Wanted: Undead or Alive

Stress Relief

When the light faded and I peeked up, the burnt remains of a cheap umbrella stroller smoldered in front of me. The fairy and her child were nowhere to be seen. I clambered to my feet, muttering all my most comforting cuss words. Thin snowflakes began falling from the sky on a sideways slant.

People who don't know about snow seem to think it's always the big, fluffy, beautiful flakes that Hollywood reproduces with soap bubbles, but there are dozens of different kinds of snow, and the tiny sideways-flying flakes was the kind that felt like tiny needles poking your skin.

So much for our unusually warm spring.

I jogged back to the bronco, climbed inside, turned on the heater and the bun warmers and stared out the windshield at the gray world. While I sat there, the soup of emotions I'd been dealing with grew hotter and hotter until the whole hot mess was boiling in the pressure cooker of my skull. Shaking and grinding my teeth, I yanked my phone out and texted Nick.

You're sorry? You're SORRY? What the hell?

He read it immediately, but no answer came.

I slammed the car into drive and drove home as recklessly as I'd driven everywhere else lately. By the time I pulled in the drive, a thin sheet of snow had accumulated on the pavement.

Fred Jorgenson stood in his garage with the door open, pouring gas in the tank of his new snowblower. "Who's saying it was a ridiculous purchase now, eh?"

Most likely the snow would be gone and the temperatures back up above freezing within a day, but I wasn't going to pop his bubble. "Not me, Mr. J." I climbed the stairs and let myself into the apartment over the garage just as the engine on the machine cranked to life below me.

Somewhere along the short drive and the walk to my apartment, I'd cooled off a little both literally and figuratively. I hung my keys on a hook, walked to the sink, and washed my hands. They were dirty from falling to the pavement. I untied the laces of my boots and left them by the door, went to the bathroom, washed my hands again. Finally, when I reached the point of having to admit to myself that I was stalling, I took my phone from my pocket and looked at Nick's reply.

What do you want?

See, now, I'd always considered myself a modern woman and there aren't many in my generation who would prefer a phone call over a text. However, there were moments when trying to interpret the tone of a text could drive a girl out of her mind.

Was he asking, What the hell do you want now, twit?

Or was it more like, What more do you want than a magical apology that bonds us together in ways you can't possibly understand?

It could even have been, Why are you bothering me during naptime?

I fell back onto the mattress and screamed at the ceiling. "Ugh!" A slow breath to the count of ten lowered my blood pressure below stroke level. Mature people talked openly about their feelings and their concerns. Or so I've heard. Without sitting up, I answered in the most straightforward way I knew how.

I've been worried about you. I want to talk with you so I can know that you're okay and so we can figure things out. I honestly just wish you would show up on my doorstep with a bottle of good wine and we could sit down together, face to face and talk and let the rest of the world do whatever it's going to do for one evening.

Before I could chicken out, I hit the send button.

There was a knock on the door. Probably Mr. Jorgenson, hoping I'll admire the freshly cleaned driveway.