Truths of the Heart by G.L. Rockey Read Free Book Online Page B

gaps
even two can pass abreast.'”
    Lower lip drooping, she gawked at him.
    “Robert Frost,” Seth said then schmoozed, “I tried to reach Dr. Zannes
a zillion times, she never seems to be in, whatever, would you please get her
signature for me?”
    She rolled the idea around. “Well, I gotta tell you, Z is a stickler
for details.”
    “Z?”
    “Zannes' handle around the department.”
    “Pretty please.”
    Delighted at the groveling, “Well, okay, I'll get it to her but I can't
promise anything … you can check, probably tomorrow, but, like I said, I doubt
Z will approve it.”
    “I think she will, I'm sure of it.”
    Kay slammed a desk drawer.
    Leaving, Seth said, “I'll be back to pick it up. Bye and have a good
day.”

 
 

 
 
    CHAPTER NINE

 
 
    Rachelle awoke to the pulsing android voice of her alarm clock: “Monday
… August fifth … eight forty-five.”
    Her normal wake-up set for 7:00 A.M., her third snooze reprieve had ended.
She wondered if the wee hour call from Carl was a dream, hallucination, or
real. Stop the music. I can name that tune in three notes, it was real. She
nudged T.S., “Time to make the doughnuts.”
    He stretched as Rachelle stood beside the bed, fluffed her hair,
discarded Carl's dress shirt and, nude, began her fifty-a-day touch-toe
calisthenics.
    T.S., deadpan, watched her.
    On touch-toe number two, Rachelle recalled a dream just before the
alarm went off the first time: on the fifty-yard line of Ford Field, cameras
flashing, crowd cheering, a nude football player chased her across the
fifty-yard line and tackled her. In there somewhere, Denton Ruffin, dressed
only in his black striped NFL official's shirt, blew his silver whistle.
    On touch-toe ten: How did I ever agree to this about-to-be
sophomoric insanity? She answered: The Lions front office, remember,
thought it would be a good idea; Carl needed it for his career. Annnd, you
never learned to say no to sophomores, easy speaking Joes and cappuccino,
remember. Soft touch Z, just like daddy, E.Z. Eric.
    At touch twenty she noticed her palms were moist. Unusual for her but with
the anticipated Ford Field circus looming, on a down thrust, aside to T.S.,
“We're lucky not to have hives.”
    T.S. jumped to the floor and bee-lined down the spiral stairs. She knew
where he was headed—the kitchen and breakfast. Exhaling, she said, “You'll just
have to wait.”
    Touch thirty through forty-nine, Rachelle tried to force her mind from
her upcoming wedding to fall classes, her new course, but it was useless.
    “Fifty.” She slipped on a white terrycloth robe, and made her way down the
spiral staircase. The metal steps, cool to her bare feet, morning sunlight
streamed through the wall of windows facing the Lake. She went to the kitchen
where T.S. sat in front of his blue plastic bowls. T.S. Eliot printed on both,
one bowl empty, the other contained water.
    “Good morning, Mr. Eliot, all finished with your exercises for the
day?”
    He yawned widely.
    “Yawn all you want but you need to lose ten pounds.” She filled a white
mug with tap water, put it in the microwave hit high. Two minutes to boil for
her customary cup of Swiss Miss Cappuccino.
    T.S. meowed loudly.
    “I know, I know, we're running behind today.” She opened a can of Fancy
Feast tuna/ shrimp and scooped it in his food bowl.
    After a protest pause, he ate.
    Rachelle put an English muffin in the toaster, retrieved the Lansing
State Journal from the front steps, returned and, water boiled, prepared her
cappuccino, today English Toffee. Her muffin popped, she plated it, raspberry
jammed it, sat at the kitchen table, sipped, ate, and opened the paper. Comic
section always first, to give (in her mind anyway) proper perspective to
reality, she ended with Garfield. Today he was bored with everything, including
a new neighbor's talking parrot.
    Customarily, after the comics, she went to the front page to read the
“fiction” of the day. But this morning,