Return to Appleton

by Sylvia Bambola

  The car continued sailing down Main as if it were riding the wind instead of an old paved road that already had a few potholes even before the official pothole season had begun. When her tires found one of them and bounced in and out almost effortlessly, she smiled. Her Bluebird had taken it like a champ. She called her ‘97 Escort “Bluebird” because of its color and because of the way it seemed to fly over the roadway. It was a blessing she still found hard to believe, made harder by the fact that her faithful Jesus had used Cutter Press in its dispensing. But maybe it wasn’t so strange after all. Jesus was in the renovation business—renovating and restoring relationships. And if any relationship needed restoring, it was hers and Cutter’s.

  Only—sometimes … when Cutter looked at her a certain way … almost like the way she imagined he looked at Sadie Bellows when they were alone … she got nervous, and all sorts of thoughts flooded her mind. Get real, Gloria. And get a grip on that imagination of yours. Only suppose … suppose it wasn’t her imagination. Suppose he wanted to be more than friends. She wouldn’t like that. She was barely used to Cutter as a friend. A friend. Now, wasn’t that a laugh? Jesus sure had a sense of humor. Obviously, He wasn’t just shooting for reconciliation, but a friendship too.

  Funny thing was, she didn’t mind a bit. But friendship was as far as she was willing to go.

  When Gloria crossed Candlewick Road, she slowed down. Elm was coming up. A few more yards and she made the left by Comics & Cards. She had been taking this route for years and could do it with her eyes closed. Several miles later, she felt disappointed when she found herself in front of the tired old Victorian. Not only was her ride in Bluebird over, but she could no longer put off the inevitable.

  She parked by the curb and sat a moment. The long day at Appleton Printers had knocked her out. With her working OT every night, there was no way she could have seen Grandma Quinn this week if she had had to go by bike. And she needed to see her. Ever since her lunch with Mother, she’d known she’d have to see Grandma and lay it on the line.

  What else could she do?

  She glanced at her Timex. Eight thirty. No use procrastinating. With a flip of her wrist, she opened the door and got out. The streetlight illuminated the cracked walkway and sagging stoop far more than Gloria wished and reminded her of the importance of her mission. Her trek over the uneven concrete seemed to take forever, though it was only a few yards, and Gloria found herself feeling not only sorry for herself that this task had fallen on her shoulders but also nervous about being the messenger. Grandma would be hurt—that was a given. It was just a matter of degree. This whole thing was distasteful. Only problem was, the alternative was even worse.

  Before Gloria reached the sagging steps, she smelled the aroma of fresh-baked cookies and groaned. Oh, Grandma.

  She didn’t bother knocking. If Grandma wasn’t wearing her Freedom FS, she wouldn’t hear it anyway. Instead, Gloria searched her key chain until she found the old, discolored Baldwin and inserted it into the lock. But after turning the key the only way it would go, Gloria discovered she had locked the door rather than unlocked it, which meant the door had been unsecured all along. Oh, Grandma.

  She opened the door and stepped into the hall, letting the screen bang shut behind her. At once the warmth of the house engulfed her almost as if it were Grandma’s invisible arms waiting to hug all who entered. Then the sweet vapor of freshly baked cookies again filled her nostrils. Normally, a smell like that would make Gloria’s mouth water. Today it made her angry. Why was Grandma baking at this hour?

  “Grandma! Grandma!” she shouted all the way to the kitchen, not wanting to take Grandma too much by surprise and frighten her. No response. At the kitchen entrance, Gloria stopped and watched Grandma take a batch of cookies from the oven and place the pan on top of the stove. Then, with a spatula, Grandma began transferring cookies to the only empty rack out of the half-dozen cooling racks scattered all over the counter. Gloria bit her lip. Oh, Grandma.

  Then she walked to the center of the kitchen. “Grandma!” she shouted once more at the top of her lungs and watched her grandmother jerk her shoulders in fright.

  “Land sakes, child. You gave me a start.” Grandma placed the spatula on the hot baking sheet, then with surprising agility and speed was beside Gloria, hugging her, squeezing her face as if it were a peach she was testing for ripeness, and finally paving both cheeks with kisses.

  When they separated, Gloria pointed to her ear, and Grandma Quinn nodded with a frown. “Okay, child,” she said, retrieving her hearing aid from a small side drawer. “Okay.”

  “Grandma, you’ve got to start wearing that thing all the time. It’s really important. Promise me you’ll do it,” Gloria said as soon as her grandmother installed the hearing aid. “Promise me.”

  Grandma Quinn nodded.

  “Suppose I was a burglar? I could have rolled up with a U-Haul and emptied your entire house before you would have been the wiser.”

  “That’s just plain silly. What do I have that’s worth stealing?”

  “That’s not the point, Grandma. Did you know your door was unlocked, and I screamed your name a dozen times before you heard me? You know you should keep your door bolted this time of year—so close to the Apple Festival. The town’s already swarming with strangers. Just the other day, Pearl Owens said a couple of people she never saw before came right into her yard and helped themselves to a dozen dahlias.”

  “Oh, that gossip. You can never take anything she says seriously.” Grandma patted Gloria’s cheeks like she used to when Gloria was little, then walked to the stove. “What’s really troubling you, child? You’re huffing and puffing like a steam engine.” Gloria followed her.

  “Those, for one.” She pointed to the handful of cookies still on the baking sheet. “You’ve got to stop charging your baking goods at Sam’s, and you’ve got to stop baking all this stuff. People are talking, saying you’re not right … in the head.”

  “Pffffff. Let ’em say what they want.”

  Gloria took the spatula from her hand. “I can’t, Grandma. Because it’s causing problems.”

  Grandma Quinn’s eyes narrowed like coin slots in a machine. “You just sit down over there and let me get you some cookies and milk. Then you tell me all about it.”

  “No cookies, Grandma.”

  “Oh, my. This must be serious.”

  Gloria nodded and put the spatula down on the counter, then guided Grandma to one of the red-checked-cushioned chairs. She took the seat beside her.

  “Okay, pumpkin, what’s this all about?”

  “Mother wants to put you into a nursing home.” Gloria avoided her grandmother’s eyes.

  “Oh, I already know that.”

  “No! No … you don’t. She’s picked one out. Clancy County Home for the Aged. She must have gotten the paperwork because she knows just how many empty beds they have. And … I don’t think there’s a thing I can do to stop her, unless you stop doing these things … these things that make her think you’re not right.” Gloria suddenly felt her grandmother’s soft, warm hands on hers.

  “Hush, child. Stop your fretting and just listen to me. There are things going on here you don’t understand. This goes deeper than my baking cookies or running up a bill at Sam’s. This goes all the way to when Geraldine was young. She never could stand to have people talk about her, to think ill of her. She always had to be the star. And for a while there, she even believed her own press. Believed she was perfect like all those beauty pageants make you feel. But she learned soon enough she wasn’t perfect. She was taken down a peg, more than a peg, and hard too. And not only by this town, but by your father.”

  “Grandma, what are you talking about?”

  “Your mother bought into this town’s expectations of her, and when she didn’t come through, when she didn’t deliver the Miss America title, she couldn’t forgive herself. And your daddy? Well … he broke your mother’s heart.”

  Gloria was on unfamiliar gr
ound and found it frightening, as though she had just jetted into the stratosphere on a space shuttle. “I don’t understand, Grandma. What does this have to do with Mother wanting to put you into a nursing home?”

  “Everything, pumpkin. Absolutely everything.”

  Gloria tossed and turned in bed, drifting in and out of sleep. Finally, around three in the morning, she flicked on her nightstand light and sat up. Grandma’s remark about her father still had Gloria upset. Why hadn’t she questioned Grandma further instead of running out like a child? She hadn’t even shown Grandma her new car. Oh, why had she acted like such a baby? What was she so afraid of?

  Gloria reached over and picked up her Bible. She supposed she could justify her behavior by blaming her grandmother. Grandma certainly hadn’t helped her case. Talking crazy. Acting crazy. How did Grandma expect Gloria to help her? There was only so much Gloria could do against Mother’s determination. Surely, Grandma had to know that.

  Slowly, Gloria ran her hand over the leather cover of the Bible. This past year she had turned to it often. It had given her comfort, direction, assurance. Gloria’s insides churned.

  It had also given her truth.

  She let her fingers rest on the raised patch of leather that was sewn to the cover and contained her name inscribed in gold letters. Grandma had given her this Bible as a gift. Absently, Gloria traced her name with her finger. Truth. Did she want that now? Yes. Always. But … what Grandma said about her father couldn’t be true. That was inconsistent with the man she had known. And if it wasn’t true, then that meant Grandma was in worse shape than Gloria knew. That meant Mother may be right about wanting to put Grandma into a nursing home.

  But what if it was true?

  Gloria opened her King James and began reading Proverbs twenty-three. She stopped when she got to verse twenty-three. She read the verse again, then again, and finally out loud. “Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” she whispered, “sometimes Your ways are so hard.”

  Cutter listened to Sadie’s high-pitched voice telling him, over the intercom, that a Sam Bryce was on line two. He quickly picked up the phone and punched the flashing number.

  “Sam. What’ve you got?”

  The soft voice chuckled. “Was that your secretary?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She must be a real looker.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because no one would put up with a voice like that if she wasn’t.”

  Cutter scribbled curlicues across the legal pad he used for notes. “She has other assets.”

  “Of course she does.”

  “So what do you have?” Cutter said curtly, feeling his cheeks burn.

  “Last night Tallulah—that’s my computer—came across something very interesting: a group photo of Slone Foundation employees. And would you believe, Benny was right there in the second row listed as Benjamin W. Holt.”

  “You sure it’s the same guy?”

  “Positive. I enlarged the photo, then compared it to another picture I obtained from a different source.”

  “So you’re saying there’s a connection to Eric Slone?”

  “Not necessarily. This only proves there’s a connection to the Slone Foundation. And so far, my research shows that Eric Slone has little involvement in it.”

  “Okay. So then who runs the show?”

  “Eric Slone’s daughter, Erica. And you wanna know her pet project? The environment. And heading that list is land preservation—as in buying private land and selling it to the federal government.”

  Cutter remembered the article Gloria had written for the last issue of C&C, the one about nonprofit groups buying up land that bordered national parks or reserves, then selling it to the government for a profit. “Did they make a profit?”

  “Don’t know. Have to see if I can get a hold of some of their financial statements.”

  “How do you plan to do that?”

  “A lot of this is a matter of public record. The rest—you don’t want to know.”

  All morning Gloria had listened to Wanda nitpick her husband, had watched Wanda’s big hips bounce around the shop like a pinball machine, had felt Wanda’s tension like a jolt of electricity every time Wanda passed her desk.

  “Will you calm down?” Gloria finally said, unable to stand it any longer.

  “It’s Tuesday!” Wanda huffed. “We have only the rest of the week to get these orders out. Come Monday, everyone will want their stuff for the Apple Festival. Either that or our heads!”

  “I’ll stay every night if I have to. Stop worrying.”

  Wanda blew strands of bleached-blonde hair off her forehead. “It’s not you I’m worried about. It’s Mr. I-Gotta-Have-It-Perfect in there.” Wanda pointed to the back, where Gloria could hear the sound of a press running. “He did Sam Hidel’s flyer twice. Twice! Because he didn’t like the way some of the pictures bled into the margins.”

  Gloria pushed back from her desk and laughed. “Paul has a spirit of excellence. You should be proud of that.”

  “Well, he can have that ‘spirit of excellence’ thing in February or March when our workload is way down. But not now. Not at our absolutely busiest time of the year!”

  Wanda walked to her desk and began sifting through the top drawer. Gloria knew she was searching for her pack of spearmint gum. In the last week, Wanda had taken to chewing gum like mad. Gloria thought it beat Prozac.

  “Look, when I’m all caught up, I can help collate, staple, trim, bind, whatever you need.”

  Wanda worked her face into a smile. “You’re a good kid, Gloria. A hard worker. I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up owning this place someday.” Then the smile slid off her face like melting ice cream. “Now, if you could only put a burr under you-know-who’s saddle or make the presses run faster or—” Suddenly, Wanda spun around. “What’s the use? Some things a person’s got to do herself.” Then she bounced toward the back room.

  “How’s the car running?”

  Gloria was surprised to hear Cutter’s full voice boom over the phone. “Great.”

  “I was wondering if you’d like to take a drive to Spoon Lake after work. Do a little night fishing.”

  Gloria laughed. “I haven’t done that in years. And it would be tempting, except we’re swamped and I need to work OT. The Apple Festival has got us backlogged.”

  “Sounds like a lot of stress over there.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.” Gloria tried to ignore the angry voices coming from the press room where Wanda was still laying into Paul.

  “All the more reason to go. There’s nothing like fishing to relax you.”

  “By the time I get home and change and …”

  “That’s why it’s called night fishing, Gloria. You can do it anytime of the night. How long you plan on staying at the shop?”

  “Maybe till eight.”

  “Then I’ll pick you up at nine. I’ll bring dinner and the fishing poles. Your job is to get the bait.”

  “But I’ll have to dig for it. In the dirt!”

  “Exactly.”

  Gloria saw Wanda storm in from the back room and head for her desk, then start rummaging for her spearmint. “Okay, you’re on.” She hung up the phone, smiling. Obviously, her fears about Cutter were unfounded. There was no way he looked at her in any way but a friend. He’d never ask Sadie Bellows to dig for night crawlers.

  Cutter sat in one of the two folding chairs he had brought, his pole dangling over the bank. Two small Coleman lanterns on the ground—one by his chair, the other by Gloria’s—bathed the bank in soft light. He hadn’t felt this relaxed in a very long time. He glanced to the side and watched, by moonlight, as Gloria struggled with her line. Somehow, she had managed to get it tangled into a ball. Well, he’d let her struggle a while longer before he offered his help.

  He nudged the brown paper bag at his foot with the tip of his shoe. It was more
than half full of night crawlers and must have taken Gloria the better part of an hour to get. She was still digging when he came to pick her up. He couldn’t help but smile as he thought of it. And the smile stayed with him as he watched her let out her line, then work the giant knot, then let out her line some more. Maybe he wouldn’t offer his help at all. Maybe he’d wait until she asked for it. That thought made him smile all the more. She’d probably never ask. Not him. At least not yet. Perhaps someday. Some wounds took more time than others to heal. He was just beginning to understand that.

  But it was nice being here with her. Like this. In the quiet evening. Listening to the crickets and watching the moonlight play with her hair. The last time he was here with her, it was so different. He and his friends had come upon her and Tracy swimming in the lake. It was the summer between their junior and senior years of high school—an age one would think too old for practical jokes. He cringed now when he thought of it. He and his friends had chased Gloria and Tracy to Clive’s old smokehouse about a half mile away, locked them in … and left them there for three hours. In the light of maturity, it seemed so cruel—two girls, alone and wet, in that dark, bug-infested, dilapidated smokehouse. They had to have been scared and terribly uncomfortable. For the life of him, Cutter couldn’t understand how he had thought a thing like that could be funny.

  “You know that detective I hired?” he asked, hardly wanting to break the silence, or the spell this simple scene had cast on him, but suddenly fearing that Gloria would remember the smokehouse too. Gloria nodded, still struggling with the line. “Well, I heard from him again today. There’s definitely a connection of some kind between Benny Holt and Slone, or rather the Slone Foundation.”

  “Oh?”

  Even by moonlight, Cutter saw the worried look on Gloria’s face. He quickly told her what Sam Bryce had found out. “I wanted to tell you I was wrong. I shouldn’t have been so hard-headed about that whole meeting with Benny at The Lakes. I can be such a bonehead sometimes. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you, thanks. I know you and Harry Grizwald were only trying to help.”