Running on Empty (2 page)

A second man, about forty with tousled hair, olive complexion and a local newspaper
folded under one arm, had been about to enter Mama's, but stepped politely aside to
let the squabbling parade pass by.

AnnaLise, intending to follow him in, leaned out to catch the door as it started to
swing closed in his face. The stranger smiled his thanks and waved for AnnaLise to
precede him, but she shook her head, preferring to take a moment to absorb the sounds
and smells that were uniquely Mama's before... well, before she actually
saw
Mama. And Daisy.

Or, to be more precise, before the two women actually saw her.

Shielded from their view, AnnaLise closed her eyes. The très tacky electric chime
on the door. The scent of rye toast and black coffee. The clatter of heavy silverware
on industrial-strength china.

When AnnaLise opened her eyes, she was somehow in kindergarten again. After school,
Daisy and Mama at the cash register, their backs toward her.

'Meh-tass-ta-sized.' Daisy annunciating each syllable as though it were a word all
its own. AnnaLise didn't recognize the term, of course, but she heard the fear in
her mother's voice.

AnnaLise's father had been sick for what seemed like her entire childhood. In fact,
the daughter's first vivid memory was not of home or parents, but a room. A tiny,
shiny room filled with black vinyl chairs and magazine-strewn tables, a television
in one corner and a coffee-urn in the other, the acrid smell of the brew not quite
covering the human and antiseptic stew AnnaLise would forever thereafter associate
with death.

AnnaLise always sensed her father was just on loan to the small family. That, someday,
they would have to give him back.

'It'll be all right,' Mama had said that day at the restaurant, draping an arm around
Daisy's shivering shoulders and giving them a squeeze.

'But AnnaLise is so little. And the store. Maybe I should―'

'You hush.' Mama put her left index finger to Daisy's lips.

'But I—'

'No.' If Daisy was as lost as AnnaLise had ever seen her, Mama seemed at her most
determined. 'You're not alone, you hear?
You and me, we'll make it right. The two of us.'

And they had, somehow. Two women collaborating over nearly a quarter century to keep
both Mama Philomena's and Griggs Market afloat. To keep AnnaLise afloat, as well.

And, in return, the five-year-old had done her best to be brave, to be good. And she'd
never, ever, told them what she'd overheard, and instinctively understood, that long-ago
afternoon.

The man in front of AnnaLise moved toward a booth and Daisy and Mama caught sight
of her. AnnaLise took a reflexive step back as the uncertain past became the equally
uncertain present. The confused look in her mother's eyes was unnerving enough, but
it wasn't as scary as what AnnaLise saw in Phyllis's.
Daisy's in trouble and even Mama doesn't know what to do.

And, though AnnaLise wasn't sure, either, she knew it was her turn to keep
them
afloat.

The moment lasted but a second before Daisy's momentary confusion turned to recognition,
and Mama's fear to relief.

Presumably at AnnaLise's arrival.

'Hungry?' Mama asked without missing a beat, like AnnaLise had just returned from
a hard day in the fourth grade. 'You sit and I'll get you some Bacardi Rum Cake. Or
do you want the Baker's German Chocolate one?'

Phyllis Balisteri had never met a brand-name recipe she didn't like. Each had made
it onto the restaurant's menu and all were a whole lot better than Mama's mercifully
sporadic attempts to make 'home-made sauce' or any of the other Italian dishes she'd
tried from scratch.

Since rum cake was as close to a calming cocktail as AnnaLise could decently order
at ten in the morning, she gave it a thumbs-up and turned to her mother.

'What a nice surprise.' Daisy threw Phyllis a dirty look as she hugged her daughter.

'Mama didn't mention I was coming?' Or that she'd telephoned AnnaLise in the first
place?

'Certainly not. She knows I'd murder her.'

Not likely. Friends since birth, the two women were now just into their fifties. If
Daisy had a homicidal bone in her body, Phyllis wouldn't have made it to — much less
through — elementary school.

'You OK?' AnnaLise asked gently.

Daisy smiled up at her. 'Of course I am. It's Ema Bradenham that worries me. I just
don't know where my mind was.' A cloud skittered over her face and, as quickly, was
gone again.

Daisy Griggs truly
looked
like a daisy. Naturally curly blonde hair and, at the center, a sun-darkened, cheerful
face. A daisy face. It was AnnaLise who had first called her mother 'Daisy', apparently
profoundly moved by a trip to the High Country Garden Center the spring of her kindergarten
year.

People who had known Lorraine Kuchenbacher Griggs all her life gradually just started
calling her Daisy, too. And that was fine with AnnaLise's mother, who had never liked
her given name much anyway. For AnnaLise, in that watershed year of her father's death,
it was more than fine. It meant having some control — power even. Maybe the five-year-old
couldn't bring her father back, but she could turn her mother into a flower. And that
was enough.

It made the nightmares go away.

Now, AnnaLise and Daisy followed Phyllis and two wedges of rum cake past Mama's private
booth to one directly across from where the gentleman from the door was now immersed
in his newspaper.

Mama's own table was closest to the cash register and perennially littered with menu-planning
paraphernalia: a dry-erase board, red marker, and worn copies of
Best Recipes from the Backs of Boxes, Bottles, Cans and Jars, 1979
,
The Kraft Cookbook, 1977
, and
Favorite Brand Name Recipe Cookbook, 1981
. According to the handwriting on the board, Chicken ala King topped that evening's
menu.

AnnaLise dug into her cake, conscious of Mama watching with satisfaction. After all,
how bad could things be if baked goods were still enjoyed?

'You want another slice, AnnieLeez? I can put a little butter on top, then grill it
up for you.'

AnnaLise shook her head, used to Mama's ministrations. 'Maybe just a glass of milk?'

Mama rolled her eyes and shuffled away. 'Whole milk, then, not that non-fat fluff
you girls drink. Always thinking you're going to get heavy. Skinny as a rail, and
still...' The muttering faded as Phyllis disappeared into the cooler.

Coast clear, daughter turned to mother. 'So what
did
happen with Ema Bradenham?'

AnnaLise pronounced the first name correctly, as though a second 'm' appeared within
it. Most of all, though, she was aiming for 'matter-of-fact' with just a touch of
'concern', but not even the least whiff of 'accusation'.

Daisy, who had been concentrating on her plate, looked up and met her only offspring's
eyes squarely. 'I made a terrible mistake,' she said simply. 'When I cut the tube,
I must have sliced it above the clamps instead of between them.'

Thinking back to Mama's call and donating blood herself, AnnaLise believed she finally
understood what had happened. After you give your pint, the nurse or phlebotomist
clamps the tube running from your arm to the bag below in two places. One nearer the
arm, to stop the flow, and one nearer the bag, to seal that off. Then he or she cuts
the tube between the clamps, leaving the two ends to drip harmlessly empty while the
donor relaxes and the technician gathers paperwork and post-donation instructions.

'But wasn't there still blood flowing out?' AnnaLise asked as gently as possible.
As she spoke, the dark stranger glanced over, a startled expression on his face. Inadvertently
catching AnnaLise's eye, he immediately pretended to once more be engrossed in the
local news.

Daisy looked down at her plate again. 'I suppose so. I mean, there must have been.
But Henrietta had left Ema's paperwork on the counter before she went to use the powder
room, and so I walked to the back of the trailer to get it.

'The appointment list was sitting on the counter, too, and I remember seeing little
Nicole Goldstein's name and musing about the first time
I
ever donated, way back when. The next thing I knew, Henrietta was screaming, blood
was flooding the floor, and Ema was unconscious.'

AnnaLise patted her mother's hand. 'It's OK, Daisy. Just an accident.'

But then the teenage girl's car skidding and killing that boy back in Wisconsin had
been an 'accident', too, yet that hadn't stopped DA Ben Rosewood from...

'Here's your milk.' Mama dropped a paper-covered straw next to it. 'Now you be sure
to drain every drop.'

Daisy shook her head. '"Accident" is a poor excuse, AnnaLise, and you know it. That
woman was donating blood for people in need. I had a responsibility to do right by
her.'

As though on cue, the door chimed and Ema Bradenham in the flesh — if not quite all
the blood — entered. Mrs. Bradenham's son, Bobby, who was Sutherton's current mayor,
followed. 'Are you sure you don't just want to go home? After all that's happened...'

Although AnnaLise had it on good authority (Bobby's) that Ema Bradenham was six years
older than AnnaLise's own mother, Mrs. B could still be taken for nearly a decade
younger. Of course, standing close to six-feet tall — with legs to her chin, plenty
of money and a French plastic surgeon on retainer who would enthusiastically lift
said chin and anything else that dared to droop — probably helped.

Designer clothes and the vintage K Mikimoto pink pearl necklace she perpetually wore
— and AnnaLise habitually coveted — didn't hurt, either.

Mrs. Bradenham interrupted her son. '"After all that's happened"? Bobby, if I have
told you once, I have told you a thousand times, when something unfortunate occurs,
put it behind you and move on. The blood drive was Thursday and here it is Saturday.
Enjoy the holiday weekend. Goodness,' she said, without missing a beat, 'is it warm
in here?' She flapped her pearls like they could conjure up a cooling sea breeze.

'You're just going through the change, Eee-mah.' Mama, now at the cash register, butchered
Mrs. B's name, as she did most others. 'Want a fan?' Phyllis gestured to the display
case, repository of the Moo-Cow creamers as well as a handful of orange and yellow
paper fans, now brown-edged with age.

The accordion-pleated fans and twenty-three miniature hand-painted tea cups were,
mercifully, all that remained of Mama's ill-fated decision to have a couple of glasses
of wine before bidding at her very first restaurant equipment auction.

Mrs. Bradenham shuddered, though whether at the mention of menopause or the suggested
ratty fans wasn't apparent. Then Mrs. B — a nearly universal nickname for her among
the locals — caught sight of AnnaLise. Turning abruptly, she almost swept the stack
of cookbooks off Mama's table with her Hermes handbag. Gorgeous, but if the thing
were any bigger, AnnaLise could climb in and latch it closed over her head.

Assuming it wasn't already occupied by a complementing foofy dog.

As AnnaLise looked around for some place other than the handbag to hide, Mrs. Bradenham
made a beeline for her.

It wasn't that AnnaLise despised Bobby's mother, it was just that the woman made her
feel... well, small. As in miniature. Which AnnaLise knew she was. She just didn't
like to be treated like someone's pet.

'Oh, AnnaLise, look how a
dor
able. What a sweet little outfit.' Then to Daisy: 'And you, my dear. I do not want
to hear a word of apology about the... incident on Thursday. I am just fine. In fact,
I am told a bit of bloodletting is actually good for the complexion.'

'She's right.' Phyllis left the cash register. 'Demi Moore uses leeches, I saw it
on the Internet. Imports them from France.'

'Why France?' Daisy asked. 'Don't we have leeches here?'

'We do, for sure,' Mama said. 'Plus, I bet our leeches are every bit as good as those
French ones. And probably not as rude.'

AnnaLise, who hadn't even unwrapped her straw, now surveyed the glass of whole milk
with dismay. It looked like a vat of cream in comparison to the non-fat she was used
to drinking. And the talk of leeches wasn't helping with her queasiness.

'Contrary to popular belief,' Mrs. B said, 'I have found the French very accommodating
on my many visits.'

Phyllis snorted. Daisy just rolled her eyes and readdressed her cake. The rudeness
— or honesty, depending on your point of view — was pretty much
de rigueur
for Mama. Not Daisy, though. She tried to avoid hurting people's feelings. And to
patch up those her best friend had already wounded.