Flying Solo(28)

“Hello, Devons,” Laurie called out as she let herself in through the gate. “I am here with some very dusty games.”

Tommy looked up briefly, then went back to whatever he was examining in the dirt. But Bethie hopped off the ladder and ran over to examine the box. “How do you play them?” she asked as she peeked into it.

June wiped her hands on a green towel and walked over. “I think what Bethie means is ‘thank you,’?” she said, and she put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” Bethie said, appropriately chagrined.

“You’re very welcome,” Laurie said. “Honestly, I only know how to play some of them. And I only like some of them. My personal opinion? Don’t play Careers,” she said.

“How come?” Bethie asked.

“Because thinking about whether you’ll earn enough money as an astronaut is not much of a game.” Laurie put the box down on the table on the small flagstone patio. Also on the table was a rectangle of red Legos that outlined an area maybe the size of a shoebox, with walls about three inches high. “What’s this?” she asked.

Bethie immediately turned her attention to the question. “I’m making a barn,” she said, trailing her finger over the shape. “For horses.”

“It looks great,” Laurie said.

“It was going to be a school,” she said. “But I changed to a barn.”

“Well, it’s good to be flexible.” She turned to look out at the yard. “Garden looks wonderful too, Junie.”

“Thank you, thank you,” she said as Bethie went back to taking the games out of the box and examining them one by one. “I’m determined to get good tomatoes this year if it kills me. How’s the progress at the house?”

“It’s good. I’m very tired.”

“I’m sorry I can’t help this weekend. We’ve just got kid stuff out the wazoo. Softball, birthday parties—my kids are too popular, I think.”

“That’s okay,” Laurie said. “I have some plans, actually.”

June raised her eyebrows. “What’s going on?”

“Nick and I are going to have dinner tomorrow.”

Laurie was ready for June to be scandalized, or intrigued, or excited, but she wasn’t prepared for the way June sort of tilted her head, almost sympathetically. “Oh, Laur,” she said.

“What’s wrong?”

“You don’t think it’s going to be messy? Starting this up again when you’re leaving?”

“I’m not starting anything up. We’re having dinner.”

June laughed. “Who do you think I am? I’m not new here. I was there the other night. This is not dinner. This is dinner and maybe a sleepover,” June said, lowering her voice to a whisper for the last three words, as her daughter shook a pair of dice that had come out of some box or another.

“You wanted me to date the Grim Reaper, and I can’t have dinner with Nick?”

“Oh, come on,” June said. “I said low stakes. I said fling. Nick is not a fling.”

Laurie blinked. “It’s just dinner,” she repeated.

“And he knows that?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m sure he does.”

June nodded and reached up one hand and put it on Laurie’s shoulder, then dropped it back to her side. “Oh boy,” she said. “Well, have fun.”





Chapter Eight


On Saturday afternoon, Laurie was just back from a trip to the grocery store for Diet Coke and frozen pizzas when someone knocked on Dot’s door. When she peered through the small square window, she saw the Grim Reaper himself. She swung open the door. “Hi there.”

“I hope you don’t mind that I stopped by. I had a meeting down the street”—he pointed vaguely eastward before stuffing his hands back into his pockets—“and I wanted to catch up with you for a second if I could. I have good news, actually.”

“In that case, you should definitely come in.” She stepped aside. Today, it was a faded Ruth Bader Ginsburg T-shirt. He sure did know how to play the hits. “I don’t get enough good news.”

He sat on the edge of one of the wing chairs and pulled a folded envelope out of his back pocket. He handed it to Laurie, and when she straightened and opened it, she found three hundred-dollar bills and a record that showed he’d sold the quilt and the jewelry. “I didn’t have any trouble selling your stuff,” he said. “Or Dot’s stuff, I should say. I hope it greases the wheels a little. I wanted to ask if there was anything else I could do to help.”

He was very tall. Even while he was sitting, it showed in the way his legs folded up, sort of grasshoppery and angular. “I think I’m going to be okay. I’m gradually working my way through the closets and the trunks and the boxes. It takes forever. Or it takes me forever, at least. I’m looking at every book, because she had a way of using funny little things as bookmarks, you know? I found a birthday card from my great-grandmother that Dot was using to hold her place in The Warmth of Other Suns. Sometimes there’s a method to her madness, like her ticket to Company that’s in her Sondheim book. But sometimes, it’s just, you know. She was reading and she stopped.”