All Roads Lead Home (Bellingwood) (24 page)

"Whoa! Who are you trying to kill?" Doug
picked up a cup and poured coffee into it.

"Anyone who gets in my way."
She looked up, "Are you going to get in my way?"

"Oh, hell no!" he said. He put the cup down
and raised his hands in mock surrender. "I know better than that by now. What
in the heck is wrong? You were fine when we left and that was, what?" he
glanced at the clock, "an hour ago? Not even that. What happened this
early in the morning?"

"Nothing," she snapped. "I'm just tired
of people thinking I can't take care of myself."

"Okay," he said. "I'm gonna take my
coffee and a roll - they smell awesome, by the way - and go to work. Billy,"
he said as they passed in the hall, "don't even start with her. She'll
deck you with her rolling pin."

"
Whazzup
,
ummm
, Polly?"
Billy smiled at her until he saw the look on her face. "Oh, Doug
wasn't kidding. Anything I can do to help?"

"No, take your food and go," she muttered
and rolled out the dough.

"Okay. I'll do that. If you need us, you know
where we are."

"Yep, you're in my world. Everyone is always up
in my world. I don't even get to sleep in my own place anymore because everyone
is all up in my damned world." She hit the dough with her hand as Billy
grabbed his coffee and a roll and took off.

Batch number two had risen so she put them in the oven
and turned the timer on. Then she took a breath. This wasn't going to do her
any good. She'd learned long ago to not get physical when she was mad, it only
broke things she loved and didn't actually
help
matters
. She took another breath and then
a third deep breath.
Alright.
That was better. The idiots weren't going to take her
down. That was her mantra for the day. And holy smokes, she had a lot of idiots
in her world. They were mostly male and she was mostly tired of them.

She slathered up this batch, sprinkled the topping on
and rolled it. Then she cut the rolls out and put them in the pan and covering
it, set it aside to rise. She ticked off numbers in her head and decided she'd
put one more batch in the machine. Too many was better than too few. While
everything settled around her, she sat back down at the table with a cup of
coffee. Polly took a drink and looked out on to the back yard. She couldn't
wait to get that playground out of there and get some color and beauty going,
but for now, at least she could see beyond to the trees lining the creek.

Polly put her head
into her hands and shut her eyes. How did her life get so weird? She took a few
more deep breaths and tried to force herself to relax.

"Polly?" Her head snapped up. She hadn't
heard anyone walk in. It was Henry.

"Polly, I'm sorry,” he said, contrition in his
voice. “
I didn't mean to push you so hard
about your friend."

"Oh, it's alright. And I'm sorry for freaking
out. My frustra
tion blew all over
everything."
She laughed. "I
suppose I should go and make sure Doug and Billy are okay. They both might be
afraid of my rolling pin now."

"They'll be fine. I am sorry. I should not have
pushed you. Your life is your life and I have no right in it. I know that."

"Henry. Sto
p.
It's alright,” Polly said. “
I've never
had people in my life who gave a hoot what I did or what happen
ed
to me. And
honestly, the last guy who did was Joey and he beat someone up because he was
jealous the guy helped me up when I tripped. I had to bail him out of jail
for that one
."

"Were you guys dating?"
Henry asked.

"Up until he threatened another guy simply
because he thanked me for helping him find a book." She paused.
"In the library where I worked!
”

She continued,
"We
broke up. I don't know why he's here, but I can bet it isn't to tell me what a
great idea he thinks I've had putting all of this together." She put her
forehead back into her left hand, rested it,
then
pushed her hair back.

"I suppose I was mostly angry because you were
right. I probably was hiding from him. I di
dn't
tell him where I was going or give him my phone number. I just left. If he
hadn't pulled all of that crap, I might have stayed in Boston a while longer,
though. I always knew I was coming back to Iowa someday. As much as I loved it
out there, it wasn't my home. Even with my family all gone, my home is still
here."

Polly balled up her fist and rested her cheek on it,
then opened the hand and rested her chin in the palm. "Everything was
going so well. I was having fun meeting people and making decisions about this
place. For the first time in my life I
can’t
wait for Monday morning
s
because I
get
to be with
new people and
do
new things. Now it all seems so upside down."

Henry sat down beside her and said, "You know,
Pol, when you moved into Bellingwood, you leaped into the hearts of a lot of
people. If we get
a
little
pushy
, it's because we're crazy about you. When you’re
upside down about something,
the rest of
us are upside down too because we like you.
A lot.
We tend to take
care of the people we like."

She laughed.
"Yeah.
I'd forgotten what it was like to have so many people
around who know you. In Boston
,
people stare at the ground and don't look you in the
eyes when you're on the street.
Out here?
I drive down the road and complete
strangers
wave at me! If I tell
people
I live in Bellingwood, they ask me about the school
that's being redone. When I tell them who I am, they want to know everything!

"It can be a little overwhelming, but I'll get
used to it again." Polly sighed and then sat up straight.

"The rolls are going to be done any second. Thanks
Henry,
and I am sorry."

"You're one resilient girl, Polly. You'll be fine
and I'm sorry too. So, now that we're a pair of sorry people, it's probably
time to get back to work." He stood up and held out his hand. She took it
and he gave her a little boost while she stood. They both looked at each other
and then broke as they heard the front door open and workers begin to come in.

Henry walked out and said, "Hey guys! Polly made
cinnamon rolls. You're going to want to get ‘
em
while they’re hot!"

The timer dinged and she pulled a batch out of the
oven, while sliding the third batch in. She reset the timer,
then
slid fresh rolls onto a plate. After a few minutes,
she glazed them and put them on the counter.

Not only were t
he
cinnamon rolls a huge success
, but
the coffee
maker was ready to be emptied again
. It
wasn't every day Polly stood around serving the people who were working, but it
felt right today. She chuckled and thought to herself that it might be penance
for throwing a tantrum first thing in the morning.

Over the last few weeks, s
everal people had asked if they could help with the c
offee and she gladly showed them where to find supplies
.
This meant things
were
always cleaned and set up for the next day. All she had to do was flip a switch
in the morning. Coffee was an easy way to keep a building full of workers happy.

One of the older guys, Marv
in
, had taken
control of the pot and its cleanup. He told her he liked having an opportunity
to do things for people and he didn't get to
do so
often enough. Polly
declared it was his territory.

At nine o'clock this morning he'd come int
o the kitchen to check the pot.
"Have you been the one making coffee today, Miss
Giller?" he asked.

"Yep, that was me, Marv. Sorry if I got in your
way."

He laughed. "Oh, it's your kitchen. I was only
trying to be helpful. Would it be alright if I went ahead and started another
one?"

"You know better than I do what these guys will
drink," she smiled. "Do your thing."

"So, Miss Giller," he commented as he rinsed
the parts of the pot in the large sink, "Are you doing alright with
everything that's been going on in your school house? This has to be pretty
upsetting."

"It is, Marv. I'm still glad that I bought it and
started this project, but sometimes I wonder what I thought I was getting in
to!"

"I was upstairs when Dave pulled down those
skeletons. That had to freak you out. I'm sorry you had to see that. You've
been good to all of us and a girl like you shouldn't ever have to see that
stuff. Death is a terrible business, isn't it?"

Polly looked up at him. "Yes, it is, Marv. It
really is."

He didn't say anything else, finished setting the
coffee up and went back to work.

Polly glanced up at the clock. Her friends were
showing up at any moment to
work on the
items in the crates
. They'd worked Monday
and Tuesday afternoon, but each of them had been busy the last
couple of days with their own lives. Polly looked
forward to digging back into the crates. This time capsule of pop culture dated
back through the sixties. When she pulled something like a charm bracelet or a
framed photograph out, she wondered about the original owner and what they'd
been like and what they would think of their possessions now. Would they even
remember owning those things?

The first day had been an exercise in patience as the
database was designed and protocols set in place for recording all the data. She
wasn't sure what was going to happen to everything once it was cleared for
release, but they certainly were going to have detailed records of it all. Even
when they weren't working in there, a guard was left in place. She supposed
that made sense. There were so many people coming and going throughout the day,
it would be easy for anyone to mess with it. Every night, the guard locked all
the doors to the auditorium. He took the memory card from the camera and the
external drive hooked into the computer. He unlocked the doors in the morning,
inserted a new card into the camera and a new external drive into the computer.
Polly thought it might be overkill, but Aaron Merritt had told them that until
the murder was solved or they were absolutely certain neither had anything to
do with the other, this procedure was in place. She
just
smiled and
nodded.

She poured two cups of coffee, grabbed a cinnamon roll
and started making her way to the stage. She had volunteered to take computer
duty today. Beryl would take the camera, Andy would tell them all how to make
sure things were organized and Sylvie and Lydia would work.

"Good morning, Stu," she said to the guard. "Would
you like some coffee and a cinnamon roll? It occurred to me that no one
probably brought you anything."

"Thank you, Polly," he replied as he took
both from her. "So are you and the girls back at it today?"

"As soon as they get here.
It's going to be the whole crew. You know what that
means,
don't you?" she laughed.

"Oh, I'm afraid I do. Sheriff Merritt has his
hands full with that team." He chuckled and took a bite of the roll. "
Oh, t
hat's good!
Thank you. My wife isn't much for baking. She loves to cook and can make
a mean
lasagna, but she says we don't need dessert in the
house. I think she doesn't like spending any more time in the kitchen than she
has to. One of these days maybe I'll talk
my
boys into trying some recipes. Then, things will get
better." He winked and smiled at her.