“I think I need a goldfish,” she suddenly declared to the silhouette in the cupboard. The idea came out of the blue, where her best and most imaginative thoughts came from. And she thought it was a good one.
On Monday morning, Meredith got up early, showered, drove into town, and entered the only pet shop on the island promptly at nine A.M., just as the doors opened. There wasn’t much selection.
“Are these your best goldfish?” she asked the shopkeeper.
“Everything in my shop is the best,” he answered in a burly voice.
“I’d like that one right there.” She pointed to a pudgy goldfish with an iridescent stripe along the side of his gills. The salesman plunged a small net on a metal wand into the tank.
“Not that one,” Meredith said. “This one over here. Oops, there he goes. Over there. See him? That one with the stripe. Can you get him?”
The man turned and looked at Meredith. “They’re all the same, really.”
“No, they’re not. They’re all different. I want the fat one with the shiny stripe on the side. Right there. That one.”
The man tried to oblige her, but Meredith’s pick was a crafty fellow and slipped out of the net before it was drawn from the water.
“Good for you, Elvis,” Meri said. “I like a guy with imagination.”
The salesman slowly turned to look her over again.
“Don’t give up,” she urged, unaffected by the owner’s stares. “Here he comes. I’ll do it. Give me the net. I’ll catch him.”
Meredith took the net from the man before he had a chance to protest. In one quick snatch she captured her favored fishy. “That wasn’t so hard,” she said, slipping Elvis into the plastic bag half filled with water.
“Now, I need a bowl and some food, and do you have any of those little deep-sea divers with the ceramic treasure chests?” Meredith smiled at the man, who was far from amused by her childlike enthusiasm over this new pet.
“Last aisle on the right,” he said. Then he turned and went to the cash register as if it were more important to guard the till from this customer than to help her find what she was after.
Meredith located a bowl, some colored rocks for the bottom, plastic green foliage, a small cardboard canister of fish food, and a sea-horse decal, but no miniature divers with a treasure chest.
“You seem to be out of divers and treasure chests,” she said when she had brought all her goodies to the cash register.
“Oh, are we now?” the man said.
“Do you think you’ll be getting any more in?”
“It’s unlikely.”
Meredith realized this was a small pet store on an island with limited resources. Seattle was only a ferry ride away, but still she thought the man would want to special order for customers to keep them happy.
Meri paid for Elvis and his accessories. Then, before she left the shop, she turned and asked, “How do you tell if it’s a boy?”
“He’s a boy,” the man said. “Trust me. He’s a boy.”
Meri shrugged and trotted off to her Explorer. “Ready to go to your new home, Elvis?” Then, to make sure his journey involved the least amount of discomfort, Meri held the sloshing plastic bag in her right hand and drove with her left. She was halfway home when her cell phone rang.
“Okay, hang on, Elvis. You sit right here on the seat but try not to wet anything, okay? Not that it would be your fault if you leaked.”
“Hello? This is Meredith.”
“Hi,” a familiar female voice said on the other end. “Glad I caught you. Did you get the manuscripts I sent the other day?”
“Helen!” Meredith greeted the literary agent who had also become her good buddy. “How are you? Guess what? I got a fish!”
“Congratulations,” Helen said. “How big is it?”
Meredith glanced over at the jostling Elvis. “About an inch and a half, I’d guess.”
There was a pause before Helen said in a dry tone, “Have you considered changing your bait?”
Meredith laughed and turned the steering wheel, maneuvering the Explorer onto the road that led home. “I bought him, you goof! At the pet store. His name is Elvis. Hey, Elvis, say hi to Helen.” Meredith put the phone next to the bouncing bubble for a half-second and then put the phone back to her ear. “He’s kind of shy,” she explained to Helen.
There was another pause, and then Helen said, “Are you taking those herbal uppers, Meri?”
“No, of course not,” she answered with a laugh. “I’ve actually been kind of depressed, so I thought a little goldfish would cheer me up.”
“You’re not going to swallow it or anything, are you?”
“No.” Meredith laughed. “Of course not.”
“Okay, well then I’d say as a pet, it seems the goldfish is working to cure your depression. Remind me to recommend your goldfish therapy to all my depressed editors. Now, back to business, or are you taking the day off?”
“Nope,” Meredith said, slowly pulling into her bumpy driveway. “I’m on my way to the office right now.”
“Do you want me to call you back?” Helen asked.
“No, I received the manuscripts, but I haven’t looked at them yet. They’re in the stack, and you know how fair I am about taking my stack in order.”
“Listen, if you ever wanted to score some points with the powers that be, this would be the time to shuffle the stack and move my client’s manuscript out of that envelope and onto your desk.”
“Why?” Meredith said, slowly bringing the car to a stop in front of her cottage and turning off the engine.
“It’s a honey,” Helen said simply.
Helen had different levels for the projects she pitched to Meredith, and Meri had learned her code. A “honey” was the top-of-the-list, highest-awards kind of manuscript, at least in Helen’s opinion. Next down the list was a “player.” That meant the proposed project could hold its own at any reputable publishing house, but Meri was honored to be one of the chosen few to have a first look. The third grade of project was a “keeper.” Helen never had bad manuscripts or projects, but the keepers were the ones that might not quite fit in the front lineup.
“Good. It’s been a few months since you sent me any honeys,” Meredith said, unbuckling her seat belt. “I must say, it’s about time.”
“Speaking of my sending you honeys …” Helen said.
The cell phone began to break up its transmission, and Meredith realized the battery needed to be recharged. “Say that again,” Meredith said.
“I said I’m coming through Seattle with a client on Friday. You want to meet us in town, or should we come out to see you?”
As much as Meredith liked Helen, she did not like making special trips into Seattle to meet Helen and her clients. The last time they had tried to meet, Helen’s plane had been delayed, which meant Meredith had missed a whole afternoon of work just waiting around at the airport. When Helen did arrive, she had only twenty minutes before her next flight, and her client was so shy she barely said two words.
“If you have time, come see me. I’ll feed you and introduce you to Elvis.”
“Can’t wait,” Helen said. “Expect us around dinnertime, then.”
“See you,” Meredith said. The transmission cut out before she heard Helen say good-bye. She cautiously lifted Elvis’s bag, picked up all the other goodies, and headed into the house.
“You’re going to like it here, Elvis. Just you and me and the crickets outside my window. You have a preference which side of the kitchen counter you live on? Or do you want to hang out in my office? Yeah, that’s where you belong. Up in the office loft with me. It’s kind of a mess, but it’s cozy.”
Meri unlocked her door and happily went about setting up Elvis in his new fish bowl. Once he was released and swimming free, Meri rested her head on her hands and watched her new friend make himself at home.
“Sorry I couldn’t get you a little diver and sea chest. But keep it on your birthday wish list, and we??
?ll see what happens.”
Meredith suddenly stood up straight. “Birthday!” she said aloud. With a glance over at the wall calendar, she double checked. Sure enough, Friday was her birthday. “Oh, great. I get to spend my birthday with Helen and one of her clients. Not that I mind spending the evening with Helen, but now it’s going to be business.”
A sweeping wind of depression came over her. She was going to be twenty-five in four days. A quarter of a century should be marked by a big blowout, but who would plan such an event for her? Shelly would send her a present, and her other two sisters would send cards a few days late with notes hastily scrawled inside saying how one of the kids had chicken pox or the water heater had broken or some other legitimate reason they were late in their birthday wishes.
Meredith knew her parents would make a concerted effort to do something for her. They would probably invite her over to their house for dinner, and Mom would have one of those slick round cakes from the grocery store with number candles stuck in the top of the waxy white frosting. They would give her a gift certificate to J.C. Penney. That’s what they always gave the four Graham girls for their birthdays.
With a sigh, Meredith picked up Elvis’s bowl and slowly made her way up the stairs to her loft office. In a way, she was glad now that Helen was coming Friday. It meant she didn’t have to go to her parents’ and eat grocery-store cake with waxy white frosting and be humbled by the fact that, at twenty-five (as the bold candles affixed in the center of the cake would proclaim), she was very much alone in this world with no one to celebrate with her.
“I’ll just have to tell my mom we already have plans, won’t I, Elvis?” Meredith pushed some papers away from the corner of her desk and placed the fish bowl on top of an old memo from her publishing house. “So, how do you like the view?”
Elvis swished his tail. Meredith leaned closer and imitated his open-lipped kissing motions. Elvis didn’t seem to notice.
“This is good for me. A male who is oblivious to my charms, even when I try to offer him kisses.”
The phone rang before she could slump into a ditch of depression. It was a conference call with her publisher. She had forgotten about it.
“Yes,” Meredith said, switching to her professional tone and pretending she was wearing a designer suit with a silk blouse instead of overalls and a bandanna. “How are all of you this morning?”
The conference call lasted almost an hour. She watched Elvis the whole time and doodled on her blotter. This was not a meeting that she needed to “attend,” and it was hard to appear interested long distance. It was also torture to sit there with mounds of work stacked up around her. Meredith had learned the hard way that it didn’t pay to try to do paperwork while on one of these conference calls. Her phone didn’t have a mute button, and those on the other end could hear every piece of paper rattling over the speaker phone. They could probably hear the scratching of her automatic pencil as she doodled. But they couldn’t hear Elvis, which was another reason he was such a wonderful addition to her life.
Chapter Eleven
Meredith bought some balloons in town on Friday afternoon when she went to pick up groceries for her birthday dinner. She tied them to her mailbox just to make herself feel happier. If Helen had forgotten it was Meri’s birthday, the balloons might spark a memory when she drove in tonight.
After Meredith tied the balloons onto the mailbox’s rusty latch, she checked inside the box. Nothing yet. And there might not be anything at all. Certainly the possibility of a letter from Jake was almost nonexistent. It had been close to two weeks. She would see him in twelve more days at the conference in Anaheim, but then, who was counting?
Shelly had already sent her birthday present. It arrived on Thursday and was a gorgeous, way-too-expensive leather briefcase that Meredith had been eyeing in an in-flight catalog for almost two years now. She would never buy it for herself because it seemed like such an extravagant shoulder bag. Shelly was famous for her inconsistency in giving gifts. She wouldn’t buy anything unless it had meaning or was really nice. Some birthdays all Meri received from her was a phone call because Shelly’s philosophy was not to buy a trinket just to say she had purchased a gift. If she was going to give a present, she would wait until she found something fantastic.
Meredith certainly thought the briefcase was fantastic. When she called Shelly last night to thank her, Meri reached the answering machine. She had teased Shelly and said, “I love the leather pouch, Shel! The only thing is, I know I’ll be in my early thirties before I ever get another present from you.”
Meredith hoped Shelly had managed to obtain some kind of discount, because the briefcase was offered in an airline magazine and Shelly had worked for that airline for five years before marrying Jonathan. It wasn’t likely, but it was possible the company gave discounts to airline personnel.
At any rate, it was the nicest present she could have asked for, and she would put it to good use for many years.
Pulling up to the front of the cottage, Meri noticed a large box on her front porch, which UPS must have left while she was in town. Who else would send me anything? I don’t think Mom and Dad would switch from gift certificates to actual merchandise-type gifts this late in the game. All my other friends are married and broke or single and forgetful. Who could have sent something?
For one childish moment, she thought Jake had finally made his move. The large box was a giant fruit basket. That’s what it was!
She left the groceries in the car and dashed to see who the box was from. The instant Meredith saw the return address, her heart sank. It was from Aunt Jane. Aunt Jane, the quirky spinster who fit the description of every strange and wonderfully kooky relative who ever lived. The gift would be something completely useless, wildly impractical, and valuable only when one needed an outrageous white-elephant gift.
Two years ago at Christmas—or was it three?—Aunt Jane had given Meredith two matching umbrella hats. These were not hats to be worn in the rain but rather sun umbrella hats. They fit snugly on the head and sported a colorful striped umbrella that fanned out like a psychedelic mushroom. They were great for laughs, and Meri actually wore one of them while working in the garden. It served its purpose well. But then, nobody saw her wearing it.
Meredith tore at the packing tape with her car keys and wondered what catalog her aunt had found this hummer in. It was double wrapped and was posing a problem on the front porch. Meredith kicked the big box into the house and scooted it over to the living-room floor. She would wrestle the beast later, after she brought the perishable groceries inside.
Since it was her birthday dinner, Meredith had selected all her favorites. She had bought fresh pasta, her all-time favorite food. An Italian restaurant near the ferry terminal sold fresh pasta by the pound. Meri picked up fettuccine and herb-and-garlic linguine. She bought some of their fresh marinara dip and mozzarella sticks for an appetizer. She would make the Alfredo sauce herself right before Helen arrived.
The item she was most concerned about in the grocery bags was the raspberry cheesecake from a little restaurant called Rondi’s, which was located on the other side of the island. She brought that box in and refrigerated it right away. No number candles would perch on the top of this cheesecake, and no waxy frosting would stick to the roof of her mouth. This might not be such a bad birthday after all.
Once Meri had put away all the groceries and checked her voice mail, she returned to the living room ready to see what Aunt Jane had sent. Slicing the tape carefully with a kitchen knife, Meredith peeled back the first layer and found a big card from Aunt Jane taped with duct tape to the gift-wrapped box.
“Happy Birthday, Meredith Jane,” it said on the outside envelope. Aunt Jane liked to remind Meredith that she had inherited Jane as her middle name. When Meredith was younger, the family would tease her after she had pulled one of her wacky stunts and tell her she was just like Aunt Jane. It bothered Meri so much that they finally stopped. A twinge of fright mixed with a
nger came to her with the memory. Here she was, twenty-five years old and single. She lived alone in the woods and talked to goldfish. Maybe she was turning out to be just like her Aunt Jane after all.
No, Aunt Jane was wealthy yet lived like a pauper. Meri would never be like that. If Meri ever inherited a large sum of money from a strange piano teacher, she was certain she would find wonderful ways to pad her life with beautiful excess. The only excess Aunt Jane had indulged in was a tiny cabin on the Oregon coast where she spent her summer months.
Ripping back the yellow rose gift wrap, Meredith could see the label on the box. She immediately convinced herself that the words on the box did not have any bearing on what was inside the box.
Aunt Jane would not send me something like that!
Meredith pulled open the top of the box, which was sealed with wide copper staples. She slowly pulled the long, plastic contents from the box. The instructions came with it.
Still in shock, Meri read the instructions. “Meet Guard Man! The only bodyguard you’ll ever need. Guard Man is lifelike and poseable. Dress him in casual clothes when he sits in the chair by your front window or in formal attire when he accompanies you to a night on the town. You’ll always feel safe when Guard Man is near!”
Meredith stared at the deflated rubber dummy her crazy aunt had sent her. I can’t believe this. Aunt Jane sent me a blow-up man!
She started to laugh, and the whole cottage reverberated with the mixture of her shock and hilarity. Ripping open the duct-taped envelope of the birthday card, she found a card and a flattened “patch kit.” The card was actually a piece of yellow-lined paper that read, “I got to thinking about your living there all alone, and I thought you should have your very own Guard Man. I’ve had mine for two years now, and I haven’t been robbed once. My Guard Man goes to town with me, too, and I feel safe as can be. Enjoy! And be safe. Your Aunt Jane. Love.”
She always signed that way: her name first and then her closing sentiment. Meredith skimmed the card a second time and pictured her sixty-eight-year-old auntie scooting around town with Guard Man in the passenger seat of her 1979 Volvo.