Bethel's Meadow

by Shultz, Gregory

  I flipped to my back again, grabbed both of her wrists, and quickly made it to my feet.

  “I came here to talk,” I said. She broke from my grip and started punching my chest.

  “You rotten bastard! Everything I’m doing is for you!” She was shouting as tears streamed down her cheeks.

  I shook my head and regained control of her wrists. I wasn’t going to let them loose this time. I tried to lessen the severity of my tone, but I still came out with: “Including taking an old man for a ride, just for his money? That’s what you’re doing for me? Fucking him for his money?”

  “I want to help you with your writing, baby,” she said. Samantha was suddenly calm and she quit struggling against me. I still wasn’t going to let go of her wrists, though. I didn’t trust her. “You are such a talented and gifted writer. You deserve to be read.”

  “If that manuscript ever gets published, it will be because of my own hard work, and not a gift from you or some unsuspecting rich bastard you’re using.”

  “Yeah, so what if I’m fucking him for money?”

  “It makes you a prostitute,” I answered. “Nothing more and nothing less.”

  That comment didn’t faze her one damned bit.

  “It’s really very simple, baby. You just give me your routing and account number, and I’ll see that you get plenty of money to have your dreams come true.” Tears continued pouring from her eyes, and it just broke my heart watching her melt down like this. I conceded that she really did care about me, that in her own way she did love me. I wanted to embrace her in the way one close friend would another, to provide her comfort and solace from a world so mad and so cruel that it was cutting her heart out.

  But I couldn’t do that. I knew that wouldn’t work with her. She was way past that point.

  “I’m going to let go of your wrists, and then I’m walking out of here,” I said softly. “You don’t hit me, and you don’t come on to me. It’s over. God knows I tried to love you. I would have given you everything I own. But you pushed me away with all this craziness. All I ever wanted was to get you away from the insanity of coveting the almighty dollar.”

  “I do love you,” she said as she fell to her knees. She looked pathetic now, as if she were a supplicant. “Oh God, I love you so much, Mr. Smith. I love you so much.”

  I’d never seen a beautiful woman look so vulnerable and wanting. As I stood above her I wondered what it was she saw in me. I was a working man, a guy struggling to pay his bills by working on desktop computers, backing up hard drives, and installing memory chips. This woman could have had any man in the universe she desired. Why me?

  “I’m leaving,” I said. I still wanted to put my arms around her and give her a tight hug, but I was too scared. “I really do hope you find what you want. But I’ll never let you prostitute yourself for me. I could never live like that. I hope you understand.”

  And then I walked out. Surprisingly, and oddly disappointing to me for only a split second, she didn’t give chase.

  As I drove away I tried to make sense out of what had just happened. It was just no use trying to figure out why Samantha Fleming was the way she was.

  I thought of Glory. I just wanted to hold her hand and take a walk with her. I wanted that comfort and security. It was a real friendship we were developing. I would never do one thing to jeopardize that.

  I was glad I got away from Samantha without hurting her. I said a quick prayer for her, asking God to watch over her and to guide her to a happy life.

  And then, right there in the car as I was driving, I found myself thinking of . . .

  Miranda.

  34

  I WAS FINALLY BLESSED with sweet heavenly sleep last night—about seven uninterrupted hours of it. Following my freaky encounter with Samantha and my subsequent pangs of regret regarding Miranda, I had arrived home last evening feeling totally down in the dumps. Talking to Glory on the phone before bedtime had really brightened my outlook on life, though. We gabbed away for three hours about everything under the sun including literature, music, art, cuisine, and even politics. And finally we spoke of how much we enjoyed kissing one another. Glory said that when we kissed she felt all of her troubles vanish and that nothing else seemed to matter. Hearing that really did my heart good.

  After reluctantly bidding each other good night, I listened to one of the meditation podcasts Vernon had told me about, the one specifically devoted to achieving sleep, and within twenty minutes I fell asleep with my headphones still on.

  When I awoke bright and early on this beautiful Thursday morning, I wondered if my first good night of sleep in what seemed like forever was more attributable to the podcast or if it’d had more to do with Glory’s soothing voice. I decided it had been both.

  I once again contemplated the serene meadow I had envisioned near the beginning of my withdrawal experience. When Glory was around to distract me from thoughts of the meadow, I was okay. But when I didn’t have her by my side, I found myself overtaken by an unhealthy desire to return to it. I feared it was a longing that would eventually consume me whole if I didn’t make it back there. I wasn’t sure that Glory could save me from . . . myself.

  While chatting on the phone with Vernon following breakfast, I’d sought his opinion on my elusive meadow. I sensed that he thought I was going crazy, but he did mention that some of the other meditation recordings did focus on helping one to develop positive, lasting images of settling and tranquil scenes from one’s past. By extension, he reasoned, I could possibly summon the meadow in a similar fashion.

  I wasn’t sure about that, though. I didn’t believe the meadow could be so easily willed or manipulated into existence. The most important meditation podcast, I decided, was the one that taught how to release fear. I really felt like that was the answer to everything related to the meadow. I had to accept that my neighbor Gonzo had been right about that, as much as I had once despised him. I simply had to conquer my fear, then my path to the meadow would be clear. But I also feared that if I found my meadow I would lose Glory in the process. I was confused about the whole damned thing. . . .

  But today was going to be a great day. I was certain of it, and I had thanked God for this blessed morning the very moment I awoke. Not since depleting my supply of meds had I felt this good. I was back at work, and happy and proud to be doing it. I was enjoying a break from any symptoms of mania, and I only felt slightly depressed. The depression, however, felt more physical than emotional. It wasn’t that bad at all.

  At 8:00 a.m. sharp I charged out the front door, feeling I had a new lease on life. . . .

  …

  After completing my fourth service call of the day, I went to the library to visit Glory. We sat at our usual table in the back, and she shared with me a cup of chicken noodle soup and a can of soda. She said we could now partake from the same eating utensils. After all, she pointed out, we now had the same germs.

  Glory apprised me of the library’s new arrivals. She remembered that John Sandford was my all-time favorite crime author. She said his new Lucas Davenport novel would be out in a few weeks. There were already more than a hundred copies that had been reserved in advance, but my favorite librarian had placed my name on the list of the first patrons to receive it.

  As we sat and talked, I really wanted to explain to Glory what had happened with her roommate. It still bothered me that Tricia had promised she would tell Glory that I had dropped wood. If she had told Glory about our near-sexual encounter, it hadn’t deterred Glory from dating me. But still, I wanted to clear the air about it.

  But then Sidebottom walked in.

  “Well, if it isn’t the notorious library book annotator himself,” I whispered to Glory.

  Glory laughed, and then said, “I got his privileges restored. Since he’s your friend I got his penalty reduced, and he can now check out books again.”

  As Sidebottom strolled in our direction, he looked like he had something on his mind. When he got to the table he
didn’t even say hello to Glory, nor did he thank her for the restoration of his library privileges.

  “You know, Smith,” he said, “I’m tired of covering for you about this whole toilet paper business.”

  “Hello, Wally,” I said. “Won’t you please properly greet this lady?”

  “Um, sorry,” he said. He looked at Glory and frowned. “I’m really sorry about the books. Thank you for sticking up for me.”

  “You’re very welcome,” she said with a bright smile. “What’s this about toilet paper, though?”

  I smiled at Sidebottom and said, “Yeah, Wally, is annotating library books with a red pen worse than correcting an improper method of dispensing toilet paper?”

  He scowled at me. He really wasn’t in a pretty mood. “You know, it’s all over town that you’ve written a book. So you of all people should appreciate the importance of proper grammar and sentence structure.”

  Glory’s eyebrows shot up and she smiled at me. “You wrote a book?”

  “Wally, you have a really big mouth, you know that?” Now I wanted to beat him up.

  “Yeah,” he said to Glory. “Our man Smith here is a man of letters, but I had to hear about it on the street. My best friend didn’t tell me about what he was doing.”

  Okay, I thought, now we’re at the root of the anger.

  “I’m sorry, Wally. Okay? I only really told Samantha—”

  “Bullshit,” he said, a little too loud for the environment we were in. “You didn’t just tell her about it—you gave her a copy of your magnum opus. She’s read the whole thing.”

  Glory wasn’t pleased by this news. As the sparkle from her eyes vanished, I felt my stomach turn. Even though I thought the book was basically crap, I should have told her about it anyway.

  “Aw, Glory, please don’t get upset with me,” I said. “If you want to read it, I’ll print up a copy for you. I promise.”

  “Oh, a lovers’ quarrel,” Sidebottom cracked. “How adorable. You truly never miss a beat, do ya Smith?”

  I knew right then that Sidebottom had spoken with Samantha about yesterday’s incident. He was taking her side and believing whatever tale she had related of the encounter.

  I stood and began to reach for his fucking throat, but Glory sprang up and saved his life.

  She said, “Gentlemen, I’ll kick you both out of here if you don’t start being quiet. And you’d better be nice to each other, too.”

  “You and I will talk later,” I said to him quietly. “Get out of here right now. Just walk out while you still have your hide intact.”

  It was painfully obvious he wanted to tell me to fuck off. Samantha must have given him a doozy of a story. He finally dropped his head in a mild display of contrition and sauntered away.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said to Glory. We were still standing. Her look of disappointment scared the hell out of me. I thought I had just blown it. “Look, I’ll tell you every crazy thing that’s gone on in my life in the past several weeks. I told you about my childhood, and in time you’ll know everything else. I won’t hold anything back from you. Nothing.”

  She nodded, seeming satisfied with my plea. “You don’t have to tell me about your personal life right now, Bethel. Besides, I know about what happened between you and Tricia. She’s a crazy bitch and she’s moving out by the end of the month. I’m kicking her out.”

  I sighed in relief. That was one thing off my mind.

  “I will say one thing,” Glory said with a smile. “If God put you to the test with Tricia, to see how you’d handle her, then I would have to say that you passed that test. I know all about her, Bethel. Believe me. I don’t know why I stayed friends with her for as long as I did. But now it’s over with me and her.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for believing in me.”

  “But you’re not off the hook just yet,” she said. “Before you go back to work, you have to tell me something.”

  Uh oh, I thought. “Okay, I’m guilty of turning toilet paper rolls so that they feed from the bottom.” But I knew her grave expression had nothing to do with toilet paper.

  She sat back down, motioning me to do likewise. Then she reached for my hands and held them gently in her own. “I want to know what the great heartbreak of your life is, Bethel Smith. I know you never married, and I know that Caitlin doesn’t qualify. It was someone else who broke your heart, who is responsible for your negative demeanor, who keeps that dark cloud hovering above you.”

  I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. Although I promised her I’d answer anything, I wasn’t ready for this.

  “It wasn’t a woman,” I said. “Well, it was a female, but not a woman.” And then the waterworks began. I felt like such a loser. I was weeping right in front of her.

  “You don’t have to answer,” she said. “I already know it.”

  Oh shit.

  “What was her name?” Glory asked. “What was your daughter’s name? Why don’t you speak to her anymore? What happened?”

  I wiped away my tears and looked straight at her. It scared the absolute shit out of me that she could see right through my heart and my soul.

  “Miranda,” I said. “My daughter’s name is Miranda.”

  35

  IT WAS LATE SUNDAY afternoon. There wasn’t a happier man on the planet than Bethel Smith. I was at home in my music room, strumming my acoustic guitar in sync with Led Zeppelin’s “Thank You” as it played on my MP3 stereo. After my date with Glory last night, I couldn’t get that song out of my head—the lyrics expressed everything I was now feeling about her. I’d spent the entire day practicing the tune, and I was getting pretty close to nailing it. I smiled at the realization that my lack of sleep had had one positive side effect: I’d improved remarkably as a guitarist, and I was having a damned fine time with the hours I played in my house alone, just me and my guitar.

  I was completely in love with Glory Nolan. I’d never had so much fun being with a woman. On each of the past three evenings we’d gone dancing and dining. Last night we went to a Latin dance club where we drank frozen mojitos and danced for nearly four hours. Glory taught me the merengue and some salsa steps (something I hadn’t given Water Girl a chance to do). Afterward we were completely drenched in sweat and famished. We stopped by a Thai restaurant where none of the help spoke much English, and they didn’t seem to mind that we smelled like dirty sweat socks. We feasted on red snapper and sticky rice, and we devoured that poor fish until it was nothing but little twiggy bones, washing it all down with a delicious Thai brew called Singha.

  By the time we’d arrived at her place each night we were both so physically exhausted and full of rich food that we couldn’t have made love even if we had wanted to. Well, being relatively young, I suppose we could have, but I don’t believe either of us saw the point in rushing things. We were so comfortable with each other that there wasn’t even the slightest hint of the type of desperation that had always been the active ingredient in fueling so many of my past sexual relationships. There was between us the strong sense that there would be a tomorrow, and a next day, and a next day, and a day after that, and many more days well off into the future. Kissing and hugging and feeling each other up a little bit was enough for the time being. I viewed our necking sessions as an extended version of foreplay, a series of hot and heavy preludes that I knew without any doubt would eventually lead to the best sex ever. I just knew it.

  And yes, I did indeed bare my soul to her about everything important that had ever happened in my life. And that included the story of my daughter. . . .

  …

  About a dozen years ago I was working as a data systems engineer for a large information technology consulting firm based in Atlanta, Georgia. I’d been on the job for nearly five years and I had traveled the world, including exotic locales like Kuala Lumpur, Okinawa, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Paris, and Hong Kong. Those were the days when the technology sector was booming, and even the least educated technician could earn a rat
her decent living. I did better, though, because I had an MIS degree. I enjoyed a six-figure salary and received substantial bonus money for both accepting a contract and for completing it.

  Unfortunately, I partied and drank away a good deal of my earnings. I could afford to wine and dine some of the most beautiful women a man could ever hope to see, and I took full advantage of what the money could do for me in that respect. I imbibed such prodigious amounts of alcohol that I don’t remember a lot of what I did during those days. I suppose it was because I was young and strong that I was able to perform well on the job during the day, even after a night of heavy drinking and dirty dancing. For those five years I was a train wreck, a tragic accident waiting to happen. My manic depression was in full bloom during that time, too. I frequently skipped lithium doses and experienced prolonged periods of what my doctors then called hypomania.

  But toward the end of all that craziness and danger my life changed in a dramatic way. That was when I met Tamara Linhart.

  I had spent a week in Knoxville, Tennessee, on business. Our client enticed me to stay through the weekend so I could enjoy some major college football action. It was the home opener for the University of Tennessee Volunteers. I can’t remember who their opponent was, nor do I remember the game’s outcome. I do, however, remember the following morning quite vividly. I was driving on the highway that runs amidst the beautiful rolling hills of the Appalachian Mountains in East Tennessee, killing time and doing a little sightseeing. I had a late afternoon flight, so that gave me plenty of time to check out a small town I’d passed by on a few occasions while driving back and forth.

  Kingston, Tennessee is located approximately a half-hour drive west from Knoxville and a scenic two-hour drive east from Nashville. I entered Kingston via Interstate 40, passing two one-thousand-foot-tall smokestacks located on the premises of the Kingston Fossil Plant. About twenty cars were parked on the shoulder as folks on the side of the highway had their cameras and binoculars trained on the shoreline of Watts Bar Lake. I figured they were either shutterbugs or environmentalists gathering evidence against the evil coal manufacturing plant. I later learned that the steam plant was a favored spot from which locals and tourists observed the activities of great blue herons, ospreys, and other waterfowl.