Faster Than A New York Minute
It rolled off his tongue so easily. Pam thanked the good Lord that it was too dark for the men to see her cheeks redden. Her eyes darted to where she imagined Jorgen was going to kiss her. Had her mind played tricks on her?
What if the stress tricked her, and she misinterpreted his kindness as interest? Pam didn’t have a good reason for the sense of loss that weighed on her heart, but it was there. For the entire drive home, she held two conversations. In one she gave Jorgen the directions to her house. The other took place between the lines. Earlier, she believed there was something between them. But, it came straight from the man’s mouth. There was nothing between them. Weary from the stress of the collision she gave up the argument. There was no point in worrying about what never was.
They had one more turn until they reached the block she lived on. Pam sighed in relief. She was minutes away from a warm shower and a cozy blanket.
“This is your house?” Jorgen asked.
Pam blinked to make sure what she saw was not a figment of her imagination. If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have believed it possible. A humongous cottonwood tree rested in the middle of her roof. She motioned to speak, but the only sound she produced was a squeak. Pam set her hand on her chest, took a deep breath and tried again. “Tell me I’m having a hallucination,” she pleaded. This had to have been a bad dream.
“I’m sorry to say Gary Turner’s tree is on your roof.”
Before she rented the house, Glenn, the homeowner boasted the history of the tree. "My grandfather, Gary, planted the tree when my father was born seventy-five years ago.” Glenn tapped the trunk with his weathered hands as though the gesture validated the landmark’s longevity. “This tree, right here, is an official Ashbrook, Montana landmark. They even added it to the map painted on the old mill.”
And it was true. When people gave directions, they referenced the tree. “You want to turn two blocks after Gary Turner’s tree,” or, “if you reach Gary Turner’s tree, you’ve gone too far.”
Her first explanation of where she lived to Jorgen only proved the point further. She said, “I live on the corner of March Street and First Avenue.”
Like everyone else, Jorgen responded to her description with a wrinkled brow. When she clarified by saying, “I live in the house that has Gary Turner’s tree in the front yard,” he nodded in recognition of what she had said the first time.
The tree was not supposed to topple. But there it was. The trunk inclined up against the front of the house, and the leaves had to have been hanging down the other side.
Jorgen barely had time to shift the pickup into park when her next-door neighbor, Claire, opened her door. She clutched her plaid housecoat close to her body. The snow in the yard between the two houses was deep enough to alter her walk into a mini march. Claire’s pink paisley Muck boots rose and fell in an awkward yet familiar cadence.
She approached the passenger side of the vehicle and waited for Pam to open the door. Somehow Jorgen had run around the front of the pickup and opened the door before Pam had a chance to find the handle. He offered her a hand to help her step down from the cab. Inwardly she sighed at what she lost before having the chance to find it.
“I tried calling you about a half hour ago to tell you what happened.” Claire’s voice was breathy. She held her hands on her hips as she inhaled to recover from the march across the yard. “We had a really bad windstorm that started up about an hour ago. I thought for sure it was a tornado. The weather stations said it was a microburst.” She paused for a second. “Anyway, one minute the wind was howling like a coyote looking for its partner. The next minute we heard a creak that was almost like a scream, followed by a crunch. When we came out to see what happened the old tree was perched up against the house.”
All three of them, Claire, Jorgen, and Pam processed the events as Claire had told them. Their eyes started the journey with the roots that hung from the upended tree, traveled the trunk to the roof, and the returned to the roots.
Claire shook her head. “And this had to happen when Glenn decided to take a trip to San Diego. We called and told him. Either he was in shock or had too much sauce with his clam chowder. It was hard to tell. But he took it better than I thought he would.”
She searched for what to say, but nothing came to mind. Shock had rendered Pam speechless. Her now dead phone laid somewhere on the side of the road under inches of snow. Now, this had happened. Pam fell back, and Jorgen caught her.
“I’d offer to let you stay with us, but my son is here with his wife and two kids.” Claire turned to the window and waved at the faces peeking out.
Pam had no pickup, no phone, and she wasn’t sure if the house was sturdy enough for her to stay. “That is okay,” Pam said it because that is what she was supposed to say. But it wasn’t. Her ankle was screamed in pain, and her head throbbed from a tension headache that lobbied for her attention.
She wondered if the house was safe enough to enter to get her toiletries. “I hate to be a bother since you already have done so much for me. But, would you mind taking me to the motel?”
“How about this?” Jorgen said, “I have a guest room. You can stay at my place for the night. It would give you time to figure out what you’re doing.”
“I don’t want to intrude…” she began her objection to get cut off first by Claire and then Jorgen.
“You don’t want to go to a motel alone,” Claire gasped, “that is what ladies of the night do.”
“I have an empty guest bedroom ready for a visitor. Unless you want me to take you to Nancy’s house.”
Nancy was at her house with her husband and teenage son. The last thing she needed was for Pam to crash on her couch. And, her friend was scheduled to be at the hospital in the morning. Odds were Nancy had already gone to bed.
“Are you sure?” Pam asked.
“Let me talk to her a minute,” Claire sided up to Pam and shooed Jorgen away. She half whispered, half hissed. “Are you kidding me? The town’s most eligible bachelor invites you to stay at his house.” She threw a smile in Jorgen’s direction. “If I didn’t have my children in my house, I’d be in the seat of that pickup faster than New York minute.”
The smirk on Jorgen’s face gave away that he heard more than Claire intended. Pam could tell that he was pretending to be interested in something off in the distance.
“Now, go tell him you’d be happy to stay with him.”
Pam never had a chance.
Using her matronly voice of authority, Claire called out, “She’s going to stay with you.”
The street light shone enough for Pam to see the amusement from Jorgen’s smile extended to his eyes. The effect of the smile jarred Pam's heart. If she didn't know any better, he won a bet she didn't know about.