Courted by Karma (The Adventures of Anabel Axelrod) (5 page)

I burst out laughing
, since this has been his ongoing attitude for the last forty-five minutes; either incredulous or doing the mothering gig. Right on cue, he started scolding me again.

“You should be thanking me for insisting you wear warm boots. Of course they are yours, where else would I get boots that fit you right at that precise minute?” He paused to think over his words. “
To be accurate, they were in your closet.” He shook his head and focused on spanking me. “I cannot believe you would try to leave the house in the middle of winter while wearing only shoes consisting of two, minuscule straps of leather and five-inch diamond heels! Not a hat or gloves in sight!” He scoffed in disgust. “What if we get stuck in a snowdrift and you are wearing only those clothes, Bel? Oh yes, you go ahead and laugh now, but you will not be laughing when you die a miserable death from hypothermia after your exposure to the elements.”

Struck
by his decidedly grim scenario, I stopped laughing to ask, “But why would I get out of your Rover in my high heels if we get stuck in a snowdrift, Snookie-Crookie? Besides, isn’t dying from hypothermia supposed to be a peaceful way to die--you fall asleep like a baby outside in a snowdrift? That doesn’t sound too miserable to me.” That brought to mind another thought. “Why do people always say stuff like that, anyway? It makes no sense, does it, Crooks? Just because you don’t thrash around and make crazy snow angels doesn’t mean you’re happy to die. Who knows what a peaceful way to die is, unless you die. Then how is the living supposed to know what the heck you were thinking when you died because you’re already dead! God, I hate science!” I shook off these boy-type thoughts and leaned over to pat Crookie’s straining arm under the down padding of his parka. “Don’t worry ‘bout me, okay? If it makes you feel better, I’ll let you give me a piggyback and I’ll wear your hat. You can even put your giant gloves over both my feet to keep them warm, okey-dokey?”

Chuffing
, Crookie said disbelievingly, “Wow Bel, thanks. You are too kind to strip me down to nothing to keep yourself warm and alive.”

He took a hand from the wheel to point a warning finger at me
, but I laughingly swiped it away and interjected, “Aren’t you the one that wanted to keep me alive in the cold? I wouldn’t even budge from this truck if I had my way! It wasn’t like I selfishly asked for the parka off your back, Captain Antarctica.”

At that moment, the
Land Rover went down in a deep rut on the driver’s side. We were jerked and thrown around in our seats.

Crookie yelped and locked onto the steering wheel with both hands. “
Ah man, my poor truck!” He cried out in anguish, “Why is this lane maintained so poorly? Where are we going, for God’s sake?”

“It does seem extra bumpy,”
I cheerfully agreed, falling sideways and grabbing for the dash. “Probably the Prince of Hell’s subtle way of saying don’t call me, I’ll call you.” Experiencing near whip-lash but loose enough to consider it free entertainment, I yelled out, “Woo hee, ride ‘em, cowgirl!”

Crookie
laughed at me flopping around, but soon he was back to shaking his head and dourly mumbling about ‘Hell on Earth’. He was wearing one of those leather hats that have side flaps coming down over his ears. Only the goggles were missing, but his glasses were a close second. Bundled up in his flapping hat, steamed-up glasses, and metallic gray parka, Crookie looked as huggable as a steam punk pillow.

We were reaching the split in the driveway, but I couldn’t see anything
beyond the porch light through the lilac bushes.

He jerked his head, indicating the back seat. “If you can be serious for one minute, what am I supposed to tell
Mike?”

I sat back, grinning. “Way to kill my buzz, Crook.” I brushed off his question with a flick of my hand. “Ah, don’t worry about
him. I guarantee he will not wake up and ask you any questions.”

Crookie peered over at me, cautious
hope lacing his tone. “How can you guarantee that?”

I shrugged
nonchalantly. “I slipped rohypnol into his drink of water.”

Crookie reared back in shocked horror, but only for a
microsecond. He relaxed and laughed, but it was a choking, against-his-will sound. “Dammit, Bel, you are so terrible! Is nothing sacred to you?”

“Mmm…nope.”
I liked the easy questions.

L
aughing at Crook’s despairing expression cast my way; I started whooping and held on tight when we hit more deep ruts again and he started sweating and swearing.

After we rode it out, I called,
“Stop! This is far enough, you can turn around here. Man, was that fun! Thanks for the ride.” Grinning, I motioned a hand between the two of us. “Captain Crookie, did I or did I not confess to you the first day we agreed to be friends forever that I was a warped chick?”

Stopping the truck,
Crookie removed his head gear. He ran his hands through his hair and pushed it back off his forehead. Then he grinned back, and it was his darling, sweet smile that could make a girl’s liver quiver. “I had no idea I was agreeing to forever but yes Bel, you did.”

“Well okay then
, enough said.”

“Back in the USSR” The Beatles

Wednesday, 11/21/12

1:00
AM

I know quite a few women from former Eastern Bloc and Communist Bloc countries, I usually like women from this part of the world, and women from Russia don’t scare me.

Northfield, Minnesota has seen its share of an influx in population from various countries that mysteriously dwelled behind the Iron Curtain until the nineties. I’ve become friendly with many women from this part of the world, the Ukraine in particular. I met the majority of them when they were shopping in Bel’s Books. A few have become friends outside of work. To my ear, their accented English makes these females sound tough, secretive, and seductive. They remind me of Natasha from the old Bullwinkle cartoons.

I don’t have a PC bone in my body. It should come as no surprise to hear that a small, patriotically paranoid part of me believes these women are all sent to America as undercover KGB spies, regardless of the spin out there that the cold war is over and the KGB is defunct.

In my opinion, frequently these intense Russian girls that I’ve met look like they could take you down with one hand tied behind their back, even if they are tall, slouching, and rail thin. I am a petite woman with a curvaceous figure and a naturally sunshiny nature. You may think that I could be envious of their svelte limbs, their height, and their fatalistic airs, but not so. Any woman attempting to look deep into my eyes while carefully weighing the worthiness of my recommendation on a book has my respect. When they also attempt ferociously bargaining down the price of an already bargain-priced book, I am aglow with amused admiration. It’s refreshing they take for granted that I am a cheating, corrupt individual out to strip them of their last ruble.

Minnesota nice gets so boring.

This Natasha staring down her nose at me right now fit my fond description of tall, dark, and model thin, but I’m sure as hell not feeling the love. It probably has something to do with the fact she has just answered Luke Drake’s front door, and is wearing only a long, white shirt. It is a buttoned-down dress shirt and obviously belongs to a man. It hung billowing around her scrawny frame and showed off her long, skinny thighs and knobby kneecaps like I should be impressed.

She kept her arm across the door while she looked me up and down, her thin lips curled in contempt. The contempt I didn’t get, but I confirmed the Russian part when she said, “Who are you?
Vat you vant?”

Not letting my feelings show, I smiled
up at this stranger in a friendly fashion. “Why hello, I am Anabel. Is…”

I got no further before this sharp-featured woman emitted a
sharp cough of a laugh. It sounded amazingly like a seal bark. She further interrupted my attempt at a polite introduction by shoving a bony finger topped by a sharp red fingernail in my face.

For the record, I get irritated when people shove
bony red things uninvited in my face.

Her voice and brows r
ose high in tandem disbelief. “YOU are An-a-bel?”

She pronounced Anabel in three, distinct syllables like a little girl haltingly learning English. Or like a fourteen-year-old Victoria Secret model would sound, if she stepped right out of a catalog to sneer at you in her baby Russian voice while wearing a carelessly buttoned man blouse and no pants.

I peered up at her closer from under the light provided by the outside lantern hanging over the front door. Except this milky-skinned woman with the sable hair is no adolescent plucked off the mean streets of Kiev and forced to become rich and famous by wearing enormous wings and lingerie. I’m awful at guessing age but if the crow’s feet bracketing her yellowish-brown eyes are any indicator, she has to be pushing a hard thirty-five or forty. I couldn’t avoid seeing she’s wearing a fluorescent green bra and undies beneath the white shirt.

‘What
is up with the weird baby talk and the neon undies, for crying out loud?’

Swaying only a little,
I tried peeking surreptitiously around her tall frame to see inside Luke’s house. It was dark behind her in the entry, and no lights illuminated the living room through the picture window like the last time I was here.
Maybe she’s playing some weird Russian night games that involve a black light, but I can’t tell from peeking.

‘Where
is Mr. Secretive, anyway?’

I
can feel my brilliant plan spiraling out of my control and this made me cranky.

Ignoring the antipathy hovering in the cold air between us after her scoffing tone, I still tried to keep an open mind. She ha
s a few inches on me in height, but she positively loomed above me from the advantage of standing a step up in the doorway to Luke’s house, while I am on his outside cement stoop. I took a little step to avoid her rudely pointing finger, instead of following my inclination to bend the offending appendage right back at her. It’s a move I’ve gotten rather good at recently.

I smiled
, cranking out a little more wattage in it this time. “Yes, I am Anabel Axelrod, is…”

Again she interrupted with the irritating seal bark and then that tiny, girlish voice. “An-a-bel, is that
a cow name?”

If she wasn’t smirking with
red lips that showed off teeth the size of tiny Chiclets, and if she was below the age of five, I might have found her funny.

All I could wonder
was,
‘Who IS this bitch hindering my plans?’

One of my new Ukrainian chums
was a woman named Elena Zlenko. I have spent a couple of Saturday afternoons in recent months with her large, extended family of Zlenko women. We’ve gathered to cook traditional Ukrainian dishes while swilling back copious amounts of Absolut vodka. When it was my turn to take a shot, Zlenko women of all sizes and ages gather around me in anticipation. I have come to learn, by their hysterical laughter and mimicking, tongue-flicking motions, that I do a shot much like a kitten laps the cream from a saucer. The word has spread that even a grade-schooler Zlenko woman does a vodka shot faster than Bookstore Bel. I’ve been practicing shots to show my Zlenko booze-hound buddies what stuff this German-Celtic girl is made of. I have done more shots of alcohol in the past three weeks then in the rest of my entire life combined.

My goal is
to beat out the pre-teen Zlenko females next time I was invited.

I
was still feeling slightly under the influence from the vodka scrimmage conducted all evening in my store, and then later up in my apartment. Before ringing Luke’s doorbell two minutes ago, I had been AWOL’ing in my favorite vacation spot. I was a happy girl happily contemplating hours of sexual gratification in the very near future. Now, I’m sure my answering smile was wider and showing many more adult-sized, American teeth. If my three sisters saw me flashing this crocodile smile, they would all be crowding in behind me with curiosity to see who was gonna get it.

Leaning
my hip up against the iron railing on the front porch, I crossed my arms over my chest. I calmly regarded the inexplicably sneering woman in front of me, whom it must be noted just mimicked my arm crossing and leaning stance, while I considered my options.

I took a
calming yoga breath and tried to see things from her perspective, rather than simply head butt her in the bread basket and walk in shouting for Luke.

First off, i
t was cold out and it was late. I was a strange woman ringing the doorbell on a house out in the middle of nowhere. Although, come to think of it, my name seemed to ring a bell instantly with Comrade Day-Glo.

‘Okay, enough with
being reasonable. She was creating a hostile environment no matter how fair I tried to be.’
My stomach sank a little when my accountant voice chimed in and gave its two-cents worth in my head
. “And yes, she’s answering Luke’s door at one in the morning.’