My Lost and Found Life (27 page)

“Does Nicole know about this?”

“Not yet, but don't you worry. She'll get along with Philip just fine. I'm sure he'll love dealing with my sweet Nicole after being around you. He told me once that you had only three facial expressions—pouty, sulky, and sullen.

That one stung, but I didn't give her the satisfaction of knowing it.

“Maybe I wasn't always as nice to Phil as I should have been, but at least my mother isn't a bitch like you,” I spat back at her. “Poor Phil, he doesn't know what he's getting into. I pity him when he finds out what you're really like.”

Pointing one of her bloodred nails at me, she retorted, “He knows very well what he's getting, and he's very happy with it, Little Miss Smartass. I'm not an embezzler. I'm not a freeloader living in a camper. You know, maybe you've sponged off him long enough. I'll have to talk to Philip about that.”

She walked off, got into her car, and gave me a spiteful little smile as she pulled away. I raised my right hand and gave her the finger.

After she left, I started wondering if she'd told Nicole where I was living. Then I realized she couldn't have. Two days
ago Nicole had come home for the holidays and left several messages on my cell phone. I hadn't called her back because I didn't feel like pretending everything was just fine while she chattered about all the fun she was having in college. If Nicole knew where I was staying, she wouldn't have called. She would have pounded on the camper door, looking for me.

• • •

After filling my tank, I drove to Gloria's house. Gloria and her family had left Friday morning to spend the holidays in Denver with her husband's relatives. She had suggested I might want to stay there and keep an eye on things while they were gone. I leaped at the chance. It seemed like a golden opportunity to stay in a warm house, sleep in a regular bed, watch television, and otherwise live normally for a few days.

I parked in the driveway and scooped up Stella, who was sunning herself on the front step. Together we went inside and curled up on the sofa to watch TV. After the program ended, I went into the garage where all our furniture and belongings were stored. I wanted to add another $100 to the secret stash I kept hidden in the oak armoire. Counting it reassured me that I was making progress toward an apartment of my own. At my last count I had about $3,400. I would need every penny if Cindy persuaded Phil to kick me out of the camper.

The door to the armoire wasn't properly latched, but I didn't think anything of it other than to mentally remind myself not to be so careless. Then I pulled open the little drawer where I kept the cash and looked inside.

The drawer was empty.

I reached in, scraping my fingernails on the wood and clawing the back of the drawer as if the cash were invisible and I could make it materialize with my touch. My money was gone! I couldn't believe it. It had to be there. I must have moved it to another drawer. Maybe I dropped it. Frantically, I searched the entire armoire, then knelt down to search the floor around it. No money. Nothing.

My brain was reeling from the shock. It had taken me nearly six months to accumulate that money. Now it was gone. How could this happen? Someone must have taken it … but who?

Gloria, I thought, trying to control my rising panic. Of course, Gloria must have found it and taken it into safekeeping for me. But wouldn't she have mentioned it? I smothered that doubt and told myself that she forgot in the frenzy of preparing for the trip.

But what if Gloria didn't have my money? My mind came up with all sorts of wild scenarios. What if her husband had taken it, and spent it all? He could claim he never took it, and I would be totally screwed. Or what if some random person like the gardener or a neighbor borrowing a shovel had come across it and helped himself? What was I going to do? I was helpless without that money. This wasn't some stupid Monopoly game. I didn't have the will or energy to go back to
Start
and save it up all over again.

I tried to stand up again, but my knees started shaking. My stomach flip-flopped, and I felt dizzy, as if I had just stepped off the carnival's Tilt-A-Whirl.

Over and over I kept thinking, Please, please don't let this
happen to me. I am really, really sorry for every awful thing I ever did. Please don't let this happen to me.

• • •

I staggered through the next two days in a sick-hearted daze, telling myself that Gloria had the money. I tried calling the number Gloria left me, but no one answered and no one returned my messages. I tried to convince myself that it would be all right. In five days she'd be back and would fix everything. But in the deepest part of my brain, a small, ugly voice kept whining, What if she can't? What if it's gone for good?

For the first time, I started to think about chucking it all and joining Tattie in Mexico. If hard work and thrift didn't work, what was the point of trying? Getting crazy on drugs and alcohol seemed the only option left. Oblivion beckoned like a warm, cozy blanket.

Sunday night I finally reached Gloria. She apologized for being out of touch.

“Ashley, Merry Christmas! How are you getting along? Any problems?” she chirruped warmly.

“The house is fine, but I have a big problem, Gloria.”

“What is it?” Her voice changed and her customary sharpness emerged.

“I never told you, but I've been putting money in the armoire in the garage for safekeeping...you know, squirreling away my savings. When I checked two days ago, it was gone.”

“Gone?”

“Disappeared, missing, not in the drawer where I left it. I was hoping you had it.”

“No, I don't know anything about it,” she said slowly. “How much money are we talking here?”

“Over three thousand dollars.”

She groaned audibly. “Have you lost your mind? Keeping that kind of money hidden in the garage?”

“I was trying to keep it hidden like you said, so my mother's company couldn't take it away from me.”

I heard her groan again and that only increased my panic.

“If you didn't take it, then where could it be?”

I was talking faster and faster now, and my words turned into a howl of despair. “I don't know what to do. I need that money. God, what will I do?”

“Calm down, calm down. I'll talk to Richard and we'll figure out what happened. No one's been in the garage that I know of, so the money has to be there somewhere. We'll get it straightened out when I get home. Don't let this ruin your Christmas.”

Oh, sure, like my Christmas was going to be so jolly anyway, I thought as I hung up the phone.

The last thing I wanted to do was deck the halls and make merry. But I had already promised to join Earl and his daughter's family for dinner. And if I didn't go there, what would I do? Drinking eggnog in the camper while I brooded didn't seem like much of an alternative.

So I had Christmas dinner with Earl's family. Earl's daughter, Teresa, was petite, with long brown hair and kind eyes. I was surprised to see that she was half-Mexican. I don't know why I was surprised—after all, half of California is Hispanic—but Earl had never mentioned it. All he ever told me was that she was
bringing up twelve-year-old Jack and fourteen-year-old Melissa on a bank teller's salary along with occasional child support payments from her ex-husband.

The whole family was nice to me, even teenage Melissa, and I recalled with embarrassment how sullen I had been at fourteen. Earl beamed with pride, and I found myself wishing I had a grandfather and a family of my own.

Business at the Madhouse was slow, the days seemed to drag by while I waited impatiently for Gloria to return. I was just going through the motions behind the counter one afternoon after Christmas while Louis unloaded some supplies in the kitchen. Mal left, saying he was going to the bank and to run some errands. But I suspected he was really going to take a nap.

I wished I could nap myself as I was suffering from a scratchy throat and a killer headache. I had self-diagnosed these symptoms as a bad case of the blues. I longed to lie down and dream of a blue-eyed Irishman with a crooked smile.

By four o'clock only a handful of customers were scattered around the coffeehouse. A young guy wearing a knit cap sat at one of the computers, and two teenage girls were giggling at one of the window tables. At a table toward the back Jerry was reading what looked like a comic book. He was ignoring me and vice versa.

Then Bella burst through the door, pulling Stephanie and pushing Oliver in the baby barge. Stephanie immediately ran
over to the five-foot-tall Christmas tree Mal had placed in the front corner between the east- and north-facing windows. The tree looked dry, no doubt due to the dozens of colored lights that had been blinking on its branches for the past month. After examining the gift-wrapped boxes under the tree, Stephanie brought one of them over to the counter.

“Who is this present for? Why haven't they opened it?” she asked.

“I don't know, Steffie,” I said wearily. “You'll have to ask Mal when he comes back.”

“Put it back under the tree, love, and tell me what you want,” Bella said, shrugging off her fuzzy yellow coat and throwing it across an empty chair.

I watched while Bella spent the next few minutes trying to coax Stephanie into taking a muffin instead of a cookie. That's why I didn't notice when the wild and woolly Book Man slipped through the door.

I glanced up only when I heard the guy at the computer say, “Stop that, dude. Are you crazy?”

To my amazement, the Book Man was marching around the coffeehouse, flinging liquid everywhere from a jar he was carrying. He looked like a priest splashing holy water on a pagan temple.

“Hey,” I shouted. “What are you doing?”

Ignoring me, he continued to throw liquid all over the old sofa, the Christmas tree, and then Bella's yellow coat.

“My coat!” Bella shrieked, grabbing up her yellow fake fur.

Without saying a word, the man began striking matches and throwing them on the tree and the sofa. Both burst into
flames. Then he tossed a match toward Bella. It set her coat ablaze.

Bella screamed and dropped the coat.

I yelled, “Are you crazy? Louis.
Louis!
”

As I scrambled under the counter for the fire extinguisher, I could hear the wild man chanting, “God punishes evildoers. The Lord Jehovah cleanses your sins in fire.”

Louis slammed through the kitchen door, took one look at the scene, and grabbed the extinguisher from me. He darted across the room, but the Book Man knocked him down. Louis hit his head on the floor with a loud
crack.
The extinguisher went skidding across the floor.

With what seemed like superhuman strength, the Book Man turned and dragged the burning sofa toward the front door.

Bella hadn't stopped screaming. Both Stephanie and the baby joined in. I rushed over to retrieve the fire extinguisher, but the Book Man grabbed it first. He tossed it into one of the computers, knocking it off the table and shattering the monitor.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the customer at the computer dashing toward the door. As he pushed past the burning sofa, he knocked the Book Man sideways against the flames. It looked to me as if the Book Man's sleeve caught fire. Still, he didn't stop chanting.

Then someone—it had to have been Jerry—moved toward him. They began to grapple with each other. Was Jerry trying to get past him or to subdue him? So much smoke and noise filled the air that I wasn't sure. The fire was spreading fast, and
smoke obscured my vision. I could hear grunting coming from somewhere and a thumping noise.

Suddenly I realized that we all needed to get outside.

“Come on, Louis! We need to get out of here!” I knelt and pulled on his arm. He managed to stand up. I gave him a shove toward the counter and he tottered toward the kitchen. As I turned back toward the others, Bella charged forward in a mad dash to get to the blocked front door. She rammed the stroller into my shin, almost knocking me onto my knees.

Wincing in pain, I grabbed her and shook her. “Forget the stroller! Just take the baby out! Get the baby out of the stroller and go out the back way. I'll bring Stephanie.”

Obediently she reached down and fumbled with the stroller straps, but she was too panicked to work the safety catch.

“I can't, I can't. The belt is stuck!” she shrieked.

I ran behind the counter, grabbed a knife, and sawed on the straps until they broke. In one motion I scooped up Oliver and thrust him into Bella's arms.

“Go out through the kitchen!” I said, looking around frantically.
“Now!”

I glanced toward the windows. Dimly I saw the two teenage girls still frozen in their chairs, too frightened to move.

“Come on!”
I screamed at them. “You have to go out the kitchen door!”

They stared at me with blind eyes.

I ran over to them and pulled on the nearest girl's arm. They both shot up as if I had suddenly broken the spell. Their chairs clattered to the floor.

“Go! Go!” I said, pushing them toward the kitchen door. They stumbled through it.

I whirled around to grab Stephanie. She wasn't there. Oh, God, did she go out with Bella or was she still in here?

“Stephanie,
Stephanie!
” I yelled. “Come on, baby. We have to get out of here.”

The smoke had become so thick that it choked me. I grabbed the wet, dirty cloth we used to mop up spills. Holding the rag to my mouth, I dropped to the floor and looked around wildly. Then I caught a glimpse of something or someone under the table closest to the counter.

I crawled over to the table. My arms banged against the legs of the furniture as I reached out frantically. Then I felt something. It was a leg. Then I grabbed her shoulder. Her soft little body was curled up into a knot and twisted between the chair and table legs. I knocked the chair over trying to pull her out. She whimpered in terror.