“Salud,” she said, the cheap aluminum creaking under her weight.
Karen sat on the cold cement picnic bench and took a sip. The bright tang of strawberry margarita mix barely dented the smoky tequila. Her stomach warmed and her cramps subsided. Barb had brought the perfect medicine. Karen lifted her chin toward the silver motor coach, as long as a city bus and boasting multiple slideouts. “Nice rig.”
Barb grinned. “You betcha. She is my pride and joy.”
“Is there a husband in there?” Frieda asked.
“He’s been dead two years. Nah, don’t worry about it.” Barb fended off their condolences. “I’m happier’n I’ve ever been in my life. How about you gals? You married?”
“I’m a widow,” said Frieda, “and my friend here wishes she was.”
Barb downed the remainder of the pink slush in one swig. “Lord, I know what you mean.” A trickle of the sugary liquid ran down a crevasse at the side of her mouth.
Karen looked away. The color of the distant landscape changed rapidly from brown to gold as the sun dipped toward the horizon. When Frieda shivered, Karen stood. “Thanks for the drinks, Barb, but I need to start dinner.”
Frieda made a face. “With what?”
“You folks hungry? Come on. I’ve got all the grub you need back in the coach. Let’s go over and get warm. I’ll give you a tour.”
While Karen locked up, Frieda and Barb started across the windy expanse to the land yacht. Over the door, custom lettering spelled out Bit o’Tuscany.
“I called her that because I always wanted to go live in Itlee,” said Barb.
“Have you been there?”
“Nah, only what I seen in pictures.” Barb held the door open.
Frieda drew in a breath. “This place is huge.”
“She’s a Monaco Dynasty Squire IV. Forty three foot, stem to stern.” Barb headed into the galley.
Frieda followed her. “Are these granite counter tops? And you’ve even got a sofa and a big TV. This is some kind of motor home.”
“No kidding,” said Karen from the doorway.
“Go on, look around. I’ll make some more maggies.”
The blender rumbled behind them as Karen and Frieda tiptoed down the long hallway. On the left was a bathroom, almost as large as the guest bath in Karen’s home in Newport. “Look at this,” she marveled. “The shower doors are made of glass.”
“Lot of weight to haul around. Lots more fuel,” said Frieda. “Holy moly, look here.” The bedroom was equipped with a queen bed, a closet, another television, and two nightstands with reading lamps affixed to the wall.
“You gals ready?” Barb brandished a pitcher from the kitchen.
Karen accepted a refill. “This thing is as big as a house. I can’t believe you drive it.”
“This is nothing. I used to drive a school bus, a ninety-passenger Crown, back in the hell days.” Barb slurped from her glass. “That’s three classrooms’ worth of kids in case you don’t know, and you gotta turn your back on ‘em to drive.”
“And what’s this, a desk and a computer?” Karen sat down in front of the screen. “You can work from anywhere.”
“Pretty much. I got a booster up on the roof so the reception’s always good. I can get email and keep up with my Facebook. And see here? I got my own website.” The homepage featured Barb in leopard print leggings, boots and a cowboy hat standing in front of Bit o’ Tuscany. The picture was taken in the parking lot of a casino. “You wanna use it, you’re welcome.”
Karen sat down at the computer and tapped the keyboard. “Frieda, didn’t you tell me you used to work in an office?”
“Ran the whole thing.”
“Did you do any typing?”
“That and everything else under the sun.”
“Come over here a minute.”
“But I just got comfortable.” Frieda sat half-buried in a bank of pillows on the sofa.
“Come on, I’ll help ya.” Barb went over and pulled Frieda up. By the time she reached the desk, Karen had created a free email account for her.
Frieda stared at her name on the screen. “Is this me? What do I do?”
“All you do is start typing, and we can send a message.” Karen gave her the chair. “Let’s send one to my email address for practice.”
“Who’s ready for another drink?”
“We’re good.” Karen took a sip from her still-full glass. “Do you have any crackers or anything?”
“I have all kinds of stuff.” Barb found a bag of potato chips in a cabinet and tore it open, spilling a third on the floor. She kicked them toward the sofa, pulled out a fistful for herself and handed the bag to Karen.
Frieda tapped the keys, tentatively at first and then with more confidence. “This is easy. Now how do we mail it?”
“Push here.”
“That’s it? Holy mackerel. Who else do we know?”
Fifteen minutes and another margarita later, Barb hoisted herself off the sofa. “My turn. Lemme show you my grandkids.”
“You can get pictures off this thing?” Frieda moved out of the way.
“Yup. Lookey here. Look how cute they are.”
Karen leaned in. “They’re beautiful, almost like little fashion models, Barb. You must be really proud.”
Barb started laughing, her great bosom heaving a guffaw that turned into a lung-ripping cough. She grabbed a towel, blew her nose, and wiped her eyes. When she could speak, she said, “Are you kidding? Those kids are so homely I hafta Photoshop ‘em.”
“What is she saying?”
“She alters the pictures to make them look better.”
Frieda stared at Barb. “How do the parents feel about that?”
“Hell if I know.” Barb shuffled over to the bar and drained the rest of the pitcher straight into her mouth. “Last time I saw ‘em they bitched me out. For no reason. Really pissed me off. I don’t have to take that. So I got in Bit o’Tuscany and adios.” She wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “That’s one of the great things about livin’ in a motor home. Somebody rubs you the wrong way, you just pull up the mat and get the hell outta Dodge.”
“I guess that would be one advantage.” Karen’s headache had started up again. She glanced at her watch. Time to get Frieda back to the Roadtrek and figure out some kind of meal.
“I never coulda afforded it on my own,” said Barb, sinking into the sofa next to Karen. “If it wasn’t for life insurance.”
Karen inched away. “How long were you married?”
“Which time?” Barb lit a cigarette. She leaned forward, elbows on knees, picking a piece of tobacco from her tongue. “Coupla years. I used to do charter runs to Vegas on the weekends. Make a little extra money, you know? Bernie was one of my riders. Lonely, dried up, little old man.” Barb squinted through the smoke. “When he died, I sold the house and bought this baby. His kids hated me for it, but hell with ‘em. The old man had a shitload of money. Figure I earned it.” A length of ash dangled from her cigarette. “But you know it’s true what they say. You marry a man for money, you’ll work hard every day for it, and I did.”
Karen glanced at Frieda, who gave a little shrug.
Barb leaned back, eyes closed. “When he got sick, he didn’t want me to hire a nurse, so I did it all. Gave him his meds, cleaned up his puke, and wiped his ass. I can’t get the smell of shit off my hands.”
Barb’s head began to loll against the back of the sofa. When her cigarette fell to the floor, Karen doused it in the sink and helped Frieda out the door, holding her arm as they crossed the uneven ground through the cold wind. Reaching the van, Karen jabbed the key into the lock, her fingers almost numb. Inside, they bumped into each other in the narrow space, shivering as they wrapped in blankets and waited for the heater to work. Karen got some water going for tea, and while it was steeping, opened a box of granola bars.
“I wouldn’t want to be around when she wakes up,” Frieda said, sipping her tea as Karen converted the dinette to a bed.
>
“That won’t be for a long time.”
“Things have really changed. When Russell and I used to travel, people were nicer.” Frieda chewed, staring into the middle distance. “I’m almost glad he’s not around to see this.”
“It was just bad luck. Last night was good, most of it anyway. Mae was nice.” Karen forced a smile. She felt bloated and headachey, and her cramps were back.
Frieda brushed her teeth in the tiny bathroom and climbed into bed. “Heck of a last night.”
“I know. I’m sorry it worked out this way.” Karen put another blanket atop the older woman.
“You did your best.” Frieda burrowed under the covers while Karen assembled her own bed, layering a couple of blankets over the sleeping bag and carefully climbing in. She switched off the light and closed her eyes, wishing she had driven into town and found a café instead of subjecting them to Barb. She double-rolled a thin pillow, trying to ease the tension in her neck. “Frieda? Are you warm enough?”
“Fine.”
Karen pulled the curtain away from the window and peered upward toward the moon, a sliver in the east. The wind began to die, and the dark campground grew silent except for a distant barking dog. A sodium lamp hanging near the office flickered greenish-white, the camp’s only illumination.
She let the curtain fall back and pulled on another blanket. If Cheyenne was like this in the summer, what was winter like? Under the massive pile of cloth, she began to relax in the growing warmth, until she remembered Steve, and the fact that she needed to call him. She wanted to hold him off as long as possible without appearing punitive, thereby losing ground at the negotiating table.
As she thought about her arguments, though, punitive looked more enticing. If not for his wandering libido, she’d still have a home and financial security during her employment. Now she didn’t even have that.
A cramp made her wince. The thought of wringing cash from Steve didn’t feel good even if he deserved to be punished. It wasn’t her way.
Maybe it should be. Maybe I’m being too nice.
She needed to stay positive. Good news was just around the corner. One day soon, a call or some kind of referral would come through, and then she’d be back at work. Her lengthy list of contacts would pay off and she’d be working at another big corporation. Another spasm twisted her gut.
Or not. The economy wasn’t getting any better. The unemployment lines were getting longer. Maybe she should think about another line of work? She knew a colleague who went from selling corporate print jobs to selling a dozen different kinds of pipe for natural gas drilling, and that woman loved it. What else could Karen do?
She pulled the blankets up higher, frowning. She didn’t want to do anything new. She loved human resources. If Steve had only honored his vows, she wouldn’t have to think about reinventing herself.
Reinvention. What a load of crap. She didn’t want to reinvent herself. She had worked too hard to invent herself. Reinvention might be a fun choice if you were bored with your life, but for Karen it held no appeal. She wanted her old life.
But she had to be realistic. At the age of fifty, it was only due to unbridled optimism that she called herself middle-aged. Maybe she should accept she was on the downhill slope, too old to change. Maybe she should accept a check from Steve, find an apartment somewhere, and start learning how to live alone.
She turned over, feeling too warm now, and fear crept into her heart. The world was a scary place. People got lonely and sick and old. They died. It was hard enough if you were part of a team, taking care of each other. What would it be like if you were alone, maybe in a new place where you knew no one?
She thought of Curt, and threw off a couple of covers. Hot sex–would she have to live without it? At least now she knew nothing was wrong with the way her body worked. If anything, it was better than ever, something she would never have realized were it not for the randy professor. The man shook her right down to her toenails. She would have to give that up, because no way was she looking for male companionship in the pink-hands metropolis of Newport Beach. Nobody there was interested in a fifty-year old woman. At her age, it wasn’t going to happen.
The thought pissed her off, or maybe it was the blankets–she couldn’t get comfortable, and now she felt sweaty and hot. She kicked off a few more layers, but it didn’t help, so she kept peeling off blankets until she was completely uncovered. Her skin was so hot it felt as if it glowed, and the air in the van was barely above freezing. The sleeping bag felt hot against her back, and her face and ears burned. I shouldn’t have had that last margarita, she thought, opening the window and letting in a stream of icy air. The sensation gave her relief for five seconds. Then sweat beaded on her forehead, and a furnace roared to life on her chest.
She scrambled out of bed wearing only a tee shirt and panties, tiptoed to the door and went down the steep aluminum steps, barefoot, nearly naked. The lights were still on in Barb’s coach, but the rest of the campground remained deserted. A raccoon dropped a trashcan lid over by the restroom, and a pack of coyotes called to each other from the distant fields. In the glare of the sodium lamp, Karen wiped her forearm across her face, slick with sweat.
She pressed her back against the searing cold metal of the van, enduring her very first hot flash and the realization of her own pointless mortality.
Chapter Twenty-Six
THE NEXT MORNING, KAREN dragged boxes of mementoes from the van.
“You planning a yard sale?” Frieda stood in the door, blinking.
“I’m reorganizing for when we get to Denver.”
“What a mess. Where’s my overnight case? I have to go to the ladies’ room.”
“Right there on the front seat.” Karen went back to unloading the boxes of photo albums and paraphernalia. In the two days they’d been on the road, the van had become cluttered and she didn’t want to have to repack everything in Sandy’s driveway. Plus the spoilage in the small refrigerator had stunk up the place. She heard the distant sound of the restroom door slamming in the crisp, high-desert air.
Karen swathed the poppy seed grinder in a towel and returned it to a cabinet. Outside, dried leaves scrabbled past in the chill wind. Across the deserted campground, the store was closed and the office wouldn’t open until noon, today being Sunday. Barb had decamped hours ago in her big motor coach. Karen had been awakened by the slamming of doors and ring of hardware until the rig rumbled past in the dark.
She reached for a box of her mother’s needlework, but stopped at the sound of voices. Peering around the van, she saw a pocked and peeling Ford Bronco had pulled into a campsite next to the restroom. A man in a hooded sweatshirt hunched against the wind, firing up a pipe while his friend waited. A third man unzipped his slacks and relieved himself against the restroom wall.
The driver, a shirtless skinhead in a leather vest, hopped up on the table top and began dancing and playing air guitar to the ass-kicking concert in his brain. He screamed the lyrics, pausing only to finish the beer and heave the bottle against the wall. The urinator jumped up on the table as if to punch him, but the skinhead kicked him in the chest and danced away.
Karen ducked behind the van. After living in southern California for almost three decades, she knew well enough the behavior of urban wildlife. Best to lay low and hope they didn’t get curious about the Roadtrek or its occupants.
But what the hell was taking Frieda so long? Karen snuck another look as the skinhead leapt to the ground. He bounded over to an empty metal trashcan and, shouting at no one in particular, picked it up and heaved it against the wall of the restroom. The small building seemed to shudder, the noise echoing through the campground.
Frieda would hide, afraid to come out. Karen wanted to go get her and hurry out of the camp, but what would the men do when she appeared? She touched the edge of her sweatshirt, measuring its length in relation to the coverage it would afford her hips.
Not good.
She pulled the hood up over her
head, hiding her blond hair. Maybe she could get in the van, drive over, and pick Frieda up.
The skinhead strutted to the back of the Bronco and opened the tailgate. A dozen empty beer bottles fell to the blacktop. He picked up an armful that hadn’t shattered, lined them up in the roadway, and pulled a gun from his waistband.
Hiding behind the van, Karen flinched as the gun roared twice. She cursed her stupidity. Back in Dickinson, she had refused when Curt tried to give her his pistol. What would she do with a gun, she’d asked, laughing? She hated guns. A cop friend had taken her to a range one time, intent on teaching her to shoot, but her hands had shaken so badly she gave up.
When the gun’s report faded, she took another peek. Having hit everything he aimed at, he was lining up another dozen bottles, and judging from the whooping and yelling, his friends were loving it. Her heart raced as she tried to think of how to get Frieda out of harm’s way.
Then the restroom door slammed.
The men stopped what they were doing to watch Frieda limp toward the RV. She walked with her head down and her shoulders hunched forward, picking her way across the uneven blacktop.
One of the men fell in behind Frieda and began mimicking her halting gait. Frieda, clutching her overnight bag, churned toward the van, ignoring their howls and taunts. Karen watched in horror. The old lady was almost ninety, and barely four-eleven.
The man reached for Frieda’s bag.
“No!” Frieda held on to one end of the strap.
“Come on, grandma, gimme the purse.” The man flashed a knife.
“I will not! Let go, you creep!”
“Ya old bitch!”
The man screamed and fell to the pavement as a jet of bear spray hit him in the face. Karen stepped over him and gathered Frieda under her arm, all but carrying her to the van. Jumping into the driver’s seat, she stuck the key in the ignition as one of the men emptied a beer into the downed man’s face.
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