The Call from Delia Shea

I tugged open the sliding glass door at sunset and stood in the doorway listening to the crash of waves on the jagged rocks down below. It would have been sweet to put a chair out on the narrow deck. But the Bauers had warned me some of the planks and the railing were pretty iffy. The rotting deck needed work (so did the rest of the caretaker’s cottage)but I wasn’t complaining. Winter was coming, and at least this year I had a place to live.

I inhaled the scents of cedars and salt water. Thought about rolling out my worn yoga mat and doing a quick practice. Then my phone rang and caller ID showed: Delia Shea.

I sighed, shoved the door closed, and sank down at the kitchen table. My finger hovered. Accept? Decline? Delia and I had been besties back in the day, but it had slowly gone sour.

“Yeah?”

“Kate? Girlfriend? What are you doing tonight?” Delia talked like I’d seen her just yesterday, her loud voice rattling the battered smartphone. “I need you to spring me from this joint. Right now. These people are trying to kill me.”

 Some things never changed, certainly not Delia blowing things out of proportion. “Delia, where are you these days?”

“In hell, girl. This is serious. I broke my ankle, they couldn’t do a thing at the urgent care, they sent me to the hospital, and now I’m in this rehab place. Some rehab! The nurses are taking more drugs than the patients.”

“Slow down.” This was a pretty wild story, even for Delia. “Listen, Delia, I’m out on the peninsula, housesitting a fancy estate for the winter. Can you maybe call an Uber to take you home?”

“Oh, honey! I left my wallet and phone at the urgent care and have to get over there to pick them up. Just come get me. We’ll go back to my place. You can stay for the weekend. It’ll be just like old times.”

Old times? Yeah, those were the days. Thirty years ago, Delia would have been calling from some yacht club after storming off her boyfriend’s boat. In those days, her paintings were in all the top galleries. At one point I think she’d been married to some Microsoft millionaire. I’d taught martial arts and run a women’s rights nonprofit.

But Delia had long since faded from the art scene. And I’d left town. My social security wouldn’t come close to paying for a place in Seattle these days. If the Bauers hadn’t hired me to babysit their fancy getaway, I’d have faced another winter in Tod’s cabin in Oregon, scrounging for firewood, shivering under a slimy camp shower, and shopping at the local food bank.

Delia, who had no financial worries, was rattling off the address of the place she wanted out of.

“But don’t you need a doctor to sign you out?” I asked. That formality could mean shifting the whole crazy enterprise until morning. Or forgetting about it entirely. Anyway, I’d be off the hook.

“Ha!” Delia screeched. “I’ll take care of that. You just get your sweet little ass over here.”

Kate to the rescue, yet again. I grabbed a jean jacket and limped out to my old Toyota Camry, hoping no cops would notice the busted headlamp and the dubious brakes. I found a station playing Americana and traveled back in time with Tom Petty and Prince.

Delia’s rehab was a squat, two-story building flanked by spindly rhododendrons. In the dark relobby, a halo of cold light marked the reception desk.

“I’m here to visit Delia Shea.”

Two healthcare aides, eating fast food meals, exchanged glances. The older one, a woman, lifted a French fry and pointed down a dim hallway. “Last room on the right.”

“Thanks.” The low-ceilinged corridor stank of overcooked vegetables, urine, and worse. Through the half-closed door to Delia’s room, I saw an old woman hunched in a wheelchair. Delia must have a roommate. “I’m sorry. I’m looking for Delia Shea—”

“Girlfriend!” The woman in the wheelchair straightened up. She raised a claw-like hand in greeting.

I swallowed a gasp. The woman was Delia. Her stiff hair was an improbable shade of red. Her puffy face, white as lard. How many years had it been since I’d seen Delia?

 “Let’s go,” she said. She shoveled a dozen orange pill bottles from her bedside table into a green plastic tote.

 “I can’t just wheel you out of here, Delia. You need a doctor to sign—"

“Yes, you can,” she said. “Say we’re going to get some fresh air. Then grab one of those crappy walkers they keep in the lobby. We’ll leave the wheelchair, take the walker, and go!”

Delia wheeled herself to the door. Then I pushed her down the hall and into the lobby, listening as she loudly described the horrors of the rehab. Glancing over my shoulder, I spotted the doctor, a young man in a white coat, peering into Delia’s now-empty room.

“Is that the doctor?” I asked the woman at the front desk.

“Doctor comes in tomorrow morning at 8.” She grabbed another handful of fries.

“But...” I pointed down the hall to where he’d been. Of course, the hall was now empty.

“Kate! Let’s go, girl!” Delia was headed out the automatic doors to the parking lot. I followed her into the misty evening, got her into the car, and then slipped back in to swipe a walker. Just as Delia had said, a fleet of them stood in a corner of the lobby. The woman at reception ignored me as I picked out a new-ish one and trundled it out. We drove off, leaving the sagging wheelchair on the sidewalk.

“Head for my place,” Delia squawked as I pulled onto the main road. “We need a couple of Martinis. And I have Absolut, girlfriend.”

Delia’s lakefront house was on a winding boulevard lined with tall cedars. I’d been there—what, 15 years ago? —for a party. That was just before her husband—Dustin? Devon? —croaked on a Galapagos cruise. I remembered feeling utterly out of place with my long hair, batik jacket, and thrift shop sandals, listening as Delia pointed out Bill Gates’ compound on the other side of the lake. I’d left early.

 Now the massive house was dark, save for dramatic lighting at the entrance. I helped Delia up the curved walkway. Forget the Martinis; it would be great just to collapse in one of her guest bedrooms.

In front of the tall double doors, Delia let out a hoot. “Of course, I don’t have my keys. But not to worry. There’s a spare under the third paver,” she pointed. I fell to my knees on the gravel path and dug the key out of the dirt. I handed it to Delia, who turned the lock and hobbled inside. She patted the wall, fumbled with a security system code, then flipped a switch. Light flooded the room.

“What the fuck?” she screamed. “What the holy fuck?”

The house was empty. The walls, once filled with Delia’s paintings, were bare.

“Call the police,” she howled. “I’ve been robbed!”

I let my breath out in a hiss. Despite Delia’s words, this was no crime scene. The rooms were empty but immaculate. In the kitchen a ceramic bowl filled with fresh fruit gleamed beneath under-cabinet lighting. “Delia, did you put your house up for sale?”

At the foot of her driveway, I’d seen a blue-and-white For Sale sign from the most exclusive realty company in town. I’d assumed the sign was for the house next door. But now I wasn’t sure. Could Delia have moved, put her house up for sale, and forgotten?

“He ripped me off,” Delia muttered. “I’m calling my attorney. Gimme your phone.”

“Who ripped you off?” It was nearly midnight. Nobody was calling an attorney.

“Jason, that’s who. That little snake. I’ll sue him witless.”

“And who’s Jason?”

Delia’s voice subsided. “My stepson. He wants me to sign papers saying he’s my conservator. Not a chance in hell.”

A stack of glossy business cards from a realtor sat on the hallway table. I slipped one into my pocket, thinking This is so not going to end well. And there was no way we were going to sleep here. We might be arrested as trespassers, since Delia had no ID with her. Even now, a neighbor in this security-conscious enclave who’d seen the lights go on could be calling the cops.

“We’ll go to my place,” I sighed. We used the bathroom, turned off the lights, and fled.

I got us onto the highway headed north. Just past Lynnwood, Delia spoke my name. “Kate?”

“What?”

“Thank you,” she said. Her voice had melted into a child’s mumbling. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you, girlfriend.”

It cost me nothing, so I replied, “I love you too, Delia.”

Halfway to the Bauers’ place I stopped for gas. A young fellow who’d pulled up behind us in a blue sports car walked over and asked if I needed help with the pump.

“Your friend OK?” He gestured to Delia, slumped against the window, her hair a rumpled mop.

“She’s just tired. Thanks for the help.” I fumbled the hose back onto the fuel dispenser, and we left.

It was past 1 a.m. when we reached the Bauers’. As I helped Delia into the cottage a car came up the gravel drive. Were the Bauers here for the weekend? Headlights shone in my face. I squinted.

“Who’s that?” Delia asked.

“No idea.”

The car stopped and the headlights went off. It was a blue sports car, a lot like the one at the gas station. Sure enough, the young man who’d helped with the pump got out of the car. Had I left something behind? My debit card? How stupid of me.

“Oh, shit,” Delia gasped.

“It’s just the man from the gas station,” I said, and then remembered that Delia hadn’t seen him. As he came closer, I realized he also looked like the young doctor I’d glimpsed at the rehab.

Delia clutched at my arm. “It’s Jason!” she screamed.

The man raised one arm. A gunshot, and Delia pitched forward. Then the man came striding toward me.

I tried to slam the door against him, but Delia and the walker blocked it. I backed into the cottage, thanking the gods that the Bauer’s crappy contractor had never put a light switch in the front hallway. In the dark, I could hide. Or find a way out.

I ran into the kitchen, yanked open the sliding glass door to the deck, and stopped. I remembered the Bauers’ warnings about the deck. But what if the man thought I was out there? He’d run right past me and step out there himself.

Footsteps in the front hallway. This was my only chance. I backed away from the open door, squatted down between the refrigerator and the stove, and waited.

His steps went into the bedroom. Then they came toward the kitchen. I ground my teeth as he passed my hiding place and stepped, one sneaker, then the other, out onto the narrow deck. A splintered board groaned under his weight.

Fall!

I stared at his silhouette against the purple sky. He turned his head left, and then right, and then left again, clearly puzzled not to find me out there.

If he comes back inside, he’ll kill me.

When he put his free hand on the cedar railing and leaned out over the edge, peering into the darkness, my heart rose to my throat. Before he could realize there was nothing out there but rocks and water, I moved silently into the open doorway. Calling on muscle memory, summoning every ounce of strength in my body, I aimed a front kick square to his back.

It connected.

He fell forward, the railing gave with a crack, and he vanished. A ghastly howl of fear broke off when he hit the jagged rocks below. His gun clattered. Then, silence.

I backed into the kitchen, grasped the counter, and hyperventilated. Then I fumbled my phone from my jacket and tapped 9-1-1. “There’s a shooting. At the Bauers’ house. Up on Ten Pines Road.”

I waited for them in the hallway, kneeling beside the lifeless heap that had been my friend Delia Shea.

The next few days were a blur of phone calls and interviews. The Bauers arrived from California. The insurance people came out. I kept my story simple: I’d picked up my friend in Seattle, we’d come out here for the weekend, and a strange man had followed us. He’d shot her, then gone out to the deck looking for me. He’d fallen to his death when the railing collapsed.

When the sheriff’s deputy told me the assailant was Jason Bonifaccio, the son of Delia’s late husband, I expressed my utter astonishment. Of course, they believed me. They think old people are too dumb to lie.

I was out of trouble, but I was also out of a home. The consensus was that a frail, 70-year-old woman wasn’t the right fit for the caretaker job. Surely, she’d be better off...somewhere else. So, I packed up my stuff—there isn’t much left now, really—and put it in the old Toyota. Driving in daylight, the broken headlamp didn’t matter. I figured I could make it to Tod’s cabin in Oregon just in time to settle in for another miserable winter. The kiss-off money the Bauers had given me might even cover patching the cabin roof and installing a rudimentary shower.

Two days later I turned off a winding forest road into the familiar clearing. Late afternoon light filtering through the giant firs showed a pile of charred logs and boards that had once been my home. I climbed out of the car and walked around the ruins, scuffing at the ashes with my hiking boots. Dusk fell, and the woods took on a stony, ominous silence. It was time to find food. And shelter.

I drove back into Eugene, picked up a burger, and parked the car on a deserted side street. I climbed in back and settled in for the night, cracking the window just a bit so my breathing wouldn’t fog the glass and tip off the cops, if the ones down here even gave a shit. I pulled out the pretty bottle of Absolut I’d pinched from the Bauer’s liquor cabinet and splashed some of it into the dregs of my Coke from dinner.

Farewell, Delia Shea. What a life you lived! And what a life I’m living.

K.G. Anderson is a journalist and technology writer in the Pacific Northwest. Her short stories appear in magazines and anthologies including Welcome to Dystopia, Factor Four Magazine, and More Alternative Truths. Visit her online at writerway.com/fiction.