“What do you need?” I asked
Ruby looked around as she rolled up the sleeves of her denim shirt. “Mary said you have a portable corkboard somewhere that maybe I could use. It’s not a big deal if you’re using it somewhere else.”
“It’s in the closet next door,” I said. I pulled my keys out of the pocket of my sweater. “I’ll go get it for you.”
I opened the smaller meeting room, retrieved the bulletin board and wheeled it in to Ruby. Then I went upstairs. The coffee was ready, so I poured myself a cup and then made tea for Ruby. I’d brought a few of the tea bags I kept at home for Maggie—and my mother when she visited.
Ruby smiled when I handed her the tea. “Thank you, Kathleen,” she said, bending her head over the cup. “I was so caught up in loading the truck this morning I ended up leaving my tea on the table and I’d only had about half of it.”
I looked at the piles of paper, cardboard and fabric she’d arranged on the table in front of her. “This looks like it’s going to be fun.” I fingered a piece of translucent blue paper shot with what looked like some kind of plant fibers. “What is this?”
“Japanese paper,” she said, bending down to take what looked to me like her own handmade paper out of the box at her feet. “It reminds me of the river, late in the summer.”
“I wish I could stay for the workshop,” I said, leaning against one of the tables with my coffee.
“Bookmaking isn’t that complicated,” Ruby said. “I could teach you how to make a really simple journal sometime.” She held up a sheet of thick, creamy paper flecked with gold. “I could teach you how to make paper, for that matter.”
“Really?” I said.
She shrugged. “Sure. Take a look at your schedule and maybe we could do it some Saturday after Christmas.” She gave me a sly smile. “That’s assuming all your Saturdays aren’t taken up by a certain detective.”
I was happy to see the genuine warmth in her smile. Ruby and Marcus had been at odds after her mentor, Agatha Shepherd, was murdered last winter. It had taken some time for them to work their way back to a cordial relationship, but they had.
“I think Marcus is going to be playing hockey pretty much every Saturday between now and Winterfest,” I said. “They want to win this year.”
The police/fire department team had lost big-time to the boys’ high school hockey team in last year’s charity hockey game. Marcus and his teammates were—not surprisingly—very competitive. Even though the game had just been for fun, he didn’t like being on the losing side. He didn’t like losing period, I’d learned, when I bested him at the Puck Shoot, one of the games set up down by the marina during the February winter celebration.
Ruby pushed back the sleeves of the tie-dyed tee she was wearing under her denim shirt. “Is it sexist of me to say it’s a guy thing?”
“Um, yes,” I said, smiling at her over the top of my cup. “Hope Lind is coaching them this year.”
Ruby’s eyes widened. “No way!”
“Yes way,” I said. “Hope played hockey in high school and in college. She’s had the guys doing dry land training drills for a month. And she picked Eddie’s brain last time he was here.”
Ruby laughed and held her free hand up level with her ear. “Detective Lind is only about this high.”
She was exaggerating a little.
“She can skate faster than all of the guys,” I said, grinning back at her. “Forward and backward. She’s working them hard. I had to rub Tiger Balm on Marcus’s shoulders twice last week.”
“I’m sure that was a hardship,” Ruby teased, raising an eyebrow at me.
“No comment,” I said, ducking my head over my coffee.
“Who’s going to be their goalie?” she asked, straightening a stack of heavy cardboard that was about to tip sideways on the table.
“Brady Chapman.”
Ruby’s expression changed and she shook her head. “Do they know yet what happened to his mother? That was so awful.”
“I’m not sure,” I hedged.
“The police pretty much took Olivia’s kitchen apart yesterday. And now she’s telling everyone they didn’t find anything.” Ruby folded one arm across her chest. “I feel bad for Brady, though,” she said. “We were just a year apart in school and I think it was hard for him, not having a mother around.” She blew out a breath. “And then when she finally does come back, the last words he has with her are angry ones.”
I frowned. “You saw them fighting?” I’d almost said, “Too.”
Ruby nodded. “The other night at the fundraiser. Brady and Dana were off to the side in the wings having a pretty animated discussion about something. Half an hour later she was dead. I can’t imagine how he must feel.”
“Me either,” I said softly.
“So, what are you going to do?” she asked, bending down to pull a file folder out of her tote bag.
I looked at her uncertainly. “About what?”
She straightened up and waved the folder at me. “Reading Buddies? The fundraiser?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know yet.”
“You’ll let me know what I can do, right?”
“You’ve already done enough,” I protested. “More than enough. That backdrop you painted was incredible. I wish people had had more time to enjoy it.”
“Nope, nope, nope, nope.” Ruby shook her head. With her two pigtails she looked for all the world like a stubborn toddler. “There’s no such thing as doing more than enough.” She came over and put one arm around my waist, leaning her head against my shoulder. “I’m serious. If you don’t ask me to help when you decide what you’re going to do, I will be mortally insulted.”
“Mortally?” I said. “Really?” Together we walked out into the main part of the library.
Ruby nodded solemnly. “Yes.” Then she smiled, let go of me and turned slowly in a circle. “Maggie said you’re getting a second tree. How are you going to decorate it?”
“I want to do something a little old-fashioned,” I said, looking at the big open space that made up most of the main floor of the library. “Like an old Currier and Ives Christmas card.”
She turned to face me and I could see by the gleam in her eyes that she had an idea. “Want to use my collection of old Christmas ornaments on the tree?”
“Yes,” I said at once. “Are you sure?” I added.
Ruby had a wonderful collection of vintage Christmas decorations from the 1930s to the 1960s.
“Oh yeah. Absolutely. We’re not using them on the tree in the co-op store this year. Remember? Maggie had us all make ornaments for the tree that can be sold for Toys for Tots. So I’d love to see my collection on the tree here.”
“Thank you,” I said. Getting Ruby’s Christmas ornaments for the library tree meant I could cross one more thing off my to-do list.
There was a tap on the front door then. Susan was on the top step hunched into her heavy duffle coat, stamping snow off her boots.
I headed for the door to let her in.
“Tell me there’s coffee,” she said as she stepped inside. Her hat was pulled low on her forehead and all I could see were her eyes above the collar of her red coat.
“What happened to your green smoothie?” I asked.
She frowned darkly at me. “The boys happened to my smoothie. The boys decided to make my smoothie.” She kicked the snow off her knee-high brown boots. “There’s spinach on my kitchen ceiling, and that’s my mother’s problem since it was her idea to ‘involve the boys in meal preparation.’” She made little quotation marks in the air with her gloved fingers.
“Well, the coffee’s made and there are tea bags if you’d like a cup of tea.” I struggled to keep a straight face. I had a mental picture of Susan’s twins trying to make their mother her morning smoothie. The boys were genius-level smart, resourceful and totally fearless. It made life for Susan and Eric very interesting sometimes.
Susan shook her head. “No. I need more caffeine. Lots and lots of caffeine.” She pulled off her hat. I picked a bit of spinach out of her updo as she moved past me.