The Witch of Agnesi (8 page)

At the car he took her crutches and helped her into the passenger seat. When she was settled, he shut the door. He came around and threw the crutches into the back. “Let’s get you home.”

The talk through Colorado Springs and out onto Highway Eighty-Four was just what Bonnie needed, light-hearted and not too demanding. The easy repartee allowed her to drift closer and closer to that dreamy state, not quite asleep but hardly awake. Again she marveled how comfortable she felt with this man she was just getting to know. It wasn’t until they’d passed through the Eastern town of Falcon and had turned onto Meridian, the long country artery which took Bonnie to her Black Forest home, that Armen posed a question that brought her completely awake.

“What are you going to do about your car?”

“Oh, my God, Alice.” She pictured her poor Subaru crumpled at the scene of some hit and run. What if someone smacked into it and was injured? Or worse?

Armen shifted his weight so he could offer one eye to the highway and peer at her with the other. “Your car’s name is Alice?”

Her mind had gone too far into panic mode to enjoy his gentle jibe. “That’s right, Armen, the car’s named Alice, and she’s sitting half on and half off Coyote Road, right where it makes the hard turn east. Anyone coming too fast going either west or north might plow into her.”

He reached across the seat and patted her leg. “Take it easy. That which you cannot change, you must endure.”

At that moment all the comfortable feelings Bonnie had been having in Armen’s company evaporated. She wanted to tweak his smug nose.
That which you cannot
change, you must endure? Sounds like the kind of
pop philosophy you could glean out of one of Ben’s old
Travis McGee mysteries.

“Do you have a cell phone?”

He gave her a half-smile and shook his head. “Haven’t seen the need for one yet. Besides, who would you call?”

She stared at him wishing he would stop asking questions. Her mind and mouth fluttered around words like “emergency” and “after hours,” not really sure if she wanted to say them aloud. In her fanny pack she was fairly certain she had an insurance card which would provide a number for the magic “emergency-after hours” people, but then again her fanny pack sat on her desk at school. She also had a duplicate of said insurance card in Alice’s glove box. Unfortunately, Alice sat farther away than the school and was getting farther with every passing moment.

Bonnie folded her arms across her chest and decided the best course of action and the best answer she could give to Armen’s question was a pout. She was still fuming when he turned onto her long dirt driveway.

Armen had long since removed his hand from her knee and returned it to the steering wheel. Now he placed it tentatively in the noman’s-land of the seat between them. “I have someone I can call.”

She looked at him as if he had said, “God wants you to know that he’ll take care of everything. Oh, by the way, he thinks you’re the best goshdarned math teacher he’s ever met.”

“Really?”

He pulled up in front her house and turned off the car. The syncopated roar of three dogs barking disturbed the silence, but Armen didn’t seem to notice. “Sure, it’ll only take a moment. I’ll have them tow your car right into your driveway.” He reached behind the seat and grabbed the crutches.

When he opened the car door he asked, “How many dogs do you have? They sound like the devil’s own wolf pack.”

She took the crutches, fitted them to her shoulders and was halfway to her door before she said, “Three, and one cat. Bet they’re starving.”

Euclid, the black Burmese and the only male member of Bonnie’s household, met them as soon as they entered the house. He stood on the end table just inside the door looking like a statue from an Egyptian exhibit.

“That’s his furious pose. He thinks we’ll be devastated by it.” Bonnie hobbled past the cat. “Get over yourself, Euclid. You don’t even want to know the evening I’ve had.”

The cat jumped down. Meowing, he followed them past the half-wall that separated the combination family room and kitchen from the front section of the house.

Armen passed her in the family room and went right for the kitchen phone hanging next to the microwave. “Euclid would have fit right in at Griffith’s. You know, a witch’s familiar?”

He smiled, and Bonnie found herself smiling back. She felt guilty for how churlishly she acted. After all, it wasn’t Armen’s fault she’d left Alice tilted in a ditch way out on Coyote Road.

“Armen?”

He waved away the obvious apology. “Forget it. Like you said, you’ve had a bad night.” He picked up the receiver. “You got a couple of messages.”

Bonnie hobbled closer, down the narrow hall which separated the back of the family room couch from the kitchen breakfast island. “Looks like three. Make your call first. I’ll let the dogs in. The messages will keep.”

She spun on one crutch and left him to make his call. She dreaded the explosion of dogs which would erupt past the steel-reinforced laundry room door once she opened it. Even though the dogs had a massive dog run beyond the laundry room, they’d still been outside far longer than they were used to. They could hardly be expected to understand the significance of crutches or why knocking their mistress off her pinions wouldn’t be a good thing. Even now they scratched at the door and whined to be let in.

“Pay attention, ladies. I’m wounded out here. I’m not in any condition to play, so calm down.” She twisted the door knob preparing to jump, as best she could, out of the way of the thundering herd. She pushed open the door.

Three dogs—one Golden Retriever, one Black Lab-rador, and one Border Collie—stood quietly in the doorway. They eyed their mistress for a moment then sauntered past her down the hall, the Border Collie in the lead. Only the Golden Retriever looked back, and that just to give her a glare.

“I’m sorry, Hypatia. I got here as quick as I could.”

The dog snorted and followed her mates around the corner toward the kitchen. The message was obvious.

“Save your apologies, lady. Do your talking with food.”

By the time Bonnie reached the kitchen again Armen had already made his call. The dogs surrounded him, and he looked uneasy. “Henry, my tow guy, should drop Alice off in the next hour and a half.”

Bonnie wasn’t sure what she expected, but an hour and a half seemed an eternity.
That which you cannot
change, you must endure.

Armen looked exhausted. “Why don’t you go on to bed? I’ve already told Henry I’d be here when he delivered Alice.”

Bonnie’s heart momentarily leapt at the opportu nity before her mother’s voice whispered in her ear that leaving this man to wait up half the night alone would be rude. “I’m fine. I’ll make us some coffee.”

Armen shook his head. “I’ll make the coffee. You feed these dogs before they decide Science teacher is on the menu.”

“They haven’t eaten teacher in ages.” She gave him an appraising stare as she opened a can of dog food. “Although, you do look tender.”

“You look pretty good yourself. Now, where’s this coffee?”

She showed him, and they handled their respective chores in silence. Once the dogs and cat were fed and watered, and the coffee was on the drip, they sat side by side on stools that bordered the island.

Armen nodded to the phone. “You still have those messages.”

Bonnie sighed. The phone seemed a half a mile away.

Armen yawned. “I’ll get it.” He stood for a moment reading the buttons on the phone/answering machine and finally pushed the large central blue one. The machine whirred as it rewound then beeped three times. The first message was from Missus Newlin.

Bonnie winced. “I promised her I’d call tonight.”

“. . . know the time got away from you with your date and all. Just give me a call tomorrow.”

Armen raised an eyebrow a la Mister Spock of Star Trek. “You told her you had a date with me?”

Bonnie reddened. “I told her I was meeting someone for coffee.”

The machine beeped again to start the next message. “Missus P, this is Franklin. We took Jesse Poole in for questioning. That’s all we could do since he had witnesses who say he never left the hospice during the times of the Griffith break-in or your assault. I don’t think we’re going to hold him. Catch you later.”

The final beep came at the same time as the buzz of the coffee maker. Armen carried the two mugs he’d gotten earlier to the machine while the message played.

“Missus Pinkwater, this is Donna Poole, Jesse’s mom.”

Bonnie had been watching Armen, but she now turned to face the machine.

“The police came and took my son away tonight, said he tried to run you down with his truck.” A long liquid cough emanated from the machine followed by several pronounced inhalations. “Excuse me. I just need to catch my breath. Damn, I can’t say all I want to say on this short tape. Please come see me at the hospice tomorrow?”

Another deep cough ended the message.

Armen set a mug of black coffee in front of Bonnie and retook his stool. “Are you going to go?”

Bonnie brought the steaming coffee to her face. She breathed deep, feeling the damp and warmth of it in her nostrils. “I think so.”

“Then I’m going with you.” He looked away and took a sip of his coffee as if the matter was settled.

Bonnie bristled at what she considered a boorish display of male insolence. “You are?”

He swung his stool around to face her. “Be reason able. How are you even going to get to the hospice?

Think you’ll be driving by tomorrow?”

Having so often used logic to back others into corners, Bonnie discovered she didn’t much like it when the tables were turned. She dug in her heels. “I could take a cab.”
God, a cab would cost a fortune.

Armen peered at her for a long moment and nodded. “All right. Let’s start over. Bonnie Pinkwater, I would like to offer my services as a driver and companion.” He shot her a wide toothy grin.

She nodded back. “In the spirit of starting over, I accept.”

She held out her hand, and Armen shook it.

“ ‘Frenchie, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship’.” Armen’s voice came out low with just a hint of a slur.

Bonnie giggled. “Was that an impression?”

Armen looked crestfallen. “Bogart, woman.
Casablanca
, the final scene. Bogart and Claude Raines, the French Chief of Police, walk from the airport in heavy fog. Bogart and Frenchie are off to join the resistance. Bogart turns to Frenchie and says—”

“I got it. ‘This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship’.”

Wide eyed, Armen stared at her. “You’ve never seen
Casablanca
?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never seen any Bogart movies.”

“What! None of them? No
Maltese Falcon
? No
To Have and Have Not
? Never even
The Treasure of

Sierra Madre
? ‘We don’t need no stinking badges’.” This time he sounded like a man imitating a Mexican weasel.

“What was that?”

Armen buried his face in his hands. When he lifted it again, he sighed. He took both Bonnie’s hands in his. “Missus Pinkwater, would you do me the honor of watching the finest movie ever made with me a week from tomorrow?”

“
Casablanca
?”

“
Casablanca
.”

She shrugged. “Sure. Why not.”

They sat sipping coffee and talking until they heard gravel churning in the drive. Armen leapt up and was gone for over ten minutes before he returned. Bonnie considered joining him. After all, it was her car being delivered to her door, but once again she couldn’t deny the charming man another act of chivalry—and this time she was fairly sure it wouldn’t kill him.

When he returned Bonnie showed him the guest bedroom and the hall closet containing sheets and blankets. She bid him goodnight and closed the sliding door between the kitchen and the master bedroom.

Bonnie hobbled to her bed and sat down, laying her crutches on the floor. Almost as if it had a will of its own, her hand found its way into her pocket. She pulled out a purple velvet bag by its gold drawstring.

“Open it before you go to bed,” Rhiannon had said.

She worked the string and dumped a small amber vial and a slip of paper onto the coverlet. On the paper were three words—Love Potion: Enjoy.

CHAPTER 7

D
ESPITE A STIFF NECK AND A DEFINITE ache in her ankle, Bonnie woke feeling almost whole. The amber cylinder containing Rhiannon’s Love Potion sat on the end table, glowing in the morning sunlight. Next to it stood the Big Ben alarm Bonnie had owned since she left home for college more than thirty years ago. Eight-twenty. She’d slept a little over four hours, yet strangely she wasn’t tired.

Light streamed in from the kitchen. Someone, Armen obviously, had slid back her bedroom door. Had he stood in the doorway watching her sleep? She knew she should be uncomfortable with this image, but she wasn’t. Intuition told her Armen had better things to do than play the Peeping Tom.

The sounds and smells of coffee dripping and some thing frying in butter wafted past her nose. French toast? God, she would kill for some French toast sprinkled with powdered sugar, smothered with maple syrup. She hadn’t had decent French toast since Ben died. You’d think a grown woman would learn how to make her favorite breakfast.

She swung her feet over the padded edge of her water bed. They came to rest on the warm flank of a dog. From the size and the way her toes wriggled into soft fur she guessed Hypatia, the Golden Retriever. The dog must have crept in when Armen opened the door. From the snuffles around the bedroom the other two dogs—Hopper, the Border Collie, and Lovelace, the Labrador—had made their way in as well. Euclid lay curled at the end of the bed.

Hypatia stood, compacting Bonnie’s leg, and more importantly her injured foot. The shift sent a wakeup call of agony through the leg. Bonnie cried out. The dog slid away, allowing gravity to pull the leg back down. New pain, kind of an inside-out version of the first visited the leg. Again, she cried out.

Armen’s face appeared in the doorway. “Are you all right?”

She blinked at him through pain-induced tears. Her upper body, particularly her arms, trembled. Hypatia sat with her furry chin on the padded edge of the bed and regarded Bonnie with sad eyes, apologetic eyes.

Bonnie stroked the dog’s face. “I’m fine. I just forgot the foot, that’s all.”

In the space of a moment, she wondered, then pan icked about her sleeping attire, or lack thereof. Her hand closed around the collar of her flannel sleeping gown. For an awkward moment, she felt exposed.

Armen flushed and stepped out of the doorway back into the kitchen.

Bonnie regarded her flannel gown and gave herself hell.
You’re wearing more now than you did all last
night. Don’t go bananas just because a man’s in the
house for the first time in a year and a half.

She squeezed Hypatia’s loose muzzle in her right hand. Bending down, she gave the dog a kiss on her snout. “And you, madam, don’t look so sad. You didn’t mean to hurt me. I forgive you.” By the time Bonnie straightened up again the other two dogs and the cat had gathered around for some affection as well.

“Later, fur faces. Give me space so I can dress. Shoo. Get out of here, all of you.” Bonnie waved her hands, and the dogs and cat reluctantly vacated the bedroom.

She scooped up the crutches and hobbled to the sliding door and closed it.

What to wear?

Last night was easy. She hadn’t had to think about what she was wearing. She’d worn her school clothes because she had no choice. Now she was going to spend the day in the company of a man, and she had everything in her closet to choose from—the curse of too many options.

What to wear?

She had to look as if getting dressed hadn’t been any big deal. Yet, she wanted to offset the fact that she would be a semi-invalid hopping around with one foot encased in a plastic boot. Good God, how was she going to shower? She felt like crawling back into bed.

“Don’t be an idiot, Bonnie,” she whispered. “You’re not trying to seduce the man. He’s just driving you around for some errands. Get a grip, girl.”

Her gaze traveled back to the love potion sitting on the clock table.
Hell, if I wanted to seduce him I could
just slip a drop or two of Rhiannon’s magic elixir into
his coffee.

Standing alone in her bedroom, she blushed. Where did that thought come from? She had no intention of complicating her life by entering into a romance with Armen Callahan. He was a colleague, for Pete’s sake. She’d have to see him every day at school.

Bonnie groaned. She already told him she would watch a movie with him next weekend.

“Bonnie,” Armen called through the closed door,

“how much longer do you think you’ll be? Breakfast is almost ready.”

She inhaled and let the breath out slowly. What was she going to do? “Give me five minutes.”

“I made French toast.”

Oh damn, the man makes French toast.
“I’ll be there in three.”

Armen, of course, still wore his “I throw peanuts at old ladies” muscle shirt. Somehow it looked as if he wore it for the first time that morning. He even smelled fresh. Bonnie had earlier snuck a whiff when she reached across him for syrup.

“I throw peanuts at old ladies?” She stared at his shirt across her coffee cup.

He slapped the words on his chest. “You like it? My homeroom got together and bought the shirt for my birthday.”

He may as well have said, “I’m donating a kidney to an orphaned child.” As far as Bonnie was concerned, there were few things more sacred than the gifts of students. She knew teachers who didn’t feel as she did who relegated student gifts to deep drawers, or even tossed them away outright. No doubt, these people are soulless. Yet here sat a man who treasured a student gift so much he wore it away from school.

“Do they consider you someone who bedevils elderly women?” She tried to keep admiration out of her voice. “Am I going to have to watch out for you whenever you have a peanut in your hand?”

Armen stroked his mustache like a villain from some cheesy melodrama. “First of all, the shirt says old ladies. You hardly qualify. Secondly, my homeroom is seventh-graders. Who knows what goes on in their minds? There are days when I’m not sure they and I are members of the same species.”

He rubbed the shirt message with the palm of his hand. “Still, they did good. It’s a great shirt. I hoped you would like it.”

“I love it.” In that moment, she realized Armen had worn the shirt as a bit of a test. What would have happened if she hadn’t liked it?

“What’s on the agenda?” He picked up his coffee cup and walked it to the sink. He swished some water in it and set it to dry in the drainer.

The set of motions was so natural Bonnie had no doubt Armen kept his house meticulous.
And he makes
French toast as well. Be still, my beating heart.

“I need a shower, and I need to get Alice to a garage somewhere. Otherwise I have no way to get to work on Monday.” She expected him to volunteer to take her.

He merely nodded. “Tell me exactly what happened when Alice stalled out.” He stared at her, chewing the beard surrounding his lower lip.

She told him.

He listened without interruption, grunting at key points in her narrative. When she finished, he asked, “The gas pedal went spongy all at once, or has it been getting that way over time?”

She had to think. Alice had been having problems since the invention of rope, so Bonnie needed to isolate this particular malady. “The pedal’s gone weird before.”

“Had you tried fluttering it?”

The man was a mind reader.
“How did you know?

Yes, and it even worked, but not this time.”

Armen nodded, looking pensive. “Do you mind if I take a look while you take your shower?”

She shot him a mischievous smile. “Mister Callahan?”

He went red from his neck to his hairline. “I meant at the car.” A smile crept onto his face. “Although—”

“Never you mind.” She returned his smile. “You sure you want to get into Alice’s engine? She’s pretty dirty.” Bonnie couldn’t imagine anything she’d rather avoid than poking around the greasy innards of an old car.

“You just take your shower.”

In the master bathroom, Bonnie stripped down and regarded her reflection in the vanity mirror. “You hardly qualify,” Armen had said when she referred to herself as an old lady.

He couldn’t mean her steelgray hair. That dropped her solidly into the old lady camp. She’d stopped dying it since Ben’s death, and in the last year and a half, gray had chased off all other colors except white.

Her face, except for laugh lines around her eyes and mouth, remained as it had for the last twenty years. She was proud of those lines. Ben had liked her face, used to kiss her laugh lines, saying they were evidences of every joke he’d ever told her. She pushed that bittersweet memory aside and let her gaze travel to her breasts and stomach.

I guess one of the benefits of starting off flat-chested
is that you don’t give gravity a whole lot to work with.
She laid the palm of her hand on her smooth stomach. Years of hiking the mountain trails around Colorado Springs had kept her fit. Her muscled thighs and calves were proof of that.

Leaning heavily on one crutch, she flexed her bicep and mugged in the mirror. Not bad. At least, she didn’t have that jiggling business hanging beneath her arm. Maybe she wasn’t such an old lady after all.

She decided not to inspect her backside, thinking she should quit while she was ahead.
Leave well
enough alone, Bonnie.

It took forever and more than a little self-pity to remove the plastic boot.

After a labored effort involving sponges, wet and slippery crutches, and a lot of cursing, she emerged from the shower bedraggled but clean. She promised herself when she no longer needed the accursed crutches she’d have a ceremony to burn them. Maybe she’d give the damn things to Rhiannon for next year’s balefire.

Dressed in the same sweatshirt and jeans she’d worn for breakfast, she slid open the bedroom door. Armen stood at the kitchen sink washing his hands. Patches of grease streaked both arms and a long smear extended from his cheek, through his beard, and down his neck. A tiny speck even adorned one earlobe.

He squirted some dishwashing liquid onto a paper towel and scrubbed his elbows. He offered her a big you should be proud of me smile. “Your fuel filter was full of gook from a filthy gas tank. I pulled the filter off—little plastic and screen doohickey—rinsed it out with gasoline from your lawnmower gas can, and hooked the filter back up again. You should have seen the crud that came out.”

He tapped his ear. “Listen.”

At first Bonnie didn’t hear anything, and then the drone of an engine rose above the other outside noises.

“Is that—?”

“Alice, the little engine that could?” He nodded, and his grin widened. “You bet your sweet bippy. I think you should get that ancient gas tank of yours flushed, or you’re going have this problem again. Also, you might have a problem with your fuel pump, but we can put one of those on later.”

The use of the word “we” wasn’t lost on Bonnie. It felt comfortable, a good fit, at least for the moment. “You’re amazing, Mister Callahan.”

Armen spread wide his hands in a gesture that was supposed to indicate, “Shucks, ‘twern’t nothing, Ma’am.”

That, coupled with the grease on his face, made him look like a five-year-old in a fake beard playing at being an adult. A part of Bonnie wanted to hobble over and throw her arms around him. She resisted the temptation. Instead, she took the paper towel from his hand. She squirted on more Dawn and worked the towel into lather.

“Hold still. You have a monster smudge on your face, and I don’t want to get soap in your eye.” She set her crutches against the breakfast island and took a stool. “Come here.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He dropped his hands to his side and closed his eyes—once again the child, this time trusting the capable hands of an adult.

The closeness of him made her uneasy, lent a slight tremble to her hand. More than once while she tended him she had to swallow. He must have felt her hand shake, but never did he open his eyes or change his expression. She saved the earlobe for last and gave a token to the voice that wanted her to take him in her arms.

She kissed the clean earlobe and whispered, “Thank you.”

He stepped back and opened his eyes. “You’re welcome, Bonnie.”

The way he said her name made her shiver. The saying held the promise of intimacy, of shared confidences and laughter. For a long moment they stood there, captive in one another’s gaze. Then the moment passed. The look she offered him was a mixture of apology and embarrassment. The look he returned said he understood.

He handed her the crutches. “Come on. Let’s get you reacquainted with Alice.”