Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Livvy
By the time I’d made it home, I had to admit I wasn’t in the mood to thank the Universe for a darn thing.
And all that upbeat view about how nice it would be to use the rain to freshen up and clean off the blood?
Forget it. I wasn’t feeling the least bit fresh.
And you could also disregard that cute little quip about being soaked to the skin.
I was so drenched I was pretty sure that if you put me through the old wringer on the back porch, I’d provide enough water to irrigate the garden for the next year.
I slogged my way up the porch stairs, so exhausted I almost earned another scrape when I forgot about the holey step.
Then again, what was another one when my arms were so scratched up I looked like I’d been in a fight with a cougar or lion or whatever the hell the cats in these mountains were called.
My shoulder had begun aching after a thick branch had snagged the remaining strap of the backpack, snapping it like a twig and almost tearing off my arm in the process.
I’d seriously considered just abandoning the heavy pack but the fact it still held the thermos inside had me dragging the thing home.
That thermos had been my grandpop’s and I could still see him pouring some of his cocoa into the cup and sharing it with me on our early morning treks to the pond to fish.
He’d had a massive heart attack when I was eight, but every time I drank from that cup, I thought of him and smiled.
No way could I leave it behind. The backpack, on the other hand, I threw across the porch after retrieving the thermos.
I relieved myself of further weight by pulling my t-shirt off over my head and unfastening my bra.
I often had wrinkled fingertips from lounging in a tub while engrossed in a book, but this was the first time in my life I could claim my little raisins had turned into full-blown prunes.
Catching a whiff of my pits, I wrinkled my nose.
Forget prunes. I smelled far more like the nauseating flesh of the durian fruit.
My bra joined my shirt before I toed off my sneakers.
Unfortunately, my socks were so wet I had to hop about one-legged tugging them off one at a time and then peel out of my jeans.
No stretch of the imagination could describe my stripping as arousing even before I stood there in nothing but my undies.
Panties that were so wet they practically sagged to mid-thigh and not with any sort of wetness that would entice even the most desperate customer to tuck a dollar bill into the waistband.
Still, once naked as the day I’d been born, I forgot about cats and clubs and was far more focused on getting into the tub.
But first, I stopped by the kitchen, grabbed a semi-cool bottle of grape soda from the ancient fridge and removed the cap with a strike against the countertop whose chipped surface was testimony that mine wasn’t the first soda opened the good old-fashioned way.
I added a granola bar as well as a package of fig bars to my haul as I headed down the hall.
My mood improved as the gurgle and rumbling of the hot water tank worked toward heating enough water to fill the clawfoot tub.
When I’d last sunk into it, I’d thought it was as big as the swimming hole in the bend of the river at the back of the property.
The memory of that bath had me glancing into the cabinet beneath the single sink.
I was rewarded with a huge smile on a cartoonish pink face.
“Well, hello there, Mr. Bubbles,” I said as I shook the bottle. With a grin, I poured the last of its contents beneath the water as it flowed. When bubbles began frothing, I forgot the storm outside and smiled while I sat on the stool I’d once stood on in order to reach the sink.
Squeaky clean make angels sing,
I smiled even as I felt my eyes well.
“I miss you, Grammie O, but I know that you and Grandpops are among those angels now,” I whispered softly, the words lost in the empty house but filling my heart.
Memories were funny that way. Poignant enough to make one want to curl up into a ball and bawl, and yet powerful enough to have me stop thinking about how much easier it would be to get back in my car and head home.
“Home is where the heart is,” I reminded myself. “Tomorrow is another day and I’m going to enjoy it!”
With that determined, I stood and moved the stool closer to the tub, set my dinner on its surface, shut off the tap and stepped into the water.
As warmth enveloped me, I sighed and when I ripped open my first fig bar, I thought of my new friend.
I really hoped she’d enjoyed her own snack after getting home in time to have her baby in a nice, dry barn.
I wasn’t sure if it had been exhaustion or the sound of the rain on the metal roof overhead that had lulled me to sleep, but I’d slept like the dead.
The storm had passed sometime during the night and I woke to sun beaming through the windows.
I didn’t even let the fact that the light illuminated all those dust bunnies waiting to be captured dim my happiness.
My dinner last night had been yummy but hadn’t ticked even a single item on any nutritional food pyramid.
I’d never even eaten the granola bar. Instead, I’d nibbled on cookies and sipped cola until the only fizzies left were in my tummy and not the tub and the water had gotten chilly.
Which reminded me to add Mr. Bubbles to the ever-growing shopping list in my head as I stabbed at the slice of bacon sizzling in the pan.
After I’d successfully turned it over, I cracked an egg and added it to the same pan.
The yolk hadn’t yet settled before a face wearing a look of disgust flashed in my mind’s eye as it replayed Roland’s critique number five hundred eighty-seven.
“Olivia, you already have the table manners of a heathen. Must you cook like one as well? Have some class, for fuck’s sake.”
“If talking to me like that is class then I’m dropping out of school!”
Of course, I hadn’t had the guts to actually say that.
Instead, I’d apologized, emptied the skillet into the trash bin and was about to start over when his heavy sigh and pointed glance at the sink told me that classy folks never ever began with a dirty pan.
Especially not in the state-of-the-art chef kitchen in their multi-million-dollar mansion.
A pop of grease brought me back to a kitchen that was far better simply because it had always been a place where love was so thick, it became part of every dish prepared in it.
“Bite me, Ro, it all goes to the same place, and my name is Livvy, you prick!”
Only my father and ex-fiancé Roland called me Olivia.
To everyone else—well, everyone I cared about—I was Liv or Livvy.
My father hated any version of the name since I’d been named after Grammie O and I could see the disdain on his face every time he said it.
As for Roland, he was basically a carbon copy of his mentor and ignored my request he needn’t be so formal.
The man had spoken to me with a patronizing tone that dripped with scorn, informing me I was far too unsophisticated and simpleminded to understand silly nicknames didn’t belong in the business world.
I’d wanted to inform him that my father didn’t use the name because he thought it was elegant or refined.
He used it as a weapon, and I could picture the perpetual sneer as he pronounced my name, dragging out the syllables as if it were the most ridiculous name in the world.
I mentally made a rude gesture to both men and licked the tip of my finger before trying to fish out the eggshell that had fallen in along with the yolk.
“Ouch!” The fingertip went back into my mouth to soothe the burn I’d received from dipping it into grease rather than egg whites.
Refusing to consider it as a consequence for of being rude, I continued to suckle it.
There was probably protein in shells, right?
Once the egg was slightly brown on the edges, I popped the toast out of the toaster and carefully added the egg and bacon to the plate.
Grabbing the mug I’d filled with coffee, and maybe a spoon or two—
Or three!
—of sugar and a splash of cream, I took my breakfast out to the porch and settled on the porch swing.
A single push of my bare toe against a gray board of the floor set it in motion.
With the sound of birdsong, the warmth of the sun, and the first bite of slightly burnt bacon consumed, I lifted my mug and toasted the day.
“Good morning, world! What’s on today’s agenda?”
The buzzing of bees caught my attention and I shook my head. “Seriously? You may have already forgotten how that little adventure turned out, but I haven’t.” I ate some egg and was chewing a bite of toast that was so bland and dry it stuck in my throat.
“Score: bees, one. Livvy, zero,” I muttered after I’d unstuck it with a slug of coffee.
Still, I would admit the toast would be far tastier if it were spread—make that drenched—in a layer of thick, gooey golden honey.
“Fine, but no more rushing willy-nilly into the woods on a wild goose chase.” I giggled and corrected myself, “Make that no blindly bolting about for bees either. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to have a plan! ”
As I finished my breakfast, I prioritized the steps I’d need in order to have any chance of success of becoming an actual beekeeper. Sure, I’d watched Grammie O do it a hundred times, and I’d even helped harvest a honeycomb or two, but never on my own.
“That’s what YouTube is for,” I told myself. Which meant I’d need to check on what it would take to run cable out to the farm so I could access the internet.