It happened to her more and more frequently. A couple of times a week these days. She would drift into that twilight of half-asleep, and something would happen that she immediately recognized as The End of Everything. But, curiously, the thing itself was never big or dramatic. A shadow that fell over her in her sleep, or an envelopment in something like smoke. But with a jolt of fear she clearly knew everything ended with the smoke or the shadow, and that she had known this truth all along. And that she had been waiting for it. Then, startled awake, she would lie frozen for a moment, wondering why she was still so . . . there. If that had been The End of Everything, why was she still in her bed thinking thoughts in the wake of it?
Eventually her brain would clear enough to understand the moment for what it was: a half-asleep, half-awake dream experience.
It usually took her almost half the night to get back to sleep after such a fright.
Bea lay frozen for a moment, wondering why it was still so hard to breathe. She reached a hand up to her chest and found Phyllis curled on her collarbone.
“Phyllis. Honey. You have to move.”
She gently nudged the cat down onto the bed. Phyllis rose, stretched, then slithered under the covers and curled up next to Bea’s hip.
Bea breathed deeply a few times and poked at a thought hiding somewhere near the back of her consciousness. She wasn’t sure quite what it was yet, but she’d been aware of it several times earlier that day. Each time she had felt a tightening in her belly, but she’d tried her best not to go after the thought that had evoked it.
This time she held still and the thought caught her.
What if that man had not been from the IRS in any way? He hadn’t known her name.
She sat up in bed.
What if she had just given away $300 of her $740-something to a non-IRS stranger for no good reason whatsoever? What if she had been duped? You heard of such things these days. Read about them in the paper or were warned against them on the news. And they seemed to like to target older people.
“I can’t afford a loss like that,” she said out loud to the dark room.
She decided to pick up the phone and call the automated phone line for the bank.
Being an organized woman, Bea had its number in the directory on her phone. And she knew her PIN by heart. It was the last four digits of an older phone number, one she’d kept stored in her memory for years. One from back in the days when she and Herbert had owned a house. She would never forget it as long as she lived, but no one would associate it with her, or guess it. And she had been told to be extremely careful when choosing passwords and PINs.
Another cold grip in her stomach reminded her that it doesn’t matter how carefully you choose your PIN if someone can just ask you for it on the phone. And you give it.
The familiar canned voice on the line welcomed her to her bank’s automated services line, then began a menu of choices. Bea didn’t wait. She punched number three, because she knew it would bring up account balance and information.
“I don’t like this new world,” she said out loud, to no one. “I don’t like it one bit.”
Sighing, she punched in her account number and PIN.
“Your balance is . . . zero dollars . . . and . . . zero cents. To hear this information again, press one. To return to the main menu, press two. To end this call, press the pound key, or hang up.”
Bea hung up.
She sat with the phone in her hand, in the dark. For how long, she would not have been able to say. She knew she was awake, and yet here it was again. The End of Everything.
And, just like in the waking dreams, Bea was still there. Still thinking. Still wondering how there could be anything on the other side of The End.
Despite being stunned, despite feeling her belly buzz and tingle with electricity, mostly Bea felt a bizarre sense of relief. Finally, it was over. She had gotten it over with. For years she had been watching herself move closer and closer to the edge of this cliff. Now she was off the edge, free-falling. Somehow utter unmitigated disaster felt preferable to the constant, compulsive, nervous anticipation of that disaster.
And in some way or another, she was still here.
What life would look like from this point on, well . . . that was a mystery for now.
She never got back to sleep.
Chapter Three
It’s All about the Weather
Bea rose first thing in the morning and drove to Palm Desert. The guard at her friend Opal’s gated community recognized Bea and her old white van, and waved her right through.
She pulled up to Opal’s condo—or rather Opal’s son’s condo—to see her friend sitting on the front porch swing, in the shade, fanning herself with the genuine Japanese fan her son and his wife had brought home from their last vacation. It was made of silk and silver, and must have been expensive.
Bea couldn’t help but notice the condescending look from Opal’s across-the-street fussy housewife neighbor as she parked the van.
“Yes, that’s right. Go ahead and stare,” Bea shouted. “Imagine, somebody having to drive an older vehicle. Not having money bursting from every orifice like you. How shameful! Really get a good look now.”
The woman turned and hurried into her house, chastened and ashamed.
Bea cut her eyes away and silently turned her back to the rude neighbor.
“You don’t look good,” Opal said as Bea struggled up the steep walk in the gathering morning heat.
“Well, good morning to you, too.”
“I didn’t mean it as an insult. I just meant you don’t look happy. You look like you’ve been worried and haven’t slept.”
“Yes,” Bea said. “All of the above.”
She stood on the porch at last, puffing, sweating. Staring at her friend.
Like Bea, Opal was a physically generous woman—as Bea’s mother used to generously phrase a thing like that. Unlike Bea, she had a shock of white hair, thick and glossy, that fell all the way to the middle of her back. The hair made Bea jealous, as her own had been thinning into near nonexistence for years. But she had never said so.
“I’ve come to ask a series of favors,” Bea said. “I’ll just put that out up front. If you’re in no mood to be asked favors this morning, you’d best tell me to hit the road right now.”
“Depends on the favors,” Opal said. She had a slow way of talking. Lazy, almost. Like a southern woman sipping a mint julep in a movie, but Bea happened to know Opal was from Duluth. “You can ask whatever you want. If I can, I will. If I can’t, I’ll say. You know that about me by now.”
They held still a moment, regarding each other. As if there were a protocol dictating who would speak next, but neither knew what it was.
Then Opal said, “Start me off with a nice, easy request.”
“A cup of coffee.”
Opal pulled her great bulk up out of the porch swing. “That’s simple enough, yes. But I hardly think it’s one of the favors you drove all the way over here to ask me.”
Opal held the door open for Bea, who stepped into the glorious air-conditioning with a sigh.
“Actually, though, it is. I really do need a cup of coffee. I’m out of coffee at my house.”
She followed Opal into the massive, modern kitchen. It had a chopping-block island, and Italian marble tile counters, and LED lights recessed into the ceiling, and one of those ovens that are always on and cost more than Bea’s trailer had when it was brand new. And the kitchen was bigger than Bea’s trailer, too. Maybe by half again.