When We Were Friends by Elizabeth Arnold Page B

in Mill Creek. She’s more of a B&B, gets folks who spend the night before river running. Don’t know how she’d feel about thekid, but no harm in asking.” She tore a page off her order pad, flipped it over and drew a little map. “Take the highway ten, fifteen miles and you’ll see the turnoff for Livingston. Her house is on the left; you tell her I said hi and that I sent you, okay?”
    “I will, thanks,” I said. “Sounds perfect.”
    The B&B was near the top of a steep, windy road that had me worrying about deer and my transmission. It was a colonial style house, painted yellow with red shutters, a wheelbarrow on the lawn holding flowerpots, a stone rabbit and, weirdly, a hubcap on a stick. As well as a sign reading THE BUNNY HOUSE , which I raised my eyebrows at, then shrugged. The Bunny House it was. I knelt by the stone rabbit with Molly. “Bunny!” I said softly. “Look, it’s a bunny rabbit.” I guided her hand to touch the stone ears, nose, mouth, naming them each. And she patted the bunny with her fingers spread, like she was trying to console it.
    At the front door I rang the bell, smiling widely at Molly, willing her to stay chipper and undisruptive, B&B-worthy. She complied by grabbing the ends of my hair, and sticking them in her mouth.
    The woman who answered had large breasts drooping to her larger belly, making her profile seem oddly triangular. She peered out at me from under her wet-mop–colored bangs. “Yes?”
    “Hi,” I said, then stopped, suddenly too exhausted to go on. No energy to talk to someone new, form words, force an expression any more animated than catatonia. “Rooms,” I said finally. “Do you have any? Or know where I could find one?”
    The woman smiled then, and wiped her hands on her loose cotton skirt before holding one out to me. “Muriel Burns, pleased to meet you and yeah, I have rooms. Usually only book up on weekends.”
    I took her hand. Should I give my real name? Why hadn’t I thought of this before? My brain was too paralyzed to think up anything on the spot. I opened my mouth, and out came something that sounded like
Laaayoahhh
.
    “Leah?” she said. “Welcome.”
    Leah, a soap opera name, not a vixen like Alexis or Erika with a k,but the girl-next-door with dimples and a ready smile, who would probably work as a nurse before falling into a coma and then dying a tragic death. It would do.
    Muriel stepped back and waved me into a small entryway with doors on each side, and a steep, carpeted staircase. The bunnies were everywhere: on the reception desk, knee-high statues guarding the door, in paintings and sketched on the faded wool rug. “So welcome!” She bent to smile at Molly. “You have teeth yet? Oh yeah, you do! Little Tic-Tac teeth.” She smiled at me. “Your husband here?”
    “Um, no.” Exhausted again. Too exhausted to lie, so I left it at that.
    Muriel shrugged. “Well then. Small room’s ninety a night and the big room’s one-ten, both including full breakfast. How long you staying?”
    “I … don’t know yet.” I thought of packing up tomorrow morning and getting back on the road. The idea made me want to kill myself. “Probably just tonight, but could I let you know tomorrow?”
    “Guess that’ll work. Come on up and I’ll show you the rooms.” She started up the stairs and I followed behind with Molly, into a room papered in pale green with a four-poster bed, an armchair in one corner and sink in the other. “Here’s the smaller room,” Muriel said. “Bathroom’s shared, out in the hall.”
    “It’s perfect,” I said. At that point a rat-infested subway tunnel would’ve seemed perfect, as long as it had a bed.
    “I don’t have a crib, though. You got something for her to sleep on?”
    “She hasn’t had any problem napping in her car seat carrier, so she’ll be fine.” So far Molly seemed like the un-fussiest baby on the planet. Was that a natural sunny predisposition, or something to worry about? Maybe