by J. A. Jance
“Oh,” Ali said.
So this was all part and parcel of what had happened to her on Friday night. If you were forty-five and female, you were expendable—professionally and personally. Over the hill. Useless. And nobody, not the people at the station and certainly not Paul, expected her to stand up on her own two feet and fight back. Well, they were wrong—all of them.
Chris pulled off I-10 in Blythe for gas and for something to drink, then they forged on. They stopped for a Burger King on the far west side of Phoenix before they turned north on Arizona 101. Chris downed all of his Whopper and more than half of Ali’s.
It was well after midnight when they turned off I-17 and headed toward Sedona. By then they were close enough that Ali figured it was okay to call her dad. When he answered the phone, it was clear he had been sound asleep.
“Okay,” she said. “We’re here.”
“We?” he mumbled.
“Chris drove me over.”
“Good then,” Bob Larson said. “If I had known he was coming along, I wouldn’t have worried.”
Another put-down from the male of the species, Ali thought. “Thanks, Pop,” she said. “See you in the morning.”
As they drove up Andante to Skyview Way, the waning moon was just starting to disappear behind the looming presence of the red rock formation known as Sugarloaf. When Chris stopped the car and they stepped outside into the graveled driveway, the air was sharp and cold, and their breath came out in cloudy puffs. With one accord they both glanced up at the star-spangled sky.
“I always forget how beautiful it is here,” Chris said. “I always forget about the sky.”
“Me too,” Ali said.
“You go unlock the door, Mom,” he said. “I’ll bring the luggage.”
Inside the heat was on. Lamps were lit in the living room and in one bedroom. There was a note on the fridge in her father’s handwriting. “Tuna casserole is ready for the microwave.”
Tuna casserole was Edie Larson’s cure for whatever ailed people. If there was a death in the family or if someone wound up in the hospital, that’s what Edie would whip up in her kitchen and dispatch her husband to deliver. Ali opened the refrigerator door and glanced at her mother’s familiar Pyrex-covered dish. Seeing the scarred turquoise blue veteran from some long ago era left Ali feeling oddly comforted.
Chris turned up behind her. “Your luggage is in your room,” he said. He reached past Ali and grabbed one of the sodas that had also miraculously appeared on the shelf. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing toward the covered dish.”
“Tuna casserole,” Ali answered.
“Great!” Chris exclaimed. “I love that stuff.” He grabbed it out of the fridge. “Want me to heat some for you?”
“No thanks,” Ali said. “I’m not very hungry. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go to bed.”
Chapter 5
cutlooseblog.com
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
It’s five o’clock in the morning. When I typed the date and saw it was the Ides of March, I realized that it really is a time for bad news.
I know you’ve been writing to me. There are 106 e-mails in my in-box. From the subject lines, I know they’re not spam, either. No one is offering to sell me low-cost prescription drugs. No one is advertising Viagra. They’re all e-mails to me, and I’ll get around to reading them in a little while. I may even finally have a chance to answer them, but first I need to tell you what’s happened because, since you’ve been reading the posts, you deserve to know what’s going on.
My friend Reenie is no longer lost—she’s dead. Her vehicle went over the edge of a cliff during a snow storm. Her body was thrown from the wreckage. Neither she nor her SUV were located until late yesterday morning. I wanted to come here, to Arizona, to be with her family—her husband, her two young children, her parents, and her sister—and to help them as they face this grueling ordeal. I’m under no illusions that my presence here will change anything, but that’s what friends do—they come and they sit or they talk or they do nothing or everything. Sometimes friends just are.
Yesterday afternoon my son, my wonderful twenty-two-year-old son, took time away from his classes at UCLA to drive over to Sedona with me. We arrived after midnight at the home my Aunt Evelyn left me two years ago. When we arrived, the heat was on and so were the lights. There was tuna casserole, milk, and sodas in the fridge and coffee in the canister on the counter next to the coffeepot. (Have I mentioned that I also have wonderful parents? They run a diner just down the road, and when Chris wakes up, we’ll go there for breakfast.)
Over Christmas Chris installed a high-speed Internet connection here, and he also hooked up a wireless network. That means I can take my laptop and work anywhere in the house, so I’m working at the dining room table with my coffee cup near at hand.
The sun is up, and the view across the valley is beautiful. Because of the recent rains, everything is green and that makes Sedona’s red rocks that much more visible in contrast. It’s a lovely scene, but I’m not looking forward to being out in it. I’m sure this is going to be a long day and a tough one. I don’t know what I’ll say to Reenie’s husband or to the rest of her family. I’ve already heard hints that the authorities are exploring the possibility that Reenie committed suicide rather than face up to the awful reality of dying of ALS. I can’t accept that. I won’t accept that. Reenie was a fighter. Her daughter is only six; her son is nine. No matter what, I can’t believe that she would choose to turn away from spending every possible moment with her precious family. Ill or not, I can’t imagine she would abandon them even one single instant before she had to.
Bottom line, I suppose, is that I can’t accept that she would willingly abandon me, either. How’s that for being selfish?
But it’s not just selfishness on my part either. The last communication I had from her was a handwritten note she mailed last week, postmarked on the day she disappeared. In it she said she was in for a bumpy ride. To me that sounds like someone saying she knows it’s going to be tough but that she’s signed on for the duration. It doesn’t sound like someone who was looking for an easy way out. Reenie is one of those people who always did things the hard way—from staying too long in an untenable first marriage to finishing college long after all her contemporaries had graduated. Yes, everything I’ve read about ALS says it’s a daunting adversary with no cure and very little going for it in the way of treatment options, but my friend Reenie Bernard has always been a scrapper and a fighter. She’s never been a quitter.
Why would she turn into one now?
Posted: 6:03 A.M. by AliR
As Ali read through her comment before posting it, she was struck by how similar the process was to writing in a diary—particularly the pink and blue one with the locking clasp that she had received for her twelfth birthday and had kept religiously for the better part of that week. The sentence, about Reenie’s abandonment of Ali, would have been as appropriate in a junior high schooler’s diary as it was here. The big difference was, the diary had been written for Ali’s eyes only. This was bound to be read by any number of strangers.
She was tempted to cut the whole thing. It seemed too personal; too private. Instead, she clicked on SEND and shipped it off into the ethers. And even as she did it Ali was smart enough to realize that, by concentrating on what was going on with Reenie’s family, she was able to avoid thinking about what was going on in her own. The cell phone, left in the bedroom, was still blinking the “message waiting” signal, but Ali still hadn’t listened to Paul’s message from the night before, and she hadn’t bothered to call him back, either. Turnabout was fair play.
Ready for breakfast, Ali rousted her reluctant son out of bed. While he showered and dressed, Ali scrolled through and answered some of the accumulated e-mails. Lots of them still dealt with her sudden disappearance from the small screen. Others concerned her emotional post about Reenie’s going missing. Two e-mails in particular touched her:
*
* *
Dear Ms. Reynolds,
I always liked seeing you on TV. And then you were gone. My grandson is letting me use his computer so I can see what you’ve written. I just wish I could see your face again. You have a nice smile. My grandson has one of those new-fangled telephone cameras, the ones they show in the commercials. Maybe your son could use one of those video phones to put your picture here as well.
Velma Trimble, Laguna Beach
* * *
To: Alison Reynolds
From: Carrie Fitzgerald
I know how your friend Reenie feels. My older brother is in the final stages of ALS. I am fifty-five. I don’t have any symptoms yet, but I do have the gene, so it’s only a matter of time.
I’m praying for Reenie and for her whole family. You didn’t say your friend’s last name or where she lives, but that doesn’t matter. God knows exactly who she is.
Yours in Christ,
Carrie Fitzgerald
Please pray for me as well.
Chris, his hair still damp from the shower, sauntered into the kitchen and helped himself to a cup of coffee. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Reading the things people have sent to me,” she said. “Some of them are very nice.” She pushed the computer in his direction long enough for him to see the screen. Then he scanned through the list of the messages Ali had yet to answer.
“Couldn’t we just post their comments automatically?” she asked.
Chris shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “Somebody has to go through and edit them. If you leave a portal open like that, pretty soon the blog will be flooded with offers for Viagra and on-line gambling.”
His fingers worked the keyboard with lightning speed. “But if you’d like to have a spot to post comments, I can put one in. What do you want to call it?”
“A comment section?” Ali asked. “From other people?”
Chris nodded and Ali thought for some time before she replied.
“How about The Forum?” she asked.
“Sounds good,” Chris said. Several minutes later he handed the computer back, open to the blog page where there was now a section called The Forum. “I’ve added a caution that says, unless otherwise stated, comments may be posted. You shouldn’t post any comments that were sent before the caution went up. But here’s how you do it.”
After a few minutes’ worth of practice, Ali had the comment-posting issues under control.
“Great,” Chris said. “Now, what’s for breakfast?”
“I don’t know about you,” Ali told him, “but I’m having one of my mother’s world-famous Sugarloaf Café sweet rolls. I don’t care what the scale says tomorrow morning.”
“Let’s go then,” Chris said. “I’ll drive.”
Several other vehicles had beaten them to the punch by the time they pulled in at 6:30 A.M. to the sugarloaf parking lot.
Myrtle Hanson, Ali’s grandmother, had started the Sugarloaf in what had once been her husband’s gas station when she was a recent widow with twin four-year-old daughters to support. Though she lacked formal training and business experience, she’d had loads of grim determination and a killer sweet-roll recipe. In fact, it was a plate of those sweet rolls, delivered by her daughters to a local banker, that had launched the Sugarloaf in the mid nineteen-fifties. After tasting the sweet rolls, Carter Sweeney had ignored Myrtle’s inexperience and had given her the loan that allowed her to go into her business.
By the time Myrtle passed on, the Sugarloaf’s humble roots were no longer quite so apparent. Myrtle had left the thriving business along with the sweet-roll recipe to her grown daughters. Situated at the bottom of the distinctive rock formation that shared its name, the Sugarloaf had been a Sedona-area hangout and its sweet rolls a local staple for fifty years.
In high school, Ali had been more than slightly ashamed of the humble Sugarloaf with its gray Formica countertops and down-home atmosphere. Now that she was older, however, Ali had some grasp of the courage, grit, and fortitude it must have taken for her grandmother to start and keep the business running. She had also come to value the loyalty and determination of her parents and Aunt Evie in keeping the place going.
On this crisp March morning, the moment Ali stepped out of the Cayenne, the smell of freshly baked rolls beckoned across the parking lot and across the years. And stepping into the warm, steamy atmosphere was almost like stepping into a gray-Formica and red-vinyl time machine. For Ali, the Sugarloaf seemed forever unchanged and unchanging.
As soon as Chris appeared in the doorway, a smiling Edie Larson darted out from behind the counter and clasped her grandson in a fierce hug. “Look who’s here!” she announced to the restaurant at large. Then to Chris, she said, “I told your grandfather to make sure there was nothing at the house for breakfast. I was hoping that way we’d get to see you bright and early.”
Edie let loose of Chris and turned him over to Jan Howard, a waitress who had come on board after Aunt Evie died. Jan was a red-haired, bony, seventy-something widow, who called all her customers either “Honeybun” or “Darlin’.” Jan’s false teeth tended to click when she talked, and her apron pockets always bulged with one or more packets of unfiltered Camels. She was also hardworking and utterly dependable.
“Christopher, Christopher, Christopher!” she exclaimed. “If you aren’t a sight for sore eyes.”
Meanwhile, Edie turned to her daughter. As she did so, the look on her face changed from joy to sadness. “I’m so sorry about Reenie,” she said, hugging Ali close. “Come in, come in. Sit right here at the counter. That way I can talk to you between customers.”
Before Ali could slip away to the counter, she, too, had to endure a smoky-haired hug from Jan as well. Meanwhile, from the kitchen, Bob Larson saluted the new arrivals with a raised spatula as he placed a steaming plate up in the order window and pounded the bell to produce two sharp dings, letting either Edie or Jan know it was time to retrieve an order.
Unasked, Edie poured coffee for both Ali and Chris and pushed the cream pitcher in her grandson’s direction.
“Your father’s off his game this morning,” she continued. “Stayed up too late waiting for you to call. He’s already botched two orders. If I were actually paying the man, I suppose I’d have to dock him. How come it took you so long to get here—I thought you were leaving at two? And what’ll you have, besides sweet rolls, I mean?”
Chris ordered ham and eggs. Ali ordered a roll along with one egg and two strips of bacon, then she turned around and surveyed the room. In the old days, Edie and Aunt Evie and the other waitresses had worn black-and-white uniforms. Those had now given way to blue-and-white Sugarloaf Café sweatshirts (available for purchase at the cash register), tennis shoes, and jeans.
Ali’s sweet roll arrived huge and soft and oozing icing. She had just picked up the first sticky piece to put in her mouth when her cell phone rang. She glanced at it, saw it was Paul, and didn’t answer.
“Still playing hard to get, I see,” said a male voice close to her shoulder.
Ali turned to look. The man seated on the next stool, unlike every other man in the place, was dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt and a colorful and properly knotted red-and-blue tie. He was broad-shouldered and bull-necked, and his salt-and-pepper hair was definitely receding.
“Excuse me?” she said.
“I’m sure you’ve forgotten me long ago,” the man continued. “But nobody around here is allowed to forget you. Your mother won’t stand for it.”
Pointing, he indicated the wall behind the cash register. Plastered there, right along with the business license and the fire-department plaque for maximum occupancy, were a dozen or more professionally produced publicity shots. Some of them dated from Ali’s early work in Milwaukee. Others came from her time at Fox News. Most of them, taken for whatever reason, came from Ali’s long stint as anchor on the station in LA. All of them testified to Edie Larson’s unstinting motherly pride in her daughter’s accomplishments. Seei
ng them there together made Ali blush with embarrassment.
“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, then,” she said. “You know who I am, but I’m sorry to say, I don’t know you.”
“Dave Holman, Class of ’77, at your service,” he said. Grinning, he held out his hand. Ali brushed as much of the icing off her fingers as possible before placing her still slightly sticky hand in his. “Detective Dave Holman,” he added. “Good to see you in person again after all these years.”
Ali returned to her sweet roll. “Obviously my parents keep you up to date on what’s going on with me. What have you been doing in the meantime?”
Holman shrugged. “Spent some time in the military—the Marines—and I’m still in the reserves,” he answered. “Graduated from college. Got married; had kids; got divorced. All the usual stuff. Now I’m a homicide detective with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s department. But back at Mingus Mountain High, Billy Garrett was a good buddy of mine. Remember him?”
Ali tried to reconcile this powerful-looking, middle-aged man—this Dave Holman—with the tall scrawny boy she remembered from high school. As for Billy Garrett? She recalled him as an even skinnier but much shorter kid—a regular smart-ass—who, his senior year, had mustered up enough courage to invite Ali to the prom. And she had turned him down. Not because she was playing hard to get, as Dave Holman seemed to assume, and not because Billy Garrett wasn’t tall enough, either.
Finances had been tight in the Larson household the last two years Ali was in high school. Remodeling the restaurant had taken more time and cash than anyone had anticipated. That was the reason Ali had graduated from high school with no class ring to show for it and with no yearbook for those two years, either. She had helped out at the restaurant during the summer and on weekends, but she had done so without pay, and her tips had gone into the family coffers to help keep things afloat. An academic scholarship to Northern Arizona University was the only reason she’d been able to go on to college.
