Goodbye, Miss February

by Sally O'Brien

  The Explorer snapped to life and cold air rushed out of the vents. Had Andy said something about letting the car warm up? It could be June by that time. Forget it.

  It was a beautiful day—sunshine and crunchy snow. The roads were clear and, thanks to the owner’s manual in the glove compartment, I knew how to snap into four-wheel drive at the first sign of a blizzard. I felt guilty for not reading the entire manual but shivering print is hard to see. Feeling like Marco Polo in the Antarctic, I aimed for the water tower, which should be in the nearest town with stores and a library.

  Twenty minutes after passing Ike’s Grab and Go, I arrived in Cherry Glen. A ring of stores surrounded the town’s centerpiece, a classic stone courthouse in a block of its own. I found the Cherry Free Library more or less without difficulty after asking directions from a woman hurrying a well-bundled toddler down the sidewalk. She said it was on Main Street across from the park by the stoplight and I couldn’t miss it. Main Street might be the main street but it was named Center. The stoplight helped.

  The building was small with about sixteen rows of bookshelves evenly spaced around the center on the main floor. A sign with an arrow directed people to the meeting room on the lower level. Except for reading to children at story hour, I hadn’t been in a library since high school, and I spied an important change: My old friend the card catalogue had been replaced. I stared at the computer in dismay until the librarian noticed my confusion and came to my rescue.

  Libraries might be different but librarians remained the same. This one, Bertha, had graying hair pulled back in a tight bun and wore rectangular, gold-rimmed glasses. Noting the age spots dotting the thin white skin on her hands, I thought she’d probably helped Andrew Carnegie design the building. Although she looked capable of quelling riots with the flick of an eyebrow, she was gracious with my fumbling and helped me locate what I needed. We found an amazing amount of material on thyroid cancer, and I printed several magazine articles to read later. Bertha sympathized with my dislike of the cold, tutted over my lack of warm clothing, and directed me to the Cherry Dry Goods Store. “There’s the Cherry Blossom Boutique too,” she said, “but they carry mostly sample sizes.”

  The dry goods store had a bell over the door and a woolly smell. A nearing-retirement salesclerk with lacquered hair dyed royal blue (intentional or an experiment gone bad?), thin eyebrows, and five-pound earrings looked up as the bell tinkled. “Bet you’re looking for sweatshirts,” she said with a welcoming smile.

  My surprise showed. I didn’t think I looked as frozen as I felt. “How did you know?”

  “Oh, we have our ways.” Heels clacking on the wooden floor, she led me down a narrow aisle crowded with gloves, caps, mufflers, and insulated underwear to a shelf of sweatshirts. She motioned toward the extra larges and added, “Bertha called to say you were on your way.”

  “Bertha? Oh, at the library.”

  She nodded. “I’m Florence.” We shook hands, the rings on four of her fingers digging into my palm. I liked the idea of librarians and salesclerks having names. Made the town seem cozy, caring. Florence undoubtedly knew customers’ sizes and preferences. San Jose had beautiful weather, which I defined as anything above freezing, but no one had ever notified me that the latest Grisham novel or the teal blouse I’d been looking for was available.

  Florence told me she’d worked at the store since her husband’s death ten years ago. Although she’d never held a job before then, she’d been a regular volunteer for the Red Cross and hospital auxiliary. No children but she’d raised a nephew and considered him her own. He’d married and had children, which made her a grandmother of sorts. Bertha, according to Florence, had never married. There were hints of a romance gone bad, perhaps a war death.

  The store carried plain navy blue sweatshirts and gray sweatshirts. I bought two of each and a white one with red dots that said LIFE IS A BOWL OF CHERRIES IN CHERRY GLEN IOWA. They were out of sweat suits but Florence offered to order one for me although it was nearly spring.

  “Planning to stay long?” She asked as she rang up the sale on a cash register straight out of Antiques Roadshow.

  “A few days.” I handed her a check and watched her study the address on it.

  “Staying at the Stephenson place, are you?”

  “I don’t know any Stephensons. I’m visiting my sister, Andy Stendler.”

  Florence dipped her head, jangling her earrings. I wondered how much damage a dislodged one would do and backed away. “The Stephensons built the house. 1898 I think. It’s had four owners since then.” Her eyes searched the ceiling for names. “Olsons, Carlsons, Larsons, and—oh, yeah, Murphys. But everyone around here always, you know, calls it the Stephenson place.” She took her time putting the sweatshirts in a bag. “So Andy’s your sister. Nice lady. Doesn’t come in very often—think she mostly shops in Des Moines—but she’s always real friendly. I haven’t seen her for a while, though. She okay?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “Bertha said you were looking for articles on cancer.”

  Good old Bertha was a regular town crier. “Um, yeah, doing some research.” I pretended to hunt for something in my purse, knowing darn well I wasn’t fooling Florence.

  “Uh-huh. I hope no one close to you has it.”

  Trapped. What were my chances of convincing this woman I’d come to Iowa just to read cancer articles in the local library? Andy had been quite definite about not wanting anyone to know. However, maintaining her privacy had run into a snag. The saleslady at Macy’s might not know my name but she didn’t nose into my sister’s personal life either.

  “I hope so too,” I stammered. My words didn’t come out as strong as I wanted and I hoped Florence hadn’t noticed my hesitation. To distract her, I picked up the package and looked at my watch. One o’clock. Lunchtime. “Is there a restaurant nearby?”

  Florence waggled her arm toward the front window. “Cherry Pit’s across the square. Better cross at the stoplight. The county used to have two—and I could see them both from the store—but last year they made one into a four-way stop. Really improved the flow of traffic. Anyway, Cherry Pit’s got the best pie in town. Kids like to hang out there but this time of day they’ll be, you know, in school.”

  She saw me staring at a poster on the wall beside the cash register. HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? with a picture of an attractive teenager who looked can’t-quite-place-her familiar. “Elizabeth Stone,” Florence explained. “Pretty, isn’t she? Nice girl. Bob and Esther’s daughter. You’ve met Bob.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yeah, he picked me up at the airport.” No wonder I thought I knew the poster child. A feminine Marlboro Man without the seed-corn cap. “What happened to her?”

  Florence leaned forward on the counter and lowered her voice in case the Stones were sitting nearby and listening. “No one knows. One day she just vanished into, you know, thin air.” She waved her hands to demonstrate the air’s thinness. “She probably ran away. Police haven’t found her and I think they’ve given up.” Florence paused, eyebrows lifted, letting this information sink in. “Everyone in town says it was drugs. She was pretty thick with this girl—Tiffany Quinn—her folks live in that big brown house across from the gas station?” She waited long enough to realize I wasn’t familiar with town landmarks. “Anyway, Tiffany dropped out of school and is living with, you know, a guy down in Des Moines. Having a baby too. Hazel Anderson said she saw Elizabeth at Valley West Mall but she was gone when they checked, and Tiffany swore she hadn’t seen her.” She frowned. “The girl lied, obviously. What can you expect from a druggie? Personally, I think Elizabeth took off with someone she met there. She’s a good kid but—you know how young girls are.”

  “They like to have things their way,” I said as I inched toward the door.

  “Exactly. She was always a handful, that one. ’Course Bob and Esther think someone kidnapped her because they d
on’t want to believe she ran off. They’re nearly out of their minds with worry.” Florence smoothed a curled corner on the poster with her index finger. “The Stones are such nice people. It’s hard to believe something like that could happen to someone like that. Out of nowhere, just like that, boom. Town’s trying to raise money to help them, you know, pay for expenses, maybe a private detective like James Bond.” She motioned toward a fruit jar partially filled with coins and a few dollar bills. “Not the real James Bond of course.” She giggled and I agreed the real James Bond wasn’t a good fit for Cherry Glen. “We’ve already raised enough money for an ad that ran in newspapers across the Midwest.”

  “Sounds like you’re doing everything you can.” My hand was on the doorknob, the bell above tinkling in anticipation.

  “Well, we still need funds for a detective. There’s one recommended by a missing children’s organization in Des Moines we’re, you know, hoping to get.” Another glance at the money jar. “We’re having a church supper tomorrow night. Suppose you and your sister can come?”

  “We’ll see.” I stuffed ten dollars into the jar and left the store. After cutting across the street, I walked around the courthouse. A statue of the town’s founding father, Elias Cherry, stood in the square, guarding the Civil War memorial. The expression on his face didn‘t encourage cherry blossom festivals.

  Nine

  The lunch crowd had thinned by the time I got to the Cherry Pit. As the door closed behind me, conversation paused and every head turned toward me. I wondered whether Florence had called my pie order ahead.

  I slid into one of the three maroon vinyl booths, dodging the broken spring. The room also contained four fake-wood tables marred by carved evidence of long-past liaisons (“JD luvs SH”) and a counter with eight spinning stools. Beyond them I could see the kitchen. Horseshoes and barbed wire in the shape of a heart decorated the walls. A chalkboard listed the day’s specials—hot beef sandwich with real potatoes and goulash with hot roll—and the pie choices—peach, pumpkin, apple, banana cream, and coconut cream.

  An unsmiling waitress dressed in black slacks and a white blouse, both stretched tight at crucial points, plunked a glass of water on the table and stood beside me with her notepad. “Ready?” she asked.

  “Yes, I’ll have the hot beef.”

  She shook her head. “Out of potatoes.”

  “Guess I’ll have the goulash then.”

  “All gone.”

  I was afraid to look around the room, certain the locals were laughing at someone who expected the daily specials to be available past noon. “Okay, how about a hamburger?”

  “Grill’s closed. Got to set up for Rotary tomorrow, you know.”

  “Maybe I’ll just have pie. Coconut cream.”

  “Out of it.”

  “Peach then.”

  “Out of that too.”

  “Well, what kind do you have?”

  The waitress shook her head with an exasperated sigh. “That’s what I’m telling you. We’re out of pie. You want pie, you gotta reserve it when you order breakfast.” She looked pointedly at the clock on the wall behind the counter. “It’s after one o’clock and we gotta set up for Rotary tomorrow.”

  We agreed on a tuna salad sandwich and coffee, both made fresh that morning. I sat back and listened to talk about the weather (cold with snow) and the school basketball teams. The boys had lost but the girls were unbeaten and could go to state. The grocery store had gotten new freezer cases and rearranged the shelves. Now the bread was where the paper towels used to be and no one could find anything. They all just hated reaching for coffee and coming up with corn flakes. I read the cancer articles as I ate, shielding the print from prying eyes.

  Despite the cold, after lunch I took the scenic route to SuperSaver where I’d parked the car. Bypassing the shortcut through the courthouse grounds, I walked along two sides of the town square. Pickup trucks fought snow banks for parking space. Occasional bursts of wind kicked up clouds of snow, and I lowered my head against the sting. The residents seemed to think the temperature was balmy and strolled along with unbuttoned coats. Everyone I met smiled and said hello, something I found startling after living in the city for so long. In the second block one old guy wearing a cap with earflaps looked away without speaking and I wondered what was wrong with him. I hurried along, looking in shop windows—Goldie’s Oldies Antiques, Christensen Jewelry, Pierson’s Bakery, P. Simons CPA and Welding, and the Cherry Blossom Boutique with its anorexic mannequins.

  The warmth inside SuperSaver came as a relief. The store would have fit in one corner of my supermarket back home, not being cluttered by a bakery, a deli, or Asian and Mexican food sections. I grabbed a shopping cart and wandered through the aisles past pickles and canned soup. There were two other customers (could this be rush hour?). A young brother and sister were arguing over which cereal to choose with the boy holding out for the kind with the best prize while the girl wanted one they actually liked. Their mother ended the discussion by snatching a box of Cheerios off the shelf, giving me a weak smile.

  An elderly man wearing a red checked flannel shirt that looked like a tablecloth in an Italian restaurant frowned at his shopping list as he debated between Tide and Cheer. His wife probably wrote “laundry soap.” He almost spoke to me, perhaps to offer help to a stranger, more likely to ask which detergent was better.

  Out of habit, I headed for the cat food aisle. A scan of the shelves confirmed my suspicion that SuperSaver didn’t carry Thelma’s brand. I hoped she hadn’t run out of gourmet treats. While I was debating whether to tell JoAnn to restock, a heavyset man wearing a Cubs shirt that had fit him a few lifetimes ago squeezed past me. He was carrying a box of Complete Cat Litter, cedar scented and scoopable, and a heart-shaped box of Valentine candy, on sale.

  I bought potatoes, carrots, and onions for pot roast but passed on the plastic tomatoes. I didn’t find Peets coffee (Andy had warned me it was a California thing) and was afraid to ask, certain the clerk would tell me Pete always drank Folgers. I settled for his brand and added a quart of half-and-half. Who knew when I’d make it back to town?

  At the meat counter I picked up a rump roast and five pounds of hamburger, enough to last a week. Andy needed cholesterol to plump up her arteries. When we first moved to California, I heard about a group of ex-Iowans who met in secret to eat beef. I never located them but had my own clandestine steak dinners—after closing the windows and lighting clove candles. Midwesterners require animal protein. In the checkout line I added several candy bars—for quick energy.

  Back at the house, I put the roast in the oven and cornered Andy in her studio. “When’s your next doctor appointment?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t have one.”

  I wanted to shake her. “Stop being such a bitch. Why did you ask me to come here and then shut me out?” I watched a tree branch make patterns in the skylight and counted to ten. “Listen, Andy, I did some reading on cancer, and the earlier you get treatment, the better the chance for recovery.”

  Andy frowned. “I know that. I’ll get treatment when I’m ready.”

  “Which will be when?”

  “As soon as I’m done with this painting.”

  I let out a deep breath. “Andy, no painting is more important than your health. Why do you have to finish something that’s been sitting here for months?”

  “Because.”

  “Because why?”

  “Because when I finish it, I’ll be all right.” She stopped abruptly as if suddenly realizing what she’d said.

  “What?” Surely she hadn’t uttered the words I’d heard.

  Glowing red with embarrassment, Andy spent several seconds carefully wiping the excess paint from her brush. Finally, staring into the middle distance between us, she said, “If I get through this cancer thing, I’m going to give the painting to the hospital.” She clea
red her throat before adding in a small voice, “ I promised God.”

  My brain needed a minute to process that information. “Oh, Andy, you don’t even believe in God,” I blurted.

  She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I do too. Well, maybe I don’t. I don’t know. What if there is one? I could use some help.”

  I was stunned into silence. Andy had never asked for help but now she needed God—and maybe even Wonder Sister.

  Inching past the easel, I put my arms around her. She cried. I cried. The paint brush dripped magenta on my new gray sweatshirt.

  “Keep painting,” I said, my voice trembling as I hauled wads of Kleenex out of my pockets, “and I’ll call the doctor. Right now we need both of them.”

  Ten

  Saturday morning the thermometer registered twenty-five degrees below zero, record cold for this date. I sat with my coffee in the usual spot in front of the patio door. No wildlife today. Animals were smart enough to stay in their dens. The little TV set on the granite counter next to the microwave was tuned to CNN, which made me miss Thelma. She usually watched the news with me although she preferred Fox. I pictured her asleep in front of the bathroom heat register, shedding little mounds of white fur, and hoped JoAnn hadn’t turned down the thermostat to save energy. Poor Thelma. All alone with no one to talk to. It was only seven o’clock in San Jose but I went to the phone and punched in our number. JoAnn answered on the second ring.

  “Oh, hi,” I said. “You’re there early. I just wanted Thelma to know I got here okay.”

  “You expected her to pick up the receiver?”

  “No, but she could hear my voice on the answering machine.”

  “Right.”

  “Let me talk to her.”

  “You want to talk to the cat.” JoAnn sounded resigned.

  “Just put the phone by her ear.”

  After several minutes, JoAnn came back on the line. “Thelma can’t come to the phone right now.”