Stuck in the Middle (2 page)

“Of course she called me. She’s upset. I would be too if you slammed the phone down in my ear.”

“I did not hang up on Mom.” Joan picked up a pencil and rolled it between her fingers. “Not technically, anyway. I said goodbye first. But all she wanted to do was complain about Gram, and I had customers. They’re still here, by the way.”

A disgusted grunt sounded in Joan’s ear. “Okay, okay, I’ll let you go. But you call her and apologize, you hear?”

“When I get a chance.”

Joan replaced the receiver with extreme care. Having Mom upset with her was bad enough. Best not alienate her big sister too.

Half an hour later she waved goodbye to Josh and Stacy, promising that their new dinette set and washerdryer combo would be delivered before noon tomorrow. A glance over their credit application went a long way toward soothing her stinging ego. They were nothing but kids, too inexperienced to even know how poor they were. Whereas Joan drove a nice car with a free-and-clear title, paid no rent, and banked almost every cent she earned. True, she didn’t have a husband or even the prospect of one, thanks to Roger the Rat. But at least she was financially solid. She had no reason to be jealous, and she refused to waste another minute comparing herself to a couple of kids.

Her thoughts turned to her mother’s phone call as she keyed their order into the computer. Sometimes Gram’s behavior did get a little weird, but that was nothing new. She had always been a stickler for organization. And who cared if she alphabetized the laundry? She was still the same sweet woman they moved in with thirteen years ago, after Mom divorced Daddy. The way Joan figured it, at eighty-three, Gram could be forgiven the occasional kooky impulse.

She pressed Print on the computer and waited for the laser printer to spit out the delivery order.

Mom, on the other hand, lost her temper forty times a day. She was deep in the throes of menopause, and Joan sometimes wondered if all those herbal supplements she gulped down every morning were doing the job on her wacky hormones. Everybody got on her nerves. Well, except Allie, who would give birth to the first Sanderson grandchild soon. All Allie had to do was whimper into the telephone, and Mom rushed across town to rub her back and bring her a half gallon of Moose Tracks.

As a sheet of paper slid into the printer’s tray, she picked up the folder containing the orders scheduled for delivery tomorrow. Glancing through the contents, she organized them by street address and distance from the warehouse, her thoughts still hovering around that disturbing phone call. Mom had dropped several hints lately, all centering around “doing something about Gram.” It didn’t take a genius to figure out the comments had something to do with the town’s new assisted living center. Her stomach churned at the thought of Gram in an old folks home. Well, Mom could just forget it. There was no way Joan would allow her grandmother to be shut away in a home. No way.

Bleep-bleep.
Another customer. This place was as busy as shift change at a factory today. Rosa had better get here before lunchtime. Assuming her practiced smile, Joan pushed thoughts of Mom and Gram from her mind and went to the front of the store, ready to sell more furniture.

The drive-through line at Wendy’s wrapped all the way around the building. Joan whipped her car into an empty parking space and shoved the shifter forward. The line inside the restaurant was long too. Joan suppressed a sigh as she walked through the door. This quick run to make the daily bank deposit was taking longer than expected. But when Rosa finally showed up at the store, she had forgotten her lunch, so Joan volunteered to pick something up on her way back from the bank.

As she stepped into the queue, a little girl in a pink sundress skipped across her path. Joan stopped just short of trampling the child. A man, presumably her father, followed behind carrying a laden tray from the pick-up counter.

“I’m so sorry.” He gave her an apologetic smile. “She’s excited, and isn’t watching where she’s going.”

An unmistakable look of pride as he watched his daughter brought an answering tightening somewhere in the region of Joan’s heart. She swallowed, her throat dry. Fathers and daughters always got to her. She dipped her head to acknowledge the man’s apology, then stepped around him to take her place in line. She tried not to watch as he got his little darling settled with a cheeseburger and fries.

“Well, look who’s here.”

At the sound of a disturbingly familiar voice behind her, all thoughts of the father and daughter fled. There went her mood for the rest of the day, right into the toilet.

She arranged her smile before turning. “Hello, Roger. What are you doing here?”

He gave her the crooked smile she remembered so well. Once upon a time that smile would have made her stomach flutter. Now that obnoxious grin set her teeth together.

“I had some stuff to take care of in town this morning. We’re actually on our way to work now.”

We? Ah, the office bimbo must be waiting for him in the car. Of course. He never made a move without her. Joan awarded him a stiff nod before stepping forward as the line progressed toward the cash register. Just her luck they decided to stop here.

“I guess you heard my good news?”

Good news? Was his little wifey pregnant? Lovely. Let’s rub salt in the wound, shall we? Steeling herself against the coming blow, she turned a polite smile his way. “No, I can’t say I have.”

“I got a promotion, a big one. We’re moving to St. Louis next week.”

A knife twisted in Joan’s gut while she struggled to keep her mouth from gaping. He’d had his eye on a job at his company’s headquarters a year ago, back when they were still together, but Joan talked him out of applying. Who wanted to live in a big city and deal with all the crime and the traffic?

Apparently Roger the Rat. And his wife.

“Congratulations.” She followed the woman in front of her forward another step, keeping her back turned. Maybe he would take the hint and shut up.

No such luck.

“You know, Joan, I was thinking the other day. When I leave, you’re going to be about the only one from our graduating class left in Danville.”

Joan kept her gaze fixed on the menu behind the cashier’s head. “There are a few of us still here. I saw Mary Beth Kurtz just the other day.”

“Then she must have been visiting her folks. She got a job as a Web designer at some big company down in Orlando and moved a few months ago.”

Joan hadn’t heard that. She always wondered why someone as good with computers as Mary Beth didn’t go someplace where she could make a lot of money instead of working in an administrative job for the mayor’s office. Apparently she had decided to do just that. “Well, Frankie Belcher’s still here.”

As if that spoke volumes for the city. Frankie worked at the factory out on the bypass. He’d made the newspaper a couple of times when he got busted for possession of marijuana— which meant he hadn’t changed a bit since high school.

“That’s true.” Roger’s bland tone tried unsuccessfully to hide a touch of sarcasm.

“And Sherry Dorring’s still here too.” Sherry Dorring would never leave Danville. She went to college in town at Centre, married a local attorney, joined the country club, and proceeded to have the requisite two kids, a boy and a girl. Joan ran into her at the grocery store every so often. Her kids were adorable.

Was it true? Had everyone else gotten terrific jobs and moved away from their hometown? Out of 287 DHS grads, was she really the only one left besides a stoner and a society wife?

The woman in front of Joan took her change and stepped away from the register. Joan approached the counter, thankful that Roger seemed to have decided he’d tormented her enough. She stared at the menu on the wall. She wasn’t hungry anymore.

Yep. Her mood was definitely in the toilet. Flush.

The fragrant steam rising from a plate of crispy fried pork chops in the center of the table stirred up a rumble in Joan’s empty stomach.

Gram fixed her with a bewildered blue stare beneath a crown of white finger curls. “I just can’t imagine Carla being upset over a little laundry.”

“She’s not upset about laundry, Gram. She feels like her bedroom is private, and that you and I shouldn’t go in there without her permission.”

They sat opposite one another at the dining room table, a southern feast spread out between them. The tangy odor of fried apples, mixed with the savory smell of pork and the heavenly aroma of freshly baked biscuits, sent Joan’s nose into ecstatic twitches as she filled her plate. Trying to get Gram to cook healthy was an effort in futility. Joan gave it up years ago. She’d just have to run an extra mile or two tomorrow to make up for all the delicious food tonight.

While Joan had changed into a pair of gym shorts and a light T-shirt, Gram wore a floral print blouse, long-sleeved despite the summer humidity that their window air conditioners couldn’t manage to dispel. The white curtains at the kitchen window above the sink had been pulled closed, but the sun still radiated heat through them. Joan dabbed at her damp forehead with a napkin before spooning buttered red potatoes onto her plate.

For as long as Joan could remember, Gram insisted on sitting down at the table for supper. Even now, with only three of them left at home and Mom working second shift at the hospital, she still cooked a big meal every night. Allie and Eric doubled their number a couple of times a week, but since last year when Tori graduated from U.K. and moved into her own apartment in Lexington, the table usually had only two seats occupied—Joan’s and Gram’s.

As they traded bowls, Gram shook her head. “But what am I supposed to do with the folded laundry? Put it on the floor outside her door? I can’t put clean laundry on the floor.”

“You don’t have to do our laundry at all.” Joan halved a potato with her fork. “Mom and I are both perfectly capable of washing our own clothes. You’re not the maid here.”

Gram dismissed the suggestion with a wave before picking up her knife to cut into a chop. “Three of us doing separate laundry? That’s nothing but wasteful. There’s a water shortage, you know.”

Actually, there had been no water shortage in central Kentucky for several years, but Joan didn’t correct her. Instead, she watched Gram’s laborious attempt to slice her meat. Her knuckles looked swollen again. Though her face remained passive, the sawing motion must have hurt.

“You want me to cut that for you?”

“See? We help each other. That’s what families are for.” She pushed her plate across the table. “With you and Carla both working, I don’t mind doing the housework. Gives me something useful to do.”

“Okay, but maybe from now on you could just leave Mom’s clean clothes on the folding table in the laundry room instead of putting them away for her.”

The pork chop cut into bite-sized pieces, Joan slid the plate back across the table. Gram speared a small chunk with her fork and, smiling her thanks, held it before her lips. Their eyes met, and Gram’s twinkled with a secret grin.

“Her drawers were such a mess.” She lowered her voice and confided, “Even as a little girl she kept her drawers a mess. I don’t know how she finds a thing in there. Yours aren’t, though. Your clothes are nice and neat, like mine.”

A mouthful of potato kept Joan from responding. Gram had been rummaging through her dresser as well. Her drawers were full of clean clothes. And the various perfume and lotion bottles on her dressing table had been arranged in size order, left-to-right, small-to-large. Joan had experienced a flash of irritation when she noticed that this evening. For a moment she knew how her mother felt.

“There was a car in the Marlowes’ driveway today.”

Distracted from her momentary battle with ire, Joan looked up from her plate. “Really? Did you see anyone?” Gram nodded. “Two young men. They stayed inside for close to a half hour. I thought the one with the key must be the realtor, but I didn’t recognize him.”

“They probably hired a new one.”

About time too. That house had been empty for over a year and hadn’t been shown more than a handful of times. They chewed for a moment, Gram’s gaze fixed on something faraway.

“He was a nice-looking young man. I can’t imagine why any woman would let her husband look at a house without her, though.”