Stef Ann Holm (11 page)

“Just make sure you bring your doctor’s release.” Drew’s profile drew her attention—his nose and straight forehead, the shape of his mouth.

“I’ll get it.” Lucy crossed her arms, perhaps a subconscious move to ward away thoughts of him because she found her reaction to him vaguely disturbing.

His attention turned to her and he smiled. A tingle started in the pit of her belly. She hated that he could cause her to feel a little flutter. “How’re you?”

“Fine.”

“Everything go all right at the Greenbaums?”

“I got the job.”

“You’ll like working for them. They’re good people.”

Lucy wondered how good Drew would think they were if he knew they talked about his past, even with favor and sympathy.

“Hey, Coach.” Matt, who had quietly listened to the exchange, finally burst in. “Do you think if I got one of your baseball cards, you could autograph it to me?”

“Absolutely.”

“Gee, thanks!”

Drew glanced over his shoulder to the table where his friends sat. “I better go. See you around.”

A moment later, Lucy paid the bill and drove the boys home.

Switching on lights, she closed the kitchen window to ward off the chill mountain air that had settled in. She looked at the stack of mail on the counter, and watched Jason finger through the envelopes. He didn’t have to tell her what he was hoping for.

She’d gone to their post office box earlier in the day, and what he wanted had come.

He grabbed an envelope and waved it at her. “Sweet! My car insurance money. When can we buy me a replacement truck?” Jason’s face lit up as if it were his birthday. She hated to knock the wind out of his sail, but he’d given her no choice.

“We aren’t,” she replied, walking into the kitchen and getting a glass of water.

“Whadda you mean?”

“I’m not buying you another truck, Jason.”

“Why not?”

“Because you haven’t earned it.”

He lowered the envelope, stared hard at it, then stared hard at her. “That’s bull. You said if I tried out for Little League, I could have another car.”

“I did say that, yes.”

“So you can’t change your mind! It’s not fair.”

“No. When someone doesn’t stick to their end of the bargain about something, it’s not fair.”

“Whadda you mean?”

She gazed at him for a long, long moment, giving him a look that spoke volumes. Only one other time had she looked at him like this.

Then suddenly, he clued in. His shoulders slumped, the light in his eyes dimmed.

“I will keep my promise, since you’re playing baseball,” Lucy said, then raised her tone an octave and infused hope into her next words. “But there’s going to be a delay. I know of a way you can get your truck by summer’s end if you don’t mess up. On
anything.
”

Her meaning was quite clear and he understood.

Jason frowned, tentatively asked, “How?”

“You’ll go to work. For me.”

“Huh?”

“Starting on Thursday, you’ll be delivering meals that I prepare to the Sunrise Trail Creek Seniors Home each Tuesday and Thursday. I’ve already cleared everything with the staff, and I’ll be making food donations to the home on those days.” Lucy continued in a light tone, but she’d thought this out well in advance and was quite succinct with her plan. “I want you to stay there for a couple of hours, serve the meals to the elderly and then clean up.”

Jason made a face. “I don’t want to hang out with a bunch of old people.”

She raised her brows, put her hands on her hips. “The way I see it, you don’t have a choice, Jason.”

“Can’t I do something else?” She saw the flicker in his eyes as his mind worked. “How about if I apply to be a busboy at Woolly Burgers?”

Lucy smiled, nodded with genuine enthusiasm. “That’s a fantastic idea. You can do that along with the meals at Sunrise.” She inhaled, pleased. “Between the Sunrise, baseball and Woolly’s, you’ll be so busy this summer, you won’t have time for anything else, now will you?”

She let the question hang, hovering between them as if suspended on an invisible thread.

Jason’s mouth pursed. “Okay,” he mumbled, then climbed the stairs to the bedroom he shared with his younger brother.

Lucy stayed in the kitchen a long while, hoping her son would be able to prove himself. She remembered her little boy and how he used to be, and she knew he had it in him to do the right thing. He just had to believe in himself.

Last evening had ended on a note of promise, but Lucy’s morning began on a chord of disappointment.

She received a call on her cell just after breakfast.

She pushed the talk button. “Hello?”

Shirley Greenbaum was on the other end. “Lucy, I’m so sorry but we’re going to have to postpone.”

Lucy’s heartbeat slowed to molasses.

Postpone.
No income.

Shirley went on, “Our daughter developed a complication with her pregnancy and we’re flying to Los Angeles immediately.”

“I hope it’s nothing serious, Mrs. Greenbaum.”

“The doctors are monitoring her. She had a similar situation with our last grandson. So we’re optimistic. It’s still scary, though.”

After discussing a possible restart date, Lucy disconnected the phone.

Since it wasn’t technically a breach of contract, Lucy had no recourse. The Greenbaums still wanted her to work for them, only she wouldn’t be making any money for a couple of weeks until they returned.

With her mind running on overload, half numb with Shirley’s untimely news, Lucy neatened up the slips of paper on the kitchen counter. A gas receipt for $37.85 to fill her tank. The Little League paperwork. Hospital release.

Looking at the restaurant slip for last night’s dinner—$48.95 on three burgers, drinks and desserts, plus tip—Lucy had a surge of regret for splurging.

If things didn’t turn around, she would have to get a real job with a steady income. Something she hadn’t done since before the boys were born.

But a weekly paycheck was desperately needed. And soon.

S
pin’s eyesight gave her fits and she ripped out a strong curse beneath her breath. She wore her rhinestone, horn-rim glasses, the filigreed chain around her neck.

Squinting so she could see better, she dabbed some oil paint on the tiny section numbered 45. Or was that 46?
For the love of mud.
Da Vinci must have had the patience of a saint.

It had taken Spin the better portion of a year to get this far on
The Last Supper,
only able to work on the paint-by-number scene for small increments before her vision blurred from the strain. But she was making progress. She hoped to finish it before she died.

The Sunrise Trail Creek assisted care home was located by a stretch of the Wood River and appointed modestly in neutral colors—bland walls in the foyer, the floor covered in speckled linoleum. Out back, there was a pond where the residents could feed the geese. Every now and then, Spin liked to watch them, but it saddened her at the same time. They could fly away, go wherever they wanted, and she was stuck here. Dying a little each day.

Her purpose in life was gone. Over.

Back in the old days, she was quite the catch, a real dish. But as time wore on and age faded her beauty to a map of wrinkles and a widow’s peak that turned white-gray, she felt her value ebb.

She used to be a live pistol. Could cut a joke with the best of them, and had attention lavished on her. After Wally died, life in Red Duck without her beloved husband had taken a solitary path. By choice, she hadn’t remarried. Perhaps if she had, she wouldn’t be alone now. But the saying went that women outlived the men they loved, and if the inhabitants in Sunrise were any indication, that was true.

There were more women than men in the facility. And the men who hadn’t lost their hearing altogether, weren’t drooling or wetting themselves sitting in wheelchairs, paid her notice that she didn’t care for. Perverts, the lot of them.

Spin dipped her Grumbacher paintbrush into the yellow-gold mix on her palette. Hand raised, she tried not to let her wrist shake as she put a dot on the canvas. She smeared it and landed a dollop of color on the number 123 portion.

Hell’s bells!

Disgusted, she set the paintbrush down and took a break. She left the glassed-in sunporch and walked outside to look at the pond.

She stood on the covered veranda, her liver-spotted, gnarled hands holding on to the railing. For some ungodly reason, hot tears pooled in her eyes.

She blinked.

Borrowed time. That’s what she was on.

Inhaling, she took a deep breath of the meadow grass, smelled the fragrance of aspen leaves and wild columbine. She held it inside her frail lungs for as long as she could. She wanted to remember for when she got to heaven.

“Hi, Ms. Goodey-Leonard!” one of the staff called cheerfully. Spin turned to see that cute little nurse walking onto the porch with a tall woman following her. “How are you today?”

“I’m still alive.”

The nurse giggled, her fresh-faced complexion golden in the indirect sunshine. “You sure are!”

Spin sized up the dark-haired woman, who wore attitude like a coat. She was pretty, but the look in her eyes was bruised. She was in self-torture.

“Ms. Goodey-Leonard, this is Jacquie. She’s volunteering at the Sunrise for the next few weeks, and she’ll be here to visit with you.”

“Visit me for what?”

“Play cards, take a stroll in our garden, share a snack at our coffee shop, write letters for you—”

“Everyone I loved is dead accept for Morris, my great-nephew, and I talk to him on the phone.”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Jacquie muttered, rolling her eyes and exhaling sharply. Then, in a soft tone to the nurse, she said, “I didn’t volunteer for this job. Can’t you assign me to someone else? Someone who’s bedridden, in a coma, and I’ll just watch television in their room.”

Spin might wear small hearing aids, but they were hypersensitive and she could radio in on things that others might miss.

“You don’t have to have a kitten. I don’t need anyone to write a letter for me. I can do it myself.”

Pushing the glasses farther up her noise, she took a hard look at Jacquie and made a fast inventory. She had the goods, but a bad attitude went with that. A woman scorned. That was obvious in the way her concealer didn’t quite cover up the dark circles beneath her puffy eyes. Women didn’t bawl like that over missing a clothing sale. A man was involved.

Spin perked up. Hearing about a love story gone wrong would kill half the afternoon. The painting could wait.

“I need a letter written,” she said bluntly.

Jacquie’s expression clouded. “But isn’t there someone else I can—”

“Dear, I feel some abdominal gas coming on from that cabbage soup I had for lunch,” Spin said to the young nurse, then feigned a grimace, clutching her midsection. “Get me something for it. I’d hate to soil myself. Hurry along, now.”

The nurse hightailed it to the infirmary.

Spin’s arms dropped as soon as the nurse was out of sight.

Jacquie’s eyes widened. “If you’re going to have an accident, go to the bathroom.”

“So what was his name? Some sugarpuss—wasn’t he? How long did you know him?”

“What are you talking about?” Jacquie demanded, her brown eyes hard with attitude. “I’m getting that nurse.”

“Don’t bother.” Spin’s grip was slight but firm as she grabbed hold of Jacquie’s arm. “Sit down with me. I’m not going to shit my pants, but my knees are ready to give out. I’ve been standing at an easel for an hour.”

Something within Jacquie reacted. Who was this old bird that she could bull crap her way to giving a nurse the slip? Then talk as if she were born in a naval yard, yet appear as frail as parchment?

It hit Jacquie. She reminded her of…herself.

Clenching her jaw, Jacquie wished she wasn’t in an old folks home. Damn Sheriff Lewis and his fake-and-bake tan to hell. He’d pulled her over the night of her birthday, after she’d left Max Beck’s place. The sheriff could have written her up for a DUI. God knows she’d been juiced. Instead of hauling her butt to jail, he’d arranged for Deputy Cooper to come out, get her and drive her home—but with two conditions. She promised never to drive drunk again, and she had to perform one month of voluntary community service. He’d done the picking. The Sunrise Trail Creek Seniors Home.

Along with a bitch of a hangover she hadn’t been able to shake after Drew left, Jacquie had literally been taken for a ride. This was her punishment—sitting with an elderly woman who was staring at her as if she could read her mind.

“Are you sure you don’t need to use the bathroom?” Jacquie asked, suddenly antsy and nervous to be here. She didn’t like that undressed feeling that rose when Spin looked at her through those diamond-encrusted glasses.

“Don’t insult me.” Spin sat on one of the patio chairs and let out an audible sigh. “So tell me. Am I right? It’s a man. You didn’t shove his clutch anymore?”

Jacquie didn’t respond.

“I’d been around the block a few times before I met my Wally, and it was no picnic. Men can be assholes.” Gazing at her over the rim of the glasses, Spin asked, “Ever heard of a Judge Harrison?”

“No.”

“Good. Because he was the biggest asshole of all time.”

Jacquie needed something to settle herself, and longed for the soothing smoke of a Virginia Slim. “Harrison’s a former boyfriend?”

“Humph!” Spin’s spider-veined hands cupped the arms of the chair. She had yellow-gold paint on her fingers. “Get a pad of legal paper and come back here with a pen, too. You’ll find them in the rec hall. Go on.”

A moment later, Jacquie came back and asked herself why she was even doing what this woman asked. She sat down once again, pad on her lap. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Spin repeated. “Start writing exactly what I tell you.”

Jacquie suspended the pen over the paper and began to write as soon as Spin started talking, slowly enough for Jacquie to get the words down.

“Way back when we first met, I knew you’d be a special person in my life. I fell in love with you and you said you loved me. You are the heart of my heart, and no matter what has happened, I feel like I have been cheated out of my future with you.”

The pen in Jacquie’s hand paused, and she slanted a glance at Spin. “Who’s this letter to?”

“Keep writing,” Spin declared, “or I’ll lose my train of thought.” In a resolved tone, she continued, “It makes no difference whose fault it is. But I find myself thinking about you constantly, even though I am to blame.”

Jacquie abruptly set the pen down. “I can’t write this.” Tears swam in her eyes, stinging them. “You’ll have to get someone else to do it.”

“Someone else can’t. They haven’t lived it like you.” Spin’s gaze was all-knowing. “I was young once.”

Swallowing, Jacquie couldn’t trust herself to speak. How had her life gotten so screwed up? She’d loved Drew with all her heart, would have done anything to stay with him. But he’d fallen out of love with her. And she’d cheated on him. There was no going back.

“You need to write this letter,” Spin said, her voice wizened yet wise. “For yourself. Never mail it to him, of course, because it only shows him your weakness for him, but it’ll be the first step in getting over the relationship.”

With those words, Jacquie silently began to cry.

“Now, now. I’ll help you get through it.” Spin reached out to the attractive woman, patted her hand and felt a breath of fresh air fill her lungs.

Spin Goodey-Leonard suddenly had purpose.