Calico Horses and the Patchwork Trail Page 4

  “Well, all I know is that they get themselves worked up and then want me to hang up posters and flyers with anti slogans on them. I tell them all the time if I do it for you I have to do it for the other guys, so your posters and brochures are hanging up right beside theirs.”

  “I bet they love that,” he laughed.

  “Hey, that’s not my problem. Fresh linens, keeping them fed, and stocking up on supplies is all I need to worry about. Rounding up wild animals is your department.”

  “True enough. Speaking of animals, I need to get back to them so I’ll see you later and pry that pup away from my daughter when your friend gives me a call. Bye, bye,” he said, adding jokingly, “and don’t let the mob talk you into joining up with them.”

  “No worries,” Sam replied. “In running this B&B I’ve seen every type of character and now I need to get back to my own herd.” Sam hung up and looked at the phone. Nice guy, she thought. How the heck did he end up with that horrible job? Well, she thought, somebody’s got to manage those horses. I just hope he doesn’t have a logo on the side of his truck when he drops off Carrie’s dog! And he says he has a ten-year-old daughter. Who knows—maybe they could become friends.

  “Nope, too easy,” she said aloud, waking Max from his nap. Kids like to pick out their own friends and she decided then and there that she would just stay out of the whole mess. Max sent her a lazy wink as if he agreed, and stretched.

  “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, Max,” she said, grinning at the cat. “I picked you out a new friend…a girl named Flannel and she’s about your age. I think you’re going to love her.”

  Chapter 10

  Utter darkness and silence surrounded her. It seemed as if it were waiting for her to peer within like a door unopened. The black began to move and form a dark liquid. Was this black water? Carrie thought, as it began to flow like a river under a night sky. Slowly she realized she was flying overhead, moving quickly over the dark sea. Suddenly, the blackness disappeared and she found herself looking down over a colorful landscape. Mountains covered in calico fabric were everywhere and she felt like a bird as she flew with ease over them. They looked like patches of fabric and each piece had flecks of tiny colors scattered throughout. Greens, blues, lavenders, gold, and bits of red dotted the land. As she dipped down into a valley she saw that the fabric changed into dried-up, withered crops. They looked parched and brown and everything looked dead. Next she saw a thick black liquid burst through the ground and it began to spread out from the center going in all directions. It started to tear through the middle of the brown crops as if ripping through a paper bag. She wasn’t sure what this oozing stuff was, but it now covered every inch of the brittle crops. She felt sad looking at all of this blackness.

  And then she woke.

  Tears began to fall and Carrie reached for her dog. Flannel was like a warm furry security blanket and always seemed to be there whenever she needed a hug. Slowly Carrie’s eyes became focused and she realized she was no longer home.

  Home. The tears fell faster as she looked over at her mother sound asleep in the cramped hotel room. They had been traveling almost a week now and the homesickness seemed worst at bedtime and returned at dawn. Oh, yeah—that’s right, Flannel was now in some stranger’s home in Stupid-ville, Nevada. How could her mother have trusted that guy; he was just a guy at work; he wasn’t even family. Carrie would never have trusted anyone if she was in charge. But that was just it, she thought, as fresh tears now burst forward. She had no say in any of this—not the divorce, not the move, and certainly not in the way her mom had placed Flannel in a stranger’s care. She wiped at her eyes, stumbling in the darkness. She choked back a sob and searched for tissues for her runny nose. Inside the bathroom she fell to her knees and cried into the biggest towel she could find.

  “Carrie. Oh, Carrie!” Her mother was now stumbling herself and knocked over a hotel lamp. Carrie quickly turned and locked the door. “I’m fine,” she cried. “I just want some privacy, Mom.”

  “You’re crying again. I just want to help you. Please let me in.”

  “I want to go home. I miss Daddy and Shannon and I miss Flannel and I miss my bed!” she cried out.

  “Oh, Carrie, we’ll be arriving at Sam’s today and Flannel will be there waiting for us. We can’t keep doing this. Please open the door and let’s get dressed and go. We can stop and grab a bite on the way. The sooner we get moving the sooner you’ll see Flannel.”

  The door opened and Carrie held up her hand as her mom moved forward to hug her. “Please don’t, Mom—just let me get dressed, okay? I don’t want a hug; it really doesn’t make me feel any better. I need to call Daddy. I need to hear his voice.”

  Brenda stood frozen as her daughter brushed past her. This entire move had been filled with emotional highs and lows. She was having her own anxiety about relocating. Would she be able to go back to the casino work she had enjoyed in New Jersey? Or would she be changing linens and taking reservations at a resort with her best friend Sam? How could she ever be happy with Carrie so miserable? She held back her own tears and began gathering clothes. Hotels used to represent fun and adventure, now they just felt like continual packing and unpacking on a journey filled with uncertainty.

  Friday, June 27:

  I think Brianna is Shannon’s new best friend. When we spoke on the phone she said they were going to the beach. Brianna’s okay and all, but Shannon never used to hang out with her. Brianna’s the best kid on the gymnastics team and maybe Shannon will just forget about me now. Who cares about any of this? I don’t want to think of Shannon today. I hope she calls again soon.

  I had another flying dream. I called Dad and told him about it. He says I am working out my troubles in my dreams. I think I’m just having cool dreams about flying. I told him how much I hate my life and he says that it will all get better soon. Grownups always say that. But he sure isn’t happy and neither is Mom, so when will it all get better? He says he will see me during a holiday. That seems like a million years away. I hate this stupid car trip and dumb hotel people who always ask me: “Is everything all right?” No, it’s not all right, okay? So go away and smile at somebody else. Geez. Today we’ll get to the new place. I can’t wait to see Flannel. When I get there I’m gonna take a long walk with her and not talk to anybody, maybe forever. Maybe I’ll pretend I can’t speak and then they’ll just leave me alone. I hope Flannel and I get lost and we can just go live alone together in a cave somewhere. I bet all those kids in Stupid-ville, Nevada, don’t even have bikes. They probably stare at their stupid brown desert-dirt all day.

  She tucked her journal into her backpack and pulled her sunglasses down over her eyes. She liked to pretend that the dark frames made her invisible, as if she could watch everyone around her but they couldn’t see her. Walking back to the car she kicked an old crumpled brown bag laying beside the road. She was reminded of her dream, the one about the brown withered crops. Her mom had told her to take a walk and that usually meant she probably needed a break herself. Carrie was learning that people stuck in cars for hours sometimes got irritable and somehow her mom could always sense when they needed time apart. Her mom would go meditate somewhere in a quiet spot while Carrie would find a place to jot down her thoughts. Sometimes she would draw pictures and occasionally write poems but lately she seemed to only write about how awful she felt.

  “So about my dream last night,” said Carrie as she got into the car.

  “Don’t tell me,” said her mother. “What was it this time…aliens or fields of polka dots?”

  “Ha ha. Real funny, Mom. It’s not polka dots, it’s patchwork.”

  “Wow,” said Brenda. “I was only kidding. So you had a recurring dream about those patchwork mountains?”

  “What’s recurring mean?”

  “It’s when you have the same dream again and again. Was it exactly the same as the one you told me about with the fabric mountains?”

  “Well, kinda. It was all so nice—it
started with shimmering water and then I was flying again, only this time the fabric turned into real mountains and crops and they were all dried up and brown. They looked like the cornfields back home when they are all crinkly. Only it wasn’t just corn and stuff—it was every plant and every blade of grass. Just fields and fields of dead everything everywhere.”

  Brenda didn’t speak. She was listening carefully, wondering if she would need to make an appointment with a counselor before school started. Maybe Carrie was experiencing trauma from the divorce and it was bringing on these bad dreams.

  “And then it ended like the last dream with that same oozing black stuff that just came up from the middle and spread out. And then I woke up.”

  “Oh, so that was just this morning. No wonder you were so shaken…you had a bad dream.”

  “No, no, no. That’s not why I was crying! I told you I want to go home,” Carrie said in a huff.

  “Okay, okay. Calm down,” Brenda said, trying to steer her daughter away from another discussion about why they couldn’t stay in New Jersey.

  “I’m trying to tell you about my cool dream, Mom, and you want to make it about us moving.”

  “I’m sorry. What do you think of your dream? What does it mean to you?”

  “Well, I think it was so awesome to feel like I was flying again. I was way up high and I could see for miles. It was like I had eyes in the back of my head. It felt as if I was looking in all directions and I could feel the coolness of the air as I flew.”

  “Sounds like a bird. If you have this dream again you better check for wings.”

  “Wow, that would be great if I were a bird. But I don’t think I was an animal. It felt like it was just me. The dried-up crops were awful, though. It felt like something happened to all the beautiful mountains. And the black gunky stuff spread over it so fast, Mom, that nothing could stop it. I actually woke up in tears and I reached for Flannel, but….”

  Brenda looked over at her daughter and decided maybe she was working something out on her own. Perhaps she should wait on that call to the counselor. Was Carrie in the process of discovering something new about herself? “Maybe it’s a message. Maybe you’re learning something. Have you tried meditating lately?”

  “Well, no. I haven’t done that in months. I try to sit and not think of anything like you taught me, but it’s hard to make everything just go away. Maybe I should try it again; maybe I am getting a message about something. What in the world does calico fabric have to do with anything?”

  Brenda was a firm believer in meditation. Each morning she would find a quiet space and sit alone in silence. She had been doing it for years and it had taken practice to learn how to move all thoughts aside and just sit in stillness. Sometimes she came away with creative ideas. Sometimes she came away with an answer to a problem she was having and she always felt more peaceful. She had tried teaching friends and some people laughed at her or thought she was following some religious ritual. This was untrue so she had stopped sharing her discoveries with anyone and kept them to herself and her best friend Sam. Teaching Carrie was something she had only thought of recently. Carrie’s anger about the separation was directed at everything around her. Maybe meditation would help ease some of her daughter’s stress; it sure couldn’t hurt, she thought.

  They drove the rest of the way in silence. Carrie daydreamed about the meaning of her calico visions. Brenda wished the entire breakup with her husband was a bad dream and she would wake up and her life would be happy and peaceful. They both stared ahead as the sun sparkled on the endless stretch of road. There weren’t any lakes, rivers, or oceans anywhere. It was unlike the familiar scenes that were so natural to them—the flatlands and neighborhoods lined with evergreen trees and flowerbeds, with sea birds circling overhead. Gone were the lighthouses, salt air, and the long lines of traffic headed to the shore. Gone were the smells of popcorn and the Ferris wheel lights and the sound of the waves crashing on the beaches along the Atlantic. There were only mountains in the distance and long stretches of wide-open desert with its gray-green sagebrush and prickly cactus dotting the landscape. They didn’t hear anything except an occasional airplane flying overhead. If there were animals about they were doing a good job of staying out of sight in this land that seemed thirsty and dry. As the car continued along the hazy blacktop of Interstate 80, Brenda and Carrie weren’t sure where the road would end but together they hoped it would lead to some answers.

  Chapter 11

  Milla loved to draw and paint. It had always come so easy for her. Unaware of her special talent, she was often annoyed by other students who just didn’t get it when the art teacher gave them assignments. It’s so dumb, she thought—the teacher told us to draw some fruit. It’s fruit…big deal, you draw it and shade it…add some highlights and that’s it. What’s the problem? It’s really not that hard, she sighed to herself as she flipped through her sketchpad.

  Her room was cluttered with paper, colored pencils, dusty sticks of pastels, and a fishing tackle box loaded with tiny tubes of watercolors. Her grandmother, who had always loved to paint, shared her knowledge with Milla through countless lessons before she had passed away. In fact, most of the art supplies scattered about her room were once her grandmother’s. She looked at her brushes that had fallen on the floor. I haven’t painted in ages, she thought. Maybe I can a get few quick watercolors of Flannel done before she goes today. Ugh, she groaned. Today she would have to drive over and hand them back their dog. Some new kid about her age. Humph, she’s probably a snob, Milla thought. She probably thinks, coming from some place far away, that she’s better than us. Milla had seen her share of new kids. Some were nice and some were mean and most weren’t worth her time. She thought of her friend Paula, who had been an exception. Paula was a new kid and she and Milla had become good friends. They were so close they were practically sisters. And then one day—poof, her family just moved away. Paula said her dad got a new job and that was that. They spoke on the phone a few times and even exchanged a few letters, but soon they drifted apart and neither had bothered to stay in touch. Yep, she thought, I finally do meet a nice girl and it’s a dog…that belongs to a new kid…just my luck. Hey, wait, she thought, maybe if I do extra chores I can talk Dad into getting me a dog. She collected her paints and art board and went in search of the collie that was busy drinking from the toilet. Flannel stood with water dripping from her mouth, waiting to see if the girl would scold her, but Milla stood quietly so the dog resumed her lapping. Milla opened the sketchbook and started to quickly capture the scene before her. The scribbling lines seemed to dance across the page as she studied the dog, occasionally glancing down at her work. The collie cocked her head as if to say, “Hey! What are you looking at?”

  “Oh, darn,” said Milla. “You’re finished drinking already?”

  Flannel pushed past Milla and the girl patted her softly. The dog made a funny rumble sound, which was half growl and half bark, and it startled the girl.

  “What was that?” she laughed. “You silly animal—what are you saying?” Flannel let out a large yawn that ended in a high-pitched yip. She shook her head, spraying Milla with water, and trotted away in search of a cozy corner. Milla listened to the clicking sounds of the collie’s feet as they moved across the wooden floor. Flannel found a sunny space in front of a large window and stretched out, preparing for an uninterrupted nap. Curious, Milla kneeled down and carefully examined a paw. The dog immediately became alert and tried to pull away, telling the girl this was not part of the nap. She petted and made soothing sounds, sending silent messages of, “It’s okay, I just want to learn about your feet.” The dog snorted as if to say, “It’s a foot…big deal, you draw it, shade it, and add some highlights…that’s it.”

  The sunny morning passed slowly as the dozing dog tossed and turned while Milla painted. There were drawings of Flannel on her back with her feet sticking up; one of her lying on her belly with her head snuggled peacefully between her paws, and a close-
up of her eyes. The painting of Flannel’s head tucked like a bird’s under its wing was Milla’s favorite. Her dad had taught her all about animal language. She knew a dog’s sharp sense of smell helped determine safety or danger. Milla was totally focused on her art. Without realizing it she sent messages of security, her mannerisms of confidence washed over the dog. The young artist laughed at her mistakes, scribbling and erasing as the collie yawned and winked.

  Milla put her brush down and gazed at the sleeping collie. She looked at her artwork and sighed. The dog lifted her head, sensing the shift in the girl’s mood. Milla felt tears slowly forming as she fought back the lump in her throat. Flannel quietly approached and licked her hand. Dropping down she hugged the dog, burying her face within the lion-like mane. “This is so hard,” she said to the dog. “I just realized that when you go I’ll be lonely again. You see, my Grandma died and she’s not gonna be with me this summer like she always was. Dad’s too busy to take any time off and I didn’t mean to like you so much…you dumb dog.”

  Flannel nudged her, looking into Milla’s eyes as if understanding everything. “He’ll never let me have a dog, and besides, where would I find one just like you?” Suddenly, the collie’s ears perked up and she ran to the window with a low rumble of a bark. The ticking of the grandfather clock seemed to grow louder. Flannel stood with her paws on the ledge as if waiting for something. Milla’s eyes followed the direction of the dog’s attention as she wiped away salty tears. Dread washed over her upon hearing her father’s jeep pulling into the driveway. It was time to return Flannel to her owner…the new kid…the brat who probably was smart and funny and popular and a big fat horrible snob.