Mourning Becomes Cassandra (16 page)

“At least take this book with you—a good comprehensive overview of polar exploration,” he murmured. His voice took on that familiar, baiting note. “Something about the…frigid…cold is irresistible to some men; they can’t stay away from it. Must be all that untrampled, virgin snow. The purity of it.”

I scowled at him then, snatching the book. “Not that you would know, having spent all your time where ‘generations have trod, have trod, have trod.’”

Daniel laughed outright. If Michelle hadn’t been standing there on the stairs, arms crossed and looking daggers, I might have added a few choice words, such as, he was the most disrespectful, conceited, insensitive man I’d ever met, and could he please confine his flirting to the masochistic women who were interested in it? As it was, I turned on my heel with what dignity I could muster and shut the door just shy of a slam.

The rest of the morning, I hid in my room, writing, and not going down for lunch until I saw Daniel and Michelle leave. Daniel was wearing a suit, so I assumed they were going to the friend’s wedding and I would be spared his presence for the rest of the afternoon.

By two o’clock I had rough drafts of the game introduction and one scenario, enough to talk about if James asked, and my thoughts turned to bowling. At least I had been to Tech City Bowl before, so when I swung by to pick up Nadina at the school, we made it on time. She was not noticeably more excited about bowling than about sailing and greeted me with, “Dude, do you think they’ll let me have the bumpers up?”

Her face lit up suddenly. “I got a 77%! And I totally forgot I was going to email you and tell you that Kyle Bateman helped me with my math!”

“Kyle did?” I asked, pleased. “How did that happen?”

“I was sitting outside Tuesday after school, and since you were gone I was trying to go over my stupid pre-test which I totally bombed because I did not have a clue what was going on, and Kyle heard me cussing and saw me throw my math book on the ground, and he came over and was like, ‘Dude, that’ll break the binding.’ And I said, ‘Fuck the binding’—sorry, Cass—‘it’s not like having a nice binding is gonna help me understand what’s inside.’ And he looked like he was gonna walk away, but then he didn’t and he said, ‘Did you want help with that?’ And he sat with me for like almost an hour and explained stuff to me, and I almost got it! 77%!”

Not only was I glad for Nadina, who struggled with most subjects besides science, but it gave me a thrill to think of Kyle reaching out for once to one of the ‘druggies’ he despised. “Let’s try to get a lane with Kyle and James,” I suggested. “I’d love to thank him and talk to him.”

“Whatever, Cass. As long as you don’t get embarrassing on me,” agreed Nadina. “And let’s try to get Sonya and her old lady with us, too.”

Although it was dark in the bowling alley, it was easy to spot Kyle sloping toward the shoe rental counter, James alongside him. Kyle was wearing his characteristic three t-shirts and low-slung jeans hanging by their last threads, and James was his usual dapper self in a snug charcoal gray sweater and dark corduroys. I sent Nadina to wait in the check-in line and let Mark Henneman know we were there so I could catch them.

“Guys!” I called. “Mind if Nadina and I bowl with you?”

James turned with a big grin on his face and shook my hand heartily, and Kyle even got the ghost of a smile. “Cass! How was your trip?”

“Not bad. It was my mom’s 60
^th
. She and my dad moved to the Bay Area when my brother and I were in college, so it was great to get some sunshine.” I turned to Kyle. “And I hear from Nadina that you helped her with her math this past week. She even passed a test she was sure she would fail.” As I suspected, Kyle merely nodded and shuffled his feet, letting his long hair fall in front of his eyes, and grunting when James slapped him approvingly on the back.

It was a riotous afternoon. To Nadina’s disgust, the bowling alley had a maximum age limit on bumper usage, and she didn’t qualify. She and I were wretched, barely breaking seventy, and James was hardly better. The overall lane champion turned out to be Sonya’s mentor Louella, putting us all to shame, but no one minded.

Having not seen him for a while, I was glad for the chance to talk to Kyle. Louella was bowling her third strike in a row and Nadina and Sonya had gone to get everyone drinks when he said abruptly, “So you’re not writing your novelization anymore?”

“Nah,” I admitted. “I hope you’re not too heartbroken—I know I didn’t leave you in suspense—but did James tell you I’m going to be doing some writing work for Free Universe? And you helped me get the job because you fixed all the mistakes that would have made me look like an idiot.”

“Yeah,” Kyle answered vaguely. “James invited me to come see his office, too. I got to beta test some of the games and tell them if they were lame.”

“Oh—and were they?” I asked awkwardly. I could see that James must be listening because he turned away to hide a smile and made a big deal of looking for his bowling ball.

“They were okay. They didn’t suck.” Now I was grinning. Obviously faint praise wasn’t so damning when it issued from the mouth of a teenage boy. In fact, it was downright thrill-inducing.

James must have shared my opinion because he turned back to throw an amused look at me. “It’s our company motto,” he declared, “
‘We just don’t want to suck
.’”

“Then I’ll fit right in,” I laughed.

When Kyle was up bowling, I asked James if he’d spoken to Kyle about doing voiceovers yet. “I mentioned it when he was in, and he tried to hide it, but I could tell he was excited by the idea. Maybe after you work with Murray some, Kyle can come watch you do some recording.”

“Let him see how the pros do it,” I teased.

After the game was over, and we were up in the snack bar having pizza, Sonya accosted Kyle with “Hey, Bandit, what’s going on with your court case? Are you going to juvy?”

Louella, who hadn’t heard of Kyle’s situation, choked on her soda, and Sonya had to thump her on the back. Kyle was very still for a moment; I knew he was no fan of giggly girls who talked about people for entertainment. He seemed to be weighing his options in his mind but finally answered, “My sorry-ass lawyer and I just signed my diversion agreement with the prosecutor.” He ignored me clapping my hands, thrilled, and continued, “I’ve got to pay the stupid school back and do a shi—do a load of community service and write an apology to the friggin’ computer science teacher.”

“You’re lucky, dude,” crowed Sonya. “I was thinking you’d have to go on Judge Judy, and she would so kick your ass!”

Kyle was spared having to respond to this asinine comment by Nadina. “Sonya, you friggin’ retard. Judge Judy does small claims. Kyle, like, trashed hundreds of dollars of stuff and hacked some dickhead’s computer—he didn’t run over somebody’s dog.”

I hardly knew where to look—looking at James would make me laugh, and looking at Kyle would make him feel even more uncomfortable—but it did occur to me that Kyle and Nadina must have talked about more than math that one afternoon, if she knew something Sonya didn’t. Sonya appeared to have reached this same conclusion because she raised her eyebrows at Nadina and dropped the subject, probably intending to dig for more details when they were alone.

The sun had nearly set by the time I came home. It was too early for dinner, not that I was very hungry after the bowling-alley pizza, and I didn’t feel up to doing any more writing or research, so I made myself some tea and went to lounge on the porch. Phyl had transitioned all the planter boxes to ornamental kale and coleus and arranged a little display of white and orange pumpkins by the door. I hadn’t been there more than twenty minutes when Daniel pulled up, still in the swapped car. It was dark now, and I thought briefly about sneaking around the corner of the porch to avoid him and Michelle, before I decided that was juvenile.

As it turned out, he was alone, and with my mind full of Camden School I realized this might be a good time to hit him up about hard drugs. “How was the wedding?” I called, as he came up the steps. Although he had taken off his tie, he was still more dressed up than I’d ever seen him, and I had to admit Phyl wasn’t totally nuts always to be staring at him.

Daniel surprised me by smiling a little and coming to throw himself in the chair across the table from my glider. “It was a wedding. Have you ever noticed that, in Shakespeare, all the plays that end with a wedding are comedies, and all the plays that begin with a marriage are tragedies?”

I mulled this over. “You’re probably right. And all the ones with couples who are separated are half-comedy, half-tragedy. Shakespeare and you must be kindred spirits.” And Michelle had definitely been channeling Lady Macbeth that morning. “Do you and your friends hold a wake every time one of you gets married?”

He looked at me with a wry expression. “I’m not against other people getting married, Cass. I’ve just never seen the need myself.”

“What about the Francis Bacon I saw on your bookshelf—what does he say? ‘Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.’ Maybe you’re right, Daniel. Who needs a wife? You’ve got girlfriends for now, golfing buddies for middle age companionship, and you’ll probably be able to afford a really nice assisted-living place when the time comes.”

“Who says I can’t have mistresses at every stage?” he challenged.

“Good point,” I replied caustically, “I can’t speak for other women, but I know I’ve always been a sucker for lecherous old goats in wheelchairs.”

Daniel laughed. “I didn’t mean you, Cass. I could never aspire to you.” He delivered this last remark mockingly, and I felt my cheeks warm. He was hopeless.

Making my tone sternly business-like I said abruptly, “Now that we’ve settled that, I have two quick things I wanted to discuss with you.” He waved his hand as if to indicate I should go on. “One was that my brother Perry might be dropping by unannounced some time or times in the future because he’ll be working in Portland for a few months. I don’t imagine he’d stay more than a couple days at a time, if that’s okay.” Daniel nodded, so apparently Joanie was right and he didn’t care.

I hesitated then a little over the drug question but decided there wasn’t any nice way of going about it. Better just to plunge ahead. “You don’t still do drugs, do you?”

He stared at me, his mouth twisting in amusement. “I never can guess what you’ll say next, Cass.” Watching my blush deepen, he finally said, “Was that still part of the first item on the agenda, or was that item two? Does your brother need a local dealer when he visits?”

“Umm…two. That was related to item two,” I clarified.

“The answer is no, I don’t still do drugs. I haven’t since college. Why?”

I fidgeted nervously. “Well, in college then, did you just smoke pot?”

“No,” he replied unhelpfully, appearing to enjoy my discomfiture.

“Yes, I have a…
friend
…who’s trying to cut down on the hard stuff, and I just wondered what ‘the hard stuff’ might be.”

“For a church girl, you keep some strange company.”

Waving this off, I persisted. “If this friend’s boyfriend were in the Seattle music scene, do you think those are probably the drugs she’s exposed to?”

Daniel shrugged. “Probably all those and more. The drugs and permutations of drugs keep multiplying. I would bet she’s seen speed and ketamine and GHB, poppers—ah, to be young again.” I knew he said this last just to irk me, so I ignored it. After a pause he said, “If she’s not too addicted, she may find it’s easier to quit the drugs than the company and the culture.”

Troubled and thinking of Mike, I asked, “But is it possible to quit the drugs without quitting the company?”

Picking up one of Phyl’s little pumpkins, he spun it by its stem, setting it whirling like a top. It bumped off the porch into the rhododendrons. “It’s pretty difficult,” he answered finally. “Depends how close you are with the company. If she’s just using with strangers she sees on weekends at some rave it can be done, but if the company is closer than that—good luck.” Bending down gracefully, he plucked the pumpkin out of the bushes and replaced it on the pile. “She might just find the company doesn’t want to let her go.”

Phyl’s birthday fell on a Friday, but we decided to celebrate Thursday at our regular open house. True to her promise, Joanie’s masterpiece of a red velvet cake stood under its glass dome, and while she worked on a lasagna, I made a quick dash to the mall to pick up a little birthday gift. I figured I could kill two birds with one stone and drop in at the Petco to see Nadina at work.

It wasn’t hard to spot her tall figure pushing a broom around, bizarre though she looked in the work-issue blue polo shirt. Min and I used to be frequent Petco visitors, it being the low-maintenance, Eastside alternative for moms who didn’t feel up to the half-day Woodland Park Zoo trek.

“Do these guys ever do anything?” I asked Nadina, pointing to the snoozing, dog-piled ferrets. “Every time I’ve been here they’re all piled up asleep like this.”

“I’ve seen ʼem move,” she said imperturbably. “They get really active around dinner time, but they sleep 18-20 hours a day. Also, they’re probably depressed because they really ought to be able to run around outside their cages. Come check out this dog I groomed totally by myself.”