Page 43 of Butterfly Sisters
Leigh could recall, with perfect clarity, the unique mixture of irritation and hurt in Meredith’s eyes that day. Meredith had run in as excited as if she’d won the lottery, a folded piece of paper in her hand.
“I finished,” Meredith said. “Four years of high school done in three!” She shoved the printout into their faces.
“What’s this?” their father asked, trying to make sense of the information on the sheet of paper.
“I have enough classes that I can get out a year early with a general education degree.” Meredith had always viewed high school as a jail sentence that she would one day break free from. And in that moment, she finally had.
“But honey,” their father said—if he’d been the type to shake his head and say,Bless your heart, this would’ve been the perfect time. “How will you get into college with this?” He waved the paper as if it held some sort of plague.
“I don’t need a college degree,” Meredith said, to her father’s horror.
The thing they’d been trying to avoid her whole life crashed down on him. Neither of their parents understood what to do with someone who wasn’t an academic like they were.
“You don’t know a trade,” he said. “You have no path laid out in front of you. What in the world are you planning to do with your life?”
“Well, right now, I’m going down to Highway 30A and waitressing by the beach,” she’d said, defiant.
“But Meredith,” Mama said now from her chair on the porch, bringing Leigh back to the present, “we threw the party for Leigh because getting into Northwestern took a hell of a lot of effort over many, many years. We were celebrating all her work.”
“That’s the problem though,” Meredith said. “What about celebrating each other? I was just as happy going off to waitress on the Gulf Coast as Leigh was about going to Northwestern, but you all always put work ahead of happiness. Some of usworkdifferently. I’m a wild success in my field, and what in the hell did I take in high school to prepare me for that?” She folded her arms, still hurt. She turned to Leigh. “I wasn’t angry with you that day,” she said. “I was angry with the fact that no one understood me or lifted me up.”
Colton’s assessment floated back into Leigh’s mind:Nobody hears her, and that’s all she wants.
“Is that why you didn’t invite us to your gallery opening?” Mama asked. “We’d have liked to have been there.”
“You never supported me growing up, so it didn’t occur to me that you would support me now.”
Meredith’s comment clearly hit Mama hard; she folded in on herself and tears swelled at the rims of her eyes. Leigh could only imagine the weight that was on her mother’s shoulders as she realized that she and her father had gotten it wrong with Meredith. All those years with tutors could’ve been art classes… Meredith wasn’t always just running; she was running fromthem.
“I’m sorry to have upset you, Mama,” Meredith said.
Mama waved it away and peered out at the lake, her lip wobbling. In that moment, Leigh wondered if Mama was looking to the gentle waters to give her calm in her own storm.
After hours of silence between the three following Meredith’s confession, Meredith was who knew where and Mama had gone to bed, so Leigh had been checking her email. The sight of one particular message completely changed her mood. Samantha Perkins of The Attic Light had responded with questions after Leigh had sent a follow-up email, and Leigh’d offered to do a video call on location. She’d called Jimbo to let him know she’d need access to the space, and, while he hadn’t answered her call, he’d texted that one of his guys would let her in at nine sharp the next morning.
She couldn’t wait to land this. It was all going a little too easily… But that was just fine, because it reminded her that she could do the job. If she could get them all on board, she’d arrange to meet them personally in the upcoming weeks. Surely Meredith would let her use the cabin when the time came. But there wasn’t any use in asking until she had this project in the bag.
With a renewed sense of purpose, Leigh opened her laptop and searched the most recent job postings, scrolling down to a new one in New York City, about three blocks from McGregor at a company called Rycroft Enterprises. It was an advertising agency looking for a lead in project management. She read on to see the qualifications:knowledge of public relations, team player, successful experience managing a large team preferred…
Leigh opened an email, attached her résumé, and added that she was heading up acquisitions for Greystone Properties. It wasn’t a lie, and she felt as though saying it to someone outside of her head would actually make it happen. Then, she hit send. She found a couple more promising leads and applied for those as well. With every email she sent out, Leigh felt more confident. While it didn’t fix all her problems, it was one light at the end of a long tunnel.
FIFTEEN
“We could outfit this entire wall with bookcases,” Leigh said, walking the white tiles of the Greystone retail space the next morning, holding out her phone for Samantha Perkins, head of retail expansion for The Attic Light bookstore. She hadn’t checked with Jimbo to see if they could build bookcases, and he wasn’t exactly available to ask, so she’d taken the liberty of suggesting it herself. It would be the least he could do if she filled the vacancies in this development. “You’re looking at around 2,500 square feet of retail space here, with all the upgrades.”
“Is a remodeling package included should we have any further changes?”
“Anything’s negotiable.”
“I’d like to fly out to see it,” Samantha said.
Leigh produced a smile to cover up the fact that she wanted to run around the room whooping and fist pumping. “Excellent. How does next week work for you? Say 9 a.m., Tuesday?”
“That would be perfect.”
Leigh finished her video chat and then called Jimbo, leaving him another message, letting him know her progress. She thought about sharing this news with her mother and maybe even letting Meredith in on the situation, but something about it felt like it was her victory and her victory only. She’d tell them soon enough, but for now, she wanted to keep this little joy within her to light her way. With a pep in her step, she headed home, feeling like nothing could shake her in that moment.
In the doorway to Nan’s art studio, Leigh found Meredith, barefoot, holding a paintbrush, windows open, country music playing. The easels had been moved around, Nan’s things jostled. Her sister had opened Nan’s paints and squeezed an array of colors onto Nan’s palette, dragging a streak of blue across one of the canvases.
