Bearly In Love Read online

  “Why not?” he asked. “Nothing wrong with being a little creative.”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, well, some people might see it as being desperate.”

  He helped her pour the contents of the bags onto the scale. “Okay, you got twenty pounds here,” he said. “That’s going to give you eight dollars.”

  She nodded. It wasn’t going to give her a lot of gas money, but she figured she could get there and back. “Thanks,” she said. “That’ll be great.”

  He studied her for a moment and shook his head. “Just wait here for a minute,” he said, then turned around and walked over to the main office.

  A few minutes later, Stacy saw him pulling a large cart that usually sat outside the station with a large label stating “Aluminum Cans Only.” “I guess you must have left these outside,” he said. “Would be a shame not to add them to the pile.”

  “But—” she began.

  “Would be a shame not to add them to your pile,” he repeated pointedly.

  Tears of gratitude filled her eyes, and she nodded. “That would be a shame,” she said. “Thank you.”

  With a crisp, twenty dollar bill in her pocket, Stacy rode leisurely back through town with a smile on her face. Things were going to be fine, she decided. This was the start of everything going uphill from now on.

  She turned onto her street and saw the emergency lights of the community volunteer fire trucks in front of her house. Her heart dropping, she forced her rubbery legs to go the last yards to the end of the block. Dropping her bike on her neighbor’s lawn, she ran to the front door of her house.

  “Grandma!” she screamed, entering the hall. “Grandma, where are you?”

  “Stacy?”

  Stacy turned to see a masked firefighter coming out of the living room. “My grandmother,” she sobbed. “She was home alone. I left her here. I was only gone a little while…”

  He grabbed hold of her shoulders. “She’s fine,” he said, his voice muffled by the plastic. “She’s with Sam, your neighbor. But you can’t come in here until we give the all clear.”

  She nodded, her knees nearly buckling underneath her. “How did it start?” she asked. “Do you know?”

  “Looks like the tea kettle was the culprit,” he replied. “It was left on the burner and caught fire.”

  She closed her eyes in regret. In her rush to get to the recycling center, she had forgotten her grandmother had put on the kettle for tea. And her grandmother must have gotten distracted looking for money and forgotten all about it.

  “Don’t worry,” the firefighter said. “There’s not much damage and I’m sure your insurance will cover it.”

  Stacy’s stomach twisted again as she remembered that one of the bills had the return address of their insurance company. Or, she wondered silently, should we say former insurance company?

  “Thanks,” she said, trying to smile. “Thanks for getting here and putting it out.”

  “No problem,” he replied, and then he paused. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s kind of hard to see you beneath your mask,” she replied, trying to see past the smudges of soot.

  “You’re right,” he said with a nod. “It is. But you’re still as pretty as ever.”

  “Who—” Stacy started to ask, but before she could say anything else, the Fire Chief joined them. “Miss Gage?” he asked.

  She nodded and turned to him, but the other fireman stayed close. “Yes, I’m Stacy Gage.”

  “I have a couple of questions for you,” he said, “for my report.”

  “Sure.”

  “This fire looks like it could have been intentionally set,” he said. “Have you and your grandmother had any financial set-backs recently?”

  “No!” she said, and then she corrected herself. “I mean yes. Things are tight financially, but it’s not what you think. My grandmother is in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s, and she forgets things. She put the kettle on, and I had to run out for an errand. She just forgot that’s all.”

  “What kind of errand was so important?” he asked.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, mortified that she had to air her dirty laundry in front of this firefighter who obviously knew her and her grandmother. “I have a job interview tomorrow, and I had to bike over to the recycling center to get gas money.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  She pulled the receipt from the center out of her back pocket and handed it to the Fire Chief. He scanned it and took a few more notes. “When things are this bad, people often try to scam their insurance company,” he said.

  “Actually, Chief,” she said, nearing her breaking point. “I don’t think we even have insurance at this point. So, there would be no one to scam.”

  “It’s dangerous to own a house without insurance,” he lectured, totally unaware of her distress.

  She waited until she could control the bitterness in her voice. How dare he criticize her! She had spent her own money to get her grandmother’s medications and buy food. She was doing the best should could, and, dammit, if that wasn’t good enough for him, he could shove it up his hose.

  “Well, yes, I understand that,” she said. “But thank you for reminding me.”

  “Um, Chief,” the other firefighter said. “Miss Gage was just on her way to check on her grandmother.”

  “Oh, yes, of course,” the chief said. “If I have any more questions, I’ll know where to find you.”

  Sending a grateful glance to the first firefighter, Stacy nodded to the chief and hurried out the door and across the lawn. Before she could knock on the door, it was opened and Sam Rayburn stepped outside. Sam was tall and lean, with a gentle look and deep smile lines around his mouth and eyes. He had always reminded Stacy of the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. He had been her grandmother’s neighbor since Stacy was a little girl.

  “Nice night for a barbeque,” he teased, a sympathetic smile on his old face.

  “Oh, Sam,” she cried, tears escaping from the corner of her eyes. “That’s not funny.”

  “Sure it is, sweetie,” he said quietly. “You’re safe. Your grandma’s safe. And, those horrid kitchen curtains that have been hanging on the windows for ages are finally gone.”

  A laugh gurgled up between the tears, and Sam handed her a clean hankie. “I really did hate those curtains,” she admitted, wiping her eyes.

  “See, it’s not all bad news,” he said. “And Addie tells me you’ve got a job interview tomorrow.”

  She nodded. “Adventureland called,” she said. “I don’t know what they’ve got planned for me, but I have to be able to sing and work the cash register.”

  “Well, that’s quite a combination,” he said. “And I’m sure you’ll be able to do both.”

  “I hope so,” she said. “I really need a job.”

  “Well, now that you’ve got that sad look wiped off your face, why don’t you come in so we can celebrate,” he said. “I’m sure I’ve got ice cream and pie in the kitchen.”

  “Sam, I just have an interview,” she said. “I don’t have the job yet.”

  “Who said anything about the job?” Sam asked with a chuckle. “I was talking about celebrating the demise of those ugly curtains.”

  She laughed with him. “Okay, Sam, you’ve got yourself a deal.”

  Chapter Three

  With her grandmother tucked soundly into her bed, Stacy made her way downstairs to the kitchen. The damage hadn’t been too bad. The stove was covered with soot. The window over the stove was broken, and the wall and ceiling around the stove had been pulled apart in search of any more embers. Water and ash were everywhere, and she knew that she would have to put everything in order before her grandmother came downstairs in the morning.

  Stacy bent down and picked up the wall clock of the Farmer in the Dell that had hung next to the stove since she could remember. She realized the frame was slightly dented as she wiped the soot from the front with a kitchen
towel, but it had survived the altercation.

  The curtain rod hung haphazardly out of the broken window, the ugly, blackened curtains waving like a pirate’s flag in the wind. She unhooked the rod from the casing inside the house and let it drop unceremoniously to the lawn below the window.

  “Hey, watch where you’re aiming,” called a familiar voice.

  Scooting around the mess, Stacy peered out the window to see Sam outside, rake in hand, cleaning up the clutter outside. “You don’t have to do that,” Stacy said. “But I’m really glad you are.”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. “I thought those curtains were taking out their last revenge.”

  “No, I just put Grandma down for the night and figured I’d start in here,” she replied. “She was pretty worn out from visiting with you all evening.”

  “It was nice to see her laugh like that,” he replied. “It reminded me of the old days.”

  “She needs to laugh and visit,” Stacy said, feeling guilty. “I forgot how many friends she had.”

  “Still has them,” Sam said. “Oh, by the way, I placed a call to Melba Stewart down the road. She said she’d love to come by tomorrow and sit with Addie while you’re at work.”

  How’d he know she’d been worrying about that all evening? But no, she couldn’t accept their help. Grandma was her responsibility, not theirs. “Sam—” she began.

  “Now listen here, Stacy,” Sam said, interrupting her. “This is a small town, and Addie’s been a good neighbor to all of us for many years. It’s about time we all got a chance to pay her back. I’d do it myself if I didn’t have an obligation tomorrow.”

  She shook her head. “I just don’t know what to say.”

  “Say yes,” he replied with a smile. “Say you’ll let us carry some of the burden you’ve been shouldering by yourself since you got back from college.”

  She nodded. “Yes,” she said simply. “And thank you, Sam. You’re the best neighbor in the world.”

  Hey, don’t worry about it,” he said. “And if you ever need a shoulder to cry on, remember your Grandpa Sam.”

  She smiled at the old nickname she had called him when she was growing up. “I’ll remember, Grandpa Sam,” she teased.

  “Okay now, you get to work inside, and I’ll do the outside,” he said. “I’ve got some plastic in my shed, so I can cover the window for the time being.”

  “Oh, that would be great.”

  “Yeah, and while I was in the shed, I noticed I had a gas can filled with a couple gallons of gas,” he added. “Hope you don’t mind, I put it in your car’s gas tank, just to make sure you have enough to make it to the gas station in the morning.”

  “Thanks again, Sam.”

  He winked at her. “You’re welcome again, Stacy,” he said. “Now get to work.”

  By the time she finished cleaning the kitchen and putting everything back in place it was after midnight. Sam had finished in the backyard and putting the plastic on the window hours before and had already wished her a goodnight.

  She put the mop and bucket in the mudroom, pushed open the screen door and sat on the back porch steps. The night was clear and filled with stars. She could hear the hum of the crickets from the field beyond their house and the deeper song of the frogs from the nearby creek. A barn owl hooted somewhere close by, and his mate replied. The pungent smell of the fire still hung in the air around the house, and only the breeze from the west brought relief with the scent of the lilac trees next to the road.

  Sitting back on her elbows, she looked from one constellation to the other, remembering the nights she and her dad would lie out on the grass watching for shooting stars and locating the Big Dipper and the North Star.

  For a moment the stars were blurry, but she quickly wiped the sadness away and took a deep breath. “Big girl pants,” she whispered to herself. “No time for moping. Time to put on your big girl pants.”

  She stared up to the sky and sighed. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do this,” she whispered and then sighed again. “But it looks like I don’t really have much of a choice. Do I?”

  A shooting star flashed across the night sky, and she smiled. “Thanks, I really needed that.”

  Placing her hands on her thighs, she pushed herself up to a standing position and closed her eyes to make a wish. “I wish that things will go well tomorrow and that I’ll figure out some way to help Grandma Addie so she will have everything she needs.”

  Opening her eyes, she smiled up into the sky. “Goodnight,” she said. “Wish me luck for tomorrow. The way things have been going, I have a feeling I’m going to need it.”

  Chapter Four

  “Oh, you have dark hair,” Dora Fitzenbottom commented and scribbled something down on the paper attached to her clipboard. “And you’re not very tall, are you?”

  Stacy felt like the carpet was being pulled out from under her before she even got a chance to fully step onto it. “I could always wear a wig,” she suggested. “And heels.”

  Dora looked up and eyed Stacy sharply. “We don’t wear heels at Adventureland,” she snapped. “It’s a workplace hazard.”

  “Oh, sorry,” Stacy stammered.

  “Did you tell me you spoke another language?” she asked. “Yes, I’m sure you told me that.”

  “No. No, I don’t speak another language,” Stacy said.

  Waving her reading glasses in front of her face, Dora stared at Stacy. “Then why did you tell me you did?”

  “Oh, no,” Stacy said, shaking her head. “I didn’t say that. I said I could sing and work a cash register.”

  Slipping her reading glasses on, Dora looked down at the resume before her. “Are you Lorraine Mills?”

  Well, damn, Stacy thought.

  “No, I’m Stacy Gage,” she replied.

  Pulling the next resume from the pile, Dora scanned it. Stacy noted there was a yellow sticky note pasted on the middle of the paper. She leaned forward, hoping to get a chance to read it, but Dora pulled it off the paper, scanned it quickly and then tossed it into her wastepaper basket.

  “Yes, I remember you now,” she said. “You can sing and work a cash register.”

  Stacy sat forward in the chair and smiled. “Yes, that’s me,” she said. “And, yes, I can do that.”

  “How do you feel about bears?” Dora asked.

  “Live bears?” Stacy asked.

  “No, of course not,” Dora replied, looking displeased. “Stuffed bears, statuary bears, chocolate bears, candied bears, bear jewelry and bear stationary.”

  “Oh, those kind of bears,” she replied. “I love those kinds of bears. Actually, I have a teddy bear that was given to me—”

  “Fine,” Dora interrupted, slipping the resume into another file. “You’re hired. Report to the Bear Concessionary. My assistant will give you the employment forms you need to fill out, find you a costume and get you settled in the building.”

  “Thank you,” Stacy said, extending her hand. “I promise I will work very hard for you.”

  Dora stepped back, away from her hand. “Yes, see that you do,” she replied, her lips curling as if she had just sucked on a lemon. “Joyce. Joyce, come in here.”

  Joyce, Dora’s assistant, was a plump woman in her early forties with blonde hair cut in a flip that nearly reached her shoulders and bangs cut straight across her forehead. She was wearing a madras cotton top and peacock blue Capri pants. “Yes, Mrs. Fitzenbottom?”

  “I’d like you to give Stacy the forms she needs to complete for employment,” she said. “Then take her over to wardrobe for a costume. She’ll be working the Bear Concessionary. Then bring her over there and give her an overview of her job responsibilities.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Joyce replied, leading Stacy out of the room and down a long hallway. “Come along with me, dear. We have a lot to do before the park opens.”

  “Okay,” Stacy answered, a little overwhelmed. “Um, she didn’t mention how much I was goi
ng to be paid.”

  Joyce stopped in her tracks. “But you do want the job, don’t you dear?” she asked. “Or do you have other offers?”

  “No. I mean yes, I want the job, and no I have no other offers,” she replied.

  Joyce smiled happily. “Then what does it matter?” she asked Stacy, her head cocked in the slight angle and her smile pasted on her face. “You have a job.”

  At this moment, she couldn’t argue with that logic, but she felt something was wrong with a company that didn’t tell their employees what they were earning. Not wanting to rock the boat, she shook her head and smiled. “That’s true,” she agreed.

  “That’s a good girl,” Joyce said. “Now come in here and fill out your employment forms. But be quick about it. We need to get you dressed and ready for the start of the day.”

  She handed Stacy a pile of papers and offered her a chair with a wraparound desk attached to the arm. Stacy quickly scanned the forms. There were the usual government forms for her withholdings and social security number. Another form asked for emergency contact numbers, and the final form was an official application that asked for basically everything that was already on her resume.

  “Couldn’t I just attach my resume to this form?” she asked, looking up at Joyce.

  Joyce looked up from the computer screen at her desk and shook her head. “Oh no, dear, that’s why we have you fill it out,” she said, smiling as if her answer explained everything. Then once again she cocked her head and waited.

  “Um, but,” Stacy began.

  “We don’t have much time, dear,” Joyce reiterated. “Please do hurry.”

  “Right. Right, I’ll hurry,” Stacy said, inwardly wondering what she was getting herself into. But, she had to agree with Joyce; she really didn’t have any other choice. Whatever they gave her, whatever she had to do, she had to take this job.”

  The forms completed, she put down the pen and gathered the papers together. Before she could stand, Joyce was beside her. “So, you’re done?” she asked.

  Nodding, Stacy handed her the forms. “Yes, and I was wondering—”