Slightly Off Balance

by Kaylie Hunter

  By 5:00 the last catering order was picked up, and I hung up my apron. Exhausted and in a poor mood, I grabbed my purse from the office and stepped out of the bakery and into the alley. I was disappointed when I saw the food I had set out was still in the grocery bag. I decided to leave it in case the mysterious teenager showed up later.

  Walking out of the alley, I spotted Reel leaning against the door of my car.

  “I can’t believe you worked a twelve-hour shift with a hangover,” he said. “You must be beat.”

  “I feel like folding into a puddle, but my day isn’t over yet,” I sighed. “Do you have the keys?”

  “Where to?” Reel asked, walking over to open the passenger door.

  “The church. It’s the third Saturday of the month. I work the monthly sleepover party for the kids.”

  I slid into the passenger seat, not bothering to argue with Reel that I could drive myself three blocks to the church. I was bone tired.

  “You just put in a twelve-hour shift, and now you’re going to babysit a bunch of bratty kids while their parents go get drunk?”

  I nodded, my eyes closed, and leaned back in the seat.

  “Why?”

  “Money. It’s all part of the Master Plan.”

  “How much do you make?”

  “Usually around three hundred,” I shrugged. “Sometimes it’s less; sometimes it’s more. It depends on how many kids are dropped off. Usually it’s around thirty.”

  “Thirty kids? Are you insane?”

  “Probably.”

  “What if I just pay you to go home and sleep?”

  “Then the parents don’t have a sitter and Tansey loses out on the extra tip money. She makes double what I make on the third Saturday of the month.”

  Reel chuckled. “You started the church-sleepover program, didn’t you?”

  I grinned, looking over at him. “It originally started in my living room, but when it got too big, we moved to the church. I have a couple of seniors who hang out and play cards so I can meet the adult-to-kid ratio.”

  “Sneaky. So how do you keep thirty kids in line?”

  I didn’t have time to answer as we had pulled into the church lot. Amy Story was standing distraught in the parking lot, wringing her hands as her three-year-old twin girls screamed their heads off in the backseat of her old Volvo. I pulled the first girl out of the car and passed her to a surprised Reel. The child wailed even louder. I grabbed the second girl and the diaper bag and closed the car door.

  “Run!” I said to Amy as I shuffled with her screaming child through the side entrance of the church. I could hear the car’s tires peeling out of the parking lot as Reel closed the door behind us.

  “Good evening, Reverend!” I yelled over the screaming toddlers.

  “Evening, Tweedle!” the reverend yelled back, grinning as he laid some mats on the floor.

  I set the girl I was carrying on one of the mats and took the other screaming child from Reel and set her beside her sister. Both girls continued to scream.

  “Enough!” I yelled down at them.

  Both girls froze midwail and looked up at me with huge eyes.

  “Aunty Tweedle has had a bad, bad day so you two will be good or it’s bedtime.” I pulled a sandwich bag out of my purse and handed it to Reel. “Give them each a half-slice of banana bread.”

  Walking over to the far wall, I kept an eye on the twins and watched Reel carefully sit on the floor beside them and hand the girls the bread. They smashed their half-slices in their faces and between their fingers as Reel leaned back, looking repulsed. I laughed and went to sign in the other kids who were rapidly being deserted by stressed-out parents. A few of them I suspected had already started drinking. You could see the desperation in their eyes, just before they fled for freedom.

  I had been asked several times to change the program to twice a month but had refused. Master Plan or not, it wasn’t worth the money to go through this twice a month.

  “Figured you could use an extra set of hands tonight,” Aunt Carol said, walking in with two more toddlers in tow.

  “I’ll happily split the profits with you,” I grinned, leaning in to kiss her cheek before she turned away to corral the toddlers onto their designated mat.

  “I’m bored,” one of the regular preteens, Ariel, complained.

  “You just got here,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Besides, Mrs. Z said that Tommy was coming tonight.”

  “Really?” the girl squealed, her eyes lighting up. “I better check my makeup.” She ran off toward the bathrooms as the door opened again and Tommy strutted through.

  “I’m bored,” he grumbled.

  “Ariel’s here.”

  Tommy’s eyes lit up as he casually glanced around the room.

  “She’s in the restroom. Make yourself useful and start setting up the sandwich table.”

  He grinned, making his way over to the table to start pulling the breads out of the bag. I knew when Ariel came back, she’d get the meat and cheese trays out and start helping the elementary school kids make their sandwiches.

  “Free labor?” Reel said, draping an arm over my shoulder.

  “Young love,” I laughed, watching Ariel run over to help Tommy. “Are you staying or going?”

  “Staying, unfortunately,” Reel said. “I thought your uncle gave in a little too easily when I told him I’d watch you tonight. Now I know why.”

  Uncle Mike had volunteered to help me once, and only once. I was sure he was kicked back in his recliner, having a good laugh at Reel’s expense. “Make yourself useful then. Get plates of food for the toddlers. Ariel can tell you what you need. I have to get the tables and high chairs set up.”

  “You’re going to give those twin girls more food? They mashed the bread I gave them everywhere. It’s even up their noses.”

  “They’ll eat it eventually,” I shrugged. “They usually pick it off each other.”

  “Gross.”

  I laughed and pushed him toward the food table.

  By midnight, I had settled baby Aaron back to sleep for the third time, and looked around the room. Reel was sitting on the floor, leaned against a wall, sleeping. Aunt Carol had made a bed between Tommy and Ariel and was sleeping as they whispered to each other over her. The rest of the kids were lights out. Some of the toddlers were sleeping on top of each other, and I pulled them off, lining them up. They had food stuck all over them, but I learned a long time ago it was a waste of time to clean them until just before their parents picked them up. Most of the kids were shuffled from the rec room into Sunday service here in the same church, so after we cleaned them, they changed into their Sunday clothes.

  “You need to sleep,” Reel whispered from his place, leaned up against the wall on the far side of the room.

  I walked over and sat down beside him. “Baby Aaron doesn’t sleep for more than an hour or two at a time,” I sighed. “He’s teething.”

  “I’ll get up when he wakes. Go ahead and sleep for a while.”

  Reel wrapped an arm around me and pulled me into his shoulder. For such a firm body, he was comfortable to lean into. My eyelids dropped, no longer able to stay open.

  I woke, lying on one of the floor mats, wrapped in a blanket. The sound of kids laughing and playing nearby caused me to sit up abruptly, afraid of what I would find.

  Reel was sitting cross-legged on the mat in the center of the room with baby Aaron nestled in a makeshift bed on his lap. He was rinsing a rag out of a big bucket of water before using it to mop down the next toddler in line. Water ran in several directions, soaking the rubber mat and the kid’s clothes.

  “This isn’t how Aunt Tweedle does it,” Ariel complained, as she dried off one of the drenched toddlers.

  “But it’s fun to watch,” Tommy laughed, keeping the toddlers in line to wait their turn and not run off.

  Aunt Carol snorted as she re-dressed one of the toddlers in clean clothes.

  I looked over and saw that the elementary kid
s were lined up with their duffle bags, waiting for their turn in the bathroom to change into their Sunday clothes. I looked up at the clock. Sunday school would start in half an hour, and the rest of the kids would be picked up around the same time. I went back to sleep.

  Chapter Nine

  After dropping Reel off at his truck, I drove first to the bakery. I was glad to see that the grocery bag I had set out yesterday was gone. I set the bag of leftovers from the church in the same spot before driving home.

  I opened the back door but stopped, stepping back immediately. One smell a baker knew to always be aware of was the smell of gas.

  I dropped my oversized purse in front of the door to prop it open and walked around the side of the house to the propane tank. Turning the dial, I closed the valve on the tank and stood trying to decide what to do next.

  The smart thing to do would be to call the fire department. But then Rod would call Uncle Mike and Reel. And then I’d have babysitters again, after spending the past twenty minutes arguing with Reel that I didn’t need a babysitter.

  Decision made, I returned to the backdoor, dropping my phone on top of my purse, and carefully walked into the house. The smell of gas was intense in the kitchen, and I held my breath as I opened the kitchen windows. I moved into the living room, then throughout the rest of the house and opened the rest of the windows as I went. Walking over to the thermostat, I turned the air conditioner off.

  Needing to breathe, I hurried out the back door, grabbing my phone on the way. Pulling a lawn chair out of the garage, I settled into it before I called Skip, the local handyman.

  “Good morning, Miss Tweedle,” Skip answered.

  “Morning, Skip. Can you spare some time to swing by today?”

  “Sure. But Sundays are overtime rates. Do you want me to put you on the schedule for tomorrow instead?”

  “No, it can’t wait. I have a gas leak. I turned the propane off and have the house airing out, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

  “I’ll be there in five minutes. You’re not in the house, are you?”

  “No. I’ll wait outside.”

  Even the best planning can lead to unwanted results in a small town where everyone knows everyone. I had barely hung up before I heard the firetruck’s siren blaring from two blocks away, heading my way. Uncle Mike’s patrol car beat them to the house, lights flashing and skidding to a stop. Reel’s pickup screeched to a stop right behind the firetruck as everyone raced to get to the scene. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.

  I ignored the chaos and focused on the warm morning sun as I stayed stretched out in my lawn chair. It wasn’t until a shadow blocked the light that I finally opened my eyes.

  Tansey stood grinning down at me. “I hear Tucker’s strawberry patch is growing like mad and ripe for the first picking.”

  “Did you park far enough away that we can sneak off?”

  “Sure did.”

  I climbed out of my chair and grabbed my purse. The men were too busy arguing about some connector on my oven to even notice Tansey and me slipping around the corner of the house and climbing into her Subaru. As Tansey drove us away from the scene, I found some country-rock music and turned the dial up.

  Off-pitch, we belted out the familiar song as we turned down Ole Hickory Lane. Just as Tansey finished the turn, I caught a glimpse of a vehicle in the side mirror. Expecting to see Reel or Uncle Mike following us, I looked out the back window and froze. A black SUV with tinted windows was barreling toward us.

  “Shit!” I yelled, a second before the monster of a vehicle slammed into us.

  “Holy mother!” Tansey yelled as she tried to control the Subaru.

  “Gun it! He’s coming again!”

  Tansey floored the old Subaru, but there was nowhere to turn. Cornfields stretched to the edge of the road on both sides of us for at least a mile. I dug in my purse, pulling my phone out. I nearly dropped it as the SUV rammed us again.

  Phone on speaker, we were still screaming when Tucker answered.

  “Tweedle?!!” Tucker yelled.

  “Tucker!! Tansey and I are on our way to your house, and some maniac is trying to make us crash!”

  “You on Hickory?”

  “Yeah—in the straightaway.”

  “Have you passed the big maple tree?”

  “No.”

  “Get to the maple and make a sharp right. Follow the two-track to the house. I’m on my way. Whatever happens, just keep driving!”

  “That track is barely wide enough for a four-wheeler!” Tansey yelled.

  “Unless you want to be roadkill, take the damn turn!” I yelled as we approached the maple and the SUV behind us slammed into us for the third time.

  We started skidding on an angle into the center of the road, turning sideways. Tansey took her foot off the gas as we slid past the maple. Just past the tree, she practically stood on the accelerator with both feet as the tires gripped the road and launched us into the cornfield and onto the two-track. We were half on, half off the two-track lane.

  I looked out the back window and watched the SUV slam on its brakes, sliding past the maple down the road.

  “Go! Go! Go!” I yelled, watching the other driver reverse and then turn on the two-track.

  “Fuck it,” Tansey yelled, not bothering to try to stay on the trail, but driving wherever the Subaru bounced into the five-foot stalks.

  The green stalks slapped at us through the windows. The Subaru had old crank-style windows, and I rolled mine first, before leaning over Tansey’s lap and rolling hers up as far as I could manage it. The Subaru bounced up and down like it was driving over a never-ending set of railroad tracks as we crossed the field diagonally.

  “Is that the house up ahead?” Tansey yelled.

  I leaned forward in my seat for a better look, seconds before the corn parted. In front of us, directly in our path, was Tucker on his tractor. Tucker swerved, but the tractor was moving slower than we were. Tansey leaned toward me, using her weight to pull the steering wheel with her. I screamed as we breezed past Tucker with inches to spare.

  I was still screaming when the Subaru launched out of the cornfield and into Tucker’s backyard. Tansey slammed on the brakes, but we were moving too fast. Knowing we didn’t have time to stop before crashing into the house, I reached over to drag the steering wheel the rest of the way in my direction, aiming us at the shed instead.

  Slamming into the shed, the Subaru turned the old wooden structure into kindling around us. Debris crashed through the windshield as Tansey and I both leaned over in the seat gripping each other for dear life and screaming into each other’s ears.

  Barreling out the other side, the Subaru bounced off an old oak tree, and the inside of the vehicle seemed to recoil as the airbags slammed into us with enough force to ricochet us into our seats.

  Neither of us spoke as we knocked the airbags away. The radiator hissed. The radio continued to blare Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll.

  Tansey reached a shaky hand out and shut the radio off.

  I looked up at her and laughed. “I hope you have insurance on this thing.”

  “Don’t laugh. You’re going to need to carpool with me for a while.”

  I laughed anyway as I shook glass off my arms and legs.

  “How am I going to get my fat ass out of here, anyway?”

  We both tried our doors, but they were a crumpled mess. Tansey slid over the seat into the back before turning to pull my arms and help drag me over too. It was a narrow fit with the damaged roof, and when I finally slid through, I ended up wedged between the front seat and the back seat with Tansey flattened beneath me.

  “Can’t… breathe… ,” Tansey muttered from under me.

  I rolled enough to the side to get a foot under me and pushed off to force myself over the backseat and into the cargo area. I heard Tansey grunt as I flipped over and rolled. Someone opened the back tailgate, and I rolled right out of the Subaru and onto the dry prickly grass with a loud th
ump and whoosh, as the air was knocked out of me.

  “Praise Jesus,” Loretta said, standing above me and looking down. “Thought for sure you girls had met your maker when I saw you crash.”

  I watched her lean over me and help Tansey roll out. She dropped to the grass beside me.

  I looked at her, and she looked at me.

  “Nice driving,” I grinned.

  “Did we really just live through that?”

  “If nothing major’s broken, I suggest you girls get your asses up and into the house,” Loretta ordered, pulling us each up by an arm.

  The sound of a shotgun coming from the cornfield registered in my head, and I jumped up, dragging Loretta and Tansey with me as we limped in a jog across the yard, up the back porch, and into the house. I locked the door behind us.

  “You girls find a safe spot. I’ve got an itch to put some lead in someone’s ass,” Loretta said as she removed a rifle from the rack beside the door.

  Tansey and I followed her up the narrow steps to the second-floor bedroom. I stepped over Tucker’s undershorts and peeked out the window as Loretta kneeled in front of it, aiming the rifle. I was standing too close, and when Loretta fired, her shoulder knocked into my thigh, knocking me back on the bed.

  “Dumbass,” Tansey laughed, standing in front of the other window.

  “Did you get him?” I asked Loretta.

  “Got the passenger side window. He’s turning off, heading away. Who the hell is it? I don’t recognize the SUV.”

  “We didn’t stop for introductions,” I shrugged, before trotting back downstairs.

  “Someone’s trying to kill Tweedle,” Tansey explained, as they followed me.

  “Why? You burn someone’s favorite cookies? Steal the blue ribbon in a baking contest?”

  “Ever since Myrtle Brighton threatened to set her hair on fire, Tweedle won’t compete in baking contests anymore,” Tansey said as she pulled glasses out of the cupboard.

  “Probably smart,” Loretta nodded, getting lemonade out of the refrigerator. “Heard Reel’s back in town, but I haven’t seen him yet. You been keeping him busy, Tweedle?”