by Ann McMan
Do not pass go. Do not collect $200 dollars.
She dared to look over at Charlie, who was still smiling at her with those incredible blue eyes.
Maybe the view from inside this ditch isn’t so bad after all.
◊ ◊ ◊
“I don’t get it.”
“What do you mean you don’t get it? It’s pretty straightforward.”
“Maybe to you.” Maddie handed the flat purple and white bit of plastic back to Lizzy. “What am I supposed to be getting here?”
Lizzy held up the device. “See the little plus symbol in the window?”
“Of course.” Maddie leaned back in her chair.
“Well, what do you think it means?”
“Is this a hypothetical question?”
Lizzy tipped her head back and glared at the ceiling of Maddie’s office.
“Look.” Maddie tented her fingers. “Why don’t you just cut to the chase and tell me what we’re discussing here?”
Lizzy sighed. “It’s a home pregnancy test.”
“I gathered as much.”
Lizzy raised an eyebrow.
“That big ‘EPT’ emblem stamped beside the Walgreen’s logo was a dead giveaway.”
Lizzy dropped into the chair opposite Maddie’s desk.
Maddie watched her for a moment. “Care to tell me why we’re having this conversation?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Not to me.”
Lizzy looked amazed. “You know what, Dr. Stevenson? There are a lot of people who would pay big money to see the list of things that are obvious to you.”
“Now you sound like Syd.”
Lizzy agreed. “A woman after my own heart.”
“Yours and many others.”
“I won’t disagree with that.”
“So.” Maddie took off her reading glasses and tossed them atop a stack of file folders on her desk. “Wanna clue me in on why we’re discussing a low-tech, OTC device?”
“Sometimes they get the job done more quickly. Especially when you’re already sure of the outcome.”
“Which in this case means?”
Lizzy stared back at her without speaking. Her expression was unreadable.
Maddie decided to pick up the clue phone. “This is yours, isn’t it?”
Lizzy nodded. “I’m pregnant.”
Maddie didn’t say anything, mostly because she wasn’t sure what to say. The only sound in the room came from the measured ticks of an ancient wall clock that had been a fixture in her father’s office for decades.
After a few labored seconds, Lizzy glared at the clock.
“I’ve always hated that thing.”
Maddie followed her gaze. “Why?”
Lizzy shrugged. “It’s a crude reminder of how much of my life I’ve wasted.”
“Maybe this is an opportunity to change that.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Um. That depends on whether you view my anecdotal comment as a profound insight or a sophomoric insult.”
Lizzy gave her a halfhearted smile. “This is a colossal mess.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you have options. As many or as few as you choose.”
Lizzy didn’t reply.
“Does Tom know?” Maddie asked.
Lizzy shook her head.
“Are you going to tell him?”
“Before I answer that, should I be offended by your automatic assumption that Tom is the father?”
Maddie smiled. “It did occur to me to wonder about Sonny Nicks. You two looked awfully chummy last week at the fire department barbecue.”
“It’s true.” Lizzy sighed. “Old Sonny has unsung talents.”
“I thought you made an adorable couple when you were arm wrestling over that last biscuit.”
“I nearly had him until I got distracted by his tattoo. The man has some seriously good ink. In the end, I let him win.”
“Is that the secret to a successful relationship?”
“Only the ones with men.”
Maddie didn’t reply. The second hand on the wall clock continued to mark time with its sequence of loud clicks.
Lizzy watched it in silence for a moment before shifting her gaze back to Maddie.
“I think I’m hosed.”
“You don’t have to be.”
Lizzy threw up her hands in frustration. “How could I be stupid enough to let something like this happen? I’m a damn nurse.”
“Meaning you should’ve known better?”
“Meaning I should have my credentials revoked for being such a careless idiot.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Oh, really? What do you think Dr. Greene will say when he finds out the resident Clara Barton in his precious little philanthropic project is knocked up?”
Maddie sighed. “Believe me when I tell you that the last person you need to worry about is Dr. Greene. Besides, he and Muriel are now spending most of their time flitting about on what can conservatively be called esoteric cruises.”
“Someday you’ll have to explain that to me.”
“We’ll both be happier if I don’t.”
“Whatever.”
“Do you want to have a proper examination?”
Lizzy nodded. “But not when Peggy’s here.”
Maddie didn’t disagree. If her loquacious nurse found out, the news would travel faster than a norovirus on a school bus. “We can wait until she leaves for the day.”
“Thanks.” Lizzy got to her feet.
“One thing before you go?” Maddie asked.
“What?”
“Tom. Are you going to tell him?”
“I honestly don’t know.” Lizzy shrugged. “Not right away.”
“Okay.”
“Do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t say anything to Syd about this? Not until I know what I’m going to do.”
Maddie thought about that. Tom was Syd’s brother. Even though he drove his sister nuts, Maddie knew Syd would be beside herself with excitement at the prospect of having a niece or nephew to spoil. Especially since Henry had left them to live with his father. It would be next to impossible for her to keep this quiet for very long. She was lousy at keeping secrets from Syd, who could always see through any attempt at subterfuge like it was a worn-out negligee.
“I’ll try.” She leaned forward. “But promise me you won’t take too long.”
“Too long at what?” Peggy Hawkes filled up the doorway to Maddie’s office. “Are you going to lunch early?” she asked Lizzy. “If you are, can I get you to stop by Aunt Bea’s and pick me up one of those pointy breasts and a biscuit?”
Lizzy took it all in stride. “Something to drink?”
“A large Cheerwine.”
“How about you?”
Maddie started to reply but Peggy cut her off. “She’s having lunch with the mayor.”
Lizzy raised an eyebrow. “Do tell? You and Jericho’s own Pat McCrory?”
“He’s not that bad.”
“Said the last canary in a room full of alley cats.”
“Shhhhh,” Peggy wagged a finger at them. “He’s out there in the waitin’ room.”
“I think I’ll take this opportunity to duck out the back door.” Lizzy waved at them. “See you a bit later.”
Peggy watched her go. “Is it just me or is that girl gettin’ wider in the slats?”
Maddie cleared her throat. “Did you say Mr. Watson was in the waiting room?”
Peggy nodded.
“Please tell him I’ll be there in just a minute.”
“Okay, doc.” Peggy bustled off.
Maddie sat and stared morosely at her father’s clock.
Syd is gonna kill me . . .
◊ ◊ ◊
“Tell me again why you thought this was a good idea?”
Celine was running her hand over a bank of tin ceili
ng tiles that now covered most of a wall in her new kitchen.
Bert and Sonny exchanged glances.
“Well,” Sonny began. “There was these big cracks in the plaster back ’ere.”
“Big cracks,” Bert added.
“And me ’n Bert thought that these here ol’ tiles from the hardware store—the one that got all tore up in the tornado last year—would fit in real good with all them fancy steel appliances you got ordered for in here.”
Bert agreed. “There wasn’t no way we could fix that wall up, Miz Heller. It was too far gone.”
“Yes, ma’am. We’d a had to bust it all out and put up sheetrock.” Sonny took off his paint-spattered ball cap and scratched his head. “We know’d you wouldn’t want that. Not with how hard you been workin’ to keep this all authentic.”
Celine tapped her fingers against her leg as she regarded the wall. It had been a shock when she first saw it. But now? Now it looked almost . . . right. A quirky but nearly sublime departure. Again. She shook her head.
“I don’t know how you two keep coming up with these inventive solutions.”
Sonny demurred. “It was really Harold’s idea. He reads all them home design magazines.”
Sonny’s son, Harold, ran the local beauty shop, Hairport ’75.
Bert agreed. “Last time I got my hair cut, I was talkin’ about how bad these walls was in here and how all them big rains last year just did for this plaster. Harold showed me some pictures of some movie star’s house in California where they done this same thing. Course, they had to order them tin tiles from some joker who was tearin’ down farmhouses up in Saskatchewan. But me and Sonny remembered that all that stuff from the hardware store got hauled out to that back lot behind Junior’s and was free for the takin’.”
Sonny took up the narrative. “We thought it’d be somethin’ we could do while we was waitin’ on that permit for the electrical to come through.”
“We knew if you didn’t like it, we could just take it down.” Bert tapped the cracked plaster that was visible above a row of the tiles with the blunt edge of his tinners hammer. “It ain’t like we’d done nothin’ to make this worse or anything.”
Celine had to agree. Her decision to buy and restore this old shell of an abandoned bungalow that had sagged proudly for generations on a grassy hillside near Bridle Creek had been spontaneous. Its river views were spectacular. And its relative isolation was perfect for her, even though she argued—convincingly—that it was barely two minutes off a main road and only five miles from town.
Her daughter thought she’d lost her mind—in spite of being thrilled with her decision to retire from her teaching career in the medical school at UCLA and return to the tiny mountain community. But that initial reaction from Maddie was nothing new. When it came to taking chances, Maddie was about as reckless as a box turtle. Thank god that reluctance to veer off the beaten path didn’t extend to her personal life. It was fortunate that Maddie took after her late father in more ways than one.
Celine looked around the old kitchen. This room had been an afterthought—added on years after the original structure had been built. That wasn’t uncommon. Many of these old houses built in the mid- or late-nineteenth century relied on summer kitchens—outdoor sheds where the cooking took place.
She had plans for this room. Bert and Sonny were going to extend the side wall and add a big, open seating area surrounded by glass doors that would lead to a garden. Space. Color. Light and air. All the things she’d given up during her years in California. Now she could have them in abundance. Now she could lead an intentional existence that wasn’t an afterthought. Breathing new life into the dark recesses of this ancient and neglected house was more than an exercise in aesthetics—it was an effort to reclaim her soul.
Yes. The tiles were right. Exactly right.
She smiled at Bert and Sonny.
“Carry on.”
◊ ◊ ◊
“I’m hoping you can talk some sense into your friend.”
Maddie lowered her cup of coffee. “Excuse me?”
Gerald Watson dabbed at his upper lip with a paper napkin—about the fifth one he’d made use of since their plates of food arrived. A tidy stack of the discarded squares rose beside his plate. He was plainly fastidious about keeping his moustache clean. That being the case, a barbecue sandwich loaded with runny coleslaw was probably not the wisest lunch option. But in Maddie’s experience, people rarely made what she’d call “operational” choices that dovetailed in rational ways with their personal proclivities.
“It’s not safe for him and his partner to be holding those weddings out there at that farm.” Watson added another paper square to the heap. “There’s a lot of talk about it in town. It’s bad for business and this is an area that thrives on tourist traffic.”
Maddie didn’t want to have this conversation. The mayor’s inflection on partner and those was impossible to mistake.
“Mr. Watson, I hope you’ll understand that having this conversation with me will be of little value to get you closer to whatever outcome you have in mind.”
“I disagree. He listens to you.”
Maddie felt her ire rising. “Even if that were true, this is not an area where I have any right or inclination to interfere. David and Michael are experienced businessmen who are capable of making their own decisions.”
He shook his head. “Friday is the first of June, Dr. Stevenson.”
Maddie waited for him to add clarification to his statement, but none seemed forthcoming.
“I fail to see your point, Mr. Watson.”
He gave up on holding his sandwich and picked up a knife and fork. “I suppose that’s not very surprising given your own circumstances.”
“Pardon me?”
“Even you must realize that June is a popular month for weddings, and that this is an industry that drives commerce for many of our local businesses.”
Maddie chose to ignore his implied criticism of her personal life. “If that’s true, then it would seem that David and Michael are helping the local economy, not creating a hindrance.”
“No, ma’am.”
Watson wagged an index finger in front of her like a metronome on tilt. The simple gesture was oddly arrhythmic. Maddie was half tempted to spear his finger with her salad fork. It was difficult not to follow the halting gestures with her eyes. If they had been seated in her examination room instead of on mismatched straight chairs at the Midway Café, Maddie would have been tempted to give the mayor a neurological exam.
He continued to drive home his point. “Good and God-fearing small business owners in this town do not want to be forced to participate in rituals that condone immoral acts.”
Maddie had had enough of this conversation.
“What good and God-fearing business owners might you be referencing, Mr. Watson? The florist? The hairdresser? The caterer?” She paused for effect. “The local physician?”
Watson’s face turned red. A throbbing vein in his forehead telegraphed that it wasn’t from embarrassment. “I had hoped that you, as a person of sense and education, would see reason and use your influence to help your friends avoid the unhappy consequences of their reckless decisions. I see now that I was mistaken.”
Maddie leaned forward. “On that point, we certainly agree, Mr. Mayor.”
He abruptly pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “I bid you good day, Dr. Stevenson.”
Maddie noticed two things about his indignant departure from the restaurant. Even in his haste to be away from her, he took time to extract a half-dozen more paper napkins from the metal dispenser on their table.
He also failed to pick up the check.
Maddie stared at the grease-stained slip of paper that sat beside the mayor’s plate.
Jerk.
◊ ◊ ◊
“We shouldn’t be doing this here.”
Charlie was kissing along the side of Roma Jean’s neck, inching closer to her collarbone. Roma Jea
n knew it was getting out of hand. Again. It was always this way when they ended up alone together. The last time it happened, Charlie had stopped in to see her when she had the bookmobile parked near the low-water crossing on Greenhouse Road. There were several houses strewn along that stretch of gravel road that was really like two ruts bisecting a rolling expanse of pasture. It was dotted with little copses of trees shading cattle weary of grazing in the hot afternoon sun. That day, the only thing that had stopped the couple’s inevitable progress toward what the locals surely would consider unnatural acts was a wayward heifer that decided to seek relief in the convenient square of shade thrown across its path by Roma Jean’s truck. Of course, the heifer butted its expansive hindquarters into the side of the bookmobile—twice—before it settled to the ground with an accompanying grunt. Roma Jean and Charlie had bolted apart like escaped felons caught in the sweep of a searchlight.
It took Charlie forty-five minutes to convince the heifer to get up and mosey along.
It took Roma Jean forty-five seconds to resolve to be more careful in the future.
Today, though, the location was less trafficked—by patrons or cattle. After Henry and Dorothy departed with their books, Roma Jean and Charlie sat close together inside the dimly lighted mobile library and talked in fits and starts about safe topics.
“Safe” topics were defined as any subjects related to Roma Jean’s classes at Radford, Charlie’s work for the sheriff’s department, or innocent gossip about any of the county’s more eccentric residents. Fortunately for them, that last item provided an unending number of discussion topics.
Today it was Roma Jean’s ninety-year-old grandmother, Azalea.
“Zeke Dawkins told me that he saw your Gramma and Uncle Cletus at Waffle House yesterday. He said they were in deep conversation with a couple of slick-looking Yankees in suits.”
Roma Jean rolled her eyes. “I know.”
“Well, what was that about? Zeke said your Gramma won’t even stay in the same room with a Yankee, much less sit down and eat waffles with a pair of them.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“What is?”