“Moishturishze,” she says. And, oh dear God, that turns out to mean that she has miniature jars and jars of creams to be applied—serums and oils and night cream and eye cream and throat cream, and we apply all of those, in an order that seems as complicated as solving an algebraic trinomial equation. At one point she smacks my hand when I try to apply an oil before a serum.
But then, praise heaven, we’re done, and I walk her back to the bedroom and tuck her in under the sheet in her enormous king-sized bed.
“Well,” I say. “Good night. Hope you have sweet dreams.” I go over to the door, and she squeals, “Oh! My pills! I need my sleeping pill and my vitamins.”
“Of course.” I go get them out of the suitcase and get a glass of water and take them over to her.
“Phronsie? I never was treated that way,” she says in a sad, little-girl voice after she swallows them and settles back on her pillow. “I love Thanksgiving,” she says. “I . . . thought it would be good. Pilgrimsh. Everybody loves the Pilgrimsh. I wish they would have let me read it to them, then they would have seen.”
“You should get some sleep now.”
Adam is sitting on the couch looking at a magazine about things to do in Charleston when I come out of the room. His eyes meet mine.
“Is she okay?”
“Yeah.” I fall down onto the couch, clutching my chest. “I may not be okay. I may never recover.”
“You will. I have just the thing for you. If you don’t mind a brief run through the rain and wind, there’s a club about two blocks away we could get to. And they have a DJ and a dance floor, unlike the bar here, which has only stuffed-shirt businessmen.”
“Have you seen that wind? What if we lose power?”
He has his arm propped along the back of the couch, and he’s smiling at me.
“Yeah, so if we lose power, where would you rather be?” he says. “In an unfamiliar dark hotel room crawling around on the floor looking for your toothbrush, or sitting in a bar where there are plenty of candles and people? Come on. We’ll have fun. We need some fun after that career-ending monstrosity.”
“Yep. It’s a sad finale to a successful career,” I say.
He stands up and holds out his hands for me to grab on to. “Actually, I was talking about me,” he says. “Fighting in bookstores was not mentioned in the job description.”
I allow myself to be pulled up. The idea of complete blackout darkness in a hotel doesn’t sound all that appealing. “Maybe we do need to decompress. Debrief and all that. Figure out a strategy for the next two readings. And, of course, drink.”
My phone rings just then. I take it out of my purse. It’s Judd.
Adam sighs. “Go ahead. Talk to him,” he says. “Want me to wait in the hall?”
I shake my head at him. “Hey, Judd,” I say. “How’s it going?”
He tells me that it’s all great there. He and Hendrix have fetched Bunny. Maggie’s tucking her into bed, and Hendrix’s kids are playing Monopoly with Hendrix and my father and yelling about Park Place and Broadway. I try to picture my father succumbing to something as frivolous as a game of Monopoly—and then I hear him shouting in the background about a hotel on the wrong space, and I realize that nothing is ever frivolous to my father. He’s playing it with the same half-angry consternation that he brings to his whole life.
“Sounds like everybody’s having a wonderful time,” I say.
“Yeah, it’s still like the freaking Waltons around here,” says Judd happily. He talks so loudly on the phone that I’m sure Adam can hear him. “Fire in the fireplace, ladies making the appetizers in the kitchen, Frank Sinatra on your dad’s stereo. And hey, I’m legit for the first time! I’m one of the family! The kids are even calling me Uncle Judd, and your dad gave me one of his signature back-slappings—the kind that threatens to put your back out for six months, but I knew it was coming so I bobbed and weaved and managed to stay upright.”
“Smart,” I say. I bite my lip. “Tell my family hello for me, why don’t you?”
“Sure,” he says. “Phronsie says hey, everybody!”
There’s a chorus of hellos. “They’d come and talk to you themselves, but there’s a fight shaping up over a deal for the railroads. And I gotta go play the part of John-Boy Walton. Do you think I can be John-Boy? Have I earned that, or would that be Hendrix?”
“Definitely Hendrix. You still have to apply, you know.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I’m in. I think your family would sooner expel you from the cast before they did me.”
And then there’s a screech in the background, something about the Reading Railroad, followed by a mild ruckus, and he tells me good-bye, and we hang up.
That’s when I realize I want nothing more than to go running to a bar two blocks away and drink a cocktail. Maybe three. Or twenty.
Whatever it takes to dissolve the lump that has formed in my throat.
The rain is coming down sideways in icy needles—it’s given up on being just ordinary raindrops—and we’re cold and wet and windblown by the time we get to the bar. It’s nice and warm and cave-like in there, and also there’s a DJ playing loud music—which is perfect. Best of all, it’s filled with lots of people who don’t seem to be aware at all of the erroneous, racist Thanksgiving story told by a little old lady authoress. In fact, they don’t even seem to be worrying that the oncoming storm is going to be the end of the world. Or maybe they’ve decided that if the end of the world is coming, they might as well be dancing when it happens. If that is the case, then I salute them.
I can feel myself actually starting to breathe normally again. Adam steers us to a booth in the back that some people are right then vacating, and we sit down. A waitress dressed all in black except for a sparkly tiara riding on top of a red ponytail comes over and wipes off the table.
“Quite a night out there,” she says in a Southern accent. “Thanks to the forecast, the bartender has invented the Snow Hurricane special. You interested?”
“Wait. There’s a drink called the Snow Hurricane?” I say, as Adam says, “What’s in it?”
The waitress smiles at him. “Well, it’s got some sloe gin and grenadine and maybe a lime to be the hurricane, and I think a little bit of shaved ice—that’s the snow part,” she says. “It’s good. Everybody’s having it.”
“Sure,” I say. And Adam says, “Two of those, please.”
I watch her walk over to the bar and give the order to the bartender, a swarthy, bearded guy in a white shirt. And then I turn back to Adam, who is regarding me steadily, half smiling.
“What?” I say.
“Nothing. I was just thinking about Gabora. Wondering if she’s ever going to recover from this. You could almost see her going backward in time, until she was like the child she used to be. So innocent and trusting.”
“Yeah,” I say, “but trust me. This is just for tonight. She’s resilient. You watch—she’s going to come out guns blazing for the next two readings. She’ll be the one yelling at the audience tomorrow night and fighting them off with karate moves.”
“Oh God. Do we really have to go through this again? I’m ashamed to be associated with this book, to tell you the truth.”
“Well, yeah, me too,” I say. “All in all, I’d say that reading was saved only by the fact that you’d watched The Karate Kid.” I do the wax on/wax off movement. “Maybe this could be your sub-specialty. You know? Put it on your business card. ‘Adam Cunningham: Public Relations and Personal Karate Person.’ Wait! What is a karate person called? A dojo?”
He rolls his eyes and laughs. “A dojo is the place. A sensei is the expert.”
“Okay. How about ‘Adam Cunningham: Public Relations Sensei’? And underneath that, it could say, ‘Will Protect Authors from the Furious Hordes.’ Or: ‘You Offend, I’ll Defend.’”
He laughs, and I feel a slight appreciative shiver. Of all my forty-four dates—and this is not a date, I remind myself—hardly any man laughed at my jokes.
The waitress comes back with our drinks and sets them down. They’re a startling but lively shade of red. Just what the evening calls for, a drink that looks like blood.
“Well, here we are,” I say as brightly as I can muster. We clink our glasses in a toast. It tastes sweet and . . . well, red. “So . . . here’s to living through reading number one! Mostly.”
We drink up.
“So, I didn’t get an answer to my question.” I put my glass down. “Does this drink mean that this isn’t just an ordinary windy, rainy night in South Carolina? We’re in a . . . snow hurricane?”
“That is correct.”
“In Charleston, South Carolina?”
“Also correct,” he says.
“Are we in the apocalypse then? First bookstore patrons have gone mad and now there’s going to be snow and a hurricane?”
“These could be early signs, sure.”
“You sound cheerful about it.”
“Well, yeah. I’ve been preparing for this for most of my life. All the dystopian books from my childhood. Also I know karate, so when the zombies come . . .” He does some martial arts moves.
“That’s right. You can outrun them or wax them on and off,” I say. “So you’re set. Not sure that my skill set is going to come in handy.”
“Well, but you’re with me,” he says. “I’ll totally protect you.”
Then he just keeps looking at me, like he’s memorizing my face or something. I feel embarrassed suddenly. I wish he’d look somewhere else.
He clears his throat. “I take it your fiancé is already celebrating Thanksgiving with your family,” he says. When I don’t say anything, he says, “Sorry. Couldn’t help overhearing. Also, it was fascinating to hear that your clan is the actual Waltons.”
“Please,” I say.
“I thought it was a charming call. From a fiancé. Who wants to be John-Boy. Which, of course, he can’t be. Anyone would know an outsider can’t be John-Boy. I was thinking for a minute there that I might have to take the phone and inform him of that.”
I take another sip of my drink and give him my most steady stare. “So . . . besides the gnome situation, do you have any other craziness?”
He laughs. “Are you by chance referring to my gnome village?”
“I believe I am.”
“I will thank you, Ms. Linnelle, not to use gnomes and craziness in the same sentence. The gnomes are doing their part for a better world. I don’t know if you’ve noticed how they stand in the window and look outward, ready to detect any emergencies that may come up.”
“I have noticed that, yes.” I clear my throat. “Too bad they couldn’t have been on hand tonight.”
“They don’t travel,” he says flatly. “Everyone knows that.”
“Huh,” I say. “Fascinating. And, um, if I may ask, how did you come to be in charge of a gnome village, or are you at liberty to discuss this?”
He eyes me carefully. “My first gnome showed up, uninvited and unasked for, I might add, arriving in a box from my sister for my birthday one year. That was it: just an unassuming little gnome who got put on the shelf and forgotten. I didn’t much relate to him. Seemed like one of her weirder presents. But then she came to visit and brought a girl gnome to keep him company. And apparently girl gnomes are kind of rare, so my sister said he was a lucky fellow, indeed, to have a partner. And—well, my sister’s visit was a little longer than I would have liked, and so rather than argue with each other as we tend to do, we started spending our evenings building a house for them. I made a little dining room table and bed out of balsa wood, and she created a couch and a blanket for them. And then, after she went back home, I got them a rug and a desk. Later . . . a lamp and a full-length mirror for their bedroom. And then other gnomes started showing up. More houses needed. More lamps and couches. Then I moved them to my fire escape because they required more space. Gnomeo and Juliet, of course, come to work.”
“Of course,” I said. “And obviously they needed a tractor.”
“Yeah. They’ll be coming in soon, now that winter’s on the way. Time for these guys to hibernate.”
“Hibernate!”
“They go into my closet in a box until spring. Say, this is probably weird, but do you want to dance?”
“I’m not sure I can dance with anyone who puts gnomes in boxes and calls it hibernation.”
“They actually like it. It’s like a long nap for them. Come on. Let’s move.”
Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” is playing. I love this song. Hendrix and I used to dance to it when we were supposed to be doing the dishes when we were kids, and Maggie would come in and watch us and shake her head and then get us to hurry up and finish. When I go to stand up, I realize the Snow Hurricane special seems to have already found a nice little place in my brain and is settling in like a soft puppy.
Adam dances just like I would have expected—all loose and goofy and as though his joints have ball bearings in them. There may even be some Karate Kid moves in there. His blondish surfer hair keeps falling into his eyes, and at one point he unexpectedly takes my hand and spins me around.
By the time we make it back to our table, I’m a little out of breath. And I can’t seem to stop smiling. It’s been ages since I’ve danced. I think the last time was at Sarah and Russell’s wedding, where I danced with Judd, who is one of those showboat-type dancers. People always clap for him because he’s so athletic.
“Also,” Adam says, once we’re sitting down, as though only ten seconds have gone by, “what would you have me do with them? I can’t leave them on the fire escape to freeze, and I don’t have room for them in my apartment.”
“Are we back to the gnomes?”
“Yes, gnomes.”
“You know, you really are kind of goofy,” I tell him. “Everyone knows that gnomes should go to a warm climate for the winter. They need to go to Florida. Or to Europe—how about Gnome, Italy?”
“Hey. Don’t call me goofy just because you don’t have any crazy relatives who start you on a lifetime of gnome care . . . You’re in the Walton family. Wholesome farm people. Actual chickens and goats, I’ll bet.”
“You think I don’t have crazy relatives? I’ll have you know that I’ve got a mom who’s on speed dial with the entities who are running the universe.”
He looks impressed by this news. “Do you now?”
“She is also the Queen of Mayhem, my mom. She calls herself Tenaj, T-E-N-A-J, which is Janet spelled backward, in case you didn’t realize. And she does magic and spells and is kind of an artist-slash-guru-slash-free-spirit type who makes things out of objects she finds on the ground. And she loves causing trouble wherever she goes.”
“And despite all this, I’m guessing she’s still in your life?”
“Off and on. Currently very on. She’s been calling me for days, in fact, wanting to give me messages she’s gotten for me . . . from the universe.”
“Well, sure. That would only be the polite thing to do, I suppose, pass them on. But—why can’t the universe give you the messages? Why is she the middleman?”
“She has connections.”
The waitress comes by, and Adam lifts his eyebrows to me. “Another?” he says, and I nod. “Two more,” he tells her.
“They’re good, aren’t they?” she says. “And highly effective, if you know what I mean.”
We both nod.
“They are highly, redly effective,” I say.
“Very redly,” says Adam. He’s smiling at me. “So, I can’t let this go,” he says. “What is the universe trying to get you to know?”
“Well,” I say. “It’s hard to tell specifically.”
“Why? Does it talk in symbols? Hieroglyphics?”
“Haha. No. Not when my mom is delivering the messages at least. It sort of yells.”
“Well, what was the latest one, for instance? A yelling one.”
“Oh, Adam. Well, if you really want to know, the latest one was right afte
r I’d told Judd I would marry him, and then an hour later my mom calls for the first time in a year and says the universe is telling me WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING, YOU’RE MAKING A BIG MISTAKE, STOP IT.”
He bugs his eyes out and pretends to rub them in amazement. “Wow! Just like that? From out of the blue?”
“You see what I’m dealing with?” I take a sip of my drink, which really is going down so easily. I feel like I just want to laugh with him. The world is so crazy, my family is so crazy—this whole place. And it’s so fun, because no one ever wants to talk about this stuff.
He curls his hand around his glass. He has really nice hands. Big and wide, nice roundly clipped nails. You can tell a man anything if he keeps gnomes. That’s what I want to tell him.
He’s looking at me. “I think, if you don’t mind, we need to back up and unpack this story a little bit more. I need some more information. This could take four or five Snow Hurricane specials.”
I laugh.
“So your mom, communicator with the universe, is the one who gave you the name Phronsie, I take it? And how did she come up with that? Do we know if the universe was naming children the year you were born?”
“Oh, it was a character in a book she liked. Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. I am officially named Phronsie Pepper.”
“And your father—what was his take on this highly unusual naming situation? Or does he communicate with the universe, too?”
“No, no. God, no. Straight as they come.”
“God, this is fascinating stuff.” He rubs his hands together. “The origins of Phronsie Pepper Linnelle. I never would have been able to get to this in the office. That’s for sure.”
“It’s not so fascinating.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. First question—you don’t mind questions, do you?—how did your parents meet? Pa Walton and the Communication Director of the Universe.”
“You’ve heard of Woodstock, right?”
“A time or two,” he says drily.
I laugh. “Sorry! Well, that’s where they met. At the festival.” And I tell him the story—side of the road, innocent farm lad runs into dazzling hippie fabulousness in the weed-smoking, road-dancing, high-fiving personage of my mom. “It was just out of the blue, just like that, a totally random event—unless you believe my mom, who thinks nothing ever happens out of the blue and that everything happens for a reason, all dictated by those entities or forces who are spinning the universe—”
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