You Can Run...

by Carlene Thompson

  To which Diana always replied, “Glen is thirty-five, but I’m sure even at that age you would have had too much fire for me!” The remark never failed to delight Simon, bolstering his already robust ego and sending him into a gleeful fit of laughter as he agreed with her.

  Besides, she’d had “fire” once. She’d had passion and excitement, and for a short time, what she’d thought was true love. After a short engagement and three years of marriage, though, Diana had realized how naive she’d been. She’d tied herself to a man who resented her career and her deep ties to her family. He wanted to be the only meaningful part of her life. When he’d unceremoniously left her for an eighteen-year-old who thought the sun revolved around him, Diana had been almost relieved. Almost.

  Annoyed with herself for dredging up an unfortunate part of her past, she cleared her mind of the old memory of disenchantment and concentrated on driving. Penny lived in Rosewood, a housing project built quickly at the end of World War II, like hundreds of others throughout the United States, when returning soldiers needed homes. In the late 1940’s, the 1950’s, and even the early 1960’s, the houses had looked neat and were considered pleasing, if not fashionable. But now neighborhoods like Rosewood had begun to decline, the houses no longer looking fresh and inviting, and nearly a third of them displaying “For Sale” signs, as the paint peeled and shingles fell disconsolately from neglected roofs.

  Which is why Penny had chosen this particular place to live. “I don’t want to be cooped up in an apartment,” she’d told Diana. “I want Willow to have a yard and space for a swing set, and Rosewood has the only houses within range of my budget.”

  Penny had told Diana that her young husband died instantly when he plowed his car into a telephone pole on a slick road. He’d left only a twenty-thousand-dollar life insurance policy and little savings, so money had become a problem for a woman with no conveniently well-off relatives and no college education. Penny had worked as a part-time waitress in a diner before she decided to get a college degree and began taking a summer composition class at Marshall University, where she had seen Simon’s advertisement for an editorial assistant posted on the bulletin board. She applied for the job she found interesting, hoping it would allow her to build a regular schedule around her child.

  The day Penny Conley came for her interview, Diana took an immediate liking to the attractive, vivacious woman, although when Diana glanced over her résumé, she’d felt that Penny didn’t stand a chance of being hired. The composition class was her first brush with college, she had no secretarial or research experience, and she’d never held a job other than waitressing. Diana doubted that Penny had the skills Simon required of someone helping him write his fourth book about ancient Egyptian culture and his archaeological expeditions.

  Diana had held her breath as Simon scanned Penny’s résumé, afraid he might dismiss her without her a chance, although later she’d chided herself for not giving her great-uncle more credit. The man did not make hasty judgments, which was a blessing for Penny, because after she’d answered his first few cursory questions, he’d begun merely chatting with her. Half an hour later, Penny had left the house with orders to report to her new job on Monday morning. That had been over a year ago, and aside from her good looks and charm, Penny had proved to be the most conscientious and astute assistant Simon had ever employed. She and her daughter had also become like members of the family.

  Diana reached Penny’s neighborhood at last. She stretched behind the wheel, feeling like she’d been driving since early morning instead of early afternoon. The photo assignment she’d taken on had been more grueling than she’d expected. She’d thought it would be simple—just photos for a city tourism pamphlet. But almost every time she’d focused her camera and started to take a picture, the fussy male head of the tourism center would screech “Stop,” after he’d spot a cloud moving to an unsatisfactory position or observe a shriveling petunia in a flower border. At the end of the first day, Diana had been ready to strangle him.

  By the time she finished on the third day, she’d fled the town, her muscles aching with tension. She vowed that within the next year, she would take only the commercial assignments she found appealing. A few galleries in New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco were already showing her photographs, and in the last year, sales had begun to climb beyond Diana’s expectations, if not beyond her hopes. She no longer had to scramble for money.

  She turned onto Penny’s street—dark without streetlights—and felt a chill pass over her. Diana stiffened, hearing her grandmother’s dreamy voice from long ago: “I feel like someone just stepped on my grave,” she’d say, after which, Simon, always the earthbound empiricist, would tell her affectionately such remarks made her sound like a simpleton. Now, though, Diana knew exactly what her grandmother had meant. Suddenly she felt weak, cold, frightened, and doomed, as if Death were whispering in her ear.

  As if Death were whispering in her ear? The phrase caught Diana by surprise. She shook her head and told herself she was even more tired than she’d realized.

  Diana sighed in relief as Penny’s house came into view. Penny had turned on the outside light, which showed off an urn of red geraniums and the porch swing she’d painted light blue at Willow’s request. Diana remembered stopping by during the painting process to find Penny impressively splattered with blue paint. Penny had laughed, saying this was her first experience with painting and should probably be her last.

  Diana parked at the curb, avoiding a skunk sitting stubbornly in Penny’s driveway. She turned on the interior car lights, looked in the rearview mirror, fluffed her long, curly honey-brown hair that had frizzed in the humidity, and wiped away a smudge of mascara beneath one of her heather-green eyes. Even in the dim light, she thought she looked tired and older than her twenty-eight years.

  Later, Diana couldn’t remember whether she first saw or heard the explosion. She’d turned off the engine and was reaching for her tote bag when Penny’s small white house suddenly erupted into a blinding ball of fire. Diana screamed as her car rocked, burning debris raining over glass and metal. At first she ducked. Then she raised her head slightly to see gold and red flames devouring the house, igniting surrounding shrubbery, shooting across the lawn, leaping and frolicking with deadly joy against the still, ebony sky . . . creating a glittering, voracious inferno that Diana was certain no one could survive.

  2

  Thick, gray-black smoke plumed from the towering burst of flames, slowly floating away after their first, shocking eruption. The smoke spread in layers, the breeze sending it wafting toward Diana’s car, enclosing her in a gauzelike shroud. She heard a pitiful mewling sound, then realized it came from her as she sat shuddering, clutching the steering wheel, waiting for . . .

  Waiting for what? For Penny to come running toward her, holding Willow’s hand?

  Diana fumbled with the handle and opened her car door. She stepped out, realized her legs were too shaky to bear her weight, and dropped back onto her seat. She didn’t even feel the swinging car door bump against her legs dangling outside of the car. I should do something, she thought. I have to do something. She looked at the cell phone with its dead battery, and which she didn’t know how to use anyway. She looked at the little house, still burning gaudily in the hot night. Diana had closed her eyes for a moment when someone jerked the car door completely open and yelled, “Are you all right?” She jumped.

  She saw a man with sun-streaked blond hair combed back from a wide forehead, and steely-blue eyes that were watering slightly from the smoke-filled air. “Miss, are you all right?” he asked again, his voice rough-edged and slightly Southern.

  Diana swallowed. “My friend Penny. It’s her house. I just pulled up and—” Her throat closed.

  “Penny,” the man repeated.

  “Penny C-Conley,” Diana managed.

  “I don’t live here. I was just turning onto this street when I saw the explosion.” The man spoke rapidly. “Did you call nine-
one-one?”

  For a moment, Diana went blank. Call 911?

  “Lady, did you call nine-one-one?” the man nearly shouted.

  “No. My cell phone is dead.” The words flowed out of Diana’s mouth in a voice she barely recognized as her own—thin, high, without emotion. She sounded as if the explosion held no horror or surprise for her, but as the man nodded and disappeared, Diana realized she was crying. Tears flowed down her face to her trembling mouth and dropped off her jaw onto her blouse. She wiped her cheeks with her hands but more tears streamed, and finally she dropped her hands and simply sat, weeping silently, hating her helplessness.

  The man returned a moment later. “Help is on the way, but we have to move your car and make room for the emergency vehicles,” he shouted. Diana nodded and reached for the ignition. No keys. She’d dropped them when the house exploded.

  “Scoot over.” Diana did so without a thought. He jumped into the driver’s seat, bent down and retrieved the key chain from the floor. “I saw it when your interior lights came on.” Without looking at her, he said, “My name is Tyler Raines, by the way.”

  “Diana . . . Sheridan.”

  He started the car and pulled forward to the third house beyond Penny’s. Diana again swiped at her tearstained face, then opened her window and peered out. An overweight fortyish man wearing baggy sweatpants and holding a beer can stood on his porch, gaping at the fire.

  “Where’s everyone else?” Tyler Raines yelled to the man as he leaped from the car. “Where are the people who live on either side of that house?”

  Sweatpants gaped a moment longer, then said, “House on the right’s vacant. Just an old lady lives on the left. Miz Hanson. Got rheumatoid arthritis.”

  Mrs. Hanson. Clarice Hanson, Diana thought. Penny’s friend and frequent babysitter for Willow.

  Tyler Raines began running toward Mrs. Hanson’s house. Sweatpants squinted at Diana. “Wha’ happened? Will fire get my house?”

  By now Diana had managed to remove herself from her car and stood clutching the door for support, her stomach in a knot, although she’d finally stopped crying.

  “Hey!” the man yelled blurrily at her. “I asked if the fire will get my place.”

  “I don’t know!” Diana snapped. The beer he held was clearly not his first. Probably not even his fourth or fifth. “If you have a family, get them out!”

  “But my house . . .”

  Diana didn’t need to argue anymore. A woman and an adolescent girl ran past the man on the porch, nearly knocking him down. He rocked unsteadily before his wife yelled, “For God’s sake, Clyde, to hell with the house! Or do you care more about it than us?”

  The man frowned as if he were pondering this dilemma, continuing to weave and peer at Penny’s blazing house. Diana also looked toward it, feeling sick as she pictured Penny and Willow inside the inferno. Something else in the house had caught fire and shot another column of smoke toward the night sky, throwing sparks as it rose. The breeze turned into a sudden gust of wind that caught a piece of burning debris and sent it flying to Mrs. Hanson’s house.

  Fire began eating the old shingles, creeping across Mrs. Hanson’s roof. How fast could that tiny line of fire burst into a blaze? Diana’s heart beat harder before she saw Tyler Raines carrying a woman from the house. He headed toward Diana’s car. She opened the door wider and he set the woman on the front seat, positioning her body straight ahead, directing her gaze forward, away from the fire. Penny had told Diana that Clarice Hanson was just over seventy. She had small, delicate features and amazingly clear, violet eyes, huge in her pale, horrified face. “My lord, what happened?” she quavered.

  Diana crouched, enfolding the woman’s frail hands with their swollen joints within her own larger hands. “Mrs. Hanson?” The woman nodded. “We don’t know what happened. Penny’s house just caught on fire.”

  “No, Penny’s house exploded!” Mrs. Hanson’s chin trembled. “I didn’t have my draperies drawn shut. I saw it!”

  “The fire trucks will be here any minute.” Diana looked at Tyler Raines over the roof of her car and mouthed, “Her house.” His vivid blue eyes shot in the direction of the house from which he’d just emerged. He glanced back at Diana and nodded.

  Suddenly, Diana heard the blessed sound of sirens. She thought of the irritation she always felt when sirens awakened her at night, and knew she’d never experience that irritation again. Lights flashed in the night as a fire truck screamed its way toward them.

  “Oh dear.” Mrs. Hanson’s voice wavered. Tears brimmed in her eyes. With shaking hands, she fumbled in the pocket of her much-washed flowered cotton dress and withdrew a dainty handkerchief. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “I haven’t either.” Diana realized her own voice sounded thin and old. She wrapped her arm around Clarice Hanson’s narrow, trembling shoulders, holding her firmly, blocking her view of the fire. “Everything will be all right, Mrs. Hanson.”

  “How can you say that when Penny and that sweet little girl—”

  “Shhh.” Diana tightened her arm around the woman. “We don’t know anything about them yet. Maybe they weren’t home.”

  “Yes they were.” Mrs. Hanson stopped dabbing at her tears, her voice suddenly vehement. “Willow’s room faces my house. Willow’s light was on and I saw Penny come in and kiss her good night. Willow just got out of the hospital today. Penny wouldn’t leave her alone. Penny is a good mother.”

  Penny wouldn’t leave her alone. The words tolled in Diana’s head. Penny is a good mother.

  Of course Penny and Willow had been in the house. Where else would they be while Willow recovered from surgery? While Penny anxiously waited for Diana to come? Diana tried to draw a deep breath, failed, and mechanically patted Mrs. Hanson’s shoulder. The woman buried her face in her handkerchief, and Diana turned to watch the firefighters leaping from the truck, yelling, connecting a huge hose to the nearby fire hydrant and sending a powerful blast of water at the blaze.

  An emergency service van pulled in just ahead of the fire truck. Mrs. Hanson lifted her head from her handkerchief-covered hands and whimpered, “I wonder if they’ve found Penny and Willow.”

  “I don’t know.” Diana frowned in frustration. “I wish Mr. Raines would come back and tell us what’s going on, but he seems to be helping the firefighters. I don’t know what he’s thinking—he doesn’t even have on protective gear.”

  “Oh dear, he doesn’t, does he?” Mrs. Hanson sounded tearfully resigned and yet admiring. “It’s foolish for him to be helping, but men are so brave.”

  “Some of them are brave.” Diana looked at Sweatpants finally stumbling away from his house, clutching his beer can as he passed in front of Diana’s car. His wife and daughter were long gone. “Others don’t know the meaning of the word.”

  Mrs. Hanson glanced at Sweatpants. “Oh, you mean him,” she said scathingly. “I’m so glad that blond man came along to help us. Mr. Buckner, the drinker, is a waste of space, as my Henry would have said.”

  Mr. Buckner, who was more worried about his house than his family. Diana was surprised he hadn’t gone back into his house for another can of beer to tide him over until he could safely return home. He was indeed a waste of space, Diana thought, and suddenly remembered Penny saying that he was the laziest man she’d ever known, although he always found enough energy to make passes at her. The other man, Tyler Raines, was a different breed. Diana wondered how she and Mrs. Hanson had been so lucky to have him appear at the exact moment when they needed him.

  Mrs. Hanson said weakly, “You’re Penny’s friend, Diana.”

  “Yes. I was coming to visit.” Her throat tightened. “I was late.”

  “Then thank the lord, child. Otherwise, you would have been in that house.”

  I would have been in that house. The full impact of the realization suddenly hit Diana with dizzying shock. She felt sick with horror. If she’d exited her car one minute earlier . . .

  Mrs. Ha
nson looked up at her, and obviously seeing Diana’s stricken expression, she reached out, gave Diana’s hand a squeeze, and quickly changed the topic. “Pardon me for being nosy, but is the blond man who’s been helping us your . . . admirer?”

  “You . . . You mean my boyfriend?” Diana said slowly, trying to focus on Mrs. Hanson again. “No. I’ve never seen him before. He said he’d just pulled onto this street to turn around when the house caught fire. His name is Tyler Raines.”

  “Tyler Raines. I’ve never heard the name, although he looks vaguely familiar. . . . At least I thought he did at first. My memory isn’t what it used to be. Thank goodness he was here. I’ve been having a bad bout with my arthritis this week and I need my walker. I was shaking so much, though, I turned it over and I was standing there wavering back and forth, ready to fall on the blasted thing, when he swooped in and picked me up, as if I was no heavier than a little bird, and carried me out to you. If he could have only gotten to Penny and Willow. . . .”

  Mrs. Hanson broke off, her hands trembling violently. “Oh, dear heaven, that little house simply blew up! We both have gas furnaces. Could her furnace have exploded?”

  “Penny wouldn’t be running the furnace in the summer. Maybe it was the water heater. It was gas, too, and in the basement as I recall. It could have been leaking all day and Penny didn’t notice. All it would have taken was one spark to set off all that gas.”

  “A spark from what?”

  “A frayed electrical cord or the water heater flipping on or a pressure valve malfunction or . . .” Diana glanced helplessly at Mrs. Hanson, who was looking at her expectantly. “I’m not an expert. I’m just speculating.”

  The woman’s shoulders sagged. “Knowing the cause won’t help Penny and Willow anyway. Oh, my lord, those poor things.” Mrs. Hanson’s voice shivered. “That explosion even made my house shake. My daughter makes beautiful ceramics and she gave me a figurine that looks just like Willow. She said it was the best thing she’d done. It fell from the curio cabinet and I know it shattered. It’s like a sign from heaven.”