South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [93]
“I thought you worked at Paul’s on Thursdays,” Madeline said as they pulled out on the road. Thursday Used to be one of her days, and it was a delivery day too. Not a day you’d want to be on your own, especially not in the last week of August, which was busier than ever from what Madeline could see. People everywhere, grabbing their last chances at summer vacation.
“Yeah, I was supposed to be Up there. But my plans got changed at the last minute. I called Kat, she’s going in, Paul’s covered.”
Madeline frowned but she didn’t say anything because it was none of her business and she had no room to talk.
There was a chirping noise and then a faint jangling melody and Randi pulled her cell phone out of her bag. “Hey,” she said. “Yeah? Sure, yeah. I can do that. I got a ride, I’ll meet you there.” She flipped the phone shut.
Before Randi could say anything, Madeline said, “What?”
“I have to meet somebody. I was wondering, could you drop me off? It’s right Up here a couple of miles, it’s—”
Madeline didn’t want to know. “Sure,” she said. They rode along in silence Until Randi pointed out a trailer in a little clearing. Madeline pulled off, and Randi climbed over the seat to the rear door. Greyson was about to follow when Randi said, “Hang on a sec, Peanut.”
Madeline was gazing out her side window, but her head snapped back at that. Greyson froze in mid-climb. The look on his face was wrenching. So anxious and forlorn, and so quickly erased.
“I was wondering, would you mind taking Grey home with you? This won’t take long, but I don’t think—well, it’d be better if you could take him.”
Greyson sank back, biting his lip.
Madeline stared at Randi. She was smiling, but there was something pleading in her eyes, something sad and determined, and Madeline wondered what she was Up to. It had to be nothing good. She had the impulse to try to talk Randi out of this stop, but she didn’t do it. It wouldn’t work, she could feel it in her bones. Instead she made herself smile in return. “Sure, no problem.”
Greyson sank back into his seat.
“Scoot over and put on your seat belt,” Madeline told him. “I’m staying at Arbutus’s house, you know where that is?”
Greyson nodded as he worked to get his belt buckled.
“I made brownies yesterday, do you like brownies?”
He nodded again, not looking Up at her. Madeline got back on the highway. “I’m glad you’re coming over,” she told him. “I’ve been kind of bored. What do you want to do? Know any good games?”
“What about hangman?” he said, tentatively. “I like hangman. Do you?”
“Love it,” Madeline said.
21
Arbutus was a stickler for her exercises, she did them every day just like the physical therapist in the hospital had told her to, and she was in the parlor right now, standing at her walker, swinging her leg back and forth.
“You be careful,” Gladys scolded from the kitchen. “That doesn’t look safe.”
“I’m fine. I have to do ten of these on each leg in sets of six, Pat said so.”
Gladys made a face. She heard those words, Pat said so, half a dozen times a day. Not that she was complaining. But it was strange how Arbutus had changed in that month in the hospital. Gladys wasn’t sure she liked it, but of course that was wrong. The people there had helped Arbutus heal Up so that she could come home. And because it was a hospital stay, Medicare was covering most of the cost. Which made it even more aggravating that Arbutus had got this bee in her bonnet about selling her house.
“I promised Pat I wouldn’t give Up the exercises and I haven’t.”
Gladys grumbled as she worked at the stove. Arbutus would be in a leotard next.
“There is no point in being such a sourpuss,” Arbutus said, switching to swinging her other leg. “You brought your troubles on yourself.”
This was about their only topic of conversation anymore. But Gladys was having none of it. “I did not try and burn the hotel down, I’ll thank you to remember!”
“Madeline didn’t, either. She singed one wall, and it was an accident.”
“Some accident! She stole my keys! She’s just like her mother. Completely