Frosting #3 – Still Crazy – Paperback

Inspired by Wild Things

Published: 1995

Characters:
Faith Fitzgerald, professor and historical biographer
Sydney Van Allen, lawyer and politician

Setting:
Chicago, Illinois

The Sixth is Serendipity.

Previous Frosting on the Cake stories:
“Wild Things Are Free” in Frosting 1
“Losing Faith” in Frosting 2.

HAVING FAITH

Vigorous quiet.

That’s what Sydney Van Allen had told her staff and constituents she needed. It was the truth, and a more interesting way of saying, “I need to spend more time with my family.”

It was a decision made eight months ago. For the first time in nearly three decades, her name would not be on a ballet. It was unsettling. Equally unsettling was the call she’d just concluded with a party representative to say, emphatically, that she did not want anyone’s write-in vote.

“Everyone understands that you wanted to be with your father until he passed.” The nasal-voiced operative had been making an effort to sound sympathetic, but the longer Sydney was out of the game the more clearly she saw the naked motives behind every interaction in the political sphere. “But now the way is clear for you—”

“I’m not interested in a return to the political life. I don’t know how to say that more plainly.”

“Come on, Syd. It’s too much in your blood.”

“It really isn’t. I’d rather spend the rest of my days in the law, and able to say what I think without measuring every syllable with a poll. I’d like to speak my mind and reap the whirlwind. There’s always a whirlwind these days. So I might as well be honest.”

“I’m going to keep asking, you know.”

“I’ll stop taking your calls.”

The conversation had ended briefly thereafter. Her room, the one from her childhood and now decorated for an adult woman with a wife, returned to its former vigorously quiet state.

Quiet, that is, except for the repeated slams of vehicle doors in the front and rear yards of her parent’s—her mother’s, she corrected herself—expansive home. With only four hours until the arrival of first guests for the fundraiser this evening, the caterers were in a fever of activity.

It was going to be an all-star affair. Sydney had helped her mother with some of the leg work identifying various notable personalities who were willing to be named as co-chairs of the event for Planned Parenthood. There was a large security detail patrolling the perimeter and grounds—every couple of minutes she heard the squawk of a radio as someone reported in.

“Syd? Look what I found in one of your dad’s photo boxes.”

She dropped her phone into her pocket and turned from the window to see Faith closing the bedroom door behind her. Her short hair was mussed where she tended to run her fingers through it, and she balanced a file box on her hip.

“What treasure now?”

“A real Memory Lane trip.”

“I thought we were going to tackle the picture project tomorrow, after the party.”

“Yes, but you know me. I wanted to get a sense of a way forward. And we’re going to need someone to scan them while we sort and cull.”

She set the box on the wide desk that was finally a shared piece of furniture. Sydney realized that for all the years they’d been together, shared spaces had been covered with her briefings, her legislative drafts, her letters, her staffing reports, and on and on. Even if they’d been staying over for a single night, there had never been room for Faith’s work on that desk.

Now Faith’s tidy journals and trim laptop joined a short stack of books about Bavaria on the left side of the desk. Sydney’s short reading pile of thrillers and biographies were stacked on the right.

Balance, Sydney thought. If their lives had been in balance a year ago, she would have been home when her father passed away instead of arriving three hours too late, delayed by some political thing that hadn’t mattered a damn.

Faith lifted the lid from the sturdy file box. As expected, it was full of photographs in archival sleeves. On top was a photo of three people at a long, long-ago event. As she handed it to Sydney, Faith murmured quietly, “It could be called ‘A Study in Lies,’ don’t you think?”

“No, not at all. Maybe ‘A Confusion of Beginnings.’ It’s amazing that both of us look so calm. I don’t think I’ve seen this picture in years. Decades.”

Faith eased it out of the archival sleeve. “I knew it was you even though I’m smiling at Eric.”

“You’re smiling at your date, that’s true. I’m smiling at Eric too, and I was telling myself I would never hurt him, that I could cope with you as my sister-in-law. Even though…”

Faith’s arm slid around Sydney’s waist as they gazed at the photograph together. Eric looked smashing in one of his flawless bespoke dark wool suits. Faith was lovely, as she always was to Sydney’s eyes. She’d hardly changed over the years—smiling, kind, and serious.

A shimmer of desire ran through Sydney, as vivid as the memory of the first time they’d met. Faith had been seemingly serene, with hair coiled into a charming bun at the nape of her neck, and the curves of her body outlined by a simple little black dress.

One look and Sydney had imagined unzipping the dress, kissing her shoulders, and laying waste to a hotel room for a very long weekend.

She’d even known, in that glance, that Faith was not the kind of woman who disappeared for risky flings, and Sydney had been determined to no longer be that kind of woman. When she became that woman she drank to the point of blackout. Or she drank to the point of blackout and became that woman.

Twenty-eight years, seven months, two weeks, and three days.

“Even though what?”

Sydney ran her finger down Faith’s image. “Even though you set every nerve in my body on fire.”

“I wasn’t trying to,” she said honestly. “And the feeling was mutual.”

“I know.”

Faith’s arm tightened around her. With a suggestive purr, she asked, “Don’t you have to shower before you get dressed for tonight.”

Sydney laughed. “We could lock the door and take our time.”

“Why, Ms. Van Allen, in broad daylight?”