Seeing Trouble (2 page)

I scanned through the next bunch of pages, chuckling at my attempts to return to the dating circuit with a very obvious bump sticking out the front of me. It had been Natalie’s idea for me to get out, meet some new men, sniff out a potential father. The only thing I smelled in the dates was a lot of cologne and freakiness.

First, there was the fellow classmate who’d been shocked to learn I was pregnant—he’d just thought I was chubby because I ate like a 300-pound construction worker.

I still wince about the insurance salesman, who after learning why my belly stuck out so far had wanted to cover my baby bump with olive oil and rub his stubble-covered cheeks all over it. Before I shut my apartment door in his face for good, he tried to sell me whole life insurance.

Next came the serious college professor who looked like Magnum P.I. He turned out to be hiding his true age behind dyed hair, a glued-on moustache, and a fake tan. His gray chest hair gave him away, and his desperate fantasy to “bonk” a young female student went unfulfilled by me. My bonking days were long over.

Then there was the angry dentist, the possessed baker, and the narcissistic toy airplane maker. My life had turned into a disturbing nursery rhyme.

Around that time, I finally gave up on men and focused on my new job—Administrative Assistant at a local engineering firm. I decided to keep the babies, much to my family’s relief. Well, except for Psycho Susan, who suddenly found the spotlight shining on me and didn’t like it that I had toys she couldn’t take and mess up—they were attached by umbilical cords.

December 23rd
: Got fired today, one week before my probationary period was up. When I asked the HR rep what I did wrong, I was informed that my sister was caught making a pass at my boss when she came to visit me yesterday (I’d been at the doctor’s for my monthly checkup and Susan knew it). “What kind of pass?” I’d asked, explaining that my sister was a perpetual flirt. The kind involving her sitting on his lap in a dress sans her underwear. That was probably an accident, I explained straight-faced. Susan sometimes forgot she wasn’t wearing underwear—she never has worn them, claiming an allergy to elastic. The HR rep went on to explain that my boss accidentally had his pants down, too. Yikes! Needless to say, after being told that sisters are usually cut from the same cloth and reminded that I was an unwed mother with no baby-father in sight, I was given a week’s severance and asked to pack my things and join my boss at the unemployment office. Susan was at my parents’ place when I pulled in the drive. Had I been able to catch her, I might have given her a fat lip. Stupid waddle. She swears he came on to her first, and I think Mom even believes her. Criminy. Who is going to hire an almost 28-week-pregnant mother-to-be? I can’t even reach past my belly to the glasses in the kitchen cupboard anymore.

It turned out that the only place that would hire a 28-week-pregnant woman was a 24-hour gas and carryout store. I’d worked there for a full month before my father pulled me aside and begged me to have mercy on him and quit. The stress caused by thinking of his pregnant daughter all alone in a gas station every night had his blood pressure red-lining. I told him that I had to pay rent. He asked me to consider relocating to his basement. He and my mom had talked and agreed they would support me for the first six months of the kids’ lives, and then help with babysitting as I got rolling again. My eyes grew misty even now thinking about that conversation with him.

Teary-eyed, I’d told him I’d think about it, which I did three nights later after a red-eyed freak came into the gas station and asked if I needed a foot rub. When I turned him down, he asked if I’d rather practice making another baby. I quit the next morning. My brother moved me back home the following weekend before heading off to the Gobi desert—his next photojournalist gig.

I’d written a lot in my diary during my unemployment. I scanned through lines filled with deep thoughts about the kids, my life, and my aching feet and back. I also plotted revenge schemes, like making a voodoo doll that looked like the sperm donor and backing over it with my car or shaving Susan’s head while she slept.

Susan and I had managed to be civil during family dinners, but I stayed in my basement hideout whenever she came to visit the folks. Mom knew better than to ask me to be the bigger person. I was bigger. I was huge, in fact. But there was no way I could get past the crap Susan had pulled.

As Valentine’s Day neared, the thoughts in my diary grew darker, full of worries and anxieties over the two little watermelons that would soon need to be pushed out through a rather small opening in my body. I remember wondering what man would ever want me and my deflated body after the babies had come. Short of rubbing bacon all over my pulse points and wearing barbecued pork-rib earrings, I figured I’d be spending the rest of my life sans men.

February 9th
: Cool! I found this small box waiting for me at the table this morning with a card that had my name and a smiley face on it. Inside of the box was a necklace with a daisy pendant. The petals are made of little diamonds and the yellow center is a piece of amber or a yellow sapphire. It looks vintage. I’ll have to show it to Aunt Zoe; she’s going to love it. She digs this kind of jewelry. Oh, and it came with a matching ring—bonus! Mom and Dad are the best parents ever!

It turned out they were as surprised as I was by the necklace and ring. I asked all around, but the gift giver remained anonymous, everyone in denial. That should have been my first clue. I blame the pregnancy hormones for my stupidity.

I turned the page, knowing what came next, but caught up in the past anyway.

February 14th
: Guess where I spent the night, diary? In jail. Happy Valentine’s Day to me. That’s right, eight months pregnant, and there I sat in a damned jail cell. Granted it was only for a half hour before Mom bailed me out, but still—jail. Why, you ask, my dear diary? Because of my PSYCHO SISTER! What started out with me getting pulled over in my parents’ pickup for a taillight being out, turned into the truck being listed as stolen, which then became a VIN record check showing over a thousand
dollars-
worth of unpaid parking tickets and fines. To top it off, while I sat at the police station trying to convince them that I had nothing to do with any of this, one of the officers noticed my pretty new necklace and ring and showed me a photo of the very same pieces—reported stolen. Strike three. I went to jail. A half hour later, my mother dragged my sister into the station. She confessed to having reported my parents’ truck stolen seven months ago while she was borrowing it for a few weeks. One of her druggy ex-boyfriends had taken off with the truck for days and racked up all kinds of tickets on it. As for the jewelry, they were hand-me-down gifts from her as a way of apologizing for making me lose my job. She’d scored them from another loser boyfriend who’d ripped off a jewelry store weeks ago and bought her affection with them and other sparkly gifts.

That had been the last entry I’d made in the diary before I had my twins, the last entry period. That night, I’d gotten into a huge fight with Susan. I told her to never come near me again, and then I spilled the beans about something that still makes shame warm my cheeks.

With my stress level through the roof, I’d gone into labor—a month early. Hours later, the doctor pulled Addy out first and then Layne minutes later. I could still hear their teeny, tiny screeches.

Actually, I could hear them now as they fought with each other from opposite sides of the bathroom door.

“Addy!” I yelled loud enough for the tourists down on Deadwood’s historic Main Street to hear me. “Let him in to brush his teeth, dang it!”

I looked back at the diary, touching the picture I’d glued onto the page of both of them snuggled together in the little plastic heating bed. I flipped the page and straightened the wrinkled corner of a picture of Natalie—who’d held my hand through it all—snuggling both babies at once, her face split in a huge grin. The next page had a shot of Aunt Zoe leaning over me while I held my babies. She’d stayed with me in the room until I was cleared to go home and promised me that she’d always have room in Deadwood for all of us if we ever wanted to stay with her.

The poor woman, she probably rued that day now that we’d taken over her home.

“Mom?” Addy hollered, the sound of her footsteps coming toward my room.

I closed and locked the book, shoving it under my mattress for safekeeping before she stepped through the doorway.

“What do you need, Addy?”

She came in and sat on the bed next to me. “I’ve been wondering something.”

“What’s that?” I pulled her toward me, tucking her against my side. She smelled like bubble gum flavored toothpaste.

“How old were you when you wrote in that diary?”

“In my twenties.”

“Am I in there?”

“Yeah, at the end.”

“How come I can’t read it?”

I decided to be honest. “Because it takes place during a time in my life when I did something I’m not really proud of.”

“You mean getting pregnant with me and Layne?”

“No, Sweetie. It’s not that. I’m very proud of you two.” When she just stared at me with her golden brown eyes, so like her father’s, I explained. “I haven’t always been as nice as I am now.”

“When are you nice?” I poked her in the ribs, making her giggle. When she sobered, she asked, “Were you mean to someone?”

“Yes. Your Aunt Susan.”

“What happened?”

“I made her cry.”

“How?”

By telling her the family secret—that Dad would never love her like he loved me because she wasn’t really his daughter.

“I said something hurtful to her that I can never take back.”

“Is that why you two don’t ever talk?”

It’s part of the reason. “Yes.”

Addy was quiet for a moment. “Do you think you’ll ever love someone besides my dad?”

I never loved the jerk, but I didn’t mention that. “I already have—you and your brother.”

“What if my dad came back around and wanted to spend the rest of his life with you? With us?”

I’d probably end up at the Deadwood police station charged with assault and battery. “That’s not going to happen, Addy.”

She sighed. “Do you think I’ll ever find someone to spend my life with?”

“Well, there’s Layne.”

“He smells.”

“And Elvis.” Long live the King—or queen in this case.

“Mom, she’s a chicken.”

“And me.”

“Yeah, but you’re a smelly chicken.” She giggled again. “Will you let me read your diary someday?”

“Yeah, someday.”

“Coolio.” She hopped off the bed and slid in her stocking feet over to the door. “Elvis is lonely when I’m not home with her. Can we get a pet pig to keep her company?”

Nearly Departed in Deadwood Cover – Contender #1

Interview of Violet Parker

Following is an interview I had with Violet Parker before I began writing
Nearly Departed in Deadwood
. Sometimes I interview several of my characters, sometimes just one. For this book, since I was going to be solely in Violet’s head, I only interviewed her.

Enjoy,

Ann

*****

Tin Cup Café in Deadwood, SD

The morning sunshine has just crested the tree-covered hills overlooking Main Street, lighting the red brick road in an orange glow, creeping through the coffee shop’s front door. The air drifting through the open door still holds a breath of coolness, the sun’s rays haven’t heated the sidewalk to a boil yet. From the radio perched on the shelf over the bottles of flavored coffee syrups, Eric Clapton is singing
Willie and the Hand Jive
on the local station.

The smell of steamed coffee beans makes my mouth water. Unfortunately, they don’t have any soy milk on hand, so I’m shit-out-of-luck when it comes to a flavored latte. A big, burly axe-swinging type of a guy lumbers by me on the way to the counter, the century-old, scuffed wood floor creaks under his feet. In his wake, my Diet Coke can wobbles on the small, round table where I sit waiting for Violet Parker to join me.