Conclusion
Hydroplaning

A novella by Lynn Hamilton

Story index

 Still, they might have been okay if their vacation had not extended into that perilous fifth week, if they had just reopened the bed and breakfast and not burgled Mrs. Donner's house.

It was tough because, after Christmas, the publically pious go through a season of religious malaise. Too many candlelight services, too many nativity scenes, too many glory hallelujahs, too many recitations of and, lo, an angle appeared, too many resolutions, too much yanking on the emotions like a milkmaid draining a cow's udder dry.

In short, Mrs. Donner was absenting herself from Sunday vespers and from her Wednesday prayer meeting, the only two functions she attended like clockwork, at times when Edwina and Veronica could, with reasonable confidence, have broken into her house.

Mrs. Donner lived in the elegant southeastern tip of the island, among lavishly spaced homes, all with private docks. The Donner house itself was among the most breathtaking, being a surprisingly comfortable mixture of Byzantine and Victorian elements. It towered on the horizon, three stories high with cathedral windows and a side turret. It had always been painted a periwinkle blue. As a child, Veronica had thought it the most beautiful house in the world. In marrying Norman Donner, she had hoped to inherit it. It was some comfort to her that Mrs. Donner had lived on forever, despite her husband's early death, after Norm and Veronica divorced. Norm was 60 now. Veronica liked to estimate Mrs. Donner's age at somewhere in the 90s. It made her feel like the latest generation which was how she felt anyway.The writers sat in their Ford outside the Donner house at eight p.m. Edwina was wearing a pair of faded black corduroy trousers, the closest to her concept of a cat burglar's's ensemble that her wardrobe would allow. Veronica had watched her as she added a navy blue knit cap, to cover her distinctive butch cut. "A Charlie's angel you're not." Veronica was wearing sheer black stockings, black dress shorts, and a black spandex tank top. She had wanted to wear the matching spandex work out tights with the electric pink stripe on each outer thigh, but Edwina had forbade it. I don't tell you what to wear to your burglaries, Veronica had sulked. They had been staking out the Donner residence for an hour and a half. Out of boredom and peeve, Veronica finally overrode Edwina's objections and turned their car radio on, low.

You'll kill the battery, said Edwina, and draw attention to us.

Oh, Edwina, we'll never get into that house. We've been waiting three nights. That woman plans to die without leaving her couch again. She's probably counting the sequins on my Christmas tree skirt.

Tell me again why we're doing this? said Veronica a while later.

It's symbolic, said Edwina. It's like taking back the night. We're taking back the Christmas.

I see, said Veronica. Then, her face falling, she added, Fuck.

Norman Donner, her ex-husband, had just pulled up in front of his mother's house.

Jerk, said Edwina.

Asshole, said Veronica.

Tonight's the night, sang Rod Stewart, sotto voce for once, since Edwina had turned down the volume so low, they could hardly hear it. Between the panels of heavy living room drapery, the writers saw Norman give his mother a filial embrace.

Pervert, said Veronica. I always suspected.

Norman escorted his mother out of her house to his car, a loyal arm around her shoulders as if he thought she might stumble any second.

That woman's in better shape than any of us, muttered Edwina.

Probably outlive us, footnoted Veronica.

A begging seducing voice from the radio crooned, Oh, won't you stay just a little bit longer.

Let's do it, said Edwina.

They crept around to the back of the house and scaled the dock. Edwina jimmied the lock with a credit card that had been cancelled when her income fell below fifteen thousand a year.

Once in, they easily made their way to Mrs. Donner's front parlor where the tree was still blinking with strings of unsynchronized lights. Under the tree was a skirt of solid heather-colored felt. Edwina snatched and yanked it up.

Wait a second, said Veronica. She took it from Edwina and held it in the feeble light of the tree ornaments. It was a stranger to her.

I can't believe it, she said.

They spent forty-five minutes going through the drawers of the dining room bureau, the shelves of the second floor linen closet, the drawers of every chest in each bedroom, then they turned to the closets. Another twenty minutes passed before Veronica shouted hah! She had found it in a box labelled Xmas xtras-second class. It was in a closet on the third floor.

We are gone from this place, said Veronica, throwing it over her arm. Edwina glanced around at the wreckage they had effected-garments and linens flung with shameless abandon over the floors in almost every room.

They stampeded down two flights and unlocked the front door for a quick exit. As they burst out, they saw Sam cruising by on his rounds. He had the night shift two weeks out of the year. They froze, momentarily, in the beam of his headlights, like guilty possums caught out in the center of the highway. Then they ran.

***

I told you not to play the radio, said Edwina, sitting down on the lower bunk of their cell. She crashed her head against the metal frame of the upper cot.

Watch your head, said Veronica, maliciously. You know, it was your turn to get the car serviced. You could have done that while you were out roaming west side Savannah. Where am I supposed to pee in this place?

Edwina pointed at a hole in the cement floor. She then levered herself carefully into a roughly horizontal position on the bunk. With her knees crooked in an obtuse angle, she could just accommodate her extensive frame onto the available mattress.

Got a harmonica? she called from within the shadow cast by the upper bunk.

Veronica was standing above the hole in the floor, trousers still zipped, staring.

You must be joking, she said, finally.

They were startled when a set of heavy keys clanked against their cell bars. With an echoing metallic plonk, the lock turned. A short, heavy warden, barely recognizable as female, yelled, Okay, ladies, your bail's come in.

Bail? said Veronica, arching her left brow. She glanced at Edwina who was hoisting her substantial person back out of bed with slow, cautious movements. Who do we know who has money?

Yeah. Lady name Jason or suthin. The cell door creaked predictably as she swung it open.

Ought to oil that thing, said Edwina as they filed out. Don't give in to all the prison cliches.

A woman who looked like Walter Mitty gave them back their ten dollar watches and the change which had been in their pockets upon arrest.

Erika Jameson posted bail for us? asked Edwina in her best seeking-of-clarity voice.

None too willingly, said Walter Mitty in crisp, college educated tones. We called every name in your address book, pleading for bail. We only have the one cell and we need it for some teenagers we caught speeding and smoking grass. Your bail was only $300. Maybe you should make some friends who keep savings accounts. Some young ne'er do well keeps calling us every time he raises another ten dollars. Bellard Matthew or something. I don't know why he's so eager to help a couple of incompetent burglars. I shudder to think that he's running around the island breaking open parking meters or something of that kind. Even so, the last time he called, he only had-she consulted a tiny yellow sticker note with passing contempt--$210. What a nuisance.

Well, you can tell him to stop right there, said Veronica. I'd rather stay behind bars than accept bail from Belmont Mayhew.

Your trial's in two months, ladies. I'd tell you not to leave town, but if you can't even make a successful getaway from a burglary-Ah, here's your escort. We don't just turn you into the cruel world, ladies, we entrust you to the custody of someone who cares for you.

An elegant woman in silks and linens and real gold trim appeared in the doorway to the free world like a guardian angel getting tired of your track record. It was Erika Jameson.

The door hadn't even swung completely closed on the police department when she started in on them.

Flying down here from Providence to post bail for two very shabby burglars was not my first choice for how to spend the weekend. I have had your car towed to Freddie's where they have replaced the battery. When you raise sufficient funds, through your own industry, I hope, to pay your bill there, you may reclaim your auto. Veronica and Edwina had both unconsciously lowered their heads like beaten children. It made it easier to get into Erika Jameson's low built, German car. She pursued her harangue rhythmically and without an intermission.

Helena Donner, a woman I have grown to respect as I have gotten to know her, asks me to convey the following message: Why didn't you just ask for the skirt? She thinks it's the tackiest thing she has ever seen and would have been only too happy to be rid of it, had she known of its existence. As she spoke, Erika Jameson lifted Veronica's long lost Christmas tree skirt off the passenger seat next to her and handed it to the back of the car where Edwina and Veronica had both chosen to cower. Neither wanted to sit up front with Erika.

Helena Donner reclined wearily into her favorite arm chair and put her feet up on an ottoman. She gazed for a second at the tea cup and saucer she had placed next to her on a macrame coaster. It was such a bright day and the bay window admitted so much light that she could see to where the cup was filled, the dark shadow cast by the tea and the bright translucent china at the top of the cup. The clarity of her china was strangely reassuring. She had bought the complete service sixty years ago when still a bride, and only one piece had been broken. When her son had announced his engagement to Veronica Able, the gravy tureen had slipped from her steady hands and shattered on the kitchen tiles.

She decided to drop the charges. Not that I particularly wish to excuse that Able woman, was how she phrased it to herself. She was not talking out loud, but she was thinking in complete sentences, as she did when she would not care to have anyone overhear her, even accidentally. Usually, she did her thinking out loud, with her son as an audience. (It didn't actually matter whether he was there or not.) But today she thought in silent, private sentences that were, she affirmed, nodding and pursing her lips, no one's business but her own. And she concluded that the pleasure of seeing Veronica Able publically censured was not equal to the aggravation of sharing a courtroom with her, along with that even more slatternly Edwina Curry who seemed inextricable from the project. It was bad enough that the names Donner and Able had appeared on a hundred wedding invitations twenty-six years ago. She had lived that down. Now they were liable to be twined together by the island press which couldn't‹she pursed her lips tighter and a line appeared between her brows‹leave anything alone. It even printed up minor traffic violations. And there was that disagreeable matter of who, exactly, the Christmas tree skirt had belonged to originally. How was she, Helena Donner, to keep track of such things? But undoubtedly, Veronica Able who had nothing in the way of a reputation to lose, would raise a hue and cry and gain the sympathy of like rabble.

She raised the cup to her lips and let the steam warm her sinuses. She slipped, momentarily, into wordless, inarticulate self-congratulation on the soundness of her judgment.

Meanwhile, Edwina had hung the bed and breakfast sign back up on its post in the lawn. Two hours later, during an argument over whose love life was the worst, the doorbell rang. Edwina answered it. Standing there on the porch was a young, unshaven though cheerful man strapped to an enormous backpack. He held a Nietzsche omnibus in his right hand and a couple of cheap, minor duffles ranged around his feet.

Do you have a vacancy? he asked. The American Eagle wants $30 a night. I was hoping to get out for less than that.

She couldn't stop herself. She bent down and lightly kissed the bare flesh of his right foot, mostly exposed under a sandal.

Edwina, what are you doing? asked Veronica, coming up behind them.

Edwina surrounded her in a lumberjack's embrace. We have a guest! We have a guest! she yelled.

Veronica assumed a controlled smile, made eye contact with their guest, and said, I'm the proprietor. She extended her hand for a shake. This is a distant cousin of mine, she said, indicating Edwina. She was just leaving. I will need some eggs and croissants, Edwina, if you happen to be anywhere near a grocery store in the near future. She gestured gracefully toward the duffels. May I help you with your luggage?

As Edwina selected some eggs packaged in cardboard, an idea for a book leapt entire into her mind: Ragpicking in a Free World: One Hundred Most Commonly Asked Questions About Recycling. She looked around for a bare foot to kiss, but none was handy.