Into Thin Air (47 page)

Lee knew how badly things had gone at Jim's. He hadn't come by to see her almost all week, and she had been too nervous to go to the pharmacy, too afraid he might tell her to forget ever seeing Joanna. She didn't know what to do anymore. She could threaten with a lawyer all she wanted, but how could she even think of taking custody of a child who hated her?

Every night Lee called Jim's, hoping Joanna might answer. And every evening she hung up, defeated. She was stunned that her daughter had so little interest in her.

She kept thinking, What might Joanna have been like if I had raised her? Would she be more adventurous, running out into the road so many times that she'd have to be tethered into a baby leash? Would she like to cook alongside me, the two of us freckled with flour? Joanna didn't even look like her. But if Lee had raised her, at least her mannerisms would have been the same, wouldn't they? She wouldn't stand so stiffly like Lila.

When she could stand it no longer, when another Sunday had passed, Lee went to the pharmacy. When Jim saw her, he came out from behind the counter.

“It went terribly, didn't it,” she said to Jim.

“She won't talk about it,” he told her. “She won't talk about anything.” He looked suddenly exhausted.

“She'll be all right,” Lee faltered.

Jim glanced back at the counter. A woman was experimentally daubing a lipstick shade across her hand even though there were signs all over the place about not testing the cosmetics. He looked at Lee. “Joanna's not coming by here today.”

“Oh.” She clumsily put her hands into her pockets. “Maybe I'll have some tea.”

“You look terrible,” he said.

“You too,” Lee said.

She sat at the red Formica counter sipping sugary tea, and suddenly she wished for tea leaves, for someone beside her who might tip over the cup and read them. She didn't care what they'd tell her. It would be enough to know you had possibilities. She twisted her spoon in the cup, creating a small whirlpool, but the only thing at the bottom of her cup was porcelain. Abruptly she got up and left.

It began to scare her. She lay awake in the bed, holding up one of the snapshots of Joanna she had stolen, and thought over and over: She's my daughter. We should know each other. She wondered why she had felt more of a connection with Joanna before she had actually met her, why now her own daughter made her feel as if she were living on a planet a million miles away. She fretted her hands over her head. An image flashed: Karen in one of her T-shirts, whirling about the room, arms outstretched into propellers. Lee shut her eyes. The only memory she had of her daughter was in being pregnant and giving birth, but she had turned her face away when they had tried to bring the baby to her. She had refused to touch her. She got up. She riffled her purse for a crumpled snapshot. Valerie had taken the picture. Lee was swinging Karen up into the air, the two of them laughing. She looked at that picture, and she could swear she felt the Wisconsin wind; she could hear Karen's laugh belling out, feel her fingers wrapped tightly about her. She remembered the moment surrounding that photo, knew what had happened before and after the picture had been taken. Her longing was so sharp, she felt suddenly sickened by it. She slid down to the rug, folding over to her knees, rocking, giving herself comfort.

The next day Lee walked into the pharmacy, looking for Jim, wanting company, “I'll get him,” the other pharmacist said, going to the back. She heard him calling Jim. “Someone's here for you,” he sang. Jim came out, his face expectant, hopeful, and she saw, stunned, how he faded right there before her. “I thought you were Lila,” he said.

“You want to get some coffee?” she said.

He shook his head. “I'm sorry,” she said suddenly, and he nodded. “Another time,” he said helplessly.

She told herself that you couldn't always make things happen, that sometimes they took time, and all that mattered was if you had at least laid down the groundwork. The thought soothed her when she noticed another new day on her calendar, when she felt the seasons changing around her.

She filled her time the best she could. She waitressed, itching to be in the kitchen. There was only one cook, a young woman named Elaine, and like most of Georgia's staff Elaine considered herself something other than a cook. Elaine was an actress, always muttering lines as she stirred and chopped. Lee could see her practicing facial expressions, flashing her hands. Elaine was sloppy and hot-tempered and so careless a cook that it hurt Lee to serve the food she prepared. Elaine didn't like anyone watching her, because it disturbed her concentration learning her lines, but Lee could take one look at her dishes and know what they needed, and sometimes, when the chef wasn't looking, she made the additions. A dusting of basil. A few chopped chives. A few times Lee got into trouble. The customers sent compliments to Elaine about the extra cheese now on the pasta, about the cream suddenly spread across some soup. “It was my idea,” Lee said, but instead of being pleased, Georgia was annoyed. “Cream and cheese cost money. Customers don't know the difference unless you educate their palate, and at a restaurant like Trax's it's better palates get so drunk on expensive drinks that you could feed them tire rubber and they'd all think it was delicious.” She gave Lee a warning. “I could fire you,” she said.

“No, please. I need this job.”

“Then do it,” Georgia suggested.

She did it. People drifted in, ordering burgers and fries and an occasional pasta dish that required nothing more strenuous than a sauce over packaged noodles. They ordered coffee after coffee, staying at tables so long they felt they owned them. Lee now moved so silently that the other waitresses began calling her the invisible woman.

She worked as long as she could just so she wouldn't have to spend any more time by herself in her apartment than she had to. On weekends she left her place as soon as she could, planning activities as relentlessly as a scout leader. She spent half an afternoon at the zoo, wandering purposefully past the somnolent-looking monkeys, the furiously pacing tigers, but she was drawn to the night zoo, to the familiar rustlings of the bats. She was drawn to the white polar bears, lolling in a landscape so frozen it reminded her of a Wisconsin winter. “How many places have you lived in?” Jim had asked her once. “One,” Lee had said, and it was the truth.

She visited and revisited every single park and museum and sight there was to see in Baltimore, until the thought of getting on another bus filled her with despair.

She began pointing out sunsets to herself. She reminded herself what a good kitchen she had, that a house didn't have to be lonely if you were working with peace and pleasure inside of it. So right from work she began stopping at the all-night supermarket, buying whatever was fresh and then coming home and experimenting. Lee stirred and chopped until she calmed, floating on, unthinking. She made more than enough food for a dinner party, but she didn't know one single person who might be willing to come. She froze all the food, not throwing it out until the freezer was so crammed that she needed to make new space.

Lila and Jim were fighting again. “Let's settle it once and for all,” Lila said. Her face was pursed and white.

“What do you want me to do?” Jim shouted. “You want me to call a lawyer, you want Joanna in court? You want that?”

Joanna was listening from behind her closed door, and for the first time in her life she couldn't seem to enter the zone. She couldn't shut out the sounds, and it terrified her. Panicked, she walked to the edge of the room, by the windows. She shut her eyes, trying to concentrate, but her parents' arguing pinned her in the present. She heard her own name, bitter, accusing, as sharp as a curse.
Joanna
.

Joanna rummaged in her bureau drawer and took her blue sweater and an extra pair of jeans and stuffed them into her school knapsack. She wanted the dog, but he was somewhere else in the house. She couldn't risk calling him, couldn't risk his barking. She tightened the knapsack, pulled open her window, and climbed lightly to the ground.

It was just past six o'clock, dinnertime. Cars had already pulled into drives. Kids had already been called inside to suppers. Soon there wouldn't be enough real light left to do much of anything. She looked at the row of houses and then bent her head and walked right out of the neighborhood.

She didn't go very far. As soon as she saw the highway stretching out, the brush of wind from the cars, she felt helpless. Abruptly she turned from it and began steadfastly to walk deeper into the suburban streets.

She didn't know where to go, and none of the houses looked very friendly to her. Instead she circled back to the house. The car was still in the drive, the lights blazing. Lila was still shouting at her father, so loudly that she wondered why the police didn't come. She knew these fights. They'd go on until midnight, and in the morning her parents would be tightly polite. They wouldn't look her in the eye. They wouldn't touch.

She wandered back over toward the school. She remembered how she used to love school, how excited she got just from seeing the flagpole out front. Now the flag was off the pole. The windows were black with night. That day in school the music teacher had brightly lined up all ten girls in the class and asked the boys to line up behind whatever girl they liked, and it hadn't taken more than three minutes for Joanna to realize no one was standing behind her. There was a sudden boom of thunder. Shoulders hunched, she walked past as if the school were nothing more than an apparition.

Jim's voice, when he called Lee, was hoarse with fear. “I'll look,” she said. “I'll look everywhere.” She rushed outside, stunned, directionless. She kept thinking about Karen running from Valerie, running desperate and glad to her. Lee ran, jaggedly cutting across lawns, but the only thing in the road coming toward her was a crumpled red Macy's bag.

Jim called the police, but almost immediately he started looking. “You wait here,” he told Lila. “In ase she comes back.” He ailed for the dog. “Maybe he can find her.”

Lila was so upset, it suddenly made him afraid. He gripped at her sleeve. “You'll be here, won't you?” He wouldn't let go of her until she had nodded.

He didn't care what kind of a fool he was, he rang every single bell in the neighborhood, asking if Joanna might be there. “Is something wrong?” person after person asked, and all they had to do was look into Jim's face to know how bad a thing it was. He kept thinking how someone could disappear so easily from your life, you might wonder if your memory of them had been a lie. He thought of Joanna. He thought suddenly of Lila. They had been fighting almost until midnight last night, hushed angry whispers so as not to wake Joanna. Lila had finally bolted away from him, flinging open the front door in fury, in nightgown and bare feet, white legs flashing in the dark. “I've had enough,” she had told him. She had made it to the dewy front lawn, her nightgown fluttering behind her, before he had grabbed her. “Where are you going?” he cried, pulling at her, so panicked he could barely breathe, “Come back inside. Please. I'll sleep on the couch. Just come inside.” He had pleaded and pleaded until his voice was raw, and she had finally, reluctantly, come inside. And although he had made himself a bed on the couch, he had lain still only until he felt she must be sleeping, and then he had gotten up and stood by the bedroom door, just watching her sleep, just making sure she was still there.

In the backseat, Fisher sprawled out and panted. It was nearly midnight, so late the lights in the houses were off. He was on the street with the purple house when the dog spotted a cat and began to bark. Fisher was crazy, not calming until the cat fled. Jim searched for lights, for people he could ask.

He wouldn't give up for the night. He kept circling the routes Joanna might know. It started to pour. Sheets of water drenched the windshield. He parked by the school and called her name. He went by the supermarket where she said all the older kids hung out. “One more time,” he said. He was soaking from running in and out of the car. The vinyl upholstery was slick with water.

He was driving on their street, but he had no intention of stopping, not without Joanna.

“Oh, my God,” Jim said.

By Maureen's front door, face hidden, was a small familiar figure. He jammed on the brakes, knocking the dog forward. He flung open his door, running so fast into the wet street that he fell, tearing open the knee of his pants. He stumbled to her. Shivering, soaking wet, she lifted her small face up to him.

“No one was home,” Joanna cried.

They walked across the yard in the rain. He could hear his breathing. He could hear Joanna's beside him. He wouldn't let go of her hand. He banged on the door. Almost instantly Lila opened it, her face filling with Joanna, filling then with him. “I love you,” he said, and burst into tears, and then her arms were around him.

Terrified, Lee called Jim's house, but when Lila answered she hung up. You fool, she told herself. You idiot. She stalked from one end of her apartment to the other, all the while thinking of all the dangers that could befall a child, and then she grabbed her jacket.

By the time she got to Jim's, it had stopped pouring. Panting, she ran up the walk and rang the bell.

There was commotion. She could hear voices.

The door opened. Jim's body hid the house from her. He came outside, shutting the door behind him. “She's home,” he said. “She's fine.”

Lee felt herself collapsing with relief.

“I found her at Maureen's.”

“Thank God,” Lee said, moving toward the door. Jim pushed her hand from the doorknob.

“Don't you understand, she doesn't want you!” Jim said sharply.

“She's upset,” Lee said.

“Of course she's upset. We're all upset.”

“What can I do?” Lee said. “Just tell me—”