Books of a Feather by Kate Carlisle

look nothing like your mother. Is that better?”
    â€œMuch more believable.”
    â€œYou’re impossible,” I muttered, shaking my head. The woman just couldn’t take a compliment. Although I was willing to bet that if Derek had said it, she would’ve blushed and giggled and thanked him. To be fair, though, I’d never heard her giggle in my life.
    â€œSo, what do you think?” she asked. “Can you get rid of the crayon marks or not?”
    â€œProbably not,” I confessed, quickly adding, “I’m going to try, but it’s tricky. They’ve been stuck on there for years, so it’s likely that even if I could lift the crayon wax off the page, the color will have seeped into the glossy paper.”
    I flipped to the back of the book, where little Inspector Lee had scribbled on the shiny flyleaf. “This page, I could simply remove without too much hassle.” I held the book up and stared at the variegated doodles of a five-year-old. “It almost looks like modern art.”
    â€œYeah, I was a real Picasso,” she muttered.
    I turned back to the title page with the multicolored crayon scribbles on the opposite page. “This frontispiece page presentstwo possibilities. Since it’s a blank page—or was, once upon a time—I can either try to replace it with a brand-new page or, well, I was thinking you could simply leave it as it is.”
    â€œAs it is? No.” She shook her head mulishly. “No, no, no. The whole point is to fix it.”
    â€œBut hear me out. Imagine you are your mother, and your grown-up daughter gives you this book you thought was ruined all these years. You open it up and the pages are all put back in their proper places and you see these earnest drawings done by your darling little girl when she was five years old. Be honest. Wouldn’t you love it?”
    â€œLove it? Seriously?”
    I ignored the note of incredulity in her voice. “Come on, you were only five! You didn’t know you were doing anything wrong. So give yourself a break. I’m thinking if you simply give it to her as it is, it’ll be a delightful surprise.”
    â€œYou are insane.”
    I ignored that, too. “I can reattach all the torn pages and they’ll look like new. Trust me, she won’t be able to tell the difference. And I can design a beautiful box for it. Derek brought me some gorgeous art paper from Hong Kong last year, so I’ll use that. It’ll go perfectly with the book’s cover art. And listen, on the top of the box I can fashion a plaque with the book title and author’s name. And under that, we could write something whimsical like ‘original artwork by Janice Lee.’”
    â€œNo way.”
    â€œIt’ll be adorable. Your mom will love it.”
    She snorted. “You don’t know her.”
    â€œIs she as tough as you?”
    â€œTougher. The original Tiger Mom.”
    â€œShe sounds formidable. But if she’s anything like you, I’ll bet she’s got a gooey marshmallow center—just like yours.”
    It was her turn to be speechless, but not for long. “Excuse me?”
    I brushed off her intimidating tone. “Look, don’t you think she’ll be pleased and excited that you remembered the book after all these years? And now it’ll be as good as new—well, except for the darling scribbles by her baby girl.” I put my hands over my heart. “It’s so sweet.”
    â€œYou are so off base here.” She pushed away from the table and paced around the studio, grumbling and shaking her head, as though she was carrying on her own private conversation. Finally, she stopped and waved her hands in the air. “Okay. Fine. Go ahead and fix whatever you can and leave the rest. You’re really wrong about how my mother will take it, but what the heck? Just . . . let’s do it.”
    â€œThe box, too? And