“Me? The devil?”
As she entered my home, she pushed her raincoat hood back and I blinked. It was still startling to see her smooth, shaved head instead of her usual mop of curly hair, but I had to admit that the bald look worked for her. Her facial features were petite and refined and she seemed to radiate healthy living. And if you were going to go eccentric, why not go bald?
“Yes, you.” I took her damp coat and hung it on the back of a tall workshop chair. “I was just thinking of you as I threw another batch of disgusting overdone pasta down the drain.”
She wiped away an imaginary tear. “That’s so sweet. I think of you that way, too.”
“Sorry, but I’m frustrated.” I led the way back to the kitchen. “It’s just not fair that I am completely incapable of boiling water, and then there’s you. I don’t get it.”
“Ah.” She smiled. “Well, look on the bright side. I destroy books.”
“True.” My sisters and I had always been voracious readers, but none of us would read a book after Savannah was finished with it. Not only did she scribble in the margins, but she would mark where she’d left off by dog-earing the page. It was barbaric. She liked to sadistically crack the spine to keep a book splayed open. If you valued a book, you never lent it to Savannah.
As a professional lover of books, I felt my stomach clench whenever I had to see her slapdash bookshelves.
Without bothering to ask, I reached into my cupboard for another wineglass and poured her some of the 2009 Pinot Noir I’d been sampling.
“This is good,” she said after taking a sip. “Light yet jammy with earthy undertones.”
I smirked. “Much like yourself.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
“What are you doing here? I mean, I’m happy to see you, but I can’t remember the last time you visited.”
“I know it’s been a while.” She perched her butt on one of the barstools at my kitchen counter. “I came into town for a meeting this afternoon and decided to take a chance that you’d be home.”
I sat down across from her. “Do you want to stay for dinner?”
She barely resisted a sneer. “Only if you’re having takeout.”
“Definitely.”
“Will Derek be here?”
“He should be home any minute.”
She grinned. “Okay, I’ll stay.”
That was an easy decision. I reached for the phone. “Let me call in the order and then we can talk.”
After ordering enough pizza and salad for a family of eight, I hung up and poured us both more wine. My cell phone buzzed and I checked the text message. “Derek says he’ll be here in twenty minutes.”
“Good. That gives me just enough time to ask a favor.”
I watched her dig into her oversized tote bag and retrieve a small, colorful bundle. I was pretty sure I recognized the wrapping. “Is that a Pucci?”
Her eyes lit up. “Yes. Do you remember when I bought these for everyone?”
“Of course. I still have mine.” The Christmas she’d spent in Paris while attending Le Cordon Bleu, she had sent each of us girls a wildly vibrant French silk scarf. We’d all thought she’d been terribly extravagant until I visited her and discovered that they sold the scarves on every street corner in Paris.
She handed me the bundle. “Can you fix this? It’s pretty old, but maybe you could clean it up and stick a new cover on it or something? I want to give it as a gift.”
I slowly unwrapped the silky material and found a book inside. Casting a quick frown at Savannah, I bent to study the book more carefully.
It wasn’t just old; it was really, really, really old. Its faded red cover was made of a thin, supple French morocco leather, the type that had been used for centuries to make personal Bibles and religious missals. The binding style was known as limp binding, which made it sound sort of sad and saggy, but in reality, the slim, flexible construction allowed the book to be left open flat for easy reading without someone having to hold it.
I examined the spine and found it rippled in some spots and thinning in others. The gilding, while faded, was still readable. Obedience Green, it said.
“Obedience Green?” I rubbed my fingertip over the pale golden letters. Was that the title of the book or the name of its author? Maybe it was the name of the bindery that had produced it. I opened the book, taking note of the dappled endpapers before I turned to the title page—and gasped. “It’s handwritten. In ink.”
“Yeah,” she said, swirling the liquid in her wineglass. “It’s kind of hard to read in places, but it’s cool, isn’t it?”