Five for Forever

by Ames, Alex

  “Aga!!! I drive us to Louise today,” Dana said in greeting as her big sister got into the car and sat in the passenger seat.

  “Hi, honey,” Rick greeted her with a kiss. “Who was that well-dressed, bad-hair gentleman?”

  There was only the slightest hesitation in Agnes’s voice as she replied, “Mr. Compston is one of our college counselors.”

  “And did he counsel you so that you can make up your mind?” Rick felt that their trip to the East Coast had been a nice outing with his daughter, but overall Agnes still hadn’t come to any conclusion.

  “Dad, we’ve been over this. We evaluate, and I decide. But don’t push me,” Agnes said with a stern voice, which reminded Rick of Bella.

  “Yes, sir, madam!” Rick smiled, and Agnes seemed to exhale considerably.

  The school bell could be heard, and the first students trickled out, turning into a rush and then a torrent. Britta emerged and also got into the car. “Dana, look out!” she shouted playfully from the backseat, and Dana expertly moved the steering wheel, avoiding deadly crashes with the flood of students who walked toward the bicycle stands, before Rick strapped her into her seat again.

  After the short drive to middle school, Charles came last out of the door, five minutes after everyone else had gone, and Agnes had been about to hunt him down.

  “Where have you been, Charlie?” she asked.

  “You can’t perform a manager shutdown on lab equipment! Takes time to put it on standby.” Charles shrugged and belted himself. “You guys buy me a mass spectrometer, and I can play with it in the kitchen while Dad cooks.”

  Everyone accepted that excuse.

  twenty-two

  Lost in the Supermarket

  Louise

  Louise’s famous last words were, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care.”

  Rick looked at the gang and then back to Hal’s waiting car. Since Bella’s death, he had not been away from the kids for a single night. Even the hideaway evenings at Louise’s Malibu house for quality time together had always been cut short by Rick getting up around midnight and driving back to Oxnard.

  I guess it is the new normal, Rick thought. A family again, with shared responsibilities. Many first times, but leaving the kids with Louise is a big step. I should be happy, but why am I scared?

  “Dad, go! Nantucket needs you, the Vera needs you,” Agnes urged him to move. “Louise and I will take care of things.”

  Rick made a face, and Hal honked, keen to beat the morning traffic toward LAX. Rick gave Louise a last kiss, then the kids from Agnes down to Dana, and grabbed his overnighter and walked to Hal’s car.

  “Now that was drama!” Britta said. “What is it with Dad?”

  “He is in an emotional bind,” Charles analyzed. “On the one hand he feels the responsibility toward being a father, raising four kids. On the other hand, Dad needs to accept the new status of his relationship . . .”

  “Are you really ten, Sigmund?” Louise interrupted. “So what does a normal family do on a Saturday morning without its fierce leader present?” She looked at the gang.

  “Sleep,” Britta stated, and Agnes nodded.

  “You want to go back to bed?”

  “Are we allowed to?”

  “Uh-oh, did I run into a Dad-said-Mom-said trap?”

  “Even if it was, we would be not allowed to tell you,” Charles clarified.

  “You are an easy mark,” Britta agreed. “Three levels below Dad.”

  “Then I give up. Go back to bed then, late breakfast at ten-thirty.”

  High-fiving, Britta and Agnes ran back into the house. Charles slowly followed, head already in his book.

  “Dana, what do you want to do?” Louise asked the remaining three-year-old member of the family.

  “Play with Barbies,” she said.

  “Deal!”

  “First some cereal.” She hugged Louise’s arm.

  “Double deal!” They walked back inside.

  Around ten-thirty, Louise found her limits preparing pancakes and scrambled eggs. The pancakes wouldn’t “cake” and remained in a semifluid state, albeit burned from below. The scrambled eggs had pieces of shell in them. Charles left the kitchen for a few minutes and came back with a piece of paper. “May I present to Louise Waters the ‘Fail of the Month’ award—worst breakfast in ages. Luckily, you were able to unwrap sliced bread and put some butter on it.”

  “After we gave her the tip to defrost it,” Britta pointed out.

  Louise gave a graceful little bow and accepted the award to everyone’s laughter and applause. “I thank the academy, my management, the pancake dough, and the eggs that never became chickens but ended senselessly in my pan.”

  Dana’s eye grew wide like saucers, and she opened her mouth. “Eggs? Little chicks?” she said with a quivering voice.

  Louise rushed to her and knelt down. “Oh, I am sorry, honey, that’s not true. The eggs had no live chicken in them. They were for eating.”

  “Cute chicks come from eggs.”

  “Yes, but not from these eggs.” Jesus, how do you explain to a three-year-old how the chickens get into the egg and why not here? Hell, I don’t even know how that works!

  Dana rubbed her eyes and then looked up at Louise and gave a triumphant laugh. “Our eggs have no chicks in them. You need a henhouse!”

  The other kids had a field day.

  Louise nodded and hugged her again. Dana ran out of the kitchen, singing, “Old MacDonald had a farm.”

  I used to be a superstar. Have I just been played by a three-year-old?

  The rest of the day was spent lazily, watching a movie and spending some time at the Oxnard beach. Floris made camp under a big sun umbrella about fifty yards away. His rosy Dutch skin didn’t go well with the California sun. They spread blankets and towels, changed, and enjoyed the time.

  Louise looked at the front-row beach houses. “These look nice. Wouldn’t it be nice to live in one of those?”

  Agnes looked at the various properties, nothing fancy, a row of single homes at a very good location. Not comparable to Malibu, that was for sure. “Mom and Dad had looked at houses together before we moved into the current house. But we couldn’t afford those. I think they run from a million or so, which is a lot for Oxnard.” She looked at Charles, who was investigating a crab walking sideways, explaining something to Dana. Britta was paddling with her arms on her board in the shallow surf. The waves were too small for serious business.

  “But it would be nice to have the view.”

  “You appear already gone, in your mind at least,” Louise remarked.

  “It is strange. In a way this was my last summer at home; next year will all be about moving into college and all. But I don’t feel ready yet. Why can’t everything stay the same as it always was?”

  “Trust me, it never does. Even if you stayed here, maybe found a job to gain time to find yourself, your friends will be gone from your life, living different lives somewhere else,” Louise explained. “I left home at sixteen and never looked back, even though it was hard.”

  “Did you leave anything behind?”

  Louise thought long and hard. “No, I didn’t.”

  “No friends? What about your parents?”

  “A few friends, but none so close that I had real, meaningful feelings. And my parents, well, I don’t remember my biological father, and my mother was a sick and broken woman. We lived in a trailer park, and my sister and I basically financed our home with odd jobs in the supermarkets and gardening.”

  “I think I read that in your biography,” Agnes said. “Your sister is still not well off, right?”

  Britta had stopped paddling out; now she lay flat on her back on the board and sunbathed.

  “Earlier in my career I helped her financially, but she has an addictive personality, even worse than our mom. My money did her more bad than good. I now pay her monthly rent so that she has a roof, but that’s it. I keep her from living on the street; the rest must come
from her. You are blessed with a different kind of family. One parent is also missing from your life, but for a sad reason and not by her own choice. And you have a great father and your fantastic siblings who keep you grounded. You will see, in your later life this foundation will give you much more foothold than degrees, career, or riches.”

  “And when you marry, we’ll have a real post-fame stepmom,” Charles declared, coming back with Dana, having finally let go of the crab.

  Louise smiled. “Well, I of course hope it will come to that, but this is not my own decision; it’s between your dad and me. And you probably hold a certain veto right.”

  “We waive our right to veto,” Charles stated solemnly.

  “I wave, too,” Dana echoed, no idea what the conversation was about.

  “Whaah,” came from Britta down in the surf. Everyone looked and saw her legs pointing into the air. A bigger breaker than usual had surprised her shallow water surfing and had spun her around.

  Ersatz Mom time! Louise sprinted down the beach to see if Britta had hurt herself.

  “Britta waves, too,” Dana told Charles.

  Due to movie and beach snacking, dinner hunger didn’t hit the gang until 9:00 p.m. Dana had had a long nap after the beach and was fully awake, and the other three had gotten cranky.

  “Shall I cook for you?” asked Louise.

  “Spaghetti?” Charles asked hopefully. “Agnes can help you. I mean, no offense, but you haven’t proved your cooking skills to us yet.”

  “But we have no meat for sauce,” Agnes pointed out. “And no canned tomatoes.”

  “Shall we go out to the supermarket and buy some quickly?”

  The Flint kids looked at their superstar nanny doubtfully. “You think that is a good idea? You gave Floris the night off, right?” Britta said.

  “I did, but how dangerous can it be? It’s a supermarket. In and out.”

  “You have your wig with you?”

  “I don’t carry my wig anymore. The Oxnard secret has been out now for what, over three months? And it will be fun, all of us together—just like a real family.”

  The Flint kids looked between themselves. “Okay, then,” Agnes said. “Adventure and hunger are calling.” And off they went.

  Louise didn’t know this part of Oxnard well, even after a few months, as Rick had been handling the supermarket chores. Agnes carefully drove the few mazelike streets toward the big parking lot. Even though it was shortly after nine, a lot of cars were still parked there, but few people were around. Agnes drove toward the mother-and-child parking spaces that were in the front of the store.

  Louise peered out of the car window. Was this really a good idea, after all? The store looked big, very big, stadium big, and a quick in-and-out was out of the question. We will walk our hungry asses off! Even worse, a lone black guy who looked like a gang member with tattoos up the wazoo was hanging out in front of the store, leaning on the parked shopping carts. A pimped-out low-rider was booming rap music six cars to the left, with two guys in front. Store security was nowhere to be seen.

  “Having doubts? Shall I turn?” Agnes said, seeing Louise’s nervousness.

  “No, let’s do this!” Louise said. What was going on with her? Was she not able to function in the real world? They all got out, Dana holding Britta’s hand. Agnes locked the van, and they walked toward the door. They didn’t pause at the shopping carts but just went in. The gang guy watched them with a hard look.

  “Let’s hope that there is not a robbery in progress,” Charles remarked sotto voce to Bri. “Instead of buying meat, we will become meat.”

  Britta slapped her brother’s head from behind. “Yes, genius! Bring additional tension to a dodgy situation.”

  “Just saying!”

  Louise approached the single open checkout line, where the clerk was busy with a customer. Various other shoppers were roaming the aisles. “Excuse me, miss, do you have security on the premises? There are some strange guys out front.”

  The clerk, a round lady around fifty in a white-and-red store shirt, looked tiredly at Louise. “We’ve been trying to get a second security guard, but our permanent one is out sick for a week. I can call a clerk to take you to your car after you’re checked out.” She looked at the gang of kids behind Louise as if to disapprove. Welcome to Oxnard!

  “You are a dear, thank you,” Louise said. She looked at Agnes. “Where’s the meat?”

  “Uh, I guess that way.” The gang followed her pointed finger, noticing the second and third looks the clerk gave Louise.

  Commercial America didn’t make it easy for a single mom with four kids in tow, and after about fifteen minutes they had not only the ground meat but also various sweets and snack, a Rolling Stone magazine for Agnes, some Goth-fashion magazines for Bri, and a dinosaur coloring book for Dana. Charles was happy with a Hundred-Year War Special from the History Channel Journal.

  There must have been some sort of rumor line working behind their backs. Word that Louise Waters was in the store spread from the cashier to the people in the line, some of whom returned to the aisles to catch a glimpse of her with four children in tow. Everyone knew the story, of course, but to see her in real life was the next level. The clerk behind the meat counter told his coworker and the people in line, and they also went for a look-see.

  The first approach came on the way to the checkout. A Hispanic family of six had the courage to ask for an autograph. They had no paper, so Louise signed a milk carton after they requested a pen from one of the stock boys, who in turn asked for an autograph himself on his shirt. Louise complied without fussing, keeping an eye on the kids who were starting to disperse with youthful entropy. As they approached the checkout line, the dam broke.

  Charles saw it first. This is like in a zombie apocalypse movie. First all empty, then suddenly from all sides.

  Ten turned into twenty turned into fifty who saw their chance of a tête-à-tête with Louise Waters. Lazy strolls turned into rushes as everyone suddenly felt the danger of being left out and needing to get to her first!

  Dana felt the trampling herd before looking up; shopping carts and many more people than she knew how to count came up to them like a wall. She gave a high-danger shriek, and the rest of the gang finally noticed, too. Louise did the motherly instinct thing and shouted, “Come close, guys, come here!” to protect them, although a scramble would have been more adequate to get them out of harm’s way. Agnes grabbed Charles, and Britta pulled Dana toward Louise, and they ran toward the last aisle crossing before the checkout. The checkout line turned toward them and like a herd of stirred buffaloes started moving, too. Trapped, no way out. The supermarket mob reached them and engulfed them.

  Britta got knocked on the head by a smartphone camera pushed toward Louise; Charles’s glasses fell to the ground and got stepped on immediately. He dived after them, a bad move, as the fat lady in front of Louise stumbled and lost her balance completely. Like a domino, she started dropping the people beside her; Charles was pinned under the lady’s legs and also now screaming like Dana. At least he had retrieved his glasses.

  Louise was in a panic. She pushed and shouted for people to stop and to help them, but the cluster of human bodies continued to press.

  “Help, help, help us! Agnes, where is Charles?” More cameras were pushed into their faces. Agnes kneeling down with the help of Bri, fishing for Charles’ arm, was shoved from behind several times. Louise and Britta sheltered Dana as well as they could in the chaos. Random strangers were pushing one another to wrestle into position for a word or a selfie or a photo.

  “To the car!” Louise shouted, but it was a useless command, as they had no control over the direction whatsoever. The supermarket manager called 911 from his office, but had no idea what was going on: maybe a mass fight over coupons or the last peanut butter? The responder promised three minutes.

  Louise cried, tears running down her face; she had never been so scared in her life. She had thought that the public would forge
t her quickly and that her wig and scarf days were over. Now she had endangered the kids of the man she loved and had no way out! Seeing a small opening in the mass, Louise pushed into it, linking her arms under the elbows of Britta and Agnes, Charles back on his feet and Dana again on Britta’s arm. But the mob was relentless and shoved around her, even becoming bigger as new shoppers arrived. Louise managed to steer her flock in the chaos toward the checkout, closer and closer to the door. But the checkout lane was too narrow! And totally clogged.

  Suddenly the sea of furious faces parted. The gangbanger who had looked so menacing outside had used his fierce appearance and demeanor to drill a path through the crowd. “D’ya need help, ma’am?” he asked, pushing away another hysterical lady with a smartphone and a carton of milk, who immediately turned her scorn on the man, hitting him with a shopping bag.

  “Out, out, out,” was all that Louise could say. The guy pushed once more, and Louise pulled her group through the opening. The narrow checkout lane now was blocking the mob from following, and the man skillfully prevented people from running after Louise and the kids. He then held the doors, arms stretched out, preventing the sliding doors from opening. But he was pushed heavily from behind, the security mechanism took over, and the sliding doors swung open to the outside.

  Louise and the kids were almost at the car. “Agnes, open the door!” Louise screamed. Agnes fumbled through her tight jeans pocket to retrieve the key but her hands were shaking so much that she couldn’t get a hold. “Go, ladies, go,” the man shouted, pushing people left and right. Then the police arrived, and everything went completely to hell.