Johnny Cakes (The Rachael O'Brien Chronicles)

by Paisley Ray

  Francine kicked out of her covers and turned over, pulling me out of my daze. Outside, the sky turned grayer shades of gloom. My alarm clock digits flicked over half past six. Despite the predawn tranquility in the house, there was no chance of me falling back to sleep. Sheila had morning classes. I figured I’d bum a ride with her to campus. With weather like this, I didn’t feel like I was missing anything if I tucked away into a corner cubicle in the library for some early morning studying.

  Slipping into the hall bathroom, I washed the groggy off my face and looped my hair into a ponytail. Back at my room a series of yellow sticky notes I hadn’t noticed ran vertically down the door.

  In Katie Lee’s printing, the first read: Bubba called. Just said “Hey.” Are you and he starting up again?

  A jolt shot up my leg. I ripped the scrap of paper off the door. What could he want? I balled the paper up. It didn’t matter. He was bad news.

  The next note posed a question: The Bern is calling—Mitch, Patsy, and me want to know what your plans are for Thanksgiving.

  Then there was a note penned in red script, Sheila’s handwriting: Stone called to check in. She drew hearts and a personal note that said ‘you’re wound too tight, go get some’. Rude!

  Below that, Katie Lee’s penmanship filled another scrap of paper.

  Your mom called. A series of paper scraps below read: Arrived safely in Alabama—Touring the Coon Dog graveyard—Hiwalani is going to contact the canine spirits hovering between our realm and theirs? He is missing a belonging from the bus shelf. If you spot it, please call 256-555-0783. At this number until Tuesday.

  It was Wednesday morning. Katie Lee must’ve have forgotten to give me the message when it came in, and just stuck it there last night. There was another note stuck on top of that last note:

  Did you nab some love potion? If so, it would explain the disappearing act you’ve been practicing lately. Let’s meet on campus and catch up. KL

  A second message was on a piece of lined-loose-leaf-paper. Penned in black Sharpie it read: Your Papa called. Has been in touch with the insurance adjuster on the Galaxie claim. Call him back to discuss. PS: I gave him my promise that you would get this message. As you know, I am good for my word. Do not blow him off! Francine B. Oh, and that nosey FBI friend of yours called. He didn’t leave a message and I didn’t ask. But if you want to know, I think he has it bad for you.

  I slid into a pair of jeans, a tee, and a sweatshirt. Just because Dad and I didn’t always connect with Dad, and just because I had some issues with his choice in aerobic-instructor girlfriend, didn’t mean that I made a habit to blow him off.

  And Agent Cauldwell I couldn’t figure out so I stopped trying.

  When I dropped my curling iron on the floor, Francine didn’t budge. I dropped it a second time and still, not even a flinch. I found myself jealous that she had found the restful sleep I hadn’t.

  Downstairs, I dumped my backpack contents on the dining room table and began to organize: check to see if I had any cash, plot my daily to-do, crack open the supplemental reading brochure on American Indian pottery recently discovered in New Mexico. After reading over some class notes that I ended up re-writing, I plotted my day. I’d catch up on some reading before lecture at nine, grab a quick bite, and then study for a business ethics test tomorrow. Something was off. Sheila was a pre-dawn person. The only one of us in the house. She had a breakfast routine. Egg whites scrambled on a slice of toast with shredded cheddar and a glass of pineapple juice. She had a habit of leaving dirty dishes on the counter and Francine made a habit or reminding her that we were her tenants, not her maids. The kitchen was empty.

  Opening the vertical blind slats on the family room slider, I saw her Fiero getting a nice rain-wash along with Big Blue and a black truck that was parked more in the alley than in any parking spot. It blocked in a corner of Sheila’s car. She was going to be pissed. I watched as the rain started up again. Even though she could still maneuver out, I guessed she’d call a tow truck and make someone’s morning a little soggier.

  I checked my watch. I wasn’t getting any younger. None of us ever hung out in Sheila’s room and I’d only peeked in once at the beginning of the year. She deadbolted it. No big deal. Sheila was her own person and as long as her room didn’t start stinking to high heaven, I didn’t give a rip what went on inside it. Slinging my book bag on my shoulder I moved toward the front of the house, near her room, to listen for any signs of life. In a moment of hesitation, I held my knuckle inches from her door. Did I want to knock or should I just leg the few miles to campus in the rain. It was a toss-up. A knock would give Sheila a power rush. She’d know she had something, a vehicle, that I wanted to ride in. Maybe the walk in the rain would be good for me. The air was clean and would infuse my skin with moisture. Who was I kidding? I’d arrive on campus looking like a drowned cat.

  With medium pressure, using only my index finger knuckle, I knocked three times. I heard a cough, some furniture clunk into the wall, and a whisper. Shit, she had someone in there. Maybe Batman from Halloween had super powers. I hadn’t seen him around since, but had to admit he provided some sweet eye candy, if you liked the chiseled testosterone type. I figured she might prefer to ignore the knock, and started to eye the pile of shoes and umbrellas in the bottom of the coat rack stand when her door opened.

  Nothing more than Sheila in a man’s V-neck undershirt greeted me. Her hair and make-up were surprisingly pulled together. She’d been awake. “I was hoping to bum a ride.”

  Her arm slid up the door and it opened wider. I could see the back profile of her company as he slid a jacket on. She moistened her lips with her tongue. “Rain can be so invigorating, don’t you think?”

  She was such a bragger about her sexual conquests. “Err, are you going to campus this morning?”

  Covering a fake yawn, she said, “Last night tuckered me out. I’m going to skip class. Nash, be a dear and give Rach a lift?”

  A round of fireworks exploded inside my head.

  “Hey, Raz. Destroy anything lately?” Someone must have told him about the Gas N’Biscuit?

  Palm forward, I shoved Sheila and shut the door behind me.

  Overly animated, she made a show of stumbling backward and landed with a bounce on the unmade pillow-strewn bed. “Rachael, aren’t you feisty this morning?”

  “What’s going on here?”

  “Just a cordial visit,” Sheila said.

  “We’re working on some repairs?” Nash said.

  I shot him my index finger. “Save your smartass for someone who doesn’t know you.”

  Sheila couldn’t have been grinning wider as she pretended to pluck lint off her rumpled comforter. The two were smugly silent.

  “Well?” I waited.

  The wind outside rattled the siding and a siren howled in the distance. Sheila stood. “If y’all excuse me, I’m going to shower.” She stopped in front of Nash. Sliding her fingers up his lapel, she straightened his jean jacket collar. “Drive safely.”

  His hand came out of a pocket and slapped her behind. She playfully yelped before scurrying into her bathroom. “Good seeing ya, Sheila.”

  “This. You two.”

  Nash unpeeled a toothpick wrapper. “What’s the matter, Raz?”

  “You asshole. If Katie Lee gets wind that you are fooling around with Sheila, under her bedroom, all hell’s gonna break loose.”

  Pushing past me, he moved out into the foyer. “Is it now?”

  Stretching a slatted window blind with two fingers, he looked skyward before unlocking the front door. The rain gushed down the gutter near the front window. Trotting down the porch stairs, he said, “If you need a ride, I can drop you off on campus.”

  I followed him and heard the door behind me click shut. “Sheila? Really?”

  The toothpick rocked from side to side in his mouth, he used his tongue to tip it like a seesaw, before dashing around the side of the house.

  Racing behind him, we darted thro
ugh the spitting rain. Ignoring the puddles I hustled to keep up as he jogged between houses to the back alley. He unlocked his truck door and slipped inside. The arms of my sweatshirt were quickly becoming doused and my jeans stuck to my thighs. Drops beaded on the body of his truck and slid down the side. Standing in front of the engine hood, I glared at him through the rain-splattered windshield. My mind sped on overload as I rewound back to the night of the Halloween party. I’d been so wrapped up balancing my time between Stone and Mom. Had I been blind to an attraction between Sheila and Nash? I really didn’t want to think about it, but them, together, had implications. My head fogged with what-ifs, chains-of-events and I took a step back, stumbling on a crack in the pavement. Placing a palm on the hood of the truck to steady myself, I quickly removed it from the warm engine. My life had an annoying habit of replaying disastrous moments. I’d been in this position before. Freshman year, Nash had cheated on Katie Lee and I knew about it before she did. Now they weren’t dating, but to me it still felt wrong. Keeping secrets got me in trouble, and I almost lost Katie Lee’s friendship once before. I wondered if technically this scenario fell under keeping a secret or minding my own business.

  NOTE TO SELF

  Staying friendly with an old lover is never a good idea. One way or another, it will bite you in the ass.

  CHAPTER 13

  Bite Me

  My teeth hadn’t stopped chattering since I departed the plane and walked across the frosty jet bridge into the Akron Canton airport. Dad met me at baggage and while we waited for my duffle, he and I caught up on all the day to day.

  “A steady flow of paintings has been coming to O’Brien’s to be cleaned before they’re photographed and appraised.”

  “From where?” I asked.

  “I made a new contact. The Canton Museum recently updated their insurance policies, and the curator, whom I’m friendly with, mentioned my name to the Toole Insurance Agency as a resource. The connection has turned into steady work.

  My bag fell out of the chute. “Wow. That’s great.”

  Wearing a quilted ski jacket, fully zipped, I hustled toward Dad’s parked car in the lot, but the frozen air that whisked down, presumably from the Canadian tundra, still bit through my clothes. I skidded over my classes and the professors, avoiding mention of Schleck, whose image I wanted to forget, and briefed Dad on my roommate’s goings-on, minus the boyfriend statuses and the less-than-angelic behavior that dads should never hear about.

  As we drove through rush hour traffic, the gray skies darkened into early evening. My luggage sat in the entry of the home I’d grown up in. A 1930’s farmhouse with creaky wood floorboards, ditsy wallpaper, and a collection of furnishings and art antiques that my mom and dad had acquired over the years of being in the restoration business. Dad settled in his favorite velvet high back and stretched out his legs under the kitchen table. The cozy space in the back of the house was arranged with an eclectic mélange of furniture, and no two chairs matched. Seated next to him, with a view of the moonlit backyard, I held a cup of hot cocoa and let the warmth flood my veins as I watched the bare branches of a leafless willow bounce in the howling wind. The first snow had fallen back in October, and now in early November the ground was frozen six inches deep. The weather, this house, and my childhood surrounded me. I’d become acclimated to the south and on the inside my chest felt odd. Being home, the life I lived below the Mason Dixon seemed otherworldly. Here in Canton, I felt somehow off-balance and the revelation stung.

  Dad and I had a short three-day weekend together. It was a midterm break and I had gleaned pleasure from telling Schleck that I’d be out of town. In her typical style, she burst my bubble with her, “Me, too” response. I’d hesitated to ask details, but she’d supplied them anyway. “My boyfriend has rented a place on Saint Simons. It’s exactly what I need to decompress.”

  I’d delivered a closed-mouth smile and nodded, not bothering to delve into where the island was located—Timbuktu was my hope—or why she needed to decompress when as far as I could tell, weekly massages, manicures, and hairdresser blow outs should’ve taken the edge off of her ongoing war with her students.

  Aligning the corners of a pile of junk mail, Dad took a deep breath. “Rachael, I’m really distressed about the Galaxie incident.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad. I know you put a lot of money and sweat into that car.”

  “Rachael, it’s not the car, it’s you.” He rubbed his hands through his hair. “This crowd you hang out with at school. I’m concerned that there’s more trouble just waiting to happen.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Exploding gas stations are not everyday occurrences.”

  My mind went warp speed. I’d unknowingly entered an intervention. “It was a freak accident. Bad timing. The statistical likelihood of anything remotely dangerous happening again is between slim and nil.”

  “Freshman year, there was the Clementine Hunter forgery and that Ray character who threatened you.”

  “I only became entangled with all that because I saw the original artwork in your studio.” I sipped the cocoa. “I’m learning to keep my observations to myself.” I said, thinking back to the not-so-long-ago Nash and Sheila encounter.

  “I’ve been thinking.”

  Oh crap. Those words never work in my favor.

  “The shop is doing well. Maybe you should transfer. Your grades are top notch. I could swing the tuition for Xavier.”

  “I’m a junior and I have a full scholarship at Greensboro College.”

  Dad sighed and moved toward the refrigerator where he pulled out a can of Iron City and popped the tab. “Trudy and I have discussed it. We are worried about you. And the college is such a long way from home.”

  “Trudy! What does she have to do with anything?”

  “She’s my girlfriend and a significant part of my life. We discuss things.”

  “Your choice in companionship is your own. And I don’t care what you two discuss as long as it’s not my life.”

  “Rachael.”

  “I’m happy. I like the south. It suits me.”

  “At least consider your options. Being closer to home, you could pop in on weekends if you like and if there was a problem, I’d be a few hours’ drive, not a whole day away.”

  This conversation had taken a left turn and I needed to get it back on track, fast. Reaching for his hand, I settled my inner fury—the one that flared up when my parents decided to poke around in my life. “I appreciate your concern. Since Mom left, you’ve been my rock. But I’m happy at school. My classes are going well and since I moved off campus and out of the dorms, things are calmer. Honestly I think all the drama came from the mix of personalities you get when you live with a couple hundred girls in high-rise campus housing.”

  He leaned back into his chair. His face didn’t look convinced. “Make me a promise.”

  “What kind of promise?”

  “That you’ll keep your options open.”

  “Of course. When I’m home for Thanksgiving in a few weeks, I’ll do a little research on the Art History program at Xavier.”

  I lied. I had no intention of leaving North Carolina behind.

  “About Thanksgiving.”

  My eyes scoured the bottom of my empty mug. I figured he would be asking me to cook again this year and I had already prepared a grocery list.

  “You see, Trudy has a client who offered his Colorado condo over the holiday.”

  I wondered if the Iron City had gone to his head.

  “You don’t ski.”

  “It’s Breckenridge. Prime location. Ski in, ski out. Right there on the slopes.” He laced his fingers and his knuckles cracked. “I thought it would be an opportunity to learn.”

  “You’re ditching me for a ski vacation with Trudy?”

  “No, not entirely. Your grandmother and Edmond are here.”

  I grimaced.

  “And Aunt Gert.”

  “She goes to Vegas on Thanksg
iving.”

  “Dad’s hands fidgeted along the grain in the wooden table top. Last I checked your grandmother doesn’t have plans. And Edmond will be around, mostly.”

  “Mostly?”

  “He mentioned taking his Air Stream to Lake O’ Pines, for a night or two.”

  “Are you asking me to come home to keep an eye on the shop?”

  “No, no. Not at all. We’ll close down for the weekend. Before I commit, I just want to make sure, you know, that you’re okay without me for the holiday.”

  The front door lock clicked and we both heard a shrill, “You-Who, anyone home?”

  “Trudy has a key?”

  Dad tipped his can back and guzzled.

  “Rachael,” she mused, and like a locomotive coming into the station, her arms swooped open as she plowed across the kitchen until my chair back ground her to a halt. Wrapping her arms around my chair and by default, around me, she gushed, “You’re home. We’ve missed you.”

  I patted her arm with my palm.

  “Did John tell you? I scored a free ski condo for us in Colorado and we booked cheap flights leaving Thanksgiving Day.”

  My face tightened and I pressed my lips together as I stink-eyed dad. Closing my eyelids I had a vision. Trudy whooshing down a fresh powder slope in some hot pink spandex get-up. She would insist on getting a second warm-up run in, before she and Dad took to the green trails. I could hear a crack of timber just before a puffy snow cloud began engulfing pine trees and the pink dot in its path. A chill touched the back of my neck. Opening my eyes, Dad’s head leaned into the refrigerator, and I heard the tab top pop on another Iron City.

  DAY TWO OF MY three-day visit to Canton, Ohio, and I was counting the hours until I’d be at the airport. For sanity purposes, I needed to get out of the house and rode with dad to O’Brien’s, How’s Your Art? We picked up a box of assorted donuts, the chocolate logs with jimmies, glazed and sugared for me, and a pizza bread for Edmond. Dad said he’d given up sugary treats, which I considered sacrilegious. After the Thanksgiving bomb he’d dropped on me, I deemed this box of donuts cheap therapy, and I planned on drowning myself in at least six of them. Norcia Bakery provided hometown flavors that, unlike my family, had stayed consistent.