What I Remember Most

by Cathy Lamb

  She asked if the Berlinskys were going to jail, and I said yes. She said that we belonged in jail, too, and I told her that, yes, we did. She said that even though her body is starting to feel better, her mind can’t stop feeling scared and she has bad dreams and keeps thinking about what happened and can’t stop.

  We were able to retrieve the lily bracelet from the Berlinsky home. It is all Grenadine wanted. She asked about her parents.

  I called the detective in charge of the case, and he knew nothing new. I told her that we have still been unable to locate them.

  She told me we hadn’t tried hard enough and cried and asked me to get my “big butt” out.

  Grenadine is pale and weak still, but her hair is no longer falling out and the IV tube has been removed. She has gained ten pounds. The bruises are almost all gone. I am told she will have scars for life, from the belt and from the cigarette burns.

  She is a favorite of the nurses. They say she has drawn them, and her doctor, Paresh Chakrabarti, the most beautiful pictures. They have framed three of her paintings of lilies. She is clearly artistically talented. She handed me a picture before I left. It was a picture of a girl in a kennel, facedown, bruised and beaten, a dog biting her arm, a rat biting her toe. She told me to give it to whoever was in charge here.

  I am not embarrassed to say that I cried. Even though she is so angry at us, she reached for my hand and held it and said she was sorry she made me cry.

  I gave it to Bruce. He cried, too.

  I received your note about placement in a new foster home. I will be at that meeting on Tuesday. Grenadine needs, and deserves, the best place we can find for her. I have a family in mind.

  Also, I will set up counseling and future medical services, including dental, as it looks like one of her teeth was knocked out.

  She asked for art supplies. I have already brought her one huge box, but I will be bringing her another one tomorrow. I have also bought her new clothes, a backpack, and books, even though she said she can’t read.

  19

  I think a lot about Covey’s victims.

  I knew so many of them. Many were wealthy and had invested part, or all, of their money with Covey. Some were not wealthy, but Covey, “out of the goodness of my heart,” invested their money for them.

  They had all lost.

  Millions and millions of dollars.

  Retirements, college education money, inheritances, savings. Gone.

  The government could take all we had to pay back the victims, and we would be millions short. I didn’t know what Covey owed on his home. He told me he’d gotten a sweet deal on it—“no one can wheel and deal like me, baby”—but maybe he was lying about that, too. Maybe he was lying about his other homes, like the one in Mexico, being paid for, too.

  I had written him a check for $10,000 to invest, and I knew I’d lost that, too.

  I was distraught for the victims. People say that money isn’t everything, that it doesn’t make you happy.

  That’s ridiculous and wrong.

  If you don’t have money, if you can’t pay your mortgage, if you have no retirement, if you can’t send your kid to college as promised, if you don’t have any savings to fall back on when you lose a job or hit a medical disaster, that’s a teetering-on-a-financial-cliff unhappy place to be.

  It is extremely naïve to believe that people can be happy when they have, financially, lost their footing and are struggling to survive.

  Covey had caused that grief, that devastation. I felt wretched for them. I knew what it felt like, and I know what it feels like now, to be financially in a panic.

  I wanted a hit man.

  How expensive are they anyhow?

  Kade came in about ten o’clock on Tuesday night. He was alone, no friends, and sat at the bar.

  “Hi. What can I get you?”

  And that was that. He wanted a beer and a Blue Stallion Crunch. I put the order in, and it came up quick. I smiled. Couldn’t help it. I liked him even if he hadn’t hired me.

  “That was nice what you did for Carlton the other night.”

  “I feel for him. Poor guy.”

  We talked about Carlton missing his wife.

  “It’s hard when a marriage breaks up,” he said.

  “Not if he’s a blood-sucking maggot who lies like a fiend.”

  “Would that be your husband?”

  “Soon to be ex.”

  “In the middle of a divorce?”

  “Yes.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “I wish he’d self-explode. Have you been married?”

  “No.”

  “You’re kidding?” This he-hunk had never been married?

  “No, I’m not. I’ve had several serious relationships, but I’ve never been married.”

  “Why not?” I figured I could ask all the questions I wanted since the chance of a job was quite clearly zero.

  He tapped his fingers on the glass. “I couldn’t see a future with any of them for forever.”

  “Till death do you part?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s what you want?”

  “Yes. Don’t you?”

  “Marriage is not for me again. Did it once, will not do it again, even if someone’s pointing a .45 at my face.”

  “What if Prince Charming rode up?”

  “I would know he was a fake. There are no Prince Charmings. Besides, Prince Charming has always seemed rather effeminate and vain to me.”

  He laughed.

  “What did you do today?” I wasn’t even pretending to work as I chatted with Kade. Tildy was resting upstairs, and I knew the customers were fine. Two of them I wouldn’t serve any more drinks to, anyhow, and I’d already told them that. Crazy Jeremy hadn’t been happy, but he was rarely happy.

  Kade told me about his day. He’d been out of town for several days. Went to Montana and met with three new clients and had orders in hand. He was going back to work after he ate.

  “How is your art going, Grenady?”

  “Oh . . .” Terrible. “Fine.”

  “Can I see your work?”

  Ha! “Not . . . yet.”

  “When? Tomorrow?”

  “Not tomorrow.” Well, now, shoot. What was I supposed to do? Show him my “studio” in the back of my car?

  “The next day?”

  “Only if there’s a rainbow over the mountains.”

  “I’ll hope for a rainbow then.” He smiled. It was another one of those almost flirty smiles that lit my nether regions on fire.

  I smiled back at that dangerous pirate for too many long seconds and let my mind wander.

  Kade was bad-guy hot.

  Okay, Grenady. Chill out.

  I want to run my hands over that chest and those shoulders.

  Stop it now.

  I want to feel his mouth on mine.

  Think about something else. Like math.

  I want to naked-straddle him and ride him like a cowgirl.

  And that is enough.

  “You’re stubborn, Grenady.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “I think I might be, too.” He tipped up his beer. “Were you interested in art as a kid? Did you have a parent who was an artist?”

  Whew. That question felt like an icy cold shower.

  “My mom and dad both liked art. My father liked to sing and draw, my mother painted.” Pain.

  “Do they still like art?”

  Pain, pain, pain. “Not as much.”

  “Did you get your green eyes from your mom or dad?”

  “Mom.” Pain. Freedom. Bear. Daisy crowns. Dancing. Painting. Pain, pain, pain. “So. When are you going to tease the fish again?”

  I noticed how his face stilled. He knew I had shut him down when I talked about my parents. At that moment one of the men who had been cut off alcohol, Crazy Jeremy, belted out, “Beer.”

  I went over and told him he couldn’t have one. He became belligerent, stood up, and pulled his arm ba
ck like he was going to take a swing at me. I ducked, and when I stood up again, reaching for the bat, Kade was right there and Crazy Jeremy was flat on his back on the ground, knocked out cold.

  I stood over Crazy Jeremy. “Excellent hit, Kade.”

  “Thank you.”

  The dangerous pirate smiled again. I smiled back. Daaaaang.

  When Tildy heard what happened, she banned Crazy Jeremy for life, then said, “Chivalry is not dead. It’s in the fists of Kade Hendricks. I’ve always liked him. Everybody likes him. You should like him, Grenady.”

  Those hands of Kade’s could punch and they could . . . oh, boy. What they could do . . .

  I woke up only one time that night, about a half hour after going to sleep. I was parked on a road outside of town, the dark forest that triggers bad memories appropriately far off. I heard a truck approaching and burrowed down deeper into the warmth of my sleeping bag. I thought the truck slowed, then stopped, when it went by my car, but I couldn’t be sure. I was too tired, so tired, and went back to sleep when it headed down the road.

  I decided to take a walk to get the tight kinks out of my body the next morning, and to stretch out the muscles that used to be chock full of flu germs. I felt good but needed to get moving again.

  I drove down Main Street, past a fake Oregon Trail wagon in the park, drove about three miles out, and parked on the side of a road with a view of Brothers, Mt. Laurel, and Ragged Top. Central Oregon was postcard perfect that day, but it was deceptive. The sky was a serene light blue, like a baby’s blanket, the clouds puffy and white, but it was freezing, colder than a cow’s tit in December. I saw my own air when I exhaled.

  I pulled on my red jacket and started walking.

  I stared at the clouds and let them morph and move into different shapes. When I was a kid I would stare up at those clouds and wait until they turned into animals: Dragons wearing aprons. Zebras in top hats. Lions dressed as kings. It entertained me and took me away from my own life. As I walked past a meadow I saw a falcon reading a Pippi Longstocking book, and a giant snail. To me, the weather was both art and living collage.

  I felt, then heard, a horse galloping behind me, and I turned. On top of the horse was a girl, screaming, panicked.

  “Stop, Liddy, stop!” The girl was wearing a red cowgirl hat with pink lights that flashed on and off.

  I stood in the middle of the road, my hands out, calming. The horse, dark brown and sleek, slowed, neighed in fear, then bucked, came down, and bucked again. I was surprised the girl didn’t fall off. I approached carefully, talking to the horse, softly, gently. The horse jittered to one side, then another, its head swooping up and down, eyes wide.

  “It’s okay, calm down,” I said to the horse. “It’s okay.”

  The girl was crying. “Should I jump off?”

  “No, no,” I said calmly, not wanting to spook the horse again. I envisioned the girl trying to jump off and being crushed by the horse’s hooves. I tried to grab the reins, and the horse yanked her head away again, but she wasn’t breathing as hard, puffing as hard.

  I went back to soothing talk, firm and authoritative, then grabbed for the reins again, this time catching them. I ran my hand along her sweaty neck, showing how safe I was.

  When the horse was calmer, I said to the girl, “Get off slowly. Very slowly.” I reached out a hand and helped her off, not letting go of the reins. “Go and sit over by the tree.” She did, and I walked the horse.

  Within two minutes a truck came speeding down the road. I cringed as the horse tensed beside me. I brought the horse to the opposite side of the road, away from the girl, and hoped the pickup would quit speeding. It slowed down about fifty yards from the horse and stopped. A woman ran out of the driver’s side and the girl ran straight into her arms. The frozen panic on the woman’s face made the earlier panic on the girl’s face look like nothing.

  “Momma, I’m sorry!” the girl said, hugging her close.

  “I told you not to get on Liddy until I was there!”

  “I know. I’m sorry. She was spooked by the bees! The bees!” The mother looked at me, in tears, her arms tight around the girl with the red blinking cowgirl hat, her face grateful, so grateful, unbelievably relieved.

  For a second I stood, pain racking my body at the mother’s love for her child.

  I smiled. It was the way it was.

  “Hello,” I called out. “I believe I have your horse.”

  Once Rozlyn, the mother, could breathe again, she insisted I come to lunch. As I was starving, yet again, and had nothing else to do to fill my sweet—homeless—time, I said yes. “That’d be super!” were my actual goofy words.

  Rozlyn and Cleo DiMarco lived in an old, light green farmhouse with a white porch about a half mile down the road. A big, red barn was west of it. She had a sweeping view of the mountains, a Christmas tree farm, and an open field.

  I felt like I was in a kaleidoscope when I stood in her home. It was filled with color and quilts, as Rozlyn is a quilter. I leaned in closer to study one of them. One quilt had a woman in a skimpy blue dress sitting in a huge martini glass, her legs spilling over the side. Another quilt had a black-haired woman in a red negligee, huge boobs, sitting in front of a computer writing. It was clear she was a romance writer by the covers of the books stacked around her.

  “I love ’em,” I told her, awed. The fabrics, the colors, and designs were fantastic. “Wow. You are talented.”

  “Thank you. Quilting is my hobby. You missed the quilt show. I sold ten quilts. My mom and I used to quilt together, but no way could I be a normal quilter making squares and triangles. I had to add the ooph. The woman-power, butt-kicking angle. The fun of living and being naughty.”

  “I think you nailed it.” A third quilt had a woman climbing a mountain . . . in a purple leotard and pink tennis shoes.

  Rozlyn’s home was also filled with plants, books, two huge birdcages with blue and yellow parakeets, colorful scarves on the walls, and art. The mismatched leather, flowered, striped, and soft furniture somehow all worked together.

  I felt totally at home.

  Rozlyn had a bunch of black curls and was about my height but curved more. “I’m 225 pounds of love. Menopausal love.” She had on a flowing, Mexican-style skirt, black cowboy boots, black tights, and a black sweater. She wore huge hoop earrings. She was about ten years older than me. “Don’t be alarmed if I start to sweat as if an elf is holding a miniature garden hose over my head. I’m having hot flashes. Only they don’t flash. They soak.”

  Cleo, age six and proud of it, had blue eyes and three blond ponytails under her red cowboy hat, the pink lights still flashing. She said Liddy was her “best friend. I can talk horse talk. I know because Liddy understands me.”

  She was wearing gold tights and a shirt with a monster on it that said, “Don’t Monster With Me, Sucker.”

  We had taco soup, and it was delicious multiplied by a hundred.

  “This is the best soup ever,” I told Cleo. “Did you make it?”

  “Yup. Me and Mommy. Your eyes are green like Jolly Ranchers.”

  “Do you like Jolly Ranchers?”

  “Yep.”

  “Good. Don’t eat my eyes.”

  She thought that was pretty funny.

  We had hot bread, fruit, and some yummy cheese. Rozlyn had a hot flash. We ignored it, though it did indeed look like she had an elf holding a miniature hose over her head.

  Cleo said to me, “I think I’m a descendant of cats . . . I wear my hair in three ponytails because you can catch butterflies better . . . If I don’t have a banana in the morning I can’t poop.”

  When she skipped off, Rozlyn and I talked, and she made me laugh about menopause, which meant she was “knee-deep in horny hormones, mood swings from the devil, and night sweats that have me in a pool in my own bed.” I couldn’t remember where I’d heard her name before, but then she said she worked for Kade and I remembered Bajal saying that Rozlyn would be allowed to help her give birt
h in the lobby.

  “I’m the money woman, chief financial officer. I love numbers. They’re my obsession. I love doing math in my head, and I love making numbers work. Kade’s great. You applied there? You didn’t get the job? I’m surprised. That’s too bad. I’ll talk to Kade for you on Monday. We have a money meeting. He likes numbers, too, and he’s quick.”

  She was married in her twenties and divorced, amicably. Three years later she wanted a baby and tried naturally, which didn’t work, then she tried the usual pregnancy helpers, including IVF, which failed. She decided to give up on having kids and went to Houston for a business trip as the chief financial officer of a social media company. She had a fling with a smart and funny man named Mike.

  One month later she had morning sickness and found out she was pregnant. “I cried for a week I was so happy.”

  She had no idea who Mike was, didn’t know how to contact him, didn’t want to contact him, and was tested for all sexually transmitted diseases. “That was the asinine part. No condoms. What am I? Fifteen? Nah. I was hopeful.” She tested negative and delighted in vomiting into her toilet in the mornings because she knew she had a baby.

  “Cleo’s my gift.” She wiped her eyes. “I love that kid.”

  “I can see why. She’s hilarious.”

  “I also love, from afar, like a lovesick mini-cow, a man named Leonard.”

  “Leonard?”

  “Yes.” She picked up a quilting magazine next to her and started to fan herself as another hot flash hit. “He owns a construction company. He has blond hair. He has eyes that I want to dive into. If I could get him knocked up, I would.”

  “You would like to get him pregnant?”