No Place I'd Rather Be

  My apartment was a one bedroom. It was flooded with light and had a view over the top of the city to the river. Through French doors, a small balcony fit two chairs.

  The kitchen cabinets were light gray and new. I heard that the previous renter was mad at the landlord because he wouldn’t allow him to keep his three dogs there, barking all day, so he’d ripped the cabinets down when he was evicted. The laminate counters were a darker gray but new, too, with a white subway tile backsplash. The renter had taken an ax to the old ones.

  The wood floors were scuffed up, but original, as was the wide, white trim and baseboards. The beige walls would do. I didn’t have the energy to paint them.

  I had a small breakfast nook with an old-fashioned arc separating it from the kitchen, and a family room with another arc. My bedroom, in the corner, had two large windows and a window seat.

  The first week I arrived I slept a lot, in my sleeping bag, on the floor of the family room. When I was not sleeping, I was lying in that sleeping bag like it was my coffin, staring. I stared out at the sunshine, out at the rain, and at the hail. Sometimes I slept on my balcony.

  I heard people outside my door, specifically two little girls. It hurt to hear their sweet kid voices, and I pulled the pillow over my face.

  When I could finally get out of my sleeping bag/coffin for more than three hours at a time, two months later, and I was near broke, I went to work for Carter. I was screamed at like everyone else, and I screamed at him sometimes, which he seemed to respect because he was half devil. I was on edge, my nerves shot.

  On my days off I drove to the beach and walked for hours. I drove into the mountains and walked around and around a sparkling lake with a view of Mt. Hood for hours, too. I hiked in a nearby forest. Now and then, I started to see a tiny, flickering light. I clung to that light as hard as I could so the darkness wouldn’t drown me.

  Two months after that, sick of sleeping on the floor and leaning against a wall to eat breakfast, I went to a funky used furniture store and sat on a couch. The couch was in the shop window overlooking a busy Portland street. I sat in it for so long I decided to buy it. I couldn’t remember what color it was. I was glad when it arrived that it was blue and in an L shape. It was actually much bigger than I remembered. I bought four wood chairs and a wood circular table at an antique shop in the country. I bought a comfy red chair at a garage sale for a corner of the room and an ottoman with red flowers from Goodwill.

  I knew pretty pillows would help the couch. I stood in the pillow aisle of a big-box store and cried. I could not decide which pillows to get, which upset me. I started grabbing a mismatch of them and headed out. I bought a bed. I lay on a whole bunch of mattresses in one shop and started to cry because the last bed I had was bouncy but firm, a perfect bed with a warm man in it, and I was not in that bed anymore and I’d left the man.

  The saleswoman was sympathetic enough to lie down on the bed with me and hold my hand while I cried. “Bad time, huh, honey?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I hate men.”

  It wasn’t the man that was the problem, but I didn’t say that.

  I found a huge, old traveling chest at a secondhand store and used that as a coffee table. I found two bookshelves at a garage sale and painted them white. I found an old church pew and put it in my bedroom. I bought an assortment of dishes, many of them china, from Goodwill, and I bought pans, and pictures for the walls from a variety of places and called it good.

  Good, as in good enough for now.

  Then I became friends with Annabelle Lacey and two miserable, frightened, reeling children.

  Chapter 5

  On Saturday my mother and grandma volunteered to take the girls skiing. My mother thought the ski lift would be an “appropriate educational setting” to talk to the girls about what the life of an orthopedic surgeon would be like, and how exciting it would be to put bones back together with screws and plates. “They need to understand the choices available to them in the medical world. My next talk will be about the benefits of being a heart surgeon.”

  I rushed on over to Goodwill to buy them the ski stuff they needed and, thankfully, found ski pants in about their size. Lucy’s was a bit too big, Stephi’s a bit too small, but whatever. I also found them ski gloves, thick socks, and helmets that looked brand-new. I zipped them into their jackets, made sure they had their hats, and off they went, thrilled.

  “We’ve got to be comfortable with speed,” Lucy said, finger pointed in the air.

  “I’m bringing my rocks. We’re going to ski fast,” Stephi said.

  My grandma and mother would take them for pizza afterward.

  I cleaned the house, then took a shower and finally washed my hair. I needed color, so I pulled on red jeans and my red cowgirl boots, a purple sweater, and a flowered scarf in red, purple, and yellow, shot through with gold thread that I bought in Italy. I added dangly silver frog earrings from Laos, then grabbed my red coat.

  I drove to the grocery store so that we would not all starve. The snow was coming down, but light and fluffy. I headed down the aisles, with my coupons, comparing prices. My account was anemic. I would get paid on Monday, but much of it had to go to my attorney and my monthly “bleeding ulcer” payment to the hospital. Minimum wage plus five dollars an hour does not go far at all.

  I counted up the costs of the groceries in my head, minus the coupons. I had just enough to cover it. I’d probably have about ten dollars left. We would have the staples: spaghetti, tacos, burritos, lasagna, and crock pot chicken dinners. Luckily, I knew how to make bland, cheap food taste a lot better, and sometimes I was able to bring home leftovers from Larry’s.

  The cash register lady was sullen. When she saw my stack of coupons she cracked her gum, rolled her eyes, and glared at me as if I were algae scum. “All these coupons yours?”

  “No. They belong to a green space alien. He dropped them into my hands then skedaddled back up to his spaceship.”

  For a second, I thought that gum-cracking idiot believed me. She grunted. “Whatever.”

  She rang up my groceries, moving like an annoyed anteater, and started in on the coupons, running them over the scanner. She sighed again. She made impatient noises. She said, “Hope these things don’t take too long.”

  There was no one in line, so I said, “With the mob behind me I hope not, too.” That’s when Jace turned the corner with a small hand basket and got in line behind me. He was in a dark blue sweater and beige jacket. Jeans. Cowboy boots. Black hair had a few snowflakes in it. Gall. It was like looking at a seductive cowboy gangster.

  The cashier actually stopped gnawing on her gum to ogle him. “Hey, Jace. Hi, Jace. Do you remember me? I’m Bailey. Like the drink.”

  “Hello, Bailey.”

  After more ogling she studied the coupons in her hands and grunted again. Lovely. I had a mean cashier making impatient grunts with my desperately needed coupons and Jace the seductive cowboy gangster behind me.

  Jace would be shocked to know I was this broke.

  I hate being broke, I do, but it is what it is and I’m trying.

  “Hello, Olivia.”

  “Hi, Jace.” I felt my face redden as the cracking gum girl slowly scanned each coupon as if every coupon was taking a day off of her miserable life.

  “How are you?”

  “Fine.” I looked at his hand basket. He was buying sandwiches, fruit, salad stuff. I used to make him the best sandwiches. He loved my steak sandwiches with blue cheese. Loved my chicken tomato sandwiches with finely cut onions and my special sauce with vinaigrette. “Looks like lunch.”

  Cracking Gum Idiot bit out, “This one doesn’t work, wrong store . . . you bought the wrong size on this can of corn . . .”

  “Okay,” I said to her. I wanted to drop through the floor, via an earthquake crack and disappear.

  “This coupon is expired,” she said it as if I were trying to rob the store. “You have to buy two of these to get a d
ollar off and you didn’t . . . This cereal box is twenty-six ounces and the coupon is for the fifteen-ounce size . . .”

  “That’s fine,” I told her. “A crime was committed and I accept responsibility.”

  She cracked her gum yet again and smirked. “Looks like your space alien didn’t collect the right coupons.”

  “Looks like you have enough gum in your cheeks to turn you into a chipmunk.”

  “Very funny.” She looked at Jace and rolled her eyes. Then ogled/grinned at him.

  He glared back. She stopped grinning.

  When she was finally done, breathing heavily from coupon-caused exertion, I ran my debit card and . . . the card was rejected.

  “Rejected!” Cracking Gum Idiot said, smiling with victory. “Insufficient funds!”

  Shoot. I pulled out my wallet. I had eight dollars.

  “If you don’t have enough money you need to put something back.” She raised her eyebrows and tightened her squirrely mouth as in, “Gotcha now!”

  Humiliating. I didn’t have enough money for groceries. Wanting to disappear, as Jace was a witness to my personal economic collapse, I started pushing the bread back, and the pasta . . .

  “She has enough money,” Jace said. He ran his card through.

  “Please, don’t,” I automatically protested.

  “I got it, Olivia, no problem.” Jace winked at me. He has dark, gentle eyes.

  My face was on fire. Flames of shame were probably leaping from my ears. “Thank you.”

  “Do you want your coupons back?” the cashier asked. She was disappointed Jace had come to my rescue. He had ruined her fun! She liked making fun of poor people! “The ones that didn’t work? Took me a lot of time to run them. You need to check them more carefully next time so there’s no holdup in the line.”

  “No, thank you. You can eat them. Or chew on them. Like your gum.” I grabbed the receipt. “Thanks, Jace.”

  “You’re welcome.” I saw him shoot the cashier a withering stare that said, “That’s enough.”

  The problem with trying to make a hasty exit after a mortifying moment is that you never can. It’s like the universe conspires against you. I was trying to steer the cart and get out of there quick, but I rushed and the creaky wheel in front turned and hit a stack of cans. The whole can pyramid tumbled down with a crash. I said a bad word, chased after the rolling ones, and started stacking them, along with Jace, my total embarrassment complete. A manager rushed over and helped. The gum cracker snickered and snorted.

  When we were done, I thanked them both, again, truly wanting to cry, and headed out. I saw Jace turn and hand the gum cracker cash for his food, then he followed me out. This time, in my scramble to escape, I stumbled on the mat by the door and had to lean heavily on the handle of the cart to catch me so I didn’t face plant. I whispered another bad word.

  Jace moved quick and steadied me. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I struggled back up to my feet and searched for my truck so I could dive in it and hide forever. I was so rattled I couldn’t remember where I parked. Ah. There it was. Jace’s huge black truck was near my blue one. “I’ll pay you back, Jace.” I didn’t even try to tell him that there was a problem with my account, or that the bank must have messed up, because I don’t like to lie and he wouldn’t believe me anyhow. I was flat dead broke.

  “I will not take a dime.”

  “You have to.” I felt my throat tighten up, loss stuck in there like a pinecone, because Jace and I were not going out to the parking lot together, to one truck, we were going to separate trucks. “If you don’t, I’ll feel like I’m taking charity and you know I’d rather shoot myself in the foot with my granddad’s rifle than take charity.”

  “Please don’t shoot yourself in the foot. You have nice feet. And you’re not taking charity. It’s money you already earned from being a half owner of Martindale Ranch, which you have refused to take for over two years.”

  “I am not a half owner.”

  “You are a half owner. Your money is in a separate account. I will send you yet another check, and I hope this time you will cash it.”

  After I left him Jace started to send me checks each month for my half of the profits on Martindale Ranch. I wouldn’t cash them. I couldn’t. It was Jace’s land, his family’s ranch, and his money that launched the business.

  I hadn’t put any money into the ranch, only my work. Like an employee. I returned the checks and they finally stopped coming, even though he called, and e-mailed, and told me to take the checks.

  I started to unpack my groceries into the truck. He said, “Let me do this,” and I said, “I can,” and we did it together. “Thanks, Jace.”

  I turned and hauled myself and my deep embarrassment into my old light blue truck. I turned the key. Nothing. Turned it again. Nothing.

  It wouldn’t start.

  Naturally.

  I leaned my poor head against the seat and tried to avoid Jace’s sympathetic gaze. When I did turn toward him he was already on the phone calling Alphonse D’Ellieni for a tow truck.

  This was Jace in action. He solved problems. He provided and protected. He was loyal and faithful.

  And I’d left him.

  * * *

  “Thanks for the ride home, Jace.”

  “My pleasure.”

  We were at my log cabin, we’d unloaded the groceries, and I’d made Jace lunch to thank him for paying for my groceries, having my car towed, and then driving me home. He loved my turkey avocado tomato sandwiches, and I made one for him. I also made him a salad with chopped walnuts and cranberries and blue cheese.

  “Ah, Olivia. You’re making me The Gobble Turkey Tomato sandwich?”

  “I am.” My words came out tight so they wouldn’t wobble over The Gobble Turkey Tomato sandwich.

  I could tell that Jace, grinning and sitting on one of the stools in front of the butcher block kitchen island, was thrilled and grateful. “Thank you.”

  “And I’m making you peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.”

  “This is the best day I’ve had in a long, long time, Olivia. In fact, for over two years.” He was a low-voiced cowboy stud. “Thank you.”

  I felt all warm and . . . hot. There was something about that cowboy praising my food that made me want to take off my clothes. Jace and food blended together equaled an aphrodisiac.

  “I’ve always liked it here.” He glanced around my grandparents’ log cabin, taking in all the windows, the three-hundred-sixty-degree views, the colorful quilts, the fire he had started for me. “Homey. Cheerful. Happy.”

  “Thank you. I think a lot of it is the windows. With the mountains and the river you feel like you’re standing in a postcard, but you have a roof over your head.” I’d draped some quilts over both couches, thrown a red knotty blanket over the handle of a chair, tossed around the colorful assortment of pillows I’d had in Portland, and added some of my pictures and the girls’ framed art. In the kitchen I had put out my red mixing bowls, my small kitchen appliances, and a red teapot.

  “One of the finest views in Montana,” he said.

  “And yours is the other finest,” I said.

  “Come and see it.” He smiled. I froze. “I’ll have Max and Joe bring you my gray SUV today. You can use it until your truck is fixed.”

  “Oh, no. But thank you.” I couldn’t take anything from him. “My mother has her old truck. I’ll drive that.”

  “I’d like you to drive mine. I know the truck you’re talking about, and it’s pretty old.”

  “Jace, that’s nice, but no.”

  We sat in the silence. I could tell that he wasn’t happy because I’d hurt him by rejecting his offer of assistance. Jace was old-fashioned in some ways. I knew it when we were dating, knew it when we were married. He wanted to provide and protect. It was instinct. Pure instinct. His father and grandfather were like that, too. I was not allowing him to do that, which made him unhappy. He stared out the window. The snow had slowed con
siderably, as if it was tired of snowing that hard.

  “So, what’s going on, Olivia? Why didn’t you have enough money for the groceries?”

  I went and sat by him on a stool while we ate the sandwiches and salad. “I’m broke.”

  His head snapped back as if I’d slugged him one. “But you had a job in Portland, I thought, as a chef?”

  “I did. I was fired when I threw a chicken at my boss.”

  “You threw a chicken at him?”

  “Yes, but the chicken was dead.”

  “That says something.” He laughed.

  “I also lobbed a few eggs. There may have been a potato. I clearly lost my mind yet again.”

  “I bet he deserved to get hit with a chicken.”

  “Carter’s got a temper, he says terrible things to people, and he let loose on a few younger chefs one time too many. Chefs will yell, it’s a given. You have to put up with some of it, but it was relentless.” I thought about the other expensive problem. “I am the temporary guardian of Lucy and Stephi, but I’ve had to hire an attorney. I’m trying to adopt them and I ran into problems with their biological mother, who is currently . . .” How should I say it?

  “Currently . . .” he prodded.

  “She’s in jail. She wants them back when she’s out. Her parental rights have not been terminated. There are a few other complications.” I paused, I didn’t even want to think about the complications.

  “What about the father?”

  “He’s in jail, too. They robbed a liquor store together. He’s in for a longer amount of time because of prior arrests. They broke in at night when it was closed, no weapon, no assault. They ended up stealing only five hundred dollars. The girls . . .” I took a deep breath. I have to breathe deep whenever I think about what happened to Stephi and Lucy. “The girls were taken from their parents by Children’s Services when the police came to arrest their parents. There were cameras in the liquor store, so they were identified from previous arrests. They’re drug addicts. Their home was dangerous and chaotic. CSD found a bunch of other drug addicts living there, no food, needles and trash everywhere.