Julie Weary

CHAPTER ONE

“There she is!” Leonard cried, pointing to a small, brown hovel, one of six identical small, brown hovels, all craving paint like I craved Fig Newtons and string cheese. These so-called homes were discernable from one another only by a bunch of reflective numbers, glued to plastic horseshoes, dangling from light posts on lawns the size of bath towels.

“That can’t be her,” I said, picking a fig seed out of my teeth. “It looks like the shack where The Rifleman lived.”

“I know!” Leonard planted a big kiss on my lips, and I began to dissolve, but not in a good way. He leaped out of Old Paint, his aptly named green Mustang, opened the shotgun-side door for me, and we stood at the curb—no, wait, there are no curbs in Rancho Grande—gazing at our new home. “It doesn’t look quite like the picture.” Tears froze to my eyelashes and slid down my cheeks, like tiny ice floes, when I blinked.

“Not quite,” he admitted, and pulling a red bandana from his back pocket, handed it to me. “But look how the snow twinkles, Sally. Not dirty, like Chicago.”

“Snow’s snow,” I muttered, dabbing at my tears.

When I dared to look again at 245780W231 Westward Ho Way, I realized that the little brown hovels were actually two-story duplexes; each shared a carport, a driveway, and a wall. The one connected to ours had an old orange VW Vanagon parked outside, and a wheelchair ramp. I was about to ask Leonard if Rancho Grande might be a retirement community, when I spotted a sled, an old red Flexible Flyer, abandoned in the middle of our driveway.

“I used to have one of those,” I said. “When I was a little girl.”

“Well.” Leonard shook his head. “I just hope this place isn’t crawling with rug rats.”

It was, maybe, the last thing I wanted to hear. I turned away, and had just started up the driveway, to move the sled, when a young woman—younger than me anyway—ran out of the duplex on the no-ramp side, hopped into her car—a cute little red RAV4—and started backing out. But when she saw us, she slammed on the breaks, rolled down her passenger-side window and shouted: “Welcome, neighbors! I’m Casey!”

“Hey!” I shouted back. “We’re Sally and Leonard! Does this sled belong to you?”

“Me?” She threw back her head and laughed. “No way!” And with a “got to scoot,” she did.

I moved the sled and Leonard pulled Old Paint into the carport. I grabbed my purse, in which a pregnancy test had been lurking since Kearney Nebraska—Motto: Kearney’s Got it All!—and Leonard’s late sister, Isobel’s shiny brass urn while he unlocked the front door. And then the not-so-good got worse. Because there, before us, was, I swear, a room right out of Little House on the Prairie: pine paneling everywhere; black, potbelly stove in one corner; narrow staircase, against one wall, leading up, Leonard informed me, with a happy sparkle in his eyes, to a sleeping loft.

I tossed my purse, but put Isobel down gently on the kitchen counter. And braving a look around, I beheld the following: the most god-awful turquoise and pink floral rug in the middle of the living room …living area, I mean; a stained, mustard-colored Herculon couch against the wall on the right with a round, black plastic table squatting, rather sinisterly, I thought, in front of it; two brown chairs, leaking stuffing, huddled together like bedraggled twins; a TV tray table against the far wall just barely holding up an ancient relic of a television; and a mousetrap in one corner that was empty, but showed evidence that it had not always been so.

“Charming,” I said.

“I knew you’d like it,” Leonard replied.

“Do we, by any chance, have indoor plumbing?” I moved into the kitchen, which was defined by two dozen scuffed squares of red linoleum tile designed to look like bricks…old, weathered, crumbling bricks. “Or would that ruin the…rustic ambiance?” I turned on the faucet and from somewhere down in the bowels below, a pump suddenly rumbled to life, and like a sluggish GI tract, the pipes knocked and clanged and finally spewed forth a burst of rusty water into a sink stained the color of dried blood.

“Nope,” Leonard said. “We got it all!”

“Just like Kearney, Nebraska.” I said, but I was really thinking: We got nothing, Leonard! We had it all—woodburning fireplaces, sunny bay windows, real bedrooms!—and left it in Chicago because you just knew there was a “better life” waiting for us in Colorado. Now it looked like his better was my worse, and I had to ask myself: What in hell had I been thinking, moving lock stock and barrel, clear across the country with this guy? And I had to answer: I hadn’t been thinking at all. My brain had not been even remotely involved; it was all about my heart.

I looked for a thermostat. “And heat?” I asked. Leonard dug around in his back pocket and produced a book of matches. But when he opened the door to the stove, there was no wood. I stared at him, my nose beginning to sting, my face beginning to crumple into an ugly mask.

“Sally. Come here.” He tossed the matches onto an old picnic table, which served as the line of demarcation between kitchen and living area, and opening his jacket, pulled me close and wrapped me up. “We have each other to keep us warm,” he whispered as tears dripped onto his shirt, turning the pocket, the place right over his heart, a darker blue, like a new bruise, too painful, just then, to touch.

He held me tight, as if I were a broken vase about to crumble, and after a while it worked. I gave him a quick kiss, told him nature was calling, and when I turned around, I discovered there were two doors side-by-side at the bottom of the stairs. One was, in fact, the bathroom, but the other, which I thought might be a broom closet, turned out to be a little room—maybe eight-by-ten. “Look,” I said, brightly. “Did you know this was here?”

“Of course.”

I smiled a genuine smile. Office? I thought. A room of my own, just like Virginia Woolfe? I pictured a desk, that Leonard would build, under the single small window, and Isobel’s suncatchers—purple butterfly, blue moon and stars, red heart—suctioned-cupped to the glass, casting a rainbow on me. While Leonard was out fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming a cowboy, I’d be sitting there, right there, writing my book: a genre-bending, murder-less mystery memoir, based on the life and death of my best friend, Isobel Lotnick.

And then I dared to think again: Nursery?

CHAPTER TWO

We heard a knock on the door. Oh, happy day! I thought. Maybe it’s the Welcome Wagon bearing gifts of string cheese and Fig Newtons. “Who’s there?” Leonard called, peering through the peephole…or maybe it was a bullet hole; hard to say.

“It’s me!” It sounded like a female, a voice we were supposed to recognize. But two words were not a lot to go on.

Leonard sighed and opened the door. There stood a giant of a woman, six feet, at least two hundred pounds, in her mid-sixties, I guessed. Although she looked a little like a Sumo wrestler, she had the serene air of a former hippy. A long, silvery braid hung over one shoulder and pretty much matched the Siamese cat she cradled in one arm; their pale blue eyes matched too. She peered in, and seemed disappointed to find just Leonard and me.

“Can I help you?” Leonard sneezed and sneezed and sneezed again.

“Leonard,” I said, “You’re letting the cold air in…or out. Ask her in.” He threw me a look as if I’d just suggested we invite one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to join us, and finally stepped aside. He closed the door, but kept his hand on the knob just in case he had, in fact, let in War or Death. (Pestilence and Famine were already there.)

“Where are the Birds?” the woman asked.

I searched the room for a cage. “As in parakeets? Parrots? Canaries?”

“No, no, no. I’m talking about people, the people that live here.”

“We’re the people that live here,” I informed her. I didn’t know a thing about cats, but the one in her arms looked irritated, possibly rabid. Slowly backing away I added, “We’re subletting—”

“With an option to buy!” Leonard added with a joyful sneeze.

“The Birds must have flown the coop.” I laughed.

“They just skipped out?” Unamused, her eyes darted about and landed back on me.

“I’m not sure if they skipped or walked or ran. Whatever the case, I’m afraid you’re stuck with us. I’m Sally Randall and that’s Leonard Lotnick.” Leonard sneezed again by way of greeting, then buttoning up his jacket, he pulled his Stetson down tightly on his head and strode out the door. “You’ll have to excuse my…my Leonard. He seems to be allergic to your cat.”

“Impossible. Siamese are hypoallergenic.”

“Must be this place, then.” I reached out to the alleged hypoallergenic creature, even smiled at it, and the bugger barred its tiny yellow teeth and hissed at me.

“Lola is very protective,” the woman said.

“I see that,” I replied.

“So did the Birds leave a note…or anything here for me?” She rocked back and forth, as if the cat were a baby.

“Maybe if you told me who you are…”

“Eleanor Underwood. I live next door.”

I extended a hand and Lola took a swipe at it, so I dropped it to my side. “It’s nice to meet you…one of you, anyway.”

“Lola’s off her meds,” Eleanor informed us. “So did they?”

“Leave anything? They obviously left lots of dust and dirt. Could you be more specific?”

“A check? Cash? We were friends, you know? I helped them. They owed me money.”

She’s a drug dealer, I thought. We’re now living in a shack next to a drug dealer. I glanced at Eleanor’s arms looking for—I’m embarrassed to say now—needle tracks, but didn’t see any. Then again, it was possible that Lola might be covering them up with her big, furry, hypoallergenic body.

Leonard slammed back through the door and dropped our suitcases on the floor. “Okay. Wrap it up, ladies. Sally and I need to go shopping.”

“Oh, Leonard.” I sighed. I was not my usual peppy self. In fact, I couldn’t even remember what peppy felt like. I’d just endured one thousand-thirty-six miles on the road with Leonard and Patsy Cline on the radio wailing at the top of her lungs about one damn thing or the other. “I just can’t get back into that car. Won’t you please do it?”

“Alone?”

“It’s a market, cowboy, not a firing squad.” Eleanor Underwood winked at me and I grinned; I was very tempted to high-five her. “Annie Oakley’s is right there on Main Street. Ten minutes away. You can’t miss it.”

Leonard shrugged.

“Just buy a few things to get us started.” I dug a ten out of my wallet, handed it to him. “String cheese, go for the expired, if it’s not turning blue. Fig Newtons, generic will work. Soup doesn’t cost much, and it’ll warm us up. Day old bread and a small jar of— ”

“Peanut butter. Yep, I know.” Leonard smiled and gave me a little kiss on the cheek. “One of these days you’re going to turn into a peanut, Sal,” he said, and was out the door.

“Oh, and soap, and toilet paper!” I yelled after him.

Eleanor waited to hear Old Paint start up. Then she said, “So, when’s the baby due?”

I forced a blank look onto my face, a face that had just burst into flames. “The baby?”

“Cheese and Fig Newtons? Sweet and savory? First thing on your list. Been there; done that, honey. Four times.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Eleanor said. “I see no ring.”

“Because there isn’t one.”

“So, he isn’t Mister Right?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Eleanor,” I replied. “I wouldn’t know Mr. Right if he rode through this place on a white horse, wearing a name tag.”

“Oh,” she said. “So, how do you think he’ll take the news?”

“Not well,” I told her. “The one and only time the subject came up, he said he never wanted children, never, ever.”

“Because…?”

I air-quoted: ‘Kids ruin people lives.’ It’s a long and sad story, Eleanor.”

“Well, if you want to talk, Lola and I and little Petey are right next door.”

“Little Petey?” I assumed Little Petey was a dog, a small, nasty, hypoallergenic dog.

“My grandson, Petey. Special kid. You’ll love him.” At the door she turned. “I have a feeling you’re going to need a friend, Sally… besides…you know, what’s-his-name,” and she was gone.

“Leonard. His name is Leonard Lotnick.”

CHAPTER THREE

I’d put off the inevitable long enough; it was time to pee, and get off the pot. I took the Clear-Blue Easy test out of my purse, slipped into the bathroom—which was badly in need of bleach (or a bombing)—and with my heart beating so hard I was afraid I might lose consciousness, I tore into the box, scanned the directions, ripped the wrapping off one of the wands—there were three—and peed on it. Then I watched as slowly the word, PREGNANT appeared in a little rectangular window: an adjective I never thought, especially not at forty-three, would ever modify me. I was tempted to try the best two out of three, but a., I was out of juice and b., I knew it’d be pointless. I slid the wand back in the wrapper, the wrapper back into the box, the box back into my purse.

It felt like an out-of-body experience, a body I desperately wanted out of. As I washed my hands, I gazed into the dirty mirror above the sink and was a little surprised to see that, if I ignored the panic in my eyes, I still looked pretty much the same on the outside, when I felt so entirely different inside, transformed in just a minute, from what I’d been into something else, something more.

Note to Baby: Nothing is foolproof, especially latex.

I collapsed onto one of the picnic benches and dropped my head into my hands. How would I tell Leonard that we had a little “rug rat” on the way? He wasn’t a man whose mind was easily changed about anything, let alone about having a child—never, ever, he’d said. If he reacted the way I feared, I had nowhere to go, and no way of getting there even if I did. I’d given up everything just to be with him; I loved him that much. And love had made me stupid. Still, it was ourrug rat, his and mine, we’d made together. Would that make any difference?

I was so exhausted; I must have fallen asleep. Because the next thing I knew, the front door’s rusty hinges squealed and Leonard strolled in, hugging a brown paper bag in each arm. He set them down in front of me on the picnic table, and I rifled through, like an addict looking for a fix, until I found the string cheese. And without even checking the expiration date, I tore into the package with my teeth. “Wow,” I said, chewing cheese and pulling out each item from the bags. “Beer, eggs, butter, bread, soup, a large jar of peanut butter…real, authentic Fig Newtons!”

“You deserve the real Newtons, Sal,” he said. “The big jar of peanut butter, fresh cheese…”

“Oh, Leonard…” I slid off the bench and threw my arms around him. “Thank you.”

He gave me a squeeze, grabbed a couple of Rolling Rocks and popped off the caps on the edge of the picnic table. “We made it, Sal! We’re like, you know, regular pioneers!” He handed one to me. “Let’s toast to our new life in Central City!”

I clinked his bottle with mine, then tilting it to my lips, I filled my mouth with the cold, tangy liquid. But I didn’t swallow, even though I wanted to, very badly. It’s just an innocent sip of beer—barley, hops, water, I told myself. What real harm could it do? Instead, I lunged for the sink and spit it out because, in my mind, I saw a very tiny human being, crouching in a corner of my womb, trying to get out of the way of the toxic tidal wave that threatened it from above; I might as well have swigged windshield wiper fluid.

“Sally,” Leonard said. “Why’d you spit out your beer?”

“Tastes skunky.”

He took a sip from my bottle and stared at me. I’m a terrible liar—except when I’m lying to myself; then I’m pretty good—and I could feel little bonfires ignite on my cheeks. “No, it doesn’t.” He looked concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Please tell me.” He drew me close and searched my eyes, waiting for the truth, which I was not yet ready to give.