A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [108]
“You don’t even have toilets! Come on, Mom, just because you’re into this crazy menopausal fantasy about life in the country doesn’t mean I have to be sucked into it. I’m young! I want to go to Aspen!”
For a moment Cici did not know what to say, and the silence between them stung. Then she said, coolly, “We have toilets.”
Lori puffed out a breath. “I’m not your little girl anymore, Mom. You can’t do this to me.”
Cici exclaimed, “For crying out loud, I’m not planning to lock you in the attic and slip you food through a slot in the door. It’s just ten days at Christmas with your mother, for Pete’s sake!”
Lori said, “I’d rather be locked in the attic.”
Cici pressed her lips together, wound the cord of the telephone tightly around her index finger, and then let it drop again. At last she said quietly, “You’re right. I guess you’re not my little girl anymore. Because the girl I knew would never talk to her mother like that.”
“Mom, come on . . .”
Cici shook her head briskly, as though to clear it. “Look,” she said, “I can’t force you to come home. God knows, I can’t force you to want to. But the door is open, and you’re always welcome.”
“Mom, don’t be mad . . .”
“I’m not mad,” Cici sighed, “just disappointed. We’ll talk later, okay?”
“Does that mean I get to stay here for the holidays?”
“It means,” Cici answered tiredly, “you get to decide.”
Bridget’s face was full of sympathy when Cici hung up the phone, and Cici spread her hands in resignation. “Well, I guess I really screwed that up.”
Ida Mae, scraping batter in a loaf pan, commented, “Spoiled kid. Don’t surprise me none.”
Bridget shot her a quelling look, and turned back to Cici. “I’m so sorry. She’s not coming home for Christmas?”
“She thinks I’m throwing away my life,” replied Cici, and lost the effort to temper that with a smile. “Who knows? Maybe she’s right.”
“Oh, Cici,” Bridget began, but Cici stopped her with an upraised hand.
“No, it’s okay. I’m just a little annoyed with her right now. I’ll get over it.” She took her coat from the back of a chair and started toward the door. “I’d better get back to work. The wind is really kicking up out there and I want to get the roof patched before the temperature drops tonight.”
“I’ll be out in a minute to hold the ladder.”
Cici waved her off. “Stay here where it’s warm. I’ll call you if I need you.”
And because Bridget knew Cici liked doing things by herself, she did.
“It’s called the Renaissance School of the Arts and Sciences,” Shep explained, “and I’m the new administrator. Our first classes don’t start until September of next year and already we have a two-year waiting list.” His smile was that of a man who had waited too long to share a secret as he deftly undid the elastic loop on a file folio and pulled out a large color brochure.
“Just look at this place, Linds.” He spun the brochure around and unfolded it for her. “Everything is state-of-the-art. Pre-K through twelve, student-teacher ratio ten to one, a computer lab NASA would envy . . . I could go on, but you can see for yourself.”
Lindsay’s eyes grew wide as she turned the pages of the expensively produced promotional piece. “An entire school devoted to the arts,” she said, her voice filled with wonder.
“And sciences. Our philosophy is a balanced education—which means every student will be exposed to a full curriculum in the arts. And I’m interviewing now for a director of Visual Arts.”
Lindsay tore her eyes away from the brochure to look at him, astonished. “You don’t mean . . . me?”
“I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have,” he told her. “Our program directors are all working teachers, not out-of-touch academics with too many letters after their names and too little classroom experience. This is a school run by teachers.”
“I love this school,” Lindsay said fervently.
“All our program directors are required to log twenty hours a week in the classroom, so it’s not as though you’d be giving up teaching, either. But think about it, Lindsay. You’d get to develop your own visual arts program—design the