“Torie, I’ll always care for you and be here for you if you need me for anything,” he continued earnestly.
Here it is then—I’m being officially given the old heave ho, I thought, and I didn’t believe that bit about being there for me for one second because I have had absolutely no confidence over the course of the last eleven months that he would have ever lifted a finger to assist me in any way, with anything—especially now, since it would require him to drive out on gravel to do so!
“Okay, Derek. Listen, I gotta go,” I said finally. I had been stomping around my kitchen while we been talking, taking up a sponge absently and determinedly wiping off the already clean granite kitchen countertop, before realizing what I was doing and tossing the sponge into the sink.
“I wish you nothing but good, Derek and I hope that you find what you’re looking for.”
“You too, Torie. You take care of yourself, lady,” he said as if he were speaking to a casual acquaintance and then the line went dead, the call ended by him, just like that—gone.
“Well isn’t this ironic,” I said out loud to my quiet house. “Not quite up to the dramatic standard that one might expect in the world of a romance author. What kind of masterpiece could a sorry breakup like this produce?”
Real life and real life breakups definitely lack the poetry of their fictional counterparts and leave a lot to be desired, I decided as I glanced at the clock on my kitchen range and saw that it was only 5:15 and I had a long night ahead of me with nothing to do. I crossed my arms over my chest and paced around the center island for a few minutes wondering about my lack of emotion about what should be feeling like an earth-shattering event; I mean—I had just lost my significant other, right?
As I examined my reaction I found that I harbored no real animosity toward Derek, no real anger at all and I didn’t seem to be exhibiting any signs of a possible crying jag coming on—or even one respectable tear getting ready to fall for that matter, which I admit I was finding very interesting. I realized all at once that I didn’t even care if he had already replaced me with some other woman, which could totally be the case, but I simply couldn’t care less. Actually, I hate to admit it but I was feeling nothing but a bit of expansive relief at having it finished which is definitely not the proper response—but there it is.
With decision, I picked up my purse and my car keys and headed for the door. What I need, I decided, is to get some dinner and get out of the house for a while. Maybe I’ll even indulge in some desert such as pie or a hot fudge sundae—yeah that’s the ticket, something to drown my sorrows or celebrate, as the case may be. I was still deciding about that.
I drove the mile to town and pulled into the Finish Line Diner and as I swung open the diner door, I decided to take a seat at the counter on one of the checkerboard swivel stools and grabbed up a menu from between a napkin holder and a sugar canister.
“Hey, kiddo, what can I do ya for?” Char asked in her usual welcoming tone of voice with its pleasant twang that testified to her growing up in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. She reached down below the counter and produced a napkin and silverware before turning to fill a glass with ice water and setting it before me. She leaned on the counter and placed a hand on her curvy hip as she watched me peruse the menu.
“What’s good today, Char? Do you have any recommendations?”
Char turned and called through the pass-through “Tom, you got potatoes?”
Tom bent down to peer out from the recesses of the kitchen through the stainless steel pass-through, looking like a plump, squat owl and bobbed his head on his non-existent neck. “Just whipped up a new batch.”
Char swiveled back around to face me. “Open-faced roast beef sandwich—our special today and one of the best things that we serve.”
“Sold!” I said with finality and dropped the menu back into its place between the condiments.
Char nodded as she pulled out her receipt tablet from her apron pocket and officially wrote up the order, attaching it to the metal spinner for Tom.
“Drink?” she asked.
“I think I’ll have a Diet Pepsi.”
“So what’s new in your life, Torie?” she asked as she filled a glass with ice and started me a fountain drink. She pulled a wooden stool up on her side of the counter, placed my drink on a coaster before me and took a seat across from me, definitely settling in for a chat.
“Oh, I don’t want to bore you with my life. I’m sure that you’re busy,” I said taking a look around the room for the first time and realizing that the place was totally empty except for me.
“There’s a potluck in Hedrick at the Isaac Walton League tonight,” she said. “I think you’re my rush hour, sugar.”
We both laughed and then I decided to be straight with her because she really is a good listener and as kind a woman as I’d ever met. “Well, since you asked, I just broke up with my boyfriend about a half an hour ago,” I made a sour face and then cupped my chin in my hand resting my elbow on the counter. “Do you have any sage advice for the lovelorn, Char?”
Char hooted with a snort of uproarious laughter like I’d never heard from her before and slapped the counter with her hand before grabbing my forearm with a quick companionable squeeze.
“Shoot, darlin’, you don’t want any of the advice that I could give. I’ve been married and divorced three times, girl! I’m the last person on earth to be givin’ out advice on love. It’s those damn truckers! They sweep me off of my feet every time,” she sighed wistfully with a faraway dreamy look in her eyes that made me think that she was entertaining thoughts about one of those notorious truckers at this very moment. She seemed to shake herself mentally though and came back to the subject at hand.
“So this boyfriend of yours, not Dave, is it?” she asked with a worried frown.
Surprised, I shook my head quickly. I was shocked that she would even go there.
“Why on earth would you think that?” I asked curiously.
“I don’t know, I guess it’s just that you two have been in here together a lot and I know that he was divorced from Laura a while back. I’m glad it’s not him though because I’d hate to see him get his heart broke again. Dave’s a great guy.”
“Yes he is,” I agreed. “But no, my boyfriend was Derek Bonner, and he only came to Fremont one time. We didn’t get out sightseeing while he was here.”
“I see. Well I gotta say that you seem to be holdin’ up just fine,” she nodded appreciatively. “Good for you.”
“That’s actually what’s concerning me a bit,” I confessed. “I am holding up—not even one single tear shed and I’m very afraid that maybe I’ve become cold-hearted, Char.” I smiled, feeling extremely embarrassed by my confession and shrugged while self-consciously tucking my hair behind my ears to give my hands something to do.
“You? Cold-hearted? Oh, hell to the no, Torie, honey. The way that you write your love stories tells me that you have the soul of a romantic. You just haven’t met the right man yet, that’s all. You will.”
“You’ve read my books?” I was truly surprised by this revelation. I had no idea that she even knew who I was.
Char looked down underneath the counter and reached down, pulling out both Eternal Fire and Passion’s Fury and plopping them onto the black-checked Formica counter before me with a wide grin, as my mouth fell open, stunned. I picked up Passion’s Fury, ruffling through the well-worn pages in amazement. Both books were dog-eared and the covers were faded, torn, worn and the books warped permanently open from being well and thoroughly read and read often. I set the book back down and Char tapped the cover with the nail of a neon-pink tipped index finger.
“Eternal Fire is romantic because I like the swashbuckling adventure, the pirates and the exotic locations, but I think that you really hit your stride with the Old South and New Orleans flavor of Passion’s Fury. I gotta tell ya, some of those sex scenes, good lawd!” she drawled with a shake of her head. She went on then, warming to the
subject. “When Beau finally has had enough and demands his husbandly rights and Melody does her dirty strip tease and then when Beau climbs into bed and well, you know better than I but—hot damn!”
“Page 132,” I offered with a smile. “I know, right?”
Char eyed me with new respect. “Some of the best 49 pages of literature ever written I’ll tell ya and let me just say that your books have kept me up nights! You sure do have the flair,” she said with a shake of her head while fanning her face with a hand as if it were suddenly too hot in the diner. Then her expression changed as she obviously had a thought occur to her.
“Hey! Will you sign both of them for me? I know they’re beat up, but autographed is autographed.”
“You bet, Char,” I said as she pushed both books before me and then pulled her pen out of her apron pocket.
I signed the books for her with a little personal message from me and just as I finished, the silver bell on the pass-through dinged and Tom called out much louder than was necessary in the quiet diner, “Order up!”
Char shook her head and rolled her eyes at me as she moved off of her stool to retrieve my dinner.
“Good lord, Tom, I think I can hear you without all the theatrics!” she scolded him good-naturedly with obvious warm affection for her co-worker, who just happened to also be the owner and her boss. He just grinned.
I just had to smile at the two of them, thinking to myself that it was a very good idea, coming here to spend some time with Char tonight.
***
Two hours later, after having finished my dinner; enjoyed a couple of cups of coffee, good conversation and a piece of warm fresh-baked apple pie à la mode to celebrate the limitless possibilities of my new found independence; I tooled on home in surprisingly high spirits.
Chapter 17
I took another look at my wristwatch as I paced around the front foyer for the umpteenth time and looked out the front door and down the gravel road searching for the telltale rise of dust that would announce a car heading this way. My best friend Mindy was due to arrive any time now for an overnight visit to help me through my break up with Derek that had occurred five days ago and to cheer my sagging spirits, at least that’s the story that she’d devised to tell her husband, Mike. She knew darn well that wasn’t having much of any reaction regarding Derek, but I was feeling kind of guilty about even agreeing to her request for a visit because, as when I’d been contemplating Derek staying over, I still have no idea what might happen if she comes for this visit and is sucked into my time-warp continuum. Unlike Derek though, if it were to happen, I would come clean about it with Mindy because I would trust her with my very life and I could trust her to keep this secret, if worst came to worst.
Did I mention that I’m feeling kind of guilty? Yeah, well I’m actually feeling awfully freakin’ guilty for using Mindy in this way, like some unwitting guinea pig in my mad experiment, but I really need to find out what happens to others who spend the night in Rose’s house and yes, I am well aware that I am a horrible, evil person.
Assuming the best case scenario which would be that nothing at all happens to Mindy, then my other major concern is what might happen if I am stuck in an extended time travel and she is unable to wake me up? I can just imagine myself waking up in the emergency room of the Mahaska County Hospital with Mindy crying over my supine body while a befuddled doctor prepares to fill me full of amphetamines, or insulin, or who knows, may be in the process of applying electrodes to my temples in order to shock me back to consciousness. Okay, that might be a little paranoid and far-fetched I know, but not by much. See, I’ve tested myself so many times, first with my alarm clock and when that continued to fail, I bought an automatic timer and have used it to turn on my stereo at 6:00 a.m. with the volume cranked up progressively louder with each test and every time I wake up, sometimes as late as 11:00 a.m., the stereo is blaring and I haven’t heard a single decibel.
This is so not me! I have been an early riser my entire life. I have vivid memories of being five-years-old and sitting out on the concrete front stoop of my house while waiting for the neighborhood to wake up at just after dawn. I can remember many times sitting beneath the glow of the hall light between the bedrooms in my mom’s house at 5:00 a.m. playing with my Cabbage Patch dolls and waiting for my family to stir. As an adult, I have always awoken to an alarm and now I don’t—not even when my stereo is blasting acid rock music at a volume that could wake the dead—ha, ha!
***
“It’s great to see you. You look wonderful, Torie. I think that small town life agrees with you,” Mindy said hugging me as I relieved her of her bag and ushered her into the house.
“It does,” I agreed giving her an answering hug.
“Oh my god,” Mindy gasped. “Torie, this is amazing! I knew you had been working on adding vintage touches, but this is absolutely gorgeous! It looks just like a museum.”
I looked about the front foyer with its beautiful staircase and the antique mahogany hall table that I had found in Omaha and that occupied the empty wall below the rise of the stairs, displaying on its shiny tabletop a variety of antique vases and small statuettes and I was very proud of the finished affect.
“It really does,” I agreed. “I’m hoping to add an antique hall tree if I can find one that will fit this space.” I pointed to the wall just to the left of the front door where I had temporarily placed a small bent cane coat tree and antique spittoon fashioned to hold umbrellas.
Mindy nodded, looking up and admiring the ornate Pairpoint painted-glass light fixture above our heads. I flipped on the light switch so that she could see the brilliant colors of the flowers and butterflies that decorated it.
“They’re known as “puffies” because of the puffy and wavy shape. That was actually once the shade of a table lamp but at some point it was fashioned to fit an overhead light fixture. I saw it at Architectural Salvage in Des Moines and just had to have it,” I explained. “I love it.”
“It’s beautiful and fits the space perfectly. You know, Torie, if you ever decide to move back to Des Moines, you could keep this place and hire someone to run it for you as a bed-and-breakfast. People would pay a lot of money to have the experience of the Victorian age.”
“Hmmm, I don’t know about all that,” I said skeptically. “A bed-and-breakfast usually involves other sites in the area. Did you happen to take a look around as you drove into town? Not many attractions.” I had to laugh at her with a shake of my head because Mindy was always thinking about possibilities.
I have known Amanda, a.k.a. Mindy Reynolds White, since I was four-years-old. We lived three houses away from each other all of our growing-up years and I have more memories of Mindy than any other person in my life, besides my family, of course. Mindy had been one of those socially and scholastically advanced kids who had skipped a grade in school, so that although we are the same age, she’d always been a grade ahead of me all through school but in spite of that fact, we had forever been inseparable.
I can still recall as if it were yesterday, the two of us, only five-years-old at the time, getting ourselves hopelessly wedged into the old brick barbecue in her parents’ backyard. We’d always been able to crawl in the bottom and shimmy up the flue with no problem, and then the summer after we’d turned five; suddenly we had grown too big.
As we had listened to the blaring sirens of the fire trucks on the way to rescue us, Mindy and I had just kept looking into each other’s eyes, talking to each other and tightly holding hands to keep from getting too scared. Mindy’s father had hardly been able to contain Mindy’s mother, however, who had been nearly in hysterics, wailing and crying as she again and again had peered down at us from the top of the flue, which had only intensified her hysterics; seeing us dangling there with our feet barely brushing the brick hearth beneath us—firmly stuck. Our heroes, the firemen, who had seemed larger than life to us, had us un-wedged in about five minutes’ time with only a few scrapes on our arms from the ro
ugh brick to show for our ordeal but Mindy’s mom can still get worked up over it if we ever reminisce about it in her presence, even after all of these years.
The depth of Mindy and my lifelong friendship cannot be over stated. Mindy had been the one and only friend that I’d told when I had got my first period. We both got our first real kiss from a boy nicknamed Scooter, when we were ten-years-old. It had been on a snowy winter day and happened behind the warming house at an outdoor ice skating rink in a park near our homes. We both lost our virginity to our boyfriends who had also happened to be best friends, when we were sixteen. We went to horse camp together from the age of seven to fifteen and we spent the summer of 1992 traveling Europe together as part of a student exchange program. We started smoking cigarettes together at the age of thirteen and we tried pot together at fifteen, neither of which became habits.
We became devoted groupies to a Midwestern rock cover band called Pressed Worm and had spent most every weekend of our twentieth year sneaking into clubs with fake IDs to follow them around the local club circuit. We got our first apartment together just out of high school (that only lasted six months before we ran out of money and had been forced to move back home) and we shared a dorm room during three years of our college days. I had been her maid of honor at her wedding, and she will be mine, if that day ever arrives.
Her firstborn son and I share the same androgynous middle name, Lee, just as my firstborn child, regardless of its gender will share her middle name Lynn, again, if that day ever arrives. Oh, and in my current Civil War romance novel that I have been working on sporadically and forever—the main character and tentative title of the novel is Amanda White of Cedar County Iowa.
Lastly and most profound, it had been Mindy who had helped me to select a coffin and headstone for my beautiful mother Grace North Mills, whom our family lost suddenly six years ago last January due to heart failure.