California Schemin' (5 page)

The Vietnam Memorial was more imposing than I
had expected it to be. I ran my hand along the names and let sorrow
wash over me. Tens of thousands of lives cut short. Was there a
name here that was related to me in some way? There were so many of
them. I walked down the wall still trailing my fingers along the
stone and noticed the woman from the Lincoln Memorial standing in
the shadows. She shouldn't have surprised me, since we were both
touring monuments. But the uneasiness returned, and besides, I was
cold. I turned and headed back to Pennsylvania Avenue. 

The hotel clerk winked at me as I passed
through the lobby. I bet he didn't wink at the senators like that.
It's because he thinks I'm some kind of spy.
I keyed myself
up the elevator and into my room. The joy had gone out of the day,
not that it had been all that great to begin with. I missed Beau. I
set the alarm so I didn’t miss my flight and crawled into bed.

I made the airport in good time the next
morning and didn’t have any trouble with security, as Beau had my
cosmetics in his pocket. I made a mental note to call and remind
him to mail the stuff to me, otherwise they’d still be in his
pocket next time I saw him. I was one of the first people seated on
the plane. I took a window seat toward the front and concentrated
all my energy on looking like an unfriendly seat hog in hopes of
not being crammed in with two other people all the way to
Burlington.

My scowl seemed to be working well until a
very plump woman with shocking pink hair squeezed herself into the
aisle seat. At least no one was likely to try and sit between us. I
rested my head on the window and hoped I’d be able to concentrate
on my book for the flight home. I sometimes got the willies on
airplanes. My legs would twitch, and I wouldn’t be able to sit
still or concentrate. I dreaded flights like that.

“I wanted to warn you,” the pink-haired woman
leaned over to me. “I sometimes have trouble controlling my
shape-shifting at high altitudes. Don’t be alarmed if my hair
changes color or my nose changes shape, okay?”

“Uh, okay,” I said. My luck, I’d gotten stuck
with a loony. “How long have you been a shape shifter?”

“Oh, my whole life. I’m from another planet.
It’s pretty normal there.”

Correction: I was stuck with an alien
loony.

I focused on my book and had a good start on
it when the alien shape shifter got up to use the rest room. I
caught myself wondering if she could fit in the tiny airplane
toilet and felt bad. Wasn’t fat one of the last acceptable
prejudices? I should know better. I was mentally berating myself
when she came back. I tried not to stare, but I could swear she was
thinner, and her hair, while still pink, was several inches
shorter.

She caught my look and smiled.

“I warned you,” she said. “I know it’s a bit
startling if you aren’t used to it. I’m lucky I my hair didn’t go
green or something. That’s happened before.”

“Why does this happen in airplanes?” I
couldn’t believe I was calmly chatting about the problems of a
shape shifter.

“Something about the change in pressure? I’m
not sure myself. I’m not the only one to have trouble at high
altitudes. Others have this problem too. It causes a lot of
trouble, believe me.”

“What’s your name?”

“You can call me Madison. My alien name is
unacceptable in English.”

“Can you say it for me?” This was getting
curiouser and curiouser.

“All right, but I’m warning you, it’s
rude.”

“No worries. I’m not easily offended.”

She whispered something.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear that.”

“Fuckwitz,” she said. “It’s Madassa Fuckwitz.
I told you it was rude.”

I used all my self control and didn’t burst
into laughter, but I made a mental note to have a howl with Meg
over Madassa Fuckwitz when I got home.

I didn’t comment when a while later Madassa
“Madison” Fuckwitz disappeared into the bathroom and came back
fifty pounds lighter and blue haired. I’d been warned.

By the end of the flight Madison was four
inches taller and a hundred pounds lighter than when she got on the
plane. Her hair was back to pink, but now it was the color of
cotton candy and was cut in a smart little bob. I saw the
stewardess give her a puzzled look as we exited the plane.

“Shape shifting alien,” I said as the flight
attendant smiled and said goodbye.

“What?”

I inclined my head in the direction of
MMF.

“She’s a shape shifting alien, that’s why you
don’t recognize her. She has trouble maintaining her appearance
during flights.”

The attendant was looking at me as though I’d
grown a second head. I smiled and got off the plane.
Are you
losing your mind, Bree? You don’t honestly believe in aliens, but
you just made an ass out of yourself anyway
.

Meg was waiting outside the security check
area with Gemma and Louise, as always. Meg was a little shorter and
a little heavier than me. The girls both had their mom’s curly
brown hair, and twelve-year-old Louise had her eyes. Gemma’s
brilliant green eyes weren’t inherited from anyone, as far as Meg
could tell. If you asked Gemma, she’d tell you she was a
changeling.

The girls squealed when they saw me and
darted through the line of passengers to get to me. They almost
flattened a little man who was foolish enough to cut between us
when I stopped to brace myself for impact. Their little arms twined
around me as they blurted out all the important news.

“Bree! We thought you were never coming
home.” “Annie hasn’t eated anything since you’ve been gone.” “Did
you know that Rosie is pregnant?” “Annabelle pooped on your bed,
but momma cleaned it up.”

They towed me along, peppering me with
questions and filling me in on the day-to-day progress of my
animals. Meg smiled at me and shrugged. We’d say our hellos later
when the girls calmed down.

“Where are the boys?” I managed to sneak a
question in.

“Stayed home with their dad,” said Meg.

“The boys couldn’t be bothered to ride in the
car for so long,” said Louise.

“They wanted to stay home and play horseshoes
in the barn with daddy,” said Gemma. “Bree, when is Uncle Beau
coming home? We miss him.”

“He’ll be home in a couple of weeks, Hon.”
The fact that Beau was planning to stay in California skittered
through my brain, making me uneasy. Tom, Meg’s husband and Beau’s
brother, had every right to know what was up, but I wasn’t about to
spill the beans. Let Beau break their hearts. I wasn’t about
to.

Meg was oddly quiet on the drive home. Louise
and Gemma filled the time with chatter about school and the goings
on around town while I was away.

“We saw Jim yesterday, Bree.” Louise was
smiling. Jim Fisk was my newest ex-boyfriend. “He told Jeremy that
he’s not dating Lucy Howe, even though she is always hanging around
him. He d said to make sure that you knew that he wasn’t seeing
anyone. Only Jeremy didn’t come, so I get to tell you.”

“That takes a lot of nerve, asking your kids
to pass on that he’s not dating. What a jerk.”

“He likes you, he knows he made a mistake,
and he’s rightly scared to death of you. I think the kids just
seemed like a safe option,” said Meg. “Not that I think you should
get back with him, because I don’t. I’m just saying he’s not a bad
guy, just stupid.”

“Point taken. How are things with you and
Tom? Has he got the barracks under control and stopped working
overtime so much?” Tom was the Captain in charge of the local
Vermont State Police Barracks where overtime was a given. Even
rural Vermont kept the State Troopers busy.

“Oh, he still works too much, but it’s not as
bad as before. And we’ve been going out once a week and leaving
Jeremy in charge. He’s doing okay with it, but the other kids,” Meg
nodded toward the girls in the back seat, “give him a hard time. We
had to lay down some pretty strict rules to keep things from
getting out of hand.”

“Sounds like things are getting better.”

Meg nodded.

“Yeah, pretty much. How are things with you
and Beau? Is he still mad at you?”

“I don’t think he was mad so much as worried.
He thought if I came to California everything would be OK. I’d be
safe and he wouldn’t have to worry about crazed soap stars or
murderous housekeepers. I can’t say as I blame him. I thought
finding dead people was a one-time thing myself.”

I looked out over the landscape. So different
from the dry and warm California hills. There was a layer of snow
over the countryside, smoke was rising from chimneys, and Christmas
lights were already glowing along farmhouse eaves. It would be
cold, grey and muddy until the world froze solid in January.
Watering my animals would be a struggle until spring. I felt a
smile spreading across my face. I was home.

A sea of dogs jumped on the car as we drove
into the farm at Windstorm Valley. It was a big rambling farmhouse,
painted white with black shutters. Meg’s dogs, my dogs, and Beau’s
Chihuahua surged around us on the porch, Beans jumping higher and
squeaking as loud as he could to make himself noticed in the
pack.

Beau wasn’t really a Chihuahua kind of guy.
Jim had attempted to bribe me with Beans, but being high-minded and
damn smart, I refused him. Beau took the baby in because he knew I
hated to see the puppy go back to the breeder. In a way, Beans was
mine, too, although I never once said it out loud. The minute I did
that Beans would be living with me full time.

I ate lunch with Meg’s family and then loaded
the dogs in the car and headed up the hill towards home. It was
difficult driving. My dogs had missed me and were taking turns
trying to slide under the steering wheel into my lap. I compromised
by driving with my left hand and rubbing ears with my right. When I
unloaded them they were so overjoyed by the smells of home that
they left me completely alone.

My house is smaller than Meg's and has more
than the normal number of windows. I’d inherited the farm from my
Grandmother. The little money I had inherited with it I put into
windows and insulation so that the house was warm and full of
light. It was painted the same yellow it had been when my Gram had
lived there, with lots of charcoal grey shutters that I’d added
with the windows.

I stepped up onto the porch, through the
glass paned door into the kitchen and was overwhelmed by the smell
of cat litter. Jeremy was supposed to be taking care of Annabelle,
but apparently he hadn’t taken his responsibilities too seriously.
Granted, there was lots of food and water, but the state of the cat
box was dismal. I dumped the contents of the box into a trash bag
and took both the bag and the box outside. The dirty litter I
happily dumped into the trash. The box I took over to the barn and
rinsed it out in the big porcelain sink in the tack room. The sink
drained via hose onto the ground at the rear of the barn, so I
didn’t have to worry about the litter clogging the septic. The
thing smelled much better after a good cleaning, and I let it drip
in the sink while I went to see my elderly pony.

Lucky turned his back the minute he saw
me.

“Hey, buddy. I’m home.”

I slid back the bolt and pushed open the door
to his stall. He stood stubbornly with his head in the corner
pretending to ignore me. I walked up to his rump and put a hand out
to scratch above his tail, a tactic that had always worked in the
past. A rear hoof whizzed past my leg, barely missing my knee. I
grinned. I knew if he’d wanted to connect, he would have.

“Okay, I get it. You don’t like it when I go
away.” I spoke quietly, working my fingers up his spine through his
shaggy winter coat. “But I’m back now, and I’m sure Max took good
care of you while I was gone.” I went on talking nonsense and
assuring him there was no better pony in the world until he
relented and turned his head to me, resting his muzzle in my palm.
I scratched between his eyes and around his ears. He puffed through
his nose, giving me what I’d always thought of as a pony kiss,
before I threw him some hay and went to check on the other
animals.

All seemed right with the world in the barn.
I closed up and took the cat box back to the house. I refilled the
litter and went in search of Annabelle. I gave up when she didn’t
come to her name. She’d come out when she figured I’d been
adequately punished, but I kept an eye out for her as I climbed the
stairs, thinking I could coax her out if I knew where she was.

The smell hit me half way down the hall to my
room. Normally my room was my favorite spot in the house. It was
filled with light and little else besides the bed and dresser. I
looked through the open door with more than a little apprehension.
I had a feeling I’d be sleeping in one of the other bedrooms
tonight. Sure enough, the bed was covered with anything a cat could
possibly deposit. Not only had she used it as a litter box, there
were dead mice, hairballs and vomit littered over my beautiful blue
and white quilt. A dead snake was gracing my pillow. At least I
hoped it was dead.

I closed the door and walked away. Crap. Not
what I’d wanted to come home to. I checked the rest of the rooms,
but my bed was the only place where Annabelle had seen fit to
notify me of her displeasure. I held my nose and went back in to
open the windows. Then I went to the bed, used a wire hanger to
remove the snake from the pillow and folded the whole mess up in
the quilt.

I dragged the quilt downstairs and dumped the
contents out behind the barn. Then I hung the quilt on the line,
hoping that it would either rain or snow soon and wash some of the
grossness away. If it didn’t I’d wrap it in a plastic garbage bag
and take it down to the laundry. If a couple of go rounds in the
industrial washers didn’t clean it up then I’d have to give the
quilt up as a lost cause.