Button Up

By Lula Flann

Mata’s oldest ally, Bax, travels to Oregon for comfort and counsel. She believes her husband is unfaithful, although they are indisputably and uniquely suited to each other. Meanwhile, Mata’s book group parses literary themes of infidelity, diverging interests and betrayal. When inevitable change occurs in long term relationships, how do couples adapt and when ought they not? How does a partnership navigate the path forward if the change violates the wedding promises? What if murder is at the heart of the wedded wrong-doing?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lula Flann
• Release date: Jan 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9780997051926

Lula Flann

Lula Flann, a devotee of head-turning ensembles and witty women, writes Cozy-Noir from her home in Portland’s Alberta Arts District. A mad sketcher of clothing inspirations since receiving a collection of paper doll templates, Lula is drawn to patterns that make for psychologically colorful characters as well as clever wardrobe creations.Lula depends on her well-read book group to steer her to authors more contemporary than Eliot and James, Oregon’s landscape to lure her out backpacking or byway-riding and upon her fascinating wife to be ever open to the delights of loving an Enneagram 9.

Book preview

Button Up

A Mata Morrow Mystery

By Lula Flann

Copyright © 2015 by Lula Flann

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for the quotation of brief passages in reviews, without prior written permission from MmPorium Press, [e-mail]

Published by MmPorium Press.

This book is a work of fiction. While characteristics and mannerisms of friends and family have informed the author’s imagination, no real person is described in this book. If any businesses mentioned by name actually exist that is a coincidence of time and place. This book does lovingly describe Portland Oregon as seen through the author’s experience. Any inaccuracies about locations or services are there to serve the story – not to distract or detract from the actual amazing city.

Cover Design by Heidi Sutherlin / mycreativepursuits.com

ISBN: 978-0-9970519-2-6

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be distributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

For my wondrous wife

and the real Remarkables,

true loves all.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Birthday Cake Recipe

Preview: Bootstrapped

Book Discussion Questions

Acknowledgements

About Lula Flann (and Toby)

Books in the Series

Stay Connected

Chapter 1

Mata’s clenched hands bit into the steering wheel of the Toyota Prius. Snow mounded up with every painful foot of elevation gained, and she battled the vehicle as it slid from the uphill side of the logging road to the downhill edge of the narrow graveled strip. Glowering heavens rained ice, made crunchy the edge of the logging track, and turned the majestic Doug Firs encroaching from all sides into terrifying, reflective spires of snow-covered glare.

The passenger chattered on. "I remember one time when we were driving from North Carolina back to Kansas City for Thanksgiving. We had started out at night because Tilly and Beau were little and we wanted to get some miles on the road while they were still asleep. Well, I was driving and we went into a tunnel behind a snowplow - it was dead cold out, but the stars were clear. They shone like glass. It was absolutely hushed and spookily calm as we went along. Soren and I were singing some of the old Carter Family tunes, Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow, Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone. Soren's tenor always was beautiful on those songs." The speaker’s voice caught.

When we came out on the other side of that tunnel, we were in a complete white-out. I couldn’t see a thing. There wasn’t any going back into the tunnel, of course. I had the windshield wipers on full-blast, and the defroster cranked up. The car was like toast so the babies would sleep, but all of a sudden, I thought I’d suffocate. She fanned her blouse in recollection. "Thank God that snowplow was up there ahead of us, probably a car length away. I could just make out the yellow beacon at the front of the machine, with all that snow spraying up, and some of it landing on our windshield, just adding to what fell, mounding up on the hood of our car. We were creeping along. I kept saying, ‘Do you want to drive? The only thing I can see past the hood of the car is that little yellow light. I can’t see how far we are from the edge of the road. I can’t see anything.’ Kind of like now. Only dark. The wipers were going as fast as they could, and I still couldn’t see anything. I just kept on like that, driving blind.

And I told Soren over and over, because there we were, two young people, totally responsible for those sleeping infants in the back seat. I wanted him to know I was ill equipped to the task, in case he thought he could do better. I was always sure he could see better than I could. And we had the kids in the back of the car. Finally he said, ‘Bax, I can’t see any more clearly than you.’ So I shut up and drove. I prayed I wouldn’t kill us all. That worked out all right. Although I never would have believed it at the time. Bax crooked a smile at the driver. I’m sure we’ll survive, too.

Mata further tightened her grip at 4 and 6, recalling the recent radio piece she’d heard about 10 and 2 being outdated cautionary advice. With your hands at 10 and 2, when the airbag deploys, a driver’s hands are viciously forced back into the eye sockets, breaking glasses and fingers with one big bang. Or something similarly horrific.

The inexorable pull of gravity beckoned the sedan to the fall line. Tires spun again and again, setting off an automated skid alert that shrilled with an ear-piercing beeeep. Mata had realized a few miles ago, or hours ago now, that putting the pedal to the floor was the last thing they wanted. She’d nearly sent them careening off the mountainside some miles back. The dramatic descent would have spiraled them heavenward once their wheels flew from the road. Of course, she calmed herself as she reviewed the moment in memory, that particular precipice was so much tamer than what they saw now as their collective gazes shifted unwillingly to the trajectory of the car’s downhill slides.

Mata repeated the relentless refrain of nosing the car back toward the hill, all to have the cycle repeated - slide, pull, swerve, crunch, beeeep. She snuck a look at Bax out of the corner of her eye, jarred with conflicting emotions. Mata was responsible for this mess. No, Bax was the one who was having the marital crises that had led them out into this wilderness. No, it was Soren, damn him. How about the car company? Shouldn’t the rental be equipped with snow tires, chains? No. It was definitely Mata’s doing. Slide, pull, swerve, crunch, beeeep.

Bax spun more stories. Whistling in the dark. And the dark was closing in on them. They’d made the ill-conceived decision to turn left off of the West Fir covered bridge to follow the road sign directing them to Lowell (Oh! Mata was airy in her observation. If this road leads to Lowell, I can get us back to Eugene from there. I’ve never been this way - if you want a drive on back roads, this would be it.). The spring sun had shone bright as they’d left Eugene, the rhododendron in full crimson, ivory, and honey-yellow flowers.

Earlier in the week Bax had sent out an SOS for country-quiet in the quake of a marriage rumbling down around her ears. She’d flown from Kansas City to Eugene to find refuge in the home of an old-time friend from Missouri, and then she’d called Mata down from Portland for emotional reinforcement.

Casting about for a likely diversion, Mata and Bax had determined that a drive in the mountains would be balm and solace, sweet respite for the soul. Clear Bax's pathway to do the necessary.

Mata waxed momentarily philosophical. If they lived through this, she reasoned, it might put everything into perspective for Bax. Maybe she’d be willing to let Soren go in good spirit, reasoning that life was short and each person just needed to do what each person needed to do. But, thought Mata, what were the chances they would live through this? They were probably 30 or 45 minutes away from true dusk. It was hard to tell with the clouds as low as they were. The sun was nowhere to be seen. It was only getting colder, the snow getting deeper, the road stretching more uncertain with every minute.

Could things be worse? She remembered to breathe as she edged the car towards the center of what could be seen of the road. They had more than half a tank of gas. They could be responsible for babies in the back seat the way that Bax and Soren had been in the wilds of West Virginia. But those were the only improvements in circumstance that Mata could see. Mata and Bax had a partially full bottle of water between them. They had polished off two energy bars before they’d even left the city limits, planning to get lunch on the road. They had left town in clothing suitable for the unseasonably warm spring day, Mata in twill trousers and a long-sleeved t-shirt; Bax in bare legs, skirt, and a pink plaid cotton shirt. And dubious footwear, given current conditions. Mata shook her head as she again inched the car from the brink of the abyss, the valley floor not even discernible in the thickening twilight. She had on open-weave Keens and Bax wore slick-soled cowboy boots. She had grabbed the cell phone charger, but they’d lost any signal hours ago.

They drove on. All too soon, night hung heavy around them. The Prius ran quietly, the ping of ice sharp as it fell on the car’s slim metal shell. The occasional whoosh of wind echoed in their ears.

Mata stopped the car. A branch cracked in the distance. The dark was so immediate the friends lost sight of each other, although there was less than an arm’s length between them. Thoughts of other winter tragedies on other winter back roads swirled as swiftly in Mata’s mind as the snow frenzy that tore across this mountaintop. Headlines admonishing travelers to never abandon their vehicles cascaded down her mind, along with the ten essentials of wilderness survival. She knew them by heart. She was an Oregonian. Navigation, sun protection, insulation, illumination, first-aid supplies, fire-making stuff, repair kit with tools, extra food, extra water, emergency shelter. She’d get an ‘A’ in being able to recite the list. If she had a pen in the car, she would have penned a personal apology to Abbey, her wilderness responder niece. Abbey would surely be aggrieved that Mata had not performed better on the execution of the list. She would have to hope that all the Remarkables would let her off the hook if she failed completely the test she was taking tonight.

Mata opened the car door. I’ll be back.

* * *

It had all started the day before yesterday. She’d awakened to Rae Gordon, singing at her from the iPad. Mata opened one eye and groggily tried to locate the source of the unexpected blues concert. Rolling out of bed she stumbled across the shirt she had shucked off when trundling into bed the night before, the dressing gown she’d tossed halfway across the room when she got too hot in the middle of the night, and the felt slippers that lay in the direct path between her four-poster and her backpack on the closet floor. Mata cursed roundly as she wondered where she’d left her glasses.

Her sleep-soaked eyes revealed the glow of the iPad, illuminated with neon-blue urgency and continuing to serenade her with a soulful blues guitar. Mata reached in her pack to see who had called. Bax, Skyping in.

Mata had known Bax Cassat since grade school. Through the rigors of the kickball field, homecoming gowns, and choosing different colleges. Since way before the Remarkables’ mother, Jane, had become pregnant with the twins. Since before Mata was unexpectedly presented with a life that included one toddler and two fresh-from-the-womb earthlings. By that time, Bax had landed in Kansas City, too. She’d moved into the apartment upstairs from Mata and Jane and the young ones. Mata was certain she’d been sent by angels: the muse in mules, the chanteuse who had crooned lullabies and penned the babies rhymes that made memorizing the periodic table of elements fun.

Hydrogen, found everywhere, most common in the universe

Helium, a gassy thing, found in the sun and sunbursts

Lithium always bonds and is never found alone

Beryllium is poison, gray and hard as bones or stones.

The result was that the kids knew the 111 elements of the periodic table in order. It had become a family parlor trick that only the young ones could perform. Soren and Jane could chuckle all they wanted about the corny methodology behind it.

Bax had cheered Mata with her stories of success in the male-dominated medical program at UMKC, delighted her with weird hand-colored photographs of scantily-clad women sporting mustaches and pink foam curlers, bent over ironing boards and busy with intricate piece work. Mata clearly recalled one shot that had included tinker toys. There wasn’t anyone else like Bax. So she picked up. Even though her iPad told her that it was 6 a.m. on the Left Coast, her coast of choice.

"Bax! How are you, girlfriend? I got that CD of the early Jeffrey Foucault you sent. I’m downloading the entire catalogue right now. Cavalcade. Oh my God. Bax? Bax! Can you see me? I can’t see you. I can just see your living room. Are you there?"

Bax's face appeared on the glass, her straight chestnut fringe damp against her forehead, the mass of it pulled taut into a long ponytail, her green cat-eye glasses tipped at a precarious angle and fair skin pink and mottled above the bridge of her nose.

Mata’s eyes widened. This Jetsons-like improvement over telephoning served neither of the women. Everything okay there in Kansas City?

No! Bax wailed. "Nothing’s okay! The class of nursing students I’m teaching is the worst I’ve had in years. I woke up to the news that my regatta sailing partner has bailed on me, for God’s sake. While I was making my French press, I decided to do a little therapeutic baking, reached up for that goddam enormous Larousse Gastronomique to get my favorite croissant recipe, and Soren's fucking self-help book, Journal-Writing: the Loftiest Life-Calling, tumbled down on my head. Papers flew out and I was on my hands and knees wedging them back inside, when I decided to look at what Soren's been writing. He must have stuck that book up there. He’s been carrying it around for months now. I thought maybe some songs…I know he’s been feeling stuck lately. That’s why that bitch Cynthia gave it to him." She followed the explosion of information with a bitter laugh and a gale of windy coughs.

Bax bent forward, her face growing large and then disappearing altogether. She reemerged with a tangle of tissues in hand, jerked one from its mates and blew gustily.

Mata struggled to keep apace of the current that was her friend. Bax was scalpel-sharp, leaning to the linear but not immune to the hyperbolic. Sometimes the speed of thought combined with her velocity of delivery blew Mata off course.

So. Where’s Soren now? Why didn’t you make him pick up his own papers? It’s…what is it there? 9 on a Saturday morning? He didn’t have to go into the office on a weekend, did he? And - do you want to come spend some time with me in Portland? Is it time to again issue my oft-repeated open-door invitation?

Bax cocked her head, grabbed the earpiece of her eyewear and stared off-screen. Mata could hear a door open in the distance. Soren's voice announced his arrival home.

Bax's eyes gleamed gimlet and her jaw set. God knows where he’s been, Mata. After what I read this morning, I can’t even begin to guess. What I do know is that I’m ready to kill him. I love you. I’ll call you later. The screen went black. Mata made her way back to bed, wrapping herself in the scarlet coverlet. The last thing she wanted to hear was that someone she loved was having relationship problems. She slung the blanket around her shoulders and padded to the kitchen, trailing it like a long train. She turned on the hot pot and pulled out her sketchbook. She penciled a badly proportioned woman in a Dalmatian-spotted cloak. Home wreckers were as bad as Cruella de Vil.

Before the end of the morning, Bax called to say she would fly that evening to Eugene. She needed to get out of town, and there was a redeye through Vegas that would get her to Eugene sooner than she could fly to Portland. It would still cost her plenty, but that wasn’t her biggest worry. She wondered if Mata could find time over the weekend to meet here there. She had just finished her teaching obligation for the week, and had a few days clear.

Now they were here, on top of a mountain. On an old logging road. Not in her dear Rav4 with its trusty all-wheeled drive and a set of chains that never left the rear compartment no matter the season. Not with her emergency gallon of water, blanket, flares, and whistle. No, they were in a rental car. Impossibly unprepared.

Mata stamped her cold feet. She waved her arms in the air as she leaned into the back of the car. The only choices were to stay, and hope they could make a break for it in the morning, or try to drive out tonight. She supposed they could do their best to cuddle in the back seat, generating some kind of heat. If the icefall kept up, the tires would be frozen solid in the morning, and if tomorrow were as cold as today, there would be no chance of it melting. Leaving on foot was out of the question.

She inched her way along the side of the vehicle, brushing some of the accumulated crystals from her arms and legs, knocking her shoes on the door before sliding back onto the driver’s seat.

Mata couldn’t see Bax, but she could hear the tremble in her voice.