Kindergarten Baby: A Novel (8 page)

She chased the apple with another swig of wine. Tonight the wine would replace her poison apple.

The unusual and extreme cold front was perfect for the night of the Winter Performance, but it wasn’t great for sitting in the backyard without the benefit of a sweater, let alone any winter wear. The temperature dropped rapidly, but Lindsey barely felt it. In fact, she welcomed the anesthetic quality of the bitter, cold air, and her mind gently toyed with the irony that she felt as cold and numb on the outside as she did on the inside. Her eyelids had become so heavy they wouldn’t open, and her body was still.

Winter clouds quickly covered the starlight, and within an hour the temperature had dropped from 49 degrees to about 33 degrees. Lindsey didn’t feel the tiny, wet snowflakes as they touched her face, though she would have loved that. Snow was a rare treat in the desert. The sight of it usually brought indescribable delight to her heart. Not tonight. Tonight the flakes propelled Lindsey toward the darkest corners of her mind, and she drifted into a deeper level of sleep. The temperature dropped a few more degrees.

An odd whistling sound broke through the coldness of her mind, coming closer, growing louder.
What was that?
It sounded like a young child trying to learn to whistle. Over and over the child tried, and she smiled in her sleep, admiring the dedication. The sound changed again, becoming a wolf whistle, the strong, masculine sound she associated with construction workers admiring women in tight, short skirts.

She burst into consciousness, chilled to the bone, then panicked when she sensed the thin film of ice on her face. When she opened her eyes, it cracked like a facial mask left on too long. Disoriented and shaking with cold, she clawed the ice from her face, then stopped when she heard the whistling sound again. It was coming from under the lounge chair, she realized, but it was too dark for her to see. She tried to move, but her body was stiff from the cold. The noise changed back to sounding like a child’s voice, and Lindsey wondered vaguely if it were a dream. Nothing felt real.

The source of the mysterious noise suddenly hopped up on the end of the patio lounge chair and flapped its wings, singing with great vigor.

“Who are you?” Lindsey asked, staring at the beautiful white bird.

She’d never seen such an exotic bird before, and had a feeling it wasn’t a desert native. It wouldn’t do well in the snow. Lindsey sat straight up, suddenly alert. Snow? She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering convulsively.

“You must be f-f-freezing,” she said through chattering teeth. “We’d b-better get inside.”

The strange little bird climbed onto Lindsey’s outstretched hand, and it didn’t object at all to being carried into the warm house. The last few embers of the fire were still flickering faintly, and Lindsey went directly to its delicious heat. She had no idea what to do with the bird, which kept up with its enthusiastic singing. The little yellow head cocked to the side, and she noticed its tiny crown and orange cheeks. It gave another wolf whistle, then declared “Pretty bird!”

“I don’t have any bird seed,” she told her visitor, “if that’s what you want. I could get you some tomorrow. How about a drink of water?” The bird scooped the water up with its curved beak then tipped back its head, obviously thirsty. “How about some banana?” He pecked at it a bit, but Lindsey wasn’t sure he actually ate any of it.

As the bird warmed up, so did its singing. It gave her a comical sampling of little bird songs, trills, whistles, chirps, and squawks.

“Take a breath, little guy!” Lindsey said, laughing, and it seemed to understand. For the next thirty minutes or so, her feathered friend ceased talking whenever she spoke, then resumed its twittering when she was quiet. Lindsey freshened her wine and refilled the bird’s saucer of water.

“You know, bird, if I am going to tell you my life’s woes, you’ll need a name. How about Tweety? Nah. Already taken. Polly? Nope, too old fashioned.” She narrowed her eyes, thinking. “How about Malcolm? I like the sound of that. So, Malcolm, here’s the story. Just before you flew into my life, I didn’t much care if I lived or died. I actually felt like I had died already in a way.”

The bird reacted with a shrill litany of chirps.

“I know. Pitiful, huh? But my husband is divorcing me. He’s leaving me so he can be with a stripper.”

“Pretty bird. Pretty bird. Pretty bird.”

“Oh, sure. She’s pretty. So pretty she doesn’t look real. But you know what? I can’t think about her anymore. I can’t think about him anymore, either. I’ve got to think about myself‌—‌and you, of course. Don’t worry. I won’t send you out in the cold. You don’t look like a wild bird. You’re probably someone’s lost pet. And I’m sure they miss you very, very much. I’ll put out some posters in the morning.”

Lindsey and Malcolm continued their conversation until midnight, then she found some old newspapers and placed them under the large vase on her coffee table where Malcolm perched. She hadn’t seen him fly yet, and he didn’t seem to want to go anywhere. He tucked his head to the side, almost laying it on his own shoulder, then drifted off to sleep. Lindsey still couldn’t go back to her bed, since it brought back memories of the betrayal, so she laid down on the living room sofa.

Just before she fell asleep, she looked at Malcolm, then whispered to herself, “My very own little white bird. Cinderella would be proud.”

WINTER

CHAPTER TEN

When Lindsey and Laura arrived at the Bright Angel Lodge, almost six inches of new fallen snow had accumulated. It was absolutely beautiful. Lindsey was relieved to see that the stone steps they were about to climb had been shoveled. She grinned up at the lodge then grabbed her friend’s hand and squeezed it.

“This is fantastic, Laura. So rustic! And I don’t think I’ve seen this much snow in…‌well, maybe ten years.”

Laura frowned at her, looking baffled. “I don’t get it, Linds. Two nights ago you were in a miserable catatonic state. Now you’re bubbling with joy. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m your friend. I want you to be happy. It’s just…‌how’d you get happy so fast?”

“Don’t get
me
wrong, my friend. I may seem happy, but I am still hurt and lonely and devastated. A nasty, adulterous divorce will do that and more. It’s not that I’m suddenly a happy person again. I’m not. But I can be happy in the moment, and this, well, this is a great moment.”

Laura pulled open the lodge door, ushering Lindsey ahead of her.

“I don’t really know how I came back to earth,” Lindsey mused. “I think it started with the bird. He fluttered my focus off the ‘poor me’ syndrome and on to…‌well, just on. I’m looking forward instead of back. I’m not waiting for Anthony anymore. He’s made his choice, and as much as I hate it, I can’t change it. Now that I know for sure I have to live my life without him, I can get on with it. And that begins today. This glorious, snow-filled day.”

“You’re amazing.”

They beamed at each other. “So are you,” Lindsey assured her.

“Good afternoon ladies. Checking in?” A tall, thin man stood behind the knotty-wood registration desk, smiling at them. He wore wire half-glasses and a gray cardigan sweater with leather patches on the elbows, looking more like a retired college professor than a desk clerk. The only thing missing was the pipe, Lindsey thought, and that was probably tucked away in his pocket, waiting for the moment he entered an area void of any “No Smoking” signs.

“Yes,” Lindsey replied. “We reserved a lodge room for two under the name Sommerfield. Lindsey Sommerfield.”

The clerk’s brow wrinkled with concern as he looked over his book. “Oh dear,” he mumbled, shaking his head.

“Is there a problem?”

“It seems so. Did you bring your confirmation number with you?”

Lindsey rummaged through her bag and came up empty-handed. “I give up. I don’t know what I did with it. But it began with a ‘Y’ and there were some threes and sevens in the number. I’m sure of that.”

He nodded but maintained his frown. “Well, now. I do believe you. I certainly do. But that’s not going to do us much good right now, because I don’t have any rooms left anyway.”

Lindsey’s stomach dropped. But she’d called and confirmed!

“Why don’t you take a stroll along the rim while there’s still some daylight,” the clerk suggested. “I’ll make a few phone calls and see what I can come up with. You can leave your luggage here, behind the counter.”

It had been a chilly fifty degrees when they’d left Tucson that morning. Fifty degrees sounded warm to them now. A sign outside the lodge entrance read: “High today: 38 degrees. Low tonight: 4 degrees.”

“Now that’s cold!” said Lindsey slipping on her fur-lined leather gloves.

As he’d suggested, they headed west along the Rim Trail, stopping at every informational sign along the way.

“Look Laura. Can you believe this? It says the Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, between four and ten miles wide, and six thousand feet deep. That’s a lot of erosion!”

“It’d be cool to watch the making of the canyon on time-lapse photography. How many millions of rolls of film or memory cards would that take?” They gazed in quiet wonder at the giant canyon, and Laura let out a sigh. “I wish we could go down there, don’t you?”

“Get that thought out of your mind,” Lindsey said quickly. “We are here to relax, eat lots of good food, take nice, short walks in the snow, and maybe drink one or two too many Grand Marniers in the El Tovar bar. We are not here to exhaust ourselves.”

“Okay, I see your point. But you left out ‘flirt with all the good-looking men.’ “

“You’re kidding, right?”

“About the hiking or the flirting?” Laura asked with a beguiling smile.

They came upon a quaint old bookstore nestled among the pines on the south rim of the Grand Canyon, and Lindsey read “Kolb Studio” on the carved, wooden sign mounted over the door. Inside, they read another information sign, and discovered that Emery and Ellsworth Kolb, who had originally used the structure as their photography studio, had built the place in 1904. The shop was brimming with nostalgic charm, and it had an atmosphere so alluring that Lindsey figured even the most skeptical non-shopper would find it difficult to leave without making a purchase. For two elementary school teachers it wasn’t just difficult, it was practically impossible.

“Who Pooped in the Park?”

“Geez, Lindsey. Keep it down!”

Lindsey laughed. “It’s a book. A picture book. Look! That’s the main part of the title. It’s by Gary D. Robson.”

“So it is,” her friend said, smiling over her shoulder. “Your little guys are really going to like that.”

Lindsey made her first Grand Canyon purchase‌—‌the “poop” book and an Arizona alphabet book‌—‌while Laura bought
“Hey Ranger!” Kids Ask Questions About Grand Canyon National Park
. When they returned to the lodge, the clerk was on the phone. By the look on his face, they could tell the news was not good. He hung up then shook his head.

“I don’t know how this little mix-up occurred, ladies, but it did, and there simply isn’t another room to be had.”

“But how can that be?” Laura asked. “We’ve been walking around for an hour, and we haven’t seen many people. How can every room be taken?”

“We’re expecting several tour buses to arrive any time now, and all those folks have reservations.”

“But we had reservations, too! And we’re here! We’re here
now
!” Lindsey cried. She wasn’t about to let anything rain‌—‌or snow‌—‌on her parade. She was going to enjoy life. Relax. See the sights. Maybe even hike the canyon. Do it all‌—‌and that included sleeping in a bed. “There must be something we can do.”

“Of course there is. Just drive back out of the park to the little town of Tusayan. They have a few rooms left there,” said the clerk.

“We can’t. Our car is back in Williams. We took the old Grand Canyon Railway. Why can’t you give us one of those rooms that belongs to someone on one of those buses that hasn’t yet arrived? Maybe someone won’t show up. People do get sick, you know. Plans change.”

The clerk shook his head sadly. “Ah, but what if they all arrive as planned, with their exact confirmation numbers. I’d be in trouble so big it would make the canyon seem small.”

The women kept on, whining and pleading, looking for a solution, but the clerk was helpless. Eventually, a small man walked up to the desk, shaking his head. “All right, already. Stop your begging. It’s not ladylike. George, just give them my room. I can sleep with my son. He won’t be thrilled, but what’s he gonna do?” He kept shaking his head as he turned from the desk and walked away, still mumbling to himself.

“Thank you, Mr…‌Mr…”

But he was already gone.

The clerk raised one eyebrow. “Well now. That’s a stroke of luck for you.”

The room was incredible. It had its own wood-burning fireplace, two large log beds, a sitting area complete with two overstuffed, roomy chairs, and a small kitchen. When Lindsey pulled opened the heavy, azure drapes, an unrestrained squeal of delight filled the room. They were rim-side, and the view was spectacular. The setting sun, glimmering through just enough cloud cover, painted a purple glow on the rust-colored cliffs that already sparkled with a light dusting of snow.

“This must be the best room in the whole place!” she exclaimed, unable to take her eyes from the view. “I wish Anthony was here. He would love this,” came tumbling from her lips before she even realized what she’d said. She looked guiltily at Laura. “Oops.”

“What? I thought you weren’t—”

“Okay! I still miss him. I still love him, Laura. Just because I’ve decided, mentally, to get on with my life‌—‌and I will‌—‌that doesn’t mean I don’t still care. It’s going to take a while. I know that. It’s…‌it’s just odd, not having someone to share moments like this with.”

Laura huffed good-naturedly. “I’ll try not to take that personally,” she said.

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

“Of course. I know exactly what you mean. This could have been one of life’s most romantic moments if I was Anthony, or you were…‌Oh, damn. I still don’t know his name.”