Leaving Unknown by Kerry Reichs Read Free Book Online Page A

giggled as she fed Oliver sunflower seeds. Oliver had a fan for life in Crystal. Crystal had a fan for life in me. Turns out she and Darryl were sister and brother, and lived around the corner from the garage in a neat clapboard Victorian. The inside of their house looked like a doily factory had exploded. The lace wheels covered every surface, including the toilet seat.
    “I like to tat lace,” Crystal had said with pride as she showed me around, pausing at every indistinguishable doily. It took over an hour.
    I was grateful for the meal, but equally grateful they didn’t offer me the guest room. It was creepily filled with shelves of glassy-eyed dolls, all of whom were introduced to me by name: Mary Kate, Angelina, Britney, Farrah, Bo, Victoria, and the incongruously named Oprah Bo Peep. I’d have had nightmares.
    After my tour we sat to supper. I was delighted to expand my menu of eggs and burritos with watery beef stroganoff and cherry pie from a box. Crystal said grace, head bowed. “God bless this meal we are about to receive, and God bless Maeve, Oliver, George W. Bush, Nancy Reagan, and the person who invented watermelon jellybeans.”
    After supper, we played gin rummy. “Let’s leave the washing up and play cards!” Crystal was thrilled to have a new player. After a few deals I could see why. She was remarkable—she won every single hand.
    “I practice a lot on the computer,” she demurred, when I complimented her. Darryl rolled his eyes.
    “Cheats.” He explained, when she went to the bathroom. “Have a gander.”
    I peeked under the card table where he indicated and was astonished to see several royal families and multiple double-digit cards stuck to its underside with chewing gum. Darryl shrugged. “Winnin’ makes her happy. Don’t bother me none.”
    I’d have to call Brick and explain this form of brotherhood.
    I lost interest in cards after that, and was relieved when Crystal realized that we were about to miss the beginning of Shrek II and raced to the living room. We followed. It was nice to have movie night after being on the road. Darryl made popcorn out of real corn kernels in an old-fashioned iron corn popper with a long handle, and we munched and giggled through themovie, Crystal most of all. When it was over, I stayed for one more cup of tea, despite the threat of being invited to stay, then Oliver and I wandered back to our Asphalt Sweet Asphalt.
    It took five days rather than three to get the tires delivered and installed, but the $280 I earned made it worthwhile, even the criminal drubbings at gin rummy. And I’d come to care for Darryl, Crystal, and Rico. Their quiet kindness reassured that you could venture out into the world and make a new start, that there’d be help along the way. That and my new business plan.
    When we left, the most affected was Crystal, who bid Oliver a tearful good-bye, raining sunflower seeds on him. She pressed a box of bacon-flavored gumballs into my hand.
    “To go with all those eggs you eat,” she explained.
    Once I hit the gas, we paused only long enough to take the obligatory Elsie picture at the town sign. I felt a twinge of guilt as Okay diminished in my rearview mirror. The mirror also reflected the ear of a large donkey. Rico was expecting me at work and instead I’d slunk off in the early-morning light with a newly shod Elsie and his donkey suit. So much for never having stolen a thing in my life. I intended to repay him and return the suit when I was done. I hoped the kachina I’d left on the counter holding down my IOU note made up for it. To him the little statue resembling a fox and grapes would be an odd form of security deposit. To me, it meant ingenuity. And hopefully, the earning ability to never, ever, have to resort to the bacon gumballs.
     
    Bonnie Bunn, of Bunn In The Oven, stared at me blankly. “You want to what?”
    I gave her my most engaging smile. “I have this donkey suit, see.” I displayed it. “And you sell