Chapter 6
Six
chary (adj.): hesitant and vigilant about dangers and risks
I’m still trying to shake this stupid squeamishness when Dot flutters by on her usual hazelnut latte high en route to the supply cabinet. “G’morning, sunshine! How’d you do?”
“How did I . . . ?” I stow the canvas tote responsible for this morning’s awkwardness in a desk drawer, taking longer than it needs to take—long enough to rearrange my face into something that passes for cheerful.
“Oh, that.” Did I even play Wordle today?
Breakfast seems an eternity ago. Wake up and smell the newsprint, Lucy. “What was the word again?”
Have I mentioned I’m not a morning person?
“Wimpy.”
Right. How could I forget? Is the New York Times’ word games department on a mission to torment me?
“Geez, Louise,” I say. “No need for name-calling.” She guffaws cutely as I hang my cardigan over the back of my chair. “Dot, are you sensing a theme with these five-letter words lately?”
“Hmm?” She tears the wrap off a fresh ream of printer paper. “Whatcha mean, punkin?”
I shake my head. “Nothing.” Rarely have I let Dot in on my private world of self-denigration. Or anyone, for that matter. Today I’m tempted.
I mean, I’m far removed from the age when I could blame lapses in confidence on my endlessly gifted older sister.
What was the point in entertaining lofty goals when Vanessa already had every aspiration on lock?
Well, except one. There was always one area in which I was free to become the GOAT—anticipating everyone’s needs, or what I perceived to be their needs, but my own.
How naturally this took root the moment Mikey got sick.
And then of course, I gave my ex-husband carte blanche to grind my self-doubts even deeper. A role he’d taken to like a raccoon to a trash can.
Intellectually I can sort the lies from the reality of how God sees me and who he made me to be. So why do I still struggle? When Chase looks at me, what do I want him to see?
“Actually, Dot, you know what? It’s not nothing. Okay, here it is. Here’s the thing. I’m the kind of person who thinks scheduling breakfast for dinner makes me a superhero.”
“I looove breakfast for dinner! Especially when waffles are involved. Oh! Or eggs benny, or—”
But this isn’t me asking. This is me confessing. “I mean,” I interrupt, despite Dot’s round-eyed enthusiasm, “when was the last time I exercised real courage?”
“Courage.” She says the word slowly, as if her taste buds are trying it out—and rejecting it. “You mean like . . . jumping out of a plane?”
“Yes. I mean, no!”
Dot fans the stack of oversized pages before nestling them into the paper tray. “Phew. Thank the good Lord.” She presses several buttons, and Bertha the copy machine hums to life.
“I mean, it needs to be something . . . bigger, maybe? Something more, I don’t know . . . experiential, I guess?”
“Like what?” Now she’s distracted by the baby lipstick plant on my desk. “Aww. Who’s this cute little fella?”
Shoot. See, this is what happens when I become self-focused. “I almost forgot. He’s all yours. How’s Poochy doing?”
“Seriously, Lucy, you are the most thoughtful person I’ve ever met, do you know that?” She squeezes me from the side.
“Pshaw.”
“No, really! You’re out there every day, planting seeds and spreading kindness like wildflowers.”
Obviously, her praise is extreme. Somehow Dot sees the woman I hope to become. Still, when I open my mouth to form a knee-jerk denial, an internal whisper silences me. Courtesy dictates I receive my friend’s splendiferous bouquet of words, no matter how squeamish I feel. So I do. I say thank you.
“Also, no worries,” she says. “Poochy’s going to be just fine.”
“Oh, yay. And you?”
“Good as gold. Truly.”
“Really? You amaze me. How’d you bounce back so fast?”
“What’s a little bad news? As they say, it takes both rain and sunshine to make a rainbow. And it’s certainly not my first rainbow. Get it?” She elbows me. “Not my first rainbow?”
I pull a face.
“Rodeo? Rainy-bow?”
“Dot, I get it already.”
“Ooh-ooh-ooh, I know. You could sign up to do one of those civilian ride-alongs for SpaceX! Don’t they love to recruit journalists?” Absently, she retrieves her printed pages from the copy machine. “I wonder if you can text photos from outer space . . .”
Is she for real? I narrow my eyes at her. “Pretty sure I’m way underfunded for that one.” And not an actual journalist, I don’t say.
Dot trills persimmon-colored fingernails on the counter and stares into space. I need to find her off switch. At the sound of faint, soft footfalls behind us, we turn.
Meg passes wordlessly, all the while coiling a length of rope into a figure eight between her elbow and hand. She exits through the front door. Bouldering before 9:00 a.m.? Slacklining? Steer wrestling?
Dot’s neatly penciled eyebrows form two amber crescents way up at her hairline, as if to suggest, There you go, Lucy! There’s your solution, all wrapped up in a bow and sent down from the high and holy place. As if the antidote for what ails me is to invite myself along on Meg’s next adventure.
I bite my lip. “Dot, think less physical, more . . . personal.”
She nods slowly. “Ahh, I see what you’re saying. Like, you didn’t come this far to only come this far.”
I manage a wobbly smile. Now we’re on the same page.
Later she texts me.
Stumbled on this quote. “Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow.” Isn’t that lovely?
Like I say, Dot’s a peach.
***
By lunchtime, I’m experiencing sharp hunger pangs alongside the squeeze of a drop-dead deadline.
On top of our usual weekly deadlines, we’ve been tasked with producing a special publication for the chamber of commerce: a magazine geared to invigorate the local tourism industry, in which we tout the “innumerable reasons to visit Charity Falls and our whole recreational paradise here on the sunny side of the Cascade Mountains in the heart of the Pacific Northwest.”
It’s hard to argue with the case we’ve built for vacationers to drop a pin in their Google Maps and navigate to this place I call home. As I proofread a prominent page three sidebar, I can practically hear the resonant voiceover of some Travel Channel dude inside my head.
High-mountain lakes, rolling forests dense with pine and fir for exploring, plus a world-renowned fly-fishing river form the backyard for a charming Western-themed downtown boasting myriad vibrant expressions of artfulness and Americana.
Words I penned. And which, as I reconsider them, are all quite true. Of course, what this paragraph doesn’t mention are the myriad reasons a young mom, determined to shield her child from his father’s cold disregard and volcanic temper, might find Charity Falls the ideal spot for a do-over.
Literally and figuratively, the green pastures and quiet waters that continue to heal my thirsty soul.
Of course, it didn’t become all those things overnight.
My heartbeat pounds inside my temples.
Thank God Chase was too young to remember—and that I’d had the presence of mind to pack sleeping bags. Although, a can opener would have sure made things easi—
“Check these over,” Brad says, interrupting my thoughts with that nasal monotone of his. He plops a thick manila folder atop my inbox without stopping. Display ads. The bread and butter of a small press.
Once again, there’ll be no actual lunchtime. Which is fine. Important stuff to be done.
Half an hour later, Dot’s at my elbow, face flushed. “Got twenty-three and twenty-four yet? The forest ranger spread?”
Now there’s a great story. I’ll bet plenty of locals have no idea our local district ranger joined a quilting circle.
Or that he’s taught his crew how to quilt.
All year, forestry personnel have been turning out warm, cheerful quilts to distribute among unhoused persons living in the national forest before winter descends.
I donated some fabric for the project myself.
Because I know firsthand the desperation that can lead someone to spend the night in a vehicle in the forest.
“Just about,” I answer, eyeing the time. “I’m still waiting for—”
As if on cue, Meg props open her office door. Phew. “Hey, Meg,” I say after rapping on it twice. “Got a sec? I think something’s wonky with this quote from the quilting ranger—”
“Sorry, Luce. Didn’t mean to keep you waiting. Been on the line most of the morning with Steph Stoneback’s publicist.” She punctuates this with an eye roll.
Not buying it. She loves every second of this assignment. It’s just that half her fun is pretending she doesn’t.
Maybe it’s the out-of-whack ratio of caffeine to protein I’ve been chancing all day, but by 1:30, when Sam lumbers toward my station, I’m experiencing a freaky out-of-body sensation.
As if I’m watching my interaction with a certain burly editor from a distance.
I’m just a fly on the wall, a curious observer, and my subject is a thirty-one-year-old introvert named Lucy Montgomery.
“How’s things shaping up?” the old guy named Sam says with an air of authority to the petite woman at the front desk with a fresh orange juice stain down her T-shirt.
The woman sits up straighter, adopts a perky demeanor. “All good. It’s a wrap for me. Loved your piece on community participation.”
The editor’s chest puffs out a touch. “Why, thank you, Montgomery. So, listen . . .” He steeples his hands. “I have got an assignment with your name all over it.”
Oh my. What will my subject, Lucy Montgomery, do?
I notice she flinches.
“Hear me out,” he says. “Think human interest profile. In fact, for my money, there’s no one better suited to capturing the personal aspect than you.”
For sure he’s buttering our poor Lucy up. But also, she is capable, and she knows it—when she’s honest with herself. Lucy’s eyelid spasms. “When do you need it?”