“I’m going to get Sophie now. I’ll call you in a little while.”
I tossed the phone back into my bag and let my head fall back against the seat. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted something moving. A man wearing baggy black pants and a Red Sox baseball cap was strolling down the opposite side of the street. I watched as he stopped suddenly, stooped to the ground, and picked something up. He studied the object for a few seconds, turning it around with his fingers, and then inserted it into the side pocket of his jacket.
I rolled down the window. “Excuse me?”
The man looked over at me and adjusted the brim of his cap. Tufts of white hair poked out from the sides.
“Hi,” I leaned across the seat, close to the window. “I’m from out of town. I’m looking for my sister. Sophie Anderson? She lives somewhere here on Main Street. She’s opening a bakery. Have you ever heard…”
The man cut me off with a point of his finger, indicating the house directly behind me. I turned around, taking in the two-story, ramshackle structure with a slow dread, and then looked back at the man. “This…this one? Are you sure?”
He nodded, closing his eyes for emphasis, and pointed at it once again.
“Okay,” I said miserably. “Well, thanks.”
To be honest, 149 Main Street looked as if it had once been a pretty decent-looking house. About a hundred years ago. Now it had the unsettling appearance of having been uprooted by a tornado, whirled around a few times, and then flung back to earth. A good chunk of the roof on the left side was missing entirely. Bare wooden beams, thick and pale as elephant ribs, indicated that something up there was in the process of being restructured, but I could not tell what. The other half of the roof, miraculously enough, looked okay, except for an old dilapidated chimney that stood stubbornly upright in one corner. Curls of peeling brown paint dotted the sides of the house, and the front porch had an enormous hole in the middle of it. The porch railing, full of missing spokes, looked like a mouthful of teeth that had been punched out.
This was Sophie’s place? The soon-to-be bakery?
I ran my hands through my hair, put the car back in gear, and made a hesitant turn into the driveway. Clusters of dead, rotting bushes cleaved to the side of the house, and the lawn—if it had indeed ever been a lawn—was a mess of brown dirt. A side porch, leading up to a small narrow door, held a green watering can and a white wicker rocking chair. Maybe the man had been mistaken. This place didn’t look or feel like Sophie at all.
Suddenly the side door opened, and as if she knew I’d been thinking about her, Sophie appeared, dressed in denim overalls and a white T-shirt. The cuffs of her overalls had been rolled up around the ankles, and her sneakers were spattered with paint. The edges of a red bandanna, folded and tied around the top of her head, stuck out like little ears, and her blond hair was scooped back into a ponytail. She looked confused for a moment, her eyes taking in the green Bug, and then they opened up wide. “Julia?” She ran over, tapped on the window glass and then yanked open the door. “Julia? Oh my God! You’re here! I can’t believe you’re here!”
I giggled with relief, forgetting the state of the house for a moment, or even the reason I had come up to see her in the first place. “Believe it,” I said, getting out of the car. “I’m here.”
She grabbed me and held me tight against her. The smell of turpentine and cigarettes drifted out from her hair. “You drove?” she asked, pulling away again. “The whole way? By yourself?”
I nodded, realizing for the first time as she said it, that in fact I had. “I got lost in Albany, though. That place is like a maze.”
Sophie looked down at her watch. “It’s not even five yet. What’d you do, drive all night?”
I nodded again.
“Aha!” she chortled. “That’s my girl!” She frowned suddenly. “Wait. Is everything all right? Are you in trouble?”
“No!”
“Mom and Dad? They’re all right?”
“Yeah. They’re fine.” Now was definitely not the time to get into things. “God, Sophie. You always think the worst.”
“So then, you just…felt like coming?” Her voice was soft. “To see me?”
“Well, yeah. Just for the weekend though. I have to leave Sunday. My internship starts Monday.”
For a split second, Sophie’s face fell. Then she flung an arm around my shoulder. “Oh, Jules, I’m so sorry about that whole scene. At your dinner, I mean. I was gonna call and explain everything to you, but then I felt weird about it, and I don’t know…I just feel so bad about the whole thing. Especially leaving without saying good-bye.” She scratched her upper lip. “I really am sorry. I hope I didn’t ruin your big day.”
I shook my head. “You didn’t. It’s okay.”