The Pendleton Omens - 9. Chapter 9

Sunday began with a call to Sharon. “What did you find out?” she asked.

“Nothing, yet. I’m about ready to start.” And I asked for Amy’s number.

Sharon had several. Home. Work. Cell. “She’s a nurse, so she’s always on call.”

“What kind of nurse?”

“I don’t know. But I told you. She’s really nice.”

Or maybe she just seemed that way to Sharon. Maybe she purposely showed that side. Because halfway through our fairly long call, I got a slightly different impression.

I’m talking an hour-long conversation. I’m not sure either of us intended that. I’d meant to ask a few questions then move on. I’d find out when she’d last seen Scoot. And what he’d been talking about before he left. And if he’d been up for any jobs. But somehow, our conversation rolled on, and halfway through, Amy let loose a little snowball.

We’d mostly been talking about Scoot. Or I’d been talking – telling her stories she’d never heard.

“I can’t wait to tease him about these things,” she said laughing.

“Don’t get me in trouble.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that. But I really should go. I’m probably talking so much because I miss him. We’ve only been together a few months, but we saw each other all the time. That’s what happens when you’re on the rebound.”

Rebound?

The snowball.

Carla? I wondered. But I carefully asked, “Scoot?”

“No,” Amy said. “Me.” And she laughed again.

“You were seeing someone?” I eased on.

She hesitated. “Kind of.”

Then I didn’t have to ask because she just told me. Though it had nothing to do with Scoot.

“I work in a hospital,” she began.

I’d known that. Though it wasn’t something we’d spent much time on.

“With cancer patients,” she continued. “Kids.”

I didn’t know that, and I was all set for her to tell me how she’d fallen for some dying teenager. But it wasn’t that weird.

“Raina was eight-years-old. She was so cute. And it was awful that we couldn’t do anything to save her.”

But Raina’s parents spent a great deal of time in the hospital, over several months. They both had corporate careers, so they often weren’t there together.

“They alternated,” Amy explained. “Doing shifts. And when I was working nights, I’d spend hours in conversation with Raina’s father.”

“I’d think you’d have other things to do.”

“Some. But at night, the main point is to keep the kids sleeping and comfortable. And Dean would sometimes sleep, too. He’d stretch out on one of the couches in the waiting room. We offered him a cot. Parents sometimes stay in their kid’s room. But Dean was afraid of disturbing Raina.” Amy hesitated. “Besides, he liked to talk.”

“I understand that. It probably kept him distracted.”

“Raina wasn’t their only child,” Amy went on. “But she was the oldest. So they worried about the other two.”

“Is that what you talked about?”

“At first. Then things got more private. I’m always surprised how much I have in common with the parents. Especially when they’re close to my age.”

Amy was twenty-seven. Dean, thirty-two.

“We were both middle children. And we both grew up in the Midwest, Dean in Illinois, me in Indiana. And even though he was closer to Chicago, so was less of a small town kid and more suburban, the biggest thing we had in common was we were both preachers’ kids.”

“Preacher’s kids?” I asked. “What’s that?”

“Our fathers are ministers. It’s like a club. You really want to scare a preacher’s kid, no matter what she’s doing, just whisper in her ear, You’re going to hell.”

I laughed.

“It’s not funny,” Amy insisted, though she was laughing, too. “I’ve pretty well shaken it off. I’ve set my limits with my dad. But my brothers can still sneak up on me.”

“So you had that in common.”

“And we talked about it. Not a lot, but about so many other things. And there were shortcuts to how we both thought. Because of our backgrounds. I sometimes knew what Dean was about to say. And I knew he always felt guilty.”

“About what? Talking with you?”

“Oh, no. It was never more than that. Just hours and hours of talk. Not even an occasional touch.”

She seemed to be telling the truth.

“He mainly felt guilty about Raina. He thought it was all his fault. Something he should have known. And that he never should’ve had kids. He worried constantly about the other two.”

“How could cancer be his fault?”

“Because a certain kind of it ran through his family. And he knew that. Young people’s cancer. But it sometimes skipped generations.”

“So he couldn’t have predicted...”

“No. But he was a preacher’s kid. We’re raised to be perfect.”

“And now he’s going to hell?” I said laughing.

Amy didn’t. “Not only that,” she went on, seriously. “He’s sure he’s taking his family with him. He’s sure the two younger ones will go next. So when Raina died, Dean pulled into himself. Cut himself off from everything but family and work.”

“How did you know? Did you stay in touch?”

“No. I couldn’t. Not really. There was no reason for me even to go to the funeral. I sent a note, and I got a note back. It was from his wife, and she mentioned it. She was thoughtful like that. And that’s when I started getting depressed.”

“You missed him?”

“I missed the talking. I missed his companionship.”

“I’ve heard cancer nurses get too close. Sometimes.”

“More than you think.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I waited for her to go on.

“And it was a stupid depression,” she finally said. “I felt guilty, and it wasn’t about Raina’s dying. I felt terrible about taking her dad away from her when he could’ve been sleeping in her room. Like his wife did on the nights she was there. They sometimes shared the bed. Dean didn’t need to do that. He’s too tall. But he should’ve spent those last few weeks with her.”

I didn’t want to say, “Guys are sometimes different.” But I did say, “You probably saved his sanity.”

“But I was flirting, and I doubt he even knew that. I didn’t. Not at the time. But after he was gone, and I realized that, I thought about quitting my job.”

“That was probably extreme. You sound pretty good at what you do.”

“Well, I thought about moving to a different part of the hospital. Someplace where patients don’t stay too long. And I thought I’d been an idiot.”

“How? I don’t follow?”

“Well, I practically made up an affair. There was no way Dean would ever leave his family. And I never thought about that, I swear. But I told my friends so much about him – my friends outside work – that all of them thought we were dating. When I figured that out, I couldn’t face it.”

“I hope you found someone to talk to. A friend you could trust”

“I did. Though first, I just thought of disappearing. I wondered what it would take to walk away from everything I knew and start over. Or just walk away.”

This was getting uncomfortably familiar – too close to me – but I wasn’t about to say that. “Who did you talk to?” I asked instead.

“A therapist.”

“Good. I was afraid it was Scoot.”

“No.” She laughed. “Though I know he would’ve listened. But it’s so much easier talking with strangers – the kind you pay. Not someone you meet in a bar.”

Now she was talking about Scoot again. Sharon had told me where they’d met. “In Santa Monica,” Amy filled in. “We were both there with friends.”

But Amy and Scoot had gone home together.

“Scoot’s really great,” she said. “He doesn’t push you into things the way other people do. He doesn’t give advice. He almost listens you into decisions.”

I had to laugh. “The trick to making documentaries,” Scoot had told me, “is just to watch. Take everything that’s offered, and eventually, you get the story.”

So Scoot had gotten Amy’s story. As I got it. But I wasn’t involved with her. And now that she hadn’t seen him for over two weeks, she was getting depressed again.

“I didn’t realize how much I was depending on him – to keep me happy. Now I worry that I wasn’t giving enough back. And how much he was honestly giving me. I hope I wasn’t making things up again, as I might have with Dean.”

“I’m sure you weren’t. In either case.”

“Because from the beginning, Scoot said he wasn’t looking for anything special. He practically introduced himself with I’m not looking for a new relationship.”

The aftermath of Carla. Which I didn’t tell Amy. Mostly because I didn’t know how much – of even if – Amy knew about Carla.

“I’m sure what you felt, you felt honestly,” I assured her.

“I hope so.”

“And I’m sure he’ll be back soon enough for you to find out.”

She thanked me. Then she told me some more about what a great guy Scoot was. How good he made her feel. But before she found new ways to make me uncomfortable, I pretended to be called away. Hanging up, I was sure I’d said the right things. Though I was less sure when I repeated her story to Sharon.

“She told you all this?” Sharon asked.

“Yes.”

“She didn’t tell me,” she admitted.

“I wouldn’t have made it up.”

“I wasn’t doubting you. You know that. I’m just surprised.”

Again, I tried not to say, “Guys are sometimes different.” Instead, I went in another direction.

“Scoot probably isn’t messing around,” I offered. “We know he can do that. He can be impulsive. And that can seem really selfish. But I don’t think he’s taking advantage of her. And he’s never been cruel.”

“No,” Sharon agreed.

“Though if you see it from his point of view... especially when he’s just come out of a fairly complicated relationship himself – a real one. And especially for someone his age. Well, he’d have every reason to run from a woman like Amy.”

“Don’t start blaming this on women...”

“I’m not,” I said laughing. “A person like Amy.”

That made Sharon laugh. She sometimes hated political correctness. Still, she was sometimes way off the mark.

“I’m taking it out on anyone who works a high pressure job,” I went on. “They sometimes make stupid personal decisions.”

“I feel sorry for her,” Sharon soon added.

“So do I. But it certainly could explain why Scoot hasn’t been around. He could have gone off hiking somewhere. Just to breathe.”

Sharon thought about that. “Maybe. But it doesn’t explain why he isn’t he answering our calls.”

“Off in the wilderness?”

“Trapped?”

“No. You sometimes jump to the worst possibilities...”

I had her there, and for a moment, she couldn’t think what to say.

“But you’re still not worried?” she went on.

“Actually, even less now – now that I’ve spoken with Amy. Though I did ask her to do us a favor. She has the keys to his apartment. She has a roommate, so she and Scoot were mostly at his place. She said it was out of the way for her, but nice and private. So I asked her to listen to his phone messages.”

“Can’t you just retrieve them?”

“If we had his password. I don’t even know if he uses an answering machine.”

“Voice mail on his cell. Answering machine in his apartment.”

“That should make it simpler. We might learn something.”

Sharon laughed. “When you hear those messages, I’m afraid most of them will be from me.”

“Not necessarily. Scoot was gone a week before Amy called you. And she only went to his apartment when she hadn’t heard from him for three or four days. While she was there, she deleted all the messages she’d left. So she wouldn’t embarrass herself when he got back.”

“Were there other messages?”

“I’m sure there were.”

“Did she say so?”

“Kind of.”

“Did she listen to them?”

“She said she purposely skipped past some things. That she didn’t want to invade his privacy.”

Sharon laughed again. “See, I told you she was nice.”

“I don’t deny that.”

“And those other messages are there?”

“They should be.”

Sharon seemed to think about that. “What about his car?” she went on. “Is that there? Did you ask?”

“I did. It’s in the carport. His keys are gone, but Amy knows where he keeps the spares because she’s sometimes driven his car. And she checked his mail and took in what there was. She said it was nothing special.”

“How would she know? If she wasn’t invading his privacy?”

“She said it was mainly junk and magazines.”

“And he has no plants – or pets – because he travels so much. What about bills?”

“He’s only been gone two weeks.”

“Still...”

“Are his creditors beating at your door?”

“No.”

“Then relax.”

“Yeah.” She laughed again. “Yeah.”

“Also, Amy was afraid to ask Scoot’s neighbors if they’d seen him. Because she didn’t want anyone knowing his apartment was empty.”

“It’s not a bad neighborhood,” Sharon said. And I remembered she’d been there to visit after Carla left.

“Amy’s still afraid of his being robbed.”

“It’s certainly no worse than Waldron,” Sharon went on.

I had to take her word. I’d kept promising to visit Scoot in California but only saw him when he came east.

“What’s next?” Sharon asked, as I started to pull away.

“I’m waiting for Amy to call. She driving to Scoot’s now.”

“How long will that take?”

“I don’t know. She said something about Sunday traffic.”

“She lives in Santa Monica?” Sharon asked.

“I think so.”

“Well, Scoot’s in the valley.”

“How far’s that?”

Sharon considered. “Maybe ten miles. But it’s not like here. You probably have over an hour.”

Another reason I didn’t visit LA.