Dakota Blues Box Set
Page 52
The pain of leaving battled with the excitement of a new beginning. She would miss Jessie and Sunshine and the CRS ladies, but maybe when work slowed down, she could join them somewhere at their various camps. Like Rita did, for a month every year. She could maintain their connection, knowing they were her family for life.
Jessie had the harder road in front of her, being only twenty-two and a single mother. The CRS ladies had been such a big help, with meals and childcare and companionship. If it took a village to raise a child, Jessie had lucked into one. Sunshine would miss the ladies. They would miss her, too. Especially Belle, who seemed to have a special bond with the child.
The thought of Jessie moving on alone made Karen unutterably sad, but Jessie had to grow up and make her own way, like everybody else in the world. She wasn’t Karen’s responsibility.
A couple of grackles landed nearby and fought over a bit of bread they’d found in the camp. Somehow the smaller one won and flew off to a nearby tree, where a nest was wedged into the branches.
No, Jessie wasn’t Karen’s responsibility, but she was Frieda’s granddaughter, and Karen owed that woman a debt of gratitude. While traveling with Frieda on her last road trip, Karen had finally become an individual in her own right. After a lifetime of following the rules and being a good girl, Karen had learned to stake out her own territory and follow her dreams and passions.
And in so doing, she’d learned she could choose whether and when to sacrifice herself. No longer an obligation based in faith and family, the decision was a choice now, an opportunity born of middle-aged clarity. Karen had a choice. That was a privilege. She watched the bird feeding its young and had an idea.
She smiled at its brilliance. Nodding at the sky, she thought, Are you happy now?
The palm fans fluttered, as they always did, in the gentle breeze.
Feeling lighter than she had in ages, Karen slid off the picnic table and walked back to the trailer. In the early morning light, she unlocked the RV, and while the girl and her baby slumbered on, Karen located the pink slips for the truck and trailer. She dug a pen out of her office supplies and, with a smile and a flourish, signed her rig over to Jessica Larson.
CHAPTER 45
FIVE MONTHS LATER—AUGUST
“GET IN THERE. GO ON.” Curt slapped the horse’s flank, and the big gelding clopped into the trailer to join the mare, already secured at the front.
Patrick stood waiting with the colt, who rubbed his head against Patrick’s arm. “You’d think he was a pet.”
Curt said, “To us, they are.”
“How will Erin feel about this?” Patrick led the colt up the ramp and snapped the lead into the D ring on the wall.
Curt wiped the sweat out of his eyes and slammed the tailgate shut. “She’s not happy about it.” Erin had a harder time saying good-bye, but now that summer break was over, she was heading back to California to finish her veterinary program. In fact, his daughter was a grown woman now. She would probably never be back. “I explained I had a chance to try something new before I got too old. She backed off and told me to have fun.”
Patrick pushed up the front of his Stetson with a thumb. “I didn’t think you’d go through with it.”
Curt leaned against the trailer, arms folded. Gazing across his land, he saw the old farmhouse in which he’d grown up, the barns his father had built, and the rolling acres tilled now by a neighbor. Red roses twined around the white picket fence that outlined the front yard. He would miss this place, and he wasn’t sure he’d be back. The couple who’d agreed to lease it were expecting their third child, and he liked the feeling they’d be warming up the house with their noise and messes.
“I almost changed my mind.” Curt had stuck out the two weeks in Spain, getting to know his future colleagues and making other friends. Lorenzo and Sergio were solid dudes, but he’d have to watch out for Monica. Whenever other women came into the office to meet the American professor, she got all snarly. Well, that was amusing, nothing more.
He’d placed a deposit on a two-room apartment not far from the university, where expats tended to gather. He’d met some of his students, and for all their rolling Rs and rapid speech, they were the same as the kids in North Dakota. Together, they would explore the geologic mysteries of the Iberian Peninsula for the next year. After that, who knew? His future was open-ended, a prospect he found both thrilling and daunting. He preferred certainty, but life wasn’t certain, and he had learned to live with that if he couldn’t make it otherwise. So on the flight home from Barcelona, he found a measure of peace with his decision.
At least, in every other matter besides love. Regret over Karen flooded his heart, and he shrugged and walked around the horse trailer, pretending to check the electrical connections but, in fact, trying to shake it off. She had made her decision, and so had he. Although he would always love her, he wouldn’t stand in the way of her goals. She had to find happiness on her own terms. As would he. They were both hardened in life’s fires. They’d survive.
“Safe travels.” The men shook hands, and the rig rolled down the driveway. Curt watched it go and then crossed the yard to lock up the barn. Inside, pigeons fluttered up to the rafters, but the stalls were empty and quiet. He’d miss Duke and Missy, the way they’d stomp and nicker in greeting in the morning when he arrived to feed them, or petting them with a fair amount of baby talk before locking up for the night. Even that nosy colt, whom Erin had named Argo at the last minute. Hell of a handle for a little horse.
He stopped by Aunt Marie’s new place, checking to make sure the drip system was working right in her container garden on the porch. The old woman gave him a hug and a sad kiss on the cheek, and then she hugged him again. He sat in his truck a minute, watching her go back inside. The humidity was up, and over to the east, the sky filled with monsoon clouds. He’d miss the way clouds turned the sky purple against the golden fields in late summer and the crisp dryness of winter.
Heidi, Jim’s elderly German shorthair, padded across the yard and flopped on Aunt Marie’s porch. Curt put the truck in gear. North Dakota had never seemed so sweet to him, and the combined grief of leaving it and losing Karen felt like a knife in his gut, but he knew that nothing good came of wallowing, so he turned onto the highway and tried to find a reason to be happy about Spain.
CHAPTER 46
SEPTEMBER
“SO AH WAS GETTIN’ COFFEE, and guess who ah ran into?”
Karen looked up from her desk, smiling at the mellifluous drawl of her new assistant. Della, a willowy six feet with her hair cropped in a short natural, set the tray on Karen’s desk.
“Ah got you a peach-raisin muffin and a mocha. That all right?”
“Fantastic.” Karen pushed her work aside, unfolded a paper napkin, and broke the muffin in two. “So who’d you see?”
Della sat at the round conference table at the window overlooking the garden. Outside, the neighbor was harvesting tomatoes and peppers and clearing out old vegetation for fall planting. Della took a bite of her pecan Danish before answering. “Remember that guy you pitched last December, Trevor somethin’ or other, one of Ted Natchez’s group?”
“He almost looks like Elon Musk, right?”
“Um hm. That guy. Anyway, his business is takin’ off—he’s in the energy sector—and he gave me his card. Said he wanted to talk to you about doin’ some hiring.” Della grinned.
“Your coffee shop–trolling strategy is a success,” said Karen. “All this good food and new clients, too.”
“Yeah, don’t forget that at my six-month review.” Della had elbowed her way into the job at a chamber of commerce mixer last April. With her background in publicity, she had introduced Karen to the business community of Savannah almost faster than she could handle it, and the app enabled Karen to increase her office’s efficiency tenfold. At the rate they were going, she’d need to hire an HR technician, and she’d already alerted the property manager she’d be expanding.
Della fi
nished her pastry and went back to her desk in the front office. Karen turned back to her work, but she couldn’t concentrate. So much had happened since leaving Key Largo in March.
When she’d handed Jessie the signed pink slips for the RV and truck, the girl first hugged Karen. Then she cried. While Karen shielded Sunshine from her mother’s tears, Jessie said, “I was so scared, thinking of trying to find someplace to live in some strange city and not knowing anybody. Doing it all on my own. Worrying about Sunshine being babysat by strangers while I worked all day. And I had no idea how I’d manage classes on top of all that.” The speech brought on a fresh deluge.
“I was worried about that, too,” said Karen. “Now I don’t have to be. You can stick with the ladies until something better turns up.”
“It’s more than me,” Jessie cried. “It’s Belle. It would kill her if we left. She had a little girl. I don’t know what happened, but she passed away when she was three. That’s why she’s so attached to Sunshine.”
“I didn’t know.”
“She doesn’t tell people.” Jessie wiped her eyes and then looked at Karen with alarm. “But what about you? I thought you needed the money.”
Karen reassured Jessie that she’d be fine, and the girl accepted this as true.
“And guess what?” Jessie said. “Fern owns a duplex in Palm Springs. She said if she and Belle ever get tired of driving, they’d move there.”
“Maybe you could move with them.”
Jessie smiled, her face tear-streaked. “Do you think it’s too early to go tell them the good news?”
They piled into Fern and Belle’s trailer, and a fresh round of tears ensued. Fern asked Karen to look at something outside, and Karen followed her down the steps.
“You going to be okay?” asked Fern.
“Yeah, but could you give me a ride into Miami tomorrow? I need to find a pawnshop.”
KAREN USED THE EARRINGS to make a down payment on a car, and a few days later, with help from Fern and Jessie, she emptied the RV of her things and moved to Savannah. Soon after, the CRS ladies broke camp and headed to New England for the summer. According to her latest e-mail, Jessie was making a pretty good income by rehabbing classy old garments. She was also closing in on her degree. Sunshine was cutting teeth, but the ladies still clamored to babysit, so Jessie had plenty of help. When the truck needed brake work, Fern found a reliable garage while they were driving through Connecticut, and the ladies passed the hat to offset the cost.
So Karen didn’t have to worry about Jessie anymore. It wasn’t worry that had her dragging around her apartment and work lately. Maybe it was the change of seasons in a new place. Fall was coming, the light was turning to amber, and the trees were beginning to drop their leaves. In the morning, instead of flying out of bed, enthused about her day, she hit the snooze button repeatedly. Her lethargy was inexplicable for a woman who normally functioned as a laser-focused fireball. She should be happy, having acquired the trappings of a good life—the office, the business, and new friends.
Maybe it was the fact of turning fifty-one. She’d had a couple of hot flashes, but nothing horrible, except this crazy lack of energy. She scheduled a physical, but her doctor told her she was in perfect condition.
Logically, she assumed there was some low-level grieving going on. But even though she felt deep sadness about losing Curt, she knew that if she kept putting one foot in front of the other, in time, life would return to normal, and she would recapture her zest for life. A person could only wallow so long. Nothing in life was perfect. You did the best you could and moved on.
So Karen threw herself into her work. It had been a busy six months. Her bank account was growing, as was her list of clients.
And yet.
At times, while at her desk, in the quiet of an afternoon, she’d find herself staring out the window, seeing nothing. She occasionally called Peggy to ask what was going on in Newport, or Aunt Marie, who was thriving in her new house. Karen had a large network of friends and acquaintances that she kept in touch with through e-mail and social media.
Savannah helped, yet for all the company of her colleagues and coworkers, the new friends she was making and the male attention she was attracting—even going on a few dinner dates, nothing more—she couldn’t shake this growing feeling of lethargy.
Della tapped on the door. “Your ten o’clock is here.” She stuck her head in. “You okay?”
“Sure. Why? Do I look all right?” Karen reapplied lipstick from a tube in her desk drawer.
“Just kind of pale. I’ll send her in.”
Karen greeted her new client. The hour flew by in the excitement of business, but when the woman left, the gray blanket settled again.
“I need some air,” she said to Della. “Be back in a few hours.”
Karen got her purse and went to her favorite restaurant, a seafood place with a patio. While she waited for her food to arrive, she watched boat traffic on the river and hoped her spirits would lift. Sailboats flitted by, darting around larger vessels. A massive tanker crawled upstream, her entourage of tugboats fretting alongside, but Karen only stared without thinking.
When the server brought her lunch, she took a bite, then another. She put her fork down and stared at the colorful plate, mystified at its lack of flavor. Was her sense of taste disappearing, too?
She gazed out at the brown water of the Savannah River, rolling along on its way to the Atlantic. Her interest in work was flagging. Her clients were beginning to bore her. After a big start, her business now failed to capture her attention.
It was ironic. After clearing the decks of her life so she was free to focus on work, work no longer compelled her. She was drifting, and she knew why, but there was no answer for it. She needed to snap out of this malaise. She told herself it would pass if she applied herself.
Over the next few weeks, she went to the gym every day and worked out under the direction of a trainer. She got blond highlights and went shopping for a new wardrobe. She began meditating in the evening and listening to motivational lectures on YouTube.
And then her hair began falling out. She stood in the shower one morning, watching strands slip down the drain and thinking, I am an idiot.
You’re not a total idiot, she heard back. Just very, very slow.
When Della arrived at the office the next morning, Karen was waiting. She told Della to hold down the fort; she’d be back in a few days. And then she rolled her suitcase to the taxicab waiting on the curb.
FIFTEEN HOURS LATER, Karen arrived in Barcelona. She’d slept on the plane as well as anyone could, which meant she was tired and bleary-eyed when she trudged up the Jetway. She retrieved her suitcase from baggage claim, found a restroom, and changed into fresh clothes. In the nasty fluorescent light, she washed her face, brushed her teeth, and applied a little makeup. Outside, the late-morning sun seared her tired eyeballs.
Even though she was exhausted and nervous, she felt a rising sense of excitement as the cab pulled away from the curb. Three-lane roundabouts circled triumphant statues in the city. Iconic Gaudian loops and swirls awakened her imagination. Lush parks and verdant gardens soothed her eyes every few blocks. By the time she arrived at the University of Barcelona, she felt revived.
At the geology department, Karen tucked her suitcase behind the front desk and followed the receptionist to the long hallway leading to faculty offices.
“Professor Hoffman is in two thirteen,” the receptionist said. Her heels clicked in the silence as she walked away, leaving Karen to wander on alone.
His door was open, and a woman was leaning over a desk, rifling through files. Her ample breasts nearly spilled out of a low-cut blouse.
“Hello?” Karen said.
The woman straightened. She looked Karen up and down. “May I help you.” It wasn’t a question.
“I’m looking for Curt Hoffman.”
“And you are?” She lifted her chin and stuck her chest out.
Whoever this w
oman was—Karen guessed a secretary—she was certainly protective. “I’m a friend.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
Karen shrugged disarmingly. “I thought I would surprise him.” In fact, as soon as she’d landed, she’d tried to call his cell, but his number was out of service.
“I believe he is at lunch with his fiancée. I do not expect them to return for several hours, if at all.” The woman smiled.
Karen stood like a lump of clay, trying to process the statement. She looked down at the floor, hiding her shock and thinking of what she should say next. What she should do. Did the woman mean Curt? Had she confused him with someone else?
“I’m sorry,” said Karen, “did you mean Curt Hoffman?”
“Jes, Dr. Hoffman, the professor of geophysics. The tall, handsome man from America? He is out with his fiancé.” The woman all but purred, a sickly smile on her face.
Karen’s purse strap began to slide off her shoulder. She grabbed it and straightened, and when she looked up, the woman’s smile was gone.
“If there is nothing else.”
“No,” Karen said. She walked down the hall, her ears roaring. She found a bench and sat, trying to organize her thoughts. A fiancée? So he was serious when he said he was tired of waiting for her. He wouldn’t put his life on hold anymore, even for a year.
A door flew open, and students poured out, yammering and jostling each other on the way to their next class. All that energy, all that future in front of them. Somewhere in this building, Curt spent every day with that youthful energy, thriving and happy while she trudged around Savannah with her hair falling out. How completely depressing.