Time Off for Good Behavior

by Lani Diane Rich

  “You’re a go-getter,” she’d told me with a wink. “We’ll all be watching you for great things.”

  Great things. Yeah. I’d pissed my twenties away on a bad marriage and was starting my thirty-second year hearing phantom strands of a song I couldn’t identify while hiding from an ex who wanted to kill me. I wonder what Mrs. Knickie would have to say if she could see me now? Would she be able to adequately express her disappointment using ten words from the SAT vocabulary list?

  It occurred to me, during this furious journaling, that there were two ways to look at it. One, everyone had been wrong and I was just a loser from day one. Two, I’d actually been so afraid to fail that I deliberately threw my life in the toilet and kept flushing until every last remnant of who I had been was washed away.

  Ding ding ding. Thanks for playing. We have a winner.

  Welcome to Self-Fulfilling Prophecies 101, I wrote in the notebook. My name is Wanda Lane, and I would have a syllabus for you if only I had bothered to actually create one. Don’t be disappointed, though; it would have sucked, anyway.

  My handwriting at this point was scratchy, and my hand ached, but I pushed through until the next sentence was done.

  I am the stupidest human being on the planet.

  With that, I tossed the notebook to the floor and grabbed my toothbrush and a towel from the wardrobe.

  ***

  I had just gotten out of the shower when Elizabeth knocked at my door. I was still amped up from my journey of self-discovery, and I opened the door quickly, then continued flying around the room, organizing the pens, smoothing the bedspread. Elizabeth seemed surprised and stepped into the room cautiously as I pulled the towel off my head and scrubbed it over my hair.

  “I was going to come up here and yell at you to get your sorry ass together,” she said. “Looks like my work here is already done.”

  She plopped on the bed, and I pulled the chair over from the desk, rubbing my face and tossing the towel onto a pile of laundry on the floor.

  “Yeah, sorry about that. I just needed some time to get my head together. But I think I’m better now. I think I’ve hit on what I’ve been doing wrong, which is pretty much everything.” I rambled at the speed of light. She crossed her legs and stared me down.

  “Then I guess you’ll be okay if I talk to you about Walter?” she asked.

  I froze at the sound of his name. Although I had been thinking about him, weaving him into my hopeful vision of the future as I examined my past, the sound of his name cut a swath through my gut, and I deflated a little.

  “I saw him today,” she said. “He’s worried about you.”

  I looked at her. “Did you tell him I was here?” My throat tightened just talking about Walter.

  Elizabeth shook her head. “No. I told him I’d talked to you and that you were okay.”

  “Thanks,” I said softly. I lay back across the bed, my feet tapping nervously on the floor. We both stared at the ceiling.

  “You gonna tell me what happened with you two?” she asked.

  “Not now,” I said, still staring. “I have too much to do.”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  I turned to face her. “You got any more of those sticky notes?”

  Elizabeth nodded and excused herself, returning five minutes later with two Diet Cokes, some markers, and two packages of sticky notes. She pulled one marker cap off using her teeth and let out a garbled “Let’s get cracking.”

  “What do I do?”

  She scribbled on a sticky note and held it up for me. It said “Get a job.” She spit the pen cap onto the floor and pulled the note off the pad, slapping it on my wall.

  “A reinvention of self is half commonsense planning and half blindly following out-of-nowhere hunches,” she said. “First, we do free form. Just write anything that comes to mind that you might want to improve about yourself.”

  “I don’t have that kind of time,” I said.

  “Let me finish. Then, when you’re done, evaluate what you’ve written. You’ll see some patterns develop. Then you whittle it down to about ten things you really need to do. You do them and boom—you’re a brand-spankin’-new Wanda.”

  I stared at her. “And this worked for you?”

  She shrugged. “I’m a work in progress. Get writing, girl.” It was after eleven when we stopped, sitting Indian-style on the floor, surrounded by scrunched-up notes, staring at a wall speckled with square, sticky, yellow directives that were supposedly going to change my life.

  “Am I crazy for wanting to do this?” I asked.

  “We don’t like the term crazy,” she said.

  I grabbed a pillow and threw it at her. We were quiet for a moment, then Elizabeth spoke up again. “I wish you wouldn’t wait to talk to Walter. He’s really worried about you, you know.”

  “Can’t. Gotta go one step at a time. If he doesn’t want me when I’m done, then I’ll have to live with that. But if he takes me back now, I’ll never do this. And I need to do this.”

  I sat forward and looked at her. She was staring at the wall of sticky notes. “Promise me you won’t say anything to him. Just that I’m okay and he shouldn’t worry. Please, Elizabeth.”

  “Okay. You’ve got my word.” She sighed. “So what are you going to do first?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, my eyes grazing over the wall of tasks. “It’s kind of overwhelming. Maybe you should pick one at random for me?”

  “Sure.” She pulled herself onto the bed, covered her eyes, and grabbed a sticky note off the wall. I stood up and took it from her.

  “This one should be easy,” I said, laughing and showing it to her. She cocked her head to read it at an angle.

  “Get a job,” she read. “Looks like you’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

  I smiled. “Looks like.”

  She got up and gave me a hug. “Blueberry pancakes. Six-thirty. You’re not there, I’m coming in after your ass, and I promise it won’t be pretty.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Kids, this is Wanda. She’s going to be staying in the apartment over the garage for a while.”

  I nodded at the children and gave a grunt to the effect of, “Good morning.” I’m not a big morning person.

  Elizabeth put the pancakes on the table, and the kids descended on them like vultures. Alex was a hair-in-the-eyes teenager; I’d place him at about fifteen. Based on his T-shirt, jacket, and backpack, he had something of a Nike obsession. He seemed the quiet, contemplative type. Kacey, a pixieish pre-teen with brown hair and the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen, looked to be about twelve. She was not so quiet.

  “I like Avril Lavigne and Justin Timberlake. Do you like Justin Timberlake?” she asked. Elizabeth put a cup of coffee in front of me, God bless her.

  “Leave Wanda alone, Kace,” she said, sitting down next to me. “She’s not used to being up this early in the morning.”

  “Even if I did like Justin Timberlake, I wouldn’t admit to it,” I said, reviving slowly as the caffeine blasted the sleep out of my veins.

  “What’s ‘Wham!’?” she asked. I looked down at my T-shirt, where George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley gave cracked, ironed-on smiles.

  I lifted my coffee and took another sip. “You’re better off not knowing.”

  “The blond one’s kinda cute,” she said with a shrug. I gave her points for generosity.

  Elizabeth waved her hands at the kids. “Hurry up; eat. You’ll miss the bus, and I don’t have time to take you in.”

  The kids inhaled their breakfasts and gave their mother swift kisses before heading out the door. I watched them go, then leaned over to Elizabeth.

  “Did I just see a soldering iron hanging out of Kacey’s backpack?” I asked.

  Elizabeth smiled. “She’s doing some kind of presentation at school. Kacey’s an engineering wunderkind. To date, she’s fixed the VCR, the clock on the coffeemaker, and my electric toothbrush. My biggest fear is she’ll grow up to be a Hooters girl.�
�

  I nodded, thinking of my mother and how she must have felt watching all my potential strapping itself to the back of George’s motorcycle.

  “So you got a big day?” I asked, finishing my coffee and starting in on the pancakes.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m going down to the radio station.”

  “Radio station?” I asked.

  She leaned forward, her voice quiet and excited. “I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want to jinx it, but I’m pitching a radio show.” She giggled. And she hadn’t cursed once all morning. I’d been too self-obsessed to notice the change in her until now.

  “No way,” I said, a stab of jealousy hitting me. I was the one with the wall full of sticky notes staring me down at night, and Elizabeth was the one whose life was changing. No fair! No fair! my inner child whined.

  She laughed. “I started being straight with my clients about a week or so ago. You have no idea what it’s done for me. I can breathe again.”

  Good for her. “Did any of them leave you?”

  She shrugged. “One or two. Good riddance. But one of my clients referred me to her friend who is the promotions manager at that new all-talk AM station. We’re meeting today to discuss me having my own show.”

  “Holy crap,” I said, stabbing at my pancakes, willing my inner child to mature to the level of at least an inner preteen. “That’s great.” I hoped I sounded sincere, because part of me was. The part that was not a big baby and a rotten friend, that is.

  “I really have you to thank,” she said after a moment of silence.

  “I didn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know.”

  “No,” she said, “but you saw me standing on the ledge and you pushed me over. Thanks.”

  We looked at each other. It was a nice moment and at the same time a little uncomfortable. Our friendship had been forged on the ground of each of us being bitter and angry. This change in Elizabeth might upset that balance.

  “You’re welcome,” I said, shrugging. “I don’t suppose you can return the favor and tell me why I’m hearing strands of phantom music?”

  She stared at me for a moment. “Do something for me,” she said, picking up her coffee mug and putting it in the sink. “If I get this radio gig, don’t call in with that shit, okay?”

  I smiled. Things with New Elizabeth were going to be just fine.

  ***

  Of all the sticky notes on my wall, Get a job was going to be the easiest to take care of. I stuffed it in the pocket of my jacket and got in my car to nab myself a free mocha and a face-to-face with Joe Bones. My biggest problem was trying to figure out a way to ask him if his job offer was still good without admitting that he’d been right and that lazing around like a damn dog had, in fact, been bad for me.

  As it turned out, that little problem resolved itself. “Wanda!” Shelley, all round with baby and glowing, waddled out from behind the counter when she saw me coming in from the coffee shop. Shelley was one of those people who loved being pregnant. Me, just looking at a pregnant woman made my back ache. I’ll be buying little girls from China, thanks.

  “Bones told me you came by last week. Sorry I missed you.”

  Shelley grabbed me and pulled me into a hug. I wasn’t typically a huggy person, but I knew better than to argue with anyone in Bones’s genetic line.

  “Me, too,” I said, lifting my mocha in salute. “I see you’re knocked up again.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You been hanging out with Bones too much.”

  I grinned. “Where is the old goat, anyway? I need to talk to him.”

  “He’s out visiting Dr. Macon, checking on the new hip.”

  “He okay?” I asked.

  “Oh, please,” she said, shaking her head and laughing. “I’m more worried about Doc Macon.”

  I laughed with her. “Yeah, I can see that. Mind if I wander around a bit till he gets in?”

  “Fine by me, long as you buy something,” she said with a smile, waving me away.

  I checked out the self-help books first. Not a single one said anything about sticky notes. I wove my way through the lit section, running my fingers over the books. A glass case in the middle held the valuable and old titles. A first English edition of Anna Karenina caught my eye. I touched the glass and stared at it for a minute, until the music got my attention. It was Christmas music, and I was fairly sure it was real.

  I smiled. The Grand Santa Station.

  I first encountered the Station while shooting a spot for Bones last season. It was run by a guy named Charlie Dent, one of Bones’s old war buddies. Even with my two-sizes-too-small heart, I had to admit Charlie had a rocking setup. There was a puppet show every hour on the hour, and a wooden train gave kids rides around the perimeter, dragged by elf-costumed college kids who couldn’t get a better job for Christmas break.

  Charlie was the perfect Santa, with his natural white beard and unnatural patience. Hell, he’d even put up with me when I sat on his lap last year and asked him for a dead ex-husband for Christmas. He’d laughed and said he’d do what he could for me. I liked Charlie. It would be good to see him again.

  I turned a corner and stopped short. No train. No puppets. One little girl and her mother. One elf, a teenage kid dressed in a green tunic that was three sizes too big for her, snapping pictures on a cheap Polaroid. The Santa was not Charlie, but some younger, fatter, and balder guy who was gripping his Santa hat in his hand as he growled at the little girl.

  “Come ’ere, kid,” he said. The little girl tightened her grip on her mother’s leg. I wasn’t close enough to tell for sure, but it appeared that Santa’d been bathing in the hooch.

  Santa rolled his eyes and stamped his foot. “I don’t got all day, kid. Come ’ere, tell me what you want, and then you can go running to Mommy.”

  Excuse me? I crossed my arms and watched, hoping the mother would open up a can of whoop-ass on this guy. The mother flushed with anger, but the little girl was already walking over to Santa, so no whoop-ass. Instead, the mother paid the elf for the crappy Polaroid shot and ushered her daughter away. Hooch Claus jerked his chin at me with a tobacco-stained smile. “You wanna sit on Santa’s lap, little girl?”

  “Bite me, asshole,” I said, then turned on my heel and went up to the front counter.

  “Um, Shelley?” I called, waving her over to the end of the counter, away from the other customers. She waddled on over. “What’s the deal with Santa?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I know. I’m just waiting for Bones to get back to throw his sorry ass out.” She put a protective hand on her stomach.

  “Who is that guy?” I asked. “Where’s Charlie?”

  Her face darkened. “Charlie died last June. Didn’t Bones tell you?”

  I shook my head, but I wasn’t surprised. Santa was dead. It seemed an appropriate comment on a generally sucky year.

  Shelley crossed her arms and glared in the direction of the Grand Santa Station. “Lyle is Charlie’s nephew and only living relative. He got everything, including the Station.”

  “Well, he has to go,” I said. “He’s scaring the kids.”

  Shelley nodded. “I know. The Station just opened up today, and by the time I got the chance to check things out, Bones was gone, and it’s for damn sure I’m not putting my pregnant ass within ten feet of that man.”

  “Wait a minute.” I looked at the calendar on the wall behind her. “Doesn’t that stuff usually start after Thanksgiving?”

  She shrugged and rolled her eyes. “Lyle came in this morning determined to start it up. I’m guessing he’s hard up for cash. Even cheap whiskey is hard to afford when you’re a loser!”

  She shouted the “loser” part in Lyle’s general direction. Nothing came back.

  “Lyle owns the Station now?”

  Shelley nodded. “Yeah. We don’t owe him the space or anything, so I guess we’ll either buy him out or give him everything and send him on his way.”

  Hmm. I cocked my hea
d to the side as some creaky gears began to churn. “How much do you think it’s worth?”

  Shelley eyed me for a second. “I can’t remember exactly,” she said, “but I think it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of seven grand.”

  “Seven grand?” I said. “For that? Are you kidding me?”

  She shrugged. “Well, there are the costumes and the photography equipment for collateral, along with the trains and puppet show. Most of that stuff’s still in the basement because Lyle’s a lazy bastard” Again, with the shouting. Again, no response. She turned her attention back to me. “And then there’s the earning potential, which actually isn’t bad in a good season.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “Really? How not bad is it?” She smiled. “Why you asking, Wanda?”

  “Would you be surprised if I told you I had several thousand dollars burning a hole in my bank account?”

  Shelley laughed. “Wanda, nothing you say surprises me. You know that.”

  I nodded and patted her hand. “Wait right here.”

  She shook her head and waved me on. “Call me if you need backup.”

  I charged back to the Santa Station and arrived just as a little boy was running away, crying, with his mother following after him. There were no other children around. I walked up to Lyle and put my hands on either side of his Santa throne, pinning him in.

  He grinned up at me. “I knew you’d be back.” His breath was an offensive combination of hot schnapps and day-old pizza, but I didn’t flinch.

  “Listen to me, you pathetic little piece of reindeer shit, I’m gonna cut to the chase. I’ll give you six thousand dollars right here, right now, if you sign this business over to me and leave immediately.”

  He turned his eyes to slits and looked at me sideways, jutting his chin up. “‘Sworth seven.”

  “You’re not getting seven. You’re getting six. Just think about how many bars you can get thrown out of with that kind of cash.”

  He looked from side to side. I don’t know if he was trying to see if anyone was watching, or if he was looking for an escape, but either way, he wasn’t getting up until I got what I wanted.