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"But I needed to wait until I was sure
    myself."
    "I knew what you were up to." Veda Marie raised an eyebrow as she blew on her mug. "I'm not blind, missy. For the last month, you have read everything you could get your hands on about home renovation. Not
    to mention that fire-trap pile of Bed and Breakfast literature stashed under your bed."
    Claire chuckled. "I couldn't find any books on running a boarding house. Those old B&B magazines were the next best thing."
    "Perhaps because boarding houses are a thing of the past."
    "The term 'boarding house' might be outdated, but people will always need somewhere to live. Particularly in an academic city like
    Pittsburgh." Claire opened her notebook. "I've worked up a business plan, along with a general budget for getting us up and running. These numbers are rough, of course..."
    Veda Marie flipped through the pages. She didn't look up
    until she got to the last page. "You're serious about this."
    "I am," said Claire. "And I hope you'll join me. I need a house manager."
    "I've never run a boarding house in my life."
    "But you have been taking care of Bridge Manor for more than - what, half your life?"
    "No need to do the math."
    "I need you, Veda Marie. You make this cold, damp place warm . Even in the later years, when we couldn't keep up with the repairs and the squirrels and birds and exotic rodents started nesting in the upper floors." She waved a hand. "You merely closed off the 'bad' rooms and
    concentrated on keeping the 'good' ones comfortable for us."
    Veda Marie tapped her fingers against the table. Her orange-red hair was tied up in a pretty green handkerchief and she wore her signature double coat of Maybelline red lipstick.
    "Tell me something," she said. "Is it really Bridge Manor you're trying to rebuild, or your life?"
    Claire took her time looking around the massive kitchen.
    "A little of both, I guess."
    Veda Marie lit her first cigarette of the day and exhaled as she leaned back in her chair. Claire was right; she'd been here half her life now. She had barely been twenty when she came to this house, a half-filled
    suitcase in one hand and an ad for a housekeeper in the other. Having escaped a problematical marriage, she chose Pittsburgh because the rivers reminded her of her home on South Carolina's Pee Dee River, and because she figured Chester
    would never look for her in a mill town. And for the most part, she'd been happy here.
    Barely four years older than the sixteen-year-old girls, Veda Marie had immediately slipped into multiple roles: part-mother, part-older sister, and all friend. After Pauline, Claire and finally Ryan moved out, she
    cared for Mr. Justus until he died. She then offered to stay on until the house was sold - a time she secretly prayed would never come.
    "Are you sure, Claire?" Her South Carolina accent
    made 'Claire' two syllables long. "You really want to jump back into broken plumbing, hissing radiators, exploding fuse boxes and damp rooms that never get warm in the winter? Do you have any idea what you're taking
    on?"
    Claire grinned. "Not a clue. What do you say...are you in?"
    Veda Marie blew a tendril of hair from her face. "Oh, what the hell."
     
    Armed with pad, pen, flashlights, and tissues, the two women
    scrutinized the house, from the dirt cellar to the attic above the third floor. They opened doors and windows, measured holes, checked for leaks, flushed toilets, and examined the fuse box. Claire marked loose floorboards and stairs
    with orange spray paint. Veda Marie wiggled banisters to test sturdiness. They flipped switches, crawled through crawlspaces, and made list after list after list.
     

     

Chapter 5
    "Farley!" Loretta shouted, running across the parched dead-looking grass and dirt of the marching field. "Wait up!"
    Squinting through the small lens of her Instamatic camera,
    Farley snapped a picture of her friend. Barring a few minor glitches, their best-friendship had worked out well.
    Given the military's