“Fine. Don't blame me if you get eaten,” Tiffany called back. “And just for the record, neither one of you jumped in front of me and the bear like you said you would.”
Jess rolled her eyes.
“I'm not sharing my berries with her,” Rachel said as they started picking again. “She who doesn't work doesn't eat.”
“You're a mean one, Mrs. Grinch,” crooned Jess.
“That's right, and proud of it,” Rachel said with a smile.
They picked on for another forty minutes with no sign of a bear. Or a dog. Or any human life. It was now afternoon and Rachel realized she was beginning to overheat. “My tongue feels like cotton,” she said. “I guess we should have brought some water.”
“Probably,” agreed Jess. “But then we'd have to go potty out here in the woods and I'm not a potty in the woods kind of girl. Come to think of it, neither is Tiff. And I just realized, she's locked out of your van.”
“Yes, but there's a restroom at the trail head.”
“She'll have to be really desperate to use it,” said Jess. “But no more talk of restrooms. This is giving my bladder ideas.”
Come to think of it, Rachel was feeling the need of the restroom. “We'd better head back,” she decided. “I want to make sure I'm home in plenty of time to beat the school bus.”
“I think we've got enough berries for a few gift jars anyway,” said Jess. Rachel started in the direction of the trail.
“Wait a minute,” said Jess. “Where are you going?”
“To the trail?”
“Well, it's not that way.”
“Yes, it is.”
Jess pointed in a different direction. “We need to go that way.”
“That's not going to take us there,” Rachel insisted. “I'm positive.”
Jess shrugged. “All right. Have it your way.”
“Trust me,” said Rachel. “I know what I'm doing.” Twenty minutes later, she said, “All right. We're lost.”
“Great,” said Jess irritably. “Now I really do have to go to the bathroom.”
“I'm sorry,” Rachel said humbly. “I don't know how I could have gotten turned around.”
“It probably happened when we were running from the dog,” said Jess.
YOU were running from the dog, thought Rachel, but she wisely kept her mouth shut. No sense pointing that out. If she did, Jess might feel the need to point out that she was the one who had gotten them lost. “So, what way do you think we should go?”
Jess shook her head and looked around. All they could see for miles were baby pines, scrubby alders, rhododendrons, and huckleberry bushes. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Rachel heaved a sigh. “Let's try this way.”
So, off they went. This way didn't work any better than that way had.
“God help me. I'm going to have to go to the bathroom in the woods,” groaned Jess.
“Just so we don't wind up having to sleep in the woods,” said Rachel.
“Don't even joke about things like that,” Jess said with a shudder. “I have a gig tonight.”
And Rachel had to be home for her children. She checked her watch. At the rate she was going she'd be lucky to get home in time to make dinner let alone be there for them when they got out of school. And she had a student coming for a tutoring session at five. Never mind getting back by five. Would they get back at all? She was hot from hiking and dying of thirst and Jess was probably ready to kill her.
She suddenly wanted to cry. “I'm such a big know-it-all. I should have listened to you.” Why did she always think she was right even when she was wrong?
Jess gave her a hug. “You're not a know-it-all. You're a teacher, a born leader, and we love you for it.”
“Does that mean that if we are stranded out here and never found that you won't eat me?”
Jess grinned. “I don't like to make rash promises. Come on, let's try going this direction.”
“I should have brought a compass,” Rachel moaned, falling in step behind Jess. What kind of teacher went into the woods without a compass? One who hadn't meant to stray so far from the trail or run from a bear that turned out to be a dog. Oh, well, live and learn. Hopefully.
Another ten minutes of walking didn't seem to bring them any closer.
“Now what?” Rachel asked Jess.
“Scream for help?”
Of course. Why hadn't she thought of that? “Great idea.” Tiff was at the van. They could follow the sound of her voice and find their way back.
“Tiffany!” they both screamed.
No answer.
They looked at each other. Rachel saw her own panic reflected in Jess's eyes.
“Tiffany! Tiffany!”
Maybe a bear got her. “Tiffany!” Rachel screeched.
Finally a faint voice echoed back. “Rachel?”
“We're lost,” called Rachel. “Keep hollering.”
It was a moment before they heard anything, but then they heard her again. “Stay put. I'm coming in.”
“No!” they both screamed.
“It's okay,” Tiff's disembodied voice assured them.
Rachel collapsed on a stump and hugged her pot of berries. “We're doomed.”
“Tiff, just stay put,” called Jess, “or we'll all be lost.”
“No, we won't,” hollered Tiffany.
Jess fell onto another stump. “I don't believe this.” She heaved a sigh. “And now I'm going to have to suffer a fate worse than death.” She set down her pot and wandered off between the clumps of bushes.
“Where are you going?” cried Rachel in a panic.
“Nature calls,” Jess said over her shoulder. A moment later she disappeared behind a shield of rhododendrons and huckleberry bushes.
Rachel heaved a sigh and hugged her pot. They weren't that far from civilization. Someone would find them. Someday.
Jess was emerging from her sylvan restroom, her face a picture of disgust when they heard a crashing in the underbrush. Rachel jumped up, clutching her pan like treasure, her heart racing. Another moment and a black, four-legged form bounded into sight. Moose.
A moment later the two college boys appeared, followed by Tiffany. Saved. They were saved!
“I brought help,” said Tiffany.
“Thank God,” said Jess, coming up behind Rachel. “We've been wandering for hours. Why didn't you answer when we first called?” she demanded of Tiffany.
Tiffany blushed. “Well, it was so nice and warm. I stretched out on the hood of a car and fell asleep. These guys actually heard you.” She smiled at one of the rescuers. From the way he was looking back at her, Rachel suspected he would have carried her into the woods on his shoulders if she'd asked him to. “Good thing they woke me up,” she added.
“We knew right where to find you,” said the one with glasses. “Didn't we, Moose?”
The dog wagged its tail and barked.
“Just so you know how to get us out of here,” said Rachel.
“No prob,” said their bespectacled hero. “Come on, Moose.” The dog bounded off into the huckleberry bushes and the humans followed at a more sedate pace. Moose's daddy pointed to Jess's pot. “That's a pretty good haul. What are you gonna do with all those?”
“Make jam,” said Jess. “If you give me your address I'll save a jar for you.”
“Sweet. My name's Ted, by the way. This is Mark.”
As they made their way to the parking lot it quickly became apparent that Tiffany had already told the guys all their names and pretty much shared their entire life stories.
“Your blog sounds awesome,” Ted said to Rachel. “I'm gonna have my girlfriend check it out.”
It took them less than fifteen minutes to hike back to the parking lot … and the restroom, which Rachel used as soon as she had thanked their rescuers.
Ted and Jess were exchanging information when she rejoined the group. “Here's my number and my dad's e-mail,” he said to Jess. “He's in HR at Microsoft. You should ha
ve your son give him a call.”
“How cool is that?” crowed Tiffany as they waved good-bye to Ted and Mark.
“Very cool,” admitted Jess.
Even more cool, thought Rachel as she checked her watch, was the fact that it looked like she'd actually make it home in plenty of time to meet her children when they got off the bus.
“I can hardly wait to go home and drink a gallon of ice water,” said Jess once they were back in the minivan.
“I just hope we're done picking berries for the year,” Tiffany said from the backseat.
Picking? Who had been doing most of the picking? In fact, who was responsible for the fact that they'd lost their first harvest and had to start picking again? That was it. Berries be damned. Rachel was going to bean Tiff with her pot. She glared at Tiff's reflection in the rearview mirror.
“Don't do it,” said Jess, reading her mind. “We have no place to hide the body.”
Tiffany looked from one to the other, irritated and perplexed. “What?”
“Never mind. Just be glad we're letting you live another day,” said Rachel. But she'd be doing it without any of their precious huckleberries.
• 26 •
“Great last set,” Amy told the band as she unhooked herself from her guitar.
The party was over for another weekend and the remaining hangers-on at the club where The Red Hots were playing were tipping down the last of their drinks and putting on their coats, ready to face the rainy fall night. Jess looked beyond the dance floor to the far end of the room where the bar was situated and saw the bartender busily scooping up glasses. She'd forgotten how much she loved this life—the way the band fed off the crowd and then one another, the fun of watching people dance, the high of making harmonies. Too bad a girl couldn't really make a living doing this.
“We rocked this place,” agreed Kit. “That piano lick you played on Amy's new song was dope,” she told Jess.
“Thanks,” Jess said with a smile.
“Are you coming to Denny's?” asked Amy.
“Not tonight. Some of us have a long commute to work, you know. Even going straight home it'll be another hour before I'm in bed.”
“You need to leave the burbs,” said Kit in disgust. “That's for old people.”
“Compared to you guys I am old,” said Jess.
“Tell that to the college bum who was hitting on you every time we went on break,” teased Amy. “You're only as old as you act, and that puts me at nineteen.”
Jess smiled and shook her head as she lowered her keyboard into its case. If she didn't get some sleep she'd be a zombie all day on Sunday.
Jess got some sleep, but she was still a zombie on Sunday. She'd read somewhere once that a person got her best sleep before mid-night. If that was the case she hadn't been getting any good sleep on the weekends for quite a while. She stumbled out of bed and made her drowsy way to the kitchen around ten, following the aroma of coffee like a bloodhound on the scent.
Michael was already up and parked at the kitchen table, checking out the newspaper want ads. “How'd it go last night?” he asked as she shuffled to the coffeepot.
“We rocked the house, of course,” she said and poured a mug of caffeine. Strong, black coffee—the weekend warrior's friend.
He laid the paper on the table and regarded her. “What would you think about moving?”
She almost choked on her coffee. “Ohio?”
He shook his head. “Nope. That ship already sailed.”
She heard the discouragement in his voice. Michael had been so sure he'd find something right away. So far, he'd been both stoical and positive, but she sometimes wondered how much longer he could keep up that front. “Then where?” She walked over to the table to check out the paper. “Did you find a job someplace?”
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Then I don't understand. Where do you want to move?”
“My mom was hoping maybe we'd move in with her.”
Move to Seattle and live with her mother-in-law? Jess blinked. “When did this happen?” Not that she had anything against her mother-in-law. Myra was great. But to up and leave their house and move back in with a parent at their age felt a little extreme.
“We were talking last night,” Michael said. “The house and yard are getting to be too much for her.”
No surprise there. Michael's widowed mother suffered from arthritis, and wasn't in the best condition to maintain a two-story, three-bedroom house with a good-sized yard. She'd surrendered the yard to a yard service a year ago. Now she was ready to surrender her home to another woman?
It was hard to imagine, almost as hard as it was for Jess to imagine herself living in that house on Magnolia with its décor that was caught in a time warp and its seventy-something neighbors. She couldn't. Not that she had anything against pink bathrooms, powder blue carpet, and crystal chandeliers. They just weren't her. And her neighbors here were her best friends.
Of course, the idea of going bankrupt wasn't exactly appealing either. Could she be happy living with her mother-in-law? She tried picturing family holiday gatherings and stockings hanging in front of the brick fireplace.
“I know you don't want to move,” Michael said gently. “But I don't know what the future holds. I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea to see if we can sell this place.”
Or sell her mother-in-law's place and move her to Heart Lake. Of course there was one minor flaw in that plan. Myra wouldn't want to move. Jess couldn't blame her. She didn't want to move, either. “You could find a job tomorrow,” she protested. “And then we'd have moved for nothing.”
“Jess, I don't know how long it will be before I get another job,” he said. It was depressing to hear him talk this way, to see the sober expression on his face. “Remember, our COBRA runs out at the end of the year.”
Jess swallowed hard.
“I don't want to wait until we're completely broke to put a plan B in place.”
It was her fault they even had to worry about a plan B. She'd been the one who balked at moving to Ohio. If she'd been a sport and sucked it up they wouldn't be in this position now.
She took a swallow of coffee, willing her brain to think of the right thing to say. “I hate that house.” This had not been the right thing to say. How had she let it slip out?
Michael's face fell, but he nodded gamely. “Well, I wasn't sure how you'd feel.”
But he'd suspected. She laid a hand on his arm. “I love your mom. You know that. But that's her home. It would never be mine. I'd feel like the world's oldest teenager living there, camping out in the middle of all her things.”
“She said you could redecorate.”
“That wouldn't be fair to her. She loves the place just like it is.”
Michael nodded, tight-lipped and stoical, and returned his gaze to the newspaper.
Michael didn't want to move any more than she did, she was sure of it. He loved this house and was happy here with his neighborhood buddies. To suggest such a drastic measure, he had to be desperate.
Jess spent the next two days weighing her options. Which was better, being a bankrupt woman with a house in foreclosure or a noble daughter-in-law? When she looked at it that way, noble daughter-in-law suddenly didn't look so bad. She loved her mother-in-law. And she liked brick fireplaces. The kids would love being at Grandma's for Christmas.
Once you say it you can't take it back, she reminded herself. She thought of the fun times she'd had with Jess and Tiffany and swallowed hard.
Seattle wasn't all that far away. She could still come back to Heart Lake to visit. Maybe, once Michael's fortunes improved, they could buy a summer cabin on the lake.
“Let's put the house up for sale and see what happens,” she finally said.
That had been the right thing to say, obviously. Her husband not only looked relieved, he also smiled gratefully at her. “I know you don't want to leave your friends.”
“It's not like I won't ever see them ag
ain,” she said, both to Michael and herself. “We have to be responsible. We'll make it work,” she added, hoping she was right.
Monday night Laney Brown from Lakeside Realty came over to check out the house and assure them that she would, indeed, get it sold. Next thing Jess knew Laney had a six-month exclusive listing and was pounding a For Sale sign into their front lawn.
She'd barely left when both Rachel and Tiffany were at the front door, wanting to know what was going on. Jess burst into tears and they led her over to Rachel's house for a strong dose of chocolate.
Rachel was crying, too, before she even had the Hershey's Kisses out of hiding. “I can't believe this. Where are you going?”
“To live with my mother-in-law.”
“Eeew,” said Tiffany, grabbing for the candy bag.
“It's okay.” Jess sniffed. “I like my mother-in-law. But I hate her house, and I don't want to leave you guys.”
“At least you're only moving to Seattle,” said Tiffany. “We'll still get together.”
“It won't be the same as having her next door,” said Rachel, passing around a Kleenex box.
If there was one thing Jess had learned in her forty-four years on the planet, it was that things never stayed the same, no matter how much you wanted them to. “We'll just have to make sure we meet on a regular basis. I can still come up for our Saturday meetings.”
“And you haven't moved yet,” added Rachel.
“Maybe it won't sell,” said Tiffany hopefully. “Except you need it to, don't you?”
“Yes, unless Michael miraculously gets a job.”
“Then let's hope for a miracle,” said Rachel.
A miracle happened all right. The house sold in two weeks.
“I hate this,” said Tiffany when Jess returned for a complimentary farewell manicure.
So did Jess. She had missed coming to the salon, missed the sounds of Cara's favorite rock station, the camaraderie of the women, the crazy smells. Right now Cara had Maude Schuller in her chair and was in the process of giving her a perm, injecting the air with the strong smell of permanent wave solution. Iris was between customers and sampling one of the freshly baked oatmeal cookies Maude had brought in.
Small Change Page 22
