by N. C. Lewis
"Soon, I'll be able to afford the Asian dancers," she muttered. It had been a good day, a good month, and a good year.
She wandered over to the decorative-wired bird cage that stood on a tall stand behind the counter and peered inside. "Percy gonna speak to Mama?"
A small bird with an aqua breast, speckled head, and mustard yellow beak cocked its head to one side.
"Is Percy thirsty?" Mrs. Foreman asked, glancing at the water feeder.
Percy stared back through dark, unblinking eyes.
"Percy hungry?"
The bird hopped onto a small ledge, puffing up its feathers.
"Percy's right. It's birdie bedtime."
The budgerigar was a gift from her assistant, Lizzie Dawson, when Mrs. Foreman opened Rumpus House four years earlier. Lizzie was the only other employee, a hard worker who followed orders without complaint and not much of a talker. Mrs. Foreman liked both traits.
Staring at the bird she worried about Lizzie. It was always the same depressing thought that Lizzie, who got on so well with the clients and dogs, would find a better-paying job and leave. Mrs. Foreman didn’t want the hassle of searching for another assistant, not when Lizzie worked for minimum wage without complaint. But with her new business venture, blessed by Sage Oats, she'd had little choice, and had already hired another worker from a nearby business. "I'll have to tell Lizzie."
The bird stretched out his wings, fluttering them lightly.
"One day Percy will speak to you," Lizzie had said with a cheery voice, her nose twitching like a rabbit, as it always did. "They say budgerigars can mimic the human voice."
But Percy had not uttered a word to Mrs. Foreman in all those years, and tonight was no exception. "Well," Mrs. Foreman said, turning away and walking to the window, "maybe you'll speak to Mama tomorrow night."
For several minutes she stared out into the night. The Ann and Roy Butler trail lay before her, and beyond she could see, glistening under the reflection of a full moon, the slow-moving water of Town Lake. The trail snaked for over ten miles around the edge. Although at this hour there was only the occasional cyclist and homeless person wandering along the narrow dirt track.
Her cell phone sang with a familiar ringtone. She remained at the window for a moment longer then turned toward the clanging noise. The phone jostled on the shop counter almost appearing to dance in tiny vibrating circles.
"Auntie Folate, isn't it a little late for you?" Mrs. Foreman asked. Florence Folate wasn't Mrs. Foreman's aunt. She wasn't a blood relative. But everyone called her Auntie Folate, even Mrs. Foreman.
"Yeah, it's late, but what's a seventy-three-year-old single woman to do?" Auntie Folate chuckled at her own joke. "I'm doing the rounds of volunteers for the animal shelter. I've got you down for Saturday morning seven a.m. to noon. You still good to go?"
Auntie Folate called every week with the same question, and every week Mrs. Foreman answered with the same response. "I pamper pooches in my parlor all day for owners who have more money than sense. Do you think I want to spend Saturday morning feeding strays and cleaning dog poo?"
"Wonderful," Auntie Folate always replied, "I'll put you down, then!"
A shadow moved across the window as Mrs. Foreman hung up. Moments later, urgent knocking resonated throughout the tiny wooden structure. Mrs. Foreman took her time walking the short distance to the door. She knew who it was, what they wanted, and what she would say. She opened the door, cell phone in hand. The figure, scowling, hurried inside.
As the door swung shut, Mrs. Foreman's nostrils filled with the humid, outside air, the tang of the lake. Next weekend she would take a trip to Corpus Christi, spend a few days by the sea, get her fill of salty air and walk along the beach. But first she had a few things to settle with the late-night visitor.
The door slammed shut.
"Now before you say anything," Mrs. Foreman said in a stern voice, looking the visitor in the eye, "my mind is made up on the matter. That is final!" Her voice rose to a sharp crack like the snap of a steel mousetrap.
A moment of silence seemed to stretch for a long time. The occasional rumble of a car passing overhead the only sound filling the void.
"Well," the figure hissed. "You leave me no choice."
For an instant, Mrs. Foreman saw hatred in the eyes. Then bony hands were around her neck pressing hard. Choking, gasping, staggering backward, she dropped the cell phone. It clattered on the floor skittering out of reach.
It was the realization of her desperate situation that threw her body into action. Her arms, strengthened by years of handling dogs, flailed in her defense, scratching flesh, gouging, slapping. For a fleeting instant, she got the better of her attacker, but the vice-like grip tightened around her neck.
Mrs. Foreman's body went limp.
The attacker let out a savage cackle of victory, eased their vice-like grip.
And then, suddenly, like a supernatural monster rising from the depths of the deep sea, Mrs. Foreman's body lurched upward, face grimacing, contorted, writhing, breaking free from the attacker's grasp. She scrambled on all fours, desperately reaching for her cell phone. At last she held it in her hand, stumbled to her feet, frantically pressing buttons as she rose.
The attacker howled bearing teeth in a savage sneer and sprang forward. There was an intense struggle. Powerful hands squeezed hard and tight around Mrs. Foreman's neck.
Chloe Foreman's legs buckled and everything went black.
Chapter 2
A few days earlier…
Amy King sat at the kitchen table of her Gaston Avenue home sipping coffee. It was her third cup, and it wasn't yet ten a.m. Her new furniture-staging business, Studio Shoal Seven, was struggling to turn a profit. She peered with a sagging heart at her appointment book. Of late, bookings had been nonexistent.
Studio Shoal Seven was Amy's first venture into the entrepreneurial world having spent twenty-two years of her marriage as a homemaker. Now with her two daughters, Ruby and Victoria, grown and married, she'd decided to spread her wings. She took another sip of coffee. "Don't think I will ever get the hang of this running your own business thingy. Thank goodness we can rely on Nick's salary."
Her husband worked as a detective in the Austin Police Department. He'd worked homicide, led the furloughed executive protection unit, and now served as head officer in the lollipop liaison unit. The unit worked with local schools to improve road safety. Nick hated the job, wanted to get back to real detective work, preferably heading up his old unit.
Amy turned at the sound of her cell phone ringing, squinted at the screen, but didn't recognize the number.
"Amy, is that you?" a high-pitched, squeaky voice asked.
Amy recognized the voice with a sinking feeling—Mrs. Lopresti, a glum caterer with whom she often did business. More gloom and doom was the last thing Amy needed just now. It was all she could do to keep from hanging up. "Mrs. Lopresti," she said cautiously, "I see you have a new telephone number?"
"Got a second cell phone today, for business calls only." Mrs. Lopresti chuckled as she spoke. "The way things are going I might have to get another!"
Amy pressed the cell phone to her ear. Mrs. Lopresti sounded unusually cheerful for a woman who barely smiled even at the end of a funny joke. She wanted to ask what was going on but instead said, "I better update my contacts with your new number."
"Please do."
"Now, Mrs. Lopresti," Amy said, drawing out her words, "how can I help you?"
Mrs. Lopresti ignored the question. "Give my regards to your lovely husband. How is Nick doing?"
That surprised Amy. Mrs. Lopresti never asked about Amy's family. Neither did she speak about her own family. Amy didn’t know the name of her husband or whether Mrs. Lopresti had children.
"Nick has recovered well from his heart attack," Amy replied cautiously.
"And he is on the road to a full recovery, I trust?"
"Yes. Nick is back at work." Amy didn’t mention he had been reassigned fr
om criminal investigations to administrative duties in a new team known as the lollipop liaison unit.
"Isn't that something!" Mrs. Lopresti's squeaky voice rose even higher. "Modern medicine is miraculous. Our city needs more detectives with his grit."
Now Amy could barely contain herself. Where was the sour-faced, constantly disappointed with the world Mrs. Lopresti: the Mrs. Lopresti who only called with bad news? "Are you feeling all right, Mrs. Lopresti?"
"The world is a wonderful place; don't you think, Amy? A wonderful place."
Amy could stand it no longer. "Something terrible has happened. What is it?"
Mrs. Lopresti laughed briefly and said, "Can't hide anything from you. The detective gene must be in your family's blood. Nothing terrible has happened. What on earth would make you think that?"
"Oh," said Amy, struggling to find something more positive to say and failing.
"No, it's good news! My catering business"—and she let out another little chuckle—"is fully booked…until the end of the year."
"Congratulations," Amy spluttered.
"And…" Mrs. Lopresti lowered her voice as if someone might overhear. "I did it in a single telephone call."
Amy sat up straight. "How?"
"Through a contact at the Austin Women's Business Guild." Her voice now a hushed whisper, continued, "The lady who will remain nameless needed a caterer, and that's where I came in."
Now Amy understood and held her breath, waiting for what she hoped would come next.
"This lady, let's call her Mrs. X"—she giggled like a teenager—"has asked me to act as an event coordinator. I've got the catering aspect covered, but need a professional stager, and that's where you come in."
Amy let out a breath, a knot of excitement rising in her stomach. "Go on," she urged hastily, standing up and dancing around the kitchen table even before she'd heard the details. "Tell me more."
"Mrs. X is expanding her business. As part of the marketing strategy, she will hold an event every Saturday for the rest of the year. She needs catering and staging. I mentioned your name. Are you in?"
"I'm in," Amy said without hesitation. "What type of business is it?"
"I can't reveal the details over the phone," Mrs. Lopresti answered in a secretive tone. "Let's meet up on Friday noon for lunch at the Bellowing Spoon restaurant. The business owner will join us, and we can discuss the details with her then."
"That works," Amy replied without checking her diary. "See you on Friday."
Amy ambled to the kitchen counter, poured herself another cup of coffee. She considered calling Nick to share the good news, then remembered he was visiting a school in East Austin as part of his duties in the lollipop liaison unit. "Probably in a meeting with a bunch of parent activists," she muttered.
She called Danielle Sánchez.
"Amy girl, what's up?" Danielle was Amy's closest friend and the only employee of Studio Shoal Seven.
"Keep your Saturdays free till the end of December."
"Why?"
"Mrs. Lopresti just booked Studio Shoal Seven for the rest of the year!"
Chapter 3
Lizzie Dawson hunched low in a wheelchair as she pushed herself along the rutted path that led to her apartment. Even sitting down she appeared to stoop as if the muscles in her frail body lacked the strength to hold herself upright. The wheelchair, purchased from a thrift store, was old and rickety, and she swung her weight from side to side trying, without success, to get comfortable.
As she rolled along the path, her mind raced over what to do about Mrs. Foreman's secret. As the only employee of Rumpus House, she didn't want to rock the boat. But her discovery was so disturbing, she felt she had to do something. Perhaps, she thought, after I've had something to eat an idea will form.
Lizzie rented a room in a small white house with peeling paint and an untidy yard. A gently sloping ramp, worn to the bare wood by the passage of feet, led to the front door. At the top of the ramp, she paused for a moment and turned her wheelchair to look at the yard. Her rabbit-like, steel-gray eyes darted around taking everything in. Not that there was much to look at: the rutted pathway, weeds growing wild on what was once a lawn, a rusted wheelbarrow, and two large garbage cans, one green for household trash, the other blue for recyclables.
"It's a dump," she said without malice, her nose twitching like a jackrabbit. "But it's home."
Inside, Lizzie wheeled herself by the narrow staircase that led to the second floor, briefly glancing at the steep steps and thankful she had found a cheap place to live on the ground level. Maneuvering a wheelchair around the city was difficult, staircases made things impossible.
At the door to her room, she again paused, and half turned the wheelchair, her rabbit-like eyes straining through the gloom as if searching for a fox.
"Yo, Lizzie baby, what's going on?" a voice called from along the hallway.
Lizzie shifted until her eyes picked out the youngish man with thinning, shoulder-length hair and the beginnings of a belly. "Peter Thistle, what you doin' creeping around the hallway! A man like you should be out at work."
"Work don't figure much in the life of a poet. Anyway, I live here too, you know." He took a few steps toward Lizzie stopping at the staircase. He lived on the second floor. "Don't suppose you can spare ten bucks?"
"If I had ten bucks to give away to poets do you think I'd live in this dump? I'm a pet groomer; that's only one up from being destitute."
Peter Thistle curled his lip into a sort of smile showing tobacco-stained teeth. "I'm with you on that one, sister. What's with the wheelchair, looks like it came out of a 1940s movie?"
Lizzie answered, half to herself. "When you got no cash, gotta use other people's trash."
He nodded vigorously. "Understood, sister, understood. The Man's keeping us all down. One day we'll rise up and overthrow the system," he said, climbing up the stairs, throwing the words over his shoulder as he went. "Then we'll be like the animals, running wild and free."
Lizzie listened to his footsteps echoing up the staircase, then reached for her key, opened the door to her efficiency apartment and wheeled inside.
The single room was about twelve feet deep by ten feet wide with a single bed underneath the window at one end and a kitchenette with a sink, refrigerator, table, stool and microwave at the other. Heavy drapes, which didn't quite meet at the center, partitioned sleeping from eating quarters.
Lizzie glanced around the spotless room with a sense of satisfaction. The bed was neatly made, dishes from her last meal washed and put away, even the tall wooden stool was placed at the side of the table just so. It was as if the order and neatness of her room directly defied the chaos and decay that consumed the rest of the property and her life.
But it was the walls of the room that hinted at Lizzie's passion. They were plastered with posters of wild animals in their natural habitats. Polar bears strode across an Arctic landscape, gorillas ate surrounded by lush tropical forests, sea turtles swam in deep blue seas, and placed higher on the wall above the kitchen table, a huge poster of a Sumatran elephant, proud and triumphant, king of the beasts in an ever-shrinking jungle.
Lizzie wheeled herself to the kitchen sink, poured a glass of water, and wheeled herself to the kitchen table. "We humans are the cause of animal suffering," she said, not bothered that she was speaking aloud to herself. "but without our help there will be further extinctions. I promise to do my best not to let that happen." It was a mantra she said every evening when she returned from her job at Rumpus House. And it was a promise she had kept in her own small way.
A door slammed in the adjacent apartment, the air abruptly filling with droning voices. Lizzie couldn't make out the words, but the couple was arguing, again. Her neighbors fought like clockwork. The explosive volley of angry shouts never lasted long. Lizzie half wondered what kept the couple together. Animals in the wild, she thought, come together to mate and for protection. It might be better, she mused, if humans did the same.
She took a small sip of water and waited. The voices faded away, and Lizzie reflected on her own unique talent. It was a talent Mrs. Grayson, her second-grade teacher, had spotted some thirty-five years ago. "Lizzie Dawson," she had said with a pleasing smile. "You have a way with the animals, just like Dr. Doolittle."
Lizzie remembered asking, "Who is Dr. Doolittle?"
Mrs. Grayson's soft-brown eyes had sparkled. "He was a man who could speak to the animals." Then she sang in a sweet voice a little of the song that went along with the movie.
After that Lizzie read every Dr. Doolittle story in the school library. It wasn't long before she discovered that she too could speak with the animals. They responded to her and she understood them. But she wasn't one for academics and without even a high school diploma found herself trapped in minimum wage jobs, eventually finding herself a position at Rumpus House. Working at the pooch pampering parlor was her way of giving back to the animals; the dogs loved her, and she loved working with dogs.
Lizzie let out a bitter sigh. Until she had stumbled across Mrs. Foreman's secret, she was happy in her job, thought she'd stay at Rumpus House for the rest of her life.
Now everything had changed.
Lizzie was in the yard cleaning out a dog kennel when she overheard Mrs. Foreman on the phone to her lawyer. At first, she had paid no attention to the droning conversation, half listening without grasping the word's meaning.
Lizzie's ears pricked up at the mention of the Hill Country Animal Sanctuary, where she volunteered on the weekends. Mrs. Foreman had mentioned during her interview she intended to leave all her worldly assets to the sanctuary. That had sold Lizzie on the job; she and Mrs. Foreman were doing their bit to save the animals.
