by Cindy Davis
After several blocks, she realized she hadn't been able to reach a decision about her future, that the idea of living here in Fort Smith was probably not a good one, although she didn't know exactly why. No one would expect her to put down roots in a place like this.
Walking along the unpretentious street, though calming and stress free, didn't lend inspiration to forward thinking either. She made her way back to the main road, ever alert for ominous looking strangers. Maybe she should find a travel agency, bus, or railroad station.
She walked as close as she dared to people, occasionally receiving uncomfortable sidelong glances. She hid the suitcase on the side of herself closest to the buildings, peering into windows, searching for anything to give her a clue to what to do next. Forcing back tears of isolation and loneliness, Paige trudged on, each consecutive block further testament to what she'd done.
Paige passed an exterminator whose sign featured a large purple cockroach with the name Roaches ‘R Us emblazoned across it in gold letters. She shuddered at the extreme detail of the insect. It seemed as though the smell of bug killer permeated the very walls of the building.
Next door, a hair salon named Armand's was just opening for business. A purple-haired effeminate man unlocked the doors. He threw her a welcoming smile at first, then an oblique glance at her disheveled appearance.
Beside Armand's were a bank and an interior decorator, a florist and a travel agency. Paige gazed longingly at colorful posters of Rome, Paris and Brussels. She nearly went inside and purchased a ticket, but pushed aside thoughts of international travel, at least for the time being. She hadn't brought her passport. Besides, Stefano would expect her to escape to Europe. He owned several homes abroad and knew that she knew her way around. The organization's arms stretched around the globe, more so to Europe and overseas than in smaller towns in the Midwest. She stood a better chance of gaining permanent freedom if she stayed within certain boundaries, boundaries he'd never expect her to cross.
Maybe a bus to somewhere. She mulled over the thought as she strolled on. Paige switched the suitcase to her other hand as she passed a car dealer. CRAZY ED was willing to make any deal, so the sign said. She grinned remembering the chuckles she and Stefano shared at the expense of used car dealers, how they'd tell any story to get rid of used vehicles, going so far as to coin the term ‘pre-loved'.
Recent model vehicles: one front-facing, one trunk-facing, alternated to the end of the lot, all shiny and clean. At the far end, a white leisure van with blue trim, stood out from the rest.
She drifted past a pizza parlor and another florist, its doors open to the chilly conditions. The spicy incense of damp soil and fall flowers oozed onto the sidewalk. But Paige barely noticed; her mind was at work again.
A block further along she stopped, turned and walked back to Crazy Ed's, weaving between the rows of used cars, avoiding the many puddles even though her feet were already well soaked. She entered a prim shed-sized building at the back of Crazy Ed's lot.
A middle-aged man with the face of a bloodhound sat behind a gray metal desk. He dropped his chair to all four legs as she entered. He stubbed his cigar in an overflowing ashtray and leaned forward to shake her hand, his flabby biceps jiggling beneath the cuff of his short-sleeved shirt. The silver wedding ring on his left hand was nearly embedded in the flesh of his finger.
"Yes, little lady? What can Crazy Ed McDougall do for you on this damp, dreary day?” He looked her over as if appraising the resale value of an automobile. “I have a sleek little roadster that you would look absolutely smashing in."
"No, I don't th—"
"Imagine yourself shooting down the highway, top down, wind blowing through that gorgeous hair of yours. You'd drive men wild."
"No,” she repeated.
"Not for you? I don't agree, but what about that luscious blue Grand Am right there?” He pointed to a pristine sedan just outside the picture window. “It's a one owner model that—"
"I know, it was used only by Grandma Jones on her way to church on Sundays. What I'd really like is to look at that white van out on the corner."
Ed frowned, his eyebrows disappearing into the creases of his forehead. “I wouldn't have pegged you for a van person. Not in a million years."
"Well, sometimes we misjudge people,” she said, not thinking about Crazy Ed at all.
Ed stood up, banging the chair off the wall. He strode to the wall, and a board of keys dangling tiny white tags; he flicked one set off a hook. “Let's just go take a look at it. Once you see it, I think you'll agree with me. Someone like you belongs in something shiny and fast."
They traipsed down the lot where Ed spent a half hour explaining the myriad hose and wire hook-ups that would allow her to connect her home on wheels to electricity, running water and sewage. He never gave up trying to talk her into the lime green MG parked nearby.
Back in the building she sat in the hard chair in front of the desk and opened her handbag. She drew out some bills, counted them and fanned them on the counter like a deck of cards. His eyes grew wide. “You're paying cash?"
"It is all right to do that, isn't it?"
* * * *
Two hours later, Paige sat behind the wheel of her new van. Inside was a deep navy blue, it smelled new and clean. A minuscule sink, two-burner stove, and a tiny refrigerator lined one side. Ed had demonstrated how the blue plaid couch on the other side folded down into a bed.
She eased into a Mini Mall parking lot, under a young maple tree, and sat on the couch looking out the wide one-way window, thinking how good life was going to be from now on.
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Nineteen
After shopping to outfit her van, Paige prepared herself a thick sandwich of ham, tomato, lettuce, and brie. She opened her bed and took a long restful nap. For the first time in ages, she didn't wake sweating and trembling from the throes of a nightmare.
At dinnertime, she poured bottled water into one of her new glasses and sipped while she perused an atlas, open on her tiny dinette table, to the map of the United States. Paige had never felt so liberated. She ran a recently chewed fingernail east on Route 40 from Fort Smith, then shook her head. That was where Chris was headed. If he was done scouring the town for her, that is.
Six p.m. Chris would have given up by now. He'd be back on the road, back to his ever so important schedule. Paige wiped a tear from each eye, astonished at the realization that she actually missed the man. She shook off the memory of his tight butt, flat stomach, and nearly hairless chest and concentrated on the map.
She stabbed the index finger on Fort Smith and dragged it west on Route 40. No, definitely not west. And not south either, the organization had more associates in Florida than anywhere in the world, except maybe Italy.
Thinking of Florida reminded Paige of her mother and tears came to her eyes. She concentrated on the map to keep herself from rushing to the pair of pay phones visible from the window of her van. North, that's it. She'd head north on 71, through Missouri and into Iowa. Paige had never been to either state before.
She'd see the sights, relax, and take time to decipher the mess that had become her life. Besides, 71 was on the way to Minneapolis where she could retrieve her package from Nina. It would be nice to see her friend again.
Nina Breckenridge had been in the same situation as Paige. Sent away to school because her parents didn't like the people she hung out with rather than the fact that they wanted their daughter to have the best education money could buy.
Except that, Nina's family lived in Boston. The girls used to tease each other about their accents, Paige's cultured Beverly Hills and Nina's Boston baked beans. The women had kept in touch all these years, but had rarely found the opportunity to get together. Although Nina continually urged her friend to make the trip, Paige held back. She wasn't quite sure why. Maybe it was Nina's straight-laced accountant husband; maybe her lower middle class home in the ‘burbs. Maybe it was the bunch of kids all born in
a seven-year span. Paige had never liked kids; they were loud and messy.
She slapped the atlas shut and stowed it in the chest underneath her sofa/bed. With a satisfied stomach and full cabinets, Paige lay her head, sans wig, on her new pillow with a striped percale case, and fell deeply asleep.
She woke to a sharp knocking on the driver's side window.
Alarmed, she sat up and waited for the cobwebs to scatter. The knocking turned to pounding and indecipherable shouting.
Chris! She clutched the pillow against her chest, the movement wakening her ribs injury; the painkiller had worn off. She wavered, but knew that if she didn't open the door, he wouldn't hesitate to break the window.
She squeezed her eyes against the streetlight from the parking lot. When she opened them she saw a cylindrical object tapping against the driver's side window. She blinked once again and brought into focus a policeman, whose breath formed a circle around his nose and mouth making him look like some grotesque extraterrestrial.
Jesus, what did she have to do to get people to leave her alone? Paige slipped into the driver's seat and turned the key in the ignition, to open the window enough to whisper to the officer. “Yes, officer?"
"Is everything all right in there?"
"Of course."
"Will you open the door, please?"
"What did I do? I only fell asleep.” She inched the door open but kept hold of the handle.
"This isn't a campground, you know.” He leaned inside slightly, peering into the darkness. Looking for what? Drugs? Alcohol?
"I know it's not. I was tired. The past few days have been simply horrendous. I had a fight with my boyfriend and...” she let a few tears dribble down the bridge of her pointed nose, then wiped them sadly away with the tips of her index fingers. “I left him. And, I'm not going back. I was just so tired out I had to stop and rest. I guess I dropped off. You wouldn't want me to fall asleep on the highway and kill myself and maybe a bunch of other people, would you?"
The officer smiled. “Of course not, but the mall is closed. You can't stay here."
"I'm feeling much better now. I'll gather myself together and leave in a few minutes. Would that be acceptable?"
"Yes. I'll come back in a while to make sure.” He tapped the butt of his flashlight on her window to punctuate his final sentence.
After he'd gone, Paige didn't waste any time. She didn't want him to do any further checking on her. Paige joined Route 35 just a few blocks down North East Barry Road. As intended, she headed north. The highway was nearly deserted. She stayed in the middle lane, setting the cruise control at seventy-four miles an hour. She stopped once for gas, taking an exit that advertised green and white logos of a gas pump, a spoon, and a bed, keeping as far away from any truck stops as humanly possible.
* * * *
Paige pulled into Kansas City at 7:07 a.m. The sky was bright, presaging a mild mid-western day. The wind bent the tops of the oaks surrounding the strip mall parking lot. She stopped and moved into the living area, stretching her arms overhead, palms flat on the low ceiling. She brushed her natural hair and smoothed it into a ponytail. She threw on the pair of rimless glasses, then took a moment to scan the vicinity, checking for angry Italians, white Suburbans, yellow Freightliners, red sweatshirts, handlebar mustaches, albinos—the list grew ever longer. She sighed.
The last shop in the strip mall was a Dunkin’ Donuts. It drew her like a fly to flypaper.
The aroma inside the building was intoxicating. She hung back a few feet from the counter allowing incoming customers to go in front of her, perusing the many selections of pastries: sugar, honey, jelly-filled, and all possibly addictive. She inhaled once more.
A woman in a flour-dusted smock asked, “Can I help you?” Paige ordered a strawberry filled and a honey dipped. The square bottomed woman dropped them carelessly into the bag with a wax-papered hand.
Armed with a French vanilla coffee and cholesterol nightmare, Paige climbed into the van. She drove through the city, edged with alternating heights and styles of silver-gray buildings, their coordinating colors and glass fronts seeming almost planned. She sat, intersection after intersection, scanning the pedestrians and traffic. No tractor-trailers. No albino men, she hoped, and only one white Suburban two lanes to her left in which a blonde woman was singing and conducting an invisible orchestra for the three car seats in the back.
Paige opened the window and drummed her knuckles on the sill, inhaling the clean, cool Missouri air, enjoying the exhilarating feeling of freedom, hoping, but knowing it couldn't last forever. She drove east on 51st, not sure which direction to go, but for the first time, not concerned, merely searching for a spot to sit, enjoy her breakfast, and plan her day.
The sign at the next cross-street said Wornall Road. The wide-open space diagonally across the intersection broke the silver-gray monotony with a welcome burst of color—Loose Memorial Park. A plaque dedicated the seventy-four acres to the city in the name of Jacob Leander Loose in 1927. The realistically detailed bronze statue of a handsome man must have been Mr. Loose. Paige had no knowledge of the man, but parked beside the statue, admiring the winding paths and manicured landscaping which brought thoughts of Chris Beauchamps flooding to mind.
Chris, who'd wanted to be a landscape architect and ended up being a truck driver. Chris, with the constitution of a horse; he'd made no secret that he wanted to be closer to her, but managed to sleep in the same bed beside her and didn't once touch her improperly.
She pocketed the keys and collected her breakfast. Where was Chris now? Stefano sure wouldn't permit him to give up the search for her.
If he worked for Stefano.
Paige locked the van and selected the left hand path. Anyone noticing her stride would believe she hadn't a problem in the world. She observed a jogger in baggy blue sweats, a man being led by the pair of lean greyhounds, and the family of tourists sporting cameras and identical Kansas City Chiefs sweat-shirts, and was glad when none paid the least attention to her.
She ambled along the path, looking for a pleasant place to sit and eat. At the crest of a small hill, she gasped seeing the pristine man-made lake. Sunlight crinkled its surface, broken only by paddling ducks and a single white swan that studiously ignored the humans.
Paige seated herself on an unoccupied bench close to the shore. She pried the lid from the coffee and sipped, leaning back and crossing her ankles. For several minutes she sat that way, absorbing the hypnotic surface of the water and murmured quacks of the birds. The moment she withdrew the strawberry doughnut from the bag, a trio of mallards waddled out of the water, squawking and arguing who'd be the first to sample her food.
She smiled and tossed them each a morsel before taking a piece for herself. “Move along guys, that's all you're getting."
Eventually, they drifted back to the water and swam back and forth about ten feet away, until they spotted someone else who might be likely to share with them.
Paige crinkled her bag and dropped it in a wastebasket on her way back up the hill. Interest piqued, she turned left at a sign that said ‘Laura Conyers Smith Municipal Rose Garden’ and followed the dirt path with perfectly aligned edges—no grass or weeds allowed—much like her gardens back in California.
Paige's gardens had been her pride and joy, ablaze in color nearly all year. She'd carefully selected plants which would alternate colors as the seasons passed, choosing hardy varieties that didn't require her gardener to fuss or spray or have a degree in ‘plantology'. She grinned at her coined phrase, searching her brain for the word she really wanted, but not caring when it didn't appear. She smiled once more, liking the new Paige, so different from the perfectionist, the spoiled, the ... well, the bitch, if she were to be truthful.
Anxious to be on with her new life, she walked faster, but over the next rise was another barrier—this one quite unlike the obstacles she'd faced in the past week. This, a simply awesome display of color, stopped Paige in her tracks, as it did others who venture
d along this trail. Even in mid-September, the rose garden elicited adjectives befitting the tableau. Row upon row of bushes radiated from a center fountain like spokes on a multicolored wagon wheel. Paige wished she had a camera to capture the peace and serenity. She inhaled the aroma generated by the thousands of flowers. To be able to look at it whenever she felt the worry and foreboding that had taken over her life. To breathe in the ambrosia when she needed comfort. “With any luck that's all in the past,” she said, drawing a look of curiosity from a man kneeling in the fresh cut grass, focusing a camera on the vista below. “Have a nice day,” she told him and went back to the van.
In the intersection outside the park, a horn honked. She stiffened, clutched the van's door handle, and turned to look across the street. A gnarled elderly woman grasping a wooden cane was hobbling across the street. Traffic from five directions was at a standstill. One driver leaned out his window hollering for her to get her feeble ass out of the road. Paige shook her head, disgusted. Then she dropped her eyes, ashamed because she'd once been in the same situation, thumping her fist angrily on the steering wheel as an old woman had held up traffic in Santa Barbara.
Traffic resumed as the woman tottered onto the sidewalk in front of a shop called Maria's Emporium. Unable to control the compulsion, Paige crossed the street, stepped inside, and was immediately overwhelmed with the scents of potpourris and incense, a world with which she was earnestly familiar, a habit she'd been encouraged to stimulate nearly from birth. She roamed the aisles picking up items, smelling others, purchasing nothing but a handful of postcards, a rose air freshener, and a newspaper.
* * * *
Her van stood alone, separated by several spaces from other vehicles, exactly the way she'd left it. Safely inside, Paige selected the colorful rose garden postcard and inserted its two bottom corners into a space between the rubber gasket and the glass at the lower edge of the window above her table. She set the air freshener inside the tiny sink and sat to read the Kansas City Star.
