Dakota Blues Box Set

by Lynne M Spreen

  Karen sat down and took a bite of the pie. Either processed food was improving or her standards were slipping. It was delicious.

  “Have some whipped cream.”

  “I shouldn’t.” Karen took the can from Frieda.

  “Stop worrying. You can do with a few more pounds.”

  “I’m glad you think so, because ever since I got here I’ve been eating.” Looking around, Karen noticed the kitchen counters were bare. The walls held no pictures or knick-knacks of any kind. Even the window over the sink lacked curtains, although she could see nail holes in the upper corners.

  Frieda nodded out the window. “There’s the Roadtrek. When we’re done I’ll show it to you.”

  The RV, parked under an aluminum canopy, resembled a large passenger van whose top and back end had been extended. The roof sloped upwards behind the driver, giving the inside an extra foot and a half of headroom and allowing for a bank of skylights along the front. The tires were shaded by big square pieces of plywood, and the windshield was covered by a heavy vinyl drape. The light-blue paint gleamed.

  Frieda juggled a ringful of keys until she managed to unlock the double doors on the passenger side of the van. “Take a look here.”

  Karen opened both doors wide and stepped inside, half- expecting to see an overheated, dusty cavern sprinkled with mouse turds. Instead, the interior looked almost new. She helped Frieda up the step.

  “You see how nice it still is? Your Uncle Russell kept everything looking good.” Frieda’s fingers moved slowly over the blue velour, coaxing memories from the fabric. Then she pointed at the glove box. “In there’s the manual. You can read it while I get some air in here.” She moved toward the back, cranking open windows.

  Karen slipped into the driver’s seat and began thumbing the pages. The van was called a Roadtrek 190 Versatile because of all the ways the interior could be rearranged to suit the traveler’s needs. In the rear, for example, a dining table stood between two bench seats. At night, the table could be stowed and the benches made into a bed. In the van’s midsection, a person could shower in the walkway between the galley and bathroom by closing expandable folding doors on both ends and letting the water run out through a drain in the floor. Toward the front, the driver and passenger seats swiveled around backward so the campers could eat at a small, removable table. If needed, the shotgun seat and the one behind it could be connected to make another bed, and that area partitioned off from the rest of the van for privacy. It even had an awning outside that would shade the entire passenger side of the vehicle, creating a porch over the double doors.

  “It looks like it’s never been used.”

  “We used it plenty, but Russell kept it up. He even built the carport so it would be out of the weather.”

  Karen felt around the base of the seat until she found the lever that released it to swivel around. Facing backwards into the van, she noted that the galley was equipped with a sink, stove, microwave, convection oven, and a small refrigerator. A television hung from an overhead cabinet, easily visible from the pivoting captain’s chairs in the front of the van. A control panel behind the driver contained LCD displays for power, water, lighting, and temperature.

  If a person wanted to take a nice slow trip across the country, the Roadtrek would do the job.

  “Even though I don’t drive it anymore, I have Nate come by twice a year and look it over, so it’s in good shape,” Frieda said. “What do you think of my chariot, young lady?”

  “I think you could get a pretty good price for it.”

  “You’re dodging me.” Frieda shook a finger at Karen. “You know what I’m asking. Now that you’ve seen it, doesn’t it make you want to go?”

  “Camping would be hard on my back.”

  “I can get any drugs you need. One of the benefits of old age.” Frieda sat at the dinette. “So many memories. Do you remember that one year Russell and I went with your family and a bunch of other people to Yosemite?”

  Karen nodded, but the memory was vague.

  “You were little. But maybe–do you remember the Firefall up on the cliff? They don’t do that anymore but it was something.”

  “I do remember that.”

  Frieda nodded. “But then the government put a stop to it.”

  “I remember us singing.”

  “That’s right. Even though there were hundreds of people watching in the meadow, it would always get real quiet before they shoved the coals off the cliff. And everybody would sing ‘America the Beautiful.’” Frieda’s eyes were closed. “I always thought that should be our national anthem.”

  When Frieda went to stand, Karen grasped her arm, her skin cold even on this warm afternoon, and helped her step to the ground. Frieda locked the van and turned toward the house.

  “Can you imagine being out under the stars at night? I hate hotels. For my money, if you’ve got an RV and the weather’s nice like it is now, why, you open out the awning and eat outside. You listen to the birds and or you wave to the neighbors as they walk by. You can make all your meals in your own little kitchen. You save money, you don’t have to dress up, you eat when and what you want.”

  Karen heard ravens squawking and looked up. High overhead, a pair cavorted in the warming breezes, climbing up and diving together, over and over again. Suddenly one flipped over and glided upside down for several seconds before righting itself. She blinked with surprise. “Did you see that?”

  “They do that all the time around here.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Probably lot of things you haven’t seen.” Frieda started up the porch steps. “You’re missing out on life, girl. You need to get out on the road.”

  “I have obligations.”

  “You might be passing up an opportunity. Lots of people say they do their best thinking on the road. Something about the whatchamacallit–the lizard part of your brain–working while the thinking part runs free. Maybe it would help you figure things out. Anyway, when was your last vacation?”

  Karen didn’t answer.

  “You can’t remember, can you? You need some time off, but you’re afraid to take it. You think if you keep your nose to the grindstone, nothing bad’ll happen, but you have to learn there’s no guarantees. Lord, I have to catch my breath.”

  Frieda sat down on the porch swing and gestured for Karen to join her. “I don’t know if you remember but I worked at the city office. Lena brought you there to see me a couple times. Then you got older and you’d be with your friends, hanging out at the dime store next to where I worked. Sometimes I’d go in there to pick something up and I’d see you.”

  Karen smiled. “I liked the soda fountain. The root beer floats were the best.”

  “You were always quiet. Seemed like the smart one. Unlike those gals you hung around with. You never got in any trouble. Lena was proud of you. I thought you seemed old for your age.”

  Karen had in fact felt as if she were an old person from a very young age, getting good grades, earning her own money babysitting, and working as a Candy Striper at the local hospital. She hung around with girls who offered superficial friendship in a world defined by adolescent superficiality, but it was the only available hedge against loneliness.

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to get back.”

  “I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”

  “And now you’re sparking with that boy Curtis. You know he’s never going to marry again, but he’d be good company.”

  “I’m not sparking with anybody. I’m married.”

  “You didn’t let that stop you, from what I heard.”

  Karen started to get up. “Aunt Marie has a bunch of relatives coming over tonight.”

  “Let me tell you something.” Frieda stared off across the yard, past the Roadtrek and the fence, to the open fields beyond, where a man drove a tractor up and down rows. Her head bobbed on her crepey neck, and her hands shook. “I feel bad about all you’ve been thro
ugh, but it was lucky for me when you came into town. The minute I saw you, I got a feeling we were going to make this trip. Lena knew my ways. Now she’s gone. You’re all I’ve got.”

  Karen noticed the scent of lilac, and saw the vines overhead were dripping with the delicate blue clusters. She stood and plucked a blossom, holding it close to her nose.

  “But I’m not in the best health and in case you didn’t notice, I’m old. You should think about that while you’re deciding what to do. I’m ninety-one years old this October, if I make it. I’ve had a good life. I miss Russell but I don’t stop living.”

  Karen didn’t answer.

  “Who knows why things happen? Life is funny. So when you showed up, I tell myself, ‘If I can get her to take me on the road, it’ll be good for her and I’ll be able to see my great-grandbaby.’ Anyway, I don’t know who else can take me there. If they’re young, they’re working. If they’re old, they can’t drive any better than me. You’re right in the middle. You’re perfect.” Frieda paused, her birdlike chest heaving with the effort of her speech.

  I’m perfect. Karen smiled.

  “It’s hard when you’re my age, is all I’m saying. I don’t get around so good. Don’t hear so good either. I want to see the baby and after that, I don’t care.”

  Together they watched the man on the tractor work the field. “That’s Albert,” Frieda said. “He still likes to farm that little piece of dirt. He doesn’t get around that good any more, and before long that tractor’ll be more than he can handle. Come to think of it–” she squinted at the small figure,–“that might not be Albert. His son, maybe. Albert used to put in canola. It was real pretty when it bloomed, yellow as mustard all the way across.”

  The five-o-clock whistle blew down at the freight yards. “I do believe it’s happy hour,” said Frieda. “Help me up.”

  Inside, she turned on the kitchen light, hooked her cane over the back of a chair, and hobbled over to the cabinet next to the sink where she filled a glass with water and lined up an array of pills. “Bottoms up.” She tilted her head back and swallowed down the tap water, pop- ping pills until they were all gone.

  “You’re probably wondering why I bother.” Frieda sat down at the table. “At my age, even if I get a stroke or heart attack, whatever happens, it won’t be a problem for long.”

  Any reassurances on the tip of Karen’s tongue died from sheer banality. What could one say to a frail ninety-year-old? For that matter, what did Frieda tell herself at night when she was alone with her large-print Readers’ Digest, or the television squawking about a humongous used-car blowout over on Villard Street?

  “I used to be a ball of fire, like you. Now I feel tired all the time, ever since a year ago when I lost my breath and it never came back. Up‘til then, I could forget about my aches and pain by staying busy, but now about all I have energy to do is sit and think. I think about Russell being dead, and Sandy and me not speaking, and the world changing so fast, and I kinda wish I had the guts to let go. But if I could just see Jessie and the great-grandbaby, I would stay alive long enough for that. If I thought you’d drive me, why, I could fall asleep easy at night thinking about getting out on the road for the first time since Russell died. What would that be like, seeing the Black Hills again–because that’s what I’d like to do. See Mount Rushmore one more time, and sleep overnight in the forest. I want to smell pine and wood smoke, and eat dinner under the trees. I want to sit by the fire in the morning and have my coffee.”

  “You know I have to get back to California.”

  “That’s what you’ve been saying.”

  “So I can’t dilly-dally around, stopping at every tourist trap and point of interest.”

  “That’s not a problem.”

  “All right then.” Karen stood up. “I’ll pack the van tomorrow and take it to the mechanic for one last look. Then I have a couple of other people I need to say goodbye to. Can you be ready to leave Friday morning?”

  “I’m ready now.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  WEDNESDAY MORNING DAWNED humid, with thunderheads peeking over the horizon, and Karen turned on the air conditioner. As she approached downtown in the unfamiliar van, she appreciated the slow pace of traffic. The other drivers slowed in actual observation of the speed limit. They let each other cut in and out, not even honking when the car in front took a little longer than normal to turn into a driveway. Karen didn’t mind. She waited while a car cut in front of her, confident nobody would pull out a gun and start shooting.

  At St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Karen followed a sidewalk around the back of the red-brick building until she found the office, which was unoccupied. The telephone on the desk was ringing, but no one appeared to answer it. Finally the answering machine picked up. Karen sat in one of the visitor chairs and pulled her checkbook out of her purse.

  When the phone started up again, she heard a distant curse followed by hurried footsteps and the clatter of beads. Father Engel barreled around the corner into the room, his face reddening when he saw Karen.

  “Oh, my goodness, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  He took the call, nodding and scribbling on a message pad as he promised to send a fax. He hung up and loaded a document into the machine. “Be with you in just one minute,” he said to Karen. When the feeder flailed and jammed, he looked up at the ceiling, his lips moving.

  She stood up. “Can I help?”

  “I don’t think it’s fixable,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s been acting up but I think this time I fried it.”

  “Well.” Karen opened the back of the machine, removed and reloaded the paper and pressed send. They stood together watching as the paper disappeared.

  “Miraculous,” he said.

  “You might consider a new one.” She handed him the check. “Thank you again for my mother’s service. It was beautiful. You must have put a lot of thought into choosing the readings. It meant a lot to me.”

  “Thank you.” The priest opened and closed several drawers before anchoring the check under a stapler. “I’m at sea. My secretary quit. She was the third one this year, and it’s only July. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s me.”

  The man may have been the representative of Jesus on earth, but he reminded Karen of one of her clueless young supervisors. “I’m sure it’s not you.”

  “What else can it be? The work isn’t very demanding.”

  “Would you like an outsider’s opinion?”

  The priest spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Please.”

  “You probably don’t pay a lot, and you recruit by word of mouth. You feel sorry for, and therefore hire, people who are related to your parishioners. Everybody is happy for a while, but your employee isn’t very skilled and problems arise. Feelings get hurt, and you feel guilty. Then to top it off, the worker is alone here most of the time and this office is depressing. Sorry.”

  “Ouch,” said Father Engel. “You’re right. It isn’t the most exciting job in town. And yes, when I have a vacancy I mention it to a few people, and there’s always somebody who knows somebody who needs a job. I thought it was good for parish morale to do it that way, but the results have been disappointing.” He sat down at the desk, a dejected secretary in priest’s clothing.

  “Maybe if you advertised you’d get a better range of choices.”

  “We don’t have the money to advertise.”

  “You could do it for free online.”

  “Hmm.” He looked skeptical.

  “Okay, how about the parish newsletter? Or a flyer you distribute on Bingo night?”

  “That might work.”

  She wrote on the back side of her business card. “Here’s a website where you can download basic application forms for free. And why don’t you say in the flyer that applicants should bring a certificate of competence from the state job service?”

  “We have one?”

  She took the card back and wrote some
more. “North Dakota does job testing and training. You might want to send your flyer to the Dickinson office.”

  He studied the card. “You found this out in a week?”

  She smiled. “It’s a bad habit.”

  He pocketed the card. “Would you mind helping me with this?”

  “I can draft the flyer and drop it by tomorrow, but I’m leaving in a couple days.” She thought about it. “Tell you what. I met some businesswomen in town. Maybe they can help.”

  “Anything would be appreciated. Now let’s talk about you and Marie. How are the two of you doing?”

  Karen sighed. “I stayed longer than I should have, but I’m glad I came. It’s been good for both of us.” Thunder rolled in the distance. “Looks like we’re going to get our first monsoon of the summer.” Both of them stood, and Father held the screen door for her.

  The air had grown heavy, and clouds boiled on the horizon. At the next rumble of thunder, he said, “Der himmlischeVater zankt aus.”

  “‘The heavenly Father is scolding,’” said Karen. “Mom used to say that.”

  “A lot of the older people still prefer German. Do you remember?”

  “Ein wenig,” she said, surprised it came back. “A little. How did you learn it?”

  “I grew up in Grand Forks. Everybody in my family speaks German. Here, let’s sit.” He gestured toward a bench near a shrine of St. Joseph. A red cardinal hopped around, pecking at the seeds that had fallen at the base of the feeder. “Do you have someone to talk to in California?”

  “Oh, yeah. Tons of people.” She sat down on the hard cement bench.

  He pulled a pack of gum out of his pocket, offered her one, and unpeeled a strip. His hands were bulky and strong, hands that two generations earlier would have guided a plow. He crumbled up the wrapper and put it in his pocket. “Are you familiar with the stages of grief?”

  “As much as anybody.”

  “Different schools of thought. People go through a whole range of emotions, and just when you think you’re moving on, it can hit you again. We learn to live with it, but we never get over it, and I think this is a good thing, frankly. It means our relationship with our loved one continues even in death.”