Allie and Bea : A Novel Read online

  Bea swung the door wide, wincing into the morning light.

  “We’ve got a problem,” Arthur said.

  “What problem is that?” she asked, trying to sound casual. But her heart took to pounding and her stomach turned to concrete.

  “It’s your rent check.”

  “What about it?”

  “It bounced.”

  Bea opened her mouth to say that was silly. There was no reason it should have. Then it all came pouring down on her at once.

  She closed her mouth.

  She took two steps backward to her easy chair and lowered herself down.

  That was the something else she’d been forgetting. Another aspect of the situation her brain could not be trusted to grasp. The day she’d gotten that awful call from the scammer pretending to be the IRS, she had just written all her checks for the month. As she’d deducted them from her checkbook, she had considered them paid. In her mind they were paid. But they were not paid. The utility checks had been sitting in the mailbox when her account was raided, and the rent check had been lying on the floor of the mobile home park office, having only recently been slipped through the mail slot.

  So the scammer did not get $740 and change. He got the nice, reassuring total she’d seen in her checkbook when she added in that month’s Social Security. He’d made off with over $1,600. And all of her monthly checks would now bounce.

  “Mrs. Kraczinsky? You okay?”

  She looked up at Arthur, backlit by morning in her doorway.

  It was an additional problem that she hadn’t seen all this coming—that her brain had not made the jump. She knew that now. Anyone with a reasonable mind would know that checks written are not checks cashed. Why, when she’d gone to the bank to close that compromised account and open a new one, they’d even asked her if she had checks outstanding. And she’d said no.

  She’d spent the better part of three days fixing her banking problems. Talking the bank into waiving its rules by establishing an account with no opening balance. Changing the direct deposit arrangement with the Social Security Administration to the new account. Getting a new debit card to take on the road. She’d felt such a sense of satisfaction, knowing she’d handled things so well.

  Meanwhile all her checks were bouncing.

  And the account on which she’d written them had been voluntarily closed.

  And she hadn’t told anyone about the scammer, because she was ashamed. And because there was no way to catch him anyway, and everybody knew it. And because she didn’t want their pity. And now it would appear that she had written checks on a zero balance and then closed the account before they could come in.

  “Mrs. Kraczinsky?”

  “Yes, Arthur. I’m fine. It’s just a mistake. I know what went wrong and I can fix it. I just need a few days. Give me three days, okay?”

  Because that’s how long she figured it would take to load up the van and clear out.

  “Well . . . ,” Arthur said. He scratched his very bald head. “I’m not too happy about that, but . . . if you’re sure it’s only three days.”

  “Why, you sanctimonious little rodent,” Bea spat.

  Arthur stumbled back a few steps from the force of her words.

  “Here I’ve lived in this ratty little park for almost two decades, and have I ever once paid my rent even one day late? No. Not once. And when Herbert and I had to borrow money using the trailer for collateral, and we got behind, you were more than happy to take it off our hands and rent it back to us. Like you were doing us a big favor, keeping the bank from foreclosing. But it was a favor to yourself and no one else, because you rented it back for more than it was worth, and even that didn’t stop you from raising the rent twice more in the following years. And then you have the gall to stand here while my life is falling apart and act like three days is a major imposition? How dare you? How dare you stand in my doorway at seven o’clock in the morning and make yourself too important to try to make me feel small? Just who do you think you are?”

  “Mrs. Kraczinsky?”

  “Yes, Arthur. Three days. I promise. I won’t let you down.”

  Bea rose, walked to the door, and closed it, blotting out Arthur’s face.

  To her surprise, she didn’t feel guilty about her lie. At least, not as guilty as she’d expected. Of course she would let him down, and she would live with that. After all, other people let her down all the time.

  Let somebody else cope with it for a change.

  She turned on the air-conditioning. Yes, at seven in the morning. She would bathe herself in cool comfort until it was time to go. The check to the electric company would bounce, and they would never be paid for last month, or the power she used in the first few days of this month while getting ready to leave. And she was doing it anyway. They had plenty of money, and they got it by taking it from people like her. They could simply deduct the loss from their taxes, which they didn’t pay nearly enough of anyway. She and Herbert had spent their lives making up the tax shortfall caused by these big, heartless corporations.

  Now she would short them and see how they liked it.

  She didn’t believe herself one hundred percent. She wasn’t comfortable with these ideas so much as she was forcing herself to make her peace with them, and fast.

  One thing she could not deny. The world owed her $741.12, and it was high time the world paid up. For a change.

  Chapter Five

  Van Sweet Van

  Bea’s new home was twelve years old and boasted 145,216 miles on the odometer. It had decent tires, and air-conditioning in the dash that still worked.

  It had two windows in the back, one in each of the double doors, and no windows on the sides. That was fine with Bea. The less she had to convert the trailer’s old drapes to work in her new quarters, the better. The harder it was for passersby to see in, the happier she would be.

  Its sides were painted with the words “Sun Country Bakery,” with a stylized sun in the bottom curve of the S. But over the years the weather had been hard on the lettering, causing the paint to chip and peel at the edges, like Herbert’s chaotic and poorly run business near the end. Like her life with him.

  It had a sticker on the rear bumper that read, “If I’m driving slowly, I’m delivering a wedding cake.” Because, in its day, that’s mostly how the vehicle had been used.

  Bea worked on its interior for two days. Both days she waited until nightfall to do so, for obvious reasons.

  She was inside it now, on the second night, duct-taping the bathroom curtain rods across each of the back windows. She had already done something similar with the living room drapes—affixed the curtain rod from one side of the van to the other, just behind the seats. She could now draw that curtain to separate the back of the vehicle from its cab. Anyone looking through the windshield would see nothing but two empty seats. She could draw the curtains aside while driving, to allow a rear view.

  The easy chair sat in its new place in the van, which made it hard to get comfortable inside the trailer now. The previous evening she had knocked on the door of Kyra and John, the only young residents of the mobile home park, and asked their help moving it, claiming she was giving it to a friend. Kyra and John were used to such requests. To be young in a community of old people would always involve a lot of lifting and hauling, and they had learned that well enough.

  She’d wanted to put it behind the driver’s seat, but John had insisted on placing it at the passenger side.

  “If you were in an accident,” he’d said, “or had to stop suddenly . . . why, that thing could come flying forward and turn you into a dashboard pancake.”

  Over the chair, on the van’s ceiling, Bea had stuck a self-adhesive battery-powered light she’d picked up at the dollar store. Beside the chair was a box of tissues and a carton of carefully ordered paperback books she had not yet read, or might want to read again.

  She’d been able to move the chest of drawers herself, because it was only cardboard. It wasn�
��t her real dresser, just something she’d kept hidden in the closet because it looked cheap. But it would hold two changes of clothes, underwear, bras, socks. Two towels.

  She had filled her little travel cosmetics bag—which was a silly thing to own, since she didn’t travel—with a hairbrush, toothbrush and toothpaste, ear swabs, and a washcloth. She could carry it into a public restroom without attracting attention.

  “I’ll be traveling now,” she said out loud, to no one.

  In the corner of the van she had placed a plastic bucket. It embarrassed her to look at it, but she knew she needed it along. Maybe there would be no adjacent restroom on any given night. Or maybe it would be cold out, or she would doubt the safety of the neighborhood in which she had parked. She could always empty it and clean it out in the morning. Maybe she would be lucky and would never have to use it. But why take chances with a thing like that?

  Every blanket she owned was stacked, neatly folded, in the other corner.

  She started the van briefly and looked at the gas gauge. About two-thirds of a tank. That was all she had to last for the next three weeks. Her heart pounded again as she attempted to mentally grasp the challenge. Before the gas ran out, she had to find a place that was not life-threateningly hot, but where she would not freeze at night. She had one shot. If she chose wrong, there would be no going back on the choice. Not for more than three weeks.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this, she thought for the hundredth time.

  She was supposed to be able to wait and take off on the third of next month, with a bank account full of money. With that lovely feeling that it was all hers this time. No rent, no bills. Just gas and food, and maybe some loose quarters for a Laundromat or a campground shower.

  She wasn’t supposed to have to take off with a bank balance of zero, leaving behind half the food she’d bought for the month because she hadn’t realized when she’d bought it that she would be giving up her refrigerator so soon.

  Then again, she thought, it wasn’t supposed to be like any of this. I wasn’t supposed to be making plans to live in this old van at all.

  Bea climbed down from the driver’s seat of the van and walked back into her trailer.

  Three boxes sat in the middle of her living room floor, where the easy chair had once lived. They were carefully taped and labeled with a marking pen in big, bold letters: “OPAL MARTIN C/O ROBERT MARTIN.” Those she would drop off on her way out of the valley. Not to Opal personally, because her friend would only try to talk her out of going, and feel guilty that there was not more she could do. No, Bea would leave them with the guard at the gate, and be long out of town before Opal knew she was gone.

  Everything else except the cat would stay.

  Bea stood in the living room, looked around, and was struck by her first overwhelming wave of panic. Everything in this tiny place, no matter how small and insignificant, was something she wanted to keep. It all had a history. It was all so familiar. It was her life, it was her. She couldn’t leave all this behind.

  Every lamp had a story as to where she had gotten it. Every kitchen utensil felt weighted with history. The spoon rest from the Santa Barbara pier, bought on their first trip to the coast. The champagne glasses that had been a wedding gift. The mugs brought from Herbert’s bakery when it closed its doors. The idea of walking out and abandoning the minutiae that added up to her very existence made Bea dizzy. Literally, physically dizzy.

  She sat on the couch for a moment or two, steadying herself.

  Then, in one sudden act of mental fortitude, she decided it was time to go. Now. Not tomorrow, now. Arthur might stumble on the evidence of her planning if she waited. And besides, it might be like everything else: The anticipation of the thing might be worse than the thing itself.

  She loaded up the three boxes for Opal, and as much perishable food as she felt she could stuff into her face before it spoiled. She had a picnic cooler, so at least it would last two or three days if she used all the ice in her freezer.

  She cleaned the litter box and carted it out to the van, placing it on the passenger-side floor.

  Then she made her final trip—for Phyllis.

  She scooped up the ancient cat, hugging the warm, purring body tightly to her chest, then placed her in a box she’d prepared, with holes for air. Phyllis likely wouldn’t be in it long. Just to go from trailer to van. But still, living things need air.

  Phyllis—who had never been outside once in her life, and had not lived anywhere but the trailer in the eighteen years since Bea had adopted her as a kitten—yowled. It was a deep, threatened, and threatening sound, emanating from a place low in the cat’s throat. It was loud. It carried.

  And of course Bea wanted no attention drawn to her nighttime retreat. So she ran like a thief, tossing the key to the trailer over her shoulder and onto the carpet, and leaving the door unlocked.

  It was likely for the best, and probably saved Bea from another moment of abject panic. She was too busy racing out of her home of nineteen years to fully absorb what it meant to do so.

  At least, in that moment.

  Later it would catch Bea, and catch her hard. And she knew it.

  But this was not later. And Bea had no intention of hurrying trouble along. So she only gunned the engine and tore away.

  Chapter Six

  Why Do You Have So Much, and Why Do I Have So Little?

  Bea parked the van at something like ten a.m., and turned off the engine. She listened to the ticking of metal as it cooled.

  She might have been in Ventura, or it might have been Oxnard. Bottom line, she had made it to the Pacific Ocean. And she had found a BuyMart parking lot where she could park under a light and a security camera.

  For three weeks?

  Maybe. BuyMart was vocal about welcoming RVers to park overnight. And wasn’t Bea just an RVer but with a smaller rig?

  It had been a long drive, and the gas gauge hovered frighteningly under one-quarter. But she felt it had been worth it to get to the coast. It was always cooler by day and warmer by night at the coast.

  Her first thought had been the mountains, but she was afraid. Towns were few and far between up there. What if she ran out of gas in exactly nowhere? What if there were no support services? She needed more than just a restroom. She needed access to water, and the safety of other people in case of emergency. She couldn’t just park in a wilderness setting. So she had aimed for the comfort of the beach climate, not at all sure the gas would last.

  She saw a woman walking through the parking lot between cars, not far away. She powered down the driver’s window and called to her.

  “Excuse me.”

  The woman looked around. “Me?”

  “Yes, you. Do you live around here?”

  The woman’s face twisted into a mask of defense and suspicion.

  “Why?”

  “I just wondered what the weather’s been like here. Does it get hot in the day?”

  “Midseventies,” the woman said, her face and body language relaxing some.

  “What about night? Is it cold at night?”

  “No. Not cold. Fifties, maybe.”

  Bea waved her thanks and put the window back up. Removed her key from the ignition. She stepped into the back of the van and pulled the curtain closed behind her. Then she moved to the rear doors and pulled those curtains closed as well.

  She lifted the box of cat from her easy chair and sat.

  The plan had been to let Phyllis out immediately. And Bea had. But the cat had nearly caused an accident by hunkering down under the brake pedal, then throwing her full weight on the gas when Bea tried to move her with one foot. So she’d gone back in the box until the van was holding still. Until Phyllis could look around and get comfortable without causing trouble.

  Bea opened the box, and Phyllis stuck her head out like a soldier daring to rise out of a foxhole on the front lines. As if missiles might whiz between her ears at any second. Then she leapt out of the box all at once and
ducked under the curtain, disappearing into the van’s cab.

  Bea sat back and sighed.

  Well, here I am, she thought.

  What followed qualified as her second moment of abject panic.

  Here she was. For weeks. Now what? What was she supposed to do?

  Bea felt overwhelmed with a sense of claustrophobia. The inside of the van felt close and dank. How could there be no more to her world than this? How was that even possible? What was she supposed to do to make these hours, these days, pass?

  Breathe, Bea, she thought. Books. You brought books. And you can have a little something to eat.

  But her stomach felt tight and chancy, and she read page after page without any absorption of the words and their meanings.

  In time she abandoned the book and pushed her easy chair closer to the rear doors of the van, where she sat, holding one corner of the curtain back. Watching the people go by. Thinking.

  She would need money for food. She didn’t have enough food to last until next month. She would need money for gas if the BuyMart people asked her to move.

  She needed so much money. And these people had so much money.

  She couldn’t stop staring at them. They had shopping carts full of food and toys, but they looked bored and unhappy. How could a person go to the store, buy everything she needed—and wanted, from the look of some of those carts—and still seem dissatisfied? What more did they need to be happy, then? If all this wouldn’t do it?

  And there was something else about them. They had these devices in their hands. Bea knew they were phones, but couldn’t quite imagine how a person would make a call on such a thing. The more she watched, the more she became obsessed with people’s phones.

  Bea had seen cell phones. Little phones you flip open, with regular keypads for making a call. But these electronic gadgets in people’s hands—they were nothing like a simple flip phone. They were all screen, with no buttons, and people stared at these devices as they walked by, tapping out some kind of communication with both thumbs. Bea watched more than one person nearly run down by a car, so complete was their attention to the screen.