Mix-up in Miniature (15 page)

“I knew why you were avoiding me, Mom,” Mary Lou said. “Did you have to pull it out of her or did my daughter work her magic and confess in a boatload of tears? And are you now her advocate general, or whatever they’re called?”

I was pleased to hear a lightness in Mary Lou’s voice. I knew there’d be no such accommodation from Richard. “Let’s just say it all came out over ice cream.”

“What a surprise. Seriously, Mom, Richard and I have been talking about coming home now. Do you think we should do that, and deal with this face to face immediately?”

Mary Lou’s suggestion was something that hadn’t crossed my mind and I gave it a moment’s consideration. “I’d say that’s not necessary. You know I would never undermine your directives, so whatever you’d like Maddie to do or not do, she knows with absolute clarity that I’ll support you one hundred percent.”

“Thanks, Mom, I know that. I’m afraid of blowing this thing up out of proportion, but I don’t want to downplay it either. It’s tricky.”

This wasn’t my first clue that I had the most sensible daughter-in-law in the world. “I’m with you.”

“For now, we really do want her off the computer except for homework. Is it too much to ask you to monitor that?”

“Not at all.” I paused. “She’s truly sorry, as I’m sure she’s told you. I know I’m easily duped by her sometimes, but I feel it’s genuine. Which doesn’t mean I won’t enforce the ban on computer use.” As hard as that will be, I added to myself.

“Thanks for telling me that.” Mary Lou sighed. “She’s eleven. I guess it’s time for a crisis. Were you able to get a clue as to why she thought she had to steal to get what she wanted?”

Such a nasty word. I reported to Mary Lou as accurately as possible Maddie’s feelings of inferiority at school since she had nothing to barter with or to be generous with.

“Then one thing led to another,” I said.

“Oh, my God, that’s textbook,” my daughter-in-law said, and I knew she meant it literally. “That’s one of eight reasons why children steal.”

I was curious about the other seven, but I could ask another time. I didn’t want to intrude on her near-giddiness.

“Aren’t you glad your child is normal,” I said, getting a laugh.

“Believe it, yes. I’ve spent most of today reading up on why children steal and that’s one of the big reasons. Listen to this. ‘If the child’s school friends have pocket money, then your child could have a need for pocket money. She will feel a lack if she doesn’t have it, even if you don’t think the need is genuine because you provide her with everything that she wants. This type of child may be tempted to steal money just so she has money like everybody else in her peer group.’ ”

“Are you reading from a book?”

Another laugh. “Yes, I just happened to have one opened to that page. I have others, open to different pages, just to cover all bases.”

“Isn’t it wonderful that Maddie doesn’t have a one-of-a-kind, incurable behavior problem?”

“You better believe it.” I could hear the relief in Mary Lou’s voice.

“Is Richard going to be okay?” I asked. My son the orthopedic surgeon didn’t have a broad platform of behaviors he considered suitable for a child. Or for an adult, for that matter. Ken and I were thrilled that he had the sense to marry someone who could complement that approach to life.

“I’ll take care of Richard,” Mary Lou said. “He needs to see that it’s time we gave Maddie more responsibility and that an allowance is just about a requirement for kids these days.”

I smiled and felt a wave of relief, that the issue of Maddie’s peccadillo (the grandmother in me would not allow a more serious designation) was at least partly resolved.

“I’ll take care of Maddie; you take care of Richard,” I said.

We both knew who had the easier job.

—

While
Maddie took her turn on the phone with her parents, I slipped out to my atrium to give them privacy and to be with the mysterious dollhouse.

I sat close to it, my nose touching the dividing wall that defined the top floor bedroom where Maddie had inadvertently discovered a secret passageway. I looked at every wood seam, every spackle swirl, and every paintbrush stroke for a sign or a crack in the house’s armor. If intensity of staring counted for anything, something would have sprung loose.

Nothing did.

Maybe the trick was not to scrutinize every nail and line of glue, but to take a more holistic approach and view the house from afar. Maybe I wasn’t seeing the forest for the trees. Or the other way around.

I moved back a few feet to get the full effect of the house, imagining it, not in the sleepy suburb of Lincoln Point, but by the shore, perhaps right on the coast in Monterey or Santa Cruz. The exterior walls seemed to weather before my eyes, pounded by spray from the churning waters of the Pacific. I could almost hear the ocean across the street from the sleek front door and smell the salty air.

Still, the house gave up no secrets, no answers to my questions. Where did you come from? What’s hidden in your walls?

I was ready to do a ritual dance to get the house to speak to me.

Just in time, Maddie appeared on the threshold to the living room and rescued me from the delusionary state that was so easy for miniaturists to fall into.

“Is everything okay, sweetheart?” I asked, shaking myself into the life-size world with its life-size problems.

Maddie sprinted over to me. She fell on her knees and put her head on my lap. Her messy curls cried out for attention, and I responded with what she called finger brushing, at once neatening her hair and massaging her scalp.

I felt her body slowly relax and breathe normally.

“Are you hungry?” I asked. The universal question asked by grandmothers in any crisis.

Maddie either nodded or shook her head “no.” It was hard to tell since she wasn’t ready to come up for a full dose of fresh, atrium air.

“The cheeseburgers must be really tasty by now, don’t you think?” I asked.

Her body shook with what I knew to be giggles.

We were on our way back home.

Not even a
therapy session in the microwave could fix what ailed the tough, cold cheeseburgers. We dumped them in the garbage disposal and foraged for something more appetizing.

For Maddie, a quick mac-and-cheese dish did the trick. I put together a salad and offered her a portion. “Too green, too green,” she said.

We sat on the couch in the living room, feet on the coffee table, each with her own dinner choice. “So, how’s everything in Houston?” I said.

Maddie giggled through a mouthful of cheese-coated macaroni. It thrilled me that she hadn’t lost her sense of humor. It was my contention that if you could laugh during the small crises of life, you could get through the big ones also.

Then she sobered. “I know Mom and Dad are both disappointed in me.” She turned and looked at me with a touch of sadness in her eyes. “Especially my dad.”

“Not necessarily, sweetheart. What makes you say that?”

“He said, ‘I’m disappointed in you.’ ” Maddie gave me one of her priceless grins.

“Just win a Nobel Prize in medicine and he’ll get over it.”

“Or I can be a professional shopper online for people who don’t have time to go to the mall.”

“Maybe not,” I said.

We hadn’t had this much to laugh about in a while.

The rest of our conversation was punctuated with promises (on my part) to let her try cheeseburgers again tomorrow night, and (unsolicited, on her part) to never, ever do anything so dumb, dumb, dumb again.

Maddie reported that Richard had agreed to talk with Mary Lou and her about a suitable allowance after doing some research in their various parenting books (Richard) and determining Maddie’s current fiscal needs (Mary Lou.)

With water and milk glasses drained and only crumbs left on our plates, Maddie cleared the coffee table. “Mom said I could do my homework on the computer but you have to monitor me, whatever that means.”

“It means you tell me you’re not going to go surfing or shopping and I’ll trust you to keep your word.”

Maddie gave me a wide-eyed nod that said she wouldn’t dream of disappointing me. I didn’t dare ask how long the ban was in effect. I had an investigation to conduct and I needed my computer assistant.

—

What
I could do while Maddie worked on multiplying fractions, for which I hoped she needed no help, was prepare myself for tomorrow’s trip to the Rockwell home. The prospect of having a sit-down with its financial manager, Charles Quentin, was both exciting and intimidating.

I’d fumbled through meetings with Alicia, Laura, and Paige. With preparation, I hoped to do better with Charles. Wouldn’t a good investigator determine every suspect’s alibi? I myself had a great one. I’d talked to Henry on the phone on the way from the estate to his home and had spent the rest of the evening in the company of several family members. Just in case I was still on Detective Blythe’s list, I was ready.

“I’m done, Grandma,” Maddie said, in what seemed record time for a homework session. But then, unlike her grandmother, she loved math and thought fractions were a breeze.

“That didn’t take long.”

I’d hardly had time to write Charles Quentin’s name at the top of a note pad, plus the numbers one through five, for the questions I might ask.

“All I did was homework,” she said.

Even with my poor math skills, I could figure out that the extra hour Maddie usually spent supposedly doing homework was unrelated to the three Rs.

“I guess we can sit and read, then.”

Maddie chewed that over. “Or, if you have any computer projects, I could help you without touching the keys.”

I smiled. She hadn’t given up on the plea she’d made on our drive home from school, that she talk me through a computer project. What I wanted more than anything was to identify the owner of the old truck that may have delivered the dollhouse in my atrium. I knew I couldn’t get anywhere on that without the LPPD, the Department of Motor Vehicles, or Maddie.

Maddie was handier and far easier to deal with.

Thinking it through, with an admitted bias, I asked myself what Maddie’s parents hoped to accomplish by placing the ban on her computer use in the first place. There were two goals, as I saw it. One, so she wouldn’t be able to shop online for presents for the next fifty BFFs on her list. Two, to penalize her with a punishment that suited the crime.

If she talked me through what I needed, she certainly wouldn’t be shopping online, so that part of the moratorium would be in effect. As far as the chastisement aspect, I reasoned that it would be punishment enough for Maddie to have to watch her grandmother fumble and not be able to step in and do it herself.

The whole question of whether punishment in general was cruel and unusual, or whether it served as a deterrent to criminals, was a much-debated topic among scholars and politicians, too heady for me to take on tonight.

“I don’t know, sweetheart.” What resolve I had. It went hand in hand with my negotiating skills.

“Good. Then let’s go to the computer,” Maddie said, jumping on my hesitation, as usual.

She made a show of dragging me by the hand to her bedroom where Richard had set up my new system. I remembered assuring Mary Lou that I’d move the computer out of her bedroom but the task seemed daunting.

Maybe I could just cut the wires.

I was miffed at the whole Internet industry anyway for having led my good and innocent granddaughter into temptation.

In a fit of guilt about not obeying my daughter-in-law, however, I held my ground, and told Maddie we’d have to move the computer from its handy spot next to her bed. I helped her unplug all the peripherals and transport everything to my dining room table where she set it up again.

While we worked on the move, I explained the key task the computer might help with. “I still don’t know where that dollhouse came from,” I said, pointing to the streamlined home in my atrium.

“I thought the dead lady sent it.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “I’d like to find out for sure.”

We took seats on chairs arranged side by side in front of the screen, with mine more centrally located. I told Maddie about Esther’s seeing a red pickup with Arizona plates, numbers unknown, around five o’clock yesterday afternoon.

“You want to find out who brought us the dollhouse and that’s all you know?” Maddie asked. Her incredulous tone sent hope out the window.

“I was afraid there was no way to do it without access to a special database of red truck owners, but I thought you might know another way.”

I hadn’t meant it as challenge, but Maddie’s stillness and wrinkled forehead told me she was taking it that way. In that personality trait, if few others, she was her father’s daughter.

When her eyes widened, I knew an idea had struck.

“Remember when we were driving home and got stuck in all that traffic? We had to stop until the flagman waved at us?”

“Uh-huh. There’s a new office complex going up at Gettysburg and Springfield,” I said. “What does that have to do with our little project?”

“They always have webcams at those places. We can see if a red truck with a dollhouse on it went through the intersection on its way here.”

I considered myself a veteran of webcams, having once sat with a crafter friend while she used Skype to visit with her daughter who was studying at Oxford for a term. The young student had carried her laptop around her room and showed us her sleeping alcove and bookcases, as well as the view from her window overlooking the Bodleian Library.

Even I was aware how much simpler that had been than asking for a video of something that happened yesterday, like a dusty pickup on its way to my house. But I figured the camera setup at the construction site was more sophisticated than that on Susan’s daughter’s computer. In any case it was worth a try.

“That’s a great idea,” I said. “They probably have one for security. But how do we look at it?”

“It’s not just to see if people are messing up the place. They have them so everyone can watch things go up, and it’s on twenty-four hours a day.”

I translated “watch things go up” to “don’t be upset at the inconvenience; we’re bringing new business to Lincoln Point.” When did I become so jaded about what made the world go around?

This time, politics seemed to be working in my favor.

I started to ask how we could access the camera’s footage, which was a word that probably didn’t apply to anything these days, but Maddie was already writing down the address I’d have to enter to view the video.

“You just have to Google YouTube,” she said, as if she did it three times a day.

She placed the paper with the address on the table next to the keyboard. Poor child. Her fingers were fairly twitching with the desire to enter the information herself. I wondered how long I could hold out, watching her suffer. I entered the letters carefully, waited for the long list of links to show up, and dutifully clicked on the one Maddie pointed to.

A picture of the familiar intersection snapped onto my screen. I was looking at the half-completed multistory building, hardly believing how easy it had been. There was no action in the dug-out area at this hour, but floodlights along the perimeter of the project made easy work of picking out cranes, temporary fencing, scaffolding, and sheets of black tarp where walls would eventually stand.

Beyond the site I could see the hills and residential streets of Lincoln Point, as well as the hospital in the distance. The camera’s reach didn’t extend far enough north to reach my Eichler neighborhood, but it was interesting to have this view of my town all the same.

“Isn’t it fun, Grandma?”

“It certainly is.”

I hated to put a damper on the moment, but I pointed out that the actual boulevards of Gettysburg and Springfield were not visible. Once again, Maddie was on the job, explaining that the numbers down the side of the screen referred to separate cameras, each with a different view of the area.

“Try clicking the ‘two,’ ” she said. The intersection itself, east of the construction, sprang to life.

“What do you know, it’s facing the street.”

I knew my surprise pleased Maddie. She grinned, having gotten over her pique at not being at the controls.

Cars, SUVs, bicycles, trucks, buses trickled by in front of me. Nightlife in Lincoln Point.

“See these arrows?” Maddie indicated a set of back and forward symbols like the ones on the remote for my DVD player. “You can look at yesterday or you can put in any date you want in the calendar, and go all the way back to when they started digging.”

“How do you know all this? Have you been visiting this construction site?” Between shopping for your friends and relatives, I wanted to say, but felt the subject was still a little sore.

“Not this one, but I look at a lot of them. Like, when Mom or Dad are in another city, I look at the webcam to see the weather and stuff. Once in school when we were studying oil, we watched a webcam in the Gulf of Mexico where they were fixing the wells. And two towns over they had a webcam up when they were building the new stadium at the high school. You can even tell if people you know are walking by, if the camera swivels low enough.”

I allowed myself a moment of nostalgia for the days of peeking through holes in fences to watch the guys in the hard hats. Now we could observe them in private, all day. I wondered if today’s foremen and supervisors also sat in their offices and watched their workers instead of physically walking around the site.

And who would have guessed that teaching elementary school would change so much when computers became ubiquitous? It was just as well that I retired before I had to use computers with as much facility as I had with card catalogs in libraries.

I moved the cursor to yesterday at four-thirty and saw the thick traffic of the rush hour, people trying to get from downtown Lincoln Point to their homes to the north. I was starting to get the hang of this webcam phenomenon and I liked it. I had the crazy thought that Esther Willoughby might get a lot of use out of it as she got less able to navigate her lawn and garden.

I liked it even better when a red truck appeared on the scene. I was beside myself as I peered at the faded red vehicle heading around the corner, facing me, going north on Springfield Boulevard. In its bed was a large object, something covered by a blanket or a tarp, something about the size of a dollhouse.

Maddie got up and took a spin around on one foot. It looked like a move she’d learned in a mandatory dance class, but wouldn’t be using on a dance floor for a few more years.

We high-fived before I returned to the controls.

The time code on the screen told us the truck was on its way to my house (allegedly) at about four forty-five. Since the truck was clear of the bottleneck at this point, it would have taken about ten minutes for the men to reach my house, at which point they would have to uncover, unfasten, and lift the house out of the bed and onto my front step. It would take another few minutes for them to drive past Esther in her garden and reach this point on Springfield going the other way. I manipulated the arrows, under Maddie’s watchful eye, and verified the timeline.

Good old Esther. This had to be the truck she saw.

“Now I just need the license plate, and maybe if I show this to Uncle Skip, he’ll run it for me,” I said.

“You can zoom in but you’re never going to see the actual numbers,” Maddie predicted.

I zoomed to the highest point on the scale, six hundred percent. The picture got bigger and bigger, and unfortunately, fuzzier and fuzzier. Maddie was right. The license plate was an unreadable blob with not even the cactus, if there was one, identifiable.

“They do this on television all the time,” I said, defending my squirrelly approach. “They zoom in and you can see the wrinkles on a person’s face and sometimes even a reflection in a side-view mirror.”

“Don’t believe everything you see on television,” Maddie admonished me, and for a moment the earth shifted. A time warp. Wasn’t I supposed to be saying that to my eleven-year-old granddaughter and not vice versa?

Maddie folded her arms across her chest. I remembered assuming just such a posture when about to lecture her. “My computer teacher hates when they do that on TV because it’s nuts. She says it’s all wrong. She says if the digital information”—here she stuttered a bit—“isn’t there, then no matter how much you blow it up, it still isn’t going to be there.”