Collapsible

by Buchanan, Ruth;

  28

  Saturday morning—graduation day—found Rachel dragging glumly from her bed in the VanSmythes’ carriage house with great reluctance. In an attempt to help keep her mind off the night before, Ann had proposed that they watch old X-Files reruns.

  “There’s not enough coffee in the world to make today bearable,” she told Ann as she straggled into the kitchen. “It’s fine for you to stay up all night watching TV. All you have to do today is throw on a T-shirt, shorts, and a hat, and you’re ready to go. Nobody’s going to see your face except the horses, and they don’t care if you have bags the size of the Andromeda Galaxy under your eyes.”

  “Which you actually do have, by the way.”

  Rachel rested her forehead on the countertop while the coffee brewed, drip by slow drip. “Why is my life like this?”

  Ann calmly spooned yogurt into her mouth and turned the page of Practical Horseman. “Life choices.”

  Rachel lifted her face from the countertop and limped over to the cabinet for a mug. “Just to be clear, I sort of hate you,” she said to Ann. “You and your life choices.”

  “That’s not very Christian.” Ann tsked.

  “Fine. I hate you and your life choices in Christian love,” Rachel amended.

  “Even more unkind.”

  Rachel poured coffee into her mug and watched the steam rise gently. Steam was so soothing. She tipped her face forward and breathed it in. Her eyes began to lose focus.

  Ann tossed her empty yogurt cup toward the trash can in a smooth arc, where it plunked softly into the bottom without even bouncing off the sides. “To be clear, today could be much worse. One, you weren’t actually being stalked by the Memento Killer. Two, Mom knows nothing about the entire episode, and I don’t plan to tell her. Three, it appears you’ve got a big fan in Lee Martin.”

  “I don’t want to talk about Lee.”

  “Fair enough. Well, at least you don’t have to dig through the spider shed for your regalia.”

  “I know. You’re the best.”

  “I only did it because Lynn said she’d buy me new wrist wraps if I did it for you.”

  “You should have done it because you love me!”

  “All I know is that Lynn texted me and said that if I searched for your cap and gown, there was a new set of wrist wraps in it for me. And I need a new set of wrist wraps, so…”

  “You’re a saint,” Rachel said.

  “So what time’s graduation?”

  “I don’t know. Possibly now.” Rachel scrubbed her hands down her face, reached for the cane leaning against the counter, and limped toward the fridge for her creamer. “I just want it all to be over.”

  “It all could be over,” Ann reminded her, “if you’d quit.”

  “I’ve told you this before. I’m not quitting my job.”

  “Then you get what you get,” Ann said.

  “Today that means I get over-exuberant teens, cliché-ridden speeches, and another day of my life sucked away while pretending to be excited about something I’d rather skip,” Rachel sighed.

  Ann looked up from her magazine. “Wow,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You’re a true inspiration.”

  Rachel leaned against her cane and made her way toward the table with her coffee. She stirred cream into the mug, almost hypnotized by the smooth brown swirl. She knew that it was out there somewhere—the witty comeback that would put Ann right in her place.

  She’d think of one eventually. But first, coffee.

  ~*~

  Lining the faculty up for the graduation ceremony really should have been easier.

  For one thing, most of the teachers had participated in graduations ad infinitum. For another, they had just successfully lined up the senior class. They should have been capable of handling themselves.

  Rachel refused to take charge. It was a waste of her energy, and she had come to fear that she would bash Mr. Adams over the head with her cane if she had to tell him one more time where he stood in the lineup.

  Time and the hour run through the roughest day. She chanted the lines in her head like a mantra, enjoying the irony of channeling Macbeth to calm her inner rage.

  Eventually, Yolanda marshaled the troops by standing up on a chair and calling out orders.

  “This is ridiculous,” Lee hissed in Rachel’s ear, suddenly appearing out of nowhere. She jumped, bonking the person ahead of her in line with her cane.

  “What are you doing over here?” Rachel hissed back over the sound of Yolanda directing Mr. Adams back to his place. “You’re supposed to be near the front, because we’re loading the chairs on the stage back to front, and you’re sitting in the back—”

  “With the rest of the newbies. I know. But I need you to help me with this.” He flapped the ends of his hood at her.

  “Do you have this on backwards?”

  “I don’t know.” He did. “It’s like wearing a polyester bathrobe over my clothes. Plus a baggy, multicolored scarf around my neck, and a flat hat on my head. What kind of moronic idea is a flat hat?”

  Rachel took hold of his hood. “Turn around so I can straighten this out.”

  “Are you still wearing those white sneakers under there?” His voice had risen from a whisper. Several teachers turned to look, and Rachel glared at them.

  “Shut up,” she hissed, poking at him with her cane. She yanked Lee’s hood into place a bit too forcefully. He made over-exaggerated gagging sounds. More people turned to look. “My foot still swells too much for my other shoes, and the bottom of my foot is still…”

  Lee tugged at Rachel’s hands and ducked down in front of her to avoid being seen. “Let go,” he said. “I’ve got to get back over there before Ms. Martinez sees me.”

  Rachel wrenched her hands out of his and got his hood squared away. She smoothed her hands over his shoulders and looked down at him as he squatted in front of her. “Lee,” she whispered, not wanting to break this temporary truce between them, but knowing it could not last. “We really do need to talk.”

  “About what?” he hissed back. “About how you thought all this time that those presents were from that creepy guy you met at your doctor’s? Or about how you mistook me for a serial killer? Or about how instead of cheering you up, I almost scared you to death?”

  “Yes,” she said. “About all that.”

  “What if we talk about it and everything goes wrong, and then things get messed up, and we never talk to each other again?” His voice cracked. She’d never seen him look so serious. She regarded him steadily. “Can’t we just put it behind us and pretend it never happened?” he begged.

  She thought of the gift he had given her—the “fourth memento”—the framed photograph of them together on his graduation day. She thought of the lovely accompanying note, thanking her for all she had done for him over the years. The thought of how he’d signed it simply and sincerely, “My love always, Lee.” She remembered when she’d been able to look across and directly into his eyes, before he’d grown to tower over her.

  The majestic strains of “Pomp and Circumstance” began to swell.

  “It’s time!” The word swept back through the line as the seniors hissed to each other excitedly. Rachel pulled her hands from his shoulders, and Lee slowly rose to his feet.

  ~*~

  Rachel skipped the graduation receiving line in favor of meeting Ann and Lynn for lunch at Stu’s. She slid into the booth and handed her cane to Ann, who leaned it against the wall next to the table.

  “Yolanda’s not going to be happy with you,” Ann said, sounding mildly impressed.

  “Whatever.” Rachel perused the specials on the chalk board by the register. “It’s not in my contract that I have to hang around for a specified amount of time after every single school function. Besides, she probably won’t notice.”

  “Yolanda notices everything,” Ann commented. She had not listened to Rachel’s stories over the last few years without picking up a few things
.

  “Although it is kind of understood, isn’t it? That you go through the receiving line, I mean.” Lynn passed Rachel a coaster for her water. “Because you have been teaching some of those kids for a long time. Not that I’m judging.”

  “Right.” Rachel said absently as she contemplated her lunch options. “Because you would never do that.”

  “How was graduation?” Ann asked after the waiter had taken their orders and departed.

  Rachel shrugged. “The same as every other year, except that this year I was wearing white sneakers.”

  Lynn leaned forward on her elbows. “I’m more interested in hearing about what’s going on between that kindergarten teacher and Lee. And you and Lee. Basically everything having to do with Lee.”

  “Go away,” Rachel groaned as the waiter set a basket of nachos in the middle of the table with a flourish and a wish that they enjoy. “Not you,” she called to the waiter, who had already turned to leave and may not have heard. “I wasn’t telling you to go away!”

  “Great work,” said Ann. “He’s new here and doesn’t know us yet. Now he’s probably going to spit in our food.”

  “Certainly not,” said Lynn.

  “You’re right,” said Ann. A smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. “He’ll probably just spit in Rachel’s.”

  Rachel spilled the beans on Lee, telling them all the details of their fragmented conversations, including the fact that he had apparently been applying for other jobs unbeknownst to her.

  “I just don’t know what his problem has been lately,” Rachel continued, undeterred. “He’s been moody and distant all spring, and now all this.” She waved her hands in the air to indicate the general chaos of the last forty-eight hours. The gifts and the makeover and the job interview.

  “Isn’t moody and distant and unpredictable sort of his baseline?”

  “Not like this.” Rachel shook her head. “This has been on a different level, even for him.”

  Lynn put up her hand. “I have a theory, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

  “As long as you don’t harp on about him liking me or try to tell me that I’m actually upset because he made a decision without consulting me first,” Rachel said.

  “That’s not what I’m going to say,” Lynn told her.

  “I don’t think he has to consult me on every little thing,” Rachel went on, “but I do think that he should learn to accept help from his support system.”

  Ann snorted.

  “What now?”

  “You’re one to talk.” Lynn shook her head.

  “What?”

  “You honestly think you can sit here and judge people who don’t like taking advice or asking for help?” Lynn asked. She and Ann both looked pointedly at Rachel.

  “Don’t even start. I let you guys help me!”

  “Oh, sure, you let me and Alex and Ann help. The people you feel closest to. What about everybody else? What about the ladies at church who wanted to come help you pack and clean?”

  “You saw the state of my place! It was so embarrassing. You think I wanted anybody from church to see that? I’d never be able to look anybody in the face ever again!”

  “You’re looking me in the face,” Lynn said, “and I saw it.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re you.”

  “OK,” Lynn said. “But what I was actually going to say was that I’m just wondering if Lee felt a little…I don’t know. Left out. I mean, you’ve done so much for him over the years that I’m sure he wanted to help you out while you needed it.”

  “I let him help me!” Rachel defended. “He brought me coffees and carried stuff to my car and drew the bone structure of my leg on my cast.”

  “Other than the drawing on the cast, how many times did you actually ask him to help you?”

  Rachel paused, brought up short by this question. “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe he felt like giving you things anonymously was the only way you’d accept them.”

  “I accept things,” Rachel said, completely surprised by the turn this conversation had taken. She folded her arms across her chest.

  “How many times when people have offered to help over the past few months have you brushed them off or told them that you were fine?” Ann chimed in. “I know for certain that when Miss Graciela from church offered to bring you meals that first week, you turned her down flat.”

  Rachel shifted in her seat. “Miss Graciela’s on a pension! She can’t afford to be feeding us. And we didn’t even need the food—we had plenty at home already.”

  “I think you’re missing the point.” Lynn leaned back so that the waiter could set a low-carb chicken plate in front of her. “Is this the low-fat dressing?” she looked up quickly to confirm.

  “The point of this conversation, as I recall, is to discuss what’s going on with Lee, not with me,” Rachel sniffed at the bacon, eggs, and double order of hash browns on her plate, from which wafted the pleasant aroma of grease.

  Ann held up her hands in a quick time-out. “Can we just pray real quick so that we can eat? Then you two can go back to arguing.”

  “I’m done arguing with her,” Lynn said.

  “That’s excellent news,” Ann said. “Can we pray?”

  “Just get on with it,” Rachel told her.

  After Lynn said a quiet grace, she contented herself with a few quick bites of everything for quality-control purposes. She then put down her fork, took a swallow of water, and leveled her gaze on Rachel. “I’ve been thinking.”

  Rachel paused, a strip of bacon halfway to her mouth. Something in Lynn’s tone gave her pause. “Yes?”

  “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”

  Rachel turned toward Ann inquisitively.

  But Ann shook her head. “I’m not in on this one.”

  “Go ahead,” Rachel said warily.

  “It’s about Matt.”

  “Matt?” Rachel blinked. In all of the drama of the last few days, she’d practically forgotten about Call-Me-Matt.

  “I’m just going to ask one question.”

  “Fine. Go ahead.”

  “Now that you know he’s not the Memento Killer, what are you going to do about him?”

  “Who says I have to do anything?” Rachel forked hash browns into her mouth and raised an eyebrow at Lynn.

  “Come on, Rachel.” Lynn said. “Answer the question. Are you going to go out with him or not?”

  “The question hasn’t come up,” Rachel said primly.

  “The question’s going to come up if Matt keeps coming to church,” Lynn predicted. “I can guarantee it.”

  “Not if he never asks me out,” Rachel said.

  “Oh, trust me. He’ll ask you out.”

  “Well,” Rachel said, “if he does, I’ll just deal with him the way I deal with all of my other problems.”

  “And that is?”

  “I’ll ignore him until he goes away.”

  Lynn shook her head. “You can try,” she said, “But he may not give you that option.”

  ~*~

  Later, Rachel always considered it a coincidence that she was sitting with Ann and Lynn having lunch when the alert announcing the arrest of the Memento Killer came through on her phone. Not irony. Coincidence.

  The killer, seemingly mild-mannered software engineer James Patrick Hannoran, had been arrested and indicted for the Memento Murders. A reclusive loner that none of them had ever met or even heard of, he’d nevertheless had a direct impact on their lives.

  Lynn drew in a huge, shaky breath of relief. Ann stated her hope that this should serve as a good reminder to Rachel that not everything in the universe, after all, featured her at the center. Rachel, in her turn, said they should all just be happy that the killer was behind bars at last.

  Because for all anybody knew, one of them could have been his next intended victim.

  29

 
; When Rachel announced that she planned to take an extended road trip that summer, no one was too surprised. After all, with her new apartment not available until late in the summer, all of her books packed up in the spider shed, Lynn and Ann busy with their summer schedules, the National Weather Service predicting a busy hurricane season for South Florida, and her personal life a complete minefield, there seemed plenty of reasons for her to get out of the state for a while.

  Despite the potential success or failure of the upcoming road trip, Rachel felt convinced that very little could dim the glow of actually being able to walk again. Only a cane, a plastic brace, and a few weeks of physical therapy stood between Rachel and complete normalcy.

  Or so she hoped.

  Then again, who knew?

  Even though the thought pained her, Rachel had to admit that many of the drama-fraught events of the past few weeks had been largely of her own making. From breaking her ankle while tripping over her own feet to misunderstanding Lee’s attempts to cheer her, to the ridiculous tempest-in-a-teapot over Call-Me-Matt showing up at church, Rachel could no longer deny that the common denominator in all these disastrous equations had been herself.

  Ann had accused her of being emotionally tone-deaf, but Rachel had begun to suspect that her real problem was blindness. Blinded by her own needs and fears, she’d completely missed the clues that would have shown her the truth.

  Rachel knew from having listened to Ann talk about training horses that sometimes their owners put blinders on them to keep them from overreacting to their surroundings and flying into a panic. Maybe she was like that. She’d put blinders on herself; only instead of keeping her from panicking, they kept her from seeing things as they actually were.

  Maybe the time had come to take off those blinders and see the world as it actually was.

  Open our eyes, Lord, they sometimes sang at church. Rachel decided that in the days ahead, this would be her constant prayer.

  Open my eyes.

  Maybe then things could go back to normal.

  No—not normal. Maybe things would be different. Better.

  Maybe Lee would take that new job and everything would stop being so weird between them.