Roadblock XIX
by Myra Love
  Article # 290 Article Type: Fiction

All the pen chests were piled on a long table that took up an entire wall of the small room. Laurel stepped up to the table and smirked at Dennison.
“I just can’t believe you were so stupid as to sell all the pen boxes,” Laurel announced as she opened the first pen chest. It was full of Montblanc pens, so she closed it again, lifted it, and set it on the floor at her feet.
“Be careful!” Dennison yelped. “Those pens are fragile.”
Laurel sniffed disdainfully. “How do you know? You’ve never even taken their caps off. If you’d done any research, you’d have realized that selling the boxes was a dumb idea.”
“Research? Get real, Laurel!” Dennison rolled his eyes.
“Get real, Laurel!” she mimicked him. “Is that what you learned from that little floozy you’ve taken up with? Get real?”
Dennison shook his head in exasperation. “Floozy? Floozy?” He laughed, but it sounded forced. “Who uses words like floozy? An eighty year old?” He flushed and looked over at Anita. “No offense meant.”
Anita looked at him and laughed out loud. “And none taken, Mr. Wayne,” she assured him. “But I do wish you two would stop bickering. “You’re not married anymore, you know.”
Dennison glared at her. “No, thank God.”
Anita ignored his glare. “She has a point though, you know. A little research might have saved you a lot of money.”
He pouted, then said, “I realize that now, of course. But she’s just baiting me.” He shook his head violently. “She doesn’t know a thing about collecting fine pens. She thinks pens are something you write with.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. He glared at me but said nothing.
Laurel looked at me and grinned. “Oh, who’d ever think of a pen as something to write with?” she sang out. “What a bizarre notion!” She grimaced at her former husband. “What good is a pen you can’t write with?” she asked rhetorically.
“You moron!” he bit off the words. “Haven’t you ever heard of collectibles? C-O-L-L-E-C-T-I-B-L-E-S. You can look the word up in the dictionary.”
“Oh go collect beer coasters!” she replied. “Or baseball cards.” She rolled her eyes and giggled. “Or china figurines. Pens are useful, so use them!”
Dennison opened his mouth, but Anita cut off the exchange. “That’s enough!” she boomed in her best school teacher voice. “One can collect pens and use them,” she intoned. “There is no necessary contradiction.”
“But they’re not worth as much if you use them,” Dennison chimed in again, “which Ms. Pen Expert would know if she’d done any research. Unfilled is good, and undipped is even better!” He smirked at Laurel, as if to say, “Top that!”
“Mint in box!” Laurel proclaimed, “but you have to have the boxes and not sell them to some guy for peanuts!”
I choked back a laugh because Laurel had had as little notion of mint in box as I a short while back. I remembered the linguistic confusion that had occurred during our first visit and my laugh turned into a half-suppressed snort. Only Anita seemed to notice. Laurel and Dennison were too focused on each other to be aware of anyone else.
“Oh shut up, Laurel!” Dennison was saying when my attention returned to the present. “You think you’re so smart, don’t you? I’m really sick of you.”
Laurel pursed her lips and wrinkled her nose. “I’m really sick of you too. You’re a paranoid imbecile, and you’re lucky I don’t sue you for defamation of character.” She shook her head. “If you had any sense, you wouldn’t be here trying to steal my pens. The property settlement is clear about which of us owns them.”
“Your pens!” Dennison screamed. “Why I ought to…”
“BE QUIET!” Anita boomed. “I have taught high school freshmen whose behavior showed more maturity.” She took a breath. “Now, both of you sit down. You over here, Dennison, and you over there, Laurel. I’ve had enough of your quarreling!”
Laurel and Dennison glared at each other for a long moment, but then each sat down exactly where Anita had indicated. She waited for an even longer moment and then said calmly, “I would very much like to help the two of you find a compromise you can live with, but you have to stop fighting long enough for me to do so.”
Laurel sighed and stopped glaring at Dennison who cleared his throat loudly and stared down at his shoes.
“Now from what I understand,” Anita continued, looking at Laurel, “you need to sell the pens you acquire in order to pay bills and finance the continuation of your educational training. Is that correct?”
Laurel wagged her head from side to side. “Sort of. I wouldn’t sell all the pens, just the ones that aren’t good writers. I’d keep the good writers.”
Dennison couldn’t contain himself. “You’d ink every pen just to find a couple of good writers?” he yelled. “You really are a creep!” He looked at Anita sheepishly. “Sorry,” he said, “but really…”
“Oh can it!” Laurel retorted. “I already inked a bunch of them.”
“You what?” Dennison screamed. “That’s it! I’m out of here. When my lawyer finishes having his baby, I mean, when his wife finishes, I’ll see you in court!” He stood up, red in the face and breathing heavily.
“Sit down, Dennison!” Anita said firmly.
“She can’t get away with that,” he protested. “You can’t let her.”
“Sit down, please,” Anita repeated. She turned to Laurel. “How many pens did you ink?”
Laurel smiled at her, “Sixteen. I didn’t ink any of the ugly ones, just ones I thought looked nice.”
Anita’s mouth twitched. “And how did they write?”
Dennison growled in frustration, but both Laurel and Anita ignored him. “Very well,” Laurel replied, “especially the Namiki pens. Is that how you say it? Na-mee-kee?”
Anita nodded. Which other pens did you try?” she asked.
Dennison’s growl turned into a groan.
“Oh, two Deltas, the Segovia and the Republic of the Seas. And the Visconti Michelangelo. It took me a while to figure out how to fill it, but it wrote well once I got it filled. And an Omas Europa, an Aurora Verdi that was a bit gaudy for my taste, a couple of Pelikans, one with a Chinese name that I’ve forgotten…”
“Stop it!” Dennison yelled, and I admit I had some sympathy for him. Anita, however, looked stern and said, “There are two hundred and sixty-eighty pens in the pen chests. She has inked sixteen of them.”
“How many isn’t the point,” he insisted. “She shouldn’t have inked any. They aren’t hers.”
“Yes, they are,” Laurel snapped at him. “All of them are mine according to that paper your lawyer helped draw up and you signed voluntarily.”
“Enough!” Anita said resoundingly. “I have one question for you, Mr. Wayne,” she announced, “and then I will be ready to offer a suggestion that will, I hope, end this disagreement over pens, so you can both get on with your lives.”
Dennison didn’t look as if he believed her, but he stopped arguing and waited quietly for her question.
“When we met earlier today, you indicated that you would either put the pens on display or sell them to someone who’d keep them in pristine condition. I believe ‘pristine’ was the term you used.”
He nodded.
“Well, which would it be?” she asked calmly.
Dennison seemed taken aback by the question. “Well, I’d like to keep them all, but I really can’t.” He pointed to the scar on his face. “I’ll need to sell some to pay for cosmetic surgery. My health insurance plan only pays part of it.” He grimaced. “They call it elective surgery.”
“Yeah, they don’t think you have to have a pretty face,” Laurel piped up.
“The surgery is necessary,” Dennison retorted, flushing dark red, “though it wouldn’t be if you’d been more responsible.”
I expected Anita to intervene, but instead she turned to me. “Marian, have you recently cleaned out that trash compactor you call your purse?”
I looked at her in disbelief that turned to annoyance. “I’ve told you I don’t like your calling my purse a trash compactor, Anita. That ridiculous tote bag you carry around has as much in it as my purse, and it’s ugly to boot.”
Anita laughed out loud. “You mean, you don’t find it the height of elegance and the pinnacle of fashion?” she replied. “What a pity! Shows your lack of appreciation for the finer things.”
Laurel and Dennison looked at me and then each other. They both shrugged their shoulders at the same moment.
“Oh, stop it, Anita!” I replied. “What do you want with my purse?”
“If you haven’t cleaned it since our first visit here, you have the list of pens that Paula was waving around before she tried to maim Roadblock,” she said.
“I do not,” I replied, getting more irritated. One of Anita’s favorite ways of bothering me is to insist that I can’t go by a piece of paper without picking it up and stowing it in my purse.
“Yes, you do,” she insisted.
I tossed my purse on the table in front of her. “Take a look!” I said peevishly.
“You do,” she repeated, adding, “I know you do because I put it in there after Paula dropped it.” She winked at me. “Now do you really want me to go through your purse or would you rather hunt down that list yourself?”
“Anita Carswell! Why in heavens name did you put the list in my purse instead of in that monster of a tote bag you always carry around?” I demanded, feeling my temper fray.
She smiled beatifically. “Your purse was closer,” she replied sweetly. “Now would you please find that list?”
I grunted and rolled my eyes. I know exactly what I have in my purse, but that still doesn’t mean I enjoy hunting around in it when I have an audience. However, if finding the list was what was needed, I knew I’d do it. I just wanted to grumble a bit first. “What in heaven’s name were you thinking about, Anita? I could have cleaned out my purse and thrown the list out, not realizing that you’d require it.”
Her smile broadened. “I hardly thought that likely, Marian,” she replied. “When was the last time you emptied that thing?”
“All the more reason to beware,” I said, “if you thought it was time for me to clean it out.”
Of course, she knew I was just stalling, so she said nothing, and I began to empty my purse onto the table. “Wow!” Laurel said, unhelpfully. “You’ve got a lot of stuff in there. Look at that! A catnip mouse!” She giggled. “I guess that’s for the kitten.”
I stopped unloading the purse and stared at her. “No, actually I chase it around myself when I need distraction,” I said. She looked shocked. “Really?”
“Laurel, be quiet!” Dennison ordered.
“Well, she might,” Laurel objected. “You never know.”
I looked at Anita. She raised her eyebrows in an attempt to look innocent. “Why don’t you just pull out the papers and let the other stuff be?” she suggested.
“Paper is under the other stuff,” I grumbled, pulling a vegetable peeler out of my bag and depositing it on the table.
“I won’t even try to figure out why you carry a vegetable peeler with you, Marian,” Anita said.
“Good!” I replied and pulled out a small can of spray paint.
“Oh heavens!” she teased. “You’re planning on becoming a graffiti artist!”
I glared at her and finally grabbed a handful of papers. Unfortunately the list was not among them, so I began rooting in my purse again.
“Why don’t you just dump the contents on the table?” Laurel suggested. “We can all help you look.”
I wanted to dump the contents on her head, but I restrained myself and continued to extract small objects, a shoe horn, a pocket knife, a pair of ankle socks, and a miniature copy of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. Finally I got to the bottom of the bag and found three utility bill stubs marked “paid” and the list of pens.
I handed the pen list to Anita and began to repack my purse. “Don’t you want to get rid of any of that stuff?” Laurel asked.
Anita snorted. “Don’t be silly, Laurel. She will undoubtedly need to read Bartlett’s Quotations while waiting in a shoe store with her ankle socks on her feet.”
“Very funny!” I snapped. “You have your list, Anita Carswell. Now what are you going to do with it?”
Before she had a chance to reply, there was a knock at the door, and Laurel went downstairs to answer it. Her footsteps tapped lightly as she descended the staircase. Soon I heard them again, coming closer. They were accompanied by a much heavier tread. As she approached the door to the room where we waited I heard her giggle and say, “I’m glad you’re here. Handsome is being such a beast.” Then she entered the room, followed by Andrew. His face was very red.
“It seems,” he said, “that I have been mistaken for a very long time, Mother.” He sat down in the seat vacated by Laurel, who just stood looking at him in what I thought of as her damsel-in-distress pose. I paid her scant notice, however, but stared at him hard, wondering what he was talking about. Not knowing what to say, I simply asked, “Where is Roadblock?”
He smiled a little shamefacedly. “At your house. He and that kitten of yours made a shambles of the place, I fear. But I really didn’t know what else to do with him.”

 

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