A Little Romance: Stories for Hopeful Hearts Page 12

  “It tickled.”

  “What tickled? The birds?”

  “The ladybugs in my underwear.”

  She felt herself get red again.

  He almost cracked a smile, and his eyes were definitely twinkling now. He was laughing at her. That had to be a good thing—maybe that meant she wasn’t going to get a ticket.

  She said, “Dalton is your name? Your first name, besides Trooper, I mean.”

  Lyda was horrified that she had asked that, but it just slipped out. She hoped he didn’t take offense. Of course, if he did, maybe he’d put her in handcuffs again, but Lyda thought that was a pretty steep cost just to have him that close again.

  Wicked girl, she could hear her grandmother say.

  He said, more carefully now, “Why, you want to file a complaint? It’s your right, miss, but we were just doing—“

  She said, “Just making conversation, and that’s what he called you, Dalton, like the outlaws. How come you knew about the ladybugs? With aphids, I mean.”

  “My Uncle Bill owns a plant nursery in— I’m surprised you didn’t order your bugs there, it’s closer to your address and they do that sort of thing. We used to work there in the summers—us kids. Uncle Bill made it fun, I love gardening because of him.”

  And she knew that Uncle Bill loved kids.

  He handed her license back—their fingers touched.

  Then his neck and ears got red and he quickly amended, “Of course, that’s none of my business where you get your bugs.”

  He put his notepad away then. No more official business today?

  She did not want this to end, but committing a crime just to get arrested by him seemed extreme.

  Lyda said, “I know the place. How is Bill, still in Oklahoma?”

  He smiled. “Yeah, he’s got grandkids now. Well, step grandkids, but it’s all the same to him.”Ó

  “Yes, he was always a very kind man.”

  “You know him then?”

  She nodded and owned up to it: “Phillyda, she’s my mother.”

  Lyda expected him to flinch, as Chester always did. She braced herself for what would come next: rejection.

  He said, “Who is Phillyda?”

  Good sign.

  She said, “Ask your Uncle Bill some time.”

  He studied her for a moment, and Lyda felt gooey all over, like she was about to melt and slide like butter on a hot stack of pancakes. Her stomach growled too, and she hoped he hadn’t heard that.

  He said, “You know, I don’t think I will ask. I don’t want to know if we’re related or something. By the way, I’d ask you out anyway.”

  His neck and ears flashed red again, but he was also grinning a bit.

  She said, “Your last name is different than his.”

  “Uncle Bill is my mother’s brother.”

  “Ah. And Chester is your cousin by another brother.”

  She left out the part about Chester maybe wanting to ask her out too. That’s also why she hadn’t ordered the ladybugs from him in the first place. Lyda really didn’t want to hurt his feelings, and she did like that plant nursery for most other things.

  Given what had happened just now, she was glad she didn’t get the ladybugs from him; she might never have met Trooper Christoferi instead.

  Had she really met him?

  She looked at her wet pant leg and felt her wet shirt, and knew there were ladybugs in her hair still.

  She felt herself smiling at how she must appear just now—

  Ridiculous, her mother would have said.

  Her grandmother would have just shaken her head.

  Wonder Woman, indeed.

  Lyda noticed then that he was watching her as she was thinking of these things. She felt herself blush then, and offered, “Small world, huh?”

  He smirked. “Big county.”

  He’d said something about asking her out. Why didn’t he then? Fraternizing with the perps could be problematic?

  You think too much—her mother would have said.

  Lyda said, “You aren’t going to give me a ticket or arrest me or anything, are you?”

  He shook his head, but didn’t move towards his cruiser either, so maybe . . .

  She said, “When do you get off?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Maybe you could help me with my ladybug problem, I mean, if you want to. You said you worked with your uncle, and I was wondering when do you get off shift?”

  He grinned again, looking down, and she decided it was almost shyness. That butter was thoroughly melted now.

  He said, “Actually, about a half an hour ago.”

  She muttered, “I live in the big house on Salmonberry Road.”

  “Yeah, I know, it was on your license. I also know where that is—the house is old-fashioned, but the backyard is supposed to be awesome.”

  “Follow me then?”

  “I have to go to the trooper post first. I’ll bring round a pizza, it will be past dinner time by then.”

  “Food, my favorite. That sounds great, and I have some wine too. See you in about an hour then?”

  “Count on it, I’ll be there. And if you can, leave your pickup windows open just a bit, a lot of the ladybugs will crawl out, I bet. They probably don’t like being in there either—especially if they have aphids nearby.”

  Then he smiled full out, and that made Lyda feel kind of funny again—must be some of those ladybugs got in her stomach as well.

  The End

  Ladybugs

  * * * * *

  “If you're going through hell, keep going.” ~Winston Churchill

  “A bend in the road is not the end of the road . . . unless you fail to make the turn.” ~Author Unknown

  “You can't run away from trouble. There ain't no place that far.” ~Uncle Remus

  ~~~

  A BEND IN THE ROAD

  The Labelle twins were having coffee at a shop in the town nearest their Aunt Hope’s house. They had just been to her funeral, well attended, and were next heading over to pick something from the house as a keepsake. The rest of the estate, which a few generations back was considered generous, had now dwindled down to subsistence. According to the law firm acting on behalf of the executors of their aunt’s estate, the rest would be sold, and what proceeds were left would go into long term retirement funds.

  If she had lasted much longer, their Aunt Hope, who was about seventeen years older than their mother, would have had to go into some sort of rest home or whatever they called them these days. She had health issues resulting from an over-active life, but no way would the old woman be allowed into the home of her sister, the twins’ mother.

  If that seemed harsh to others, that’s just how it was when siblings were that different in age, the twins supposed. Besides growing up in different decades, there had also been some sort of falling out, and so their mother and her older sister had not been acting like they were related for decades.

  In fact, they couldn’t remember when their mother had ever mentioned Aunt Hope of her own accord. Their father had now and again, but their mother’s only response had been a dramatic: “Oh sure, bring that up again. Why won’t you let me forget?”

  Given they had never met the woman in person to their remembering, it might seem rather ridiculous to the casual observer that they had come here like this. People might think it was mercenary, coming to rummage through the old familial belongings.

  But just because they hadn’t seen the woman in person didn’t mean there wasn’t love between them. There was always some kind of contact—usually from their aunt to the girls, but not the other way round. When they were kids, their mother wouldn’t allow that, but when they got older . . . well, for their lack of contact they were not proud.

  They had no excuse for not seeing their aunt when they got older. Sometimes she traveled and was not home. Most times, it was because they started living their own lives, and then life and times just . . . got in the way.

  It had be
en ten years since the twins had finished college. The years of career (for Ella) or homemaking (for Eva) with three kids and a husband named Rodney (who acted like a fourth child) had left them with some wear and tear, but they were still lovely women—all the women of their family were.

  Ella was doing quite well in her career and wore the clothes and accessories to show that: expensive watch, German-made performance car, tailored business suit and a hair cut that cost more than all the kids and their mother’s put together.

  Eva was the mother, and while she wasn’t hurting for money (usually), they had little left for luxury, given that she had been an elementary school teacher and Rodney, now an ex-husband, had taken over his father’s car dealership. He wasn’t a good businessman, though might have been better with some formal training. He wasn’t stupid, but a little bit lazy, and definitely not disciplined enough to stick with anything very long—including being a husband and father.

  The children adored him—when he did show up. Why not, he was one of them, and quite fun.

  Eva, however, got tired of getting the late night calls from the bars to come pick him up as no one else wanted to deal with the drunken man. She was no longer responsible as his ex-wife, but he was still the children’s father.

  He had already lost his driver’s license twice before that. And those were not the first incidents either—right after high school, his father had disciplined him for the same thing, it was rumored. The traffic judge at the time had been poker buddies with his father, and deferred the young man to the father’s custody and discipline for some mysterious incident.

  Shortly after, the judge got a new car and then moved into a new house in a nearby town.

  The girls heard their father say bitterly, “That must have been some poker game.”

  On reflection, Eva would have preferred to leave Rodney to be picked up by the cops, but that would mean bail money, maybe lawyers and the legal problems would affect the business . . . which would affect his income . . . and her child support payments, which she already had difficulty collecting on a regular basis.

  When the kids got old enough—this year, in fact—she planned on going back to work anyway. They’d all be in school then, but she’d have to return to college to renew her teaching certificate. Things like math and history and English hadn’t changed, but now schools, even in their out-of-the-way town, had computers and high tech equipment.

  Ella would know about that; she was in that business. Maybe they could talk about that when they ran out of pleasantries and questions about the kids. The twins didn’t seem to have much else in common. After their chat about Aunt Hope and the years of odd presents and phone calls, what else was left to say?

  The silence wasn’t exactly awkward, but it was . . . strained. It had also been years since they’d seen each other. Ella was a doting aunt—when she had the time. That wasn’t often, and she had only come to visit a couple of times, and even then she was on the phone or the Internet.

  Working vacations she called them.

  Eva wished she could have a vacation, but even when they took one as a family, she still had to tend to all the kids’ needs, same as always. All mothers did; that was part of the definition. That was the purpose of parental roles, that is, according to Rodney Bloom, her ex-husband.

  He was meant to be the breadwinner; she was the homemaker. It was an old-fashioned notion in this day and age, but when they first got married, Eva was still love-struck, and would have agreed to anything he wanted . . . had agreed to everything he proposed from the very beginning.

  She was much better at her role than he was at his.

  Ella, meanwhile, had a few boyfriends over the years, including a few when they were still in high school. But she wasn’t that interested in long-term commitments, unless it had to do with patents or corporate profits.

  Eva sometimes wondered if their dad would have been the same way if he’d been born in a decade with this kind of technology, or even if he’d lived in some other place—a big city with big companies or at least a place with a university that did research.

  She asked that of her twin sister now.

  Ella thought for a bit. “Then he might not have married Mother, and we’d never have been born.”

  Eva said, “We’d have been born, but maybe to other people. Maybe we’d have been friends at school instead.”

  Her sister looked skeptical, and Eva added, “Although we’ve never had much in common, that’s true—besides our looks, I mean.”

  Ella said, “And our brains. You’re just as smart as me, you just have other interests.”

  It was true, but Eva blushed at her sister’s acknowledgement. Sometimes she felt . . . inferior. And Eva hadn’t remembered that in a long time.

  She had a college degree too; she could have done more to become a principle in an elementary school by now if she wanted. She’d been told that she had that potential. But she loved teaching, and she loved kids, and there was nothing like the smell of a classroom—blackboard chalk and wet rain boots and dirt from the playground.

  She just didn’t love her life much right now.

  Ella said, “You look rather pensive. Aunt Hope’s passing got you down? It could be worse, it could have been Mother.”

  “How would we know, Mother is too preserved with Bo-Tox and serums and creams and Heaven knows . . .”

  “You mean we wouldn’t know if she was dead? Probably because she’s not criticizing anyone—the silence would roar.”

  Eva snorted her laugh into the coffee. It was lukewarm, which was good, as it also went up her nose, but at least it didn’t blister, only stung like water up her nose when they went swimming as kids. She took a moment to blow her nose on a paper towel, which she used regularly now, as tissues just weren’t adequate when dealing with so many noses and this time of year.

  She could tell you which had the preferred properties of softness and absorption and price. She preferred buying only the white kind, but the kids like the kind with patterns, and she gave into that.

  Ella took her own paper towel out, dabbing at the drops that had sprayed on her designer handbag.

  Her sister said, “Sorry about that. What brand is that?”

  “Ah, you noticed it too. Paper towels are more like the hankies Mother used to make us use.”

  They both said, mockingly, “Ladies do.”

  Ella added, “Guess we didn’t fall far from the tree.”

  “Nuts seldom do.”

  “Neither do apples, and I prefer to be compared to that.”

  Eva said, “Reminds me.” She took out a pen and paper and wrote on her grocery list: Fruit Loops.

  “Are you going back tonight then? I thought we’d have more time to—well, to catch up.”

  Eva sighed. “If we were interested in each other’s life, you’d think we’d have done that all along.”

  “I’m just busy, Eva, not neglectful. I know all your kids’ names and their birthdays, and don’t I send them the appropriate gifts on Christmas?”

  “You are good to them as Aunt Hope was to us, and with just as much distance—only you can’t blame yours on our mother.”

  If that had been an arrow, it would have definitely hit where it hurt worst.

  Ella knew she had that coming. She deflected by saying, “I miss her, Aunt Hope, but I didn’t even know she was ill. That was my fault too, I should have returned her last call or sent her more thank you notes . . . something.”

  Eva said, “She wasn’t ill, she fell down the stairs and broke her neck.”

  Shocked now, all Ella could manage was, “Who found her?”

  “The mailman, poor guy. I heard her dress was up around her neck.” Eva then leaned in closer and whispered loudly, “And she wasn’t wearing any underwear.”

  Ella snickered and said, “Well, it can get hot here even this time of year. I hope I go out like that, good for her.”

  Eva gasped—the twins stared at each other for a few seconds before
they fought back their giggles like they were schoolgirls again.

  Ella said, “She led a good life, Dad always said.”

  Eva said, “All things said and done, do you have any regrets?”

  Ella studied her sister for a moment. “You mean do I wish I’d have married Rodney when he asked?”

  Shocked again, Eva blurted, “He asked you?”

  Her sister didn’t notice the reaction; she was looking for the waitress. Ella just shrugged and said. “Repeatedly, I thought he was kidding. Didn’t matter, I knew when he stayed here to learn his skills ‘on-the-job’ instead of planning to go to college or even a trade school that he was a loser.”

  Eva swallowed, because the revelation hurt more than it should have, given the state of her marriage—former-marriage.

  Ella finally noticed. “Oh, crap, I’m sorry. I forgot about that. You’re well rid of him, and at least you got the best part of him—his looks are in your kids. They are lovely, all of them.”

  It was an effective way to subtly change the subject.

  Eva accepted it, and said, “Dad says Robbie is going to be a Mama’s boy.”Ó

  “Well, is he?”

  “No, my son is pretty clever. Even though he’s the youngest, he seems wiser than his age, that’s all. He’s starting school a year early like we did. He’s like a little man, taking care of us all if he can.”

  Ella said gently, “Maybe he’s had to.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, you did fall apart, Evie. I’m not criticizing, I’m commenting. He’s a better man than his father, and maybe takes after Dad a little bit more than just his namesake?”

  “I hope in all the good ways.”

  Ella said, “And Mother, does she like being a grandmother?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?”

  Ella smirked and then said, “I’m not that brave.”

  Eva smiled, just a bit. “Shall we go then? You can drive me in your fancy car. I will ride in the back and pretend you are my chauffer.”

  “Got a better idea—you drive, but only if you let me pick first.”