Page 13 of Fiona and the Fixer

“Hell-oooo!”

I spun around so fast I had to set my hand on my car for balance. An older woman was smiling bigger than a pageant queen. She was trying to do her best to wave while carrying a covered dish. I heard her footsteps, her breathing. But I also heard a squirrel in a tree overhead. A flock of birds. Kids riding bikes down the street. A couple having sex in one of the houses nearby. A plane flying at thirty thousand feet.

I hadn’t gotten the hang of selective hearing down completely yet. I should probably chat with a mother group on how they did it.

The woman was maybe seventy, and spry. Gray hair cut short and stylish. Pale pink blouse. Capri cut jeans with gleaming white sneakers.

“You must be Fiona! I’m Hildy Dotson, but everyone calls me Dottie. I live a street over on Dreidel Drive. Bob Gaither figured you’d be staying here and sent me to welcome you and bring you some dinner. It’s my famous cheesy rice with broccoli since you’re a vegetarian.”

I blinked. I’d never seen this woman before. Never heard of Bob Gaither and how did she know I was vegetarian? I didn’t like anyone to have an upper hand. It put me at a disadvantage, which was dangerous. Although Dottie wasn’t a threat, except to my waistline if I ate an entire casserole of cheesy rice by myself, even if it was made healthy by the addition of broccoli.

She didn’t stop until she was directly before me and reached her arms out to hand me the food. I didn’t have a choice but to take the still-warm casserole. The scent of cheese and spices wafted and made my mouth water.

“Um, thanks.”

She shook her head and eyed me like I was a wallflower at a middle school dance. With something like… pity. “You’ve never had anyone bring you a meal before?”

I shook my head. “First one. It smells great. Um, who’s Bob?”

She laughed. “Oh, honey, you probably know him as Pops.”

“Oh. Yes.” I smiled, relieved. Then stunned. “That’s um, word travels fast.” Like in under an hour. Did she always have a warm meal on standby?

“This is Coal Springs. Of course, it does.” She looked at the open back door of my car where I’d been about to grab my bag. “Oh, here.” She took her dish back. “Now you can get that.”

It seemed it was time for me to go inside. I wasn’t used to motherly women making me food or following me around. After my mother died when I was six, my father gotreal mean. He’d already been that way, but I hadn’t had anyone to shelter me from then on. I learned to hide to avoid his fists, plus build walls to block out his verbal abuse. Real tall ones so that nothing he said, or after I went to college, other people said, could reach me. Or the people themselves.

You’re worthless. Won’t amount to anything. Miss Goody Two Shoes. She’s a rule-follower. A hard ass.By the time I could hear it all with crystal clarity because of my fucked-up brain and ears, I was immune.

Being alone was safe.

I took care of myself.

As a kid, I got really good at school. Studying was my escape. It was easy. Like math, the answers were there, I just had to know them. So I got smart. In so many ways. The more my father hurt me, the more I focused on my goal to make him pay. And I did. I sure as hell did.

Now, a cheerful woman with a covered dish made me wary. What was her angle? Was it more than trying to feed me?

I had no idea, and she didn’t seem to be going anywhere, so I grabbed my duffle, slung the strap over my shoulder and went up the walk. Yup, she followed.

“How did Pops connect me to you?” I asked, typing in the lock code I’d been given when I made my reservation and pushing the front door open. Dottie stepped inside and headed right for the kitchen as if she knew exactly where it was.

I set my bag on the very-comfortable looking couch upholstered in denim.

“After what you did at his store–quite daring, by the way–he called, and we narrowed down where you were staying.”

The house was small, and I could see her in the kitchen from the middle of the living room. The online posting said one bedroom, one bath, updated everything, and close to Main Street. All of it seemed accurate. It was very nice.

“Nancy Siwarski has a rental but there’s currently a family in that one. Then the Swizzlers are headed to Florida for the winter as usual, but they haven’t left yet, and their nephew is coming to stay. All we had was Candy Cane Lane, but it wasn’t difficult at all.”

They should have been police detectives.

And I shouldn’t have told Pops where I was staying, even generally. Dottie and her rice dish clearly weren’t dangerous, but I’d left myself open to someone who could be. I wasn’t here to make friends. Maybe I was with Hannah, but I didn’t see us doing mani/pedis together. More like a mutual connection of superpower ears.

“Impressive,” I told her. It kinda was.

She waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Small towns for you. Everyone knows everything and everyone. Tell me all about you.”

Oh boy.

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