Goodbye, Miss February

by Sally O'Brien

  “One-fifteen,” said the other one as she dropped her Stephen King on the desk.

  Bertha’s hand flew to her throat. “I was there just before that, couldn’t have been gone more than five minutes before the robbery. I might have been killed.” She paused while we considered the effect of that. They’d have to close the library, that’s for sure. “How did it happen?”

  Both women started talking at once but the romance reader prevailed. “This man walked in with his face covered in white bandages and pointed a big gun . . .”

  “It was a shotgun,” said the other one. “A twelve-gauge Remington.”

  With a curt nod, blue velour continued as corrected. “. . . pointed a shotgun at the teller—Susan Alcott, Bessie VanderKamp’s daughter.” Bertha nodded. “He told her to put all the money in a shopping bag.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “The bag was from Younkers down in Des Moines, not anyplace local.”

  I nudged them back on track. “Did he say, ‘This is a stickup,’ or did he have a note?”

  They looked at each other and shrugged before curly blond hair said, “I don’t know but they gave him all the money they had, must have been close to seven thousand dollars.”

  “Wow. Was anyone hurt? Do they have any suspects?” The women shook their heads but promised further bulletins.

  I left the library and found the Mid-Iowa Bank swathed in yellow crime-scene tape. Both police cars were parked in front and a uniformed officer directed gawkers to keep moving. Fat chance. At SuperSaver, people huddled in small clusters trading information. No one had robbed Cherry Glen’s bank since Jesse James.

  I hurried home to tell Andy, thinking this might replace Famous Artist Has Cancer as headline news. Andy had a bulletin of her own: The doctor had postponed the surgery until Friday.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Something to do with his vacation.”

  I spent an irritated minute thinking about that before switching gears. “What time?”

  “Eleven. We have to be there at six-thirty.”

  “So we leave here when?”

  “Five-thirty should do it.”

  “In the morning? Is the sun up then?”

  “Not in February.”

  I checked the calendar. “It’s March.”

  “Still no.”

  “Well, we’ll manage.”

  I spent the rest of the day working on my talk. Andy could have gone with me to town. Leland never called.

  But Florence did. “Have you heard the news?” she asked.

  “About the bank robbery? Yeah, I was in town earlier.”

  “I know. Did you hear who did it?”

  “They have someone already? Who?”

  “You know that guy with the convention bureau I said would help with story hour? Him. Leland Goetzmann.”

  “Leland!” I clapped my hand over my mouth and shot a quick look around to make sure Andy couldn’t hear me. “You can’t be serious!” I kept my voice down. “How do they know?”

  “Well, in the first place, he was wearing this salmon-colored jacket he always has on. One of the tellers—Susan Alcott, she was a VanderKamp—spotted it when his parka, you know, fell open. Plus, the getaway car was that big yellow hammer he drives. Not many of those around. And then there’s the note. He wrote it on the back of one of his personal checks. The police just went to his house and waited for him to, you know, come home. They found the money in the Younkers bag—he could have at least shopped local—and a loaded shotgun in his car. He’s in jail now.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” My mind raced. How could I tell Andy that the man she thought was so wonderful was a bank robber? She’d be crushed.

  “Well, I thought I should tell you. Because of the story hour and your sister being his friend and all.” Florence knew about Leland and Andy? Was there any part of Andy’s personal life Cherry Glen didn’t know about?

  Now I knew why Leland hadn’t called.

  Twenty-Eight

  Thursday morning the weatherman had a new word: snow. “Seventy percent chance with eight to ten inches accumulation. Winds out of the north at thirty miles an hour. Hazardous driving conditions expected.”

  The sky had clouded over and I scarcely noticed the temperature had risen into the teens. The howling wind made the air feel even colder. Meteorologists loved to talk about wind chill, which hadn’t been invented when I was growing up in Iowa, and we managed just fine without it. The Weather Channel showed a white blob covering most of the state.

  Andy and I stared at the sky and pretended we weren’t worried. “How long does it take to get plowed out?” I asked.

  Andy shrugged. “Sometimes only three days. But it’s too cold to snow very much.”

  “Right.”

  Shortly before noon we noticed flurries blowing across the patio and piling up in sheltered corners. Finally we gave in. “Why don’t we leave now and stay overnight in a hotel?” Andy asked.

  “Good idea. It’s either that or cancel surgery.”

  She managed a small smile. “There are definite pluses to that idea.” She paused and then said, “We’d better get our stuff together. Oh, and I should call Leland. We’d kind of made plans for this weekend.” She looked at the floor and added, “I was going to tell you later.”

  “Okay.” I hadn’t mentioned that Leland probably would be allowed only one phone call a day for the next few years. If I explained now, Andy might be too depressed for surgery. On the other hand, delay meant she might find out by chance. I decided to wait. Maybe she’d forget about Leland and I’d never have to tell her. Sure, that could happen.

  Andy interrupted my internal debate with “Do you want to call Tim?”

  “Why would I?”

  Andy smiled. I wasn’t fooling her. “Well then, how about letting Bob and Esther know we’ll be gone?”

  “Okay, I guess I could do that.” I found the phone book in the desk drawer. Half an inch thick including ten surrounding towns and the yellow pages. Wouldn’t be much use as a booster seat.

  Tim answered on the first ring as though he’d been standing next to the phone, waiting. He sounded glad to hear from me. “I was just going to call you,” he said. “How about another stab at watching a Duke game Saturday?”

  “Saturday? Darn, I’d love to but Andy and I are going to Des Moines.”

  “Oh. Well, the game will probably be over but you’ll be back from shopping in time to eat, won’t you?”

  I said we weren’t going shopping and it would be late when we got home. Awkward silence. He was waiting for details that I couldn’t provide. Andy was so determined to keep her illness private.

  “Sunday then? I’m flying home Monday.”

  “Sorry, I can’t. I have that Neighborhood Club talk.”

  “I forgot. But isn’t that lunch? We could have the rest of the day.”

  “Oh, Tim, I really wish I didn’t have to say no. I’d love to see you but something came up and Andy . . . well, I have to do something with Andy.” If he only knew how much I wanted to explain. My words sounded lame even to me.

  “Okay then,” he said with a definite edge to his voice, “I doubt I’ll see you again before I leave. Goodbye.”

  “Tim, wait . . .”

  “Never mind. Sorry to have bothered you.” And he was gone.

  Reminding myself I hadn’t asked him to tell Bob and Esther we’d be away, I called his number again. He didn’t pick up. Just as well. What would I have said? I can’t see you and I can’t tell you why I can’t? Darn, darn, darn. Guess I could quit worrying about how to act on a date. I was surprised at how disappointed I felt.

  I threw everything that looked warm into a bag, Andy packed her vacation wardrobe, and we left. “Did you call the Stones?” Andy asked as we buckled our seatbelts.

  “Yes, I ta
lked to Tim.”

  “Oh? And?”

  “And nothing. He’s going back to North Carolina. Did you reach Leland?” I felt a twinge of guilt at the deception.

  “He didn’t answer but I left a message on his machine. I didn’t mention the surgery, just said we had to go to Des Moines. I hope he isn’t too upset about this weekend. We can go out some other time.”

  “Sure,” I said, trying to ignore another stab of guilt. Andy had a right to know about Leland. She was going to kill me when she found out I hadn’t told her.

  The light snow grew heavier with every mile. No matter which direction we headed, it came straight at us. Snowflakes dancing in the headlights, the highway stretched ahead like a tunnel. Streaks of white blew sideways and the wind shook the car. With visibility near zero, we both strained to see the edge of the highway. Andy herded the Explorer down what she trusted was the right lane at thirty-five miles an hour, and I helped by holding my breath. “Hope it doesn’t get icy,” she said. It could get worse? Thank heavens she was driving. If it had been up to me, we’d have stayed in the house until spring. Late spring. Andy tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “Good thing we left early. Bet the road to the farm’s closed by now. The snow’ll probably let up as we get closer to Des Moines.”

  It didn’t. By the time we hit the cross-town freeway, the radio reported eight inches on the ground. With snowplows uncovering a layer of ice, maneuvering on entrance and exit ramps resembled dancing the mambo on a waxed dance floor. Vehicles banged into each other like bumper cars at the fair as people left work early to get home before the storm hit. Cars sat spinning their tires at intersections while other drivers jumped out to push them. Luckily for us, most of the traffic was headed in the opposite direction. Andy pulled into the visitor lot at the hospital and parked in the first empty spot.

  “I thought we were going to a hotel,” I said. “This is the hospital.”

  “And they’ll know where the nearest hotel is.”

  “Oh. Is this as close to the building as you can get?”

  We left the warm car and floundered through the biting snow, our eyes watering in the wind. The air was cold and sharp, and the tears froze on our cheeks. Who said no two snowflakes were alike? How did they know? Maybe one of the gazillion I was walking through was identical to a flake swirling around the flagpole. I wasn’t stopping to check.

  Eventually we reached what I felt should be the North Pole. We lurched through main entrance, cold wind sweeping in with us as the automatic doors slid shut, and stood stamping our feet and brushing our coats. Except for a few people exchanging snow stories, the hospital was functioning as usual. Off-duty employees crowded into the lobby, waiting for rides or steeling themselves for the dash to their cars. Andy offered our firsthand account, acting as though the storm were no more than minor inconvenience. I stared at her. “Are you out of your mind?” I hissed.

  She shrugged. “Why worry people? This is Iowa.”

  We asked for directions to a nearby hotel, and the parking attendant suggested the Holiday Inn two blocks away but said to leave the car where it was.

  We grabbed our bags and started walking. Wind swooped between the buildings, blinding us with snow. I gasped and struggled forward, my head low, as the wind hit me. Drifts came almost to my hips, and I lost my balance trying to step in Andy’s footprints. Her cries of “Mush! Mush!” weren’t funny unless she’d found an actual dog team.

  We straggled into the hotel lobby gasping for air. “Looks like snow,” I said to the hotel clerk.

  “So I heard.” He was a young man, probably early thirties, with the kind of wispy cookie-crumb mustache men wear to make themselves look older.

  “We’d like a room,” Andy said.

  “You get the last one. You with the hospital?”

  “Kind of. Why?”

  “We have thirty-six rooms for their employees tonight. They prefer it to sleeping on cots in the hospital.”

  He gave us a double on the third floor. As soon as we walked into it, we turned up the heat. The hotel’s idea of double-pane glass was a pane here and a pane there. I thought they’d painted them white. Enough ice had accumulated on the inside for a mini-snowball fight. I dropped a chunk down Andy’s back, she told me to cut it out, and we went back downstairs to the bar.

  Although it was too early for the cocktail hour, the lounge was already filled with drinkers and talkers. In addition to our personal view of the freeway, storm coverage was on television. It was an official blizzard, the worst in twenty years. “I’ve got to get to the airport,” the man next to us kept saying. “My plane leaves for Miami at five.” Not today it doesn’t.

  Everyone had a story. We ordered a pitcher of beer, choice of Miller Light or Bud, and carried it to a table near the window. A steady stream of new arrivals came in. Some wanted to spend the night; others, more optimistic, planned to leave when the snow let up.

  Nurses’ uniforms filled the room and pitchers of beer kept coming. I remembered we hadn’t eaten lunch and asked the bartender about food.

  “Are you kidding? We barely have time to pour beer. But the restaurant will open at five.”

  We managed to hold out until six although the decibel level rose until it overwhelmed our pre-iPod ears. When we heard rumors that the restaurant might close early, we got in line to eat. “Only the buffet tonight,” the hostess told us. Her tag said her name was Tiffany. She had a metal fang between her two front teeth and looked very young—and very pregnant.

  “When’s your baby due?” I asked.

  “Yesterday. Stevie said not to drive home, I’d be better off here. I can just walk over to the hospital if I have to.”

  I hoped she had a sled. “Steve your husband?”

  She giggled. “No, Stevie’s a girl. That’s not her real name. I just call her that because, oh, it’s a long story. We grew up together. She just got back from Chicago—she’s a model—and when she saw that Jason, my, uh, the baby’s daddy was, uh, out of town she said, ‘Now, Tiffy, don’t you worry. I’ll stay with you until the baby comes.’ Pretty neat, huh?”

  “Pretty neat.”

  Andy grabbed my arm. “Can’t I take you anywhere without you finding some stray to talk to?” I picked up a plate and followed her through the food line. She didn’t swallow much. I ate her dessert. When we left the restaurant Tiffany was nowhere to be seen, and I hoped she’d gone to lie down.

  We rode the elevator to the top floor and watched the snow come down and people try to drive in it. Back in our room, ice pellets beat against the window. We got into bed and huddled together for warmth. “We haven’t done this in fifty years,” I said.

  Andy was quiet for a long time before she said, “Where did it all go, Janie? How did the years just disappear?”

  My heart went numb and my eyes prickled with tears. Where had the time gone? We’d been so full of plans with unending days stretching before us. Now we were almost out of time. Without Andy, I’d be alone. When I said “do you remember?” no one would. I squeezed Andy’s hand and listened to her breathe.

  When I thought my voice would sound close to normal, I drew in a lungful of air and sat up. “Hey,” I said. “Want to go down to the bar and memorize faces in case any of them show up in surgery tomorrow?”

  “Idiot. Go to sleep.”

  Twenty-Nine

  The snow stopped during the night, and we could walk in other people’s tracks downhill to the hospital. We arrived by six-thirty as planned. The lobby smelled of wet wool, and plastic runners protected the floor. The staff looked tired. Many of them had worked double shifts—or more.

  In the admitting area the official greeter met us with a smile and told us to take a seat. The waiting room was small and crowded. A half wall separated it from yawning intake coordinators, and paper stars hung from the ceiling, grade-school fashion. Most of the patients looked
as though they‘d grown old waiting. A girl in jeans and a red flannel shirt cried quietly behind this morning’s USA Today, and a young couple in corner rocking chairs swayed back and forth, not quite in unison. They wore nearly identical outfits of stone-washed jeans and Iowa State sweatshirts. Her wrist sported a hospital ID band, and her husband/brother/friend held her hand. She looked too young for such misery. As I watched, she doubled over and moaned, making me want to rush over and help her. Why didn’t her young man tell these people to do something for her?

  We found seats next to a balding, heavyset man with gray hair and a red face, somewhere deep in his fifties, who was eager for conversation. “They told me to get here at six and it’s almost seven. I have an operating room reserved for seven-thirty and before that I have to have lab work and an ultrasound. I’ve been here before. Why do I need to check in? I might just leave. Serve ’em right.” We didn’t need to respond since he was already telling his story to the next new arrival.

  We heard his tale many times before the admitting clerk called Andy’s name. Paperwork completed, the world’s oldest volunteer, obviously human but withered and gray, leaned on her cane and led us to the pre-op area. I thought I should get her a wheelchair or at least offer to carry Andy’s chart.

  Pre-op consisted of curtained cubicles with hard cots for the patients and one chair in each for the next of kin. Our nurse was Bonnie, a worn-down-looking woman with sad cocker spaniel eyes and, for all we knew, flaming red hair—or none at all—under the shower cap.

  “Take off your clothes, dearie, and put on this gown. Ties in the back. Then you can just lie down on the bed and make yourself comfortable till it’s time.” She handed Andy a large plastic bag. “Put your things in this and Mom here will hang on to it so you won’t lose anything.”

  Andy peeked my way to see how I was handling the mom remark. Any other day I would have whacked Bonnie on the head but this wasn’t the time to rile anyone connected with surgery.

  Andy had been stretched out for twenty minutes before the nurse returned. “Everything okay?” She checked Andy’s vital signs and patted her arm. “It’ll be just a little while yet.” She turned to me. “Want some coffee, dearie?”