Love, Albert Read online

  A banner fluttered above the main street welcoming them to “Gold Rush Days in Manning.” Wooden boards covered the sidewalks, half a dozen horses were tied in front of the general store, and a sign in the window announced that the bank would be robbed at 1:00,3:00 and 5:00 every day but Sunday. Farther along, a busload of tourists were filing into the Central Hotel.

  Vicky leaned forward and handed Anna her phone. “What do you think the odds are on getting a room for the night?”

  “It’s still off season, so I’d say they’re good.” She gave Fred a shove. “Can you drive any slower?”

  He pulled into the parking lot of the hotel and Anna opened her door at the same time Vicky slid hers back.

  “Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Anna asked. “I feel like we’re deserting you. Maybe we should stay, make sure you get settled.”

  “We’ll be fine, and you don’t want to lose your campsite in Mendocino,” Vicky said, watching Reid slap Fred on the shoulder, pat the dog, and offer his hand to the boys. “The police already know we’re on our way. With any luck, they’ll have some good news about the car. If not, we’ll figure something out. ”

  “Wagons, ho,” Fred hollered. “Sit, Max. I said, sit damn it.”

  Vicky smiled and moved into Anna’s outstretched arms for a hug.

  “Good luck,” Anna said softly. “With everything.”

  “Thanks.” Vicky stepped back and accepted the picnic basket from her. “Be sure to send me copies of those pictures.”

  “I will,” Anna said, giving Reid a quick hug before settling back into her seat.

  Reid closed the door, Fred tooted the horn, and the boys and the dog stuck their heads out the window, waving and barking goodbye as the van pulled away.

  “I like them,” Reid said.

  “Me, too,” Vicky said, surprised by the wistful tone in her voice.

  “I can’t be him,” Reid said. “I can’t be Fred.”

  She looked up, seeing him as he was. A man whose hair wanted cutting, and who didn’t always pick up after himself. One who ate cereal with marshmallows when he thought no one was looking and brought her gifts when it wasn’t her birthday. A man whose words could make her laugh, and whose touch could turn her to liquid. And if she ever managed to make him over, change him around, who would he be then? And which part of him would be lost forever?

  She handed him the picnic basket. “I don’t want you to be Fred,” she said, and went ahead to the Central Hotel. Thinking about the kids, the house, her lawyer’s scowl. Focusing on things that would make up her future so she could leave the past behind.

  The line of bus passengers snaking through the lobby of the hotel quickly disappeared through the swinging doors on the left, taking them to a Welcome Reception at Sam McGee’s Bar and Grill—Where Steaks Are King and Vegans Go Elsewhere.

  The Old West theme carried through the lobby to the front desk where a young man sporting a visor on his head and garters on his shirtsleeves was busy counting a stack of blue tickets. Behind him, a lone black fish swam back and forth in a huge aquarium, putting Vicky in mind of a tiger pacing his cage. A badge was stuck to the glass with a sign underneath reading Beware Deputy Oscar. Troublemakers will be eaten.

  Vicky smiled when the young man looked up. “Is he really a man-eater?”

  He set the stack of tickets aside. “Let me put it this way. You do not want to put any body parts you’re fond of into that tank.” He glanced over his shoulder. “He doesn’t really fit the theme, but the owner of the hotel either got Oscar out of the house, or his wife was going to take matters into her own hands. So the sheriff made him a deputy and they moved him here. He kind of grows on you after while.” The clerk turned back and smiled. “Let me officially welcome you to Manning. You folks here for Gold Rush Days?”

  Vicky shook her head. “No.”

  “Ribfest?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Interfaith rugby?”

  His smile wavered when she shook her head again. “Well we don’t have much else.”

  “How about a phone?” Reid plunked the picnic basket on the counter. “Our car was stolen.”

  The clerk’s mouth dropped open. “In Manning?”

  “At Turtle Rock Beach,” Vicky said. “We were having a picnic.”

  “That explains the strange luggage.”

  “We could use a room as well,” Reid said.

  “Two rooms,” Vicky said.

  The clerk stared at her a moment, sort of slack-jawed so she held up two fingers. “Two rooms,” she repeated, and was about to draw it for him when a horrible thought occurred to her. “You do have two available, don’t you?”

  He nodded, coming to at last. “Yes ma’am. Last two in fact. One’s a regular, the other deluxe. Deluxe has a Jacuzzi, and two queen-size beds. Regular doesn’t.”

  “We’ll take both” Vicky said. “And we’ll need separate bills too.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Reid said.

  “It most definitely is.” She looked directly at the clerk. “Separate bills.”

  Reid sighed. “Is there a phone I can use to call the police?”

  “Of course.” The clerk gave Reid a handset and a card. “That’s their number.”

  Reid took a few steps away to place the call and the clerk smiled at Vicky. “This is so exciting. I can’t remember the last time we had a car theft around here.” He put his fingers on the keyboard in front of him. “Names and addresses for the rooms please.”

  Figuring the name of a motel in San Francisco wouldn’t satisfy the registration requirements, Vicky gave the condo address for both of them. The clerk raised his head. “So you live at the same address?” She nodded. “But you want separate rooms?”

  “It’s complicated,” she said.

  He shrugged and returned to his keyboard. “What kind of car were you driving anyway?”

  “An MG.”

  The clerk whistled. “We don’t get a lot of those around here either. Mostly pickups and Jeeps.” He looked thoughtful a moment. “You ever hear of those club things for the steering wheel? I hear they work really well.”

  “We’ll remember that for next time.” Vicky said

  “And what credit card will you be using for your stay?”

  “I’ll put it on…” She froze even as heat streamed up her neck and into her face.

  The clerk looked at her expectantly. “On what?”

  “On mine.” Reid handed the phone to the clerk and took his wallet from his back pocket. “Her purse is in the car.”

  The clerk rolled his eyes. “I know how that feels. Lost my wallet once. What a nightmare.” He waved Reid’s credit card between the two of them. “You still want two bills?”

  “Of course.” Vicky looked at Reid. “I’ll pay you back as soon as we’re home.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  The clerk looked from one to the other. “So two bills?”

  “Whatever she wants,” Reid said.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  The young man took the card to the machine at the other end of the counter. When he was out of earshot Vicky rounded on Reid. “It was part of the deal,” she said. “Separate rooms, separate bills.” She plucked a comment card and a pencil from the stand on the counter. “In fact, I should start a list right now.” Flipping the card over, she drew a line down the center, labeling one half YOU and the other half ME. “Everything you spend versus everything I spend, and when we get home, we’ll split it fifty-fifty.”

  Reid laid a hand over the card. “Vicky, I don’t care about the money.”

  She lifted his hand and slid the card out. “But I do.”

  He opened his mouth to protest when the clerk called, “Would you like to add Gold Rush or Ribfest tickets to your stay? Personally, I’d go for Ribfest. Unless you’re a vegan, in which case you’ll pretty much starve in this town anyway.”

  “Ribfest tickets it is,” Reid said.

  “They hold
it at Wilkins Farm,” the young man said. “Just outside of town. Wagons leave from Louis’s Dry Goods every fifteen minutes.” He returned with Reid’s card and a flyer. “You’ll love it,” he continued, laying the page on the counter between them. “Cook-offs, sauce competitions, pig-shaped trophies, this baby has it all.”

  While he and Reid launched into the time-honored debate of heat versus smoke, Vicky checked the ticket prices and added it to her list. Not that Reid would check. He was being honest when he said he didn’t care about the money, which was why she couldn’t trust him to keep an accurate account of expenses. It simply wasn’t his way.

  For all the years of their marriage, nothing had been either his or hers. Everything had been theirs. His paycheck came into the house and she played accountant, paying bills and making investments. She never had to go to him for money or explain any purchases. She was his wife, his partner and he trusted her. No questions asked, no receipts required. It was a simple arrangement, and as inappropriate now as sharing a room would be.

  “You’ll have a wonderful time at Ribfest,” the clerk said, setting two tickets and two brass keys on the counter. “One deluxe room, one regular.”

  Vicky motioned to Reid. “Give him the deluxe.”

  The clerk slid the key toward him. “Jacuzzi for the gentleman.”

  “Hold on,” Reid said. “Why should I take the deluxe?”

  “Because you’re paying for it. It’s only fair.” She waved the clerk on. “Give him the key.”

  Reid held up a hand. “Fair has nothing to do with it. You take baths, I don’t. You should have the Jacuzzi.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  The problem was that she did. Her feet ached and she could almost feel the warm water lapping around her neck, bubbling across her skin.

  “Vicky, please,” Reid said. “Take the Jacuzzi.”

  She looked up at him. “Let me ask you this. If you were traveling with one of your friends, would you give the Jacuzzi to him?”

  “My friends take showers, so yes.”

  “Even if you were paying for both rooms?”

  He sighed. “Fine, probably not.”

  “Then it’s settled. I’m a seatmate, Reid. Don’t treat me like a wife.” She turned back to the clerk. “He gets the deluxe.” And her toes would just have to get over it.

  “Second floor, and the stairs are to the right,” the young man said. “Anything else I can do for you?”

  “No, thank you.” Vicky turned to Reid. “I’m going upstairs. Let me know what the police say.”

  “They shouldn’t be much longer,” the clerk offered. “Not that it makes much difference. I mean, the way those little sports cars go, that MG of yours could be in Oregon by now. Unless of course they take a corner too fast. Then it could be lying at the bottom of a cliff, couldn’t it?”

  “We’re hoping for the best,” Vicky said.

  “And I’m sure everything will turn out fine.” The clerk wrinkled his nose. “Although it could be in a chop shop somewhere.”

  “It’s only been gone a few hours,” Vicky said.

  “Plenty of time for professionals,” he said with an unsettling brightness. “Of course, it’s none of my business, but it strikes me that leaving a car like that on a lonely stretch of beach with no club is like saying take me, I’m yours, don’t you think?”

  “You’re right,” Vicky said. “It is none of your business. But just so you know, the boys who took that car had stolen one of those well-protected pickups first. They were looking to dump it and would have taken whatever came next, which just happened to be us.” She snatched up the second key. “And for your further information, statistically speaking, pickup trucks are the number one choice of car thieves. MGs do not even make it to the top ten.”

  The clerk backed up a step. “I’m sure they don’t, ma’am. You have a nice day now.”

  “I’ll do that.” She snapped up the picnic basket and turned to find Reid watching her, an odd expression on his face. She shoved her hair out of her eyes. “What are you looking at?”

  “You surprised me is all.” He walked with her to the stairs. “I would have said Jeeps were number one.”

  “Jeeps are third. Let me know about the car.”

  She turned to leave and he touched a hand to her shoulder, not holding her back in any way, yet it was enough to make her stop and look back.

  “Why did you do it?” he asked, and gestured to the clerk. “Why didn’t you agree with him?”

  She shrugged. “Because he was so annoying with all his talk of chop shops and cliffs.”

  Reid smiled. “They die hard, don’t they?”

  “Hotel clerks?”

  “Old habits,” he said softly. “They always die hard.”

  Vicky knew exactly what he meant. For all the years that they were together, she and Reid could say whatever they liked about each other, but let anyone else say the same thing, and there would be hell to pay.

  It was loyalty, it was family, it was love – and completely out of place in the lobby of the Central Hotel.

  “Then, we’ll just have to work on some new ones, won’t we?” She started up the stairs. “Enjoy your Jacuzzi.”

  “If you change your mind,” he called after her. “I’ll be happy to switch.”

  She stopped and faced him. “I won’t change my mind.”

  She was saved from whatever he was going to say next when the front door opened and an officer from the Highway Patrol stepped into the lobby. A tall sturdy woman, dark hair pulled back with a firm hand, and a clipboard at the ready. “Looking for Reid Ferguson,” she said and nodded at Reid. “That you?”

  He nodded back and she walked toward him, hand extended. “I’m Officer Jamieson. I hear we’re looking at grand theft auto and a hostage taking.”

  The clerk brightened right up. “A hostage taking? Oh my God this is amazing.”

  Officer Jamieson scowled at him. “A crime is what this is, young man. These people have lost a loved one’s ashes to foul play.”

  “They stole someone’s ashes?” the clerk asked.

  “The box was in the car,” Reid explained.

  “And we’ll do everything we can to get them back,” the officer said.

  Vicky felt her shoulders relax. Things were finally starting to look up. Police would find the car, they would get to Seaport, and this trip would finally be over. Some day it would become an anecdote that she would look back on and laugh about. Not today, but someday, she was sure of it until the officer added, “Provided, of course, those boys don’t snort him first.”

  The clerk snickered, the officer grinned and Reid shot Vicky a weary glance.

  “Let’s go and get this report written up,” Jamieson said. “Everyone back at the station can’t wait to hear the details on this one.”

  “We’re on tenterhooks out here too,” the clerk called, and Vicky couldn’t help it. New habits be damned. She wanted to smack them both.

  Reid tossed his sweatshirt on the dresser, pushed back the drapes and flopped down on the bed. As promised, his deluxe room had a Jacuzzi tub, chocolates on the pillows, and two queen-size beds. All of it wasted on a man alone.

  Closing his eyes, he tried to block out memories of hotel rooms in New York, Chicago and Montreal. Rooms he and Vicky had shared, with fewer perks and beds that had never gone to waste. He tortured himself a moment longer, imagining sun-gold hair spread across the pillow, smooth legs wrapped around him, and nights when sleep came only at sunrise. Letting the images linger long enough to become painful before pushing himself off the bed and switching on the television. Standing in the middle of the room and flipping through channels, catching glimpses of news, game shows, a soap opera, and trying not to listen for her footsteps in the next room.

  But the hotel was old, the walls thin, and he could hear her opening drawers and closing them again. Searching for more paper most likely, so she could make another list. Or better yet a payment schedule with intere
st charges and financing fees, photocopied and notarized so there would be no misunderstanding.

  The only things they shared these days were two kids, a duty to Albert, and a missing box of ashes. Once the car was found, if the car was found, they’d be down to just the kids and then what? Follow Fred’s lead and let go of everything that defined him? Or be like Albert and hold on tight? Reid had to smile. Turned out Vicky was right. He should have told Albert about them, asked his opinion before it was too late.

  After his father’s death, Reid’s mother had tried to keep Albert away from the house, labeling him a bad influence, a ne’er do well, the very reason her husband was dead. Reid often wondered where he’d be now if she’d succeeded. If Albert had given up and gone to Mexico or Europe, never sparing his brother’s son another thought.

  Probably heading up the family business instead of flying planes. A rich man with a car that cost more than most people earn in a year. Slowly becoming his father instead of himself and making his grandmother and his mother very happy women.

  Not that any of that was an option now. His grandmother finally sold the business last year—the second disappointment of her life. The first, of course, being Albert, her eldest son and original heir to the throne. The one who shocked them all by turning his back on his inheritance, leaving his younger brother to fill shoes he had found too restrictive. Returning only to show a ten-year-old boy what it meant to have dreams.

  “My boy,” Albert would say, squinting at him from behind the Groucho glasses. “What do you want most in life?”

  It never mattered what Reid said—a horse, an airplane, the moon itself—Albert would always clap him on the back and whisper the words that governed everything the old man did. “And what are you willing to do to make it happen?”

  Reid wandered over to the window. Stood with hands braced against the frame, watching the bank robbers make their getaway while another bus pulled up in front of Diamond Lil’s. Maybe Vicky was right. Maybe there was nothing left to do but move on. Hop on a wagon to Ribfest. Go where men were burning meat, winning pig trophies, and having a helluva lot more fun than he was.