by Claire Cook
THE WHEELS THAT had been turning in some mysterious part of my brain suddenly clicked into alignment. I raced to the hardware store and bought all ten retractable clotheslines they had left.
“Wow,” the woman behind the counter said as she rang them up. “You must have some serious dirty laundry. You know, there’s been a real run on clothespins lately, too. Time to reorder, I guess.”
I pulled a flyer out of my purse. BAN THE BAN, it said. THE MARSHBURY CLOTHESLINE ALLIANCE CORDIALLY INVITES YOU TO LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW GREEN IS THE NEW BLACK AND CLOTHESLINES ARE THE NEW COOL. 7 P.M. AT THE LAVENDER FARM ON HIGH STREET.
The woman finished reading and looked up again. She pointed. “You can hang it up right there,” she said.
“No pun intended,” I said.
She laughed. “I’ll spread the word,” she said. “And you just might see me there, too.”
Next, I stopped at the drugstore and bought ten little clear plastic travel-size spray bottles. I was hoping for purple, but I had to settle for sage green.
I left my car in the driveway and covered the nonexercise half of my garage floor with newspapers the minute I got home. Then I started making some sample painted retractable clotheslines. I got the one I’d painted for my mother out of my closet, unwrapped it, and painted another one just like it. Then I painted one that looked like a tiger-striped cat all curled up in a ball.
I covered another in green paint and added darker green stripes, and painted pink polka dots over an orange base on another. Then I painted one sea green, and spattered blues and greens and whites all over it until it looked like the ocean on a wild day. I didn’t think I’d been this happy since my childhood finger painting days. I stayed relaxed and didn’t worry about them coming out perfectly. I just wanted them to be fun.
I’d stayed up late last night scrolling through photos and drawings of lavender on the Internet, and I’d finally come up with my trademark design: a single bloom of lavender blowing in the wind. I painted my last five retractable clotheslines a pale lavender color, then painted my original lavender design in sage green and dark purple on top of that.
I went back to the nonlavender clotheslines and painted a tiny, logo-size lavender plant down near the bracket end on each one. Finally, I hand-lettered my company name on each of the ten clothesline reels: LAVENDER LINES.
I stood back and took a good look. I sat down on the floor with the spray bottles and carefully painted a tiny lavender bloom on each one. Then I called Rosie.
I had just enough time to take a water break and touch up a few spots I’d missed before Rosie came over.
She ducked under the half-opened garage door and started circling the patchwork of newspaper on the floor. “These are amazing, Noreen. I love them.”
“Really?” I said. “Enough to sell them at the lavender shed? I was thinking I could fill the little bottles with lavender water and include one with each clothesline.”
Rosie fluffed up her red curls with both hands. “Of course we can sell them in the shed. Maybe it’ll actually bring in some business.” She put her hands on her hips. “Not in a million years would I have come up with an idea like this. Maybe I should hire you to take over the lavender farm.”
“Actually,” I said, “I’m not sure I’d want to take over the farm. But I think between your lavender and the clotheslines and some other ideas I have, we could have a great online business. You can sell my things in the shed, and I’ll promote any lavender products you want to sell on my Lavender Lines Web site.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to at least take over the lavender shed?” Rosie said. “Maybe you can make it your office.”
I shook my head. “Sorry. I definitely don’t want to be tied down to a brick-and-mortar office, even one that smells like lavender. Ever again, if I can help it.”
Day 31
10,444 steps
THE SMELL OF FRESHLY BREWED COFFEE WOKE ME UP. I kicked off the covers and headed for the kitchen.
“Hey, Mom,” I said. “How was Nantucket? Still wet?”
“Lovely,” my mother said. “Just lovely.”
My mother looked lovely, too. The silver dolphin earrings with blue glass inserts she was wearing weren’t even half bad. “Nice earrings,” I said.
She reached both hands to her ears and stroked the dolphins. “Thanks, honey. Kent bought them for me to remember our first trip together. Here, let me pour you a cup of coffee.”
“Sit,” I said. “I’ll get it. You’re really crazy about him, aren’t you?”
My mother smiled. “We have fun together. Sometimes I think that might be the most important thing. When I remember your father, you’d suppose it would be the romance I’d remember, or all the firsts with you kids, but it’s really the laughter I think about the most.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said.
My mother and I both laughed. I put a couple of pieces of whole wheat bread in the toaster and sat down at the table with my coffee.
“Aren’t you going to fill me in on everybody?” I asked. I figured I might as well get it over with, so I gritted my teeth and got ready to hear how much better my sister and brothers were doing than I was.
“They’re fine,” my mother said. “Everybody’s fine. How was your trip?”
“Really fun,” I said. My toast popped up, and I jumped up to get it before my mother could.
“One thing, Noreen,” my mother said.
I finished spreading on the peanut butter and turned around. “What?”
“Do you have any idea how my leopard bra got into the garage?”
WHEN I PULLED into my driveway after grocery shopping, Hannah was sitting cross-legged at the edge of her lawn. I stopped my car down by the road and got out.
“Hi,” I said. “How’s it going?”
“Ha,” she said.
I sat down next to her and crossed my legs, too. “Your mother just wants you to be safe, you know.”
Hannah shrugged and twirled a lock of hair around her finger.
“So do I. And if I ever see you doing anything you shouldn’t be doing, I want you to know I’m going to tell her right away.”
“Don’t worry,” she said in a sad little voice. “I’m never going anywhere again. My supposed friends totally sold me out.”
“What happened?”
A tear rolled down one cheek, and she brushed it away. “Well, we all got caught equally, but then everybody else decided to say it was my fault. Like I kept them out all night without them having anything to do with it. So now nobody’s allowed to hang out with me. As if I’d hang out with them anyway.” She took a ragged breath. “I can’t wait to get out of this stupid town. It’s so annoying.”
“Your life will get better,” I said. “Next time you’ll be smarter, and you’ll pick better friends, too.” I hesitated. “And a better boyfriend.”
Hannah looked me right in the eyes. “Did my mother tell you?”
I nodded. “Here’s my best advice: pick a guy who deserves you. And the smartest thing you can do is to make sure you don’t get pregnant in the first place.”
“No shit,” Hannah said. She looked exactly like Tess when she said it.
WE GOT A fabulous turnout at the first meeting of the Marshbury Clothesline Alliance. About thirty women and exactly three men, not counting Rosie’s dad, Tess and Rosie’s husbands, and Rosie’s two sons, milled around in the lavender shed and sat on the lawn in folding chairs Tess had borrowed from her school. The citronella and lavender oil in the tiki torches Rosie had lit kept the mosquitoes at bay and also smelled great.
Rod Stewart cock-a-doodle-doed a few times, and the Supremes took turns working the lock on their pen, but I could see that somebody, possibly my mother, had wrapped some extra wire around to hold the gate secure, so I knew they were out of luck, at least for tonight.
My mother and Rosie’s dad were handling the cash box, while I took orders for custom clotheslines. Lots of them. Apparently clotheslines really were t
he new cool.
“Oh, that’s a great idea, Lo,” a woman was saying. “That lavender wreath would be perfect on my front door. And thanks, I didn’t even see those lavender bath salts.”
As soon as the woman walked away, my mother said, “I only wish we had my Florida friend up here selling her lingerie. It would be the hit of the party. Maybe you and Rosie should look into it as a sideline.”
“That’s a fine-looking plant,” Rosie’s dad was saying to another woman. “Here, let me get the wheelbarrow for you, and I’ll wheel it out to your car.”
“I got it, Mr. Stockton,” Hannah said. She grabbed the wheelbarrow and started maneuvering it through the crowd.
Tess looked at me. “Scary,” she said. “You don’t think she has a body double, do you?”
“She’s a great kid,” I said. “She’s going to be just fine.”
Before we started the meeting, Rosie and Tess’s husbands made sure everyone had either a glass of seltzer or some lavender black currant champagne, made the real way, without cutting any muddling corners.
Tess stood in front of the chairs and clapped her hands. I could suddenly picture her as a teacher. I bet the kids quieted down right away for her.
“Welcome to the first meeting of the Marshbury Clothesline Alliance,” Tess said. “It all started with a few posters on a clothesline and a vast quantity of bubbles in the fountain, but on the advice of counsel, we’re not allowed to discuss that.”
Everybody cheered.
“Most days,” Tess continued, “I am proud to live in this beautiful little town, but every so often I am outraged by the elitist, small-minded, judgmental, bourgeois….”
I made a cutting motion across my neck.
“But I digress,” Tess said. “Anyway, we’re here tonight to strategize so we can right a simple wrong. Energy costs are crazy, and there’s nothing like the smell of your sheets fresh off the line. Green is the new black, and clotheslines are as green as you can get. The Marshbury Clothesline Ban has seen its day, and it’s up to intelligent people like us to make sure the ban is banned. I’d like to see a clothesline in every yard in Marshbury by the end of the year. Whether they want one or not!”
Everybody cheered again.
I stepped up beside Tess. “We’d like each of you to take a copy of the Ban the Marshbury Clothesline Ban petition. If you can circulate it for signatures, and drop it off back here at the lavender farm by August fifteenth, that would be great. We’re hoping to go before the board of selectmen to present our case at the end of August. If we get enough signatures, they’ll put a question on the ballot at the town election in November. And, of course, we’ll win.”
The cheering grew even louder, then tapered off. I waved to Sherry, who was sitting between two other women from work. It was nice to see them again.
Everybody started surging toward either the petitions or the lavender black currant champagne.
Something made me turn to look down Rosie’s long driveway. A man was emerging from the path that ran through the pine grove from my house to Rosie’s.
I threaded my way through the cars that lined both sides of the driveway and met him halfway.
“Hey,” Rick said. “Some party.”
“It is now,” I said.
“ISN’T IT LOVELY you boys have so much in common?” my mother said. She lowered her voice and whispered, “I have a good feeling about this one, honey.”
Rosie’s dad had borrowed his grandsons’ Wii, and he and Rick were getting it plugged into my television.
“So, what will it be, bowling or tennis?” Rick asked.
“Ladies’ choice,” Rosie’s dad said.
“How about bowling?” I said. “I have fond memories of Wii bowling.”
Rick was squatting in front of the TV. He turned around, and his eyes met mine. My heart leaped, and we both smiled like we were kids again.
“Bowling’s fine with me,” my mother said.
“You’ll love it,” I said. “And don’t worry, you’ll pick it up right away.”
“Oh, please,” my mother said. “I’m on a Wii bowling league at my condo clubhouse. I even have my own designer Mii.”
After we finished playing, I walked Rick out to his Honda.
“Sorry about that,” I said.
“What?” he said. “I had a great time. Plus, we kicked their butts.”
I smiled. I’d had a great time, too, a grand time, as my mother would say. A grand time with a man who might or might not be able to dance, but he was definitely quite the nice guy.
We both looked up at the sky. The moon was almost full, and about a gazillion stars twinkled around it.
Rick put his arm around me.
“So what made you just show up tonight?” I asked.
“Well,” he said. “I was going to wait and talk to you tomorrow at Fresh Horizons. You know, give you some time to figure out whatever you needed to with the guy in the suit.”
I leaned into Rick. “Nothing to figure out. Old news.”
“Good to know. But then I was afraid you might misinterpret it as a lack of interest on my part and take my head off in front of our small-group cohorts again.”
I laughed. “I didn’t take your head off. I was just drawing a line in the sand.”
“Perfectly executed,” he said. “That small-group stuff is really rubbing off on you, isn’t it?”
And then he kissed me.
Day 32
10,001 steps
“SO,” TESS SAID. “WHAT A GREAT TURNOUT LAST NIGHT.”
“I was hoping a lawyer would show up,” Rosie said. “It always helps to have a lawyer present your case at those selectmen’s meetings. Otherwise, they try to trip you up.”
“Just let ’em try it,” Tess said. “A part of me is hoping they don’t simply cave and ban the clothesline ban right away. Then we can get some picketing in.”
“Just no bubbles,” I said. “That’s all I ask. And remind me to keep my ski mask on this time, okay?”
We took a right at the end of Wildwater Way. Tess moved up ahead, and Rosie stepped back beside me.
“So,” Rosie said. “Those clotheslines of yours certainly were a big hit.”
“I know,” I said. “Do you believe it? And I heard you sold practically every lavender item in the shed.”
“Yeah, it was great. Your mother promised she’d help me make lavender wands and more lavender wreaths. And she and my father are fine with keeping an eye on the shed through the season. After that they’re talking about heading to Florida so your mom can show off my dad at her condo complex.”
Tess turned around. “Hel-lo. I’m starting to feel left out up here.”
We crossed the road to our side street shortcut, and Rosie and I arranged ourselves on either side of Tess. “I was thinking,” I said. “Maybe you could put together an outreach program for schools and other groups. You know, tours and mini-workshops at the lavender farm on weekends and school vacations….”
“Not that left out,” Tess said.
We all laughed. It was hot and muggy already, but it felt good to sweat, to move. I couldn’t get over how much stronger and fitter I was now than I’d been just over a month ago. I was eating better and even liking myself a lot more, too. This morning I’d dared to step on the scale in my bathroom again. I was seven pounds lighter. I’d tiptoed into my bedroom, stood in front of the full-length mirror on my closet door, and dropped my towel. Not bad. I mean, not perfect by any stretch, but the fitter I got, the more I was okay with looking like the best version of myself, instead of trying to measure up to some airbrushed Hollywood fantasy.
We walked through the opening in the seawall. “Oh, I can’t believe I almost forgot,” Tess said. She pulled a folded note card out of her pocket.
Dear Tess, Noreen, and Rosie,
I will be taking over Ms. Grady’s class until a permanent teacher is hired. The school year starts early down here in the South, and we’ll be back at it in just over tw
o weeks’ time. Where does the summer go?
I want to thank you for sending those precious lined journals and fancy pens for the students, which will help us out tremendously. That sweet clothesline will sure come in handy for drying our artwork in the classroom, too. The school custodian promises to hang it up for me any day now, but he’s slower’n a bread wagon with biscuit wheels, so I’m not holding my breath. We’ll get it up there eventually though, and please know that Ms. Grady the Great will shine on forever in our hearts.
Sincerely,
Laurel Cobb
Tess pulled out a photo of Annalisa with last year’s class. “Be careful,” she said. “Don’t either of you dare get any tears on it.”
Rosie sniffed loudly. “Oh,” she said. “Look how happy they all are. And Annalisa is so beautiful. Well, maybe not beautiful, but she looks like one of us, doesn’t she?”
I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my T-shirt. “I think we should donate a portion of our profits to the Ms. Grady the Great Memorial Fund,” I said.
“Absolutely,” Tess said. “And don’t forget about the Marshbury Clothesline Alliance. Activism doesn’t come cheap, you know.”
RICK PICKED ME up in his blue Honda, and we drove to our Fresh Horizons South small-group meeting together. We were early, so we used the extra time to sit in the parking lot and kiss.
“I like this retro parking thing,” I whispered into his ear.
“That’s because you don’t have the steering wheel wedged into your rib cage,” he said.
Eventually, we made our way to the meeting. We found two vacant chairs next to each other and sat down. I’d forgotten all about Michael until I saw him sitting at the other end of a row of chairs. As soon as he saw me looking, he leaned over to the woman next to him and whispered something. She laughed.
