The Carpenter & the Queen (5 page)

“Just a little bit longer, okay? I’m almost
finished.”

After Sam dashed out of the room, Claire
reached back into the box, pulling out other trinkets, books of
postcards, and a framed photo. She set the other things aside and
studied the photo. It had been taken back when she was in college,
when she convinced Will to go to the Renaissance Fair with her
while he was visiting her on leave.

Getting her army boyfriend into a costume
hadn’t been easy, but she had rented a crusader’s tunic and blunt
sword for him, so at least he didn’t look like “a pansy in puffy
pants” as he referred to the other men in renaissance garb. Claire
had made her own dress in blue upholstery fabric that looked like
brocade. The dress still hung in a back corner of her closet,
although she doubted it would fit anymore. Her hair had still been
long then, and she wore it straight down her back. On top of her
hair sparkled a plastic tiara Will bought her.

This photo had been taken at the end of the
day as they left the fair. They posed in front of the wooden castle
façade that held the ticket booth. Will had one hand on his sword,
the other arm close to his chest since Claire had wound her hand
around the inside of his elbow. They were looking at each other and
laughing. She could still remember exactly what she had been
thinking when the photo was taken:
I found my knight in shining
armor
.

Claire shook her head a little to clear it
and distance herself from the emotions rushing to the surface. This
photo had sat on her dresser all through their engagement, when she
had imagined she was writing to the lord of a European castle, not
to a lieutenant stationed in Germany. Poor Will. She hadn’t seen
him for himself back then, only for what she wanted him to be.
Marriage had cured her of many of her fairy tales. If she ever
found someone new, she would be smarter this time, would see him
for who he really was—flaws and all.

Maybe this photo was what she needed to
paint—an artist’s rendering of those two young people in love. But
she wouldn’t romanticize it. She would paint the couple as they
were. The woman’s face would be sunburned, her smile too wide. The
man would look slightly annoyed and uncomfortable. While Claire
would paint a real castle behind them, she wouldn’t make it look
new. A few stones in the foreground would be loose, foreshadowing
the future collapse of their happiness.

Back in the box, only one bundle remained,
and Claire remembered what it contained. Unrolling the paper, she
held out her hand and caught the figurine. On the round base stood
the painted resin figure of a woman in a blue medieval dress. Below
her crown, her blond hair flowed down her back. Her hands clasped
calmly, she looked placid, regal, and in absolute control.

Claire stood the figure on her palm and held
it out a bit to examine it. She remembered clearly the day Will had
given it to her. She was six months pregnant with Sam and washing
dishes at the kitchen sink when Will came up behind her and put his
arms around her.

“I have something for you,” he said.

“Not another dirty dish, I hope.”

He moved his closed fist in front of her and
opened his fingers slowly to reveal a chess queen.

“What’s this?” She reached for a towel to
dry her hands.

“I bought it this afternoon when I was
coming home. Some captain was having a moving sale. Said his kids
had already lost some of the pieces, so he was willing to sell them
separately.”

Claire took the piece and examined it. “She
kind of looks like me.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“No matching king?”

“Not this time.” Will kissed her. “I thought
she was pretty enough to stand on her own.”

Claire sighed, remembering the moment. She
set the queen on her dresser, next to the jewelry box.

“Mom!” Sam called from the living room.
“Everything’s set up!”

Rising reluctantly, Claire ran her index
finger along the queen’s dress. She wasn’t that woman anymore, but
she wanted to be.

* * * * *

After their afternoon errands, Claire drove
back to Lindberg, mindful that suppertime was approaching. She
didn’t feel like cooking. The trunk of her Honda Accord was loaded
with cans of paint, some groceries, and tubes of acrylic paint she
had bought, along with a new canvas. She was in the mood to get
started tonight. If she cooked, that moment would be delayed by an
hour or two. On a whim, she drove past their house into
Lindberg.

“Hey, we missed our road,” Sam
protested.

“Let’s get a pizza.”

“Pizza Hut?”

“No, they don’t have those here.”

“Then where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

She parallel parked the car in front of the
pizza and video store on Main Street. The library was just on the
corner of the next block, and Claire saw from the sign that they
were still open. She should stop in and see if Francine was still
there.

She and Sam entered the pizza place. As they
opened the door, Claire had a flash of the first time she had come
here with Will. They had met accidentally at the ice cream stand
the day after their first meeting and had agreed to meet for supper
the next night. Claire’s grandma was wary but gave her permission
to go, as long as she and Will didn’t go anywhere else. That
freedom had been one of the many luxuries of spending a summer
without Garrett to watch over her.

The little pizza shop was tiny, only about
ten feet wide, but it went back deep into the city block building.
Right at the front was a counter and the small pizza kitchen. In
the back was the video store. Two small tables with just enough
room for two lined the wall opposite the counter. She and Will had
sat there for an hour, eating pizza and laughing together in view
of everyone who came in, but neither had cared.

They had only been able to see each other
two more times before he returned home. But those three dates were
enough to establish a long-distance relationship that spanned the
next six years of Claire’s life.

When Claire and Sam entered the shop, Claire
ordered a pizza. The wait was twenty minutes, which meant Claire
had time to stop at the library. But before she did, she put her
hand on Sam’s back and guided him to one of the tiny tables off to
the side.

“Your daddy and I had our first date here,”
she said. “The decorations were different then.”

“What kind of pizza did he like? I can’t
remember.”

“Pineapple and Canadian bacon.”

Sam looked disappointed. “I like
pepperoni.”

“I know.” Claire tousled his hair. “You
don’t have to like all the same things Daddy did. You can just be
you.”

She smiled goodbye to the girl behind the
counter, then led Sam back out onto the street toward the library.
As soon as she opened the library door, the smell of old books took
her back to her childhood when the highlight of her day was a trip
to the library after helping her grandma with chores.

The first sound she heard was loud laughing.
As they entered, she saw a woman with short blond hair behind the
counter conversing with a man in a baseball jacket and cap leaning
against the counter.

“Then I says, ‘You bring some nose-pickin’
girlfriend to the Christmas table, girl? Whatcha thinking’?’”

The woman laughed loudly. “That’s the best
one you’ve told me in a while,” she said.

Claire smiled as she pulled off her hat and
gloves. Of course Francine was still there. How could she not be?
The library had changed, though. It was still small, but now, past
the fiction section in front were three computers off to the left
in front of the reference room. The children’s section was in the
back past the counter. She pushed Sam in front of her toward the
back, smiling at the librarian.

“Hi there,” the librarian said. “Can I help
you find anything?”

“You always could, Francine.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed as she studied
Claire, then her face lit up.

“Claire? Is that you?”

“In the flesh.”

Francine came around the counter and gave
her a hug.

“And this handsome young man,” Francine
pointed to Sam, “is Will’s. I’m sure of it.”

Claire nodded. “This is Sam. Sam, meet
Francine. She’s been working at the library since I started
visiting here a long time ago.”

Francine waved her hand. “None of that
history. Makes me seem too old.”

The man at the counter, seeing he was no
longer the center of Francine’s attention, slipped out with a
mumbled goodbye.

“It’s so good to see you, Claire. How long
has it been?”

“About nine years, I think. It was the
summer Will’s mom remarried and we drove up to see his dad.”

“I was so sorry to hear about Will. What was
it, three—four years ago?”

“Four.”

Francine shook her head. “Such a shame. He
and Luther patched things up, I hope. . .”

“As much as they could. You know I’ve moved
here now.”

Francine’s mouth opened in surprise.

“I’ve got Luther’s place.”

“Well, isn’t that something.” Francine shook
her.

“We just ordered a pizza next door,” Claire
explained, “and I wanted to come by while we waited, see if you
still worked here.”

“Twenty-five years now.” The proud glint in
Francine’s eyes indicated she wasn’t as ashamed of the number as
her tone suggested.

“And you still enjoy it?”

“As much as I enjoy anything. They’ve got me
running all over, what with all the senior projects the school
district’s requiring these days.”

“I bet you love it.”

Francine raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been
short-handed for a while. One of my part-time girls is on maternity
leave early. Mandatory bed rest at five months. Can you imagine? I
hadn’t expected to lose her for three months yet.”

“Are you going to hire a replacement?”

“Yeah. With the economy as it is, there are
loads of people looking for work. Not sure I want just anybody,
though. I don’t have time to do a lot of training.”

Until that moment, Claire wouldn’t have
admitted to anyone, even to herself, that this opportunity was what
she was hoping for.

“You need someone who knows the ropes
already.”

“Exactly.”

“You need me.”

Francine and Sam both stared at Claire at
the same time.

“You aren’t working?” Francine asked.

“I do some graphic design stuff online for
the company I used to work for back in Detroit. But that’s
freelance. I’m available when Sam’s at school.”

“How soon could you start?”

“Sam starts school tomorrow.”

“Come in at eight. It will give me time to
show you the ropes before we open at nine. It’s story hour tomorrow
at ten, and I could use the help, especially with the craft. As I
recall, you’re pretty artsy.”

Claire grinned. “I think I can manage.”

On the way home, the smell of hot pizza
filling the car, Claire noticed Sam’s pouting face in the rear view
mirror.

“What is it, Sammy?”

“Nothing.”

“Is it about the job?”

He shrugged.

“It’s not going to take me away from you, I
promise. It may only last until Francine’s other worker gets back
from having her baby. But we could use the extra money, especially
if we’re going to fix up the house.”

He didn’t respond.

“Are you mad because I took the job or
because I didn’t tell you about it?”

“The last one . . . kind of.”

“You know, your father would have said
exactly the same thing. He hated for me to make any decision
without consulting him.”

Sam didn’t respond.

“I’m sorry that you’re angry, but this is
something I want to do.”

She looked through the mirror, hoping to see
some sign of acquiescence. Instead, Sam stared out the window.
Well, she wanted this job, and she was going to take it. If Claire
wanted a future, she would have to make her own decisions, with or
without her child’s approval.

6

Spring 1995, Chicago, Illinois

It wasn’t even lunch time yet, and already
Paul felt a little sick when he thought of his date with Linda. If
he had his choice, they would be doing something much more low-key,
such as going out to dinner then strolling through the park.
Instead, they were attending a party for a new artist at the
gallery where Linda worked.

He frowned as he set the level on the floor
of the kitchen he was working on. The framers could have saved him
a lot of work if they had only made sure the walls were plumb and
the floor level. But then, giving the customers what they wanted
while working within the confines of others’ mistakes was something
Paul excelled at. Too bad Linda’s parents couldn’t appreciate his
talents. They looked down their noses at him because he worked with
his hands and didn’t speak much. But Paul knew he said a lot, if
someone was willing to read his work instead of his words.

Last year, when he first met Linda at the
bar, he had made a fool of himself, stumbling to say the right
things to impress her. Still, when he clumsily asked for her
number, she had given it to him. He called her the next night, and
now, the relationship was cruising along with Linda at the helm.
She organized dates, scheduled dinners, and talked enough for both
of them. He was pretty sure he was in love with her, so he went
along for the ride—content, certainly, but thoroughly and totally
confused as to how he had ended up here.

He had no strategy—at least, that’s what his
father used to say when they played chess together. Paul had never
been able to think out an entire game plan. He played move to move
and lived his life the same way.

Linda always had a strategy, and Linda
always won. Just last week she had walked him by a jewelry shop
window, pointed out a diamond ring and said, “That’s the one I
want, when you’re ready—and I hope that’s soon.” She made things
easy for him. He only had to do what she told him. To bring this
dating game to completion, only one last move was required of
him—buying the ring.