Sweet Dreams on Center Street (22 page)

How many family members does it take to pull a girl back from
the brink of despair? Samantha took the phone.

“I've been so worried about you,” Bailey said. “You weren't
answering your cell.”

“I turned it off.” The last thing she'd wanted was to talk to
anyone in her time of misery. Or so she'd thought. But having her sisters here
was like wrapping herself in a down comforter on a cold evening. It didn't make
the night any less cold but you
felt
warmer.

“I heard about the slide and I figured you might be upset,”
Bailey said.

Now there was an understatement.

“Don't worry, Sammy. Everything will work out. D.O.T. will get
it cleaned up.”

Samantha sighed. “Thanks to the governor and the media, people
will be too scared to drive the pass.”

“Not if they hear that everything's been cleaned up. We just
have to get the word out,” Bailey said as if that was the simplest thing in the
world.

“Bailey,” Samantha began.

“I know you can fix this.”

“I'm not God,” Samantha said irritably.

“You sure acted like it when we were growing up,” Bailey
retorted. “Remember how we got lost in the woods that time we went camping with
Daddy and Grandpa? You found the way back.”

“We weren't that far from camp.”

“We aren't that far now,” Bailey said.

If only she was right…

When Cecily left, Samantha still had no solution to her
problems and no guarantee that things were going to turn out well, but she'd
recovered her fighting spirit. She got on her computer and began to spread the
news via Facebook and Twitter. “Highway 2 rockslide will be cleaned up.” There
had to be something to this power of positive thinking stuff. “The Icicle Falls
chocolate festival is still a go. The rocks won't get you but the chocolate
will. Come eat chocolate and go to heaven.”

Okay. There. She didn't know if she'd accomplished much with
that flurry of activity but she sure felt better.

* * *

“I think it's going to take a while to master everything
in that book you chose for me,” Muriel confessed to Pat as the LAMs gathered for
dinner at Zelda's. “I'm afraid managing money is all a terrifying mystery to
me.” She almost added,
I wish Waldo was still alive.
But Waldo hadn't been much smarter about money than she was.

“You'll get the hang of it,” Olivia assured her. “Oh, look,
they've added huckleberry cheesecake to the dessert menu.”

“You told me you were dieting,” Dot said.

“I am. I'm cutting back,” Olivia said. “But not on our dinner
nights. It's my one night out.”

Dot shook her head. “Pathetic.”

“Well, at least I don't smoke,” Olivia shot back.

“Okay, okay. Point taken,” Dot conceded.

“Anyway, I need cheesecake for comfort,” Olivia said. “I had
two more cancellations today, even though I told them the highway would be clear
by next week.”

“People are spooked. The media did a pretty good job of scaring
them,” Dot said in disgust.

Her daughter was right, Muriel thought miserably. Perception
was everything.

“We can't control the media or the mountain,” Pat told them.
“All we can do now is hope. So let's talk about some things we
can
control.” She turned to Muriel. “Besides being
financially challenged, how are you doing?”

Her daughter was ready to throw her off a mountaintop, she
still cried herself to sleep at night and she was probably going to lose her
house. “I've been better,” she confessed.

“You'll come around,” Pat said.

“Don't worry. We'll get you through,” added Dot.

She sincerely hoped so, because she wasn't doing such a good
job of getting herself through.

The following night Del stopped by, offering to take her to
dinner and help her find a solution to her financial problems.

“Thank you, Del, but I think I'm going to just try and deal
with this on my own,” she told him. That way there'd be no chance of betraying
business secrets.

“Nonsense,” he said heartily. “Everyone needs a shoulder to cry
on once in a while. I've got a nice quiet corner table reserved over at
Schwangau.”

“Well…” She hesitated.

“Come on,” he urged. “You've got to eat, right?”

Yes, but not with Del. Between making passes at her and leaking
information to his sister he'd hardly proved himself trustworthy.

“I think the two of us can get your finances all sorted out,”
he said.

Getting
anything
sorted out would
be a blessing, and it was only dinner. She'd make sure they didn't talk about
the business, but maybe he could advise her on what to do with the house. “All
right,” she decided. This time she'd sit across from him. That should keep her
legs out of range.

They'd barely placed their orders before she knew she'd made a
mistake. Over his martini Del proceeded to pump her about the business and
predict that the chocolate festival would be a flop. “Not enough time. Very poor
planning. And now, with the rockslide…”

“The Department of Transportation will have that cleaned up
before the week is over,” she protested.

“Too late. The damage is done. People won't come. But even if
they did, it wouldn't be enough to save your company. I'm sorry to have to be
the one to tell you that, Muriel, but it's true.”

“My daughter is saving the company,” she said huffily. Too bad
she hadn't told herself that before starting her desperate phone campaign.

“And that's why you called me asking for a loan?” he
scoffed.

“I called asking for a loan because I need to make my house
payments.” That wasn't a lie, not really. She'd be okay this month, thanks to
the small check she'd received, but after that she was in big trouble.

Now he looked shocked. “Waldo had life insurance, didn't
he?”

The horror of her situation brought tears to her eyes. She bit
her lip.

“Oh, no. Well, he had investments, right?”

Once upon a time. He'd also had some sort of pension, but she'd
discovered that the pension stopped when Waldo's heart did. She shook her
head.

“Muriel, this is terrible.” Del reached across the table and
took her hand. “But don't worry, we'll figure something out.”

“I just need to get over this rough patch,” she said,
extricating it. If he could lend her a couple thousand she'd be fine. She could
give most of it to Samantha.

“Of course you do,” he said comfortingly. “I understand. A
woman has…needs.”

Needs? Oh, no. Not those kinds of
needs.
“Del, you've misunderstood—”

He patted her arm. “You don't have to be ashamed, Muriel.
You're only human.”

And Del Stone was subhuman, and proof that charm and character
didn't always go hand in hand.

“After dinner, let's go back to my place. I've got a Chablis I
know you'll love.”

Pass number one, she could excuse. He'd been drunk. Pass number
two, there was no excuse. “Del Stone, my husband has been gone less than a
month. What are you thinking?” Silly question. It was obvious.

“Nothing,” he insisted. “I just thought you needed
comforting.”

“I don't,” she snapped. “I need money. And now I need to go
home.” She started scooting out of the booth.

“But we just ordered.”

“I'm sure you can eat your meal and mine.”

“Muriel, don't leave,” he pleaded.

“I'm afraid I'm not hungry anymore,” she said, and left.

She marched from the restaurant and down the street. Of all the
nerve! What was it about widows that made men think they could just waltz in and
take advantage like that?

It took half a block for her to acknowledge that she herself
was part of the problem. She'd been the one to call Del, hoping she could
persuade him to help bail her out. What was he supposed to think except that she
was a lost, lonely widow?

She was. Her heart hurt. And now so did her feet, thanks to
these ridiculous heels that pinched her toes. Still, there were no taxis in a
town the size of Icicle Falls. She would be limping home.

She was halfway there when a car cruised up beside her. She
turned to inform Del that she wasn't getting into his car, only to discover that
the car wasn't Del's. It was a conservative black Lexus and Arnie, her old
friend from the bank, sat behind the wheel, looking at her with concern.

He rolled down the window and called, “Do you need a lift?”

She nodded and gratefully got in.

“I was just on my way home from the grocery store when I saw
you,” he explained.

“Well, thank you for stopping,” she said. “You saved my life.
My feet are killing me.”

Arnie wasn't the handsomest man on the planet. He was thin and
his hair was doing a disappearing act. But he had a beautiful heart and he knew
shoes. “Those are nice,” he observed, “but not exactly walking shoes.”

“I hadn't intended to walk,” she said. She removed one of the
offending heels and rubbed her aching toes. “I left a dinner engagement
early.”

Arnie didn't ask questions. He merely nodded as if that was the
most normal behavior in the world. “How are you doing these days, Muriel? I
haven't seen you since the memorial.”

Samantha had told her not to talk about the business but surely
that didn't include Arnie. He knew about their loan. But did he know they were
behind? Maybe not. Maybe she shouldn't say anything. “I'm managing,” she lied.
She didn't have to tell him that she was managing to ruin everything she
touched.

He looked over at her and frowned. “All right. Now, tell me how
you're really doing.”

A tear slid down her cheek. “Awful. Waldo didn't keep up the
payments on his life insurance, I'm upside down on the house…” She stopped
herself there. What she'd already shared was depressing enough.

“Oh, Muriel,” he said sadly.

She sounded pathetic. How humiliating! “I'll work things
out.”

“I have a little money set aside.”

Oh, no. She wasn't going down that road again.

“I couldn't ask it of you, but thank you for being such a good
friend.”

He wanted to be more. He'd wanted to be more well before Waldo
came along. She supposed if she'd married Arnie she would never have had to
worry about money. He was gainfully employed, now working as a claims adjustor
for an insurance company in Wenatchee, and he could balance a checkbook. Still,
that was no guarantee of stability. A man could lose his health and his mental
faculties, leaving both his wife and his checkbook vulnerable. There really was
only one person a woman could depend on—herself. It was time she learned that
lesson.

“Isn't that what friends are for, to help?” he countered.

“I appreciate the offer, but I think I'm going to have to
figure out how to fix my problems without borrowing from anyone. I could use
some advice, though.”

“I'll be happy to do that,” he said. “And if you do find
yourself in a pinch, don't hesitate to call.”

She was already in a pinch.

That will change,
she told herself.
Life was always changing, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. As
bad as things were now, they had no way to go but up.

* * *

Samantha and Cass sat at Bavarian Brews, fortifying
themselves with caffeine. “I swear I'm going to end up in a straitjacket if my
daughter has anything to do with it,” Cass said.

Oh, no. Had Amber already broken her promise to reform?
Samantha suddenly felt like an accomplice to a crime. Maybe she should have told
Cass. If she were a mother, would she want a friend keeping this kind of
information from her?

“What's she done?” Samantha asked cautiously.

“Cut class,” Cass said in disgust.

“I can think of worse things,” Samantha said. Smoking.
Shoplifting. Failing to tell a friend you'd caught her kid sampling coffin
nails.

“I know.” Cass nodded. “I cut a couple of classes in my day.
It's the kids she was with. I don't like who she's hanging out with these
days.”

Samantha didn't, either.

“God knows what she'll do next. By the way, she came home with
a box of your chocolates. She says you gave them to her.”

“I did,” Samantha said, and hoped Cass wouldn't ask why.

“Why? What was that about?”

“Call it a bribe.”

Cass took a sip of her mocha. “A bribe, huh?”

“Well, you were worried about her grades, weren't you?
Chocolate can be a powerful motivator.”

“There's more to this than you're telling me, isn't there?”
Cass was studying her as if looking for the hole in her story, and that made her
squirm.

“A little,” she admitted, “and I guess I should have asked you
before I gave her that chocolate.”

“No. I trust your judgment.”

That should have been a comfort but it only added to the weight
of responsibility on Samantha's shoulders. She should have ratted out Amber. She
still could.

But then she remembered the look of relief on the girl's face
when she promised to give her a break. Everyone deserved a second chance,
especially erring daughters who wanted to shine in their mothers' eyes.

“We all need a mentor, I guess,” Cass said, “and sometimes a
second mom. And I've got to admit I've been so crazy with the business, I
haven't given her as much attention as I should.” She shook her head. “Ever
since she spent Christmas with her dad she's been a handful.” Cass set aside her
half-finished mocha and frowned. “Sometimes I want to run away from my
life.”