Another idea had been for me to stay there with him, but that would’ve meant renting studio space at the Covington Library up the hill for my work. This would entail packing up all my bookbinding equipment and supplies, including my various book presses and a few hundred other items of importance to my job. Those small studio spaces in the Covington basement, while cheap, were equipped with nothing but a drafting table and two chairs, plus some empty cupboards and counters.
I’m a bookbinder specializing in rare-book restoration, and I was currently working on several important projects that had to be turned in during the time we would be away from home. The original plan of staying with my parents, while less than ideal, would’ve allowed me access to my former mentor’s fully stocked bookbinding studio just down the hill from my parents. Abraham Karastovsky had died more than a year ago, but his daughter, Annie, had kept his workshop intact. She lived in the main house but had given me carte blanche to use the studio whenever I wanted to.
For weeks, Derek and I had tossed around various possibilities, including renting a place somewhere. That seemed to be the best alternative, and at the last minute, we were given a reprieve that made everyone happy. My parents’ next-door neighbors, the Quinlans, generously offered up their house for our use. They were off to Europe for three months, and we were welcome to live in their home while they were gone.
We were willing to pay them rent, but all they required from us was that we take good care of their golden retriever, Maggie, and water their plants. It seemed like a darn good deal to Derek and me, and I was hopeful that sweet old Maggie and my adorable kitten, Charlie (aka Charlemagne Cupcake Wainwright Stone, a weighty name for something so tiny and cute), would become new best friends.
So last weekend, Derek and little Charlie and I had moved out of our South of Market Street loft and turned it over to our builder, who promised to work his magic for us.
And suddenly we were living in Dharma. Suddenly I was sitting in my mother’s kitchen, having breakfast and wondering why I’d ever thought I could avoid seeing her every day simply because we weren’t together in the same house. Not that I minded her visits on a regular basis. I joked about it, of course, but in truth, my mother was great, a true original and a sweet, funny woman with a good heart. All my friends loved her. She was smart and generous. But sometimes . . . well, I worried about her hobbies. She’d been heavily involved in Wicca for a while and recently had been anointed the Grand Raven Mistress of her local druidic coven. Some of the spells she had cast had been alarmingly effective. She would try anything once. Lately she’d shown some interest in exorcisms. I didn’t know what to expect.
“Do you want some breakfast before we leave?” I asked Robin. We’d made plans to drive over to the Dharma winery this morning to watch them excavate the existing storage cave over by the cabernet vineyards. It would eventually become a large underground tasting room. Cave tastings were the hottest trend in Napa and Sonoma, and our popular Dharma winery was finally jumping on the bandwagon.
Robin pulled out a kitchen chair and sat. “I already had breakfast with Austin. He had to be on site at seven.”
Robin lived with my brother Austin with whom she had been in love since third grade. She and I had been best friends since then, too, and I loved her as much as any of my three sisters. I didn’t get to see her as often as I used to when she was living in San Francisco, but I knew she was blissfully happy with Austin, who supported her sculpting work and was clearly as much in love with her as she was with him.
Austin ran the Dharma winery and my brother Jackson managed the vineyards. My father did a great job overseeing the entire operation, thanks to his early experience in the business world. Decades ago he’d turned his back on corporate hell and gone off to follow the Grateful Dead. Ironically, these days, Dad and four other commune members made up the winery’s board of directors. He was also part of the group who oversaw the town’s business. And he loved it. It probably helped that Dad was still remarkably laid-back. I sometimes wondered if Mom had cast a mellow spell on him.
I checked the kitchen clock. It was already seven thirty. The cave excavation was scheduled to begin at eight. “I’ll just fix myself a quick bowl of cereal, and then we’ll go.”
Robin glanced at Mom. “Becky, are you coming with us?”
“You girls go on ahead,” she said, pulling a large plastic bin of homemade granola down from the cupboard. “I want to put together a basket of herbs and goodies for the cave ceremony. I’ll catch up with you later.”
“What cave ceremony?” I asked as I poured granola into a bowl and returned the bin to the cupboard.
She looked at me as though I’d failed my third grade spelling test. “Sweetie, we have to bless the new space.”
“Oh.” I shot Robin a wary glance. “Of course we do.”
Robin bumped my shoulder. “You haven’t been away so long that you’d forget about the sacred cave ceremony.”