Lucas Kander stood in the falling snow, watching the hotel, waiting. He knew Beverly had visited there before, but ususaly she only stayed an hour or two. Kander had been waiting for four hours.
Soon he would have to leave, not because the cold was beginning to penetrate his bones—he’d learned how to deal with cold in Afghanistan. He would have to abandon his vigil because this wasn’t a part of town where a homeless man could linger for hours on end. A private security car had driven past him twice already, the occupant giving him the eye. Kander wasn’t panhandling, and he wasn’t blocking a sidewalk or otherwise being a nuisance, but sooner or later his disheveled appearance would be enough to get him sent to a part of town more appropriate to his station in life. Added to that, he could feel he had been too long in one spot, and the restlessness, the unease that was a manifestation of his PTSD was starting to come on. He needed to get to a quiet place where he could be alone and think about what was going on with Beverly. He needed the refuge of the woods or an abandoned building. A drink would have helped once upon a time, but he was done with that. Maybe he should find an AA meeting, he thought, but so many of them were in places that made him feel closed in, smothered and unsafe.
In anticipation of his inevitable eviction, Kander hitched his backpack up on his shoulder and reluctantly prepared to leave. He didn’t like deserting Beverly. He had gotten the nickname “Lucky” because of his knack for sensing when things were about to go south, and his senses told him the woman was not only heading for trouble but soon might be in serious physical danger. In Afghanistan, it was usually easy to figure out the nature of impending danger, but here, stateside, it was trickier.
Whatever the threat, Kander was determined to take any and all action that might be required to make her safe, with or without her knowledge, with or without her consent.
***
Beverly Michaels had celebrated her forty-ninth birthday by getting a face lift. Within three months of the procedure, a homeless man had followed her home from the shelter where she volunteered. The man, known as Lucky Lucas, was sweet and harmless, a veteran, traumatized and recovering from alcoholism and PTSD.
On those occasions when he had been at the shelter where she volunteered, she and Lucky usually flirted in an innocent way, or at least she had thought it was innocent. Once, he’d shown up at her house just as she was coming home from her usual Saturday errands, said he was looking out for her, making sure she got home safely. Her husband, Larry, had bristled and postured and run the man off, playing at being her protector from the scruffy interloper. She didn’t think of Larry as the jealous type, but he had a kind of possessiveness that sometimes surprised her. She found it rather endearing, considering the general ease and serenity of their day to day lives.
Now Beverly was looking into the eyes of another unintended consequence of her face lift.
“Don’t leave,” Alex pleaded. “The snow is making the roads dangerous. Stay here with me. We’ve never spent a whole night together.”
“Larry will be expecting me,” she said without conviction.
Larry was out of town at a conference, so he wouldn’t be expecting her, but she felt she needed an excuse to leave, to not commit. Still, she let Alex kiss her again, first her lips then her cheek, his beard warm and soft against her face. He was more than ten years younger than she. Blond, bearded, passionate, he was the antithesis of her husband.
An explosion of thunder rattled the hotel windows.
“Thunder snow,” Alex murmured into her hair. “Call Larry and tell him you’re staying with a friend.”
“All right,” she said, sure that in a day or two she would regret her decision to stay. But tonight, with the sky white with the dense snowfall, she wanted to stir no further than this quiet room and lie in Alex’s arms.
The night passed like a dream, containing nothing real or substantial, but promising to leave behind lingering memories and a sad, sweet longing. When night turned to day, while the snow plows cleared the streets, Beverly and Alex ate a room service breakfast, then made love once more.
When she finally drove out of the parking garage and turned her Cadillac toward home, Beverly realized her fling was becoming something more than she had intended. But she was so much older, and he had so much life ahead of him. What could she possibly offer him that would keep him with her?
She knew love, even if this really was love, wasn’t always enough. The kindest, the most selfless thing to do, if she truly cared for him, would be to break it off and allow him to find someone he could share his life with. Someone who could give him children and a home and love without compromise.
Beverly promised herself that when the break came, as she was sure it must, it would be clean and final, with no looking back; a break that would even be brutal if necessary, to make sure Alex accepted the affair was at an end. But Beverly wasn’t ready to let go of this fantasy. Not yet.
***
Philomena McPherson had almost forgotten how much she disliked Kansas winters. In western Oregon, snow had the decency to stay in places where it was welcome, like ski resorts. Here it piled up on streets and sidewalks requiring people who ran shops like the Gingerbread House to shovel it off the sidewalk for the safety and convenience of pedestrians.
“And what the heck is up with the thunder? What is that even about?” she grumbled up at the now sparkling and bright sky as she shoveled. “Thunder belongs in the spring with flowers and tornados. December thunder is just messed up.”
Earlier she had spent a frustrating half hour trying to find her sister’s snow shovel, but she had been relieved to discover the snow melt stored right beside it. When she finished scooping away the twelve inches of wet, heavy accumulation, she scattered the snow melt on the icy patches, trying to finish in time for the store’s ten A.M. opening.
She was doing this alone because Justine had not bothered to come home last night nor to show up this morning in time for the shop’s opening. Philly guessed this was because Justine had gotten drunk and spent the night with one of her boyfriends. She did that. Philly’s sister had done that sort of thing for the twenty-eight years Philly had been alive. Older sisters were supposed to be the responsible ones, weren’t they, she asked herself. Why was she, theoretically the baby of the family, always picking up the slack?
When Philly finished clearing the sidewalk, she stomped her feet on the mat outside the front door to get the snow off her boots. She opened the door into the shop’s large front room where the merchandise was displayed on shelves covering the walls and in various glass cases. Passing through the shop and into the smaller back room, she put the shovel and snow melt away in the little utility closet and peeled off her hat, coat, and gloves. Now at last, she could perform the most important task of any day: making coffee.
Soon, she told herself as she scooped the delicious-smelling grind into the filter. Soon she would be going home to the Pacific Northwest, and she would be done with snow and herb shops and all her sister’s irresponsible nonsense. The business, after only three weeks and an infusion of some of her personal bank account, was getting back on its financial feet. She had done her filial duty, and she could leave in good conscience, back to her job and her condo and her boyfriend. She hoped. It had been a month, but surely she could pick up the threads of her life again. Surely.
Beelzebub, the shop cat, slipped in though the pet door in the back of the building, shaking snow from his paws, then went to his food bowl. He completely ignored Philly.
Philly waited impatiently as the coffee dripped, pouring herself a cup before the pot fully brewed. As she sat down behind the counter, cradling her first cup of blessed elixir, Philly saw she had a text message from her sister.
She tapped her phone screen to open the message and read.
“What luck! Going to Hawaii! Always said I would. Chance of a lifetime. Take care of cat and shop. Know you can. Love J.”
Philly stared at the message, waiting for it to change, or make sense, or admit it was a joke. It didn’t.
No, she thought. Just no. All the no in the world. For all values of no.
Philly tried to call Justine back, but the call went straight to voice mail. She checked the time on the text and saw it had been sent last night. There was every possibility Justine was already somewhere over the Pacific, halfway between California and Hawaii. Nothing about this was right or fair or possible.
Philly lowered her head onto the counter, bit down on the sleeve of her sweater, and screamed her frustration into the wool.
Comments (0)
See all