Peggy Dulle - Liza Wilcox 05 - Till Death Do Us Part (4 page)

“We weren’t worried about any diseases since we were both virgins, but we hadn’t used any protection. Three days after the party, Kenny found me on the floor of my bedroom. I couldn’t breathe.”

“You were having a panic attack, like you had when you thought you would die in the abandoned mine and then again when you thought we would all drown?”

“Yes, they came with the nightmares after my best friend, Sandy, was taken and killed. I hadn’t had any for years until I thought I was pregnant.”

“Were you pregnant?”

“No, but every day the panic attacks got stronger. Kenny would come in the morning. He was always by my side when I woke up. I’d go in the bathroom. If I wasn’t sure that I wasn’t pregnant, the attack would start. He’d talk me through them. It was like he held me on the ledge. A week later, I think he started to panic too. We both knew that if I was pregnant, I wouldn’t get an abortion. He would go from part time to full time at the grocery store where he worked after school. Neither of us would go to college. We’d get married and soon start to hate each other.”

“Okay, I know I don’t want you to stop the story, but your panic attacks scare the hell out of me. How did he talk you through them?”

“He has a system.”

“Teach it to me.”

“Okay, but you’ve got to switch gears to do it.”

“I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

“Okay, you know how I don’t like anyone to tell me what to do or what I can and can’t do?”

“Oh, yeah,” Tom said.

“And you know that tone you use with me sometimes that makes me angry?”

“The one where you hang up on me?”

I nodded.

“Yes, I try to be very careful to not be your boss or use that tone with you.”

“Well, when I am in the middle of a panic attack, I don’t have any control of my emotions or heart rate or breathing, and I need someone to take control.”

“You give that control over to Kenny?” Tom asked, his voice clearly skeptical.

“Yes.”

“How?”

I turned my body so I sat facing him. “Okay, the first thing you have to do is tell me to close my eyes.”

“Close your eyes?”

“Use the tone I hate,” I told him.

“Liza, shut your eyes,” Tom said sternly.

I immediately shut my eyes, then opened them up again. “That’s perfect.”

“Then what?”

“Tell me to give you my hands.”

Tom put his hand out as if to grab mine.

“No, don’t do it. Tell me to do it. Then let me put my hands out, touch your palm to mine and then wrap your fingers down over my hands.”

“Liza, give me your hands,” Tom returned to his stern voice.

I immediately put my hands out, and Tom took them and engulfed my hands in his. It was weird to watch it with my eyes open and not be in the middle of a panic attack. Tom’s hands were a lot bigger than Kenny’s.

“Then say 'head.’”

“No telling, just the word.”

“Yes, because by having my eyes closed and you holding my hands, I will start to ground myself to you, and I don’t hear very much at this point. I will lean forward, and you place your forehead on mine.”

“Head,” Tom said, using that same stern voice.

I laughed.

“What?”

“At this point you could sing the word. I just will automatically do it. It’s all part of the procedure that Kenny developed to help me get through the attacks.”

“Okay, head.”

I closed my eyes again and leaned forward and felt Tom’s forehead touch mine. I stayed there for a few minutes, enjoying the sense of grounding with Tom. It was nice. Then I opened up my eyes, “Hi, Tom.”

He smiled and said, “That’s it?”

“Oh, no. Now that I’m grounded, you have to get me out of the panic attack.”

“You won’t be out of it at this point?” Tom asked.

“No. I need to count backwards starting at ten.”

“Just count backwards?”

“Make sure that I breathe in between each number. If I try to rush through the numbers, you’ll have to revert to your mean voice and stop me and make me start counting at ten again.”

“It’s not a mean voice,” Tom insisted.

“It sounds mean to me,” I told him.

“Let me try one time without your prompting.”

“Okay.”

We went through the routine three more times until Tom was satisfied. I was bored after the first one. It’s weird and seemed silly to go through it when I was not in the middle of a panic attack.

I turned around and leaned against Tom’s chest again. That was a great way to be grounded too.

“Let’s get back to the story.”

“Ah,” I groaned. “Do we have to?”

I felt Tom nod. “How many days before you knew that you weren’t pregnant?”

“Twenty-seven excruciatingly long days. On the day I got my period and knew I wasn’t pregnant, I came out of the bathroom crying. Kenny sat on the ground and cried with me.”

Tom rubbed my arms, and I leaned my head on his arm. We sat there for a long time together, not talking. I don’t know what Tom was thinking about, but I thought about how the story might have turned out differently if I had been pregnant.

Finally, I turned in his arms and said, “That’s the whole painful story. We were young and stupid.”

“Hey, I did marry the girl I got pregnant, and you were right about what would happen next.”

“I didn’t know that Pamela was pregnant when you got married.”

“Yes, she was. We didn’t have the same relationship that you and Kenny had. We were sexually active with each other. We were high school and then college sweethearts. And before you ask, no, it’s not why I married her. I had already asked her to marry me, and she was in the middle of the wedding plans when she turned up pregnant. All we did was move the wedding from June to January.”

“But Michael is not that old,” I said after doing some quick calculations in my head.

“No, Pamela lost the baby when she was six months pregnant.” Tom’s face remained the same, but I could see the pain in his eyes. It still hurt him.

“I’m sorry.” I put my hand on his arm.

He nodded and gave me a small smile.

“Now can I put the ring on my finger?” I asked.

“No. I want to know Kenny’s Stretch. There is a spark in your eyes when you are around him that I don’t get to see very often.”

“You don’t love the Liza you know?”

“Oh, I love her,” Tom leaned in and gave me a long and luscious kiss, then pulled away and added, “but I’m just not sure I know ALL of her.”

I grabbed a handful of Tom’s shirt and said, “Well, the Liza you know wants to go into the bedroom, strip down, and get into bed.”

A slow grin spread across Tom’s face.

“But the Stretch inside of me wants you here and now.”

“Fuck a duck,” Tom said. “I knew I would love Stretch.”

Chapter 4

Thinking back on those days at the beach brought a smile to my lips. Kenny, Dad and Jordan went home that next morning. Tom and I stayed for another day. It was glorious. Tom cooked, I ate, and we made love. All the weeks of being separated slipped away and we were truly together again.

I finished the school year with my wonderful class, putting on a play, doing assessments and completing their report cards and having Kindergarten Graduation. I love their little blue cardboard hats with the tassels. Our first grade buddy class always graduates them by moving the tassels – it is so cute. I bought a new car, another Jeep, but this time I bought a dark blue Jeep Wrangler sport with a soft top and a roll bar. It cost more than the last Jeep, but I figured if I ever put it in a ditch it was built to handle it.

Tom still won’t let me put the ring back on and it’s starting to piss me off. I should be married, living in his beautiful house nestled in the pine trees, watching my dog run around with Tom’s dog, Duke, and thinking about starting the school year at a new school. Now I am waffling between sending in a letter of resignation to my own district and looking for a job in Gainesville, or neither, or both.

The phone rang and I glanced over. It was Kenny.

“I miss you,” I told him before he could speak.

“Do you want me to move permanently to California?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I needed to drive back to Nashville, put my house up for sale or lease and take care of a few things. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.”

“It would be sooner if you weren’t so afraid to fly,” I told him.

“I like driving, Stretch.”

“You could use the same procedure you do on me when I have a panic attack and then you’d be gone less time.”

“Who would I get to hold my hand?” Kenny asked.

“I bet you could talk a stewardess into holding it.”

“I can usually talk most women into just about anything,” Kenny remarked smugly, then asked, “How are you doing getting that ring back on your finger?”

“I’m not doing well at all,” I whined. “Tom keeps saying he wants to spend more time with Stretch.”

Kenny laughed. “He doesn’t understand what he is asking for. Stretch is exhausting.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know what to do. If we don’t make a decision quickly, I will be back at school and then nothing can happen until next summer. I won’t leave my kids in the middle of the year.”

“Then we need a plan to introduce him to Stretch and for him to want Stretch to go away for a while.”

“How am I going to do that?”

A long beat of silence.

“Kenny, are you still there?”

“Just thinking,” then he laughed, low and deep. “Oh, I’ve got it. Has the man ever been to Disneyland with you?”

“No.”

“Call him up and take him. I guarantee after three days, maybe two, he’ll be begging you to come back, get married, and stay as Liza.”

“Why? I’m not that bad at Disneyland.”

“Trust me, Stretch. It should do the trick.”

“Okay, I’ll give him a call.”

“I’ll see you in a few weeks.” Kenny said.

“You better,” I told him, hung up and dialed Tom’s number.

He answered on the second ring, “Hi, Liza. How are you today?”

“I’m fine. Do you have a few days still left of your vacation?”

“Yeah, I have some. Why?”

“I’m thinking about going to Disneyland. Would you like to come?”

“Disneyland? Really?”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t been there in years.”

“It’s been more recent for me,” I told him, leaving out the fact that I bought a season pass every year.

“Okay, sure. It’s Friday, so if we leave tomorrow will we be back by Sunday night?”

“No, we’ll spend three days in Disneyland and then drive back.”

“Okay, I’ll move some meetings to later in the week. I’ll be there tomorrow morning. It will be fun. Will we leave right away or the next day?”

“Oh, we’ll leave as soon as you get here.”

“What about a place to stay?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I hung up and quickly dialed the Copacabana – my favorite motel at Disneyland. It was across the street, right outside the
front gate. No waiting for a shuttle for us. We could just walk to the park. I got a room for three nights. Then I made a call to the Disney Dining Line. The only reservation I could get for the Blue Bayou was for 7:00 pm on Monday. That wasn’t unusual since I was calling just a few days before we’d be there.

Those two things done, I needed to pack. I had used my suitcase to bring home the end of the year gifts from my class. I had gotten lots of cards from kids and parents, chocolate covered cherries, two candles, and a beautiful bracelet. I dumped the contents onto the desk in my spare room, except the chocolate, which I put in the refrigerator. I wasn’t leaving my air conditioning on and it would be a melted mess when I got home.

I took the suitcase into my bedroom to pack. I put in good shoes because we will be doing lots of walking, and my lanyard with its Mary Poppins pins, and my Disney Annual Pass tucked into the pocket at the end. I was ready – now, I just needed to wait for Tom. I didn’t sleep well that night because I was so excited to be going to Disneyland again. I love that place! And being there with Tom would make it even better. I have no idea what Kenny is talking about. But he seems to think that spending time with me in Disneyland will fix my ‘I want to know Stretch’ problem. I hope he’s right.

Next I called Justin.

“Hey, Teach,” Justin answered. “Do we have a new case? I’m bored to death!”

Justin was talking about my last several cases. In the first case I got a wrong date on my computer, researched it, tangled with a crazy clown organization that specialized in mind-controlling drugs, pornography and illegal adoptions but I also found Jessie, a missing child that I had gone there to rescue. Then another wrong date led me to a town involved in an eating contest, drug smuggling and murder. My third adventure was more personal. I enjoyed a Mexican cruise with Tom. He asked me to marry him and I found the people who murdered my mom. The last case sent us up north to a rodeo town. I saved the life of an entire family, Tom arrested my dad, and we started the on-again, off-again ring thing. Justin helped in all these cases. He is a wiz at the computer and he did all the research. I couldn’t have solved them without him.

“No, I’m afraid not, Justin. Tom and I are going to Disneyland and I wondered if you’d watch Shelby for me.”

“Of course, you know my mom loves that dog of yours. I’ll come by now and get her since you are probably headed to LA at the crack of dawn tomorrow.”

“I have to wait until Tom gets here.”

“Does he realize how much you love Disneyland?”

“He will soon,” I told him.

Five minutes later I heard the horn of Justin’s wheelchair at my front door. Justin was in a soccer accident when he was thirteen and is paralyzed from the waist down but he doesn’t let it slow him down. He graduated from high school a few months
ago and is looking forward to going to college. He got three acceptance letters, one from the University of California at Berkeley, one from Stanford, and one from the University of California at Davis. He chose Berkeley but still is undecided on his major. I still think he needs to go into computers since he is a techno-wizard, but he says that’s too much like fun.

When I opened the door, Justin was just setting the two triangular blocks on my steps so he could roll in.

“Hey, Teach.”

Shelby came barking and running in from the backyard and went directly to him. He petted her and she continued to bark.

“Quiet, Shelby,” I told her.

“I think she’s blind, Teach. Every time I try to throw a treat to her, it usually hits her on the forehead and she’s got to use her nose to go and find it.”

“Well, she’s getting old.”

“How old is she?” Justin asked.

“I have no idea. The vet says she was probably seven or eight when she wandered into my garage, so that would make her twelve or thirteen.”

“Kind of old for a medium sized dog, huh?”

“Not so much, but I don’t think she had a very good life before she started living here, so that’s going to take its toll on her body, too.”

Justin quickly changed the subject. He didn’t want to think about the day that Shelby might die – neither did I. “Have you checked your computer every day? I’m ready for a new case.”

“Justin, there have been no computer date problems.”

“No notes from the Library of Congress?” This is the way I got involved in the last case. I received a note about a family that would be murdered several months in the future. It was weird, but it all worked out and the family is fine.

“Nope, nothing.”

His chest deflated.

“Where’s Veronica?” She was Justin’s current girlfriend. Surely she could keep him amused.

“Her family went on their annual two-week campout. They invited me, but I didn’t want to go.”

“Why not?” I asked.

Justin slapped the arms of his wheelchair. “Uneven dirt ground and this chair just don’t go together. Her family likes to go hiking through the roughest terrain they can find.”

“I’m sure they make the trails wheelchair accessible, Justin.”

“They don’t stay on the trails and I would just slow them down. Besides I’d rather stay at a hotel than sleep in a tent.”

“What about Veronica? Does she like camping?”

“Not really but she figures this is the last year she’ll go and so she wanted to make her mom and dad happy.”

“That’s right she’s going away to school.”

“Yeah, she starts in the fall at the University of the Pacific in Stockton. She wants to be a music teacher.”

“How are you going to deal with a long distance relationship?”

“I’ve got my car and she’s got hers. We figure we’ll do the weekend hop back and forth. Stockton is not that far from here. It worked okay for you and the chief.”

I nodded, not wanting to discourage Justin. It did work but it wasn’t easy.

Justin left a few minutes later with Shelby trailing behind him. I reheated some left-over pizza and went to bed early. I wanted to be well rested for the next few days.

I woke up at five in the morning and called Tom.

“Are you on your way?”

“What?” he asked, his voice full of sleep.

“Oh, did I wake you?”

“Yes, and I guess I am on my way in a few minutes.”

“Perfect, I’ll see you when you get here.”

Then I paced until I heard his truck in my driveway. I took several long steady breaths and waited for him to come to the door.

When he knocked I swung it open and handed him my suitcase.

“Can I go to the bathroom first?” he asked.

“Of course, I just want to get on the road. Even though it’s Saturday, evening traffic might still be bad in LA.”

“Traffic in LA is twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week. I’ve got time to go to the bathroom.”

“Okay. I’ll just put my suitcase in your truck. Lock up when you come out.”

A few minutes later we were on the road. Tom’s radio was set on a country-western station and he sang along as we drove. The man’s voice was beautiful, so it was like being at a live concert without all that aggravating clapping and screaming. It was an uneventful drive until we got into LA, where I heard more cuss words than ever out of Tom’s mouth. I just ignored it all because with each mile we were closer to the Happiest Place on Earth.

“Where are we staying?” Tom asked when we took the exit for Disneyland.

“At the Copacabana. It’s across the street from the entrance to the park.”

“Oh, that’s great. Last time I was here we were several miles away and needed to take a shuttle back and forth. If we can walk, we can take breaks and go back to the hotel to rest.”

I ignored the comment. Why would someone want to take a break when they are in Disneyland?

After we checked in, got our room, and settled in, Tom asked, “I need to get my tickets for the park.”

“I already got yours online yesterday,” I told him.

“Thanks. How many days?”

“I bought you a three-day hopper pass. I figured we’d go in tonight, walk around and see Fantasmic, World of Color, and enjoy the fireworks. I also pre-ordered a picnic dinner online so we can get a ticket that gets us a spot in the World of Color viewing area. Then tomorrow we can go on some rides.”

“That sounds great.” Tom stood.

Tom put my suitcase on the bed and opened it for me. He knew I liked to unpack, putting my clothes in a drawer rather than living out of a suitcase, but this was Disneyland, I didn’t have time for this. I took a deep breath and began removing the clothes. Tom went around me to pick up his suitcase and dumped the contents of my suitcase onto the floor.