A Little Learning

by Margot Early

  Nausea coursed through him.

  He seldom thought about that discovery anymore. But now the images came flooding back. Why did I say it? Why did I make her imagine it?

  He’d had counseling after Janine’s death—but not recently. The point of counseling had been to talk to another adult, so that he would not talk to his children about what had happened and what he’d seen.

  Caleb was saying something, but Seamus didn’t listen.

  “Caleb, I need to talk to your sister right now. I do want to talk to you, but I need to finish talking with Lauren first. I’ll be back.”

  Upstairs, he knocked on the door of the corner bedroom. “Lauren?”

  Feet on the floor. The door swung open. Her beautiful face was tear-streaked.

  He said, “Forgive me. Please. I’m so sorry I said those things.”

  “You meant them,” she said.

  He couldn’t deny it. “I should never have said them to you.”

  She turned away. “Rory’s troupe is going to perform this weekend for the Sultan Winter Festival.”

  “We’ll have to go see that,” he said. He’d been aware of the approaching festival without knowing what it might involve. Relief washed through him. Lauren had changed the subject. They could let it go, move on, pretend they’d never had the conversation. He mused, “I think Caleb said they lost the snake.”

  “Oh, they did. She’s loose in the house somewhere, so Rory and Samantha and Desert are all sleeping in one room. Samantha wasn’t going to stay in the house at all, but Desert talked her into it. They’re waiting for the snake to turn up. They figure she’s curled up next to something warm.”

  “Undoubtedly.” Tension raced through him. Rory was sleeping in that house, living there, with that huge snake wandering around in search of “something warm”? What if it attacked her?

  An image came to him of Rory trying to fight off the giant snake. He shook it off, telling himself not to overreact. “Caleb says they’re practicing with fire now,” he said, to distract them both from thoughts of Lola on the loose.

  “I know. You can go watch,” she said. “If you want. I mean, I’ll stay here with Cal and Belle.”

  “Thank you. I think I should go see what Beau’s up to.”

  “You want Rory for your next girlfriend, don’t you?”

  Next girlfriend. As if there’d been a series. As if a girlfriend was a temporary thing, easily replaced by another and another. He gazed at Lauren, noting the arch of her dark eyebrows, her expression belligerent once again.

  “Does it matter to you?”

  She shrugged. “Someone else is always more important than us. That’s all. It’s either a girlfriend or work or working out. Then, you say you have no time.”

  “I’ve had nothing but time since we’ve gotten to Sultan.”

  “Beau says you asked Rory out. You can’t wait to do something else.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “I just wish you wanted to be with us, like you obviously want to be with her.”

  Seamus refused to be drawn in this time. “I’m going for a walk. Thank you for your generous offer to watch your brother and sister.” He looked at her and wanted to say, I love you, Lauren, but the words would not come. Not now.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t love her.

  But she kept fighting for Janine in the war that was dead, dead, dead.

  Except, he knew that it would never be dead. That his children would always cherish their mother’s memory—and he never would.

  *

  NONE OF THEM were outside. Not Rory and her roommates or their drummer or Beau and Seuss. Was his son inside? With a loose thirteen-foot snake?

  Of course, the snake was probably not aggressive….

  But look what it did to Samantha. How many stitches had Rory said she’d needed?

  He hesitated only a moment. He could see light in the room beyond the back door. He let himself in the back gate and crossed the concrete patio. At the door, he knocked.

  He heard laughter, and the door swung open.

  It was Rory. She wore a long-sleeved thermal undershirt, baggy canvas pants, a wide-striped knitted scarf and a ski hat. She looked as if she’d just come in from outside, except that she was in her socks.

  “Oh, come in. He’s here.”

  Beau knelt on the floor in the carpeted living room. Samantha knelt at the other end of the floor. They seemed to be taking turns saying, “Seuss, come!” and having the puppy rush toward him.

  “Dad, he knows ‘Come’!” exclaimed Beau.

  Where is the snake? Seamus wondered. He said, “Has Lola turned up?”

  The tallest roommate, whose hair was now beginning to resemble a buzz cut, wandered in from the hallway. “Oh, hi,” she said. She wore flannel pajamas covered with pictures of the Pillsbury Doughboy, and had a red stuffed thing on a ribbon tied around her neck. Seamus saw that it was a heart in two pieces.

  “Brokenhearted?” he asked.

  She made a face, some sort of agreement.

  “Lola is still lost,” Rory said, answering his question.

  Was that the reason for Desert’s heartbreak? He wanted to whisk Rory away from this very odd household. But she wouldn’t go. Not while the snake was loose and could hurt her roommates. And part of Seamus found her eccentric lifestyle endearing. She was playful, and so she had found a way to turn her work and her vocations into play.

  “Keep Seuss close by,” Seamus suggested to his son.

  “Seuss would stand up to her, wouldn’t you?” Beau asked the puppy.

  “Seuss is probably just the right size for a snack for Lola,” Seamus answered.

  His son suddenly looked as if he might cry. Seamus wished he’d been more tactful, but good grief! Hadn’t it occurred to Beau already?

  Obviously not, because his son was now hugging the puppy and holding his collar.

  “I’m going to take him home,” Beau said.

  “I’ll come with you,” Seamus agreed. Was he destined to make all his children cry tonight?

  Rory came to Beau’s side, bringing the leash, which she fastened onto the puppy’s collar and handed to him. “We’ll make sure Lola doesn’t get him. I’d never let that happen, Beau.”

  Beau lifted his face with a sort of naked need. A need, perhaps, to be comforted by a babysitter, an older sister, a mother. Rory seemed to fill one of those roles for him.

  And she knew just the right thing to say.

  “She’ll turn up when she gets hungry,” Desert said.

  Rory wheeled around and looked for a minute as if she was about to yell at her housemate. Then her anger evaporated. She relaxed, breathed.

  Was it pointless to address Desert’s tactlessness? Seamus supposed so. If Rory were in a serious relationship, would she move out of this house?

  “If you’re not comfortable sleeping here—any or all of you—we’ve got plenty of room across the alley,” he offered, feeling transparent for doing so. Yes, he wanted Rory under his roof. Rory, who wouldn’t even go out to dinner with him.

  Desert said, “You don’t just abandon pets when they get difficult.”

  “Nobody was suggesting abandoning Lola.” Rory managed to sound both reasonable and soothing.

  “I’ve suggested it,” Samantha said bluntly. “I’ve suggested taking her to the top of Sultan Peak in subzero temperatures and leaving her there.”

  “She wouldn’t live, would she?” asked Beau, seeming puzzled.

  “That’s the point,” Samantha said.

  “Let’s head home,” Seamus suggested. “Rory, we’ll be seeing you in the morning?”

  She nodded. “Night, Beau. Night, Seuss.” She crouched to pet the puppy, who licked her face.

  As the door closed behind the Lees, Desert started in on Samantha. “Look, you don’t have to live here, Samantha. Lola’s a member of the family, and it’s not nice to talk about killing her.”

  “It’s not nice for her to try to kill me, eith
er.”

  Rory was tired of peacemaking. Lola should never have gotten out. “Rocky Mountain Reptile Rescue has said they’ll take her, if we can transport her there.”

  “Where are they?” asked Samantha at once.

  “How are we supposed to contain her to transport her, in the winter, no less?” Desert demanded. “I can’t believe you guys are just deciding this on your own. This is my house and she’s my snake.”

  “Fine.” Abruptly, Samantha rose. “I’ll move my belongings out tomorrow. I’ve had enough, Desert. You’re my friend, and I love you, but I’m tired of living with that creature wandering the house. I get in the shower and keep peering around the curtain to make sure she hasn’t decided to join me in the bathroom. It’s not cool. It’s not fun. It’s scary. Now, we’ve found a responsible way to solve the problem and you’re not willing. You prefer Lola to us. You can keep her.”

  Exhaustion raced through Rory. She remembered many occasions in years past when she’d been the one recovering from a breakup, fired from her job or, most recently, dealing with the loss of a beloved pet. Desert had been there for her. Desert could be eminently reasonable. But Lola didn’t bring out her better side. Neither had being dumped by Jay Norris.

  Yet now, Rory saw the disintegration of their dance troupe—not to mention the friendship between Samantha and Desert. All because of a Burmese python. Why had they ever let Desert acquire the snake? But Burmese pythons were cheap to buy—as cheap to buy as they were expensive to maintain. People in warmer parts of the country sometimes released them into the wild when they grew tired of their pets, where they decimated other populations. Indigo snakes, in the Everglades, for instance. Some localities had ordinances forbidding citizens from owning snakes over a particular length. Of course, there was no ordinance like that in Sultan.

  Desert said, “Why don’t you just go now? Why don’t you just go sleep at the hot springs, like you obviously want to?”

  The hot springs had a hostel, as well as rooms for rent, few of them occupied this time of year.

  “Desert, if she goes, you and I can’t stay. We can’t deal with Lola alone, if she gets out of hand.”

  “She’s eaten recently. She’s not going to do anything.”

  Rory closed her eyes. That’s not how it works. Nobody knew what made a python decide to attack and constrict another creature. Sure, Lola wasn’t likely to do it…

  “I’m not going to sleep somewhere else just because Lola’s loose,” Desert said. “Forget it. You’re being paranoid.”

  Rory wasn’t sure what to do. All right, she and Desert would be safer together than either one of them would be alone.

  “Are you evicting me?” Samantha asked, looking close to tears herself.

  One thing was certain. Generous as Seamus’s invitation had been, there was no way that Rory was going to take refuge in his house. She would go stay at the hot springs with Samantha.

  “Yes!” said Desert. “If you’re going to act this way about Lola.”

  Rory said, “I’m going to bed. If you’re not coming in soon, please look in, will you?”

  “I’m going to bed, too,” Desert answered. “Samantha can do what she wants.”

  They all ended up in Desert’s bedroom, as they had for the past few nights, ever since Lola’s escape. Rory closed her eyes and wished fervently that Lola would turn up and that they could transport her immediately to Rocky Mountain Reptile Rescue in Denver. And that no one would get bitten or squeezed in the process.

  The phone rang, and Desert took it from her bedside table. “Hello? What? What?”

  The call was for her, and it wasn’t about the python. But it changed everything.

  *

  SEAMUS HAD NEVER YET had trouble sleeping, not since he’d come to Sultan. Tonight was an exception. He’d come home to find both Caleb and Belle asleep. Lauren lay on her bed reading a novel in the room she shared with Belle. Lauren hadn’t mentioned their earlier argument and neither had Seamus.

  We’ll just forget about it, he told himself.

  Yet tonight, he was the one who couldn’t forget. Even more, he couldn’t forget the images of Janine that had surfaced. He couldn’t quiet the recollection of her unending streams of conversation, always peppered with the latest in skier-surfer-snowboarder slang.

  And then this totally sick avalanche runs at us… Seamus tried to remember if she’d always been loud and tough-talking. He must have liked that characteristic once—but he couldn’t remember ever feeling that way.

  She’d been a youngest child, the youngest of five girls. She’d feigned ignorance of everything remotely related to growing up as a girl. She’d never worn dresses and she’d always liked sports. She’d never wanted to own a horse; she’d never played with dolls. She had always, by her own admission, preferred male playmates to female.

  As a grown woman, she’d devoted herself to teaching other women to defend themselves, physically as well as legally. Martial arts, of course. She’d been a black belt in aikido, and had an utter lack of humility in regard to her skills.

  Seamus had known other men in Telluride who’d come very close to saying—to him, no less—that they didn’t care for Janine Jensen. He’d understood that certain men felt threatened by her strength and by her take-all-comers attitude.

  Likewise, he’d known that there was something very sweet about her underneath it all.

  For instance, her thing for teddy bears. She loved teddy bears—as a hobby, she’d sewn them. Not teddy bears with clothes, because the idea of teddy bears with clothes offended her sensibilities. At the same time, she avoided making Halloween costumes for the children; avoided being known as a woman who could sew.

  Yes. I loved her.

  Though how much he’d liked her, especially in the last year, especially after she’d bought the handgun, was another question.

  Colorado’s full of people who have children and own guns, Janine had said. You keep the ammo in a separate place and you teach the kids firearms safety.

  Not in Seamus’s opinion.

  His opinion remained unchanged: Having guns and children in the same house was a recipe for tragedy.

  And it wasn’t as if she was a law-enforcement officer, for instance, and needed a gun for work.

  He’d asked her in what situation a handgun would help her against the men she believed to be threatening her. He’d asked why a black belt in aikido needed a handgun to defend herself.

  Janine had given him answers, but Seamus had known that all her answers were simply rationalizations. She’d wanted a handgun because she’d wanted to be a woman who owned a handgun.

  She’d learned to fly a plane, not because she loved flying, but because she wanted people to know that she could fly a plane.

  More skills, more dangerous activities, more risks. And not because she loved the activities in themselves. No.

  Because she wanted people to know all the things she could do.

  What was it Lauren had said? You wanted her to die? You were glad she died?

  Not true.

  What was true was that, though he couldn’t have stopped loving Janine, he had also come to despise her. At some point, he’d lost respect for her—and he hated that in himself.

  He didn’t judge people that way. He didn’t look at a person’s accomplishments and lose respect for the individual. But Janine had become the enemy—the woman who’d brought a gun into his home. He’d begun to see her as unreasonable, then dangerous in her wrong-headedness, and finally pitiable.

  None of those feelings had diminished with her death.

  Tonight, what he’d avoided for more than three years had happened. One of his children had spoken admiringly of Janine and he’d been unable to stop himself from voicing his true feelings.

  It would happen again, if he continued to spend time with them, and his children would grow to hate him for it. Lauren would, anyhow. And probably Beau.

  His feelings weren’t going to change, they weren�
�t going away, and they hadn’t lessened with time.

  *

  “IT’S MY MOTHER.” Desert looked stricken.

  “What?” Samantha and Rory both moved from their sleeping bags and air mattresses to Desert’s bed.

  “She has Alzheimer’s. My father wants me to come back to Florida.” To Boca Raton, where she’d grown up. “So that she can stay at home longer. He asked if I would help.”

  Rory’s own reaction shamed her. A stab of jealousy. Desert’s father had asked for her.

  Kurt Gorenzi hadn’t even spoken with Rory since she’d begun working with Seamus Lee’s family. He’d nodded to her in passing twice. Two times, and she remembered each occasion. She imagined a phone call from across the country. Come home. I need you.

  I would give anything, she thought. And then she was ashamed of herself. Poor Desert. Having to watch her mother’s mental condition deteriorate.

  “I’ve told him I’ll go. I didn’t tell him about Lola. I could take her with me, I suppose.”

  Samantha’s expression said, Great idea!

  “We have to find her first,” Rory pointed out. But she could imagine the problems of taking apart this two-and-a-half-storey house in order to find a python.

  “Would you two stay here and keep renting?” Desert asked. “Or maybe I should sell.”

  “You don’t have to decide anything tonight,” Rory told her.

  “Except how you’re going to find Lola,” Samantha replied.

  An hour later, Rory was still thinking about Desert’s call to come home, to return to her father, an Orthodox rabbi, and her mother. The situation would be fraught with complications for her freedom-loving housemate. Tattoos, piercings, a shaved head—how would all of this go down in Boca Raton?

  Yet Desert would have her family. Her family wanted her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “IF LOLA ISN’T FOUND by Monday morning,” Desert said, “I’m going to have some construction guys come in and start taking things apart. There can’t be too many places warm enough for her to hide.” It was Friday evening, just before the start of the Sultan Winter Festival. Caldera’s hour-long performance would kick off a week of events. On Tuesday, Desert would leave to drive to Boca Raton, taking Lola with her in a glass vivarium. Lola would ride in the back of Desert’s Toyota Land Cruiser. Desert was putting her house on the market. Until it sold, Rory and Samantha would continue to live there.