The Second Sister Page 22

  A lot of other people wanted to talk to me, too, mostly students and teachers, but a few people from the community as well. Mrs. Lieshout was there and stopped to give me a hug. “We’re all just so proud of you, Lucy Toomey!”

  Once the crowd thinned out, the reporters asked me to pose for a few more pictures. Like they hadn’t had time to get what they wanted during the forty-five minutes when I was speaking? Who were they trying to fool? I’m not stupid; I knew they were just using this as an excuse to get closer and ask me questions, in spite of Mrs. Swenson’s ban on it. But trying to make nice with the media is a sort of default mode for me, and they were just local people trying to make a living reporting local news, so I said yes.

  The questions were all softballs, stuff about how it felt to be back in Wisconsin, and if the school had changed much since I’d graduated, and who my favorite teacher was back in the day, etcetera. You know, human interest stuff. After a while, somebody asked if we could get a few more shots of me receiving the key to Nilson’s Bay and so they found Peter and had him stand next to me and smile as we shook hands and held the key. Yeah, I know. Really an original shot, right? But, like I said, they were just local reporters.

  Or so I thought.

  After a couple of minutes, one of the reporters, a skinny guy with glasses and greasy hair, held a tiny recorder out to me and yelled out, “Lucy, are you looking forward to working at the White House?”

  “Well, it’s a little premature to discuss that. The president-elect hasn’t even been sworn in yet, but certainly I’d be thrilled to serve if given the opportunity.”

  “Is there any reason to think you won’t get that opportunity? After all, Tom Ryland likes having a cadre of young female staffers working for him, doesn’t he?”

  “What?”

  The question took me by surprise; it wasn’t the kind of thing a local reporter working on a puff piece about a hometown girl who made good would ask. Unless this wasn’t a local reporter.

  I dropped my smile and Peter’s hand. “Excuse me, who are you and who do you work for?”

  “Brandon Kimble. I’m with JaybirdNews.com,” he said and started lobbing questions faster than I could answer or even take them in.

  “Lucy, how many women does Tom Ryland have on staff? When you were on Ryland’s staff, you traveled with him extensively, didn’t you? Stayed in the same hotels? Why did you suddenly stop traveling with Ryland? Why did you step down as campaign manager?”

  “I stepped down as manager because I’d never run a national campaign. At that point, we needed someone with more experience, and so I stepped aside and handed the reins to Miles Slade. Which, seeing as Candidate Ryland is now President-elect Ryland, seems like it was a pretty good decision.”

  I grinned, trying to make light of the question. The other reporters, who had stopped taking pictures by now and were just standing around listening to Brandon Kimble batter me with questions, chuckled at my answer. Brandon just kept at it.

  “But why did you stop traveling with Ryland?”

  “Because I was working on other projects at that point.”

  “Isn’t it true that Ryland likes to travel with young, pretty women?”

  This was not going in a good direction. If Tom had been standing there, enduring a barrage of questions by some reporter who was clearly on a fishing expedition for something salacious, I’d have pulled him out of there but quick, making some excuse about being late for a meeting or something. That’s what staff does. But I didn’t have a staff. Walking off in a huff, which was what I felt like doing, would only fan the flames of prurient interests, so I’d have to figure out a way to get myself out of this.

  “Well, I don’t think of myself as all that young anymore, but I’m glad you think I’m pretty. And no, I’m not going to give you my phone number.”

  That got a big laugh. For a moment I thought I was out of the woods, but Kimble just wouldn’t give up. He shouted to make himself heard above the laughter.

  “So is that why Ryland stopped having you travel with him? Because he preferred the company of younger female staffers?”

  “What!”

  My jaw dropped to my chest. The first rule when dealing with nosy reporters is to never let them see you sweat or take you by surprise. I blew it on both counts. But, in my defense, I hadn’t planned on fielding questions that day. I wasn’t prepared, especially not for a question that was so blatantly, over-the-top sleazy and rude!

  “Lucy, your former assistant, Jenna Waters, who is only twenty-four, is working on the Ryland transition team. Whose idea was it to promote her so quickly? Yours or President-elect Ryland’s?”

  I started to stutter, literally stutter. My mind was whirring, but I couldn’t formulate a coherent sentence. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my arm. Peter gently pulled me one step backward.

  He took one step forward, said, “Hey, guys, this has been fun, but Lucy’s old teachers have planned a private little celebration for her. She’s got to go before the ice cream melts,” and then placed his arm near my back without actually touching me, escorting me out of the room, like a faithful sheepdog putting himself between the lamb and the wolf pack. It was the same move I’d performed when Tom got himself in too deep with the press.

  “So this is what it feels like to have a staff,” I whispered as Peter and I, both smiling and looking straight ahead, walked briskly to the door.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” I said out of the side of my mouth. “Thanks for rescuing me.”

  Peter shifted his gaze sideways so he could see me. I did the same and saw that he was smiling that same cocky, self-satisfied little smile. It wasn’t as broad as before, but it was there.

  “Anytime,” he said.

  Peter wasn’t kidding about having ice cream and cake with the teachers. He led me to the principal’s office, making a joke about it having not changed a bit since he was last there, and showed me the wooden chair outside Mr. Derby’s door with the initials “P.S.” carved into the right arm.

  “I spent a lot of time in that chair,” he said.

  “I can tell. Nice job on the carving. I love how you turned the periods into little flowers. Very creative.”

  Peter grinned. “Woodshop was the only class I ever got an A in.”

  Mr. Derby didn’t mention Peter’s early career as a low-level delinquent when he saw us. In fact, he shook Peter’s hand, gave me a big bear hug, and introduced us both to the superintendent, saying he’d always known that the two of us would go far.

  “Some students just have that spark, know what I mean?”

  It was a nice little party, short but nice. Mrs. Swenson brought a homemade yellow sheet cake with chocolate frosting, and Mr. Crenshaw, who was still teaching algebra, brought a tub of vanilla ice cream. We sat around on plastic chairs, balancing our plates on our knees and visiting until the bell rang to signal the end of the lunch period, when the teachers had to get to their classes.

  After we said good-bye to Mr. Derby and left the office, I thanked Peter again for saving me from the clutches of that reporter.

  “But,” I said, lifting an eyebrow at him as we wended our way through the corridor, dodging kids who were scurrying to get to class before the second bell, “that doesn’t mean I’m going to forgive you for that crazy business with the key. Why didn’t you tell me about it? Or about the fact that my quiet little Q and A to a handful of your mom’s students had turned into a media event?”

  “Don’t blame me!” Peter exclaimed, lifting his hands to protest his innocence. “I didn’t know a thing about it until I showed up today.”

  I shot him a look. “I see. So instead of going to your office and practicing law today, you just woke up and said to yourself, ‘I think I’ll drive over to the school and say hello to my mother.’ And when you arrived, somebody just handed you a giant key and told you to stand at the front of the auditorium and present it to me.”

  “Pretty much,” he said. “Except for the
part where I was talking to myself. My trial ended a day earlier than I thought it would, so I decided to take the day off to come watch your talk and then take you ice fishing. We hauled the shanty out onto the ice just yesterday. When I showed up, everybody was all in a panic because you were late and the mayor was sick with stomach flu. Mom asked me to step in for him and so I did.”

  I gave him a hard stare. “Well. You still should have told me. Or somebody should have.”

  “You can take it up with Mom; I am totally innocent here. So what do you say? Want to go ice fishing?”

  “I’m not really dressed for it,” I said, looking down at my outfit. Even though it was snowing, I figured this was a somewhat formal occasion and I’d dug a pair of khakis and my blue blazer out of the closet and put on a pair of brown loafers with a little bit of a heel.

  “No worries. I figured you’d be dressed up, so I brought a bunch of Karin’s old stuff in the truck.”

  “You did?” I smiled as we walked through the front door and into the freezing air. “Well, aren’t you the well-prepared little Scout?”

  “I try.”

  “I don’t know. I was planning to work on my quilt this afternoon.”

  “It’s not going anywhere, is it? And anyway,” he said, jerking his chin in the direction of my car, which was parked on the far side of the lot, “it might be a good idea to go hide out somewhere for a couple of hours.”

  I turned to follow his gaze and saw that reporter, Kimble, standing next to my car with his back turned toward us, smoking a cigarette and waiting for me.

  “Man. He doesn’t give up, does he?” I shook my head and looked at Peter. “You’re right. An afternoon of ice fishing suddenly seems like a very good idea.”

  Chapter 30

  I changed into a pair of boots before getting out of the truck, but I really wasn’t dressed for the weather. By the time we got inside the ice shanty, I was shivering.

  Peter tossed me a bag filled with clothes. “You can change in the bathroom.”

  “There’s a bathroom?”

  I went through the door Peter pointed to and sure enough found a tiny bathroom with a chemical toilet and even a little sink. I took off my khakis, jacket, and blouse and then pulled on a pair of jeans and a blue-and-white Nordic sweater.

  Peter was kneeling down next to a dormitory-sized refrigerator when I came out of the bathroom. “Warmer now?”

  I nodded. Peter held a beer out to me and I gave him a look.

  “We’re not working today,” he said. “C’mon. It’s part of the experience.”

  While Peter turned on the heater and prepared our fishing gear, I sipped my beer and took a little tour of the ice shanty. It wasn’t large, maybe ten by ten feet and entirely paneled with knotty pine, but it was a lot cuter and more comfortable than I’d imagined.

  Besides the bathroom, there was a kitchenette with a two-burner stove, the refrigerator, and a small countertop. A Formica-topped kitchen table with chrome trim and two chrome chairs with white trim and padded seats upholstered in red vinyl, like something you’d see in a 1950s diner, stood next to that. There were red-and-white gingham curtains hanging at the two tiny windows and red-and-white quilts with matching pillow shams on a set of bunk beds tucked in the corner. The red theme was even carried over to the two benches, upholstered in vinyl to match the kitchen chairs, that sat on either side of the ice holes.

  “You got yourself quite the fancy clubhouse here,” I said. “I was picturing something a little more man cave than Better Homes and Gardens.”

  “Oh, yeah . . . well. Mom got to it a couple of years ago. Decided she’d fix the place up as an anniversary present for Dad. It was pretty rugged before that.”

  I walked over to the propane-powered space heater and turned around so I could talk to Peter while warming my backside.

  “And from the way you’re saying it, should I assume that he might have preferred if she’d just left well enough alone?”

  Peter flipped open the lid of a black plastic box loaded with fishing lures and started attaching them to our lines.

  “Let’s just say it was a good thing I was able to talk her out of tearing out the paneling and putting up wallpaper.”

  “Well, I think it’s nice.” My behind was getting too hot, so after a minute I walked across the room to the bed. “So do you actually sleep out here?”

  “Not very often,” Peter said, keeping his head bent low as he worked. “It’s more for naps. Ice fishing isn’t just about the fish, you know. Sometimes it’s about just getting away by yourself for a while.”

  “So it really is your little clubhouse,” I said and opened the door on the cabinet on the wall. “Oh, my gosh! You’ve got a TV in there! And a DVD player!”

  “Dad was going to hook up a satellite dish, too, so he wouldn’t miss the games when he brought his buddies out to fish. But he doesn’t bring the guys out here much now.”

  “Why not? I think it’s darling.” I took a bigger swig from the bottle in my hand and sat down on the bench next to Peter.

  “Yeah. So does Mom. But when a guy describes his ice shanty to another guy, ‘darling’ is not one of the preferred adjectives. All set,” Peter said, putting the poles aside. “Now we just need some bait.”

  He reached into the tackle box, pulled out a jar, and unscrewed the lid.

  “Eeeww!” I cried when he stuck his fingers inside the jar and pulled out four fat, squashy, disgusting, white creatures. “Are those maggots?”

  “They’re waxies—the larvae of white caterpillar moths. Whitefish love ’em.” He opened his palm and showed them to me. “Here. Put two on the hook.”

  I cringed and drew back. “I am not touching those things!”

  Peter rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  After the poles were baited, he opened two covers in the floor of the shanty. Looking down, I could see several inches of white ice and then the clear, cold water. Peter showed me how to drop the line and told me how much to let out.

  “Now what?” I asked when he handed me the pole.

  “Now we wait.”

  “For how long?”

  “As long as it takes,” he said. “Ice fishing is all about patience.”

  “Sounds very Zen. You know that I tried yoga once and was asked to leave in the middle of the class, right?”

  Peter smiled. “How about if I turn on some music and get you another beer? You hungry? I brought cheese curds and a bag of Chex mix.”

  In spite of Peter’s unfortunate love of seventies rock, the music helped me relax. So did the beer. The cheese curds were yummy, too, and the way they squeaked when I bit them made me smile. Alice and I had loved that when we were kids.

  After a little bit, I started to understand what men see in ice fishing. There’s something peaceful about removing yourself from the distractions of life, having nothing more pressing to do than hold on to one end of a stick while talking with an old friend.

  I’d seen Peter a few times since my return, but there’d always been other people around and whenever I asked him questions he tended to dodge them and start asking his own, bringing the conversation back around to me. But the quiet atmosphere of the ice shanty helped loosen his tongue.

  “So,” I said, “you didn’t start practicing law until you were thirty-two. Did you take a break between college and law school?”

  “More like a break between college and college. I dropped out in my freshman year.”

  “I didn’t know that. Why?”

  “Well,” he said, looking up at me and pausing for a moment, as if trying to decide how much to say, “the official line is that I decided that I wanted to give professional hockey a try before it was too late, and I did play on a minor league team for two seasons. But hockey was kind of an excuse. The real reason I dropped out is that I couldn’t handle the work, but if I said that to my mom, she’d have shown up at my dorm with a list of tutors, some kind of new calendar system to get me organized, then
given me a lecture about buckling down and trying harder.”

  I frowned and took another tiny sip of my beer—two was my limit and I wanted to make it last. It was strange to hear Peter talk about his mom like that. I’d always thought of her as the perfect mother and the Swensons as the perfect family. When I was in Mrs. Swenson’s class, sometimes I’d have a guilty fantasy that my real parents had been killed or kidnapped—that version was slightly less guilt inducing—and that the Swensons would adopt me and Alice and I’d live happily ever after with this very nice, very normal, regular family with parents who never spoke a harsh word to me or each other and never made me feel like a disappointment.

  I’d always thought he was the one kid in our school who’d had it together and was comfortable in his own skin, content with his life. I guess it just goes to show you that no family is perfect and that everybody, no matter how happy they appear to be, has their own secret regrets, disappointments, and doubts.

  “I’m sure she just felt like . . . I mean, if your mom is a teacher . . .”

  “Mom was trying to help,” he said, lifting his hand to stay my sympathy. “I always knew that. It had to be frustrating for her, spending her life helping other people’s kids succeed academically and not being able to do the same for her own. She was always so sure that if I just tried a little harder . . . You know what my reputation was in school: a cheerful, charming, but slightly arrogant jock who wasn’t all that bright and didn’t care. I did care. And I did try, way harder than my folks or anyone else realized. It didn’t make any difference. So after a while, I fell back on what I was good at, sports.

  “The only reason I got into college in the first place was because I held the county record for stolen bases. But the baseball coach was kind of a jerk, believed in the ‘break ’em down to build ’em up’ school of coaching. That didn’t work with me. I didn’t need to feel any worse about myself than I already did, you know? One day, in the middle of practice, I walked off the field, packed my stuff, and left. I blamed it on the coach, but, truth was, I just couldn’t handle the pressure.”