creepy-crawly vermin.
“Great,” Ali said, trying to sound enthusiastic.
While the three men ate, several people stopped by to give Bob get well wishes. Around one or so, Kip and Chris loaded Bob back into his chair and then wheeled him out the door to get him settled into the house. Edie watched them go.
“Good riddance,” she grumbled. “I don’t need him sitting out there like King Tut and ordering free food for every Tom, Dick, or Harry who steps inside the place.”
As they finished up the last of the orders and started the cleanup, though, Edie was still muttering under her breath. By the time Chris came over to help carry out the last of the trash, however, she was in a somewhat better mood.
“That Kip guy looks like he needs a shower and a haircut and a clean set of clothes,” Jan Howard told Chris as he tied up the garbage bags. “But it’ll be good to have him helping out for the next little while. It’s lucky you ran into him.”
Chris looked uncomfortable.
“Hah!” Edie barked from the kitchen. “Luck had nothing to do with it. You didn’t fall for that old ‘soldier’s together’ malarky, did you?”
Jan looked puzzled. “I thought that’s what Bob said, that they’d served as corpsmen together in Vietnam.”
“Bob was a corpsman,” Edie corrected. “And maybe Kip was, too, for all I know. Or maybe he was doing first-aid on helicopters.”
“But Bob said…”
“I don’t care what Bob said,” Edie told her. “He’s a proud man who’s laid up and can’t work. He’s also a big man who’s going to need help getting in and out of bed and chairs and cars and other things it’s probably best not to mention. And my guess is he’d rather die than have to ask me for help. Instead, he comes dragging home with this stranger who may or may not murder us in our beds. Right, Chris?”
Her grandson nodded. “When we left the hospital, I thought we’d come straight here,” Chris admitted. “But he made me pull off the road, right there at the turnoff to Schnebly Hill Road. We stopped at a parking lot that was still so full of snow I was afraid we’d get stuck, but then a guy showed up. Walked right out of the woods. He came up to the car and greeted Gramps like they really were long lost friends. Then the first guy went away, and the next thing you know, Kip shows up. He came out of the woods, dragging a duffle bag. He threw the bag in the back of the truck, climbed in, and we came straight here. That’s the whole story.”
“See there?” Edie said triumphantly. “I told you it was bogus. Until this morning, Bob Larson didn’t know Kip Hogan from a hole in the ground, but if Bob had told me he wanted to hire someone to help him get around so I wouldn’t have to do it, I never would have stood for it. So there you are. He pretends they’re old friends. I pretend I believe him, and everybody’s happy. Got it?”
Jan Howard sighed and shook her head. “What-ever floats your boat,” she said.
As Ali and her mother were leaving the restaurant, Edie caught Ali in a hug. “You raised a great kid,” she said.
Ali knew it was true. Life on upscale Robert Lane could very well have turned Chris’s head and wrecked him, but it hadn’t. One of the things that had helped keep him on track had been the month or so he spent with his grandparents in Sedona each summer.
“Thanks,” she said. “I seem to remember having lots of help from you and Dad.”
“I’m sorry he has to leave tomorrow,” Edie added. “I don’t know how I would have made it through this without him holding down the fort at the hospital.”
Ali was almost to the car when she remembered the next day was Friday. “What about tomorrow? Reenie’s funeral is at two, so I’ll need to get off by noon.”
“No problem,” Edie told her. “If you can come in for breakfast, that’ll be fine. One way or another we’ll manage.”
“But what about the restaurant consultant?”
“We’ll manage,” Edie repeated. “Don’t you worry about it.”
“And what’s the deal with Dave Holman?” Ali asked.
“Deal? I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“Come on, Mom,” Ali said. “Out with it. You knew about Paul and me. You knew all about Howie Bernard having a girlfriend. I’m sure you have a very good idea about what’s going on with Dave.”
Edie sighed. “He’s still in the Marine Reserves,” she said. “His unit was called up for active duty and he got shipped off to Iraq for six months. While he was gone his wife, Roxie, took up with a guy named Whitman, Gary Whitman, a slimy timeshare salesman from up at the resort. Roxie served Dave with divorce papers on the day he came back, and she married Whitman the day after the divorce was final.”
“Roxie and her husband are getting ready to move to Lake Havasu.”
“I know,” Edie said. “I was worrying about how he would handle it.”
Edie walked away across the parking lot, leaving her daughter standing in stunned amazement. How does she do that? Ali wondered. Because one way or another, it seemed that there was very little that went on in northern Arizona without Edie Larson’s full knowledge.
After leaving the Sugarloaf, Ali stopped by the florist and ordered flowers for Reenie’s funeral-a spray of two dozen yellow roses to be delivered to the church in Cottonwood. Yellow roses had always been Reenie’s favorite. Then Ali went home to do cat-litter duty. She noticed that she wasn’t nearly as tired as she had been the day before, but her feet and back were still mad at her.
With the sky outside a brilliant azure blue, Ali thought she’d be able to sit outside on the deck and soak up some sun. Within minutes of sitting down on the patio, however, she realized that the sunlight was deceptive. There was still a decided chill in the air, so she went back inside, settled down on the couch with Samantha at her side, picked up her computer and logged on. Her new mail folder was brimming with correspondence.
Give me a break. The poor little rich girl is actually having to lift a finger at real work for a change? Sitting in front of a TV camera and reading the news is not work. Your whining makes me sick.
I found this site by accident. I Googled Sedona because my wife wants to go there on vacation. If it’s full of people like you, why bother? I could just as well save my money and stay in southern California.
Brad
Yes, Ali thought. Why don’t you stay in California? But she posted Brad’s comment anyway, just to be fair. The next one was even worse.
Wow. No wonder they fired your ass. You’re such an ugly broad. Maybe if you invested in some decent plastic surgery, it would fix your disfigured glare. In the meantime, I hope you’re using a paper bag to cover your ugly face when you’re out in public. And whatever you do, do NOT post a picture on your blog. Better people should never know what you really look like.
Much love,
Melissa G.
Two for two, Ali thought. What is it, a full moon? Making an effort to not take the writer’s malice personally, Ali posted that comment as well. After all, hadn’t she just claimed that cutlooseblog was supposed to be a conversation? And conversations generally came with more than one side and more than one opinion.
As Ali opened the next e-mail, however, she was feeling more than a little gun-shy.
Dear Ali,
I never expected to be writing to you, but now I am. I hated you for a long time, but now I realize that they’ve done the same thing to you that they did to me. I guess what goes around really does come around.
Ali skipped to the bottom of the message to the signature part: Katherine Amado Burke. Katy Amado had been Ali’s immediate predecessor at the station in LA, the woman Paul Grayson’s influence had bumped out of the news co-anchor chair.
My last night on the air, the news director came to me just before the broadcast and told me I’d been axed. He said I should sit in front of the camera and tell my viewers I was leaving to spend more time with my family, and I did. That was a joke, of course, because I had a husband who already had both feet out the door. (I have a
