“Oh, hell no,” says Stephan as he walks past me with an armchair cradled in his giant arms.
Betty wrinkles her nose and laughs. “Okay, what is going on here?”
Bubba steps forward with a small bookcase in his hands.
“She’s going to be working for us. Well, them. Not me,” he explains.
“Oh!” she says, suddenly smiling.
She looks at him for a moment, then tips her head to the side. Her hand drifts up to her collar and twists the fabric a little bit as she smiles.
“I don’t think we’ve met. Hello, I’m Betty,” she says, practically batting her eyelashes.
The chief puts down the bookcase to the side and wipes his palms on the sides of his trousers before he sticks out a hand politely to shake hers.
“Bernard Reed,” he grins. “The boys call me Bubba. You can call me Bubba too, if you like.”
“Oh, Fire Chief Reed!” she exclaims breathlessly. “You are quite the local hero. I’ve been reading about you in the newspaper for… well, I don’t want to say how long!”
“That’s awfully nice of you to say,” he murmurs shyly. “But it isn’t ‘chief’ anymore. I’m retired.”
“Retired? Is this recent?” she purrs, suddenly sultry. “Don’t tell me you’re leaving us.”
“Very recent,” he nods. “Yes, I’ve decided to head to Florida with all the other geezers! Just bought the place yesterday. I have some family down there.”
“Oh, so do I!” she announces.
“You do?” I interrupt, incredulous.
She never told me this. She has family in Florida? She casts me a dirty look.
“Right on the Gulf,” she continues. “Have you ever been to Clearwater?”
“I will be there next week!” he announces proudly. “I just popped down there to sign the papers yesterday.”
“What a coincidence!”
“Yes, what a coincidence!” I repeat, patting Betty gently on the arm.
Obviously, she doesn’t want me over there, so I politely pivot away so I can pack up the kitchen and let them chat on their own. I smile. Now that she’s here, I really do feel steadied. I’m on the right track. I can do this. I know I can. I just have to figure out where to start.
To my surprise, the living room is already most of the way empty. I guess that’s what happens when you have three big, strong movers on your side. Oh, and the chief too. Retired chief, that is.
“You doing okay?” Stephan asks me, walking up with real concern in his eyes.
I assemble a cardboard box, stretching a line of clear plastic tape along the bottom from the noisy dispenser. Twirling it over in my fingers, I smile as I set it down on the table and open the first cabinet of dishes.
“You know what? I think I am doing just fine.”
Chapter 15
PETE
Nobody enjoys this. Moving is a pain in the ass; there is no other way to put it. But moving all of a sudden, when nothing is even packed… This could be terrible.
But with the whole firehouse helping out, we manage to get in and get things done pretty quickly. It’s a strange experience, handling someone else’s things. Someone I don’t really exactly know yet, but who seems really familiar anyway. I feel as if I’ve known her a long time, but it’s all happened in a flash.
Rather than getting bogged down in the details, we just start right away with the big items. She has some pretty nice things. Simple things, but arranged in a nice way. Like, there’s not a lot extra. She’s not a packrat. She doesn’t collect endless amounts of stuff that she would never use. Everything she has seems to be necessary, yet specific and pretty.
Like, her bed. It’s a queen-size bed, nothing unusual there. But the frame is an antique. The headboard is wrought iron with paint chipped in places. The spindles on the corners are strong but dainty. Kind of like her.
It’s all kind of like her.
It smells like her, and it looks like her. This antique dresser with the claw feet, this is like her. It is weird to be in her bedroom, messing with her things. Just to make it easier, I open the top drawer of her dresser and place the items from the top inside it.
There’s an antique standing mirror, and a silver tray with an assortment of combs, makeup brushes, girlish things. The small bottle of that pink nail polish that she seems to like. A bottle of perfume. I pick it up and remove the lid, giving it a quick sniff. It almost takes my breath away. That’s her. That’s her scent.
The drawer is nearly empty, with a few silky night things folded neatly in the middle. Gently I push them to one side so I can carefully place the tray in there and close the drawer again.
“Oh, are we going through her things?” Stephan smirks, coming up next to me.