Me and the Helpful Hurricane (Good Grief, Idaho)

by Gussman, Jessie

  “Thank you.” That always seems like a good place to start. “I know there doesn’t have to be a compromise.”

  “Well, there does if we want to work together. There also does if we want to save Cherry Tree. I’ve been given a month. If we’re not at least at half capacity, and I was told most likely at seventy-five percent, they’re shutting us down.”

  This news shouldn’t surprise me, but my jaw drops anyway. On some level, I know that he doesn’t have to tell me this. On another level, it makes me admire and respect him that he’s willing to do whatever it takes, even working with me, who hasn’t been the most pleasant person in his life, to save it.

  “Thank you for telling me.” I meet his eyes. “I think we can do it,” I say, even though I’m not sure that that is true. “At least, I think we can attract new residents. There have to be ways.”

  He nods. “I agree. I have some ideas, but I thought we ought to do the rafting, not necessarily because I believe it will attract more residents but just to help Miss Agnes cross that off her bucket list.”

  Now he has really surprised me. I guess it’s not the first time in our conversation, but this is pretty amazing. He’s doing the rafting, not to save his job but to help an eighty-year-old woman do something she’s always wanted to do.

  Up until that point, the attraction I feel for him is just kind of something that burns in the back of my mind, that I deal with but try not to think too much about.

  But this, this thoughtfulness for an elderly lady, softens my heart like nothing else he could have done. He’s impressed me, and he’s made me admire him, which isn’t an easy accomplishment.

  “I can’t tell you what that means to me,” I say, meaning more, so much more, but not wanting him to know exactly what and how I’m feeling.

  “I know we’ve had our differences, and we still have our differences,” he says with a little smile that is not helping the situation in my chest right now. “But I knew that when I got the news, I could come to you and you would do everything in your power to help me keep Cherry Tree open for the residents of Good Grief.”

  He puts a hand up, rubbing the back of his neck. It is the first sign I’ve seen that he is a little bit agitated. “I guess I’m saying I knew I could count on you.” His hand drops, then his eyes meet mine, serious. “And that means more to me than I can say.” His words echo mine, and I wonder if there is as much emotion behind his as there was behind mine.

  I have no way of knowing, of course. But the thought is there.

  It’s a good thought.

  Chapter 7

  Doug

  “It wasn’t something I enjoyed while we were doing it, but the kids and I talked about it after we were done. I know it made good memories.” Chubb Eckenrode sits in one of the three rocking chairs in the small sunroom. He seems to be ignoring the cackling that is coming down the hall.

  I try to ignore it too, although it is hard.

  “My family went camping some too. I’m with you. I never liked it much, although I did enjoy going fishing. My wife could make some mean eggs over an open fire. She never cooked a lick at home.” Patrick Flagg sits in one of the other two chairs.

  I sit in the last chair, and while I’m listening to the men and actually find what they are saying interesting, I am a little distracted by the ladies, wondering what in the world they are up to.

  While I’ve only been sitting with the men for forty minutes, I’m ready to get up and do something else.

  I suppose this proves Leah’s point. These folks need something to do.

  “We told you all of our camping stories. Don’t you have any?” Chubb asks, looking at me expectantly.

  I sigh. I enjoy their stories, but I haven’t said anything because I don’t have anything to add.

  My ex, Stephanie, wouldn’t have been caught dead spending one hour in the woods, let alone a whole night.

  “I’ve never gone camping,” I say after they won’t stop looking at me. The men stare like I expect them to. “But it hasn’t taken you guys long to convince me that I need to take my kids when I get them this summer.” I’m not sure when that will be, although I know it won’t be in June since Stephanie has signed the boys up for camp.

  I might get them all of July and August. I’m not sure.

  “Kids are only young once. You have to make memories that last a lifetime,” Patrick says, and I can’t disagree.

  My own childhood was spent mostly inside, once I was old enough to not go to the babysitter’s anymore.

  My mom worked as a secretary, year-round, and when we vacationed, we’d done things like go to Disneyland.

  I suppose those memories are fun, although I mostly remember being tired and standing in line.

  It isn’t my typical routine to sit with the men and chat, but Leah has such a good rapport with the women, and I’m not sure what else to do to save the facility and my job. Chatting with the men can’t hurt.

  There are only two of them.

  More cackling comes down the hall. It sounds like every woman in the facility is laughing.

  “Do you think they’re okay?” I ask the men.

  “They’re women. That’s normal noise for them.”

  I nod slowly, trying not to look stupid, but it doesn’t sound normal to me. Of course, my ex seldom laughed.

  I think it’s laughing, but it also could indicate pain, I think.

  I look a little closer at the men’s faces. They don’t seem the slightest bit concerned, and if anything, they seem a little...smug.

  “Do you guys know what’s going on over there?” The ladies’ voices are coming from the kitchen now, which is odd since it is three o’clock in the afternoon.

  It’s been six hours since I talked to Leah, and I haven’t seen her again.

  I had a couple of conference calls to deal with, as the higher-ups laid out exactly what needed to happen in order for the facility to stay open.

  It had been hard to concentrate on them.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised at Leah’s reaction to my suggestions. I thought she might be arrogant and maybe taunt me if I gave in. I didn’t expect her to take it so well and to be so sweet.

  Sweet wasn’t exactly a word that I associate with Leah.

  At least it hadn’t been. Not until today.

  “I take it from the looks on your faces that you do,” I finally say, thinking that maybe I ought to get up and go check on it and then reminding myself about the conversation I’d had, and how I said I trusted her, or maybe I hadn’t said that in so many words, but that was really what I meant.

  I’m not sure why it’s so hard for me to say those words.

  Maybe because I trusted my ex and she’d taken that trust and thrown it back in my face.

  She isn’t a terrible person, and I don’t want to think bad thoughts about her. We get along okay for the kids’ sake, and I don’t want to ruin that. She is allowed to do things I disagree with.

  “I think it has to do with Miss Agnes’s bucket list,” Chubb says with what I can only describe as an ornery grin.

  “I’ve heard a lot about Miss Agnes’s bucket list. I think I’d like to see it,” I say, not really thinking that I’d ever get to until the words are out of my mouth, and then I thought, why not? Next time I see Leah, I’m going to ask her for it.

  I think she’ll give it to me too. If she has access to it.

  Maybe once I see it, I won’t keep being surprised by all the things on it.

  “Actually, I know that’s what’s going on,” Patrick says. “I saw Harriet and Gertrude outside this morning, getting the things that they needed in order to do what they’re doing now.”

  More noises come from down the hall, but it isn’t exactly laughing. It might have been groaning, or it almost sounds like someone is sick.

  “The things they needed?” My brows seem to reach across my nose and touch each other. What in the world?

  “One of the items on her list is to eat bugs.” Chub
b lifts his hands out, like he doesn’t want to have anything to do with it. He and me both. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

  “Not any shooting anybody, at least not today,” I say, standing up.

  Bugs could make the ladies sick. They have parasites and germs, and what if one of the ladies chokes on them?

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Chubb says, keeping his butt firmly planted in his rocking chair.

  “Why not?” I ask, stopping and throwing a look over my shoulder.

  “If you go in there, they might end up thinking that you need to eat one too.”

  “That’s right,” Patrick says. “And that’s not the worst thing on their list anyway. You might want to save your energy to stop something a little more important.”

  “Like what?”

  “Skydiving?” Chubb suggests. I suppose he is going for an innocent look, but he fails spectacularly. He looks positively gleeful.

  “Skydiving?” He has to be kidding. Why would an eighty-year-old have skydiving on her bucket list? She couldn’t possibly.

  “I believe she has cage diving with white sharks as well,” Patrick says, and he doesn’t even try to hide a smirk.

  “Why was I throwing a fit about a little bit of whitewater rafting?” I ask, rhetorically of course.

  “We were wondering the same thing, to be honest,” Chubb says.

  Somehow, the idea of Miss Agnes skydiving and diving with white sharks is almost noble, in a way. Not that I want to see anything happen to her, because I don’t. But the idea of Leah doing it with her...I shiver. And Leah would do it with her.

  Or for her.

  “I felt the same way,” Patrick says, his smirk easing slightly into a look of commiseration.

  “What way?” I ask, not really paying attention. I’m trying to figure out how in the world I am going to talk the ladies out of these things. Whitewater rafting is one thing. Eating bugs is something else.

  But sharks? Skydiving? That is getting out of hand. Way. Out. Of. Hand.

  “Like you want to throttle someone but can’t,” Patrick says, and his grin is such that his dentures slip and crack together.

  “That’s exactly how I feel. Thank you for putting the feeling into words.” Now all I have to do is keep from actually acting on it.

  Truth be told, I feel less like strangling someone and more like tying her up somewhere she can’t harm herself.

  Sharks.

  Seriously.

  And why do I care?

  It shouldn’t bother me what she does.

  It shouldn’t. But somehow, it does.

  “So, you see what we mean about saving your energy for the things that matter.”

  “I see. But I don’t understand how we’re going to talk anyone out of any of those things.”

  “Offer to give them something else that’s just as good,” Chubb says, sounding very reasonable.

  I look out the window. The bushes and flowers that Leah and the ladies have planted look beautiful. It is one of the activities that Leah and the ladies have done. Not all of them could, of course, but many of them enjoyed it.

  Idaho summers are short and hot, and it is good for everyone to get outside and get their hands in the dirt a little.

  I believe that, even if I don’t do it myself.

  It is not, however, good for everyone to get in a cage and dive with white sharks.

  “What would be as good as diving with white sharks?” I ask, rather slowly and with an almost certain feeling in my stomach that there is nothing that I can offer to do that will take the place of diving with white sharks.

  “I don’t think she’s actually going to do it. I’m not even sure she actually wants to. She just wants to do fun stuff. And maybe things that are a little dangerous. It just gives her a good feeling here.” Doug lifts up his hand and slaps his chest.

  “I see.”

  “So what you need to do is figure out something that will give her a good feeling here.” Chubb slaps his own chest and grins. “She will want to do that and will stop wanting to do other crazy things.”

  “Forever?”

  “Probably not. But she can probably be talked out of it.”

  So basically, I am going to have to keep coming up with crazy things to do. Things that aren’t dangerous, and won’t get me fired, and will entice other people to want to be residents here, and that are on par with skydiving and shark diving.

  Suddenly, I don’t feel up to this job at all. At all.

  “Any suggestions?”

  “Rather than diving with sharks, you could offer to let them pet a tiger. That’s very similar and slightly less dangerous, I think,” Chubb says, and I start to seriously doubt his sanity.

  Or maybe my own sanity. Or both. I’m not sure.

  “Maybe I could offer them tickets on the Challenger?” I ask, only being a little sarcastic.

  “That would probably do it. I think maybe you’d better offer life rafts and a parachute along with the ticket,” Chubb adds.

  “Oh no. I’m pretty sure these ladies would rather dive and swim. Isn’t that on their bucket list? Falling from the sky and swimming across the Atlantic?” Seems like their bucket list is full of impossible things.

  “They just want to have fun. They don’t want to be relegated to the sidelines of life. I don’t think they actually want to do half the stuff they have on their list. They just want to be relevant.”

  “Relevant...” I think about that. Maybe if I had some kind of problem that the ladies could help me with, that would make them feel needed and necessary and...relevant.

  I eye the men, still not entirely convinced they are completely on my side. Although I’m sure they don’t want anything to happen to the ladies at Cherry Tree.

  I don’t have any choice but to trust them. So, I decide I might as well bring them into my confidence, even though I’m not entirely sure myself exactly what I’m going to do. I just have some fuzzy ideas in my head.

  “Would you guys be interested in going on a whitewater rafting trip?” I ask. “If it was a calm part of the Snake River and if there are no actual whitewater rapids?”

  “Sure,” Chubb says right away. “Would it involve more than one day?”

  “Yeah. It would probably be at least three nights out and four days down the river. Think you’re up to that?”

  “Of course we are,” Patrick says, his brown eyes twinkling under his bushy eyebrows and bald head.

  “I’d like to do that, and I think the ladies will agree.”

  “I think so too.”

  “And I think I need to have a problem that maybe the ladies can help me with. And maybe that will take their mind off the bucket list.”

  Both of the men are nodding their heads, the rocking chairs going along in time with their chins going up and down. “You’ve got it now, son. Nothing a woman likes better than just a good nose into somebody else’s business.”

  “Makes her happy as a hornet in a field of daisies.”

  “A hornet in a field of daisies? Whoever heard of that?” Chubb looks over at Patrick like he is nuts.

  “I just made it up,” Patrick grins. “Pretty good, wasn’t it?” He looks over at me. “That’s going in the book I’m writing. Hang on a second.” He grabs a notebook and a stub of a pencil out of the front pocket of his shirt and writes something down on it.

  “I didn’t know you are writing a book?” I say, surprised.

  “I just started today,” Patrick admits.

  “And he’ll be doing something else tomorrow.”

  “Something aside from cage diving with sharks,” Patrick says, and I wish everyone at Cherry Tree would be content writing a book.

  “So what’s your problem?” Chubb asks, getting back to the point. Which I appreciate, except...

  “I don’t have a problem. Can we think of one for me?”

  “Maybe you could ask them for ways for you and your ex to get back together.” Patrick grins. “Ladies love roma
nce. That’s better than sharks, I’m sure. It might even be better than skydiving, although that one could be close.”

  “Oh no. Romance beats everything in the ladies’ lives. And getting you matched up with someone would definitely go to the top of Miss Agnes’s bucket list.”

  “There is no getting my ex and me back together since my ex is married to someone else. And I don’t do that kind of thing,” I say, happy that she is married, because I certainly don’t want to be on the receiving end of a bunch of matchmakers trying to get me back together with the person I consider the biggest mistake of my life.

  “You’re a little young to get matched up with Miss Agnes, or Miss Harriet, or Miss Gertrude.” Chubb sighs. “I don’t think any of the other ladies are any younger. They’re definitely less spry. I doubt they’ll even go on the rafting trip with us.” He taps his gnarled fingers on the arms of his chair. “Where can we find someone to match you up with?” He tilts his head and looks at me. “You have a girlfriend?”

  “No.”

  “Someone you could pay to be your girlfriend?”

  “No!” I try not to be scandalized by the very idea, but I’m not very successful by the wicked grins the men give me.

  I clear my throat, modulate my tone, and say, “No.”

  “Well then, our Walmart trip is tomorrow morning. I guess we’ll have to go find your girlfriend there.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Do you want the ladies diving for sharks?” Patrick asks in that reasonable tone of voice I have a hard time arguing with.

  “Of course not,” I say, trying not to sound irritated. The men are just trying to help. “How about we match one of you guys up with one of the ladies here at the facility?” I take a step back toward them and then stop. “Or we could match one of you guys up with a lady that we find at Walmart tomorrow. I’ll help pick her out.” I almost rub my hands together in anticipation, not necessarily because of picking out a woman for them but for the fact that I wouldn’t have to have one picked out for me.

  I don’t have anything against Walmart women in general, but I really don’t want to find one there.

  “What’s your list of criteria? I can write it down, we can go through everyone there, or we can just sit at the door and watch them come in and out. I’m not afraid to go to the one that we choose and let her know what’s going on.”