Len and Norma Lose a Body

Chapter 1

 Lauren was still holding the phone with her hand covering the mouth piece when she finally relaxed, but as she waited for the dial tone to kick in so she could hang up safely without detection, she realized that the line was still quiet. She heard a frustrated huff of air from her mom's end of the line followed by an equally frustrated slam before the dial tone kicked in. Lauren hung up, but not before her thoughts began to wander as she listened to the quiet whir and footsteps from the kitchen above and began to wonder if her gramma was going to let her have any of those cupcakes she was making up there.

Lauren headed up the carpeted stairs of her gramma and grampa's farm house. It always seemed odd that the carpet continued halfway up the walls in the narrow stairway. Was it easier to just glue it to the walls than it was to cut it? Maybe this was some sort of design idea. The thought left Lauren's mind as quickly as it had entered it. Lauren spent her "afterschools" at their house until her mom got home from school and her dad came in for the day. Every day at 3:50 p.m. the bus would pull to a stop at the end of Lauren's lane. "See ya kid," the bus driver would say as she stepped off the corrugated metal steps. "See you Robert," she would yell back, as the yellow doors returned to the bus. The familiar sound of the weather stripping on the outside door suctioning itself to the inside door was her cue to wave, turn, and walk towards the home quarter that housed the two Olson homes.

Lauren's mom and dad built their house on the same home quarter as her gramma and grampa Olson. It made sense. Her dad farmed with her grampa and would one day end up totally taking over the operation. Lauren loved living close to her gramma and grampa, and her dad loved the convenience of living on the farm where he was making a living, but her mom had started to spend more and more time at the school and on volunteer committees. Lauren had heard her mom more than once telling people that being so busy was her "saving grace" and then whoever she was talking to would respond with an understanding "uh huh" and then they would do that awful fake adult laugh together even though there didn't seem to be anything funny.

As she arrived at the top of the stairs, the whirring melody of the Mixmaster ceased, and her gramma slowly separated the beaters from the batter letting the batter stretch and drip into the metal bowl beneath. She was looking out the kitchen window. Even though Diane Olson had her back to her granddaughter, Lauren could sense her grandma's familiar facial expressions that accompanied the noises of filling her cheeks up with air before she noisily exhaling tut tutting, a sigh scolding her weary joints, arching her back slightly easing the tension that had been building after working over the kitchen counter.

"Are you making cupcakes?"

It was more of a statement than a question as Lauren surveyed the countertops. A tube of white cupcake wrappers, the tins and a bag of icing sugar as well as a sink full of measuring cups and tablespoons answering her question before Lauren even had to ask.

"Yes, but not for you."

"Aw, but they're never for me."

"Well isn't life tough!"

Lauren gave gramma a half crooked smile as she said this with the dramatic flair of a Broadway thespian, cocking her head to one side and flattening out the veins on the back of her wrinkled hand on her smooth forehead. Following suit, Lauren pursed her lips and titled her head down, so she could look up at her through her feathery bangs, and when she was sure that she looked as pathetic as possible Lauren asked as though the wrong answer would break her little heart, "Well, can I at least lick off the beaters?"

Gramma's poker face cracked as she commiserated with her granddaughter's reply, "Let's split them, you and me".

She started to pull the beaters from the mixer, but Lauren was too hasty trying to grab one before anymore of the delicious batter dripped its way back into the bowl and Diane Olson practically hip checked her granddaughter away from the bowl. "Lauren Anne Olson! Stop acting like an animal. Sit at the table like a civilized human being. I do not want batter all over the kitchen!" Lauren immediately, obediently maybe a little overenthusiastically ran to the table and sat skidding almost falling into a chair. She was already ecstatically hyper from the thought of getting to eat the batter, it was almost better than eating an actual cupcake anyway. And as Lauren settled into the chair and pulled herself up to the table, she did her best behaviour routine of clasping her hands together, fingers entwined, smiling a sickly sweet smile, and even though Lauren knew it was a little bit of overkill she swung her legs back and forth underneath the chair as if pumping a swing.