Abbey Burning Love. Donan Ph.D. Berg
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walked to the nightstand. She tucked the top news section under an elbow. The remaining newspaper bulk carefully placed on a chair positioned to avoid a slide off.
“Mitch, from Flowers Plus, brought two earlier. He groused when he saw those flowers you said came from New York and the nightstand bouquet.”
Sarah turned. “Why would he do that?”
“They didn’t come from his shop.” Melissa gazed at Sarah.
Sarah laid the folded news section next to Melissa. “Who—?”
Melissa cut in. “Mark. You remember? The flowers mentioned Sunday.”
“Oh, yeah.” Sarah lifted the vase. “The card only has his name.”
“Let’s forget him.” Melissa wanted to distance the conversation from Mark lest her failed love life spring front’n’center. “Say, where’s Alice?”
“She’ll be here shortly. She said she had to visit Neil on three.”
“As soon as I’m able, I want to visit others hospitalized. Feel bad that I was so lucky to get out.” She didn’t vocalize a desire to learn if Rob Campbell might also be hospitalized, if he survived. She trembled. She glanced at the below the fold front page black edged article headlined: In Memoriam. When she didn’t find Father listed, an exhaled loud sigh of relief filled the room. Hope lived. Rob’s name not listed.
She gasped.
On page two, a cellphone picture taken inside The Abbey showed a blurry figure in the background, female legs in the air. No way any camera caught her! She hadn’t remembered a flash. With her mind’s attention diverted, she hadn’t heard footfalls, but now noticed Sarah in front of the room’s window. Refocusing on the photo, no recognizable persons or features jumped out. There’d been less vestibule smoke with the door open. Still, the camera multiple steps away with the hand pointing the lens, judging by the picture produced, extremely unsteady.
Melissa peered past the paper’s top edge and her toes protruding upwards under the bed’s top sheet. She grimaced as a familiar face appeared at the hospital room door, a microphone held alongside his right leg. Sarah scowled at Joseph Penny, local TV anchor. Melissa’s right hand imitated a movie director’s “cut” signal as a plea for Sarah to stay calm. Sarah and ex-boyfriend Joseph hadn’t spoken civilly in Melissa’s presence since their relationship ended. Sarah denied she’d struck Joseph with household objects citing rusty softball pitching skills as proof. Melissa knew he’d married. Sarah pivoted toward the window.
“Mr. Penny, to what do we owe this honor?” After Penny’s two steps forward, Alice slipped behind him and stood back-to-back with Sarah.
“If you’re up to it, wanted to know what you remember about Friday night’s Abbey fire.” Metal clicking, toolbox latch perhaps, sounded in hallway.
“As you can see, I’m in no condition to agree to any on-camera interview. If that’s your cameraman messing in the hallway, better tell him he needs to leave. There’s really not much I can tell you.” She coughed. Her gaze to the right determined that a motionless Sarah still faced the room’s window. Alice nestled both her casted and uninjured arms inside her sling.
Penny handed the microphone through the room’s door to hallway individual unseen. “Can appreciate you’ve been through an ordeal and won’t stay long. Could you give me an inkling of what you observed Friday night?”
Alice placed a fluffed pillow behind Melissa when Melissa hunched shoulders forward. “Heard an explosion. Felt the heat of a blast. Found myself outside The Abbey on a gurney destined for a fast ride to this hard hospital bed. There were intermediate stops to be questioned, probed, and needles inserted into lower arm veins. Didn’t pass go. Didn’t collect two hundred dollars. Far as I know, there’s no community chest card in the game of Monopoly that reads you’ve been hurt, stay in the hospital, be on TV.”
“Good night, ladies,” Penny said before a retreat to depart.
“Jerk,” Sarah said softly.
“Hey, you two.” Melissa rustled the Sunday paper. “Need photo help.”
After page two passed around, Sarah gazed at Melissa. “I might know one or two guys that could be.”
Two
Five days after the fire, an overcast gloomy Wednesday, Rob, senior Boulder Isle Planning and Zoning Commission staffer, rewound a hundred-foot metallic tape measure. By nine a.m., he’d already completed half the mayor’s assigned task to sketch The Abbey site in preparation for rezoning. He paused when a late-model Chrysler 300 disturbed concentration and parked across the street. A pair of shapely feminine legs swiveled out of the opened driver’s door and strode in his direction.
“Carol, what brings you out here?” He hadn’t expected a Malone—at least not one foolish enough to walk through ashes wearing a cocktail dress puffed out by petticoats and open-toed sling-backs.
“Should ask you the same.” She glanced at a glistening dewdrop on a toe.
“Partly reminiscing,” Rob replied. While partially true, he couldn’t admit his boss’s directive. “Read this morning where old-timers recounted number of family generations baptized, confirmed, and/or married in The Abbey’s Sacred Heart Chapel. Perhaps you recall Nancy and I were married in the chapel.”
“Vaguely, but me, too.” Left hand swiped stray brunette hair off her forehead. “Nancy impressed me as a good person. Its been what, how long since she disappeared?”
“Five years.” He rubbed his wrist. Boorish to mention he pondered dating Melissa after Nancy’s disappearance. Although he never found the courage to approach Melissa, he once mentioned possibility to a friend. “You’re going to need to watch your step with those shoes.”
“You’re right.” She smiled. “Decided at the last minute to stop, expect questions at today’s women’s luncheon.”
Rob fully understood Carol and Melissa traveled in higher social circles. Without being deluded the rich and powerful considered him an equal, he attended, in his city position, lavish community functions. The bluebloods and self-made elite only consulted him when useful for pet building projects.
“Other than memories, you must have another reason for being here.” Her piercing eyes probed with an underlying skeptic force.
“Mayor asked me to inspect site after fire chief reported cooled debris.”
“That’s strange, but plausible, I guess.”
He needed to shift the conversation off his duties. “My best wishes for both your sister and dad. The paper carried a nice story about him.”
“Thanks. Rebuilding The Abbey would be Dad’s best medicine. Shortly, hope to have two options for his consideration.”
Rob fidgeted; extracted measuring tape and let it snap. He didn’t wish to antagonize Carol nor have created ire upset her injured father. Aleck Malone’s donation, he had seen, topped the mayor’s 2009 campaign contributor list. “I’m not saying it’s impossible, but...” He rubbed a wrist. Could he excuse himself after he’d almost committed himself to a contrary position?
Carol’s right forefinger and thumb at her bodice’s center tugged upward. “There’s insurance and the fund-raiser treasurer protected the gala receipts. Adding future Abbey friend contributions and community fund-raisers will cause The Abbey to parallel the fabled Phoenix rise from the ashes.”
Rob gazed away as Carol slid hand across neck and under dress at the shoulder. Counted silently to ten and faced her. “You have to consider that it’s likely the fire will be ruled arson. Many people will object to your family receiving the multiple building and zoning variances that permitted The Abbey to exist as and where it did.” Carol shook head no. He continued, “Governed by impartiality and existing zoning interpretations, can’t conceive