by Lynne Spreen
Theirs, not hers.
The Karen Grace who went to bed last night in a campground in Cheyenne was not the same woman who now puttered down the freeway toward Denver. This new Karen was less heroic, less admirable in every way, and yet she battled a feeling of pride. She had survived and had saved Frieda’s life while she was at it. If she felt any guilt at all it was for her lack of guilt.
They rolled south, the strip of road slicing through featureless miles of high desert, browning as they approached the arid steppes outside Denver.
How is it possible to go along every day of your life as one kind of person, and then something happens and you change, becoming your own opposite? When she was driving hell-bent across the desert, she wanted to kill them. How very un-Karen-like.
She drove on, wrestling with it.
It’s almost as if there’s a piece of fabric stretched out across your life, she thought, and part of you lives above that piece of fabric, and part below. The part above is the capable, nice, everyday kind of person you show your friends and family. The part below is the extreme negative, the part that isn’t quite rational, that doesn’t cope so well-or, actually, it does, resulting in heinous, unthinkable outcomes. The strength of the fabric determines how often the lower part breaks through, corrupting the goodness above.
You might be neurotic and prone to tearing–silk–or someone sturdier, made of burlap. Then all of a sudden something happens, like the third or fourth time he forgets your birthday or maybe gives you a black eye. Or you find yourself facing down the possibility of death, and the barrier rips, exposing all the writhing ugliness underneath.
“Jesus!” She swerved to avoid a small sedan.
“Welcome back to civilization,” said Frieda.
“Sorry.”
Frieda stared out the window. “I can’t get those boys out of my mind.”
“They weren’t boys. They were dangerous men, and we did what we had to do.”
“I know.” Frieda turned back toward the window.
Over and over again, the Bronco spun out across her mind, forcing Karen to reevaluate whether she had overreacted, needlessly causing their deaths. She tried to apply logic. The men had a choice. The decision and consequences were theirs, and she had reacted logically to preserve her own existence and Frieda’s. Anybody with a brain would have made the same decision. She and Frieda were lucky to have escaped, and yet, luck had nothing to do with their survival. They had survived due to Karen’s determination. Her only remorse sprang from the impact on Frieda.
And from the loss of her mother’s precious mementoes, now rotting outside of Cheyenne. Nothing could make her drive back over that stretch of highway. She wanted only to get back home to the familiar.
Karen glanced over at the older woman who dabbed at her nose with a ragged tissue. Frieda glanced back. “Stop worrying. I’ll feel better after I see Jessie and the baby.”
“Are you going to tell your daughter?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, no. If Sandy knew, she’d have me committed. And right after that she’d have a nervous breakdown. No, let’s keep our mouths shut.”
Karen slowed as the highway became more congested near Denver. The Continental Divide loomed to the west. Soon she would be scooting along their southern tip, heading westward toward home. She took a calming breath, the first in over an hour.
Frieda rolled her window down an inch. “A long time ago, Sandy tried to get me to move to Denver. She and Richard felt humiliated that her dad and I still lived back in Hicksville. Richard’s got the money, she said. You can live where it’s nice.” Frieda shook her head at the memory. “Nice.”
“I thought your house in Dickinson was pretty nice.”
“Exactly. But she wanted to buy a house in Denver and let us live in it rent-free. I don’t know if it was Richard’s idea of a tax shelter or they really wanted to help, but I told her no. She kept insisting and we had a fight. We didn’t speak for a while. Finally I told her if she wanted to buy us something, make it a Roadtrek and we’ll use it to come visit.” Frieda smiled. “We got the RV we always dreamed of, and she got to feel like a big shot.”
“I’m sure she worries about you.”
“She doesn’t give me any credit at all.” The broad swaths of open land began to shrink into strip malls and subdivisions. Karen paid more attention to the road now as it fed into downtown, the traffic flowing like water through a narrowing chute. She knew how to avoid tailgaters and speeders in her own car, but the Roadtrek wasn’t as nimble. She was happy to see their off-ramp coming up.
Once on city streets, she eased off the pedal. They passed an upscale mall with a Saks and Nordstrom’s. A brace of gleaming skyscrapers reached into the sky to the south, and Frieda pointed to a silver-blue high rise. “That’s where Richard works, up on the twentieth floor. He has his own law firm.”
“What does Sandy do?”
“Sandy decorates.”
“She’s an interior decorator?”
“Not exactly. She does her house, over and over again.”
They turned onto a shaded parkway that ran past gated neighborhoods and manicured parks, soccer fields and jogging paths, until they reached the entry gate to a private community. As they were cleared through the guardhouse, Karen felt like she was back in her private community in Newport. Same winding lane, same fairways next to the road, same gigantic tract homes.
They found the address on a sprawling split-level on a corner lot. Three sets of limestone steps marched down the hill to the driveway. A stream cut across the lawn, coursing over fiberglass boulders to a small pond where fake deer nibbled grasses along the banks. Karen parked the van at the curb.
At the top of the steps, a heavy wooden door flew open and a blond woman emerged in a bulky beige pantsuit. She hurried down the steps, her hands at her fleshy cheeks like a kid on Christmas morning. Her chubby arms engulfed Frieda. “Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh.”
Frieda struggled out of her daughter’s arms. “Good Lord, Sandy, let go. You’re going to crush me.”
“Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you’re finally here, Mom. It’s so good to see you.” Sandy, her mascaraed eyes resembling twin spiders, turned to Karen. “And you are?”
“This is Karen. You might remember her from the old neighborhood.”
Karen reached forward to shake hands. “Hi, Sandy.”
“Sandra.” She squeezed Karen’s fingertips, avoiding an actual handshake. “Would you mind parking your camper down at the end of the street?”
“Yes, we would mind,” said Frieda.
“Those are the neighborhood rules, Mom. We can’t have old vehicles unless they’re in the garage. The neighbors will complain.”
“Are you going to stand here worrying about your neighbors or invite us in?”
Sandra blinked. “Forget it. Is anybody hungry? Lucia can make us lunch.” She turned and guided Frieda toward the stairs, glancing over her shoulder at Karen. “You can put Mom’s bags on the second floor, third door on the left.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
When Sandra and Frieda disappeared into the house, Karen slumped in the drivers’ seat, where she was tempted to put the key in the ignition and escape to the Rockies. She watched a gardener working on the property next door and wondered how long she could get away with sitting outside.
Checking her phone, she found Steve had left half a dozen messages, so she called him back.
“When are you coming home?”
“I don’t know,” Karen said. “I don’t have a job anymore so there’s not that much reason to hurry.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“I got fired.”
“What the hell? What happened?”
“Other than Wes is insane?”
“Jeez, I’m sorry. What an asshole.”
“Exactly.” For once they had a common enemy instead of each other.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
She could pict
ure him running his hand through his hair, thinking hard, trying to fix things. A painful wave of nostalgia washed over her. For all his selfishness, he represented the familiar. Familiarity was comforting, especially after what happened this morning. But comfort could be dangerous, too. “All I can do is get the word out to my friends and hope for a nibble.”
“I know people who know people. I can help, if you want.”
His data-base was huge, and she needed a job. “Thank you.”
“But we need to settle things,” he said. “The house is sitting vacant.”
“The other shoe drops.”
“Karen, I’m just being practical.”
“I still live there, remember?”
Then he sighed. “I’ve retained counsel.”
“I know. Jean told me.”
“You probably should, too.”
Karen leaned back against the head rest. So this is how it worked, one side forcing the other to lawyer up. How quickly he had moved to that option.
“It’s the only way,” he said. “I’m sorry, but we need to move forward.”
“You mean you do.” They sat in silence, two separate new humans forming out of the old one. “When is she due?”
“I don’t want to discuss it.”
“Fine. I have to go.”
“When are you coming back?”
She hung up. Albuquerque by dark. That’s all I care about. K a r e n unfolded the map and reviewed the rest of her route. After a polite half-hour of visiting, she’d be back on the highway and away.
She unloaded Frieda’s bags and checked one last time for anything that might have been forgotten. The van seemed so empty now, cleared of Frieda’s bags and her mother’s heirlooms. The box of needlework was gone too, back in Cheyenne. If only she had waited until Denver to organize the van. On the other hand, if it had been any heavier she might not have been able to outrun the Bronco.
But the needlework. And oh, God, the family photo albums.
Karen went through several tissues before locking up. Inside the house, she dropped the bags in the entryway and massaged her lower back. All the tension of the morning seemed to have settled there.
The house was huge, but she could hear distant voices. A double set of staircases wound upward to the second floor. To her left lay a sunken living room capable of handling forty people and to her right, a formal dining room table surrounded by a couple dozen chairs.
Following the sound of Sandra’s laughter, Karen wandered through the dining room and into the kitchen, past the Subzero refrigerator and Viking range, past the butler’s closet and wine racks, and through the door to the solarium.
“Mom, you’re here, next to me, and Karen, you sit at that end.” Sandra gestured at a distant chair while a dark-skinned woman set out plates heaped with aromatic bread, a half-dozen cheeses, three stacks of deli meat, and a separate tray just for fruits and vegetables. The condiments spun around on a lazy Susan in the center of the table.
After the woman went back in the kitchen, Sandra took the chair at the head of the table, folded her hands and bowed her head. “Lord, thank you for bringing my mother all this way safely, and for the bounty with which you have favored us. Amen. So, Karen, what are your plans?”
“I think I’ll have the ham.” Karen reached for the platter of cold cuts.
“Funny.” Sandra filled three glasses with white wine.
“Not usually,” said Frieda.
“To answer your question,” Karen said, painting a slice of bread with mayonnaise, “I’ll be leaving right after lunch.”
“You don’t have to go so soon,” said Frieda. “Spend the night here. Start fresh in the morning.” She poked Sandra in the arm. “Don’t you think?”
“Well of course she can stay. We’ve got lots of room.”
“That’s nice of you, but I need to get on the road.”
Sandra’s face stretched into a determined smile. “I think Mom’s right. It’s a long way to Albuquerque, and a woman traveling alone in the dark is a recipe for disaster. You are more than welcome to stay.”
“It’s been a long day already,” said Frieda. “If anything happened to you it’d be on my conscience.” Her eyes met Karen’s, and Karen saw the Bronco.
She held up her glass. “I accept. Thank you.”
“Good,” said Sandra. “Now, tell me about your trip.”
“Nothing to tell.” Frieda took a bite of her sandwich. In the quiet they could hear her chewing.
“What about you, Karen? Was it worth it, driving such a long way in that old van?”
“I didn’t think I would like camping very much, but your Mom made it fun. I’m glad we did it.” Karen smiled at Frieda, who rolled her eyes.
“I wasn’t in favor of that, not for a minute,” said Sandra. “Mom, you could have gotten on a plane and been here in two hours. Now look at you. You’re exhausted.”
Frieda stuck a finger in her ear and grimaced. “You don’t have to shout. I’m fine. Now, when are Jessie and the baby getting here?”
“I’m not sure. More wine?”
“How can you not be sure?”
“She had to cancel and reschedule. They’re on standby.” Sandra refilled their glasses. “You know how kids are. They never answer their cells.”
“They’re on standby with a baby? I can’t see Jessie going for that program.”
“Not literally. I meant they’re coming later.” Sandra set the wine back in the ice bucket. “I can’t wait to show you the house. You’re going to love your room. I just finished redecorating.”
“I don’t need anything special. Any room will do.”
Sandra’s hand splayed over her heart. “I want you to have the best.”
Frieda glanced at Karen, who pretended to be interested in the clearing of the empty dishes.
“Come on. Let me show you.” Sandra stood up. “We’ll start on the east end of the house.”
An hour later, after another glass of wine and an explanation of every design choice their hostess had ever made or considered, Karen closed the door of the guest room and fell on the bed in a coma.
By the time she awoke, the light angling away from the windows told her it was late afternoon. She dressed, noticing for the first time the tastefully appointed furnishings. Sandra maybe could have found a more practical hobby, but she did have talent. The oak cabinetry had been distressed and lacquered in a cinnamon finish, and the hardware brought to mind a prosperous ranch in big sky country. Karen’s bare feet were comfortable on the warm wood floor, and the walls were hung with paintings of wild horses racing across wind-scarred mesas.
On the patio, Frieda sat in a patch of sun and watched a foursome finish up at the ninth green. Aspens and pine trees lined both sides of the fairway, and the clubhouse dominated a hill in the distance. Karen dragged a heavy metal chair next to Frieda. “How’d you sleep?”
“I didn’t. Couldn’t stop thinking about our trip.”
“You must be exhausted.”
“I feel like crap,” Frieda nodded, “but I’m glad we went. I’m glad I got out. Let’s leave it at that.” They sat listening to the distant voices of the golfers and the clank of food being prepared somewhere behind the closed door.
“Something we do need to talk about.” Frieda leaned forward, her voice dropping. “I’ve been thinking about how to say this. You know I’m not getting any younger. I’ve had health problems recently, and–”
The door opened and Sandra stepped out, bearing a tray. “Sun’s over the yardarm. Who’s ready for appletinis?”
“Oh, God. I’m barely awake,” said Karen.
“This’ll fix you.”
Frieda frowned. “I don’t like martinis.”
Sandra placed a glass in front of her. “You’ll like this.”
Karen sipped her drink, trying to guess what Frieda wanted to say. She seemed withdrawn as if burdened by her thoughts.
A metal club clinked against a golf ball. Karen watched a fou
rsome chipping up toward the green, and felt a longing to be out there herself. One of the players had a long lanky body, his broad shoulders and nipped-in waist starting a glow of warmth in her belly. Grateful for her dark sunglasses, she closed her eyes, remembering the texture of Curt’s face, the light stubble scattered across his chin the morning after. Even if she never saw him again, she was glad for the nights they spent together. The martini went down bright and cold, and she turned away from the course. “Do you play, Sandra?”
Sandra shook her head. “Why waste a perfectly good day?”
“It wouldn’t take all day if you played with the niners.”
Sandra looked up from her martini. “The whatters?”
“Most clubs have women’s groups that only play half a round– nine holes. Niners. It’s a good idea if you’re new to the game or don’t have the time for a full round. You get a little bit of fun and socializing.”
“Have you been talking to Richard? He’s always on me to join some group. I did all that when he was just getting started in his career, but now I don’t have to.”
The housekeeper set a tray of appetizers on the table.
Sandra leaned in close. “Thank you. We’ll call if we need you.”
The woman untied her apron. “Mrs. Bonner, I have to go pick up my daughter from day care.”
Sandra, dismissing her with a wave, reached for a cheese-topped cracker. “So tell me about your wild adventures, Mom.”
“We saw a lot of beautiful scenery and met some nice people.”
Sandra took a nibble and shook her head. “This crostini is too done.”
“Mine’s good,” said Karen.
Frieda poked at a limp carrot. “Let it go, Sandy.”
“I pay a lot of money for her services.”
“The food is fine.”
“It’s not up to my standards.”
“Anyway.” Karen looked from one to the other. “I enjoyed Dickinson.”
Sandra stared at her. “Then maybe you can tell me, what is the attraction? That dump has such a hold on Mom.”
