Preston Falls : a novel (34 page)

"What?" Jean says.

"Goodness, that sounds awful, doesn't it? Like a cemetery. But it's definitely not a cemetery. This has been a difficult time for him. But he's come through something. You'll see him again, that's almost certain." Then Mrs. Porter bends forward and makes smooching noises. "Moses? Come and be sociable."

"That's it?" says Jean. "He's with the trees and the grass and Til see him again?"

"Almost certainly," Mrs. Porter says.

"Excuse me, but isn't that, like, a little thin?''

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"Jean," says Carol. "Let her finish."

"Oh no. I'm finished," Mrs. Porter says. "But I'm as certain of that as I am of sitting here talking to you."

Jean shakes her head. "That was nothing."

"I can understand why you're disappointed," says Mrs. Porter. "If it makes you feel any better, I'd say you're at about the fiftieth percentile. If you see what I mean. Sometimes you'll get nothing but a single word that nobody understands. Or a note of music—I've had that happen. It's not like watching television, Mrs. Willis."

"Really," says Jean.

"Now, what I've told you is a rough translation into words of certain feelings, or impressions. I take it your husband is also someone who guards his feelings?"

"Oh please." Jean gets to her feet and picks up her purse from the floor.

"Jean," says Carol. "Would you let her finish, for Pete's sake?"

"She is finished," Jean says. "Weren't you paying attention? Willis is out with the grass and the trees and I'll see him again. He's probably playing golf. In Boca Raton. How much do I owe you, Mrs. Porter? And could I have my husband's razor back, please?"

Mrs. Porter hands it to her, shaking her head.

"I'm not in business, Mrs. Willis," she says. "Haven't you understood?"

"I still don't want to talk about it." They're at The Hideaway, Carol working on a Cobb salad served in an edible shell, Jean with a shrimp cocktail in front of her and a martini for which the shrimp cocktail is the excuse. Jean spoke exactly one word all the way from Beacon back down to Chesterton: when Carol asked if she wanted to stop for a bite to eat, she said, "Fine."

"All I want to say is I'm sorry, okay? And then I'll get right off the subject," says Carol. "But I do have to say I have heard her be better, which is the only reason I—"

"Listen," says Jean, "I want to ask one thing of you. That you mention this to no one, you understand?"

"Believe me, I—"

"As far as the kids, I just had to work late, okay? Anybody else, it's not their business anyway."

"Look, don't you think I'm embarrassed?"

"I'm sorry, I know you are," Jean says. "And I know you meant weU."

"I really did."

Jean takes another sip of the martini; it tastes as poisonous as the first two sips. The shrimps curve over the rim of the metal bowl like the toenails of some animal. "I don't want these," she says. "You want any?"

"Not really," says Carol. "I might take one. But you have to eat. You want some of mine? This thing is huge."

"Don't worry, you're not going to have to carry me into the house. I can't drink this either."

"Oh, could I have a sip?" says Carol. "Can you believe I've never tried one of these? And I'm how old? Don't answer that."

"Be my guest."

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Carol picks up the martini glass with her fingertips and takes just the littlest bit on her tongue. "Ee-eew. That's what businessmen drink?"

"It feels like it warms you all the way down your front. I just udsh I could stand the taste. "

''All the way down?" Carol says. "Honey, if a drink could do that. You know, I sometimes think, I'm only forty-seven. That's not old anymore. And I don't look /errible."

"Of course you don't; you look great.""

"Okay, I look great. Damn it, I do look great; I am not going to send myself negative messages. But here I am, you know? These are supposed to be the best years of your life sexually, and I'm, you know, high and dry. Could I have another little hit?"

"All yours," says Jean.

Carol takes another tiny sip. "Yick," she says. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to get into this. You start to dwell on it, and it just turns all your positive energy against you."

"No, you have a right to feel cheated. And being stuck here for two months—it's kind of a black hole as far as meeting anybody. God, W6'5/chester."

"Honey, this has been a lifesaver. When Dexter first went away to school, it was like this great weight was just lifted off, but then—I don't mean he's a weight, but I was just suddenly sort of floating off into the sky, you know? And that's where I've been. I was thinking about it the other day, when I took the kids to the museum and we saw that Naturemax thing? You know, the camera must be in a balloon or something and you're way up above everything and you're floating, like? So it's sort of been a very scary time, though it's also been really freeing, you know? And when you called in the middle of all that, I just thought, well, this is the voice of, you know, not God as such, but sort of the voice of the next thing."

She takes a shrimp ber^\'een thumb and forefinger, dips the end in cocktail sauce and nips. "Mmm. I never think to get these guys." She dips again. "I just feel that, sexually, I still have something to, you know, contribute —does that sound crazy? Okay, I shouldn't say crazy, because that's putting yourself down, but you know what I mean by 'contribute'?"

"Yeah, I guess," says Jean. "This just isn't a real comfortable subject for me right now."

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"Okay, I respect that, I really do," says Carol. "Listen, could I take just one more of those?"

"Please, take them all."

"Maybe two more," says Carol. "So anyhow, what do you think you're going to do? You know, now that I've been such a big help."

"No idea," Jean says. "Maybe try to hire somebody? I looked in the yellow pages today, and there's just a huge number of, you know, investigators. Some of them used to be regular police detectives—they say. I don't know how you'd ever check. Or my other idea was maybe to go back up there and try to get somebody, since that's actually where . . . you know."

"It's such a long way, though. I could never see why you wanted a place so far away."

''He wanted it," Jean says. "Because it was far away. Listen, can I ask you something? What do you think is going on? Where do you think he is?"

"What do I think? Me personally?"

"I mean, I know you don't know. But just what you feel, in your heart of hearts."

"Okay, my honest opinion?" says Carol. "He found some little cupcake up there and they went off together. I never knew a man who could keep it in his pants. Unless you wanted it."

"But then why would he have to run away?" says Jean. "I mean, he could've just, you know, stayed up there and kept doing it."

"It's men's nature to run away."

"Oh please." Jean reaches for the martini glass, sniffs, sets it down without drinking. "Crap," she says. "So meanwhile, what am I supposed to tell Mel and Roger? I can't keep pretending he's at his mother's. Who, by the way, never called me back."

"Well, here's what / did. You know, when Gid did his little number? Which is why I say it's men's nature? Anyway, I told Dexter that Daddy had become a cowboy and he had to go off on a long trail drive. And guess what—Dexter loved it. He was proud of the fact. Of course, he was only four."

"I don't remember you ever telling me that."

"I guess that was kind of the last of my real stoned period. Like spirits would sometimes speak through me? And some of them were good spirits and some were sort of not. But I actually think in this case it was

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an incredibly wise spirit, that had my good at heart and that knew Dexter was just a little boy who was real into cowboys. Like I could've said, you know, 'Mommy and Daddy both love you very much hut we decided it would he hetter' —all that caca."

"Right," says Jean.

"And I'll tell you something else, that I firmly believe to this day. That story about Gid going off on a trail drive was a healing story. Not only at the time, but also later on when Dexter was old enough to know the truth, so called, and that it's still like a deep structure for things that he's always going to have in his mind."

"Right."

"I'm sorry, I know this makes you uncomfortable, talking about, you know, other realities."

"Oh, fine/' says Jean. "Let's make this be about how uptight Jean is."

"No, I don't mean it in a critical way," Carol says. "You should be uncomfortable, because that's who you are. See, this was sort of a long answer to your question. You say what should I tell Mel and Roger, but I hear you saying that you don't really want to just tell them something. So I think you've already answered the question yourself. All this energy's going into, you know, constructing cover stories. He's here, he's there, he's off at Nonnie's, la dee da dee da. Now, a four-year-old? Different thing. Daddy's off on a cattle drive, and it's not this huge, complicated story that has to hang together. But see, with Mel and Roger, the energy's diverted off into . . . You know, like your appendix: this useless little thing that goes off into nowhere, and it's like sooner or later the dam has to burst."

"So you're saying I should just level with them," says Jean.

"You're saying it to y out self. Look, it's like you have a toothache— okay?—and deep down you know —"

"Okay, thanks, I get it," says Jean. "Look, you better drop me back at the station, so I can get the car and go pick up the kids. Do you remember what our waitress looked like?"

The Millers live on Dogwood Lane, in one of those houses that seem to be aU big wedge-shaped Andersen windows. Jean rings the lit-up doorbell; Rosellen Miller opens the door a crack, then closes it and opens it wide.

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"Jean, how are you doing, come on in. The girls are up in Erin's room, and Roger's downstairs, watching Cody work out."

"Have they been okay?" Jean steps into the foyer, and Rosellen puts the chain back on the door. She's wearing a sweatshirt over leggings and really starting to show.

"Oh fine," Rosellen says. "Roger had a little flare-up at the dinner table, but these things happen. Here, let me take your jacket. You've got time for a drink, don't you? I can't have a drink drink, but I've been guzzling Cody's Gatorade like it's—oh, I shouldn't say that, should I? He did try the one your husband makes."

"Thanks, but we really can't stay. What happened at dinner?"

Wayne Miller comes out of the kitchen, a screwdriver in his hand and screws sticking out of his mouth. He nods and grunts at Jean, then says to Rosellen, "You etter come in look fore I fashen it."

"He's putting up a shelf for me in the laundry room," Rosellen says. "This house has closets galore, but for some reason they gave very little thought to shelves. So 1 thought, maybe just above the machines. You know, to put your supplies."

"Royal painy ash," says Wayne.

"I'm sure it's great," Rosellen says.

Wayne casts a theatrical look at the ceiling.

"I better go inspect," says Rosellen. "You know where Erin's room is. If you want to try to start the prying-loose process."

Jean climbs the three steps up to where the Millers' bedrooms are and heads for the music, some snarling young woman singer. She knocks on the last door on the right, and Erin sings out "Hi-ee" in that airy-fairy voice of hers that would drive you right up the wall.

"Hi, Erin. It's Melanie's mom. She in there by any chance?" The music suddenly cuts off.

"Mother, Erin says I can stay over. Can I?"

"Can she, please, Mrs. Willis?"

"Could one of you open the door?" says Jean.

The door opens, and there's poor moon-faced Erin in one of her loose-fitting hippie dresses. It must be awful to be twelve and already having such a struggle; it's a wonder she hasn't discovered vomiting. Assuming she hasn't. Rosellen once told Jean—based on nothing but wishful thinking, as far as Jean could see—that Erin would "lean out" when she became a teenager. One look at buUnecked Cody, who plays

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JV football and who's essentially Erin with a shaved head, and you can see it's hopeless.

"How are you doing, Erin?" says Jean. Using a normal in-breath to sniff for pot smoke is so routine she's hardly aware she's doing it. (Nothing.)

"Okay. I can lend her some clothes for tomorrow, Mrs. Willis. I've got stuff that's too small for me."

"Can I, Mother?" says Mel.

"Not on a school night."

"But, Mother—"

"Besides, I feel like I've hardly had time to see you, and tomorrow I have to fly to Atlanta. It's just for a day, but I'd sort of like us to hang out a little tonight."

"How come you have to go to Atlanta?" Mel says.

"To look at that new office space. You remember, I was telling you?"

Mel shrugs. It's true, Jean does get this self-righteous tone when she talks to Mel about her work, as if she's doing it on feminist principle. Which she is, partly. Poor Mel was so bored when she brought her into the office on what Willis called Teach Our Daughters to Buy Into the Shit Day

"Listen," she says, "we really need to get Roger to bed. It would help tremendously if you got your things together and you were all ready to go, okay? And I'll try to get him moving."

She goes down into the kitchen, opens the door to the basement and calls hello. No answer; she clomps coming down the stairs, to give additional warning. Roger's sitting on the black leather sofa they have down there, and she sees him quickly slip a magazine between the arm and the seat cushion. Beside him she sees a copy oi Soldier of Fortune. Good God. So what was he reading that's even worse?

" 'Sup," Cody Miller calls, from the seat of some machine with weights and cables. He's wearing shorts and a soaked-through tank top, his broad face and bulging shoulders beaded with sweat. He bares his teeth, a vein bulges out in his forehead and tendons stiffen in his neck; he grunts, and twin stacks of black weights inch up on their cables.