Allie and Bea : A Novel Page 2

  Bea picked up the nasty pile from her grass and dropped it into the paper sack.

  Then she placed the bill payments—all except the rent check—in the mailbox and raised the red flag so the postman would know to collect them before stuffing in more bills.

  She drove her van down the rows of brightly colored trailers, occasionally waving to a neighbor in a garden, or on a porch, or through their windows. She drove not because she literally could not walk the equivalent of a block or two—though a walk that long would have been a struggle—but because it was already 108 degrees. She kept driving, blasting the air conditioner, until she had reached the mobile home park office. Arthur was not there. She could tell. Because that little “We Will Return in . . .” sign was hanging on the door, its “clock” manually set to 2:00 p.m. She dropped her rent check through the mail slot in the door instead.

  On the way back, she purposely took the long way to go by Lettie Pace’s trailer. There she left the paper sack and its contents on Lettie’s stoop.

  Really. In the real world. When she looked back over her shoulder, she was pleased to see it was something she had actually done.

  Chapter Two

  After The End of Everything

  Bea woke with a start, effectively dead. And yet, at the same time, not dead at all.

  It happened to her more and more frequently. A couple of times a week these days. She would drift into that twilight of half-asleep, and something would happen that she immediately recognized as The End of Everything. But, curiously, the thing itself was never big or dramatic. A shadow that fell over her in her sleep, or an envelopment in something like smoke. But with a jolt of fear she clearly knew everything ended with the smoke or the shadow, and that she had known this truth all along. And that she had been waiting for it. Then, startled awake, she would lie frozen for a moment, wondering why she was still so . . . there. If that had been The End of Everything, why was she still in her bed thinking thoughts in the wake of it?

  Eventually her brain would clear enough to understand the moment for what it was: a half-asleep, half-awake dream experience.

  It usually took her almost half the night to get back to sleep after such a fright.

  Bea lay frozen for a moment, wondering why it was still so hard to breathe. She reached a hand up to her chest and found Phyllis curled on her collarbone.

  “Phyllis. Honey. You have to move.”

  She gently nudged the cat down onto the bed. Phyllis rose, stretched, then slithered under the covers and curled up next to Bea’s hip.

  Bea breathed deeply a few times and poked at a thought hiding somewhere near the back of her consciousness. She wasn’t sure quite what it was yet, but she’d been aware of it several times earlier that day. Each time she had felt a tightening in her belly, but she’d tried her best not to go after the thought that had evoked it.

  This time she held still and the thought caught her.

  What if that man had not been from the IRS in any way? He hadn’t known her name.

  She sat up in bed.

  What if she had just given away $300 of her $740-something to a non-IRS stranger for no good reason whatsoever? What if she had been duped? You heard of such things these days. Read about them in the paper or were warned against them on the news. And they seemed to like to target older people.

  “I can’t afford a loss like that,” she said out loud to the dark room.

  She decided to pick up the phone and call the automated phone line for the bank.

  Being an organized woman, Bea had its number in the directory on her phone. And she knew her PIN by heart. It was the last four digits of an older phone number, one she’d kept stored in her memory for years. One from back in the days when she and Herbert had owned a house. She would never forget it as long as she lived, but no one would associate it with her, or guess it. And she had been told to be extremely careful when choosing passwords and PINs.

  Another cold grip in her stomach reminded her that it doesn’t matter how carefully you choose your PIN if someone can just ask you for it on the phone. And you give it.

  The familiar canned voice on the line welcomed her to her bank’s automated services line, then began a menu of choices. Bea didn’t wait. She punched number three, because she knew it would bring up account balance and information.

  “I don’t like this new world,” she said out loud, to no one. “I don’t like it one bit.”

  Sighing, she punched in her account number and PIN.

  “Your balance is . . . zero dollars . . . and . . . zero cents. To hear this information again, press one. To return to the main menu, press two. To end this call, press the pound key, or hang up.”

  Bea hung up.

  She sat with the phone in her hand, in the dark. For how long, she would not have been able to say. She knew she was awake, and yet here it was again. The End of Everything.

  And, just like in the waking dreams, Bea was still there. Still thinking. Still wondering how there could be anything on the other side of The End.

  Despite being stunned, despite feeling her belly buzz and tingle with electricity, mostly Bea felt a bizarre sense of relief. Finally, it was over. She had gotten it over with. For years she had been watching herself move closer and closer to the edge of this cliff. Now she was off the edge, free-falling. Somehow utter unmitigated disaster felt preferable to the constant, compulsive, nervous anticipation of that disaster.

  And in some way or another, she was still here.

  What life would look like from this point on, well . . . that was a mystery for now.

  She never got back to sleep.

  Chapter Three

  It’s All about the Weather

  Bea rose first thing in the morning and drove to Palm Desert. The guard at her friend Opal’s gated community recognized Bea and her old white van, and waved her right through.

  She pulled up to Opal’s condo—or rather Opal’s son’s condo—to see her friend sitting on the front porch swing, in the shade, fanning herself with the genuine Japanese fan her son and his wife had brought home from their last vacation. It was made of silk and silver, and must have been expensive.

  Bea couldn’t help but notice the condescending look from Opal’s across-the-street fussy housewife neighbor as she parked the van.

  “Yes, that’s right. Go ahead and stare,” Bea shouted. “Imagine, somebody having to drive an older vehicle. Not having money bursting from every orifice like you. How shameful! Really get a good look now.”

  The woman turned and hurried into her house, chastened and ashamed.

  Bea cut her eyes away and silently turned her back to the rude neighbor.

  “You don’t look good,” Opal said as Bea struggled up the steep walk in the gathering morning heat.

  “Well, good morning to you, too.”

  “I didn’t mean it as an insult. I just meant you don’t look happy. You look like you’ve been worried and haven’t slept.”

  “Yes,” Bea said. “All of the above.”

  She stood on the porch at last, puffing, sweating. Staring at her friend.

  Like Bea, Opal was a physically generous woman—as Bea’s mother used to generously phrase a thing like that. Unlike Bea, she had a shock of white hair, thick and glossy, that fell all the way to the middle of her back. The hair made Bea jealous, as her own had been thinning into near nonexistence for years. But she had never said so.

  “I’ve come to ask a series of favors,” Bea said. “I’ll just put that out up front. If you’re in no mood to be asked favors this morning, you’d best tell me to hit the road right now.”

  “Depends on the favors,” Opal said. She had a slow way of talking. Lazy, almost. Like a southern woman sipping a mint julep in a movie, but Bea happened to know Opal was from Duluth. “You can ask whatever you want. If I can, I will. If I can’t, I’ll say. You know that about me by now.”

  They held still a moment, regarding each other. As if there were a protocol dictating who wou
ld speak next, but neither knew what it was.

  Then Opal said, “Start me off with a nice, easy request.”

  “A cup of coffee.”

  Opal pulled her great bulk up out of the porch swing. “That’s simple enough, yes. But I hardly think it’s one of the favors you drove all the way over here to ask me.”

  Opal held the door open for Bea, who stepped into the glorious air-conditioning with a sigh.

  “Actually, though, it is. I really do need a cup of coffee. I’m out of coffee at my house.”

  She followed Opal into the massive, modern kitchen. It had a chopping-block island, and Italian marble tile counters, and LED lights recessed into the ceiling, and one of those ovens that are always on and cost more than Bea’s trailer had when it was brand new. And the kitchen was bigger than Bea’s trailer, too. Maybe by half again.

  “They sell it at the grocery store, you know,” Opal said, taking a foil package of imported coffee from the stainless steel freezer.

  “There’s a problem with the store, though. They want you to bring money for every little thing you care to buy.”

  Opal looked up at Bea and narrowed her eyes with concern.

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Yes. Uh-oh.”

  “It ran out?”

  “It ran out.”

  “I’m afraid I know what the other favor is,” Opal said. “I feel just terrible about it and I want you to know I would if I could. But honey, I swear, things being what they are between me and my daughter-in-law, I’m never sure from one month to the next if there’s always gonna be room in this place for me.”

  “I didn’t come here to ask to move in. I know you can’t do that.”

  They sat on a glass-covered porch at the back of the house, overlooking a duck pond with a fountain, and the golf course. At least, it looked like glass to Bea. But she had been told it was some material more resistant to stray golf balls. In any case, it held in the air-conditioning.

  “I would if I could, Bea, I swear to that.”

  “I know. Besides. Nobody wants to live with me, and I know it. And I don’t want to live with anybody because I don’t like anybody. Oh, don’t be too offended. I like you well enough, but I’m sure that would change if we tried to share any kind of space together. I didn’t for a minute imagine that anyone would want to put up with me.”

  “You’re not as bad as you make yourself out to be.”

  “I’m worse. You just don’t know because we only visit for a few minutes at a time.”

  “You’re a little disagreeable, I suppose.”

  “Ha! You have no idea.”

  “I’ll just let you ask in your own good time, then.”

  “Ask what?”

  “Whatever you came here to ask.”

  “Oh. Right. That. I need to borrow twenty dollars.”

  “Seems to me you need to borrow more than that. How will you pay the rent on that little place? And keep the utilities on? And feed yourself and the cat?”

  “I can’t just borrow money to get out of this fix. Because I’ll never be able to pay it back. I mean, twenty dollars I can. I can pay that out of my next check. I bought cat food to last the month with what cash I had in my purse. Then I didn’t have enough for food for me.”

  Opal snorted. “Some priorities.”

  “She relies on me.”

  “She could eat the cheap stuff. That dry food for pets they feed at the shelters. Costs nearly nothing.”

  “She can’t eat dry food.”

  “Why can’t she?”

  “She has no teeth. You know that.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I guess I did know that. I guess I just forgot. You sure you don’t want to borrow more than twenty?”

  “Yes. I’m sure. I can’t get out of this by borrowing.”

  “Then I won’t loan it to you. What I will do is I’ll give you twenty dollars. And don’t be arguing about it with me, either.”

  “Thank you,” Bea said.

  They watched in silence as two women smartly dressed in sportswear—their own age but quite a bit more fit—played through on the third hole.

  Then Opal said, “I keep wanting to ask what you’re gonna do, but I hate to even bring it up.”

  “I have a plan.”

  “I’m relieved to hear that.”

  “I’ve decided it’s all about the weather.”

  A silence.

  “The weather, you say. News to me. Here I thought it was all about the money.”

  “Well . . . yes. Of course. Everything is. But when you don’t have money, it’s all about the weather. You see . . . I’ve been thinking. I can pay my rent. My check covers that. I can even pay my rent and have money left over for food. No problem. But I can’t pay rent and then both eat and pay the electric bill. Now if I lived somewhere the weather was mild, never very hot or very cold, my electric bill would be low. Or I could even live without electricity. But here in the valley, if they turn off my power and there’s no air-conditioning, the heat’ll kill me.”

  “Got that right,” Opal interjected. “You know the public utilities have to offer discounts to low-income folks and seniors, right?”

  “They already do. And it’s still my biggest expense after rent.”

  “So let me get this straight. Your plan is to make the Coachella Valley cooler.”

  “No. Of course not. I was just lying in bed last night, and I thought, ‘Imagine if I could pick up my home and move it up into the mountains.’ You know. Instead of turning on the air-conditioning.”

  “Those mountains get cold in the winter.”

  “Then I could move it back down.”

  “Honey,” Opal began. It was clear from her tone that she had decided Bea’s thoughts needed straightening out, and fast. “I know they call that place you live in a mobile home. But in this case it’s just a figure of speech. That particular one isn’t going anywhere.”

  “I know that,” Bea said. “I’m not talking about my trailer. I’m talking about my van.”

  A long silence fell. Bea sipped at her coffee. In time she braved a look into Opal’s eyes. Their gazes met, and stuck. Because now they both knew exactly what Bea was talking about.

  “There must be something else you can do, Bea. Honey, there’s got to be something better than that.”

  “The only other thing I can think of involves sleeping on a park bench and pushing my belongings around in a shopping cart. Look. Opal. People live with less. All over the world people are living with less. I’ll have a roof of sorts over my head. I’ll have curtains. I’ll have my easy chair, and some books. And my cat.”

  “And a litter box right in the middle of the whole deal.”

  “That can go on the passenger floor and be out of my way.”

  “And there’s no bathroom for you. You can’t use a litter box.”

  “I can park by a gas station. Or by a public restroom.”

  “And how will you get your monthly check?”

  “I won’t have to. It’ll go straight into my account every month and all I’ll have to do is bring my debit card for gas and food.”

  But a thought struck Bea, quite suddenly. Before the next check landed in her account she’d better stop by the bank and change that compromised PIN. In fact, she might do better to close the account and open a new one, just to be safe. And notify the Social Security Administration of the change. It made her feel vulnerable and ashamed, and less than sharp-minded, that she had just now thought of it. What else was she forgetting?

  Oh yes. Get a new debit card for the new account.

  “And you’ll spend all your savings in gas,” she heard Opal say, knocking her back into the moment.

  “No. No, I won’t. It doesn’t have to be that way at all. I don’t have to keep moving constantly. I could stay in one place for months if the weather holds. I thought about it a long time. I just need one other thing from you and that’s to put a few of my things in your garage. I can only take just so much along. Just what I
need to live. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I really need. About what makes a home a home. I don’t care about my couch or my bed. I can sleep in my easy chair. That’s all the furniture I need. Without my easy chair, life wouldn’t be comfortable enough to bear. But with it . . . I sleep in it all the time, when I have acid reflux, or when my sinuses won’t drain. It’s just as comfortable as my bed, if not more so. So long as I can draw the curtains and turn on a little battery-powered light and read a book with my cat on my lap, it won’t be so bad. I’ll be okay.”

  “You’ll be homeless,” Opal said.

  Bea would have liked to keep that ugly word out of things. But there it was. Sooner or later it was going to be said. By someone. It was inevitable.

  “I didn’t say it was a great plan. I said it was a plan.”

  “You’ve got till the end of the month, right? Everything’s paid up for now?”

  “Yes. For now.”

  “Then we have time to think of something better.”

  “Sure,” Bea said. “We’ll think of something better.”

  But she knew it wasn’t true. If there were a nice, easy solution to homelessness, she thought, a million homeless people would have found it by now.

  Chapter Four

  The World May Not Owe Me a Living, but It Owes Me $741.12

  Three days later, in what should have been a quiet month of transition, Bea was startled out of sleep by a knock on the trailer door.

  This almost never happened.

  No one came to Bea’s door except Opal once in a blue moon. It was embarrassing to have Opal over, as she lived in such opulence—even though none of the opulence was technically hers. So Bea’s sole friend visited seldom. And no one else visited at all.

  Bea couldn’t help feeling, as she struggled into her robe and combed her hair with her fingers, that this was unlikely to be good news. She glanced at the little clock on the stove as she hurried by the nook of the trailer’s kitchen. It was barely seven a.m.

  “Who is it at this hour?” she called through the door. “Awfully early to come knocking.”

  “It’s Arthur,” Arthur said.

  That might not be so bad. Maybe Mrs. Betteson had told him about Lettie Pace’s rudeness and he had come around to hear her side of the thing.