All Roads Lead Home (Bellingwood) (7 page)

She opened her soda and took a bite of toast. Then,
she pulled everything out of the basket. She was going to try to return the
basket, napkins and cutting board to Lydia, but figured it would be a losing
battle. She'd try anyway.

Her phone rang, "Polly? This is Jerry Allen. Doug
told me what happened at your house and I have to apologize. If I'd known he
was going to be there, I'd have called you first. I'm sorry!"

She laughed out loud. "I'll bet he was as
startled as I was. It's no big deal. I'm fine. He was probably more embarrassed
than
me
. Don’t worry about it."

"My wife is going to be in Des Moines this morning
and will
pick
up the door chime we had discussed. Yes, we'll install
it
on Monday and
try to avoid any more surprises,” he said, then went on. "Oh, you mi
ght be meeting her this evening.
"

"I will?" Polly
asked
.

"Oh.
Uh oh.
I didn't say
anything. Good-bye! I'll see you Monday and I'm sorry about Doug!"

Jerry hung up
abruptly
and Polly wondered what in the
world he was talking about.

“I’m here, Come in!” Polly called out when she heard a
knock at her door that afternoon. She’d slung her overnight bag over her
shoulder, grabbed up the bag of laundry in the hand holding her clutch and
balanced the basket on her left hip. There was no way she could open the front
door. This might have been carrying self-reliance a bit too far.

The door pushed open and all three ladies were
standing there. Andy
took
the basket
from
her
, Beryl reached for the pillowcase and
Lydia asked, "Is that all you have? You must have tiny, tiny laundry."

Then, she took the overnight bag off Polly's shoulder
and headed out the door.

"Wait! I could have carried
my
stuff out."

"Why yes you could," said Beryl, "but
then you wouldn't be able to shut
and
lock
your door, would you! Now, let's go!"

They dropped her
things
in the back of the Jeep and Andy and Beryl both
hopped into the back seat while Polly stood there feeling a little
discombobulated. All she could think was, "What happened here?"

"Let's go!" said Beryl from inside the
vehicle
.

Polly pulled the door shut, checked her purse to make
sure the keys were there and trotted to the Jeep.

"Can't even give a girl a moment to get her wits
about her, can you?" she said to the back seat as she jumped in and pulled
her seatbelt across her shoulder.

She turned around, "You know, I'm younger than
any of you, I could have sat
back there
."

"Don't even start with us. Just sit there and
enjoy the ride." That came from Beryl.

"So, Lydia told me you weren’t driving tonight,
Beryl,” Polly said.

"Lydia is such a downer. She knows I get lost
wherever I go," Beryl started and then Andy interrupted.

"And when you get lost, you drive faster,
thinking that will get us
unlost
. You aren't
safe."

Polly craned her neck
to
the back seat. "But I
thought we were going to Ames. How hard is that?" she asked.

"Oh trust us, Beryl gets lost in
Bellingwood
. Ames
is nearly impossible for her and Des Moines? Nobody lets her drive down
there." Lydia chuckled as she backed out of the lot.

"I
guess I
didn't even ask," Polly said, "What play are
we seeing
tonight?

Lydia was the one to respond, "The tickets are in
my purse. I'm not sure what it is. But, whatever, it will be terrific and we'll
have fun."

"I hear you
have
purple undies," said Beryl quietly from the back seat.

Polly didn't even bother to look up. She shook her
head and started laughing.

"Nothing gets by you guys, does it?" she
said.

"Not if we can help it," Andy replied. "You
know, when you get to be an old lady, you have to have something going on all
the time!"

"Ok
ay
, whatever," said Polly. "You do give a new
definition to the phrase little old lady, I guess."

The four women chattered all the way to Ames. When it
came time to pay for the meal, the receipt arrived at the table with the word
"Paid" on it, handwritten by the waitress.

"What is this?" asked Lydia. "Who did
this?"

The waitress said nothing as she gathered up the
plates.

"Really.
Who did this?" Lydia asked again.

Beryl and Andy both had shock
on their faces and they all looked at Polly.

"Uh huh.
So, that's how it is," said Beryl.

"Just so you know, you ladies are old
and out of touch
.
I took care of it when I went to the bathroom. Did you really think I needed to
do that? I'm still young enough to sleep all the way through the night without
a bathroom pit stop."
Polly laughed,
then
said, “Got
cha.”

They were all laughing as they returned to the Jeep
and headed to the Iowa State Campus. Polly looked at it a little wistfully. She
had considered coming to school here, it would have been close to her family.
She and her dad had come down for a campus tour, twice, because he wanted to
make sure she liked it. When the scholarship arrived from Boston University,
all their plans changed and she had never looked back. Everything had seemed so
perfect and the opportunity to live on the east coast was something Polly
hadn’t wanted
to
pass up.

Her mother had grown up in one of Boston's suburbs and
Polly had been out there a few times
as a
young child
. Her application to Boston
University was sent in as a
lark
. The acceptance and subsequent scholarship made
everything real.

Lydia parked the Jeep at Fisher Theater and everyone
was still giggling back and forth as they found their way to their seats. The
play wasn't familiar to Polly, but she enjoyed the production. As they left,
Beryl and Andy were commenting on the scenery and costumes. It seemed both
found something to enjoy and couldn't stop talking about it.

"It's not like we don't get out," Beryl
laughed. "You'd think we had never seen a play before!"

"Do you remember when Rent came to Des
Moines?" Andy asked, "That was amazing! There is nothing like
watching professionals do their thing, is there!
Such a
smooth presentation.
I still
cry every time."

Polly didn't say anything. She'd taken plenty of
opportunities to see live theater in Boston and on several occasions had even gone
down to New York to see shows on Broadway. Andy was right. When professionals
did a great job on stage, everyone in the audience
became
engaged
in the story. There was nothing like it.

"Maybe we'll take a road trip to Chicago one of
these days." Lydia
announced
, "How about it, ladies?"

They got in the Jeep and
headed home
. The
stars were bright and the sky was clear as they drove across Highway 30. Lydia
ducked up an access road to pick
up
Highway 17 and go north. The four women talked about
the play and dinner until they arrived in front of a deceptively large home in
Bellingwood. From the front, it looked like a normal split level home, but the
lights
filling
the yard showed it to be a much larger home than
could be seen
from the road. The garage was on the lower level behind the house and as they
drove down the hill, Polly saw several cars parked.

"Are all of these cars yours?" she asked
Lydia.

"Oh, no.
Beryl and Andy both drove over." Lydia said
rather smugly.

"But, that's still a lot of vehicles."

"We have a couple of extra cars around, I guess."

It didn't seem as if
Lydia planned to share anything else
,
so Polly followed her to the back of the Jeep and grabbed her overnight bag and
the
laundry
basket. Beryl promptly picked up the pillow case
as
Andy tried to
wrestle the basket out of
Polly’s
arms.

Lydia unlocked a side door
to the house
and
they entered through
the laundry room. Beryl dropped the case and Andy
placed the basket on top of the dryer. “Leave your laundry here and we'll let
you come back to start it after we all get settled in. I think I heard
something about chocolate martinis!”

Polly let them walk her through the hallway which
opened into a darkened room. As Lydia flipped on the light, Polly's eyes tried
to take in a room filled with women of nearly every age.

It was ten o'clock on a Saturday night and there had
to be fifteen women in chairs and couches, at tables and behind the bar in the
room.

"Hello?" she said. She didn't recognize
anyone.

Lydia held up a hand and the room went quiet.
"Alright, ladies.
This is Polly. You all know she owns the old school house and is renovating it.
But, she doesn't know any of you."

She
turned to
Polly and said, "Got
cha." Then,
she smiled and walked away. Polly turned to Beryl and Andy for some support and
they shrugged. Beryl lifted the overnight bag from Polly's shoulder and
followed Andy further into the room. "You'll never get to one-up that one,
girlie. Don't even try!"

Polly stood in the doorway and while her head told her
to turn and run, it also told her she had nowhere to run to. She smiled at the
ladies, who didn't seem to be making a mad rush at her. In a moment, though
,
one of the
younger women came up to introduce herself.

"Hi, I'm Marian Allen. My husband, Jerry is doing
your electricity," said the rather plain looking, but confident woman.

"OH! Did he tell you he nearly blew the whistle
on this?" Polly asked.

Marian coughed. "No. He didn't. What did he do?"

"Oh, it was no big deal. He said you were going
to be in Des Moines and would pick up the door chime so he could install it on
Monday,"

Marian interrupted. "Oh, that's right! Because
poor
Dougie
saw your underwear! That boy's mama is at the table
in the purple shirt." Marian snorted. Then
Polly realized everyone in the room had something purple on with hot
pink accents.

Her face flushed and she started laughing. "You're
all in purple!" S
he looked at her
three new friends. They'd changed into purple shirts and each had a hot pink
bow clipped in their hair.

"This is never going to go away, is it!" she
laughed. "How did you do it on such short notice?"

"Oh, a few phone calls here, a few texts there
and everyone was on board," said Beryl.

A very short woman with a pink scarf around her neck,
stood up. "I'm
Dougie's
mom, Helen. He was absolutely mortified he'd freaked
you out and saw your
dainties
." she said. "It does make a mama's heart
feel better, though, that he'
s
never seen anything like it before. Whew!" She
laughed and sat back down.

For the next hour, Polly moved from person to person,
meeting women and spending a few moments making connections. Wives and mothers
of people who were working on her school house; women who worked in shops
around town or
lived
on farms not far from her home; others
who
worked
in Ames or Boone, a couple in Webster City; everyone
wanted to be sure she would recognize them the next time they met.