by Sharon Dunn
They should cut down on movies from his Steve McQueen collection, too. He wrapped his hand over hers, steadying the rattling teacup at the same time. “Ginger, please, I grant you that it’s possible that some kid was playing games with you. But let’s not assume you’re being stalked.”
He had examined the car after he’d gotten her into bed. A dent in the bumper did look new, but the old white Pontiac already had so many imperfections and scrapes, it was hard to tell.
She pulled her hand away and set the teacup on the nightstand. “Don’t talk to me like I’m a child, Earl Salinski. I know what happened.” Her voice skipped up half an octave, and tears rimmed her eyes. “It was terrifying. You don’t believe me.” Her thin lips pressed into a straight line.
“Ginger, I—” He swallowed hard to keep the irritation out of his voice. She’d been through so much today. Truth was, if someone had tried to hurt her, he was angry at himself for not being there to take care of her.
“I’m fifty-six years old.” She sat up straighter in bed, tugging at the edge of the quilt. “I may have married young, but I’ve done a lot of living.”
Earl sighed. He hated when they had to have the “you treat me like a child” fight, but they hadn’t had it for several months. Obviously, she was upset about Mary Margret going AWOL, and it was coming out in this familiar fight.
Time to change the subject. Time for a fight they had never had before. Time for something that was bothering him. “You know what I’m tired of, Ginger? I’m tired of the way you don’t support me in my dream of inventing something.”
Ginger’s mouth dropped open, and she studied him. “That’s not true.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself.
“You call them contraptions. If you respected what I was doing, you’d call them what they are—” he paused for effect, not taking his eyes off her—“inventions.” He pounded his fist into his palm. “Inventions, Ginger.”
“Well, I—”
It was one of the few times in their long marriage he’d seen his wife speechless. “I know that you giggle with your girlfriends about the stuff I make. Inventing something that changes the world is my dream.” Sure felt good to take a load off and say exactly what had been on his mind for so long. This speech had been building up in him since they’d moved out here. “Do you think working at the phone company for twenty-five years was my dream? Why do you think I took early retirement? Don’t you have dreams, Ginger?”
He waited for her answer.
She cast her eyes downward, tracing the pattern in the quilt with her fingers. “I’m living my dream, Earl. Marry a good man. Raise kids. Love God. Love people. Buy stuff on sale.”
His stiff posture softened. Poor thing. She looked really confused. Maybe he had dumped too much on her too quickly. But it was how he felt. He stepped toward the bed where she lay, sat beside her, and gathered her hands in his. “Help me to live my dream. I need a cheerleader in my corner.”
She blinked twice, her lips drawn into a tight rosebud. “I’ll try.”
“Thank you.” He patted her leg and rose to his feet. “I’m going back to work. You’ll be okay?”
She touched her hand to her forehead. “I don’t suppose anyone called about Mary Margret?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been in the workshop all day.”
“I have a lot to do. What kind of tea was that anyway?”
“Chamomile, sweetie, chamomile. Maybe you should get a little rest.” He stood in the doorway, watching her as she fluffed her pillow and turned on her side. She curled her petite frame into a C shape.
“Earl?”
“Yes.”
“I’m worried about Mary Margret.”
“I’m sure she is okay. She’s probably on her way out here right now.” He waited until she closed her eyes. She looked sweet resting under the covers.
“I need to call the girls.” Her voice faded.
“It’ll wait. Why don’t you get a little nap?”
Just like their oldest son, Robert, who read all those self-help books, had said: Total honesty in a relationship was where it was at. Whistling, Earl stepped lightly through the house. Yep, it sure felt good.
Ginger listened to Earl’s workman boots pounding on the wood floor of the hallway and through the linoleum of the kitchen. The screen door creaked as it swung open and then slammed against the door frame. Her eyes shot open. She sat up in bed. Even though she was exhausted, the last thing she wanted to do was sleep.
She felt horrible after what Earl had said to her. Was she really not supportive of him? Was that how he saw it? For the two years he had been retired, she always regarded what he did in his workshop as “piddling.” And she had assumed that his view on the matter was the same. That’s what retired people did; they piddled around. What kind of a man chases dreams when he’s close to sixty? Just when she thought she knew everything there was to know about Earl Salinski, she found out something new.
Today of all days. He has to go and bring this up. The tingling numbness that signaled a migraine rushed through her arms and legs. Her vision blurred, and tension bunched up between her eyes. No, not now. She had so much to do. She pressed the heels of her hands against her lids, willing the pain to go away. The stress of the car chase had brought this on. And then Earl. The front of her head throbbed. Please, not now.
The phone hadn’t rung since she’d regained consciousness. She needed to see if anyone had called on the landline. The tightening in her head intensified. She opened the drawer by her bed and pulled out her nausea medication. She could still lessen that side effect even if she hadn’t taken the migraine medication in time. She placed the pill on her tongue and gulped some tea.
The curtains were drawn and the lights off. That helped. She closed her eyes and put the pillow over her head. As soon as this was over, she would check messages. But now, she simply had to endure the pain.
Even with her eyes closed, bright circles of light exploded across her lids. She took in slow, deep breaths, tried to ignore the pulsing of her brain, the sensation of a hatchet wedging between her eyes. Maybe Earl was right. There was no reason why someone would want to run her down. They certainly weren’t rich. The Pontiac wasn’t worth stealing. It was just some kid taking a prank too far.
She pressed the pillow harder against her face. She didn’t have anything anyone would want.
Earl stepped out of the shop to catch a breath of fresh air and to think about what a neat thing total honesty was. He and Ginger were going to get close in the empty-nest years, just like he had prayed for. A few stars twinkled in the summer night sky.
Movement by Ginger’s car caused him to turn slightly.
Earl took several steps to the center of the yard. With only one outdoor light, he couldn’t see much. Had that been a shadow by Ginger’s trunk? His skin prickled from some internal warning system.
“Who’s out there?” Ginger’s gray cat appeared on top of the car, and Earl let out the breath he had been holding. “Phoebe, what are you doing on Mama’s car?”
He walked the short distance to the Pontiac. The cat padded to the edge of the car roof, and Earl gathered the bulky critter into his arms. She must weigh twenty pounds. The animal was some kind of genetic mutant. Phoebe was nearly two years old, and she just kept getting bigger.
He’d gotten Phoebe for Ginger when their youngest, Heidi, had left for the military. He had hoped the cat would soften the blow of dealing with an empty nest. Ginger spoiled the critter, feeding her from the table and taking her for rides in the car.
The animal yowled and wrestled free of his hold, plopping on the ground beside him and rubbing against his leg. A branch cracked in the forest beside their property. He spun around to look at the trees.
“Who’s out there?” His heart pounded.
He surveyed the dark evergreens for signs of movement or more noise. Seconds ticked by. Still watching the trees, he rested his hand on the trunk. Nothing out there. This thing with G
inger just had him spooked. He shook his head and chuckled but couldn’t unload that feeling of being watched.
As he turned to go back to the shop, he noticed scratches around the keyhole of the trunk. He traced several marks with his fingers. Even if she had forgotten her key, Ginger wouldn’t do this kind of damage to her car.
He pulled his bulky key ring out of his pocket, filed through the keys, and shoved one in the slot. Earl popped the trunk lid and peered inside. Just a bunch of garage sale junk—treasures, Ginger would say—and a spilled basket. He pulled the basket out. Maybe she’d gotten the Mickey Mouse pole for one of their grandkids. He needed to go inside for a cup a coffee anyway; might as well take the stuff in for his wife.
Phoebe stood on her back paws and dug her claws into Earl’s jeans, preparing to use his leg as a scratching post.
“Git, Phoebes.” He stepped forward, but she hung on. He kicked his leg out to the side and shook it until she gave up. “Like wrestling with a cougar.” He was not looking forward to the day when Phoebe, instead of leaving a mouse or bird on the doorstep, would be dropping off livestock as a gift.
Lots of new things cluttered the trunk as well: towels with the tags on them, boxes of tea in plastic wrap, those stinky pink soaps women liked, candles and seed packets. Some old stuff too that she must have picked up garage saling: a vest, a photo album, and a box with shells on it. Not the usual stuff Ginger would buy. She usually tried to find almost new things at her sales.
He tossed a piece of pink-checked fabric into the basket and piled the rest of the stuff into the box, including the Mickey Mouse fishing pole. Ginger had to have been driving pretty wildly to spill all those things. He shut the trunk and checked to make sure it had locked. Later he’d put the car in the garage just to be on the safe side.
He gave one final glance to the forest. With the basket in one hand, the box tucked under the other arm, and Phoebe trailing behind him, Earl ambled toward the house. He shifted the load in his arms so he could reach the door handle. The screen door creaked as it swung open.
Leaning against the door frame with the box and basket growing heavy, he waited for Phoebe to saunter inside. “Take your sweet time.” The cat lifted her furry chin to him and continued at the same leisurely pace, waving her question mark tail side to side.
He stepped into the kitchen, and the screen door slammed behind him. After checking the refrigerator for a potential late-night dinner and deciding on a sandwich, his gaze wandered to the phone on the wall.
The answering machine showed the number two. Hadn’t Ginger said something about phone messages?
Kindra Hall awoke with a start, jerking sideways. The heavy book that had been on her chest fell to the carpet with a muffled crash. She sat up, blinking in near darkness. Where was she?
As the fog of sleep drifted off her brain, the rough texture of Mary Margret’s couch oriented her while her eyes adjusted to the blackness. The sequence of the evening came back to her in pieces. When Mary Margret hadn’t shown up at four-thirty, Kindra had gotten a sub for work and gathered her study materials, including her monster size lit book, out of her car.
Kindra took in a deep breath and tried to remember where the nearest light switch was. She’d been dreaming about a department store sale where the BHN was allowed in before anybody else. But the dream wasn’t what had awakened her. Had there been a noise?
She grappled to make the transition from confusion to coherence, sorting through which sensory information was real and which was a product of her dreams. The dream had been wonderful. She, Ginger, Suzanne, and Mary Margret had checked the price tags and pulled clothes off the rack without being pushed and bumped.
Kindra swung her feet to the floor, leaned over, and felt around the carpet for her lit book. She tossed the colossal textbook back on the couch. Summer school was a drag—less time and money for shopping and less time to hang out with the BHN—but it was the only way she would be able to finish when she was twenty-two.
It would take her three more pathetic years. Over and over, her parents reminded her of what a failure she was because her older brothers had finished undergrad work at sixteen. She came from a long line of scientists whose idea of a good time was to recite the periodic table. Achieve, achieve, achieve! Everything was a competition in her family, and she always felt like the loser.
Being with the BHN made all the pressure from Mom and Dad bearable. Ginger and the other ladies hugged her a lot and made her laugh. Her own family certainly wasn’t big on hugs. In high school, though she had joined the squad to spite her parents, some of the other cheerleaders were her substitute family.
She rested her forehead against her palm, curling and uncurling her toes. At one point in her dream, Mary Margret had shaken her shoulder, holding a blouse in the other hand, and said, “Look at this. Such a deal.” Or had she really been here and tried to wake her?
The worry she had felt when Mary Margret hadn’t shown up at four-thirty returned tenfold. Ginger had been right. Mary wouldn’t stay away this long without calling. Unless she couldn’t call.
Rain pitter-pattered on the roof as she stumbled toward the kitchen, where she remembered seeing a light switch. Once the living room and kitchen were illuminated, Kindra felt like she had finally arrived in the land of the living.
Textbooks, notebooks, and highlighters cluttered the coffee table. Her box of garage sale goodies was on the easy chair. Kindra mostly bought designer clothes, paperbacks, and Beanie Babies. Ginger was the real pro when it came to garage saling. She had furnished and decorated her new home mostly with stuff she purchased at sales. It was a skill Kindra aspired to.
She had two goals. First of all, she wanted to be the best-dressed physicist in the world. She considered it her mission to dispel the assumption that if you were smart, you dressed like you shopped at “House of Dowdy.”
And someday, she wanted to marry a cool Christian guy and stay home with her kids. Mom and Dad would have a cow if they knew that was her plan. She needed to learn to shop like Suzanne and Ginger if she was going to make that happen. She and Mary Margret were apprentices at best, newbies to the bargain hunting craft.
Kindra walked down the hallway, switching on lights. She leaned against the door frame to the master bedroom. The bedspread was so smooth it looked like a marine had made it. The room smelled like Mary Margret, gardenia.
A stack of folded shirts rested on the hope chest at the end of the bed. Those must be the clothes Ginger had found knocked off the coffee table. No Mary Margret or even a sign that she had been here.
Maybe she had dreamed that Mary shook her—a sort of wishful dreaming, her unconscious working through the anxiety she felt. It just wasn’t like her friend to be gone this long without any word.
An eeking, squeaking noise came from the attached garage. Kindra trotted down the hallway and opened the door. Rain hitting the metal roof of the garage sharpened and intensified.
Her hope renewed, she started to speak Mary Margret’s name just as the garage door creaked shut. She let out a huff of air. Something felt wrong…creepy.
A wedge of light became a sliver and then disappeared as the garage door shut completely. Kindra clicked on the light by the stairs. Mary Margret’s little blue Jetta was parked on the concrete. A naked incandescent bulb created a circle of light over the vehicle.
Goose bumps formed on Kindra’s bare arms. She ran to the driver’s side. Empty. Someone, probably Mary Margret, had brought the car back. But why not just go through the door that led directly into the house? Kindra darted back up the three wooden stairs and into the hallway.
“Mary Margret? Is that you?” Her feet pounded across the hallway carpet then on the cool linoleum of the kitchen. She opened the front door and ran out into the cool, dark night. Rain drizzled from the sky. Drops spattered against her face.
She scanned up and down the quiet street. A car, its red taillights staring at her like angry eyeballs, edged toward the stop sign. Without c
oming to a full stop, the car pulled onto the main road and roared away.
Boy, he was in a hurry. Streetlights illuminated empty yards and dark windows. No one was out here. Not a soul. But someone had brought Mary Margret’s car back. Concrete chilled Kindra’s bare feet, and rain soaked her thin cotton shirt. Must be 2 or 3 a.m. by now.
She turned slowly back toward the house. Another car pulled off the main road into the subdivision. The flashing lights of the police vehicle caused white spots to jerk across her field of vision.
Ice entered her veins.
She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered as the police car came to a stop across from Mary Margret’s. The officer got out and walked toward Kindra.
Ginger sat at her kitchen table, resting her face in one of her hands. She gripped the answering machine tape with the other.
Mary Margret had been in danger.
Ginger shivered at the thought of the fear in Mary’s second message. Earl had awakened her when he came in for his coffee break. Her migraine had subsided enough so she could function.
Her jaw tightened. Why hadn’t she checked messages first thing? So what if that car had chased her. So what if she had a migraine. Something worse could be happening to Mary.
I’m a terrible friend.
Ginger lifted her head. The kitchen clock indicated that it was 2 a.m. Why? Why did she have to get a migraine and lose twelve hours of her life just like that? Phoebe lounged on the kitchen table surrounded by garage sale stuff and the gifts from Mary Margret. The feline, her paws tucked underneath her, narrowed her eyes at Ginger.
“‘Something terrible, something from the past.’” Ginger repeated the panic-stricken words from her friend’s message.
Resting her palms on the table, she rose to her feet and stared at the beat-up fishing pole. Everything must have shifted in the trunk when she was being chased. Three other items were not new and weren’t anything she had gotten: a box with seashells on it, an old vest with lots of pockets, and a photo album. Mary Margret must have stuffed those items under the pink gingham in the gift basket. Odd.
