LLOYD, PAUL R. (3 page)

“If you’re sure, I have things to
do at home.”

The rock rolled back onto Megan’s
sore spot and grew by several inches.

Dr. Langdon returned to his office.
“Have a seat, Megan.” He indicated one of the two office chairs in front of his
desk as he closed the office door.

Megan pulled at her skirt as she
sat down. She wished she had worn slacks instead of her shortest outfit.

Dr. Langdon stepped behind his desk
and picked up a file. He returned to the front of the desk and sat in the open
seat, pulling it over so it touched Megan’s chair. He smiled while he opened
the file. “Let’s talk about what we can do to bring up your math grade, Megan.
I’d hate to have you not graduate with your class.”

He patted her on the hand.

Megan crossed her legs and stared
at a smudge on the wall behind Dr. Langdon’s desk. She waited for what other
girls said always came next.

Micah pulled a thick wad of bills
from his blue jeans pocket. “Coffee, black, big, intense.”

“Screw off.” Peevy’s voice did not
sound as angry as yesterday, but her lips had that same upturned, puckered and livid
sweep to them. Her eyes glared against her pale face.

From down the counter, Bob said,
“Peevy, you can’t even swear right. What are you doing, opening a jar?”

Peevy threw an empty paper coffee cup
at Bob. “Screw off.”

“Coffee, black, big, intense.” Micah
stared at the faded wood floor to hide a smile. It became a game. He raised his
eyes from the mahogany kick plate up to the glass face. Micah studied the
bakery items on display.

“Screw off.”

“Cranberry scone.”

“Screw off.”

He peeled a fifty from his stack of
bills and placed it on the counter. He raised his head. Peevy’s disheveled
blond hair draped her puffy face. She no longer possessed the figure he
remembered from twenty years ago when they were both nineteen.  Frowning did
not make her attractive.

Peevy opened the register and
placed the fifty inside. She removed coins and paper currency. After a cold
stare, she threw the money on the glass counter top. “Screw off.”

“You’re welcome, and I don’t mind
if you use the F-word.”

“Screw off. I hope you never F-word
anyone again in your sorry, lousy life.” Peevy stomped into the backroom.

Micah pocketed the paper bills and
three pennies remaining on the counter top. He ignored the three quarters, dime
and nickel scattered across the floor but picked up the coffee and scone that
Peevy slammed on the counter.

He parked at a table by the window
and stared at the steam as it rose from the tiny hole in the plastic lid of his
coffee cup. The rich aroma of coffee filled his nostrils as the vapor formed a
petite, cold female hand and arm. As the mist rose higher, it dispersed into
the shape of gossamer dragonfly wings.

“May I join you?” asked Bob.

Micah jumped. An embarrassed smirk
crossed his lips as Bob sat opposite him with his tiny feet dangling in the air
above the floor and his face stretching above the tabletop, kid style.

Peevy returned to the front and slapped
the counter top with a towel. “If you were half a man, you’d buy a rope.”

Bob twisted around to face Peevy. “Hey,
I am half a man.” He spun back to Micah. “What’s the rope for?”

“To hang me.”

 “What did you do to her?” Bob’s
eyes became large.

“Didn’t do anything.”

“Must have done something for Peevy
to hate you twenty years later. I know Peevy. She gets pissed and then she gets
over it.”

“She believes I did a horrible
thing.” Micah wiped his hand across his mouth. He looked up at Bob and took a
sip of coffee. The bitter taste danced on his tongue.

“But you didn’t?”

Micah locked eyes with Bob. “No.”

Bob spun around again. “He didn’t do
it, Peevy.”

Peevy stopped polishing the coffee
machine. She didn’t bother to turnaround. “Ask him how many years he got in
prison for doing nothing to my little sister.”

Bob’s eyes became intense as he
faced Micah again. “What did you do?”

“I told you.”

“What about Janice?”

“She’s a liar.”

“And you always tell the truth?”

Micah placed an elbow on the table
and rubbed his jaw with his hand. He let his hand slide up to his mouth. The
hand slid over to allow Micah to rest his cheek on it. “I spent fifteen years
in prison because someone else didn’t tell the truth.”

“You believe that, don’t you?”

Micah dropped his hand from his cheek
and locked eyes with Bob. “Why shouldn’t I? It’s the truth.”

“Sometimes when someone does
something horrible, they block it out in their mind.”

“I told you the truth. You can
believe me or not. Your choice.”

Bob gazed towards the front door.
No one entered. He turned to Micah. “Sounds to me like the choices were made a
long time ago. Perhaps it’s time to put the past behind you and move on with
life.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“You came home to put the past
behind you?”

“I came to Naperville to … I don’t
know … it’s more like I’m trying to get a handle on life. Do you ever wonder
why you’re alive?”

“No. I know why I’m alive.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

Micah sipped more coffee. He placed
the cup on the table and gazed into Bob’s eyes. “Where you are is where I want
to go because right now my life sucks. It has sucked for twenty years, and I’m
ready to get off this screwed up merry-go-round.”

“I can help.”

“How?”

“For starters, I could be a
friend.” Bob reached across the table, his arm not long enough to reach Micah.

“You’d have to believe me before I
could trust you.”

Bob straightened up and turned his
hands palm up. “I believe that you believe you didn’t commit the crime for
which you went to prison.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“Okay, it may not be, but it’s a beginning.
The rest will follow.” Bob placed his hands on the table and stared at Micah.

“Bob, I appreciate your honesty. I
do. But I don’t need friends.”

“What are you looking for?”

“When I figure that out, I’ll tell you.”

“So you need some sort of purpose?”
Bob leaned back and stroked his chin.

“For starters.”

“So what are you doing in
Naperville besides drinking coffee?”

A sudden rush of heat rose in Micah’s
face. His voice became animated. “Eating scones.” Micah took a bite from his
cranberry pastry. “And fixing up a house. It’s an experiment. I want to see if
I can buy cheap, fix up and sell high. I like working with my hands.”

“Sounds like a purpose to me. A bit
mercenary, but a purpose.”

“It’s more like what I’m doing
until I figure out what I’m doing.”

“We should talk more about this.
Your life has a purpose.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

Bob rose from his chair and faced
the counter. He paced a short distance and checked over his shoulder. “You know
where to find me if you need me.” Bob made his way up to Peevy. They talked.

Micah took a sip from his coffee while
focusing on Peevy. In this light and distance it didn’t take much for him to
picture the last time she smiled at him.

He remembered a summer day on the
Prairie Path, an abandoned series of old railroad right of ways converted to
hiking paths that wander through Chicago’s suburbs. Peevy in blue shorts and a
white sleeveless top. And about two hundred fewer pounds. A kiss. Not one of
those passionate, let’s make like bunnies in the bushes kind of kisses. Instead,
they pressed each other’s lips together in a gentle promise of commitment.

A tear flowed down Micah’s right
cheek. Peevy stared at him from behind the counter and her expression softened
for a split second before it hardened again. Then her face lit up as she turned
to the front door of the coffee shop.

“Ahlman!” she called. Several
customers stood up when the man with gossamer wings hidden under his Ivy League
blue dress shirt entered. They began to applaud.

“Way to go, Ahlman,” a man shouted
from a table on the other side of the room.

Ahlman strutted up to the counter
through a group of about one half dozen admirers who wanted to shake his hand. He
smiled and shook hands like a politician.

“It’s on the house. I’m overlooking
that you’re a man,” Peevy said.

“Thank you, dear lady.” Ahlman took
the coffee and headed towards Micah’s table. He passed it and sat at the next
table in the row and eyeballed Micah as he sat down. He placed his coffee and a
copy of Twain’s
Letters From the Earth
on the table.

Micah nodded in Ahlman’s direction.
“You must have done something right.”

Ahlman’s eyes twinkled. “Raised
money for one of the local high schools, old boy. I have some friends who are
generous.”

“Friends in high places?”

Ahlman laughed and shook his head
from side-to-side. “You’re new in town, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. Been here both days.”

Ahlman moved to Micah’s table. “How
do you like our town so far?”

“I’ve always liked Naperville. Certain
Napervillians are the problem.” Micah took another bite of his scone and washed
it down with coffee.

“So this is not your first visit?”

“Long story. Let’s not go there.”

“Any interesting adventures since
you came to town?”

“It’s only been two days.”

“So…”

Micah glared at Ahlman. “Yesterday
morning a giant faerie that looked like you flew past my window on gossamer
wings and landed in the alley in back of my house. Oh, and I found a body in
the dumpster.”

“Tell you what, Micah, I’ll be
careful of my flight patterns, and you be careful of your imagination.”

“So it was you?”

Ahlman roared with laughter. “You found
a faerie? Naperville is such a straight-laced suburban community that I’m
surprised you would find one around here. Then again I suppose you can find
gays everywhere. My, this is noble coffee. They don’t roast it like this where
I come from.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Peevy. You set the land speed
record for making her angry when you came in yesterday morning. I asked her who
you were.”

“And she told you?”

“She said you were the reason she hates
all men.”

“About says it all.” Micah took a
sip of coffee.

“Doesn’t say why she hates you, old
boy.”

“No. I’m surprised she didn’t tell
you.”

“She may not have wanted to make me
blush. I have a certain reputation to maintain. Did you say you found a body? I
don’t believe Naperville has many murders.”

Micah held up his forefinger. “It has
one now.”

“We’ve had our share of rape and
child molestation, but I don’t think we’ve had many murders.” Ahlman took a sip
of his coffee.

“Peevy told you?”

“Told me what, Micah?”

“I’m leaving now.” Micah stood up.

“By the way, nice outfit, Micah.
Nieman-Marcus?”

Micah stormed out into the bright light
of the street.

Despite the stream of light from
the window and the brightness of two lamps, Micah could see the aerie specter
of the pioneer woman. She sat in a phantom rocking chair in the corner of the
room where she knitted.  He chose to ignore her as he prepared to peel the wallpaper
from the front bedroom walls of his Naperville fixer-upper.

Micah couldn’t tell if the wallpaper
was fifty years old or a hundred. Judging from the ghost’s costume, he guessed
more like one hundred fifty. That would make it one of the oldest homes in
Naperville. The wallpaper may have been light and cheerful at one time, but now
a dull gray-brown depressed the atmosphere of the room.

In a corner at the front of the
house, he pulled a wet scrub brush out of a dark brown plastic bucket and applied
water to the paper. Once he had a large section soaked, he pulled a wide
scraper out of the back pocket of his ragged blue jeans. He rubbed it along the
wet paper to peel it away from the wall. The wet globs of paper fell to the
painter’s plastic sheet on the floor. Micah worked his way across the front
wall until he removed the wallpaper.

He descended to the kitchen for a
cup of coffee. Unlike Bob’s Coffee Emporium, where he drank a strong, black
brew, he poured decaf. He stirred in milk and two teaspoons of sugar before
raising the cup to his lips.

“You like milk and sugar in your
coffee?” The female voice startled Micah. Had the pioneer woman decided to
speak? He surveyed the room but didn’t see the phantom. He set the cup down on
the counter and grabbed a towel to wipe splashed coffee from his shirt.

“I prefer it black.” Micah placed
the dishtowel on the kitchen table and opened the screen door. “Why are you in
my backyard?”

Denise Appleby carried a small wicker
basket into the room. A faded flower-print cloth covered the contents of the
basket. She wore a flower pattern pink dress with lots of yellow blossoms and
thin, long green leaves. The dress, though new, appeared similar to the cloth
covering the basket. A strip of fabric matching her dress held her raven hair
in a ponytail. “What? Are you afraid I’m trespassing? The fact is, you refused
to answer the front door.”

“Hmmm, something smells fresh. How’d
you get into my yard? There’s no gate”

“I climbed. I’m a suffragette; I’m not
helpless.” She placed the wicker basket on a counter.

“Suffragette?”

“My mom used to say it a lot, and I
picked it up. It’s an old-fashioned way of saying ‘liberated.’”

“I didn’t hear you ring the bell.
Say, are those blueberries I smell?”

“I don’t think your bell works.”

“I’ll check into it, but first, may
I liberate one of your whatevers you have in your basket?”

“Certainly.” Denise pulled the
faded cloth off the basket.