Suzie’s House 206 : The Rescue Mission

The floorboard creaked. Holding his breath, Ben froze, one foot in the dark hall, the other in his mother’s bedroom. He had been so sure that spot on the floor was ok. Mom stopped snoring for a minute, but then he could hear her breathing slow and even. That counted as asleep, right? Close enough. He took another step into her bedroom.

It was hard to tell with all the lights off, but he was pretty sure his flash drive was still sitting on the dresser. He could kind of make out the shape of the tall square thing blocking what light came through the window. In his eagerness, he went too fast, and made another floorboard groan.

“No, no,” Mom shouted from the bed. “Not the jalapeños! Anything but the jalapeños.”

Ben flinched so hard he almost fell over. He grabbed desperate like at the dresser to keep from going over, and accidentally yanked out the top drawer. It came way out, and maybe would have hit the floor if he didn’t shove it back first, which was even noisier.

“Miranda! What do you think you’re doing?”

Spooked, Ben whirled around, and backed into the dresser, making everything on it rattle and the drawer close until it jammed.

“Don’t you know you can’t put jalapeños in spaghetti sauce? It’s almost as bad as cloves!”

Heart pounding, Ben bent over and breathed a sigh of relief. She was still only talking in her sleep.

Better get this over with before she woke up for real. He felt along the top of the dresser, getting stuck by the pin backs of broaches she hadn’t worn in years, and trying not to make any noise when coins scrapped around the dresser top with wooden protest. It was a mess. After several minutes alternating between listening to Mom snore and feeling around he finally admitted to himself that his flash drive holding everything he’d ever typed into the computer – all hour and a half of it – was not there.

He should have tip toed out right then, but after going through so much already, he didn’t want to give up. Maybe it was on the floor. He dropped to his hand and knees, and felt around.

Mom sat up straight in bed. Ben froze on the floor, willing her to not see him. And she didn’t. Her shadowy shape moved around like she was looking for something, but then she said, “Drew? Where are you?”

Ben almost went to her because she sounded so lost. He felt compelled to tell her that Drew was in New Mexico and no body knew when he’d be back, but that everything was going to be okay. Just before he stood up, she flopped into her pillows and messed around with the blankets.

He had to get this over with fast. The suspense was killing him.

After a few minutes, he gave up on the floor. There really wasn’t anything there. Mom started to breath heavy again, not quite snoring, but close. He stood up, and scratched his head. It had to be here somewhere. He’d seen it on her dresser that afternoon, and she’d been too busy since to have done anything with it, so… Where?

Then it dawned on him. Of course. It must have fallen into the drawer when he bumped into the dresser. There was a necklace hanging half way off the edge for proof that something had fallen anyway.

Ben reached into the drawer and felt around. There was all kinds of stuff in there, mostly slippery clothing type stuff, but also a deodorant speed stick and a bottle of perfume he’d given her for Christmas years ago when his father picked what he would give her. It took some digging, but he found it. His flash drive was buried so far down he must have pushed it further by accident.

He tried to lift it out, but there was some kind of stretchy thing wrapped around his wrist, so when he lifted the flash drive out of the drawer, the clothing thing came out, too.

Oh Gawd. A bra. It was his mother’s bra, hanging here off his wrist. If she saw this she’d kill him. Or worse yet, laugh. Or double worse, both.

Mom snorted and rolled over. Ben couldn’t wait any longer. He’d put the bra back later. Right now, he had to go. But as he ran for the door, the bra got hooked on something in the draw and dragged it out, too. Underwear. Mother underwear. This just got worse and worse.

Five steps, long and quiet as he could make them, got him out to the hall with Mom snoring the whole way.

Whewh! He was saved. He had his flash drive and he’d put the underwear back later, and no one needed to know anything about any of it. All he had to do was cross the hall into his own bedroom and….

The light in the hallway turned on. And there stood Miranda. The real Miranda, not some dream person who wanted to put peppers in the spaghetti sauce. She looked at him, and looked at the bra wrapped around his wrist and started laughing.

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