“Now get off your skinny ass because we’re going for a walk. I didn’t come all this way to watch the weather channel. I need your help.”
Annie started to cry.
Myra turned another page from the Kathryn Lucas book. “Cut the crap, Annie. All you do is cry and whine. I’m sick of it. Nellie is sick of it. Annie, look at me. We’ve been friends since that first day at Miss Ambrose’s dance studio. The three of us huddled together because there was nothing graceful about any of us. Remember how scared we were when we had to go out on the dance floor with a boy. You started to cry. Nellie kicked Miss Ambrose and I turned off the Victrola. She kicked us out and we walked home swearing allegiance to each other. We’ve been friends for almost sixty years. That allows me to do what I’m doing.”
“And you think busting up my television and throwing away my remote will make me want to help you!”
Myra turned to page three in Kathryn’s playbook and said, “I don’t give a good rat’s ass if you help me or not. I want you to get over it. And you know what it is. It’s fifteen years since you lost your family. You can’t bring them back. Not ever. They’re gone, Annie. I know what you went through. Nellie knows, too. I wanted to die when I lost Barbara, and I might have if Nikki and Charles hadn’t stepped in to help me. I wallowed in my grief just the way Nellie did. I’m proud of the fact that I was able to help her get over the worst of it. You wouldn’t let us help you, Annie. You shut us out. I’m going to help you whether you like it or not. I’m not going to give up this time.”
“Because you need my help.” Annie’s voice held a tinge of sarcasm.
Page four of Kathryn’s playbook. “Screw the help. Nellie will help me. I can’t count on you anymore. You’re useless, worthless. You exist. That’s all you do. You take up air other people need to breathe. Why haven’t you ended it all, jumped off that mountain? Because you don’t have the guts, right? I’m going to help you do that. That’s the main reason I came over here.”
Annie leaned forward, her eyes frantic behind the tinted glasses. “Are you insane, Myra? You came here to kill me! Why?”
Page five of Kathryn’s playbook. “See! See! You don’t listen worth shit! I didn’t come here to kill you. I came here to help you do it yourself. So, let’s get with the program here.”
Panic filled Annie’s voice. “You’re crazy!”
Myra moved on to page six. “How in the hell would you know if someone is crazy or not? You live in la-la land. If you don’t like going over the mountain, Charles can power up that yacht of yours that sits down there in the marina and we can push you overboard the way your family died. Yes, yes, that would be more fitting. I can see it now. The mountain isn’t a good idea. You’d be too broken up when they found you.”
Annie was still crying, wiping at her eyes with the hem of her long flowing gown. “What happened to you? You sound like a street person. I thought you were my friend and now you want to drown me. Oh, God! Why?”
Myra wasn’t sure but she suspected that Kathryn’s playbook was working. She pressed on and turned to page seven. “Because.” She shrugged. “Give me one thing you’ve done for someone else in the last fifteen years. Just one, Annie.”
“What business is it of yours what I do or don’t do?” Annie continued to cry.
“I want you to come back home, Annie. I want to help you. We’re coming down the home stretch now. I hate it that you’re here alone while Nellie and I are back in the States. We still have each other. I don’t want to see that slip away. I want to tell you something, and take it as gospel. After … after Barbara died, I went into a very deep depression. I didn’t care if I lived or died. What was there to live for? My daughter was gone, I couldn’t bring her back. When I came back to join the living—that’s how I thought of it at the time—and got involved … in … other things, Barbara started talking to me. I swear it, Annie. I can be having a cup of tea and she’ll start talking to me. I could be in a tizzy over something or other and there she is. I can’t see her, but I can talk to her. I want you to open yourself to the possibility that maybe your family will do the same thing for you. I’m not saying it will happen. I’m not crazy, Annie. I know it sounds far-fetched but it does happen. She comes to me when I need her the most. She said she’s proud of me. God, Annie, do you have any idea what that means to me? Well, do you?”
“I … I can’t imagine. I would give anything …”
Myra relented and tossed away Kathryn’s playbook. “Let me help you, Annie. Then if you want to help me, we’ll work on that. Let’s go for that walk, okay?”
“Will you tell me what she said to you? You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Myra?”
“I would never lie to an old friend. Yes, I will tell you everything my daughter said to me. It’s all part and parcel of me coming here to enlist your help. Do you want to change your clothes before we go for that walk?”
Annie looked down at the white gown. She frowned. “It’s so easy to pull it on in the morning. I think I have hiking boots.” She looked up at the shattered plasma TV and said, “I’m going to have to get a new television set.”
Myra shook her head. “That’s the one thing you are not going to buy. Hurry up, I’m not as patient as I used to be. Shake it, sister!”
Annie allowed herself a small smile. “Your vocabulary is certainly different these days. You must be leading a very interesting life back in the States.”
“Annie, you have no idea.”
Chapter 4
Myra did her best not to look shocked at Annie’s appearance when she walked through the doorway dressed in shorts and hiking boots. She looked like a broom handle draped in cloth. All Myra could think of to say was, “We need to fatten you up.” Then she asked, “Do you need a walking stick, a cane or something? You don’t look like you have much stamina.”
Annie looked off in the distance. “I’m fine, Myra. I don’t need a walking stick or a cane. Stop fretting over me. Let’s go. Do you need me to point out the perfect place to push me off the mountain or do you have a place in mind?”
Myra yanked page eight out of Kathryn’s playbook. “Cut the shit, Annie. I came here because I need your help. All I want is a yes or no. You want to go over the mountain, go ahead, I won’t stop you. Personally, I don’t think you have the guts to do something like that. My daughter would have called you a wuss. She’d say you’re trying to be a martyr. Martyrs are passé, you know.”
Annie dug her heels into the path. “Tell me what you want,” she said. “Spit it out, stop dancing around what you perceive to be my condition. That means cut the bullshit.”
Myra whirled around and blinked. She was delighted to see a spark of something in Annie’s eyes. Maybe this was going to work after all. “Miss Boudreau would put soap in both our mouths if she could hear us. I want you to give me the keys to your house in Manassas. I need to … we need to use your place to exact a revenge on some very nasty people. I want to pretend to be you. That means I will need access to your financial records, your signature on documents, that kind of thing. If you agree to help me, you are going to have to start answering your phone, reading your mail and learn how to use a computer so we can send emails. Will you do it? That means you have to join the world and stop watching it whirl by you. You have to become active again. Maybe you need to start taking vitamins.”
Annie started to laugh and couldn’t stop. “You don’t want much, do you, Myra?”
“Actually,