Out Of This World (8 page)

I knew I was fortunate to have Sydney as a friend and I didn’t ever dig too deeply around the reasons she was always kind to me. I just accepted the blessed miracle, for that is what it was—a damned miracle.

†

“Come on, let’s head back to my Podunk town.” I grabbed her hand so we wouldn’t lose ourselves in the throng of people pushing and shoving inside the market. We walked hand in hand and eventually emerged to the less crowded street outside of the bustling tourist attraction.

I was surprised when it only took us ten minutes to navigate the streets of Seattle and make it back out to highway ninety. Although we slid over easily into the commuter express lane, it wasn’t necessary because the road was relatively clear. This was a true rarity, even on a Sunday afternoon. I wasn’t sure if this was a good or bad omen for us.

I turned up the stereo in my car connected via Bluetooth to my iPhone and effectively stopped any conversation for the ride back. As an over-the-top introvert, I’d conversed more with Celeste than I normally did with anyone in an entire year. I was done, exhausted. I needed to re-charge my energy. When we got back I’d need to play host to not one, but two beautiful women. It was almost beyond the realm of my abilities, but I was sure this was a once in a lifetime chance for me.

One of my favorite songs from a relatively unknown singer, Marie Digby, came on and I began to hum softly to the tune. The song,
Miss Invisible
, paralleled my high school experience. I looked over at Celeste and thought how odd that this fragile woman came into my life just like the boy in the song—out of the blue. The lyrics reverberated in the car,
then one day, just the same as the last, just a day spent in counting the time, came a boy who sat under the bleachers, just a little bit further behind.

Celeste just smiled at me and took my hand in hers. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to.

I felt cared for. I felt good. Someone had finally noticed me.

The time flew quickly, both of us humming to the music. My old car rolled up to my little cottage and I was oddly peaceful when I saw Sydney’s car in the driveway. Since traffic was clear on the way back, it had taken us less than ninety minutes to return home. We would have several hours of daylight left. I loved living in the Pacific Northwest in the late spring and summer because daylight stayed well into the evening.

Sydney was a far better friend than I deserved. All through school whenever she saw someone picking on me, she stepped right in the middle of it. Most of the time she would dispel the confrontation without harm, but on a few occasions, she simply punched her way out of it, ending up with a black eye for her efforts. I always felt guilty when she got hurt on my behalf, but eventually the bullies learned to hassle me when she was nowhere in the vicinity. Hollie was the worst of them and I never had the heart to tell Sydney that her on-again off-again girlfriend was the leader of the pack. I never understood why Hollie would even bother with me. I was a nobody. It just never made sense to me.

I thought back to when we were eleven years old and Tommy Harris pushed me into a puddle of mud. I sat there in the pool of sludge, crying and afraid to go home to explain about my soiled dress to my mom…

“Mabel mudbutt, Mabel mudbutt,” Tommy laughed.

Sydney barreled into Tommy, ramming him into a sister puddle much larger than the one he tossed me in.

“Shut up, Tommy butthole, before I shove your face into that pile of horse shit over there." Sydney pointed to the Olson’s field where they rarely picked up after their horse.

I blinked once.

She extended her hand to me. “You okay, Mabs?”

Tommy jumped up with his two fists clenched, pushed Sydney, and popped her in the nose.

Blood poured from her nose, but that didn’t stop her from doing exactly what she threatened to do. She pummeled his back while she shoved his face into a fresh pile of manure. He was crying by the time I pulled her off of him.

I put the sleeve of my dress up to her nose to try to stop the bleeding. “Aw, Sydney, look what he did to you. Why’d you do that? He hurt you.”

Sydney shrugged, pulled my sleeve away, lifted her t-shirt to her nose to stop of the flow of blood, and put her arm around my shoulder. “You’re my friend aren’t you? Friends stand up for each other. I know you’d do the same for me.”

That was the first black eye she received on my behalf. I never did come to her rescue. Mostly because she didn’t need me to, but a bigger part of it was my fear. I tried to fly under the radar. Sometimes it worked, a lot of times it didn’t. I tried to repay her kindness. I would offer homemade cookies and cakes that mom packed for me in my lunchbox. I saved all my desserts for Sydney. It was the least I could do. Most of the time she refused them, but on occasion the temptation was too great. Mom made the best desserts…

I shook my head and came back to the present. I saw someone part the blinds and peek out. I was on the verge of bolting, when Sydney opened the front door and waved at us with a smile on her face. I trusted Sydney so I figured the coast was clear for now.

†

It’s amazing what a false sense of security one has when barricaded in your comfortable space. My home was that comfortable space, even with the two guests that I felt I needed to entertain.

Celeste was carrying her prize possession from our daytime escapade—the ten dollar salmon she caught with her bare hands at the market. I pointed to the refrigerator and Celeste must have understood because she placed the fresh fish on the middle shelf where there was an empty space. I was looking forward to preparing a special dish that evening.

I still had the lilies in my hand so I reached for an empty vase that I had stored in a cabinet next to the stove. I didn’t bother to cut the ends because, honestly, I didn’t think it really made all that much difference. I filled the vase with water, plunked the flowers inside, and placed it on the kitchen island. I could already detect the sweet smell as I envisioned the flowers enveloping all of the stale air molecules hovering in the kitchen. I pulled the kitchen shears out of the junk drawer and proceeded to clip off the pollen so that Celeste wouldn’t obtain another mark on her face. I giggled again when I realized she still had two yellow stains on her face from earlier.

Sydney sat on the soft, moss green, ultra suede recliner in the living room and patiently waited for us to put away our bounty from the trip to Seattle. Celeste and I joined her on the matching sofa. Celeste grabbed my hand and I didn’t pull away. Sydney seemed to focus on our joined hands. Celeste had already dumped her ever present backpack next to the couch.

“Okay Sydney, what’s the full story? I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but you’ve never asked to stay here before when you and Hollie were fighting, so there must be something more you didn’t tell me over the phone.”

Sydney’s eyes never shifted their focus from our joined hands as she ignored my question and asked one of her own. “So, are you two an item now?”

“Bella has compatible energy to my own,” Celeste offered.

Okay that was not very helpful.

I knew I was directing my frustration at the wrong person, but I couldn’t help myself because I felt protective of Celeste. “Sydney, try not to judge please. Celeste is not doing anything harmful, so why can’t everyone leave her alone. I don’t care if she checked herself out of the hospital. She doesn’t want to go back and I want to help her, so either you help us or you can just get the hell out.”

Direct hit. Sydney blanched at my words and whispered, “I’m not judging. Sorry.”

I felt bad. She definitely never deserved my angry words. “No. I’m sorry, Sydney. That was uncalled for. Look, I don’t really know what our relationship is. I simply care for her and want to help.”

“Mabs, I’m on your side. I just don’t want you to get hurt. Hollie is being Hollie and she’s enamored with Greg. I’m fed up with her. This time I’m done. She didn’t even try to hide her flirtations. She is hell bent on helping Greg track you down.” Sydney offhandedly waved her hand at Celeste. “I don’t really need to stay at your place, I just wanted to be here to take you to my cabin. We can all crash there while we figure out what to do next. I suspect Greg will be here any moment to try to drag Celeste back to the hospital. Hollie has been very helpful with information about where you live and where you work.”

“Won’t he just come to the cabin when he doesn’t find us here?” I asked.

Sydney looked down. “Hollie doesn’t know about the cabin. I bought it on the sly six months ago when we started fighting again. I needed a place to go where she wouldn’t follow me and wear me down again. I’ve been fixing it up during the day when Hollie’s at work.”

“She is not your energy mate. Her energy is very negative. She will destroy your positive energy if you continue to try to be compatible,” Celeste offered.

“Celeste, you’re not helping.” I sighed.

“I don’t really know what you’re talking about, but we need to get to the cabin fast before they realize you’re back. I stalked off after I caught Hollie hanging all over Greg. She probably thought I was just taking one of my long hikes in the mountains, but when I headed back to the house, I saw a strange car in our driveway. I didn’t want to catch them in bed so I took off again. After ruminating over what I suspected was happening between them, I called Hollie. She and I had a screaming match over the phone. I told her I wasn’t coming home tonight. She had the nerve to say, ‘fine, I’ll just entertain our guest by myself then.’ You called about thirty minutes later while I was at the grocery store. Hollie can be
entertaining
for several hours, but I get the impression that after Greg gets his rocks off he’ll be heading straight here. Throw a travel bag together and we can head out. We can take my jeep. The roads are a bit rough up in the mountains and we’ll need the four-wheel drive.”

“What about work? I can’t ask you to drive me to work and pick me up every day. Besides, won’t Greg just follow me after work or something?” I shook my head. Our situation was hopeless. Greg was able to track Celeste all the way to Roslyn. Surely he would be able to find the location of Sydney’s cabin.

“Can’t you call in sick for a few days until we figure this out?” Sydney asked.

I’d never called in sick a day in my life. I came from healthy German stock and I had strict morals around work and reliability, but I’d never cared for anyone like I cared for Celeste. It was a dilemma, but I justified my deception because I was helping someone out.

“Okay.” It was just one word, but it said everything. Celeste was more important to me than my self-proclaimed integrity.

Sydney just nodded and I thought I saw a bit of sadness surface in her expression. I wasn’t sure what that was about, but I didn’t have time to contemplate what was going on in Sydney’s head.

I jogged back to my bedroom and pulled out a large overnight bag. I began tossing shirts, shorts, jeans, underwear, and my bag of toiletries that fortunately, due to my severe case of OCD, I’d amassed neatly in a clear plastic bag.

I had a thing about my shower case. I wanted all the things that made me clean arranged neatly in one location in case I ever needed to go out of town. I didn’t want to forget anything. I would religiously put them back into their little plastic bag and zip them up tight after every use. The bag included an impressive list of items: a second toothbrush, tube of toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, face and hand lotion, handmade soap, and chapstick. I didn’t wear much make-up, but I also had a second plastic bag for that in an equally organized manner.

I silently apologized to my shower and make-up bags after tossing them unceremoniously into the overnight duffel.

Celeste was watching me and I almost forgot about needing to retrieve a bag for her. I rummaged in my closet until I found my second overnight duffel and tossed it in her direction.

“Put all your new clothes and your toothbrush in that bag and grab whatever books you want to read and toss them in,” I directed.

She walked out of the room with the duffel in her hand.

A few minutes later, I was packed and ready to head out. I could hear noises in the guest bedroom and hoped that Celeste wouldn’t need any help. She came out of the room about ten minutes later and the bag looked full, so I let out of sigh of relief. For someone suffering from paranoid delusions, she was remarkably calm.

Celeste walked calmly to my bookshelf, scanned the titles, and plucked four from their cozy home in the bookcase. She unzipped her bag and carefully placed them on top before closing it back up. She grabbed her backpack and slung it over her free shoulder.

Gizmo had a sixth sense for when her mommy’s normal routine was different. She would weave in and out of my legs before stretching her paws up and meowing loudly. It was as if she were saying,
hey aren’t you forgetting something
.

“Crud, what about Gizmo. I can’t just leave her here all alone. She doesn’t understand. She’s not like other cats, you know, all aloof and snippy. She’ll definitely miss the people contact.”

“Um, I guess we can bring her along. I don’t have any cat food or a litter box, so we’ll have to grab those and bring them with us.” Sydney touched her hand to my arm and gently retrieved my bag to carry it out to the jeep. It was such a Sydney thing to do and I let the sweet gesture wash over me like one of those beautiful rain showers I bathed in with my Aunt on one of our
adventures
.