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Authors: Elizabeth Bass

BOOK: Wherever Grace Is Needed
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And they all lived happily ever after.
For a while.
The sadness of his loss hit her full force.
“You two must have gotten married pretty soon after college,” she said.
“The month after we graduated. Jen didn’t want to wait to have a family. She was an only child and had always dreamed of having a big family, but at the same time, she wanted them all out of her hair by the time she was forty-five, when she would still be young enough to try skydiving or take trips to the Amazon without worrying about anything happening . . .”
As his words hung in the air, Grace’s smile faded, and she looked down.
Ray busied himself with birdseed. “Thanks for helping me,” he said. “I can manage on my own now.”
She didn’t want to go—though he clearly expected her to. Without thinking, she blurted out, “Would you like to come to Thanksgiving dinner with us?” At his look of surprise, she continued, “Dad wants to have all his friends and family over, and I’m sure he’s going to want to invite Dominic and Lily.”
“Thanks, but my in-laws mentioned coming down.”
“Oh. Well that’ll be even better, for the kids. And probably for you, too.” His expression seemed so serious, she worried she had embarrassed him. Or maybe he thought that she was being pushy, or God forbid, coming on to him. “I just thought I’d make sure you weren’t alone for the holiday. We’ll have lots of people coming over. My boyfriend is coming from Portland.”
“Your boyfriend?” He seemed startled, as if he didn’t expect that she would have one.
She nodded. “His name’s Ben. We live together.” He laughed, and she felt her cheeks burn. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“Well, it’s hard to believe you’re actually living together when you’re here and he’s two thousand miles away.”
“True, but it’s only temporary. In fact, I’m probably going back with Ben after Thanksgiving. My being here was never supposed to be permanent.”
“I couldn’t imagine being away for so long from someone I love.” He turned back to his tree. “Not voluntarily.”
The implied criticism in his words hit her with a glancing sting. She felt like defending herself, but that was foolish. She didn’t have to explain herself to this neighbor who didn’t know the first thing about her.
Not knowing what else to say, she settled on “Well, I’m sure the birds will be back soon.”
“What?” His head snapped up as if he had already forgotten she was there. “Oh, sure. Thank you for your help.”
She wandered back to her side of the fence and was greeted by an ecstatic Iago. For the rest of the evening, and for much of the next few days, she felt a bitter regret for not clearing up the idea that she was somehow a bad person because she had abandoned Ben. Because she hadn’t abandoned him, really. She had just extended her stay. And why should she feel compelled to justify her actions to Ray? She didn’t care what he thought.
Besides, it wasn’t as if he was the king of interpersonal relationships himself.
20
H
EATHER’S
W
ORLD
W
hen Jordan got to her art class there was a notice on the board informing the students their teacher was sick and that this week’s class was canceled.
As Jordan read the scrawled message, she was surprised by how disappointed she felt.
Heather wasn’t the most inspiring art instructor in the world. Most Saturday mornings, she barely looked awake. Jordan always tried to arrive early with coffee; she liked to listen to Heather rattle on about all the stuff she’d been doing on Friday night. There was always someone’s “show” she’d gone to, or else she’d been out hearing a band until the small hours. From the sound of things, going to bed before three was almost unheard of in Heather’s world.
Heather’s life was perfect. She just did what she wanted and didn’t worry about what anyone thought of her. And she didn’t pigeonhole people into little categories like most adults Jordan knew. Jordan had helped her haul a really heavy statue back to her apartment complex once, and the whole way there Heather never asked her boring questions about school, or her plans for college, or any of that crap. She’d just asked if she had a boyfriend, and when Jordan had answered no, Heather had said they’d have to work on that.
They’d
have to work on that. As if they were really friends.
She didn’t have Heather’s phone number, but luckily, she knew where she lived.
She took the bus as close as she could get to Heather’s apartment and walked the rest of the way, stopping at a convenience store to buy a fresh coffee for Heather.
When she knocked, it took a minute to get an answer. Heather finally poked her head through the door, and Jordan let out a yip of surprise. Bloodshot eyes stared out at her from a pale, greenish face. Heather’s wild hair was looking wilder than usual; several braids seemed to be stuck together.
“Oh, hey.” Heather blinked her eyes like a rodent peeking out from its burrow. She brightened slightly at the sight of the cup. “Coffee—you’re
so
welcome to come in with that.” She stepped back, leaving the door open for Jordan to follow her.
Jordan hesitantly stepped across the threshold, wincing at a stench in the air.
Heather flopped on the couch, which was loaded with a pile of laundry. Clean, Jordan hoped. “Shut the door,” Heather told her. “Buns could get out.”
Buns was Heather’s brown lop-eared rabbit, which had apparently been a bone of contention—one of many—between Heather and Jed while they were married. Now Jordan could see why. There were round bunny poop pellets all over the place.
Heather took a slurp of coffee and then leaned back against her laundry, her elbow hooked over her eyes to shut out what little light managed to penetrate the blue plastic miniblinds.
“Class was canceled today,” Jordan said. “I was worried.”
“Were you? That’s so sweet.”
“Have you been to the doctor?”
“Christ, no. For a hangover?”
“Oh.” Jordan relaxed a little. “I didn’t know what was wrong. I thought you might be really sick or something.”
“I might not be diseased, but I can swear that two hours ago I was truly sick.”
Jordan’s stomach turned. That’s what the stink was. Vomit. And rabbit. And overflowing ashtrays.
Heather lifted her head. “You didn’t happen to bring anything salty to eat, did you?”
“Uh, no.”
Her head plopped back again. “Oh, well. Maybe we can send out for a pizza later.” She sighed. “It’s so nice you came to take care of me. I guess I really could use some help here.”
Jordan hadn’t realized she’d volunteered for “taking care” duty, or what that would entail. But Heather did look bad. “I think you should open a window.”
“Go to it, girl,” she said, lying back. “I just need to rest my eyes a minute longer.”
A minute later, snores rose from the couch.
Jordan didn’t know what to do. It would be rude just to walk out. And Heather did feel bad, even if her illness was self-inflicted. She decided to tidy up.
Thirty minutes later, she was starting to feel as if she was making some headway. Finding an ancient pair of rubber gloves under the kitchen sink had emboldened her. She’d torn through the dirty dishes in the sink, hit the bathroom with a can of scrubbing bubbles, and done a poop pellet patrol through the apartment with the dustpan. Making as little noise as possible, she stacked papers and pushed clutter into already-overflowing drawers and closets. It was a superficial fix, but it looked better. Finally, she decided she needed to fire up the vacuum, but she hesitated to, fearing the noise would wake Heather or set off Buns’s bowels, or both.
Heather, hearing the vacuum being rolled out of the bedroom closet, sat up and stretched. “Wow! Look at this place—you are a miracle worker.”
Jordan glanced around. The discouraging thing was, it still looked like a dump.
“You know what I feel like?” Not waiting for Jordan to answer, Heather continued, “Chinese food. Tell you what—while you run the vacuum, I’ll hop in the shower and then we can go to this great buffet I know. All you can eat for four ninety-nine. It’ll be my treat.”
An hour later, Jordan was slumped in a booth at Ho House, staring at a plate of sweet and sour chicken with sauce so orange it glowed.
“Is that all you’re getting?” Heather asked, flopping down opposite her. Her plate was loaded down with food—fried rice and gloppy, greasy entrees as well as a pyramid of egg rolls. Jordan didn’t see how someone could possibly expect to eat that much, especially with a hangover.
Eyes furtively scanning the restaurant, Heather produced a large Ziploc baggie. With hand movements as fast and direct as a frog’s tongue, she transferred all the egg rolls to the baggie and then hid it in her purse.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to do that,” Jordan warned.
Heather rolled her eyes. “These places always have tons of leftover food anyway.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Hey, I’m not a millionaire. I gotta take what I can get.”
Jordan frowned. She’d never been so poor that she needed to steal food.
When Jordan didn’t answer her, Heather chuckled. “You’re cute, you know that?”
“Cute?”
Heather gasped under the power of a brainstorm. “You should come to my place for Thanksgiving! You could be my Little Sister—for my parents. They’re coming down from Denver.”
Jordan tried but failed to understand. “Won’t your parents remember that you don’t have a little sister?”
“I don’t mean a
real
little sister, I mean, a
Little Sister
little sister. You know—the program that pairs an older person with a kid? See, it’s important because . . . well, long story short, I’ve had to borrow a little money off my folks and they
never
would have given it to me if I’d just asked for myself. They’d have just gone all tough love on my ass. So what I did was, I made up an underprivileged Little Sister to tell my parents about so they’d lend me money to help
her.
So now maybe if they saw this underprivileged Little Sister, preferably looking kind of scrungy, they’d feel like they should help some more.”
“Wait a sec,” Jordan said. “You’ll tell your parents that you’ve been spending money on
me?”
“Well, not
you,
actually, but the person you’ll be representing, yeah. Mostly to help pay for your ear operation.”
“What?”
Heather’s eyes lit up. “Yes! That’s it—it would be so cool if you could just pretend to be a little bit hard of hearing.”
“I don’t know . . .”
Heather leaned forward. “You’re not offended, are you? I mean, it’s not like you really are a poor deaf kid. That would be exploitive.”
“But this is a big lie,” Jordan pointed out.
Her new friend let out a sharp cackle. “Right, but it’s lying for a good cause—me!”
Jordan couldn’t help smiling.
“Please say you’ll come—it will be miserable if you don’t,” Heather said. “My parents are both CPAs. If you’re not there, the whole afternoon’s going to feel like The Attack of the Phil Collins People.”
Jordan laughed. “What are you going to have? For Thanksgiving, I mean. Are you going to make a turkey and all that?”
Heather laughed. “If you’d pitch in here, we might just have a great big platter of frozen egg rolls.”
 
As Heather was driving Jordan home, her ancient Geo Metro started belching smoke from the hood, but Heather didn’t seem to notice. She didn’t seem to notice her windshield had a sunlike crack that made her have to lift herself up and crane her neck to see over it, either.
“Is that normal?” Jordan asked.
“Is what normal?”
“The smoke.”
Heather lifted her shoulders in a careless shrug. “It goes away sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
Heather glanced at her sidewise. “I guess I should get it fixed, huh? The trouble is, once you start fixing things, it never ends.”
Jordan knew something was faulty in that logic, but she couldn’t pinpoint what exactly. She tried not to be judgmental, but she wasn’t in the best of moods.
Heather glanced at her warily. “Hey, I’m
really
sorry about the buffet thing, Jordan. I swear—I’ve been going there for years and I’ve never gotten caught. It was just bad luck. And I had no idea that restaurant owner was so insane. The way he treated you!”
Jordan shuddered in humiliation as she remembered the angry Chinese owner threatening to call the police and making Heather upend her huge purse. When all those egg rolls had spilled out, Jordan would gladly have sunk through the floor, but Heather just shook her head and acted amazed that the egg rolls had managed to find their way into her bag.
They’d offered to pay the owner—Mr. Ho, evidently—an extra five dollars to keep him from calling the police. He took the five dollars, but then had insisted on calling Jordan’s parents. Jordan had experienced an awful flashback to last March; she just couldn’t bear the idea of someone calling her father and telling him she’d screwed up again. So she’d resorted to a desperate measure—the first thing that had popped into her head.
A few weeks earlier, she’d been trying to reach Dominic and had run him down by telephone at the professor’s house next door. She had programmed the number on her phone.
So, with Mr. Ho hovering over her, she’d whipped her phone out and speed-dialed the number. Thank heavens Grace picked up, though she sounded confused when Jordan blurted out, “Hi,
Mother,
it’s me,
Jordan.
”
“What?” Grace asked.
Jordan’s voice had trembled. “I’m in trouble again. I’m so sorry—but could you please please please talk to this restaurant owner, Mr. Ho, and tell him that I’m not a thief?”
“What?
What?
What’s happened?” Grace sputtered.
“He wants to know that I’ll be disciplined at home so he won’t
call the police.”
“Oh my God . . .”
“Please, Mother?”
Taking a deep breath, she handed the phone over to the Chinese dude.
Jordan had worried that Grace would blow it, but it turned out she barely had a chance to. Mr. Ho started shouting down the phone, declaring that if he ever saw Jordan in his restaurant again he would call the police and have her hauled off to jail. Then, in his anger, he’d hung up before handing the phone back to Jordan. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Grace again, which was probably just as well.
“So have you thought any more about Thanksgiving?” Heather asked her, as they pulled onto Jordan’s street.
“You really want me to come?”
“Would your folks mind—I mean, your dad?”
Jordan had told her that her mom and her sister had died in an accident, but she hadn’t given her all the details.
“Probably. But I don’t care.”
Heather stopped where Jordan told her to, across the street from the house. She started to get out of the car, but the door was stuck, compelling Heather to go around and open it from the outside. When Jordan stepped out, Heather gave her a big hug. “Remember, we’ve got a date. Hasta luego!”
Heather got back behind the wheel, but when she turned the key, the car wouldn’t start. She tried again several times, but the engine would just let out a few mechanical growls and then fall silent. Jordan looked over and saw that woman Grace heading toward them.
Great.
Finally, the engine made a reluctant whirring sound and picked up. With a grinding of gears and a wave, Heather rattled off down the street, streaming smoke like an old locomotive.
“What is going on?” Grace asked. “What was that man on the phone saying? I could barely make out a word.”

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