Charlotte Figg Takes Over Paradise Read Free Page A

snout. I stood there in a quasi state of shock with my hand still on the opened door. I thought Herman had come back to me in a dog's body but chalked it up to imagination.
    The dog let go a second blustery bark.
    "How rude," I said. "You can't just barge into a person's house like this and . . . and sit in her chair and . . . and bluster like her dead husband. Now go on home."
    The dog scooted outside, but he camped in the yard for three days. Every so often I heard one of his barks and I felt sorry for him. So after some consideration, I invited him in and gave him three shampoo baths in a galvanized bucket in the backyard in the cold. I wore one of Herman's suit jackets because I didn't want to get my own clothes wet and soiled with dog grime. I dried him off with one of my good Egyptian cotton bath towels, which I subsequently dubbed Lucky's towel. About halfway through the drying I smiled when it occurred to me that if Herman had witnessed this he would have yelled something awful at me for sacrificing one of our good towels to the dog's cause.
    I named him Lucky and bought him a black collar with purple rhinestones. It had been the first real financial decision, besides choosing a solid oak casket, I had made since Herman's surprising demise.
    "There you go, Lucky." I clasped the collar around his skinny neck. "Guess this makes it official." He licked my face.
    I found it easy to talk to Lucky, and I appreciated his affection, but I still felt like I was banging into walls with no direction. Kind of like a pinball but without all the bells and whistles and music and points.
    Then one day Lucky came home with the neighbor's mail.
    "Bad dog, Lucky," I said. "You mustn't steal mail. It's a federal offense, you know."
    Lucky looked dejected at first but then he wagged his preposterously stubby tail and all was forgiven.
    I rifled through the small stack bound with a rubber band that held the advertisements inside an RV magazine called Road Tripper. My eyebrows lifted. "I didn't know the Parsons had a recreational vehicle," I told Lucky. "I've never seen it, but Evie and Lewis do seem to be gone for long stretches several times a year."
    Out of curiosity, I thumbed through the periodical and stopped when I saw a small block of type with bold letters pierced by a canine incisor that read:
     
    For Sale, Nice-looking double-wide.
    Contact: Fergus Wrinkel, Paradise Trailer Park.
     
    A small image of a light gray trailer with wide windows and awnings with hanging baskets of pink and purple trailing verbena caught my eye. The sun setting in the distance painted ribbons of orange and lilac across a sky the color of my favorite copper-bottom frying pan. I was filled with a sudden burst of wanderlust.
    My heart beat as fast as the mashed potato setting on my Mixmaster. "Paradise." I said the word with a come-hither tone. Not that I had planned it. It just came out that way."Imagine that, Lucky. We could move to"—I took another breath and exhaled the word—"Paradise." I rubbed my arms. Just the thought of living in a place called Paradise gave me goose pimples. But I closed the magazine, banded all the mail together, and dropped it on the dining room table.
    "Charlotte Louise Figg," I said right out loud. "What are you saying? You can't up and move to Paradise. What would Herman think?"
    I made a cup of tea, sat at the dining table, and stared at the rolled-up magazine. I kept touching it and knocking it around. Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore and opened to the page with the beautiful little trailer and nearly swooned over the verbena.
    That afternoon I purchased the trailer, sight unseen, from Fergus Wrinkel, manager of The Paradise Trailer Park.
     

     
    Six weeks later Lucky and I set out for our new home. I sold my house to a nice young couple—Jorge and Olivia Gonzalez. Jorge had just gotten a job as a produce supervisor at the Save- A-Lot supermarket, and Olivia was six months pregnant with their first child.
    I left