Step-Ball-Change (23 page)

chapter thirteen

T
AFFY WOULD NOT GET OFF THE PHONE
. S
HE CALLED
Holden’s secretary at least ten times the first day. “You do know where she is. I even know where she is. She’s in Rome setting up a production for a film, and since it’s a film, I assume it’s business, and if it’s business, I assume you know where she is. Now, if you know where she is and you’re not telling me because she’s told you not to tell anybody, then I want to remind you that I’m her mother.…

Well, do you have her number in Cap Ferret? Ferret. Like the weasel but with a better pronunciation. She bought a house there. Well, she has a cell phone. There were cell phones in France the last time I checked. Holden hasn’t gone out of the house without a cell phone since they were invented.… Yes, fine, you do that, but I’ll call back again. I may not know how to get ahold of her, but I know how to get ahold of you, and I will continue to do that until you locate her for me.… Good, then we understand each other.”

She pushed down the button and dialed again.

“Neddy? Neddy, if you’re there, pick up the phone. This is not about me and it’s not about Buddy Lewis. This is about Holden. Call me back.”

“What difference does it make? What are you going to do if you find her?” I said.

“I’m going to make her come back here. It isn’t right. You don’t show up and then disappear with some guy you just met. I need to talk to her.”

“So you talk to her and she says, Mom, I met a guy and I blew you off and I’m really sorry. Then what?”

“Minnie, I feel … I feel like everything is falling apart and I can’t stop it. I can’t make anything have order except for those little girls in their tap shoes. I just want someone to play fair, to be held accountable. I’ve had a very hard time coming to terms with the fact that my husband is a complete bastard. I don’t want to have to think ill of my daughter, too. I want her to come home so I won’t
have
to think ill of her.”

She got out the white pages and started flipping through.

“Do you think she’s still in Raleigh?”

“Be quiet. Here, let me have your glasses.” I handed her my glasses and she looked at the phone book again and dialed the number. “Jack Carroll, please.”

“You know he’s not there.”

She waved me off. “Out of the office? Do you have a number where he can be reached? Yes, it is important. This is the U.S. Attorney General’s office. I’m holding a file on Jack Carroll in my hands. We’re reopening a case of his.”

“Taffy, put down the phone.”

“No, I will not speak to someone in the department. Jack Carroll was the lawyer on the case. Don’t tell me you let your A.D.A.s leave without a forwarding number.… Do you know when he’ll be back?”

I leaned over and hung up the phone.

“What in the hell are you doing?” she said.

“When they trace this call, and they will, it’s going to look pretty suspicious that it’s coming from the public defender’s home number, don’t you think?”

“I’ll call back from a pay phone.”

“You’re insane.”

She was dialing again. “Margaret? Hello there, it’s Mrs. Bishop. I’ve been fine, and you? … No, just out of town for a while. Visiting my sister in Raleigh … Yes, it is lovely here … Does she? Your cousin. No, I didn’t know that. Is Mr. Bishop—… Now that you mention it, he did say something about a trip. You know me, scatterbrain. Do you have the number? No number? Fiji? Are you sure? You think I would have remembered Fiji. Margaret, I have such a little question, do you know what? I think Ilena McNeal could help me. If you could transfer me to—Really. Now, that’s bad luck. And you don’t know when she’ll be back in town? I’ll tell you what, let me leave my number. Then when you hear from one of them, you can have them call me. Thank you. Yes. Good to talk to you, too.”

She hung up and rested her head against the receiver. “I swear to God the room is spinning. I am going to be completely, permanently sick. Fiji. Now I’m going to have to track him down in Fiji.”

“You’d be a natural in the FBI,” I said.

“The FBI. Does Tom have any friends in the FBI? Maybe someone he went to law school with a million years ago?”

“Not that I can think of. Who is Ilena McNeal?”

“Who do you think she is?” Taffy didn’t look up at me.

“God, you know everything.”

“I know everything except where Holden is. There has to be a way to find her.”

“You could get on a plane to Rome. I hear it’s a great city to walk around in.”

“Too many cats. Besides, I’m not even sure she’s in Rome.”

“I’m glad you were the one who said it.”

“How’s Kay doing? Has there been any progress on the wedding front?”

“I think everything’s on ice while Kay recovers from her mysterious imaginary virus. She can only hold them off for so long. She’s not even being very careful. Tom said he caught her sneaking into the office. Trey called me yesterday to see how she was really feeling. She told him not to come over, she says she doesn’t want to give him anything.”

“My, that’s certainly metaphoric.”

“He’s probably been trying to call again today and just can’t get through, in which case I thank you for tying up the line. I don’t like to lie to Trey. He seems like someone who has no concept of lying.” I looked at my watch. “Isn’t it time for you to go to school, or do you want me to take your class?”

Taffy sighed and pushed herself up from her chair. “No, it will do me good to go and boss the short people around. I can pretend I’m their mother and make them do everything I say.”

“The nice thing about dance students: They do everything you say, they go home at the end of the hour, and they pay you.”

G
EORGE WAS THERE
when I came in from the grocery store. I had almost forgotten he still lived at home. Taffy had taken over his classes at the studio. Not only did I never see him, I never seemed to have time to think about him anymore. Because he had no messy, demanding problems, I had all but forgotten about him, my youngest
son. When he took the grocery bags from me, I put my arms around him. “George!” I said. “My life! Where have you been?”

“I’ve been in the library and I’ve been in love.”

I took a step back and looked up at him. George was tall. “Love?”

“Erica Woodrow, Erica Woodrow. How many times can I say it?”

“As many times as you want, I guess.”

“I may be the surprise winner in this race. No one would suspect it, George coming up fast from behind.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Kay’s marriage, Taffy’s divorce. I could beat them both.”

“You want to marry Erica?”

“Like you can’t believe.”

“George, don’t be ridiculous. You’re twelve.”

He was teasing me. I thought he was teasing me. He reached in the bag and took out a carrot, which he polished off (unwashed) in three bites. “I’m twenty-five, oh you who were married at twenty.”

“God, I regret telling any of you that story. I am glad you’re so happy. It’s a relief to have someone happy around here.”

“Well, Kay’s happy, isn’t she?”

“Boy, you
are
in love. You used to have your fingers on the pulse of this place. Jack the D.A. ran off to Rome with your cousin Holden.”

George sat down in his chair. He set the leafy end of the carrot on the table and stroked it with his fingers thoughtfully. “Are you kidding me?”

“Nobody could make that up.”

He shook his head. “That bastard.”

I was rooting through the bags for frozen food. I had a tendency to get sidetracked while putting the groceries away, only to come back an hour later to a puddle of ice cream. “Why do you say that?”

“Because he snowed me. He made a big play to enlist me in his campaign to win back Kay. He said he was so in love with her that they were meant to be together. He thought Trey was all wrong for the part, and he needed me to help him. I liked the guy. I think I helped him.”

“Maybe you should tell that to Kay. She’s about as miserably confused as one person can be.”

“I’ll stop by her place on my way back to school. I think I was wrong about Trey, anyway. He’s just such an easy target. He’s too rich, he’s too good looking, he’s too nice. What’s there to like? But when we went to his house to watch movies the other night, I started thinking I should have cut him a break. He made us popcorn, he got everybody a pillow. I don’t know. He was so nice to Erica. I’m starting to suspect that underneath all that wealth and privilege there beats the heart of a really decent guy. I think I better go talk to Kay.” George stood up and kissed me. “It was good to see you.”

“Wait a minute, I don’t know anything about you.”

“I told you I’m in love. You know everything about me.”

“Well, then, I don’t know everything about Erica. Is she in love with you?”

George looked puzzled by my question, almost offended. “Of course she’s in love with me.”

“I know you’re lovable, but sometimes these things are unevenly felt. I was just asking.”

“You can’t be in love like this unless the other person loves you.”

“It certainly is more fun.”

George looked in the bag and pulled out three cans of soup, which he took to the pantry. “Do you believe that for every person there’s one person?” he asked over his shoulder.

His voice was so earnest it broke my heart. “Like a missing half? No, I guess I don’t.”

“I didn’t, either.” He came out of the pantry.

“And now you do?” There was a time I had been so good at reading my children, but now I was missing everything. Looking at George standing in front of me in the kitchen, really focusing on him for the first time since I don’t know when, I could see a sheen of happiness covering his skin, the warm, pink happiness of a heart that beat more joyfully, more gratefully.

“I do, completely. Maybe there isn’t one for everybody. I wouldn’t know about that, but for me, yes.”

“And you’d sign your name on the dotted line tomorrow, and she would, too?”

“Right here in this kitchen. This is the person I’m going to be looking at when I die.”

My eyes filled up with tears and I had a sudden tightness in my throat. I never would have expected it. “How can you be sure?”

“There’s no law, you just are. But you were sure, right? You and Dad were sure?”

I ripped off a paper towel and wiped my eyes. “I’m sure now, but back then? No, we were just young. We loved each other and we jumped in and swam like hell.” I sat down in a kitchen chair. I felt like Kay. I felt as though I wanted to cry the Mississippi, cry until every bit of it had washed out of me. I took a deep breath and waited for the feeling to pass. “This is so funny, but I had almost the same conversation with your sister that night you brought Jack over. She
asked me if I had been sure and I couldn’t tell her the truth. I couldn’t tell her because she wasn’t sure. But for you it’s different.”

“Mom, certainly you know by now that where Kay and I are concerned, it’s always different.”

I laughed. “You’re a very lucky man.”

“I’ll tell you something. I love the law, and I love dancing. I feel like I’m comfortable with both, that I’m good at both. Either one would have been possible, but neither one was exactly a perfect fit, something I stepped into and said, Yes, this is who I am. But when I’m with Erica I
know
, this is who I am.”

I nodded. That was the way I felt about dance. That was the thing that had been completely natural in my life. Once I strapped on my shoes, I felt completed, whole. I loved my marriage, my children, but I had had to work at those. Maybe George was right, maybe we each get one thing, our missing half, but maybe it isn’t always a person.

“You’ve got to bring Erica over more. I want to see her when there aren’t so many other people in the room.”

“She’d like that.”

“What about Woodrow? Does Woodrow know?”

George shrugged. “I think he gets it, I’m not really sure. He’s building a garage outside of Chapel Hill right now. The commute is really wearing him out. I saw a lot more of Woodrow when I was hanging out at my house than I do when I hang out at his house.”

“Well, I’m really happy for you. Whatever happens, I’m happy that you’ve had this experience.”

George leaned over and kissed the top of my head. It was something I used to do to him when he was in his high chair and I was spooning creamed peas into his mouth. “You’re not listening,” he said quietly. “I already know what’s going to happen.”

Maybe love was in the ground, a colorless, odorless gas that lived in the bedrock and every now and then managed to dislodge itself from the earth and seep up through the soil, through the basement and the floorboards to fill up the house. Maybe we were infected, intoxicated, a whole house held under the invisible sway of love we could not see. Or maybe love was a virus that one person brought in from the cold, and then it passed from person to person until suddenly everyone was swaying to the low, jazzy beat they didn’t know they heard. I should put a sign on the door that said
WARNING! MARRIAGE WITHIN! ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK
.

Or maybe I should put a sign on the door that said
COME INSIDE
.