Knit in Comfort Read Free Page B

age.
    Deena fisted her hands. “Try singin’ on key and you won’t be so annoying.”
    Megan sighed. “You’re both annoying. It’s late. Jeffrey, you’re supposed to be in your pajamas, teeth brushed.”
    â€œYou said I had to be ready to go to bed. I am ready. I just don’t have my pajamas on or my teeth brushed.”
    Megan frowned hard so her smile wouldn’t show. “When you’re a famous lawyer, you can split those hairs, not while you’re in my house.”
    â€œFamous lawyer ha, famous barber maybe. Split those hairs, Jeffrey.”
    â€œDeena…” Megan hauled out her I’m-losing-patience voice, which, she’d noticed, worked less and less the older her kids got. Maybe she wasn’t tough enough. Maybe they needed their father around more…
    Half an hour later, children nestled all snug in their beds, Megan went downstairs, trying not to count how many more days until school started again. Summer seemed to go on forever.
    She bypassed Vera, yarn slack, nodding off over a rerun episode of ER , and stood by the phone staring at the number scrawled in Vera’s sloppy hand on the pale yellow pad sprinkled with faint sunflowers.
    Tidy up the kitchen first. She picked up a big plastic bowlthe kids must have used for popcorn, dumped the unpopped kernels into the trash and filled it with warm water bubbled up with Palmolive detergent. She had a perfectly good dishwasher but sometimes she needed to stand at the sink, gazing out into her garden, now dark and invisible, and gradually trade the chaos of used dishes for a neatly organized drain rack of clean ones.
    Dishes done, she wiped the counters dreamily, passing over the burn scar where Stanley had dropped a pot he thought cool enough to carry from the stove with his bare hands, past the pitted surface caused by her youngest playing carpenter with one of Daddy’s screwdrivers. By the time she’d wiped under the dish rack, put away the place mats and the butter and jelly left out, she wondered if it was too late to call, aware she’d been procrastinating all along.
    But if she didn’t call tonight, the thought of having to tomorrow would disturb her reading and her sleep, and she’d wake up dreading it.
    She dialed. The phone made a loud jingly ring once, twice, then a pleasant woman answered and connected Megan to the room of her potential boarder.
    Another ring, then another woman. “Yes? Hello?”
    â€œThis is Megan Morgan. You answered my ad at the Chit Chat Café about our garage apartment?” She wasn’t going to call it a guesthouse.
    â€œYes, yes. Thanks for returning my call. I’m Elizabeth Detlaff.” The voice was clear, young, confident, with a minor flavor of New York.
    â€œI hope I’m not calling too late.” Self-consciously, Megan tuned in to her own words and heard traces of her adopted Southern accent, which sprouted when she got nervous.
    â€œNo, not at all, I’m a night owl. I just finished my run and was about to do some yoga and meditate.”
    Megan had no idea what to say to that, but her stomach started feeling a bit sick. “Well, welcome to Comfort, Miss…Mrs.?”
    â€œ Ms . Call me Elizabeth, though. Can I come by tomorrow morning?”
    â€œYes, sure.” She’d forgotten how Northeasterners attacked conversation as if it were a nuisance weed best gotten rid of quickly. “How about ten o’clock?”
    â€œPerfect. Thirty-seven Wiggins Street? What does the house look like?”
    â€œA white colonial with burgundy shutters.” Which badly needed painting.
    â€œGot it. I’m so looking forward to this. The last few days have been crazy, I still can’t believe I’m here!” Elizabeth’s enthusiasm was startling. “And then to find you have a one-bedroom to rent by the week…I can’t get over it.”
    Megan had a stupid urge to giggle