Going to Bend (32 page)

The girl turned a deep crimson and bolted from the car.

P
ETIE DROVE
her little car straight into the teeth of the latest squall, driving blindly. She needed time to think. The wind was already strong enough to be pushing gobs of spindrift across the road, and night was coming on, black as a blindfold. Out of habit she looked at the Wayside parking lot as she passed it and saw Schiff’s pickup. For the first time in weeks, she had no desire whatsoever to see him. Some of the other Wayside regulars were there, too: Dooley Burden, Connie, a couple of others. Not Jim Christie.

What in hell was she supposed to do about Jim Christie? What did Rose know? For that matter, what did Petie know? Maybe nothing; maybe something. She turned her car around and drove back to Rose’s house. The lights were all dark, and there was a note on the kitchen table telling
Rose that Carissa had gone next door. Beside it was another note, written on a piece of paper torn out of one of Carissa’s school notebooks.

Petie left the notes where they were and ran back to her car. At the top of Chollum Road she set off through the trees. But this time there was nobody there, not even ghosts.

I
DON’T
understand,” Rose kept saying the next morning across Petie’s kitchen table. Her eyes were swollen from crying, and she was still wearing yesterday’s clothes. She’d sat up all night hoping Christie would come home, but he hadn’t. There wasn’t so much as a sock left in the house to show he’d ever been there. He’d up and disappeared like the thinnest smoke. “Why would he just leave like that? Tell me again what you saw.”

And Petie explained again, with great patience, the moment when Jim Christie and Carissa had stepped out of the trailer together, and what had happened afterwards.

“But that doesn’t
mean
anything!” Rose cried.

And Petie said what she’d already said over and over. “If it didn’t mean anything, then why did he leave?”

“I just can’t believe that. I can’t. He always took such care with her, like he was afraid she could break. Carissa said nothing happened between them. I asked her very carefully, Petie, and she said
nothing ever happened between them
. Why would she say that if—”

“I always said that about Old Man,” Petie said.

“Old Man?”

“I always told you we were doing okay.”

“Oh, what’s that supposed to mean?” Rose cried.

“It means that girls don’t always tell the truth when they think the truth is rancid meat.”

“What?”

“Things weren’t fine then. They might not be fine now.”

Rose began to cry. “I don’t understand you. I don’t understand what you’re talking about, or why you said what you did to him.”

Petie sat rooted to her chair, twisting around her finger the cheap wedding band Eddie had given her so many years ago. “Can you listen?”

Rose blew her nose on a soggy square of toilet paper.

Petie took a deep breath. “Old Man fucked me two or three nights a week for two years. And every morning I came to your house and every morning you didn’t know a thing.”

Rose watched her with horror. “Jesus Christ, Petie.”

“What I’m saying is, some things can’t be said, not even if they’re true and not even if you’re honest.”

“Oh my God.”

“Two years.
Two years
,” Petie hissed. “Do you remember the day I bleached my hair?”

Rose nodded.

“The night before, I stabbed him.”

“What?”

“I had a knife and when the bastard tried to get on me I stabbed him.”

Rose stood up and walked to the kitchen window, looking out as though she could see something through the streaming panes. “I can’t think,” she said.

“The point I’m trying to make is that Carissa may or may not be telling the truth.”

“But why?”

“Because she loves him. Because if something did happen, even something awful, she would think it was her fault.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

“But I’d know if he was capable of doing something like that. Wouldn’t I know?”

“Maybe.”

Rose crossed her arms tightly over her chest. “So what should I do?”

“I don’t know.”

“And what am I supposed to tell Carissa? She thinks she’s the one who made him leave. She feels responsible. What am I supposed to say to her?”

Petie sighed and swirled the half inch of coffee left in the bottom of her cup. “Just walk away. Help her walk away, too.”

“I don’t
want
to walk away,” Rose cried. “Why should I? Nothing’s changed.”

“What’s your other choice? The man left.”

Rose hung her head. “I know.”

“So? How much did he love you if he could do that?”

“I hate the things you’re saying.”

“I know that, but you need to hear them. Has it ever occurred to you that he might not be the man you thought he was? Carissa may need help.”

“Or maybe not. She’s not you, Petie. She isn’t you, and Jim isn’t Old Man.”

“I know that,” Petie said softly. “Don’t you think I know that?”

Rose abruptly picked up her coat and purse. “I can’t stay anymore. I’m sorry, Petie, but I can’t. Yesterday everything was fine, and now it’s all gone. If what you’re saying is true, I should be grateful to you, but I’m not.”

Petie set her jaw and watched Rose go. When the noise of her car faded away, she grabbed the phone and dialed the Pepsi distributorship. Talking fast, she left a message, then grabbed her purse and car keys, rounded up all the money in the house—twelve dollars and a fistful of change—and bolted out the door.

·   ·   ·

S
CHIFF PULLED
his truck off the reservoir road and waited. Petie arrived in less than five minutes. He hopped out of his truck with a sheaf of maps and spread them out on the hood of her car: Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Alaska. He’d marked the way to Anacortes, Dutch Harbor and Kodiak with a highlighter—all the places Christie might be headed for.

“You know this is a bad idea, princess,” Schiff said.

She waved him away. “Did you get hold of Eddie?”

“Yeah. He’ll pick up your kids at three-fifteen, just like you asked.”

“And you told him I was going to be home late?”

“Honey, going to Alaska isn’t exactly coming home late,” Schiff said.

“I’m not planning to go to Alaska. I’ll find him before then.”

“You’re not going to find dick by driving the interstates,” Schiff said.

“What the hell else am I supposed to do, Schiff? You tell me what I’m supposed to do, and I’ll do it.”

Schiff put his arm around her. “I don’t know, princess.”

Petie. shrugged him away impatiently.

“Do you have any idea what you’ll do if you find him?” Schiff asked.

“No.”

“Look—”

“I’ve got to go,” Petie said. “If I don’t go now I might never go, and if I don’t go, I’ll never get over it.”

Schiff stepped aside wordlessly and let Petie pass around to the driver’s side of her car. The muffler was going, the fan belt squeaked and the car favored a bad wiper. Not a car meant for long distances. Schiff said, “Listen, princess. There’s a Motel 6 right off I-5 in Portland. If you don’t find Christie first, check in there for the night. I’ll make a reservation for you there as soon as I get back to work.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“Just do it, okay?”

·   ·   ·

P
ETIE LIT
a cigarette just north of Hubbard and didn’t stop smoking until she got to Portland three hours later. At that rate, if she didn’t find Christie she’d come back with emphysema.

She and Rose had never been at odds before. It was like having her skin ripped off. She didn’t know what had gone on between Carissa and Christie—knew less and less as she replayed those few minutes again and again. What she did know was that Rose’s heart was broken, and she was the reason why. If she could find Christie and coax him back home, she would make things right between her and Rose again. She had to.

She’d only been to Portland once before, when she went with Eula Coolbaugh to a doctor’s appointment. Pete had been living with the Coolbaughs for nearly four years when Eula got sick. Petie had long since outgrown her skunk-colored hair, but the bliss of sitting in Eula’s kitchen had never faded. If anything, at eighteen she was more possessive of Eula than she had been at fourteen. When Eula developed a dry cough that never seemed to go away, Petie took a proprietary view of it and dogged her into going to see a doctor over in Sawyer. The doctor had sent her on to another doctor in Portland.
That
doctor had sent her to see a colleague, and then, in the final lightning moment of Petie’s delusion that bad things had finally stopped happening, the colleague sent Eula on to an oncologist. Eula Coolbaugh had lung cancer, too advanced to do much about except to keep her comfortable and slow it down a little with chemotherapy if she chose. It might buy a few months, the oncologist explained, but it wouldn’t change the outcome by more than that.

Petie and Eddie Coolbaugh were engaged by then, as only seemed natural when Petie had been a part of the household for so long, familiar as an old boot, impossible to imagine the family without—she who kept the calendar of birthdays, labeled the Christmas ornament boxes, set out Eula’s Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations with reverential care. She and Eddie had been planning a summer wedding and high school graduation celebration, all in one, with a reception
at the Anchor Inn. Eula refused to hear of a change in plans that would allow for a quiet, private wedding at home as soon as possible.
Your wedding puts you square on a path you’ll be walking the rest of your lives
, Eula told them.
You will
not
start this marriage in sorrow. You plan the wedding you want, honey, and I will be there smiling
.

And so she had. She gave Petie gifts of wisdom, cookery and clean kitchen shelves, and Petie often thought afterwards that that was more than most people could hope to receive in a lifetime. The morning Eula died, Petie had sat by her bed in a rush-bottomed chair, alone, holding Eula’s hand. Old Man hadn’t let her see Paula at the end. Had she looked like this woman whom Petie loved so fiercely, this weathered rock against which Petie’s tree had leaned for shelter? Paula Tyler had cast no cool shadow, buffered no winds. As Petie sat in her pauper’s chair in that bedroom with its lemon-and-white-painted walls, she felt a change and glanced over to find Eula looking at her. She hadn’t spoken much in the last several days as she fought for every breath, but she spoke to Petie now and her voice, though ravaged, was loud with conviction.
Let it go, honey
, she said,
and like the phoenix you will rise up whole
. They were the last words Eula would ever speak to anyone. She died at two o’clock that afternoon with Petie by her side along with Eddie and his two brothers, flown in from Alaska and Idaho only hours before.

Petie gathered clothes and jewelry for Eula to be buried in, but she did not attend the funeral or memorial reception. Instead she went to her tree. Sitting beneath it, right on the bare ground, she watched the clouds that would bring winter one day soon and wondered why people believed in God. She had given Him every opportunity to show Himself; had pleaded for His revelation, His mercy, His simple decency. She had been as near to bankruptcy as it was possible to get and still leave the house in the morning, yet there was no miracle, no divine presence in her home or heart, nothing but nothingness—a stillness, a silence that was absolute. She sat beneath that godforsaken tree for two hours, and when she rose, it was not as the phoenix. She lived with Eddie in their mouse-turd apartment and had coffee at the Anchor Inn every morning; gave birth to Ryan and then to Loose; had jobs, lost and regained them;
and she
never once felt a thing
. She had become a marvel of nature, capable of slipping a red-hot poker through her own heart.

P
ETIE DROVE
with one eye on the road and the other scanning every rest stop, convenience store and fast-food restaurant she passed. She knew the look of Christie’s truck as well as she knew her children’s faces, but in nearly three hours of driving, she didn’t see anything that was even close.

By the time she reached the outskirts of Portland it was dusk and she was locked in rush-hour traffic. She couldn’t believe how densely the cars were packed together on the freeways, slowing to a crawl as on-ramps merged and lanes closed down and branched off to other roads. In the car beside her at one point she saw a man reading the newspaper as he drove. Other people sang or talked into tiny tape recorders or huge car phones that looked capable of killing someone. What would it be like, living in a place like this? Who would know you; who would ask you how you were and mean it? On the other hand, no one would know your business; no one would even know your name. You could be a perfect stranger as long as you wanted. You would have no sins, no baggage, nobody wanting you to fail. Hell, you could run away without ever leaving town.

By the time she reached the far side of Portland it was dark. There was no chance of finding Christie’s truck until it got light again. Reluctantly Petie found the Motel 6 right at the bottom of an off-ramp.

“Evening,” said the clerk, a young man with a mended harelip and blank expression.

“My name is Coolbaugh. I should have a reservation.”

“Uh-huh.” The clerk flipped through some papers on the counter. “Here we go. Patricia?”

“Yup.”

“You’re in number 105,” the clerk said. “Double, smoking.”

“I don’t need a double,” Petie said.