by Nicole Helm
“Actually, I’ve just arrived in town,” she told Edna. “I was hoping to find a decent hotel, not too far off the highway. Reasonable, if possible.”
Edna, bless her motherly heart, looked relieved that Bonnie wasn’t trying to go to work in this condition. Or maybe simply thankful this bedraggled customer was only passing through and wouldn’t be a regular.
“Marley’s is just what you need,” Edna said brightly. “About a mile down the highway, toward town. Respectable, if you know what I mean. No frills but clean as a whistle.”
Bonnie nodded gratefully. “Sounds perfect,” she said. Smiling again, she forked another small lump of eggs and made sure her posture was upright enough to help Edna feel free to tend other customers. “Thanks so much!”
Slowly, the waitress moved away. Bonnie fought the urge to let her shoulders slump back down. It wasn’t enough to fool Edna into thinking Bonnie had adequate starch and courage to face this day. She needed to fool herself, too.
She turned her place mat over again. Inside the border of morning-glory doodles, she slashed quick crisscrossing lines, creating a grid of empty squares. Then she numbered the squares—one through thirty-one.
She leaned back, looking at the makeshift calendar. Thirty-one days. That wasn’t so long, was it? And one of them was over already. She took her pen and drew a large X inside the first square. She traced over the mark, then traced it again and again, until the X was the darkest spot on the whole paper.
One down—thirty to go. She closed her eyes, then dragged them open, for fear she’d fall asleep and do a face-plant in the eggs. She blinked, squared her shoulders again and stared out the window, trying to get her bearings.
The sun had come up an hour ago—she’d been driving toward it, watching through the dusty car windshield as the golden ball had lifted itself sleepily over the horizon. The light had mesmerized her, then nearly blinded her, which was why she’d decided to pull over.
At first, she’d been too exhausted to notice much of anything. But now she saw that, right across the street, a huge nursery had blinked to life—electric lights illuminating the large metal-and-glass building. Behind the structure, sunlight sparked off sprawling rows of open-air plants and garden sculptures.
Crystal Eden, the nursery was called. She spotted several workers moving around, readying the place for opening. Lucky people! Her fingers closed over her palms, itching to hold a trowel or burrow into cold, reluctant earth.
They sold a lot of trees, she noticed. The effect was primarily green. But when she looked carefully, she spied the sprinkles of color.
Crocus, forsythia, daffodil...
Bulbs, already? Nervously, she glanced at the sky. March was a dangerous month. Spring was so close. You could smell the promise of warmth, floating behind the chill. The temptation to rush the planting was almost irresistible. But frost and snow remained a threat for at least another couple of months, and gardeners who forgot that often regretted it.
A little like her own situation, wasn’t it? Her winter of exile had lasted almost two years. Now she was down to thirty days, and she could feel her impatience rising. She could feel herself wanting to rush, to let down her guard, to take risks and dream of spring.
She wondered whether Crystal Eden was hiring. Sometimes, in spring, nurseries added staff as customers poured in, hungry for rebirth. She’d worked at other nurseries along the way. Once, she and Mitch had both landed jobs at the same tree farm.... Virginia, she thought, or maybe it had been in Kentucky. Summer...June or July. Every day, they’d come back to their hotel hot, sweaty and half-mad from working alongside each other, forbidden to touch.
She shook away the thought. She didn’t need a job, of course. When she first went on the run, she’d brought enough money to see her through five years, if she were careful. She’d had no way of knowing how long the ordeal would last.
But it had lasted only two. How was that possible? Just two short years, and already her mother was dead. Most of the money she’d started with was untouched.
Still, she wanted to work. What else would she do with her days, with her mind? How else would she feel a part of the living world? What else would keep her from going mad?
“Someone picking you up?” Edna was back, and her expression warned Bonnie she’d been letting her emotions show on her face. “You’re not driving, are you?”
“Just as far as the hotel.” Bonnie tried to sound reassuringly competent. “Then I think I’ll sleep all day.”
As Edna turned, Bonnie called out impulsively. “What’s the weather report, do you know? Are they calling for any snow this week?”
Edna shrugged. “Don’t think so. But you know March. At least if you’re from around here, you do.”
Her curious eyes invited Bonnie to share, but no amount of tired could ever make Bonnie be that foolish.
“Good,” Bonnie said. She wondered how crazy Edna would think her if she knew she was worrying about those vulnerable forsythia and crocus across the street. “I hate driving in the snow.”
Edna laughed and, giving up, moved on. Bonnie transferred her gaze back to the window. She’d hoped to get farther away before she hunkered down to serve her remaining days. Ohio, maybe. Or, even better, New England. Every mile was safety, another layer of protection.
But Colorado Springs was a decent-size town. Sacramento was already eighteen hours behind her, and even if Jacob was looking for her, he couldn’t be sure which direction she’d headed.
She stopped herself. If he was looking for her? There was no “if” about it. Her mother’s death had lit the fuse. The end would come, one way or another, in thirty days. Jacob knew that just as well as she did.
But maybe sprinting to the other edge of the map was the chess move he expected her to make and paradoxically would be the least secure.
Oh, God. She rubbed her face hard with both hands, unable to bear the twisted, looping logic. For two years, she’d second-guessed every decision this way.
She couldn’t think straight anymore. Her brain was dazed, as if the pain of the past few days were the equivalent of blunt force trauma.
She folded her place-mat calendar into a neat rectangle small enough to fit in her purse. Picking up her check, she slid her chair back and headed for the register. As she paid—cash, of course—she kept her eyes on the landscape boulders and evergreens in the Eden across the street.
Someone opened the door, and she heard a wind chime blow in the breeze, its notes wafting easily across the clean, crisp air. The sound reminded her piercingly of Bell River—though she couldn’t quite say why.
But suddenly she had her answer. She was tired of running. Every mile took her farther from Mitch. Whether he wanted her or not, he would always be the fixed foot of her life’s compass. Everywhere she went, forevermore, she would measure it in terms of how far it was from Mitch.
This was far enough. Any farther and she might not be able to breathe. If she could get a job, she’d stay.
Copyright © 2014 by Kathleen O’Brien
ISBN-13: 9781460341124
Too Friendly to Date
Copyright © 2014 by Nicole Helm
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