Chapter 9: Rain, Part One
Author's Notes: Just a quick chapter to tide you over. More to come later in the week. Thanks, and please leave a review and let me know how it's going. What? Me worry? Naw....
Rain.
Not just any rain, but Noah-sized ark-building rain, buckets and buckets of it. And no sign of letting up any time soon. The basement laundry had already been flooded, and the landlord - the bar owner, Mr Kralik - had closed it while a sump pump worked at removing the water and the damage to the washers and dryers was assessed. Fortunately, nothing else leaked, so the girls were dry and warm inside their apartment, but still...
So much for sunny California! Buffy groused to herself.
It was the fifth straight day of heavy rain and she was going stir crazy. After that first trip to the mall to go window shopping, she had made it a point to get out of the building at least once a day, usually to the corner market or the nearby park. The rains were so heavy, however, that she did not wish to venture out with Katie in the downpour, so she had been stuck at home for five straight days now.
Worse yet, this torrential flood had arrived during one of Gary's seven day periods home from the offshore oil platform, so she had not had much of her friend's company either. Buffy had come to understand that when Gary was home, his entire household changed from a place of quiet harmony between mother and child, to one of barked commands and petty quarrels between husband and wife. Fred walked on eggshells around her volatile husband when he was home, and from the first meeting, Gary had made it clear that he had enough on his plate with Fred and Stevie underfoot, without having to deal with a teenager and young infant invading his space, even if that teenager was his wife's friend. So for Fred's sake, Buffy made herself scarce during those seven days when Gary was home, and anxiously looked forward to the seven he was back out on the platform and she could see her friend again.
Buffy didn't like the way Gary spoke to Fred. When he was irritable, he sometimes called her a 'cow' or 'stupid', and even when pleasant he rarely called her by her name. 'Hey!' was his usual method of attracting Fred's attention to him, and he never used any polite niceties, such as 'please' or 'thank you'. Fred told Buffy it was just the way the job was; men spent twenty-four hours a day for seven days ordering men around and being ordered around, having to yell over loud machinery to be heard. It was difficult to turn that off and change into respectful husbands and fathers when they came home. And then right around the time the men would start to adjust to the home environment, it would be time to go back out again and bark orders or be barked at again. The whole system could be hell on family life.
Fred would quietly remind Gary that she was not a roustabout to be ordered around and that she could hear him quite plainly since there was no loud equipment impeding the sound of his words to her. Sometimes that brought Gary up fast, and he would take the easygoing remonstrance to heart and school himself to speak to Fred more softly and with more respect as his wife. But other times, her gentle reminders would be the catalyst that set him off for hours, and at those times Fred could do nothing that didn't earn her a sneer or start another petty quarrel.
Buffy loved Fred, and it hurt her to see her so unhappy and poorly treated at home. And she had come to loathe Gary most of the time, although Fred insisted that he was a good man at heart, and that there were plenty of good things he did that others did not see as they were not there with them in their home. Buffy had her doubts about this, but she was smart enough to know when to hold her tongue and let Fred lead the life she had chosen for herself. It wasn't Buffy's place to interfere in a marriage she only could see from the outside looking in. She had to trust Fred to know when enough was enough. Apparently, it hadn't come to that yet. All Buffy could do was be there for her friend should that time ever come.
She just wished she couldn't hear the loud rows that came crashing up to her from the apartment down below. When
was enough, enough?
~~~~~~~
"The basement's dry now, and the machines are workin' again." Mr. Kralik's gravelly voice called out to them as Buffy and Fred left the building together for a quick trip to the market during a sunny, albeit brief, respite from the rain.
"Great!"
"Thanks!"
They didn't slow for a second as they started to head down the sidewalk to complete their errands. When it was clear the girls were not going to stop and talk, Mr Kralik coughed and called their attention back to him again. Apparently, he had more news to impart. The girls turned around expectantly and waited for whatever he had to say.
"Here's the thing," the portly older man shifted his feet nervously and rubbed the back of his neck while he stared at the sidewalk.
Whatever he's gonna tell us, it does not sound good, Buffy worried.
"Yeah, well...you see, my son has been
away for a couple years now, and now he's comin' back home again...." He seemed to fade away into his own thoughts for a moment, then returned to the conversation he had started as though he had not zoned out, "...and he's gonna be stayin' with me here, in my apartment, and doin' odd jobs 'round the buildin', you know, to get used to bein' out here and workin' and all...." he trailed off, and was getting more fidgety by the moment.
"Well, that's sounds wonderful, to have your son home with you again," Fred responded gently, a small smile gracing her features. "He's been gone long, has he?"
"Yeah, well...a few years now..."
"Where was he?" Buffy's weirdness meter was going into overdrive. He had to get used to being 'out' and 'working again'? Add that to Mr Kralik's odd demeanor, and she was not reassured.
"Yeah, well, he...he had a little trouble a few years ago, with his ma - you never met her, she was a wonderful woman, but she passed a while back - but he's comin' home tomarraw, and I thought I ought to let you know, so you'd know he belonged here, wasn't some stranger wanderin' the halls..." Mr Kralik sounded like he could ramble on in that manner for some time, and never quite get to the point of whatever had him so nervous.
"Oh. Well thanks for the warning then. If I see him I'll be sure and say hello." Fred offered politely.
Buffy just furrowed her brows and nodded politely.
"Yeah, well, he'll be here tomarraw, so I guess we'll see how it goes," Mr Kralik glanced around the street, caught himself fidgeting, then stuffed his hands in his pockets once again, as though to keep them still. "Be seein' you 'round." And with that he hurried back inside the bar.
"Interesting." Buffy was getting some seriously weird vibes from the entire conversation.
"Yeah, he seemed nervous," Fred agreed. "But he's probably just anxious about seeing his son again. Probably nothin' more'n that." She nodded and smiled reassuringly.
"Do you think we can trust this guy, that he's gonna be okay? Mr Kralik was acting so skittish." Buffy couldn't help but worry, the landlord's entire manner had set her on edge.
"I guess. We'll have to wait and see. I don't want to judge the boy right out of the gate, you know, until we see what he's like, I mean, if he seems dangerous or anythin'."
"Can you tell if someone is dangerous by looking at them?"
Fred glanced quickly at her friend as they continued their walk. "Not usually, no."
"Great."
"Yeah." Fred laughed. "But I'm sure everything'll be fine. No worries, right?"
"Right." But Buffy didn't feel right.
~~~~~~
Sixteen. A milestone year. A year girls had big parties and gained new privileges. A year when many girls began to date in earnest, obtained a drivers license, perhaps even got a car of their own. Sixteen was a very important year in the life of a girl.
Buffy would be sixteen in two days. January twentieth. She had looked forward to that day many months ago, before her life had changed irrevocably into something she couldn't even conceive of at the time. Conceive. She certainly had, hadn't she? And here she was now, turning sixteen in a strange place, afraid to leave her apartment due to the oddly silent young man now wandering the halls of the building, with a two month old baby dominating almost every aspect of her existence. This was not the sweet sixteen she had hoped for.
Negative much, Buffy? Snap out of it!It was raining again, and the laundry was piled high, and she really needed to get some groceries, and it was one of Gary's 'at-home' weeks so Fred hadn't been able to get away much either...
Stop it! she ordered herself.
You are a strong, capable woman, and there is no reason to sit here and feel sorry for yourself any more!
She decided to call Faith and ask her to pick up some groceries on her way home. Faith had a date with Robin that evening, but said she'd pick up a few quick but vital items on her way home.
That done, she looked again to the laundry and sighed. She called Fred, hoping she had laundry, surely Fred had laundry, too. But there was no answer there, and Buffy remembered then that her friend had said they were going to go on a work 'retreat' at some place near Carmel for three days. Apparently, there'd been some fights the last couple of months during Gary's seven-on, so the oil company decided that a team-building retreat was necessary to get the group working smoothly again. Of course, they scheduled it at a beach resort during the rainy season, so they mostly had to stay indoors and stare at their families during their down time. Buffy suspected that some sinister psychologist had worked that one out - see which worker finally blew up staring at his wife and kids for three whole days, rained into a bungalow, when a beautiful beach and golf course lay outside doing no one any good due to the horrible weather. She wondered whether it would be Gary that popped that gasket.
Anyway, this meant that Fred was gone for three days, as of this morning. She called Mr Kralik next, to see if he could escort her to the laundry room, but he too was gone, off visiting an old friend this afternoon, leaving his son to stock the bar and tend to the daily chores necessary to run the establishment. When Buffy called, it was Zack on the phone. Boy, was that awkward, she thought unhappily. Zack offered to keep her company down in the laundry room, if she wanted. She cringed, and then backpedaled quickly and thanked him but said she'd decided to wait. The silence on the other end of the line made her nervous. He may be mental, she thought, but she was sure he knew a poor excuse when he heard one.
"Okay," he responded flatly. "Another time then." The phone disconnected without a goodbye.
Well, that went well, Buffy chided herself.
Idiot. What did you think he was gonna say?So....now...what to do? Katie had spit up on or wet or dirtied everything she had, and Buffy's wardrobe was similarly filthy. If she waited for Fred or Faith to return, both she and her daughter would be sitting in their altogether and wouldn't that be a fine sight? No, she just had to be brave and sneak downstairs when Zack wasn't looking and do a quick load or two of laundry and run back upstairs again. Piece of cake, right? She was young, strong, and smart. Nothing was going to happen to her, she had to stop being so paranoid about this man. He'd been there almost a week, and he seemed okay, in a looming, quiet, stalkerish way. But that was just her own paranoia talking. She couldn't stay locked up in her apartment like this. She refused to live that way.
So it was decided then. Laundry would be done today, and Zachary Kralik be damned.