The Virgin of Small Plains

Chapter Eighteen

May 31, 2004

Abby knew something was up that evening the minute she spotted certain familiar cars parked around her house. She’d been out in a distant wildflower field gathering blossoms to hang from the rafters so they’d be dry for making wreaths for Christmas, and the time had gotten away from her. She had hurried back in her truck, expecting to jump in the shower and rush to her sister’s house for dinner.

But her sister was here, instead.

There was her sister Ellen’s Volvo station wagon, and there was Cerule Youngblood’s red convertible, there was Susan McLaughlin’s black Caddy, and there was Randie Anderson’s white pickup truck.

It wasn’t her birthday, so it couldn’t be a surprise party.

And it was suppertime, on a holiday, when they all should have been home cooking, or over at their relatives’ houses…

Was something wrong? Was that why they were here?

Heart thumping with worry, she hurried into her own house.

Four female faces turned to look at her, all of them smiling in various stages of welcome, but their smiles looked tense to Abby. Between them, they represented a goodly chunk of the movers and shakers of Small Plains: there was her own trim, efficient older sister, the mayor, dressed in her trademark Western shirt, tan trousers, and brown leather cowboy boots. There was Ellen’s best friend Susan, who owned her family’s funeral and cemetery business. There was Randie, married into the Anderson grocery clan, and Cerule, who worked at the courthouse, both of whom had been friends of Abby’s since high school.

They had the three birds in the kitchen with them, which pleased Abby.

Ellen was at the sink mixing drinks of some kind-margaritas from the look of the tub of mix on the counter. Susan, in her black funeral director’s suit, was pulling glasses down from the cupboard. Randie was seated at the kitchen table trying to keep Gracie away from the salt she had poured into a dinner plate in preparation for dipping the rims of the glasses in it. Cerule was on her cell phone, saying a quick good-bye and flipping it closed as soon as she saw Abby in the doorway.

“We heard you turn in the drive,” Ellen said, by way of explaining their drink-making organization, and then she turned back to measuring out alcohol.

“I thought I was having dinner at your house,” Abby said to her.

“You need a drink,” Cerule announced.

“I do?” Abby saw that Gracie, stymied from eating salt, was now going after Patrick’s expensive sunglasses. She darted toward the kitchen table to rescue them. “Why do I? Why are you guys here? What’s up?”

“There’s something we have to tell you,” Susan said, without quite looking at her.

It was then that Abby realized that Susan wasn’t the only one avoiding her eyes. Ellen was, too. And although Randie and Cerule were staring at her, they were observing her like a specimen under glass.

“What’s up?” she repeated, with more urgency. “You’re making me nervous!”

The others looked toward the sink, expecting Abby’s sister to take charge. In the silence, Ellen turned around. She exchanged glances with the other women, and then finally looked straight at her sister. It made Abby’s heart beat faster to read worry and concern in Ellen’s eyes.

“What?” she demanded. “Is it Dad? I just saw him this morning…”

“No, no,” Ellen assured her. “Dad’s fine. It’s nothing like that. It’s…he’s back, Abby. Mitch is in town. He was at the cemetery, at Nadine’s grave this morning. Susan saw him.”

Abby looked at Susan, who nodded to confirm it.

“I don’t think he recognized me,” she said. “But I’m positive it was him.”

For half a second, Abby thought she might get away with saying, “So what? It’s not like I care.” But in the next half of that second, she felt herself slipping down to sit on the kitchen floor, and she heard her own voice whisper, “Shit.”

Almost before she knew it, they were all down on the floor with her, sprawled out on the linoleum, or sitting cross-legged, passing around glasses, with the pitcher of iced margaritas in the middle of their circle.

Even the birds joined them, taking up perches on the friends.

“Why?” Abby asked them. “He didn’t even come back for his own mother’s funeral, so why would he come back now?”

They all shrugged and looked helpless.

“Guilty conscience,” Cerule suggested tartly.

“Better late than never,” Randie sneered.

“I don’t want to see him!” Abby wailed at them.

“Hell, nobody wants to see him,” Randie said. “Fuck him and the horse he rode out on.”

“I want to see him,” Cerule admitted, but then added hastily, “but only from a distance. I just want to know what he looks like after all these years. I hope he’s blotchy, bald, and a hundred pounds overweight.” She looked over at Susan. “Is he, Susan? Is he fat and blotchy and ugly?”

The funeral director looked down at her drink. “Well. Not exactly.”

“Well, shoot,” Cerule said. “It’s not bad enough that he’s back, but he has to still be gorgeous, too?”

“ ’Fraid so,” Susan said, with a sigh.

“Why should I care?” Abby said, her voice rising on the last word. “It’s been years!”

“You don’t care,” Randie said stoutly. “You’re just surprised, that’s all.”

Abby gave her a weak smile. “Nice try.”

Suddenly Ellen got to her feet and made an announcement. “I think this calls for a large pizza with everything on it.”

“But what about dinner with the family?” Abby asked her.

“This is family, too,” Ellen informed her. “And this is a family emergency if I ever saw one. Emergencies call for pizza.”

Cerule joined her in standing up. “And chocolate ice cream.”

“Gross,” said Randie, also getting up, “but delicious.”

“Can’t we just stay here and drink?” Abby whined, but they wouldn’t let her sit still. Having emptied one pitcher of margaritas between them, they cleaned up her kitchen, secured the birds in the big cage, and then piled into Ellen’s car, because she’d taken only a couple of sips of the alcohol.

At a sedate pace befitting the mayor of Small Plains, they drove into town for supper.

To the west, towering white cumulus clouds were building higher and higher in the muggy air of the early evening. Behind the white clouds, there were other clouds that were turning to gray tinged with black. Even as the friends traveled down the highway, the atmosphere around them seemed to thicken, to get hotter and stickier, as if it were August instead of May.

But the friends weren’t paying any attention to the weather.

As they drew closer to town, Abby realized what they were all trying to hide from one another and especially from her. Every one of them, including herself, was sneaking peeks at the cars and people they passed on the streets, looking for him. She wanted to say, “Stop it!” She wanted to roll down a window and scream, “Go back the hell where you came from!” She wanted to whisper, Why did you leave me?

When they drove by the cemetery Cerule suddenly said, “Hey, Susan, is the Virgin only supposed to cure people? Do you think she ever gives people bad luck?”

From the front seat, Susan said, “I don’t know. Why ask me?”

Cerule raised a sardonic eyebrow. “ ’Cause, next time you’re at the cemetery? See if you can get the Virgin to give Mitch Newquist the plague.”