Cold River (14 page)

“Me too. I don’t know how to teach a grown person to read.”

“Can it be different than teaching a child? I’ve heard Mother say that you just need to give a child a safe place and the tools to teach himself to read.”

“Mother said that? Which reminds me, I was just asking you if she knows you’re here.”

Leesie closed the cupboard and looked at her watch. “Actually, yes. Do we have an hour’s difference? We’re earlier? Let’s see. Her plane landed at four.” She cast her eyes to the roof and did the math. “I expect to get a call from her on my cell phone any time.”

“Well, you’ll be waiting quite a while. There’s no service upriver.” Mandy rubbed her arms. Looking outside, she noticed the house was sitting in shadows. She walked over and closed the front windows. “Did you leave Mother a note?”

“Matter of fact, I did.”

Mandy dug in her purse and pulled out her phone card. She handed it to Leesie and said, “You’d better go call her. Use the phone upstairs in my bedroom. Tell her I’ll put you on a plane tomorrow. We can run down to the district office tonight and use the internet there to get reservations.”

Leesie took the card and bounced up the stairs, calling out, “Hey, you should see the view from up here! The river looks like it has pink lights in it. Where’s the phone? Oh, I found it.”

Mandy heard a door close and figured Leesie must have carried the telephone into the bathroom for privacy. She rinsed the mug and put it in the dishwasher. Then she stood quietly, leaning against the counter, listening for some clue as to what was going on upstairs. Finally she gave up and sat on the couch in the living room. Her eye fell on the cello case standing in the corner. There was apparently no other luggage.
Just like Leesie, to take off on a thousand-mile journey with nothing but her instrument
.

A few minutes later Leesie came down. Her eyes were shiny, but she was smiling. “I’m to stay,” she announced.

“Whoa,” Mandy said, frowning. “Don’t I have a say in this?”

Leesie stopped in mid stride. Her eyes welled up, and her chin began to quiver. “Are you saying you don’t want me?”

Mandy patted the cushion beside her. “I’m not saying that. It’s just that this— this running away is totally out of character. What’s going on?”

Leesie sat down, tucked up her feet, and hugged her arms against herself. “Is it chilly in here? Can you turn on some heat?”

Mandy lit the stove and sat back with her sister.

“That’s nice,” Leesie said. She drew a deep breath. “All right, I’ll tell you why I’m here. I’ve been dating a boy, Rob Greer. He’s bright and funny and an athlete. Popular. Macho. Drop-dead gorgeous. Dozens of girls would give anything to be his steady girl.”

“And are you his steady girl?”

“I guess I am. He’s, like, the only person I want to date. I think about him all the time.” She covered her face with her hand. “I hate it, but I even sit in class and write his name on my notebook.” She looked out at her sister from between her fingers. “How lame is that?”

“Sounds normal to me. So why did you bolt?”

Leesie sat back and picked up a throw pillow. “Rob was ready to take the relationship to the next level. He was pressuring me to… to… well, you know.”

“All you had to do was say no,” Mandy said gently.

Leesie hugged the throw pillow and leaned her cheek against it, staring into the fire. “That’s easy to say when you’re not there with his arms around you, and he’s whispering in your ear, and your whole body is voting yes. Do you know, I get weak in the knees just thinking about him?”

They sat in silence for a moment, and then Leesie picked up the thread again. “I signed up for a class this semester called The Bible in the Arts.”

Mandy nodded. “I was on the committee that okayed that class. It was real controversial. What did you think of it?”

“Oh, it was great. The first thing we did was watch the video about Joseph and his amazing technicolor dream coat. It was all music and lots of fun. Then we had to read the story.”

“The script?”

Leesie shook her head. “No, the story from the Bible. In the play, and in the Bible, too, Joseph is a servant, and his boss’s wife keeps hitting on him. In the play, his boss comes in and catches them together, but in the Bible, he runs away and leaves her holding onto his coat.” Leesie closed her eyes as if replaying it in memory. “It says
he fled and got him out
.”

She opened her eyes and turned to look at her older sister. “The moment I read that, it hit me— that’s what I had to do. I had to flee and get me out. So I did.”

The room grew gradually darker as they sat without speaking, each lost in her own thoughts.

Leesie was the first to break the silence. “It felt right, Mandy. I told Mother why I came, and she agrees with me. You know how paranoid she is about us not falling into the same trap she did.” She giggled. “When I started dating Rob, she started dropping heavy hints about making a visit to Planned Parenthood.”

Mandy smiled, remembering her own discussions with her mother. “Of course you can stay.”

Leesie leaned over and hugged her sister. “Thank you.” Resting her head against Mandy’s shoulder, she chuckled. “Oh, Mandy! The trip was such an adventure! First, I sat by a girl my age. She and her baby were going to her parents’ house because her husband was on his way to Iraq. Then, this fellow from Bosnia got on. All his family was killed in the ethnic cleansing there, and he was here in the U.S. as a student. He was on his way to visit an aunt in Spokane, the only member of his whole family that was still alive, and he was so excited to see her. They both had stories that made my problem pale into insignificance. Like, someone was saying to me, ‘Hello? Get a clue, Leesie!’”

Mandy squeezed her sister’s shoulder. “Well, we need to arrange a place for you to sleep, I guess. I have an air mattress.”

“It’s all taken care of.” Leesie jumped up. “Come and see.”

Mystified, Mandy followed her sister to the downstairs bedroom. Leesie opened the door and turned on the light. “Ta-da!”

“When did you do this?” Mandy asked. “Where did the bed come from? I recognize the blankets, but where did you get the pillows?”

“Fran helped me. It’s your air mattress, see?” Leesie lifted the blanket to reveal a piece of plywood sitting on plastic buckets and supporting the mattress. “She said this is what she did when she first moved here, before she bought any furniture. She knew where the linens were, and she loaned me the pillows. She’s the one that let us in the house. Rael knew she was your landlady, so when you weren’t home, we went up to see her.”

Leesie opened the closet door. “There’s more. See what she brought, too?”

Mandy peeked in the closet, and up against the wall stood a rack of wire bins that held Leesie’s underwear, socks, T-shirts and sweaters.

“She had those in her garage. Isn’t that cool? I love it.”

“Well, we certainly will have to tell Fran thank you,” Mandy said.

“Yes. I like her. Did you know her sister used to work for Poppy?”

“How did you find that out? She didn’t tell me.”

Leesie climbed onto the bed and sat cross-legged on the pillows. “Well, she had no way of knowing you’re related to Poppy. When I told her my name was Leesie Wheeler she said that her sister used to work for Conroy Wheeler, and I said that’s my dad. She said her sister thought he was a real good man and asked how he was doing.”

“And you said…?”

“I said he’s fine.”

“Leesie, you can’t keep doing that.”

“Why not? I know he’s in a better place, and there’s no more pain. Just because I can’t see him anymore doesn’t mean he’s not near.” Leesie sat on the bed. “You know, that’s why I like Jake Timberlain so much. When he talks about his mother, he says ‘is’ instead of ‘was,’ too.”

Mandy frowned. “Who’s Jake Timberlain?” Leesie patted the place beside her, and Mandy sat on the edge. “Who’s Jake Timberlain?” she repeated.

“He’s Rael’s son. Willow’s brother.”

“Rael has a son? Where was he this afternoon?”

“He was here for a while, but before you came, he left to take his great aunt Clara to see her friends. She lives in a rest home in Stallo, and they bring her up once a month to visit. That’s how I got the ride up. The bus depot man’s wife works at the rest home, and he knew Rael would be coming down today. Aren’t small towns great?”

“Maybe Jake’s mother isn’t dead. Maybe they’re divorced.”

“No. When it was obvious there were just the three of them in the family, I asked Willow if her mom and dad were divorced. She said her mother was dead.”

“Is that why she always wears black? Does Jake look anything like Willow?”

Leesie laughed. “No. He looks more like his dad, though he’s taller. But he has the same mop of curls. He’s going to come by and pick me up for school tomorrow.”

“That’s not necessary. I can drop you off.”

“I know. But we’re going to Granny Timberlain’s before school. It’s kind of a family tradition.”

“If it’s family, maybe you should wait.”

“Nope. Rael says it’s okay.” Leesie put a pillow behind her back, leaned against it, and sighed. “I’m starting to hit the wall. I didn’t sleep very well on the bus. I think I’ve been running on adrenaline all day. I was excited to get here, but at the same time I was afraid you might not let me stay.”

“Well, you’d probably better go to bed. Though, if the piano wasn’t out of tune, I’d make you come play with me first. I’ve got to find someone to tune it.”

“Rael can do it.”

“I need a professional. I don’t want to trust my piano to someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“He tunes the school pianos.”

“Leesie, how do you know all this?”

“While we were getting the bedroom set up, Willow was messing around on the piano— everything she played was in a minor key. Jake mentioned that it needed tuning and asked his dad, but I knew you didn’t want just anyone doing it. You know, he delivers mail in that funny old Jeep. That doesn’t add up to a piano tuner, does it? But Jake says he does the school pianos, and Rael said he would come by tomorrow and tune ours. He says he doesn’t want you to pay him. You can fix dinner instead.”

“Dinner? But I’m not ready to have people over for dinner.”

“It’s not
people
. It’s just the Timberlains. I like them, Mandy. Willow is a bit strange. But Jake and his dad are super.”

Mandy laughed. “All right. We’ll have them over.” She stood. “I guess you found out that the bedroom shares the bathroom with guests, so you’ll probably want to make a habit of locking the other door when you’re in there. Towels are in the cupboard. I’ll fix oatmeal for breakfast, and you will eat it. That’s a condition of staying here.”

Leesie climbed off the bed. “Are you going to make up conditions as we go along?”

“Probably. What time will Jake be by to get you?”

“Six thirty.”

“Six thirty! That’s some family tradition.” Mandy stood and smoothed the blanket. “I’ll leave shortly after you do, as I like to get to my office well before seven.” She hugged her sister. “I think I’m going to enjoy having you here.”

Leesie yawned. “Mother said she’d come up for my graduation, if not before. She said she’d bring Aunt Mary and Uncle Ron and whoever else she can convince to be part of her entourage.”

“She does love an excursion. Go to bed, Leesie.”

“I think I will.”

Mandy went back out to the kitchen and made some toast and hot cocoa. Then she put on a sweater and sat on the darkened deck to eat it, listening to the night sounds as she thought about the day.

When she finally came inside, she opened the small pantry next to the washroom and searched among the few commodities she had bought on her one trip downriver for something she could feed to company the next night.

MANDY SERVED ENCHILADAS
Monday evening. All day, as her frustration with Grange increased, she looked forward to dinner. She soothed herself by picturing the way the cheese would spiral out of the small holes of her grater like Rumplestiltskin’s golden threads and how the sharp aroma of onions and cheese would combine with the spicy, earthy, essence of red chili and masa. She would use the brown tablecloth with a centerpiece of Vince’s leftover daffodils, and she imagined the palette of green, red, and yellow the enchiladas would make as she presented them to her guests.

Still, no matter what mental exercises she devised, she wasn’t able to keep her mind off the office two doors down from hers. Her frustration with Grange lay not in any verbal fireworks, but in the fact that she didn’t get a chance to fire even one salvo. His calendar said he would be at the high school all morning, so she spent that time planning clever, subtly stinging things to say to him. She would point out the fact that it was his salary, not hers, that threw the district’s budget out of whack. The district had always operated without an assistant superintendent, and they could do so now. He had been replaced.
Hasta la vista
, baby.

After noon, as she waited for Grange to arrive, she worked in her office, struggling to package her vision for the district reading program. Each time she heard a car on the parking lot gravel, she looked up, and her pulse ratcheted up a notch in expectation. In the end, all her scripting of clever, biting dialog was for nothing. He never showed.