ND 3

I felt defeat. My eyelids were heavy, but my thoughts were fully formed and my speech was still intact. I wasn't beyond the ability to drive further into the night, toward a safe place to sleep, preferably with a friendlier face than the stuffed shirt who stared at us while we each formed an opinion about what to do next.

L sat on the loveseat across from the desk. She sighed and said, "The Lord provides."

The stuffed shirt's eyes widened. You could see the flicker of recognition light up his face.

"That he does," he said. He pulled a phone book from behind the counter and handed it out toward me. I resented the assumption that I was a believer; that because my traveling companion had made mention of her faith, I must share the same compulsion. I resented that it took a reference to the popular deity to get the man, who by all means should have been kind to us before because it was his job, to be nice and helpful to two lone travelers on a dark road in a foreign state. If he was a Christian, then wasn't it his duty to be kind in the first place? I felt myself start to seethe a little. Instead, I took the phone book.

"You'll have to drive on into Minot," he said, pronouncing it "My-not." I'd been saying, "Minnow" since I saw the word on the map. Hearing it said aloud by people who'd been there gave me a sliver of insight into what the place was like. French words Americanized meant one thing. I knew it closer to home in Kentucky. Versailles was "Ver-sales." It was deflating, but at least a little more familiar. Like my anger.

ND 2

We pulled over at a local motel. There was a bar attached. Before either of us even checked the front desk to see if there was a vacancy, I went straight to the restroom. L wandered into the bar.

I looked at myself in the dim light, poorly reflected against dirty white walls. I felt very far from Los Angeles, but closer, right then, to home. I looked tired, but not like myself. My hair was short and my stomach rounder than usual. Once I'd made the decision to leave LA, I started to fill up and fast. I ate all the food. I stopped pacing myself. Instead of a night out for cuban chicken one week and an Indian food feast the next, I started packing them in night after night. By the time I started to drive east, my favorite jeans didn't fit. But, that seemed fitting.

L was standing outside the door, scowling at the petite blond bartender. The girl's eyes were far apart, practically on the sides of her face, and when she turned to look at me, she seemed to be glancing far behind me. Then she scoffed.

"What?" I said.

L shrugged. "She did the same thing to me," she said. "I asked her what was on tap and that's the answer I got."

We walked back into the lobby where the night manager was stood and looked at us. He didn't say "welcome." He didn't say "hello." I was less than a week gone from working for one of the top hotel brands in the industry and this guy couldn't greet two potential guests.

"We'd like a room," I said.

He shook his head. "No," he said. "All booked."

I didn't understand how a motel off an interstate could be booked on a weeknight. There weren't many cars in the parking lot. We'd been one of three people in the bar. I made a face, and the manager sighed.

"The owner of the gas station's wife passed away and everyone's in town for the funeral," he explained.

L and I looked at one another. She sat down on the brown sofa in the lobby. Everything in the room was brown. The light was brown. The mood was brown. The night manager's eyes were brown.

It's true that I was headed home, to live near the small town in which I'd grown up. I'd traveled far and wide. But I'd never felt as foreign as I did in that unfriendly motel off the 2 in North Dakota.

ND One

It was dark when we crossed the state line into North Dakota. At least, that's how I remember it: out of Montana and into the night. The road seemed to narrow and the landscape widened and our headlights were wholly inadequate to show us what lied ahead.

We kept driving without any idea whether or not we'd stop. I suggested an overnight haul straight through the state. But, my eyes grew heavy and orange barrels and road construction made the narrow road feel smaller, scarier, something almost impossible. We stopped at a gas station to study the map because the dashboard light was too dim to illuminate a useful route. We were still on the 2, that much we knew for certain. We did not deviate. The plan was to continue on. It was a straight shot in the dark, but with pesky orange cones peppering the way. I thought we could get through it. I thought we could make it all the way to Minnesota and skip a night in the wide, blank state between destinations that I cared about.

Ultimately, it was my bladder and my terrible night vision that made us stop. We'd gone to the sun and came back down and then spent the day driving further and further away from the glory. When we stopped at a motel off the only exit for miles, we were about as far away from anything majestic as two girls could get.

WSHB One

When I was sixteen years old, I stood on a bridge near the city limits line and watched a small, street-sign be unveiled by the mayor. He was gregarious man who enjoyed his status and his accessories. He was easily recognizable by the sash he wore constantly, embossed with the word "Mayor." It was the middle of the day, and the "Sash Mayor," as some people called him, had commissioned the road signs for all the ways in and out of the city. I was there with a journalist from the community newspaper. I was a senior in high school and participating in a program in which I shadowed the journalist. She was sent to cover the signs. I went with her. We stood on a bridge near the city limits line with the mayor in his sash and a sign that said, "Welcome to Portsmouth, Ohio. Where Southern Hospitality Begins."

I read the sign and for the first time was aware of the slogan that spoke volumes about the town. I remember thinking, "Huh," when I first read it. It seemed just about right.

By the time I saw the sign, I'd been through the South several times. Every family vacation was spent walking a battlefield or a cemetery or both. On our way to Florida, we stopped to see cousins in Alabama. I read a lot of southern literature. Carson McCullers especially interested me. She seemed to know what life was like in towns like mine. People were lonely, they projected personalities onto you, they were odd and twisted and sometimes kind.

I loved the grand decay of the South. I loved the preserved houses - both grand and average. I loved the manners. I was too young to understand the underlying issues of class and race...that would come later. I saw that sign and I started comparing. I had a small inventory of southern values...

This or That Path

I was torn. I was at that point, that space at the tip of the crevice between two paths. It's not a crossroads. It's two roads diverged. That's where I was: standing there looking at one and slowly rolling my eyes across the divider to look at the other. While I studied each, I started to get tense. I could feel my hostility in the knots in my neck. I was only mad at myself, either for allowing myself to have choices or for not being able to make a choice when faced with two fairly decent prospects.

I could stay in Los Angeles and work in hotel development. I could move back to southern Ohio and teach at the university near my hometown. In one scenario, my relatively new interests in architecture and planning would be indulged. In another scenario, I'd be teaching - which is what, according to almost every professor in my MFA program - a serious writer is supposed to do. To go down the hotel development path was to give up on my dream of writing.

Maybe I was really angry with myself not over having choices, but letting voices from my graduate writing program plant the teaching equals serious writing notion in my head in the first place.

Maybe I was really angry with myself because I wasn't really writing, and I knew that was the only way to be a serious writer. I had to do the thing. I had to do the work. Instead, I was huffing and puffing over which path would provide me the most time to write - and the most material. Among other things. I let the choice be a distraction. Which was really another path altogether.

When I felt uneasy or uncertain, I usually bothered one person in my life. I left work early and drove over to Noel's apartment. I didn't call ahead, which said a lot about how I was feeling. We were the type of people who made plans in advance. We didn't interrupt one another's time. It was too jarring. But this time, I already felt jarred, so I just walked up to the stoop and knocked on the door.

It was four o'clock and Noel was still in his bathrobe. He opened the door, saw it was me, and swiftly shut the door before I even had the screen door open to step in. I took a breath and opened the screen door, the front door and stepped inside. Noel was sitting on the couch, remote back in his hand. I walked over and sat at the other end of the couch and started in.

"I have two options," I said.

He glanced over at me before fixing his eyes on the television screen. Light poured through the window behind the TV, and it made the fixture look like it had a halo. It glowed. I continued.

"Remember that article I read about placemaking?" I asked.

"Sure," eyes on the glow.

"Well, it turns out that there's a division at work that collaborates with cities on transforming old, historic buildings into new, updated hotels."

Noel nodded, eyes on the glow.

"I could work for that division. I could do it. I think it would be highly satisfying."

He nodded.

"Or," I said. "I have this chance to move back to southern Ohio to live in a farmhouse with L. for a year. I could teach at the university."

He sighed.

"I could work in development and help determine the shape of some towns, but what does that have to do with writing?"

He turned away from the glow. "What does that have to do with writing?"

"I don't know."

"Who are you if you're not a writer?"

"I don't know."

Letting go of that identity was the hard part. As long as I had a low-responsibility job, I could say I was a writer - I was working one gig while working on my art. If I was teaching writing, I could still claim to be a writer - I was seeking refuge in academic life while working on my art. If I started taking meeting with developers and talking about historic architecture and usability, I couldn't be a starving artist, a struggling artist, or an aspiring writer. I would be this other thing.

The choices were so limited in my southern Ohio imagination when I was a teenager that I couldn't grasp a life beyond the one thing I chose - and then I couldn't imagine a life being that choice, either. I didn't know hotel development jobs even existed. People became teachers or civil servants or nurses or school administrators. I only thought of being a writer because I read magazines and saw the bylines. I also saw them rubbing elbows with celebrities, but some of that was just the magazines to which I subscribed. As my experience in the world expanded, my idea of who I could be did not. I wanted to be this one thing. Who was I if I didn't want to be that anymore?

Who would I have been if I'd known that things aren't always all or nothing?

I was this one thing. I had to do whatever the heck I could to stay this one thing.

The Glass Carafe

There was still a touch of romance in the way I was living: road trip, farmhouse, coming home. I could end my twenties in more than style. I was making a promise to myself, not with words, but with gestures. I would follow roads and take in scenery and stare out the front window while I tried to understand the whole of my experience.

Pieces of the life I was after were lies. Pieces were honest attempts. Pieces were manufactured for comfort and pieces were avoided at all costs. Some days were Nutella on a cinnamon bagel and some days were plain white toast.

Every day, though, one small measure of a routine was played out. One of us boiled water. While the kettle was on, we might brush out teeth or start working on our hair. The unbleached, brown paper filter was inserted into the top of the small glass carafe and the coffee grounds scooped in with a clean spoon. If we were using the fancy coffee, we dumped it into the filter straight from the shiny package. Then, one of us had to man the pour over. We didn't know to call it pour over. We just poured it over. L's grandmother had been using that very Chemex for over thirty years. The glass carafe was older than either one of us. Like so many things in the house. We lived in a space in which you didn't encounter history. You confronted it.

Or you made your way with it.

Modern appliances wouldn't have felt quite right anyway. No toaster. No coffee pot. We had a fussy microwave. We had two crock pots and a sink full of dishes most of the time.

First Feminist

She wasn't the first feminist that I knew, but she was the first feminist I looked up to. I thought, "I could be like her." All my idols were too distant: Naomi Wolf and Gloria Steinem and multiple women writers who came from east and west coast backgrounds. It just wasn't something you saw much in my hometown or in the region. My high school teacher told me it was "cute" that I was a feminist. I didn't have one other friend in school that I talked to about equal rights or why I cared about the movement. I don't remember ever talking about feminism with my gal pals in high school. Instead, I studied it privately. The staff writers at Sassy magazine were my friends. Or if not my friends, then at least my teachers.

When Ann walked into the classroom on that first day, I could already feel my life changing. It wasn't her. It was who I was slowly becoming. I was finally starting to participate. When I learned she was from the region, I finally started to see what could be possible for me.

On 52

It's hard to love the road, but have little love for the people who live along it. I have a fondness for them, in small ways, but when one insists on circling me on his four wheeler while I pump gas on a gravel lot, I lose what little affection I carry for the folks as a whole. When I pass a man wearing a "Cool Story Babe Now Go Make Me a Sandwich" t-shirt, I lose a piece of the respect I was saving for them.

On the other hand, my love isn't about people. It's about place. I know all the arguments about how people make a place. But I'm not settling into one town and making a home. I'm driving through.

Ashland Burial

I made it to eastern Kentucky again, to see my friend's grave. It was around this time a year ago that I learned that she'd died. She passed away almost six months before I knew it. About once a year, I'd look up her phone number and give her a call. Instead of a phone number, the internet gave me an obituary.

Our story was weird and winding. I can't say it ends at her grave. Now that I know where to find it, I can't say that I won't go back to see her again. I want to take things to leave with her: magnolia blossoms, Virginia Woolf books, a university ball cap. I might try to talk to her. This time, all I could say was, "Goddamit, Ann." I had to roll a coffee table across a mausoleum floor and stand on it in order to even touch her...headstone. It's not a headstone. It's a name placed on a marble drawer front. There's a brass vase attached, and faux flowers filling it up. I pushed them out of the way because faux petals were obscuring a part of her name.

There was a sofa sitting in front of a stained glass window and I sat there and looked up at the letters that formed her name and the dates, well, those significant dates. Birth. Death. It's really that simple. You don't see timelines with graduation dates or wedding dates or favorite accomplishment dates. We get two dates, and what little control we have over either. 

I'd say no control, except in her case, she had control over one of the dates. It happens. People take control of their second date. 

I can't say I've spent a lot of time in mausoleums, but it's strange in cemeteries where you have headstones just a few steps away from the mausoleum. Headstones often have titles, too: daughter, mother, beloved wife. There was no title this time. Just her full name and her two dates. And a brass vase filled with faux flowers. They were purple.

It was cold, and smelled like a cheap motel swimming pool. There were rooms, and the one where she was had a stained glass window with the word "Light," built into the design. I thought that was odd because the room was dark. I sat on the sofa and I looked up at her name and her dates and I sobbed for a minute because I wasn't ready for the enormity of it, even though I'd had a year to get used to the idea. There will never be goodbyes or any sort of closure. There will be me on an ugly floral couch spitting curse words because I'm angry that I lost a friend who didn't want to stick around. 

I couldn't find her at first. I walked along all the outdoor mausoleum graves and didn't find her. I finally called the number and the lady gave me the code to get into the larger building. When I told her who I was looking for, she remembered her off the top of her head. "Turn right, then at the end of the hall turn left, then she's on the top left," the lady said. I thanked her. I thought it was kind of fitting that I was back in Ashland, chasing Ann down. I'd done it before, years ago, when I came back to the river for a few days at a time and tried to make plans to see her. I'd drive to Ashland to meet her and she wouldn't be at our meeting place and I'd call her and get no answer. I'd call her parents' house and they'd tell me where they thought she was supposed to be and I'd go there and run into her aunt or uncle, who'd tell me I just missed her. Sometimes I'd find her and sometimes I'd go home bewildered at how quickly set plans could fall apart. I'd be frustrated, but rarely angry. I needed her too much to be angry with her. Maybe I idolized her a little too much, too. Maybe that's whey she dodged our rendezvous. Maybe she was busy, even then, wrestling with the thing. The thing that led to her name and dates on the wall in the mausoleum.

I stood on the wheeled coffee table and I placed my hand on her name. Then I climbed down and put the coffee table back in front of the sofa and then I sat on the sofa for a long time. I sat with her. She can't dodge me now. And I'm angry over it. I'm angry that I didn't have anything to say but "Goddamit." I'm angry that there wasn't a date for the year that we met, that she directed a project created by me and my friend, Amy, that she made us crawfish etouffee and we watched the Academy Awards. I'm angry that she used to dodge my visits and I'm angry that I wasn't a better friend. I'm angry that I didn't know that she was dead for six whole months. For six months, I lived in a world in which she no longer existed and I didn't know it. I'm angry that the sofa is ugly and the room is cold. 

I'm angry at Appalachia for taking her. It made her and it took her and I'm angry that we have at least one half of that equation in common. 

From the ugly sofa in the cold room, I could hear the traffic from the highway that runs beside the cemetery. I don't know if I'd find the sound comforting or maddening. Maybe a few of the cars are driving on, just passing through town, on their way to some place else. Maybe a few carry young women who are getting out of town. Who are getting out. Who are dodging hard lives. Maybe not.

Eddie Listens In

Eddie was still sitting on a milk crate near the wall when she walked in the door. He sat with the glass in hand, hanging between his legs. When she walked in, he looked up at her and shrugged. It was obvious that he'd heard every word. The corners of his mouth were turned down. His eyes were big, like he'd just witnessed a car accident or seen a ghost. She sat down beside him and took the glass.

"Did you hear it all?" she asked.

Eddie nodded.

"Do you think we can find her?"

Eddie nodded.

"I'm not going to get any help from Daniel."

Eddie shook his head slowly.

She stared at the glass in her hand. "You know," she said. "Talking to Daniel just now was a little like eating glass."

Eddie got on his knees and turned to face her. He put a hand on each of her shoulders. "Babe," he said. "Don't take this the wrong way." He lowered his chin and looked up at her with wide puppy eyes.

"But you kind of like the taste of blood in your mouth."

She could have reacted by throwing the glass, or taking a bit out of it and spitting it at him. She could have screamed and thrown her hands up and stomped around the house. She could have gotten angry. She could have denied it. Instead, she thought of all the difficult tasks she took on, including her boyfriend and her high maintenance tenants. She thought about how she was taking on the task of finding the little girl. She'd have to decide what to do with her once she did find her. The options were bleak: police, Daniel, kidnap the kid herself.

Fan Letter

When I was a fledgling undergraduate fiction writer, my professor gave me a thick stack of photocopied stories, and during a brief required conference in his small office made tiny by the numerous stacks of books, said to me, "Your stories remind me a little of Ivy Goodman." He explained to me who Ivy Goodman was. "Ivy Goodman," he said, "was an Iowa Award winner and you should read her work." I walked back to my sparsely furnished, drab one bedroom with the stack of photocopied stories and the question lingering in my mind, "What's an Iowa Award?"

I was new to writing short stories. Heck, I was new to reading short stories. Before the required "Introduction to Fiction" course, I'd read two short stories in my life. Both were read for my high school English class and both were written by men about men doing horrific things. One was "The Most Dangerous Game," and the other was "Harrison Bergeron." I remember thinking that I was getting bored with all these people being chased. When I got to college, I took the intro class to reading fiction and we read all the classics. We read about the woman who kept a corpse in her attic and we read about the enormous radio and we read about the bible salesman stealing the young woman's prosthetic leg.

And then I started writing.

By the time I started writing short stories, I'd been in some pretty absurd situations. I was too shy to present them as nonfiction, so I stole stories from myself. For instance, once, on my way to have dinner with my wealthy boyfriend's family in a big city along the river, I stopped at a trailer park on the way and had the transexual psychic and sometime beautician do my nails so I'd feel fancy for the occasion. That's a premise worth writing about, so I did, but I twisted it. I carved out the best parts and embellished the rest.

It was that story that led to the conference and the mention of Ivy Goodman and my frustration at not knowing what the heck an Iowa Award was. I carried the stack of photocopied stories home and I sat down on my parents' old sofa and lit a cigarette and started reading. I was intrigued. I was impressed. I was enlightened. And I was appalled. I thought that maybe my professor was playing a prank. My work didn't hold a candle. I was completely intimidated - so much so that I didn't think to feel complimented. I just felt kind of sick.

Luckily, my transexual psychic in the trailer park story was the last one I had to write during my undergraduate career. I revised it a little for my applications to graduate school, and then I didn't do much with it ever again. I wrote new opening paragraphs for it. I made new outlines and lists of possible new scenes. But I never finished it. I made that a habit.

I never finished any of them. I'd write a decent first draft and then I'd shy away. I'd retract. I'd think the voice was too distant. I didn't include enough description or detail. They were too thin. They were too something and not enough something.

I made these excuses for years.

The Glass Panel

The door we sometimes locked, sometimes didn't lock, had nine 5 x 7 glass panes in it. They were stacked three high and sat three across. The door was painted pale yellow to match the house. It was technically the side door, and the door that faced us when we pulled in to the spaces in which we parked. There weren't designated spaces. There wasn't even gravel. We did park near the garage, but not facing it. We faced the door.

When you walked through the door, you entered the mudroom. To the left was the bathroom and to the right was the door into the kitchen. At one point in time, it had been the back door. But, when they added the indoor bathroom to the house, they connected it with the mudroom. It had probably been the back porch at one point. The ceiling wasn't covered and the floor was simply poured concrete. It's where we started leaving the dogs while we were gone all day. It was supposed to keep them from getting in trouble in the house. No one was going to come home to chewed shoes, books or other personal items if the dogs couldn't get to those items. We shut the door to the kitchen and left the one hundred pound farm dog and the puppy in the mudroom - where the only accessible window was the bottom row of those glass panels.

It started innocently enough. Both dogs just wanted to see who had pulled in. Or at least, that's what I thought. Later, I realized they knew who pulled in. They knew the sound of the cars. When L pulled in, F was at the window. When I pulled, little B stretched himself as long as he could, and peered out the corner panel.

That corner panel didn't stand a chance.

It was late Fall the first time they knocked it out. I came home and there was glass on the floor. I swept it up and hoped that L wouldn't be too upset. She didn't really react at all.

'The dogs knocked out the window," I said.

She lit a cigarette on the stove and nodded.

There was a glass company a block away from the university, just across the street from the floodwall murals. I stopped and picked up a new pane and we slid it into the spot fairly easily, although we didn't know how to secure it.

"Super glue?" I asked.

"Duct tape?" L asked back.

We let it stay in place, but unsecured. It didn't take long before the dogs knocked it out. They liked that particular pane. Once it was gone, they started sticking their heads out the little space. They could see us getting out of our cars. We could see them shake and bark with excitement. It was heartwarming.

But not housewarming.

It started to get cold and the loss of the panel seemed to stand out more. I offered to pick up another one at the glass company, but it seemed futile if we didn't know how to make it stick. Besides, they'd just break it like they did the last two.

L had a bag of old clothes next to the door since I moved in. On a particularly cold late Fall morning, she grabbed a handful and shoved them in the hole.

The dogs couldn't break them. We spent the winter with old clothes shoved in the door. I didn't mind. I didn't really notice. It was one more quirk, one more quick fix that worked. I didn't need things to be perfectly mended, I needed things to be functional. We let the dogs back into the house during the day and dealt with the occasional chewed shoe.

AR End

The building still stands, but it stands empty. The paint isn't fading and the shingle still hangs. The windows aren't boarded up and the door is dusty, but the glass hasn't broken. It still stands, but it stands empty. Much like the town it once served. People have cleared out. They've fled for more prosperous areas. And the American Restaurant still stands to remind what we once were, what we once had, and what we once valued.

It's in danger. No one can afford it. At least, no one who wants it. The building needs some work, but it could be a restaurant again. Locals would come by. The town would have an alternative to the corporate chains that popped up at the outskirts, and in the center. We would have something. It would be our own. It would be local history and a legacy. It would be a place where everyone knows your name, and more importantly, they know how you take your coffee. They know you. If you care to show up. If you care to claim them.

Locked Doors

We were somewhere between Kalispell, Montana and Minot, North Dakota, driving Route 2 across the northern plains on our way to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was pleased to see that Montana kept up its espresso and thrift store habit all through the reservations and towns as small as the one I was from (and as small as the one to which I was moving.) We could stay caffeinated and pick up secondhand souvenirs all the way to North Dakota, where the fun dried up altogether.

But we weren't quite to North Dakota when we started talking about all the things we would need to do that first week once we got to the farmhouse. Once we got home. 

"Buy paint," I said.

"You'll have to scrape those layers of wallpaper off first," L said. 

The room I was moving into needed some work. I knew that, and I was ready. My co-workers, upon hearing that I'd be moving 3,000 miles back to the land I told stories about, asked a million questions, including, "Where will you get your remodeling supplies?" When I casually - and without any suspicion that they were up to something - answered, I didn't know I was giving them gift ideas. On my last day, they presented me with a gift card, loaded with a handsome amount of money, to get myself set up in my new room. It was incredibly thoughtful and overwhelmingly generous. I could do a lot with what they gave me.

"Paint the floor," I said. L nodded. 

"Make a place for my chair in the living room," I said. L nodded.

"Get a key made," I said. 

"For what?" L asked.

"For the door," I said. 

"It doesn't lock," L said.

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean, I don't lock it," L said.

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean you won't need a key," L said.

"Why don't you lock the door?" I asked.

"I never have," she said. 

We both grew up in small towns, but I grew up in a house in town, and in a household run by a career firefighter and Marine Corps veteran. Everyone in my family had a healthy distrust of other people, no matter how well we knew them or how close we had to live to them. We locked our doors. It's what we did. We locked them when we were in the house and when we left the house. It was a modicum of control. We said who entered our house, and when.

My friend N's family never locked their doors, but I always thought it was because they lived on a street with other family members and a close relationship with their immediate neighbors. I still didn't understand it, but I at least made up an explanation for it. 

"Well," I said. "How do you know people won't just come right on in?" 

"They don't," L said.

"But, what if they tried?" 

"They haven't."

In my mind, the lock was the signal that you control your home. I couldn't let go of that control. Not yet. I needed that illusion.

"How do you keep someone from just walking in and taking your stuff while you're at work?" I asked.

"If they want in, they'll find a way in. The lock's not going to stop them," she said, and had a point. "Besides," L said, "that's breaking and entering."

"But you can keep them from entering," I said. I said it with conviction because I was convinced. It's what I knew: lock your doors, in your house and your car, while you're there and while you're away. Have a smoke detector on every floor of your house. Keep a blanket and jumper cables in your car at all times. Know where the exits are. Safety. Safety. 

"The door needs a new knob anyway," L said, and we moved onto the next chore for the list. 

We each silently chewed on the conversation for a while, though. Something was revealed in our differing door locks philosophies. It felt fundamental. It seemed important. But so many conversations hold a greater weight when they're had on the road. 

It was just a door. If it's unlocked, it's easier to let people in. And that's where I had trouble. That's where I insisted that my doors stay locked. People had to knock or be given a key. I didn't know another way.

Thoughts on this exercise

I'm enjoying this exercise and mostly feeling productive. Thus far, I feel like I've got the first versions of a few different pieces completed. But, that's where I trip myself: the first version. I've built this great exercise where I create lots of material...but I don't have an exercise for polishing it and making it fit for sharing.

I mean, I'm sharing. This is a public blog. It does keep me accountable. And, to be honest, I'm writing this post the day after it was due and I changed the date to make it reflect yesterday...because yesterday I got sidetracked. I got busy. I had things in mind and I started to revise other things. And it got me thinking about this project and how to do this AND revise pieces. And, does it require the same type of energy?

Is it possible to produce new material and revise "old" material on the same day? I'm sure it is. I want someone to tell me it is. And then I want someone to tell me how, but be very very kind about it. I haven't figured it out yet. I haven't worked that muscle in A LOT OF YEARS. If it's even the muscle I think it is.

The Ghost of Grauman's

When you live somewhere big, sometimes friends come to visit. Of course, they come to the city to see you, but they also come to see the city through your eyes. You'll show them the Los Angeles you know. You'll present the city you think is worth seeing.

And, if you have a chance to spice it up, or offer something special to the days of landmarks and oddities, you do. Because that's what you do.

You can offer half a bed in the sunny little studio you love. The big windows face south, and in the eastern corner, three neon crosses light up the night sky. All of your friends should make the journey just to see that private little calvary. It keeps you company while your friends live far away from you.

In Los Angeles, you've become accustomed to free tickets. You see shows, you're in the audience, you happen onto performances. This time, just in time, you're given two tickets to the biggest night in the music industry. Your friend flies in. You spend the day showing him your Los Angeles. Then, an hour before you're supposed to leave, to take the subway downtown to the event, you both sit in your studio and contemplate forgoing.

"Do we have to?" you whine.

He sighs. "We could just hang out here," he suggests.

"Would we regret it?" you ask.

"Probably," he says and sinks deeper into the chair.

In the end, you get up. You get made up. You stomp to the subway where you witness a mugging and are almost assaulted yourself. Then you arrive at the biggest night in the music industry. You see celebrities. You watch performances. You applaud and you yawn.

"We could have watched this on television," you say.

"And not risk bodily harm," he says.

With the tickets, you were given access to an after party and free drinks. In Hollywood. You went all over the city that day, but not to Hollywood. Not yet. You save the boulevard for last.

In a nightclub on the top floor of a prestigious building, you gaze south over the city and marvel at the shimmer. The glow. The city's nerve endings on fire.

"Let's go," you say.

You walk the walk. Of fame. You stop on stars and say their names in unison. And in front of the grand Chinese theater, you linger. It's quite on the boulevard hours after midnight. No one is around but your shadows. You've entered the area full of hand prints. All the actors who pressed their palms in the mud. Their collected lifelines on display for eternity.

Out of a dark corner comes a stranger. His hair is wild, but his eyes are kind.

"I'm the Ghost of Grauman's," he says.

You freeze. You've already made it through one altercation tonight. You don't have the patience for another.

"I know every hand here," the ghost says. And you see his intent. He wants to put on a show for you. In the heart of Hollywood. You can't say no. Who would you be?

He points at your hand hanging by your hip. You lift it up for him to examine. He gives you a name, and leads you to her square. You sink your hands into the space where Joan Crawford commemorated her career. You feel a kinship for the woman. You feel a new compassion. There must have been more to her than bad mothering. Although, you realize that women aren't allowed to be bad at that. That is the one thing they must get right. No matter their other talents.

Your hands feel heavy and you pull them back quickly. The ghost smiles, as if he's seen that behavior before.

He turns toward your friend, who is more skeptical than even you. The ghost glances at his hands and says, "Tom Hanks." Together, you scoff. You walk over, lean down, and watch your friend's fingers slide into place.

"Like a glove," the ghost says.

He vaporizes. Folds himself back into the shadows. Tomorrow, tourists will come. They'll press their hands into the cement. They'll giggle over the novelty and give the ghost a bill or two.

There are worse ways to earn your keep in town, you think. The ghost knows his ground. You go back to your's, where the calvary burns up the corner of your view. You count the three crosses, you point them out to your friend. You can't look out the window and miss them. They sizzle in the periphery. You received the view for free with your little studio. They put on a show you no doubt will attend.

Huck Finn

The best part about working a minimum wage job in Beverly Hills, California is meeting a man who'll tell you, "Huck Finn ruined my life."

The second best part about working a minimum wage job in Beverly Hills, California is all the other people you'll meet. I'm not talking about the celebrities or the lookalike women who've all had the surgeons carve them the same nose. I mean the co-workers: the people who come to southern California and for one or more of a million reasons, they wind up working a minimum wage job in the most prosperous zip code in the nation.

You'll meet aspiring actors and writers, comic book artists and singers. You'll meet lost girls and boys and ambitious college students who work unpaid all day and then slave away in the evenings to support their experience. You'll meet all stripes and all types. I'm telling you. I was one of them.

I was aspiring AND lost and working paid all day and then slaving away in the evenings to meet interesting people and do something besides drink or watch television. I stood behind the counter at a bookstore, bewildered at what titles celebrities will buy. And, I talked with my co-workers.

One of them told me that Huck Finn ruined his life.

"What?" I asked. I was familiar with the title. It was that book that was always getting banned.

"Yeah," he said. "Basically, after reading it, I just want to float down the river for the rest of my life."

Some would say he's a lost boy, but I knew better by the look in his eye. I wondered if that's why the book strikes such fear in the hearts of so many school board members. It's not the language or the action or the behavior of the characters. It's what they inspire. They inspire flotation. It seems like the opposite of ambition. It looks like laziness. It sounds like a vagrant's life.

That's more frightening than cutting your flesh to change your face. To look similar. To assimilate. One takes money and one takes guts and maybe that's the real fear. That guts without money can thrive in this world. The best part about working a minimum wage job in Beverly Hills, California is feeling gutsy without a big payday. You have your wits and your dreams and you got yourself to southern California. If you can get to Beverly Hills, you can build a raft. You can find a river.

Meeting the Neighbor

After a long day of running errands, I pulled into the driveway and saw, out of the corner of my eye, a long-haired man standing on the back porch of the neighboring apartment building. His hair was dark and he wore round eyeglasses and his hands were on his hips. He was standing with his chest puffed out and looking out over the parking area as if he were a pirate and it was the sea.

I was eager to meet my neighbors. I was eager to meet anyone, really. I was completely solo in my new town, and I wanted to make an ally or two. I parked my car and hopped out, but by the time I turned around, the long-haired man was gone. He disappeared. In a blink of the eye and the time it takes to put the gear shift in "park," he dissolved into the building.

Huh, I thought. Maybe he doesn't want to be met.

I took my grocery bags inside and lingered in the kitchen for a while. The first department mixer was later that evening, and I thought I might want to look nice. I threw the five items of clothing in which I felt most comfortable onto the bed. I picked up the red cotton tank top in which I'd traveled western Europe. I threw it back on the bed. I called my friend Nicole.

"What should I wear?" I said to my friend, who'd just had a baby in Ohio.

"A bra," she answered. "Wear a bra."

Two months before I moved south, I cut off all my hair. I wanted a fresh start, which I thought should include a fresh look. Instead, the cut, plus the product that the stylist convinced me to buy, made my hair look flat and stringy and greasy. I'd gained a little weight between acceptance and arrival, too. I didn't feel like myself, and I had to go meet a bunch of strangers.

"Maybe I should stay home," I said to Nicole.

"Well," she said. "Then you don't have to wear a bra."

I wore a bra. And I went to the mixer. Everyone was generally nice, although I did get the distinct feeling that we were being sized up. I was fresh meat. I walked out onto the porch of the professor hosting the shindig and I saw my next door pirate, standing with a few other people - people I didn't know, and I didn't know if they were new or not. I was new. I knew no one.

But, I'd seen this man and I was fairly certain he'd seen me.

"Hey," I said to him. "I think you're my neighbor."

He whipped his head around to look at me and his hair followed. It punctuated his movements like a period ends a sentence. He moved, and his hair let you know how to read it. His movement seemed quick and clipped. And I could see how this man could disappear in a snap.

He didn't say, "Nice to meet you." He didn't say anything. He just nodded. And then he was talking to the other people.

The nod was enough. I wasn't put off by it and I didn't feel brushed off. A small, still voice from deep within told me that the little yes was big beginning. What it didn't tell me was that before I knew it, I'd have a cataloged collection of every Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode before it was released on DVD. Courtesy of the man with the pirate presence and the exclamation point hair.

The Professor

Each girl met her independently. Gigi met her at the coffee shop. Angela met her in class. Joely met with her for academic advising because she was thinking of taking contemporary literature courses. The professor assured her that she could find a job and that she would have a future if she declared a major in the humanities. Angela didn't care about career paths. She just wanted to read poetry. Gigi heard her speak and thought she recognized something in her voice. It sounded like the twang from her hometown. She'd been homesick for months. She poured the professor a fresh cup of coffee and asked her, "Where are you from?"

It turned out that the professor was from a place about an hour's drive from Gigi's parents' house. Gigi ended up sitting with the professor that day, which almost got her fired. She sat down at the table and they talked about books.

A lot of those titles were scattered at her feet in the storage unit where she stood across from a dead baby. Gigi looked at the other girls and wondered if they'd known the professor better than she did. Before the baby, Gigi would have said, "No way." She thought she understood something about the professor that no one else would or could. Gigi knew where she was from. Gigi knew the place way beyond its name or location. She knew it. And she thought that made her know the professor more intimately, too.

The professor was simply an older version of who she wanted to be. Or at least, that's what Gigi believed from the moment she met her. She signed up for her classes and she sought her advice on everything from boyfriends to savings accounts. Gigi read the books the professor gave her and listened to the music the professor mentioned loving. She was an eager student, and the professor liked an enthusiastic learner.

Angela was an enthusiastic learner.

He Took Her

Ginger waited while Daniel sobbed. She bounced her knee for a while. She nodded her head, up and down, for a while.. She looked around her yard. Finally, when Daniel's tears started to let up a little, she leaned over and put her hands on his cheeks.

"You took her where?" Ginger asked.

Eddie had gone back inside and the streetlights came on. They were alone on the block. No one was witness to the slap she gave him when he took too long to answer. It startled him. He put his hand over the spot where it stung. Ginger took him by the shoulders and shook him.

"You took her where!?" she shouted.

"I didn't take her now," Daniel whispered. He glanced up at her door to make sure Eddie wasn't coming back outside at the sound of the slap.

"I took her and we came here," he said. After hearing himself say what he'd done, however vaguely, Daniel stood up quickly. Ginger rose with him.

"Maybe the police found her," he said. Ginger's head started to hurt.

"Or maybe she went home," he said. He seemed pretty excited at the second option.

"Where's home?" Ginger asked, suddenly aching. She was pretty sure that her property, that duplex, with the yard they were standing in - she was pretty sure that was home for the little girl.

"With her mother," Daniel said to his feet. "She's not gone. She came home one day and we were gone."

Ginger stepped away from him. She walked over to the bush, to the spot where she noticed the little girl on the day she and Daniel walked into Ginger's life. Ginger turned to look at the man, the father, her tenant. She thought of her own parents as she turned away from Daniel to look at her property. She spent a lot of time restoring it. She really loved it. She loved it so much she heard a deep, guttural groan escape from her lips.

She loved it. The only obvious remedy was to move far, far away from it.

But first, the little girl. And Daniel. She didn't know them, not really. She wasn't sure about their names, even. She shook her head.

"Let's go inside," she said. She took Daniel by the elbow and led him into his half of her house. She was fairly certain that if the police had picked up the little girl, they'd have arrested Daniel by now.

"We'll find her," Ginger said. Daniel didn't look very sure.

"I'll find her," Ginger said. She was good at finding things: tools, tenants, properties to own. She had a method. She simply drove around until she saw a sign.

Wolf Stuff 6

I chewed on that anger all the way to Glacier National Park, and then chewed on it some more. I gripped the steering wheel of my little, gas-efficient economy car as if it might save me if we drove over the side of the very steep, very narrow road we were told was magnificent and something to see. It was something to see, alright. And it was scary.

The terror wore off somewhere around Bird Woman Falls. We stopped to take a picture by the sign. Then we continued on, saying things like, "Wow," and "Are you kidding?" We marveled. We mocked. We just couldn't believe what we were seeing.

"I've been to the Alps!" I said. I declared it. And, with residual anger, added, "And this shit puts 'em to shame!"

We stopped at the lodge deep within the park, and the regular stop, I suppose, for travelers going to the sun. I passed over all the wolf stuff. I headed for the bookshelves. I couldn't believe that in all those years of mythologizing Montana, I didn't know anything about that park, those mountains, or the road that will casually lead your through.

Most of the books were history books. I pulled Native North America from the stack because I liked the look of it: copper with confident blue text. I felt fine judging the book by its cover. I opened it to a random page and learned that some tribes isolated their women while they were menstruating because the blood was considered so potent, so powerful and dangerous that it could contaminate sacred objects if it came in contact with them.

"L!" I called out. She came over and I read aloud, "The first period usually included the girl's isolation in a small menstrual hut set apart from the village."

"Is that so the bears and wolves could eat her without putting the others in danger?" L asked.

I shut the book, but I bought it. When I stepped outside on the patio where L was smoking a cigarette, I gasped. There was magic in Montana, and it was in those mountains. It was in that view.

It wasn't at the White Birch Motel and Campground, which was why we'd made the pilgrimage to Kalispell in the first place. I was searching for a spirit, but it wasn't for my dad's deceased friend, after all. It was the spirit of discovery, fueled by the act of traveling roads revealed to you by strangers. It was Going to the Sun or nowhere at all.

Wolf Stuff 5

We woke up cold and hungry. The tent was covered in morning dew and the campground was quiet while I gathered all my toiletries from the trunk of the car and trekked to the public restroom and showers. I was on a mission. I wanted to investigate the White Birch, if only for an hour. While L showered and dressed, I'd be out exploring the grounds of the almost mythical motel of my childhood.

There wasn't much to it. The motel was a two story deal with an office and a laundromat and a shed. The signage was large and imposing. I liked it. It seemed confident. I needed to borrow some for the moment.

I fixated on the shed. I remember hearing it so clearly: Roger shot himself in the shed. In the shed. In the shed. I walked over to the shed. I stood in front of it. I felt nothing. For a minute. Then, I started to feel a little silly. I glanced over to make sure the new owners didn't see me staring at the shed. I also didn't want them to see me taking pictures of it. But, I thought if I had a photo, then I could use that, I could stare at the photo until some profound feeling came over me, some moment of clarity where I all my childhood questions about Roger's death were answered.

Even though I didn't really have questions. I just had sorrow. I didn't know Roger well enough for it to make a big impact on me. I knew his daughter. I knew his best friend. I don't know what I thought I'd learn about the man for whom they grieved. I don't know what I thought a shed on a campground in northwestern Montana would tell me.

"Let's go," I said to L after I stomped back to my car. She was packing everything up, giving me time to talk with ghosts. There were no ghosts there. Unless you counted my childhood thoughts. I didn't.

"I'll drive," I said.

We headed further north to drive the narrow road inside Glacier National Park. I'd never even heard of Glacier before plotting my way back home. Maybe I had heard of it and it didn't register. I wasn't really a kid who paid attention to national parks or state parks or that sort of thing. We had a state park back home that my family and I hiked through a lot, but it was just a part of the area. You could cross the street in front of our house and start hiking. And it wasn't a state park. I didn't know what the fuss was about. I didn't know.

I mean, I'd been to the Grand Canyon by that time. I'd seen a few geographical wow-ers. But I wasn't prepared. The bartender didn't tell me. He didn't describe it accurately. He got it wrong. Simply because he didn't get it right. He didn't describe the majesty of the mountains in Glacier National Park, and for that, I was angry.

Or maybe I was angry that I didn't meet the ghost of Roger while I camped at the White Birch Motel and Campground. Maybe I was angry that I couldn't get an answer to whether or not Roger 1.) took his own life or 2.) why he took his own life. I wanted to know why so I could give my father an answer. He'd lived for almost twenty years without his best friend. That made me angry.

Wolf Stuff 4

We waved at Buzz as we drove away for the evening. We were tired and hungry and wanted to find a restaurant downtown that we could write home about. Or, at the very least, we wanted to find a restaurant that we couldn't find in every other state we were passing through. L was driving, because I couldn't. I was almost putty. I was almost a puddle. All I could do was point and say, "There."

On a side street in downtown Kalispell, we found a little wine bar. We sat at the bar and L ordered an appetizer while I sucked down a glass of red from a local vineyard. I didn't want a buzz. I wanted the knots out of my neck. I tried to sit upright on the bar stool while L went outside to smoke a cigarette.

"What's there to do in this town on a night like tonight?" I asked the bartender.

"Nothing," he said, but not in an unfriendly way. He shrugged and smiled. We talked a little about the wine, then a little about the July weather, and then a little more about winters in Kalispell. "You can always spot an out-of-stater by two things," he said. "Their fancy trucks and their fancy trucks in the ditch when it snows."

Apparently, driving in the snow was something you learned when you were young and all the folks who came from out of state had a hard time adjusting. I thought of Roger. He was a resourceful sort. When one of his horses kicked him in the face, and his jaw was wired shut while it healed, Roger didn't stick to an ice cream and mashed potato diet. He put a Big Mac in a blender and drank it with a straw. That's not the kind of man who comes to Kalispell and blinks at a little snow.

But, as I learned, it wasn't a little snow that the bartender was talking about. I shook my head. I was still in a California state of mind when it came to naughty weather. I frowned when I had to wear a hoodie in the evenings because it gets chilly in the desert. But, many feets of snow? I pursed my lips.

I'd rather drink a Big Mac.

"What are you girls doing in town?" the bartender asked. I was a little self-conscious about my real reason for coming to Kalispell. I didn't want to spill my secret to the bartender.

"Passing through," I said. I explained the drive from California to southern Ohio. I sold it as a simple road trip. All the details could get exhausting for a stranger.

Somehow, in our chit cat, the bartender told me to check out Glacier National Park. I'd barely noticed it on the maps when I was planning the trip. It was north a little ways, and a tiny bit out of the way. I said so.

"Yeah," he said. "But Going to the Sun Road is something you've got to see."

I nodded. I liked to happen upon things when I traveled. I liked to talk to the locals. I wanted to know about the places they thought made their town distinct. I listened to the bartender describe the narrow road through the mountainous park. I kept nodding. It sounded exquisite.

Wolf Stuff 3

We sat in the car and watched the man with the hippie hair walk by. We watched him in silence. He climbed into the passenger seat of a waiting pickup truck.

"What was that?" L said. I shrugged. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry or give up. I still hadn't recovered my language skills, and I was aggravated that our left turns were getting us nowhere. It was still somewhat early in the day. If we could just find the damn place, then we could set up camp and relax for a while. I was desperate to relax. I was desperate.

I pulled the car back into traffic and made my way to the place where we were supposed to turn left. "What if we didn't go left?" L asked as we approached the intersection.

"You mean, what if the directions were wrong?" I asked. By then, I couldn't remember where we even got the directions.

"Yes. What if we just went straight?"

I aimed the car straight. About a mile ahead, we could see a giant sign for the White Birch. It boasted a big white arrow directing us to turn right.

And then there it was: the motel of my adolescent imagination. I'd made it up in my mind and when presented with the real thing, I wasn't disappointed. It was rustic, but clean. I pulled up in front of the office.

"I'll go pay for a camping space," I said. L stood outside the car and smoked a cigarette. I took a deep breath. I had no idea what or whom to expect.

The woman behind the counter was friendly. "What can I do for you?" she asked. I mentioned that we wanted to camp. She told me the prices. I told her we'd only be there one night. We chit-chatted and I handed her the cash. I was about to chicken out. But, I heard a pause in the conversation and I knew it was my chance. I couldn't ask her if she was Roger's second wife, that seemed too personal and too forward. Plus, I wasn't sure I wanted her to know who I was.

"Are you the owner?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. She went about her business, pulling together my paperwork.

"How long have you owned the place?" I asked.

"Oh, my husband and I bought it from the previous owner a few years ago," she answered.

I smiled. She wasn't Roger's second wife. The timeline didn't work. But she probably bought it from Roger's second wife.

"Why, honey?" she asked.

"Oh," I said. I didn't know how to answer her. "My dad's friend owned this place for awhile."

"From Ohio?" she said.

I felt my face go numb. I showed up without a plan. I was too scared to make a plan. I didn't ask my parents about to whom Roger left the place or if his second wife had stuck around after his suicide. I didn't know whether to ask the new owner, "Yeah. Where did the guy commit suicide?" I never looked up a newspaper article about it and I never read an obituary. I was just a girl on a road trip, headed back  to Ohio, leaving a little life in Beverly Hills to make a bigger life for herself in the foothills of Appalachia. I felt very young, then, as I stood in front of this stranger and said, "Yeah. From Ohio."

She smiled and handed me my receipt and a copy of the campground rules. I smiled back, took the papers, and spun left on my heel. L was leaning agains the car.

"Well?" she asked.

"She doesn't know Roger," I said. I was shaking my head. I didn't want to answer questions or talk about it. I wanted to pitch the tent. And I wanted a drink.

We found a spot between two other tents and bent the poles and inserted them into the openings and created the tent structure in no time. It sat upright. It looked like the other tents. We went back to the car to get all the blankets, then turned around to watch the tent tumble away. It rolled and rolled and wanted to jump over the little summit and down into the creek nearby. L ran after it while I stood and watched with all the linens in my arms.

"What. The. Hell." I said under my breath. But, even under my breath was loud enough for the man across the little paved path to hear me.

"You didn't anchor it down. You've got to nail it into the Earth," he said. He went into his camper and came out with a hammer and some ties. L placed the tent back in the spot we'd originally chose, and the man kindly secured our tent in place.

"There you go," he said. His dog barked from the open camper door. We all walked back to the little paved path.

"That there's Buzz," the man said, pointing at the dog.

"Hi, Buzz," L and I waved at the dog.

The man walked over and picked the dog up. I pulled my tiny digital camera from the glove box. The man hugged Buzz close to his face. Buzz was an overweight dachshund. He seemed practiced at having his picture taken.

The Wolf Stuff Jackpot Part 2

L and I went into the thrift store. While I browsed for my next great souvenir, she bought pink gingham sheets and a few thick blankets. I walked out empty-handed.

We had some trouble finding the White Birch. We stopped at a gas station and they told us to go up the road and take a left. The left turn took us back the way we came. We stopped at a fast food joint to eat grease and steady ourselves. We'd been on the road for only six days, but we'd managed to tour the Hearst Castle, stop at Nepenthe near Big Sur, eat a tuna melt at the Madonna Inn, spend hours in Powell's in Portland, avoid fireworks on the 4th of July and then shop at Pike Place in Seattle. We drove on toward Montana, with a pit stop in Idaho. In Montana, we'd managed to stop at a large used book store in a town with only ten houses. We bought wolf stuff at the trading post and from the guy who warned us against camping while menstruating. By the time we made it to Kalispell, we looked as wild and as unkempt as we felt.

And we kept trying out left turns with the confidence that eventually, one left turn would be the right one.

The White Birch would eventually have to reveal itself to me.

After ingesting roast beef and curly fries, we continued on. One more left turn took us to another gas station. I went in to grab snacks, while L smoked a cigarette outside. I had my arms full of soda bottles as I turned away from the coolers, and turned straight toward a man wearing little round sunglasses. I couldn't see his eyes. His hair was long - hippie long, not metal long. It was graying slightly. He held his hands up when he saw me, like I was about to place him under arrest.

"Whoa!" he shouted. "No guns!"

I stepped around him and joined L in line. She was waiting to buy another pack of cigarettes, and I had all the soda we could need for the night. The man with the hippie hair sauntered up behind me. When I looked at him, he pointed at L.

"She," he said as he pointed at my friend, "is beyond reckless."

L stared at the man. She was wearing a "Hard Times Saloon" t-shirt from the lone bar in the poverty-stricken town in which I was about to live. Her long curly hair was unwashed since Washington state. Mine was too.

We paid quickly and ran to the car. We had a motel and suicide scene to find.

The Wolf Stuff Jackpot

When I was a little girl, my family and I spent a lot of time with my dad's best friend, Roger, and his family. Roger had a daughter exactly one year older than I was. When I say "exactly," I mean it. Kara and I share a birthday. We were fairly close, or at least we were as close as some cousins are close. More importantly, my dad and Roger were close.

Eventually, though, Roger and Kara's mother divorced and Roger remarried and moved from southern Ohio to Kalispell, Montana. He and his new wife bought a motel and campground. There was talk of possible visits. There was talk of a family trip to Big Sky Country. There was talk of wilderness. There was event talk of domesticated wolf pups. But we didn't go. I was too young to know why. It just seemed to me that, as a family, we weren't supposed to cross the Mississippi River.

As an individual, I crossed it. Several times. Back and forth I went from east to west and west to east. I crossed it with my best hometown friend and I crossed back over it with my brother. I crossed it again by myself, and then headed back east with L, my college friend, the one in the farmhouse. When I was ready to leave California and come back home, she flew out to make the journey with me. And that journey, I insisted, had to include a pilgrimage to Kalispell.

I was going to see that motel. It had taken up a lot of time in my childhood. My imagination exercised regularly to thoughts of Kalispell. Kalispell. I always remembered the name of the town. It seemed so sharp and awkward. Kalispell.

But I wouldn't be seeing Roger. Because part of what my imagination used for fuel was his story. His violent, tragic ending.

I was eleven years old when my father lost his best friend. He got a call from Roger's new wife. One day Roger went out to the shed and shot himself. Suicide. My father raged. He grieved. He speculated all the reasons why his best friend might take his own life. Some evenings, he dared to suggest that maybe Roger didn't. I was privvy to these conversations, even as a young girl. And they made an impression.

My father didn't go for a funeral. Roger was cremated. Montana stayed a distant dream.

Until I left California. I was going to Kalispell. One of us had to get there eventually.

L liked my itinerary, and we were both eager to see what the Big Sky state had to offer. We drove in from Spokane, across the top of Idaho, after making an overnight stop in Cour d'Alene. It was July, and everything was a deep green. We started to notice subtle differences from Washington and Idaho. In Montana, you could always get an espresso. They served espresso at rest stops. Also, they had a lot of junk. We drove through whole towns populated only with thrift and antique and junk stores. I was okay with all of it. I like coffee and gently used things.

At the start of the trip, I knew I needed to pick up souvenirs for the two boys who called me Aunt Mandy. Cam was about the age I was when Roger moved to Montana, and he had a thing for wolves. Somewhere near San Francisco I asked L, "Do you think I'll find wolf stuff in Montana?"

L and I stood outside a giant tourist trading post. I held a bag in each hand, each bag was filled with wolf t-shirts, trinkets, faux scrimshaw pocket knives. At one junk shop, I found a plaster cast of a wolf paw print. L turned to look a me and said, "I think you'll find wolf stuff in Montana."

Montana is full of wolf stuff. Any kind of wolf souvenir you could ever want, you'll find in Montana. I would go so far as to say that Montana is the wolf stuff jackpot.

But finding wolf stuff wasn't my only agenda.

We had to get to Kalispell. To the White Birch Motor Lodge and Campground. When L heard the word "campground," she started collecting gear. We were going to camp. In Montana. She bought at a used tent at the junk store where I found the plaster print. The man who sold us the stuff said, "If you ladies are going to camp, be sure it's not during your lady time. That attracts wolves and bears."

It wasn't lady time for either of us, but the prospect of wolves and bears being attracted to us in any way or for any reason made me nervous. And then he gave us further advice.

"You'll need to get some deet," he said.

I grew up camping with my dad. We sometimes sprayed ourselves with bug spray. We mostly just dealt with stings and bites after the fact. A little calamine lotion went a long way in our household. But in Montana, in July, I learned all about deet and why it was important.

By the time we reached Kalispell, we were beat. We stopped at a thrift store to get a few more things for a camping adventure. And because we were enjoying the number of thrift shopping opportunities. I pulled into the parking lot and suddenly lost all ability to speak. I tried to say I was tired. I opened my mouth and said gibberish. I parked the car, and the gibberish continued until it turned into giggles. I had never been that tired in my life. Or maybe I was nervous, too, that I'd made it to Kalispell. I didn't know what I'd see or learn there. I didn't know if I'd gain insight into Roger's death. I was pretty certain I wouldn't. I didn't have a plan beyond walking around the White Birch property. If anything, I'd close a long case of curiosity only about what the damn place looked like.

And no one cared but me. I wasn't reporting anything back to my dad. I wasn't in contact with Kara. We hadn't seen one another in years.

Remember the Weilands

Dear Willa,

Remember the Weilands? They lived in a shotgun house on the street behind the school. The place had maybe two bedrooms for two parents and five kids. One of the rooms had a rotting floor, and they were poor. Appalachian poor. The youngest was in my class, and she was quiet, but sharp. She didn't say much, but she saw everything. And when we were little, she wanted to have a slumber party. Her big sister warned her against it. She didn't want her little sister bringing in girls who would go home and gossip about how the Weilands lived. She kind of threw a fit about it, but the mother was determined to give her little girl what all the other girls had - a childhood. 

Her name was Stephanie, but her siblings all called her "Step-fanie." They added a hard "P" before the "fuh" sound in her name. She invited five of us over. Her mother and older sister had cleared the living room and filled it with blankets. We were supposed to make blanket beds on the floor. The father and the boys were gone - someone said they were camping. The next morning we'd learned that by "camping," Stephanie meant that they were sleeping in the woods up on the hill.

I thought of them today, those boys, stringing makeshift hammocks up between the trees. They simply grabbed old sheets and ripped where they needed to and braided the strips when they needed to make them sturdier. They didn't hang them high, just enough off the ground that they wouldn't get too wet with dew. I remember sitting on the back step with Stephanie once the other girls had gone home. She told me that they did that sometimes. That sometimes the house was just too crowded, so they'd go stay in what the father called their "country home." 

Last night, there was a boy who had some sort of fancy hammock, one you'd buy at a sporting goods store. It was orange and light and he tied it high up in the trees. I stood underneath him at the camp for a minute. He didn't know I was there. I just looked up at him in his hammock and I resented the Hell out of him. He didn't put that thing together, he didn't learn to make do. He bought his gear and started his adventure. Anyone who can afford a hammock like that must not need to be out here. Then again, how many of us need to be out here. Or what need are we fulfilling? 

Selecting Furniture

If I closed my eyes, I could see the place: dark hardwood floors and woodwork, white walls, lots of light. It was small, but cozy. I was going to make it my home.

I was living in a studio apartment when I was accepted into the program. I had a futon and a skinny kitchen island I'd bought at a big box store and used as a desk. I would stand at it and type on the laptop I'd bought myself after college, or I would perch on the barstool I found at a yard sale and spend my time writing stories about women who were on the edge. In the six months I lived in the studio apartment, I wrote a story about a woman at a temporary secretarial job who beat up a guy in the lobby for constantly being nice to her.

Knowing I'd be leaving that apartment for the one on Dearing Place brightened my perspective a little. Plus, it gave me something to do.

I started shopping for furniture, dishes, domestic wares. I bought a book on Feng Shui. I agonized over living room rugs.

The kitchen was small, but there was room for a tiny table. I was reminded of the "ice cream table" or parlour table on the balcony of the apartment I'd rented in Paris right after college. It had reminded me of going for ice cream in my hometown, at a little ice cream parlour across the street from the cemetery. The tables had black and white marble tops. The claw foot bases were painted black. The chairs were practically made of wire hangers. And that's exactly what I wanted for my kitchen in the South.

My father found a base and heavier, sturdier wire chairs at the flea market. The chairs were missing seats and backs. He cut wood circles, added padding, and upholstered them with black and white striped referee shirts. He painted the base. And then he reminded me that I had a marble table top coming to me whenever I wanted it.

His friend, Gus, owned a marble and tile shop. He made bathroom sinks and countertops. When I was about to graduate from high school, Gus offered to make me a marble table of my own design. I didn't think much about it while I lived in college apartments, but this would be my first "grown up" place. I called, and he was happy to deliver. I asked for black and white swirled top. I got it. It was custom made for my perfect apartment.

I wasn't about to make the futon a permanent sleeping option. In my mind, it took the place of a sofa. I needed a bed, and I looked for a bed. I looked for a wrought iron bed at the flea market, in antique stores all over southern Ohio, northern Kentucky and in every shop in Huntington, West Virginia. Nothing seemed right, or the right price. I was browsing an antique store in my hometown when I saw the odd bed. It wasn't intricate. The posts were thicker, the iron less delicate. The white paint had cracked over the years. I said, "I'll live with that." I was happy to find it back home, in my hometown. It would be from home. The seller said it was as old as the late 1800s. It had lived in southern Ohio a lot longer than I had. And now I was making it a piece of my own history.

Like all furnishings, my possessions made statements. We made the ice cream table. The top was custom made. The bed was from a mercantile near the river. My bookshelves belonged to my grandparents - my Mamaw's childhood bookshelf and one my Papaw built himself in his garage.

I wanted a rocking chair, and found one that needed new caning. Instead, we put flat wood on the seat and I covered it with a comfortable pillow.

I moved it all into the little one bedroom just before the left curve at the top of the street. And it felt like home so fast that the neighbors could have been anyone.

And they were.

Missing

When Ginger pulled into the driveway, she knew immediately that something was...amiss. She put both feet on the ground and stood slowly, turning slightly and then placing her hands on the top of her car. Daniel was in the yard screaming at Eddie, who held his hands up like a clueless criminal. He was standing on the porch near Ginger's front door. The overgrown bush separated him from the hysterical man, who whipped around and pointed his finger at Ginger.

"You!" he screamed. "You can't just take her."

She understood the scene all too quickly. The little girl must be gone, and Daniel would have assumed that she was either at Ginger's or with Ginger. Her face became a grimace that Eddie must have noticed, because he threw his head back. The three of them each felt hopeless, but wouldn't unite in their despair. Daniel needed to point fingers. Apparently literally. Ginger needed to figure out why the little girl was gone, and how, and where. Eddie wanted to go back inside and finish his dinner, maybe play a little guitar, caulk a sink or something and go to bed.

"Daniel," she said as she carefully closed her car door. "I didn't take her."

He was still pointing at her. Then he pointed to her passenger seat. Then at her again.

"When did you notice that she was gone?" Ginger asked as she took a step toward him. She could see Eddie out of the corner of her eye. He dropped his arms and let them hang reluctantly at his side. He tilted his head in disbelief. Playing along or soothing Daniel may not have been the absolute best idea, but she didn't think aggravating him further would help anyone. Least of all the little girl.

His face was red and his eyes were swollen and wet. He was in a panic. "Where is she?" he yelled in Ginger's direction.

"I don't know," Ginger said. She looked at her watch. Usually at this time of night, the little girl was eating dinner - either with her or Daniel. Last night, the little girl had dinner with her. She ate a bowl of peas with butter melted over them. She asked Ginger if she liked her parents. Ginger said yes.

"They taught me how to do a lot of this stuff," she told the little girl and waved her hand over her head to indicate all the renovation work. "We had this house when I was a kid," she told the little girl. "And we worked on it until we loved it."

The little girl's face had softened, and Ginger could have quit the story there, at the happily-ever-after part. But, she didn't, because she wouldn't, and because both she and the little girl deserved better. Ginger liked to live with the painful, obvious, hilarious truth.

"And as soon as we loved it, my folks moved 5,000 miles away from it," Ginger said.

The little girl paused, the spoon hovering just below her open mouth. She held Ginger's eye contact for half a minute or so, and then they both started laughing. They giggled. They guffawed. They howled at the moon.

It was just dark enough that the moon was making an appearance in the night sky. Ginger sighed. She lost all will to remain gentle and walked over to Daniel and grabbed him by the collar. She half led, half dragged him over to the step, where she shoved him down to sit. She motioned for Eddie to go get a phone by making the appropriate hand gesture with her pinky pointed toward her mouth and her thumb pointed toward her ear.

She sat beside Daniel. "Where would she go?" she asked.

Daniel shrugged.

"Has she ever done this before?" she asked.

Daniel shook his head.

"Could someone have taken her?" she asked.

Daniel started to sob. From beneath the cries, she heard him say, "No."

"Is that an answer?" she asked. "Does that mean someone didn't take her?"

Daniel screamed. It came from deep within his gut. It got caught on his crying. It made Eddie stop in his tracks. He didn't want to come any closer, so he put the receiver on the porch and pushed it toward Ginger with his foot.

She grabbed it and started to call the police, but Daniel smacked it from her hands. It landed in the yard with a thud.

"What the hell?" she said, still staring at the phone in disbelief.

"I took her," Daniel whined. He choked a little before he looked Ginger in the eyes and whispered, "I took her."

Rental Agreement

Ginger was unpacking the small bag of tile samples for the kitchen when she heard a crash and a howl come from the front porch. She opened the door slowly, with caution, to see a handsome man backing down the step. He stopped in the yard and brushed the front of his pants with both hands.

"Are you alright?" She called out to him.

She startled him, and he turned around quickly, almost in a complete circle, before he saw her. He pointed at her and she took a step toward him.

"I was looking at the sign," he said.

The red and white "For Rent" sign was in the window, and it looked as if he tripped over a few loose bricks and stray painting accessories she left lying in front of it. She walked across the porch and joined him in the yard.

"Are you interested in the apartment?" she asked as she approached him. Once she was closer, she realized he was as handsome as she thought. His face was friendly, and he smiled when she offered her hand to shake. He reached out to take it when she noticed the little girl standing behind him, near the bush that ran the length of the porch. It was a tall bush, taller than the little girl. Ginger shook the man's hand while the little girl gave the bush a nonchalant kick.

"How many bedrooms does it have?" the man asked. While Ginger gave him the details - two bedrooms, one bath, nice kitchen with a view - the little girl kicked at the bush again.

"How much does it rent for?" the man asked. Ginger answered.

The man shook his head. "I can't afford that," he said.

"What do you do?" Ginger asked.

"I teach physics over at the college," he said. "My schedule is all over the place. Sometimes I tutor kids in math."

"That doesn't pay well?" Ginger asked. The little girl kicked again and a bit of shrubbery fell to the ground.

"You'd be surprised," he said. "My name is Daniel, by the way."

"Ginger," she said.

"What's the landlord like?" Daniel asked.

Ginger smiled. "The landlord is fair," she said.

The little girl looked over at Ginger, and in that second, Ginger recognized her. It was the little girl her gave her the finger, who put all that energy into flipping her the bird, as she drove by the other day. The little girl went back to what she was doing. She kicked at the bush again, but instead of causing the bush any damage, her foot caught in a branch and she fell flat on her back.

"Honey," Daniel said as he lunged toward the child, "are you alright?"

The little girl stood up and brushed her legs with both hands. She glared at Ginger for another second. Ginger could feel the little girl's hostility. That kid wanted to flip her off again. Her, or anyone. It didn't matter. Daniel just turned to look at Ginger and smiled a half-hearted, exhausted smile.

"How much can you afford?" Ginger asked.

Weight Loss Surgery

She moved onto the street long after my husband moved out and away.

The real estate crash must have busted up the fortunes of the folks who lived at the top of the street. One house was equipped with an elaborate wood post and wire fence. The other boasted large white cameras bolted above each entrance. Each house sat empty for a few months, and then a couple moved into one and a single man moved into the other. The single man immediately started ripping out the weird fence. The couple kept the cameras.

I heard her before I ever saw her. She had a thick Appalachian accent and a temper toward the single man across the street. They fought. A lot. I sometimes saw her husband walking back from the single man's house. Then I'd hear yelling. I would sit in my living room and listen to it escalate. I started calling her "Weight Loss Surgery" because I never learned her name, but I knew she'd had weight loss surgery. I knew it because she told me she was going to have it. She told me she went to Mexico to have it. She told the single man she had it. She yelled it at him regularly when they fought over who-knows-what.

I think I know what. The what was probably drugs.

But I heard him call her names: ugly, loose-skinned, skinny bitch, fat bitch. And I heard her defend herself. She screamed, time and again, "I had weight loss surgery!" She yelled it after telling him she hated him and she yelled it after telling him to stay off her property. She slurred it sometimes, but she yelled it often.

My own interactions with Weight Loss Surgery were few and far between. Once, she came up to me as my father and I were getting out of my car. My dad was in town to install motion lights in the driveway and under the back deck after my house had been broken into. Weight Loss Surgery was standing in the middle of the street when we pulled up. She was carrying a red plastic cup. She came over and asked me, "Is that your husband?"

"That's my Dad," I answered.

"Hmph," she said. "My Daddy is my husband."

Then there was the time I was working in the front yard, making the flower beds presentable since the For Sale sign was already stuck in the ground. She wanted to see the house.

"Come on in," I said.

She swayed and stumbled and slurred her words as she told me which color to paint each room. The hallway should be green, but not dark green, lime green. "Almose ne-uhn," she said. The living room should've been turquoise instead of the "boring gray" I'd painted it.

"I had weight loss surgery," she said.

"You do look thinner," I responded.

Maybe with every pound she lost, her voice got louder. She kept yelling at the neighbor. He kept yelling back. And I had another Cincinnati story to tell. I loved that city for the stories it gave me, and my neighborhood always delivered.

Card to Folks

Every year, she sent her parents a joint birthday card, even though her mother was born in May and her father was born in September. Ginger took pictures of her properties and made a collage, then wrote a little update. She mentioned how much she paid for each property and what renovations she made to each. Then she wrote out the birthday poem that her father started when she was little and through the years became a family tradition:

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
You're getting older.
And I am, too.

When her parents sent her a birthday card, they wrote out the same poem. Every time Ginger wrote it out, she missed them terribly.

After years of buying and fixing up properties all around the lower part of the state, her father decided he was tired of catering to the upper middle class. He was tired of using his skills solely for profit. Her mother agreed. They decided that instead of retiring, they'd try pioneer life. They sold off most of their properties except the larger units, and they let a management company take care of those. Ginger was able to purchase the house she grew up in, which she was slowly renovating. It was taking her more time than any other house or apartment she'd ever worked on. Some days she wanted to gut it and other days she wanted to preserve it.

"Burn it," her father advised from the two room cabin he shared with her mother in the Alaskan wilderness. It became his salutation, his sign off, before he signed his letters to his daughter. Instead of "Sincerely," he wrote, "Burn it." And he always meant the family home.

It wasn't fancy. It was a simple three bedroom ranch with a few mid-century modern touches, although not enough to entice an enthusiast. The yard was small. The back steps were crumbling. There was water damage in the garage. The basement was always damp. But every time Ginger walked into the kitchen, she thought of the first time she ripped up carpet, the first time she measured for appliances, and the first time she fitted face plates on the light switches and electrical outlets. She wasn't quite ten years old.

"You're getting pretty good at that," her father said as she turned the tiny screwdriver to secure the tiny screw which held the plate in place.

"By the time we're done here," her mother said, "she'll be a master at it."

The face plates were plastic numbers made to look like paneling or wood. By the time her parents moved far away, the face plates were outdated. They were old. And Ginger was getting older, too.

But she didn't think that was a good reason to demolish the dwelling. Even if, as her mother said, "It's sometimes easier to start from scratch."

Instead, she let the house sit and wait for her to decide what to do.

Storage Unit

Gigi tossed the key up with her right hand and caught it with her left. She kept throwing it into the air and snatching it out of the air all the way from the car to the storage unit. The three women had to make three trips because they kept getting lost, kept needing to back track, kept needing to count their way back to their new unit, their professor's last gift to them.

Once they found it, Angela snatched the key from the air and away from Gigi, who pouted, briefly, before shifting her weight back and forth from foot to foot and sighing loudly while Angela struggled with the padlock. Finally, Joely took over and with one quick twist, the lock clicked and popped off the handle. All three women took a step back. Angela looked at Gigi. Joely looked at Angela.

"Go ahead," Joely and Angela said in unison. Gigi shook her head, and the three women stood in silence.

"Okay," Gigi said. She wrapped her fingers around the handle and pulled the garage door up. Angela took the flashlights from her pockets and gave one to each girl.

"Close the door behind us," Angela said. Gigi pulled the door back down, and the girls directed the light onto the contents of the unit.

Mostly, they saw boxes. But, in one corner, behind a collection of books stacked as tall as Joely and wide as a Buick, was a peculiar assortment of furniture. A little end table sat beside a rocking chair. Beside the rocking chair was a bassinet covered in white with a fancy, frilly ruffle adorning the canopy. An old oil lamp and an antique tin of talcum powder sat on the end table. The bassinet was filled with stuffed animals, which Gigi started to pick up and examine.

"I wonder if these were her's as a child," she said.

"You can keep them," Angela said.

"What if I don't want them?" Gigi asked.

"We'll take them to the Goodwill," Joely said. She sat down in the rocking chair and pushed back. She let herself fall into the rhythm of the rocker: back and forward, back and forward.

"I'll take the chair," she said.

"What about the bassinet?" Angela asked. Both she and Joely already had babies who were well past the baby furniture age. She didn't think Gigi would ever have children, but she might want to keep the animals in the same place their professor did. Angela studies the bassinet from behind Joely in the rocking chair. She only looked up when Gigi gasped.

Gigi dropped the animals in her hands. She stepped back into the wall of books, which collapsed immediately upon contact. She jumped. She let out a little scream.

"What the Hell?" Joely said and stepped forward to look inside the bassinet. She gasped, too, and turned to look at Angela.

Angela made her way over slowly. When she glanced down, she saw a dark figure, maybe a stuffed animal. She took a deep breath and looked down again. She thought she was looking at a rodent or a taxidermy item. It looked like it might possibly be a reptile. She shrugged and looked up at Joely and Gigi, who were standing across from her, the canopy separating them. Joely and Gigi both directed the beams of light from their flashlights onto the figure in the bassinet. When Angela looked down again, the figure became clear.

It was a dead baby.

It was a human infant, and it was mummified. It's skin was dark and dry, although no one touched at that moment to determine whether or not it was fragile and paper-like or hardy and leather-ish.

"It's a dead baby," Angela said.

"A dead baby?" Joely asked.

"A dead baby," Gigi stated.

The three women stood still, surrounded by the fallen books, silenced by the scene in front of them. Each worked hard on the explanations they were about to share. They rushed to come up with something that made sense, that sounded like something their professor would have done, that fit the behavior of the woman who left three former students a storage unit where she kept a dead baby.

Shoplifting Makeup

A little glamour went a long way on the road, and a little eyeliner or mascara could create quite the allure. There were times when she applied makeup in a sliver of shattered mirror, glass at her feet and the lighting deplorable. But that's why it was important to put it on in the first place. It wasn't a part of her travel plan. It wasn't a tool to get her picked up, nor was it a device to pull in more cash on the rare occasion that she panhandled. Her makeup was strictly about how she wanted to feel. From time to time, she wanted to feel glamorous, and eye makeup was her way.

Of course, she didn't want to spend her hard won monies at a makeup counter. She wouldn't go hungry over an eyebrow pencil. And, she didn't need a lot. She was known for doing a whole lot with very little. But, the fact that she had a makeup stash at all was a fact to ridicule, and she met her fair share of folks who were willing to do just that.

"You make room in that pack for face paint?" Spoke's friend said to her one night when she was sorting out the contents of her toiletries bag. She didn't flaunt the contents of her pack. She was looking for cotton balls to help clean out another camper's cut. She'd moved away from the fire, outside the circle, and make a place for herself against the tree. There was just enough light to see, until the guy stood in front of her and blocked it. He looked down at the stuff she'd taken out of her bag and made his judgment. He made his snide remark. And if he ever needed medical attention, he'd probably recognize her as the girl who carried the makeup.

She was comfortable with that. Of all the things she was known for, the people who remembered her as the girl who packed the fancy makeup was just another identifier. It was another way to approach her, too. She could look pretty in her makeup and clean up your cuts. As far as a reputation went, she felt her's was a rare currency.

Working with Eddie

One of her single family houses needed a new countertop before she could rent it out again. The previous tenants had apparently set their hot pots directly on the counter, without putting down a towel or a pot holder. They didn't like to clean up grease, either. Scorch marks and burned indentions decorated the pale blue kitchen surfaces, and Ginger would have none of it. She liked to offer smooth surfaces to her incoming tenants. It seemed fitting, like a display of the service she provided as their landlord. Landlady.

"Domestic Dwelling Provider," Eddie once said.

Strong pipes, smooth kitchen surfaces and safe electrical currents. "If I advertised, I'd make that my tagline," she said to Eddie.

They lifted the countertop out of Eddie's truck bed and carried it quickly into the house. It was a quick job, and the sink fit without hassle. All the measurements lined up.

"Smooth like the new counter," Eddie said.

"Easy installation equals easy living," Ginger agreed.

Once the hard part was over, the pair started to clean other areas in the kitchen. The stove sat under a window, and oil had made its way onto the glass. Oil was splattered across the ceiling, too.

"I'll get the step ladder," Eddie said.

While Ginger scrubbed the windowsill, she thought about how little she knew about most of her renters. She knew a few from her bar tending days, which meant she really only knew their names, their best jokes, and their drink preferences. A few she knew by credit score. Some of them had better jobs than others. She remembered that one of her tenants was a doctor of some sort. And she knew that Daniel had a daughter who didn't talk much, but had a heck of a way with a hammer, a wrench and a paint roller.

She sighed. When she looked up, Eddie was standing on the ladder and scrubbing the ceiling. His arm reached over his head and lifted his shirt away from his waist. She reached out and slid her finger through a belt loop on his jeans. He stopped what he was doing, looked down into her eyes, and then lowered himself slowly from the ladder.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Do you want kids?" she said.

Eddie shut his eyes for a minute. When he opened them, she was still looking at him, waiting for an answer.

"I don't know. Do you?" He thought deflection might be his best bet. He didn't want to answer incorrectly, if there was an incorrect answer. He just wanted to finish up and go back to Ginger's place and kick back and watch television. Maybe he'd play a little guitar. Maybe he'd put in a light fixture.

She looked around the kitchen. "I've got these places," she said, as if it were the same thing.