Courted by Karma (The Adventures of Anabel Axelrod)

by Ellen, Tracy

  Crookie peered over at me, cautious hope lacing his tone. “How can you guarantee that?”

  I shrugged nonchalantly. “I slipped rohypnol into his drink of water.”

  Crookie reared back in shocked horror, but only for a microsecond. He relaxed and laughed, but it was a choking, against-his-will sound. “Dammit, Bel, you are so terrible! Is nothing sacred to you?”

  “Mmm…nope.” I liked the easy questions.

  Laughing at Crook’s despairing expression cast my way; I started whooping and held on tight when we hit more deep ruts again and he started sweating and swearing.

  After we rode it out, I called, “Stop! This is far enough, you can turn around here. Man, was that fun! Thanks for the ride.” Grinning, I motioned a hand between the two of us. “Captain Crookie, did I or did I not confess to you the first day we agreed to be friends forever that I was a warped chick?”

  Stopping the truck, Crookie removed his head gear. He ran his hands through his hair and pushed it back off his forehead. Then he grinned back, and it was his darling, sweet smile that could make a girl’s liver quiver. “I had no idea I was agreeing to forever but yes Bel, you did.”

  “Well okay then, enough said.”

  Chapter II

  “Back in the USSR” The Beatles

  Wednesday, 11/21/12

  1:00 AM

  I know quite a few women from former Eastern Bloc and Communist Bloc countries, I usually like women from this part of the world, and women from Russia don’t scare me.

  Northfield, Minnesota has seen its share of an influx in population from various countries that mysteriously dwelled behind the Iron Curtain until the nineties. I’ve become friendly with many women from this part of the world, the Ukraine in particular. I met the majority of them when they were shopping in Bel’s Books. A few have become friends outside of work. To my ear, their accented English makes these females sound tough, secretive, and seductive. They remind me of Natasha from the old Bullwinkle cartoons.

  I don’t have a PC bone in my body. It should come as no surprise to hear that a small, patriotically paranoid part of me believes these women are all sent to America as undercover KGB spies, regardless of the spin out there that the cold war is over and the KGB is defunct.

  In my opinion, frequently these intense Russian girls that I’ve met look like they could take you down with one hand tied behind their back, even if they are tall, slouching, and rail thin. I am a petite woman with a curvaceous figure and a naturally sunshiny nature. You may think that I could be envious of their svelte limbs, their height, and their fatalistic airs, but not so. Any woman attempting to look deep into my eyes while carefully weighing the worthiness of my recommendation on a book has my respect. When they also attempt ferociously bargaining down the price of an already bargain-priced book, I am aglow with amused admiration. It’s refreshing they take for granted that I am a cheating, corrupt individual out to strip them of their last ruble.

  Minnesota nice gets so boring.

  This Natasha staring down her nose at me right now fit my fond description of tall, dark, and model thin, but I’m sure as hell not feeling the love. It probably has something to do with the fact she has just answered Luke Drake’s front door, and is wearing only a long, white shirt. It is a buttoned-down dress shirt and obviously belongs to a man. It hung billowing around her scrawny frame and showed off her long, skinny thighs and knobby kneecaps like I should be impressed.

  She kept her arm across the door while she looked me up and down, her thin lips curled in contempt. The contempt I didn’t get, but I confirmed the Russian part when she said, “Who are you? Vat you vant?”

  Not letting my feelings show, I smiled up at this stranger in a friendly fashion. “Why hello, I am Anabel. Is…”

  I got no further before this sharp-featured woman emitted a sharp cough of a laugh. It sounded amazingly like a seal bark. She further interrupted my attempt at a polite introduction by shoving a bony finger topped by a sharp red fingernail in my face.

  For the record, I get irritated when people shove bony red things uninvited in my face.

  Her voice and brows rose high in tandem disbelief. “YOU are An-a-bel?”

  She pronounced Anabel in three, distinct syllables like a little girl haltingly learning English. Or like a fourteen-year-old Victoria Secret model would sound, if she stepped right out of a catalog to sneer at you in her baby Russian voice while wearing a carelessly buttoned man blouse and no pants.

  I peered up at her closer from under the light provided by the outside lantern hanging over the front door. Except this milky-skinned woman with the sable hair is no adolescent plucked off the mean streets of Kiev and forced to become rich and famous by wearing enormous wings and lingerie. I’m awful at guessing age but if the crow’s feet bracketing her yellowish-brown eyes are any indicator, she has to be pushing a hard thirty-five or forty. I couldn’t avoid seeing she’s wearing a fluorescent green bra and undies beneath the white shirt.

  ‘What is up with the weird baby talk and the neon undies, for crying out loud?’

  Swaying only a little, I tried peeking surreptitiously around her tall frame to see inside Luke’s house. It was dark behind her in the entry, and no lights illuminated the living room through the picture window like the last time I was here. Maybe she’s playing some weird Russian night games that involve a black light, but I can’t tell from peeking.

  ‘Where is Mr. Secretive, anyway?’

  I can feel my brilliant plan spiraling out of my control and this made me cranky.

  Ignoring the antipathy hovering in the cold air between us after her scoffing tone, I still tried to keep an open mind. She has a few inches on me in height, but she positively loomed above me from the advantage of standing a step up in the doorway to Luke’s house, while I am on his outside cement stoop. I took a little step to avoid her rudely pointing finger, instead of following my inclination to bend the offending appendage right back at her. It’s a move I’ve gotten rather good at recently.

  I smiled, cranking out a little more wattage in it this time. “Yes, I am Anabel Axelrod, is…”

  Again she interrupted with the irritating seal bark and then that tiny, girlish voice. “An-a-bel, is that a cow name?”

  If she wasn’t smirking with red lips that showed off teeth the size of tiny Chiclets, and if she was below the age of five, I might have found her funny.

  All I could wonder was, ‘Who IS this bitch hindering my plans?’

  One of my new Ukrainian chums was a woman named Elena Zlenko. I have spent a couple of Saturday afternoons in recent months with her large, extended family of Zlenko women. We’ve gathered to cook traditional Ukrainian dishes while swilling back copious amounts of Absolut vodka. When it was my turn to take a shot, Zlenko women of all sizes and ages gather around me in anticipation. I have come to learn, by their hysterical laughter and mimicking, tongue-flicking motions, that I do a shot much like a kitten laps the cream from a saucer. The word has spread that even a grade-schooler Zlenko woman does a vodka shot faster than Bookstore Bel. I’ve been practicing shots to show my Zlenko booze-hound buddies what stuff this German-Celtic girl is made of. I have done more shots of alcohol in the past three weeks then in the rest of my entire life combined.

  My goal is to beat out the pre-teen Zlenko females next time I was invited.

  I was still feeling slightly under the influence from the vodka scrimmage conducted all evening in my store, and then later up in my apartment. Before ringing Luke’s doorbell two minutes ago, I had been AWOL’ing in my favorite vacation spot. I was a happy girl happily contemplating hours of sexual gratification in the very near future. Now, I’m sure my answering smile was wider and showing many more adult-sized, American teeth. If my three sisters saw me flashing this crocodile smile, they would all be crowding in behind me with curiosity to see who was gonna get it.

  Leaning my hip up against the iron railing on the front porch, I crossed my arms over my chest. I calml
y regarded the inexplicably sneering woman in front of me, whom it must be noted just mimicked my arm crossing and leaning stance, while I considered my options.

  I took a calming yoga breath and tried to see things from her perspective, rather than simply head butt her in the bread basket and walk in shouting for Luke.

  First off, it was cold out and it was late. I was a strange woman ringing the doorbell on a house out in the middle of nowhere. Although, come to think of it, my name seemed to ring a bell instantly with Comrade Day-Glo.

  ‘Okay, enough with being reasonable. She was creating a hostile environment no matter how fair I tried to be.’ My stomach sank a little when my accountant voice chimed in and gave its two-cents worth in my head. “And yes, she’s answering Luke’s door at one in the morning.’

  I seemed to be at a slight disadvantage here.

  From my perspective, I was on a mission. It was bitter cold and late. More importantly, I only have until sixish this morning to sexually torment Torquemada before I have to start my busy pre-Thanksgiving day schedule of chores, work, and hostess duties. Wasting time dueling banjoes with this bristling, tiny-toothed Natasha was definitely not part of the program tonight, appealing as it sounded.

  My eldest sister is the bossiest, pickiest sister on the planet, my second sister is scary crazy and self-medicates, and my youngest sister can beat up a full-size horse. Yet, they all love me. Even my name, Anabel, originates from the Latin “easy to love”. If I put my mind to it, surely there’s no way one scrawny Russian woman that speaks with a baby lisp and wearing sidewalk chalk-colored undies can resist loving me like the sister-mother that she so desperately needs?

  Well, you’d be wrong for agreeing with me on this one.

  Four minutes later, I was trudging and slipping down Luke’s rutted drive in the complete dark with my brother’s house as my new destination. I just found out the painful way that there’s one stupid woman who can resist me.

  I have not been as pissed as I was right now since…well, since last Saturday night when I thought Luke was nailing my hated cousin Candy. In fact, nailing her right in that living room behind me on that sofa I have never seen. I was now totally convinced Great Uncle Bennie built this cursed, mid-century rambler smack on the top of an ancient Indian burial ground. For some reason, these disturbed and angry poltergeist spirits were blaming me for this travesty when I wasn’t even born yet!

  Wondering where I misjudged, I was holding my stinging cheek where that Soviet Psycho had slapped me before slamming the door shut in my face. I was carrying my backpack with the other hand. I thought things were settling down and progressing nicely, so she caught me off guard when she went ape-shit. She told me her name was Svetlana and that Luke was not in the house. But then for some Godforsaken reason, she did that barking seal thing again and asked me a second time if I was named after a cow.

  ‘Even in her world, how was it fair to call me Anabel the Cow while she laughed like a freakin’ seal, but when I gently retaliated to make her understand the American lesson of sticks and stones, she went ape-shit?’

  “It makes no sense!” I said out loud in answer to myself, shaking my head angrily.

  I impatiently pushed back Crookie’s leather hat that keeps slipping down over one eye every time I moved too quickly. It was sized for his gigantic head, but those flaps were doing a good job keeping my ears and neck warm. I appreciated his insistence that I wear it. The steam pouring out of both my ears was probably helping, too.

  I didn’t think telling her that I’d bow to her greater knowledge of cow’s names since she was obviously a closer relation as a “Svet Hog” was that harsh.

  “Good god, it was pre-school banter!” I shouted to the dark heavens. “I didn’t even say a single word about her fucked-up lingerie choices!”

  I couldn’t believe she got me with her little girl slap. Then she ran inside crying like a communist coward and locked the door before I could get this stupid, fat boot stuck in the jam to stop her.“

  She was such a chickenshit!” I muttered, as I tried to kick down an ice-crusted snowdrift on the side of Luke’s lane with the same uncooperative, heavy boot. The big boot slipped around on my foot so much it was worthless. I suddenly stopped when a memory surfaced.

  “Holy F’ing…!” I whispered. These really weren’t my boots, but belonged to Jazy. They had been left forgotten in my closet since last winter. It was no wonder I couldn’t kick fast or could hardly lift my feet when I walked; these boots have to be three sizes too big!

  “Arrrrghhhh!”

  The wind had gone silent. In the crystalline stillness of the cold night, my screaming wail carried over the plowed fields and pastures around me like a Minnesotan version of “The Hound of the Baskervilles”. It felt incredibly good to let out my frustration.

  So I threw down my pack, threw back my head, and howled again—this time louder and longer.

  The howl echoed around me and lingered. I could hear a faint, answering sound of a dog barking far off in the distance. This made me laugh and I was over my fury. I could really get why Luke loves living in the country. It was true I could scream like that in town, but never outdoors and never so wildly. I was done being ridiculous and fighting with some baby-talking refugee over barnyard animal name-calling.

  Concentrating now on not killing myself in the deep ruts and potholes, I picked up the backpack and starting trudging forward again in my sister’s monster boots, long trench coat, and Crookie’s steam punk hat. Once I got down this hundred mile long lane and escaped this accursed farmstead, I’d be toasty at my brother’s in no time. I ignored my cold hands and colder buttocks from the wind creeping up unchecked along my bare legs under my coat. Luke’s lane was a straightaway completely out in the open, until the stand of trees at the main road entrance. On this long stretch, there were no barriers or tree breaks to shield me from the wind’s frigid furor once it started blowing again.

  I mulled over my decision to come here tonight. I concluded that I’ve been doing some uncharacteristically nutty things since meeting Luke Drake and becoming sexually obsessed. Yes, I was trashed tonight, but that’s no excuse. I had no proof he was even in town when I received his text an hour earlier, just a feeling in my gut that I didn’t question. Until that text, I hadn’t heard from Luke since Sunday night in my apartment. He could be in Outer Mongolia for all I knew. My gut obviously can’t be trusted anymore where Luke was concerned because my pelvis has taken over.

  My shoulders slumped. I picked my way slowly over the frozen ground. Maybe he’s back in the house with Comrade Crazy and wearing a matching phosphorescent green cock sock. He could be chasing her around in the dark even now, while I trudged on the side of the road towards my possibly peaceful death from exposure to the elements.

  Curling my hands up into the sleeves of the trench coat for warmth, I said out loud, “He did say he’d expect me in a week. He probably has the Russian babe slotted for tonight and their fantasy is named “Svetting to the Oldies.”

  Snickering at my own joke, it soon turned into a big sigh of disappointment that tonight’s plan has gone so awry.

  ‘Great, now I am talking and laughing out loud to myself, instead of just talking in my head to assorted voices like normal. What’s next? Sending myself emails or texts?’

  Stumbling over a rut because I wasn’t paying attention, I slid around but caught my balance before I fell.

  ‘There’s a reason you’ve stayed single for ten years, Anabel. If you were at home in your warm bed getting the rest you need in preparation for your busy day tomorrow, you wouldn’t be cold and miserable right now.’

  I threw down my backpack and shouted, “Screw you, Mean Mommy! I don’t need your brand of advice right now. I didn’t even get to see the inside of his house!”

  Kneeling down on the lane, I opened the pack and started rifling through the contents. I wasn’t able to see much with no moon, although my eyes have adjusted more to the darkness and I could make
out shapes in my immediate vicinity. My hands were getting too cold to continue being exposed to this wind. My thighs were stinging and tingling, and my nose was frozen. Despite the firewater running through my bloodstream, I was not going to safely make it all the way to Reg’s without dressing warmer.

  Suddenly, I was enveloped in a spotlight of brilliance. The blazingly bright light outlined my backpack sitting open before me and a circle of the road surrounding my kneeling body.

  I stood up quickly, but froze when I heard a deep voice order in a menacing growl, “Don’t move another muscle. I have a gun pointed at your back. Identify yourself.”

  It was hard to pinpoint the direction the threatening voice was coming from, and I should be frightened out of my wits. Maybe it’s the vodka, but I wasn’t scared for a second. Instead, my blood was singing, and the cold wind on my face was forgotten like it was a summer breeze.

  “Luke!” I cried out his name with spontaneous delight into the dark, even while it seared across my mind that a certain conniving Rusky and me would be meeting again. “Please don’t shoot me or you will always regret it! I am a pygmy soldier sent here to deliver you a message.”

  “Christ!” I heard Luke’s shouted response somewhere behind me. “ANABEL? What are you doing here?” His deep voice rose, “Was that you howling and screaming a minute ago?”

  “So what if it was?” I called back. “Is there some kind of Drakanian law out here against a girl doing a little howling at the moon?”

  Smiling, I turned around slowly with my arms outspread to show I wasn’t an armed threat. My face ached on the slapped side when the smile stretched that cheek.

  He didn’t answer my question, but started laughing. The sound was louder than any laughter I have ever heard coming from him. I couldn’t see him in the dark, but I pictured his head thrown back to the night sky above. I felt my own grin growing wider and ignored the pain.