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Authors: Madelyn Alt

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BOOK: Home for a Spell
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Our timing was perfect. Lou had a free hour between second and fourth periods. He told Marcus he’d meet us in the teachers’ parking lot behind the C-shaped high school building. He was waiting for us, there in the streaming sunshine, when Marcus pulled right up into the vacant Visiting Administrator’s spot without pause for thought or concern. I shook my head and grinned. Once a rebel, always a rebel.
Lou held up a welcoming hand. He was a big man, every bit as tall as Marcus, though he probably outweighed him by a good thirty to forty pounds, most of which was held for safekeeping around his middle and barrel chest. Still, he cut a handsome figure, complete with the same dark, softly curling hair and piercing blue eyes, though his were a darker shade than Marcus’s azure. “The Irish in us,” he said the one time I’d mentioned it. “Black Irish.” Whatever it was, it was an attractive look, at any age.
Marcus hopped out of the truck, and I rolled down my window. “Hello there, Mr. Tabor. Nice to see you again.”
“Lou, remember? Only my students call me Mr. Tabor. And that’s only because the school board frowns on more familiar forms of address. It’s nice to see you, too. How’s that ankle doing?”
“Fine. Great.” I put on my brightest, most confident smile. “I’m getting this thing off in a week or two.”
“And I’m sure you’re champing at the bit,” he said, laughing.
“Champing?” Marcus snorted. “I think that bit has been clean chewed through. Days ago.”
I pretended to pout, crossing my arms. “You try lugging this thing around every day for a month and see how you like it, big guy.”
“She’s getting testy, too,” Marcus added with a twinkle.
Lou nodded sagely. “Keeping you on your toes, I’ll bet.” He winked at me, then leaned forward and in a conspiratorial whisper said, “Someone’s got to do it, eh?”
“Hey, now. Whose side are you on?” Marcus asked over his shoulder with mock indignation as he lifted a piece of black casing out from behind the driver’s seat. “I have half a mind to take this back with me.”
Lou lifted his hands in surrender. “Now, now. No need to get hasty there.”
Marcus handed over the black metal box. “One better-than-new, completely up-to-date, revved-up and tricked-out computer, sir, as per the request. Whoever this was for should be pretty happy. There’s enough space and speed in this to run a small space station. Okay, well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but still. I take it the guy plays a lot of video games?”
“Video games, videos, photo galleries. You know how it goes these days. All those things take up memory and speed.”
Marcus nodded in agreement. “Software, too. The whole computer industry is in cahoots. They want you to feel like you need a new computer every year, just to keep up.”
“You got that right.” Uncle Lou scratched his head, and a sheepish expression came over his face. “Er . . . come to think of it, my home computer is a little sad. Maybe I should have you do the same for me.”
“See? What’d I tell you? They got to you, big guy.”
Lou laughed. “I guess they did at that. Maybe that can be your next project—when you get a little free time,” he amended with a sidelong glance in my direction.
Urg. Again with the guilt.
“I’ve been doing a little project work with photos and video myself lately—and don’t tell your aunt, that’s to be kept under your hat—and my hard drive is really complaining,” he continued. “It was fine before electronic mail and digital photographs and all the other bells and whistles I can’t seem to do without these days.”
“You mean, back in the stone ages, when photo sharing meant sending them along with the family Christmas card?”
Lou’s right eyebrow slid up, just the way Marcus’s did when he was playing things cool. “Hardee-harr-harr. Keep it up and I’ll send your girl here a copy of you in your Christmas sweatshirt, circa 1992.”
Marcus laughed. “No need for threats. I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”
“Thought you might see it my way. Oh, before I forget, you brought the old parts with you?”
“Got ’em right here.” Marcus handed over a zipped gallon-sized plastic freezer bag. “If you think your guy might change his mind, I’ve got a friend who could repurpose them—he does it for the county to help out people with needs that otherwise couldn’t afford it, and—”
“I’ll mention it to him, but my lodge brother was pretty specific about wanting ’em back. Listen, I’ve got to get back to my classroom. I’ll catch up with you later about this stuff”—Lou held up the baggie—“after I talk to him and collect your fee. For all I know he’s just concerned about personal security.”
With identity fraud being one of the fastest growing crimes in the world, it certainly seemed a valid concern to me. And not just identity fraud. Consumer shadowing was happening every day, too. Viruses, spyware, malware. And that was only the beginning. Just the other day a story had hit the news about a school corporation using the webcams in the students’ school-supplied laptops to spy upon them outside of school hours. Big Brother is watching . . . and evidently, personal privacy doesn’t seem to matter in the least.
Lou’s friend was right to be cautious, in my humble opinion. Better to be safe than sorry.
“I’d insist on wiping it myself before just handing it over, but whatever he decides is fine by me. It was just an idea.” Marcus got in the truck and started the old engine with a rumble and a powerful surge as he toed the accelerator to keep the pistons churning. He gave the dashboard an affectionate pat.
“Oh, hey. I almost forgot,” Lou said as an afterthought. “You ready for next week?”
Marcus cleared his throat, but it was the hesitation that made me pause. “I, uh . . . well, I meant to talk to you about that.” His gaze flashed in my direction and then back. “I, uh, think I’m going to have to postpone that. Just for a little while,” he said when Lou’s brows knitted together slightly. “I’ve waited this long. A little longer won’t hurt matters.”
“But you’ve already paid for your cl—”
“I’ve done a little checking. I can defer. Extenuating circumstances. It’s okay, Uncle Lou. It’s a few months, not forever.”
Wasn’t it the thought that counted?
“Okay. Well. You know what’s best, I guess.” A pause and then, “I just thought, with everything arranged and all, that—” He bit the words off suddenly. “Well, anyway. Will we see you two at Sunday lunch next weekend? Your Aunt Molly’s talking about doing it up right. And with your mom in Wisconsin for the last couple of months, she thought you might enjoy a little togetherness with the family.”
“Sure, sounds great.”
“Yeah? Maggie, you okay with that?”
“Great,” I echoed warmly, not about to let my questioning nature get in the way of a home-cooked meal surrounded by good people. Good people who didn’t put me on the hot seat with regards to my job, my finances, my relationships, my attitude, or my lack of interest in getting on with it and getting married and popping out grandchildren. Like my own family. Well, like my mother, to be more precise. “With any luck I’ll have this thing off me by then, and you can finally teach me how to do the limbo properly.”
Lou laughed. “I’ll look forward to it.”
He let us go then, with a wave and a blinding smile that stripped years from his face.
Marcus looked over at me when we were on our way. “Limbo, huh? I don’t think you’re going to be dancing anytime soon, sweetness. Not for a while anyway.”
We would see about that. I didn’t know when I’d hear the verdict from Dr. Dan on my healing progress, but I had high hopes for that very afternoon.
“So,” I began, gazing over at him curiously, “what was all that about?”
“All that?”
His attempt at nonchalance did not fool me. “Yes, all that. With Uncle Lou. About next week.”
“Oh. That.”
“What was next week?”
“Nothing for you to worry about, Maggie. Honestly. I’ve got it covered.”
Something wasn’t sitting right with me. He was keeping something from me for sure. But why? “Uncle Lou mentioned you having paid for something,” I persisted. “If you’ve already paid up for whatever it is, there’s no sense in putting it off. You should get what you paid for.”
If a man could squirm without actually, in fact, moving a muscle, Marcus would be doing just that at that very moment.
A sudden suspicion struck. “It was because of me, wasn’t it?”
He reached for his sunglasses from the visor clip and slipped them on. “What gives you that idea?”
It totally was. My heart sank. My stomach joined it.
He glanced over at me. “Oh, don’t look like that, Maggie. Look, it’s no big deal. I’ll start taking classes next semester. Like I said, I already looked into a deferral, and I think it’s the way to g—”
“Classes? Marcus, no! You can’t be thinking of putting that off. You’ve been planning this for months!” Marcus had been planning to return to college with an eye toward completing a teaching degree, an idea Lou had suggested originally but that Marcus had latched on to with an enthusiasm that made it seem especially meant to be. How on earth had I managed to forget about that? Why hadn’t it occurred to me to ask? Was I so wrapped up in my own egocentric world that I couldn’t see beyond my personal problems? Please tell me I hadn’t gotten that narcissistic.
“It’s no big deal—”
“No big deal? Of course it’s a big deal. It’s important to you.” I couldn’t be the reason he put off going back for his degree. I just couldn’t. Miserable, I wracked my brain. I had to think of a way to make him see reason. “You have to go. If you don’t, I won’t be able to live with myself.”
“Maggie—”
“I’m serious. Because what if something happens before the winter semester starts? Would you put it off then, too? People who put things off are just asking for something to happen, Marcus. And the universe is tricky that way. And if you didn’t go back, it would be all my fault.” I was on a roll. I barely noticed when he pulled the truck over to the curb and let it idle in neutral while he turned toward me.
“You’re being unreasonable.”
“No, I’m not. I’m telling you I don’t want that guilt to be on my head, hovering over me, waiting for something to go wrong.”
He sat there with his brows furrowed and a small, bemused smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You’re kind of a glass-half-empty person, aren’t you. Always waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
I couldn’t exactly disagree with him, at least not about that, so I didn’t say anything.
“Well, you don’t have to be.” He reached out and tugged at my fingers. “Nothing is going to happen.” When I opened my mouth to disagree, he shook his head. “Nothing. Look, the world isn’t a perfect place. Things happen—”
Yeah. Life. And worse.
“—but I prefer to think of them as challenges, not road-blocks. Just things that need to be worked around. That’s what our Guides are for. Ask and you shall receive. There is a way. A solution will come. You just have to be patient, have faith. Trust your Guides.”
I would have said more, but something wasn’t letting me. It might have been the voice of Grandma C quavering in my ear in a surprisingly authoritative tone. Considering the fact that she is, you know, dead. Deceased. No longer of this earthly domain. Moved on to bigger and better time zones in the sky.
You gotta trust somebody sometime, Margaret Mary-Catherine O’Neill. And since you won’t put your trust in God or his host of saints and angels, you might as well put your trust in me. You know I would never steer you wrong.
In my ear. Damn and double damn. I wished the voice would go back to being thought based. Somehow when it was within my head, it was a whole lot easier to imagine that it was probably just the voice of my conscience manifesting with my grandmother’s voice. Now I wasn’t so sure it
was
just my imagination. But if not that, what was it?
“All right,” I relented, trying for a smile. “I’ll try.”
“That’s my girl.”
 
 
Trying. What exactly did that mean?
I pondered that for the rest of the morning and into the afternoon while I puttered and clunked about at Enchantments. For a chronic worrier-slash-thinker-slash-overanalyzer like me, trying is exactly what trying proved to be. How was I supposed to just let him put everything aside for me and not wonder on a daily basis whether or not he was wishing he had just gone ahead with his plans? What if something happened to prevent him from going back after the fall semester? What if something happened to prevent him from going back at all? Wouldn’t he always wonder if he should have?
Must. Stop. Thinking.
From a shelf just overhead, Minnie made her agreement known with a soft murmur of a meow. I reached up absentmindedly and scratched her behind the ears, knowing she was right.
Maybe I was overthinking it. All of it. Maybe all I needed to do was to just cross my fingers and hope for the best as far as healing my ankle was concerned. Because if it was all good with my ankle, that meant life as Marcus had previously known it could get back on track.
Liss sensed my preoccupation and left me alone for the most part. It was for the better. Not even the scents of spiced pear tea and caramel apple cinnamon buns could lure me out of my guilt-induced preoccupation. I clumped around gloomily here and there on my crutches, halfheartedly dabbing at imagined specks of dust with a microfiber cloth even though I had just done the same spot hours before. Liss just watched me from over her half-moon glasses, quiet sympathy shining in her eyes, but like the wise woman she was, she kept her opinions to herself.
The shelves done, I moved on with a restless sigh to our sales counter and surrounding area. Not that it really needed it.
Respite came briefly when the phone rang just before one that afternoon. Liss had been walking past me with a pencil tucked behind her ear and a fresh cup of tea held aloft in one hand. She reached around behind me before I could even respond to the tweedling jangle of the phone.
BOOK: Home for a Spell
13.13Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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