The revenge of the radioactive lady : a novel.

by Elizabeth Stuckey-French.

Part One.

APRIL 2006

By the time Marylou Ahearn finally moved into the little ranch house in Tallaha.s.see, shead spent countless hours trying to come up with the best way to kill Wilson Spriggs. The only firm decision shead made, however, was that proximity was crucial. You couldnat kill someone if you lived in a different state. So she flew down from Memphis to Tallaha.s.see and bought a house on the edge of Wilsonas neighborhood. Doing so had been no problem, because she had a chunk of money left from the government settlement as well as her retirement and social security. She furnished her new place quickly with generic abig warehouse salea furniture. Back in Memphis she rounded up a graduate student couple shead met at churcha"a husband and wife who both needed to give their spectacles a good cleaninga"to house-sit, and then she transferred her base of operations to Tallaha.s.see, informing friends only that shead be taking an extended vacation.

Completing her task in Florida, unfortunately, was taking a while. Every morning when Marylou and her Welsh corgi, Buster, left their house at 22 Reeveas Court and set out on their walk toward Wilson Spriggsas house at 2208 Friaras Way, Marylou chanted to herself: Todayas the day. Todayas the day. Todayas the day heall suffer and die. Every morning she fully believed that by the time shead walked the three blocks to Wilsonas house shead have figured out how to do him in, despite the fact that shead been setting out on this very walk a few times a day for the past two weeks and it was nearly May and the best method and right time had yet to present themselves.

She tried to spur herself on with angry thoughts. Would she feel better after shead killed him? Darn tootina. She didnat expect to go around giddy, not after all that had happened, but she expected to feel relieved, to have a sense of accomplishment, like when, fifteen years ago, shead stepped out the doors of Humes High School, never to have to spoon-feed Chaucer to tenth graders again. It must be a good sign that she was now living in a neighborhood where the streets were named after Chauceras characters. The Canterbury Tales had returned to mark this next big pa.s.sage in her life.

It didnat help that the walk to Wilsonas house was so pleasant. Canterbury Hills was once a suburb of Tallaha.s.see; but the city, moving northward, had swallowed it up, and it was now spoken of by Realtors as Midtown. The homes in Canterbury Hills, mostly ranch houses from the fifties and sixties, werenat as stately as the houses in her Memphis neighborhood, but they all sat on s.p.a.cious lots full of flowering shrubs and well-tended flower gardens, shaded by live oak trees; and Marylou enjoyed looking around so much that she was always rattled when she found herself standing, again, in front of the evil yellow house where Wilson Spriggs lived with his daughter and her family, so rattled, in fact, that it took her a minute to reenter the murdering frame of mind.

She would stall in front, while Buster sniffed around in the gra.s.s, and stand beneath the magnolia tree that bloomed with fantastically white blossoms, hoping that Wilson himself would pop up in front of her and ask to be killed, please, and hurry up about it. When this failed to happen, she hoped to at least be struck either with the courage to storm the house or with a clever idea about how to sneak in undetected.

But she was struck by neither courage nor inspiration, and by the time she got back home she was so hot and weak and discouraged she had to lie down and rest.

In the evenings, after shead eaten some dinner, usually a fried egg and slice of toast, a kind of Chaucerian meager repast, shead hook Busteras leash to his collar and theyad walk over to Friaras Way again. Sometimes she saw a gray Volvo turn into the driveway of the yellow house or a navy blue minivan pull out of it, but she was never close enough to make out who was actually in the car. One time she saw a middle-aged man in a grungy black T-shirta"mustave been the son-in-lawa"mowing the gra.s.s in the front yard, but he refused to look up at her; and one time she saw a girl and a little white dog running down the driveway. It was like they, the Spriggs family, were purposely keeping their distance from hera"but how could they, when they had no idea she was nearby and looking to get even?

The whole being-in-limbo thing, the looking-to-get-even thing, was getting old. She was growing weary of wanting to kill Wilson, of imagining herself killing him; she was itchy to actually do it.

At first all the planning to kill Wilson had been, well, she had to admit it, fun. The idea started forming in her mind six months earlier, right after shead stumbled across the article about Wilson Spriggs on the Internet. Shead been googling aDr. Wilson Spriggs,a as she did every so often, without ever finding anything recent about him, and one day there was a link to a little piece in the Tallaha.s.see Democrat about Dr. Wilson Spriggs helping his teenage grandson Otis Witherspoon win a science fair prize. As she read the article, which had an accompanying picture of Otis holding the blue ribbon head won at the Leon County Science Fair for his poster about the upside of nuclear power, she knew she had to do something, that Grandpappy Spriggs could not be allowed to go on living the way he had been, untouched by his cruel deeds.

Marylou and her former husband Teddy had recently stopped corresponding, so there wasnat anyone she could talk to about how she felt when she found the article. She began to scheme all by herself. She didnat tell another soul what shead decided to do, and she wrote nothing down, but she made the plot she was hatching into a story in her mind, a horror story, like that wonderfully dreadful old movie Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.

In the summer of 1958, when Helen was five, she and Teddy had gotten a babysitter and gone to see that movie at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Memphis. Teddy had howled with derision all the way through it, as did most of the audience, some of whom began throwing their popcorn at the screen, but Marylou thoroughly enjoyed it, trashy and badly made as it was, especially the scenes of the giant (much taller than fifty feet) vaguely annoyed-looking heroine, Nancy Archer, stuffed into an unexplained bikini top and miniskirt like Jane of the California desert, scooping up a police car and throwing it, tearing apart electrical towers, ripping the roofs off buildings, slapping her weaselly husband and his tarted-up girlfriend and their drinking buddies across the bar like so many pesky insects.

After shead found the article about Wilson Spriggs and gotten swollen up with rage all over again, she remembered the fifty-foot woman. She and Nancy Archer were sisters in some strange way, sisters who were involved in parallel stories. They had both been poisoned by radiation; they both desired to get even with a man whoad done them wrong. Unlike Nancy Archer, Marylou hadnat been touched by a giant hairy alien hand, but shead swallowed a deadly radioactive c.o.c.ktail and she was walking around, very much alive. Marylou wasnat fifty feet tall, but the radiation shead swallowed had surely given her supernatural powers. If she only knew how to use them! She could be the Radioactive Woman! She really didnat like the word woman, though, because of the way her grandmother used to say it: awhoa-men.a So she thought of herself as the Radioactive Lady. Close cousin to Nancy Archer and the Wife of Batha"l.u.s.ty, powerful, ready to get hers.

Of course, the radiation shead swallowed had made her sick. Weak. Anemic. Dizzy. p.r.o.ne to headaches. Bleeding gums. And because shead swallowed it, shead killed Helen. After Helenas death shead had to focus her anger somewhere, and since the government of the United States as a thing to hate was too unwieldy, and all the idiots who got caught up in cold war paranoiaa"the morons who devised and funded and carried out the radiation experimentsa"were too numerous and anonymous to collectively despise, she focused her hatred on Wilson Spriggs.

She used to hate herself as well, hence the need for electroshock therapy, but these days, whenever her thoughts drifted again toward blaming herself, she steered them in another directiona"toward the fact that she did not know what she was doing when she swallowed the poison. She was young, she was pregnant and vulnerable, she was ignorant, she was naive, she was a hundred million other things; but the fact remained that she did not know, because she was tricked. Wilson Spriggs had instructed his minion to trick her into drinking poison, and now, finally, when she and Wilson were both old and he was least suspecting it, she was going to play a deadly trick on him.

But exactly what sort of trick should she play?

For a time she daydreamed about a much younger, fifties-looking version of herself, looking like prea"alien encounter Nancy Archer in a black-and-white film, clutching a fluffy white pillow to her ample bosom, tiptoeing in a slinky dress and high heels toward an old man in his beda"Wilson had aged while she, miraculously, hadnata"but when she tried to imagine the ensuing struggle, she turned back into a frailish old lady and it seemed too risky.

She entertained another fantasy that was just as delicious as the Nancy-with-a-pillow fantasy. She would sneak up behind him with piano wire (whatever that was) and garrote him. However, the thought of his old head rolling on the ground, blood gushing, eyes staring, was so hypnotically alluring that whenever it popped into her head she forced it away by singing a hymn, as she was afraid that even allowing herself to imagine such things meant she was teetering on the line between avenger and sicko. Same with stabbing him. She didnat want to enjoy herself too much.

She considered poisons. Poisoning him, in some ways, would be the ideal revenge, because it was so t.i.t-for-tat. You could find anything on the Internet these days. Shead googled ahow to poison someonea and got more than enough information. She was thrilled, and horrified, to discover that you could order chunks of radioactive uranium ore afor educational and scientific usea from amazon.com. There would be a nice symmetry in poisoning him with the same stuff head given her, but she had no idea how to go about forcing him to ingest a chunk of rock, so she crossed radiation poisoning off her list.

One of the most appealing methods of poisoning was described in a book shead read to Helen years ago, when Helen was sick, a Nancy Drew book, the one set in Hawaii, The Secret of the Golden Pavilion. In that book, Nancy receives a lei from one of her enemies, a lei made with purplish black funereal orchids, and hidden among the flowers are tiny tacks asoaked in poison.a She couldnat get this image out of her head, the image of a wizened old man with a garish lei around his withered neck, being poisoned while simultaneously looking frivolous and stupid. Of course, it would be impossible to make such a lei and force someone to wear it. What did it mean to asoak tacks in poisona?

As far as poisons went, given her in-and-out time frame and lack of round-the-clock accessa"in other words, she wasnat his long-suffering wifea"it seemed like putting antifreeze in something sweet would be the best option. But after more research, she had to admit that, on the whole, poisons werenat such a hot idea, because they were all readily detectable these days, not like the good old days when someone at the coroneras office would write aheart failurea on the death certificate and be done with it.

And now, here she was in Tallaha.s.see, so close to her quarry, but she couldnat decide. She and Buster walked up and down Canterbury Hills and her thoughts went round and round. What about aaccidentallya running over him? Knocking him down stairs? An aaccidenta like that might not kill him, though, and injuring him just wouldnat be the same. She could push him off a cliff! Were there any cliffs in Tallaha.s.see?

Canterbury Hills was certainly hilly, and the hills were much bigger than any hills in Florida had a right to be, but there was nothing resembling a cliff, not even any large rocks. She did see a Merchantas Lane, and a Nunas Drive, and Cookas Circle, Prioress Path, Knightas Way, but no Wife of Bath anywhere. Where the h.e.l.l was the Wife of Bath? Did somebody have a problem with the Wife of Bath? Bath. On TV, people were always killing people by drowning them in a bath. But how would she happen to be there when he took a bath? What about a swimming pool? She enjoyed swimming, but she was no Esther Williams, and even a man in his eighties could probably fight her off.

And so it went, until, one evening, when she and Buster arrived at the yellow house on Friaras Way, she spotted an elderly man watering a flower bed in the side yard and felt a jolt in her brain like electroshock therapy, but instead of knocking her out, it woke her up and set her tingling. Was the old man Dr. Wilson Spriggs? The devil himself? This old man, who might be him, who surely was him, didnat glance Marylouas way. Arrogant p.r.i.c.k. He was standing sideways, near the bottom of the sloping driveway. She could see only his profile, but it was him, all right; she recognized his insolent slouch. aThe very one,a she muttered to Buster, who was too busy nosing at some dried p.o.o.p to care. Shead seen this man twice before, once on the happiest day of her life and again on the worst day, and head been a jerk both times. Memories of those two times wouldnat leave her. Even electroshock therapy hadnat dulled them.

The first time she met Wilson she was three months pregnant with Helen, in 1953, when she was visiting the University Hospital OB clinic for her first checkup, and shead just been told, by the older doctor with a crew cut whoad just examined her, that everything with the pregnancy looked fine and that she was past the danger stage when miscarriage was common. She was only twenty-three, but shead had two previous miscarriages, and those first few months she was pregnant with Helen she could barely breathe she was so worried. (Years later shead wondered if theyad chosen her as a subject for their experiment because of those miscarriages, because they thought that shead probably lose this baby, too, so it wouldnat matter what the radiation did to it. But after the hearings in Washington she read that theyad just chosen the eight hundred women at randoma"all poor and powerless, though; theyad made sure of that by conducting their study at a clinic with a sliding fee scale.) But on that joyous morning, after her examination by Dr. Crew Cut, she had no idea shead been randomly chosen for anything besides the privilege of becoming a mother. Shead gotten the all clear! She was going to have, at last, a baby! She sat up on the examining table, bare legs dangling from the mint green gown with the baby rattles pattern on it, breathing so deeply she felt light-headed, and then a nurse waltzed in and gave her a cold metal cup of pink fizzy liquid that smelled like strawberries and iron and told her to drink up quickly, that it was a vitamin c.o.c.ktail to keep her baby healthy!

In her mind, many times Marylou has said, aNo thank you,a or asked, aWhat, exactly, is in this so-called c.o.c.ktail?a Or thrown the drink in the nurseas face, screaming obscenities, or leaped on the nurse and forced her to drink it, or just jumped up and ran, bare a.s.sed and barefoot, out of the examining room and down the hall and out of the hospital and into the late September sunshine. Safe!

But no. No, no, and no again. What she actually did was drink the poison while the nurse, who wore a name tag reading Betty Bordner, watched her with big blue eyes and what became, in Marylouas memory, a greedy and sinister smile. The drink tasted so bitter that Marylouas eyes were watering when she handed the cup back to the nurse, and just as she did a young doctor pa.s.sing in the hall paused in the doorway of her examining room. He had longish hair and wore round tortoisesh.e.l.l gla.s.ses and a bow tie. Foppish. Pretentious. A dandy.

aOh, Dr. Spriggs!a gushed the nurse. aThis is Mrs. Ahearn, one of our pregnant women!a At the time Marylou thought this was an odd thing to say, but so what? Medical people said all kinds of odd things, in her experience: Have we had a movement lately? Have we had any nervous imaginings?

aWe appreciate your cooperation, honey,a the doctor said to Marylou, nodding at the empty metal cup.

What the h.e.l.l did that mean? Who knew?

aBack atcha, Doc,a Marylou said, acting like a smart aleck because she was twenty-three and happy. Also, although it made her sick later to admit it to herself, she was flirting with him. She knew she looked cute, sitting there bare legged in her gown, and, she supposed, she mustave been attracted to him, G.o.d knows why.

Betty Bordner turned to Marylou, clutching the metal cup between her pointed bosoms, nearly cross-eyed with reproach. aDr. Spriggs is in charge of the entire clinic. Heas head of our study! He hardly ever comes down here!a aWhat study?a Marylou had the presence of mind to ask.

The nurse flushed and went silent, her gooey orange lips working nervously, and she fixed her eyes pleadingly on the great Spriggs.

aIam in charge of all kinds of studies,a he said, and clearly, as his manner indicated, this was rightfully so.

The nurse set the metal cup down on the counter with a clunk. aHow are you today, Doctor?a she said, and Marylou thought, Calm down, Nurse Bosom, youare twenty years too old for the baby genius.

Dr. Spriggs spoke no morea"their time in his presence was up. He smiled, gave a silly wave, and disappeared; and that little scene with nurse and doctor was the only thing Marylou remembered distinctly about that day, although she knew that she and Teddy had later gone for a stroll beside the Mississippi River and then to Checkers Barbeque to celebrate.

And now, in 2006, there he was again, standing at the bottom of his pollen-covered driveway waving the garden hose, like a drooping old p.e.n.i.s, over his azalea bushes. Still tall and lean, but no longer foppish! No visible a.s.s. A sailor hat and thick gla.s.ses and ugly orthopedic shoes.

Marylouas ankle ached and sweat slunk sheepishly down between her drooping b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

If she had a gun, she could just walk up to him and say: aThis is for what you did to me and Helen and those seven hundred and ninety-nine other women and their children, you son of a b.i.t.c.h,a and shoot him. Would it really matter if she was tried and put in prison for the rest of her life? Or even put to death?

Well, yes, it would matter. People said that living well was the best revenge, but wasnat it enough, really, in her case, at age seventy-seven, to say simply that living was the best revenge? He dies, she lives. So shead not only have to do it but get away with it.

It hadnat rained here in a c.o.o.nas age. Motes of dust and pollen swarmed up into her face. She and Buster stood at the top of the driveway watching the old sc.u.m overwater his bushes, hating every fiber of his being with every fiber of hers. But what to do? If only she were fifty feet tall! Fifty feet tall, twenty-three years old, dressed in superhero attirea"Amazonish costume barely covering her giant bosomsa"raging and focused as fifty hurricanes, shead fly at him and fling his parts all over the flat-a.s.sed state of Florida.

Just then he c.o.c.ked his head, as if head picked up the stirrings of a storm. He threw down his garden hose and, without looking in her direction, turned and shambled off behind the yellow house, out of sight. Walking away from her once again.

aMur-der-er!a she bellowed, and Buster flattened his yellow ears and rolled his eyes up at her. But she wasnat finished. She yelled again, even louder, aWhereas your f.u.c.king bow tie now!a which was not at all what she meant to say. What she meant to say was aEat leaden death, motherf.u.c.ker!a She waited, heart skipping merrily in her chest, but the murderer did not reappear, so eventually she and Buster started back home, unfulfilled, a familiar condition for both of them. Why couldnat she think straight? Of all the things she couldave yelled. His bow tie! How inadequate was that? Shead had the beast in her sights!

When she got home, she lay down on her cold pleather couch and closed her eyes and heard Teddyas voice. aYou act just like you drive, Lou. Go, stop. Go, stop. Gas, brake. Gas, brake. Iam getting motion sick.a When head said that to her, years ago, head been joking, sort of, but he was also speaking the truth. She was still that waya"wishy-washy, indecisivea"and she hated that about herself.

For a time after that evening, the evening of the bow tie insult, Marylou shifted into low gear, continuing to roam the streets of Canterbury Hills with Bustera"Milleras Ride, Nunas Priest Placea"waiting for either courage or inspiration to strike, enjoying in spite of herself the low humidity as well as the slight breeze that would be gone in a few weeks, not to return, unless there was a storm, until October, according to the Channel 9 weatherman. The late April air had begun to smell like Octobera"smoky, because of nearby forest firesa"prescribed burns, according to the Tallaha.s.see Democrat. Hurricane season, according to countless billboards around Tallaha.s.see, was only a month away. aAccording to,a aaccording toaa"these were her friends now, these public postings.

While walking she met some of her neighbors, including a nice ministeras wife, a chipper blond gal named Paula Coffey who always wore a white sun visor, and they talked about the pollen, which Marylou had never seen the likes of. When shead come down to Tallaha.s.see in March to look for a house shead been amazed by the steady stream of brown oak leaves raining from the skya"evidently they shed their leaves in the spring and not the falla"leaves that looked like palmetto bugs swarming all over the ground. But in April the pine trees cast off little brown tubes of pollen that blew everywhere. Everything on her screened porch was coated with green slime. Trails of pollen, like ooze from giant snails, lined streets and driveways. Even though Marylou parked her rented Taurus under the carport she had to hose off the front windshield every time she wanted to drive somewhere.

Paula listened to Marylou complain, and her response was, aGet ready! After the pollen comes the mosquitoes and no-see-ums! Itas always something!a Paula called on Marylou a few times, once bringing her lasagna and another time a key lime pie. When Paula brought the pie, her daughter Rusty came with her, a thin teenager dressed in black, skulking behind her big healthy mother like a dark cloud. When Marylou opened her front door and turned on the porch light, Paula introduced Rusty, who was holding the pie, but Rusty didnat say a word to Marylou, just stared at her sullenly. The black rings around her eyes looked like shead drawn them on with Magic Marker.

aRusty made the pie,a Paula said, thrusting Rusty forward.

Rusty gave Marylou a squinty look. A little leather medicine bag hung on a cord around her neck. aDidnat make it for you,a she mumbled.

aRusty!a her mother said. aThatas not nice!a aIam not nice,a said Rusty, but she held out the pie, wrapped in foil and smelling delicious.

aIam not nice either,a Marylou said. aJoin the club.a She knew she should invite them in and offer them some, but she couldnat do it. She took the pie, planning to eat the whole thing as soon as she could get to a fork and a table. aThanks so much, sweetheart!a At this, Rusty gave her an even colder look. I should hire this kid to kill Wilson, Marylou thought. She could picture Rusty delivering a pie laced with antifreeze. But, no, she wanted the satisfaction of doing it herself.

As Paula and Rusty turned to leave, not being able to tell, apparently, that she was speaking to the Radioactive Lady, Paula invited her to go to church with her family.

aMy husband Buffas the youth minister at Genesis Church,a Paula said. aWead love for you to be our guest! Itas a big church with a small church feel!a aOh G.o.d, here we go,a Rusty groaned. She hurled herself off the porch steps, black shirt flapping like bat wings, and darted across the street toward their house.

Paula stood there in her yoga suit, grinning at Marylou, and for a few seconds Marylou seriously considered saying yes right then but finally told Paula shead think about it. Going to church with Paulaas family might make her feel less lonely, but she hadnat moved to Tallaha.s.see to make new friends. She had priorities. She had a vermin to exterminate.

So she and Buster walked and rested and walked again. And then one day, with no plan in mind, bereft of courage and inspiration, Marylou got the opportunity shead been waiting for.

Part Two.

MAY 2006.

Q: How many times had Suzi been warned?

A: Every time she turned around.

Every time she turned on the TV or opened up a newspaper there were stories about perverts who scooped up children, locked them in closets, tortured them, raped them, strangled them, and buried their bodies in crawl s.p.a.ces. What was a crawl s.p.a.ce? And those were just the stories she found on her own, trolling the Internet. She was also warned directly by her parents, by the plastico chick on the evening news, by an Officer Friendly visiting their school who wore a protective puffy suit so he looked like the Michelin man and encouraged the kids to attack him with fury. aIf someone tries to grab you, yell fire and run! Kick and punch and poke. Even adults you know might have bad intentions. Teachers, scout leaders, ministers, even Father himself. If an adult makes you uncomfortable, get the h.e.l.l out of there. Tell another adult, hopefully not another child molester. Donat be fooled by the ploys: aYour mother sent me. Help me find my lost puppy! Want some magic dust? Come to my house and drink beer and watch a dirty movie! Want to sleep in my tent?a Donat walk to school, or wait for the bus alone. Donat ride your bike alone. Never be alone.a But who wouldave suspected that an old woman living in her own neighborhood, a woman who walked her corgi morning and night, who wouldave thought that this white-haired, slightly humpbacked old woman was the very person Suzi shouldave been on guard against?

Suzi had drawn the task of walking their mini poodle, Parson Brown, each morning before school and each evening after dinner, and her mother made her wear a whistle around her neck so she could blow it if someone tried to mess with her. Like a whistle would stop a maniac! Oh well, it showed that her mom cared about her at least a little. Suzi hadnat blown the whistle in earnest yet, although shead huffed on it a few times just for fun.

Her mother had also told her to cross the street when she walked past one particular house in their neighborhood, a house where a registered s.e.xual offender in his thirties lived with his parents because head just gotten out of jail. But then she told Suzi that shead done an Internet search and discovered that all the guy had actually done was drug a womana"probably at a bara"and then, you know, taken advantage of her, so he wasnat a child predator, which was the kind they really had to worry about, but even so, be careful! Like drugging and raping anybody wasnat that bad! The way adults could talk themselves into and out of feeling okay about something always amazed her.

As she walked Parson through Canterbury Hills, Suzi played out scenarios in her heada"Ted Bundy Jr. creeping up behind her with a fake cast on his arma"shead kick him in the nuts and run to the nearest house. A bus full of gangstas offering her a milk shake with date rape drugs in ita"shead throw it in their faces and run to the nearest house. A pimpled geek on a bike exposing himselfa"shead blow her whistle right in his ugly face. But never once had she imagined an encounter like the one she was about to have, nor could she have imagined the consequences of it.

It was too bad, really, that everyone tried to scare the c.r.a.p out of kids about hanging out in their own neighborhoods, because if she didnat always have to be aon guard,a these walks with Parson wouldave been her favorite part of the day.

On the morning she met the old lady she turned right at the top of her driveway so she could walk past her favorite housea"the neighborhoodas original plantation, a two-story white clapboard house built in the 1800s. In their side yard there was a bronze tortoise, which the homeowner had ordered online, as big as a VW Bug. As Suzi and Parson walked past, she surveyed the plantation house and the tortoise and the front porch lined with rocking chairs as if it were her own house, just waiting for her to move in.

Their next-door neighbor John Kane, setting out in his Ford Ranger for his insurance business downtown, gave her a wave and a smile. Suzi waved back, deciding not to attribute his friendliness to a sick and twisted plan. From somewhere in the trees above her came a pileated woodp.e.c.k.e.ras nutty laugh. She tried to imitate it and strike up a conversation, but the bird must not have been fooled, because it flew away, a shadow fluttering off through the live oak limbs. Its mother had probably warned it about people posing as woodp.e.c.k.e.rs.

She turned the corner, and she and Parson went down a small hill, pa.s.sing a group of middle-aged women who walked together every morning, blabbing and hogging the whole road, then she started down Nunas Drive, staying under the shaded canopy. She stopped beneath the line of confederate jasmine bushes to inhale their sweet smell, and this was when the old lady and her dog cornered her.

Shead seen this particular woman, in various spots around the neighborhood, a number of times on her walks (Suzi didnat walk the same way every time, per instruction), and she didnat pay much attention to her (old ladies are interchangeable), but her dog was cute. Parson thought so, too, and always whined and lunged toward the corgi, desperate for contact. Suzi always managed to pull Parson away and keep walking, but that morning in May, when the two dogs were lunging at each other, the old lady spoke up and said something more than the usual aIsnat it a lovely day?a aHow about we let them get acquainted?a she said in a tw.a.n.gy Southern accent, an accent Suzias friends referred to as acountry.a aBuster hereas been awful bored with just me for company.a Suzia"whoad been daydreaming about a certain boy in middle school to whom she was sending carefully plotted mixed signals, Dylan B. (there were four Dylans in middle school) with his s.h.a.ggy red hair and deliciously round freckled face, calculating how much time she had to spare to placate this old woman before she was late getting home and would be late to school and unable to walk by Dylanas locker and pointedly pretend not to notice hima"decided it would be easier to go along than to be rude, which was, unfortunately, a decision Suzi often made.

The two dogs did their doggy sniffing thing, Parson Brown gradually becoming less interested, turning her head, then her body away, and the corgi, Buster, became more and more frantic trying to get her attention. Note to self, thought Suzi. Here was proof, straight from the animal kingdom. She was always trying to instruct Ava, her clueless older sister, not to seem so interested in a boy she liked, but would Ava listen?

aWhatas her name?a the lady asked. She wore a straw hat; khaki pants; white long-sleeved shirt; and hideous, puffy white walking shoes. Typical old person. Even though it was May, and in the eighties, we have to keep every inch of our flesh covered! It looked like the old lady had no b.r.e.a.s.t.s at all under her shirt.

Suzi wore a denim skirt, flip-flops, and a tank shirt, and she felt suddenly like the sleazy little tramp her mother often suggested she looked like without ever actually coming out and saying it. aAre you going to wear that to school?a The old ladyas blue eyes, in her pale face, were wide and intense. aYour dogas name?a she said.

Suzi explained the origin of Parsonas name. Christmas, five years ago, they brought the poodle home and they were listening to that song all the time, and it was her favorite, aWinter Wonderland,a the Johnny Mathis version, and she noticed that their new little poodle, sitting on her hind legs, looked just like the snowman they built in the meadow, hence, Parson Brown, even though the poodle was a girl. She tried to tell this in an animated way, even though she was sick to death of the story. They ought to just rename the d.a.m.n dog.

aWell, isnat that cute!a said the old lady, and then, with hardly a pause, aWhere do you live?a Suzi told her, thinking that this woman surely knew already, because shead seen the woman watching from afar when she and Parson ran down their driveway, but maybe the old woman was just being polite.

aI live on Reeveas Court,a the old lady volunteered, adown at the dead end, white house with blue shutters.a Suzi made a polite sound, thinking of her soccer uniform and how she hadnat a.s.sembled the parts yet and how angry it made her mother when she didnat do it the night before, which she never did because she liked to live dangerously, and, okay, it was entertaining, she had to admit, watching her mother getting angrier and angrier while trying not to, so predictable, but she had to make sure her mother didnat get too angry, or it would quickly stop being funny and start being scary. Whew. It was hard work being thirteen.

aYou have a brother, am I right?a said the old lady.

The two dogs were sniffing each otheras faces now, so Suzi decided to give Parson another few seconds. Buster was so cute, with that long sausage body and little flap ears. If she ever was allowed to get another dog, she wanted a corgi.

aHow old is he?a the woman asked her, leaning forward slightly. aYour brother?a Suzi thought it was a rather peculiar question, but what else to do but answer? She told her about Otis, sixteen, and Ava, who was eighteen, and added that she was thirteen.

aI live alone now,a the old lady volunteered. aI moved here a few months ago when my son got a job teaching at the FSU medical school, but then he lost his joba"long storya"and they moved to Houston and here I still am! I reckon I ought to follow them, but I just bought the house and I like Tallaha.s.see.a She stretched her lips out in a sort-of smile.

The old kook must be as lonely as her dog, telling her whole life story to some random kid. And Suzi couldave sworn shead seen the woman for years in their neighborhood, but maybe not. aOh,a said Suzi.

aMrs. Archeras my name,a said the woman. aNancy Archer. My friends call me Nance.a Nance? What kind of nickname was that for an old lady? Suzia"full name Suzannaha"when she turned eleven, had toyed with the idea of making people call her Zan just to p.i.s.s them off, but decided it wasnat worth it.

aWho else lives in your house with you and your brother and sister and doggie?a Nance asked her. Buster was busily sniffing a mailbox and Parson was watching him, looking a little forlorn. This was another abnormal question, but Suzi answered it. Mom, Dad, Granddad. And now she really had to go, she said, or shead be late for school. Nice meeting you!

aOh, yes. Iave seen your granddad. Working in the yard.a Wait. So Nance already knew where she lived and that she had a granddad. But old people did get confused. Maybe she was just asking to make sure.

Nance suddenly reached out and grasped her wrist. aWhatas his name?a aGranddadas?a Nance nodded briskly. Her eyes, shaded by the hat, stared up at Suzi unblinkingly. Why was Nance holding her wrist this way? Should she blow her whistle?

But Suzi was way taller and stronger than Nance. She backed up, and Nance let go. For a second she couldnat remember his name. He was Granddad. aUmm. Wilson. Wilson Spriggs.a aThatas what I thought.a Nance let out a hissing little breath.

Wait another minute. What was all this about? Did she have a crush on Granddad? Was that it? Suzi couldnat wait to tell her friend Mykaila. A crazy old woman had a crush on Gramps! She was stalking Granddad! All adults were insane!

aAnd your grandmother?a Suzi didnat get why Nance kept asking about her family, but she couldnat think of a good reason not to answer, so she did. aMy step-grandmother. She died two years ago.a Suzi didnat like thinking about thata"the hot day of the funeral, sitting under that blue tent in folding chairs and watching her mother crying and hugging people. Suzias mother had never known her real mother, but she always told people that shead loved Verna Tommy like a mother. Suziad held somebodyas baby, called Dee Dee, four months old, and gazed into Dee Deeas face whenever she felt like crying, acause who could feel sad when they looked at a babyas face? Would Dee Dee even remember that day and how Suzi held her?

Nance was staring off down the street, like she was s.p.a.cing out, not like she was actually looking at something, and she didnat say sorry about your grandmother, like people usually did, but oh well.

Suzi said again that she had to go, nice meeting you, blah, blah, blah, and Nance suddenly turned to her. aEvery time I see you, I think, there goes a smart, beautiful girl with a great future ahead of her. Youave just got that air about you.a aWow. Thanks!a Suzi was used to old people remarking that she was smart and beautifula"and she never minded hearing it againa"but she especially liked the bright future part. She planned on becoming a famous soccer goalie, and thought about telling Nance that she was going to statewide Olympic Development Program soccer camp in July, but, for G.o.das sake, she really had to go.

She said good-bye and ran all the way home, as fast as she could run in flip-flops, and by the time she got home, where her mother was out in the yard, hands on hips, waiting for her, shead mostly forgotten about Nance, but she was in a good mood the rest of the day.