by Amy Simone
“Great. Well, thanks for your help. The message is I would put a couple thousand in our account and now I’m not so sure.”
“I’ll pass that along,” Verna assured her. “They return tomorrow night.”
Cassie hung up and blew out some air in a large whoosh. Now he was going on overnights with Mophead.
Catherine called Cassie midmorning.
“Sis, whatever in the world did you do to Annie? She’s on fire! I caught her yesterday washing all the windows of her house, by herself! I’ve never seen her that energized before. What did you do?”
It scared Cassie to explain too much to Catherine. “What did she tell you happened?” she asked instead.
“I didn’t have time to ask. She was up on a ladder with a hose, just scrubbing and singing away. I’ve never seen her like that.”
“I guess she’s more optimistic,” Cassie said.
“I mean here you are, selling out and here she is going all in,” Catherine said.
Cassie looked about her kitchen. Just to the inside of the back door stood a large stack of empty bins she should have given to Goodwill. She’d already emptied the shed out back. Peeking into the backyard she noticed she’d left the door to the little building ajar and made a mental note to close it when she got off the phone. How cathartic to donate and sell everything.
“I’d hardly call it all in,” Cassi told Catherine. “I made a couple grand on Saturday. I guess now I’ll have more time to help her develop her shop—with Ralph being gone and all,” she finished.
“Yes, but what did you do to her? She looks about twenty years younger. And her husband is pawing her all over their backyard!”
“Maybe it’s pheromones,” Cassie joked. “Spring time and all that.”
“Did she sell her shop?” Catherine asked, trying to dig deeper.
“Not that I know of.”
“She said she will call you soon,” Catherine said before signing off.
After Josh got home from school, Cassie took them to the library. She wanted to be away from the house with all its memories. We scheduled Ralph to pick them up on Wednesday afternoon and keep them until the next morning. If he wasn’t willing to communicate with her, so be it. She’d gotten herself into this fix.
They entered the large modern south branch of the Lafayette library. With its huge atrium and sunny glass entry, Cassie always felt like she was entering a cathedral. She told Josh and Caleb they could each pick out four books. Cassie settled down at a table in the adult area to look at her own computer. She figured her computer wouldn’t go haywire and do something unexpected not in the library's haven. She was wrong.
Right after she opened up her laptop, there he was—the Coach beckoning to her from the end of a stack. She looked around. Nobody else saw him. First she shook her head “no,” but he insisted. She got up and walked the other way, towards the children’s room. Her boys were on the floor reading.
Slowly she turned around. Every single book was giving birth to their characters. Pirates, queens, animals, plants, and politicians, criminals, policemen, doctors, detectives, historical figures, space creatures were all climbing out of the spines of the books.
“What have you got me into now, Coach?” she said in anguish. She surveyed the room. Once again, none of the patrons looked up. Once again she was operating on another plane.
She heard a voice next to her side. “You wanna be rich, lady? Have I got a deal for you!” It was a short, dark-haired man with a black-and-white checkered suit on sporting a jaunty red and black bow tie. “Come with me. Over here.” The stranger pulled her towards one of the glassed in conference rooms.
“Get out of the way, Jack!” That was Coach. He shoulder the salesman aside. “She is none of your business.”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “Coach! The library? Can’t I do anything in peace?”
“Left you alone for that hodge podge sale of yours, didn’t I? Look at all the possibilities!” The Coach extended his arm and swept the room as though she were a game show contestant considering all the prizes. Many of the book characters stopped what they were doing and bowed in his direction.
“These are my people and they can be yours too,” he told her.
“I don’t get it.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Josh walking towards her. He looked joyful and clapped his hands.
“My youngest is seeing all this again?” I don’t like it,” she admonished the Coach.
“It’s hard to tune out the young ones,” the Coach told her. “Or the old ones either. Most difficult in an old folks’ home. Has something to do with the frequencies. Their intellect, you know.”
Josh now had glommed onto her leg, looking about at all the new faces in the room. He smiled and waved but still held onto her pants leg. She hiked him up to her hip.
“It’s okay, Joshie,” she murmured. “These are our friends,” she began.
“Oh be careful, my dear,” the Coach interred. “Not all friends…”
She felt something tugging at her son. A witch fully frocked in sweeping grey robes and a black cape tried to take Josh out of her arms. “Hands off,” Cassie yelled.
“Enough, Romilda!” The Coach’s voice worked wonders. The witch slunk away.
“I bet we could sell that little boy for what you owe! Buy that skank of a sister out of purgatory!” It was the loudly dressed salesman again. He extended his hand to Cassie.
“Don’t shake that hand!” the Coach warned her. She gripped Josh tighter. Some characters now formed a circle around them.
“Well, Council,” the Coach said, addressing the throng, what should we advise this young struggling mother to do?”
A strong vibration rippled through the crowd. They talked among themselves. Cassie couldn’t get over the variety of outfits and colors they all wore.
One character, an older man who wore lederhosen and carried a pipe, stepped forward. “As the spokesperson, we vote that she needs to read more. She’s such a sloth.”
Another character, a woman dressed in a career suit of a corporate lawyer with brilliant red lipstick, approached the Coach and Cassie. “At the least, this bitch needs to get a J-O-B. I had to. She should too.” The lady lawyer then tossed a lit cigarette to the floor and ground it into the carpet. Cassie gasped.
The Coach nodded to each idea. Cassie objected, and he placed a quieting hand on her forearm. “Wait,” he told her. “Let them speak.”
Josh was squirming now. Cassie refused to let him go. She wanted to make sure that her oldest was okay in the other room. All she could hope was Caleb didn’t detect all this strange stuff like she and Josh were witnessing.
A dark, more sinister character pushed through the murmuring throng and approached Cassie and the Coach. It was not human, although it was as tall as a person. Triangle in shape, this mass of crackling energy waves thinly covered with a nearly transparent thin dark shroud approached. Cassie drew back as it got closer to her and the Coach. A voice that trickled out of the crackling waves of light came out of the triangle… slow at first and almost inaudible it spoke. As it spoke, its voice got stronger and more gruff. Cassie didn’t like this creature at all.
“The woman needs to become what she has wrought,” the force field type creature said. “You have the power, Coach. Make her what she desires. A credit card. A series of bits in some bank’s back office. A dollar bill. Let her travel, hidden and squashed inside some wallet, only seeing blips of daylight. This is what this woman wants. Give it to her.”
“Okay Leroy, don’t be that harsh,” the Coach told him, laughing it off. Then he looked over the heads of the crowd. “Anybody else?”
Someone way in the back raised their hand.
“Come forward.”
“Timmie!” This character, dressed in jeans and a Western plaid shirt, addressed Cassie directly, unlike the others.
Cassie recognized him. It was the same fellow she’d first seen at the dressage show and he also reminded her of the fellow
she met at her garage sale.
He smiled at her, stood a little off to the side of the crowd with mirth in his eyes, his arms crossed in front of his chest and his legs spread apart, as if he’d won a prize.
The Coach smiled but held up his hands and shook his head. “No, Bob. Not now.”
Cassie was reeling. She wondered if she would end up on some auction block.
“That’s enough, Coach,” she whispered. “I’m getting scared now.” Josh’s little feet were kicking as he protested being held off the ground too long
The Coach settled the crowd. “I’ll take everything under advisement. Now go back to your posts and leave none of your messes! That goes for you in particular, Leroy!”
Everywhere the triangle walked he left a glowing iridescent blue and green slime trail like a slug. “Ugh,” she thought.
Josh, now sucking his thumb, laid his head on his mother’s shoulder.
“I’ll be in touch,” the Coach told her. He winked once and vanished.
Cassie scanned the room. Nothing had changed. All the books were in their places and the characters had disappeared. The regular patrons were all still there, too. Josh was in her arms. She gathered up her belongings. Then she found Caleb and checked the books out for her sons.
Josh tried to explain to Caleb what he’d just seen but Caleb kept telling his little brother he thought he was a liar.
There was a note was under her windshield blade.“Call me,” it said. The number was not a normal phone number. It had some numbers mixed with symbols. What was she to make of that?
14
Annie's Quest
Cassie folded the note and stuck it in her purse. She strapped the two boys in. Caleb wanted to read. His little brother pretended to follow suit. By the time they’d driven a few miles she heard a muffling sound in the back seat.
“Over, mommy, pull over!” It was Caleb. He needed to throw up.
They barely made it in time. She wiped his chin with some handiwipes she had with her.
“Why does this happen?” he wailed.
“It’s okay, baby. You get motion sickness. Let’s roll down the window and let the breeze blow on your face some for a while, okay? And no more reading in the car.”
“But I like to read,” he argued.
She gathered up all their books and placed them in the floorboard of the front seat.
“When we get home you can read all you want.”
Her phone rang just then.
“Cassie? Is that you?” It was Annie.
“Hi, Annie.” Cassie tried to sound neutral.
“How’s that fabulous computer of yours?” she purred.
“I’m kind of busy. Did you get everything shipped off?”
“Yes,” Annie told her. “Listen, Greg has reconsidered. He wants to see that computer.”
“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea,” Cassie told her.
“He thinks the technology would make a great investment. You really are a guru, aren’t you? My wrinkles are all gone!”
“I’m no guru. Probably you’re just feeling better.” Cassie checked her rear-view mirror. She had pulled off of the road to park in front of somebody’s house. “I need to get going,” she told Annie. “My kids…”
“Kids, smids!” Annie sang out. “How about tomorrow?”
“An appointment with your husband? Isn’t he still working?”
“He doesn’t have to be there. It’s just a thought. Why don’t you come by the shop? I’ll take you and me and that little munchkin of yours out to lunch after we nail down more stuff to sell. Don’t forget to bring your computer. Ten okay?”
“Okay,” Cassie said. “We may just opt to use your equipment, though.”
Annie laughed. “Right. My ancient computer. See you tomorrow! Ciao, darling!”
This was exactly not what Cassie wanted happen. She needed to be looking for a real job or having extensive discussions with her mother about moving in for the long term. She’d heard so many horror stories about marriages breaking up and the wife being left to raise the kids—alone, broke. Ralph loved his boys but even before they split up it was hard for him to home much. His work kept him away. And that was even before Mophead. As Cassie drove home, she wondered about Ralph’s new lover. She was curious about her competition. If she could just convince the Coach to allow her to get a peek into that girl’s real life…
Her chance came later that night. She’d put the boys to bed, then lifted the computer lid a half an inch and peeked underneath. There was no strange light. She dared to open it more, then more and finally to its most extended position. Partly relieved, she pressed the keys to start it up. She was sitting in the kitchen. Tiger, the cat, wound himself in and among her legs, begging for yet another round of wet food.
“Tiger, no. Not now. Maybe before I go to bed…” There it was again, the tiny flicker of purple light dead center in the screen amplified itself until it was fully throbbing and circling.
Darn, she thought. I asked for this, was her next thought.
“You called?” the Coach’s voice reverberated from within the computer.
“Yes. I want to see who I’m dealing with. Why Ralph left me.”
“Oh that’s easy.”
“My kids going to be safe?”
“We will only transport you for a second. It’ll be easy.” Then poof!
Cassie found herself surrounded by white. She was up high in an apartment closet it seemed. From her vantage point she could almost see the entire place. She wondered if she’d died and gone to heaven. At first she thought she could fly easily but when she went to pass through an opening in the bi-fold door, her wings got stuck and she fell all the way to the thick white carpet. She heard a thumping just on the other side of the door and a cat’s claw flicked under her from the other side of the door, almost sweeping her off her feet. She leapt to an interior wall of the closet and scampered and climbed until she crouched in between two hung suede jackets.
That was close. She discovered she had super long antennae that draped in front of her eyes. Oh drat, the Coach had turned her into a cockroach. Well, no matter. She climbed up the jackets and then up to the clothes rod and made her way cautiously out of the closet. Keeping tucked up against the door trims for traction, she traveled along the walls. About seven feet below she saw a fluffy behemoth of a white Persian cat eying her with laser focus vision. His emerald green eyes didn’t blink once.
There were voices now, then the sound of a key being turned in a door. Cassie squatted as low as she could and hid as best she could right there in the tiny foyer. Below her, now entering, she saw the tops of Susan’s purple spiky hair and her husband’s brunette head. How she wanted to give him a bite or two.
They were laughing. He carried two Styrofoam boxes that read Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.
“Let me put those in the fridge,” Susan told him. “Want a nightcap?”
“Nightcap? Hell, I’d like more than that.”
“No, no no. You’re still married,” she reminded him.
He pulled her to him and kissed her deeply, running his hand up and down her spine. Cassie’s antennae angrily punched the air in a one-two movement.
“I’ll honor you,” he whispered into her ear. Then he knelt and kissed her crotch. “One day,” he whispered.
Susan leaned backwards, resting her hands on the small kitchenette counter. “Your hot breath feels so good,” she cooed.
He unfastened the top button of her pants.
“No. That’s against the rules.” She gently pushed his head away. “A nightcap only.”
He groaned but relented.
They walked into the living room. Ralph massaged her neck. He spun her around and kissed her again.
“You won’t win,” Susan gasped when she came up for air. They both were still standing but Cassie wondered how long that would last. She crept along the upper regions of the walls and hid high behind a tall potted plant in a corner. From her vantage point
she could see more of the room. There it was. The huge nude of Ralph’s object of interest. No wonder. Cassie felt herself getting increasingly angry. This wasn’t fair, she thought. The girl had a good ten years of youth on her. And no kids.
“Wine?” Susan asked. “Or brandy?”
Why not a cigar, too? Cassie thought sarcastically.
“Brandy,” he told her smoothly.
Since when did her husband become such a man of the world? Cassie wondered. He never drank brandy or wine in the ten years she‘d been his wife.
Ralph settled onto the white sofa. The cat joined him and nestled in his lap.
“That’s a good sign,” Susan observed. “Looks like Pretty Boy likes you.”
Ralph took a swig of his drink. “I’d say our Houston trip was a success. I hope we landed that big farm.”
“I bet you did.”
“Congratulations! You worked some charm on the old codger, though,” Ralph said.
He rested his drink on the side table, then reached over to fondle Susan more.
“No undressing,” she reminded him, in between kisses.
“None?”
Cassie noticed he slid his hand further and further up toward her crotch, though.
Cassie surreptitiously made her way down the wall, mostly keeping to the corner until she crawled up the backside of the couch. Keeping an eye on the cat who was making biscuits now on Ralph’s swollen crotch, she climbed up his brandy snifter and turned her roach body around. Quietly she dropped several tiny turds into his glass, then left.
