Coldwater Blues

DEDICATION

In loving memory of my Grandma Jewell,

who could never take a picture without lopping someone’s head off, who gave me books instead of toys, and who applauded my piano playing even when she knew I hadn’t practiced.

She was love on two feet and, though she forgot us all at the last, we will never forget her.

Sign on a dumpster in New York City: QUALITY WASTE

Ain’t that just the story of my life?

~ Michael Evans, a month after he started hitching wherever anyone would let him ride

“Him. Take him next.”

“Why? The guy doesn’t even have a questionnaire filled out.”

“With a bod like that, who cares what his story is? You, there. Hey, I’m talking to you.”

The woman was so in his face, the people on either side of Michael turned and stared at him, too. He had no idea why she singled him out. He was just waiting his turn in line like everybody else.

The woman was in her late fifties with impossibly dark, frizzy hair. A cigarette dangled from her lips. She peered at him over the top of her half-spectacles like a cross between an old maid school teacher and a parole officer,. He shifted uncomfortably under her steady gaze. Since he’d been living rough, he’d gotten used to people looking right past him and that suited him just fine. He didn’t like landing in this woman’s cross-hairs.

“Yeah, you, pretty boy. You’re up.” She jerked her thumb toward the anorexic woman at her side. Her associate seemed to have a phone glued to her hand and was texting to beat thunder. “Follow my assistant. She’ll get you ready to go.”

Well, this is different. Usually when he was waiting to get into a shelter or, if he had a few dollars, a hostel, it was first come, first served. Not this time. The stiletto-wearing, painfully skinny assistant waggled her fingers at him, signaling for him to come with her.

Why do all these big city types think ‘starved-half-to-death’ is a good look?

He felt a little guilty about being bumped to the front, but not enough to worry about the openly hostile glares of the other people in line. Even though the queue snaked down the sidewalk and around the corner, it was early enough in the day that all of them would probably get a bed. That was how the system worked.

Mike followed the assistant wondering how she stayed upright on those heels with no visible muscles in her pencil-thin calves. She stopped before a tattoo parlor where the name Ink Addict blazed in neon in the window.

An oversized Class A motor home crowded the sidewalk in front of the shop, taking up several coveted parking spaces. Michael wondered where they’d found someone brave enough—or crazy enough—to drive it into Manhattan. “Forget Me Not Features” was plastered across the motor home in bold lettering.

“Ok, there’s a shower you can use in the van,” the skinny woman said.

If that big honking thing was a van, he was the vice-president.

Stiletto Girl led him into the motor home and shut the door behind her. “Get cleaned up, but don’t shave. That scruffy look works for you, babe. By the time you’re out, I’ll have something for you to wear.”

“I have other stuff.” Mike had two changes of clothing in his backpack and they were both relatively clean. He might be running a little lean at the moment, but he didn’t need charity. Just a place to crash for the night.

“Whatever you’ve got in that pack, it’s probably not right for this. I’m thinking we go for a Neo-James Dean look, you know, ripped jeans, wife-beater, leather jacket. Got any sun glasses? Never mind. I’ll find something that’ll work.” She narrowed her eyes as she gave him the once-over. “You’re not shy, are you?”

Mike frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

He’d been approached by a pimp who was looking to expand his stable to include a gigolo or two. Michael had popped the guy in the nose and high-tailed it out of that neighborhood before the blood dried.

“Depending on where the artist wants to put the ink, you’re ok with taking off your shirt on camera, right?”

Ink? On camera? “Wait a minute. What is this? I thought I was in line for a shelter.”

Stiletto Girl laughed. “Good thing the camera’s gonna love you, ‘cause you won’t make it in this city on your brains, babe.”

That sounded about right. All through school, Michael had been weighed in the balance against his perfect older sister Crystal and found wanting. Everyone underestimated him. Everyone expected him to screw up, to get into more trouble than his folks could get him out of and to eventually land in the penitentiary. Or the county morgue.

Everyone except Gran…

“So what is it you’re wanting me to do?” he asked.

“Oh, this is priceless. You really don’t know. There’s never a camera around when you need one.” She rolled her eyes expressively. “We’re shooting a reality show at Ink Addict. That means we need people to volunteer for a free tat and let us shoot them while they get it. Do you have any ink already?”

“Nope.”

“A tattoo virgin! You’re a blank canvas. Can Louise pick ‘em or what?” Stiletto Girl clasped her hands together and barely refrained from hopping up and down. Then she settled suddenly and eyed him with suspicion. “Everybody gets them now. Why haven’t you?” 

“Never saw the point.” A tattoo was permanent and nothing in his life was. “Getting a tat is supposed to hurt, I hear. Guess that’s why people want to watch it being done to someone else. Sort of the whole Christians and lions thing.”

“Huh?”

Well, vote her most likely to have skipped Sunday School. “I expect it makes for good TV.”

“Yeah, it does and you’re about to become a star,” she said in a rush. “Here are the disclosure forms and a waiver for you to sign.” She pushed a sheaf of papers into his hands. “You don’t have to read it. Trust me, it’s all standard boilerplate.”

Michael’s dad was a lawyer. If the old man found out he’d signed something without trying to read it, he’d think even less of his son than he already did. But when Mike saw what they were offering to pay him to take his shirt off for the camera and get a tat, he stopped struggling through the “whereas’s” and “heretofore’s,” took the pen she held out for him, and started signing.

            Stiletto Girl handed him a pay voucher in the amount named in the contract. “Just present that to Louise at the end of the shoot and she’ll see that you get your check.”

“Who’s Louise?”

“The casting director, of course. She’s the one who pulled you out of that line. Honestly, you should come with a sign that says ‘clueless.’” She made air quotes with her neatly manicured fingers.

Sarcasm aside, she was right. Michael had no idea what he’d done to deserve a break like this, but this much money would get him off the street for a while, even in a crazy expensive place like New York. What was the inky violation of a little skin compared to sleeping inside and eating three times a day?

            For as long as the money lasted, at least.       

            “Thank you.” He handed back her pen and, remembering his home training, added, “I appreciate it, ma’am. I surely do.”

            “Ugh! Don’t call me ma’am. It makes me feel old, like you think I’m thirty or something.”

Michael wasn’t twenty yet. Maybe it was just because she was so very skinny, but she had such a drawn, stretched-thin look about her. She seemed all of thirty and then some.

She grimaced at him. “But do keep that accent. There’s just enough cowboy in it to really work.”

            Mike shrugged. “There’s nothing special about my accent. Everybody from Coldwater Cove talks just like me.” He headed for the shower, hoping Stiletto Girl didn’t expect him to wear a Stetson. He was more at home in a motorcycle helmet, but he’d sold his along with his bike when he ran out of money.

            Now he didn’t have anything left to sell.

            Except a little skin. 

***

            Michael felt silly pulling on brand new jeans that were already ripped and torn.

As if they won’t get this way soon enough if you work in ‘em.

And his mother would have a fit if she knew he was walking around in public in something Stiletto Girl called a ‘wife-beater.’ His mom had drummed the value of the female of the species into his head pretty early. Michael would no sooner hit a girl than he could fly backward. But the leather jacket felt comfortably worn and just the right size. It was a welcome change from the insulated flannel shirt he’d been using to stay warm at night.

Stiletto Girl led him out of the motor home, through the tiny reception area of the tat parlor, and down a long corridor, lined with doors on either side. A guy with a shoulder-held camera fell in behind them. Another techie type clipped a lavalier microphone to Michael’s white undershirt and tucked the bulky radio transmitter into his jeans at the small of his back, hiding it under the leather jacket.

            Where do they expect me to hide that crap when I take off my shirt?

Stiletto Girl all but shoved him through one of the doors and into a small room. Mike stopped in his tracks when he got a look at the tattoo artist waiting there.

He always figured tattooists were greasy-looking bald guys with every square inch of exposed skin covered with ink. Instead, he found a petite brunette with purple stripes in her spiky hair. She was seated at a neat work station. A stick of incense burned on the desk top, a thin ribbon of spicy smoke undulating in the air. Despite the incense, the place seemed almost hospital clean.

The purple-haired girl clicked through one pic of body art after another on the tablet in her lap. She wore a small nose ring attached to a silver chain that draped across her sculpted cheekbone to her left ear lobe where a feathered earring bobbed. Her eyes were almond-shaped and turned up at the outer corners, giving her a vaguely Lucy Liu-ish look. They were such a vibrant, almost metallic green, Mike was sure she must be wearing contacts to enhance them.

“OK, Jadis, this is…”—Stiletto Girl glanced at the papers he’d signed—“Michael Evans.”

The artist nodded in his direction, cocking her head at him inquisitively, but remaining silent. She was a still pond, reflecting everything, revealing nothing.

Talk about unscrewing the inscrutable. She’s got that zen thing going big time.

“He’s from some place called Coldwater Cave,” Stiletto Girl read from the contract.

“Cove,” Mike corrected. “Coldwater Cove. It’s in Oklahoma.”

“Whatever. It’s total fly-over country.”

“Yeah, I come from just south of nowhere. Folks say there’s nothing between Coldwater Cove and the North Pole but a barbed wire fence.” Michael knew better, but that seemed to be what outsiders liked to think about anyplace that was more than a hundred miles from the east or west coast.

“Don’t you love that accent, Jadis? Viewers are gonna eat him up with a spoon, so get him to talk a lot. Howie, you can set up over there.” Stiletto Girl gestured to the cameraman, and then turned back to Mike. “Ignore him. The camera doesn’t exist...unless we decide we want you to speak directly to viewers later. We’ll see how you do. Sit down.”

The tattoo artist indicated the backless stool opposite her. Michael sat, noticing she still hadn’t said a word.

“Now, according to our contract, you’re not supposed to self-edit,” Stiletto Girl said.

“What’s that mean?”

“You know. Don’t think about how things might sound. Say whatever you’d normally say if you weren’t being filmed. In fact, say whatever you want. Do whatever you want. The more over the top, the better. Remember, bad behavior gets the most air time.”

If that applied to real life, Michael would get more air time than anyone he knew. As it was, he was willing to bet any amount of money he wouldn’t be doing anything more outrageous than gritting his teeth once the tat artist started working on him. “What if I don’t feel talkative?”

“You have to be. You agreed to answer questions fully and give us all the juicy details.” Stiletto Girl waved the sheaf of papers at him. “That’s in the contract, too.”

Why didn’t I take the time to read it?

“So no matter what Jadis asks you, no matter how personal, how intimate the question, you have to dish the dirt. Got it?”

Michael snorted. “That’s a load of bull.”

Stiletto Girl signaled to the cameraman Howie to start rolling. He hefted the camera up to balance on his shoulder.

“See?” she said. “Right there. You self-edited. What did you really want to say?”

“Nothing, ma’am. Not a darn thing.”

Stiletto girl scrunched up her lips like she’d swallowed a big spoonful of potato salad that’d been left out too long.  Evidently, his “ma’am” irritated the poo-waddin’ out of her. He decided to call her ma’am as often as he could. For good measure, he shot her a respectful smile, the one he reserved for members of the Methodist Prayer Chain when he didn’t want to be a featured player on their list of “urgent requests.”

Stiletto Girl made a noise like a small growl under her breath. “If you’re going to be that way, maybe I better take back that pay voucher.”

“What way?” he asked, all innocence.

“Don’t just say ‘bull.’ Say what you’re thinking. If that means swearing, then swear.” She followed up with an inventive string of bleep-worthy examples. Mike wasn’t even sure what a few of them meant.

“I’m sorry as I can be, but I can’t say that stuff. I was raised not to use bad language, you see.” He laid on the cowboy twang a little thicker than usual. “My old Gran always said using curse words is the sign of a poor vocabulary. Or lack of imagination. Or maybe both.” It was one of the few things she managed to impress upon him that actually stuck. “Besides, ma’am, if I swore, you’d just bleep it out later anyway.”

“Yeah, but…” Her eyes bugged out a little when she realized what hateful word he had used. “I told you not to call me, ma’am.”

“You also told me not to self-edit. I always call women who are older than me ‘ma’am.’”

If she’d been a tea kettle, she’d have been screaming. Mike had never had more fun being polite in his life. Maybe this was what Gran had meant when she told him he should kill folks with kindness.

“I don’t know your name,” he explained. “It seems more respectful to call you ‘ma’am’ than ‘hey, you.’”

“Respectful? What am I? Eighty? If Louise hadn’t picked you out herself…” Stiletto Girl threw up her hands and turned on her heel. “I’m done. Do what you can with him, Jadis. Remember, you’ve got some skin in this game too. Make some magic.”

She stomped away, giving him a one finger salute behind her back.

“We wave like that in Coldwater Cove too, ma’am. Only we use a different finger,” Mike called after her, wiggling his pointer in the air.

The cameraman chuckled. “Oops. Sorry. It’s supposed to be like I’m not even here.”

“That’s ok, man,” Mike said. “I don’t think I’m supposed to be here either.”

***

Needling Stiletto Girl had been the most fun he’d had since he left home. Then he stopped chuckling when he met Jadis’s unblinking gaze.

There’s the real “needler.”

Her stare was unnerving enough to make him wish Stiletto Girl would come back. The tattoo artist gave him an enigmatic, cat’s smile. There was a weird vibe about her, as if she knew things about him she couldn’t possibly know. He’d seen some strange things since he left Coldwater Cove, but this Jadis chick was one of the strangest.

Could she somehow peer into his soul?

“Do you ever talk?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Out loud? With words?”

“Yes.” She went back to clicking through the pictures of tattoos on her tablet.

Michael shifted uncomfortably on the backless stool. “I see what you’re doing here.”

She looked up at him and blinked those green eyes.

It’s like she hits the mute button.

“My little sister Lacy used to do the same thing all the time,” he said.

“Do what?”

“She’d go real quiet so the other person would get all edgy and feel obligated to fill the silence.”

“Your sister sounds like a wise woman.”

“I don’t know about that. I haven’t seen her in a while.”

Lacy and he were in the same graduating class even though he was a year older. He’d been held back in third grade. When his grades still didn’t improve, the school system had decided nothing would be gained by retaining him another year so that he’d be behind his younger sibling.

Thank God Lacy wasn’t two or three years younger than me.

His sister had left Coldwater Cove even before he did, shaking off the dust of the little town where they’d lived all their lives and heading for Boston to study. She’d willingly exiled herself from everything and everyone that was familiar and comfortable to chase her dream.

Michael, on the other hand, had been driven out.

“My sister always claimed people told her the darnedest things because she was willing to sit in silence and let them do the talking.”

“So, are you going to tell me…the darnedest things, Michael Evans?”

“Not if I can help it.”

Jadis smiled again. This time, the expression lifted the silver chain on her cheek and made it sparkle. “An honest answer. We can work together.”

He shifted on the stool, relieved that he was one step closer to being done so he could collect his pay. “So how does this go? Do you have a book of tats for me to look through? The sooner I pick out something the sooner we can get started.”

“We have already started. And no. There is no book, no database for you to look through.”

“You were looking at some when I came in.”

“Those are of past clients,” Jadis said. “I never repeat the same design.”

“Then why mull over the old ones?”

“I look at the photos when I want to remember the people whose life stories have touched my own. When I remember them, I feel their energy, even though they are not here.”

Well, that was more touchy-feely than Mike was used to. He almost expected her to fall into a trance or fold her legs into a lotus position and start chanting “ohm.” New York was definitely not Coldwater Cove. He didn’t understand how people thought here.

“Then do you just suggest a tat for me?” He decided then that whatever it was, the ink had to go someplace where he could see the dumb thing. If not, she might try to tattoo a fairy on his back. “It can’t be unicorns or flowers or anything stupid.”

“A tattoo is forever. Therefore, it cannot be imposed from outside. It must come from within you. If, when we are done, you believe your tattoo is stupid, it will be because you believe you are.”

That was too close to the bone. “I didn’t come here for insults.”

“I know. You came for an easy paycheck.”

He looked away. How was she able to read him so completely?

“However, it will not be as easy as you think. You must seek inside yourself. When people do that, they are sometimes surprised by what they find.” She gazed at him intently. “Looking inward is something, I believe, which you have not done in a long while.”

“You’re wrong. I look plenty.”

Jadis didn’t say anything.

“I wasn’t trying to get picked for is this crazy stuff.” He waved a hand at the camera man who was supposed to be invisible. “I was just hoping for a bed for the night and I ended up in the wrong line.”

“You think you are here by accident?” Jadis arched a perfectly tweezed brow.

“Lady, my life has been one accident after another.”

“That is not true. There is a reason our lives have touched here, now, in this place, even if we cannot imagine what it may be. Some things are meant.”

Michael shook his head. “Yeah, well, if you’re talking about fate, I don’t believe in it. I make my own choices.”

“Says the man who does not know where he will lay head this night.”

“Ouch.” He had to give her that one.

Jadis clicked her long, lacquered nails on her desk. They were the same metallic green as her eyes. “So together we must discover who is Michael Evans? And what has he brought with him on his journey?”

“I’m a little old for the whole ‘Who-am-I’ bit. We sort of cover that in middle school back in fly-over country.” Michael decided he might be willing to answer her second question though.

Trouble, that’s what I bring on my journey.

No, that didn’t sound very good. Then he glanced at the camera and remembered he wasn’t supposed to self edit.

“I bring mistakes with me,” he said. “Lots and lots of them.”

“Tell me.”

He drew a deep breath. “It started when I was pretty young.”

For as far back as he could remember, if there was a wrong path available, he’d be the first to head down it. And lead a few willing followers to boot.  

“How young were you when you made your first…mistake?”

When he was eight, he burned down the neighbor’s garage. He’d probably screwed up before that, but leaping flames and general pandemonium among all the adults in his life had a way of standing out in a boy’s mind.

Jadis’s lips twitched but she didn’t allow herself to smile. “You are thinking of something.”

Michael closed his eyes. He hadn’t thought about his brush with arson in years. It was Independence Day. His dad had told him to wait and he’d help him set off fireworks in their backyard when he came home. But Mike wasn’t the sort to wait. He fished some matches from the kitchen junk drawer, dug into the box of pyrotechnic joy and started lighting fuses. A Roman candle got away from him and before he knew it, flames were arcing over the back fence. In less than fifteen minutes, Mr. Mayhew’s garage was toast.

“While you are not talking to me, your lips have turned upward,” Jadis said. “How will I know what your tattoo should be unless you share your pleasing memory?”

“It’s not pleasing.” He wiped the smile off his face. There was nothing funny about starting a fire, even the accidental kind. But Mr. Mayhew had been so hopping mad when he saw his garage in flames, he couldn’t put a coherent sentence together. When he opened his mouth to speak, he could only make a squawking sound like a scalded chicken.

To an eight-year-old, it was hilarious. To this day, Michael wasn’t sure if his dad had given him the worst whipping of his young life for setting the fire or for laughing at poor Mr. Mayhew afterward. Without his conscious will, his lips turned up again.

Guess some part of me is still that stupid little kid.

“Tell me,” Jadis said.

“It’s not really funny.” Michael started feeling hot in the leather jacket. Probably the light from above the camera. He shrugged out of the jacket and felt a little better. “Not funny at all, actually. You see, I started a fire when I was a kid.”

“A big one?”

“Big enough.” Every volunteer fireman in the county had shown up in Mr. Mayhew’s back yard. “I didn’t mean to start it. Accidents do happen, whether you believe in them or not.”

“Ah. Your laughter over the memory is nervous then.”

“I’m not the nervous type, lady.” He didn’t know why he felt compelled to call her “lady.” She didn’t seem any older than him, but there was something decidedly lady-like about her, aloof and untouchable.

“Not nervous, you say.” She looked pointedly at his left knee which was bouncing up and down. Michael forced himself to be still. “Was anyone hurt?”

“No.” Just Mr. Mayhew’s feelings. And his garage. 

“Did you take ownership of the mistake?”

            “I had to. I was caught red handed.” He held his palm up to show her the burn scar that snaked over his ring and middle fingers.  

            “Were you punished?”

            “Are you kidding? My dad hit the roof. I was grounded for just shy of forever. They’d still be piping daylight to me except I had to be allowed out to work off my debt. I had to mow the neighbor’s yard, weed his garden and shovel his walk every time it needed it until I hit high school.”

            “So your parents cared enough to be strict.”

Michael had been studying the uneven hardwood floor. It was safer than maintaining eye contact with a woman who seemed to be able to see into him. But at the wistfulness in Jadis’s tone, his gaze cut to her sharply. She had almost sounded envious.

Who wants strict parents?

            “My dad was the one who disciplined me mostly. It wasn’t so much that he was strict as that he expected too much. No one can live up to his standards.” Michael certainly never could. “Except maybe my sister Crystal.”

            “This is not the quiet sister, I am thinking.”

            “No. Crystal is anything but quiet. She’s a force of nature. Like a twister coming through bent on setting things to rights.”

“Setting things right?” Jadis said. “I thought tornadoes were destructive.”

“So is Crystal if you don’t get with the program.” Michael could see from the way her brows drew together that she didn’t understand. “There’s a right way and a wrong way. And then there’s Crystal’s way and that’s the end of it.”

            “And what is Michael Evans’ way?”

“The way of the screw up.” After Michael got his start with arson, his growing-up years were littered with pranks, petty thefts and joy rides in borrowed vehicles. “At least, that’s what my dad thinks. ‘Mike the Mess’—that’s what he calls me.”

Jadis’s guarded expression became even more unreadable. “When we are children, we accept the labels people hang on us. We know no better.” She was the one to break eye contact this time. For a moment, Michael wondered what label had been hung around her slender neck. Then she drew a deep breath and met his gaze again. “When we are adults, we choose labels for ourselves. Pick one now. Surely there was something you did well.

“Nothing that made sense to Dad.” With a long string of D’s and F’s in school, Mike had only shown promise in math. Numbers made sense to his mind. Calculus was an easy A. As an attorney, his father was a word man. Letters versus numbers. It was like their brains were wired so differently, they couldn’t hope to communicate.

“I had trouble in school. I was ok in math, but never learned to read much,” Mike admitted. “Hated it, in fact.”

If he was being honest with himself, he’d admit his struggle to read probably accounted for his behavior. When he was forced to take standardized tests, he didn’t even try. He just filled in the little circles in a repetitive pattern. It was better to be thought a bad kid than a stupid one.

“Were you tested for dyslexia?”

“No, but I expect that’s what’s going on with me. You’ve got to understand that Coldwater Cove is a pretty small place. The school board doesn’t much hold with paying extra for stuff if it’s not related to football.” Even though he was athletic, Michael couldn’t play. His grades were never good enough.

It had started when Mike was in kindergarten. He remembered feeling dumb most of the time because he had trouble knowing which way the d’s and b’s went. He developed a good memory to carry him through. It was one of the ways he learned to cope that wouldn’t expose his reading problem. If all else failed, and being a total disruption was his only option, he’d take it in a heartbeat.

“So you have two sisters,” Jadis said, counting up his family on her slim fingers. “One of them you like and one you don’t, and you are at war with your father.”

“Now wait a minute. You’re putting words into my mouth.” Michael didn’t think his session with Jadis was going to be interesting enough to make the cut for the reality TV show, but it might. He didn’t want his mom to be hurt if she happened to see this thing. “You make it sound like I don’t care about my family.”

“It is possible to care about someone—to love them even—and not like them very much.”

The thought smacked Michael upside the head, but it had the ring of truth.

***

“You do not speak of your mother much,” Jadis pointed out.

“Don’t get me wrong. She was always there. Mom loved me and all, but she was just more into the girls’ stuff and left me to Dad. Guess I didn’t make it easy for him and . . . now I wish I hadn’t been so much bother. In the big picture, my dad did all right raising me. I just didn’t help him much.”

In fact, the farther he traveled from Coldwater Cove, the less harsh his growing up years there seemed. When he counted up all the times he let his dad down, Mike almost couldn’t blame him for ordering him to leave town.

“When was the last time you saw your father?”

Michael’s gut churned, sort of a dry-heave kind of feeling. He hadn’t felt like that since his last day in Coldwater Cove.

“It was at my grandmother’s graveside.”

Michael had gotten drunk the night before, so he barely made it to church in time for the funeral. Bleary-eyed, he’d sleep-walked through the whole surreal service. It had seemed weird to him that Gran was being buried on such a bright September day. The sky was too blue, the air too crisp. The world was too pretty for her to no longer be in it.  

And his hurt over her death was still too raw for him to let this green-eyed stranger poke at the wound. Michael decided the best way for him not to have to spill his guts was to ask Jadis a few questions.

“So what’s your story? I thought a tat artist would be sporting a lot of ink.” Michael gave her a quick once over. She was a pretty girl but, like most of the other city chicks he’d met, way too skinny for his taste. “I don’t see any tats on you.”

“Not every tattoo must live in a place where others can see it.”

“What’s the point of having it then?”

“All tattoos are personal, but when a tattoo is hidden, that means it is private,” Jadis explained. “Not meaningless.”

So, she did have at least one. Even if she was too skinny, it might be fun to try and find it.

“For me,” she went on, “each piece of body art is a remembrance of something too deep to share.”

“Too deep to share. That’s not the agreement, is it? We aren’t supposed to self edit on this—” he waved a hand toward the camera in the corner—“whatever this is we’re doing.”

“You’re not supposed to self edit. I, however, can reveal as much or as little as I choose.”  

“Well, ain’t that the safest game in town?” Michael sat up straight and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m here by accident, but like Stiletto Girl said, you have some skin in this game too. What’s your angle?”

“The owners of the parlor are using this reality show to try out some new artists. If they like what I do, maybe they will offer me a job.” She sighed wistfully. “I could use something permanent.”

“Couldn’t we all? Look, now that I know you have some tats, how about if we play you show me yours and I’ll show you mine?” He lifted a brow. “That should make good TV for Stiletto Girl.”

“Stiletto Girl?”

“You know, the one who doesn’t like to be called ‘ma’am.’”

“She’ll like ‘Stiletto Girl’ even less.” Jadis covered her mouth with a slim hand, but couldn’t quite disguise her chuckle. “Give her a cape and she could be a fashionista superhero.”

“Able to leap tall runways in a single bound.”

That made her laugh aloud, a merry, tinkling sort of sound. “All right, Michael Evans. Because you have made me laugh, I will show you one of my tattoos. But do you have any to share with me?”

Mike’s shoulders slumped a bit. “No.”

“Then you will have to show me your deep, invisible one, the one that is not yet etched into your skin.” Jadis shot him an unblinking stare. “Agreed?”

That sounded pretty invasive. She was determined to needle her way into his core, but the private tatt Jadis promised to show him might be worth that trade.

“OK.”

Without another word, she slipped off a stretchy wrist band to reveal a simple design on the tender skin of her inner wrist.

Mike was so curious about the tatoo, he almost didn’t care that it wasn’t located in a more interesting place. He cocked his head as he studied the ink. “What is that?”

“A punctuation mark,” Jadis said. “A semi-colon.”

“Hmph. I was never much good at grammar. What’s it mean?”

“Think of it as a matter of timing,” Jadis said. “When you read, a semi-colon signals a pause, longer than a comma, but not as final as a period.”

Michael frowned. “I don’t get it. That doesn’t seem very personal. Why hide a punctuation mark?”

“Because it means I took a long pause with my life.” His face must have said he didn’t understand because she leaned forward and went on, “I tried to end myself.”

            “Suicide?” Why would a pretty girl like her try to hurry on her way out?

            She nodded. “But I was not successful.”

            “Sometimes, it’s good to be a screw-up.”

She made a small noise that might pass for a short giggle. Mike joined her in a laugh for a blink and then immediately sobered.

“Why?”

Jadis didn’t pretend to misunderstand his question. “The burden I was carrying seemed too heavy at the time. I woke in the hospital, surprised to be alive. The burden was still there, but God showed me I did not have to carry it alone.”

It was a simple statement. Not at all churchy or canned, but it was evident she had made a connection with God that he missed. Envied a little. Jadis turned away from him then, fiddling with her equipment.  

“For what it’s worth, you’re the best person I’ve met since I left Oklahoma,” Michael said.  Much better than me, but that’s setting the bar low. “I’m glad you failed.”

“I am, too.” She fingered the design on her wrist. “This tattoo reminds me I tried to put a period on my life. God made it a long pause instead.”

“A very long pause, I hope,” Michael said softly.     

“I intend that it shall be,” Jadis said with a nod. “But I am not the only one who bears a deep wound. Every soul on earth has a secret that, if you only knew it, it would break your heart. We are all broken in some way. Damaged. Everyone has something to get over.”

“Sounds like you had more to get over than most.” Mike was beginning to feel his own problems were a lot smaller than he thought.

“I work on it every day. The semi-colon reminds me that I have decided to live.”

Michael touched the tattoo gently. It seemed to radiate both pain and hope. “How did you…get over things?”

“I haven’t. Not completely. I am not yet what I will be, but I could not have recovered this far without help.” Jadis picked up her tablet. “Surely you had someone to encourage you in your Coldwater Cave.”

“Cove. Coldwater Cove.” Stiletto Girl had butchered his hometown’s name too, but somehow, Michael wasn’t as annoyed when Jadis did it. “Yeah, there was someone who was always on my side, no matter what. My grandmother. She’d have liked your tattoo. She was a retired English teacher, a big fan of punctuation.”

Jadis put her tablet down and picked up a sketchpad and pencil. She doodled absently for a moment, tiny lines and squiggles chasing each other across the top of the page in whirling sweeps. “Your grandmother is no longer with us?”

“No. But even before she died, she wasn’t really with us. Not for the last few years. She had Alzheimer’s.” Mike half-closed his eyes. Gran was the only reason he’d stayed in Coldwater Cove as long as he did.

“Think about a time when you were with her.”

So Jadis didn’t know his thoughts had already bent in that direction. It was kind of a relief to know she wasn’t as clairvoyant as those freaky eyes made her seem. “OK, but I don’t see how that’s going to help you figure out what kind of tattoo I should have.”

“You promised to show me your deep, invisible mark,” Jadis reminded him as she continued to draw. “This is how we shall uncover it.”

***

“Here you are, Mrs. Evans. Eat your soup like a good girl and I’ll bring you a nice cookie,” the nurse said in a wheedling voice. “Oh, look. Your grandson is here to see you again.”

Mike edged into the room, trying not to inhale too deeply. No matter how often the folks at Pleasant Valley Retirement Home cleaned, there was always a whiff of urine and misery hanging about the place.

“Hi, Gran.”

Her sweet face crinkled into a wreath of happy wrinkles. Even more than her gingersnaps, Michael had always loved her smile. No matter what he’d done, as long as Gran still smiled at him, things couldn’t be too terrible. Then she spoke.

“Hello, Georgie.”

She thinks I’m Dad again, Mike realized.

Gran never recognized him as himself anymore. Michael knew better than to try to persuade her otherwise. It would only upset her. He settled onto the straight-backed chair opposite her. Only the nurses were aware that Michael came every day. Gran had been so important to him, always ready to shower him with unconditional love no matter how much trouble he got himself into.

How could he not be there for her, even if she didn’t know it was him?

Mike kept hoping he’d see some glimmer of recognition in her blue eyes. If just once she’d see him clearly again.

Even a moment would do.

The nurse started to tie a bib around Gran’s neck. His grandmother had always been such a fastidious lady, keeping her little house and herself with such meticulous care. She’d be mortified if she knew she’d been reduced to such an infantile state.

“Does she have to wear that?” Mike asked.

“If she doesn’t, she’ll be wearing most of her lunch.”

“No, she won’t. I’ll feed her.” Michael took off the bib and spooned up some chicken and stars with as little broth as he could. “Open wide, Gran.”

She obeyed. He was glad. She was feeling cooperative today. Some days, she wasn’t. Those were hard times.

As the nurse breezed out of the room, Gran patted his forearm. “You’re a good boy, George.”

In some respects, it was a good thing she didn’t recognize him. That way she wouldn’t realize he was ducking out of work to pop over to see her. Instead of scolding him for missing time on his construction job, she made yummy noises as he helped her eat lunch. 

“How is Michael doing?” she asked between bites.

At least if she didn’t recognize him, she remembered him. It wasn’t much, but it was something. “He’s fine.”

“I worry about that boy.”

Michael sat up straight. Just then, she’d sounded more like herself than she had in months. Maybe today, the fog would lift from her brain and she’d know him. “You don’t need to worry about Mike, Gran.”

“Yes, I do. Someone has to,” she said with conviction. “He needs more commas.”

And she’s gone again. Commas? Of all the stupid…where did she pull that from? Does she think she’s back in the classroom grading papers?

Michael fought against the urge to pick up her bowl and fling it across the room. He fought even harder not to swear. Not because he was afraid it would offend God. He was still too angry at God for letting this happen to Gran to worry about whether he offended Him. Michael bit his tongue only because he knew, even now, Gran wouldn’t like it.

He hadn’t been to church since she’d been admitted to Pleasant Valley because he had nothing to say to a God who’d let his sweet little grandmother slip away by inches. She’d been funny and vibrant and smart, well-loved by all who knew her. What kind of God would let her lose a little more of who she was with each passing day?

Michael could think of plenty of things to say to Him now but none of it would pass his grandmother’s muster. Anger made him feel hot all over. He didn’t think he could keep it in check any longer.

He called for the nurse. “I gotta go,” he said when she came back in. “You’ll have to help her with the rest.”

He kissed his grandmother’s sunken cheek and left before the nurse could tie that hateful bib around her neck again. As he strode down the long, antiseptic-smelling corridor, he heard Gran calling after him.

“You tell him, George. He’ll never be right without them. Tell Michael he needs more commas.”  

***

“More commas,” Michael said aloud.

Jadis frowned at him.

“The last semi-coherent thing my grandmother said to me was that I need more commas.”

He hadn’t intended to, but in that moment he forgot all about Howie and his camera in the corner and found himself opening up to Jadis. He told her all about his grandmother, the solid rock of comfort and support in his life, and how much she’d meant to him. Then, unflinching, he described the way she’d disintegrated before his eyes. She’d gone from forgetful, to delusional, to babbling nonsense at the last.

Gran’s death had broken something inside him. Tears burned the backs of his eyes, but he blinked hard, ordering himself not to let them out.  

“It was like she fell into a deep hole and she slipped down a little farther each day.” His jaw ached from grinding his teeth. “In the end, none of us could reach her.”

“But you kept trying?”

“Even when she didn’t know who I was anymore.” He rubbed his eyes and swallowed hard. Emotions were a lot of trouble. He wished with all his heart he didn’t have any. Life would be so much easier. “It was stupid. I mean, who does that? Why try to talk to somebody who doesn’t know you from a bag of rocks? Total waste of time.”

“She knows you now,” Jadis said. “And she knows you were there for her in her dark time.”

Michael snorted. He envied her certainty, but he couldn’t buy into it. “What? Are you going all Twilight Zone on me?”

“No. But I do have firsthand knowledge. You forget, I tried to end myself. I have seen the other side. There we know fully, even as we are fully known. I am sure your grandmother is aware that you were there when she needed you most.” When Jadis laid a hand on his forearm, warmth arced from her slender fingers, through his skin and up to his shoulder. The muscles in his face relaxed. “You may believe me.”

Michael met her gaze steadily for a few heartbeats. Then he looked away. “Lady, I haven’t believed anything for a long time.”

“Then perhaps you should start with your grandmother’s last message to you.”

“More commas? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Think about it.”

Commas. They were just little squiggles stuffed into the middle of a bunch of words that, even now, were a challenge for him to decipher. Was there really a message for him in Gran’s odd statement?  

“For now, I think you have told me all you are ready to share about your grandmother,” Jadis finally said.

He’d evidently waited long enough that she felt the need to fill the silence. Thank you, sister Lacy!

“Let us talk about you instead, Michael Evans.”

As topics of conversation went, that was not an improvement.

“You mentioned before that you did ok in math when you were in school,” Jadis said. “In addition to numbers, math makes use of many symbols, right?”

“Yeah,” Mike said cautiously. “Plus, minus, equals. Is that what you mean?”

“It is a place to start. When I create a new tattoo, I look for symbols that have meaning for the person I design for.” Jadis quickly sketched a few plus signs, varying the thickness of the lines. “What about higher math? How far did you go with it?”

As far as his high school teacher, who was a total math geek herself, could take him. In the end, Miss Mantz had to refer him to a professor at Bates College because Michael had outrun her grasp of the subject. He’d gone to see the man a few times, and enjoyed the challenges he presented, but Mike stopped because he didn’t think there was any point to it. Even if trig and differential equations were puzzles he could punch right through, the rest of Michael’s grades would never get him into any college.

“Here.” Jadis ripped a page from her sketchbook and handed it to him along with a pencil. “Draw as many mathematical symbols as you can think of. They don’t have to be in a straight line. Put them all over the page. However you want them. There is no wrong way.”

“No wrong way. That’s a first, but ok.” Michael had thought he’d be wincing under a needle by now. The last thing he expected to do was doodle like a little kid. But the things he drew weren’t things a kid would know. He soon filled up the page with E-shaped sigmas, the sideways eight of the symbol for infinity, and the squiggly tabletop of pi constant.

“What is this thing?” Jadis traced over the three-sided figure on his page. “It is obviously a triangle but you’ve shaded the right arm of the figure so that it is thicker and darker than the other. It must mean something more.”   

“That’s a delta.”

“Like the mouth of a river?”

“Not exactly. It stands for ‘change.’”

“Ah, and does not a river change almost constantly, always seeking a new channel?”

“I guess.” He’d never thought of math symbols in relation to anything else. Math was its own limitless universe. Separate from the rest of life. It was a place he understood, but didn’t connect with anything else. But if Jadis was right, what he knew about math might just apply beyond the world of ones and zeroes.

“A fortuitous symbol, the delta. We must work it into the design.” Her deft fingers flew over her own sketch pad, adding the triangle shapes to what looked like a string of long-tailed commas. Free-flowing and full of movement, the commas were like water droplets, dancing in the current of a punctuation river.

Where did that come from? Michael shook his head. He’d never been one for such strange thoughts. He eyed the burning stick of incense with suspicion.

“I recognize the symbol for pi.” She pointed to the π Michael had placed in the upper corner of his paper. “I like the curves. Even though the legs are not straight, they form a stable base for the top.”

“Because we all need a stable base,” Mike said.

“That is right.”

She’d smiled at him before but this time, it was the real thing. Michael felt a slender connection growing between them, a shared language that had nothing to do with the symbols they were talking about. He hadn’t felt this close to another person since Gran died.

“So I guess I need to figure out what my stable base is,” he said.

“Now you understand.” She nodded gravely. “The things that mean something to you teach you about yourself.”

Michael still wasn’t sure he was ready for all this “looking inside” stuff, but Jadis had already worked her way into his head. He couldn’t pull back now without hurting her feelings. And that, he realized with more than a little surprise, would hurt him too. 

“Oh! I think I know what this is.” She drew a quick circle around a symbol on his paper that looked like an eight that had fallen on its side. “It stands for infinity.”

“Yeah.” He pointed toward the corner of the ceiling and said in his best imitation of Buzz Lightyear, “To infinity and beyond!”

Jadis blinked at him.

“It’s a joke. Get it? It’s funny because there’s nothing beyond infinity.” She still wasn’t laughing. “Guess you never saw Toy Story.”

She shook her head. It made him appreciate his childhood afresh.

“Regardless, infinity is another fortuitous symbol,” she said. “Not only does it touch the divine forever, it resembles an eight.”

“Why is that important?”

“The number eight is lucky,” she explained. “It is tied to wealth and good fortune.”

“Well, sign me up for that,” Mike said with a laugh.

Jadis, however, was dead serious. “You are the only one who can do the signing. As with everything else in your life, you choose.”

“Now wait a minute, I thought you said it was fate that brought us together.”

“Fate for me. Choice for you,” she said. “Are not fate and choice but two sides of the same coin?”

There she is. That whole zen vibe, mysterious and unreadable, is pinging again in full force.

“What about the small ‘i’ here in the lower part of your page?” she said. “Surely that is not a mathematical symbol.”

“It is, actually. An italic “i” stands for imaginary numbers.”

“How can a number be imaginary?”

“It’s . . . it’s too hard to explain without getting pretty technical.” Michael searched for a way to describe the concept in a concrete way, like Jadis had turned his grandmother’s commas into river water droplets. Nothing sprang to his mind. “Do you have much of a math background?”

Jadis shook her head. “But I do have an imagination. Perhaps that is enough to use this symbol for your design. What does an imaginary number mean to you?”

“I guess it means there are things we can’t see with our eyes, but using logic, we can show that they are there. They are still useful. Still real.”

“Like your grandmother’s love.”

A minute ago, he’d have sworn he didn’t believe in things he couldn’t see. But Gran’s love was something he could still feel. He knew, without knowing how he knew, that part of her, the hidden part she always tried to teach him about, remained.

“God doesn’t plan for us to be finished here. None of us are perfect,” Gran would tell him after filling him with cold milk and warm gingersnaps after a rough day at school. “We don’t begin to be all we can in this world. That’s why He’s got a place prepared for us in the next. O’ course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try harder in this one, sugar. Let’s take a look at those spelling words again, shall we?”

She was so full of love. She couldn’t have slipped into nothingness. Like the imaginary numbers that fulfilled vital functions in higher equations, there were things he couldn’t see and yet they were there. Something of Gran must remain.

“Yeah, the i means something to me.”

“Then it too will be part of your tattoo.” She bent over her sketch for a few minutes. “And this symbol?”

It was the E-shaped sigma, ∑.

“That means summation,” Mike said. “The final answer.”

“The sum of all things. Are we not all seeking that? Yes, now I see how everything fits.” Jadis’s fingers flew for a few minutes and then she showed him the intricate chain of symbols she’d assembled. There they were—∆, π, ∞, i, ∑—delta, pi, infinity, imaginary unit and sigma, all tangled up in inventive ways and linked together by Gran’s beautiful commas. Seen together, they were beginning to speak to him.

“I know what Gran meant now. She was talking about my life,” Michael said excitedly. “I need more commas, more pauses. She was trying to tell me to stop and think.”   

He narrowed his eyes at the design. The commas were the key. If he gave himself a chance to consider before he acted, if he remembered the stable base of his home training, all that stuff he’d learned back in Coldwater Cove about people and God and how the world worked. He’d shoved it off to the side, but if he took it back out now, he might have a better sense of where he was.

Of who he was.

And what he was supposed to do with his life. Then maybe he’d change. He’d stop running from his failure and find a purpose. He’d be able to build something worthwhile on the infinity of each moment, in this world and, if Gran was right, in the next one he couldn’t see yet.

The sum of all things.

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Does the design mean something to you?” Jadis asked softly.

“Yeah. It means a lot.”

“Then this is your hidden mark. Now the only thing remaining is to choose where to put it.”

He grinned at her. “Is this the part where I take off my shirt?”

“If you wish. There are those who decide to take off their pants as well,” she said without a blink. “It all depends on how private you want the tattoo to be.”

Or how high the TV ratings. Mike’s gaze jerked toward the camera.

“I think the shirt will do.”

***

The tattoo didn’t hurt as much as Michael expected. Jadis had a light touch and she encouraged him to talk to distract himself.

There had been one bone of contention when he first pulled the wife-beater over his head. Her breath had hissed over her teeth when she saw his scar.

It hadn’t healed well and snaked across his ribs on the right side in a thick white line. He’d forgotten about it for the first time in months or he never would have taken off the undershirt.

“What happened here?” Jadis brushed her fingertips across it.

“Nothing.”

“It does not look like nothing.”

“I was in an accident.”

She looked at him in that “sees-all, knows-all” way of hers, but even that couldn’t drag the story out of him.

“You’ve heard the one about letting sleeping dogs lie, haven’t you?” he said.

She nodded.

“Leave this one alone.”

“Sometimes, people use tattoos to hide scars. Do you want me to put yours over it?”

“No,” he said with such force, she flinched. He softened his tone. “Tats help us remember, not forget, right? The scar reminds me of something, too.”

Jadis relented after that and continued creating the undulating chains of colorful symbols. It started on the side of his neck and stretched to the outer tip of his clavicle.

“Do you have a girl back in Coldwater Cave?” Jadis asked, stopping to blot her creation with a clean cloth.

“Cove. Coldwater Cove,” he corrected. Did all city folk think people in fly-over country still lived in caves?

The muscles under his skin shivered a bit, the nerve endings jangled by the invasion of steel and ink.

“You did not answer my question,” Jadis reminded him as she started a new chain of symbols. “Is there someone you wish to return to someday?”

Michael breathed deeply. He’d been trying not to think about Heather Walker. Smart, long-legged Heather. She’d been bound for college. He was working weekends on a construction crew. Her family was one of the wealthiest in town. His folks had done ok, but his dad had made it pretty clear that Michael was on his own from Day One after high school.

“Tough love,” his dad would say.  

As graduation loomed, Mike had been working up the courage to ask Heather out, but never quite managed it. So long as he never tried to hook up with her, he could still hope.

Until the accident…

That was the end of anything he might have had with Heather. Even if she never found out what had really happened, he’d know. And that was why he hadn’t wanted to hide that scar with a tat.

“No. Well, yes. There’s this girl who—” He stopped himself before more about Heather spilled from his lips. He didn’t deserve someone like her. “What I mean is there was sort of a one-sided deal back home, so no. I don’t have a girl. Not really.”

“But you have hope?”

Even though there was less than no chance, his gut still clenched at the thought of Heather. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

“Hope is good. What is a hope but an imaginary number you have not yet brought to life?” Jade said as she put the finishing touches on her creation. “Until you do, you have not reached the sum of all things.”

“Look at you, going all math geek on me.”

“I do not understand the symbols as you do, but that is as it should be.” She reached for a mirror and held it up for him to inspect her artwork. “What do you think?”

It was a swirl of color. She’d given each symbol its own hue—red Δ’s for change, green i’s for imaginary units, yellow-gold ∞’s for infinity, deep purple π’s for a stable foundation, and glossy black ∑’s for the final answer. Through it all, there were Gran’s commas, her pauses, in the same blue as her eyes.

How had Jadis known?

“It’s good,” Michael said. Well, Gran, I’ve got more commas now. He could almost hear her laugh. “It’s real good, Jadis.”

“I am glad. May I take a picture?”

“Sure. Guess I’ll be part of your collection now,” he said as she took a photo with her phone. “What if I want to be something else?”

Her gaze dropped to the floor.

“I’m not hitting on you or anything. I just mean, I’m new to the city and I could use a friend. Seems like maybe you could, too.”

She met his gaze and smiled. “I could. Thank you, Michael Evans.”

“Just Mike,” he said. “How about I hang around till you’re done here today and we can find someplace to eat? My treat.” He figured he’d be able to cash the check the TV people owed him by then.

She nodded and dressed his tattoo with a sterile bandage. “Leave this on for a while. Here are your after-care instructions.” She handed him a leaflet. He’d plow through it later, enough to get the gist.

Michael put his undershirt and leather jacket back on, careful not to disturb the bandage. Then he walked out of the tat parlor with a lighter heart than he’d had in months.

I’m going to take your advice, Gran. I’m done running. I’m stopping. And thinking. You don’t have to worry about me anymore. I’m going to be ok. 

A sudden warmth that had no discernible source wrapped itself around him from head to toe. There were no words, but as it dissipated, he thought he recognized where it came from.

Gran. He felt as though she’d just hugged him. Still surrounded him with her unconditional love.

The anger he’d stored up toward God began to melt away.  

He had his grandmother back. Somewhere—he was sure of it now—she was whole. She was healthy and sprightly as ever she’d been. And her mind was clear. She knew fully, as she was fully known.

He walked out into the city that had seemed so foreign, so forbidding. Now it seemed like the perfect place to make some changes in his life.

Someday, Gran. Someday, I’ll see you again. And before that day, I’ll make you proud. I promise.  

***

“Good segment,” Louise said, taking a long drag on her cig as she viewed the daily rushes. “Just the right amount of emotion without being maudlin and enough philosophical stuff without being preachy. This guy is golden.”

“Yeah, I think so too,” her assistant Judith said. “But do we have to keep the footage where I’m on camera?”

“Absolutely. That whole “ma’am” exchange is priceless. Tell Howie to set up for some extra takes. We have to make it a running bit with some of the other segments. Oh, and I think you need a name tag that says ‘Stiletto Girl’ from now on. Is there anything else we can dig up on this Michael Evans?”

Judith winced and heaved a sigh. “Well, he did leave us a few breadcrumbs for a follow up.”

“Such as?”

“That whole scar business. We need to track down where he got that. He really didn’t want anyone poking into it.”

“Which means we must,” Louise said.

Her assistant nodded enthusiastically. “It could be a great segue into a ‘where are they now’ special on down the road.”

“So he didn’t check the ‘no further contact’ box on the contract?” Louise asked.

“He didn’t even read it. He’s ours. We own him and his scar story,” Judith, aka Stiletto Girl, said with vehemence. “Once we find it, we can pull it out and use it whenever we want.”

Louise studied the still image of Michael Evans on her screen. Good bones. Great voice and when he takes off his shirt—Katy bar the door! “I hope he gets his stuff together and makes the fortune that sideways eight in his tat seems to predict.”

“Me, too,” Stiletto Girl said in a tone that suggested the opposite.

“People love numerology. If Michael Evans does even moderately well, we can pump it up to make it seem like more. Then we can plant the idea that getting the tat caused his success. See if anyone else got a tat with a veiled prediction in it. Could be just what we need to generate another season for the show.”

Stiletto Girl took notes on her phone, her thumbs flying. Then she put it in her pocket. “I’m still wondering about that scar thing. If there’s even a whiff of scandal, we could use it to bring him down after we build him up.”

“That’d make for a good twist.” Louise gave her assistant a sideways glance. There was a vindictive streak in Judith she’d never suspected. She made a mental note not to let ‘Stiletto Girl’ rise to a position where she’d be able to aim that venom toward her.

“So good luck, Michael Evans,” Judith said with spite. “Reach for the stars, because you know what they say. The bigger they are. The harder they fall.”

***

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoyed Coldwater Blues. Like me, many of you have experienced the “long good-bye” of Alzheimer’s. My aim was to give you hope for your loved ones.

If you’d like to know what happens to Michael and the rest of his family, I hope you’ll check out my Coldwater Cove series starting with…

The Coldwater Warm Hearts Club

The lake is crystal blue, the hills roll for miles, and breaking news travels via the Methodist prayer chain. But don’t let the postcard fool you. Coldwater Cove, Oklahoma, leavens its small-town charm with plenty of Ozark snark.

For Lacy Evans, returning to flyover country is the definition of failure. She had everything she wanted—an award-winning design firm, a chic city condo, a handsome, aristocratic almost-fiancé. Then her boyfriend ran off with her receptionist and her clients' money. Now she’s out of business and crashing on her parents’ couch. When she slides into a booth at the Green Apple Grill, she's feeling lower than a worm's belly.

But Lacy’s old classmate Jacob Tyler is happy to see her. Coldwater’s football hero came back from Afghanistan short part of a leg and some peace of mind, but he’s counting his blessings, and Lacy could be one of them. Then there’s her ex Daniel, wearing a sheriff’s badge and a wedding ring but looking like young summer love.

Lacy thought she knew her hometown, and herself. She just wanted to get on her feet and keep running. But the longer she stays, the more she finds to change her mind . . .

Read more here...

Then in A Coldwater Warm Hearts Wedding, (coming May 2017) it’s Michael’s turn. Want to find out what happens when he sees Heather Walker, the girl of his dreams, again? Turns out, she remembers him too. But not at all in the way he hoped!

I’m tickled to share the folk of Coldwater Cove with you and hope you’ll visit us often. If you’d like to learn more, you can find me at:

LexiEddings.com

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I look forward to meeting you online or at a writer’s conference near you! Thanks again for reading my story about how Alzheimer’s impacted the Evans family. If you have lost someone to this disease, as I have, you have my heartfelt sympathy. I hope and pray that someday, no one will have to walk that long, dark road.

Hugs & Happy Reading,

Lexi

This enovella is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.   

Copyright © 2016 by Diana Groe          

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent excepting brief quotes used in reviews.