Stardust Miracle (12 page)

She tore her attention back to Elsa. “I need a full-time job. And I’m not staying in Miracle. I can’t. As soon as I find a job, I’m leaving.”

“Of course you want to leave,” Elsa said.

Despite Elsa’s words, Becky had the feeling the other woman didn’t think this discussion was over.

“Even if I stayed, I couldn’t do this. It would be too much of a...” She hesitated. Jim didn’t deserve her loyalty. And though the majority of the church members hadn’t supported her, she couldn’t do this to them. “A betrayal.”

Elsa nodded. “I understand.”

“But I’m happy to have gotten to know you better,” Becky said, unable to stop staring at Elsa. She felt a pull toward the older woman. It almost felt as if they’d met before Elsa drove into town and decided to stay. But it was probably just that Elsa comforted her when she was sick.

“I’d better get back to the restaurant,” Rosa said. “Sorry to have taken you on this wild goose chase. It wasn’t Elsa’s fault. She said you wouldn’t do it. I should’ve listened to her.” She shot Elsa a grin. “Elsa is always right.”

Elsa’s laugh was like silvery bells in an old Christmas movie. “No one is always right. Part of the pleasure of being a human being is trying new options.” Smiling with her eyes as well as her mouth, Elsa radiated understanding. “And even if failure was pre-ordained, it’s better to try than never try.”

Becky murmured her agreement and started to turn away. At the last instant, she turned back.

She knew why Elsa seemed familiar. She remembered!

“This is really going to sound odd, but do I know you? Not recently. From a long time ago? Decades ago, when I was a child. You seem so familiar.”

Elsa stilled. If Becky hadn’t been staring at her with such intensity, she would have missed the widening of her eyes, the rounding of her mouth. It lasted only an instant. Then Elsa laughed softly and shook her head.

“If I knew you, it was in another life.” She glided forward, almost as if she didn’t use her feet. As if a low-hanging cloud carried her. She gave Becky a short but strong hug. Nothing ethereal about that.

“I’m so glad we had this talk.” Elsa pulled back. “I’ll see you again.”

Becky nodded, walking backward, then turned and hurried out of the light-filled structure. Her heart beat so fast inside her chest that it felt like butterfly wings.

Another person had lied to her.

Chapter Sixteen

Puppies stink.
Good thing they were cute, Becky thought as she cleaned up and changed the blanket, then tossed the smelly cover in the washing machine. If only her life could be cleaned as easily. She put Goldie out then headed into the puppy room and picked up the black puppy. 

Of all the puppies, this was the one who came to her. Who wanted her to hold him.

A small, familiar ache throbbed inside her. But she couldn’t listen to the ache.

“I can’t keep you.” She looked into his big brown eyes that stared brightly back at her. “I’ll be working and not home for hours. I’d have to put you in doggy day care, and I don’t know if I could afford that. And it wouldn’t be fair to you.”

Maybe it wouldn’t be fair to children, either; perhaps it was just as well she didn’t have any.

The thoughts made her stomach tighten and roil. Everything within her rejected them. If she had children, she would work it out. Just as millions of other women did.

The puppy licked Becky’s chin and tried to reach her mouth. She tilted her head back, her chin up, taking her lips out of tongue range. The room felt gloomy, reflecting her emotions. During the drive back to Wegner’s, the sky had darkened. The DJ on the radio had warned the station’s listeners that a storm was heading their way. 

Glancing outside the puppy room window, she couldn’t blame all her emotions on the weather. She’d felt odd since she left the Church of Radiance.

A recollection had come to her inside the church. More dreamlike than real, but she remembered an odd half-memory of awakening when she was a child. Perhaps when she was seven or younger. A woman stood in her bedroom, haloed by light streaming in from the hallway. Something about that magical moment had imprinted itself in Becky’s memory.

Now it came to Becky that when Elsa had been younger, she must have looked like the woman in her bedroom.

Becky had thought she was a tooth fairy, but she hadn’t lost a tooth.

When she told her parents the next day, they said she must have dreamed it.

The woman had seemed so real. But Becky had put her out of her mind, thinking her parents wouldn’t lie to her.

This was before her mother was sick and Becky learned that adults lied when they promised they’d get better. Trying to convince themselves as much as her. Becky had done it herself. Hoping that if they said it with enough certainty and passion, it would happen.

But if it had been Elsa, why didn’t Elsa say so?

The phone rang, and Becky put down the puppy then climbed over the barrier. In the kitchen, she picked up the phone without looking at the display number. Derek, she thought. But it was Trey, his voice deep and husky.

Her heart pounded and her body tingled – and her body
never
tingled. Well, not unless she was about to eat a slice of Rosa’s tiramisu cheesecake.

That made sense in a strange way. Trey definitely qualified as man candy.

Then she remembered Derek and last night, and she immediately felt guilty that she was interested in Trey. Stupid, because she hadn’t made any promises to Derek. Nor had he asked for any. If he had, she would’ve said ‘no.’

She could hear Sarah’s voice in her mind, saying, ‘Hump and dump.’

Darn Sarah. She was right. But after fifteen years of marriage to a man who’d never made her tingle, Becky wasn’t going to grab onto the first guy who looked at her and expect him to be her happy-ever-after.

She would make her own happy-ever-after.

“I’ll be in your neighborhood later today,” Trey said, his words stopping the thoughts whirling through her brain. “Will you be there?”

“I should be.” Her pounding heartbeat didn’t slow. “Did you want to buy something else from Marsh?”

“Not unless he has something he wants me to check out. I’d like to take you to dinner.”

She bit back the surprised words, ‘You do!’ She felt like a teenager with the cool guy asking her out. 

It’s just dinner, she told herself. Just dinner.

And then she thought of Derek again. He’d just taken her to dinner last night. And look what happened there.

She put her free hand on her forehead. Life was complicated.

“Sure,” she said slowly. She remembered Elsa’s words and decided part of her new life would be taking chances.

Trey asked if she liked Thai food. She said yes. Jim was a meat and potatoes kind of guy – like her dad and his dad were before he died.

But now she could eat anything she wanted, any time she wanted.

Trey said there was a Thai place in Tomahawk, and she recalled seeing it, not far from the restaurant where she’d eaten with Derek last night.

“No need to pick me up,” she said. “I can drive down and meet you there.”

“I’ll pick you up.” His voice was firm.

Though she’d made up her mind that no man was going to tell her what to do, her mouth curved in a silly smile.

A man picked a woman up when he was pretty sure he wanted more than a dinner companion.

“Is five-thirty good?” he asked.

“Yes.” Her voice was husky, and she called herself an idiot as she said good-bye.

She hung up, keeping her hand on the phone. She was becoming a slut. And she didn’t care. She was happy because he’d asked her out. As for Derek, she was happy she’d been with him last night, too.

Why shouldn’t she have both? She could call it her own reality show:
Sex and the Village
.

She put her hands over her mouth, then her ears and then her eyes, as if she were the three monkeys bundled in one package. In her mind she again heard Sarah say, ‘Hump and dump.’

Outside Goldie barked and rain started to pour down, pounding against the siding. She dropped her hands from her face and hurried to let Goldie in, her heart hammering, her step light.

She’d been good for so long – her whole life, it seemed. Maybe it was her turn to be a little...bad. 

She reached the back door. As she opened it, thunder roared, the ground shook and lightning flashed across the sky.

Chapter Seventeen

When the phone rang again, Becky’s heart beat like an electric tambourine out of control. She wiped down Goldie with a towel by the back door but had an odd feeling that something was wrong. She let go of Goldie and dived for the phone on the counter.

Another boom thundered outside as she said, “Hello?” Goldie stopped a foot away from Becky, then shook her entire body, her skin and wet fur flapping. Water splattered Becky and she hunched sideways, leaning away from Goldie. The phone crackled as she wiped drops off her cheek and called, “Hello, hello!”

“I’m here,” Sarah said. “Wow, it’s coming down like bats and hogs.”

Becky leaned against the counter, her pants too wet to sit on the chair, thanks to Goldie, who looked at her as if she deserved a treat for soaking her. After all, hadn’t she saved Becky from taking another shower? “Idiot.”

“Are you calling me an idiot?”

“Goldie. She just soaked me.”

“Good on you. I have conversations with her all the time. Goldie’s a great listener. Hey, I just called to say I’m on my way home.”

“Drive carefully.”

“I always drive carefully.”

“You drive too fast.”

“You drive too slow. I’m almost in town. I already shopped in Medford, but I forgot the evaporated milk for the puppy formula. I’ll stop off at Wegner’s. Want anything?”

“An Ouija board. Maybe it will give me a glimpse into the future.”

“You don’t need that. I can tell you. Now that you’ve gotten rid of Mr. Righteous, it will be good times ahead.”

Another blast of thunder boomed and static came over the phone. Then nothing. “Sarah? Sarah?”

Sarah didn’t answer. The phone was dead. Becky thought of trying to call Sarah back, but Sarah was driving and it was pouring out. Becky’s mom used to say ‘The sky is crying,’ and Becky used to believe that the sky was sad.

Today’s sky didn’t sound sad. It sounded angry.

A whine came from Goldie. She stood outside the puppy room, the barrier blocking her from getting back to her puppies. Becky hurried over and let her in.

The puppies immediately surged forward, tripping over each other to get to Goldie. Each puppy rushed to be first.

Becky watched them for a few moments, with an ache in her chest. An ache because she still missed her mom; an ache because she might never be one. Finally she turned away and trudged to the table to look at the want ads.

She’d always had sympathy for any of the parishioners who were job hunting. But at least most of them had a career and experience. Maybe Rosa knew a restaurant owner in Tomahawk or Merrill and would call the owner for her. Ask them to give her a chance. Something to help with the everyday bills while she earned her degree.

Another blast of thunder and flash of lightning made her jump and gasp. Her heartbeat thundered along with the whimpers coming from the dining room. She looked at the rain lashing the kitchen window, then hurried to the office to unplug the old computer, not wanting it to be fried by a lightning surge.

Sarah should be home soon. At least Marsh wasn’t driving in this. He was still in Minnesota where it was supposed to be sunny and warm today. When he got home, he’d probably tease them about his tropical vacation while they were stuck in a cold rain.

She grabbed a throw and hurried to the puppy room to clean up. She could look at the newspaper ads later.

Maybe before then, something else would come up.

*****

Sometime during the next twenty minutes, the sky turned nearly black and sheets of rain gusted against the house. Becky started to think of biblical storms, and she worried about Sarah. Her nerves vibrated, on alert, and she listened for sirens. A couple of the puppies whimpered, but most slept snuggled close to Goldie.

She wished she could, too, but she kept thinking of the tornadoes that had ravaged two Wisconsin towns last year, killing a family that lived in a trailer park.

Finally the sky lightened and the gusts lessened. The thunder and the lightning moved to the east, not as loud or as frightening. Her nerves shot, Becky got up to fetch her go-to tranquilizer. Dark chocolate. Along the way to the bedroom, she checked Goldie and the puppies, and Goldie gave her a look that said she hadn’t been scared.

“Ha!” Becky said. “I bet you were.”

Goldie opened her mouth in a doggy grin, then her ears perked and her gaze fixed toward the road. She was up on her feet, barking happily before Becky had time to turn around.

“Mommy’s home.” Becky rushed to put her jacket on. “Everything’s all right. I don’t know why I was so worried.”

Way too worried. As if something were about to go horribly wrong. Which was odd in so many ways. She’d never been a catastrophe junkie, but now it felt as if she were waiting for the next hammer to strike her on the head.

She reached the back door as Sarah hurried toward her, holding bags of groceries to her chest, raindrops coming down steadily on her blond hair.

“Any more?” Becky held the door open wide.

“Two more.” Sarah barreled indoors.

By the time Becky made it back inside with the last two bags, the rain had lightened already. Yet the nervous feeling, like a bee buzzing along her nerve endings, wouldn’t go away.

“I was worried about you,” she said.

“I was a bit worried, too. That wind was wicked. The thunder sounded like explosions. I’m glad Marsh is safe in Minnesota.”

“Yeah,” Becky said, but she heard the uncertainty in her voice. The buzzing had transferred from her nerves to her chest, getting worse.

She put the grapes in the fridge and was picking up the half-gallon of milk when the phone rang. Feeling cold from the inside out, Becky turned to stare at it.