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Eisenhower National Airport is new, recently opened, and it actually looks like an airport. Our previous airport looked more like a junior high school building with a runway.
When the city had announced construction of a brand new, state-of-the-art airport, all the citizens of Tonkawa had rejoiced at the prospect of new airlines and more available flights.
So much for that.
Tonkawa, a centrally located city in the most centrally located state within America, only had direct commercial flights to about six cities. It was a pain in the butt, it was super expensive, and the only planes that could fit on our brand new, state-of-the-art runway were puddle-hoppers and jungle-jets.
No leg room. Believe me.
Thus the reason why people from Kansas drive everywhere.
I stretch my legs out and lean back in the comfortable chair on the mezzanine of the terminal building. Laurel’s flight is on the ground, and she should be rounding the corner from the gates at any time. But until then I’ll take advantage of the brand new, state-of-the-art upholstery in the waiting area.
Her flight, Delta 2280 out of Atlanta, was one of two stops she had to make between Tonkawa and Tahiti.
Yes, Tahiti.
It’s a magical place.
Seriously.
Of all the places her office could send her for a conference, why couldn’t it have been Moscow? Or Alaska? Or even Canada? I could have teased her about all of those. But Tahiti? Not for the first time, I wonder exactly why I’m still working for my dad’s church when I could be an administrative assistant for a doctor who would take me to Tahiti for conferences.
The most exotic place Dad has ever taken me for a conference was Chattanooga, Tennessee. We ate barbecue there, and it was covered in coleslaw. I don’t like coleslaw by itself, let alone smothered on top of a pulled pork sandwich. I demanded a stop in Kansas City on the way home just to eat some kind of smoked meat without sauce-laden cabbage on top of it.
A mass of passengers round the corner of the hallway, all dragging wheeled carry-on luggage, and make a beeline for the escalator. Laurel isn’t among the first mass. Nor the second. Knowing her, she probably had started a conversation with someone and didn’t want to stop until she had all their life history.
Aha.
Yup. There she is.
Laurel, my best friend, rounding the corner walking alongside an old woman in a wheelchair. They’re gabbing up a storm. As they cross the line into the public waiting area, Laurel bends over and hugs the woman. They wave at each other, and Laurel starts bouncing toward me.
“Trisha!” She waves happily and stops short, staring at me with eyes that grow wider and wider. “Trisha?”
I pause in the middle of waving back.
Oh.
The bruises.
No wonder all the people in the airport had been staring. I’d thought I’d had spinach in my teeth.
“Hey, Laurel.” I shrug.
Laurel rushes up to me and gawks at me. “Trisha, what happened? Are you okay? What have you done to yourself?”
“Calm down.”
“Calm down? Look at yourself! You look like you fell down a flight of stairs!”
I wince. “Well, I did.”
“Oh, Trisha.”
“I’m fine.” I take her arm. “How about you? You look tan.”
Laurel rolls her eyes. “It happens when you go out in the sun.”
“It happens to you,” I say. “I burn to a crisp.” I gather my purse. “And what about your new friend?”
“Gladys!” Laurel bounces for the escalator. “She’s 95. Flew out of town to visit her great grandkids down in Atlanta. Can you imagine?”
Laurel chatters a mile a minute as we walk to the baggage claim. She jabbers on and on about the conference, about what she learned, about the clothes, about the food, about the weather, about the water, about the beach. I honestly tune most of it out. Not that I don’t care. I do. But I’d care more if I’d gotten to go with her.
She finally runs out of breath by the time her bags come round the bend.
I help her gather them up, and we make our way outside.
A wall of 103-degree heat bowls us over.
Laurel wails. “I want to go back to Tahiti.”
“Wasn’t it hot there?”
“Sure. But you could go jump in the water.”
“You could jump in a lake here.” I point out. “Or the river.”
“I’m not jumping in our river,” Laurel says sourly. “The mercury content in the water is so high you could use it to take the temperature.”
I giggle as we approach my old Buick. I stab the key into the trunk and open it so we can toss her luggage inside.
“Are you hungry?”
“I could eat.” Laurel moves for the passenger side of the car.
“Mind something fast?”
“No.” Laurel opens the door. “Fast is good. I’ll get home and get changed, and I can still be back at the house this afternoon to help with whatever I can.”
I bite off a chuckle.
“Speaking of the house.” Laurel sinks into her seat.
I open my door and get settled in the driver’s side.
“Yes?” I glance at her.
Laurel purses her lips. “Are you going to tell me?”
“About what?”
“About why you look like you went ten rounds in a prize fight?”
“You should see the other guy.” I start the car.
And freeze.
Oh.
Why did I say that?
Why did I even think that would be funny?
Because the other guy? Well, the other guy is dead.
My stomach turns over.
“What other guy?” Laurel looks more worried than she did before. “Trisha, what happened?”
I turn the air conditioner on and check the gas gauge. Full tank. That’s good. I glance at the clock. No time. If we leave now, I won’t have to pay the parking fee.
I pull out of the parking spot and head for the exit.
“Well, we figured out all the weird noises in the house,” I say.
“Not ghosts?”
“Squatters.”
“Oh, Trisha.”
“Yeah, and that’s not the worst of it.” I stop at the automatic gate, stuff my ticket into the slot and wait for it to tell me to proceed. It does, and I pull forward.
“What’s worse?” Laurel is resting her face in her hands.
“Well,” I start, “they were all upstairs packing up boxes of cocaine.”
Laurel barks a wild laugh. “Of course they were. And who found them?”
“Aaron and me.” I offer a smile.
“Is he okay?”
“He looks about the same as I do, but yeah. He’s okay.”
“And you?”
“Just roughed up, Laurel. Don’t worry.”
She leans toward me. “And the other guy?”
My stomach turns over again. I could lie. Tell her there wasn’t another guy. Tell her that I was just clumsy enough to get my face bashed in by a drug dealer and then tumble down the stairs. She would believe that.
I sigh.
“Trisha.”
I merge into traffic and point the hood of my car toward the nearest fast food joint.
“The guy who was beating me up was heading for the stairs,” I say. “I grabbed his leg. We both fell down. And—”
“And?”
“And I walked away with some bruises. But he broke his neck.”
Laurel falls silent.
For a long time.
There’s no talking for much longer than I’m comfortable with, but I can’t bring myself to look at her.
Finally, she sets her hand on my knee. “Oh, Trisha, I’m so sorry.”
The road is blurring in front of my face. I desperately pull my Buick into the restaurant parking lot and throw it in park, leaving the engine running so the air conditioner keeps cooling. I dash the tears off my bruised face.
“It’s okay, Laurel.”
“No, it’s not.” Laurel gathers my hands in hers. “Oh, Trisha, I’m so so sorry. I wish I’d been here.”
I squeeze her hand. “It’s worse still.”
“How can it be worse?”
I glance at her. “Keith was arrested.”
“What? Why?”
I shake my head. “They suspect him of dealing drugs. That this was why he volunteered for the project.”
“Oh, that’s ridiculous.” Laurel huffs. “Is Cecily okay?”
I smile at her.
Leave it to Laurel to see what I only guessed at.
“Yeah, she’s okay,” I say. “She’s worried. But all of us are.”
Laurel sags into her seat. “I’m never going to Tahiti again. Everything falls apart without me here.”
I laugh. “Right. Yes. It’s all your fault.” I wipe the tears off my face again. “Chicken meal?” I nod at the restaurant.
“Chicken meal.”
As we wait in line, I fill her in on the particulars of the house, like the latest weird things we’ve discovered (plastic lunch containers with mold-covered lunches still inside, fake Confederate currency, sewing patterns, film canisters, etc.) and the more positive progress. Like the cleaners coming today.
“Do you have to do anything with that?” Laurel asks.
“The cleaners?” I blink. “No, I just have to be there to let them in. They’ll take care of all the carpet upstairs.”
Laurel sets her hand on my knee.
“I’m so glad you’re okay, Trisha,” she says.
I pay for the food and take the bag the woman in the window hands to me. I give it to Laurel and pull us back onto the road.
“Are you—are you sure you’re okay?”
I glance at her. “I’m all right, Laurel.”
“But shouldn’t you talk to someone about it?” Laurel shakes her head. “You saw a man die!”
“I’ve seen some scary things before, Laurel.”
“Not like this.”
I pull into traffic. “I don’t want to talk to a therapist. I don’t think that will do any good.”
“You won’t know until you try.”
I laugh. “Can you imagine what the church will think if I do? Wow. Pastor’s daughter kills a drug dealer and goes to therapy because she can’t deal.”
Laurel’s eyes are turning misty.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m a kicked puppy or something.”
“You’re acting like a kicked puppy.”
“Eat your chicken.”
The paper bag rustles as Laurel digs into her chicken sandwich miserably. It’s like a cloud forms over her head as she takes a big bite and sniffles like I’ve just told her Santa Claus isn’t real.
I turn my car down her street and pull into her driveway. I take her elbow and look into her face.
“I’m okay, Laurel. I promise.”
Her teary eyes meet mine. “Promise me that you’ll think about therapy.”
I sigh.
“Please?”
“Fine.” I release her. “I’ll think about it.” I point to her house. “Go change your clothes, and if you want to talk more I’ll be at the house until the cleaners are done. It’ll probably be late.”
Laurel leans across the seat and hugs me gently. I pat her back.
She crawls out of the car and grabs her bags from the trunk, lugging them up the sidewalk to her house. I wait until she has her door open before I back out of the driveway and point the hood toward West Maple.
I haven’t made it out of her neighborhood before my phone is ringing.
I spy Dad’s number and lift the phone to my ear. “Dad?”
“Trisha.” His voice is smiling. “Hey, I know you’re meeting cleaners at the house today, but would you come get Gran?”
“Now?”
“I have a meeting with the trustees that came up unexpectedly, and Gran doesn’t want to sit in my office with nothing to do.” He lowers his voice. “I don’t want her sitting in my office with nothing to do.”
“Ask Mom.”
“Mom’s at a hair appointment.”
“What about Ruth?”
“At work.”
“Clara? Or Lizzie? Shouldn’t they have to pull their own weight?”
“Patricia.”
“Dad.” I stop at a red light.
“Patricia, your sisters have children to watch or jobs to do. There’s nothing stopping you from picking up your grandmother and taking her to the house that you’re waiting for someone else to clean.”
I sigh.
“I thought you like hanging out with your grandmother.”
“I do.” I signal and move into the next lane. “We’re pals. I’m heading your way. I’ll be there soon.”
“Good girl.” He hangs up.
Great.
It’s not that I don’t want to spend the afternoon with my grandmother. I actually do like being around her. I’m just not sure if bringing her into this chaotic rat’s nest of a house is the best idea. If Dad doesn’t want her puttering around his office, why does he think that her puttering around the ugly orange house will be any better?
Granted, there’s no phone line she can use to crank call church members.
That’s probably his biggest worry. That’s only happened once, but knowing Gran she’s looking for the chance to do it again.
It’s out of the way and takes me longer than I’d like, but I pull into the parking lot of the church. Dad waves at me from the foyer doors, and Gran starts hobbling toward the Buick. I climb out and help her inside, folding and chucking Cordell into the back seat.
“Your father needs to lose about fifty pounds,” Gran says as she fastens her belt.
“Is that so?”
“It is.”
“And how did this come up?”
“It didn’t.” Gran snorts. “I just thought you should know. Your mother insists on feeding him all the time, and it might do him good if he had to starve once in a while.”
“I’ll be sure to pass that on.”
I pull the car into traffic and start toward West Maple again.
“Patricia?”
“Yes, Gran?”
“Where are we going?”
“We are going to the house that I’m helping fix up,” I say. “There are some cleaners coming in, and I need to be there to open the door for them and to lock up after they’re done.”
“Ah.” Gran nods her head so vigorously that her tight curls bounce. “This is the ugly old haunted house, right?”
“Yes, except it’s not haunted.”
“I’m certain it’s haunted.”
“Sure, Gran.”
Gran hums under her breath before she turns to me. “Will that sexy ghost hunter be there?”
“Gosh, Gran, I hope not.” I groan. That would be just what I need. “And why is he sexy? I thought you called him a weasel.”
“Weasels can be sexy.”
“Sure, Gran. Whatever you say.”
I turn the car down Douglas as the neighborhood turns from commercial strip centers to residential homes.
“Did you bring anything to eat?” Gran asks. “Your father only has hard candy in his office. He’s going to get diabetes.”
“I have some mixed nuts in my bag. And there’s some lunch stuff at the house.”
Gran scoffs. “Nuts give me gas.”
I smirk. “Doesn’t everything?”
I pull up to the orange house and turn the engine off.
“That?” Gran points.
“Yup.”
“Patricia, that’s the ugliest house I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah?” I open my door. “Tell me something I don’t know, Gran.” I stand up and shut my door.
I’ll get Gran inside. Find something for her to eat. Get the cleaners where they need to go. With any luck, Laurel will show up to help me wrangle Gran. And then maybe, just maybe, we can have a quiet night at home.
After all this time working on the house and trying to get it to a place where it can be sold, I’m ready for a break.
