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Authors: Michelle Stimpson

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BOOK: Someone to Watch Over Me
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Still no sign of free Web access. I turned a few more corners, desperately hoping, checking every blinking sign for the four magic letters.
The back side of the senior center boasted the best lead yet:
COMPUTER CLASSES HELD HERE
.
I parked and grabbed my laptop bag from the floorboard. Once inside, I was directed to the adjacent library and thereafter greeted by Mr. Kneebam, the head librarian.
He looked like the type who had been stuck in Stephen King novels all his life. Glasses, scruffy beard, long graying ponytail, fashion rebel. Mr. Kneebam actually favored Stephen King, come to think of it.
“How can I help you?”
“I need to connect to the Internet. Do you have Wi-Fi?”
His face lit up at the mention of this term. “Wi-Fi—music to my ears.”
I matched his enthusiasm. “Mine, too.”
He rolled his lips inward and shook his head. “Sorry. We don't have it here. The closest Wi-Fi hub is the Starbucks in Henrytown. But you're welcome to utilize our computers.” He gestured like a game show hostess, guiding my eyes toward two centers containing a total of eight ancient CPUs with large, boxy monitors.
Is he serious?
“How do I get to Starbucks?”
“Hold on a second. I know what you're thinking. I assure you, these computers are actually pretty fast,” he bragged in a used-car-salesman tone.
“I work primarily online. I'm not sure—”
“You can get on and off here faster than the twenty minutes it'll take you to get to Starbucks.”
He had a point.
I followed him to the main counter to fill out an application for a library card, where I paid a nominal fee for membership since I wasn't a resident of Bayford County.
“You can occupy the computers for an hour at a time, but if there's no one waiting, you can stay on as long as you'd like—or at least until we close,” he said with a laugh.
“What time do you close?”
“Eight o'clock on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, six on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Closed Sunday.”
I finished the library's paperwork and logged on to a computer, wondering how on earth I was going to operate within the library's clipped hours. When working away from the office, the internal engine scarcely revved up by eight o'clock. And Sundays were prime production time, in my world.
Mr. Kneebam showed me where to check my time and warned me about inappropriate Web sites. “If you happen to notice a kid on a questionable site, let me know.” He winked, as though I had partnered with the Bayford village to raise all these bad kids who don't wear shoes outside and pout when made to do homework.
“I'll be too busy managing my own affairs to monitor anyone else's screen.” There.
I am
not
a part of the village.
Mr. Kneebam tipped his head. “Well, if you happen to observe questionable surfing, please let us know.”
The next half hour flashed by quickly. Most of that time was spent carefully wording the e-mail regarding my extended leave to colleagues. I needed to thank them for stepping in while, at the same time, reclaiming my clients and rightful feeding order. I'd leave it to Preston to break news of my telecommuting arrangement because there would surely be backlash to subdue.
I could almost hear them complaining. “First, Tori takes off for weeks and then she gets to telecommute?”
A rush of teenagers—who, I gathered from Mr. Kneebam's impromptu minilecture, had waited until the last minute to do a research project—filled the computer waiting list.
I had to use my last thirty minutes for answering more e-mail messages and posting one press release. I made a mental note to do everything possible off-line and transfer information to my flash drive before coming to the library. Whew!
Mr. Kneebam apologized unnecessarily for kicking me off the machine. “I wish I could let you work longer and teach these kids a lesson. But rules are rules,” he sighed.
After logging off, I relinquished my spot to a shaggy-haired frantic kid with an armful of books and two spirals. “Miss, you know anything about
Wuthering Heights
?”
Sympathy laced my response. “It's by Emily Brontë, and I think the main character is a guy named Heathcliff.”
“Thanks, miss. That'll help me get started.”
Sadly, he was serious.
Stalling in hopes that Aunt Dottie's house might clear out before long, I took the scenic route back to her side of town. Train tracks that used to separate the “black” part of town from mainstream Bayford seemed hardly needed now. From what I could tell, the town had integrated nicely.
Again, the familiar streets greeted me, flagged me through the town. Aunt Dottie's store rested only a few blocks from the tracks, strategically located to serve everyone in Bayford. Aunt Dottie used to claim her store was the melting pot of Bayford. “People need bread and milk no matter what color they are,” she'd say. “And all money is green.”
As I approached the store, which was actually a frame-house-turned-retail venue, scores of cards and flowers came into view. I threw the car in park and rushed to the porch in awe of the neighborhood's support for my aunt. Even the
CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
poster board was covered with well wishes. “We're praying for you, Aunt Dottie.” “Get well soon!”
Some people had even dropped off teddy bears, and a beautiful ivy with a card from First Baptist Church sat safely under the porch's cover. Even vendors who weren't informed of the store's closing before coming to deliver left personal messages with their nondelivery notices.
I gathered the well-wishers' sentiments and loaded them into the cargo area of my SUV. All I could think about was the numerous times Aunt Dottie had given extra food to people who could barely scrape up enough change to buy a dollar's worth of summer sausage. She'd wink at me and whisper, “It pays to be nice to people.”
That sage advice followed me back to the house, where Joenetta griped upon my return, “Took you long enough!” She wiped off the kitchen counters and hung a dish towel on the stove's handle. I had to admit, the smell of whatever she'd scrounged up for dinner teased my taste buds terribly.
DeAndre was nowhere in sight, though I wished he'd appear so he could have helped me unload the gifts from the car.
“What's all that stuff?” she asked.
“Gifts and notes people left at Aunt Dottie's store. Sure was nice of them.”
“Would have been
nice
if you'd come home and not been out riding around town. Anything could happen to you out there.”
Was this a trace of concern or a threat?
It pays to be nice to people.
“I do have business to handle while I'm here in Bayford.”
“Join the club.” She stopped straightening and put both hands on her hips. “You should be more considerate. Could have called from a pay phone or something. 'Specially since I couldn't leave DeAndre here by himself.”
“I already told you, I am not taking care of DeAndre.”
“Since you've taken it upon yourself to step into Aunt Dottie's place, you'll have to,” she reasoned.
“But
you're
his grandmother. Why can't
you
step in?”
“You know his mother is—” She stopped abruptly. Her gaze swept over my right shoulder and she cleared her throat as DeAndre's figure materialized in my peripheral vision.
Joenetta raised one eyebrow. “We'll have to finish this conversation some other time.”
“You leaving, Granny?”
“Yes, DeAndre. I'll be back tomorrow to cook dinner again and I
hope
”—she darted her eyes toward me—“we have some food around here. Can't eat air, you know.”
“Tell my daddy I said good night.” DeAndre hugged Joenetta's waist.
She leaned down to reciprocate. “I sure will.”
Hated to break up this loving display of affection, but I had to ask, “Can you also tell his daddy to send some money for food? Can't eat air, you know?”
Over DeAndre's head, Joenetta's dark expression mirrored a hostile witness on the stand. “Everybody ain't able to provide like they need to. Some of us didn't have a fairy godmother.”
She kissed her grandson good night and walked out the front door. She stopped just shy of the first porch step and picked up the potted ivy. “Somebody left this at the store, too?” she called back toward me.
“Yeah.”
Joenetta seized the plant. “Dottie's got enough plants from folk at the hospital. I'll take this one. See y'all tomorrow.”
In light of Aunt Dottie's advice about how to treat people, I could only wonder if Joenetta Lester counted as “people.”
Chapter 11
D
eAndre got off to school the next few days with minimal drama. Toast, eggs, and bacon satisfied the bottomless pit long enough to push him outdoors before the bus arrived.
He came home Wednesday afternoon and begrudgingly started on his homework right away. I fixed him an afternoon snack of sliced apples and graham crackers. “I
hate
math,” he mumbled, slamming a fist on the table.
I
hate
taking care of kids.
“Be patient with yourself. You'll get it.” I set DeAndre's food down on a napkin and left him alone to continue working while I lay in bed for a little rest. Aside from visiting Aunt Dottie, I'd spent all day on the computer organizing Internet advertising campaigns as much as technically possible without actually being online. And after I'd completed every viable off-line task, I transferred the working files to my flash drive so I could utilize every single moment of my one-hour slot at the library. Before the appendix issue, I would have taken a two-mile jog after such a taxing day's work, but now, I still needed naps here and there while my body worked around the missing appendix. Maybe if I mapped out a route in Bayford, I could pick up again with a one-mile walk.
I kicked off my shoes and lay in the bed expecting a light slumber. What I got instead was a soft whimper coming from the kitchen.
“DeAndre,” I yelled, “are you okay?”
“No.”
Oh, great.
“What's the matter?”
“Idon'tknowmynines,” he wailed.
“What?”
“I can't multiply by nine!”
My first instinct was to let Joenetta help him when she came to fix dinner, but a wild-blue thought hit me—Joenetta might not know
her
nines, either. Chuckling while scolding myself internally, I joined DeAndre at his work space.
He'd folded his hands and plopped his chin atop them in classic defeat mode. Crocodile tears rolled down his plump cheeks and spilled onto his paper. A snapped pencil signified his white flag.
Hard to believe this was the same kid who'd nearly mouthed off angrily a few days earlier. His deep brown pools of woe told the story of a little boy who cared enough about his academic achievement to cry when he didn't comprehend. I had to give him some kind of credit. Plus, he was awfully cute sitting there looking like Arnold from
Diff'rent Strokes
.
“DeAndre, today is your lucky day.” I pulled his chin upward. “I am going to teach you the ancient Chinese secret of multiplying by nines.”
He looked up at me, then rolled his eyes. “There's no secret.”
“Oh, yes there is.”
DeAndre perked up a bit, his head now raised. He waited.
“Well, do you want to know it or not?”
He gave an eager nod.
“Okay, here it goes. The first thing you do is hold both hands out, palms away from you. Like this.” I demonstrated, he copied. “Then you think of the number that you want to multiply by nine. Say, nine times three. Starting with your outside pinky finger on your left hand, count to three. When you get to the third finger, which is our middle finger, bend it down so you can't see the top of it anymore.”
“Got it,” he declared.
“What you have now is two fingers up before the bent finger, and seven fingers up after the bent finger, right?”
I wiggled my digits. He nodded.
“There's your answer. Nine times three is twenty-seven.”
His face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Wow! Do it again!”
“Let's do it together. What do you want to try? Nine times six?”
DeAndre tried nine times everything before we finished. His enthusiasm kindled an impression of victory within me that almost rivaled being named Top Producer for a moment there, until I reminded myself this probably wasn't an ancient secret—I'd learned it watching the movie
Stand and Deliver
.
DeAndre picked up the lead end of the broken pencil and quickly finished his homework with the aid of his hands. When he finished the last problem, he hopped out of the chair. “I'm going to play now.”
“Get back when you see your granny's car in the driveway.” I don't think he heard me.
A second later, his face appeared through the screen door. “Thank you, Cousin Tori.”
He skipped away before I could say, “You're welcome.”
 
Truth be told, Joenetta was right about the empty pantry. And there's only so much fast food a health-conscious person can consume. I somewhat happily put grocery shopping on my list of things-to-do, knowing the venture would lead me to Henrytown, Texas, thus Starbucks.
My hips—always the first to speak in a workout drought—warned me of impending thunder thighs if I didn't hop on somebody's treadmill soon. Bayford had no gyms open to the public, so the streets would have to do. I laced up my Nikes and stretched on the porch. My muscles thanked me. Normally, I walked an eleven-minute mile, but given my body's condition (or lack thereof), I might need to shoot for a fifteen-minute mile. Hopefully, I'd land somewhere in between and log three miles within the hour.
Kids off to school, parents off to work, the quiet streets of Bayford lulled me into a peaceful groove. For what it's worth, the air in Bayford was cleaner than the walled-in sweat factories of 24 Hour Fitness. My lungs cycled the fresh air with gratitude.
Seven minutes into my walk, I approached Humble Trail again, marking what I estimated to be the half-mile point.
Back to Aunt Dottie's, then two more laps.
So far, so good. No pain, all gain.
“Woof! Woof!”
Someone's dog (a Rottweiler mix) didn't appreciate me passing his territory. I'm not afraid of dogs, but I don't provoke them, either. I crossed the street to assure him I had no intention of infringing upon his domain. Too late. Next thing I know, this huge dog breaks off his front-yard chain and makes a B-line toward me.
“Aaah!” I screamed, hopping into the bed of an industrial strength pickup truck parked along the street. Wanna-be Cujo tried to follow, but he was too short to make the jump, thank God.
Now that he and I were close, I could see this dog wasn't actually full grown. He was, to put it in human terms, a teenager. Silly, yet volatile. “Go away!” I fussed at him.
He barked louder.
Finally, a little old lady hobbled out with a cane and stood in the yard this dog had been so viciously protecting. “Come back here, Tiny!” she called.
Tiny looked at her, back at me again.
“Tiny!” she bellowed a second time.
I pointed toward his mistress. “Go home, Tiny!”
Tiny barked at me once more and ran back to the lady's side. Call it a Lassie moment, but I understood Tiny perfectly clear. He didn't want any more run-ins with me.
“I'm sorry, sweetheart. He didn't mean no harm,” the old lady yelled as I climbed down from the truck. My heart thumped wildly, my right side throbbed painfully from the sudden exertion of energy.
Tiny didn't have to worry about me anymore. Note to self: bring my treadmill.
After I finished my one and only lap, I showered and visited Aunt Dottie in the hospital for the fourth time. I pulled up a chair alongside her bed to catch up. She still couldn't speak, but she was armed with a legal pad and a pen. With her left hand, she scribbled “hi” and “love” on the pad. I hugged her, thankful she and I could finally be alone. The next word was “store.”
I told her about the wonderful outpour of support from her customers. “Oh, Aunt Dottie, you should have seen it. Stuffed animals and cards and notes. Looks almost like this hospital room! And everywhere I go, people ask about you. I think everyone in Bayford is praying for you.”
Her eyes glistened with gratitude and she patted my hand. Then she wrote “open.”
“No, I don't know how soon you'll be able to open the store. I mean, even after you leave this place, you've still got rehab.”
I approached my next concerns cautiously. “I've been meaning to ask you if you had disability insurance or . . . if you were thinking of retiring any time soon. We could sell the store and . . . maybe you could move to Houston with me. I'd bring you back on Sundays for church.”
Aunt Dottie shoved her chin into her neck and looked at me like I was the one who'd suffered brain damage. The word “YOU” formed in all caps.
“Me?”
She wrote: “open store,” and thrust the pad at me.
“
Me
open the store?”
She nodded.
I rattled off a list of reasons why I couldn't possibly open let alone manage the store in her absence.
She closed her eyes and listened to me, as though my words went in one ear and up to God through her prayers. Only, somehow, she was translating every reason I gave to a prayer request, expecting Him to overturn every obstacle. Not fair!
When I finished explaining myself, I asked, “Do you know what I'm saying, Aunt Dottie? I love you and I'm here to see that you get all the care you need. But I can't run the store. I wish I could, but I can't.”
She rubbed my hands, which I hadn't realized were holding on to the bed's railing for dear life.
My breathing returned to normal with her calming gesture. Maybe she did understand the unfeasibility of her proposal.
“Sandra help” appeared on the clipboard.
Okay, so she didn't fully understand me.
“Who's Sandra?”
She added “Ca” to the beginning of the name. Cassandra.
“That's a great idea. Cassandra could reopen the store and keep it operating until you get back on your feet.”
She wrote: “YOU help Cassandra.”
“That I can do. As long as she knows how to manage the books and keep the vendors in line, I can oversee her work.”
Aunt Dottie smiled one of those passive-aggressive smiles and I wondered if she'd simply gotten me to agree to what she had in mind to begin with.
A nurse came in with breakfast, and Aunt Dottie ate as best as she could. The right side of her mouth wouldn't stay fully closed, so I had to wipe away the nibblets that dribbled onto her chest. Thankfully, she sucked her juice up through a straw and, with a tilt of her head, managed to slurp with little mess.
We watched the morning news, Aunt Dottie making “Mmmm mmm mmm” sounds whenever the reporters gave bad news, which was every other minute. Somewhere between traffic and weather, Aunt Dottie grew drowsy.
“I'm gonna go now and let you get some rest.”
She held up a finger and put pen to paper again. I stood over her and watched as she wrote the name “DeAnd.”
Before she could finish writing, I shook my head. “Aunt Dottie, I've been meaning to talk to you about DeAndre.”
Her face lit up at the sound of his name. She drew a huge smiley face, covering everything she had written earlier. Then she waited for me to continue.
I wanted to tell her he was driving me crazy, that Joenetta had dumped him on me instead of taking him to Ray-Ray's house, that I suspected he wasn't really stepping into the water when he took a shower.
But I didn't have the heart to ruin her smiley face. “He's fine.”
The rapid muted bopping rhythm of my flip-flops marked my gait to the car, giving testament to how much work awaited me that day. On top of all I needed to do for NetMarketing Resolutions, I now had to find Cassandra and talk to her about reopening the store. And I was stuck with DeAndre until I could figure out a way to return him to his rightful owners.
I drove to Sanford Street, a few blocks from Aunt Dottie's house, because I thought I remembered where Cassandra lived. Wrong. The lone resident said he'd been living in that house for thirty-seven years. He said he did know who Cassandra was, thanks to Aunt Dottie's store, and proceeded to tell me where Cassandra's cousin, Benjamin worked, suggesting I go to Benjamin's job so he could then give me directions to Cassandra's deceased grandmother's house, rest her soul, where he believed Cassandra was living. No less than a wild goose chase.
“Thank you, sir.” I scrambled off his porch.
A normal person in a normal town might have simply used his/her phone's Internet functions to track her down. But no, no, no. No bars here. Back to the church.
The parking lot was empty. A sense of disappointment registered in my gut. No Jacob.
Stop it!
I redirected my thoughts to Kevin, calling him in hopes he might be available between presentations. “Hi. This is Kevin Walker . . .”
Again, my heart sank. We hadn't talked since I left Houston. “Hey, babe, let me know when's a good time to call you. Kisses and hugs.”
BOOK: Someone to Watch Over Me
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