The Restoration of Celia Fairchild - Marie Bostwick Page 0,65

stopping to read them, right? I found the box of novels we’d agreed should be donated to the library that you tried to sneak back into the house.”

Before I could protest, or tell Pris that the rescued box included a copy of Mary McCarthy’s The Group and that this might be the perfect time for her to read it, my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number but when has that ever stopped me?

“Hey, Celia. It’s Polly Mercer. I’m just calling to tell you that you won the drawing.”

“Excuse me?”

“The drawing,” she prodded, “for the basket of yarn and knitting supplies? Congratulations! You’re the winner!”

More yarn? Just what I needed.

“Oh. Well . . . that’s great, Polly. Thanks. But I thought you picked the winner at the end of the month?” My question was met by extended silence. “Polly? Are you there?”

“Okay, you’re right,” she said, her tone less cheery. “I haven’t drawn a winner yet. But your chances are still good. I’ve had maybe twenty entries, and customers, since you came in.”

Only twenty? No wonder she sounded so discouraged.

“I just thought . . . Argh! This is so embarrassing. I sound like a stalker. And a big loser.” She took a deep breath and started talking fast, like she’d just decided to rip off the Band-Aid and get on with it.

“Look, I won’t blame you if you never want to see me again. But it’s been so long and we’re grown-ups now. When you came into the shop, I just thought . . . Well, I don’t know what I thought; I’d always figured I’d never see you again. But then, all of a sudden, there you were. I’ve been thinking about you ever since, and I keep wondering if it meant something, like maybe we were supposed to start over?”

Start over? I honestly didn’t know what to say to that. Fortunately, I didn’t have to because Polly didn’t give me a chance to respond, she just kept talking.

“The truth is, it’s been lonely since I came back to Charleston. Everything’s different, you know? All my old high school girlfriends have married stockbrokers and joined the country club and turned into their mothers. We don’t have anything in common anymore. Well, except for Josie. She’s farming medical marijuana in Colorado now. But Denver is so far away and, with me being me, it’s probably just as well. Lead us not into temptation and all that.

“Anyway,” Polly sighed, “I’ve been feeling kind of down. And I was wondering if, you know, maybe we could hang out sometime? It seemed kind of weird to call up and say that, so I decided to say you’d won the drawing and then ask if we could meet up so I could hand it off to you.

“Wow,” she said, finally pausing long enough to take a breath. “That sounds even more pathetic when you say it out loud, doesn’t it?”

Pathetic? No. So much of what she’d said about everything changing and feeling lonely rang true to me. But lonely was a word I never thought I’d hear coming from Polly’s lips.

We were always so different. I think that’s what made it work for as long as it did. I also think that’s why our teacher, Mrs. Florsheim, decided Polly and I should sit together from the second month of first grade on, because she knew that each of us had something the other one lacked. Our peculiar strengths and extremes balanced out each other’s weaknesses and gaps.

Polly helped me be more outgoing, practical, and adventurous. I helped her to be more studious and imaginative, and a little less impulsive. She knew how to stand up for herself to the point of being combative. I knew peacekeeping to the point of becoming a doormat. I taught Polly to read. She taught me to stand up for myself and, if I couldn’t, she did it for me. Polly was fun to be with, easy to like, and had lots of friends. But the two of us had a special bond. Once upon a time, we were best friends.

Until we weren’t.

I wanted to tell her what had happened and why I’d disappeared. But how could I explain it to her when I still couldn’t explain it to myself? I was so confused and so ashamed. Besides, Sterling had told me not to tell anyone because it would only make things worse. Since my telling had already caused the final disintegration of the ravaged remnants of my family,