Go, Ivy, Go! (2 page)

He’d just gotten to the point of reminding me that the Braxtons had once set fire to my house back on Madison Street, with me in it, when a new thought occurred to me.

“Hey, you can come along!” I threw in an appeal to his nobler side. “Be my protector.”

He considered that for about two seconds before he said, “I have a better idea.”

“Which is?”

“Let’s get married.” Real urgency filled his voice. “Now. Right away. No need to go back to the house. Just sell it. We can trade in both our motorhomes on a newer, larger one. We’d have only one RV park rental fee. One motorhome to license and insure. One gas tank to fill. Or maybe we’d get one of those diesel-pusher kind.”

On a practicality ranking, that proposal probably rated a “10.” However—

As if suddenly realizing what he’d said sounded more like a pitch from a used-RV salesman than a proposal, Mac dropped to one knee by my webbed lawn chair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t phrase that very well. I know I’m not the most romantic guy in the world, but you know how I feel about you, Ivy. We should have gotten married a long time ago. Will you do it now? Marry me?”

Mac MacPherson isn’t terribly romantic, true, but he does okay in the romance department when the occasion arises. He’s great at moonlight walks on a beach and kisses under mistletoe. On Valentine’s Day he gave me a card that said, “You light up my life,” surrounded by illustrated
fireworks and he took me out for lobster too. For my birthday, thankfully back in pre-garlic days, he’d made a tower of cake layers, with a single heart-shaped candle on top.

And he
was
down on his knee right now.

“I don’t know how long it takes to get a marriage license here, but surely not more than a few days. We’ll take a honeymoon before going up to Montana. I saw this great place
in Baja on the internet the other day. Beach right outside the door. Palms and bougainvillea. Hot tub. Restaurant. We’ll specify no garlic.”

Tempting.

“We might even think about settling down somewhere if you’re really tired of traveling.”

“The house on Madison Street is available,” I reminded him.

“Not Madison Street.”

“But that’s
home
.”

He turned it into a home-on-the-range song. “Oh, give me a home, where the Braxtons don’t roam . . .”

I glowered at him. I can do a pretty good glower if I try.

He stood up. Mac’s bones don’t creak even if he qualifies for a few more candles on his birthday cake than I do. A bit stiffly, he said, “I apologize for my outburst. It’s just that I get a little worked up when I think about you walking right into danger.”

“I appreciate that.”

But I could tell he was a little miffed when he muttered, “Well, think about it, okay?”

“About getting married or about going back to Madison Street?”

“Whatever.”

***

I thought about it. I talked to the Lord too, as I always do about any important decision. Was Mac also doing that? Mac was a skeptic when we first met, but he talks to the Lord himself now. I don’t know if Mac heard any words of wisdom from the Lord, but I wasn’t getting anything.
Nothing about marrying Mac, nothing about going home. Mac would probably say, as he had before, that when God is silent it may be because he’s expecting us to use a little good
sense of our own. Mac’s interpretation of “good sense,” of course
, meaning my staying away from Madison Street and the Braxtons. I kept hoping for something more specific direct from the Lord.

Two days later, Mrs. Hernandez came into the Historical Collection room where I was going through an estate of books, some treasures, some trash, that had been donated to the library. The elderly woman making the donation had apparently liked everything from books on California history to raising insect-eating plants to steamy scenes in 18
^th
century boudoirs.

“You do such incredible work, Ivy.” Mrs. Hernandez touched her fingertips together. “And you’re so knowledgeable. We’ve been so fortunate to have you.”

The words were flattering, but I heard a subtle past-tense in them. I warily stood up from where I’d been crouched over a box of books. “I enjoy working here.”

“But I’m afraid I have some bad news. We just found out we won’t have funding for your position beyond this week. I feel bad, springing this on you so suddenly, but we had to use some of the grant money to repair the air conditioner and it cost so much more than we expected . . .”

Oh no! I’d counted on a few more weeks of the extra income—

My moment of disappointment evaporated as I suddenly realized what this was. Not calamity. Opportunity! The message from the Lord that I’d been waiting for. “That’s okay. Actually, something has come up that I need to take care of, so this will work out fine.”

***

I told Mac about the end of my job and what I’d decided. I could tell he wasn’t convinced this was a definitive sign from the Lord, but he seemed more resigned than surprised by my decision. He didn’t rant and rave. Neither did he get down on his knees and beg me to change my mind. On my final morning at the RV park, he helped roll up the awning and disconnect the water, sewer, and electric lines on the motorhome. He even whirled me around for a good-bye kiss. A great kiss even if he didn’t break his stolid silence and his expression had all the warmth of a polar vortex.

“You could still change your mind and come with me,” I said.

“You could still change your mind and not go.”

I put a foot on the retractable step of the motorhome. “I’ll keep in touch.”

“Not if the Braxtons get you first.”

And a cheery good-bye to you too.

I could see him in the rear view mirror as I drove to the RV park exit onto the highway. I stuck out my hand and waved. He didn’t wave back.

I tried not to feel uneasy. We’d parted before. He probably hadn’t returned my wave only because he missed seeing it.

But this parting felt different than those other times. This had a finality to it that had never been there before.

***

Although I was impressed, as always, with the Lord’s imagination and creativity in the beauties of mountains and desert as I drove across the country, this trip was not a shining advertisement for the joys of life on the road. In Arizona the motorhome engine overheated and I had to stop to have it checked out. In New Mexico I had not one but
two
flat tires. In Oklahoma some creepy guy wandering around the rest area where I was parked tried the motorhome door. That unsettled me enough that I got up, jumped into the driver’s seat in my pajamas, and roared outa there.

But in my haste I took a wrong turn somewhere and wound up on a desolate road with neither a head- or tail-light in sight. A sign beside a gas station that looked as if it hadn’t pumped gas since the ‘60s read
Skeleton Valley, Pop. 14.
I pulled over and, keeping a nervous eye out for wandering skeletons, tried to figure out from a map where I was. But Skeleton Valley was nowhere to be found. Except maybe in the Twilight Zone, and I didn’t have a map for there.

The thought niggled that the Lord might be putting these roadblocks in my way to warn me that I’d misinterpreted the “sign” of the end of my job. Or maybe, I rationalized, it was a reverse message reminding me of the drawbacks of motorhome life and telling me that it
was
time to plant myself on Madison Street and stay there.

By morning I’d gotten back on a highway that looked as if it belonged in this dimension. At least the familiar golden arches of a McDonald’s loomed in the distance. I kept thinking Mac would call, but he didn’t. Stubbornly I didn’t click his number on my cell phone, either.

And, late on the fourth day, with a gentle summer dusk settling like a blessing around me, I arrived on Madison Street. Home!

I drove slowly, savoring the familiar sights. Big maples lined the street, just as I remembered, the old sidewalk beneath them humped by roots. The houses, which I knew might look old and a bit shabby in full daylight, were familiar friends in the warm dusk. Most were dark, occupants probably sitting out back enjoying the cool evening after the heat of the summer day.
So quiet and peaceful.
A marvelous absence of traffic. An older woman with stooped shoulders, her elbow braced by a muscular young man, shuffled along the sidewalk. I didn’t recognize them, but this was how I remembered Madison Street, the kind of place a caring grandson would take his grandmother out for an evening stroll.

My old friend Thea’s house looked dark and bleak, which gave me a pang. Thea had passed on even before I left, and her old house reminded me I wouldn’t see her again until we hugged on the streets of heaven.

Did anyone I knew still live on Madison Street? My across-the-street neighbors, Magnolia and Geoff Margolin, of course.
They’d sold their house quite a while back and bought a place near Phoenix, but they’d turned out not to like hot Arizona summers, so when they had a chance to get the old place back again, they’d grabbed it.
But they spent most of their time traveling in their motorhome, same as I did, although for a different reason. They’d spent a week here last fall and said then that many of the houses were rentals now. Was that what Radison Properties planned for my place? I wondered if Magnolia and Geoff had also received an offer on their house.

Magnolia and Geoff were in the cool Northwest this summer, Magnolia busy chasing down some distant relative. Most people use the internet for genealogical research these days, but Magnolia prefers a hunt-‘em-down-in-person approach. She likes to put photographs and personal information with her genealogical charts.

With darkness settling in, their big yard light suddenly blazed to light. Their
place looked as well kept as ever. A yard maintenance company kept everything in top shape. Grass green, shrubs trimmed, magnolia leaves glossy. Oh, and I could still se
e that profile of Nixon’s face in the outline of one of the trees. Growth had altered it a bit since I’d been gone, but that nose was unmistakable.

Some of the light spilled across the street onto my place. A different world there. I couldn’t afford yard maintenance fees. Weedy stalks rose out of dry, unmowed grass. Rose and lilac bushes straggled under the windows. Alarmingly vicious looking weeds dominated the garden area. A screen sagged at one window, and another hung by a corner. Wind had blown last fall’s leaves into ragged hills against the garage door. The cherry tree I’d pictured as strong and fruitful was a tangle of dead branches, like something out of a zombie movie.

I felt a shiver inconsistent with the warm evening dusk. Maybe I should just grab that Radison Properties offer and run . . .

No. I briskly turned the motorhome into the driveway. I could rake and mow and water. Wash windows and fix screens too. I’d make friends with whoever lived in the area now, people like that older woman and her grandson. Maybe Magnolia and Geoff would give up RVing and
come home too, and Madison Street would be almost like it used to be. Though, without Thea, never quite what it once was.

“You’ll love it,” I told my furry co-pilot as he stood up and stretched. “You can dig in the dirt while I’m working in the garden.”

I’d never had much luck gardening, but as of right now I vowed to change that. I’d read gardening books. Take a class. I’d grow tomato-shaped tomatoes, not ones with odd resemblances to dead presidents. I’d have the yard in tip-top shape in no time.

Did that mean I figured on staying here?

Could be!

I parked in the driveway, fished my long-unused keys out of a drawer, and stepped out. Koop jumped down from the passenger’s seat, ready to follow. “You wait here. I’ll get the house unlocked and come back for you.”

I went to the back door of the house, the door we’d always used most. Tattered leaves had drifted against it too. And hey, what happened to the screen door that used to be here? But the long-unused key turned easily. I felt almost as if I were opening a Christmas present from the past. Home!

Inside, an odd disorientation unexpectedly hit me. The curtains were pulled shut, turning the kitchen into a shadowy cave. And the air? Way past its expiration date.

No, more than that. A definite
smell
.
I turned, trying to get my equilibrium back, and clunked into something. There’d never been anything in the middle of the kitchen before
— I
peered closer. Oh, the kitchen table, usually under the window, was over here now.

I straightened a fallen chair beside the table, stirring the stagnant air. A stuffy smell?
Well, not surprising. The place had been closed up for over a year, since that last renter was evicted.
But something more in the scent. Musty? Rancid? Moldy? Spoiled? A definite
yuk
factor to it.

I automatically tried to turn on a light before remembering even as I clicked the switch that it wouldn’t work. The utilities were turned off. I’d get everything turned on tomorrow. And straighten out those odd bills at the same time. Right now, what the place needed was a good airing out.

I felt my way around the table and stumbled to the window. I yanked the curtains open, letting in some light from Magnolia’s yard. A cabinet door hung by one hinge. The open door of another cabinet revealed a few cans of food and a carton of Ritz crackers. Dirty dishes filled the sink. Cigarettes spilled out of a half-full pack on the counter. I opened the refrigerator door. No light of course, but the smell in there
— Eeewww
. All I could make out were blobs on the shelves and mold climbing the walls. Maybe this was where that smell was coming from. I slammed the door shut.

Hadn’t the property management company had the place cleaned after those last tenants were evicted? Certainly didn’t look like it.

I tried the water faucet. Nothing happening there, either, of course.

In the living room I had to pull the drapes open before I could see anything. I’d rented the house furnished, but now everything was gone except the old sofa and a recliner. The sofa was missing a cushion and that favorite old recliner appeared to have developed leprosy of the upholstery. But, oddly, there was an addition that hadn’t been there before.
A window air conditioner that some renter had apparently left behind.
Well, lose some, win some.