Your Chariot Awaits (3 page)

But in case I was jumping to some unwarranted conclusion here, I backtracked and put it as a blunt question. “So what you're saying is, you and me, we're over?”

“I'm saying we've had great times together, Andi. Lots of fun. But I'm going to be down in San Diego, and you're going to be here. And I think we've both always recognized that our relationship has . . . certain limitations, and we both need to widen our horizons and pursue new interests.”

“But we can still be friends.”

He missed the sarcasm in that old line, because his face lit up in a relieved beam. “Exactly. Friends! I knew you'd under-stand. You're such a good sport, Andi. The best.”

I didn't feel like a good sport. I didn't even want to
be
a good sport. What I wanted was to dump the glass of lemonade over Jerry's head.

“What about your sailboat?” It was a dumb, irrelevant question, but it was all I could think of to fill space while I tried to keep my hand off that glass.

“I'll sell it before I leave. I'll get a bigger and better one down there. Hey, maybe you'd like to buy it? I can give you a deal on it.”

“I . . . I don't think so. Thanks anyway.”

“If you hear of anyone who might be interested, let me know. We've had fun times in it, haven't we? You've turned out to be very good sailor.” He leaned forward to give me an affectionate kiss on the nose. A good-sport kiss.

I backed out of his arms. Joella was right. The man had the sensitivity of a toadstool. Breaking up with me and telling me how wonderful this new woman was, trying to sell me his old sailboat. And then kissing me on the nose.

He kept on talking, telling me enthusiastically about how the company was going to pay his moving expenses, but I wasn't really listening. I was standing there feeling like the time I'd been dumped overboard from his sailboat. In over my head and floundering in deep water.

Downsized.

Dumped.

Depressed.

And the week was only half over. What next?

As if in ominous answer to my unspoken question, the doorbell rang. Given the way things were going, it could be anyone. IRS agent, terrorist, serial killer . . .

3

T
he young guy who stood on my doorstep was unfamiliar, but he looked harmless enough. Midtwenties, brick-red hair, freckles, baggy khaki pants with pockets down to the knees, sloppy gray T-shirt, scruffy running shoes of some indeterminate brand. But who knows what a serial killer looks like?

However, he was obviously at the wrong house. Probably even the wrong neighborhood. Because parked at the end of my walkway was the longest, sleekest, blackest vehicle I'd ever seen, the likes of which had surely never touched the potholed asphalt of Secret View Lane before. Across the street, Tom Bolton had left his deck and come out to his gate for a better look.

“You're driving
that
?” I said.

The guy gave the vehicle a disinterested glance. “Yeah. I drove it up from Texas.”

“But it's a
limousine.
” A stretch limousine. And he didn't look as if he could afford to drive a '79 Pinto, let alone tool around in a limo.

“I'm looking for Andalusia McConnell. Is that you?”

Andalusia
. “Well, yes,” I said, “but—”

Jerry was behind me, hands on my waist. “Is that your real name?
Andalusia?
Sounds like some awful disease.” He deepened his voice to somber newscaster tones. “We've just gotten the latest update, folks, and the Andalusian flu is going to be really bad this year.”

The young guy gave Jerry an odd glance. “It has something to do with Spain, doesn't it?” he asked me.

I felt an unexpected rush of warmth toward him for knowing that much. “Yes, it does. And, yes, I am Andalusia McConnell.” With a good reason for the name, although I didn't intend to explain it now.

“Okay, I have some papers for you.” The guy thrust a big manila envelope at me. It looked as if it had been kicked around the floor at Burger King for a couple of days. “Sorry. I guess I dropped it a time or two.”

Given the bad news that had already come my way today, I eyed the envelope suspiciously and kept my hands at my sides. “What kind of papers?”

“About the limousine. Or limou
zeen,
z-e-e-n, as old Uncle Ned called it in his will. His favorite possession, also according to the will. He left it to you.”

“Andi, you had a rich relative who left you a
limousine
?” Jerry asked, his tone incredulous. “How come you never told me?”

I could hear in his voice that I'd just risen several notches in his estimation. Did becoming a limousine-inheriting heiress put me up there with the sailing/skydiving queen? Too late if it did. Jerry had already taken a fatal skydive in my estimation. About all I could give him credit for was that he had come over to dump me in person. I knew a couple of women at F&N who'd been dumped by e-mail.

“Who are you?” I asked the red-haired guy.

“Larry Noakes. I think we're cousins or something.”

I ran the name through my limited knowledge of the family tree. Nothing clicked. No surprise, since I'd never met more than a couple of them. My mother hadn't bad-mouthed the family, but she'd never had much good to say about them either.

“I've heard of Ned,” I said cautiously. He was the rich member of the family. I think my folks tried to borrow money from him one time, but he'd turned them down. “He's your uncle too?”

“Actually, my great-uncle. He and my grandmother were brother and sister. I guess your mother was another sister. You did know Uncle Ned was dead, didn't you?”

“No, I didn't. Look, you want to come in so we can talk about this?”

Jerry interrupted. “Let's go look at the limousine first.”

“You go look if you want. I need to talk to Larry here.”

Larry looked at the watch on his wrist. “I don't have much time. I have to catch a bus at 6:45. Can you believe that? Those cheapskate lawyers didn't even give me a plane ticket home. I got a
bus
ticket. To
Texas.
It'll take me a month to get there.”

A slight exaggeration, but I couldn't blame him. A bus trip to Texas wouldn't be high on my list of fun things to do either.

“I was hoping you could drive me to the bus station,” he added. “I don't even know where it is.”

“Me? I can't drive a limousine
.”

He pointed out the obvious, which my rather dazed mind had missed. “You don't have to take me in the limo. You can use your own car.”

He looked with interest toward Jerry's flashy Trans Am sitting in the driveway. My own little Corolla was out of sight in the garage.

“But sure, you can drive the limousine. Why not? It's long, but no different otherwise.”

“Don't you have to have a special license or something?”

“I don't, and I was Uncle Ned's chauffeur for a year and a half before he died. That's why I got the job of delivering the limo to you. Anyway, I don't know why you'd need anything special. Look at all those old geezers barreling around in their dinosaur-sized motor homes. They're twice as big as a limo, and they don't need any special licenses.”

Jerry cut in before I could decide whether to be insulted by the “old geezer” reference.

“So why didn't this Uncle Ned leave the limo to you?”

“Who knows why Uncle Ned did anything? He was eccentric. With a capital
E
.”

“Did he leave you something else?” I asked.

“Oh, sure. Seven electric toothbrushes. Five of them were still in the boxes, unused.”

I gaped at him in disbelief. “But Uncle Ned was rich
.
Who got all the money and oil wells and the mansion?”

“Most of it went to various Save-the-Blank organizations.”

“Save the blank?” I repeated doubtfully.

“You fill it in. Whales. Whooping cranes. Chickadees. Depressed dolphins. Left-handed monkeys.” He gave a shrug that expressed his frustration with Uncle Ned's charitable recipients. “The lawyers got a big chunk. None of the real heirs got any actual money.”

With that, Jerry lost interest. He headed for the limousine. I still thought there must be some mistake here. A
limousine?

“What caused Uncle Ned's death?”

“He was eighty-nine,” Larry said, as if that were explanation enough. Then he added, “He had all kinds of stuff wrong with him. Including a mean, cold heart. But it was kidney failure that finally did him in.”

“Okay, c'mon inside and start from the beginning. How about some lemonade?”

“Yeah, I could use some lemonade.”

He sat on the same stool Jerry had occupied earlier, and I filled another glass. I set out some day-old peanut butter cookies Joella had brought home from the bakery. He grabbed a cookie, ate it in two bites, took a long swallow of lemonade, and swiped the back of his hand across his upper lip.

“It's like this: Uncle Ned kicked the bucket about a year and a half ago. He had a will, but it was handwritten. Holographic, I think is the fancy word. They're legal in Texas, if they're done right, and his was, even though he misspelled everything from
limousine
to
pencil sharpener
.”

“There was a pencil sharpener in his will?”

“He left it to Aunt Jasmine. It wasn't even electric. Anyway, I think because the will was handwritten, it took longer than usual to probate. He didn't have any kids of his own, but there were something like twenty-six various other heirs in the family, and everybody got something. I guess that's the way to do it so no one can challenge the will by saying they were forgot-ten. You must have been his favorite, because you got the only inheritance worth anything.”

“How could I be his favorite? I didn't even know him.”

“Everyone figures that's why you were his favorite. He
knew
the rest of us and got even for every dinky little thing he thought we ever did to him.”

“Did you do something to him?”

“I may have gotten a few traffic citations in the limo, that he had to pay,” Larry said, his offhand tone suggesting this was hardly worthy of notice. “I guess Aunt Jasmine teed him off when she refused to name any of her kids after him. Although there's another theory on how he decided who got what.”

“What's that?”

“That he put all the family names on slips of paper in one hat and the stuff he wanted to leave on slips of paper in another. Or, knowing Uncle Ned, he probably used something he considered more appropriate, like a couple of old chamber pots. Anyway, the speculation is that he drew a person's name out of one and an item out of the other, and however they matched up, that's what the person got.”

“And I really got the limousine?”

“Yep. The limou
zeen
”—he emphasized the
z
sound—“is yours. I figure he threw in that one big prize to make everyone else envious and maybe get them fighting. He liked to do stuff like that. The papers you'll need to get the title transferred are all in there.” He nodded toward the envelope that now lay on the counter. “And I put my two old chauffeur's uniforms in the trunk. There's a framed photo of Uncle Ned back there too. Everybody got one.”

“What am I going to do with a limousine?” Or a framed photo of an eccentric uncle?

“I don't know. Drive around in it. Sell it. Take the neighbors for rides. Get in a parade. Start a limousine business. Turn it into a hot-dog stand.”

“I'm . . . flabbergasted.”

“Aren't we all,” he muttered.

A thought occurred to me. “I wonder if he left anything to my daughter and granddaughter?”

“I don't remember. You can look for yourself. There's a photocopy of the will in the envelope. If you can read it. Uncle Ned's writing looks like something done by a schizophrenic pigeon practicing hieroglyphics.”

“What have you been doing since Uncle Ned died?”

“Going to school part-time. Working at a pizza joint.

Watching my toenails grow. Got parts in a couple of local plays. I was Bo Decker in
Bus Stop.
” He looked at his watch again, eyed the plate of cookies, grabbed a double handful, and stuffed them into his baggy pockets. “I've gotta get going. I don't want to miss that bus. Seems kind of ironic, doesn't it? Being in
Bus Stop,
and now I'm going to be
on
a bus. Oh, I'd better give you the keys.”

He dug in a different pocket and tossed me a key ring. Attached was a chunk of leather cut in the shape of Texas.

“I'll take you to the depot,” I said.

Outside, Jerry was down on his hands and knees, peering under the limo. I'd ridden in a limousine a few times, long ago when we had the store and Richard was trying to impress people, but it certainly wasn't a mode of transportation with which I was familiar. The long, sleek lines practically screamed money and power and glamour. Except that screaming, of course, would be much too gauche for something this elegant.

But at the same time I felt . . .
peculiar
about it. It was like seeing someone giving away kittens in the Wal-Mart parking lot. You know they're adorable, but you can't even stop and look. Because you know if you do, you'll surely fall in love and take one . . . or three . . . home with you. And what you don't need is kittens.

I sensed that same feeling with the limo. I did not need a limo. I had no use for a limo. It was surely an expense I couldn't afford. And it would hang out of my garage like a foot-long hot dog in a six-inch bun. But I had the awful feeling that if I ever sat in it and drove it, I'd never be able to part with it, no matter how impractical it was.

“I have to take Larry to the bus depot,” I called to Jerry.

Jerry threw the driver's side door open as if the limo belonged to him. “C'mon. Get in and I'll drive.”