Listen to a recorded reading of Safe:
Safe
Fran went around and gave the empty tables another wipe. Where was everybody? If it didn’t stop snowing and business didn’t pick up by lunchtime, Charlie’d send her home. And losing another half-day’s pay was something Fran could not afford. Where was Larry?
Finally, the door swung open, letting in a blast of cold air. Like a couple of wet dogs, Buzz Buchanan and Chester Dahl shook themselves off in the doorway before shuffling over to their favourite booth. Chester laid down his John Deere cap while Buzz, who was as bald as the land he’d farmed for over fifty years, kept his on. Before Fran got there with the coffee pot, the men were already seated and holding out their cups.
“Mornin’, Fran! Cold enough for you out there?” Chester asked.
“Every time it storms like this, I think I moved to the wrong place,” she answered without mentioning that the good thing about the small town of Monarch in the winter was the fifteen hundred kilometers between her and the kids, and Bruce in Vancouver.
“Ah, it ain’t that bad!” Chester looked up over his fogged-up glasses. “There’re worse places.”
“Ya, like Mexico!” Fran turned to fill Buzz’s cup.
“Mexico? Hell, you don’t need to go that far to stay nice ‘n’ warm!” Buzz stretched his arms under his bulky jacket and shifted like a bull brushing up against a barn door.
Fran appreciated suggestive flirtations from loud, opinionated, overweight, seventy-some, married men as much as a sneeze into a full ashtray. “I’d take an electric blanket any day!” she shot back like she always did, provided Charlie was out of earshot. And like he always did, Buzz hooted, as if Fran were another Phyllis Diller or Carol Burnett.
“Say, what kinda pie you got today, Fran?” Chester asked.
Fran cast a glance over her shoulder at the dessert case. “Raisin, lemon meringue, and pumpkin. All fresh.”
“I’m not havin’ none if Charlie made ’em!” Buzz stated loudly enough for Charlie Wong to hear as he marched out of the kitchen in his white jacket, white shirt, black tie, black pants and shiny black shoes.
“What trouble you guys into this morning?” Charlie greeted. “And where you leave the other two, eh?”
“Speak of the devil!” Chester pointed his bristly chin toward the window as Herb Zimmer from Zimmer’s Garage hustled past.
Fran poured a third cup.
“Morning, Fran! Charlie! Guys! Jeez, it’s comin’ down like a son-of-a-bitch out there!” To prove his point, Herb shivered in his dark blue overalls before sitting down next to Chester.
“Anything else, gentlemen?” Fran asked.
“D’ya hear that?” Buzz said, leaning over the table. “She called us gentlemen!”
Chester clapped his hands. “Think I’ll try a piece of that pumpkin pie there, Fran, if you got time!”
“Ice cream or whipped cream?” she asked, ignoring Chester’s amusement at his own joke.
“Can I have both?” Chester dared.
“It’ll cost you double!” Fran lied and headed for the counter.
“Whasamatter, the wife not feedin’ you?” Herb asked as he wiped his fogged-up glasses with a paper napkin.
Chester opened his parka to indicate his baggy shirt and the lack of lard on his bones.
“Starvin’ a man’s what I call spousal abuse!” Buzz said.
Spousal abuse! Fran bit her tongue, and swooped into the frosty cooler to carve out a chunk of vanilla ice cream.
“Maybe you should file charges,” Herb said with a chuckle. The men, including Charlie, laughed.
Fran slammed the cooler lid. Grabbed the whipped cream dispenser and sprayed Chester’s pie.
“Morning, Fran! Charlie!” Gladys Bird and Bessie McKenna chirped. Right behind the two elderly women dressed in winter coats and furry hats, Stan Nedelko from the hardware across the street boomed, “And a lovely good mornin’ to you!”
“Ladies!” Buzz pulled at the brim of his cap.
“And none of your sarcasm, Buzz Buchanan!” Gladys warned as she and Bessie unbundled and settled into a booth on the other side.
“Wha’d I say?” Buzz raised his big hands. “Something I shouldna?”
“Same as always, ladies?” Fran called.
“That’d be nice, Fran!” Bessie answered.
“But no butter tart for me today,” Gladys said. “Just tea, thanks!”
Buzz mumbled something that, sounding to Fran like “diet”, erupted into snickers.
Fran marched over and set Chester’s smothered pie down. Filled Stan’s cup to the brim and splashed top-ups into the other three cups. Like a group of apprehensive schoolboys, the men kept their heads down until Fran was back behind the counter.
The snow was coming down so thick and hard now that Fran could hardly make out the buildings on the other side of the street. So thick and hard that no one like Bruce. if he were standing across the street, could see her.
“Fran, you getting their order?” Charlie asked.
“Comin’ right up,” she said. But first she got a fresh pot of coffee brewing before she made two pots of tea and put one bran muffin with a pat of cold butter and one butter tart on two plates.
“There you go, ladies.” Fran said.
“Thanks, dear,” Bessie said.
“Oh sorry, Gladys,” Fran retracted the plate with the butter tart. “What was I thinking?”
“Don’t worry, Fran,” Gladys said, reaching for the plate. “I can start cutting down,” she whispered, “tomorrow!”
“Terrible day, isn’t it?” Bessie said with a sigh.
“Ya well, it is January,” Fran said and shrugged.
“I almost stayed home, you know,” Bessie said, “but what’d I do there all by myself?”
“Now, don’t go pretending you miss the drunken so-and-so, Bessie!” Gladys remarked.
Bessie shrugged her shoulders and whispered, “I don’t, but.”
The alcoholic husband who’d made Bessie’s life a living hell, Gladys had once informed Fran in confidence, had died of liver disease just before Christmas.
“It’s good to get out,” Fran replied. And away. As far away as you can. “Even in bad weather.”
“I don’t see Constable Perrin.” Gladys flipped the lid on the stainless steel teapot to assess the contents with the critical eye of a former schoolteacher. “Or the other one. I keep forgetting his name.”
“McLaughlin,” Fran said. The young Mountie straight out of the RCMP Academy in Regina who’d promised Fran that, if her ex-husband ever showed up, she’d be protected. But what Constable McLaughlin didn’t know was Bruce always found a way, restraining order or no restraining order.
“I’m surprised Larry’s not here, either,” said Bessie.
Fran turned her head, but there was no flash of colour coming from the direction of Harper’s Clothing. What was keeping him?
Larry Morrison was the only man in town Fran saw outside of work, not just because he was sixteen years older, gay, and interested in only her company and conversation, or because she’d sworn never to get involved again, socially or sexually, with another charming, handsome, full-of-nice-sounding-promises NHL hockey player, or any man, for that matter. Not on your life! An outsider like herself, Larry picked up on things that most people missed, like he’d picked up on her.
“Got a little more coffee there, Fran!” Buzz called.
“Good heavens!” Fran said on her way back to the counter. “Maybe I should get you guys an intravenous drip instead!”
“She got ya there!” Chester said. Buzz roared, and Herb and Stan slurped on their coffee.
Fran slipped past Charlie and his stony frown, and grabbed the fresh pot of coffee.
“Man, what a morning!”
“Well, if it ain’t Larry the fairy!” Stan said to a chorus of groans and guffaws.
Cold air swirled around Fran’s ankles as she turned to see Larry pull down the collar of his teal blue sports jacket and brush the snow from his shoulders, sleeves and gelled grey hair. She waited from him to stride, alternately blowing into his hands and rubbing them together, over to the counter.
“Coffee? Or need I ask?”
Without his usual homage to caffeine’s many medicinal qualities, Larry straddled a stool. Leaned his elbows on the counter and shook his head. “You’re not gonna believe this,” he said, looking up at Fran and blinking his watery blue eyes.
“Nobody believes anything you say, Larry!” Buzz said with a cackle.
One of these days! Fran squeezed the handle on the coffee pot, and slowly, stiffly, poured Larry’s coffee.
Larry gave Fran a wild-eyed look, then swivelled around. “Gus Gardiner,” Larry said and cleared his throat, “found André, Colette and Jocelyn shot to death this morning.”
“Bull shit!”
“What the hell!”
“Oh, my God!”
“How horrible!”
The coffee pot fell out of Fran’s hand onto the edge of the counter. Tipped and hit the floor, splashing hot coffee everywhere.
“You burn yourself,” Charlie said.
But Fran, whose splashed skirt and wet nylons stuck to her stinging ankles, could only think: Not the Marchands! Good people who came in with the grandkids every Saturday for fish and chips and ice cream. Not them!
“You’re makin’ that up!” Herb accused and crushed his cigarette in the ashtray.
“I wish I was, but Gus just called Marg at the store.” Larry stretched out his left arm and his sleeve slid up over his watch. “Not more ’n’ ten, twelve minutes ago.”
“I’ll be damned!” Chester exclaimed.
“Said he was just drivin’ by before it started stormin’ and saw something sprawled out like a dead deer on the front step, so he drove into the yard. Turned out to be André laying outside frozen stiff as a board. The two women were inside. Guess there was blood—”
“Aw Jeez, Larry!” Chester winced and pushed his plate aside.
“And the kids?” Fran demanded. “What about the kids?” Tyler four. Suzette three. Scott and Robin ten years ago.
“No kids. Least Gus didn’t find ‘em anywhere.”
“Did he look?”
“I dunno, Fran,” Larry said, turning toward her, then turning away. “Anyway, Gus’s still out at the Marchand place until the cops let him go.”
“You make a mess,” Charlie said, waving a dishrag at Fran.
Fran looked down. Grabbed the dishrag out of his hands. Bent to wipe her ankles and her splattered white runners.
“Who the hell’d do something like that?” Herb asked.
“My guess it was Vern,” Larry said. “And he prob’ly kidnapped his own kids.”
“What makes you think that?” Stan challenged.
“Well, after Jocelyn moved back home to the farm with the kids Vern kinda lost it.” Larry shook his head. “Last Saturday he and the Purdy boys come in to the beer parlour pretty drunk I heard. Before long, Vern starts goin’ on about how everyone’s against him.”
Fran was still crouched down and wiping the floor. She could picture it. She could just picture it all.
“And Jocelyn’s folks are to blame and he’s gonna show ‘em!” Larry paused and hung his head. “Finally,” he continued after sitting up and taking a deep breath, “Grant went over and told Len and Garry to get Vern the hell out before he called the cops!”
“What on earth’d make a guy go and kill his wife and in-laws like that?” Herb said.
“All I know is there’s always more to it than meets the eye.” Stan stood up and reached into his back pocket. “A man don’t do something like that without a reason.”
Fran sprang to her feet with the empty coffee pot in one hand and the dripping dishrag in the other. “Are you saying they asked for this?”
“You tell ’em, Fran!” Bessie rose up off her seat.
“That’s right!” Gladys said.
“Now, don’t you old biddies get all worked up over there!” Buzz remarked.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? If we just shut up and took it?”
All eyes stared at Fran, as if she’d sprouted a set of antlers.
“Don’t look at me,” Buzz said. “I didn’t kill nobody!”
“Anyway, if you ask me, it takes two to tango.” Stan dropped his change on the table.
“You don’t know ... you don’t know a goddamn thing!”
“Hey, Fran!” Larry reached out, but it was Bruce’s fist aiming for her face and she jumped a mile.
“Don’t you—”
“Fran, it’s me, Larry,” he said with his hands in the air. “It’s OK!”
“It’s not OK!” Fran cried. “Nothing’s OK!”
“Jesus Christ, it’s gettin’ harder for a fellow to sit ’n’ enjoy his coffee without somebody comin’ in and spoilin’ it with some gory story!” Buzz lifted his empty cup and waved it in the air. “Hey, Frannie, I’ll have a piece of that pumpkin pie after all! With the works!”
“Where you going?” Charlie asked.
But Fran didn’t answer. Fran grabbed her purse and ran out the door. Got in her car. And drove.
First, she yanked Robin out of class, an emergency being her explanation to the startled teacher, and dragged her daughter by the arm to Scott’s room on the other end of the school. Yelled at him to get up, now! Hauled both kids, like sleepwalkers, out the front door, into the snow and over to the car.
Scott crawled into the backseat, but Robin baulked. “I was writing a test, Mom!”
“Get in the bloody car!” Fran said.
“But,” Robin sputtered.
“And don’t argue!” Fran gave Robin a push. Lifted and shoved the girl’s feet inside before she pushed the passenger’s seat back and slammed the door.
“Where are we going? And where’s your coat, Mom, it’s snowing!” Robin cried from the backseat, but Fran was turning the heat up with one hand and working on the windshield wipers with the other. “M—uh—mm!”
“She can’t hear you when she’s like this,” Scott mumbled. “Don’t ya know by now?”
“Shut-up!” Robin said.
“You shut up!”
“Quiet, you two. Please. OK?” Fran perched forward and drove, clenching the steering wheel and gritting her teeth, down icy streets covered with soft, thick snow.
“Mom! You can’t keep doing this all the time,” Robin whined.
Fran slid the car onto Fourth Street.
“What difference does it make?” Scott grumbled.
The highway junction, barely visible but as clear to Fran as if the route out of town was programmed into her brain, was coming up. “Something happened,” she said, slowing and shifting down. “Something terrible.”
“Is it Dad?” Robin asked. “Is he here?”
“No. No, he’s not here,” Fran said. Not yet.
“He’s in Anaheim,” Scott said, and slumped into his corner.
Fran stopped the car and looked both ways. Took a chance and turned a slippery right onto the highway. “How d’you know?” she barked. “Scott, how d’you know where he is?”
“’Cause he’s always cuttin’ out pictures of that asshole from the sports— ”
Scott swung out at his sister. “Dad’s not an asshole!”
“He is, too!” Robin said, swinging back and hitting her brother on the arm.
“Ow! Fuck off!”
“Scott!” Fran shouted at the rear view mirror. “That’s no way to talk to your sister. And stop it, both of you!” She waited for the groans and growls in the backseat to subside into a sullen silence. “He didn’t call, did he, Scott? While I was at work?”
“How could he?” Scott answered with his nose to the window and one finger scratching circles in the frost. “He doesn’t have our number. Nobody has our number.”
Robin leaned forward. “Then why’re we leaving? Where’re we going?”
Fran took a deep breath. “I can’t … I can’t explain right now.”
“But all our stuff’s at home!” Robin said.
“We don’t have a home, stupid.” Scott said. “We never will.”
Robin thudded back against the seat so hard that Fran felt the car jerk.
“We will, Scott,” Fran said. “We will.”
“Ya, like when?” Scott sank lower and pushed his knees up against the back of Fran’s seat.
“I wanna go back to school!” Robin cried. “I wanna go home!”
Fran kept her eyes fixed on the goddamn road and wrestled with the wind and the snow until her back and arms ached. Until it seemed that she was going deeper and deeper into the storm. Into nothing. She glanced in the rear view mirror. Scott was slumped down with his long legs splayed and one finger crossing out the circles on the window. Robin was huddled on the other side with her arms folded tightly over her chest and her pinched face fighting tears.
Jesus Christ, Fran! What’re you doing?
Fran took her foot off the gas and pumped the brakes. Slid to a stop in the middle of the road. Leaned forward and rested her forehead on the steering wheel.
And where the hell do you think you’re going?
She could drive and drive and drive to ends of the earth. She could hole up in some little town, in some non-descript, out-of-the-way place, and hide for the rest of her life. For the rest of her kids’ lives, and who could say, who could guarantee that they’d ever be safe?
Fran unbuckled her seatbelt and turned. “C’m’ere,” she said and squeezed her arms between the bucket seats.
Robin started to cry.
“It’s OK, sweetie.” Fran leaned and reached. “Don’t cry, honey. No, please, don’t,” she said and gave Robin a hug. Kissed her face and brushed her cheeks. Turned and pulled Scott toward her. Kissed and stroked his dark head. “It’s OK, you guys. I’m OK. We’re OK,” she said. “We are. I promise.”
Fran watched Robin and Scott settle back. Then she turned in her seat. Buckled up and put the car in gear. “Hold on tight, you two,” she said, “while I get us turned around.”
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Wow! This was so real.
NOOOOOO - I want the next part of the book.