Chasing Rainbows A Novel - By Long, Kathleen Page 0,23

from the hospital. The crib hadn’t fit through the interior door, so I’d wrestled it outside to use the overhead garage door instead.

I’d been halfway down the sidewalk when four cars pulled up bearing family, friends and gifts for the new bundle of joy next door.

The memories and Halloween chocolate swirled in the pit of my stomach and made a rapid ascent into my throat. I barely reached the bathroom in time.

Late Friday, I was into my forty-eighth hour of wallowing when the phone rang. I let the machine pick up and pulled one of my pillows over my head, expecting to hear another of Diane’s pep talks. When I heard Ashley’s voice instead, I sat straight up in bed. Poindexter lifted his head, staring at me as if I were some alien creature--a human who actually moved.

I plucked the phone from the nightstand, interrupting the message Ashley had been leaving. “I’m here, what’s up?”

“Dad said I can go.” There was a lightness and brightness to her tone I hadn’t heard since before Diane had announced her pregnancy. I smiled with relief.

“To what?” I climbed out of bed and stretched, not wanting to throw my body into sudden shock by actually trying to walk.

A loud, annoyed sigh blasted across the line. “The party.” Ashley drew out the word’s last syllable as if she were a kid going over the top of a roller coaster.

The party.

I blinked. How could I have forgotten? What had happened to my resolve to channel my energies into helping Ashley?

“I remember.” I crossed my fingers, convincing myself it wasn’t a total lie if my fingers were crossed--a definite throwback to my own teenage years. “What time should I pick you up?”

“An hour?” Her inflection went up, turning her statement into a question.

I walked toward my mirror as we spoke, holding the cordless to one ear as I stared open-mouthed at my reflection. I’d always known my hair had a life of its own, but this was ridiculous. Long, wiry sections zigged and zagged away from my face at angles a geometry professor would be proud of.

My face was worse. Sheet marks so deeply lined my left cheek, not even a series of Botox injections could save me now.

I leaned close to the mirror, scrutinizing my eyes--my red-rimmed, sleep-encrusted, swollen-beyond-recognition eyes.

“An hour sounds good,” I answered. “I was just working out, so I’ll grab a quick shower and come get you.”

There was a pause from Ashley’s end of the phone, and I imagined her making that squished-feature face she made when she doubted every word from some adult’s mouth. “You sound like you were asleep.”

“It’s the endorphins,” I countered. “Very relaxing.”

Another pause. “They make you hyper, Aunt Bernie, not sleepy.”

I rolled my eyes. Didn’t they have better things to teach kids in school these days? “Are you going to keep yapping, or are you going to let me get out of my sweats and get ready to come get you?”

I fingered the hem of my rattiest sweatshirt. At least that wasn’t a total lie.

“Can you pick me up at the mall? Food court entrance? Then we can go straight to the party.”

A twinge of something I couldn’t quite put my finger on eased through me. Suspicion? Disappointment? Fear of the mall security guard?

“No spiral curls?” I asked.

“That’s asking too much of you,” Ashley answered sweetly. Too sweetly. “Just a ride would be great.”

“And your parents are okay with this?”

“Who do you think dropped me at the mall?”

I blew out a resigned breath. “Okay, see you in an hour. Just don’t make me come in to look for you, deal?”

“Deal.”

I headed for the shower determined to rediscover the sense of purpose I’d felt just days earlier.

o0o

“If you don’t know where you’re going, you may miss it when you get there.”

-Unknown

SEVEN

“ICRP MWKV VC PAQWEK, MCA YM PAQWEK PYQ, RYMQ YI RYXQ W NACXQS-UYSDQR NYAP VIWV TWSSCV MRZ.”

-RWSDKVCS IHDIQK

Precisely an hour later, my car and I sat idling at the curb outside the food court entrance. Ashley was nowhere in sight.

I sat impatiently for what had to be two or three minutes, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, then I turned on the car’s emergency blinkers and pushed myself out of the car.

Fortunately, I’d pulled on one of my better sweatshirts after my shower, this one sporting a roomy, identity-disguising hood. I snapped the soft fleece up over my head and slipped on my sunglasses, imagining other mall shoppers might mistake me for a glamorous movie star and not