The Promise Girls Read online

  Meg recognized the name of the film. She blinked, remembering that Asher had said something about a man wanting to make a documentary and that she was supposed to act surprised if it came up.

  She didn’t have to act. She was surprised. Especially that Minerva would imagine that any of them would go along with this.

  “Hal is very enthusiastic,” she said. “He wants to fly to Seattle to talk to you.”

  “Talk to me?”

  “Joanie and Avery too. He wants to bring a film crew to interview all three of you and then follow you around for several weeks. He just wants to show what happened to you in the years after the book release. His concept is to—”

  “His concept!” Meg cracked out a laugh and pushed her right foot down again. The Subaru sped up, practically kissing the bumper of a lumbering Chevy pickup. “His concept is a new edition of the Promise Girls sideshow! He wants to sell tickets so that people can gawk at us all over again, only this time they won’t be coming to see three artistic prodigies. This time they’ll be coming to see three screwed-up failures. Don’t you get it, Minerva?”

  “All publicity is good publicity,” said Minerva. Her voice was perfectly calm, as if Meg’s distress didn’t even register with her. “This is a chance to restore your image, set the record straight. But you need to pull yourself together, Meg. You have to start painting again. And your sisters have to—”

  That was it. The trigger.

  The embers of anger Meg had been fighting to control all afternoon exploded into something fierce and uncontainable. She screamed into the phone, epithets pouring from her even as she pumped the gas pedal, lunging her car toward the bumper of the Chevy.

  “I don’t have to do anything! Not for you or anyone else, Minerva! Don’t ever call me again. I mean it. Not ever. Forget you’re my mother. Forget I was even born. I never want to talk to you, or hear your voice, or even think about you ever again. If I could crack open my skull and empty out every memory of you, I would!”

  Meg threw the phone as hard as she could against the passenger window. The force of the blow split it into three parts. The pieces bounced off the window and fell with a muffled thump onto the passenger seat.

  With hot tears coursing down her cheeks, blurring her vision, Meg smacked the heel of her hand against the steering wheel, honking at the pickup driver. Her cry of fury harmonized with the blaring of the horn. She yanked the wheel hard to the left and lurched into the farthest, fastest lane. The green semitrailer was coming up quick in her blind spot. Meg didn’t see it.

  After her car slammed into the concrete freeway wall, she didn’t see anything at all.

  Chapter 3

  Joanie knelt before a wasp-waisted dressmaker’s dummy, pinning the hem of an 1860s reproduction black silk mourning dress. The triple pagoda sleeves had cost her almost an entire extra day’s work, but they’d been worth it. They absolutely made the gown. Placing the final pin, Joanie rocked back on her haunches to examine her handiwork, eyeing every seam, pleat, and dart.

  Perfect.

  Smiling, she got up from the floor and went to her desk to check her phone. There were three calls and three messages, all from Hal Seeger, an obviously insane man who kept calling and leaving messages about making a documentary about the Promise Girls twenty years later. Joanie had considered blocking his number, but a part of her was curious to see how long he’d keep after her. Apparently, a very long time.

  Meg, however, had not returned any of her calls. That wasn’t like her. It wasn’t like any of them. Having survived one of the more publicly dysfunctional childhoods in American history, the Promise sisters tended to cling together.

  Joanie had escaped LA for Seattle at age nineteen. Her sisters soon followed, each making the trip in her turn, as soon as circumstances and the California Department of Children’s Services permitted. Joanie paid for their train tickets, met them at the station, took them in, fed them, and mothered them, just like she had in the old days. They’d been together ever since.

  Joanie opened her laptop prior to checking her e-mail, but was interrupted by the sound of Walt’s size sixteen shoes thundering down stairs.

  “Mom! Mom, I got in!”

  She spun around in her chair. Walt was standing in the doorway of her studio, grinning so wide you’d think he’d just found out he’d made the Olympic wrestling team, or been admitted to Harvard on a full scholarship. But college was still two years off for Walt and though he was nearly big enough for a career as a world-class wrestler, he was more of a gentle giant.

  Joanie knew there was only one thing that would have gotten him this excited and propelled him out of bed before noon on a Saturday.

  “The internship? You’re in?”

  “I. Am. In!” he exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air. “Listen! I printed it out so I could read it to you.

  “‘Dear Walt,’” he recited. “Blah, blah, blah—‘it is with a great deal of pleasure that we are writing to inform you that you have been chosen the Junior Docent and Historical Interpreter for the upcoming summer season at the Fort Nisqually Living History Museum in Tacoma, Washington.’ ”

  He paused, silently scanning the sentence a second time, and grinned even more broadly.

  “ ‘Please fill out the attached permissions,’” he continued, switching into his don’t-care-about-details voice, “blah, blah, blah. ‘Training begins on June fifteenth. Very truly yours.’ ”

  “Oh, honey, that’s great. Congratulations.” She came to stand beside him and squeezed his beefy shoulders, amazed as always to recall that this enormous almost man had emerged from her own body as a tiny baby. “I’m so proud of you. Did they say who you’ll be reenacting?”

  “Lawrence Aloysius McCormick,” he read. “An eighteen-year-old fur trader of Irish descent.”

  “That’s it? Sounds like you’ve got some researching to do.”

  “I know,” Walt enthused, his eyes glittering at the prospect. “I’m going to start tonight. But, Mom? I’ll need a new outfit. Early 1850s fur trader, but something a little snappy. He’s young, probably trying to impress girls. I want to play him as a little bit of a peacock.”

  “Makes sense,” Joanie said.

  She loved the way Walt brought his imagination along when he reenacted a historical character.

  “But I won’t be able to work on a costume for you until after I get through my order backlog. You know how spring is; every reenactor on the planet wants a new costume before the start of the summer season.”

  “Oh, sure. I wasn’t talking about right now,” Walt said, though the flash of disappointment in his eyes belied his words. “Paying customers come first.” He glanced toward the dress dummy, elegantly clad in silk taffeta. “Who’s it for?”

  “A new client who plays a wealthy Civil War widow at one of the big plantations in Virginia. Beautiful, isn’t it? So much work.”

  “Hope you charged her for it.”

  “Not as much as I should have,” Joanie admitted. “But I’m happy with how it turned out. So, what are you up to today?”

  “Well, thought I’d go over and tell Mr. Teasdale about my internship and then hang out for a while—”

  “I meant to get over there this week. How’s he doing since the stroke?”

  “Better,” Walt reported. “Good enough to complain. He’s really ticked about missing the encampment season. Oh, I forgot to tell you, Uncle Asher said he’ll be my camping buddy this summer. Do we have a uniform he can use?”

  “I’ll come up with something,” Joanie said casually, and sat back down at her desk. “I’m happy he’s going with you. And I’m happy that you’re willing to spend part of your Saturday with Mr. Teasdale. You’re a good kid, you know that?”

  Walt shrugged off her praise. “It’s no big deal. I mean . . . it’s Mr. Teasdale.”

  In spite of his ineloquence, Joanie knew what Walt meant. He understood how much he owed to their elderly neighbor. So did Joanie.

  Walt was t
he product of an impulsive and completely uncharacteristic one-night stand. He was also the best thing that ever happened to Joanie. Still, even with her two sisters and a brother-in-law to help, being a single mother wasn’t easy. Walt was so shy when he was little. Until he turned fourteen, shot up, and bulked up practically overnight, he’d been downright scrawny and had a voice like a cartoon character. Kids picked on him and he hated school.

  Joanie never wanted to push Walt the way she’d been pushed, but she tried everything she could think of to help him get over his timidity—karate lessons, soccer camp, Cub Scouts. None of it worked. Walt’s Pinewood Derby car won the race, but she and Asher were the ones who built it. Joanie even enrolled him in music lessons. It was honestly something of a relief when the trumpet teacher informed her that Walt was tone deaf and had no rhythm. But to see Walt happy, she’d even have gotten back into the music world if she had to.

  When Mr. Teasdale, who played a lieutenant colonel in a troop of Civil War reenactors, recruited ten-year-old Walt as a drummer boy, Joanie was thrilled. She dove in headfirst to make him the most authentic drummer boy costume possible. Walt dove in with her. It changed both of their lives.

  They spent hours researching the clothes, culture, and events of the period. In the process, Walt discovered a passion for history that spilled over into the rest of his schoolwork. Ds and Cs became Bs and then As. He was more confident, too, and started to make friends.

  Happy for any excuse to spend time with her young son, Joanie started reenacting too. She enjoyed researching the lives of wives and widows, nurses and camp followers, and inventing characters to go with them. But sewing costumes was her favorite part. Hers were meticulously researched and constructed. Other reenactors noticed, and soon a brisk little side business was born. Three years in, she quit her office manager job to sew historical costumes full-time.

  Now she was finally in the black, able to support herself and her son doing something creative that she truly enjoyed. All thanks to Mr. Teasdale.

  “Tell the Teasdales that I’ll come over to visit next week,” Joanie said, scribbling a reminder to herself on a pad of paper. “I just made a batch of that lavender shortbread he likes. Take some with you when you go, will you?” Walt nodded. “So what’s on the agenda after the Teasdales?”

  “Thought I’d meet Joey down at Starbucks. Maybe Aunt Avery will give us free Frappuccinos.”

  Joanie shook her head and shot him a look.

  “First of all, those Frappuccinos belong to Starbucks, not Avery. She can’t give them away to you or anybody else. Even if she could, she’s not working there anymore. She quit.”

  Walt arched his eyebrows doubtfully. “Quit? Or they fired her?”

  “Quit. She just booked a six-hundred-dollar job posing for some yacht club calendar. That’s enough to hold her for a month, so she finished out the shift and walked out the door.

  “Two weeks,” Joanie muttered in disgust, deleting unwanted e-mails. “And the sad part? That’s a record. Twenty-five years old with an IQ of 152 and she can’t keep a real job.”

  “That’s not really true,” Walt protested. “She babysat for the Meisners for five years before they moved to Arizona.”

  Walt wasn’t the sort of kid who normally went around contradicting his mother, but he adored his fun-loving aunt, who was only nine years his senior, and wouldn’t let anyone speak against her.

  Avery literally lived in their backyard, in a tiny house she’d built with her share of the trust from the proceeds of The Promise Girls. It was possibly the only financially wise move Avery had made in her life. Joanie had done something similar with her trust money, used it as a down payment on her then-dilapidated bungalow. She could never have afforded a house in the Capitol Hill neighborhood otherwise. But Avery owned her place outright. She had no mortgage and few expenses.

  Living in such close proximity, there were bound to be clashes between the sisters—one practical to a fault, one fanciful in the extreme. At sixteen, Walt wasn’t just the man of the house, he was also the unofficial peacemaker.

  “Well, maybe she doesn’t need a real job,” he reasoned. “She runs her own business. That’s what you do.” He shrugged.

  “Honey,” Joanie said, turning in her chair so she could see him better, “I know you think I’m picking on Avery, but I’m not. I’m just worried about her. Earning a hundred dollars a pop to dress up as a mermaid and read stories at kids’ birthday parties isn’t a business, it’s a sideline. And that’s being generous.”

  “Sometimes she makes a lot more,” Walt countered. “When she got booked to appear at Seafair that first time, didn’t they pay her, like, a thousand dollars?”

  Joanie nodded heavily and slowly. “Yes, which she spent upgrading her costume. Seven thousand dollars for a custom-crafted mermaid tail! Who does that?

  “If you’re putting more money into the business than you’re taking out, it’s not a business. Do you know she spent almost half of her first week’s paycheck from Starbucks on seafoam green business cards that say AVERY “POSEIDON” PROMISE, PART-TIME MERMAID in blue metallic lettering? When is she going to grow up and find something meaningful to do? A real career?”

  “Mom,” he said with a small smile, “making mochas and foamy lattes at the neighborhood Starbucks isn’t exactly a résumé booster.”

  “The job had benefits and a chance for advancement. It might have led to something. She could have become a manager.

  “Maybe it’s my fault,” Joanie mused, gnawing on the edge of her thumbnail, as she sometimes did when she was anxious. “I’ve made it too easy on her. If I didn’t let her park the house in the backyard for free . . . Maybe I should tell her that she has to find someplace else to live.”

  “Oh, yeah. Because that’s what you’re going to do,” he deadpanned. “Throw your baby sister out on the street. Mom, Aunt Avery is happy, maybe the happiest person I know. Why not let her have that? Or at least let her figure it out on her own. You worry too much.”

  “You’re right,” Joanie said, and bobbed her head.

  Wanting to avoid the mistakes her mother had made with her, Joanie tried to guard against confiding too many of her personal worries to Walt. She wanted him to have a real childhood. But sometimes he was the only one she could talk to, and Walt was so wise for his years....

  She quit gnawing on her thumbnail and looked at him squarely.

  “Am I too bossy? Tell me the truth.”

  Walt started to laugh.

  “I am so not going there,” he said, and headed toward the door. “Love you.”

  “Love you too.” She turned back to her laptop. “Don’t forget the shortbread!”

  * * *

  A few minutes later, Joanie stood next to the big cutting table in the center of her sewing room, thinking about what she ought to work on next. There was plenty to choose from—two more ball gowns, a man’s black frock coat, five Union blue military uniforms, an equal number of Confederate gray, and an order for a bright red and blue Zouave uniform, which could be interesting. She’d never made one of those before.

  In the end, she pulled out a bolt of peacock blue and white plaid fabric and started working on a drop-shoulder shirt for Walt, the first garment in his fur trader ensemble. A pair of trousers and perhaps a linen vest would have to wait until she was finished with her orders, but she could whip up the shirt in a few hours.

  She pinned a butcher paper pattern of her own design onto the fabric and began cutting out the pieces, thinking about how happy Walt would be when she surprised him with a new shirt. She also thought about what he’d said about her—that she worried too much.

  Maybe. But maybe that was because she had plenty to worry about, especially where her sisters were concerned.

  Still no return call from Meg, not even in response to the funny voice mail Joanie had left about the newest round of “potentially perfect partners” that the dating Web site had recommended.

  Three of them were n
amed Lyon—apparently this was the new sexy pseudonym for married men prowling singles sites. A fourth, Gil, claimed to be forty-five, but looked seventy and wore a toupee that could have been harvested from the fur of gorillas of sub-Saharan Africa.

  Joanie was not interested in Gil, or the Lyons, or anyone. She’d registered on CoupleQuest.com only because Meg had nagged her about it for months, saying she should find someone nice. Joanie finally gave in just to get Meg to shut up about it.

  Before Meg had fallen into this . . . mood . . . she would have loved hearing about Gil and the Lyons or any of Joanie’s dating misadventures. And it was worth it just to make her sister laugh. Every time Meg threw back her head, brown corkscrew curls bouncing on her shoulders, to let out that snorting, surprisingly loud guffaw that seemed so at odds with her sister’s petite presence, Joanie felt like she’d won a prize.

  She swept her long hair, already showing a herringbone of gray threads among the brown, over her shoulder before cutting a notch into the blue plaid, marking the yoke so she’d know where to pin the shirt’s upper and lower sections.

  Maybe Meg’s problem was hormonal. She was only thirty-six, two years younger than Joanie. But some women started the march to menopause earlier and the hormonal shifts could begin years, even decades before. Though, that would be a shame. Asher and Meg had always hoped for another baby and . . .

  Wait. Could Meg be pregnant?

  The only time Joanie remembered Meg ever acting like this—moody and pissy and withdrawn—was when she’d been expecting Trina. They’d delivered their babies only weeks apart. Sharing the experience of motherhood only strengthened their already intense sisterly bond, but while Joanie had a textbook “easy pregnancy,” Meg had suffered from morning sickness and generalized misery up to the third trimester. She’d been so cranky and irritable, just like she was now. . . .