Regarding Anna (8 page)

I drove to Minnie’s, thinking something wasn’t jiving with what the boy had told me and what Elmer had said, but then I had to take into account that the boy was only a child and it probably wasn’t a good idea to take what he’d said so literally.

I arrived at Minnie’s a little nervous about knocking on her door and wondering if it was too soon since our first visit. The last thing I wanted to do was come across as nosy or pushy—that could scare her away. But I was so excited to talk with her again, I couldn’t bear to wait any longer. And given the way we had left it the last time, I was sure she’d be fine with my stopping by.

On the way to her front door, I rehearsed the story of why I was in the neighborhood. I took in a deep breath and rang the doorbell.

A couple minutes later, Minnie opened the door. Her sour face left no room for doubt that she was not happy to see me.

“How dare you show your face here!”

“What, why? What’s the matter, Minnie?”

She shook a finger at me. “Don’t you ‘Minnie’ me, Miss Lindroth. I know who you are!”

It took me a few seconds to gather my thoughts. “Minnie, I can explain.”

She closed the door, but not before I could get my foot halfway inside.

“Please let me explain,” I told her through the gap. “I’ll tell you everything.”

“Get your foot out of the door, or I’ll call the police.”

“Minnie, please. I’m sorry I lied to you, but when I tell you why, I think you’ll understand.”

“You have no idea what I will or won’t understand, so don’t even go there. Now get out!”

She tightened the pressure on my foot until I had no choice but to pull it out. When I did, the door closed with a loud thud, followed by the sound of a lock engaging.

I looked down at my foot and the remnant of crumpled duct tape that was caught between the door and the jamb.

I had lost her—my only lifeline—and I had no one to blame but myself. I walked toward my car with the feeling of defeat pushing down on me so firmly it was hard to breathe. If only I hadn’t pretended to be someone else, right now I would be sitting in her living room learning more about the woman I thought was my mother. I wondered how many lies I had told her when we first met. Stupid PI work.

I drove home feeling like such a failure...in everything.

I appealed to the gods for dry weather for a while—that had been my last piece of duct tape.

* * *

One good thing came from all the sporadic thoughts I had throughout the next several nights—I figured out a possible way to get back into Minnie’s good graces. I knew it was a long shot but figured I had nothing to lose. Correction. I had $11.75 to lose if it didn’t work, money I had to withdraw from my meager savings account.

It took me a while, but I finally found a garden center in Wilmette willing to order a winterberry bush for me. A week later, they called to tell me it was in.

I drove to Chalet Garden Center where a friendly face greeted me inside, and when I told her my reason for coming, she chuckled.

“I have your special bush in the back, Miss Lindroth.”

I guess I might have gone on a bit on the phone with them about how important getting this particular bush had been to me, even after they’d explained that January in Illinois wasn’t the time to plant anything, let alone something as finicky as a winterberry bush. On top of that, I had told them it had to be a mature bush—not some puny little seedling. I didn’t care what they thought. I was determined. And desperate.

She came out with a cart that held a parcel wrapped in burlap about the size of a fifty-five-gallon drum. Apparently, they had listened.

I asked her if it could withstand being outdoors overnight if I left it wrapped like it was. She said it should be okay. It was too heavy and bulky for me to carry to my car, so she called for someone to help me.

I was excited and nervous at the same time about what I was about to do, and it took me until I was almost halfway home to ask myself how in the hell was I going to lift that thing out of the trunk and maneuver it down Minnie’s front walk and up the front steps to her porch. I laughed out loud. What else could I have done? Cry, I supposed. But then what good would that have done?

It was close to five o’clock when I arrived home, the last sign of the sun barely visible above the low neighborhood buildings. I parked the car and went up to my apartment, still chuckling as I imagined myself dragging this massive bush up to Minnie’s porch in the dead of night.

All I had in the apartment for dinner was a can of chili, which I heated up on the hotplate. I poured myself a glass of Mad Dog, and while the chili was heating sat down with a pad and paper and began writing. The words I chose had to be just the right ones. A rough draft was done by the time dinner was ready.

If I made the delivery too early or too late in the evening, I risked getting caught. Someone might even call the police. So I decided to do it early in the morning, before the sun came up.

By the time I’d finished eating, I had the final draft of what I wanted to say to Minnie. I read it for the umpteenth time and then sealed it in an envelope.

* * *

The alarm jolted me out of bed at four-thirty A.M., and I quickly put on some old clothes and headed out. Fortunately, the mild weather meant I didn’t need to wear a winter coat and risk getting it dirty—I couldn’t afford an expensive dry-cleaning bill.

At that hour of the morning, there was no traffic, so it took me little time to get to Minnie’s. When I pulled up in front of her house, there was no one in sight and the neighboring homes were dark.

I opened the trunk. The bush had conveniently rolled to the back, and I couldn’t reach it without bending over the edge of the trunk on my stomach and extending my arms as far as they could go. My feet were off the ground as I pulled on the beastly shrub with all my strength. It moved a few inches.

I let go and stood upright to catch my breath before I dove in for another try. That time I managed to pull the bush close to the edge of the trunk. Now to get it out.

I figured I could probably lift twenty-five pounds. This bush was a lot heavier than that, and it was an awkward shape. I grasped it at its trunk and pulled up. It moved, but not much. I tried again, and it moved a little more. I took in a deep breath, gave it all I had, and managed to raise the bush up onto the edge of the trunk.

I was now holding on to the damn thing for dear life so it didn’t either fall back into the trunk or onto the street, but I didn’t know if I had the strength to lower it to the ground without dropping it.

“What are you doing?” The raspy baritone voice startled me so that I lost the little control I had over the bush. Then I lost my balance and fell down onto the asphalt squarely on my butt with the bush in my lap and the burlap-wrapped upper half of it tight up against my face. I tilted my head back and looked up to meet the policeman’s gaze.

I expected him to say something else, but he didn’t, so I said the only thing that came to mind.

“Hi.”

“What are you doing?” he repeated.

Now, I could have responded to that question in a couple of different ways, and the first answer that came to me was pretty sarcastic, so I chose another one.

“I’m trying to deliver a bush. I don’t suppose you could help me get this thing off of me.”

He walked around me at a slow gait, shined a blinding light in my face, and said, “I’d hate to get my uniform dirty. It just came back from the laundry.”

I counted to five. It was a good thing I did because what I almost blurted out would have definitely gotten me into more trouble than I was already in. I looked down at what little I could see of my lap and realized the burlap wrapping around the roots had broken, and there was dirt everywhere. I managed to push the bush off my lap just as a second police car arrived on the scene. This one had his red lights blaring.

“What seems to be the trouble?” he asked the first cop.

I pulled myself up off the pavement and brushed myself off the best I could.

“Her story is she’s delivering a bush.”

“A bush.”

“A winterberry bush,” I explained for no useful reason.

One by one, lights came on in the surrounding homes, and people were peeking out their windows and doors to see what the commotion was all about. A man wearing nothing but boxer shorts came out of the house I was parked in front of and stood on his porch staring at us. Only in his underwear and it was forty-something degrees out there.

Then my worst fear became reality. Minnie, wearing a plaid nightgown, fuzzy slippers, and a shawl around her shoulders, marched toward us like Sergeant Carter out to get Gomer Pyle after he’d done something incredibly stupid.

“Arrest that woman!” she shouted.

“Calm down, lady. She hasn’t done anything illegal...that we know of.”

“I know her! She’s an imposter!”

“What do you mean she’s an imposter?”

It was getting more absurd by the minute. Now all the neighbors were out on their porches watching us.

“Officer, I can ex—”

“I’ll get to you,” he said before I could finish my sentence.

He turned to Minnie. “Now what were you saying?”

“She lied to me...about who she was. Gave me a phony name and other lies too.”

The policeman turned toward me. “Is that true?”

“I was desperate to get to know her, and I shouldn’t have lied. That’s why I’m here with this winterberry bush. I wanted to make amends. Apologize to her. It’s a peace offering.” The longer I spoke, the more pathetic I sounded...even to me.

Minnie grunted something inaudible, turned back toward her house, and walked away.

“Take her away,” she shouted.

“What do we do with the bush?” the second cop asked the first one.

“Throw it away. Find a dumpster in an alley somewhere,” he said.

Minnie stopped walking and turned around. She looked directly at me. “It’s a winterberry bush?” she asked.

I nodded. “With a note to you inside.”

She walked back to us and glared at cop number one.

“You can’t mistreat a precious bush like that by throwing it in a dumpster.” She gestured toward me. “Now, her...well,
she’s
a different story.”

“Ma’am, what do you suggest we do with the bush? We can’t exactly plant it anywhere,” the cop said sarcastically.

“Can you put it in my garage? Someone has to rescue the poor thing.”

“Yes, ma’am. We can do that.” The cop turned toward me. “I suggest you leave this neighborhood and don’t come back.”

“Yes, sir.”

Completely disheartened, I drove home and went back to bed.

EIGHT

“I Hate Coffee”

A week after the ill-fated winterberry bush incident, I was still feeling embarrassed and totally stupid. Though Minnie now had my phone number and address, I was not optimistic she’d ever contact me. I doubted she’d even read the letter I had tucked inside the burlap wrapping. She probably burned it.

I tried to move forward on my case by following up on the scant information I had gleaned from Minnie during our first meeting, but after several false starts, I was no further along.

It could be that Minnie had told me everything she knew about the boarders and the “hanky-panky” that went on in the house before she’d bought it. If that was the case, I wouldn’t have felt so bummed out about having ruined my relationship with her. If that was the case.

* * *

I woke up at two-thirty in the morning, shivering. Damn heat had gone out again. Past experience told me it was no use calling Elmer—it wouldn’t be fixed until Monday morning anyway. I donned two sweaters, put the only other blanket I owned on top of the one already on the bed, and then draped the bedspread over that.

After thirty minutes, I decided that wasn’t working, so I got up and put a kettle on the hotplate for a cup of tea and then left the rest of the water boiling, hoping the steam would provide a little heat for the room.

It was Sunday. I wasn’t sure what to do with myself at such an early hour—I had ironed everything in sight. No use turning on the television—all that was on were test patterns this time of day. Why were they on anyway? What did they test?