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Prairie Fire

Page 18

by Djuna Shellam


  “Listen,” Prairie quickly crossed the room and dragged a metal arm chair up to Em and sat down. “I’m going to give it to you straight, here. First of all, this is not a healthy environment for you. There are sick people, old people and dying people here. You are not sick, you are not old, you are not dying. You just need to rehabilitate your leg.

  “Second, I believe it’s been established that this is not a safe place for you—unguarded, anyway. And finally, even though I don’t mind staying here overnight to keep you safe from creeps, my staff and co-workers apparently cannot wrap their minds around the concept of boundaries and won’t let me sleep. I’m losing my nut staying here.”

  Em tried the best she could to hide her reaction, but Prairie still noticed.

  “Hey, look,” Prairie quickly continued in order to dispel any guilt Em was obviously feeling. “At the end of the day, I don’t mind, really. I want you to feel safe and be safe. I’m happy to be here with you, as long as you need me to. But, I really think you’d feel better if you were in a different environment that isn’t a hospital. It’s just that simple.”

  Em remained silent, staring at the floor as she contemplated Prairie’s proposition.

  “My roomies are super cool, Em. I’ve never known a nicer group of people who weren’t my own family. I didn’t even have to ask them if you could move in. I’m not even kidding. They offered before I even started to ask.” Prairie looked intently at Em. “Seriously, if you don’t like it, we will figure something else out.”

  Prairie was praying Em would say yes. She needed her to, and she wanted her to. It wasn’t just that she felt as if she was dying from lack of sleep and constant interruption. She was convinced that the hospital, aside from the threatening aspect for Em, was not the ideal environment for growth and healing. In normal circumstances, she’d be living in her own home and coming to the hospital for physical therapy. There was something else she hated to admit—she was falling for Em.

  Prairie didn’t fall for women. Not since Fiona. It was always the other way around. She could entice women to come to her, want her, dream of her, but since Fiona, Prairie had never been in love. Ever. She’d been in lust, and she’d been in “like,” but never had she allowed herself to fall in love again. It was scary territory for her, and some part of her was concerned that having Em move in would be a mistake. The whole thing was unsettling. Every possible solution had the potential for unacceptable, perilous, or disastrous consequences. She held her breath and waited for Em’s reply.

  Em nodded her head slightly. She’d do it.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes.” It was a weak yes, but it was still yes.

  Prairie smiled, but internally, her insides were churning. It was a giant step in every way, but there was no telling where each step would take them.

  TWELVE

  All in the Family

  12.1—Hill Top Place

  Barbie and Gwen’s large Craftsman-styled house sat at the top of a rolling hill, on Hill Top Place, in the Highland Park community of northeast Los Angeles. The top floor had four large bedrooms and a significant bathroom with a clawfoot tub. The first floor featured an enormous kitchen, with an eating nook that looked out over the back yard and neighborhood, and a walk-through pantry located under the stairs, connecting the kitchen to the entry foyer.

  On one side of the foyer was the dining room with the main entrance to the kitchen. On the other side of the foyer was a spacious living room featuring walnut-stained built-ins and moulding, a den which now served as Prairie and Em’s room, and another smaller bath. With the one room apartment over the garage, the house provided more than enough comfortable living space for the six roommates.

  Prairie slowly wheeled Em through the living room of the Craftsman house, stopping at their bedroom door—which was actually a large pocket door separating the room originally meant to be a library or den from the living area.

  “And this,” she declared with a hint of embarrassment, “This is our room.” She slid the door into the wall and eased Em’s wheelchair into the moderately sized room. “What do you think?”

  Em quickly gazed around the room, noting the one twin bed to her left, and another along the windows of the back wall. They had matching, solid colored bedspreads, matching highboy dressers on the wall shared by the living room, and understated decor.

  There were built-in bookshelves on the other end of the room, the side wall of the house, that surrounded a small fireplace. The back wall of the house had four large sash windows with wood-stained trim that matched the rest of the wood in the house. Decorative, cream-colored, pull-down shades were pulled to the middle of the windows. The view from the windows looking over the neighborhood below, filled with homes built early to mid-twentieth century, caught Em’s eye as she shrugged, “It’s fine.”

  Used to Em’s terse attitude, Prairie ignored the obvious dismissal. “Well, it’s better than the hospital, not to mention safer,” Prairie added with trepidation, then quickly continued with her introduction. “My actual bedroom is upstairs, but we didn’t think you’d be able to get your chair around the staircase landing, so…”

  Em’s eyes widened, making Prairie laugh.

  “Sorry, I’m just playing with you. Until you don’t need me as much, I’ll just stay down here with you—if you don’t mind. I don’t do much in my room but sleep. If I’m not sleeping, I’m at work, hanging out with the roomies, or…” she hesitated. “I’m, you know, er, um… out.” She felt a blush begin to creep up her neck. “So it’s fine with me.”

  Prairie quickly crossed the room to her left, to another, but smaller pocket door, sliding it open as she spoke. “This little walkway leads to the downstairs bath which is right there,” she motioned to her left. “It’s normal size, but compared to the one upstairs, it’s tiny. The one upstairs is huge! When you can get upstairs, you’ll see for yourself.

  “And then, if you continue down that way, you’ll find the washer and dryer, and then the kitchen, see it?” She pointed at the doorway leading to the eating area. “I already measured it, and your wheelchair will fit just fine. Oh, and until you’re out of that thing, you’ll want to avoid that door right there,” she said, pointing to her right, midway down the walkway. “That leads to a g’zillion rickety and scary as shit wood steps that go down to the backyard and the garage. That’s where Chip lives—over the garage.

  “You can kind of tell from the front of the house, we’re literally built on a hill, so even though we’re technically on the first floor, we’re actually two stories above the backyard. Directly under us is a sort of daylight basementy storage area. So don’t go out that door. Ever. Okay?” Prairie flashed her famous smile, but noticed Em was, as usual, not amused.

  Quickly changing the subject, Prairie continued, “Like I said, my roomies are super cool. They’re my second family. I think you’ll like them. Well, I hope so, anyway,” she added.

  “So… Barbie and Lovey, um… Gwen. Anyway, they actually own the house. They’ve been, um, together, oh, I don’t know, about five years or thereabouts.” Prairie stopped talking and held her breath. She realized she forgot to mention Barbie and Gwen’s non-traditional relationship. “I, uh, um…” Prairie grimaced. “Is that okay? I mean, I guess I forgot to bring it up…” Prairie sighed deeply. “Are you okay with… that? I mean, them?” Prairie could feel the flush rising up into her face.

  Em shrugged, “I don’t care. It’s none of my business.” Inside, however, her emotions were starting to roil. It took everything she had not to break down as she immediately thought of Alice and what could have been. Silently, Em begged Prairie to move on as her own blush began a slow crawl to her chest and up her neck.

  “Oh, cool,” Prairie responded awkwardly, thrown a little by Em’s response and the sudden appearance of the pinkish blotches. It wasn’t so much what she said, but how she looked that was unsettling to Prairie. Obviously Em was stuffing something down, but rather than press her about it, Prairi
e continued with the introduction to her extended family.

  “Barbie was a nurse in Viet Nam, but we don’t talk about that much. Even though she got a Purple Heart and is a full-on hero to us, unless she brings it up, we just don’t. Oh, and so she’s deaf in her right ear and legally blind in her right eye. We try to remember that when we talk to her. If I never told you, you’d never really know. You know, except when you’re convinced she’s ignoring you.”

  Em nodded.

  “Barbie owns a landscape design company over the hill in Glendale, which is why the landscaping around this house is so amazing compared to the rest of the neighborhood. Our dear, sweet, Lovey is our house mother. Oh, yeah, and Gwen’s last name is Love, so we all just call her Lovey. She’s a lending officer at Security Pacific National Bank downtown L.A.. She does all the cooking around here as a good mother should, and all the bookkeeping like the good little banker should, too.” Prairie laughed out loud. “Then there’s Macie. She,” Prairie emphasized, “is in the Air Force.”

  Em tried her best to keep a poker face throughout the tour, but her face betrayed her when Prairie mentioned Macie and the Air Force.

  “Yeah, I know. She works in personnel at the L.A. satellite. Needless to say, Mace has to keep a real low profile—if you know what I mean.”

  Em wasn’t sure exactly, but she had an idea of what Prairie meant. She looked to her lap and took a deep, settling breath which did not go unnoticed by Prairie.

  “And Chip—Stanley, Jr.—is Barbie’s little brother. Though, I mean, he’s not so little. I probably should say he’s her younger brother. Anyway, like I said, he lives in the apartment above the garage and does most of her landscape contract work. He also goes to Cal State L.A. working on a degree in Botany. He has a super neat girlfriend named Deedee—you’ll meet her soon, too.”

  Prairie stood in the middle of the slightly cramped den bedroom with her hands on her hips. “That’s it. That’s us in a nutshell—we’re just one big happy, weird family.” She beamed with pride. “And now you’re here, too!”

  Em sat listening to Prairie, wondering if her nightmare would ever be over. She was tired of being an invalid, constantly in therapy, and now she was a stranger in a house of strangers—and trapped. She knew she could go to her parents’ house in Bel Air at any time, but she wasn’t willing to lose the small amount of freedom she had left to go back there. Back to a life where everyone still thought of her as little Mary-Mackenna, which annoyed Em to no end. It seemed petty to her on one level, but it was the general lack of respect she felt from her family that kept her away. That and her parents’ ire that she had given up their life of wealth and status to go off on her own. They were important people, not just in the country, but in the world, and her escape from their world was a slap in the face to them, leaving an ugly scar in their relationship.

  12.2—Perfect

  “Why can’t I just stay in here and meet them one at a time on an as-needed basis?” Em demanded quietly, just above a whisper. “You’re acting as if I’m important, or something, and I’m not.” Em scoffed. “I just got here,” she said through her teeth.

  “Right. You just got here and this is your welcome dinner. Em, everyone who lives here is important,” Prairie gently scolded, “and since you now live here, you’re important, too. We’re family. And everyone gets a family welcome when they move in. So, shush! You’re going.” She smiled broadly.

  “I don’t want to,” Em stressed in a hushed tone.

  “Love, I know you don’t want to hear this, but you really don’t have a choice here. I control the chair, and since you happen to be wheelchair-bound, well…” Prairie stood in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips and shrugged. “I win.” Prairie meant business.

  From the deepest part of her, Em dreaded this welcome dinner thing. She was incredibly shy, and never did well in new social situations where she couldn’t hide in a corner somewhere until she felt comfortable. And now, to meet these people who all knew each other, and lived with each other, for the first time—in a wheelchair and broken—was distressing her. She hadn’t even had time to process her new living arrangement, let alone be social. It was taking everything she had within herself not to cry, which she absolutely could not, and would not do—not now.

  “Listen,” Prairie began as she squatted down to talk to Em, face-to-face which was harder than she imagined as Em’s intensely green eyes, brimming with tears, glared at her. “I know this is a lot for you to take in all at once. I know… I…” She wanted to say she knew Em, but she didn’t really, and she hated it when people assumed they knew her, because most of the time, they just didn’t.

  “This is all good, Em. My roomies are fantastic, loving, people. You’ll see. I have a great real family, and sometimes? I actually think this one here is almost good enough to trade. Seriously. They are dying to meet you, Em. And they opened their home to you because I asked them, and you needed a safe place,” Prairie gently reminded Em of the circumstances of her move. “They’re as nervous as you are, I swear. Please,” Prairie begged, “don’t let them down.”

  Em looked down at the floor, taking it all in. Prairie was right, she reluctantly admitted to herself. She was raised better than this. She wasn’t a rude person, and needed to pull herself together and try to be brave.

  “What if…” Em began. “What if I want to, I mean, need to leave during dinner, or…” Em was terrified of crying in front of strangers, particularly these strangers. What if they hated her or were repulsed by her?

  “I’ll bring you back here, Em. Don’t worry. Just, let’s just see how it goes. I promise, I’m here for you, okay?”

  Em closed her eyes and steeled herself for the inevitable. “Do I look okay?” she asked softly, embarrassed to ask about her appearance.

  Prairie’s breath caught just for a moment. It was the first time since they’d met that Em had expressed any concern about her appearance. In less than a day, it seemed, the move had already worked some magic on her. Despite the endless wrangling with her over the past hour and a half, trying to get her ready for the dinner, Prairie’s hopes for success with Em increased considerably.

  “You look… great,” Prairie said with sincerity, but wanted to say like a knockout which was the painful, God’s honest truth, but far too honest than she dared. Em, without an ounce of makeup, was dressed in jeans and a bluish-green cashmere sweater that turned Em’s eyes into an unusual and intense green that almost killed Prairie when she looked directly into them. Em was still too thin to fill out her own clothes, but they were a vast improvement over the baggy hospital scrubs she preferred wearing at the hospital that only served to accentuate her thinness.

  With Prairie’s assistance, Em had managed to pile her dark, curly and unruly hair up onto her head, in such a haphazard way it wouldn’t surprise Prairie if it all came tumbling down any minute. But still, to Prairie, it was so incredibly sexy. A thin silver chain with a silver, diamond-encrusted M, hung just past the V in the neck of Em’s sweater. Silver hoop earrings the size of quarters completed the ensemble. Yes, Prairie thought, she was a knockout. “Perfect,” she said softly, almost to herself.

  “And you’ll bring me back here anytime…” Em inquired again, trying her best to ignore the tenderness with which Prairie looked at her.

  “Anytime.”

  Em took a deep breath, held it for a moment and then exhaled quickly, saying, “Okay.”

  12.3—Nocturne Opus 9

  Chopin’s Nocturne Opus 9, No 2 floated softly through the house, its serenity intermittently scrambled by the steady murmur of nervous conversation.

  Gwen Love quickly brought a hot dish of baked yams to the dining table. She set the hot dish next to the roast beef, green beans and salad dishes already waiting in a neat row.

  “Where is she?” Gwen inquired, casting a furtive glance through the large dining room opening across the foyer and into the living room. “Hmpf.” As she bustled back into the kitchen, Chip e
ntered the kitchen from the back porch door—Em’s forbidden door—and immediately headed to the dining room to see what all the fuss was about.

  “Oh, Chip, sweetie, there you are,” Gwen said with a smile. She waved her hand in the direction of the sink. “Would you mind opening the wine bottles? They’re right there on the counter by the sink.”

  “Sure thing, Lovey. What’s the occasion?” he asked, quickly surveying the beautifully set table, replete with the fancy tablecloth, good china, and candles burning on either side of a floral centerpiece designed by Barbie. “Hey, Sis, Mace,” he said with a nod of his head, acknowledging Barbie and Macie’s presence.

  Barbie and Macie were already seated on the far side of the rather large, antique mahogany dining table, waiting for the rest of the household to join them. A setting at the head of the table, to the left of Barbie, was reserved for Gwen who would invariably jump up and down throughout dinner retrieving myriad items from the kitchen. Chip always sat with his back to the kitchen, across from Macie, and if he didn’t have a date, Prairie would sit next to him. Otherwise, she would sit opposite Gwen at the other end of the table. On this occasion, however, a setting, sans chair and opposite Gwen, was reserved for Em, the guest of honor, with Prairie sitting to her right, next to Chip.

  Barbie scoffed, shaking her head. “Lord o’goshen, Chipper, do you ever listen to me? Prairie’s patient just moved in today, and Lovey’s having a little dinner party to welcome her.”

 

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