by Madelyn Alt
“I can try. Stay here.”
My long and lean boyfriend went flying through the corridors as discreetly as possible. I decided that making my way toward the elevators would be preferable to acting the part of gimpy statue in the hall, but he was back before I had a chance to get very far. He shook his head. “No dice. They’re gone.”
“I’ll hold it for her,” I said, coming to an immediate decision, “and I’ll call later to let her know that I have it, safe and sound. Things like this mean an awful lot to a mom.”
“You speak from experience, do you?” he said, teasing.
“Okay, to a woman, then. Mementos, you know? Things to help you remember.” I leaned against him, grateful when he put his arm around me. “I’m getting too old for all this. I’m seriously pooped.”
“Stay there,” he said again, leaving me just long enough to grab my wayward wheelchair from earlier. “Your chariot, madam.”
He made me ride in a wheelchair the rest of the way down to the lobby, and thankfully the elevator trip was uneventful. I could have predicted that, though. Odd occurrences like last night’s elevator events didn’t happen unless I was alone. And in the dark. It was the way of the Murph.
Getting me into his old, beat-up truck took a little doing—the bench seat was higher than my hip, even with me standing balanced on the curb, so I had to back up to it and Marcus had to grip my hips (grinning away, natch) and lift me carefully into the seat.
“This could be an interesting few weeks,” he teased.
Oy. He was not kidding.
Blushing furiously, but not without a little reveling in my own personal power, I sat modestly on the passenger side waiting while he put my crutches in the back and got in beside me. “So, where to?” he asked me.
“How about Annie’s again? We never did have more than coffee last night.”
It didn’t take much in the way of convincing before we were heading downtown. The moment Marcus turned onto the main route, my stomach began to rumble in anticipation, and I knew it was a good choice. Just the thought of one of Annie’s double fudge caramel cheesecake brownies was enough to make me feel faint.
“Hey . . . isn’t that the girls?” Marcus asked, bringing me out of my drool-induced reverie.
He pulled up to the side of the road faster than I could even focus, and reached across me to roll down my window with the manual knob. “Shouldn’t you two be in school?”
Tara sidled over to my door. She was wearing a pair of black capri leggings, an above-the-knee tunic-cami combo, and her beloved lug-soled ankle boots. Black, gray, black. Add in her choppy, chunky ink-black hair, and the overall look was quite Dark Tinkerbell. “School got out twenty-five minutes ago, cuz. Duh.”
Marcus glanced at his watch. “Oh. Sorry.”
“You stand corrected.” She gripped the window frame and leaned her head in. “Holy cow, you did break it! Thought maybe you just really needed a day off work. Kidding!” she said with a wicked little grin. “What in the name of the Great Goddess is that thing on your foot, though?” If that crinkle on her nose wasn’t the look of utter repugnance, then I didn’t know what to call it.
I laughed. “It’s called . . . wait for it . . . a cast.”
“It’s yellow.”
“I noticed.” I could be wrong about this, but something told me that Tara would have gone for basic black. And no doubt she would have rocked it.
Evie came forward then, too, waving at me. “Oh, it must have been awful,” she said, her china-blue eyes wincing. “Every time I think about it, I can almost feel it snap myself. You poor, poor thing!”
“We’re on our way down to Annie’s for a late—okay, a very late—lunch,” I told them.
“Oh good,” Tara said, reaching in for the door lever and pulling the door open with its usual squeak. She tossed her messenger bag casually into the truck bed. “You can give us a ride.”
Now, Marcus’s truck is by and large considered a twoseater. One bench seat in the front with a small storage ledge behind it. That didn’t deter Tara, though. She was either thin enough or moldable enough to squeeze through the narrow opening behind my seat, perching like a quasigargoyle on the ledge behind Marcus. Being somewhat more endowed in the boobage area, Evie had things a little bit harder, but wherever Tara went, Evie was sure to follow; eventually she managed to wedge her way in. I grinned over my shoulder at the two of them, thinking that it was a good thing Marcus wasn’t the type of guy who stored a lot of stuff in his truck.
Marcus laughed, looking at them in his rearview. “You look like two sausages back there.”
“Yeah, yeah. Could we get a move on, please?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Marcus said, even as he was looking over his shoulder to check for traffic, “it’s kind of fun having you stuck back there.”
“Yeah, well, my mouth still works fine, and I’m a little cranky about a test I totally failed at school, so watch it, cuz.”
I rather enjoyed Tara’s banter. Some might find it rude and mouthy, and it was, but once you got to know her, you realized that she didn’t really mean much of it, and when she did mean it, there was likely good reason for it.
“You’re going to the store, too, Evie?” I asked.
“Oh yeah.”
“What about your mom?”
She shrugged prettily, or as prettily as she could with her knees drawn up to her chin and Tara’s knees wedged sideways into her. “She always tells me how important it is to be community oriented, to help out. It’s not like I can just leave Liss to struggle, right?”
She had a point. I’m not sure her mom would see it that way, but ...
“We found out a little more about Jordan today,” Tara told us as we skirted the crosstown after-school and -work traffic on the meandering path that was the state route through Stony Mill proper. “Guess what he died from.”
It didn’t seem right to play guessing games on the cause of death for someone so young, so I just waited for her to go on, because I knew she would.
And did. “Evidently they think he died as a result of heart failure from an enlarged heart. Preliminarily.”
Not another murder at least. What a relief it was to hear that. The poor kid.
“Some of the guys have been whispering about steroids and other drugs,” she continued, “causing the heart trouble.”
“Steroids?” Marcus said. “In our guys?”
“Surely not,” I put in. I mean, that was something that only happened at a higher level, right? Professional level, or at least college with an eye toward turning pro? I asked that question of Marcus.
“I dunno, Maggie. The world has been changing faster and faster lately. There are stories everywhere like this. Sports is just one avenue that has gotten really messed up at all levels.”
“But steroids are illegal,” I persisted. “And he’s a kid.”
Behind us, Tara uttered a bark of a laugh. “You’re joking, right, Mags? Drugs are out there, ready and available to anyone who has it in their minds to try them. And yeah, there are a couple jocks who think they have to do ’roids—or worse—to get their game on.” She made a wry face in the mirror. “Idiots.”
“It’s dumb,” Evie weighed in with her soft, quiet perceptions, “and I think they even know that on some level. But something or someone convinces them they have to try it. And if they even think they see the kind of improvements they’re looking for, it’s instant justification to keep doing it.”
Marcus nodded at the girls’ perspectives. But . . . “Okay, call me behind the times, call me crazy. But, if there are losers on our street corners selling drugs to our kids, shouldn’t the cops”—Hello, Special Task Force Investigator Fielding!—“be, I don’t know, doing something about it?” Especially now that we had a boy dead because of it?
“What are they gonna do? Arrest every high schooler at a party who’s passing along weed?” Tara made a rueful face. “There are pushers, no doubt about it, but they get the kids to d
o a lot of their business for them.”
“It’s out there, Maggie,” Evie echoed the notion. “Defs.” Yet another way that Stony Mill had been changing, perhaps a little behind the rest of the world, but still keeping up with the Joneses? Somehow that always turned out to be a bad thing.
Miraculously Marcus found an empty spot in front of Annie-Thing Good and took it before anyone else could swipe it from us. He’d opted to let the girls walk from Annie’s over to Enchantments, since it was only a few blocks and since they were wedged so tightly into the narrow space behind us that I was afraid we’d need pry bars to get them out. Amazingly enough, as soon as he got out and leaned his seat forward, they unfolded their limbs from their pretzel-like poses and slipped out with nary a pinched nerve or aching back between the two.
“We gotta get going,” Evie said, coming around to give me a bouncy hug. “Liss is expecting us. Hurry up and feel better!” And then she blushed. “I mean, don’t hurry on our account. It’s not like you can rush these things. I mean—”
“She means, hurry up and get your ass back to the store . . . cuz we’ll miss you if you’re gone too long,” Tara explained gruffly as she elbowed Evie aside for the briefest, stiffest hug possible. And yet, it melted my heart, because I knew what displays of “weakness,” even among friends, cost our tough little elf.
“Right!” Evie agreed.
I watched fondly as the two of them set off, the sprightly pixie and the lighter-than-air sylph, chattering away with Evie’s long blond ponytail twitching back and forth as they walked, keeping time.
“Kids,” Marcus said with a smile, appearing by my open door.
“I was just trying to remember what it was like to be that age,” I mused. “Sometimes it seems like only yesterday . . .”
“And sometimes it feels like a million years ago,” he finished for me.
“Exactly.” I turned in my seat toward the open door and let my legs, including the Casted Wonder, dangle in readiness. I looked up at Annie’s big picture windows, the golden light, the happy bustle, the chattering groups of people, friends, neighbors, classmates. How could death, ugly death, happen in places like Stony Mill? Suddenly I felt the weariness of the day descending on me.
“You’ve changed your mind.”
It wasn’t a question. He was reading me again, as he always did so well. I took a deep breath, my shoulders lifting with the effort. “I guess I’m more tired than I thought. I was up half the night with the babies while Mel slept off the anesthesia. And then! Then there was the argument down the hall that woke me up out of a sound sleep once I finally did get a chance to close my eyes.” I didn’t tell him it was Frannie. I don’t know why. Maybe because I was all gossiped out about Frannie, thanks to the Terrible Trio. It had left a bad taste in my mouth, and after all, I wasn’t sure it was anyone’s business but hers and Harry’s, in the end.
“Listen,” he said, his voice a soft and gentle caress, “why don’t you stay here? I’ll go in and get us takeout, and you can rest.”
I wasn’t going to argue.
Annie came out to see me, despite the seemingly ever-present crowd waiting for her luscious tasties. She wore a scarf to tie back her frizzy strawberry hair, pulling it away from her face that was as usual shining from within. Her hands were dusty with flour, which she was wiping off with her much abused apron. Today I couldn’t see the T-shirt, but I was sure it was a good one—they always were.
“Honey! I heard what happened, and I just had to come out here and see if there’s anything I can do for you.” She reached through and gave me a floury, cinnamon-sugar hug. She smelled like cookies and fritters and apples and chocolate. It was ten times better than any perfume.
I shook my head. “Nope. Not really. It’s just one of those things, I guess.”
“The trials and tribulations of life,” Annie agreed, her mouth making a wry moue. “But what does this mean about the upcoming N.I.G.H.T.S. investigations we’ve got planned? We’re fast coming up on that time of year, you know . . .”
“That time of year” meaning autumn, when the veil grows thinner and the line between this reality and the next becomes . . . blurred.
“Well, you know I’ll be there,” I told her. I was getting used to the whole paranormal thing at last. Accepting it, and accepting myself. And in acceptance, there was curiosity. I would admit to that. Not comfort, but a need to understand. “I’m not going to let this thing hold me back. Just give me a day or two and I’ll be fine.”
I hoped.
“ ‘Kay. Well, duty calls. I’d better get back in there before they start rioting and looting the place. It’s been real busy of late.”
“The price of being a witch in the kitchen,” I teased her.
She laughed and raised her hand in a wave. “Call you soon.”
Marcus came back out as Annie went back in. They did a little two-step in the doorway that made me laugh in spite of the now throbbing ache in my ankle.
He got in the truck, filling the small space with the scent of apples. He reached behind the seat to deposit a large paper sack.
“Yummy,” I said enthusiastically. “I don’t know what it is, but my mouth is watering already.”
“Just a little surprise. You’ll see.” He started the truck again but sat there with his palms flat on his thighs.
“Something wrong?”
“We need a destination.” He smiled over at me. “Have you decided?”
Should I, or shouldn’t I? Hm, hm, hm. In the end, it seemed the only acceptable—in many ways, more than acceptable—option.
I nodded. “Your place.”
If he was surprised by my decision, he didn’t show it. “No to Grandpa G?”
“No to my mother.”
“Have you thought about what you’re going to tell her?”
I shrugged, trying for nonchalance. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. She has more important things to focus on right now. Whether she realizes it or not, she doesn’t need me there, mucking up the works.”
“Well, you can muck up whatever you want to at my house,” he said with a grin.
I laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Minnie will be glad to see you,” he remarked as he put his truck in gear and started to back out of the diagonal parking space in front of the café. “Maybe with you there she’ll stop molesting my poor old Garfield.”
“Your what?”
“My Garfield. You know, big, orange, fat cat, snarky sense of humor?”
“Well, of course I remember. But I didn’t know you had one.”
“Well, now you do.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “And, er, how has Minnie been molesting it?”
“The little minx searches him out no matter where in the house I put him, gets on top of him, and . . . well . . . goes to town, kneading the heck out of him for hours and purring like a motorboat the whole time.” He arched a brow at me. “It’s really quite shocking.”
“I’ll bet. She doesn’t do anything like that at home.”
“Maybe all the testosterone at my house brings it out in her,” he suggested.
“Right.” I nodded sagely. “Garfield is rather a manly beast.”
“I am going to pretend you didn’t just insult my own beastliness.”
We arrived at his house in a jiffy. He parked at the curb, climbed out of the truck, and opened the gate before coming back to get me. I had expected him to set me down and get my crutches out, but he wasn’t kidding with his Tarzan chest-pumping display in the hospital hallway. He made me put my arms around his neck (hmm, gosh, I don’t know . . .) and swung me up into his arms so effortlessly that he made my head spin. And then he kissed me for good measure. Between the spinning equilibrium and the lengthy kiss, by the end of it I was seeing stars. In a good way.
He kicked the truck door closed with his foot (swoon!) before carrying me up the front steps and across the deep porch to the front door, where he did not set me down
but instead fumbled with the key and the latch until he had it to where he could push the door inward to admit us. Not only did he carry me across the threshold (um, double swoon!), but he carried me all the way inside and down the hall to his bedroom, where he finally laid me to rest . . .
On top of a blanket of fresh rose petals.
My eyes opened wide and I turned my head this way and that to take in the spectacle that was Marcus’s normally masculine bedroom.
The dresser tops and tables were each lined with a string of red jar candles, all burning brightly and casting their cinnamon scent into the air. The fragrance blended nicely with the rose petals, which were various depths of pinks and reds, scattered on the bed and in a circle on the floor around it. In the center of the dresser, reflected in the mirror, was a vase filled with more of the lovelies, not modern hybrid tea roses popular at street vendors and grocery stores nationwide, but huge, cabbage-y, old-style English roses. The kind that bring with them visions of Beatrix Potter, cottage gardens, and tea from an old china teapot at a charming, wrought-iron table beneath a protective oak.
I covered my mouth with my hand as I stared, trying not to cry.
“It was Liss’s idea,” Marcus explained, obviously pleased with my reaction. “She called me when I was on the way back with Uncle Lou. She felt so bad for you, and she just wanted you to have this. It was my idea to ask her for extra petals for the room, though,” he said with just a hint of shy pride. “And the candles, too.”
His idea. Swoon Part Three, for the win. “It’s beautiful.”
“So are you.” Any more swooning and we would be heading into overtime. “Are you ready to eat yet? We have Annie’s Asiago French onion soup and gourmet grilled cheese on ciabatta. And one of her double deep-dish apple pies.”
That must have been the source of the stomach-tempting apple scent in the truck. “Starved. But ... I think I might need my pain prescription filled even more. In all the excitement between the girls and Annie’s, I forgot about it.”