Angels Fall

didn't give a damn. She was sitting with her feet in the blue waters of Angel Lake and her eyes on the towering rise of the Tetons. In a little while she'd be making soup, writing a cookbook, sorting laundry. And what could be more normal? She'd have to scramble around to get everything done so she wouldn't be late for work. And that was normal, too.
    So for now, she'd just soak it all up.
    She lay back so her eyes were on the sky now, blue as the lake with, harmless white clouds drifting. The sun beamed down, but instead of digging her sunglasses out of her purse, she flung her arm over her eyes. And just listened.
    To the lap of the water, the happy splash of it as she kicked her feet Birdsong sounded so cheerful, so carefree. She heard a dog bark, the rumble of a car passing. Everything in her relaxed. The sudden boom had her choking back most of a scream, jerkino-up so fast she nearly slid into the water. She managed to catch herself crawl free, but only alter she'd soaked one pant leg to the knee.
    "Carl's truck. It's Carl's truck," she reminded herself as she huddled on the grass. She could see it, rumbling and rattling its way toward the mercantile. Pushing to her hands and knees, she stayed where she was, catching her breath.
    And flushed when she saw Debbie Mardson standing outside On the Trail, watching her. "Yeah, it's the crazy woman." Reece said between her teeth as she forced herself to smile and wave. "Just taking a dip in a freezing lake with all her clothes on. No big deal."
    Now that the moment was spoiled, she grabbed her bags, her shoes, and walked, wet and barefoot, home.
    Didn't matter what the damn near-pertect-in-every-way Debbie Mardson thought. Reece assured herself. Or what anyone thought. She was entitled to sit and dangle her feet in the lake. She was entitled  to jump like a rabbit at that damn shotgun blast of Carl's truck.
    She stripped off her wet pants, put on dry ones. Just like she was entitled to do her laundry. She gathered it up, along with her detergent and some of the thin supply of singles she had left. Start the wash, she thought, come back and start the soup. Go back and switch the wash to the dryer. Come back and work on the cookbook. She carried her little laundry basket out, started the walk to the hotel.
    Because she had to pass On the Trail, she kept her eyes trained forward and prayed, just this once, Debbie wouldn't spot her. She didn't run past the window, but she did significantly increase her pace, slowing only when she reached the hotel.
    "Hi, Brenda. Wash day. Can I get some change?'
    "Sure, no problem." Brenda smiled widely and lifted her eyebrows. "Need some shoes while you're at it?"
    "Sorry?"
    "You're not wearing your shoes, Reece."
    "Oh. Oh  God  ." Reece looked down at her bare teet. She flushed, but when she looked back up at Brenda there was just enough of a smirk on the desk clerk's face to turn embarrassment to temper. "I guess they slipped my mind. You know how slippery my mind is. Quarters, please." She slapped the bills on the counter.
    Brenda counted them out. "Watch where you step now."
    "I'll do that." Because the elevator wasn't an option for her, Reece took the stairs down. She hated the damn hotel basement. Hated it. If Biody hadn't been such a dick, she could ve used his machines, could ve avoided all this stupidity and bother.
    "Seven times one is seven," she began as she wound her way past the maintenance area. "Seven times two is fourteen.
    She made it through the sevens, into the eights, then rushed out of the laundry area as the machine hummed.
    She slowed to a normal pace as she stepped back into the lobby, sent Brenda an easy wave. She wasn't quite as lucky on her way back by the outfitter store.
    "Reece," Debbie slipped out the door. "You okay?"
    "Sure, fine. How are you?"
    "It's a little cool yet for bare feet."
    "You think? I'm just toughening mine up. I hope to he the first woman to walk barefoot along the Continental Divide. Lifelong dream of mine. See you."

    Go ahead, spread that one around, Reece thought as she hiked back home. She put it all out of her mind by starting her stock, making meatballs for the soup. She actually debated leaving her shoes off, to give the gossips more to talk about, but decided it was too silly and self-defeating. She zipped back to the hotel, braved Brenda and the basement again to transfer her clothes from washer to dryer.
    Only one more trip, she reminded herself, clashing back home again. And