The Café, Santa Barbara, 1996
“Where did you get the ballad?” asked Maddie.
Kate shrugged. “From a CD of renaissance music. Want to hear me sing it?”
“Not now. Okay. You’ve made Rebecca beautiful, and that’s always a good start. She may have been small and mousy and miserly in real life, but then again that doesn’t matter now,” commented Maddie in her own crisp, thoughtful fashion. “When do we get to the romance?”
“Well, soon. But I didn’t put any sex in it—maybe you can do that.”
“Not a bad thought,” commented her sister. “I can picture the cover of the book now … low-cut gowns, torrid embraces among tobacco fields …”
Kate choked on her iced tea. “Yuck. Yeah, even I can see this one now, Maddie! We could call it Sotweed Lust or something equally dreadful.”
“Sotweed?” asked Maddie.
“An old name for tobacco.”
“Oh, well, on a hot stormy afternoon, two sweaty bodies embrace with passionate rapture. His strong, manly hand explored her soft, warm—”
“Er—no.”
“Her sumptuous blonde hair fell over his shoulder as he lifted her in his massive arms and kissed her proud breasts with demanding passion …”
“Maddie!” Kate was flushed with laughter.
“These things make money,” said Maddie with a giggle. “Suddenly I feel so disloyal. I just heard that my brother is dying and we’re laughing about ancestors.”
“We can sit around and whine and cry, but it won’t help Geoff,” said Kate, suddenly sober. “Sometimes I think that I have started researching and writing about our dead ancestors in order to avoid thinking about the present—or the future.”
Maddie considered her empty martini glass for a long moment. “Shit,” she repeated. “I’ve got to get up very early in the morning. Give me the rest of your writings, little sis, and I’ll read them later.”
“Where are you staying? With Aunt Bette?”
“Heaven forbid! I’m at the Santa Barbara Inn.”
“Let’s meet for dinner tomorrow night. I’d cook for you, but I have a big day scheduled with that court challenge to the Penguin Oil gas leaks settlement. Where shall we go?” asked Kate, gathering her purse and jacket and shoving the rest of her papers into a manila folder that she handed to Maddie.
Maddie shrugged. “Let’s see, we need a place with good food, good parking, friendly service, pleasant ambiance. Here at the Café—where else?”
Maddie settled back into her pillows and switched off the eleven o’clock newscast. She was weary and very much aware that she had to get up early in the morning for breakfast with the owner of Chaucer’s Bookstore. Thoughts of her brother Geoff and memories of Santa Barbara kept tumbling through her brain, making sleep impossible. She dropped the remote control on her bedside table and noticed the rest of Kate’s papers there. She had been somewhat surprised by her sister’s writing ability. Maybe they could put it together after all—call it Green Colony or something of the sort. She picked up her reading glasses and the rest of her sister’s manuscript.