Lost in Seattle (The Miss Apple Pants series, #2)

by Charlotte Roth

  “Children are the foundation of the heart, man,” Mom always says when she’s in her earth-mother mode. Always followed by Dad’s “Unconditional love, baby.” And always followed by a lot of sentimental sobbing and me wondering if they are both crying out of gratitude for having me—their only child—or out of sadness for not having another.

  WHEN I FINALLY FELL asleep that night, I had a terrifying nightmare about Mom waking up in a pool of blood, crying for all her unborn babies. I was a little girl again, and I was running for the freezer to bring Mom her favorite ice cream—half mint, half coffee—only to find the freezer packed with little containers of sperm with “saved for later” labels on them. I called for Dad but when he turned around it was not Dad, but some strange puppet-looking guy with a humongous hand up his ass shouting, “You little weird lab-baby!”

  The 90210 automobile

  The next day I woke up soaking wet and relieved to find myself in the real world—surrounded by the familiar wallpaper. It was all just a dream; there would be no encounters with human hand puppets or little sperm containers in the fridge this morning.

  There was a knock on my window, not a gentle tap like the day before, but a loud metallic thump. I bolted out of bed and pulled the blinds. The tiny Mrs. Johnson was back, wearing her signature pantyhose, a deep purple dress, a big patterned scarf on her head, and red lipstick. In her hand she was still carrying the medieval weapon. What is with that thing? I opened the window and waved at her. “Morning.”

  “Morning,” she said, smiling. “Is your mom home?”

  “I have no clue. What time is it?”

  “Ten to ten. Just getting up?” The last part sounded less like a question and more like a disapproving statement. I guess old teachers are not a big fan of young people sleeping in all morning.

  “Actually, yes,” I said, clearly apologizing. “It got pretty late last night. I couldn’t sleep.” I smiled and had an instant flashback to running late on Monday mornings when I was in middle school.

  “Oh,” she said, smiling. “And don’t apologize to me. Matter of fact, I’m just jealous. I’ve never been able to sleep later than six thirty. Not even on my birthdays.” She shook her head. “Well, is she home?”

  “I don’t know. Is the car there?”

  “Which one is hers?” She looked in the direction of the driveway.

  “Any of them?”

  “No.” She looked up at me and shook her head.

  “Well, I guess she must have gone to the store to pick up some groceries or something.”

  She nodded. “Groceries, oh, I see.” She leaned up against the pitchfork and forced a smile. And then I remembered what Mom had promised her the day before. Nice 'effing neighbors we were. I looked at her, all dressed up and nowhere to go.

  “But hey, I don’t have anything to do right now. We could go together now. I just need like five minutes to get dressed and grab a box of Cheerios or something. We could take your car. I don’t have my own car. We only have the two rentals for now.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t drive a manual?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Oh my.”

  “OVER HERE, DEAR.” MRS. Johnson was walking right behind me pointing with her weapon. “It’s over there in the garage at the far end of the yard.”

  “Hey hey, easy on the weapon, Mrs. Johnson.” I looked back at her and smiled. She smiled and lowered the thing.

  “It’s down there,” she hollered as we continued walking.

  It was a windy but beautiful sunny morning. My feet were soaked from the tall grass. I grabbed a handful of Cheerios from the box. “Can I ask you something, Mrs. Johnson?” I said over a crunchy mouthful of oats. “What’s with the thing?”

  “The thing?” she asked from behind me.

  “That thing,” I turned around and pointed at the pitchfork.

  “Oh, this,” she said, chuckling and holding the pitchfork up in the air. “I know it probably sounds a little silly, but my realtor Debbie told me that around these parts there are quite a few cougars,” she said, whispering the word cougar.

  “Really?” I replied, not quite sure if I would be able to recognize a cougar if I ever met one.

  “Yes, can you imagine? Tigers in the woods of Sammamish? It sounds very dramatic, even for me.” She smiled. “But they say they’re only a real danger to babies and little kids but look at me.” She looked down at herself and nodded her head with excitement.

  “Yes, look at you,” I said, unable to hide my wide smile.

  She turned around and took the lead. “Almost there. Just down there,” she said still using her weapon as a pointer.

  I looked across the yard. It was huge, as in a football field meets a soccer field meets the woods. Half of the yard was covered with gigantic pine trees, and the other half by a massive grass lawn, with blades as high as Mrs. Johnson.

  “Don’t get lost in there,” I joked.

  “I know,” she replied, laughing. “The gardener is coming tomorrow. I can’t wait to see what the yard actually looks like then. We’re here.” She stopped by a little wooden shed, halfway hidden in the woods. It had a tiny window on the side facing us and a small, narrow garage door in the front. She placed the pitchfork up against the shed and then took out a set of keys and unlocked the door.

  It was pretty dark and chilly in there—and creepy. Creepy as in spiders coming right at you from all angles. I cleared my throat and tried to remind myself that I was bigger than them. Besides, we came armored.

  “Sure is dark in here,” I said, stating the obvious.

  “I know, but I think the light switch is right behind you, dear.”

  I turned around and reached out my hand. Slowly, I ran my hand over the wall and found it next to something moist and rubbery—something I didn’t really want to know what was. “Here! Bingo,” I said as I turned on the light. It took me a while to adjust my eyes to the blinding light, but there it was, Mrs. Johnson’s car. Or to be more precise, Mrs. Johnson’s shiny black Porsche.

  “What the f... heck, Mrs. Johnson, you never said anything about a Porsche. Woot woot, you got some nice wheels there.”

  She looked at me as though she was about to say something, but then lost it again.

  “I’m not good with cars, Mrs. Johnson, but shoot me if it isn’t the same one Dylan drives in the old version of 90210. My mom was a fan of that show,” I explained.

  “Yes, dear, it’s the exact same as Dylan’s.” She smiled and rested her hand gently on the windshield. “That’s what they all ask, dear. It’s an open-top Porsche 356 Speedster. It’s from sixty-one. My husband, rest his soul, bought it from some Porsche nerd in Renton. It’s rather cool, isn’t it?”

  “Pretty cool, Mrs. Johnson.”

  “Oh dear, stop calling me Mrs. Johnson. I know I’m old but still...” She stopped and looked around the shed as if she was looking for something. She took a few steps back and took her time to sit down on an old wooden bench that leaned against the wall. She looked weak and tired. “I feel a little under the weather this morning.” She touched her forehead with the back of her hand. “I’m afraid I still have a hard time falling asleep in the new house. See, I’m a bit of a habit person,” she said, fidgeting with her skirt.

  I sat down next to her. The bench was a little wiggly. “Cheerios?” I said, offering her the box.

  “Oh my.” She leaned over and grabbed a small handful. “Thanks,” she said, looking at the Cheerios like they were some kind of foreign object. She grabbed one and popped it in her mouth. “Mmm,” she commented, chewing and nodding her head at the same time. “These are quite tasty,” she said.

  “First timer?” I asked, holding up the box.

  She popped a few more into her mouth. “Georgie used to call them mini bagels.” She looked at me and shook her head, smiling. “I feel much better now. I guess I just needed to sit for a minute and have about twenty mini bagels.” She stretched her back and looked at me. “Friends
don’t call each other by their last names. Please do call me something less formal than Mrs. Johnson.”

  “How about Miss T?” I suggested, looking at her through a pair Cheerios.

  “Miss T?” She grabbed the box out of my hands.

  “Short for Miss Teacher.”

  She looked up and started moving her lips—I guess, running the sound of the name through her head. She looked at me and uncovered a big smile. “I love it. It’s very...” She looked up again. “...Exotic!” She grabbed another handful of mini bagels and pointed at me. “Miss C,” she said, nodding.

  “Miss C?”

  “As in Miss Cereal or Miss Cheerios.”

  I nodded. “Cool with me.” I grabbed the box from her.

  “Glad we got that sorted out. Now shall we?” She made a move to get up.

  I looked at the shining Porsche. “But, Miss T, I can’t drive this. I couldn’t. I mean look at it.” I got up and walked over to the car. Gently, I opened the door on the driver’s side. It was as clean and neat as an operating room. “Not a single scratch, not a muddy spot or water bottle, Starbucks cup, or gum wrapper tossed in the back. Not a crumb. No, Mrs. John... Miss T, you drive.”

  “Oh my.”

  SITTING IN THE PASSENGER seat, I almost feared for my life as I watched the miniature driver beside me, one who hadn’t been driving in about five decades, and who literally had to stand on the pedals in order to reach them. It was both interesting and scary at the same time. At least she was taking it pretty slow.

  “You can go up to forty-five miles per hour if you want to,” I suggested. We were going twenty, tops, in a forty-five area—leading a trail of impatient moms in all shapes and sizes going to pick their kids up from summer camp, or so I figured.

  I looked at her—halfway standing, halfway sitting—in her seat. She still wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. “I think you should wear a seatbelt, Miss T,” I offered.

  “Am I driving that bad?” She turned and smiled. “I hate them. They cut my collarbone right here.” She pointed to her bone sticking out.

  “But still ... you should. It saves lives.” I looked straight ahead at the cars in the opposite lane.

  “So does cod liver oil, but you won’t see me drinking that either.” She nodded and reached for the stick. There was a loud awful grinding as she shifted from one gear to the next. “Oh my, maybe you should drive, dear.” She turned toward me, leaving no eyes on the road.

  “Nope, I’m fine right here,” I said quickly, keeping a firm view on the road. “You’re doing great, Miss T. You’re doing just great. Next light we have to take a turn, though.”

  “Oh my.” Without making any signals or looking back over her shoulder, she started shifting lanes, speeding up into the turn. “Oh my,” she said once again as the moms behind her honked their horns unanimously with disapproval.

  When we finally made it—the Porsche and all of our body parts intact—poor Miss T had turned all red underneath her peach-colored makeup.

  “Good job,” I lied, and crawled across the car. I looked at the car parked right next to us. The poor driver would never able to get in to his or her car. Obviously, Miss T’s pre-Eisenhower parking skills were even more unpolished than her driving. Oh my, indeed.

  GOING BACK WAS SURPRISINGLY much easier. I don’t know if she was just getting the hang of it, or if it was the caffeine kicking in, but we finally made it past forty miles per hour all the way home.

  “I have had the most wonderful day, Miss C,” Miss T said as she turned in her seat and smiled.

  “Me too, but I wish you would wear a seatbelt.”

  “Ella, I’m so old that pretty much anything can kill me these days, so why bother? Besides, I think they are only meant for bigger people. I don’t exactly fit the prototype.” She smiled and looked straight ahead again.

  “But still,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

  “I know, I know, but what fun we had today,” she said in a giddy voice. She turned in her seat again. “You want to come along again soon? I would love the company, or rather I would love your company,” she said as we drove up the steep driveway.

  One of the rental cars was back. I figured it was Mom. Since Dad had started his new job, he had been working late hours almost every day—crashing on the couch with the remote in one hand and newspaper in the other, right after dinner.

  Miss T stopped the car, once again making that awful rattling sound. She looked at me with a pair of tired-but-serious eyes. “I truly mean it. Thank you so much for going with me.”

  “Hey, it’s cool, Miss T.” I got out and walked around the car and knocked on her window. After a few attempts she finally managed to open it. She reached out and grabbed my hand.

  “No, I mean it. It means a lot. You made me drive again, can you believe it? I actually drove a car today—Georgie’s car. He would have been so proud. Thanks for getting me out in the real world again, out of my comfortable shell. She let go of my hand but kept looking at me as she slowly started to drive away. I waved and started walking, thinking all the way up to the house that if a recently widowed little old English teacher, who hadn’t driven a car since Eisenhower, could just get in behind the steering wheel and go conquer the world on a Tuesday morning, then maybe there was still hope for me to come out of my shell too.

  How can someone die just a little?

  “I have something in my pocket.” Mom leaned over and looked at me with a silly expression on her sleepy face.

  “What?” I looked down into my cup and took in the comforting aroma of coffee and hot milk.

  “It’s thin, crisp, and white, well maybe closer to off white. You wanna feel it?” She rolled her eyes at me, looking even sillier.

  “Do I want to feel the inside of your pocket? Mom, what the f... what?” She was leaning up against the porch with her feet covered in morning sun. In one hand she balanced a cup of coffee. The other hand was hidden in the pocket of her “new” and hideous purple housecoat—acquired in the “shed.com” as Dad had named it one morning when Mom had “returned” a recliner even too ugly for Mom’s taste. “It’s just like going online. It pretty much offers everything, and with free deliveries and returns,” he had said when she asked him about the name. It was so typical of Dad to come up with names or concepts like that, but at least he was slowly getting used to the idea of recycling other people’s private stuff. “Only on a need-to-home basis,” he kept saying as we brought more and more stuff into the house. Like with the piano, Mom had become quite good at making pretty much everything qualify under that category—hideous purple housecoat included.

  She took a sip and smiled. “Well, you wanna?”

  “How much coffee did you have this morning?”

  She took another sip and repeated in a choppier tone, “Well, do you want to or not?”

  “Come on, already. What do you have in there, Mom?”

  “Hush, now.” She looked in the direction of the front door. “Living room has ears, you know.” She tried to wiggle her ears, making pretty much everything else wiggle instead.

  “What?” I leaned back and took another sip, eyeing the crazy woman I call Mom.

  “Okay, let me put it this way; Dad’s watching the Seahawks DVD I got him, and we didn’t have time to catch up last night, so, um, I thought we could, you know?” She looked at me and nodded down at the housecoat pocket, patting her hand on it. “Letter. In. Here,” she explained, with pride in her voice like a cat that just caught the only mouse in the house.

  “For real?” I could already feel the excitement mix in with the smooth feeling of caffeine and sun on my face.

  She nodded. I guess she was even more nuts than me.

  “But Dad?” I pointed toward the living room window.

  “Bacon and Seahawks. Need I say more?”

  “Nope.”

  While looking over her shoulder, she pulled the letter out and placed it in my hand. “You read,” she said, nodding at the cup in her hand.<
br />
  I unfolded the letter and started reading with my quiet voice.

  June 1981.

  Frederick, I still can’t believe it. I still can’t believe that I’m...

  I stopped reading out loud and looked up at Mom. I had already read the next few lines.

  “What?” she said, eyes the size of donuts.

  I looked down at the words again and swallowed. “She’s, um, pregnant. Eight weeks.” I looked up to gauge Mom’s reaction.

  “Pregnant?” Mom cried as she jumped down from the fence, spraying herself with black coffee. “Pregnant?” she repeated, this time a little less loud. “How wonderful,” she gasped. She set her cup on the table and sat down next to me on the bench, smiling. She pulled down the big fuzzy housecoat hood and leaned back. “Go on, read more,” she pleaded.

  I’m pregnant. Eight weeks today. Writing it on paper right now makes me feel both happy and scared at the same time. Dr. Griffith called me this afternoon and had me come to the office for yet another blood test (I’m almost a pro now; I even watch when they insert the needle). When I was done at the lab, he came by and suggested we do a sonogram. Boy, was I taken by surprise! I mean here I thought I was only going in for some blood work, and then all of a sudden, I find myself lying there. And there it was—a tiny little pulsating dot. It felt like someone had punched me hard, right in the stomach, and everything went black from there. When I got my senses back I could hear Mom sobbing behind me. At that point I had actually forgotten that she was there with me. See, I had called her only a few hours earlier and asked her to pick me up since I was too anxious to drive. It had been raining the entire morning and when driving down to the hospital, out of nowhere, the sun came out (here comes the sun, doo doo doo doo. John, I think?) leaving a beautiful rainbow behind. Mom almost crashed into the truck in front of us. “It’s a sign,” she said and grabbed my hand. I know Mom has been very skeptical about this whole fertility business, but I guess something changed after that night at the Italian restaurant... Remember? I told you about it not long ago. The night when I finally sat down and told Mom and Dad everything—about all of those long and hard years of us trying to become pregnant, all the years and cycles when it just wasn’t God’s will (to use Mom’s words) to bless us with little feet. And I explained to them that we now, thanks to advanced technology, had been blessed in another way. I told her that my gynecologist had referred us to a colleague from Boston who’s conducting a fertility study, looking for couples having infertility issues like us. Well, finally I think they understood. She says she just wants me to be happy. And I think she really supports the idea now (even if it is “playing God”). Maybe she supports it even more now with Dad being sick and all. Poor Dad. He looks okay, but you can already tell he has great difficulties doing even the simple stuff like opening up a container of milk. And he is in pain all the time, though he never complains about it. You know Dad. Oh, it breaks my heart so much, even though my heart has never been happier. Isn’t it just weird how the heart can be both happy and sad at the same time? It’s almost like half of the heart (the happy half) is overruling the other half in order to survive. And I am so happy. I am pregnant, and this time there is actually a little heartbeat to prove it! Again, I finally dare to believe in those three magical words: I am pregnant. I own those words now. Mom is already planning what to get for the baby. She is even talking about throwing a huge baby shower at her house, pink ribbons and all, but I have told her to hold the horses for a while. We are not there yet, but we are as close as we have ever been. Oh, Frederick, words are not even enough right now to describe how I feel. Call you later just to hear your voice and to tell you all about the ultrasound. Wish you could have seen the little dot—the most beautiful tiny dot in the world.