by Shelly Frome
Emily countered with the same response. “Like I told you, Babs, I’ll give you a capsule version of what happened as long as you keep it to yourself.”
“What is that, a joke?” asked Babs, plunking her camera down next to Emily’s crutches. “Have a heart, will you? Give me something before the school bus pulls in here. You’ve had your hiatus nursing your wounds, wallowing in your scruples. I am in desperate straits. Starving for an angle, an insider slant, a now-at-last-it-can-be-told. Outflanking every dude in the business beating the bushes over this. Plus salvaging my non-existent investigative career before the screen goes blank and the credits roll.”
Taking in the anxious look on Babs’s sliver of a face, Emily said, “What do you want me to do?”
“Look, I’ll settle for anything. My breaking story has stalled, the GDC has split, the cops won’t give me back my recorder and—oh please, lady, I am screwed.”
Running her fingers through her mop of tangled red hair, Babs went on with her rant. “And don’t give me any more crap about being a material witness and leaking something to the press that might prejudice the jury. Can’t you even tell me what you dug up at Cooper’s old place? Call it begging, call it charity. Thank you, missy Emily. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Pacing back and forth, Babs added, “Get this. I can’t even talk to good ol’ Miranda who’s off again or hiding under a rock for all I know. Besides, there’s nothing doing on that front except the same old, same old adultery and pending Brian–Martha divorce which everybody knows about by now. So, I ask you, after all I’ve put into this, where does this leave me?”
Still at a loss how to placate her while anticipating Will’s return at any moment, Emily glanced over to the back stoop of the B&B.
“That’s it, Ryder, ignore me. I’m on a deadline, dying here in front of your eyes, and you keep looking over there.”
Emily shifted around, ignoring the itch coursing up and down her encased leg as best she could. “I’m not ignoring you.” Not about to add that Will, at the moment, was dealing with her mother about his role and any possible future plans, Emily added, “I’m just wondering how the phone call is going.”
“Oh, whoop-de-doo, a phone call. What phone call?”
“Never mind. Look, I’m sorry, Babs.”
“She’s sorry. The least you can do is toss me a bone. Think. There has got to be something up for grabs. Otherwise—are you getting this—I will have to make do with this cockamamie kiddie shoot with you still laid up, no kicker that’ll send me winging off to the pantheon, kiss my gonzo news-hounding career goodbye, and end it all.” She gave Emily a withering look, bit her lip, and snatched up her camera.
As if on cue, the school bus pulled into the drive, the kiddie entourage led once more by the same flustered first-grade teacher sporting a neatly pressed L.L. Bean outfit and tinted glasses. After the usual scolding and pleading, she herded her charges into single file and reminded them that under no circumstances would she allow any wandering off nor any other infractions.
“I really mean it,” she added. “Otherwise no more field trips, you hear?”
Just as the class was about to advance up the trail, the towheaded twins Emily had previously encountered broke ranks. They ran up to Emily, demanding to know what happened to her and why she wasn’t leading them. They also asked about the photos she was supposed to bring back, her visit to “the British kids like us,” and all the adventures she promised to share for show-and-tell.
Ms. Flustered ushered the protesting duo back to their place in line. Turning toward Emily, she said, “I hope you know the class and I spent a whole unit on the wonders of a twin village across the sea. And there is nothing so disheartening as getting little children’s hopes up and then dashing them.”
Giving Emily no chance to remind her she’d made her apologies days ago, that she still had no idea what she’d be physically capable of, Babs chimed in, “You have to understand that Miss Ryder has not been herself of late. Been under a great emotional strain, which explains why she’s let people down, even her oldest friend.”
Unsure as ever, Ms. Flustered stood waiting for some other response. When she realized it was not forthcoming, she broke in with, “The truth is, these kids are a little spoiled. I am not a nature person, and they really took a liking to you, Miss Emily, during that brief time you met when you promised all you were going to bring back for them. I was really hoping you’d be taking over instead of me.”
“I know,” said Emily. “Look, we’ll just have to play it by ear.”
“No, it has to be now while they’re still so eager about natural habitats and all. Plus, the principal is pressuring me to come through.”
Unable to take another person working on her, Emily said, “We’ll see. Maybe I could fill the kids in after you return from your hike. Okay?”
With a half smile, sensing her pupils were getting out of hand again, Ms. Flustered said, “Oh, that would be so-o-o good. Coming, Miss Maroon?” She pivoted on her heels and joined her restless class. After succeeding in getting them back in line, she led the boisterous bunch up the trail.
“All right, pal,” said Babs, still lingering. “You lost your job. You had nothing else going for you, glommed stuff from me, went through some heroics, and beat me out. You were there, in the trenches, on the front lines. I was just doing reconnaissance.” Scrunching up her face, Babs tossed out her final zinger. “But you can at least tell me why. Good God, why would you stick your neck out like that? Bullets flying up there on the meadow. I have to know.”
Emily fell silent, not sure she could get the words out. But after all the time playing it close to the vest, perhaps she did owe Babs something. Something candid, something straight. She started with “Because . . .”
“Go on, go on. Don’t have all day, you know.”
“Because I saw it happen and I couldn’t stop it.”
“Stop what? What are you talking about? Don’t tell me it’s still Cooper?”
Speaking half to Babs and half to herself, Emily said, “He looked out for me. He always looked out for me.”
“So?”
“So, I was all he had.”
Babs reached for a snappy comeback but came up empty. As her squinty eyes began to moisten, she countered with, “And Harriet Curtis? She got to you too? No, no, spare me the drivel. I can’t take it.” Babs shuffled away and stopped short. She peered up at the trail, paused a few seconds longer, and turned back.
“Hey, Ryder, how does this grab you? Speaking of Cooper, I could jazz up this feature. Throw in one of his old sayings, like the one from that old movie, ‘A lost cause is the only one worth fighting for.’ Yeah . . . right . . . perfect. Merge Cooper’s lost cause and the kiddie shoot with the good ol’ save-the-environment angle. ‘At first it seemed there was no way Chris Cooper could win out over the forces that be. No way to save the open space we’ve cherished since colonial days . . .’”
In mock surrender, Babs threw up her hands and said, “Okay, I know, I know. A little drippy, needs work.”
As Babs broke into a perky stride up the trail, Emily knew she was on to something. Her coveted “kicker.” Babs would never let anything get her down for long.
“No sweat, Ryder!” Babs called back. “One door closes, another opens. Get yourself a paper for a change. You might be surprised!”
During the ensuing lull, with Babs off her list and Ms. Flustered and the kids on the backburner for the moment, Emily wondered if there was something else. Some detail that might have slipped her mind or been overlooked. But all she could come up with was a reminder to see to the harvesting of Chris’s apples and peaches.
And so it all came down to this.
The lull held a little while longer until Oliver burst through the hinged flap in the kitchen door and darted here and there. In Oliver’s wake, Will finally appeared.
Emily reached for her crutches. She pulled herself up gradually, not wanting to appear too anxious
. Only to settle the issue and then let it go. Let it be.
“Well?” Emily asked, breaking the silence.
“Are we talking lunch?”
“Not really.”
Acting just as nonchalant, Will said, “Or what’s going on with your mom? Is that what you mean?”
Emily held on, allowing him the usual do-si-do around a touchy subject.
Will tossed Oliver a stick and then ambled over to her. “If it’s about your mom, seems from what she was just telling me on the phone, things are still up in the air. About finalizing her plans.”
“Uh-huh. But in the meantime?”
Oliver circled around, the stick in his mouth, wiggling his backside like crazy.
“In the meantime, she’s still got the leaf-peepers in mind. That is, if there are any. No bookings yet. And if she goes ahead with making the whole place all light and airy, there’s a chance . . .”
“Oh?”
“Of course, she still hasn’t a clue about what actually happened . . . and about your leg and all. After what I just let on, she thinks the GDC must’ve hightailed it ’cause of Chris’s efforts and the up-and-down economy. Plus, how she left Brian Forbes and Martha hanging.”
Emily adjusted her grip on the crutches. “And so?”
As if knowing what she meant all along, Will said, “Now that depends.” He stepped back, and snatched the stick out of Oliver’s mouth. Oliver sat dutifully and waited. “Like they say, if you don’t know how things stand, you got to keep on biding your time till . . .”
“Till?”
Gazing directly at her this time, Will said, “Till she finally gives you some kinda sign.”
Gazing right back at him, Emily hesitated. She could have gone on with this coy banter, worked her way back to the lawn chair and asked, “Whatever do you mean?”
Instead, she let go of her crutches. Will dropped the stick and reached out for her. As they clung easily to each other like it was the most natural thing in the world, she forgot she was balancing on one leg. She forgot her losses, forgot everything. In the stillness, her rambles were suspended and the last of the Twinnings had come and gone.
Oliver waited a tad longer. Then, at the end of his patience, he scampered over to the trail and took off, bounding higher and higher, drawn by the sound of children playing, the woodsy nip in the air, a scattering of birds, and the scurrying of something wild.
About the Author
Shelly Frome is a member of Mystery Writers of America, a professor of dramatic arts emeritus at the University of Connecticut, a former professional actor, and a writer of crime novels and books on theater and film. He is also the film columnist for Southern Writers Magazine and writes monthly profiles for Gannett Media. His fiction includes Sun Dance for Andy Horn, Lilac Moon, Twilight of the Drifter, and Tinseltown Riff. Among his works of nonfiction are The Actors Studio and texts on the art and craft of screenwriting and writing for the stage. Murder Run is his latest published foray into the world of crime and the amateur sleuth. Moon Games is slated for release in early 2018. And The Secluded Village Murders will release in the fall of 2018. He lives in Black Mountain, North Carolina.