The Wash

by Cary Christopher

“A pretty special rock apparently. Why do you think they hid it in the wall?”

  He carefully picked up the box and walked it to the sink, pouring the water out of it. Then, grabbing another dishtowel from the drawer, he dried it off both inside and out. There was no writing inside.

  “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “It’s just a plain box holding a plain rock. What should we do with it?”

  Ruth put a hand on the rock, “I’ll keep it. Put it back in the box and I’ll put it on top of the bookshelf in the living room. It’s a part of this house, whatever it is, and I don’t think we should remove it.”

  Robert nodded, putting the rock inside and closing the lid.

  “I thought we were on to a real piece of treasure,” he said.

  “Who knows. Maybe we just don’t know what we have.”

  III

  It was just after dark and the Quikstop was empty when Bethany Ann saw Phillip Anderson’s big Lincoln pull into one of the spaces in front. He rarely stopped in even though his lot was right across the street from her store. The few times they’d spoken, he’d seemed like a nice enough man. It was no secret in The Wash that he was a polygamist, but she’d always been respectful. She asked about his family each time and he seemed to like talking to her, but then she wouldn’t see him in the store for months. She knew she wasn’t the only person who got that treatment. The general consensus was that the Andersons were loners. They seemed to want as little contact with the outside world as necessary.

  “How are you doing, Mr. Anderson?” Bethany Ann asked as Anderson stepped through the door in jeans and a sport coat.

  “Not too bad,” he said genially. He walked toward the cooler and picked up four gallons of milk. Bethany began to ring them up as he stepped to the counter, but Anderson stopped her.

  “Sorry, I’ve got more to pick up. Amanda didn’t make it to the grocery store today so I’ve got to load up on what I can here. If you had a grocery cart, it would make things easier.”

  Bethany Ann smiled and reached beneath her counter. She pulled out two wire baskets.

  “The next best thing. I don’t leave them out because most people just tripped over them.”

  Anderson returned her smile and took the baskets.

  “Everyone okay?” Bethany Ann asked as he made his way back to the cooler. “They’re not sick are they?”

  “No, nothing like that. They just got busy today and couldn’t get to it. Things happen sometimes, you know?”

  “Yes, I do. I bet that’s especially true when there are as many mouths to feed as you have. I don’t know how you all manage, myself. I need my alone time.”

  Anderson returned to the counter and set both baskets down.

  “I sometimes need my alone time as well. I can always get away by going to work though. The girls don’t have that luxury.”

  Bethany Ann began ringing things up as Anderson toyed around with some homemade refrigerator magnets stuck to a board beside the register. They were small carved wooden animals with dolls eyes and tiny clothes glued to them.

  “Who makes these?”

  “Sara Cohn does.”

  Anderson looked at her thoughtfully for a moment.

  “You know, my family makes some crafts also. Do you sell on consignment?”

  “Sure do. I don’t charge you anything unless something sells. You set the price. I get twenty percent. You get the rest. I’ll give you an accurate inventory once a month.”

  Anderson nodded, “That seems pretty fair actually.”

  “What do you all make?”

  “All kinds of things. One of my daughters makes dresses, she helps outfit the whole family actually. Another does needlepoint and paints. Could I bring some by sometime?”

  “Sure,” she said, putting the last of the groceries in a bag. “I’d be happy to look at them. As for your groceries, it’ll be forty three dollars and seventy eight cents.”

  Anderson pulled out his wallet and handed her some bills.

  “You want some help carrying all this?” she asked as she handed him his change.

  “Nah, I think I can get it,” he replied, looping his fingers through the plastic handles.

  “Maybe I’ll bring by some of those crafts next week.”

  “Anytime,” Bethany Ann replied and smiled at him as he pushed through the door.

  “Have a nice night,” he called and walked to his car. As he put the bags down and fumbled with the keys on the key ring, he glanced back toward his place across the road. Something shimmered in the air in the field next to the office. He squinted to get a better look but couldn’t quite make out what it was. He quickly loaded the bags in, closed the trunk and glanced back over his shoulder at the field. This time, he could see the shimmer clearly. It was as if someone had pulled a sparkling plastic curtain over the empty lot. Through the curtain, Anderson could see a shape, large and dark, pacing back and forth.

  He walked back into the store.

  “Forget something?” asked Bethany Ann.

  “No,” said Anderson. “Could you do me a favor and take a look out toward my car lot? I think my eyes are playing tricks on me.”

  She looked out the windows and could clearly see the office building, the paved lot with its cars on display and beyond it the fields stretching into the distance.

  “What exactly am I looking for?” she asked.

  “Do you see anything weird? Like a mirage on a hot day?”

  Bethany continued to look but shook her head, “No. Nothing like that. Just your lot and open land as far as I can see.”

  Anderson nodded to her, “Thanks.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “I think so. My eyes are just tired” he smiled at her and walked back out the door toward his car. The shimmer was still there.

  At least she can’t see it yet, he thought and climbed in.

  A few minutes later, the bells on the front door rang again pulling Bethany Ann from her magazine. A red-haired man wearing a black raincoat and black jeans headed toward the counter.

  “May I help you?” she asked.

  “A pack of Camel Lights please and a lighter.”

  She reached into the cigarette case and handed him the pack and a lighter from the stand next to the register.

  “This one okay?” she asked.

  “Fine,” he said, “Say, you wouldn’t happen to be able to tell me whether the man who just left here was Phillip Anderson, would you?”

  “Yes, that was him. Are you looking for a car?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Why do you want to know?” she asked as she finished making change.

  “Just curious,” he gathered the pack and lighter off the counter. “You have a good night.”

  He beamed a smile at her and walked out the door.

  Bethany Ann watched his battered Chevy Nova, pull out of the parking lot and head off down the highway. Something about him just didn’t feel right. She walked around the counter and pushed her way through the front door as a flutter of white caught her attention. Out beyond the parking lot stood a little girl and her dog. Both were watching her.

  “Hey!” she waved to the girl. “You’re Anderson’s youngest aren’t you? I just saw your Dad!”

  The girl didn’t move. She continued to stare at Bethany Ann.

  “You might want to get home before he figures out you’re gone!”

  The girl stared a moment longer. Then she turned and began walking back in the direction of the Anderson house with the dog in tow. Bethany Ann watched her for a moment and smiled to herself, remembering when she would sneak out on nights like this growing up.

  “Here’s hoping you don’t get caught,” she whispered and went back inside.

  Further down the road, Randall and Derek Thompson sat on the front porch of their old wooden house with shotguns across their laps. The porch ran the length of the front and faced down a long worn path to James Ogden Trail about 25 yards away. Both men wore their standard blue jean
s and work shirts from the Sevier Dairy and their long gray beards and greasy hair were loosely groomed.

  “There it is again,” Randall said. He nodded to the East where a dim glow was rising despite the sun setting behind them.

  Derek was sitting about ten feet away, his legs dangling off the end of the wooden porch. He looked to where Randall had nodded.

  “He’ll be along any minute now,” Randall said.

  As if on cue, the sound of a car motor reached out from the distance. Derek chambered a shell and raised the rifle to his shoulder. As the sound got louder, Randall did the same. The battered Chevy Nova came into view and both men unloaded on it. The car swerved slightly and continued on past them.

  “Think you got a window,” Randall said.

  “Yep.”

  IV

  In the weeks following Wendell’s disappearance, Sara Cohn had been doing her best to hold it together. Steve was certain Wendell didn’t leave on his own. At the very least, the man would have called if he was taking off for any extended period of time. As much as Wendell loved his job, Steve was convinced he wouldn’t just abandon it and so Sara listened patiently as her husband ran through his litany of theories every night. She encouraged him to contact the police in Panguitch but nothing new surfaced.

  It wasn’t long before Steve turned from frustrated to sullen. She tried her best to comfort him even though she wasn’t as convinced as Steve that Wendell didn’t just take off. Years before, he’d gotten an offer from some friends to snowboard in Canada and left without any notice. That incident almost cost him his job but Steve accepted his apology and chalked it up to being a dumb kid. Sara wondered if Wendell had an immaturity relapse.

  Amidst all of this, there had been a slow build of excitement and dread. Things were changing. She felt it. Now, two days before Christmas, she was almost certain the impossible had happened. Her period was almost a week late, despite the fact she was on birth control and hadn’t missed a pill.

  She and Steve had always wanted kids, but there were complications. After four miscarriages, the OBGYN in Panguitch ran tests that laid the blame squarely on Sara’s body. He’d told her that it wasn’t impossible, but “highly unlikely” that she’d ever carry a child to term. They’d tried and failed three more times before she’d given up. Getting her hopes up and having them dashed over and over was just too difficult to go through. She’d gone on the pill and focused on other things in her life.

  Now, she was certain she was pregnant. Even better, she felt great. Physically, she was as fit as she’d been in her teens, still running year round thanks to an overworked treadmill. Mentally, she was more confident than she’d ever been. Not only did she know her body was telling her it was pregnant, she also knew this one was going to come to term.

  Then there were the other sensations that she’d never felt before. Even with winter arriving, and the snow already piling up, the world around her seemed much brighter and more brilliant than before. The air itself felt crisper, fresher and even in Dora’s, where she’d worked for years, she felt herself pausing to breathe in the aromas. Those feelings more than anything had tipped her off to check a calendar. When she figured up the time between her missed period and when conception could have occurred, the window of opportunity sat squarely over the all night lovemaking bout she’d had with Steve last month.

  She hadn’t breathed a word about it to him. She didn’t want to say anything prematurely and with him in his funk, she didn’t know how best to approach it. There was also the fact that she didn’t have anything conclusive to show him yet. The problem was that going down to the store and getting a pregnancy test kit wasn’t as easy in The Wash as it was most places. The only place that would have them was the grocery store and if she purchased one, the whole town would know in a matter of an hour. She was going to have to go to Panguitch, or better yet, over the mountain, through Brian Head to Parowan in order to keep some sense of privacy about the matter. She hated to make that drive alone and after some thought, she waited for Steve to leave for work and called Cindy. It only took the bribe of lunch at LaVilla’s (the only good Mexican food for at least a hundred miles) to get her on board. Thirty minutes later, the two were in Sara’s Jeep, speeding toward Brian Head.

  The highway from The Wash to Panguitch was mostly two lane road that wound through flat pastureland. The snow banks were beginning to get big and already business from skiers and snowboarders was picking up in the restaurants of The Wash. The girls stopped for coffee at Bethany Ann’s store and then began heading down the highway.

  “You do realize I have to be back for work by 3:00,” Cindy said.

  Sara was taking the drive easy, not even bothering to meet the speed limit so far.

  Sara smiled, “What’s the rush? It’s an hour over the mountain and an hour back. I’ve just got to pick something up from the drugstore there and then we can eat lunch. You’ve got plenty of time.”

  Cindy slouched in the seat and sipped her coffee.

  “You should relax some,” Sara continued. “This place is absolutely beautiful. I think we take it for granted sometimes.”

  Cindy pulled her gaze away from the road ahead and raised an eyebrow at Sara.

  “What’s gotten into you? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say ‘relax’ in all the years we’ve known each other. You’re the one who runs for fun.”

  Sara stayed quiet for a moment, letting the sound of her tires going over the asphalt wash into her ears and around her.

  “We’re going to Parowan because I think I’m pregnant,” she said.

  Cindy’s jaw dropped.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Actually, I can hardly believe it either,” said Sara with a small laugh. “But, I’m a week late and something just feels different. I want to get one of those home pregnancy kits but I don’t want everyone to know about it.”

  A look of concern crossed Cindy’s brow.

  “Aren’t you worried at all?”

  “A little maybe. Mostly though, I just feel fantastic. It’s hard to worry when you feel this good. Besides, if the test comes out positive, then the baby will have been conceived against the worst possible odds, so it’s just meant to be. I mean, I’ve been on birth control for years, I already know that my body doesn’t do well with pregnancies and the times I was pregnant before were always horrible. You remember…”

  “Oh God, do I. I remember you spending more time in the bathroom at Dora’s than waiting tables.”

  “Exactly. This time it feels different. It’s almost unbelievable how vivid everything seems. I mean, the other day I caught myself staring at tufts of grass. I could see every individual blade and they all looked amazing.”

  “Sounds like you’re on drugs,” Cindy chided.

  “I know! It totally does. I’m hoping that’s a good omen and I’m not going to let myself get scared about it.”

  “So that’s it? You’re late and you feel like everything is beautiful?”

  “For the most part. I’ve also gained a little weight.”

  “Well this makes going to Parowan much more exciting,” Cindy grinned.

  The two settled into a comfortable silence for a moment.

  “So, anything new with you and J.B.?” asked Sara.

  “No. As far as I’m concerned, he’s completely out of the picture.”

  “So Cindy Walker has cut one more from her list of available men to settle down with?

  “It would seem so.”

  The road played out in front of them. There was at least a foot of snow already on the ground and the occasional track of a snowmobile cut into the otherwise smooth blanket of white in the fields beside them. Cindy shifted in her seat so she was facing Sara.

  “What do you know about Robert Jiminez?”

  Sara laughed, “Robert? I probably know as much as you do. He’s always been good to Steve and I when we go in for drinks but I don’t know anything about him other than he lives behind Ruth’s pla
ce. He keeps to himself. Don’t tell me he’s your next victim.”

  “They’re not victims, Sara. Besides, it’s not like I sought him out from a lineup of potential suitors. He came into Dora’s for dinner the other night and we struck up a conversation. I’d never really talked to him before other than just saying ‘hi’. He seems like a real nice guy. Not a ‘player’ like Javier or J.B. He seems more genuine.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “This is going to sound silly, but I think it’s because when he talked to me, he kept looking at my eyes.”

  Sara laughed.

  “Really. I mean it. He looked me in the eye instead of shooting glances at my chest. We talked about books.”

  “No surprise there. Unless he’s working I never see him without a book and even then, I’ve been at Jim’s when it’s slow and he’s sitting there flipping pages.”

  “I know. He had one this time also. That’s kind of what started the conversation. He’s really kind of cute though.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re going to move from J.B. to one of his closest friends.”

  “I’m not doing it intentionally. It’s not like I set out to steal him away. We just had this really nice conversation and I’ve been thinking about him ever since.”

  “Has he called you?”

  “No, but he doesn’t have my number. I wouldn’t expect him to.”

  “So you’ve been thinking about him ever since you talked to him but you haven’t talked to him since. How long ago was that?”

  “A few weeks ago,” Cindy replied.

  Sara looked over at her, shocked, “A few weeks ago? And you haven’t tracked him down yet?”

  Cindy shrugged, “I’ve been to Jim’s a few times since but he hasn’t really done anything but say hello and make some more small talk. Plus J.B. has been there each time and I’m sure that probably has something to do with it.”

  “Or he’s not into you,” said Sara with a smirk.

  Cindy shot her a look over her sunglasses.

  “So what are you going to do? Just wait until he comes into Dora’s again?”