Adele’s eyes crinkled in the corners. “I bet they do.”
Quinn went on, “Even more important, I promised my new bosses I was here for good.”
That made her mama laugh, deep and throaty, since her parents were her “new” bosses. “You have no idea how happy we are to have you. You’re not too overwhelmed now, with all the projects customers have brought in?”
“Not at all. You know I like being busy.”
When Quinn had come back to the shop, she had been worried there wouldn’t be enough work for her as a bookbinder. She had never been so wrong and was surprised by how many old books, journals, and even photo albums people had brought in for repair. She took the bounty as a sign her town was happy to have her home, enough for them to crawl into the creaking dark recesses of their attic spaces, confronting their forgotten, ancestral ghosts, all in order to dig up old family heirlooms for her to resurrect back to life.
Her dog gave a friendly yip.
“That’s my cue to get going,” Quinn said.
“Fair enough. Don’t forget my morning sugar.”
That was Caine family code for a hug and kiss goodbye. Quinn leaned in, taking in her mama’s delicious scent of orange blossom honey and wildflowers. Quinn could always tell when she had spent time in her prized garden, with a cup of tea.
She waved goodbye as she drove slowly down the street in “Golda”, her ochroid-colored, Ford F150, named after the first woman prime minister of Israel. Ever since buying her first car at sixteen, Quinn had been giving her vehicles nicknames—and she picked “Golda” for the same reason she’d chosen to buy a truck when she returned home from overseas. Both may not have been known for their conventional beauty, but they were tough, tenacious, and got the job done.
Quinn had it specially configured to play cassettes, along with outfitting Golda with the standard hookup for her iPhone. She pushed in her go-to driving mixtape, Venture a Highway—a word play on the classic hit by retro band America. Except this time Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” played, serenading her with the perfect song for driving down meandering roads. It wasn’t until she was almost at her destination that Quinn realized her mama never had answered her question about who had been killed in their town.
I’ll have to check on that later.
Quinn and RBG headed over to their next destination: Guinefort House—named after the only sainted canine in history—where Anglican nuns served the Almighty by breeding German shepherds and caring for rescues of all varieties. In fact, that’s where Quinn had gotten her own canine baby. The dog food donations she coordinated through local businesses weren’t much, but it was a small way for Quinn to give thanks and give back. The treats for RBG didn’t hurt either.
Even with all the bookbinding work that had come in, Quinn still needed something outside the shop to help her start rebuilding her life. Most of the friends she’d had growing up had not returned to Vienna, and the handful that had were squatting in their parents’ finished basements. She knew she was lucky, because the friends who had come back lived like retirees—complete with subsidized housing and working part-time in dead-end jobs. There was little more depressing for a young person than killing it through four years of college only to end up as a greeter at the local Walmart with your grandma’s canasta buddies.
Originally a rural farm town on the border of American history, over time Vienna had evolved into a sleepy bedroom community and was now a hot spring for tony families to raise their broods. Being ranked by several national magazines and news outlets as one of the best places to live certainly contributed to Vienna’s growing popularity and reputation. Blessings and curses often insisted on traveling in pairs.
When Quinn’s pilgrim spirit had finally been ready to settle, she’d discovered that what once was home was now, in many ways, new country. The same was true for some of the people. When she had left to teach English overseas, her cousin had been Elizabeth Anne Caine. Firebrand redhead. Social justice warrior. A little lost. A big chip on her shoulder in the shape of a broken heart. Now, she was Sister Daria. Nun-in-training. A woman with purpose. Someone actually interested in following the rules for the first time in her life. Quinn couldn’t help but wonder, Who was this person disguised as her beloved cousin?
Quinn understood a bit of the appeal: little compared to the beauty of Guinefort House, home of Sister’s Daria’s order. It was a Carpenter Gothic stunner, originally home to a family active in Northern Virginia’s Reconstruction efforts before it became the spiritual center for Anglican nuns and novitiates. Christ Fellowship Church in Vienna may have only been planted in 2011, but the Anglican Church had deep roots in Virginia, dating back to before the American Revolution, with founding father George Washington attending services at The Falls Church during his tenure as the nation’s first president.
Guinefort House’s moniker made Quinn chuckle as well, as it had been named for the only canonized pooch in history. She always forgot to ask: Had the nuns decided to breed German shepherds because of the name of the house, or had they named the home once they decided to breed dogs to support their order and rescue mission?
Quinn avoided asking her canine version of the question “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” because what she really wanted to ask her cousin and best friend was “Since when did monastic life become your go-to career option?” Quinn still remembered the shock she had felt over two and a half years ago after receiving Sister Daria’s letter. Quinn was six months into her first overseas teaching gig at the time. Her cousin wrote that she wanted to dedicate her life to the service of others, and being a social worker wasn’t enough. She was going to become a nun.
Out of nowhere, she had given away all her possessions and become a novice, taking her first vows two years later. Of course, Quinn had asked her why. So had the rest of the family. The only answer any of them received was that she felt called to serve in this way, through Guinefort House. In three more years, she’d take her final vows. Maybe by then Quinn would understand.
She texted her cousin to come out and help her lug in the bags of dog food, shoving the phone into her pocket while admiring the surrounding trees coming back to life. Vibrant purple crocuses peeked through the last of the winter white, warming her all over. Quinn adored the change of seasons. Maybe that’s why she didn’t sense the approach of Vienna’s own ice queen.
“Wow, a whole flatbed filled with kibble. I knew you and that fleabag did everything together, but I didn’t think you ate from the same trough.”
Quinn sighed, not wanting to turn around to address Tricia Pemberley. Because she loved her town. She really and truly did. But she was over mean girls like Tricia, who thought winning a few shiny tiaras back in high school still gave her some imaginary keys to the kingdom.
RBG wasn’t too thrilled either; her tan-and-black paws were on the gate of the truck, and she was grumbling low while staring straight at Tricia’s blanching face. But then again, dogs were excellent judges of character. That was one of the reasons Quinn had named her pup after the famous Supreme Court jurist, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her girl was always able to assess people and situations. Quinn sometimes got it wrong, giving people the benefit of the doubt even when her instincts told her otherwise, but RBG? Never.