by Dan Walsh
“Sorry about your dad,” she said. “I mean, your stepdad. I really like Mr. Art. He’s so nice to my mom and me. Sometimes I pretend he’s my grandpa, and your mommy is my grandma. It’s easy because they act just like grandparents are supposed to. Your mommy always gives me Chiclets gum from her purse. Both of them always give me big hugs when they see me, and more hugs when I have to go.”
Rick kept his eye on his assignment. It didn’t seem like Amy required anything from him to keep the conversation going.
“Sometimes after school I have to come here, because my friend Jenny’s mom can’t watch me. Sometimes Mr. Art sits right here beside me and reads me Bible stories. Did he ever read you stories when you were a kid? He always smells nice. Like flowers for men. Hope he feels better soon.”
Rick smiled. At least she wasn’t a brat. He listened for, then heard, the appropriate gurgling sound, bent over to watch the black drips as they started spilling into the pot. He had a few minutes, so he walked over and sat down beside her. “You almost done with your catalog?”
“Almost,” she said. “There’s just a few more things Annabelle might want for Christmas.” She had the Penney’s catalog opened up on the coffee table. The toy section was all cut up. “Like Baby Softina.” She pointed at a doll then turned the page. “And Holly Hobbie, the little one here that looks like a baby.” She turned a few more pages. “This Easy-Bake Oven.” She flipped several pages. “And this Miss Piggy doll. I think when I cut these out I’ll be all done with my catalog.”
“Can I see it a minute?” he asked.
“Sure.” She handed Rick the Penney’s catalog.
He flipped it forward a few pages. “The Empire Strikes Back,” he said. “Did you see this? Look at these action figures, Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, Han Solo . . . look at this Millennium Falcon. It’s just like the one in the movie. I would have loved that as a kid. How come you didn’t cut these out?” Of course he was kidding.
“Because Annabelle doesn’t want things like that. They’re for boys.”
He handed the catalog back to her. “Can I see that?” He pointed to her handmade one. She gave it to him. “So Annabelle wants everything in here?”
“Well, she may want all of it, but she won’t get all of it.”
“Why not?”
“That’s not how it works, silly. You ask for some stuff, but you don’t get most of what you ask for. Maybe one or two things . . . and never the thing you want most.”
“What does Annabelle want most this year?”
“Can I see it?” she asked. Rick gave it back. She turned to the first page. “Barbie’s Dream House,” she said, “with all the furniture.” Her face lit up as she pointed to the cutout picture. She closed her eyes a moment, then sighed. She pointed to the second page. “And the Barbie Super Vette here.”
He noticed that none of the toy pictures in her catalog had prices; she’d cut around them. “So . . . why does Annabelle want a catalog with so many things in it if she knows she’s only going to get one or two presents?”
“Because . . . it’s lots of fun to look, and girls love to look at stuff.”
Rick laughed. “But if this is kind of a make-believe catalog, why can’t Annabelle ask for the thing she wants the most?”
Amy shook her head. “Because what you want the most is always too expensive.”
Rick realized . . . they really weren’t talking about Annabelle anymore.
16
“Thanks for checking in, Rick. But there haven’t been any changes with Art. Of course, they tell me that’s a good thing. The whole idea is to keep him calm, get him ready for surgery.” Leanne looked at the waiting room clock. It was a few minutes after 7:00 p.m. From the other end of the phone, Rick filled her in on what he’d done in the office. He’d finally figured out how to order everything on Andrea’s list, but he was just getting out of the store now, two hours after it closed.
“Wish I could help you, Rick, but I don’t know what Art does back there. I’m so sorry you have to use vacation time like this.”
“It’s all right, Mom. They say when they’re moving him to Shands?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe in a day, maybe two.”
“And after that . . . what?”
“I guess the surgery. I don’t know if they’ll do it right away or wait and see how he does once he gets there.” Leanne could almost feel the next question coming and hoped he didn’t ask. Something about how long it would take for Art to recover after the surgery. Rick had probably figured out it would stretch into next week, if not longer. He’d be wondering how much longer he’d have to stay and help. If he asked, she didn’t know what to say. Dr. Halper didn’t even know where things were going yet. She couldn’t think about next week. It was all she could do to get through each day.
“So,” Rick said after a pause, “guess I better let you go. Oh . . . hope you don’t mind, but we had to turn the heat on at the end of the day.”
“That’s okay. I haven’t been outside, but Andrea stopped by a little while ago. She dropped off my coat and a few things. She said it’s supposed to freeze overnight.”
“There goes my midnight swim.”
She laughed. He always did have a good sense of humor. She suddenly felt bad for judging him. Maybe he wasn’t thinking the things she was afraid he was thinking. She just didn’t know who else to turn to if he went back to Charlotte now. But she also knew he couldn’t stay. He had an important job, his own life to live.
“Might need to get that heater looked at,” Rick said. “It was louder than the Christmas music.”
“Art’s been asking our landlord to replace it for two years,” she said.
“Who’s the landlord?”
“The congregation upstairs, at St. Luke’s. But there’s less than a hundred attending every Sunday, so the money’s just not there.”
“Not a big deal,” he said. “Least it works.”
“Did you bring a jacket?” she asked. She heard him chuckle on the other end. “I’m always going to be your mom.”
“Actually, I didn’t. Wasn’t watching the weather, but my car is just five steps from the door. I’ll bring a jacket tomorrow. Need anything before I head to the motel?”
“No, Andrea took good care of me. But . . . now that it looks like . . .” How should she say this?
“What’s the matter?”
“I just feel bad, you staying at a hotel when our house is sitting there empty every night. Your room, it’s just the way you left it. There’s food in the fridge that’s probably going to go bad in a few days. When you came down on Friday, you were thinking it was just going to be the weekend. You’re welcome to stay.”
“I know, Mom. But I like being on the beach. Makes it feel more like a vacation. And with what I make now, it’s really . . . not a problem.”
“Just had to check. Thanks again, Rick. You have no idea how much it helps having you here.”
“Take care of yourself,” he said, and then hung up.
That didn’t go so bad, she thought as she walked back toward Art’s room.
“Leanne?”
Leanne turned around. It was Holly, walking from the nurses’ station, holding a small box. “Got something for you.”
“What is it?”
She handed her the box filled with dozens of pink pieces of paper. “Didn’t know we had a celebrity in the ICU.”
“What are these?”
“The phone’s been ringing nonstop all day at the information desk. People asking about Art. We couldn’t put them through to the ICU waiting room, so they asked the auxiliary volunteers to just take down the messages.”
Leanne smiled, looking at them all. “Thank you.” She walked back to his room. How wonderful. Art would be so happy to see this. She sat down in her chair with the box on her lap.
If only he could see it.
She felt a chill sitting there near the window and got up to get her coat.
Andrea turned the ligh
t out in the living room of their little garage apartment. She didn’t know if the temperature had dropped below freezing outside, but it must have in here. She looked down at Amy, already asleep, bundled in blankets on the sofa, which doubled as her bed. It was just a one-bedroom place. Amy had asked if she could start sleeping out here a few months ago. Andrea finally got her to admit that someone at school had made fun of her when they’d heard she slept in her mother’s room.
Andrea wished she could afford a two-bedroom place, but she didn’t even make enough to run the heat on nights like this. Last year, she’d forgotten to turn the thermostat down a few cold winter nights and got the shock of her life when she’d opened the electric bill.
She walked out to the kitchenette and glanced at a thermometer on the wall. Sixty-one degrees, it said. How was that possible? Felt like thirty-something in here. She felt a pang of guilt when an image of JD flashed into her mind, then some of the other homeless people she saw every day downtown. What did they do on nights like this?
She felt restless. She wasn’t sleepy. That was the unfortunate trade-off of letting Amy sleep in the living room. It meant no television for Andrea after 8:30 p.m. After dinner, they had watched The Wonderful World of Disney together, which they both loved, then Mork & Mindy, which Amy loved and Andrea couldn’t stand.
Nanu nanu. Like fingernails on a chalkboard every time she heard it.
She poured herself a glass of milk then turned the lights out in the kitchen and walked into the bedroom, the coldest room in the apartment. She set the milk down on a table beside the bed and looked around. She’d have to find a way to get the television in here. She quickly changed into her flannel pajamas and put on her bathrobe. It would stay on all night. Then she all but ran to the bed and slipped under the covers.
She reached for the book she’d been reading the last few nights, one Art had recommended. It was Hannah Hurnard’s Hinds’ Feet on High Places, a wonderful allegorical tale first written in 1955. Art said it was destined to be a classic. The main character was a young woman named Much-Afraid who lived in the Valley of Humiliation with her terrible relatives the Fearings.
Andrea got it, right off, why Art had recommended this book. Her life was plagued with fears. She wasn’t like Much-Afraid. She was Much-Afraid. She wanted to learn all the lessons the Chief Shepherd sought to teach Much-Afraid in the book. How to develop “hinds’ feet” so one day she could easily jump and skip to the High Places, unshackled from all her fears.
Andrea looked at her tiny bedroom, only half-lit by the lamp. She wasn’t there yet. Not even close. She definitely still lived in the Valley of Humiliation. And the Fearings were all around her.
JD could see his every breath.
Before bending over and crawling inside his box, he’d looked up. Not a single cloud in the night sky. Had to be after 1:00 a.m. by now. He huddled against the back of the box, as far from the opening as he could, his knees drawn tight against his chest. He had on his overcoat and wrapped himself in the blanket he’d gotten from the mission. If the blanket was helping, he couldn’t tell. The box itself was tucked back in a corner of the old church property, totally out of the wind, under that fiberglass awning.
But JD was so cold, felt like he might as well be lying outside on the sidewalk in his socks and underwear.
“Think this was a bad idea,” Taylor said. “Should have gone to the shelter this afternoon, like I said.” His voice came from the box beside JD.
JD didn’t say anything, but secretly he agreed.
“You know it’s going to get colder than this, few hours from now.”
“I know,” JD said, his teeth chattering. He reached for the whiskey bottle in his inside coat pocket. Took a quick swallow. Let the heat do its thing. “You got some whiskey?” he asked Taylor.
“I do. Don’t think it’s going to be enough.”
“Still way better than Bastogne,” JD said. “You know about Bastogne?”
“World War II.”
“Right. Remember I told you about that article I read from that old Look magazine? That guy in there talked about how they spent a whole month in the freezing cold. A month, he said. No overcoat even. And no whiskey. And it wasn’t just cold, they had snow, everywhere you looked.”
“And people shooting at them,” Taylor said. “And artillery shells exploding in the trees over their heads.”
“That’s right. So I think we can do this. One night, that’s all we gotta make it.”
“I hope you’re right.”
JD took another swig. Bottle felt pretty full, but he better pace it. Like Taylor said, couple of hours from now would be even worse. He remembered reading something else in that article he didn’t mention to Taylor. Those guys in them foxholes buddied up together, real close, to stay warm. Like couples in love, the guy said, but quickly added there weren’t no funny business. Guys just did what they had to do to stay warm.
In between whiskey swigs, JD felt almost cold enough to tell Taylor about that part. But he and Taylor, they didn’t have that kind of relationship.
JD wasn’t like that with anyone.
“Really, JD,” Taylor said. “Think we made a bad call here.”
17
Rick thought of one good thing to come out of this freezing weather: he’d sailed right over the bridge this morning. Way too cold for the sailboat owners to be out for a morning cruise. When he came out to his car, there had actually been frost on the windshield.
Still, nothing like winter mornings in Charlotte. But he’d forgotten how cold it could get down here. One of the riverfront mansions had apparently left their sprinklers on. The whole backyard looked like a winter wonderland. Every tree and bush was frozen solid with silvery icicles shimmering in the sun. They even clung from the bottoms of low-hanging palms.
He drove through the old downtown area and pulled up in the parallel parking space beside the Book Nook. His was the only car on this side of the street. All morning, he’d been rehearsing what to say when he called his boss later today, asking to take the rest of the week off. They were expecting him back first thing tomorrow. Rick had worked at the firm for three years and felt pretty secure. His boss was actually a fairly nice guy to work for. But it was a large firm with lots of ambitious guys all looking to climb that proverbial ladder, by any means. If there wasn’t enough room on the ladder, climbing on backs and necks would serve just as well.
This he knew firsthand.
As he stepped out from his car, a trail of vapor seeped through a manhole cover in the middle of the road. Thin layers of mist floated into the air from puddles along the edge of the street. He set his cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee on the hood for a second. That’s when he saw him peeking out from behind the corner of the church.
Columbo.
Only this time, he had a blanket wrapped around the overcoat, partially covering his head and shoulders, like some Arab warlord. The man backed away when he saw Rick.
Good idea, crazy man. Rick had no intention of acknowledging him this morning. If he wanted, he could come back at 3:00 when Andrea showed up. Rick got his things together and closed the car door. He carefully made his way down the little stairwell, almost slipping on a spot of ice clinging to one of the steps. He set his things on the concrete half-wall and fidgeted through his keys, looking for the one to the front door. He wasn’t sure if it was the smell or the noise that alerted him, but he looked up and saw Columbo peeking around the corner again. Maybe five feet away.
He had better put a stop to this. “Hey,” he called out. “You, around the corner.” He couldn’t remember the man’s name. Some combination of initials.
The man stepped out in the open, then ducked back. Then stepped out completely. “You got it?” he asked.
“Got what?”
“It’s almost 9:00. I been freezing all night. ’Bout the only thing keeping me goin’ the past few hours was that it was almost 9:00.”
“What are you talking about?”
&
nbsp; “You don’t got it?”
“Apparently not.” Oh shoot, thought Rick. The Egg McMuffin. “Look, you’re going to have to go somewhere else for breakfast for a while.”
“Where else?”
“I don’t know. Where does everyone else go for breakfast, start there.” Rick didn’t want to look at the man’s face. He didn’t seem angry, more like confused.
“I’m so cold.”
That will happen when you sleep outside, moron. “Well, so am I. Look, you come back in about twenty minutes, I’ll give you a cup of coffee, but that’s it. I’m not stopping off to get you Egg McMuffins. That was Art’s thing, not mine.”
“Twenty minutes?”
Great, Rick thought. Why did he say that? “Yeah, or thereabouts.”
The man disappeared. Rick opened the door, then went back for his stuff and set it on the counter. He was about to head right back and start the coffee but decided, no, he wasn’t going out of his way for this guy. He began going through the little startup routine Andrea had shown him.
Making coffee was step five.
Two hours later, the coffee in the Mr. Coffee maker was giving off a smell. Coffee was part of it, but something else had joined in. Rick wasn’t used to this. The secretaries never let things get this far. Smelled like black licorice. At least it smelled and tasted right when he’d first made it; he and Columbo were the only ones who’d know. Not a single customer had come into the store yet.
The second ninety-minute Christmas cassette was playing through the store. At the moment, Johnny Cash sang “The Little Drummer Boy.” He lifted the coffeepot out. The smell was much stronger now and the coffee two shades darker. Should he make a full pot or a half pot?
Such decisions.
A few days ago, he’d helped an owner of a multimillion-dollar lumber company decide if he had sufficient capital to buy out a competitor who’d fallen on hard times.
