A Storied Man

Bernie is a poverty-stricken woman whose life takes an unexpected turn when an old friend returns to town. This is The End.

Parts: 1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|The End

Related reading: Talk With a Killer, Wall

The End

“Are you sure this is the first place you want to go?” Shonda said.

Their eyes were locked onto a computer’s LCD monitor displaying various trips that had been booked and, for as many reasons, had been canceled last-minute. Shopping around that way, with neither of them tied to an office job, they could save money with spontaneity.

“Yes. No doubt in my mind,” Bernie said.

It had been an arduous three months, but with physical therapy and Shonda’s encouragement, Bernie had recovered physically. Breathing independently of the vent or any supplemental oxygen had come slowly, and because it used so much air, she spoke only for short periods at first.

Speaking up against Jeff Stivins had taken more than just rehabilitation. It had taken all of her courage, but because she had committed to not being the victim again, she held her head up and — for her brother, her dad, and her mom, chose life.

Her testimony had helped put Jeff Stivins away for more than one life sentence. Because he was an unpopular public figure, local judges and attorneys wasted no time getting him to trial. The defense had an appeal planned, but that would not stop Bernie.

“But it’s where your father died.”

“Yes, but he never finished seeing everything. I want to do it for him.”

Shonda clicked the mouse and leaned back in her Herman Miller Mirra chair. “Okay, I just booked it. The U.S. Virgin Islands. No turning back now.”

Bernie sipped Coke from a can and nibbled a Keebler Grasshopper cookie. “Have you already arranged the donation?”

“Just like you said, twenty-five percent of what we spend on every trip goes to the home for battered women and children. That has to be the strangest demand I’ve ever heard someone make before accepting a job,” Shonda said.

“I’m a strange woman.”

Shonda threw her head back and downed the last of a can of Diet RC. “It’s a good thing I’m a rich woman racked with guilt.”

“You know, there’s one more person I didn’t get to say ‘goodbye’ to yet,” Bernie said.

They drove to Pop’s One Stop.

Shonda wore a full, knee-length cotton skirt with a large flower print, a matching pink tank top and flip-flops. She grabbed Bernie’s hand and burst through the front doors, the bells above them announcing their arrival.

Bernie, clad in khaki capri pants and a bright blue, fitted tee shirt, liked the way her feet felt in the tan canvas slip-ons. Although she had not exactly moped around the previous spring, this time around she was much more upbeat.

She had good reason.

During her recovery, doctors had told her that only 15% of patients in a coma due to oxygen deprivation come away able to live independently. They attributed some of her remarkable recovery to the constant exercise and spare eating habits of her former lifestyle. A person less fit most likely would not have fared so well.

Finally, Bernie had overcome the odds and believed that not only did she have nowhere to go but up, but she actually had a good shot at getting there.

From behind the counter, Pop looked up from the quarter-folded Sun-Times and smiled at their arrival. He climbed slowly from his barstool and leaned down behind the counter, out of sight. He stood back up and set on the counter two plastic, gallon milk jugs full of water. “I saved these for you, Little Bernie.”

“Thanks, Pop, but you can just hang onto them,” Bernie said.

He looked back down at the newspaper’s crossword puzzle. “Four letters, means ‘liberated.’ Starts with ‘F.’”

Bernie is a poverty-stricken woman whose life takes an unexpected turn when an old friend returns to town. This is Part Twelve.

Parts: 1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|The End

Related reading: Talk With a Killer, Wall

Part Twelve

Bernie noticed that the nurse’s name badge said, “Judy.” She liked her, and even though she couldn’t say it, knowing her name took her one step closer to the real world. Right now, though, she wanted to know about someone else.

“Shonda?” Bernie wrote.

Judy nodded. “We all know Shonda. Tina should be calling her right now.”

Bernie smiled, then furrowed her brow. “Tina?” she wrote.

“Oh, Tina’s the other nurse on shift with me. Shonda wanted to know the minute you showed any sign of change, good or bad. She’s been real worried about you.”

Bernie let that sink in. It was a new feeling for her. Sure, she had a few people around town who helped her occasionally, but how many of them would worry about her if she just disappeared?

“She’s not the only one who’s been asking after you.” Judy opened a closet door to Bernie’s right; she hadn’t noticed it when it was closed. On the door hung what looked like a garment bag, but it was made of clear pockets large enough for greeting cards.

All of them were full. The cards bore messages ranging from “Get Well Soon” to “Thinking About You,” in greens, reds, blues, and other colors that helped add life to the room.

Bernie’s eyes watered. Her chin quivered and she shook enough to send tears spilling over her eyelids and streaming down her face.

A familiar voice came from the room door. “And you should have seen all the flowers at first.”

Bernie turned her head slowly. Shonda rushed over and set two cans of soda — a Coke and a Diet RC — on a table beside the bed. She laid a palm on Bernie’s forehead and pushed back a few straggling hairs. “I can’t believe you’re awake!” she said. “I tried to be calm, because they told us to if this happened, but dammit I want to jump around!”

“Go ahead, she seems fine,” Judy said.

Shonda stood and pumped her first while thrashing her head around. “Yeah! Yeah! Hell yeah!”

Bernie tried to laugh, but it didn’t work. She smiled wide instead.

Another nurse walked in. “Judy, the doctor is on her way.” Then, to Bernie, “Welcome back, Ms. Maven.”

Searching for some way to say, “Thanks,” from across the room, Bernie nodded and closed her eyes for a moment, then looked up at her and smiled.

Shonda straightened her blouse and pushed a few straggling hairs behind her ears. “Okay, I think that’s all of that for now.” She composed herself and her smile faded to a toothless grin. “You’ve been to Hell and back. As soon as you’re ready, we’re going to celebrate.”

“That’s going to be a while,” Judy said.

“Who saved me?” Bernie wrote.

“Our surgical team spent hours working on you, but no single person, really.”

Bernie shook her head and scribbled out more. “No. I was passed out in a shack.” She consciously wrote “a” instead of “my.” She motioned to Shonda to come read it.

“Who saved you from your shack?” Shonda said. “Glenda.”

Bernie’s eyes opened wide. “Not dead?” she wrote.

“Not even close. She was hurt, but she played possum. She figured if Nathan tried anything else on you, she would catch him by surprise, but after he left, she just picked you up and walked out to West Main to flag down a car. Tough lady.”

Nathan? Bernie’s heart raced. She tried to write a note saying it was Jeff.

“Calm down, Bernie. I can’t read that.”

“Her heart rate is 100 and her BP’s rising,” Judy said.

The other nurse rushed back into the room.

Bernie didn’t want to be drugged. She needed answers, so she tried to rein in her reaction. Why do they think it was Nathan?

“She’s leveling off,” Judy said. “There. I think she’s okay.”

Bernie fought to keep her hand still enough to write. “It was Jeff,” she wrote.

Shonda looked at it a moment, then seemed to comprehend. “No, sweetie, it was Nathan. Nathan Kern, from Pop Kern’s store. Glenda said she got a good look at him. Maybe you’re just getting confused because you’ve been out for so long, and Jeff was on your mind that night.”

“Confusion about the trauma is not unusual,” Judy said.

Bernie nodded and poked the notepad repeatedly. It was Jeff! It was Jeff!

“Jeff was with Jeremy at a movie,” Shonda said. “Look, I know I freaked you out a little bit when I told you all that stuff, but Jeff could never do that to you. He was into you. Besides, you know Nathan’s had it out for you since high school. When we saw him at the store that day and he saw you doing better, it must have pushed him over the edge.”

But you told me you thought staying away from Jeff was a good idea. Stupefied, Bernie closed her eyes.

“I can’t believe you almost died, Bernie,” Shonda said. “I died twice, but the doctors brought me back to life with toothpaste and extracted the devil from my rectum.”

“We do have excellent surgeons,” Judy said.

They both smiled with mouths somehow too wide, and sinister, unblinking eyes.

“Whatsa matter, Bernie, vent got your tongue?” Shonda said and laughed maniacally.

I must be dreaming. Please, somebody wake me up!

“Ms. Maven, can you hear me?” said a voice she did not recognize.

Bernie opened her eyes. A woman, maybe 50 years old, leaned over her and shined a penlight in her eyes. Bernie squinted.

Behind the woman, the same painting of a flowery field hung on the wall. “In case of emergency, press red call button,” was printed on the sign beneath it.

How much of that was a dream?

Her muscles tense, she turned her head. Shonda sat in a chair reading a book called Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune. On the table, next to two sodas, was another book, its cover advising, Fly Free, Stay Cheap.

Bernie tapped the bed rail.

Shonda looked up. “Hey, you’re awake,” she said and put both hands around one of Bernie’s. “You think you might stay awake this time? You’ve been in and out all day.”

Unsure how much had been real, Bernie looked over to the closet door. The greeting cards still were there.

“I wanted to tell you that I’m really sorry about what happened to you. I just can’t believe it.” Shonda said.

Bernie relaxed. “Glenda?” she wrote.

“You remember that Glenda was there? She saved you. Somehow dragged herself and you to the foreman’s trailer. Thank God he was there doing some paperwork. Glenda insisted he help you instead of her. So, he used whatever first aid and CPR skills he had and kept you alive until the EMT’s got there. By then, Glenda was dead. Poor thing.

“With her gone, the police had nothing to go on. Somebody told them there was animosity between you and her, so at first they thought you two had been in a fight. Do you remember what happened?”

“Jeff did it,” Bernie wrote.

Shonda jerked her hands away from Bernie and put them on her horrified face. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I never should have let you out of the car that night.” She grabbed Bernie’s hand again. “I tried to tell Jeremy it might have been Jeff, but he wouldn’t listen. He started to believe me a couple weeks later, though.

“After Jeff went back to Curtiston, he had a blowup with a man who was trying to force him out of office. The guy turned up dead and someone reported seeing somebody who looked like Jeff leaving the scene. Now he’s sitting in Lawson County Jail waiting to be transferred for trial. I’m sure the prosecution will want to hear your story, as soon as you feel up to it. That sick son of a bitch.”

Bernie squeezed Shonda’s hand and wrote, “I will tell them everything.”

Bernie is a poverty-stricken woman whose life takes an unexpected turn when an old friend returns to town. This is Part Eleven.

Parts: 1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|…

Related reading: Talk With a Killer, Wall

Part Eleven

Bernie felt she was being carried, cradled like a baby. Warm air hit her face in short, rhythmic bursts — is that someone breathing? — but she couldn’t open her eyes. Cold and pain wracked her body, and then all feeling disappeared.

——-

Now she was lying on her back, dull pain in her chest and an unfamiliar fullness in her mouth and throat. She felt like she was suffocating.

Her arms felt like lead, and she realized when she tried to lift them that her wrists were restrained. Unable to draw her own breath, she broke out in sweat and her heart raced. She arched her back and then felt restraints on her ankles, too.

She tried to shout, “Help!” but got nothing, not even a hoarse yell. Her hearing aids were not in.

A nurse rushed over with a syringe and injected it into a tube leading into an IV. Bernie’s vision faded and everything went dark.

——-

A dull ache came from the base of her throat. Tiled drop ceiling loomed overhead. The unnatural smell of hospital washed over her, but when she tried to hold her breath, somehow she was still breathing.

Where am I? What’s going on?

She tried to speak, but nothing came out, not even her own voice vibrating inside her head. Her breathing was fast and she had no control over it. She just wanted to breathe. She reached up and grabbed the tube that seemed to be coming out of her throat, and yanked it hard.

Her lungs stopped filling without her consent, but something wasn’t right. She couldn’t get a full breath. A light flashed in her peripheral vision.

She sobbed and felt her heart pounding. Her mind raced with questions. Why did Jeff attack me? Is Glenda dead? Where is Shonda?

Suddenly three nurses surrounded her, two holding down Bernie’s arms. On all their faces she saw surprise, delight, concern, and determination. They were working quickly, apparently toward a common goal. One, who said more than the others and seemed to be in charge, re-attached the tube Bernie had pulled. The only thing Bernie could read from her lips was, “bee pee.”

The leader’s hand shot out and held open each of Bernie’s eyes in rapid succession, pausing only to flood each with blinding white light. She nodded to one of her colleagues and said something Bernie could not hear.

A nurse held up a syringe, pushed the air bubbles out, and turned her back to Bernie. No, not again. Her eyes fluttered closed.

——-

Bernie woke up uncomfortable and confused. She didn’t know if she had been dreaming. Did Jeff stab me? With a hazy memory from an earlier episode, she fought the urge to panic.

She couldn’t remember the medical term, but she knew there was a breathing tube inserted directly into her neck. Her mind pulled up George Clooney on “ER” blowing into the end of a Bic pen he had inserted into a boy’s neck.

She licked her lips. It had never felt so good.

Where is everybody? She tried to say, “Hello,” but nothing came out.

Her pulse quickened, but still she managed to keep herself from panicking.

In rushed a young woman, maybe 30 years old, with dirty blonde hair cropped level with her jawline. She wore dark green scrubs and white SAS shoes. A stethoscope draped over her neck.

She flashed Bernie a wide, welcoming smile. Clumps of mascara clung to her eyelashes and her rouge verged on clown makeup. Bernie read “Ms. Maven,” from her lips, but the rest was gibberish, so she just stared at her and tried to pick out her words.

The nurse grabbed her hand and started patting it. “Ms. Maven,” and then more words Bernie could not decipher. She put her hand under Bernie’s and pooched her lips out for what must have been a meaningful word, but looked silly in silence. Bernie just stared as the woman’s smile faded.

The nurse pulled out a stubby penlight from her scrubs chest pocket and punched a button on the end. She took aim, point blank, at Bernie’s eye and temporarily blinded her with white light. Then she did the other eye.

Again the woman moved her mouth as if speaking, and still Bernie had no idea what to do or say in response. Frustrated and aware that her caregiver was concerned, she lifted her arm and pointed to her own ear.

Relief swept over the nurse’s face. She walked over to a drawer and pulled out a zippered plastic bag that held Bernie’s hearing aids. She flipped the tiny switch on each and carefully inserted them into Bernie’s ears, then backed up so Bernie could see her face.

It was faint, but Bernie heard the ventilator as it inhaled.

“I forgot about those. Can you hear me?” she said.

Bernie nodded slightly, but this time resisted the urge to speak.

“Good. Now, don’t try to talk too much yet. We’ll see about unhooking the vent from that tracheostomy and getting you some water. That should help. Then, we’ll work on talking. Now, can you squeeze my hand?”

Bernie did.

“Good. What is one plus one?”

Bernie folded down all but two fingers on her right hand.

“Very good. You can hear me and you seem to understand me. I’m sure you have a million questions right now, but I can only tell you what I know about you medically. Do you want to hear it now?”

Bernie nodded.

“You were stabbed, and the knife hit a lung and an artery. You lost a lot of blood, but the surgeons were able to help. You’ve been out for about a month, and it’s good to finally see your eyes.”

The young woman bustled about checking monitors and charts. Despite all the technology in the room, she gently turned Bernie’s arm palm-up and laid two fingers on her wrist to check her pulse. She pulled a blood pressure cuff from a drawer and strapped it around her upper arm, then rapidly squeezed the black bulb. The cuff tightened.

Bernie’s memory flashed back to Jeff’s strong grip on her arm as she cocked it to throw a bottle at Glenda. He had been firm, but not malicious. Later, in her shack, although he had meant to kill her, he had not seemed angry. Instead, he was frighteningly calm as he worked to — what had he said? To add her soul to his collection?

“Oh, you have goosebumps. Are you cold?” the nurse said.

Bernie slowly shook her head. Recalling anything right now was like looking through thick fog. She heard the rip of Velcro as the nurse released the blood pressure cuff.

She thought she could move enough to write. She made a pinch gesture and mimed handwriting motion. The nurse stepped back over to the drawers.

Carefully, Bernie turned her head to the left. A door stood between two windows, drapes wide open to reveal a white hallway. To the right, painted white drywall stared back. In front of her was the same, except for a sign and a painting of a flowery field.

The flowers were yellow and orange and comprised the bottom half of the painting. Across the middle was a line of trees of varying heights, a white farmhouse among them. In the distance stood a mountain range of rolling hills. Above it all was a blue sky with soft white clouds.

The sign below it read, “In case of emergency, press red call button.”

She lay there thinking that she should have pushed a big red button a long time ago. Scared that nobody would answer, instead she had languished in her grief and lingered in a damaging environment. Leaving behind all that she had known, the good and the bad, had never seemed possible.

Then came Shonda. Where is she?

“Here’s that pen and paper. That’s what you wanted, right?”

Bernie nodded and opened her fingers to accept the pen. The nurse gently placed it in her hand and set down a pad of paper bearing the name University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Bernie is a poverty-stricken woman whose life takes an unexpected turn when an old friend returns to town. This is Part Ten.

Parts: 1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|…

Related reading: Talk With a Killer, Wall

Part Ten

Bernie sighed, feeling frustrated and, for the first time since she had become homeless, devoid of control. Unless she wanted to risk severe injury, she was Shonda’s captive until the car stopped. Her life to that point hadn’t been ideal, but it had been hers.

If you work this right, then you won’t ever live on the streets again.

What did Shonda mean by that? What grand plan had she and her husband concocted? Was Jeff involved?

She wasn’t sure of anything, and that was what worried her. On top of everything else that had happened since she woke up that morning, it looked like it wouldn’t be Trout Day, after all. She hadn’t missed Trout Day in two years, since that time Glenda had ruined it.

She sat and wondered how crazy it would be to ask Shonda to turn the car around and drop her off at her shack on Searcy Street, or after they arrived at the Red Apple Inn, to politely thank her for the clothes, change back into her own, and walk away. Or should she have her date with Jeff and just see if it led anywhere?

The car glided along the two-lane highway, where an old familiar sight jarred Bernie into the past. Without any reason to travel that direction, and no easy way to get there, she had almost forgot about the cemetery that held her grandparents from her father’s side. Guilt washed over her as the headstones blurred past. She didn’t feel any closer to them at their graves than at their former home or on the opposite side of the world, but being there had been important to them, and not once had she gone to visit.

Bernie tried to think of nothing as they entered Eden Isle, the realm of mostly retirees who had moved there from out of state for the cheap taxes and low cost of living. It also served as home to The Red Apple Inn and its attached 18-hole golf course. Shonda slowed at the gatehouse and mumbled something to the man inside.

They turned left and headed up a forested hill. Undisturbed pine woods on the right stood in contrast to the opposite side of the road, where a break in the woods revealed a lush, finely manicured green. Golf carts flashed in and out of pine trees’ long shadows traversing the cross-cut fairway.

At the top of the hill the trees broke and Bernie saw more of the golf course on the left, the Red Apple Inn on the right.

“I wasn’t supposed to meet Jeff until seven,” Bernie said.

Shonda turned to Bernie as she pulled into the Inn’s pea gravel parking lot. “That’s okay. It’s 5:30 already. We can go to the bar and have a few drinks.”

“Is it a noisy bar? Because I won’t be able to hear you if it is.”

“No, it isn’t that kind of bar,” Shonda said. “Very laid back.”

“This is so weird,” Bernie said. “I haven’t been to the Red Apple since prom.”

Shonda guided the car into an open spot between two SUV’s. “I used to come here every Easter. After church my dad treated us and my cousins’ family to lunch. Then we all grew up and my grandmother couldn’t get comfortable at a restaurant. We just drove through Eddie’s Taco House and ate at her kitchen table.”

“That’s a switch,” Bernie said. “That was more my family’s speed.”

“Yeah, well, there were things I liked better about both. After I moved away and got married, I liked any chance I got to spend time in her house.”

Bernie thought of what would happen to her when she got older. As her body started to falter, wandering around town scrounging for survival would cease to be an option. Who would bother to bring food to her? Nobody would look forward to visiting whatever ramshackle place served as her home.

With those ideas filling her head and even darker thoughts lurking, she decided to see the evening through. She would go on her date with Jeff (is it really a date?) and hear what Shonda and Jeremy had to say. Waking up on a dirt floor started to feel a lifetime away.

Bernie at first had trouble walking, ankles wobbling as the new boots crunched the gravel.

“Those heels aren’t high, Bernie. Come on,” Shonda said.

“They’re pretty high when all you have are sneakers.”

Bernie remembered from school that the Inn was designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. Built of large, lichen-mottled gray stones from the surrounding area and hugged by towering trees, it almost seemed to belong on the hillside. It fit Wright’s idea that a structure should be “of the hill, not on the hill.” Austere rather than ostentatious, the Inn’s design made it both notable in the field of architecture and a standout among its modern country club peers.

Or at least that’s what she remembered from class.

To Bernie, it looked like a structure at a state park. Functional, not fancy, and very attractive to native dirt dauber wasps. The perfect place to eat cold casseroles prepared by distant relatives seen once a year.

Though tables were available, they sat at the bar. Bernie was reminded of Whitaker’s soda fountain. Shonda ordered a Tom Collins, and after Bernie followed suit they caught each other up on what they had been doing since high school.

For his part, the bartender kept the drinks coming.

Shonda’s path, though much smoother than Bernie’s, sounded mind-numbingly boring. She got through most of her college education before finally giving in to Jeremy’s oft-repeated marriage proposals. Two years ahead of them in school, he already was out making good money when Shonda’s senior year started.

Bernie swallowed a big sip and held up one finger as she pulled her drink from her mouth. “Define ‘good money,’” she said.

“Don’t be one of those ‘root of all evil’ people. Earning a living is a worthy ambition. Besides, we see each other a lot. It’s not like he’s gone all the time.”

Shonda had finished college and established a successful career as a financial analyst, but recently quit her job. “I’m just not sure what I want to be when I grow up,” she said.

“So, you weren’t making ‘good money,’” said Bernie, making quotes with her fingers as she finished.

“Okay, okay. Point taken. Bartender! Two more Tom Collins, please.”

Bernie never had taken advantage of anyone who was drunk, but she figured this was a good time to start.

“So, tell me about Jeff. I could have sworn that you said the police didn’t believe he killed that man in self-defense.”

“Well, that’s a complex issue. Jeremy said that’s how it started, but by the time Jeff stopped stabbing, he could have killed the man 10 times over.”

Bernie set down her drink. “I never heard that.”

“Well, even though a cop saw Jeff and Jeremy coming out of the building, by the time the body was found nobody could be sure exactly when the man had been killed. But Jeremy told me everything. Jeff was defending him, alright, but he practically shredded that homeless man.”

The bartender set two new drinks in front of them. Shonda took two quick gulps while Bernie pushed hers away.

“Shredded?” Bernie said.

“He had brought along his favorite pocket knife, and even after he got the guy to let go of Jeremy with the first stab, Jeff pinned him down and just started hacking. Then he stayed there leaning over him for a couple minutes.”

“Maybe he panicked. You know? The adrenaline from seeing his brother in danger.”

“That’s what I prefer to believe.”

“He seems nice,” Bernie offered weakly.

“Perfect gentleman in all respects. Even got himself elected mayor of a small town in northwest Arkansas.”

“Still, I don’t think I can be alone with him after hearing that.”

“Good thinking,” Shonda said, then took a bite of the orange wedge from the side of her glass. “I believe I’m getting drunk.”

Bernie picked a peanut, still in its shell, from a nearby bowl. She cracked it between her thumb and index finger and peeled off the thin, red skin around one of the nuts. Although she wanted to hear more about Jeff, there was another important matter at hand.

“Please, tell me why you brought me here,” Bernie said.

Shonda turned her hand palm up. “I’ll need one of those first, please.”

Bernie’s rough, dry fingers set a nut in Shonda’s supple palm.

“Jeremy’s gonna be pissed.” Shonda sighed and tossed the peanut into her mouth. “At first I was just glad to see you, and it hurt me to see you living on the streets. I wanted to see an old friend, maybe feed you a nice meal.”

Bernie stood.

Shonda grabbed her arm. “No wait. That sounded bad. Sit back down. Okay, now. As soon as I got back in the car, I told Jeremy I had seen you. He remembered who you were. I wanted to do something that would really make a difference, because back in high school after Kenneth tried to –”

“You believed me?” Bernie recalled the knowing look on teenaged Shonda’s face.

“Believed you? My dear, I went through it myself. I just wish I had been on the edge of a cliff. Then he never could have tried the same thing with you.”

“He tried to rape you, too?”

“He succeeded, if you can call something like that a success. I didn’t tell anybody because I wasn’t sure that was what it was, and he was so popular I didn’t want to put my word against his.”

“How awful. I’m so sorry,” Bernie said.

“You’re the one who caught the worst of it. I felt guilty because I could have told you not to go out with him, but I didn’t.”

“We didn’t really hang out back then.”

“Stop being so sweet, Bernie. That was no excuse.” She took another swig. “He ruined your life, and I didn’t speak up to help you. I had worked for years to push it out of my mind. And then, today, to see you living like that… I just…”

Tears streamed down Shonda’s face and dripped into her drink.

Bernie laid a hand over Shonda’s. “Bartender, could we have some more bev naps over here, please?” she said.

Shonda mopped up her face. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just so sorry for everything you’ve been through.”

“Don’t apologize. We were kids back then. Lots of things change. Not all of the right things sometimes, but we’re here talking now. That’s new.”

“We came up with a plan. Well, I did, but Jeremy seemed okay with it. I told him I want to start my own business, and I knew you had managed your husband’s company for a while.”

“But you said that you didn’t keep up with the hometown much.”

“When I heard you were married and running your husband’s business, I thought you were doing okay. I didn’t have anything else back here to worry about, and I kind of stopped asking about you. Part of me didn’t want to know if something had gone wrong again.

“Anyway,” Shonda continued, “I told Jeremy I thought I could hire you to be my business manager.”

“For a business doing what?” Bernie said.

Shonda drew the tiny plastic sword from her drink and sucked the cherry off the end. “Writing travel books. I’ve always wanted to travel, and I’ve published a few freelance articles on other topics. But mine would have a twist. I would write guides for people who don’t think they can afford to travel. I would help them tuck away money here and there, and then get by on as little money as possible once they arrive at their destination. That’s where you come in.”

“Well, I’m damn sure the expert on that. I live rent-free and I don’t pay utilities at all. Cable companies don’t know I exist, and I don’t have a car payment or insurance premiums. Everybody wants to be me.”

“Don’t make fun. I might be tipsy, but I can kick your ass. I listen to Mozart while I do Tae Bo.”

“Oh, God, I haven’t heard that song in ages. Please keep it that way. So, how does my hearing problem fit into all this?”

“I’ll do most of the talking. So, what do you say, Bernie? You want to be my business manager, slash research assistant, slash travel buddy?”

“What’s the catch?”

“You can’t have anything tying you down, and at first you have to be willing to work in exchange for having all your expenses paid.”

“Check, and check.” Bernie said.

“Does that mean you’ll do it?”

Bernie grabbed her drink and slid it closer. “Yes, I will. There are a few things I need to wrap up here, a few folks I need to say goodbye to. Almost everybody wants nothing to do with me, but a few have kept me going. I don’t want them to think I just died or something horrible like that. If you could take me to the fish hatchery, I can get started tonight.”

“The fish hatchery?”

“Long story.”

Shonda called Jeremy and told him they would have dinner later, and asked him to pass Bernie’s apology to Jeff for breaking their date. “Well, he’s just going to have to be disappointed,” she said.

Bernie told Shonda about Trout Day while they drove back through town and up to the north side, just across Greers Ferry Dam. “Bill pulls out a nice, big trout for me every time he works security out there. He never knows more than a week in advance where he’ll be working. Then I just go over to one of the campsites at Dam Site Park and cook it up. Delicious.”

“See, that’s the kind of thing I need for my guides.”

“It’s not exactly legal,” Bernie said.

“Well, we might have to adjust slightly, but the spirit’s there.”

Bernie started to see the potential of their partnership. She never thought that her experience living on the streets would turn out to be lucrative. A voice inside her head suggested she slow down and bit and consider everything more carefully, but it sounded a lot like the one that told her she never could survive if she left Heber Springs.

After bidding Bill and Trout Day goodbye, she rode with Shonda to Lockard’s, to thank Jim Flanagan for letting her eat in exchange for the occasional odd job. “I’d like to walk to my place from here,” Bernie said.

“Why?” Shonda said.

“I’d rather nobody see it.”

Reluctantly, Shonda agreed to meet her back at Lockard’s in an hour.

The night air was cold, but the borrowed sweater and the brisk walk warmed Bernie. Like a schoolgirl, she giddily crossed a steel conduit over Town Creek, arms outstretched to keep her balance. She saddened as she walked through the parking lot of the dilapidated shell of Town and Country, the first place she remembered going grocery shopping with her parents. Despite all the pain she had suffered through the years, the town held happy memories, too.

On the same side of the road were more buildings she once knew well but that for years had been filled with businesses quite different from those she had frequented. To one, her mother used to take her once a month to choose a ceramic figure to paint. She first rented a video in the place next door.

The first place she pumped gas, the first restaurant she remembered. The only place she ever bought a car.

After turning down Searcy Street, she almost skipped as she made her last walk to her last shack. The bulldozers had crept closer since that morning, their indifferent destruction now within 25 yards of her achingly humble abode.

Bernie opened the door and let the construction trailer’s yellow sulfur light shine on the opposite wall and her makeshift bed. It all seemed unbelievable. Would she really never sleep on the ground again, unless by choice?

She set a rock against the door to keep the spring from slamming it shut, and then stepped inside.

A strong arm wrapped around her from behind and pinned her arms while a hand clapped over her mouth. Something struck the back of her legs, buckling them and sending her to her knees. Her attacker followed her down.

A familiar man’s voice said, “You broke our date, so I had to drop in unannounced. You offer something unique, Bernice. You have killed, yet did so accidentally. Oh, the torment I will feel from your soul as it courses through me. It promises to be more rewarding than any of the others.”

Others?

He took his hand off her mouth.

Pain pierced her back and ran through to her chest.

She got one knee off the ground and pushed off with that foot. They both fell backward, Bernie landing on top.

“Oh, yes, fight it. That will only enhance my experience,” Jeff said.

Bathed in yellow light, Bernie saw a shadow move across the wall. She turned her head toward the door. There stood a tall, dark figure in perfect Silhouette. Behind it was the distinct shape of a wagon.

“Glenda, help!” Bernie screamed.

The large woman rushed in and easily picked up Bernie, then pushed her aside. She turned and squinted at the light to find Jeff, but jerked back suddenly and fell onto Bernie’s sleeping pad.

“Glenda!” Bernie shouted. Glenda twitched a few times and then stopped moving.

Bernie felt dizzy and weak, like the time she gave blood at noon without having a meal that morning. She tried to will her body to stand, but she could only slowly collapse next to her former nemesis.

“Oh, this is a nasty wrinkle. You shall help me press it out, Bernice.”

Bernie was too weak to move, and her vision was blurring.

Jeff grabbed a corner of Bernie’s tattered blanket and wiped the knife down. He used it to hold the knife as he pressed it into Glenda’s hand, and then left it in Bernie’s and closed her fingers around the handle.

He said something, but she couldn’t quite make it out and couldn’t read his lips. He sat there waiting, staring her down until her eyes blinked open only once every — how long was it? She couldn’t tell.

Jeff stood and walked to the door. His shadowed form waved as it kicked away Bernie’s doorstop.

The light went out.

(to be continued)