Running on Empty

by Sandra Balzo

  'You don't have to be sorry.' AnnaLise blinked. 'I'm glad you, umm...'

  'Found himself?' Sheree supplied. 'I was glad, too, when he came out. Explained all those years he ignored me.'

  'You, my lady, scared the shit out of me,' Chuck said.

  But I didn't, AnnaLise thought. Figures. I'm one of those women guys make 'buddies' of. Watch the game with. Confide in about their wives and girlfriends.

  She cleared her throat. 'Came out? So everyone knows?'

  The 'but me', was unspoken, but not unheard by Chuck. 'I called you five, six times.'

  'I know. I've been a bad friend.' She turned her hand over to squeeze his. 'So, what's been the reaction?'

  'Good.'

  'Except for Rance Smoaks, the homophobe,' Sheree said. 'Like I said, good riddance.'

  Bobby explained. 'Rance tried to get Chuck ousted last year, to retake the office. It got pretty nasty.'

  Chuck shrugged. 'He thought the town would prefer even an active alcoholic to a gay guy. He was wrong.'

  Dead wrong, as it turned out. 'I can't believe neither Daisy nor Mama told me,' AnnaLise said.

  'I asked them not to.' Chuck withdrew his hand and tented his fingertips. 'That I wanted to call you.'

  'And they listened?' Harder to believe than the news that her old boyfriend preferred men.

  'Sure.'

  'And then promptly forgot, probably,' Bobby said nodding. 'Just like we were saying before you got here, Chuck. Life moves on, even in Sutherton.'

  Before AnnaLise could agree or disagree, the front door was yanked open.

  Sunset shafts of orange, rose and purple sliced through from outside, triggering a chorus of 'Start spreading the news...'

  The Frat Pack had arrived.

  Chapter Nine

  Sunday, Sept. 5, 2 a.m.

  Combining the Pisgah Porters at Sal's with Midnight Espresso Martinis at Torch, was not, in retrospect, a good idea.

  -AG

  A run, if AnnaLise survived it, might salvage the rest of the day from her hangover.

  'You're shitting me, right?' Joy said, when AnnaLise called her cell. 'It's barely eight a.m.'

  'You said you wanted to run this morning,' AnnaLise protested. 'Besides, Sal's closed at eleven last night.'

  'That doesn't mean we stopped drinking.' The tone of Joy's voice added, 'you idiot.'

  'Granted,' AnnaLise said. 'But think how much better you'll feel after you exercise.'

  Nothing but the chilly silence of a cell connection that's been broken.

  'What? No click? No dial tone?' AnnaLise said into the phone before flicking it off. 'Oh, for the days a girl knew when she'd been hung up on.'

  'What dear?' Daisy stuck her head around the corner, all smiles.

  How did she do it? When AnnaLise had finally tracked her down at Torch, the woman had been pounding down vodka gimlets.

  'I was just calling Joy,' AnnaLise said, holding up the phone. 'She's decided not to run.'

  'And, if elected, not to serve?' Daisy chuckled. 'I'm sorry, dear. Want to come to the restaurant with me? Mama has Savory Scrambled Eggs today.'

  The thought of eggs, savory or not, was stomach-churning. Nonetheless, AnnaLise couldn't help asking, 'Is that the one with chipped beef in it?'

  'Don't be silly,' Daisy said, lips pursed. 'That's Company Scrambled Eggs. The Savory have Philadelphia Cream Cheese.'

  'Oooh, I like those.' AnnaLise actually thought about it for a second. Then: 'No, I really do need to run.'

  'Well, your choice, but you can run anywhere,' Daisy said, gathering her handbag and moving toward the door. 'You can only get Mama's Savory Eggs here. Today. With me.'

  Mother Griggs was being insidious, but AnnaLise stayed strong. 'Don't try to guilt me into it, Daisy. I'll exercise, then stop in at Mama's.'

  'Suit yourself,' her mother, stepping out onto the sidewalk, 'but don't you mean "shame you into it"?'

  'Nope,' said AnnaLise to the closing door. 'I'm pretty sure I mean "guilt".'

  She had gotten as far as the front sidewalk when a thought struck her: The bicycle.

  As AnnaLise wheeled out on her old, powder-blue, five-speed Huffy, sporting her matching blue bike helmet, she congratulated herself on finding just the right exercise for the morning. Not only would she eliminate all that jarring impact of sole to concrete, AnnaLise would also spare her stomach the nauseating jostling and, with luck, feel well enough and get back soon enough to have breakfast with Daisy.

  Not guilt? My ass.

  The trail was asphalt and nicely level along the south and west sides of Lake Sutherton, so AnnaLise decided to bike clockwise until even with the White Tail Island bridge on the north shore and then retrace her route, counterclockwise. With the exception of Dickens Hart's mini-mansion, summer rental cottages lined the eastern waterfront, and the trail maintenance there was at best hit-and-miss. Mostly miss.

  For the sake of this morning's hangover, AnnaLise planned to steer clear of both the uneven eastern trail and Hart, himself, lest he press her to fill her cute little bike basket with his journals and notes.

  Yes, better to see Hart this afternoon, she thought riding past Sal's Tap and onto the trail entrance marked by the statue to the Faithful Dog.

  'You poor pooch,' she said to the granite retriever. 'Your master went away and all you got was this lousy statue.'

  Paralleling Main Street west of town, she ticked off the impressive properties that lined Lake Sutherton. Unlike the nameless canine depicted in stone, the homes had impressive titles: Miller House and Preston Place, Watkins Nest and Cranswick Cottage.

  North of the residential stretch was the Sutherton Post Office. It was situated next to the north launch for the convenience of the mailboat that serviced the homes and cottages along the lake. In the winter months, when the lake was frozen, the courier discharged his appointed rounds the less colorful way. By four-wheel-drive truck.

  But in the summer, much to the delight of tourists who paid fifteen dollars each for the pleasure of riding along, local college students would deliver the mail, hopping off the mailboat on one side of the property and catching up with it on the other, just in time to jump back on.

  Each delivery was accompanied by the sound of passengers cheering on the kids and, on occasion, the splash of one of them landing in the drink, usually in a not life-threatening, but immensely entertaining way.

  Truth be told, the shtick was mostly about entertainment, which explained why tourists were boarding the boat, even sans mail. Today the vessel carried thick Sunday newspapers instead. Hell, in order to keep the visitors — and their fifteen bucks — coming back, the mailboat would deliver pizzas if necessary.

  As AnnaLise rode by, the excursion was readying to head out with Sal's granddaughter, Nicole Goldstein, as the designated mail-runner. AnnaLise waved and nearly lost control of her bike, hitting a tree root that had pushed its manifest destiny heavenward through the asphalt.

  AnnaLise couldn't see who was at the wheel, but she assumed it was Bob Esmond. Cap'n Bob had helmed the boat for as long as AnnaLise could remember.

  As she'd experienced when first returning to Main Street, there was a definite comfort in things remaining the same. But also, AnnaLise had to concede, in things changing. Like Sutherton embracing an openly gay chief of police. AnnaLise was proud of her hometown and proud of Chuck. It couldn't have been easy to grow up gay and closeted in such a small, closely knit community. It must have been even tougher to open the door and come out.

  All in all, AnnaLise's world was shaping up. Daisy seemed sharp this morning and her daughter was feeling better by the minute. There was a lot to be said for crisp mountain air over warm tomato juice and Tabasco sauce as the preferred hangover cure, though AnnaLise did wish she'd thought to take a couple of aspirins.

  Just past the north launch and Lucky's Bait Shop, serving it, Main Street veered away from the lake. The walk/jog/bicycle path AnnaLise was riding on, though, continued to parallel the shorelin
e. She rode under a bridge of hand-hewn timber and found herself in front of the second-most impressive house on Lake Sutherton, Bradenham.

  Yes, just 'Bradenham'.

  Hart wasn't the only narcissist on the lake.

  AnnaLise paused, putting one foot down to stay balanced on her bike. Should she stop at the house and see if Bobby was around? Tempting, but she really wasn't dressed for visiting and if Mrs. B happened to be lurking...

  'AnnaLise!'

  OK, so Mrs. B was lurking.

  AnnaLise shaded her eyes and turned, trying to locate the woman. Her mistake was looking at the house instead of toward the lake.

  Bobby's mother waved from a lounge chair on a wide, wooden deck cantilevered over the water. It was connected to the house by the bridge AnnaLise had just passed beneath.

  'Wow,' she said, looking up. 'This is gorgeous. New?'

  'It is, and I must say I am very proud,' Mrs. B said. 'Leave your bicycle and come have a lemonade with me, so I can show off my outdoor living space properly.'

  How do you pass up an offer like that? And an 'outdoor living space', no less. AnnaLise leaned her bike against one of the bridge supports and looked both ways. 'How do I get up to you?'

  'Take that flagstoned walk to the house,' Bobby's mother said. 'The stairs to the first deck will be on your right, and then you'll have to cross the bridge.'

  'When I come to it,' AnnaLise muttered, as she climbed the steep flight of steps. She'd been a flatlander long enough that the elevation of Sutherton, around four thousand feet above sea level, could literally took her breath away.

  Ashamed to be laboring, she grasped the stair rail for assistance. The wood under her hand looked like mahogany, but the spindles below were iron, as in black and wrought. Some might say overwrought, for the setting. Sure was nice, though. And sturdy.

  The deck AnnaLise reached from the staircase had replaced the simpler one she remembered being off the living room's French doors. Pausing to catch her breath, she looked around. Where Bobby's fishing rods and other outdoor gear — always banished from the house in AnnaLise's memory — had nestled, a wall of cabinets now stood neatly labeled with a brass plate centered on each door: 'Fishing', 'Hunting', 'Hiking' and — who doesn't have one of these? — 'Miscellany'.

  Except at my Wisconsin apartment, AnnaLise thought, it's called 'junk', lower case. And it's a single drawer, not a mahogany cabinet.

  But this was, after all, Bradenham. The new deck had a trellis overhead to support the leafy vines that shaded the big sunken hot tub and all-weather kitchen. The whole arrangement just cried out for a party. But why would someone who never entertained and, according to Bobby, disliked crowds, need or want such a space?

  Other than to impress those boating by it. Or, in this case, bicycling.

  AnnaLise patted the giant, stainless steel grill on its shiny hood. 'If I owned you, you'd already have a lovely sheen of barbecue grease, and margarita dribbled down your front control panel.'

  The bridge that connected the 'house deck' to the 'lake deck' was about five feet wide, with high wrought-iron railings on each side, presumably for safety. The bridge then opened onto a round platform, planks set at a diagonal to the bridge. The railings were lower here and airier, so they almost disappeared into the foreground when you looked out onto the lake.

  'Breathtaking,' AnnaLise said. Mrs. B was resplendent on a chaise that up close looked like something Cleopatra would have owned if she'd had it custom-made in North Carolina and God had financed the lay-away plan.

  No pearls and Hermes bag today. Bobby's mother was wearing a pair of walking shorts and a crisp, tailored white blouse. As she stood up, she slipped her feet into woven sandals with kitten heels.

  'It is a glorious view, is it not?' She waved AnnaLise toward a table where a tray with glasses and a pitcher of iced lemonade stood. 'Please, help yourself.'

  Does the woman sit here every day, AnnaLise wondered, a full pitcher of lemonade and glasses on the table, in the event she has a visitor not immediately deemed banishment material? Perhaps a 'gentleman caller', as in The Glass Menagerie?

  Seemingly reading her mind, the older woman said, 'I am expecting Bobby and his friend, Ichiro, any moment now. They will be so happy to see you.'

  Nice. Not only had AnnaLise forgotten the planned luncheon Bobby and Ichiro spoke about just yesterday, but she'd been unkind to Mrs. B, if only in her thoughts. 'I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt your Sunday.'

  'Oh, not at all, dear,' Mrs. B said, gesturing her toward a chair. 'They want to talk to me about their restaurant venture.' She lifted her eyebrows or, given her cosmetic work, tried to. 'I have my doubts about sushi in Sutherton, but then what do I know? I have only lived here for most of my adult life.'

  'So you are not from Sutherton originally?' AnnaLise asked, unintentionally mimicking the other woman's speech pattern.

  'Heavens, no — wherever would you get that idea?' Mrs. B actually 'harrumphed', something AnnaLise had previously seen only in print. 'My father was in the foreign service, so, though I was born in the South of Florida, I traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia.'

  South of Florida? Like the South of France? And AnnaLise was pretty certain 'foreign service' would translate more into 'army brat', but who was she to say? Her international travel extended as far as Toronto, Canada, just over the US border to the north and Tijuana, Mexico, ditto to the south.

  'What brought you to the High Country?' AnnaLise asked, raising her voice to be heard over a passing, reverberating waverunner.

  'Sorry, my dear,' Mrs. B said, turning to glare at the offending speed demon. 'I told Bobby he needs to ban those annoying machines.'

  Ema Bradenham wasn't alone in her feelings. In fact, Sheree Pepper might best have expressed local opinion on personal watercraft that buzzed around Lake Sutherton like giant mosquitoes: 'Can't kill 'em, can't stick 'em up their asses.'

  AnnaLise wasn't much of a fan either, but Mrs. B's tone did smack a bit of 'if I were king'. Or, more precisely: 'if my son was mayor — which he is'.

  'You were saying, dear?' Mrs. B was looking at her expectantly.

  'Oh, I'm sorry. I was asking you why you moved to Sutherton.'

  'Work, originally,' Mrs. B said, an unexpectedly nostalgic cast to her face. 'In fact, your dear mother was my very first friend here.'

  'Really?' The intonation rang wrong, as if Daisy had told her daughter otherwise, so AnnaLise muddled on. 'I didn't know you were so new to town when the two of you met.'

  'Oh, yes.' Mrs. B looked lost in thought for a moment. Then: 'How is your mother, Little One? I hate to ask her directly, lest she think I...'

  '… was concerned about the blood-drive incident?' AnnaLise set down her glass. 'You have every right to be. Daisy made an awful mistake.'

  The other woman waved the subject off like she had in Mama's restaurant the day before. 'Not at all, dear. But, Lorraine and I spoke yesterday and, frankly, she seems... different.'

  Lorraine. AnnaLise hadn't heard her mother's given name spoken out loud for years, maybe decades. 'Different? She has had a couple of... I guess I'd call them spells, when she became disoriented. I phoned Dr. Stanton to see what he thinks.'

  Which reminded AnnaLise that she still hadn't gotten a return call from her mother's physician, and that suddenly seemed inexcusable under the circumstances, even over a holiday weekend. 'I'm hoping that he'll tell me it's as simple as a vitamin deficiency of some kind.'

  'Or mineral,' Mrs. B said. 'Even something as apparently unrelated as a urinary tract infection can cause behavioral changes and delirium as we grow older.'

  'But Daisy's not old,' AnnaLise protested. Or delirious either. At least not most of the time.

  'I know, Little One. I know. But chemical imbalances can affect us at any age.'

  The more they talked about it, the more agitated AnnaLise was becoming. In fairness, not because of Mrs. B per se, but because her questions indicated other people were noticing Daisy
's 'spells'.

  Which meant they were real, not something vaguely imagined by AnnaLise or Mama.

  AnnaLise had to talk to Dr. Stanton and soon, because she'd need to leave on Tuesday at sunrise for the drive back.

  While making the thirteen-hour trek to Sutherton in two days and leaving that last stretch of rural and mountain roads for the morning of the second one made sense, the return trip could be done in a single, albeit it very long, day. Once on the interstate, AnnaLise would have straight sailing and be back in Wisconsin by ten p.m.

  So today it was, and no physician excuses regarding availability.

  'I understand Dr.. Stanton's bought a place in Hart's Landing. Do you happen to know where?'

  'I do not, but Bobby might. Would you like me to call him? I should find out what is keeping them, anyway.'

  'Would you? I didn't bring my cell.'

  Mrs. B obliged. After the push of a no-doubt speed-dial button, she said, 'Hello, Bobby?' A listening pause. 'Really?' Again. 'Well, certainly. I expect you for lunch, with or without Mr. Ichiro Katou.' Another pause. 'Just leave him a message to meet you here. If he... yes, of course. But listen, Bobby, I called for another reason. AnnaLise is here... on her bicycle... well, I thought so, too... wait and I shall.'

  She put her hand over the phone's mouthpiece. 'Would you join us for lunch, AnnaLise? Bobby is on his way now.'

  But AnnaLise had already risen to her feet. 'That's very kind of you, but I think I really need to track down Dr. Stanton as soon as possible.'

  'Absolutely, my dear. Very wise of you.' Back to the phone. 'Bobby, AnnaLise is looking for Dr. Stanton. Do you know which of the condominiums... uh-huh, uh-huh... I shall tell her. . . no, she cannot stay — ' a smile — 'I will tell her that, too. Goodbye, dear, and see you soon.'

  She set down the phone. 'Goodness, what a production. Bobby says that you know where Mr. Katou lives, correct?'

  'Correct.'

  'Dr. Stanton's unit is on the fourth floor, right-hand corner as you face that same building.'

  'Got it,' AnnaLise said. 'Thank you so much for the lemonade. And the conversation.'