Home for a Spell

by Madelyn Alt

  As far as I was concerned, that might actually be the best reason.

  The pool and health center might come in a strong second. Perhaps even enough to outweigh one slightly creepoid complex manager who was probably harmless, despite ringing my Early Pervy Warning System.

  I shoehorned myself into Lou’s little car and started it up, powering down the windows to enjoy the temperate temperatures and afternoon breezes. While the car was roomier than I’d expected, it was still a bit crowded with the bulk of my knee-high cast and with the crutches, which I had to situate just so over my shoulder in order to fit them in with the rest of me. Once in position and as comfortable as I could possibly make myself, I pulled the folded-up pieces of paper that Locke had given me out of my bag and smoothed them out over my knee to read all the jargon and legalese that made up the leasing agreement.

  Locke was right—there was a termination clause. Unfortunately, it was completely one-sided, offering the option of termination only to the apartment complex at their own discretion; hence, its inclusion was not helpful to the prospective tenant in any way. And there was nothing in the lease that said anything about the actual offer he’d made me, including the monthly rent itself. All of that would need to be changed. Assuming, of course, that I was going to accept his offer. Everything else looked fairly standard. I made a few notes on the back of a receipt I found tucked into the coin pocket of my purse.

  Off in the distance I saw Lou just exiting the manager’s office. At the same time, a car pulled up next to me and parked. A woman stepped out, trim and cute in high heels and tights, a sober knee-length skirt that hugged her slim hips, and a structured jacket. Her hair was long and lush, bra-strap length with loose, perfect curls in a warm, glossy, honey brown. Envy struck me—the color almost matched my own, but the soft, nonfrizzy curls? Want, want, want, didn’t have, didn’t have, didn’t have. She bent over to reach into the backseat and pulled out a saddle brown leather satchel briefcase. Stuffed full, the thing must have weighed a ton, but she pulled it out with nary an exhalation of breath. Instead, she slung it over herself in one movement, then picked up an equally loaded handbag and the usual suspects of keys, cell phone, and to-go beverage of choice, which in her case appeared to be some sort of fountain drink in a big foam cup. Given the shape of things—her killer figure—I was guessing it was diet.

  It was enough to make a girl feel . . . somehow a little less than. I looked down at my perfectly acceptable wide-leg summer pants and a perfectly serviceable cami and unbuttoned cardigan, and I sighed. Serviceable and acceptable, yes. But some days, all a girl wants is to rock an awesome pair of heels and know that she owns ’em.

  I sighed even more when she strode purposely to the very same apartment building I had toured earlier and began to climb the stairs, her killer calf muscles and slim legs screaming of endlessly repetitive hours on the stair-stepper machine. Of course she would live in the self-same building I was hoping to sign on to. Nothing like a daily reminder of your insecurities living over your head. I’d bet I could wear those shoes just as well, though. I wiggled my toes and flexed my foot up and down within the close-fitting confines of the cast, just to prove the point . . . and sighed when pain shot through the offending appendage.

  Sigh, sigh, sigh, sigh. And sigh.

  Yet another reason to bring a little bit of change into my life. Because if I was in the middle of trying to find my sea legs (without the despised cast, of course), I would be too busy to worry about anything else.

  The door opened to my left, and Lou eased himself into the small car with a grunt and a sigh. “Was that Alexandra Cooper I saw?” he asked me.

  “The woman going upstairs? I don’t know her, but the manager mentioned that a teacher lives upstairs. You know her?”

  He nodded. “English teacher at the high school. Don’t know much about her, really. She’s been with us awhile. Not my department. I see her around the teacher’s lounge, and of course I’ve seen her at all the functions—the administration likes to get us all together under one roof, no matter where we teach. Supposed to give us a feeling of comradery. Very kumbaya, doncha know.”

  “I see.”

  “She seems nice,” he offered as he searched behind us, over both shoulders, before backing out of the parking space. “Quiet. Keeps to herself at the functions a little more than some of the others. An introvert, I expect. That’s pretty common with the English department. They like the books and writings. But nice.”

  That was good to know. Nothing like having a raging lunatic living overhead, either.

  “The strangest thing happened while we were touring the apartment,” I mentioned offhandedly.

  “Oh?”

  I told him about the apartment and the sounds that we heard and how it set Locke off on a mission to inspect the entire kit and caboodle, while in the meantime I had been standing three feet from what we discovered was an actual intruder who had been hiding in the entry closet. Who, as it turned out, was probably no more than a high schooler run amok, but I couldn’t blame the manager for going around like a chicken with its head cut off looking for the wielder of the hatchet.

  “High schooler?” Lou frowned. “What did she look like?”

  We were just passing one of the town’s small community parks, where the neighborhood children could play in peace and relative safety. Nothing much to look at, just an expanse of parched grass and the requisite swing set, merry-go-round, and curly slide, rutted in the usual places by the scuffing of thousands of pairs of feet over the last half century or so. And there, sitting on the grip bars of that merry-go-round, was the girl I last saw bursting from the closet.

  I nodded past Lou at the playground on the left. “She looks like that, actually.”

  He slowed the car to a crawl, staring in the direction I had indicated to where the girl was sitting, sheltered, in the lee of a boy’s arms and legs. I got a good look at her this time. She and the boy only had eyes for each other, as wrapped up in each other emotionally as they were physically. Neither of them turned to look at us, even though we might as well have been stopped in the middle of the road, two faces gaping in their direction from within the confines of the car. It was only when a car horn sounded a quick blip from the road behind us that it spurred Lou into motion again.

  Lou was nodding to himself.

  “You know her?”

  “Abbie Cornwall,” he said by way of acknowledgment. “Tenth-grader this fall. I had her in track last year.”

  “And the boy?”

  “Yup, he’s mine from track, too. JJ Perkins. Junior. He’s a good kid. They both are. I think they’re each other’s rocks. Rough home situation for him, and single-parent mom for her. Story of the times, I guess. Sad, but true.”

  I could see that. The protective posture of the boy spoke volumes of shouldering the harshness of the world away from his chosen one. “Why would she have been in that apartment?”

  He shook his head, as baffled as I was. “I don’t know. She’s not the type of kid who would break into a place for the hell of it. Wonder if I should make mention of it to her counselor. Probably so, probably so. Head off any trouble before it can get started.”

  Some world-wizened folk might suspect drug use as a possible reason. Only a person with no other course of action might feel called upon to risk personal safety and freedom by doing something stupid. Like breaking into an unoccupied apartment, for instance. What on earth could that possibly gain? It’s not like there was anything in there for her to steal, if that was her objective.

  Of course, we were talking about a teenager here. Logic and reason didn’t always apply.

  “Abbie Cornwall,” I mused. I saw her again, in my mind’s eye, frozen in time for one split second when she paused in midflight and turned back toward me, surprise and something else in those ultra-green cat eyes. Despite the heavy rimming of smudged eyeliner, I couldn’t help thinking that the something else I had seen was regret. Even apology. And then she had flo
wn for real, out the door, up the pass-through to the parking lot, and down the street . . . straight to her boyfriend’s arms. That could only mean one thing. Whatever it was that drove Abbie Cornwall, it was something that they were both in on.

  Tenth grade. Hm. I wondered whether Evie or Tara, shop-girls extraordinaire and fellow N.I.G.H.T.S., knew either the girl or the boyfriend.

  Perhaps I should have been wondering why I cared. Idle curiosity, I supposed.

  “Mind if I stop somewhere before I take you home?”

  Lou’s question broke into my reverie. “Sure. Suit yourself.”

  “I promised Molly I’d bring home dinner since I have a meeting tonight—that way, she and Tara get a night off cooking, too.”

  I smiled. “Aw, you’re a peach, Uncle Lou.”

  “I know which side my bread’s buttered on.” He chuckled. “Got any suggestions?”

  “How about Annie-Thing Good? Have you ever been?”

  “Downtown?” he asked. “Nah, I never have. Marcus has raved about it before, and I keep meaning to, but for some reason we always seem to go to the same old tried-and-trues. Is it that good?”

  “Trust me. It is outta-this-world a-ma-zing.”

  “When you put it that way, it sounds like a thing I shouldn’t pass up. It’ll do us good to break out of the mold. Molly’s always telling me things like that. She’ll be surprised I listened.”

  Lou was in for a treat. I remembered my first time at Annie Miller’s gourmet version of a small-town café—I thought I’d died and gone to restaurant heaven. I still felt that way, every time I had one of her double-fudge caramel cheesecake brownies. Annie’s place wasn’t just a café. It was an experience.

  It was also kind of out of the way, but Lou didn’t seem to mind. He tooled across town, chattering away about his track team and his history classes and the silly things kids did these days. They were all subjects he was passionate about. You could tell by the light that came into his eyes.

  “Do you want to stay here in the car?” Lou asked me when he pulled into a parking spot.

  “I’ll go in to say hello, too. It’s been awhile.”

  I was out of the car before he could help me up, but he did get to the door before I could manage it, so I guessed it balanced out. Oriental brass bells rang in a minor key, somehow still melodic, as we ducked inside. It was a little early for the dinner rush, but we were right on the first fringes. Good timing. Everything would be uber-fresh. My mouth was watering already.

  While Lou went to stand in what for Annie’s was a relatively short line, I crutched my way carefully between the tables, bedecked as always with unapologetically casual red and green gingham tablecloths, toward the heavily laden dessert counter. To drool, naturally. I knew Marcus had prepared monstrously large burgers that would be ready to plop on the grill the moment we got home, but that didn’t mean that a couple of pieces of dessert wouldn’t be a really good idea. He’d be all softened up for the discussion about the apartment and returning to school as planned before he even knew what hit him. I was thinking a couple of pieces of Annie’s Original Sin cake might do the trick. Bittersweet dark chocolate cake, with a chocolate mousse center, and a thick, shiny layer of dark chocolate ganache sealing it all around? That was enough to make anyone forget themselves.

  My decision made, I hobbled over to wait with Lou. Annie wasn’t behind the counter, I noticed. Instead it was Dorothy, her late-middle-aged Annie-labeled Counter Goddess who looked a little like a benevolent troll at first prejudiced glance but had the personality of an earth angel on a sugar high, which of course made her the perfect addition to the busy café.

  “Sugar!” she cried when she caught sight of me. Her smile hit me on high beams, and it was a doozy, packed with love and light that a person could feel physically. “How are you?!”

  I grinned back at her. “I’m just as fine today as I was yesterday, Dorothy, but then, you know that.” Dorothy claimed to be a plain woman and loved to address her customers using her version of the endearments with which genteel Southern ladies often addressed their loved ones . . . or anyone else who happened to come into their bubble of interest. For Dorothy that meant anything with “sugar” attached to it: sugarbabe, sugarhoney, sugarbritches, sugarplum, sugardarlin’, and my personal favorite, sugarbabydoll. But, when it came out as just plain “sugar,” it really packed a punch. I had it on good terms that her claim to the South was more likely just south of the Wabash River, but what she didn’t know I knew would never hurt her.

  “Oh, pssh.” She waved me off with a good-natured shake of her head.

  “Where’s Annie?” I asked her.

  “Oh, here and there, buzzin’ around like usual. You know how she is. What can I get for you today? And who is this big, strappin’ hunk of honeycomb?” she asked, giving Lou the appreciative once-over. I really needed to introduce Dorothy to Marian Tabor. I think they would be fast friends.

  A dark red flush deepened Lou’s cheeks. I laughed. “Dorothy, this is Lou Tabor, Marcus’s uncle. We just stopped by to pick up some dinner for Lou’s wife and daughter. Tara, from the store.”

  Dorothy tsked. “Taken. Pity. All the good ones are. What can I get for you?”

  Having been startled out of his absorption of the menu, Lou glanced over at me. “What should I get?” he asked helplessly.

  Dorothy turned her eagle eye back on him, assessing his inner nature. “You look like a ham man to me,” she suggested at length. “We have a lovely ham and spinach ciabatta with Annie’s special gorgonzola and brown-sugar bacon drizzle, topped of course with a side of fried red onion fire rings that are just the right mix of crunchy and chewy. Now, with that you get a side of my specialty baked beans, slow cooked with molasses, not barbecue sauce, mind.” She glanced my way and winked. “It’s a Southern thang.”

  “Sold,” Lou blurted out. “I’ll take three, please. And for dessert, I’ll also take three pieces of that apple pie over there.”

  “Oh, honey,” she said, shaking her head at his gaffe, “that’s no ordinary apple pie. That, darlin’, is deep-dish caramel apple pie, and it’s got special powers. If you are even remotely in the doghouse, you take a piece of that pie home to your missus and you will be sittin’ pretty for the rest of the week.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “That good, huh? Maybe I should take home a whole pie.”

  “Hey, while you’re packaging that up, I’ll take two big pieces of Original Sin,” I called to her.

  “Original Sin? Oh, Lordy. You’re bringing out the big guns, huh?” she asked over her shoulder. “What did you do, sugar? Never mind, never mind. My old ears probably can’t take it.”

  Lou was shaking his head, but I couldn’t help thinking it was more to hold in his amazement. “I should have come in here eons ago,” he muttered. “Original Sin. I’m definitely going to have to remember that, too.”

  I would have joked with him about it, but then I realized I was, er, planning on using the cake for the very same reason he was considering it, and I decided I’d do better to keep my comments to myself and not risk the karma kickback.

  Dorothy was whisking about, crafting Lou’s sandwiches like a pro, when Annie emerged from the swinging door to the kitchen carrying a big pot of soup. And right behind her, carrying a second steaming kettle, was the young man whom I had last seen tussling with the apartment manager, the man I knew only as Hollister.

  “Maggie!” Annie said with a bright smile on her shiny-clean, freckled face as she passed by me on the other side of the counter . . . and then she paused and looked back at me oddly. I think because my mouth had fallen open. “Are you all right?”

  I quickly closed my mouth when Lou nudged me. I nodded, but I was even more surprised when the young man set down the pot where she indicated, took Annie’s from her and set it down as well, then leaned in and gave Annie a big, resounding smooch on the cheek. And even more surprised when she reached up and patted him on his cheek.

  “You hang in th
ere, Tyson. Everything will be fine. And tell Angela I insist that she brings you with her when she visits this weekend. I’ll fix you both right up with some home cooking and a piece of special cheesecake that’ll make all the troubles in the world go away.”

  “Thanks, Auntie,” I heard him say. “I’ll let her know. I’m taking her out to dinner in the city tonight to cheer her up, and then maybe a movie. I might even let her pick it.”

  Annie laughed. “Good idea. I’m sure the two of you will think of something. A little thinking goes a long way.”

  He nodded. “Understood. I won’t do anything stupid, I promise. And thanks for being here for us.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she told him.

  Angela Miller. Locke had mentioned the tenant’s name, but I hadn’t connected her to Annie. Angela must be Annie’s niece? And this Tyson Hollister guy was her boyfriend, according to Locke. This was awesome—I could have an inside view into the goings-on at the apartment complex, if I wanted one . . . and if I worked it right, the details on what exactly had made them want to leave in the first place. I couldn’t help wondering if maybe there was more to it than even what Tyson Hollister and Rob Locke had been arguing over. Maybe I’d ask Annie for an intro . . . though with the line lengthening behind us by the minute, another time would probably be a better choice. I watched him leave, noting that he gave me and Lou a sidelong glance and a wide berth. Still, he made no trouble; his beef was not with us, and we certainly didn’t have anything other than curiosity about the situation crossing our minds.

  “Here you go, Maggie. Mr. Tabor,” Dorothy sang out as she handed us a pair of paper sacks, bringing my attention back front and center. “Maggie, for you that’s eight sixty-four, and Mr. Tabor, your total is twenty-eight-oh-eight.”