just negotiated yourself about five months of time?” Mary Catherine looked at her questioningly.

Nodding, Linny suddenly felt proud of herself for being so steely with Walt. Maybe all those affirmations about dancing warrior animal goddesses had finally kicked in.

“Well done.” Her friend leaned toward her, and spoke with intensity. “This time is a gift, Linny.”

“A gift, huh?” Linny gave her a wry smile but listened especially hard, since Mary Catherine was not prone to self-help talk.

“You had dreams for your life with Andy, and with Buck. Both were cut short. You need to find your new dream and go get it.”

Linny mulled it over, nodded tentatively, and sipped her drink. The icy drink tasted surprisingly good.

Her friend paused to pry open a tricky pistachio, “Can you find work you really care about? That's been the anchor in my life.”

“I don't know.” She shook her head doubtfully. “I never wanted to climb a corporate ladder, and chasing a big career has never been my thing.”

“You don't to need to do either. Find work that makes you feel good about yourself, and lets you use your gifts.” Her friend gazed at her levelly. “Did the job you just lost do those things for you?”

Linny grimaced. “It was soul sucking.”

“I rest my case.” Mary Catherine grinned, and stood up. “I need to go. Love you, girl.” She gave her a hug.

Outside Mary Catherine's office, Linny blinked in the bright sunlight, and it took a moment to remember where she'd parked the car. She flashed through all the events of the morning, and felt like she'd just stepped off a dock into icy water. Linny shivered, and grinned shakily, realizing that along with the panic about losing her job, she felt a tiny flicker of excitement.

 

At home, Linny left an overly long voice mail for Kate, who was, by now, at school shaping up her fresh crop of students. Slumped in front of her laptop, she listlessly browsed the job-posting websites. As she read and reread job descriptions, she realized she didn't comprehend any of it. Her mind was on strike, not ready to start job hunting.

Linny prowled the trailer, filled with restless energy. She tried giving herself a captain-of-her-own-destiny, dream-the-new-dream pep talk, but it wasn't working. After eating a half a bag of
Flamin' Hot Cheetos
, she drank a glass of iced tea, and tried to think about how to kick start the whole dream-finding process. Her mind nagged at her about something, and she recalled an affirmation she'd read recently. Wiping off her red-dyed fingers, she turned on her Kindle to reread it.
With vigor and resolve, eradicate the ugliness from your life.
Linny glanced up at the faux wood paneling right in front of her eyes, and smiled. Now she knew where to start.

 

Linny enjoyed the sound of the paneling cracking and splintering, and liked the cool heft of the crowbar in her hands. By the time she'd pulled off the last jagged edge and dragged it outside, sweat dripped around her eyes. Raising the dust mask onto her head, she surveyed the growing junk pile in the front yard, and felt inordinately proud of herself. The broken venetian blinds needed to be junked too. She strode back to the trailer.

“Knock, knock,” Kate called a few minutes later as she breezed in the open door looking cool in a flower-sprigged cotton shift. With one hand, she held a dozing Roy over her shoulder like a sleeping baby, and in the other was a paper bag with E
ARTH AND
S
EA
scrolled down its side.

Linny broke into a smile to show how glad she was to see her sister. “Aren't you supposed to be at school?”

Handing Roy to Linny, she said, “The school's brand new HVAC system went on the fritz. They sent us all home because it's boiling in the classrooms.” Her eyes lit with concern. “Sounds like you've had a rough day.”

“I have,” Linny admitted. She slipped the sleepy puppy into his crate and turned to meet her sister's gaze. Mental pictures of the walk of shame flooded back to her, and she flushed. “I can't believe I got fired.”

Kate squeezed her arm. “It's going to be okay, sweets.”

Linny sighed deeply. “Why is everyone so calm about my disaster at work?”

“I know it feels like a disaster.” Kate nodded sympathetically. “But these things happen for a reason, and I agree with Mary Catherine about the time being a gift.” She took Linny by the hand and led her to the chipped kitchen table. “Sit. Let's eat and talk.” Reaching in the bag, she handed her a sandwich wrapped in white paper.

Linny didn't have much of an appetite, but took a small bite, and the subtle flavors of avocado, tomato, and cucumber on freshly baked sunflower bread was amazing. She chewed slowly, not wanting to miss a nuance. “This sandwich is heaven.”

“I know. A couple we know own Earth and Sea. They're good people, and their sandwiches are the best.” Kate dabbed her mouth with a napkin.

As Linny recounted all the gory details of this morning's meeting, Kate tsked in all the appropriate places, but when Linny had finished, nodded thoughtfully, and said, “Mary Catherine's right about you needing a new dream, too.” She smiled slowly. “A sweet dream.”

“Maybe,” Linny said wearily, but thought about it as she took a last savory bite of sandwich. She had no plan whatsoever. The people who loved her the most were both suggesting the same thing, and she needed to listen to them if she was ever going to get out of this jam. “Should we start a list?” She asked tentatively.

“Excellent idea.” Kate hopped up to grab Linny's spiral notebook from the counter, slid back into the chair, and fished a pen from her purse. “Okay.” In her perfect slanted handwriting, she titled a fresh page, L
INNY'S
S
WEET
D
REAM
L
IST
. Let's get some ideas going about what might make you happy now.” Her pen poised, she said, “Shoot.”

Linny pinched her lip, baffled. “I'm drawing a blank.”

“You could find a job that you really like, start your own business, or ditch the whole professional thing and work in a wine store or a bookshop. You could go back and get a Master's degree in . . . something.” She waved a hand airily and furiously jotted down notes on the page. “This can be a prime-the-pump list to get your ideas flowing.”

“Can't we just rewind this whole movie, and get me back my life with Andy?” Linny felt the weight of the old familiar darkness, and tears pricked at her eyes.

“Would if I could, sweets,” Kate said softly. “If what you want now is family, you could do it. You could adopt a baby like Sandra Bullock or Sheryl Crow. Very modern.” Kate paused, giving Linny a cautious glance. “You could get married again. To a much nicer and monogamous man, of course,” she added hastily.

Linny raised her eyes heavenward. “I was so deluded about Buck, I don't trust myself to choose a nice man.”

Kate tapped the pen on her cheek. “Mary Catherine and I could screen candidates—make them take lie detector tests and run background checks.”

Linny rested her chin on her hand and thought about it. “A calm family life is what I thought I was getting with Buck—the whole white-picket-fence, handful-of-kids dream. Not a man to rescue me, but a life that was safe and secure.”

“That's still a fine thing to want with the right man,” Kate said staunchly, and warmed to her subject. “You could experiment. Date an artist, or a professor, or a mogul—men that aren't your usual type.” She wrote those down.

“My type being a liar,” Linny clarified, and tried to grin, but just felt sad as she pictured bookish Andy with his rangy build, gentle humor, and soulful eyes behind black-framed glasses. Now he'd been her type. “Maybe I ought to just let the smoke clear from this last wreck. I'm not sure what I want right now,” she admitted.

Kate put down her pen, and reached over to pat her hand. “I understand. I just don't want this mess with Buck and work to divert you for too long. Don't waste too much time grieving over things that weren't good for you.”

The question niggling in the back of her mind came to her. Cocking her head, she gazed at her sister. “Do you think Mama and Daddy had a happy marriage?”

Kate frowned. “Of course they did.” Pausing a beat, she gave Linny a questioning glance. “Don't you think they did?”

Linny rubbed her eyes with her fingers. “I've been remembering about when we were growing up, and how Mama and Daddy weren't together very often.”

Kate put her elbow on the table, rested her chin in her hand, and asked cautiously. “What do you remember?”

Linny hesitated. “Daddy in the living room listening to the farm report, and Mama in the kitchen slamming pots around. Daddy going out to buy a pack of cigarettes and coming back hours later. Mama walking around all tight-lipped, giving him the freeze-out for days after.” She gave her a sidelong glance, wondering if Kate would think she made it up. When they were kids, one or two of their friends' parents had divorced, and the girls had been shocked, and smugly secure that their parents would always stay married.

Her sister said firmly, “They were happy. All married couples fight.”

Linny thought about it. “Maybe. Or maybe it's when you stop fighting and just give up is when things get bad.” But she glanced at Kate and saw she had that stubborn set to her jaw. Her sister wasn't ready to hear any more.

“What's this?” Her sister rose and peered at the purple flyer on the refrigerator. “This cookout sounds like fun. Wouldn't hurt you to get out.”

Linny shook her head. “I'm not ready for socializing.”

“It's just dinner, Linny. Your first experiment, right?” Kate slid back in the chair and clicked her pen. On the prime-the-pump side, she wrote
G
O TO
NEIGHBOR'S COOKOUT
. Giving her a cheeky grin, she said, “After you go, you can check it off.” She mimicked putting a big checkmark beside the line on the page.

Linny smiled despite herself. Kate knew all about her lists and how she enjoyed checking off items. She just wasn't sure about this. “I can't cook. What would I bring?”

“Jerry's guys and their families are coming that night for supper. I'm already cooking, I can just make extra for you to bring.”

She started to protest, but her sister raised a hand. “Oh, I insist.” Kate was going to make sure she didn't have an out.

Linny was grateful when her phone rang. She glanced at the ID and then Kate, “It's the lawyer,” she explained as she picked up.

Diamond trilled, “Yoo-hoo, Linny. It's Diamond. We're at the pre-Belmont Stakes parties. So tedious, but it must be done. Can I place a bet for you?”

“No, thank you,” Linny said politely. Was the woman ever in her office?

“Well, your husband owned a failing Internet parlor. It's called The Big Break Jackpot.”

“Never heard of it,” Linny said dully.

“Jackpot . . . I adore that word,” Diamond purred. “Must be a sign. I'll put money on a horse with a name just like that.”

Linny heard the sound of rustling paper, guessed it was a racing form, and rolled her eyes at Kate.

Diamond muttered, “Let's see. We've got Jumpin' Jack Flash, Jack Be Nimble, and, ooh! Sure Thing Jackpot. Fabulous. That's the one.”

Linny put a hand on her hip. “Can you make your picks later and just focus now?”

The lawyer gave a tinkling laugh. “Sorry, darling. Do you want to sell?”

“Sell what?” Linny asked, frustrated. The woman was hard to follow.

Diamond tsked. “That business, of course. You'll lose money, but you can clear that book, settle up, start fresh as a daisy.”

Linny felt a too-familiar flash of fury at Buck, and said flatly, “Sure. Sell it.”

“Consider it done. Must fly, precious one. Wish me luck at the racetrack.”

Ending the call, she shook her head slowly. Not the kind of news to make her want to wear widow's weeds. Slumping into her chair, she glanced at Kate. “More debt. The man lied like other people breathe.” She fumed as she gazed out the window at the snowy cotton fields. Slowly, it dawned on her: Buck had made her stomach churn when he was alive and he was doing it from the grave. She was sick of letting him control her moods, and sick of fuming. She could fret and rage and stay upset every day for three hundred and sixty-five days or however long it took for Diamond sort out Buck's finances, or she could try—really try—to look forward and rebuild her life. She could almost hear what Andy used to say to her when she obsessed over a problem, “Let it go, sweetheart. Do what you can, and let it go.” His words reassured her then, and they still did—better than any of Indigo's affirmations. Linny felt a calm settle over her and a budding sense of resolve. Turning to Kate, she said in a flinty voice, “I'll start the list. I'll start experimenting, and sign me up for the cookout.”