ARE YOU STILL GLAD WE DID IT?”
Allison Moore looked up from her laptop Monday morning and studied her business partner and onetime best friend, Kayla Brown. Not at one time. Still best friends. At least that’s what Allison told herself. It’s what Kayla probably said inside her head too. And Allison wished it were true. But she’d discovered that people who say, “Don’t go into business with friends or family,” have a large slice of wisdom on their side.
Allison didn’t have to ask what “it” was. Going out the door. Leaving their old architecture firm, where they’d made gobs of money for the owners and not much for themselves. Now here they were, two and a half years later, working harder than they ever had and still not making much money for themselves. But it would come, wouldn’t it? It had to. Their heads weren’t completely under the financial waters, but she and Kayla did have to hold their breath far more frequently than they liked.
“Glad?” Allison leaned back in her chair and picked up her heavily caramel-flavored coffee, the only breakfast she’d had that morning. “Yes, I am. Most days at least.”
Kayla stepped inside Allison’s tiny office and sat in the chair on the other side of Allison’s oak desk, the twin to Kayla’s. Oak. Not Allison’s style. Nor Kayla’s. But the furniture had been affordable.
“Me too.” Kayla sighed. “I’d rather be poor and free than rich and in the shackles we used to wear.”
“I agree.” Allison took a sip of her almost-warm-enough drink. “Except when Seattle rain turns into snow up at Steven’s Pass and I don’t have the money for a lift ticket.”
“Our time is coming. With four new major accounts within reach, you have to be feeling good.”
“I do.”
The air felt stale—the same conversation they’d had too often over the past six months was undoubtedly the reason—and they slipped into silence. Another sip of coffee.
“Am I still your best friend, Al?”
Allison stared at her. The truth? More often than not it was an extreme challenge to be around Kayla. But Allison was committed to the business. And committed to the friendship.
“It’s been hard. But yes, you are.” Allison took another sip. “Am I yours?”
“I want you to be.”
Allison nodded and pushed back from her desk.
“Like you said, Kayla, I’d rather be here running my own business than working for someone else. Not sure I could ever do that again. And you and me? We’ll get back to the way we were once we get a little bit of cash flow going. It’s just the stress, you know?” She set down her cup and straightened up. “I should get going on these drawings. Promised Kim Kelly they’d be finished this afternoon.”
“Girl?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry, Al, for what I did on Friday.” She placed her hands on Allison’s desk. “When I’m wrong I say I’m wrong, and that wasn’t in any way called for, making you look foolish because I blew off the appointment, and I’m really, really sorry because I said I would come and then I didn’t, because I thought it was too small of an account for us to pitch, and I did tell you that, but I still should have . . . and it was late on Friday afternoon and I wanted to get home to my kids, and to hubs, and since you don’t have kids, you don’t know what it’s like, but it tugs at me, but still, I . . . I was so completely wrong.”
Kayla scrunched up her face and peered at Allison, then tilted her head, waiting for an answer.
“Not completely wrong. You were right. They’re small. But I got ’em.” Allison pointed to her cup and grinned. “So they’ll at least pay for our coffee.”
“Really? You signed them?” Kayla stood and clapped twice.
“I did.”
“Sweet!” Kayla reached back and pulled a slip of paper out of her jeans. “Then there’s even more reason to give you this.”
She unfolded the flyer and slid it across Allison’s desk.
“I signed us up for a Sip and Paint class this Thursday night. My treat.”
Allison smiled. “I’ve always wanted to try that.”
“Me too. It’ll be a celebration of picking up our latest massive client.”
Allison laughed and said, “Can’t wait.”
Kayla flashed the love sign and Allison returned it. As Kayla spun to go, Allison’s cell phone rang. Caller ID said it was her mom. But Allison had no time to talk and at times her mom could be a world champion monologuer. Not a problem when Allison had time to listen. Which wasn’t now. She would return the call on her way home. The ringing stopped. Allison’s focus returned to her drawing desk, but before her brain could engage, her cell rang again. Her mom. Again. Allison sighed, sat back, and picked up her phone. Deep breath. Explain she couldn’t chat and hold her mom to under five minutes. Then finish the drawings.
“Hi, Mom. Listen, I’d love to—”
“No, this isn’t your mom, Allison. It’s her neighbor, Tara Elsner. We’ve met a few times. You might remember me.”
“Yes, Tara, of course I do.” Heat flashed through Allison. “Why are you calling on my mom’s cell? Is she okay?”
“Yes, Corrine is . . . Your mom . . . is fine.” Tara paused. “Well, not so fine. She was up on a ladder working on the gutters and slipped and fell, and landed on her ankle and broke it pretty badly. Bruised up a little on her right side.”
“What?”
“Yes, she’s banged up but okay. It could have been far worse.”
“What was she doing up on . . . No, no, no, forget that. Where are you now?” Allison stood and grabbed her purse and car keys.
“She didn’t want to bother you, but I said you needed to know . . . She was, and still is, I suppose, in a lot of pain, so I borrowed her cell phone because in all the commotion after she called me and I raced across the cul-de-sac to help her, I forgot to grab my cell phone before we—”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Tara, but where are you?”
“Right now we’re in a room waiting for—”
“Are you at the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
“Overlake.”
“Thanks, Tara, I’m on my way.”
Allison hung up without waiting for a goodbye, snatched her coat, and sprinted out her door and into the doorframe of Kayla’s office.
“That was my mom’s neighbor. My mom broke her ankle. She’s at Overlake. I gotta go.”
Allison turned and raced to the front door of their office, yanked it open, and pushed into the hallway.
“Is she—” Kayla’s voice was clipped off as the door slammed shut.
Allison growled at the Bellevue traffic crawling up 405 and glanced at her watch. Ten forty-five. Ten years ago you could hit the speed limit this time of day for at least a few seconds at a time. Even five years ago. Now? Lucky to reach half that speed. She tried to calm down. It wasn’t a heart attack. She didn’t need to race to get there. Allison called Tara back and was told her mom’s ankle had been set and she was sleeping. But still. She wanted to get there. Be there when her mom woke up. Tell her things would be okay. Because her dad wouldn’t ever be there for her mom again.
Why did he have to go and die? Yes, he was with Joel now, father and firstborn son reunited. But now it was just Allison and her mom. Parker? Sure, he was alive—at least he was three and a half months ago before he’d vanished again—but being alive and being part of their shrinking family were two different things.
Finally she reached her exit and accelerated down the off-ramp as if she could make up the time she’d lost in the river of stop-and-go cars. A light mist from the sky began and she turned on her wipers.
Broken ankle? Falling from a ladder? Allison shook her head. What was her mom doing up on a ladder working on the gutters? Sixty-two-year-old women did not get up on fifteen-foot ladders. At least they shouldn’t. Especially not women with frequent vertigo.
Allison pulled into Overlake Hospital’s parking garage twenty minutes later. Ten minutes after that, a nurse in the ER gave a quick rundown of her mom’s condition, then pointed to a hallway to Allison’s left. “Your mom’s at the end of the hall, probably still sleeping. She was when I checked five minutes ago.”
“Thank you.”
Allison clipped down the hall and breathed in that antiseptic hospital smell that always seemed to be covering up a deeper, less pleasant odor hiding in the walls. She slowed as she approached the ER bay, stopped just outside the door, took a deep breath, then stepped inside. Her mom lay propped up in a bed covered by an off-white blanket. “Mom?”
“Hi, sweetie.” Her mom gave a smile, her eyes at quarter mast. “I guess I lost my balance.”
“They told me you were trying out for the circus.”
Her mom laughed. The morphine they’d given her was obviously taking care of the pain, at least for now. “You should have seen the flip. I just couldn’t stick the landing.”
“I see.”
Allison sat and took her mom’s hand. Warm and soft. Gentle. The way it had been forever.
“Thanks for coming, Al. You didn’t have to.”
“Mom? What were you doing up on a ladder?”
“Working on the gutters.”
“Why? What would possess you to climb up there?”
“They need fixing. And Parker’s not around. And who knows if he’ll ever be around again.”
“So if Parker’s not around, you hire someone to do it.”
Her mom turned her head and stared at the rail of her bed.
“Mom?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.” Her mom pulled her hand away. “I can do it myself.”
“Obviously that’s not the case.”
“I won’t slip next time.”
“They told me you won’t be ready to do anything for at least a month and a half.”
Her mom yanked her arms across her chest. “Then I’ll fix them in six weeks.”
“Please, Mom. Explain this to me. Why didn’t you hire someone to take care of your gutters?”
Her mom turned back and opened her eyes fully for the first time since Allison had stepped into the room. “No, I won’t.”
“Why not?”
“It’s nothing you need to know about.”
“Why are you—”
“It’s strictly off-limits.”
The look in her mom’s eyes was full of fear. More than Allison had seen in her mom for a long time. Maybe ever. Whatever it was, Allison had the feeling it was about to change her life.