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Chapter One
Ann
My office chair was meant to be agronomic, but I couldn’t really feel the difference. At least not to the point of the three-hundred-dollar rise in price. Thank goodness for company accounts.
Swinging around, I put the little statue Drew made in preschool on my desk. I was pretty sure it was meant to be a dog, though there was also a chance that it was a pony. It didn’t have a tail to speak of, making the distinction difficult. I still loved it, though.
The statue sat on the desk next to a framed portrait of Drew taken on his third birthday. The photographer was going to put my little boy in a sailor suit but that struck me as being much too cliché. In the end, we compromised on a baby tuxedo. I was a bit surprised to find out that such a thing even existed, but there it was, hanging on the store rack in all its glory. I thought it looked pretty silly, but Drew seemed happy enough. He even sat still through the whole thing. A miracle rivaling parting the Red Sea.
“Morning, sis.” Vicky, my office assistant and sister-in-law, came in with a stack of mail. “Another art project?” she asked, eyeing the new quadruped on my desk. She had a little boy of her own, just about the same age as mine.
“Yeah, isn’t it just darling?”
She nodded, her long bright-red hair swinging over her shoulders. “Yeah, it’s an adorable little… horse?” Vicky hazarded.
“Dog is the prevailing theory,” I pointed out, running a finger delicately over the dark snout of the statue. The color wasn’t any help in categorization, Drew had painted the whole thing in green and blue blotches.
“I can see that too,” Vicky said, tilting her head slightly.
“The lack of tail makes it difficult,” I agreed, picking it up and handing the art piece to her.
“Still sweet though,” Vicky said, carefully looking it over and handing it back.
“Very sweet,” I repeated, replacing the horse-dog to its place on my desk.
My sister-in-law stopped sorting the mail and leaned against my desk so she could stare out the window of my fifth story office. I didn’t have a great view of downtown L.A., but it was decent. “James did something like that once. The jury is still out on whether it was supposed to be a spooked kitty cat or a raccoon.”
We both giggled. “The features do seem to be rather general, don’t they?” I asked, unable to keep from smiling.
“Absolutely. Though if I had to choose been somewhat nebulous art interpretation —”
“Somewhat?” I asked, smiling broadening.
Vic laughed, sweeping her long locks back. “Fine. Very nebulous art interpretation and potty training, I know which I prefer.”
“Time is moving on,” I agreed, glad that Drew had gone through potty training early. Vicky and my brother, Jim, were not as lucky. Little James just refused to use the toilet.
“Before you know it, they’ll be driving,” Vicky sighed.
“Oh my God, you’re right!” I said, feigning horror.
She laughed at my expression. “Not quite how I meant it.”
Acting as my assistant again, Vic surrendered my mail, and I started going through the piles she made with her peering curiously over my shoulder, as was her custom.
In among the usual bills and cheques for legal fee payments was a truly ornate envelope. It was the kind that was traditionally used in the sending of wedding invitations. I had come to recognize them on sight after all the weddings I had been to over the past few months — members of the firm getting hitched like it was going out of style.
It looked like this was something that had started to reach out and affect my family as well. I opened the card and found that this invitation was announcing the wedding of my youngest cousin, who couldn’t be more than twenty-one. My mind did a quick bit of comparative math that couldn’t help but make me feel like a hopeless spinster since I was thirty and single. The blessed event was to take place back home in Santa Rosa in a couple of weeks.
“Another wedding invite?” Vicky asked in a prodding way since she could clearly see that it was.
“Yup.”
I set the invitation roughly to the far side of my desk. Sliding it into the trash would have been too obvious and would have elicited a comment from my sister-in-law. I loved Vic, but she could be a bit of a know-it-all at times. She always thought she knew what was best for everyone.
“There have been a lot lately,” Vicky said, tapping her finger thoughtfully on her pointed chin.
“Yeah, so fun.”
“Not over the moon?” Vicky asked, finally picking up on my tone.
“Not exactly,” I admitted. I really didn’t want to go into what I was feeling, but she would probably pry.
“Wait!” She slid her butt onto the corner of my desk and leaned over towards me. “Do you know something about why they can’t be joined?” Vic asked, sounding inordinately excited.
