No Place I'd Rather Be

  Ports and ships were blown out of the water, schools destroyed, and churches turned to ash as the Nazis pursued their relentless quest for world domination.

  * * *

  The letters and recipes from their family abruptly stopped coming.

  Gisela and Renata wrote and wrote. To everyone.

  They heard nothing. The letters came back to them, one by one. “Does not live here anymore,” “Return to sender,” “Incorrect address.”

  Every returned letter brought a new wave of utter despair and throat-choking fear.

  * * *

  I wrapped myself in two coats and headed out to my grandma’s gazebo late on Thursday night, the stars a bright, sometimes smeared, glowing picture. I sat down at the picnic table and watched the Telena River. I needed to calm my nerves.

  Devlin, the girls’ mother, hated me. One time, on a prison visitation day, Annabelle told me that the girls talked about me. They talked about Aunt Olivia. It enraged Devlin, and she shouted at her mother for allowing another woman, me, to “take my place.” Annabelle assured Devlin that she had not, that I was a friend in the apartment complex, to which Lucy popped up and said, “We spend all day with her on Tuesdays! She’s teaching us how to make cakes!” And Stephi said, “She took us to the zoo and the beach to find shells.”

  Annabelle said that Devlin was so angry she kicked a chair over, and the visit immediately ended when a guard rushed over. Annabelle told the girls not to talk to their mother about me again, which they agreed to because Devlin’s anger scared them. But when Devlin pushed, during the next visit, about whether they spent time with me and what we had done, the girls, intimidated, whispered, “Yes.” Devlin was livid.

  Annabelle threatened not to bring the girls if Devlin was going to bully them, which enflamed Devlin more. She called her mother a “bitch” and “stupid whore.” The girls and Annabelle left as Devlin stood up and screamed at them, the guards again moving in. The girls were still shaking when I went over that night for turkey sandwiches and ice cream.

  Devlin called me from prison. “Stay away from my girls . . . They don’t need you in their lives . . . I am their mother, not you . . . Don’t try to replace me . . . You’re trying to be my mother’s daughter, my daughters’ mother, you are after my mother’s money . . .” She called me the same names she called her mother, only she added the words “ugly dog bitch.”

  I knew she was mentally ill. She had displayed that as early as three years old. She was born with it. I tried to feel sorry for her, but I couldn’t get there. Mentally ill is one thing. Mentally ill and abusive and neglectful to children is another matter entirely.

  I put my head on the picnic table in the gazebo that my granddad built my grandma so she could find some peace from her past. Again, I found no peace at all.

  * * *

  Lucy and Stephi were whispering on the couch. I smiled at them, then stopped. “What’s wrong?”

  “We want you to be the mom, Aunt Olivia. Forever. Okay?”

  What could I tell them? I was trying, couldn’t guarantee it?

  “That’s what I want, too. But your mom wants you, too. We’ve talked about this together, a lot. You know I love you two.”

  “We love you, too. And we love Mom, too,” Lucy said.

  “But we don’t like being scared,” Stephi said. “Or sleeping on the floor, or rat bites, or when they left for a long time and we thought, are we alone forever now?”

  I hugged them tight. If the girls were taken from me, I would feel alone forever, too.

  * * *

  I smiled into the camera that Dinah held, ready to make another cooking video in the kitchen of Martindale Ranch. I had made several on my own, showing how to make stuffed mushrooms, shrimp and crab pasta, grilled crostini, chocolate croissants, and tortellini soup.

  I invited Chloe to make a video of the two of us making cauliflower cheese quiche, a recipe we found in Grandma’s cookbook, written by her sister, Renata, in London. Across the quiche recipe was a sketch of the London Bridge.

  “Hello, everyone.” I always tried to be smiling and serene when shooting these videos for our website. Calm. As if I know what I’m doing and my head doesn’t have a tornado in it. “I’m Olivia Martindale. Welcome to Cooking with Olivia on Martindale Ranch in Montana. Today I’m with my sister, Chloe. Chloe is a paramedic and a search and rescue helicopter pilot. So if you have an accident up here in Kalulell, up in the mountains, or out in some remote area, look twice, because it might be Chloe piloting the helicopter. In addition, Chloe served in the army for six years—”

  “So I can kick almost anyone’s butt, just sayin’,” Chloe interrupted, banging her fists together, her brown ponytail swinging. “You know what I excelled at in the army? Two things: One”—she pointed one finger in the air, not the middle finger—“hand-to-hand combat. No kidding. I took karate all the way through school, was number two in the state. I’m still pissed that Jimmy Thomas beat me in that final round. Jimmy”—she pointed at the camera—“any time, any place, I will whip your ass. And, two, what I also excelled at was sharpshooting. I was awesome at it. Still am. I can shoot a flea off a dog, an eyeball off a spider.”

  Dinah laughed, the camera shaking in her hand.

  “Yes.” I smiled at the camera, still trying to be serene. “Chloe has many skills. One of them is cooking.”

  “Oh, heck, no, but thank you, Olivia.” Her voice lowered, the tone sweeter, her hand on my arm. “That’s awfully nice of you to say.” She turned to the camera. “Olivia, she’s the kindest person. Now don’t let me blow smoke up your ass, she’s tough, too. She’s one of the bravest women I’ve ever met. One day I’ll tell you the story of how she scared a bear back into the forest when we were teenagers.

  “Now me, I’ll take you flat out if you look cross-eyed at me in a bar or if I see any of that judgment on your face because I’m not the size of a pinhead and I got boobs the size of watermelons on me right here”—she lifted her boobs and they bounced when she let go—“but Olivia, she has a warm heart.” She thumped her heart, then thumped mine. Too hard!

  “Olivia can make food so delicious, you’ll orgasm. You think I’m kidding? I’m not. You wait until this is done and you’ll see what I mean. You won’t have your panties in a twist anymore if you had a bad day at work. You will eat this sucker and you will think, ‘I am going to have an orgasm,’ and you will.” She turned to me. “We should rename this Orgasm Cauliflower Cheese Quiche. Let’s rename it folks. So, first step.” Chloe took out a handful of shredded cheese that I had in a bowl. “Don’t ever skimp on cheese, folks. I’m telling you. You could die tomorrow, and if you died and you didn’t put enough cheese into this breakfast delight you’d regret it. I mean, you’d be heading up to heaven, or down to hell, I don’t know how you’ve lived your life, and you’d be thinkin’ I wish I’d had more cheese, so do yourself a favor and get this cheese in there . . .”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Cheese is the—”

  “The thing with cheese is that it’ll make your, you know”—Chloe paused, glanced down—“it’ll keep everything down there moist. Everyone knows that. It’s the calcium.”

  “Uh, I don’t think—”

  “You don’t need to think here, Olivia, it’s plain truth. Cheese is like an aphrodisiac for a woman’s personal butterfly. Also, folks, when you’re making an Orgasm Cauliflower Cheese Quiche you have to add a shake of mustard powder and a shake of paprika. If you have a date and you’re hoping to get lucky, add a pinch more like this,” she demonstrated. “I don’t know how it works, but somehow it heats things up in the bedroom.”

  “Right, Chloe. Thank you—”

  “You’re welcome. Anything I can do to help women have more oomph and ahhh in the bedroom, I’m gonna be sharing that information. I have had a lot of experience in that regard, and I think we women got to stay together. As I tell my personal butterfly, ‘It’s you and me, baby,’ and I think we should say that here, too, on your show
, Olivia, ‘It’s you and me, baby.’” She smiled at the camera. Banged her fists together again. “Boom, boom.”

  What in the world? Why was I allowing guests on my videos?

  “Oh,” Chloe said. “And to the men out there. I’m single. Yeah. I am. I know, hard to believe, but my husband died eight years ago, and if you like a woman who knows how to love and who will hug you in a way that makes you feel all tight and wrapped up, warm and snuggly, that’s me. If you want a woman the size of a stick, who resembles a skeleton with skin, don’t call. I am not that woman. Also, you gotta be okay with all of this.” She tapped her temples. “Smart. Tough. I will beat you in shooting matches and arm wrestling and karate. You got an ego that can’t handle that”—she picked up a knife and stabbed it into the cutting board—“don’t you bother calling me. I’m not here to pander to your little whing whang and your tiny balls and your pride on overdrive.”

  Whew! “So, friends,” I said, “this recipe was written by our grandma’s sister, Renata, in London during the Blitz in World War Two. Everyone in England had a ration book, and ingredients were hard to come by, but Renata and our grandma, Gisela, were able to make this dish because cauliflower was plentiful in England. As you can see, Renata drew a picture of the London Bridge around it. You can see a close-up of this recipe, and the drawing, on our website. Now, let’s talk about the ingredients for this incredibly simple dish . . .”

  * * *

  No surprise.

  The video with Chloe was watched thousands and thousands of times.

  She was inundated with e-mails on our website and on her Facebook page from men who knew they could handle a large woman who could beat them in shooting matches and arm wrestling and karate. Apparently a lot of men out there don’t need to have their whing whangs or tiny balls or egos pandered to and like a woman who is tougher than they are.

  We had a zillion hits, and many people asked, “Do you have a cookbook we can buy?”

  * * *

  My mother pulled up outside my house on Sunday afternoon. She interrupted a daydream I was having of a hot romp with Jace, but I was still glad to see her. “Hello, Rebel Child. I’ve got to go and check on LizAnne Hammerstead. She’s having a bad time, losing her marbles again. Your grandma said she’ll pick up the girls from Chloe’s. I’d like you to come and help.”

  “Sure.” I climbed in to her truck and we drove off. “What’s happening with LizAnne?” I knew most of it, but something new was up.

  “Her momma called me.” I noticed my mother was wearing her black cowgirl boots with silver stars. I marvel at her collection. “She’s refusing to take her meds. Again.”

  LizAnne and I were friends in high school, but the friendship started to crumble because of LizAnne’s bipolar disorder, which hadn’t been diagnosed then. Sometimes she was LizAnne—interesting, captivating, wild, funny, impulsive, almost hyper. And other times, she’d explode in a rage and raze anyone in her way, including me. She would target your weak spot—your weight, clothes, lack of a boyfriend, your face or your hair, your family if they were different in any way, and attack. She’d bring up imaginary offenses that took place months or years ago, twist them around, and harangue you to apologize.

  There were mood swings and some delusional thinking about herself and her abilities, which led to bragging, which was hard to take when you’re a teenager and feel like you resemble a limp spaghetti noodle.

  “She’ll talk to you, Olivia. She doesn’t always open up to me. Last time I was at her house she called me an overbearing witch, then she called me a blood-sucking vampiress. Feminine.”

  “At least it’s creative. Are there female vampires?”

  “She’s always been creative. I think vampires can be female, but they didn’t address it in medical school. By the way, she’s in one of her manic episodes.”

  “And here comes the crash.” Creativity abounded when LizAnne was manic, but the crash came after that. We headed out of town. LizAnne lived about five miles west.

  “I want to check on her and make sure she hasn’t crashed already and is not suicidal. You know how she gets.”

  I did. When LizAnne was manic, what she accomplished was miraculous. Awe-inspiring. She’s an internationally famous glass artist, popular among collectors, museums, and cities across the country for her brave, wacky, free-flowing art. Everything she makes is an artistic wonder. Six-foot-tall glass flowers that line pathways in a formal, public garden in Canada. Luminescent glass ocean waves, rainbow fish included, that now hang suspended from an aquarium’s ceiling in New Zealand. Sparkling glass butterflies in elongated shapes that were bought by a children’s museum in Portland.

  LizAnne has remodeled her barn into a studio. There are wood floors, high ceilings, and an abundance of French doors, skylights, and windows so the light shines through.

  “You haven’t seen her recently?” I asked.

  “No. She usually comes in once a month or so. I called her and she said she didn’t have time to see me. Said something about fruit, glorious fruit. So my noggin’s worried.” She tapped her head.

  “I heard she was hospitalized six months ago.”

  My mother nodded. “She stood on a table at Beatrice’s Restaurant and told people that this was her last week and then she was going to use her grandpa’s gun on her head. I was flooded with calls. They didn’t let her leave the restaurant. Chief Kalama got there when I did. Your grandma came when LizAnne insisted on ‘Mrs. Gisela,’ because I, apparently, that day, was a ‘pushy warlock,’ and my mother knew how to heal her the ‘gentle, natural, old-school way.’” My mother made air quotes. “I had her forcibly committed. The doctors there had her for about two months, got her stabilized.”

  “But the medication. It dulls her out, doesn’t it? It makes her feel drugged and dead and sick, right?”

  “It does,” my mother said. “Without it she swings up and down and gets suicidal and cuts herself sometimes. But with the medication she wants to die because she doesn’t feel like herself, she can’t do her art, she can hardly move.”

  LizAnne’s house is cottage style. White. Light blue door. Lavender front porch. In better weather, white wicker furniture with pink cushions welcomes you to her home. In spring and summer the property around her house is near covered in wildflowers, flowering trees, bulbs, roses, and plants I’ve never seen before. She gardens all day, most days, unless she has to work. She has a long trellis that holds climbing roses, and honeysuckle pours over an arch that leads to a vegetable garden.

  She told me that gardening is her therapy.

  We knocked on the door, but LizAnne didn’t answer, so we headed to the barn and opened the doors. The rock music was blaring, and LizAnne didn’t see us for a while. She was in front of the kiln, spinning a long stick with molten glass on the end of it. In front of us were four tables full of huge glass fruit—oversized, incandescent, glowing.

  “Wow,” my mother whispered.

  “Wow and wow,” I said.

  LizAnne was singing. When she was finished with the molten glass, we waved and she turned.

  “Hello!” she shouted at us, taking off her protective glasses. “Hello Mary Beth and Olivia Martindale!” She ran/skipped over and hugged us, rocking us back and forth. Aha! LizAnne was in one of her effusive manic moods. She smelled like sweat, cigarette smoke, alcohol, unwashed body, and strawberries—maybe lotion? She had a thing for lotion. Her red curly hair was sticking out all over her head. She looked like she’d lost weight, too much weight. She had circles under her eyes. “I’m making fruit. Fruit after fruit after fruit. See it? Bananas, apples, cranberries, blueberries, raspberries, melons, kiwi. I am obsessed with fruit lately. It’s all I eat, too.”

  We could tell.

  “It’s magic, this fruit,” she gushed, running her hands over a pomegranate, each seed a shiny red oval. She put her head on it. “Glorious fruit! I can feel it. I can taste it. I am one with the pomegranate. I am a fruit. Hey now, I have a question!” she
popped her head up. “Are you back together with Jace, Olivia? I heard a long time ago that Ruthie said she saw him at your house when she was cleaning her gun, but then I heard you weren’t together from Kai, then Dirk’s best friend, Renee, she said you were and now you’re working with him again, so are you? I hope so.”

  “No.”

  “Aw. That’s sad. What happened to you is sad. I cried for you.” She burst into tears and hugged me tight. “I love you, Olivia.”

  “Love you, too, LizAnne.”

  “How long has it been since you’ve slept, LizAnne?” my mother asked, deftly changing the subject.

  “What is today? Did you see this orange?” She let me go and hugged the giant orange. “It needs a hug.”

  “The orange is spectacular, and it’s Sunday,” I said.

  “I slept on Friday.” She stroked a three-foot-tall green apple. LizAnne was puzzled. “Or Thursday. What is today again? I can’t stop working. I keep hearing this voice in my head telling me to finish, to get all my glorious fruit done. A museum wants it. In Boston. Boston fruit.” She shook her head. Her red hair flew about at the ends, but some of it was stuck to her head because she hadn’t washed it. “So here I am! I am, I am!” She raised her arms and twirled around. “I’m a pineapple. You’re a crabapple, Mary Beth, because you get so cranky sometimes, and you’re a watermelon, Olivia. Tough outside, soft inside. Did you bring Mrs. Gisela? No? That’s too bad. She knows all about natural medicine. Does she know about natural marijuana?”

  LizAnne laughed, she sang, she chattered super fast. She was on something, I could tell. I could hardly blame her. I couldn’t judge. Bipolar is vicious. It’s a sanity-stealing, emotion-yanking, normalcy-shattering bear. She told me once that she’d been self-medicating the delusions and mood swings and rage since high school with pot and mushrooms and a hit now and then of acid. Alcohol ran through her bloodstream like water, too. Who knew what she’d taken today.