Griselda Takes Flight

by Joyce Magnin

  "Bye Gilda," said Zeb and Stu together.

  The second she disappeared out the door the discussion continued about buried treasure. Studebaker thought he had it figured out. "I'm thinking it's got to be in one of the mine shafts," he said.

  "Well nobody is stupid enough to go looking inside an abandoned mine," said Boris, who had been sitting quietly at the booth with Ruth.

  "But I used to be a miner," Stu said. "Remember, I know those shafts. I can do it."

  Ruth shook her head. "Oh Studebaker. Don't do it. They're dangerous places. That's why they shut them down. Cave-ins and all."

  "Nah," Zeb said. "It's not inside the mine. If it exists at all it has to be buried somewhere. That's the story. The thief buried it between the high road and the low road. Probably too chicken to go into the mine, besides it was operational back then. He couldn't have gone inside."

  I finished my toast and coffee while the wannabe millionaires continued to surmise and speculate.

  "I think I'll go check on Stella," I said. "She'll probably want to go see Walter."

  "Oh boy," Dot said. "Stella and Gilda in the same room. That's gonna be something. I mean I don't care how much that woman sniffles and cries over her dear sweet Wally. She is no good."

  30

  Deciding that I should probably check on Ivy on my way to Stella's I drove down Filbert Street and saw her out walking Mickey Mantle. This, I will admit was quite a sight. He kind of walk-hopped if you can imagine that. But he looked happy enough. I think the leash bothered him more than the missing leg, which by the way was still bandaged. I pulled Bessie a little ahead of them and parked against the curb in front of Vidalia Whitaker's still empty house. It had been for sale for several months and I often wished her daughter would buy it and move back to town.

  The thing about Victorian houses is that when they stand empty for a long time they start to look sad. And Vidalia's was no exception with its long, winding porch that in better days seemed to smile but now seemed to frown. Studebaker did a good job of keeping the lawn trimmed, but the house desperately needed a family.

  I waited until Ivy caught up with me and then scooted to the passenger's side of the cab and rolled down the window. "You ever gonna take the gauze and tape off of him?"

  "When I'm ready. When he's ready. I think it will be a shock to his system to see his leg like that."

  "Maybe we can do it together later."

  Ivy smiled and thought a moment. "It might be easier with two of us there. Can you come by around supper time?"

  "I think I can. It might depend though. I'm on my way to get Stella and then we're heading over to Greenbrier. Did you hear about Walter?"

  She tugged Mickey Mantle's leash. "No. Is he all right? He didn't die did he?"

  "No, the news is good. He's waking up."

  "The dickens you say, Griselda! You for real? That man is actually coming out of his coma. I didn't want to come right out and say it but I figured him a goner."

  Mickey Mantle barked twice.

  "Lookie there," Ivy said. "Even Mickey Mantle is happy."

  "He woke up yesterday for a time. The doctor had to put him back to sleep until they can assess him. But yes, he's breathing and moving. Stella is pretty happy about it."

  "Stella? I thought she hated his guts."

  "Seems she's had a change of heart." I had been leaning out the passenger window to speak with Ivy. So I repositioned myself for more comfort. "She's definitely taking the high road on this one. Who knows what will happen when he's recovered more though."

  "Well that's just amazing. I'm a little bit proud of Stella. She always seemed to have a troubled heart, you know, and maybe this whole Walter thing, I mean the stuff in the past of course, is what troubled it."

  "You might be right. But she does seem to have made her peace with it now."

  "That's good. I'm glad ta hear of it. So you say you're heading over there right now?"

  "Yes. Want to come?"

  "Nah, but say, you don't know if any of the guys are heading back to the Sakolas Quarry today—"

  I clicked my tongue. "Not you too, Ivy."

  She looked down, apparently ashamed, and kicked a small pebble into the street. "I wasn't going to go but then, when I heard no one found it yet, I got to thinking that it might be sort of fun to go hunting."

  "I guess I'm the only doubting Thomas in town," I said. "I just don't think there is any treasure. Someone would have found it yesterday what with all those holes they dug. The place looked like Swiss cheese."

  She shrugged. "I don't know. They didn't have much to go on. Just that one clue about the high road and the low road. Maybe today's my lucky day."

  "You should probably take Mickey Mantle home and get down to the café if you want to get in on today's expedition then, because Zeb and Stu and Boris are down there getting ready."

  "Oh, gee, thanks a lot," She yanked on the dog's leash. "Come on, boy. We got to get home."

  There was no need to knock on her door or beep my horn, Stella was already standing on the porch in her orange coat and a knit hat pulled down over her ears. I could see tufts of brown hair sticking out. She looked a little ragged from where I was, like she hadn't slept all night.

  "She hurried to the truck and climbed in."

  "Where were you?" she said. "It is cold this morning. Don't you have any heat in this thing?"

  I cranked up the thermostat as much as it would go in my old Ford, which was not very high. "You OK?"

  "Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. I've just been standing out there for a while."

  "I'm sorry I made you wait. I ran into Ivy and we got to talking."

  She took a breath. "I'm the one who needs to be sorry. I didn't mean to snap your head off like that. I'm a little bit of a snit pixie this morning. I had a hard time sleeping last night. I think I'm a little scared about what might happen today if they take that tube out of Walter and he starts talking. What if he hates me? What if he doesn't remember me? I don't know which would be worse."

  "No chance. I saw him look at you yesterday, you know, when he blinked. They weren't angry eyes."

  "He could have thought he was looking at someone else. He might not even know me."

  "Let's not worry about that until it comes true. If it comes true."

  I pulled away from the curb. "Besides, I have a feeling it's going to be OK."

  Stella squirmed. "Oh gee, Griselda, maybe I shouldn't go. What if he gets upset? What if the shock of seeing me after all these years sends him back into his coma?"

  "Stop asking impossible questions. All I know for sure is you can't stay away from him. He needs you."

  "Me? Why? No one ever really needed me. Not like you, Griselda. Agnes really needed you. People in town need you. I'm just along for the ride. Nate doesn't even really need me except to weed the pumpkin patch and cook him meals."

  "Now look, Nate needs you for a whole lot more than for chores around the house. You two are going through a rough patch. But it'll get better. You'll see."

  "I hope you're right. He has relaxed some since the weigh-off and I think Cliff has been good for him. They're like friends now."

  "That's good, Stella. I think men need friends just like women sometimes."

  "You're probably right. You're always right."

  "Not always. I don't think I was right about Agnes."

  "What do you mean?"

  I turned onto the main road. "Agnes needed me in a way that wasn't very good. And I've been thinking lately, especially when I'm up in the sky with Cliff, that maybe I needed her also, in a way that wasn't very good. Maybe what we had wasn't that healthy; that's what one of those radio psychologists would say. Our relationship was not healthy."

  "What? You're as healthy as they come."

  "Not in that way. Maybe I was afraid to be myself. Ever since our parents died—you know I was only a teenager—I kind of shrank away. Inside books. Like Emily Dickinson said, 'my wars are laid away in books.' "

  "
Ah, now you're talking like an English professor again."

  I swallowed my thoughts and changed the subject.

  "I wonder when he'll eat real food," I said. "I wonder what it will be like to eat regular food after five weeks."

  "Yeah, maybe we should have brought a pizza. Walter loves pizza. At least he used too."

  "I doubt they'll let him eat that right away. You know hospitals, they always make you eat JELL-O first and soft stuff." I laughed. "Probably should have brought him Darcy Speedwell's cottage cheese–lime JELL-O delight from the dance. It wasn't touched."

  It was good to hear Stella laugh.

  We drove a couple of more miles keeping ourselves entertained with pleasant conversation until I got to thinking about Cliff and wondering where he had gotten off to. It occurred to me that I hadn't seen him since the dance.

  "Where's Cliff this morning?" I asked.

  "I don't know," Stella said. "He left early again, two days in a row." Said he had business in Shoops."

  "Maybe he's arranging a delivery to make with his airplane. He told me he needed to get back to work."

  Stella didn't seem to hear me. She looked out the window, probably I thought, at something far, far away.

  The sky had turned cloudy again and I pretty much expected more rain, except in the mountains you could never be certain. It could cloud over and then a strong mountain wind could come by and whisk the clouds away like a frustrated mother snatching a child from danger. I said a silent prayer for a large gust of wind to sweep down from the mountains.

  We stopped in on Agnes before going to Walter's room. As usual lately, Agnes was sitting in her oversize wheelchair looking out the window. This time she had a magazine on her lap—Good Housekeeping. But she wasn't looking at it.

  "Morning, Agnes," I said.

  She paddled the wheelchair with her left foot and turned to face us.

  "I'm glad you're here," she said. "My spies tell me that Gilda arrived a little while ago. They said she was all excited and talking about getting married. Imagine that, yakking about wedding plans to the nurses even before her fiancé is fully conscious."

  "She does seem anxious to make it official," I said. "That's what she said when she left the Full Moon this morning. She said she had a wedding to plan."

  "What's she in such a rush about?" Agnes asked. "That man needs time to recover from his accident."

  "Well they can't get married in a nursing home," Stella said. "Can they?"

  "Sure they can," Agnes said. "A judge will come here and do the deed. All he has to do is sign the license and pronounce them man and wife. Just like that. Only take a minute."

  "Do they have a license?" Stella asked.

  I nodded. "Yes. Gilda said she had it yesterday."

  "My goodness," Agnes said. "She's probably been carrying it around with her all these weeks just waiting until she could get him to say I do."

  "I wonder if it's still valid," I said as I adjusted the shades on Agnes's windows.

  "Sure it is," Agnes said, "if she's running around trying to plan the ceremony. I'm sure she's checked. Don't you think?"

  "Maybe that's the hurry," Stella said. "Maybe it's about to expire and she wants to get it settled before it does."

  Stella and I looked at each other and hightailed it out of Agnes's room.

  Sure enough, Gilda was in there next to Walter's side. "And so you see," we heard her say. "We only got a couple of days before it expires so we got to get married right away otherwise we have to get a whole new license, and I don't know if we can get one in this county with us not being residents and all and we still don't know if you can even sign your name."

  I couldn't tell if Walter was awake from where I stood. I gave Stella a slight nudge into the room.

  "Morning," Stella said.

  Gilda turned with a start. "Oh, you're here."

  Stella and I moved closer to her brother. The tube was gone from his throat although the machine was still in the room. His neck was bandaged and he seemed to be breathing OK, but he was sound asleep.

  "Has he been awake at all?" I asked.

  "He comes and goes," Stella said. "The doctor said it could take some time before he says anything. He might even have some amnesia, that means he can't—"

  "I know what amnesia is," Gilda said.

  Stella brushed Walter's hair back. "Hi Walt," she said. "It's me, Stella, your kid sister." She squeezed his hand.

  Walter's eyes opened but this time they looked startled, frightened.

  "It's OK, it's OK," Stella said. "You're in the hospital, well the nursing home, remember."

  Gilda pretty much pushed Stella out of her way. "Wally, Sweetie. I want you to know that I am going to arrange for a justice of the peace to come by today. He can marry us on the spot. Stella here can be the witness, my matron of honor. That's what you want, isn't it dear." Then she gazed into his once again closed eyes. "I love ya so much, Wally."

  Stella took me aside. "Do you think she really loves him?"

  "She might," I said. "But even so, there are a lot of things that just don't add up." I looked into Stella's eyes. I saw worry and concern for her brother. "You know what. I'm gonna try and get to the bottom of all this." I turned back to Gilda, who was still pouring it on pretty thick.

  "What's your rush to get married, Gilda?" I asked. "The man can't even say 'I do' yet."

  "Doesn't need too. I checked. He only has to blink his eyes in accordance with what the judge says. It's all legal, and besides we just can't wait."

  "Now why in the world would you go and check on something like that?" Stella asked. "I mean in accordance with you being so grief-stricken over Walter."

  "I . . . I am heartbroken," Gilda said. "Heartbroken that you would even say such a thing or take such an attitude. But the truth of the matter is I'm gonna be Mrs. Walter Hughes by sundown. And you, Sweetie, will be my sister-in-law. Now doesn't that just ring your bell?"

  "But . . . but—" Stella looked at me as though I could pull the right words out of her mouth. "But you need a wedding. A real wedding with a cake and a pretty dress. You don't want to get married in that simple little skirt now do you?"

  She looked at her clothes. "What's wrong with this skirt? And Wally's in the gown. HA!" Then she smirked in a way that made me terribly uneasy.

  Gilda went back to Walter's side. She kissed him. "I'll be back with that judge in two shakes of a lamb's tail."

  "I got to speak with the nurse or the doctor," I said after she left. "It's like she's railroading him."

  "But why?" Stella asked. "He isn't Nelson Rockefeller. The treasure has not been found and it might not even exist. What's she got up her sleeve?"

  "That's what we have to find out before she makes this happen."

  31

  I took Stella's hand. "Come on. Let's go find that nurse. What's her name?"

  "Sally."

  "Yeah. Let's find her and see what we can do."

  Stella and I marched through the halls and saw no sign of Sally until we got all the way to the solarium clear on the other side of the building. She was sitting at a card table with four other residents. They were having what looked like an important discussion. One of the residents held a clipboard.

  "We are sick of them lousy fish sticks," the man said. "We want something different like spaghetti and meatballs."

  "That's right," said another resident. "I can't remember the last time I had spaghetti and meatballs."

  "They're having a meeting," I said. "We can't just go barging in on it."

  Sally looked over at us. She put up her index finger. "Just a minute," she said to the residents. "I'll be right back."

  "Are you looking for me?" she asked us.

  "We were," I said. "We didn't mean to interrupt your meeting."

  "Oh, that's OK. These floor meetings can go on for hours sometimes. Is there a problem?"

  "It's Walter and that woman," Stella said. "She's fixing to marry him today. She can't do that can s
he? With Walter in his present condition?"

  "I don't know," Sally said. "I don't see how a person can marry another person without the other person being there—completely. We're not even sure who he knows and doesn't know. Although I'm pretty certain he said Gilda's name this morning when I was tending to him."

  "But what if she wrangles some loophole and gets a judge in there?" I said.

  "Just see that she doesn't. I'll do what I can, but for now I suggest you two hole up in there and keep an eye out for Gilda and a justice of the peace. And try not let Walter see you worry."

  We went back to the room. To our surprise Walter was up and sitting on the edge of the bed with his feet on the floor. He was such a tall man—I hadn't noticed that when he was lying down. Doctor Silver was with him.

  "You want us to come back?" I asked. But Stella couldn't contain herself and went dashing over to Walter, who looked at her like she had just that second sprouted broccoli from the top of her head.

  "Walter, it's me, Stella."

  Walter tried to speak but nothing came out except a couple of gurgles and a raspy sound.

  "What's wrong with him, Doc?" Stella asked.

  "He's got the worse case of laryngitis imaginable," Doctor Silver said. "It's kind of like his vocal cords have been sandpapered. His voice will come back."

  Walter continued to stare at Stella. His mouth opened two or three times and all I could make out was one word, "Who?" His lips were dry and wrinkled. And he was having trouble swallowing his own saliva.

  "I don't think he remembers you," I said. "Or maybe he just doesn't recognize you—it's been a long time since he saw you."

  "It's Stella, your sister." She spoke directly into his face hoping to make some kind of contact.

  Walter moved back on the bed. He shook his head.

  "He'll need some time," Doctor Silver said. "Just stick with him. I think his memories will come back. I already told him all I know of the accident. He doesn't remember that at all but that's completely normal. He might never remember getting hit on the head. But memories of the important people in his life will come back most likely."