Blood Orange (26 page)

She should have worked through the God and mother thing in
seminary, where she had been given countless opportunities to lay
bare her neuroses. But it was such an embarrassing cliche to admit
she suffered from the neurotic equivalent of the common cold, a
sense of never being good or worthy enough. She did not want anyone to know about the anger that lay at the heart of her childhood.

The white walls of Lexy’s apartment were bare except for a
Swanson print of the Tower of Babel that she had told Dana was a
portrait of her mind when “the committee” took over her thinking.
Her furniture, a cherry red couch and easy chairs and a footstool the size of a Volkswagen, was classic Ikea. No fancy pillows, not a
knickknack in sight. Her one indulgence was the flowers she bought
weekly from a wholesaler and arranged in a blue Mexican bowl on
the plank coffee table.

She clicked up the television volume, hoping to drown out the
committee carping in her head, though she knew there was really
only one effective way to silence the racket. It was the alcoholic’s aspirin, the all-purpose remedy for every ill: a meeting, a meeting, a
meeting. Take thirty meetings in thirty days, ninety in ninety days;
no committee could survive that. The nagging never went away
completely, however. It waited just below her consciousness, ready
to erupt when provoked. The current rant had begun with Micah’s
call the previous week. Her intuition that something was wrong had
segued into guilt for not having spoken to her mother in more than
ten days.

Several of the committee members in her head had her mother’s
weather-worn face and spoke with her flat western drawl, the accent
of wide skies over empty, and land. What makes you think you can
be a priest? You-a cocaine addict, an alcoholic who slept with half
the eligible men in New York before settling down for less than a year
with William Whats-his-name. Plus you neglect your brother and
you’re lazy and self-centered and vain as a mare in heat.

She did not think her mother had ever been consciously cruel,
but as Billy once said, she was a ropy old pioneer broad. She had
her own way of thinking and never considered there might be another, equally valid point of view. She was neither stupid nor uninformed; nevertheless, she believed alcoholism and depression were
defects of character and will, conditions that stank of carelessness
and, worst of all, an absence of self-discipline.

Lexy was grateful to alcoholism. It had brought her to her knees,
to surrender. It had bent her toward God in a way that nothing else could have. In meetings she heard variations of her own story told
by teenaged crackheads, suburban matrons, bums and businessmen. The wonder of it knocked her over, lifted her up, and then
dropped her to her knees. And on her knees she had found her
faith.

God accepts us all, Lexy thought. Why can’t you, Ma? Why couldn’t
Dad? He had died not speaking to either Lexy or Micah. Lexy
blamed her mother for this. As far as she knew, she had never spoken up for either of them, never defended their right to be themselves.

This is what Dana and I have in common, she thought. Neither of
us had a mother worth a pot of peas.

n arrangement had been made with Miss Judy at Phillips
Academy for Bailey to visit school during playtime. Reluctantly
Lieutenant Gary had said it would be safe if the visits were unscheduled. The important thing, he had repeated half a dozen
times, was not to establish any activity patterns a kidnapper could
rely upon. Bailey loved her school outings. Her silent eagerness to
be part of the wider world both gratified and encouraged Dana.

On the Monday morning after her meeting with Micah, Dana
delivered Bailey to school and then looked in on Rochelle at Arts
and Letters. She was helping a customer choose a birthday book, so
Dana went into the stockroom and began unpacking boxes of
books from a distributor. These were popular novels whose titles
Dana recognized.

Rochelle stood at the stockroom door. “I intend to deep-discount
those. Perhaps the vision of a woman committing economic hari
kari will bring a few more customers in off the street.”

“Business bad?”

“Of course, darling. When is it otherwise? But I sold that beau tiful Giotto book yesterday, and this month’s rent is paid. Who am I
to fret?”

Dana always felt a pang when one of the magnificent coffee-table
books of stunning reproductions left the shop. She thought of the
upstairs loft as her own private library.

“Do you have time to help me shelve this week?”

“If I can bring Bailey.”

“But of course. A child who doesn’t speak is a blessing to the
world.” She flipped her hand. “Just teasing. Not to worry.” She
sailed back to the front of the shop trailing chiffon scarves in shades
of blue and green.

Dana was folding down a box for recycling when Rochelle came
into the back room again. “I’ve been meaning to ask how your thesis is coming. You know you can take home any book you need.
You’ve only to jot a note.”

“Thanks.” Dana dropped the flattened box into the recycling
bin. “I’ve got a ways to go.”

“Well, darling, what’s holding you up now that Bailey’s back? I
adore having you here, but really.”

“Bailey keeps me busy.”

“Garbage, garbage, garbage. I raised four children. I know whereof I speak.”

“I’m not as organized as you, Rochelle.”

“Sit down and listen to me, Dana.” She patted the box beside
her. “I want you to take advantage of the books while you can. I
don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to keep this place
afloat. I adore Arts and Letters, you know that, but it’s terribly difficult to sell books these days, and I’m not sure I want to be bothered
anymore.

“You’d sell?”

“In an instant. Though I’ve no idea who’d buy the place.”

“I’d buy it. I’d love to own a bookstore.”

“Indeed? What about `The Significance of Visual Subtext in
Italian Renaissance Art’?”

Once Dana had enjoyed thinking and talking about her thesis,
but the life had gone out of it. She told herself she did not know
why. “It’s hard, Rochelle.”

“My God, darling, what isn’t?”

While Dana and Bailey were out, the mail had been dropped
through the old-fashioned slot in the middle of the Cabots’ front
door and lay scattered on the entry tiles. As Dana stooped to gather
the envelopes, flyers, and catalogs, she noticed one long white envelope in particular. The address on the outside was printed in individual letters cut from magazines.

No stamp.

Someone had watched and waited until she and Bailey were
away from home, then stepped onto their porch and slipped the envelope through the mail slot. Her intestines knotted, and automatically she looked around for Bailey and saw her headed upstairs,
stretching her small legs to take the stairs two at a time.

Safe.

Dana slumped onto the bottom stair. She did not have to open
the envelope to know what kind of message lay inside. She smelled
the hostility coming off it as if the writer had poison on his fingers.
She also knew she had reached the limit of her patience. If she had
to, she would take Bailey away from San Diego, hide with her in
some gray and anonymous eastern city until the Filmore trial was
over and the police had caught her daughter’s kidnapper. Maybe it
was a crazy man working on his own, maybe a whole gang-women
as well as men-waging a hammer-of-God vendetta against defense attorneys. The threat to Bailey and David, to the family, was as real
as the air in Dana’s lungs and the sweat on her skin.

She would have to begin working more closely with the police
and dragging Bailey-willing or not, happy or not-to shrinks and
therapists and anyone who had a chance of getting her to talk about
what happened during the three and a half months she was gone.
Until then the notes, the threats, the constant abrasion of anxiety
would continue. It was so simple, really. Cooperate with Lieutenant
Gary, love David and Bailey. Why did she insist on complicating it?

She called Gary, and he came over immediately.

he showed the detective the envelope, still lying on the tiles.
(Putting on gloves, he carefully slit the seal. A photo of David
and Bailey taken at the time she was returned had been glued to a
sheet of white paper and a noose drawn around David’s neck in
black marker.

Dana ran to the kitchen sink and vomited acid. She splashed
water on her face, dried it with a paper towel, then gagged again. As
she turned, Gary was at the counter in the kitchen putting the envelope and paper into a plastic evidence bag. He slipped it into the inside pocket of his sport coat.

“Well, it doesn’t look like Bailey’s their target anymore,” he said.
“I’ll get someone over here to check for prints around the mail
slot.” He rubbed his eyes and dragged his hand down his face and
across his mouth. “It’s a long shot. There’s not much I-“

“You can talk to Bailey, ask her questions. You can talk to her
now, here.”

He looked surprised.

Bailey grumped and dragged her feet when Dana told her to
turn off Sesame Street and come into the kitchen. She refused to sit in her own chair. She straddled Dana’s lap with her back to the
officer.

“What happened to her hand?” he asked.

“Cut herself.”

“Serious?”

“No.”

He looked at the back of Bailey’s head. “Just a couple of questions.”

Dana watched his body language relax. She wondered if he had
children of his own and thought it strange that she had never asked.

His voice held a smile as he asked, “Bailey, when you went
away-

Bailey pressed her forehead into Dana’s collarbone and clapped
her hands over her ears.

Dana tried to pry those little hands away, but her daughter was
surprisingly strong. Over Bailey’s head she looked at Gary, feeling
helpless and vindicated at the same time.

“It’s okay,” he said, and mouthed the words, She’s listening.

He said, “When you went away, Bailey, did you go in a car with a
lady?”

Bailey shook her head.

“Were you in the car a long time?”