No Place I'd Rather Be

  He loves talking about it. It gives me the creeps. He’s been all over the world. “When you study diseases, when you track them, when you know their origins, how they spread, how they manifest, you can help people.”

  Herbert is his brother. Herbert has a doctorate in archaeology. He loves ancient ruins. They are both out of town a lot, and sometimes their paths won’t cross for months. They’re both in their sixties, never married. They have a brick home twenty minutes outside of town on a hundred acres. When they’re not in the trenches, in obscure locations, they like peace. Their home is unusual in that it has a main room and kitchen, tall windows, exposed wood beams, and a brick fireplace, but then branching off from the main room are two wings. Each brother has his own family room, bedroom, bathroom, and office.

  It’s perfectly suited for them. I think it could work perfectly for a lot of people, including married couples. Meet in the middle, then you go your separate ways.

  “Hello, Olivia. Hello, Mary Beth,” Herbert whispered, smiling, waving us in, giving us warm hugs. He was wearing an outfit that could only be described as an Indiana Jones costume. I wondered if he, too, had an extreme aversion to snakes. “You didn’t bring Mrs. Gisela?” Herbert was clearly disappointed.

  “Sorry, no,” my mother whispered back. “You’re stuck with me, Dr. I Don’t Know Anything.”

  “That’s too bad. She knows how to fight disease the natural way.”

  “And I know how to fight disease with a shot and drugs.”

  “Okay, here we go,” Herbert whispered, then raised his voice to a semi-shout. “Hello, Mary Beth and Olivia! What a miraculous surprise!”

  Herbert had made my mother swear she wouldn’t tell Joey that he called her and begged her to come out because “Joey will be so displeased. He won’t take a minute away from his research at the moment, I’m afraid. He does get rather obsessed. He’s hardly sleeping. Manic stage, if one can have a manic stage working as an epidemiologist.”

  “Greetings,” my mother called out in an even louder voice, so Joey could hear. “Sorry we didn’t call ahead. Gee-whiz. I forgot. We were in the neighborhood.”

  I coughed over a laugh. We were not in the neighborhood. Joey and Herbert lived in the boondocks.

  “We’ve come to examine Joey and make sure that he is not being devoured by an African worm or a strange beetle,” my mother shouted.

  “I don’t think he’ll like that,” Herbert yelled, looking at us apologetically. “He’s very busy. But since you’re here, Mary Beth and Olivia, but not Mrs. Gisela, come and see him so your trip is not wasted.” Herbert held his hands out, as in, “Can you believe this,” and rolled his eyes. He whispered, “He’s talking to Stepan. I know you both know Stepan.”

  Stepan was a university professor, too, and a friend of my mother’s.

  Herbert led us down to Joey’s wing. I could hear Joey on the phone. He was in his king-sized bed, and the bed was covered with papers, books, his computer, graphs, and drawings.

  “Listen, Stepan. We have got to get this research done immediately. . .”

  Joey smiled and waved, indicated for us to sit down next to the bed in chairs. He was pale, too thin. My mother waited for about twelve seconds, patience being nonexistent in her personality, then took the phone.

  “Hey, Stepan, this is Mary Beth. How are you? Yeah? Is that right? When are you home from Morocco? Sure. We can play Scrabble. No, you may not use Arabic words. Okay, we gotta go. I have to examine Joey. He brought a bunch of gifts of the bad variety home with him from Africa . . . You want me to examine his ass?” She eyed Joey, who shook his head, and Herbert laughed. “That would be fun. Holy cow, I didn’t realize I was going to have so much fun today. If only I could have pictured this when I woke up this morning . . . You want me to give him an enema? Hey, Stepan, why don’t I let you give Joey an enema yourself? You think we doctors like giving enemas? We don’t. We don’t have morning coffee and think, ‘Hey, swell. I get the pleasure of flipping someone over and sticking an enema up his rectum.’ Yeah, you too. I’ll drop an enema in your beer next time I see you . . . You tell Phyllis I said hi and ask her why she stays with you. Tell her I said that. Good-bye.”

  My mother hung up.

  “I should have married you,” Joey said. “I’m in awe of you, Mary Beth.” His brow furrowed. “But you also scare the heck out of me.”

  “I would never have married you, Joey, unless I’d had a lobotomy. Or your brother.” My mother started taking supplies out of her black bag.

  “What? Why not?” Joey mock-whined. He turned to me. “It is a gift to see you Olivia, but your mother is an ax-wielding warrior woman.” He seemed puzzled. “There’s something very attractive about that.”

  “You wouldn’t have married me without a lobotomy?” Herbert said. He clutched his chest. “Now that wounds, Mary Beth. Wounds. Like a spear on fire.”

  “Oh, hell, no. Neither one of you. I’d run you both over. You intellectual, germ-studying, dead-people-hunting, odd donkey men. So, Joey. Tell me your symptoms.”

  “Once again, Mom, it is a privilege to witness your gentle care of your patients. Kind. Sweet. Accommodating.”

  “Please, Olivia,” she corrected me. “I need to figure out what bug has invaded this man’s body and possibly reproduced.”

  “Olivia,” Herbert said, his face now creased in a huge smile. “Maybe you can clear something up we’ve been wondering about. We heard from Ruthie Teal that she saw Jace at your house months ago when she was cleaning her gun. We heard you two might be getting back together.”

  “Right,” Joey said, sitting up, eager to find out the real truth. “Then we heard you weren’t getting back together from Martha.”

  “Then we heard you were back together from Chuck Chen, who heard it from friends of Sheryl Lalonski’s second cousin, Tabitha.”

  “Then we heard you two aren’t back together from Apurna and Celise.”

  “We aren’t together,” I said.

  Their faces fell, shoulders slumped. “Very sad . . . Wish you were . . . We like both of you . . . Any hope?”

  My mother saved me. She threw her hands up. “Are we done talking about Olivia’s love life?”

  “I’d like to know more, but okay.” Joey leaned back on his pillows. “It’s unfortunate that Mrs. Gisela isn’t here.”

  “Sorry.” My mother dug in her doctor’s bag. “Poor you, you miserable, African-bug-infected man.”

  “Mrs. Gisela knows how to cure diseases in the natural way.”

  “She can’t cure a worm, or a bowl full of bacteria swimming around in your gut, Joey, so out with it. What are your symptoms, and don’t be shy.”

  Joey told her. It was rather graphic, I thought, until my mother started asking more questions and it got more graphic. She examined him, head to foot, took blood, gave him medicine, told him when to take it. I turned my back a couple of times to give Joey privacy.

  “Hey!” Herbert protested as we got up to go. “I wanted Joey to get an enema! Make my day, Mary Beth. Stick him with an enema.”

  “What? Why me?” Joey protested. “I have an as yet unidentified African disease. I have suffered intestinally enough. Give Herbert an enema. He hasn’t been the same since he got back from Egypt last month. I think he brought home the ghost of an Egyptian princess. I think that Egyptian princess is fiddling with his intestines.”

  “I’d like an Egyptian princess fiddling with my intestines. I haven’t had a date in two years. You can’t get picky when you look like this.” Herbert pointed to his face. “My face is a domino. All dots. Big eyes. Big nose. Big mouth.”

  “She probably wouldn’t take you,” Joey said, shaking his head slowly. “You have gas problems. You don’t swallow right, and you have to thump your chest. You have abnormally large feet.”

  “You do, Herbert,” my mother said. “You do have abnormally large feet. And your gas is lethal.”

  “What about Joey?” Herbert protested. “Look at him. The man
has a head the size of a cantaloupe. He has enough hair to cover a chimpanzee. I don’t know why the women go for him.”

  “Joey talks them to death,” my mother said, putting her medical paraphernalia back in Granddad’s black bag. “They give in so he’ll be quiet. Plus, some women like chimpanzees.” She glared down at Joey. “I will call you when I get the blood tests back, Joey. I’m having them test you again for all sorts of odd and wondrous things. You’re going to live, though.”

  “Damn,” Herbert said. “As soon as Joey cuts out, I’m taking all of his epidemiology books. I can’t wait to have them for myself for ever and ever. My life will be so much more fulfilled when I can study the history of obscure diseases.”

  “And I can’t wait to get ahold of all those bizarre things you’ve got stuffed with formaldehyde in jars in your office,” Joey shot back. “It looks like you’ve murdered several people, animals, and insects. I’m glad the police have never been here, because you would have some explaining to do. I mean, who formaldehydes body parts?”

  “They’re ancient body parts.”

  “So you say. But do we know?”

  “I’m so glad I came,” I said. “You two are better entertainment than anything on TV.”

  They liked that!

  I pulled a plastic container with the venison out of my bag. “Venison. I spiced it up for you.”

  “You didn’t!” Joey exclaimed, grinning. “Thank you, Olivia, thank you.”

  “And”—I paused, for dramatic effect—“I brought you some of my cinnamon sugar cookies.”

  “My day is made,” Joey said, collapsing against the pillows. “I dream of those cookies, Olivia. Dream of them.”

  “He dreams about your cookies and diseases,” Herbert said. “My life is now perfect. These are my favorites. You are the best, Olivia.”

  I laughed.

  We gave them hugs and turned to leave.

  “Next time bring Mrs. Gisela!” they both called out.

  Chapter 11

  On Monday, when Kyle and his classmates all filed into school, they were greeted with a spectacular, colorful new mural over Eric, Jason, and Juan’s lockers, all conveniently grouped in the same hallway.

  My sister took pictures of it and showed me later. “I hardly saw him this weekend. What a hard worker. This is a boy who was willing to commit crimes, including breaking and entering, trespassing, and possibly vandalism, to extract creative revenge after relentless bullying. So proud of him. He talks like he’s the spawn of a sixteenth-century prince and Marie Curie, with a twist of Vincent van Gogh, but you gotta love the work ethic.”

  I laughed. It was the perfect revenge. “It’s a mural that should live on the walls of that school forever. The details, the size, the humor. My mind is blown.”

  “It’s a testimony for all bullied kids,” Chloe said. “A monument. An artistic example of individual power against evilness. This is what you, too, can do to get back at kids who bang you up and bring you down, curse them and their muskrat faces forever, may they grow fangs and a tail. I love that son of mine.”

  The mural was about twelve feet long. Eric, Jason, and Juan were so cleverly drawn and painted. Eric’s hawkish face was enhanced. He looked demented and was wearing a diaper. Jason was drawn with buck teeth, a bandanna around his head, and a stunned expression, tongue out. Juan was long and skinny, snake-like, with a black cape. The facial likenesses were incredible. Kyle had enhanced their faults.

  Chloe later learned from Kyle and other students and their parents what happened at school when the kids came back on Monday morning.

  Eric, Jason, and Juan were furious, and Juan started to cry and left school. None of the kids took any pity on them. These three were bullies who had taunted, mocked, and beat up kids for years, and no one liked them. Eric started hollering, “That bat crazy freak retard Kyle. Where the hell is he?” And Jason yelled at the janitor, “Why are you standing there, you idiot? Paint this off.”

  And the janitor, Bill DeNota, a Vietnam vet who worked as a janitor only because it funded his summer-long journeys to different continents each year, stood within three inches of Jason and growled, “Don’t you talk to me like that, Jason. I won’t sit and listen to that foul mouth of yours. No one wants to listen to it. Do you understand me? Now you shut your trap.”

  The kids clapped, and Jason snuck off after muttering, “I’ll get paint from home.” Eric ran out behind him, those weasels, swearing to get “revenge on Kyle, the OCD scum.”

  But bringing paint in didn’t work, either. When Jason and Eric returned with paint and brushes to cover up the drawings, the principal was waiting for them, hiding around the corner.

  “Destruction of school property!” she shouted as soon as they opened the paint and whipped out paintbrushes. “You should be ashamed of yourselves. This is attempted vandalism and destruction of school property! Put those paintbrushes down immediately and go to my office. Now!”

  She hauled them off, by their ears. This might not be tolerated in other districts, but we’re Montana. Both boys were suspended, along with Juan, who had declined to come back to school anyhow. He moved the next week to Great Falls.

  Jason’s parents and Eric’s mother came to get them. My sister was there, too, as the principal had requested to meet with her. Chloe said the mothers looked exhausted. Jason was smacked on the butt, three times, by his mother. Eric’s mother yelled, “You stupid egghead chicken shit,” which gives you an idea of what Eric was dealing with at home, but my sister could not summon up any pity after the years of bullying that Kyle had had to put up with and how the parents had not even tried to get their kids to stop.

  Jason’s dad, Jason Senior, came in a tequila T-shirt that almost covered his gut, smelling like smoke. He crossed his arms and glared and my sister said, “What? Hungry? You couldn’t find a possum to eat this morning? No chipmunks and syrup for breakfast?”

  Jason whined to his mother, pointing at the principal, “She dragged me down the hallway by my ear!” And Jason’s mother, in a state, said, “Which ear?” He cried, “My left one. It hurt.”

  She grabbed him by his right ear and said, “Well, hell. Now we’ll make it even,” and dragged him out.

  Unfortunately, as Bill, the Vietnam vet, told my sister, there was “absolutely no time” in his schedule to paint out the mural for weeks. Maybe months. Could be next year. “No time at all. I have to sweep the floor of the utility closet, visit with the kids during my cafeteria duty, and the principal’s office needs a thorough winter dusting.” He then told her, “Art school for your son, Chloe. Kyle will make a fortune. The mural is magnificent.”

  The magnificent mural stayed. The kids loved it. The local press came and took photos of it, and it was on the front page of the newspaper. In three weeks, when Eric and Jason returned from their suspension, they were changed people. They never teased, beat up, or shoved anyone ever again, especially Kyle. The mural stayed there to remind them of who they used to be.

  * * *

  “Hello, Olivia.”

  “Hi, Jace.”

  We were in the kitchen, the breakfast/lunch employees gone, the dinner crew to be in soon. We would be having fried buttermilk chicken, which I had named Saddle-Up Fried Buttermilk Chicken. We would also be having double-stuffed baked potatoes with sour cream and bacon called Double Spuds and Bacon, and caramel apples on sticks called Caramel Fruit Sticks. There were still salads and a squash soup to prepare.

  At the moment, Jace and I were alone, our view, private and expansive, out the back at the mountains. On the other side of the building, one family was having a snowball fight. They were from Los Angeles. Their kids could not contain their excitement, as it was the first time they’d seen snow. Several families were in the game room. Some people were skiing or snowboarding, and about ten had gone off on a guided snowshoe walk.

  “Do you want some coffee, Jace? I made toffee squares with melted chocolate.” I had made them because we always served cookies in
the afternoon to the guests, but I also knew they were some of his favorites.

  “Yes and yes.” He grinned, and we sat down at the table near the windows.

  “Thank you, Olivia.”

  “You are very welcome.” I set the coffee and cookies in front of him.

  He raised his mug and we clinked them together. I tried not to get too emotional. We had done that every morning at breakfast.

  “I’m so glad to have you back.”

  “It’s . . .” I paused, admiring that white beauty outside, the handsome man inside. “It’s . . . I’m happy to be back, too.”

  Every day he came in and smiled at me in the kitchen, chatted. It was as if I’d never left Martindale Ranch, except I did not snuggle up to him at night after having multi-orgasm sex.

  “We’re better already with you, Olivia. Everyone loves the food.”

  And I love you. The words, in my head, echoed along, true and strong. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t said them out loud.

  “Everyone loves . . .” I started, then stopped. Why were those dark eyes always so comforting to me? “. . . loves the . . . uh . . .” And that black hair! I could hardly keep myself from running my hands through it and pulling his mouth to mine. “And, uh . . . the ranch is, uh, in love . . .” and his body. Rangy. Powerful. Mostly his brain attracted me, though. Jace was razor sharp. Witty. He grasped everything quickly, way before I could. He had majored in math and finance in college.

  “The ranch is in love?” Jace smiled.

  And those teeth! And that smile! I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. “The snow here . . . it’s I love . . . white.”

  “I love white snow, too.”

  “What?” What did he mean he “loved white snow”? So confusing. I loved the way Jace listened to me, eyes straight on mine, and how he always regarded me with humor and indulgence and kindness. When I had made suggestions about how to run the ranch in the past, he treated me like a business partner and implemented my ideas. “Everyone loves . . .” What else about love? I couldn’t think with him and his sexiness around. Oh yes! “The horses and . . . rabbits and . . .”