Contemporary Women's Fiction: Agnes Hopper Shakes Up Sweetbriar (Humorous Women's Fiction) by Carol Heilman Read Free Book Online Page A

when ice is hanging on the trees? Why? Why?”
    I frowned at her and shook my head.
    “Didn’t think you knew,” she sneered. She grabbed me again and put her mouth next to my ear. Her breath was hot and foul. “That moon shot. Messed everything up. Whole world.” Her arms did a spastic dance as she pushed me away. Two women residents carefully kept their distance as they skirted past us.
    Finally, the blonde blood pressure nurse came, and I was glad to see her. She led the crazed woman away, speaking to her soft and low. “Now, Ida Mae, you mustn’t come out of your room and frighten people, or we’ll have to restrain you again. You don’t want us to do that, do you?”
    That set me to thinking.
Restrain her? Maybe in Ida Mae’s case that would be a necessary thing, but this is a retirement home, not a nursing home
. She didn’t have enough mental faculties to choose this place, so who put her here and how was such a thing allowed?
    Better lock my door when I turn in tonight
.
    When I entered the main house, a man stood in the doorway watching me—the same man who had helped me up at lunch. What was his name? Bill? Will? Maybe William? His large lips held a long, unlit cigar. He removed it, blew imaginary smoke, then stuck it behind his right ear and winked. Winked, of all things. I could feel his eyes follow me as I passed by.
    “What kind of people live in this place, Charlie? Who would believe me if I told them what I’ve seen in just one afternoon? No one, that’s who.”
    I hadn’t called Betty Jo, but apparently she hadn’t called back. Well, first things first, which did not include blood pressure checks. I headed toward the front hall and the telephone to try Blind George’s number again. I was lost in my thoughts when someone with the strength of Samson grabbed my arm and spun me around.

Chapter Six

    H eavens to Betsy, it’s no wonder my blood pressure shot up higher than the rooftop, the way that nurse manhandled me. Miss Johnson called Betty Jo straight away, who called old Doc Evans. He had delivered my daughter as well as most of the babies in Sweetbriar. Said I had to take some pill every morning without fail and settle down in my new home.
    My new home
?
    I promised, but my fingers were crossed at the time so it didn’t count. I finally got away from that nurse—who must lift weights or have a black belt or some such thing—and made more phone calls to inquire about the apartment, with the same result.
    “Their phone must be out of order, Charlie. By the time I get out of here to go check, it will be gone too.”

    Somehow I made it through nearly a week of days at Sweetbriar Manor, without escaping any further than the boxwood hedge out back, because Prissy seemed to pop up out of nowhere just when I thought the coast was clear.
    The nights were far worse than the days. I felt hemmed in like a stray cow in a canyon, the only way out leading to the slaughterhouse. My anxious thoughts grew into monsters and swallowed my prayers, until one night I dreamed I fought old Lucifer himself—and lost.
    Earlier that evening, Alice Chandler had poured Nyquil’s thick green liquid into tiny paper cups taken from her bathroom dispenser and said, “Make you sleep like a princess. Forget all your troubles—even this place—for a little while. Better than Jack.”
    “Jack?” I said, watching her push the bottle back into the farthest corner under her bathroom sink.
    She stood, took hold of her drink, and handed me mine as she stepped back into the bedroom. “Jack Daniel’s. Tennessee’s finest whiskey. Comforts the ache in any heart. But this will have to do.”
    We made a solemn, silent toast. I excused myself into her bathroom, poured mine down the sink, flushed the toilet, and ran some water down the drain. I didn’t fault Alice for taking it if it helped her forget this place, but I could hardly tolerate the smell or taste even when feeling awful with a miserable cold. Now if we could