All Roads Lead Home (Bellingwood) (6 page)

"Lydia!" she
exclaimed
.

"Yes dear?" Lydia asked.

"I opened the basket. This is beautiful! Thank
you!" Polly said.

"Well, you have a good night. Sleep well, sleep
late and be ready for us to pick you up at four o'clock tomorrow afternoon. Beryl's
driving, oh
lordie
, so the rest of us can start the party at the
restaurant. She'll catch up when we get back to my house," Lydia responded.

"Thank you so much, Lydia. I'll see you
tomorrow!" Polly
ended the call
, and then went back into the kitchen to shut the
lights off. She'd clean the coffee pot out tomorrow morning. She slipped in
past the plastic draping to
Henry’s
temporary shop
and saw everything was
tucked in and turned off for the night. Walking back to the main floor
switches, she
flipped
them
down
and walked up the steps to her
room.

Brad
Giese’s
Monday
telephone call
, telling her he had a buddy
with a big truck and would take the boards to Henry's friend Butch for milling
on Wednesday
, had gotten everyone moving
. She peeked into the room and smiled. Just getting
the wood frames bu
ilt around the room
made it feel warmer
already
. She turned the light
back off
and
wandered across the hallway to her bed
.

Slipping off her shoes and tucking them under the
table, she set the basket on the bed, then took her clothes off and walked back
across the hall to the shower in her apartment. There was nothing better than
practically scalding, hot water pouring over her head after a busy week. This
shower was one of her personal luxuries. Water flowed from the ceiling of the
shower as well as from the walls, along with a regular shower head. When she turned
it all on, the water massaged every ache and
pain
that painting and hauling and cleaning and scrubbing
had delivered to her this week
. She didn't indulge in the whole thing very often
because she generally stayed in there so long her skin became
prunelike
, but tonight, it seemed like just the thing.

Finally, she turned it all off, stepped out of the
shower and wrapped a towel around her body. She picked through her hair with
her fingers and grabbed another towel to wrap around her head. Walking back
across the hall
,
Polly
picked
her
robe up
from
the end of
the
bed, dropped the towel on the floor and crawled in.
Now, she could tear into the basket of goodies
waiting
for her.

The first thing she touched was a partially frozen
bottle of water
with a few chunks of ice
floating around. There were two small sandwiches
cut in half
with crust
s
trimmed away
. She sniffed the bread …
homemade. Wow.

The first sandwich was
ham
and Swiss,
and
smelled
glorious. The second was a delectable roast beef that threw off its aroma as
she
unwrapped
its plastic wrap
. Beneath those
she
uncovered
a container of crackers with
cheese cut to size and one more container
of
grapes. Another
package contained chocolate chip cookies and on the bottom of the basket was
a
napkin wrapped
around a little freezer pack,
resting
on a rectangular cutting board. A plastic bag
contained plastic ware and packages of mayonnaise, butter and mustard
were tucked in the side of the basket
. Lydia thought of everything.

Polly wondered if she took care of everyone in town
like this and then quit thinking after taking a bite of the roast beef
sandwich. It was
amazing
. She felt decadent and spoiled.

How had she ever hit this woman's radar? She was never
going to be able to say thank you enough for what Lydia was doing. Then it hit
her. No one had done this much for her since she left Iowa the first time. Mary
had loved her like a daughter and Polly missed having someone around to mother
her. This felt good.

She finished what she could of supper, scrubbed the
towel through her hair again and tossed
it
on top of the first. She was going to
have to
do
laundry sometime this weekend. Polly set the
little
basket on
the floor under her bed, not wanting to go back downstairs.

She opened her book and read until she nodded off. The
last time she glanced at the clock it
read
9:18. She hadn't fallen asleep
so
early in months.

When
Polly
opened her eyes
again
, she was surprised to see it was 7:05. What had Lydia
put in those cookies? She never slept all the way through the night and ten
hours of sleep was
glorious
. She stretched and yawned, feeling quite lazy and
content. No one was going to be in the schoolhouse today. It was all hers. She
could do whatever she wanted and she decided she didn't want to paint today. She
pulled the blankets up under her chin and looked around. The sun was out and
flooding the floor of her room. Finally she couldn't stand it any longer, sat
up, grabbed her robe and went into the bathroom.

One look in the mirror
over the sink
had her laughing
out loud. "Well, that's why I don't take a shower before I go to
bed," she said to herself. Turning on the shower head, she ducked in and
rinsed through her hair one more time. This time, she brushed it out and tied
it into a braid. It wasn't that long, just past her shoulders, but the wet
braid would give her some body for this evening's dress-up affair.

Back in her room, she pulled on jeans and a t-shirt,
and then filled a laundry basket. One basket wouldn’t do it, so she
stuffed
a
pillowcase with
the excess
. She'd been living here for three weeks and suddenly
realized she didn'
t know where to do her
laundry, so s
he picked up her cell phone
and called Lydia.

"Good morning, Polly! Did you sleep well?"
Lydia asked before Polly could say anything.

"I did! What did you put in my cookies?" she
asked.

"Oh, a little
love
, nothing more
than that." Lydia said. "You're still coming out with us this
evening, aren't you?"

"Oh yes! Absolutely! Say, I was wondering if
there was a
Laundromat
in town. I am in desperate need of clean
towels." Polly said.

"No, we don't have one. The town
is
too small. Boone
is the closest town
with
a decent place to do your laundry," Lydia
responded. "But, what are you talking about! You can do
your
laundry
at my house
tonight,
u
nless you need something clean before we pick you up."

"Oh, Lydia, no.
You've done so much for me. I
’d
hate to do
that." Polly said.

"Stop it. There is nothing I love more than
taking care of people and one of these days you aren't going to need
me
anymore, so let me help you." Lydia's voice had
gotten a little pouty. "If you don't let us do things for you now, how are
we going to feel when we want you to let us sleep over at your place?"

Polly laughed enough to snort, "
You have me there
,"
she said, "I'll bring the
clothes
with me
when you pick me up. Does Beryl
have enough room in her car?”

“Oh, dear.
That plan changed. We’ll be in my Jeep. Beryl panicked at the thought of
driving in Ames. You
know,
t
he
big city. She get
s
lost in Bellingw
ood,
so it’s better for all of us if we don’t push her too far outside her box
.”

"Thank you again, Lydia. I'll see you
later," Polly said.

"Have a great
day,
you might want to
take a nap this afternoon. Know what I mean?" Lydia responded.

"
I suppose
I do
,"
Polly
laughed. "Good-bye."

"Good-bye, dear."

Polly pulled the overflowing basket and stuffed pillow
case out of the room. She
went back in,
picked up the little basket from last night’s supper, stuffed her phone in her
jeans and headed for the stairs.

She'd always done things in one trip and knew she
could do this too. Polly tucked the laundry basket under her left arm and with
Lydia’s basket in her right hand; grabbed the pillow case and began bouncing it
down the steps behind her. When she got halfway down the steps, she heard a
noise and dropped everything in fright as a head popped around the corner of
the stairs.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" It
was one of Jerry Allen's young
apprentice electricians.

"What are you doing here? I didn't know anyone
was working today!" Polly's voice was a little stricken.

He started to walk up the steps to help her with the
laundry, when both of them realized her underwear and bras had been strewn all
over the steps. He hesitated, looking at her with panic in his eyes.

"I'm so sorry!
”
he exclaimed.
“
Billy left the power stapler here yesterday and we
need it for
a job out on Bob Miller's
farm.” The young man began
backing away
from the stairway and Polly's obvious discomfort. She walked down the steps
with the bag of towels and set them beside the door, th
en grabbed the basket, which was upside down on the
floor
.

He went on, "I knocked on the door and no one
answered. I thought I’d come in and grab it and it wouldn't be a big deal."

"It's alright," Polly said
. "I now have a weakened
heart, a red face from dirty laundry and a notion that
the next best item to install will be a doorbell. Do you want to tell Jerry
it
needs to happen
Monday rather than later?

"What is your name, by the way?" she asked.

"It's Doug, Doug Randall. I'm so sorry!" He
kept backing toward the door and when he
could,
he opened it
and stepped out. Then,
he poked his head
back in. "I’
m sorry," then a
sneaky little grin lit up his face, "but I've never seen anything like
those purple things!"
H
e ducked out quickly and pulled the door shut behind
him.

Polly looked up at the steps. Her eyes lit on the
purple underwear with hot pink bows. She didn't think they were anything
special, but decided if they gave a young man something to think about, she'd
try not to be embarrassed every time he looked at her. Then it hit her
-
great, h
e was going to wonder every day if she was wearing
them.

She gathered up the laundry, tossing it into the
basket, then pulled a towel out from the bag and tucked it in around the top.

"What a way to start a day," she laughed as
she walked into the kitchen with the little blue basket of goodies in her hand.

While her bread was toasting, she dumped coffee
grounds out of the pot and put it into the deep sink, filling it with water. She
put a dab of soap in and let the water run until it was filled. The toaster
popped up and she turned off the water. It could soak for a few minutes while
she ate. Saturday morning was a good day for a soda. Diet Mountain Dew could
always be found in
the bottom of her
refrigerator
and rather than wait for
coffee to be made, she grabbed a can and her toast and settled in at the table.

Looking out again at the broken up playground, she
began to
dream of possibilities for that
space
. Weeds had broken through the
cracks in the blacktop and the pieces
of
playground equipment
still there were
rusted and broken down. The teeter-totter only had
one
hinge left
and the merry go round
was rusted and
tilting to one side. T
hose
needed to be dealt with be
fore winter came so next spring
she could
look
out on grass rather than this
mess.