Goodbye Dolly - By Deb Baker Page 0,11

Ginnys were worth a lot more, and she'd miss adding them to the group of Ginnys her mother had already collected for the big show. She still thought she'd been the victim of a scam, in spite of Nina's naive comments. Her repair tools were scattered on the table, and she began to gather them up and organize them in the new toolbox her mother had designed especially for Gretchen's first doll show.

S hooks, pliers, stringing hooks, dowel rods, clamps. Gretchen ticked off the required restringing tools as she added them to the box, each tool accessorized with the pink nail polish. She added a box of standard number eleven X-Acto knife blades and looked around on the table for the hobby knife.

"Where did I put it?" she asked no one in particular. She noticed that since taking in Nimrod, she talked aloud more. It couldn't be a good sign.

Nimrod, returning from outside, perked up at her voice. He cocked his head, and his tiny tail wiggled back and forth wildly.

Gretchen couldn't find the knife.

She needed the utility knife for all kinds of repairs. How would she set doll eyes without it? She needed a pointed blade to remove excess wax or plastic. The knife was a critical tool for her. It couldn't be missing. Where had she put it?

She remembered using it to wipe glue from the Blunderboo Kewpie, so it had to be here. After a thorough search of the worktable and the surrounding area, Gretchen gave up. The knife was gone.

* 6 *

"She's answered so many questions already," her husband says. "Can't this wait?"

"I'm afraid it can't."

"I keep reliving the feeling of my tires hitting that poor man's body," she says, her voice dry and flat as the Arizona desert. She doesn't hear her husband's frustration with all the red tape and what he calls badgering. "Gawd, I haven't slept since."

The pills prescribed by her physician ease the emotional pain of killing another human being, but they don't help her sleep. Nothing helps her sleep.

She desperately needs to shut down and wake up later to find out that the accident has all been a bad dream. But that isn't going to happen.

Her husband slides a protective arm around her waist.

"It's all right," she says.

But it isn't.

She has replayed the accident how many times?

Dozens? Millions? Everywhere she looks, she sees it again. The man's stunned face, the surprise registering in his eyes.

"There isn't much to tell," she says by rote. "It happened so fast. I was looking for a parking spot. Probably not going over twenty miles an hour. I noticed a man sitting on the curb, and I think I was looking at him. He seemed to be dressed in layers of clothing, none too clean, I thought at the time, and I wondered what he was doing in that neighborhood. If I hadn't been distracted, hadn't been watching him . . ."

"You don't have to do this," her husband says gently. She sees him glare at her inquisitor.

She tries to smile at her husband, reassure him, but the corners of her mouth won't turn up. The pills, she is sure. They have numbed her emotions, but not enough to ease the pain deep inside.

"He came from the same side of the street, a little in front of the man on the curb, and he literally flew at me. I saw his startled face, and then he must have realized what was happening, because I saw his expression of horror." She leans against her husband. "That's it. I slammed my foot on the brake, but he was already under . . . under the tire. People started screaming, 'Back up. Back up.' And I did."

She covers her face and struggles for composure. Her husband hands her a tissue and protests again.

"Really," he says. "This is too much."

"Getting out and seeing him like that was the hardest part," she continues. "All those people gathered around trying to help him. And he twitched and then lay motionless, and I knew. I knew he was dead."

"Did you see a box?" The man looks up from his notepad where he has been taking notes, and she notices how intense his eyes are. Watchful, studying, calculating. Perhaps hoping for some inconsistency in her side of the story, a plausible reason to arrest her for manslaughter. Her arrest is a possibility, even though her husband doesn't believe it will happen.

"A box?" She shakes her head, wishing to be helpful.

"No, he wasn't carrying anything