The Seventh Direction

PART THREE: Stalking Violet. Chapter 11 (part 2)

___Trudy

"Dorothy. Dorothy . . . "

"Mmm . . . Crabtree?!"

"That's me!"

"Geez, Crabtree, you startled me!" Crabtree was all in a tizzy. "I was meditating, and just when it was starting to get good, real good, I get a face-full of cold wind and Nursing Home brick, and, well, all right, all right, I'm here now. What is it?"

"I think I'm going nuts," she said. "You've got to tell me more about the bathroom."

"The portal in there?" Oops! Maybe I shouldn't have said that.

"I checked," she said. "Couldn't find it again."

"That's probably a good thing," I said. I could just imagine her in there sniffing around, flushing the toilet, growing frantic, nothing happening.

"But I need to find it!" Frantic.

"Why?"

She calmed: "I've got unfinished business to tend to."

I'm sure you do. So do I: "I think it was only temporary. Sometimes that's the way it is." The anomaly of the portal even being there and the fact that she had met Master J' didn't seem to faze her! I'm sure it would soon catch up with her, though. (Probably.) Probably, though, she wouldn't mention it to anyone. I wouldn't if I was her. Who would believe me? Her? Either of us?

"Oh," she said, obviously disappointed.

"Any other reason you woke me up?"

"I couldn't hear you breathing?"

"Really?"

"Really. But mostly the reason I woke you, I admit, was the bathroom thing. Sorry."

Poor Tree. But she wasn't getting off that easy. I told her some stuff about Master J'—and what not more. And thinking she would never say anything to anybody, I even told her that Jay and I had found out we were characters in a story. Her too! "Well," I said, "if there's nothing else, I've got work to do."

On her way out she said, "I might be able to believe what's going on with you and your Master . . . but that we're characters in a book? Me and you? That's nuts." She smiled: "Nice try, though. Bye." The door whined a squeaky one—odd, that was a first. Closed behind her.

Strange lady, I thought. Probably she was thinking the same of me. Predictably she bursts back in. Maybe I should look into a revolving door. "What kind of work?" she says. Sits down. I looked at my non-existent watch. At her.

"I've got time," she said. "Patient . . . I mean, client relations? That's totally part of my job. You should get your clock fixed."

"Mm-hmm," I said, grabbing my chin. Thinking.

She brushed out her lap. Patted her hair. Boldly looked me straight in the eye, and said: "Well?"

What an eager beaver. 'May I call you Tree?' Good, old Dorothy (still here, still as bold as ever) matched her up.

"Sure. You know, just don't call me late for dinner."

Or for strip poker, I thought, not sure I wanted to get into this. "What do other people call you?"

"Trudy."