Gunnar In The Carrels

A Note to Readers:

Welcome to what I am calling Season 2 of Gunnar In The Carrels. Anyone who hasn't read Parts 1 through 10 (what I am now going to call Season 1), relax! You are officially absolved. But don't let that stop you if you feel inclined as it will certainly help your understanding of events.

What you are reading is the first draft of a potential novelette? novel? written on the fly. Events and timelines are going to shift around as they find their natural level. Go with it.

Most of all, thanks for reading and feel free to comment.

S02 P01
S02 P02
S02 P03
S02 P04
S02 P05

Part 6

Elsa pulled the goggles over the leather helmet, flung one end of the scarf across a shoulder and drawled, "Relax, doll, I’ve landed this baby a thousand times."

Ginger, already collapsed on the floor and limp with laughter, simultaneously burst into giggles and tears. Again.

“I’m liking the laughs, but fewer tears would be ideal.”

“Sorry. Sorry, I can’t help it. It’s all coming out at once.”

They were digging through a stack of old boxes they’d found at the back of the basement closet. The box Elsa had just opened contained what must have been an assortment of old costumes.

“Ooh,” she breathed, pulling a creamy white feather boa out of a plastic bag. “This has you written all over it.”

“Not me,” said Ginger. “I’m vegan.”

“Well you don’t have to eat it. Just try it on.” Elsa extended the boa to Ginger but her fingers continued caressing the silky feathers.

“You have it. It would look great with your dark hair.”

“Really? No, I couldn’t take it.” But her eyes lit up and she moved in front of the full length mirror kept in Lily’s sewing corner. She cuddled the feathers up close to her chin and softly sang, "Hold me close and hold me fast, the magic spell you cast…”

She wasn’t really surprised when Ginger's reflection, now wearing a sombrero and gently shaking a pair of maracas with one hand, joined hers in the mirror on the line ‘This is la vie en r-o-se.’ It had been like this all afternoon. The phrase ‘fast friends’ floated through her mind and she wondered what it meant, exactly.

Ginger had opened a bottle of very good pinot noir that she said Lily stocked in the basement the way other people stock disaster supplies. That was when Elsa decided to let Ron know she wouldn’t be home for supper.

Instead, she’d suggested they have pizza delivered. Ginger didn’t look like she ate enough and Elsa had just seen her weeping on the greenhouse floor beside the first empty bottle of wine. She was starting to realize, however, that Ginger was just like that. She wore her emotions on her sequined sleeve and then some.

The doorbell rang and Ginger sprinted up the stairs, still wearing the sombrero. Elsa imagined the surprised look on Bobby Fisher’s face when she opened the door in the hat. Bobby did deliveries for his dad’s pizza shop on the weekends.

“He’ll probably be so stoned he’ll think he’s imagining it,” she said out loud and then she hiccuped mid-giggle. Was she tipsy too? It was likely a good thing Ron was coming to get her later.

Ginger bounded back down the stairs with two pizza boxes, kicked a place clear of clothes on the floor and sank down, opening the top box. She looked expectantly at Elsa, who was wondering if she was still able to sit on the floor.

Nothing ventured, she thought, and slid down a wall to sit near Ginger.

The whole afternoon felt like a childhood sleepover. With wine. Ginger had shared her complicated feelings about inheriting her grandmother’s property and how overwhelmed she was by the idea of sorting through all the memories it contained. Not to mention figuring out what to do with all of it.

Elsa had promptly offered her services as someone who was not only good at organizing, but took a bizarre pleasure in it. Even if it was other people’s stuff. Especially if it was other people’s stuff. She asked Ginger if there was anything that she knew she was going to get rid of and Ginger said she thought maybe there were some old coats in the basement that could be donated somewhere. And they had begun.

But they couldn’t resist trying on some of the old fashions that seemed to be moving further back in time as they moved further back in the closet. Each time Elsa tried on a hat or a prop, she felt compelled to try out a line or a snatch of song, and soon she had Ginger shrieking in hysterics as she pretended to be an elderly lady mistaking her fur stole for a cat. Oh yeah, she thought clearly at one point, I used to be funny.

Sitting across from Ginger now, her back against the wall and her legs stretched out in front of her, Elsa looked at her stockinged toes and said sadly, ”I have to tell you what happened.”

“What?” Ginger looked confused.

“With me. What happened with me that makes the other women around here avoid me.”

“No you don’t.”

“I don’t what?”

“Have to tell me. It’s your own business and I don’t need to know. But you can tell me if you want to.”

This was a new idea for Elsa. That she didn’t have to tell the new people she met about that time in her life. That someone could know her and like her without wanting to know about her past.

“Yeah, okay. Maybe I’ll tell you later.”

“Good,” said Ginger. “Because I need you tell me about the library.”

“The library? Why?” Elsa went regularly to the library with her boys, but couldn’t imagine a vibrant person like Ginger spending time there.

“Because I’m a librarian. I start work there next week. I just went to the retirement party for someone named Barbara. She said people were going to eat me alive.”

“At the library? You’re a librarian?” Elsa was having a difficult time reconciling the sparkly t-shirt and personality with the seemingly sedate career.

“Mmhmm. I start on Wednesday.”

“So, what do you want to know about it?”

Ginger laughed. “Who’s going to eat me alive, Elsa? That’s what I want to know!”

“I can’t imagine what she was talking about. That’s Barbara Harris, who’s retiring. She’s worked there as long as I can remember. I was scared of her when I was little. For a long time, if you made too much noise she’d slap you on the head.”

“Can I still do that, do you think?”

“No way. Try touching one of my boys and they’ll read you the riot act. I held Adam by the arm yesterday to make him listen to me and he told me I’d be hearing from his lawyers. Plural.”

“Do you like being a mother?” Ginger felt shy asking this. Women her age that were also mothers sometimes adopted a superior tone when they talked to her about mothering.

“I haven’t had a chance to be much else,” Elsa laughed. “Pregnant at eighteen with my high school boyfriend. Ron and I got married and then I lived at home with Danny, our oldest, while he went to Ag School. His parents gave us the old farmhouse and right after the three of us moved in, whoops, I was pregnant again.”

“Wow. Was that hard?”

“No, not really. Those first years were fun. I liked the boys when they were sweet babies instead of stinky cyclones of destruction. We revived the old vegetable garden together and decorated the house, bit by bit. And Ron - he really is the sweetest man. But - “ Elsa swallowed and shifted side to side. Her buttocks were growing numb on the hard floor.

“But…” Ginger prompted.

Elsa sighed heavily, looked at the crumpled napkin in her hands, and decided she wanted to share her story with this marvellously open woman.

“One year, when the all boys were finally out of diapers, we needed a little extra money to cover the new car we’d had to buy when our old one died. Not new - but new to us. And I was desperate to get out of the house and talk to grown ups again, so I decided to get a job.”

Elsa hesitated and then looked up to meet Ginger’s eyes. “Please don’t hate me if I tell you this.”

“I could never hate you, Elsa. You’re already my favourite person here.”

The compliment warmed Elsa even as it made her more nervous. “I took a temporary position working for David Larsson’s mayoral campaign. This was about five years ago. Do you know who he is?”

Ginger nodded. She had seen pictures of Mayor David Larsson in The Anneville Transcript, the small local paper that was still delivered to her mailbox weekly. Lily must have had a subscription. The man in the photos was strikingly handsome with thick gray hair and a fashionably lean physique. But there was something about his smile, or more specifically, his teeth which showed up blindingly white in the black and white newspaper photos.

Vulpine was the word that had come to mind.

Elsa tried crossing her legs to sit as they used to in kindergarten, and found that she could, but that it wasn’t a good idea while wearing a skirt. Ginger noticed her discomfort and, sensing a long story coming on, suggested they move to the sofa. With a stack of pillows behind each of their backs, they faced each other from either end, picked up their wine glasses and resumed the story.

“At first,” Elsa said, “it seemed like he was talking to all of us - all of the temps that were working the phones. David would show up at the campaign office and spend time talking to all of us, thanking us and asking what we thought of how things were going. He was charming and funny and...well...you’ve seen what he looks like?”

Ginger nodded.

“I was so happy to be working. So happy to be out of the house and away from poop and spit up and leaking boobs. Happy to be away from trucks and tractors. I like to dress up, you know?” She waved a hand at her outfit. “I like to look nice. One day, he asked me to stay late to help him go over a speech. I was surprised because I don’t know anything about speeches, but he said I had good instincts. So I did.”

Elsa sighed heavily and now it was her turn to feel tears begin to trickle from her eyes. Ginger made a sympathetic murmur, got up and returned with a clean handkerchief. Even through tears, Elsa had to chuckle at the difference from her household’s jumbo sized boxes of paper tissues she provisioned each week.

“At first it was nice. I thought maybe he might want to hire me full time if he was elected. I stayed late and retyped the changes to his speeches as he wrote them and we talked about what sounded best. Then we started going for dinner, but it seemed like it was only because we had to eat and keep working. And then, one night, as he walked me out to the car to make sure I was safe, he said, then - he kissed me.”

“Did you like it?” Ginger asked. It was the first time anyone besides Ron had asked her this.

“Yeah,” Elsa said, surprised to find herself smiling. “I did. Ron is the only man - the only other man that I’ve ever done anything with. It was just nice to feel something different - new.”

Ginger nodded in understanding, giving Elsa the courage to go on.

“One weekend, he asked if I would come to his place for a work bee, he called it. Some of the other temps were coming and we were going to stuff envelopes and have a pool party as a bit of a reward. But when I showed up, it was just me. He had a big pitcher of margaritas and we talked about work and then he kissed me again...and then he was touching me and I didn’t know how to say no and I was scared…”

“You were scared of David Larsson?”

“Not like that - just scared that if I said no, he would get mad, which he did everytime I tried to stop - but I was scared to lose it all. Scared that if I didn’t...then I’d get fired. Or laid off. And I needed the time away from home so badly and part of me...part of me was flattered that a man like him wanted a big, round thing like me.”

The tears flowed freely now and Ginger reached over and placed her hand on Elsa’s arm, eyes full of concern and understanding. “You are not big,” she said emphatically. “You are crazy sexy curvy. No wonder he went after you.”

Elsa smiled in gratitude and more tears flooded her eyes at Ginger’s unexpected kindness. Elsa thought her own actions were unforgivable.

“So, yeah, that happened, and then it happened a few more times and each time, I wanted to say ‘That’s it. No more.’ But I didn’t. I wasn’t even enjoying it anymore. I had even started to look for another job to get myself out of it. And then, one day he asked me to drive with him over to an event he had in Maysville. Do you know where that is?”

Ginger nodded.

“He stopped on a side road on the way there and we...and I felt awful, watching him deliver a speech about integrity and honesty to a group of seniors with me there still smelling like...so I told him, on the walk out to the car, that that was it. That what we were doing was wrong and didn’t he feel hypocritical with the speech he’d just given.

“It was stupid of me not to wait until we were back in Anneville. I just didn’t expect that he would freak the way he did. He started yelling, there in the parking lot of the retirement home. He said who was I to judge and what did I know about his life. He said I was hung up on old ways of thinking and should do more to educate myself. He said that was the problem with farmers, they refused to catch up with the rest of the world.

“And then he left me there and drove away. I had to go back inside the home to use the phone and the windows were open to the terrace, they’d all heard. And seen. Lots of people’s parents are in that home.

“I called Ron and asked him to come get me. He wanted to know why I was there but I said I’d tell him later and when he picked me up, on the way back to get the car, I told him everything. All of it.

“I broke his heart,” Elsa’s voice trailed off in a thin quaver and she wiped her eyes.

Ginger leaned forward and rubbed Elsa’s arm again. “Was it Ron that you called earlier?”

Elsa nodded. “Yeah, we worked things out. He was really hurt but he forgave me, I think. He’s the sweetest man. He really is such a nice guy, it’s unbelievable.” Then she laughed suddenly.

“I had to stop him from digging out his old hunting rifle, though. He really hates David Larsson.”

“I don’t blame him. Or you.” Ginger made sure she was making eye contact with Elsa now. “I’m not saying that you didn’t make a choice, but David Larsson sounds like a predator to me. I bet he does this a lot.”

“He does. I’ve seen him out with other temps.”

“Is he married?”

“Yes! He’s got two kids our age, if you can believe it. Ingrid and Gunnar. I don’t really know them, though. They were sent away to school, I think. Too fancy for the ones around here.”

“Gunner?”

“Goo-nah,” Elsa pronounced it phonetically, “in the old Swedish way, but most people around here say it like you did.”

“But his name is David?”

“Yeah, I think he and Connie, his wife, chose uber-Swedish names for their kids because of the cool factor. To emphasize their roots.”

“Huh.”

It was at that point that there was a knock on the door and both women jumped guiltily, sloshing wine over themselves and the couch.

“I bet that’s Ron.” Elsa checked her watch, “Yeah, that’s probably Ron.”

“I can’t wait to meet this really nice guy,” said Ginger as they trailed up the stairs, slowly this time, together.

Ginger swung wide the front door as Elsa glanced out the window and confirmed it was Ron’s pick up parked in the drive.

She was just wondering what was smeared all over the pickup’s black paint when she heard Ginger gasp and cry out,”Oh god. What happened to you?”