“Have Corrine send me shots as you go.” Popping up, Sonya rushed to the head of the stairs as Cleo walked down. “Don’t look directly at the camera. You’re doing yoga poses, but you’re not posing.”
Cleo just waved a hand in the air as she turned to get a jacket out of the closet. And kept going.
“Don’t forget to—”
Cleo closed the door behind her, decisively.
Clover countered Sonya’s muttered curse with the Eagles’ “Take It Easy.”
“Fine. Fine. It’s all fine.” Irritated, she went back to her desk, plopped down. Then popped up again when she heard the front door open.
“Hey! I just want to say you should—”
She broke off. The door stood open, but no one stood there. And she clearly heard Cleo’s car driving down the road.
As she watched, the door swung shut again. The doorbell rang. Yoda raced down, his barks echoing.
“Nobody’s there. Come on back upstairs.”
Doors slammed up and down the halls, quick bullet cracks. The servants’ door shuddered and creaked. Though her heart tripped, Sonya strode downstairs to scoop up the dog.
“We’re going to ignore her, okay?”
As she passed it, the servants’ door opened so she heard the distant ring of the call bell. On a spurt of temper, Sonya shoved it closed before she turned into the library.
Her tablet played “Evil Woman.”
“I’ve got that.”
As the doorbell rang again, she considered closing the library doors, but decided it struck too close to hiding.
Instead, she sat down, soothing Yoda in her lap.
“Go ahead!” she shouted. “Waste your time and energy. I’m not going anywhere. This is my house. You’re just a pest that needs to be exterminated.”
The wind streamed through the room, icy and fierce. It sent Sonya’s mood boards toppling, sketchbooks sailing. Overhead the ceiling pendants swayed like boats in a stormy sea. She clutched Yoda with one arm, gripped the edge of the desk with her other hand as her chair started to lift off the floor.
It trembled inches above the floor as her muscles screamed and strained to hold it in place.
Then it dropped with a rattling thud, and the air went still.
Gathering the dog even closer, Sonya rocked to soothe them both. “That pissed her off, and I’m fine with it.”
Maybe she couldn’t quite catch her breath, maybe the chill over her skin seemed to dig straight into her bones, but she would be fine with it.
Stroking the dog, she sat back, closed her eyes.
“Am I crazy? Am I just freaking crazy to stick through all this? Wouldn’t a sane person just tuck tail and go back to Boston?”
Clover answered that with Helen Reddy’s anthem “I Am Woman.”
Her laugh came out a little shaky, but it was a laugh.
“Okay. Let’s straighten up this mess and get back to work.”
The ordeal distracted her so the photo shoot slipped out of her mind. When the first file came through, it was a surprise. Especially when she opened it.
Cleo sat on a navy yoga mat, body twisted into a pretzel and a goofy, cross-eyed grin on her face.
“Funny. Ha ha. You won’t think it’s so funny if I use this one.”
But it told her Corrine and Cleo had joined forces smoothly.
In another hour she started the first round of tests on the florist job. Yoda wiggled out from under her desk and ran downstairs.
“Now? Give me ten minutes. We’ll go out in ten.”
Then she heard the sound of the ball bouncing down the hall.
Even better, she decided. She had a built-in dog sitter.
She took fifty instead of ten, then remembering how the boy had run from her, announced herself.
“I’m going to take Yoda out for a walk now.”
She found Yoda sitting as if waiting for her. Then he rose up on his hind legs and took several steps forward.
“Look at you, puppy! You guys are an awesome team. Thanks, Jack.”
No, not crazy, she thought as she walked outside with her dog. She’d accept stubborn, preferred determined. And now that she could actually feel spring shoving winter aside, only more determined. She had daffodils waiting to bloom, and the witchy-looking weeper on the side of the house held its buds tight. But they’d burst free before long.
What snow still lay slept in shadows.
She heard a window open behind her and turned, expecting something ugly from the Gold Room.
Instead, she saw Cleo’s window opened, and the ones in her own bedroom as well.
Airing them out, she realized. Letting the first breaths of spring in.
No, not crazy, she thought again, and felt her heart lift as she watched a whale sound. She’d had to adjust her entire perception of how the world worked, but that didn’t make her crazy.
She heard the car coming. Yoda ran to the walkway, then spun in two circles when Cleo’s car made the turn.
She’d buttoned her shirt, but had her jacket over her arm.
“What a gorgeous day! It’s even warmer down in the village. I saw daffs blooming, and some hyacinths.”
“How did it go?”
“Super, seriously super.” She bent to rub Yoda. “We finished nearly an hour ago, then grabbed some lunch so Corrine could get me started on our guest list.”
“An hour ago?”
“She’s good; so am I. Terrific natural light in the studio. I might try some classes there. And how was your day?”
“Eventful, initially. Our resident bitch went off before you’d headed down the road. Slamming doors, ringing the doorbell. Nothing very creative until she blew a gale through the library. It actually lifted my chair off the floor, with me in it.”
“God, Sonya.”
“It was her clapback for me calling her a pest. She’s been quiet since. Clover’s hung with me, and Jack played with Yoda. All in all, a typical day at the manor. Oh, and Molly’s airing out our bedrooms.”
Cleo looked up. “What a good idea. A perfect day for it.”
“Now tell me why I don’t have the files from the shoot.”
“Because we decided she’d wait to send them until I got home, so we could look at them together. And I’m texting her right now that I am, and we will.”
“Are you sure you got enough? Hardly an hour at it?”
“Nearly an hour and a half,” Cleo corrected. “And yes. We looked them over in the studio. I know what you want, and so does Corrine. Slick, professional, but with a casual, just-living-your-life feel.”
“Well, yeah.”
“Let’s go see if we pulled that off.”
“I’m grabbing a Coke,” Sonya said as they went inside.
“Good idea. I’ll take one.”
In the kitchen, the box of treats sat on the counter. But this time a note sat beside it. In very formal, careful cursive, it read:
Toss it.
“Cleo.” Sonya tapped a finger on the note.
“Well, just wow. Messages from the beyond? Toss one and see.”
Yoda sat, butt wiggling. After digging out one of the little biscuits, Cleo tossed it in the air. Yoda leaped, snagged it, landed.
“Oh, well done, Yoda.” Cleo applauded. “Well done, Jack. Let me do one. You’re a champion dog.”
“He wrote a note,” Sonya murmured. “I was afraid I scared him, but he wrote a note.”
Cleo put an arm around her shoulders. “There’s an awful lot of good energy in this house. Let’s go up.”
Yoda settled by the fire as Cleo pulled a chair over to join Sonya at the desk.