What I Remember Most

by Cathy Lamb

  Afterward, because it was so late and he wanted to make sure I arrived home safely, he insisted on following me to my apartment above the red barn, then he went home. I liked the feeling of being protected.

  I turned off the lights, lit a vanilla scented candle, and took a bubble bath. When I was done, I wiped the steam off the mirror and turned around, studying the scars on my back. The ones on my hands were light, hardly noticeable. The two on my forehead—one from that night, one from the veteran who was lost in his own war nightmare—were covered by my hair for the most part. Kade had scars, too. He understood mine. They would not be a turnoff. They might make him cry, though....

  I later stared across the room at my unfinished collage with the magnifying glass, the girl dressed in lilies, the dark forest, and the outline of the lighthouse. It reminded me of something or someone I didn’t want to think about, but I didn’t know what. It felt like the memory was getting closer, clearer. I needed my own mental magnifying glass to see it.

  I took a sketch pad out from a nightstand I’d bought at Goodwill for ten dollars, then drew a snake wrapped around a knife. I held it up and stared at it, then stared at the lighthouse again. What was their tie? Was there a tie?

  I shredded it into tiny pieces, then drew lilies with pastel pencils.

  One lily, after another, after another.

  I heard their voices. Do you want to paint with me? Do you want to draw with me? Let’s draw lilies.

  Light pink with burgundy and yellow centers.

  Deep purple with a golden strike.

  A bearded lily with dark and light blue mixed.

  A field of lilies, mountains in the distance.

  A jail.

  I dropped the pencils.

  The next morning Cleo popped up before I left for work. I heard her banging up the stairs singing a song about a chicken and a horse, a chicken and a horse, “cluck cluck, neigh neigh, oink oink.”

  She was wearing a white nightgown with lace, her flowered rainboots, and a hat with a pink pig.

  “I brought you cookies, Grenady. Pinwheels. Me and Mommy made them.”

  “Thank you. My day is now delicious.”

  “Ya. Cookies make it delicious. I have some in my lunch. I can’t wait until lunch. On Saturday are we going to paint together again?”

  “We sure are.”

  “Good.” She jumped up and down, the pig snout flopping.

  “Saturdays are my favorite days now because you don’t have to work until the night.”

  She clomped back down the stairs.

  “Bye, Grenady, I love you!”

  “Love you, too, baby.”

  I let my whole body droop against the kitchen counter, as if I were wilting. Alice, My Anxiety, roared on in . . . and then, about five minutes later, she left. Like that. Gone.

  It was a clear, cold winter day. Blue and white. Snowy and crisp. I had another cup of coffee with whipped cream and I enjoyed the heck out of it.

  I made my decision.

  45

  He loved spiders, so it was one of his favorite nursery rhymes.

  The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout.

  Down came the rain and washed the spider out.

  Out came the sun and dried up all the rain

  And the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again.

  He thought he’d change that poem. It was too cheerful. He’d make it about Danny. Danny would like that.

  The scary, furry spider went up the water spout.

  Down came the people when the blood spurted out.

  Out came the devil and dried up all the blood

  And the scary, furry spider went out to kill again.

  Oh, that was genius. He thought of a furry spider. He drew a furry spider with his pencil, then reached down his pants and pulled out pubic hair and laid it over the paper to make the spider hairy.

  Danny started yelling at him again, telling him what to do. He didn’t like Danny. He never had.

  He cried all over his rhyme book and the pubic hair spider.

  46

  “Sunday night’s the night,” Rozlyn said, handing me a pink pinwheel cookie across the table in the employees’ lounge. “Cleo’s spending the night at a friend’s because there’s no school the next day, and Grenady doesn’t work.”

  “The night for what?” I asked. I loved Rozlyn’s pinwheel cookies.

  “For Spying On Leonard Night,” Eudora said. “I’ll get all critical supplies and inform you of our strategy.”

  Rozlyn nodded. “Fab. I don’t want to get caught.”

  “Get caught?” Eudora scoffed, seeming offended. “We will never get caught. I know what I’m doing.”

  At one o’clock in the morning, after my shift at The Spirited Owl, I put on my coat, grabbed my sketch pad and charcoal pencil, and sat outside on my deck. I breathed in the cold mountain air and tried to settle myself and Alice, My Anxiety, back down. Alice was giving me a hard time lately.

  I drew a picture of a girl in front of a mud pie birthday cake she’d made for herself using sticks for candles. I drew a picture of her in juvenile detention, angry and scared. I drew a picture of her running away into the night, alone, a bag over her shoulder.

  When I was able to breathe normally, my mind not so frazzled, I put my sketch pad away.

  Past in back.

  For now.

  Again.

  We met at Rozlyn’s house at eight o’clock Sunday night. We were all wearing black. Eudora had even brought us black ski masks. The ski masks reminded me of the creeps who broke into my car months ago, but I slipped mine on, anyhow. I wouldn’t let them control me.

  Eudora opened up a bag and dumped its contents on the kitchen table. I could not believe what I was seeing.

  Night vision goggles.

  An old-fashioned pen with a recording device. (“If he’s talking, we’ll record it and listen for clues later,” Eudora said.)

  A small drill. (“In case we choose to hide the listening device inside his home.”)

  An antique-looking hollow lipstick. (“So we can pass messages to each other.”)

  A compact that when turned towards the light had numbers reflected in the mirror. (“We don’t need any code work yet. But still.”)

  She gave us detailed instructions about how to be a competent spy. Be aware. Listen. Multitask. Eye on the target. Know your escape route.

  Eudora announced that she would drive the car there and back, headlights off, and could drive backward at a high speed in case we’re chased. (She included this gem: “Do not give in to torture for as long as possible if you’re caught. We will come back for you.”)

  “I’ll give you a short lesson on how to use the devices, and how to survey the target without detection, then we will proceed on our mission,” Eudora said. “Listen closely.”

  We listened closely. She sounded like a drill sergeant, so now and then Rozlyn and I leaped to our feet, saluted, and shouted, “Yes, ma’am!”

  A half hour later, we were crawling on our bellies through the wet, cold, icy grass of Leonard’s property. We wore all black. We wore our black ski masks and black gloves. Rozlyn and I had binoculars. Eudora had the night vision goggles.

  Rozlyn and I could not help laughing as we slithered, even though Eudora glared at us.

  “I’m a spy snake!” Rozlyn hissed.

  “I’m 008,” I hissed back. “Spy Woman. One moment, please. I have to call for my flying car.”

  “I want more spy gadgets,” she whined. “I want a spy gadget between my bosoms.”

  “Oh boy! Now I have a vision, Roz!” I couldn’t stop laughing. I could not believe I was on a spying adventure, butt in the air.

  “Nice ass,” Rozlyn whispered, straddling my bod.

  “Thank you.”

  We laughed so hard when we crawled through an icy mud puddle, Rozlyn said, “Stop . . . stop making me laugh . . . oh no . . . I wet my pantaloons!”

  This made me laugh and I squirted, too, c
overed in mud, and told Rozlyn about my wee-wee accident, and that made her wet her panties again. “I hate my menopause bladder!” she gasped.

  “What’s my excuse?”

  “Do a Kegel!”

  “Here I go! Kegeling!” I squeezed. It didn’t help at all.

  It started to rain halfway through our mud crawl to Leonard’s house, which made Rozyln and me laugh even harder.

  “I’m a soaked and horny hormonally off-balanced rat,” she whispered to me.

  “I’m a sexy snake,” I whispered back. She moved in front of me, and I told her, “It’s a pleasure to be this close to your butt.”

  She stopped, head down, then crossed her knees, her whole body shaking as she laughed.

  “Don’t pee now, Rozlyn. You’ll hit me.” Her butt moved up and down as she laughed, which about did me in. I made high-pitched gaspy sounds and said, “Hold, bladder, hold!”

  Eudora snapped, “Control yourselves! Anything can happen on a mission, and you have to be ready to react.”

  “Yes, like bladder loss,” Rozlyn said. “I bet that happens to special agents all the time.”

  “Or you could become a slinky mud snake.” I picked up my binoculars and looked through them at Rozlyn’s butt. She saw what I was doing and howled. Then she picked up her binoculars and pointed them right at me. Then we put our binoculars together, and Eudora took off her night vision goggles and declared, “You’re being unprofessional.”

  “Quit staring at me!” I whisper-shouted.

  “No! You quit staring at me!” Rozlyn said, giving me a shove. I shoved her back, she shoved again, and we both ended up in the cold, wet mud. I took my hand and put mud on her black mask. She did the same to me. Then she rolled on top of me, and I pushed her off and rolled on her, with Eudora insisting that we “stop that mud wrestling this instant! Focus! Focus!”

  When we finally creepy-crawled to Leonard’s house and poked our muddy heads above the window, black masks on, panties wet with pee, what did we see?

  Leonard, watching a TV show, hands on his knees!

  Alone. Yes, he was alone. No girlfriend in sight.

  We surveyed the target for a while, and Rozlyn said, “I could straddle him on his easy chair and ride him like a bucking bull” and “I’m imagining him and me on that couch together. As one” and “Do you think he’s turned on by muddy girls?”

  I said, “You can tell by the way that he’s watching TV that he’s full of testosterone and lust.”

  “You betcha,” Rozlyn said. “Streaming out of him.”

  We shimmied back through the grass, smothering laughter, butts up.

  When I was only a foot behind Rozlyn she accidentally farted, a true ripper, and we laughed so hard we had to lay down. Then she farted again, a medium snooker, then a giggly fart that came out like a small machine gun. “Oh, stop, bottom, stop!” she demanded.

  “Yes, do stop!” I buried my hands in my face.

  “Bottom!” Rozlyn reprimanded her back end. “Get control! Squeeze!”

  Eudora said, “You’re both fired. You’re going home. I’ll get you desk jobs.”

  When we had finally slunk like mud wrestlers to the end of the property and “reconvened” at the car, Rozlyn was euphoric. “I knew it. He’s single.” She dripped water and mud. “Now I have to hike my nerve up to ask him out.”

  I didn’t even bother flicking the mud off. “After all this, you’d better. It’s not every day I have to follow your laughing, farting bottom through mud and water.”

  Eudora said, “Mission complete. You two were terrible, though. A disgrace to this country. It’s a wonder we got out alive.”

  Rozlyn and I cracked up again and peeled off our black ski masks after we took photos with our cell phones of the three of us for immortalization. We each tried on the night vision goggles and took more photos. We posed as if we were holding guns, pointer fingers in the air.

  “I’m afraid I might be suffering from vaginal dryness,” Rozlyn said. “Let’s complete this critical spy journey by going to the pharmacy.”

  We went to the pharmacy because of vaginal dryness. It was late, and the store was empty, which was a good thing since we were wet, muddy, and probably smelled like pee, which made us laugh even harder, and Rozlyn and I had to cross our legs in the middle of the aisle and do our Kegels while making attractive choking-snorting sounds.

  “You’re hopeless,” Eudora said. “I’m very disappointed in your spying abilities and your inability to competently execute a mission.”

  Rozlyn bought another tube of anti-dry vagina cream. “Bring it on, Leonard. I’m gonna give you 225 pounds of loving you won’t forget. I will shake you down and turn you around and spin you up.” She shook her bosoms. “Everything in my imagination will become my reality.”

  “Well done, ladies,” I said when we returned to Eudora’s car. I pulled my black ski mask on and crossed my eyes at both of them. “We should have worked for the CIA.”

  Eudora raised her eyebrows at me.

  “Okay.” I corrected myself, putting the binoculars up and pointing them right at Eudora’s face. “Maybe only you, Eudora, you spy queen, you.”

  I called Millie.

  “I’m changing my plea.”

  “You’re what?” She sounded like she was panting.

  “What are you doing, Millie?”

  “I’m boxing. Hang on. Okay, what did you say?”

  “I’m changing my plea.”

  She panted harder, like a bull. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m pleading guilty. I’m taking the eighteen months.”

  I actually heard her pounding the bag, swear words streaming from her mouth.

  I thought about Kade. Strong, smart, calm Kade.

  I was dreading telling him the truth. Dreading seeing the disappointment in his eyes, the anger, the betrayal.

  I had not been honest with him about my arrest and flight out of Portland because it benefitted me.

  It was all about me.

  I had hoped, unrealistically, for a fairy tale miracle from Covey, that this would all go away, but I knew there was none coming. I had always known it. And yet I still did what I wanted in terms of my employment with Kade, even though it could backfire on him and the reputation of his company.

  I picked up my phone.

  “Kade? Hi. It’s me, Grenady. Do you have a minute?”

  We sat out on his deck, in jackets, the sky clear and silky blue, his backyard endless. I felt like I was sitting in artwork, a nature collage that moved, invisible brushes changing the scenery in front of us. A hawk dove, the trees swayed, the weather rolled through. Layers of colors and textures, all framed by the snowcapped blue and purple mountains. There was a tiny patch of fog in the distance, but it didn’t bother me so much since I was sitting with Kade.

  I would try to forget this view when I was in jail, or it would kill me.

  I brought deli sandwiches and praline ice cream with me. He smiled sweetly when I walked in.

  “Hi, Kade. Sorry to barge in on you like this. I brought lunch.”

  “Barge in anytime, Grenady. Oh, hey, you didn’t need to bring lunch, but I’ll eat it. That was kind of you.” He grabbed a couple of beers. “Want to eat outside?”

  “Sure.”

  We chatted while I handed him a sandwich, then we settled in.

  “How are you?”

  His smile was gonna kill me. I would have to forget that smile, too. I put my hands in my lap to control all the shaking they were doing. “Not well.”

  His eyes flickered. He put his sandwich down and leaned forward. “What’s wrong?”

  “First, I want to apologize to you. I have loved working for you, and I’m so grateful for the job.”

  “Thanks. But what’s going on?”

  “I lied to you.”

  He did not seem surprised.

  “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “I know you did.”

  “How do y
ou know?”

  “I looked you up on the Internet.”

  “But . . . But, I’m going by my real Grenadine Scotch Wild, not . . .” I paused.

  “Dina Hamilton? Dina Wild?”

  “Right.”

  “It doesn’t take much anymore to find things out about a person, does it?” He smiled. “Especially when one of your best friends from childhood is a private detective.”

  “Oh, groan. Which one?”

  “You remember Ricki Lopez?”

  “Yes. I do. But I thought you said he worked for a man who worked for the government . . .” Ah. It clicked. “He was a private contractor. As in, a private detective. What made you ask him about me?”

  “I could tell you were lying.”

  “Bad liar, I am. I know it. I don’t have enough practice.”

  “And you were scared to death. That was a clue for me.” His eyes were so gentle.

  “What do you mean?”

  “In the interview. And at lunch at Bernie’s. In the bar when you worked and you knew I was watching you, you were nervous. I could smell the fear on you. I knew something was up. You were less than forthcoming. You dodged my questions, you changed the subject, your eyes would skitter away from mine. About a hundred other clues.”

  “And you didn’t hire me at first.”

  “No. I had to figure out what was going on.”

  “And you did.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why go to all the trouble? Why didn’t you toss my application and hire someone else? And if you knew what was going on, why did you hire me?”

  “Because I liked you. You’re smart. You wanted the job. I knew you’d work hard, because I saw you working at The Spirited Owl. I knew you’d represent the company well when people came in and when they called because you’re articulate and friendly. You listen. You’re an artist, so I knew you’d have an eye for what I was trying to do. Plus, you knew my furniture. You knew it well. You even knew which woods we used, and we had a great conversation about it. You had opinions on the pieces. And you’re charming. And kind.”