Threads of Hope: Quilts of Love Series Read Free Page B

“ready to commit to anything more serious.” Sheila said “he was up to no good.” Three months later, he married her roommate.
    Nina spent her life walking through the mine field of her mother’s judgments, and no matter where she stepped, something was going to blow up. Tonight, forgetting to thank the intern? Not even a minor blast.
    Nina shut down her laptop, slipped her feet back into her not-at-all sensible suede peep-toe shoes, and decided fettuccine and an upcoming story on the new ambulance service weren’t compatible. All she needed for home was herself. She hoisted her purse onto her shoulder and headed for the door when she remembered she forgot to email Daisy about a possible interview with one of the preservationist candidates she profiled. Since she was only a few steps away from Daisy’s desk, Nina pulled a blank sheet of paper out of the printer, jotted the information, and set it on her calendar pad next to a screaming yellow sticky note. Certainly, Daisy couldn’t miss that. Neither could Nina because what Daisy had written on it shocked her: “Ask JB about the opening in NY.”

3
    As soon as she put her key into the lock, Nina heard Manny’s canine symphony of yelps, barks, and squeals on the other side of the door. She scooped him up after she walked in because, if she didn’t, he’d be doing figure eights around her legs until she did. “Okay, okay, little man, I’m happy to see you, too,” she said as she petted Manny and calmed his enthusiastic, cold-nose nuzzling greeting.
    Aretha stood at the kitchen sink filling a teakettle with water. She looked over her shoulder at Nina and smiled. “You know, I hope to find a husband who’s as excited to see me come home as that dog is to see you.”
    Nina laughed and released the wiggling puppy who headed to his water bowl, his stubby legs causing him to toddle on the oak floors like a canine Charlie Chaplin. “I’d be willing to sacrifice some of the excitement if he didn’t have doggy breath.” She hung her purse on the hall tree and felt her body sigh in relief as if it had just been permitted to acknowledge it was tired. Nina pulled off her shoes and left them at the foot of the stairs before sitting on one of the kitchen barstools. “I’m so glad we ended up living here in the city; otherwise, I might have had to spend the night at the office.”
    “You’re so welcome,” Aretha told Nina and smiled, knowing they shared the memory of that decision. Nina, with the exception of college dorms, grew up in neighborhoods where the ranch style homes differed only by their brick color and front door placement. After college, she moved into an apartment complex that wasn’t much different. Coming home at night required close attention to make certain the door you attempted to unlock was your own. But, it was close to her job then and, even after she was hired by
Trends
, she grew accustomed to the long drive.
    Her choice of rentals was one of the few intersections of belief that Aretha and Brady, the then Brady, had. When he asked if she planned to move closer when the lease expired, Nina had shrugged and said, “I’m not sure. It’s not that bad.”
    The two of them had driven to Baldwin Park to let Manny, just months old then, experience grass and sunshine and other wonders of nature he couldn’t see from his kennel in Nina’s kitchen. Brady had stopped the game of fetch he played with the puppy to look at Nina. “Don’t you want more from life than, ‘it’s not bad’?” She sensed, by the way he averted his eyes so quickly, that he could see she’d never given it a thought.
    Aretha had been dating Franklin, a friend of Brady’s, when they met. The four of them would often meet for dinner or brunch on Sunday mornings. At first glance, the two women seemed the unlikeliest of friends. Nina was as fair as Aretha was dark, as tall as she was short. While Aretha kept her wits about her, Nina scattered hers everywhere. They became