Beowulf for Cretins

by Ann McMan

  “Do you have any green tea?” Lorrie hauled Grace across the kitchen to commence scavenging inside her cupboards. “It keeps me right as rain.”

  I just bet it does. Along with all the other diuretics you ingest.

  “I don’t need any tea, Lorrie, honest.” Grace finally wrested her hand free. “I just need to . . . rest.” There was no way Grace was saying the word bed again.

  “Well then, let me come with you and get you safely tucked in.”

  “I think that’s a good idea.” The icy voice came from the doorway behind them. “You do seem a bit under the weather.”

  Lorrie started and whirled toward the stairs. “My god.” She backed into Grace. Her expression exuded shock and confusion. “I didn’t realize you had company, Grace.”

  “Oh, I was just leaving,” Abbie explained. “I only stopped by to drop off Dr. Warner’s invitation to dinner on Thursday night. Lucretia told me that some of them had managed to go awry.” She smiled thinly at Lorrie. “You’re Laurel Weisz, aren’t you? I look forward to seeing you there, too.” She extended her hand to Lorrie.

  Lorrie shook Abbie’s hand. “Oh, believe me—the pleasure is all mine.” She looked Abbie up and down. “Since we’re all here together, why don’t we share the food I brought?” She gave Abbie a brittle smile. “It’ll give us a chance to get better acquainted.”

  Grace ran a hand over her face before stealing a glance at Abbie, who stood there like a somber hunk of stone. She cleared her throat.

  “I’m sure Dr. Williams has other things to do this evening, Lorrie.”

  “That is true,” Abbie agreed. “Thank you for the kind invitation, Laurel, but I just drove in from North Carolina, and I’m very tired.”

  “Odd then, that you chose this evening to make your hand deliveries,” Lorrie observed in her singsong voice. She beamed at Abbie. “What dedication. And please, call me Lorrie. All of my intimate friends do.”

  Grace rolled her eyes. “Let me walk you to the door, Dr. Williams.”

  Abbie held up a hand. “That won’t be necessary. I’ve navigated my way out of bigger mazes than this one.” She shook hands with Lorrie again. “Good night, Laurel. I hope to see you again, soon.”

  Abbie turned on her heel and left the kitchen. Grace’s heart sank when she heard the back door open and close.

  “Well that was certainly a surprise.” Lorrie regarded Grace with narrowed eyes. “She’s really much more striking up close, isn’t she?”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Really?” Lorrie resumed unpacking her bag of food. “You may need to have your eyes checked.”

  Grace crossed the room and dropped onto a chair. “My eyesight is fine.”

  It’s my head that needs to be examined.

  # # #

  After Lorrie left—which wasn’t until ten—Grace called Abbie . . . six times. Each time, her calls rolled immediately to voice mail, meaning Abbie was either on the phone with someone else, which Grace doubted, or she’d turned the damn thing off.

  Grace was furious with Lorrie for just showing up unannounced and posturing that they were—anything other than what they were. There was no way Abbie could believe she had any interest in Lorrie—or that she’d had a prior commitment with her that night.

  Was there?

  The whole thing was ridiculous—and surreal. What were the fucking odds?

  And she knew better than to underestimate all that lurked behind Lorrie’s Little Miss Sunshine routine. The woman’s motivations were about as benign as a good dose of mustard gas.

  How did I get into this mess? It’s like being caught inside a snowball, rolling ass-over-teakettle down a double black diamond run at Stowe.

  Grace quit pacing and grabbed the phone again.

  “Come on, Abbie. Pick up.”

  No dice. Her voicemail message began. Even in her distress, Grace stood there like a heartsick schoolgirl and listened to the entire thing. Abbie’s voice was so goddamn sexy . . .

  Fuck it. She wanted to throw her damn phone across the room.

  Abbie had to talk with her. Tonight. This was absurd. There was no possible way she could think Grace would two-time her with Lorrie. Hell. Grace was barely capable of one-timing with Abbie.

  She sat down and tapped her cell phone against her leg.

  It would be delusional to think Lorrie wouldn’t blab about this. It was too juicy a tidbit not to share. And Lorrie was someone who would use this information like currency.

  But to what end? Her better self took up the argument. Lorrie had no stake in anything at St. Allie’s. When the semester ended, she’d be gone.

  Not so fast, her darker self argued. If she innocently blabbed about it to, say, Bryce—it would be “game on.”

  But Lorrie knew Bryce was a conniving shit who would only use the salacious tidbit to hamstring Grace’s chances at beating his ass out for tenure. She’d never do something that stupid. Would she?

  Grace snagged the near-empty bottle of cognac from the table beside her chair. She was lifting it to her mouth when her cell phone rang. The sudden noise scared the shit out of her and the bottle slipped from her hand, spilling its precious, final few ounces all over her pants.

  Great. Just great.

  She answered her phone and wiped furiously at her leg.

  “Hello?” she said expectantly, hopeful it was Abbie calling back.

  “What the fuck is the matter with you?” a voice barked. “I put you into the path of one of the greatest, not to mention available and totally hot, women on the planet—and you manage to blow it to bum-fucking smithereens in two goddamn seconds.”

  Grace sighed. “Hello, Rizzo. Nice to hear from you.”

  “Spare me the social niceties.” Rizzo took another bite out of the phone. “I just got off the horn with Abbie and she’s pissed as hell.”

  “At me?”

  “No. At the Emir of Qatar. Of course at you, you imbecile. What the fuck are you doing?”

  “Hey, I’m not doing anything.”

  Rizzo snorted. “That sounds about right.”

  “Come on, Rizzo. It was a simple misunderstanding.”

  “Aren’t they all?”

  “Look, I don’t know what Abbie told you, but what happened tonight was totally innocent.”

  “Sure, it was,” Rizzo agreed. “Just like that time your sainted Denise fell into bed with that flight attendant.”

  “Hey, wait a minute . . .” Grace began.

  “No. YOU wait a minute,” Rizzo cut her off. “I don’t know who the fuck this fluffy little stick-figure poet is, but you’d better get your thumb outta your ass, get your priorities straight, and get this shit sorted out. Abbie is about ready to bail.”

  Grace was horrified. “On me?”

  “No. On the job. She’s talking about stepping down and heading back to fucking Swaziland, or wherever in the hell that foundation was.”

  Grace began to panic. “That’s crazy.”

  “We finally agree on something. This is a great opportunity for her, Warner. Don’t ruin it.”

  “I’d never do that.”

  “Which we should be able to deduce from the implied context of these events, right?”

  Grace slouched down in her chair. “I really care about her, Rizzo. Really, really care about her.”

  Rizzo sighed. “Against my better judgment, I do believe you. Besides, you aren’t sharp enough to engineer something with this many moving parts.”

  “Thanks. I think . . .”

  “Listen, Trixie Belden—you’ve got about ten seconds to make this shit right with her. That’s if you mean what you say about your soft, gooey center and all those ‘really’ deep feelings you have for her.”

  “Of course I mean it.” Grace sat up. “But I can’t make things right if I can’t get her to talk to me.”

  “Give me a break. St. Albans is a one-horse town. There can’t be that many places for her to hide.”

  “Come on, Rizzo.�
� Grace’s frustration was starting to boil over. “What do you expect me to do? Sneak through her garden, climb a trellis, and break into her house?”

  “Now you’re finally using your head.” Rizzo chuckled. “Be sure to wear something provocative.”

  She hung up.

  Grace sat staring at her cell phone like it had just sprouted horns.

  She can’t be serious . . .

  She slammed the phone down on the table beside her chair and sat watching the lake of cognac on her thigh dry to a brownish-colored stain. After a few catatonic minutes, she gave up.

  “This is fucking ridiculous.” She got to her feet.

  Where’d I leave that flashlight?

  # # #

  Grace hadn’t advanced very far into Abbie’s backyard before she began to realize how ill advised this venture was. She’d already tripped over two loose pavers on the patio, and sent three clay pots full of geraniums on to their eternal rewards. The noise made a dog start barking.

  It was probably Grendel, who was more like an omniscient prognosticator than a watchdog.

  Why don’t I just go ring her fucking doorbell?

  Her Socratic dialogue continued.

  Because if she won’t take my calls, she sure as hell won’t let me inside. And I absolutely don’t wanna get dumped on her front steps, in full view of anyone who is out walking across the quad.

  She made her way toward the four sets of double atrium doors that opened onto the patio. Locked. Of course. And all of them had big, blue and white ADT stickers on them.

  That’d be just about right. Why not add breaking and entering to my list of crimes?

  “It takes less time to do a job right,” Sister Merry Larry had cautioned, “than to do it poorly and have to go back and do it over.”

  Fucking nuns. They were all show and no go.

  She sighed and took a step back to look up at the second story of the house. There were lights on in rooms at the back. No doubt, they came from the private apartment that was the president’s actual residence. The rest of the house was pretty much public space the college reserved for fancy dinners, schmoozing big-bucks donors, and hosting teas for blue-haired stalwarts of the church.

  Grace took out her little flashlight and shone it against the brick wall beside the atrium doors.

  Sure enough, there was a trellis. The things were ubiquitous at St. Allie’s. This one was overspread with some kind of flowering vine. Roses? Jasmine? Wisteria? She really had no idea. She walked over and took hold of one of the trellis rungs. It felt pretty sturdy. She’d only have to climb about twelve feet to reach an open upstairs window.

  She hesitated for a few seconds.

  What was she going to do when she got up there? Climb inside and shout, “Heeeeeeere’s Merv!”? Or simply creep around until she scared the bejesus out of an unsuspecting Abbie?

  And maybe risk getting shot in the process?

  Shit. It had never occurred to her that Abbie might have a gun. Her thoughts swung wildly back to their conversation about Dean and his ammo caches. Abbie seemed completely clueless about what they were. That had to be a good sign. Right? And Canadians had no legal right to possess firearms. She never actually asked Abbie if she’d maintained her Canadian citizenship.

  Here’s hoping.

  She took a deep breath and stepped up onto the rung closest to the ground, and then gently bounced up and down on the ball of her foot to test it and see if it would bear her weight. It did. She raised her other foot and started to climb. The hardest part was finding places to get a handhold around all the damn vines. And they were sharp—studded with pointy little rows of piranha teeth.

  Shit! She nearly lost her balance and had to grab wildly for a handhold. She felt about two dozen obliging spurs sink into the flat of her hand.

  “Jeez Louise . . .” At this rate, she’d end up with more punctures than a soaker hose.

  Why didn’t she think to bring along a damn pair of gloves?

  It was becoming clear she didn’t have the chops to be a successful second-story man.

  She gritted her teeth against the pain in her palms and kept climbing. She’d just gotten high enough to reach for the sill of an open window when she heard someone below gasp.

  “What on earth are you doing up there?” It was a woman’s voice—full of alarm and panic.

  Grace was so startled and scared, she missed the sill entirely and found herself flailing desperately for something to grab hold of. The sudden, lurching shift in her weight was enough to overtax the trellis. She could feel it giving way beneath the soles of her shoes. First one rung cracked, then the other.

  “Don’t you dare move,” the voice below her commanded. “I’m calling the police.”

  But Grace couldn’t help moving. She started to fall, slowly and inelegantly, shouting profane epithets as she slid down the toothy vines.

  “Jesus, Mary and chia seeds on a brisket!”

  Suddenly, her downward momentum jerked to a halt when her jacket got snagged on one of the broken trellis rungs. She hung there, demoralized, battered and bleeding from a thousand tiny punctures, cursing her life and wondering how the headline in tomorrow’s Ledger would read when it reported on how a former professor’s ill-fated attempt to break into the new president’s house got foiled by a thicket of avenging vines.

  “Grace? Is that you?” The voice from below sounded a tiny bit calmer now. It also sounded more familiar.

  Grace closed her eyes. It couldn’t be . . .

  “It is you. Grace? What on earth are you doing up there?”

  Yep. It was Abbie, all right. But what the hell was she doing outside?

  “It’s a long story,” Grace began. “But it involves Rizzo, so I’m hoping you’ll cut me some slack.”

  “Rizzo?” Abbie asked. “Never mind that right now. Can you get down from there?”

  “You mean without falling the last seven or eight feet?” Grace asked.

  “That would be ideal, yes.”

  “Could you maybe, help me out?”

  “How?” Abbie stepped closer to look up at Grace through the thicket of vines.

  “Can you get a chair or something to stand on and help me get unhooked? My jacket is caught on one of these crosspieces.”

  “Okay. Stay put.”

  “Oh, I promise,” Grace replied.

  “You know, I’ve never heard anyone rail against chia seeds before,” Abbie said while she grabbed a substantial-looking wrought iron chair and dragged it across the patio, near to where Grace hung suspended in space.

  “Yeah. I guess that was kind of a give-away, wasn’t it?”

  “That and your shoes. Not many cat burglars wear red Chucks.”

  Abbie climbed up on the chair and took hold of Grace’s hips. “If I support your butt, can you lift up and set yourself free?”

  Grace actually laughed, even though her hands felt like they were on fire. “Is this a rhetorical question?”

  “No. A pragmatic one. Can you do it?” To prove her intent, Abbie moved her hands to cup Grace’s butt.

  “You know, under other circumstances, this would really be pretty hot.”

  “Don’t make me laugh. I’m still pissed at you.”

  Grace used all her might to lift her weight and try to shake herself free. Abbie did a more than credible job holding up her end of the bargain.

  “Eureka!” Grace cried. “It’s loose.”

  Her excitement was short-lived, however. The vine she was clinging to sagged, then snapped like a dry twig. Grace crumpled downward and landed squarely on top of Abbie, who made a valiant effort to remain standing. She nearly succeeded, too, until Grace’s full weight came crashing down on top of her. Grace’s downward momentum was enough to knock them both off the chair and send them sprawling across the ground.

  That’s gonna leave a mark, she thought.

  Somehow, Abbie came to rest on top of Grace, who was lying half in and half out of the presidential herb bed. When sh
e opened her eyes, Grace could see that Abbie’s tousled hair was dotted with a few sprigs of dark purple flowers. In that perfect moment, she understood that win, lose or draw, she’d always associate this grand debacle with the heady scents of creeping thyme and night-blooming jasmine.

  “Are you okay?” Abbie pushed herself up on her forearms.

  “I think so. How about you?”

  Abbie nodded. “I think you broke my fall.”

  “That would be a happy first.”

  “Grace . . .”

  “I mean it. I guess I fucked things up.”

  “Well,” Abbie said. “Climbing trellises really lost its romantic allure after Cary Grant perfected it in To Catch A Thief.”

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it. I only came over here because you wouldn’t answer your damn phone.”

  “So, you thought a spot of misdemeanor breaking and entering would soften me up? Make me want to talk with you?”

  “Something like that,” Grace muttered. “It was Rizzo’s idea.”

  “So you said. You called her?”

  “No. She called me—and ripped me about twenty-five new assholes for being such an idiot and allowing you to get caught in the crosshairs with that anemic she-bitch, Lorrie.”

  Abbie dropped her eyes. “So, I guess you know I called her when I got home?”

  Grace struggled to sit up. Abbie scooted back and took hold of her arm to steady her.

  “Yeah,” Grace said. “She told me, in ear-splitting decibels, that I needed to get over here and clean up my mess—by any means possible.”

  “Which mess was that?”

  “Lorrie. I had nothing to do with her showing up like that, Abbie. You have to believe me. The woman is like a juggernaut who won’t take no for an answer.”

  “Set her sights on you, has she?”

  Grace shrugged and had to fight not to wince. She knew she was going to feel like shit tomorrow. “I guess so.”

  Abbie stared at her for a moment before leaning forward and kissing her softly.

  “I’ve got news for St. Allie’s resident poet,” she said.

  Grace’s head was spinning. “What’s that?”

  “She’s gonna lose.”

  Grace gave Abbie a big, goofy smile—which lasted until Abbie took hold of her hand and gave it a warm squeeze.