A Change in Altitude

by Cindy Myers

  “Sure.” She followed him into the living room, where he shed his leather jacket and sprawled onto the sofa. “You look tired,” she said.

  “Just a lot going on.”

  She settled next to him. “It’s not going to get easier, you know,” she said. “Babies pretty much guarantee sleep deprivation.”

  “So I hear.” He studied her. “You look a little rough around the edges yourself. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “No, but I’m hanging on, hoping things will get better.”

  “They will. Adan is out there somewhere.”

  Impulsively, she leaned over and put her hand on his. “It meant a lot to me when you offered to go look for him. Really.”

  “I made the offer for me as much as for you,” he said. “I felt so helpless.”

  “Having kids makes you feel that way more than you’d like,” she said. “When they’re sick, or when someone bullies them at school—you want to do something for them and you can’t. It’s horrible. This is that same feeling, multiplied by one hundred.”

  “I always felt guilty, leaving you alone with our father the way I did.” He plucked at the fabric of the sofa, avoiding her gaze. “Like I was a coward.”

  “You had to leave,” she said. “I always knew that. It was worse for you than for me. He just kind of ignored me.” She had memories of hiding under the bed while her father and Jameso had horrible fights—boy and man yelling, her father striking out, Jameso afterward with a black eye or bloody nose. Until he’d gotten bigger; then their father would be the one sporting bruises the next day. “And I didn’t stay too long after you went away. I married Joe.”

  “Was that really any better?”

  “It was a lot better, at least at first. Joe had strong opinions about things, and the older he got, the more closed off and paranoid he became; but when we first married, he was exactly what I needed. He was strong and protective and devoted to his family.”

  “When did that change?”

  She shrugged. “We all got older—me and the children. We had our own opinions, and they didn’t always line up with what Joe believed. And he had other people—like his friend Wilson—feeding his paranoia. I think . . . I think Joe felt the world was a very out-of-control place. The harder he tried to control things, the worse things were. He was shocked when I told him I wanted a divorce. I was a little shocked myself.”

  “You did the right thing.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you ever feel like growing up the way we did doomed us to make stupid choices?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shifted, and slumped farther down in the cushions. “Ours was such a screwed-up family. Maybe we don’t know how to have a normal life.”

  “Is there any such thing as a normal life?” She stuffed a pillow behind her back and settled into a more comfortable position. “Is this about you worrying about the wedding and the baby?”

  “Do you blame me for worrying? I didn’t exactly have the best role model for what it takes to be a good husband and father.”

  “You don’t need to copy someone else. You just need to do what feels right to you.” She smiled. “I’ve seen you with Maggie. You’re going to do fine.”

  His shoulders slumped, and the hard lines of his face relaxed. “Thanks.” A quick glance in her direction, then a look away. “I’m glad you decided to come here. I wasn’t sure at first. It wasn’t you, just . . . old wounds, you know?”

  “I know.” She patted his hand again. “I’m glad I came here, too. After all, family needs to stick together, even if we haven’t had much practice.”

  “I’ve been thinking more about family,” he said. “Now that I’m going to have one of my own, for the first time I feel like I have something anchoring me. I used to think that was a bad thing, but it feels good. Right.” He looked so much more at ease now than he had when he’d first walked in. She was glad she could give him that at least.

  “That’s what I’m looking for, I think,” she said. “An anchor. I used to think I could get that from a man, but that’s not what I’m after now. I want, I don’t know . . . belonging.”

  “Maybe it takes time, even in a place like Eureka.”

  She nodded. “I’m impatient, I guess. I’ve waited so long to feel settled.”

  “I haven’t exactly been a big help with that.”

  “You’ve been great. It was good that you didn’t help me too much. I needed to learn to stand on my own feet, but after so long depending on other people to tell me what to do, I needed to be forced into making my own decisions.”

  “So you’re doing okay?”

  “I am.” She patted his arm. “It was great seeing you, but you’d better go. You don’t want them to start the party without you.”

  “A bunch of us are just getting together at the Dirty Sally. Sort of a combination send-off for me and welcome back for Bob Prescott.”

  “You’re not going anywhere?”

  “Not physically, but emotionally, it’s a big step.” He stood and slipped into his jacket once more. “See you tomorrow, Sis.”

  “Yeah, see you.”

  She walked him to the door, then stood watching as he drove away. She felt a little better now, too. She and Jameso might not have it in them to be extremely close, but they could be there for each other when it counted most.

  News had spread quickly about Bob and Gerald’s rescue, and even Cassie had begrudgingly admitted she was glad “the old coots” had survived their ordeal. “Bob still owes fines on those detective novels he checked out last month,” she huffed.

  “Maybe we ought to waive those fines, considering all he’s been through,” Sharon said.

  Cassie shook her head. “Seeing as how those books were overdue before he ever went down into the mine, I don’t think so. And don’t give me that look.”

  “What look?” Sharon pretended to be searching through the stacks of books on her desk, though she watched Cassie out of the corner of her eye.

  “Like I’m some kind of ogre. People think fines are just petty cash, not worth bothering with, but charging people for overdue books isn’t about the money—it’s about the principle. You can’t let them think they can get away with keeping stuff checked out forever. Besides, if we started waiving fines for everybody who’s been through hard times, we might as well drop them altogether.”

  Sharon was pretty sure the library didn’t collect more than ten dollars a month in fines—hardly worth the trouble of collecting the money, but she didn’t bother arguing with Cassie. Better to let the Queen Bee have the final say. “I guess you’ll have to talk to him about it next time he’s in,” she said.

  “I most certainly will. Someone else I need to talk to is that Chris Amesbury. He and I were supposed to have dinner to discuss my role in his television show and he never got back to me.”

  “Is he still in town?” Sharon asked. She hadn’t seen the director around lately, but then again, she hadn’t been looking for him.

  “Lucille said he left Eureka right after they pulled Bob and Gerald out of the Lucky Lady. He didn’t even bother saying good-bye.” She shook her head. “Some people have no manners at all.”

  “I wonder what Bob and Mr. Pershing will do now that they’ve survived their ordeal,” Sharon said. “If it was me, I’d never want to go down into a mine again.”

  “Bob will go back. He’s been mining all his life and he doesn’t scare easily. As for Gerald Pershing . . . the old reprobate left town the next morning. Didn’t even bother packing up his apartment, just left everything for the next tenant.”

  “Where was his apartment?” Sharon tried not to sound too interested.

  “Oh, I think he lived in those rooms over the hardware store. Stan Adams tried to sell everybody on the idea of ‘loft apartments’ when he built them—like Eureka was some big city full of converted old warehouses. Honestly.” She shook her head. “Of course, Gerald zeroed right in on the place. He always wanted p
eople to think he had a lot more than he did.”

  “Well, I don’t blame him for wanting to put such a bad experience behind him,” Sharon said. “He probably associates Eureka with bad memories now.”

  Cassie snorted. “If people ran away every time something upsetting happened to them, no one would ever stay put. Real courage comes in staying put and facing down whatever ugliness hurt you.”

  Sharon studied the older woman, who had lived in Eureka all her life. What ugliness had hurt her that she’d stayed to face down? But Sharon wasn’t brave enough to ask.

  “Good riddance to that old reprobate,” Cassie continued. “I don’t know where Lucille finds these men, but we don’t need any more like them here. Their kind are not going to restore Eureka to its former glory.”

  Sharon thought Eureka seemed fine the way it was, but Cassie compared everything to some grander past Sharon suspected was largely mythical. “I finished updating the database for the state,” she said. “Next week I’ll start the inventory you wanted.”

  “You could start tomorrow, if you weren’t taking off,” Cassie said. “I can’t believe you’re leaving when we have so much work to do.”

  “It’s not every day my only brother gets married.” On Lucille’s advice, Sharon had asked for the wedding day off before she was even hired. She should have known Cassie would whine about it now that the day was here. Let her whine. Even in a small town where jobs were scarce, people weren’t lining up to work for the librarian. Sharon had learned to ignore Cassie’s moods most of the time. She might even say she was the perfect person for this position; she had plenty of practice ignoring eccentric curmudgeons and doing what she wanted while making sure not to attract their unwanted attention and/or disapproval. Working for Cassie had many similarities to being married to Joe, and one big advantage. When she clocked out at six each evening she was free to truly do as she pleased.

  As she was on her day off. “It’s going to be a beautiful wedding,” she said. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

  “Jameso’s only getting married because he got Maggie pregnant,” Cassie said. “And he must not be too keen on the idea, since he’s waiting until the last minute.”

  So much for Sharon’s usual policy of not arguing with Cassie. But she drew the line at criticism of her family. “Jameso is marrying Maggie because he loves her,” she said. “When they do it isn’t important.”

  Cassie sniffed. “In my day, people had standards.”

  Honestly, she talked like an eighty-year-old woman sometimes. But clearly in Cassie’s mind, her day was her mother’s and her grandmother’s time—a gentile era she’d over-romanticized, with all her talk of women’s clubs and afternoon teas and fancy hats and gloves. She was a woman who really didn’t fit well in modern life.

  Or maybe she was just jealous because she hadn’t been invited to the wedding. From what Sharon could tell, half the town was slated to be at the Idlewilde—the name Barb had given to her bed-and-breakfast inn—Saturday morning. Cassie, who liked to be the center of attention, though she would have denied it to her grave, was probably feeling left out.

  “People still have standards,” Sharon said, trying to keep her voice gentle. “But some of them have changed. It’s not always easy to keep up.”

  “This world would be a better place if people followed rules and maintained a sense of decorum and tradition,” Cassie said.

  “Such as only naming parks after men?”

  Cassie opened her mouth in what Sharon was sure would be an angry retort, then closed it. “It’s six o’clock,” she said. “Go home. I will see you Monday.”

  Sharon left. She didn’t offer to stay and help close up; something else Cassie might decide to gripe about later. But she’d had enough of trying to bite her tongue for one day.

  She did not, however, head home. Instead, she drove to the hardware store, then sat in her car, looking up at the windows on the top floor of the building. She gripped the steering wheel tightly; wanting something so badly always frightened her. When you wanted something—whether it was a toy or a candy bar or a new dress or a place to live—others could use that desire to hurt you, by taking away the thing you wanted. Her father had been an expert at that kind of torture; she’d learned early on to hide her true feelings about her heart’s desire.

  But her father wasn’t here, and neither was Joe. She was alone, and she didn’t have to hide what she wanted from herself. She took a deep breath and loosened her hold on the steering wheel, then exited the car and climbed the outside staircase to the apartments.

  The door opened onto a foyer with four numbered doors. She stared at the polished brass numbers and felt like a contestant in a game show. Which was the right door and what would she find behind it?

  The door marked “2” opened and Josh Miller, dressed in his khaki sheriff’s department uniform, stepped out into the hall. “Sharon! What are you doing here? Is everything all right?”

  Her face felt hot. She’d forgotten that Josh lived here. For half a second, she debated making up some lie to explain her presence here, but rejected the idea. She didn’t need to hide anything from this man. “I heard Mr. Pershing moved out of his apartment and I was hoping I could rent it.”

  Josh’s smile made him even more handsome than ever. She looked away. “Maybe the place is too expensive, though.”

  “Come on. Let’s go talk to the owner.”

  She followed him back downstairs and around to the hardware store entrance. “Stan!” Josh called as soon as they entered. “Mrs. Franklin here is interested in renting Gerald’s old place.”

  A very thin, very tall man with stooped, knobby shoulders, dressed in a white dress shirt and bow tie, came forward to greet them. “I haven’t even cleaned out the place yet,” he said.

  “I’ll clean it, for a discount on the rent,” Sharon said.

  “I haven’t even told you what the rent is,” Stan said.

  “Then tell me.” Sharon held her breath, waiting.

  “It’s two bedrooms,” the man said. “Brand new. Or it was before Pershing moved in, and he was only there a couple months.”

  “It has the smallest kitchen, and no fireplace,” Josh said.

  Stan scowled at him. “The rent’s eight hundred a month. No pets.”

  Sharon let out her breath. If she was careful, she could just manage. “I’ll take it if you’ll waive the deposit—since I have to clean the place.”

  Stan’s scowl deepened, his face practically folding in on itself.

  “Sounds like a good deal to me,” Josh said.

  “Fine,” Stan said. “But I want the first month’s rent in advance.”

  “I’ll write you a check right now.”

  She gave him the payment and he handed over two keys. “You can move in whenever you want.”

  Josh followed her back up the stairs. “I don’t mean to keep you,” Sharon said.

  “I’m in no hurry. And I’m kind of curious to see what Pershing left behind . . . if you don’t mind.”

  She didn’t mind. Though she was proud of having found this place and rented it on her own, it had felt good having him there to back her up. She hadn’t needed him there, of course, but having him with her hadn’t hurt anything.

  She turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door, steeling herself for everything from a trashed-out room to an empty one. The reality was somewhere in between. Gerald Pershing hadn’t been a slob or a hoarder. Neither had he been obsessively neat. He’d taken his clothing and most personal items and left behind the furniture, a television, and some books and everything in the kitchen, including food in the refrigerator. “This doesn’t look too bad,” she said. She wouldn’t have to buy a sofa or beds—a big plus.

  “Welcome to the neighborhood,” Josh said. “It’ll be nice seeing more of you.”

  She turned to him. “I’m glad we’re going to be neighbors. You’ve been a good friend to me. My first real friend in Eureka.”

&n
bsp; He studied her, his face so open; here was a man who didn’t hide his feelings. “Why do I sense a big ‘but’ coming?”

  “I like you, Josh,” she said. “It would be very easy for me to like you too much—to depend on you. But I’ve spent my whole life depending on men—my father, then my husband . . . even Jameso. I need a chance to learn to depend on myself.”

  He let his disappointment show, but he didn’t turn it to anger. “It’s not what I wanted to hear, but I appreciate you being honest with me. I hope you’ll still let me be your friend.”

  “Of course.” She offered her hand. After a moment’s hesitation, he took it, and clasped it briefly before releasing it again.

  “Congratulations on your new apartment,” he said.

  Congratulations on your new life, she told herself.

  Chapter 20

  Sharon had just pulled into the driveway when Alina and Lucas turned onto the street, pedaling hard on their bicycles. She stepped out of the car to meet them and Alina waved. “Mom! We need your help.”

  She skidded to a halt in front of the house, struggling to right the cardboard box she’d balanced between the handlebars. The box and one like it that Lucas carried were filled with lilac blossoms.

  “Where did you get the flowers?” Sharon asked. “Are these for the wedding?”

  “They’re for a wedding, but not Maggie and Uncle Jameso’s,” Alina said.

  “Then whose wedding?” Sharon brushed her hands across the deep purple blossoms that filled the air with their sweet perfume.

  “It’s a secret,” Alina said. “And the wedding is kind of a surprise.”

  “A surprise for the bride and groom—or for someone else?”

  “For the bride.” Lucas wheeled his bike alongside Alina’s. “It’s for my mom.”

  Sharon studied the two young people, their faces flushed from the bike ride, expressions so earnest. “Lucas, it’s sweet of you to want to surprise your mother,” she said. “But the bride usually decides on the details for her own wedding.”

  “We’re helping D. J.,” Alina said. “Mom, please.”