Recalculating
I don't imagine I'll have any trouble finding a buyer for this place, Tina Lowry thought as she walked through the rooms of her two-hundred-year-old, two-story Georgian home on scenic Atlantic Avenue, making sure they were all presentable. It's a beautiful old house.
Only when she was satisfied her home looked its best did she grab her handbag off the kitchen counter, walk out onto the front stoop and lock the door behind her.
As she backed her late-model Mercedes down the driveway, the homeowner did not turn her head and look back. Nor did she glance into the rearview mirror for one last glimpse of the house.
The move marked a major turning point in her life; one chapter was coming to an end and a new one was about to begin. Rather than succumb to tears and maudlin musings, she chose to hold her head high and keep her eyes firmly on the road ahead—both figuratively and literally.
On her way out of town, Tina stopped at the Sunoco gas station that was located opposite the entrance ramp to the interstate and pulled up to the full-service pump. A skinny teenager with freckles, short-cropped red hair and wire-framed glasses came to her window.
"Can I help you, Ma'am?" he asked politely.
"Fill it up with premium, please," she instructed him.
While the young man pumped unleaded gas into her tank, Tina turned on her Garmin Nüvi and typed in the address of a Manhattan real estate agent who was to assist her in her search for an apartment in the city. The estimated time of arrival, according to the navigator, would be in four and a half hours time, but she figured there would be at least an additional hour due to traffic. Still, if luck was with her, she would get to New York in plenty of time for her three o'clock meeting with the realtor.
Once on the interstate, Tina put her foot down on the accelerator, anxious to get to her destination as soon as possible. As the Mercedes sped past the highway's green mile markers, the driver felt no sentimental tug at her heart strings, even though she was leaving Puritan Falls forever.
A mere ten minutes after merging onto the interstate, she saw the brake lights of the cars ahead of her.
"Damn it!" she swore aloud. "I was hoping I wouldn't encounter traffic until I got to Boston."
Annoyed by the unavoidable delay, she slowed her Mercedes to a crawl and then came to a complete stop. In the next hour, she managed to move up only a mile.
At this rate, I'm sure to be late for my meeting in New York, she thought.
The impatient driver craned her head out the window and saw several cars riding along the shoulder toward the next exit. Hoping these drivers knew a quicker route, she put on her right turn signal and followed them.
As the Mercedes made its way down the exit ramp, the robot-like female voice on her navigator announced, "Recalculating. Drive point three miles and keep left."
Tina knew from experience that, unless programmed to take a detour, the Garmin would keep trying to send her back onto the traffic-clogged interstate; so a block away from the exit ramp, she pulled into a Burger King parking lot and instructed the navigator to find an alternate route. When it did, she was dismayed to see the ETA go up by more than an hour and a half. It was a bitter disappointment, but no doubt the heavy traffic on the interstate would have added double that time to her trip.
As though being forced to travel along a two-lane state highway at approximately forty miles an hour was not bad enough, Tina also had to stop at least every quarter-mile for a traffic light—more often than not a red one. When the navigator told her to turn right, she quickly scanned the onscreen map to make sure the robotic voice was not misdirecting her. The thick magenta line, indicating the route she was to take, confirmed the need to turn right.
"Drive south on Vestigia Drive for twenty-two miles."
Unlike the state route she had just left behind, the local road had only a single lane in each direction. Furthermore, the posted speed limit went down to thirty-five miles an hour. Thankfully, there were no cars ahead of her and no traffic signals as far as she could see. Trusting her navigator to eventually get her to New York, she continued straight along the country road.
The strip malls, fast food franchises and large nationally known big box stores that had lined the state route did not extend to Vestigia Drive. Instead, there were a handful of scattered mom-and-pop businesses, not unlike those found in Puritan Falls. Chuck's Hardware Store and Katie's Beauty Salon were on the left. On the right were the Family Pharmacy, Sal's Meat Market and Mama's Luncheonette, which proudly advertised the day's lunch special: Mama's homemade meatloaf with mashed potatoes, green beans and creamed onions.
In less than a mile, even the small shops vanished, and Tina found herself in a sparsely populated residential area, where the speed limit dropped to thirty. Ten minutes later, however, she passed the last of the houses, and the posted speed limit went up to fifty.
"That's more like it," she declared, once again fairly optimistic that she would make her meeting on time. "Thank God for navigators! I would never have found this route on my own."
Suddenly, the Nüvi's mechanical voice announced, "Recalculating."
"What the ...? You didn't tell me to turn," she exclaimed, foolishly yelling at the electronic device on her dashboard. "There aren't even any turns around here. This is a straight road."
"Recalculating."
The straight magenta line of the onscreen map indicated no turns were required. Something was obviously wrong with the audio on her navigator. It was time to silence the voice, she concluded, reaching for the volume button.
"Recalculating."
The Nüvi's screen turned black.
This just isn't my day!
Had she turned the power off by accident? Tina did not think so. The volume button was on the side of the screen while the power switch was on the top.
Had the power adaptor come out of her cigarette lighter? No.
It must be broken. Great! I'm in the middle of nowhere, and I have to be in New York in less than six hours' time. Or maybe ....
Her outlook suddenly brightened.
Maybe it's just a temporary glitch. The navigator might be having difficulty communicating with its satellite, like when a television station loses its reception during a storm.
"Recalculating."
That must be it! The voice is still working. The navigator is probably just trying to acquire a signal.
"Recalculating," the voice repeated once again.
Tina's attention was suddenly drawn to a swiftly moving dense fog that seemed to engulf the road ahead of her. She slammed her foot on the brake pedal and drastically slowed the Mercedes as she entered the wall of white mist. Her heart raced as she peered through the windshield, trying to see beyond the hood of her car.
Please don't let there be anything in the road ahead of me!
Although not a religious person, she prayed her car would not slam into another vehicle, veer off into a ditch or crash into a tree or utility pole.
As suddenly as it had appeared, the fog vanished. Having made it through unscathed, Tina breathed a sigh of relief.
"Recalculating."
There was a flicker of light on the dashboard, and the navigator screen lit up again. The map and its thick magenta line were back.
It must have been the fog, she reasoned.
Tina turned a bend and saw a house on the right hand side of the road. It was the first dwelling she came across since the speed limit had increased.
There's something familiar about that house, she thought with a frown as she searched the little visited part of her brain that housed her memories.
As the Mercedes continued travelling down Vestigia Drive, old family photographs flashed in its driver's mind.
She recalled her mother's voice saying, "This is the house where you were born. It's gone now. The town needed the land to build a new school, so they bought us out and tore it down."
Tina shook her head. It was clearly not her parents' old home. It was nothing more than a Cape Cod house with Shaker shingles and red shutters. There were probably hundreds, if not thousands, of similar homes in New England.
No doubt she would have forgotten all about the house as well as the associated childhood memory had not another building appeared on the horizon. There was no need for Tina to search her brain for a photograph of the green bi-level. It was a sight she knew as well as she knew the reflection of her own face in the mirror.
"It's impossible!" she exclaimed after pulling the Mercedes onto the shoulder of the road for a closer look.
There was no denying the obvious, however. Her mother's wisteria tree stood in the circular garden on the front lawn and the crabapple tree was on the left side of the driveway. Her father's old Ford Galaxy was parked in the driveway in front of the garage, and the woodshop he had built for his workbench and power tools was located in the back yard.
Tina knew with certainty that it was the past and not the present she was seeing.
Forty years ago, my parents sold this house after they retired and moved to Pennsylvania. The new owners cut down both the wisteria bush and the crabapple tree, and they let the shed fall to ruin. And the Galaxy ... Hell, Dad traded that in for a Crown Victoria while I was still living at home.
Her amazement and curiosity were mingled with no small amount of fear.
Am I dead? she wondered. Is that why my life is flashing before my eyes? Rather than going through the fabled tunnel, did I enter the hereafter through a wall of fog?
Tina's trembling hand reached for the driver's door handle; it would not open, neither would the door on the passenger side.
Whatever this strange phenomenon is, apparently I'm allowed to look but not touch.
And look she did! Although she had not thought about the house where she grew up for many years, her eyes now hungrily took in every inch of its exterior. Eventually, her gaze settled on her bedroom window, located above the garage. She could not see inside, but she did not need to; she knew the walls were painted blue. With her mind's eye she pictured the French provincial canopy bed, the one she had taken with her when she got married.
Tina was so deep in thoughts of the past that she was startled when the navigator's "Recalculating" broke the eerie silence.
"What am I doing wasting time? I've got to get to New York," she announced, her mind racing forward to the present.
Continuing her journey, Tina thought about the years she had spent in that green bi-level. All she had wanted out of life then was to fall in love, marry and have children.
What a naïve little fool I was. It was like I was living in a fairy tale with no concept of what the real world was all about.
"Recalculating."
God, I'm beginning to hate that voice!
Meanwhile, up ahead the road veered to the left and another building appeared.
I must be dead! Either that or this is some bizarre dream, and I only think I'm awake.
The two-family Victorian house belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Bixler, an elderly couple whose four children were grown and living on their own. The Bixlers lived on the bottom story of the house and rented the top floor out to a newlywed couple: Tina Lowry and her husband, Evan.
Again, the young woman from Puritan Falls pulled her Mercedes onto the shoulder of the road, and as before she was unable to open the car doors. She was trapped inside her vehicle, only able to view the past through its windows.
Did the Bixlers' house always look so shabby? she wondered.
Apparently it had. The paint was chipped, one of the shutters was hanging slightly askew and the roof needed repairing. The lawn was overgrown with weeds in some areas, and in others there were empty patches where no grass grew. Yet to the young bride who lived on the second floor, the place was home ... her home. It was where she cooked her first meal as Evan's wife, where she sewed her first pair of kitchen curtains and where she shared that old French provincial canopy bed with her husband.
It was also where she came to understand the importance of money; for without it, she discovered, she would never achieve her dream of becoming a mother. There was simply no way three people could live on Evan's income. He hardly made enough money to support himself.
Tina's own career had begun with a part-time job in a bakery, located a quarter of a mile down the street from the Bixlers' house. The pay was minimum wage, but the baker taught his young helper everything he knew about cakes and pastry. When put to the test, the girl discovered she had a knack for baking and cake decorating, and soon her talent exceeded that of her teacher. Thus, two years after Tina first put on the white apron bearing the shop's logo, the baker offered her a promotion.
"I'm going to make you assistant baker," he announced magnanimously. "And I will give you a raise of fifty cents an hour."
Two years earlier Tina would have been delighted at the raise and honored by the title, but now she believed she was worth a great deal more than that. In fact, given her skill, she ought to be the head baker. Her employer was taken aback when, rather than accept what he considered a generous offer, his assistant resigned.
"What do you mean you quit?" he asked with disbelief.
"I want to work for myself," she replied.
"You can't open your own shop! You don't have the money. It took me years to save up for this bakery, and still I could only afford it after I mortgaged my house."
"I don't need a shop yet. I'll start small, and then someday ... well, we'll see what happens."
True to her word, the young baker did start small—baking cakes and pastries in her apartment kitchen—but with persistence, talent and a keen business sense she never knew she possessed, her cake business grew.
Snap out of it! Tina told herself after noticing the clock on the Mercedes' dashboard. Good God! It's after eleven already. I'll never make the meeting on time! How long have I been parked at the side of the road, lost in daydreams of the past?
She reached into her purse for her cell phone, annoyed but not the least bit surprised to discover that she had no reception.
"I keep forgetting I'm not in Kansas anymore," she said, tossing the iPhone onto the passenger seat.
Hell, for all I know, I'm not even on Earth anymore!
* * *
Wisps of vapor, not nearly as dense as the fog she had passed through earlier, hung in the air. According to her navigator, Tina would come to the end of Vestigia Drive in nine miles—that is, if her navigator was functioning properly, which she seriously doubted. When she passed through the last of the misty cloud, she noticed the sky was getting darker.
So much for the weather forecast that predicted sunshine!
"Recalculating."
Tina had heard the Nüvi's robotic voice utter that same word so often since leaving the interstate that she no longer paid attention to it. Hence, it did not occur to her that it was a harbinger of another episode from her past.
This time it was not a house; it was a commercial building on Essex Street in Puritan Falls.
My first bakery!
It was a small building, nowhere near large enough to contain her growing business. Customers often had to line up outside, especially around the holidays. Still, it had been all her own. She was the boss, the creative force behind its success. In the sixteen years that she and Evan leased the site, Tina managed to become one of the most successful bakers in New England.
After authoring five bestselling cookbooks and winning several Food Network competitions, she was about to begin filming her own television show. With luck, her name would become as well-known in the cake world as that of Duff Goldman and Buddy Valastro.
While Tina had come a long way in pursuit of a career, the elderly baker who taught her the craft did not live to see her success. He died shortly after she opened the Essex Street shop and put his bakery out of business. A twinge of guilt she had kept buried in her mind since learning of his death tried to surface, and she quickly fought it down.
"I have no time for these memories," she declared. "I'm supposed to meet with the real estate agent. I need to begin filming the first episode of my TV show next week, and I need to find a place to live."
Even as she drove away from the bakery, she knew there was one more building that played a major role in her past: the two-story Georgian home on Atlantic Avenue that she had left early that morning, the house she and Evan had intended to be their dream home. They had wanted to raise a family in that house, to grow old together beneath its slate roof. Now they were getting a divorce, and the house was listed with Jacqueline Astor, the Puritan Falls real estate agent.
A mile up the road, just as Tina had anticipated, was the Atlantic Avenue house. What she had not expected to see was Evan and his brother carrying furniture over the threshold. Neither her soon-to-be ex-husband nor his brother moved. They were nothing more than images frozen in time, as motionless as statues. The smile she loved so much was a permanent part of Evan's handsome face as was the unruly lock of dark hair that fell down over his left eye.
This was the past at its brightest, the time when Tina and Evan were at their happiest. But their dreams had long since changed, or rather Tina's dreams grew bigger while Evan's remained the same.
"At least my dream is coming true," she said, turning away from the sight of her husband's smiling face. "Once my television show is a success, I'll have everything I've worked for."
With renewed determination, Tina put the past behind her and continued south on Vestigia Drive.
The sky became darker and the wind stronger; a storm was obviously imminent.
When the hell is this road going to end?
"Recalculating."
A bolt of lightning flashed, illuminating an imposing structure up ahead. Unlike the previous buildings she had passed, it was not one Tina was familiar with. It was a cold, concrete box-like edifice with dozens of dark windows dotting its six floors.
It looks like a hospital.
She slowed to a stop and read the sign on the lawn: ASSISTED LIVING AND EXTENDED CARE FACILITY.
Another flash of lightning revealed a woman at one of the third floor windows. Her face peered out from beneath a head of unkempt white hair. The eyes stared vacantly ahead as though the brain could not comprehend the images they sent to it.
"That face ... is it? NO! It can't be!" she cried.
Tina put her foot down hard on the accelerator, kicking up gravel with her spinning tires. It no longer mattered whether she got to New York on time for the meeting or not. Her only concern was to get away from the pitiful, lonely face in the third-floor window.
Lightning flashed again, as the darkness grew and twilight turned to night. The wisps of fog returned, and Tina began to panic.
The sound of the navigator's robotic voice startled her.
"Arriving at destination on right."
Tina turned her head and screamed. There was no building at the side of the road, only the Pine Grove Cemetery.
Despite the increased pressure of her foot on the gas pedal, the Mercedes slowed and came to a stop. The engine died, and the driver's door opened of its own accord.
"Arriving at destination on right," the navigator repeated.
Beyond the gates of the cemetery, one tall monument loomed above the others. The name TINA MARIE LOWRY was engraved upon it. Despite the impressive headstone, the grave itself needed care. It was apparent from the overgrown weeds and absence of flowers that no one ever visited the dead woman who was buried there.
"Is this what lies ahead of me?" Tina sobbed. "Am I destined to die alone with no loved ones to mourn me?"
"Arriving at destination on right."
"No," the terrified baker shouted as she pulled the door shut and desperately tried to restart the car's engine.
Despite her frantic efforts, the Mercedes' motor refused to turn over. Then all four doors flew open.
"Arriving at destination on right."
Tina got out of the car, but rather than enter the cemetery, she ran down the middle of the road, not ahead where Vestigia Drive would supposedly intersect with or end at another route, but back toward the past.
As she raced along the pavement through the thickening fog, the lightning struck, first to the right and then to the left, and then to the right once more. She flew past the senior citizens home and continued running. It was only when she saw the familiar two-story Georgian home that she began to slow her pace. It was that home on Atlantic Avenue that made her feel safe even though the frozen statues of Evan and his brother were gone.
Tina ran across the lawn toward the dark, empty house, praying the front door was not locked. As her foot touched the WELCOME mat on the stoop, her hand grasped the door handle and turned. Meanwhile, overhead, a bolt of lightning lit up the sky, temporarily blinding her.
* * *
When the last echo of thunder ended in a dull rumble, Tina opened her eyes. The sky was clear and sunny, with neither a cloud nor patch of fog to be seen.
"What's going on?"
No possible explanation came to her mind.
Once again, she was seated behind the steering wheel of her late-model Mercedes, heading south on Vestigia Drive. Chuck's Hardware Store and Katie's Beauty Salon were on the left hand side of the road. On the right were the Family Pharmacy, Sal's Meat Market and Mama's Luncheonette, which still proudly advertised the day's lunch special: Mama's homemade meatloaf with mashed potatoes, green beans and creamed onions.
Tina had no idea where she had been, but she was overjoyed to be back.
She put on her left turn signal, made a U-turn in the luncheonette's parking lot and then pulled back out onto Vestigia Drive. This time, however, she headed north. She would retrace her earlier route and return to Puritan Falls where she hoped she could mend her broken marriage and put a few children in that two-story Georgian house on Atlantic Avenue.
As Tina Lowry approached the intersection with the state road, the robotic voice of the navigator announced for one last time, "Recalculating."
When I fly on my broom, I always rely on my onboard navigator: Salem.
