1 Take the Monkeys and Run Read online

  “Toes!” he screamed.

  Wow, that was one mad bartender.

  Indiana and I leapt across the threshold. We were inside, but not yet safe in my mind. Just before the door slammed shut, I heard the man yell again.

  “Toes!”

  Chapter Two

  AFTER CHECKING ALL WINDOWS AND doors for secured locks, I ran upstairs and checked on all three girls to make sure they were safe and sound. Like the angels they were, I found each one sleeping peacefully, completely oblivious to the wild goings-on outside. In my bedroom, I peeked out the window one more time. The van was still there, but no maniacs or other oddities that I could see. The idea of calling the police crossed my mind, but I decided against it. Maybe it had been a simple quarrel or dispute. Then I would be embarrassed.

  Somewhat calmed, I crawled into bed, pulled the covers up to my chin and flicked on the TV for added company. Woody Allen’s Take the Money and Run had just started on The Comedy Movie Channel. I texted Roz to ask if she had heard the ruckus, and while waiting for a reply with the cell phone still in my hand, I laid my head down on the pillow, closing my eyes just for a minute. It had been a long, hard day, and the rest felt good. The phone rang, and assuming it was Roz, I answered without checking the caller ID.

  “Hey,” I mumbled. “Did you get my text?”

  “Barbara? Is this Barbara Marr?” asked male a voice on the other end.

  “Yes . . . this is Barbara,” I replied cautiously. “Who’s this?”

  “Steven Spielberg.”

  I happen to think Steven Spielberg is a very sexy man. Wisdom, sensitivity and creative genius light my fire. Steven has ’em all. He also frequents my dreams on a regular basis.

  “Am I dreaming?” I asked, just to be sure.

  “Yes. Yes, you are.”

  Oh, well. At least it was better than the nightmare of my waking life.

  “Okay, I’ll play,” I said.

  “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  “I’m asleep, and there’s a wild man outside my house very concerned about his toes, but no, I guess it’s not really a bad time.”

  “I just visited ChickAtTheFlix.com. Fantastic website you’ve got there. Your review, ‘Jurassic Park: Not Just for Dinosaur Lovers,’ was amazing. You really saw what I was going for. You understand me.”

  “I’m glad you liked it.”

  “No, I didn’t like it. I LOVED it. Listen, I’ll get right to the point. I want you to direct a movie for me. I’ll produce. It will be great.”

  I coughed. “Me? Why me?”

  Actually, I did play director with the video camera a little more than the average bear, editing little masterpieces here and there. Like the recent music video on YouTube.

  “That video!” said Steven, his voice shrill with excitement. “It’s brilliant. You’re a genius. Raw, natural talent. Hollywood needs a fresh voice like yours.”

  I smiled. That was the one. It was a personal favorite. Catchy, upbeat, and original. Material Girl, after all, did provide a deep, ironic springboard from which to showcase my talent.

  After some discussion of casting (Orlando Bloom) and money (ten million), I agreed to direct Terminated Mission to Die Hardly.

  Steven explained the premise. “It’s an intense action-thriller with a little comedy thrown in. We’ll have monkeys.”

  “Monkeys?” I asked, hearing chattering on the other end. It started low and grew louder. Laughing monkeys.

  “Steven?” I hollered over the din. “Are you there?”

  He didn’t answer. All I could hear were monkeys. I looked at my cell phone. It had turned into a banana. I started eating it, then remembered I was dreaming. When my eyes slowly opened, I found myself sprawled out face down on the pillow, drooling on my cell phone.

  Rolling over on my large, lonely bed, I saw that the night had passed and a soft morning light was filtering through my windows. I choked back the recently familiar desire to cry. Daylight meant another day of facing what my life had become. The TV was still on, so I found the remote and clicked it off. Staring at my ceiling, I wished for a retreat back into my silly Steven Spielberg dream. I squeezed my eyes shut for a minute, then opened them again hoping for the best. No Steven Spielberg. Just harsh reality and the sound of wind screaming through the trees, followed by the familiar plink, plink, plink of acorns bouncing off my roof. Fall had come to Rustic Woods, Virginia, and my life had to go on.

  While contemplating the rigors of metaphorically putting one foot in front of the other just to get through the day, I became aware that animals were scampering on my roof. Nothing unusual, really. Squirrels roamed my yard as frequently as Tiger Woods dated cocktail waitresses. These did sound larger than my typical squirrels however. Quite a bit larger. The scampering turned into a sort of thumping that increased in intensity until finally peaking with an orgasmic-like crescendo of high-pitched squeals. Lovely, I thought. Teenage Mutant Ninja Squirrels making whoopee on my house. Well, at least someone was having sex.

  Thinking of sex, or rather the lack of sex, made me think of Howard. Thinking of Howard made me want to stop thinking.

  No need to worry. I was a mother. The telltale shuffle of small, slippered feet in the hall outside my door indicated the end of adult thinking time.

  “Mo-ommy!”

  Within seconds, the door flew open and a delightful fairy wannabe, adorned with wings and lace, hovered over me on the bed, taking in a serious inspection. Her chubby little fingers gingerly caressed my face while her sweet breath warmed my cheeks.

  “Mommy,” said Amber, “why are your eyes all red?” Amber was the youngest and most whimsical of my three children.

  “Oh, I guess it’s just allergies,” I said with a sniff. “Or something.”

  “You mean, like my allergy to milk?” she asked.

  “Yeah, something like that,” I said.

  “Well, frankly, Mommy,” she said in her honest way, “you don’t look so good. You should stay away from whatever makes you look like that.”

  I pulled my weary body out of bed and skulked across to the dressing mirror. She was right. I looked like crap. I felt like crap. My life was crap. I stared at the reflection staring back at me. Was this really what my life had come to? Was I destined to be a marital failure? The years had started to make their impression on my face. My once-fair complexion was succumbing to gravity and cheap skin-care products. The dark circles under my eyes were proof that sleep had not been a recent friend, and my mousy-brown curly hair—sadly turning mousy-gray—was smooshed upwards giving me a sort of Don-King-finds-his-long-lost-white-sister look.

  I looked back at Amber. Her fiery red hair bounced in ringlets all around her perfectly alabaster six-year-old face. She still smiled at me lovingly, revealing that one little blank space in front where her tooth had fallen out the day before. I couldn’t help but smile back, thinking of my baby losing her first tooth . . . oh no. Frozen where I stood, I realized I had done the unthinkable—the thing every mother fears worse than a bill from the orthodontist. I had forgotten my tooth fairy duty.

  I thought back through the events of the previous evening. Despite every desire to just disappear into my bed for the rest of eternity, I had managed to make supper. Then, after reading Little Women to Bethany and Peter Pan to Amber, I had listened while Amber prayed to God and the tooth fairy to take care of her tooth and also to be generous with monetary compensation. Once the tooth was stowed safely under her pillow, I had kissed her goodnight and then lumbered to my own room where I flopped onto my bed and fought back the urge to cry while I tackled the idea of creating that new website.

  My intention had been to get back up when I knew she was asleep and put some coins under her pillow. I really, really had meant to do that. I’d just gotten side-tracked by the hours trying to forget my misery. Then, of course, there was the truck at House of Many Bones and the loud man desperately seeking his toes.

  “Look Mommy, what the tooth fairy left me!” Amber
said, holding up a beautifully stitched red and purple oriental pouch.

  “What’s that?” I didn’t know if I should be scared or relieved. Only one thing was for sure—I hadn’t left it there.

  “It’s a goodie bag from the tooth fairy. I found it under my pillow and it has all kinds of pretty things in it. Look!” She dumped the bag out on my bed. Four different Japanese coins, various pieces of Japanese candy of differing sizes and colors, and a necklace with Japanese letters. It didn’t take a Japanese rocket scientist to figure out who in my house had been the bearer of these good tidings

  “Mommy, do you think the tooth fairy is Japanese?” she asked.

  I tousled her head of curls. “Sweetie, I’m positively certain she must be. Now, do me a favor, go wake up Bethany and you two fix yourselves some cereal. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  It was time to go find myself a tooth fairy.

  “Hey there, Sugar Bear,” I said to Callie, sitting on the edge of her bed. She pretended to be asleep. “What’s up, Buttercup? How’s it shakin’, Francis Bacon? What’s the score, Dinah Shore?” I tickled her for emphasis, but I wasn’t getting a reaction. She was a rock. “What’s the news, doggy doo?” She still wasn’t budging. “Okay, I’m running out of cute here, and I’m trying really hard to be upbeat. Play along, will ya?” She slowly pulled the covers off of her head, but she didn’t say a word.

  “Thank you for saving my butt,” I said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Your sister, the Jabberwocky Fairy, is now going to tell half the civilized world that the tooth fairy is Japanese. How do you think Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny will handle this news?” I tickled her again. She forced a half-smile.

  “Otanjou-bi omedetou gozaimasu,” she said. A sophomore at Forest Glen High School, Callie had taken to her beginning Japanese language class with unexpected enthusiasm.

  “Wow, that’s a mouthful,” I said. “Please tell me that doesn’t mean ‘May you die naked in a bamboo grove.’”

  “No,” she giggled finally. “It means Happy Birthday.”

  I gave my forehead a slap. She had just reminded me of something else I didn’t want to think about—my birthday.

  “Mama-san Marr turns forty-five. You should have let me forget,” I said smiling.

  Callie turned to her side, crooked her elbow and held her head up with her hand. She was a younger, prettier version of her father to be sure. Brown hair the color of dark chocolate, thick and wavy. Perfect nose. Penetrating, almost black eyes and flawless skin, even at fifteen. I should have been so lucky at her age.

  “Mom,” she said, “is this the end?”

  “Egad! I hope not. I really wanted to live to see forty-six.”

  “No! You know what I mean—will he come back here, or is it over? You know, for good?” She wasn’t smiling.

  “Schweet-heart,” I said, doing my best Bogart, “It ain’t over 'til the fat lady sings.”

  While the girls wrestled up some semblance of a breakfast, I got to work on changing my attitude. And fixing my scary hair. Today was my forty-fifth birthday. Impending old age and a problem marriage were staring me in the face. Not a good place to be. I figured that right now, I had two choices—crawl out of the pit, or wallow and die. To wallow or not to wallow? That was the question. Look at Scarlett O’Hara. Did she cry and whine when Rhett walked out the door not giving a damn? Well, okay, she did. But not for long, I’ll bet. Not Scarlett. Same story here, baby, same story here.

  After dressing, wetting my freaky ’fro and crunching the curls into a more presentable do, I stood in front of my mirror and looked myself in the eye. It was time to give myself a good pep talk. Hands on my hips, I started out sternly.

  “Barb,” I said. “Get a grip.”

  I was about to expand on the whole getting-a-grip idea, but was distracted by the squirrels on my roof, back for an apparent second round. I decided to try again.

  “Barb . . . get a . . .”

  Thump, thwack, bump! I couldn’t concentrate. Womp, scramble, scramble, flump! Holy cow, those squirrels were big. And noisy. Kind of like they were talking to each other in some shrieky animal way. I’d never heard such vocal squirrels. In fact, the closer I listened, the less they sounded like squirrels . . . and the more they sounded like . . . monkeys.

  Chapter Three

  PULLING BACK THE CURTAINS OF one bedroom window and then the other, I scanned my yard for signs of life. Two average-sized squirrels scampered up one tree and a zealous woodpecker worked away on another, but nothing out of the ordinary.

  Our forested suburb of Rustic Woods, Virginia sits nestled just twenty miles outside of Washington, DC. Designed in the 1960s, the plan for Rustic Woods was to remain natural, seemingly untouched by man. People don’t cut trees down in Rustic Woods, lest the tree-police will come a-knockin’ on your door. Big fines, and even worse, people start talking behind your back. “Psst—did ya hear? George Finkel cut down two trees. Did it in the middle of the night. Tsk, tsk, tsk.” As a result, Rustic Woods teems with wildlife—deer, raccoons, squirrels-a-million, fox, beavers, and even a bear once. Monkeys, however, were not on the Nature Center’s list of native critters.

  Certainly, the lack of sleep was having an effect on my senses, causing me to hear things that just weren’t there. Mr. Zealous Woodpecker flew off and the two squirrels disappeared into a nest far up in their tree. I made a mental note that the driveway at House of Many Bones was void of trucks or other vehicles, emergency or otherwise. Maybe I had imagined the danger of the previous night, after all. In the light of day, it seemed logical that I could have blown the whole thing out of proportion.

  I was about to close my curtains and breathe a sigh of relief when a new problem pulled up into my driveway. Needing to intercept certain disaster, I ran out of my room and downstairs in a flash.

  Figuring I had about ninety seconds from the time my feet hit the foyer floor, I rounded the corner to my kitchen where the three girls munched loudly over bowls of cereal at our sadly dilapidated oak table. “Okay, girls,” I said. “I want your attention. It’s time we faced reality. Daddy is gone. He’s not gone forever. He’s just a little. . . well, he’s got some kinks to work out. I guess. Whatever. But we have a bigger problem now. Grandma’s on her way in and she can’t find out.”

  “Why?” asked Bethany, her mouth full of milk and cereal.

  “This is Grandma we’re talking about,” I said.

  Bethany swallowed. “Good point.”

  “You want us to lie?” Amber whispered.

  “Not lie. No. I would never want you to lie, Sweetie. Just . . . avoid the truth.”

  Callie rolled her eyes.

  The front door opened.

  “Quick,” I said. “Act natural.” The girls continued munching, but looked at me like I was a crazy lady. Which I was. The last thing I needed right now was unsolicited advice from my mother, the woman of many trades. She had an answer for everything, but in my many years of experience, it was usually the wrong answer.

  I had just plopped my behind in an empty chair between Amber and Bethany and opened a book that was lying on the table when my mother breezed into the kitchen.

  “Mom! What a surprise,” I said, looking up as if I’d been reading for hours.

  She looked with interest at the book in my hand. “What are you’re reading?” she asked.

  “Hmm?” Since I hadn’t actually been reading the book, I was stumped for an answer. Thank goodness Bethany was quick on her feet.

  “The Secret Garden,” she answered for me. “It’s my book and I liked it so much, she decided to read it.”

  “I never liked that book much, myself,” my mother replied. “You know, I wrote a children’s book once.”

  Amber’s eyes lit up. “You did? Can I read it, Grandma?”

  “Oh, it’s in the bottom of a drawer somewhere. I almost had it published once, but realized it was far too ahead of its time. It’s meant for . . . more advanced
children.”

  Amber blinked, not getting my mother’s meaning. I sighed and stood up. I needed a cup of coffee. Actually, I needed a Harvey Wallbanger, heavy on the Harvey, but coffee would have to suffice.

  “What are you doing here, Mother?” I asked, pulling the can of Folgers from the cupboard.

  “What do you mean? Your birthday, of course,” she said, grabbing me for a grand bear hug. My mother commands quite a presence. She towers over my five foot eight inch frame. She’s a freakishly tall, big-boned woman. Not fat, just big. Everything she does is big—she dresses lavishly, she walks big, she talks big. I felt dwarfed by her character as a young girl, only thankful that I didn’t inherit her monstrously large physical frame.

  “As a birthday present, I’m taking you and Howard and the girls out to dinner tonight.” That was my mother. She never questioned that things wouldn’t occur exactly as she’d decided they would. Consequently, she always got her way.

  “Where is Howard, by the way?” she asked.

  “Work,” I said, throwing old grounds into the trash. Technically, I wasn’t lying—he might have been at work.

  “On a Saturday morning?”

  “Emergency.” Again, not technically a lie—if he was at work, it would have been due to an emergency. Probably. Maybe. While I didn’t like to admit it, I didn’t know much about Howard’s job.

  “I don’t understand the kind of work that man does. An engineer who always seems to have emergencies. Your father was an engineer and he never worked odd hours or had emergencies. Bless his dear soul.” My sweet father, who was a small man compared to most, had died in his sleep three years ago, supposedly of sleep apnea. I always suspected that maybe my mother had accidentally rolled on top of him in the middle of the night, smothering the life out of him.

  “It is what it is, Mom,” I sighed, turning on the Mr. Coffee. It was very hard to please my mother.

  “Well, I have to run. I’m going to the gym. Did I tell you I’m training for a marathon? I’ll call you later today and arrange a time—we’ll do Fiorenza’s.” She yelled the last bit over her shoulder while flying out the front door. I stood in the middle of my kitchen, trying to imagine my flappy-skinned giant of a mother running a marathon. She’d probably scare off half the competition. Of course, who was I to throw stones? I got winded just looking at the treadmill.