Preston Falls : a novel (43 page)

"Did you get enough sleep?" Carol says.

"I'm okay. Listen, I have to give you money to get that thing fixed. You can't be driving around with a swastika on your door." She takes a burning sip of seltzer and sits down at the table again.

Carol laughs. "You don't think I'm that nuts, do you? Look, I totally know what the boundaries are. Last night Roger and I took some of your big brown wrapping paper and painted a sun with poster paints—you know, since it really is a sun—and we duct-taped it right over the thing. That should hold until I can get out to McCall."

"Wait, you're going to Idaho} I thought you were going back to Anacortes."

"Well . . . eventually." Carol gets up and walks to the end of the counter by the phone. "But I thought I might as well go by way of Idaho because there's this amazing body shop in McCall." She takes a pen out of the jelly glass Jean keeps full of pens, tests against her palm to see if it writes and brings it over to label the carton. "When Gid rolled his army truck that time—I told you about that."

"Doesn't ring a bell," Jean says.

"Wow, I never told you that story? See, these biker guys—I don't know, I guess that should be for another time. Anyway, the point is, the people at this shop towed the thing in, banged out all the dents, matched the camouflage perfectly, and you know what the bill was? Seventy-five dollars. I could never get over that."

She writes MISC on a flap of the carton and puts the pen behind her ear. Then she sits down cross-legged on the crappy old linoleum floor that was never high on Willis's list of priorities.

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"But you lived there such a long time ago. How do you know they're even in business anymore?"

"It's worth a try," Carol says. She looks down at the floor, smiles. ''Everything doesn't change. I mean, it does, but ..." She shrugs. "Actually, I thought I might hang out there for a while. There was a long time when I never wanted to go back there, but it seems like now it might be a good thing for me. Anyhow, the woman who's renting my house is supposed to have it until April." She takes the pen from behind her ear and examines it.

"So in other words, you don't even know where you're staying? Carol. You're surely not—"

"Good God no. Gid's not even there anymore. He went back to Stone Mountain. Stone Mattin, Joe-ja. I thought I told you. Staying with his sister and her family, going to meetings every day. It's like everybody's suddenly going home now, back to their old hometowns and everything."

"So why aren't you hotfooting it down to Bethesda?"

"Oh puke" says Carol. "God, do you remember the Robertses? When we all used to have to go over and listen to Mr. Roberts play the Hammond organ?"

Jean laughs. "Right, and they'd serve us ginger ale with those ivory-colored plastic coasters? I can even remember how it smelled in there."

"I can too! Amazing. I think it was mothballs. You remember he used to play 'Charmaine'?" Carol ripples her fingers in midair, one hand higher than the other. Jean puts her hands over her ears. " 'Charmaine,' 'Jeannine, I Dream of Lilac Time'—boy, he knew 'em all. Yikes. And meanwhile Daddy's getting ripped on Manhattans."

"Right," Jean says. "It didn't dawn on me until years later that he hated the Robertses."

"Are you kidding me? Even when he'd call Mr. Roberts a genius? You know, in that tone of voice? I would like cringe.''

Jean shrugs. "I remember him giving us his cherries."

"Uh-huh," says Carol, "and after he'd given us like three or something. Mom would be like, Joe? Sweetie, I really don't think —I don't know, that was their dance, I guess."

"Hey, how bad could he have been, right? Since we both ended up marrying him."

"You always say that," Carol says. "/ thought I was marrying Clint Walker."

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"Well if Bethesda's out, where is our spiritual home?" Jean gets up from the table to sit beside Carol on the cold, cracked linoleum. Carol nudges a litde closer. "Maybe Disney World," says Jean. "There's no litter, they take care of everything ..." She can't think of a third thing to round out the joke. From the living room she hears tinny voices singing: The crankiest of creatures in the whole wide world / Our next cartoon features Slappy the Squirrel!

She's never sat on the kitchen floor before; the ceiling seems a long way up. Then she looks down at Carol's hands, the knuckles getting so big, the skin dry and stretched tight. Carol's going to be forty-eight. "What'll you do about Thanksgiving if you're in McCall?"

"Save a turkey," says Carol.

"We're going to miss you so much."

"Oh listen, just being with you guys, and the fact that it happened to time out so perfectly ... I don't know, we think differently about stuff like this." Carol strokes Jean's hair, just once. "I know you're afraid that you're going to just be lost if Fm not here to help. I feel like it's the opposite, that you're going to be found."

"I hope you're right." Jean looks down at the poor old linoleum. "I wish I had feelings in any direction."

"You have them, believe me. You just have to learn to locate them, and listen to them."

"Right," says Jean. "That'll be something I can work on. In my spare time." She gets to her feet; her back's still aching. From the living room, mad cartoon xylophone music. She stretches, hands clasped and arms reaching for the ceiling, and it feels as if she's letting air in through the spaces between her ribs. She lowers her arms, breathes out. "Okay. So what can I do? Can I help you with anything?"

"I think Fve got it pretty much under control." Carol bounces up off the floor: probably all that yoga. "Actually, one thing: you wouldn't have a couple of bungee cords I could take? FU give you the money to replace them."

"There's an old expression for this," Jean says. "It's called buying? No, you cannot buy bungee cords from me. I'll be happy to give you some."

"Thanks," says Carol. "I guess I still need to work on being able to ask for things." She picks up the carton and starts for the door.

"Ah, but who can say how the cosmic wheel may turn?" What's the idea? That if she won't let Carol leave on a pleasant note, then Carol

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can't leave? She puts on her gray sweatshirt, gets her keys and goes out to the Cherokee.

In the thing between the front seats, Jean finds two bungee cords she's been meaning to use to hold down the lids on the garbage cans and hopefully keep raccoons out. Carol, in just jeans and t-shirt, is up on the back of her truck with boxes, suitcases and her bicycle, dragging her giant duffel bag into one corner and wedging it in with a suitcase.

"So the bad news is," says Carol, "I have to bring all this junk into the motel every night and load it again in the morning." She pushes a box over against the suitcase and straightens up. "The good news, I was able to get reservations for Motel 6 the whole way. It's going to be like Cleveland, Iowa City, Cheyenne, Boise. Unless I decide to skip Boise and just boogie on up to McCaU."

"Aren't those pretty long stretches?" Jean says.

"They'll keep the light on for me. I see one of those?" Jean hands her the bungee with red, black and yellow markings, like a coral snake; Carol passes it through the back wheel of her bicycle and the handles of the duffel bag and hooks the ends to the turnbuckles attached to the truck body. "I take just one more?" Jean gives her the green-and-white one, which Carol threads through the bicycle's front wheel, around the crossbar and through the handle of the suitcase. Then she puts both thumbs up and says "Bingo," vaults out of the truck, wipes her hands on her jeans and hugs herself. "I am freezing. I've got to toughen up again if I'm going to hack it in Idaho. So did you see our thing?"

"What thing?" says Jean. "Oh. No."

On the driver's-side door, in a frame of gray duct tape, a round yellow sun with a yellow fringe of rays and a red smiley-face, painted on brown paper; underneath, in purple letters too crude to be Carol's, the word NAMARIE. He's even copied the little things over the E.

"Na-mar-ee-ay, right?" says Carol. "Not Na-mar-ee?"

"I would guess," Jean says.

"Good. Not that anybody's probably going to ask."

Back in the house, Jean puts on water, then goes into the living room. Roger's still on the floor, watching a cartoon girl have a temper tantrum— You never like my friends! —and mutate first into a monster, then into a nuclear explosion. What in God's name? Jean takes five twenties out of her wallet (leaving a ten and two singles) and comes back into the kitchen where Carol's sitting at the table, trying to do her trick of balancing the salt shaker on edge. Five of eleven. She's planning to hit

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Cleveland tonight? Not possible. "When were you thinking of starting?" Jean says.

"A while ago, actually But if I go now I'll be in okay shape."

"You know, you could do one thing for me."

"Sure."

"I want you to take—"

"No," says Carol. "No way."

"—to take this and use it to buy yourself one extra day for your trip. One more motel, one more day of meals. Okay?"

"It's a sweet thought, but—"

"I want you to check your map and figure out more humane stops for yourself so you're not driving eighteen hours a day."

"Oh come on, it's not—"

"Then call Motel 6 and get them to redo your reservations. There's the phone. They shouldn't even allow you to make those kind of reservations. You know, you're not some trucker.'''

"I always do coast to coast in five days," says Carol. "This is four days just to get to Boise. Please don't turn this into a money thing."

"It's not a money thing," Jean says. "I just want you to be safe and not wear yourself out. If you don't take it, I'm going to burn it. Right in the burner." She points to the stove.

"I can't. I'd feel too weird."

Jean moves the kettle off the burner and dangles a twenty above the blue flame. "Going . . . going—"

"You wouldn't really," says Carol.

"Gone." When the edge of the bill catches, Jean drops it, flaming, onto the stovetop. Carol jumps up from the table. "You're down to eighty," Jean says. "That was the good bottle of wine you were going to have with dinner." She holds up another twenty "Going ..."

"Okay, okay,'' says Carol, grabbing at it. ''God. Everybody thinks I'm the crazy sister."

"And you're not giving this away to the homeless, right?" Jean puts the money behind her back.

"I am the homeless," Carol says. "Please." She stretches her hand toward Jean.

''That's what we like to hear." Jean lays the four twenties on Carol's palm.

"Good God." Carol sticks them in the pocket of her jeans. "Let me o«/of here."

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"I was thinking," Jean says, "maybe we should follow you over to the pancake place and have like a farewell brunch? You know, some kind of ceremony."

"Too sad," says Carol. "I think I should probably just say goodbye to Mel and Roger and then boogie."

Jean stupidly says, "But I have water on for coffee."

"I shouldn't," Carol says. "You know that saying, miles to go before I sleep."

"Right," says Jean.

"You're going to be fine," Carol says. "What is //?/>?" She takes the pen from behind her ear. "I thought I felt something. Is this yours or mine?" She answers herself with a shrug. "Who cares, right?" She lays it on the counter.

Jean takes her sister's knobby hand. Rough and dry like a man's, but thin, light. "You're going to be fine too." She snorts. "God, listen to us: fine fine fine.'' Draws a long breath, lets it out. "So. I guess we can't string this out any longer."

They watch Carol's truck turn the corner and disappear behind the house where the people have the black Grand Cherokee; then they hustle back in out of the cold, Jean still holding Rathbone by the collar. Mel and Roger go straight upstairs—which in a way is good, because she needs a few minutes. Though she's absolutely got to talk to him this morning. She spoons coffee into the filter paper and pours the water over it, then pops a couple of Advils to nuke her headache. She gets the JOE mug down. While the coffee's dripping she might as well go up and get that load of laundry.

Down in the basement, she settles in the good old armchair—five minutes, no more—rests her coffee on the broad upholstered arm and picks up The Father Hunt. The washing machine starts its steady sloshing, like a mother's heartbeat in the womb. She's thinking how much she likes this little thing where Archie says, / wish I knew if you would really be interested in what we did during the next forty-eight hours, like he's flirting with you almost, when the phone rings and she jumps up—of course knocking the stupid coffee over and smashing the mug on the cement floor. Crap. She charges up the steps to the kitchen, snatches the phone off the wall and pants "Hello?" just as she hears Mel say "Hello?" on the upstairs extension.

"Hi, Mf/anie?" Fucking Erin Miller.

"Fve got it. Mother," Mel calls.

Jean hangs up, takes a couple of deep breaths—in fairness, Erin did do the responsible thing yesterday—then gets down the green mug. Which she's never liked, so it's certain never to break. She pours more coffee and goes back down to the basement. She gathers the broken pieces of the JOE mug, lifts the lid to stop the washer, extracts a sopping towel, mops up the coffee spill and throws the towel back in. In the pile

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of pieces she sees a shark fin of china with the O intact. If she were still an artist . . . But it would be obvious and stupid.

Which reminds her: she has to look for another job.

How long does she have? That wasn't made clear, was it? Or did she block out that part? So she'll have to update her resume. Right, and send it where? Well, not a good day to think about this. God, the mortgage alone is like eighteen hundred dollars. Car's another four, mortgage on Preston Falls probably another four, so that's twenty-six. Commuter ticket, hundred and sixty, plus the usual bills—with winter coming, they're going to get socked for fuel oil. God, plus food. Clothes. Her take-home for the month is twenty-three. Less than twenty-three. Twenty-two and change. Amazingly good money, she'd always heard, for an art-school person.