Fiona Range Read online

  “Well if I don’t,” Fiona said, conscious of Rudy’s uneasy smile, “the man’s going to be taken straight up to heaven, body and soul. I just keep him human.”

  Elizabeth doubled over with laughter. “It’s true. It’s so true!” she gasped, then buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.

  “Lizzie!” Fiona said. “I was only kidding!”

  “I know! I know.” Elizabeth wept. “Here I am with two of the most wonderful people in the whole world, and look at me. I’m a wreck.” Elizabeth wept into her cocktail napkin. “I’m just a wreck.”

  “You’re just a little drunk, Lizzie, that’s all,” Fiona whispered in her cousin’s ear. Rudy had picked up Elizabeth’s purse and now he was helping her into her coat.

  “I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said when they got outside. “I really wanted this to be a happy night.”

  “It was,” Rudy said softly.

  “It still is!” Fiona added, then saw the stricken look on his face and her cousin’s frozen smile. The only sound was the dry rasp and drag of their feet through the fallen leaves.

  ■

  There was a note from George duct-taped to Fiona’s door. She winced reading it. She had completely forgotten the message she had left on his machine that she’d be home at nine. He had come by at nine, waited a while in his van, and then he’d driven to Verzanno’s to see if she might still be there. He had come back here then and waited a half hour or so until ten-thirty. I’VE BEEN WORRIED, he had printed in bold letters. I’LL SEE YOU TOMORROW. GEORGE. She paused in the doorway, considering whether or not to drive to the 24-hour store and call from the pay phone, but she was too tired, and George was probably sound asleep by now. She waded through mounds of clothing and crawled into bed.

  The doorbell rang at five-thirty. No. Not Elizabeth and Rudy. She squinted through one eye. It was still dark outside. She was sure she had told them she wouldn’t be running. The doorbell rang again. Typically though, once Elizabeth got it into her head that something would be good for you she would not be dissuaded. Groaning and shivering in just her bra and panties, she rolled out of bed and groped her way to the door, which she opened the merest crack. “Just go without me. I’m still asleep. I’m sorry,” she mumbled, closing the door.

  “Fiona!”

  “George!” She opened it quickly.

  “I just wanted to be sure you were okay before I left for work.” He was holding two small white bags.

  “I’m okay,” she said, teeth chattering with the early-morning cold. “I just have to get back to bed.”

  As he followed her into the bedroom he said that he had stopped at the bakery and gotten doughnuts and coffee. “But if you’re too tired,” he said, setting a bag on the nightstand, “you can have yours later.”

  “I’m not that tired.” She crawled back into bed. “I’ll have mine now.” She smiled as he sat on the edge of the bed and opened one of the bags. “Cream or sugar?”

  “Neither,” she said, slipping her hand up under his shirt.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, letting her rub his back while he unbuttoned his shirt.

  “I’m sure.” She watched him stand up to take off his dark blue work pants. He folded them over the back of the chair. He was so neat and the room was such a mess. He stood over the bed and she held up her arms. She was glad it was dark, glad he was on top of her now, heavy and warm, so freshly shaved his cheeks were smooth and soft and sweet. He was sweet, he was sweet, he was so sweet, she kept whispering in his ear as he said her name over and over again, panting it in that soft voice that now at the end came like tears, a ragged, pleading sob. “Fiona. Fiona. Fiona, oh my God, Fiona.”

  Just then the bedroom door opened and the overhead light suddenly came on as he collapsed against her.

  “Fiona, we came . . . Oh, oh, I’m . . . I thought . . . ,” Elizabeth cried, then slammed the door. Dazed in the sudden glare, Fiona and George both reached to cover themselves. George had grabbed a blue-and-white miniskirt, which he held to his groin, and Fiona hugged her pillow in front of her.

  “I don’t believe it,” she groaned, getting out of bed. She grabbed her bathrobe and turned out the light. She opened the bedroom door and peeked out at Rudy and Elizabeth in running pants and sweat-shirts. They stood by the front door.

  “I can’t believe it. I’m so embarrassed,” Elizabeth whispered. Her eyes were closed and her fists were clenched in front of her.

  “I told you not to barge in like that,” Rudy said.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” Elizabeth gasped, shoulders heaving as if to vomit.

  “Come on, stop that now,” Rudy said, trying to face her, but she turned, cringing away from him. “Come on, let’s go. Let’s just go!” he insisted.

  “Oh my God, oh my God.”

  “Elizabeth!” Fiona said. She closed the bedroom door behind her.

  “I’m sorry,” Elizabeth cried, then buried her stricken face in her hands. “Oh, I can’t believe I did that.”

  Rudy touched Elizabeth’s shoulder and she recoiled with a high bleating sound.

  “For godsakes, will you stop it?” Fiona demanded, coming closer to her cousin, who was sobbing uncontrollably now. “I said stop it!”

  Wincing, Elizabeth tried to look at her. “I’m sorry,” she gasped, then glanced toward the bedroom door. “He must be so embarrassed. I’m so sorry.”

  “Then why don’t you just go?” Fiona said in a low voice.

  “Come on,” Rudy said, taking her arm.

  “But I don’t know what to do,” Elizabeth bawled. “I’m so sorry, and I don’t know what to do.”

  “You don’t have to do anything, honey,” Rudy coaxed. “Just come with me, that’s all.”

  “But I do. You don’t understand. I do. I do. I do. I have to do something. I do! I do!” she cried, slapping one hand against the other.

  “You could leave,” Fiona hissed in disgust. “That’d help.”

  “Come on now,” Rudy said, easing her into the hallway.

  Fiona closed the door, then pressed her ear against it as Elizabeth’s soft weeping dissolved down the steps and into the vestibule. “I don’t believe this!” she muttered, returning to the bedroom where George sat on the foot of the bed with his head in his hands. Completely dressed, he had even attempted to make the bed. To hide the evidence, she thought, in case Elizabeth came charging through the door again.

  “Jesus Christ.” He looked up. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot from being rubbed. “What just happened?”

  “Well, let me see,” she said, aggravated by the pain in his voice. “I think we’d both just climaxed when Elizabeth burst into the bedroom. What the hell do you think just happened?”

  He chewed his thumbnail and stared down at the floor. “Was that him I heard, the fiancé?”

  “Yah. Rudy. That was him, the fiancé.”

  George got up with a heavy sigh and shook his head. “That was awful.” He walked past her into the living room, then stood by the door with his hand on the knob.

  “The door must’ve been unlocked,” she said. “Maybe I left it open. But still you don’t just go charging into someone’s bedroom like that.”

  “I never heard her that upset before.” His eyes were dark and heavy with concern. “Never.”

  “Well I’d say this was probably a unique experience for Elizabeth.” She cleared her throat against the hysteria, this virulence rising in her chest. “Don’t you think?”

  “I think something’s wrong, terribly, terribly wrong, that’s what I think,” he said almost angrily as he opened the door.

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” she shot back. Seeing his blank look, she threw up her hands in exasperation. “What about me? How do you think I feel?”

  He continued to regard her with vague perplexity as if trying to recall her name. “I know,” he muttered with a distracted kiss on her forehead.

  “George!” she called as he went into the hallway.
<
br />   He looked back, then stopped at the top of the stairs when she said his name again. She ran and threw her arms around him, but he stood rigidly in her fierce embrace.

  “I better go now. I’m sorry,” he said, pulling away.

  Chapter 6

  The cold, rainy week had been like today’s lunch hour, dreary and slow. “I don’t know why you won’t go to the walk-in,” Maxine said, following Fiona into the kitchen. “You’re just going to get sicker and make everybody else sick too. And it’s probably some kind of code violation, waiting on healthy people when you’ve got the flu.”

  “I told you, it’s not the flu,” Fiona said. She pulled a chair close to the warm stove and sat down. All she wanted right now was to be left alone. For the last three days she’d had a headache and a shaky stomach made worse a while ago when she saw Todd Prescott dropping Sandy off at work. He had driven away in her car with the two little girls in the backseat.

  “Oh, it’s the flu,” Maxine insisted. She knew five people with the exact same symptoms and they all had it. “You gotta get some penicillin or something. I’ll give you a ride. I’ll even wait in the waiting room.”

  “Maxine, look, I don’t have the flu, I don’t have insurance, so forget the walk-in. Please,” she groaned, huddling close to the stove.

  “Here.” Chester handed her a mug of chicken broth. “That’s better than penicillin.”

  “Oh good! You want to get sick too! Then what happens? Then what do we do?” Maxine said, sounding so panicky that Chester laughed.

  “What? What’re you talking about, I want to get sick?” he said.

  “You must, or else you’d go get your free flu shot at the Senior Center,” Maxine said.

  Fiona sipped the broth and looked from one to the other. Her aunt and uncle’s disagreements had always taken place quietly, in private. For the most serious discussions they would get in the car and go for a ride. If it hadn’t been for the days of exaggerated formality that sometimes passed between them, Fiona would have sworn they never argued.

  “I haven’t been sick in twenty-five years,” Chester said. “And I’m not about to let anyone inject me with live germs, no sir, thank you, ma’am!” he called as Maxine stalked back into the dining room.

  “She thinks everything she touches is gonna turn to crap. Including me,” he said as the door swung in and out.

  “She just wants you to stay healthy.”

  “She just wants me to stay,” he said.

  “Same thing, isn’t it?”

  He glanced back irritably. “What’re you hanging around here for? Why don’t you go home?”

  “I’m okay.” She dreaded the thought of another lonely night in that cluttered little apartment. At least her phone was supposed to be turned back on today. She hadn’t seen or heard from George since that miserable morning last week. She hadn’t heard from Elizabeth either. She looked up now as a loud knock drummed on the back door.

  “You should’ve called,” Chester told the huge man in the doorway. Rain dripped off his enormous orange poncho, and when he pulled the hood back, Fiona recognized him as Stanley, the same red-faced man who had been in here two weeks ago talking to Chester. Maxine had been getting her hair done, and Fiona was supposed to let Chester know when she got back. Chester seemed even more nervous today. He kept glancing toward the dining room.

  Stanley slipped a manila envelope from under his poncho. “I know. But here,” he said, handing it to Chester, who put it on top of the refrigerator. “I didn’t want to wait.”

  “Okay, okay, okay,” Chester said, walking him to the door. “Give me a couple days though,” he called into the rain rattling down on the tin canopy. “I’ll call and let you know.”

  “What’s that all about?” she asked when he closed the door.

  “Nothing.” He opened the refrigerator and stared into its bleak light. “All right,” he said, closing it. “I gotta tell somebody.” He grinned. “That was Stanley Masters!”

  “Who’s he?”

  “You know, Masters, the Bagel Master! The guy on TV! They want to put a Bagel-Master in here.” He pulled down the limp, rain-streaked envelope. “That’s how bad he wants it. He brought it over himself, the purchase and sale agreement.”

  “What about Maxine?”

  “I didn’t want to say anything until I had something in writing.”

  “You think she’s going to like the idea?”

  Chester came close and tweaked her chin. “One look at this, and she’s gonna love it,” he said with a flap of the envelope.

  Her head hurt even more. A Bagel-Master. It was mostly take-out business. High school kids worked in Bagel-Masters. The downhill track of her life was steepening. Yesterday a letter had come from Dearborn Community with Lee Felderson’s name on the envelope. She had thrown it away unopened.

  The door flew open and Maxine ran into the kitchen, grinning and gesturing for her to come. “Guess who’s out there? Your uncle! Judge Hollis! He just came in. He wants to see you!”

  “My uncle? What’s he want?” The only other time Uncle Charles had come in was six years ago when she had first started. He and Aunt Arlene left her a twenty-five-dollar tip. A few days later he summoned her to his office and offered her a job as a file clerk in the courthouse. She told him she couldn’t think of a more boring job than filing. At least as a waitress she met a lot of different people and the time went by faster. But waitressing, he tired to explain, was something one did on their way to something else. She certainly didn’t want to be doing it all her life, did she? Why not? she said; she’d probably make as much if not more than a file clerk. But it wasn’t just the money, he said; it was security and self-esteem. Whose self-esteem? she had said, noting that hers was fine so he obviously meant his own, which was his problem, not hers.

  “He said just coffee, but I want to bring out something special,” Maxine said, looking around the kitchen. “But don’t say anything. He’ll just say no, and I want to surprise him.”

  Uncle Charles was sitting in the window booth where Maxine always displayed her most notable guests. Still in his wet trenchcoat, he hunched over the table, as if this were the last place he wanted to be.

  “Hello, Uncle Charles!” When she bent to kiss him his hand trembled as he set his cup clinking against the saucer. He looked deeply tired, as if he hadn’t slept in days. There were circles under his eyes and his pale cheeks were mottled with spidery red blotches.

  “Well you’re certainly looking fine,” he said.

  Recognizing the tone, she tried not to be irritated. Accentuate the positive. If it’s not right, think it, wish it, pretend it’s right.

  “Wouldn’t have anything to do with you and George Grimshaw, would it?” he added with a nod.

  “What? What do you mean?” she said, hands clenched in her lap. Elizabeth must have told him.

  “Well, haven’t you two been spending some time together?” He smiled. “Seeing each other? Dating? I’m not sure what the other euphemisms are nowadays.”

  How about screwing; that’s one, she thought with an uneasy smile.

  “I always liked George. He’s a good, decent, hardworking young man, and believe me when I tell you, there aren’t many like him around anymore.”

  “Yah, I know. He’s a good guy,” she said, then with the old provocative urge, added, “Of course, he’ll never be rich like Lizzie’s Rudy.”

  “It’s decency and dependability, those are the most important things,” he said.

  “And love, right?” she asked, amused to see his neck flush.

  “Well of course. That goes without saying.”

  As do most things, she thought.

  “So tell me, how’s school going?”

  She stared at him.

  “Your course at Dearborn Community.”

  “Yah, the history course.” She squirmed, remembering the unopened letter. Lee Felderson must have called Ginny, who’d gone running to her father to report Fiona’s latest fa
ilure.

  “I can’t tell you how much that pleases me, Fiona. You’re extremely bright.” He leaned forward and smiled. “There’s never been any doubt about that. The problem is your impulsivity. And that’s—”

  “Hey! First let’s talk about your problems, Uncle Charles,” she said, and his head snapped back. She asked about his tests in Boston.

  Everything was normal; nothing wrong, according to the doctors. Just a little stress, he said in typical blustery denial of any flaw or misfortune in his rock-solid life.

  That was a relief, she said, an edge sharpening her voice as she explained that she hadn’t come then or called because no one had bothered to tell her he was in the hospital.

  “Well consider it a favor they did you,” he said, cutting her off. “It was just a lot of commotion over nothing at all.”

  “But that’s not the point,” she said. “I mean, what if it was serious, what would they do, call me, and—”

  “Excuse me, Fiona, but at the moment there’s another matter that needs discussion.” He glanced at Sandy, who had been staring at them over the register. Sandy smiled and gave a little wave.

  “That’s Todd Prescott’s new girlfriend,” Fiona said, startled by the deep sense of loss just saying it gave her. It wasn’t that she wanted Todd back in her life; she just didn’t want him in anyone else’s. Especially not Sandy’s. “She’s got two kids, each one by a different guy. The Prescotts must be going out of their gourd, huh? They thought I was a bad girl!” She laughed, and he winced.

  “Maybe it would be better if we went for a ride,” he said with a painted little smile.

  “I can’t,” she said, well aware Maxine would let them sit up on the roof if it would please the Judge.