Todd’s shoulder rested against the textured wall of Craig’s Café, the pale yellow surface growing moist from his damp skin-suit. He squeezed the red plastic ketchup bottle as he imagined falling into the Ford Plant’s hydro-turbines--the blades hacking his feet, the dirty water red with his blood and sinew.
Todd struck the ketchup bottle against the table to drive the thought from his mind. Two tables away a man with a salt-and-pepper beard, sitting across from a pretty woman, shifted his bloodshot eyes. Todd glanced at them with embarrassment, but his outburst generated only a ripple of distraction. This was all the world would detect about his near death on the river.
Todd’s cotton skin-suit, damp with river water, produced a faint odor of salt and sediment. His heart pounding in his chest, Todd tracked the sensation of pulsing blood rushing from his core to the maze of capillaries in his fingertips.
Behind the counter Craig squinted at the green order sheets stuck to the top of the grill on a level with his curly, thinning red hair. He dipped one puffy hand into a bucket and dropped mounds of shredded potatoes onto the grill. With his other hand Craig opened the right-side door of the silver refrigerator and took out a tube of sausage shaped like a miniature torpedo. He sliced through the plastic with his greasy cleaver in several easy incisions and formed four sausage patties.
Ground sausage. That’s what Todd should have become. Flesh and blood and chopped hunks of bone and cartilage torn and pulled away, mixed with the vast, dirty water of the Mississippi.
Todd reached for the ketchup bottle; with an effort he pulled his hand away. Fidgeting, he traced circles on the yellowish Formica tabletop with his fingertip, mimicking the motion of the turbines, listening to the sausage sizzling on the grill. Craig pulled a tray of eggs from underneath the black, hissing steel monster and cracked them one by one, pouring the gelid contents onto the hot surface, shiny with grease. The hissing ebbed and flowed like cars passing on the street.
Todd shivered again as the waitress emerged from the darkened doorway behind Craig. She pulled a pot of coffee off the burner and grabbed a plate of steaming food off the tiny counter space between the grill and the refrigerator. She backed out of the kitchen with a graceful, surreptitious pirouette toward the tables, her blonde hair bouncing. Todd shivered again, his body warming the wet cotton and lycra fabric which clung to his back.
The waitress thumped the breakfast special down on the counter, nodded her head as the pudgy customer said “Thank you,” and walked briskly toward Todd. Todd watched as the coffee swayed languidly in the pot, smooth as the surface of the Mississippi river that morning.
“Coffee?”
“Please.”
She poured the coffee quickly, tilting the pot upward in a small arc at the very last second without the slightest splash or drip. In anticipation of the caffeine flowing through his screaming circulatory system, Todd’s heart began beating again. His crotch felt damp, his testicles drawn tight, his pubic hair sticking to his wet underwear. As the waitress pulled the pot away a slight draft brought him the faintly sweet smell of the flesh of her forearm. Todd felt blood rush to his skin, filling him with fleeting warmth. He shivered.
“You’re wet.”
“What?” He looked briefly into her eyes.
“It’s all over your t-shirt.”
Todd looked down at his light blue shirt.
“You’ve got goose bumps.” She poked his bicep an inch from his shirt sleeve.
Todd flinched. The burning dot of warmth made him shiver. He rubbed the rippled texture of his cold arms.
The waitress’ blond ponytail bobbed as she turned away. She held her shoulders loosely and slightly back, exposing the smooth skin of her neck. Walking to the open kitchen she grabbed three plates filled with combinations of toast, hash browns, eggs, and sausage. Todd watched the steam rising from the hash browns. She walked backward with the three plates, changed direction with a rock-step, and carefully placed the plates on a table where three people were sitting.
Craig reached for the beige telephone on the wall and punched the keys with his chubby fingers. The hiss of the grill subsided, replaced by the staccato hum of the aged ventilator.
The waitress turned to Todd. A thin film of warmth covered his face. His neck muscles tightened.
“Can I take your order?”
A few red spots marred her creamy complexion. Her blonde hair, streaked with brown, was pulled back with a wide tortoiseshell clip. Loose strands of hair fell onto her eyebrows.
“Yes. I’ll have eggs, hash browns and toast.”
The untouched menu stood in the silver circle of the menu holder. Todd reached for it. “I’m sure there’s a number for it.…”
She reached quickly and touched his shoulder.
“That’s OK. Got it.”
He froze, listening to the rapid, erratic rhythms of scribbling. Todd smelled faint chamomile like the Juicy Fruit gum he used to dig from the depths of his mother’s purse when he was a child. Buried treasure. He would half-suck on the gum, drawing out its light, fading sweetness. Todd’s mouth watered.
“How would you like your eggs?”
“Eggs?
She smiled. “Yes. How would you like your eggs?”
“Basted, please.”
She nodded and scribbled.
“Is that going to be enough for you?”
Todd imagined the plate arranged with eggs, toast and hash browns. “No. I’ll have a double order of hash browns.”
She scribbled on the pad gain, her ponytail bobbing slightly, smiling at the paper. Todd felt the urge to pull the tortoiseshell clip out and watch her hair tumble down to her shoulders; he wanted to run his fingers through it, wet and fragrant, fresh from the shower, while her head and neck moved in his hands.
His rowing friends called him Odd Todd. He could not always determine what it was that made him odd. This morning was the first time Todd had capsized a scull. With the dam looming closer and closer he managed to crawl back into the shell just like the rowers had instructed him. He rowed back to the boathouse in a cocoon of serenity, with long smooth strokes, gracefully guiding the Anne Grahame to rest against the dock. Todd rested his hand on the dock, feeling its solidity.
The cocoon shattered. He trembled.
Todd put the Anne Grahame on her slings, wiped the river slime from her hull, and carried her back to the boathouse, setting her on the carpeted rungs. Emerging from the darkened boathouse into the warm light, Todd stared into the river, the ground soft and damp under his feet. He summoned up the experience of escaping the turbines, turning it around and around in his mind like a toy. He felt alone.
Todd longed for food and the strange comfort of anonymity among strangers. He headed to the café nestled among a group of four small businesses on the northeast corner of 38th and Hiawatha; he had noticed it as he drove east on 38th street to the river.
The waitress was the first beautiful woman he’d seen since he emerged from the dirty river.
“Did you go running or swimming?”
Todd remembered treading the dark water of the Mississippi, his hands clamped against the thin hull of the Anne Grahame.
“Swimming. In the Mississippi. Over by the Ford Bridge.”
His voice quivered. He knew this would sound strange. Dirty, full of dangerous currents and dams, the Mississippi was not a natural choice for swimming.
Her eyes widened. “You’re kidding?”
“Not on purpose, I mean. I flipped my boat.”
She cocked her head. He looked into her eyes long enough to discover they were a brilliant blue.
Todd could see the faint curve of her breasts underneath her apron. He wanted to lay her down, rest the palm of his hand in the middle of her back and lift her, feeling her back arch and her head tilt.
“You flipped a boat?” Her mouth curved in the beginning of a disbelieving smile. “How did you do that?”
“In a scull. It’s a long, skinny water bug of a boat. People row them all the time on the river. I was turning her around, and I drifted right into a buoy.”
Her lips retracted to a short, thin red line. Todd watched her chest expand and shoulders rise as she took a deep breath.
“Oh, I think I’ve seen those.”
She sat down opposite him. “I thought you were bullsh…oops, I mean, I thought you were lying to me.” She drew her shoulders in and covered her mouth with her green pad. “Sorry. I get that all the time.”
Todd felt a tingle of warmth. “No, I’m telling the truth. But it’s not something to brag about.”
He let his shoulders drop, easing the tightness that had crept into his neck.
“You shouldn’t be out in one of those if it’s so easy to flip.”
Todd had heard that before. From his mother, who thought he spent too much time rowing, and from the senior rowers, who insisted that he was trying to learn too much too fast. But he couldn’t wait around. He needed to be among the rowers. In a quad, he could immerse himself in the rhythmic motion of four pairs of strong legs pushing against foot boards and four sets of arms and backs pulling the oars in precise unison. No one uttered a word. Thoughts interrupted meditative action. It was exquisite to immerse himself in this delicate state. The feeling was as precarious as the sliver of rowing shell on the vast expanse of the Mississippi. The serenity began to fade as they landed at the dock. In unison they lifted the quad overhead and walked it to the set of slings lying near the boathouse. Two rowers wiped the boat down while the others put the oars away. They had time to talk and to look at one another. Todd either pretended to focus on wiping away the slime from the hull or he walked purposefully with the oars. All four brought the quad to rest in the boathouse. They changed into warm, dry clothing. The crisp morning air and the vast mirror of water amplified their voices, so they spoke softly.
Todd felt their curious, darting glances. The smooth, effortless rhythm of rowing was replaced by tension in his shoulders, constriction of his neck muscles and halting swallows. Todd walked up the hill with trepidation toward the sound of cars; sunlight glared on the pavement.
The experienced rowers avoided him. To Todd, rowing with them felt so perfect it nearly moved him to tears. But he was constantly splashing them and violating their subtle sense of the perfect row. Todd knew he was strong and agile, but he was not an expert. Mostly he was relegated alone to the decrepit single, the Anne Grahame.
But he loved the Anne Grahame.
“My boat’s named the Anne Grahame,” said Todd. “How can you resist rowing a boat with such a pretty name? Usually, boats are named after dead people, but Annie’s somewhere out there. I hear she’s a character.”
Nancy squinted. “What?”
She grasped the edge of the table with her fingers as if to raise herself from the chair. Todd reached out and touched her shoulder gently.
“They say the Anne Grahame’s got special powers. I may have run into that buoy and flipped, but I’m still alive, right?”
Todd felt her shoulder pushing against his hand. He drew away.
“I love to row the Anne Grahame. I couldn’t imagine a morning without her.”
Todd realized he had gone off on a tangent again. Usually it wound up with the person on the other end giving him an annoyed look or embarrassed silence or a few faltering words of mock understanding.
Her expression revealed a mixture of earnestness and bewilderment.
Todd had thought about what it would be like to meet the real Anne Grahame. He would surely break down sobbing in front of her, thinking about all the times he had spent in her scull. How grateful he was for the Anne Grahame.
His eyes felt warm and full of tears.
“My friends call me Odd Todd because of things like this,” he said, resignedly waving his hand lightly in the air.
She stood up to her full height and slipped the tablet and the pen into her apron pocket.
“What’s your name?” he asked softly.
“Nancy.” A set of silverware rolled in a napkin appeared in her hand. “Just Nancy.” She set the silverware in front of him.
Todd felt his lips part in a smile. It felt foreign. It was the first time he had smiled so genuinely in a long time.
“Have you met this woman, this Anne Grahame?”
“No. I was just imagining that. I would probably start sobbing in front of her and babbling shamelessly. All the rowers would shake their heads and say ‘There’s an Odd Todd moment again.’ But I hope that’s exactly what I do. She deserves it. Someone needs to thank her for that boat.”
“That’s really sweet.”
“Nancy, I got back in her boat and rowed away from the dam. And now here I am.”
Nancy nodded slowly. “That’s a good thing.”
She smelled sweet and clean, like vibrant flesh, soap, hair gel, and day-old perfume.
Todd nodded and looked into her eyes. “Yes, it is.”
“You want some breakfast?”
It felt to Todd as if they had just made love and were sitting at her kitchen table.
“OK.”
She raised her eyebrows mockingly. “Then I gotta get back there.” Nancy waved her finger in the general direction of the kitchen.
Todd laughed. “Right.”
Todd felt a twinge of loneliness as Nancy walked away. He looked around the room and focused on the small tree on the boulevard, visible through the front window, and wondered what it observed during the day in front of this diner. The leaves were small and a light, virgin green. Some day, he thought, when the tree was wiser, infinitely wiser than Todd would ever be, its leaves would be larger and a deeper green. Then, as it grew even older, the edges of its leaves would turn brown even in the height of a wet summer. By then, Craig’s Café would be something entirely different, but the tree would remember the regulars that once passed through the doors.
Todd felt his fingers burn as Nancy refilled the heavy porcelain cup.
“Can I sit down?”
“Sure.” Todd slurred slightly, his tongue feeling thick and heavy.
She slid into the chair opposite Todd and crossed her legs. The rubber tip of her shoe slid upward along Todd’s shin, still wet with river water. Todd quivered.
“Sorry,” she said softly, looking down at his leg. “You’re still wet.”
“Yeah,” said Todd. “Actually, I like it.”
She laughed. “Why? You look cold. You look like a wet rat, but at least a happy one.”
“Yeah. I’m happy. I still feel immersed in the river. It’s a good feeling.”
She smiled back at him. He discovered that the brilliant blue of her irises was flecked with white.
“Kind of odd you feel that way since you nearly drowned in that filthy water.”
Todd loved being completely enveloped in the smells, the sounds, and the motions of rowing on the river.
“I can’t seem to tell people what’s on my mind. What I see in my head and what I say I see are different, you know what I mean?”
“Uh-huh.”
“My ex-girlfriend,” said Todd. “My fiancée. She was a rower in Colorado. She told me to try it. She said it would be good for me.”
“Is that what you were thinking?”
“No. That seemed to come out of nowhere too. I was thinking…” he paused to collect his thoughts, “that I went down to the boathouse under the Lake Street Bridge one morning in April. This guy Alan looks up, startled. They’re not used to strangers showing up at 5:30 in the morning, particularly in April. I begged him to teach me to row, right then and there. That was even stranger.”
Nancy laughed.
“I think Alan was too stunned to say no. As we rowed I felt this incredible serenity. It gave me hope again.” He felt another flash of heat. He had said too much.
“You had hope again?”
“Nancy!” Craig called from the grill.
Todd watched her biceps flex as she pushed herself up from the table and walked back to the grill. By the time she picked up the plate at the counter Craig had his back turned again. Nancy slid back into the seat. Todd was surprised at her openness. She was like a butterfly landing in his hand.
Nancy set his plate gently on the table. Steam rose from the mountain of hash browns, thick and white with bits of brown. Todd’s gaze shifted to Nancy’s white shirt and the flesh of her chest, blurring from the steam rising from the hash browns. Just a few less millimeters of shirt and apron and he could glimpse her faint cleavage.
“I had a list of miracles written down on a legal pad. Now I can’t find them.” He flushed, realizing the absurdity of what he had just told her.
“What are they?”
“Little things. They would take some explaining. But the list just expanded today.”
“Yeah?”
“One has to do with falling into the river. Another is sitting in this diner, eating hash browns with you sitting across the table from me.”
“Thank you,” said Nancy, laughing. She reached across the table and grabbed a bottle of ketchup. She slid it in front of Todd.
“Look, there’s another,” said Todd.
“Another what?”
“A third miracle. I’m sitting her, eating breakfast with this waitress—sorry, Nancy—sitting across from me, and she’s handing me ketchup before I even ask, like she’s reading my mind.”
It was an absurd thing to say, but too late for a chance to rephrase it in his mind.
Nancy rolled her eyes in amusement and Todd felt relieved.
“Oh come on, Todd. This is a breakfast joint, for God’s sake. I always give people ketchup. Do you think I’d wait until your face was a mess to give you a napkin? Haven’t you waited tables before?”
“Yeah,” said Todd laughing. “I got fired. I kept forgetting stuff.”
He put a fork full of hash browns into his mouth. He felt his body begin to warm up as the steaming hash browns slid down his throat.
“So what are the other miracles? Brushing your teeth? Scratching yourself?”
Todd laughed and choked on his hash browns. He coughed several times, his eyes watering. He felt warm and full of life. Nancy turned away, covering her mouth to silence her laughter. She looked around the diner quickly.
“I guess I’ve always taken those things for granted,” said Todd. He smeared his eggs onto his toast. “Want an egg sandwich?” he asked grinning.
Nancy wrinkled her face in disgust. “No thanks.” She turned in her chair and rested her head on the rough plaster wall. Then she suddenly rose and looked about, her chair screeching on the floor. “I better check on these other people.”
Todd tried again to catch the faintly sweet smell of her flesh as she walked past him, but his mouth was full of eggs, toast and hash browns. He watched her pour coffee and pull empty plates as she headed toward the door behind the counter.
Todd devoured the remainder of his breakfast, keeping his eyes on the back of the diner where he had seen her last, refusing to miss a moment of her presence.
Todd finished his coffee.
Craig grabbed the coffee pot off the burner and looked at Todd. “Coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
“Are you finished with that?”
Todd looked at his empty plate. “No,” he said, as he poked the isolated remnants of hash browns. Craig shook his head, watching Todd warily while he removed wheat bread from the toaster and smeared butter on it with a white spatula.
Todd poked at imaginary hash browns on his plate until Nancy reappeared. “Can I take those from you?”
“Yes,” said Todd. He glanced at Craig, who stared back at him sourly.
“More coffee?”
Todd looked again at Craig as the burly redhead set the plate of toast in front of a customer at the counter. “Please,” he said softly.
Craig glowered at him and wiped his large hands on his apron.
Nancy returned with the coffee; Todd marveled at the bend in her elbow, the part of her body closest to his eyes, as she poured. The pot was empty. She put it on the table behind them and sat down across from Todd, resting her elbows on the cool Formica top.
“So, you had lost hope?”
“What?”
“You told me that you went down to the river. You said you had lost hope.”
“Did I?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s what you said.”
“Yeah, but that was in April, two months ago,” said Todd. “So, how long have you worked here?”
“Are you trying to change the subject?”
“Yeah. I keep saying more than I should.”
Nancy stared at Todd with a flicker of irritation. “I’ve worked here for about six months.”
“How do you like it?”
Nancy looked toward the kitchen and sighed. “Well, it’s close to where I live, it pays the bills, and I get along great with Craig. I get here in the morning and he says, ‘Good morning,’ and we just move along. If it’s slow, like today, I can talk to people like you without getting hounded.”
Four customers walked in, heading for separate tables near the large front window. Two sat down, obscuring Todd’s view of the tree.
Nancy stood up and pushed in her chair. “Bye now, Mr. Todd.”
Her thumb, with a neatly trimmed nail and the faded shine of clear polish, curved over the top of his plate.
“Bye, Nancy.”
Nancy dropped his check on the table. Her fingernails were slightly glossy, just like her thumbnail.
“See you later,” she said, in a voice Todd heard as falsely cheerful. She paused, smiled curtly, and headed for the kitchen with his plate in one hand and the coffee pot in the other.
Nancy pirouetted with the coffee pot and walked briskly to the new customers.
Todd looked at the bill and calculated twenty percent. That was about $1.40. Two dollars would be fine, or should he leave $2.50? Yes, $2.50. He walked to the counter. “Could I get quarters too, please?”
“Sure,” said Craig tersely.
He left the entire amount with Craig. Nancy was writing on her green pad and nodding to one of the pairs near the door.
Todd stood for a moment in the doorway, paralyzed by the thought that his days on the river might be numbered. He would have some explaining to do for capsizing. Two rowers had seen the white underbelly of the Anne Grahame from 250 meters away, and at least one pedestrian yelled at him from above as he fell into the shadow of the Ford Bridge.
Todd wheeled around as if to run away from the image and nearly collided with Nancy. Instinctively, he grabbed Nancy around the waist and caught her shoulder with his other hand.
She gasped and recoiled. A long stream of liquid shot out the top and landed on Todd’s left shoulder. He stiffened as he felt it burn. The coffee dripped down his back and chest mixing with the lukewarm river water.
Nancy gently pushed against his shoulder with her free hand. They separated. His mouth watered as if he were sucking the remnants of chamomile flavor from Juicy Fruit gum.
Todd slowed to a walk as he reached the stairs of the three-story apartment building. Dents and splinters marred the heavy green paint surrounding the dead bolt lock. Bowing his head, Todd ran his fingers through his hair, realizing he had left his hat at the diner. He opened the heavy door with the thickest key on his chain. The deadbolt made a dry click. The rubber soles of his shoes squeaked on the hardwood floor of the hallway. A second, smaller key opened the door to his apartment.
Dirt and potato chips soiled the dark blue entryway carpet. Remote control in hand, Beezer flopped on the large couch directly in front of the screen. Hooter, lanky with a boyish complexion and a crew cut that made him look like a teenager, sat in a dilapidated chair. The drapes were perpetually closed.
Todd rented the room in mid-January. On his first day in town he saw the advertisement in the classifieds of the local weekly, City Pages. Lacking both a job and a roof over his head, Todd had little choice but to take the apartment with Beezer and Hooter.
The darkness was suffocating. Todd walked to the front window and nervously opened the heavy curtains, bile rising in his throat.
“You mind closing those?” Beezer’s asthma, stuffy nose, and dry mouth made him sound like he was wearing dime store goggles. Beezer had a solid, formerly athletic physique, but his back had become slightly rounded and he walked with a sloth-like, apathetic gait. His straight, bowl-cut hair seemed perpetually disheveled.
“You mind me opening them?”
“They were closed for a reason, Hummel. Close ‘em.”
Todd paused until Beezer looked up and glared. “Asshole.”
Todd shut the curtains and went to his room. He tugged at the retractable vinyl shade over the window, right behind the lumped pillow of the twin bed, so he could view the dark brownstone brick wall of the adjacent building. Damp underwear still clung to his testicles.
Todd pressed his palms into the faux oak credenza at the foot of his bed and stared into the mirror. April Fool’s Day was the last time he had looked so boldly at himself. That morning he rode his bike through the cool empty streets, down the gravel road to the river, and met Alan Dunn for the first time. Todd hadn’t swum, hadn’t ridden his bike, had barely taken a walk in months. Alan Dunn stared at him curiously and warily, surprised by the sight of a newcomer on private ground so early in the morning and so early in the spring.
Todd still hadn’t asked Alan why he chose to waste a perfect morning on the water with a complete novice or worse yet, a strange novice. Nor had Todd told Alan that Alan had saved his life that morning. On the morning of April 1, Todd felt as if God had summoned him away from the top of the Lake Street Bridge to the river below to meet Alan and to discover the serenity of rowing. Todd couldn’t have lasted another day.
Thereafter, he couldn’t imagine his existence without a morning on the water, even though most days since, it seemed that Alan had not pulled him from the abyss, but had suspended him above it. The gaping hole was ever present, in front of him, beside him, ready for him to fall in at any moment. Sometimes he felt that the abyss could appear at any moment and he would fall. Or that a hand would slide up and grab his ankle, and Todd would be pulled into the dark, infinite pit.
Most mornings it was hard to wake up and look in the mirror. Less than a year ago, when Todd was 27 years old, he had an enviable job, a beautiful girlfriend, a feeling that he was no longer the odd person he used to be, or that he was now. Todd grasped the bottom of his t-shirt and lifted it overhead. The shirt was growing cold against his skin, and he needed an excuse to shift his attention from the mirror.
Todd pulled his skin-suit down to his ankles and waddled to the bathroom, clumsily freeing the stretchy fabric from his feet after a dozen steps. He turned on the shower and let the hot water run as he pulled off his underwear. The need to eliminate was sudden and overwhelming. He urinated and defecated quickly, almost before he sat on the toilet seat. Todd stuck his left foot into the shower. The water was warm. He hesitated, wondering if cleansing the river water from his skin would erase the transformation. He stepped into the shower. The warm water felt welcoming and purifying. Todd washed his body vigorously, relishing the warmth and the clean, foamy soap. He lathered his crew-cut and massaged his scalp. His hair felt tacky when he rinsed.
Todd grabbed a pair of clean underpants from the credenza he used for storing clothes. The telephone rang in the living room, followed by the click of the plastic receiver being lifted from the base. Todd pulled his underpants on quickly and listened. “Hello?” said Beezer in his characteristic wheeze.
“No, he’s not.” There was a pause, then the sound of the phone returning to the base.
Todd opened the door a few inches. “Was that for me?”
“Yeah. Didn’t think you were here.”
Todd’s neck muscles constricted.
“Who was it?”
“Who did you think it was, genius? Anyone else calling you?”
Todd searched the room for clothes. He was losing his feeling of elation, and wondered if it were simply ephemeral. He put the skin-suit on again in hopes of holding on to the feeling.
Todd’s mother was the only person who seemed to know or care that he was alive. He could walk the streets of Minneapolis for weeks, and not a soul would notice he was there, besides Mary.
Todd walked into the living room, forcing himself to keep a slow, controlled pace. “You think you could be more respectful, Beezer? Like, ‘No he’s not, Ms. Hummel?’”
Todd felt a chill. He said the wrong thing.
Beezer and Hooter laughed. “Sure Todd, I’ll be sure to call your mommy Miz Hummel from now on.”
Todd did not realize he was moving toward Beezer until Beezer abruptly straightened up on the couch. The coffee table, littered with magazines and food wrappers, arrested his advance. Beezer’s eyes shifted between Todd and a point to Todd’s right. Todd flushed when he realized it was his own hand, raised in the air, ready to strike. “Did you hang up on her, too?”
Todd calculated how he could hit Beezer with the coffee table separating them.
“Easy, boy,” Beezer said.
Todd lowered his hand. “You should take better care of that coffee table, Beez. It’s your best friend today.” He kicked the table sharply, sending the magazines and garbage piled atop sprawling onto the floor and the couch. Beezer jerked.
Todd took another step toward Beezer. “I think it would be best for everyone if you called her Miz Hummel from now on.”
*******
