The Fortune Quilt (6 page)

“Yeah. Okay. And how do you pronounce Bilby?” she asks as I’m about to hand her the script. I smile, take the script back, and scribble again.

BILL-bee.

There’s a tap-tap at the door, which is slightly ajar. Christopher pokes his head in and grins at me.

“Victor’s on a tear again,” he says, his voice thick with laughter. “He wants us to do something on the snakebite kid.”

I look to Eloise, who’s standing a bit straighter, no doubt so she can pat herself on the back internally for having such great television instincts.

I swap a look with Christopher, and tell him I’ll be there in a minute. He ducks out, shutting the door behind him, leaving Eloise and me in total sound seclusion.

“God, he’s so cute,” she says, sighing like a teenager.

“What? Who? Christopher?”

“No worries,” she says. “I’m not going to steal him from you.”

This takes me a moment to process. “What?”

“Oh come
on
,” she says, leaning closer and speaking to me as though we’re girlfriends having a bathroom confab. “Everyone knows about you two.”

I laugh outright. I can’t help it.

Eloise raises a skeptical eyebrow. “You are sleeping together, aren’t you?”

“No! He’s my best friend. That’d just be… wrong.” I am suddenly beset by a mental image of Christopher lounging naked in my bed. “Oh, God. Wrong.”

“Seriously?” She doesn’t believe me. I can hear it in her voice.

Puppies. Think of puppies. Cute little puppies… jumping all over Christopher naked in my bed.

“Gah!” I say, swatting at her with the script. “Yes, seriously. No.”

“Oh.” Her face brightens. “So you wouldn’t mind if I asked him out, then?”

“No,” I say, but in that moment I realize I do mind. The idea of Christopher ending up with someone as plastic as Eloise bugs me. Besides, Christopher is Lindsay’s, even if neither one of them knows it yet. So, I throw in a little lie. “But his girlfriend might.”

“Girlfriend? Really?” Eloise’s eyebrows knit together. “Well, poop.”

***

“Agh!” Five says as she checks herself out in the hall mirror. “I look like I’ve been puked up by Mother Goose.”

She turns to face me and Dad, her tremendous, hooped Little Bo Peep skirt rustling around her as she stabs the tremendous staff into the ground.

“It’s a Halloween dance,” I say. “You’re supposed to look ridiculous.”

“I look
ridiculous
?” Five wails. Dad steps forward and puts both hands on her shoulders.

“You look beautiful, baby,” he says. She smiles gratefully at him. “And knowing it took two of us to get you all fastened up in it makes me feel much less antagonistic toward your little boyfriend Bobo there.”

Five rolls her eyes. “His name is Bo. Just Bo.”

“Wasn’t Bobo the dog-faced boy?” I ask.

“No,” Dad says. “That was Jojo.”

“
Bo
,” Five continues. “Not Bobo, not Botox, not Daddy’s Little Heart Attack. Just
Bo
.”

A horn honks outside, and Five grabs her little white string-drawn satchel.

“I’ll be home by one,” she says, kissing Dad on the cheek.

“Eleven-thirty or I send the cops out for you,” Dad yells out the door. He waves to both of them, muttering through his smile, “Touch my baby girl, Botox, and I’ll castrate you, you little bastard.”

He closes the door and puts one arm around my shoulder, guiding me toward the liquor cabinet that sits innocently in the corner of our living room.

“Drink some scotch with your old man, Carly. I need something to make me forget my baby’s out with that little tattooed good-for-nothing.”

“Give the kid a break. He got the tattoo with the entire swim team when they won the state championship. And it’s not like it’s in a place where anyone can see it, anyway.”

“Exactly!” Dad says, raising one glass with a flourish and handing it to me. “How many nights do you think I’m up wondering how my little Fiver knows that boy has a dolphin on his left buttock?”

“It was in the school paper, Dad. She showed me the article.”

Dad raises his eyebrows. “Really?”

I clink my glass with his. “Really.”

“They write about buttocks in the school papers now?”

I take a drink. “Your taxes at work.”

He lets out a huge sigh. “I swear that child is trying to kill me.”

“You survived me and Ella, you’ll get through this.”

We head down the hallway, settling on the big black leather couch in Dad’s office. The walls are lined with Dad’s architecture books, and blueprints of his latest project obscure the surface of the desk. The old world style globe sits in the corner with Ireland facing out. Just like always.

“So, how are things going with that new building you guys are doing down on Tanque Verde?” I ask.

“Do you think she’s happy?” Dad asks.

I think about this for a moment, and shrug. “As long as she doesn’t sit down too fast and get hit in the face with the skirt, yeah, I think she’ll have a good time.”

“Ella,” he says. “I was just wondering. I haven’t heard from her much since she came back from her honeymoon.”

“She’s married now,” I say. “She has to dote on Dr. Greg for a while.”

“I know,” he says. “I was just wondering if you’d heard from her.”

I shake my head. “I talked to her for a minute on the phone last week. But she seemed fine. And when’s our next Girl’s Night? A week from Sunday? She’ll be here for that.”

“Yeah,” Dad says, then takes a deep breath and looks at me. “He’s good enough for her. Greg? Right?”

I stare at him for a minute, wondering what’s puttering around under that fringe of red hair. “Yeah. I think so. What’s with the worry?”

Dad stares down into his glass. “Ah, nothing. I’m just an old man not wanting to accept that his baby girls are no longer his baby girls.” He smiles and claps a hand down over mine. “And how are you? Have you talked to that Seth since the wedding?”

That Seth.
“No. No, I haven’t.”

“Good,” he says, and takes a sip of his drink. “He was never good enough for you.”

“Of course not,” I say. “No one ever is.”

He raises his drink and we clink on it. Poor Botox. He doesn’t stand a chance.

Three

The following week, on a Thursday afternoon, my mother returns.

There are no letters announcing her return. No phone calls to soften the blow. I simply come home from work and there she is, sitting on the couch with Dad, both of them holding drinks. His is the standard scotch on ice. Hers is clear. It could be gin. It could be 7-Up. I really can’t tell, and I have to wonder why I’m focusing on the drink she’s holding rather than the fact that my mother is in our living room.

I am standing in the foyer, my beat-up messenger bag hanging heavily over my left shoulder as I stare at a woman I haven’t seen in seventeen years. I still can’t believe it’s her, but at the same time, I know that it is her. It is from her that I get my height, my looks, my terminal cuteness. She is me, plus thirty years. Hopefully without the abandonment of my family, but otherwise, we’re dead ringers.

After a long silence with a side of staring, Dad pushes himself up from the couch.

“Carly.” He says my name just as though he’s stating a fact, not like he’s talking to me. “I wasn’t expecting you home this early.”

“I… uh… I left a tape. In my room.” My eyes are still focused on my mother. I don’t feel anything yet, but I know it’s coming, like those tense moments of calm after the flash of lightning when there’s nothing to do but wait for the ground-shaking thunder.

My mother stands up. Her hair is like mine when I don’t mousse it—wild and directionless. Her eyes are red-rimmed and wide.

“Carly.” Her lips tremble and her voice cracks and I realize with a powerful certainty that I do not want to speak to her.

“I can’t do this now,” I say. “I have to go back to work and I can’t do this right now.”

I look at Dad. He looks shell-shocked as well. I don’t want to leave him here to deal with her alone, but he’s a grown man. He can handle this. He’ll have to.

“Carly,” she says again. My throat tightens and I hold up my hand.

“Not now,” I say. I turn around, go up to my room and search for the tape I couldn’t find at work. Perfunctorily, I scrounge through my room, focusing my entire existence on finding the tape. Not on my desk. Not on my dresser. I get down on my hands and knees and feel under my bed. The tape is underneath the quilt. There’s a stab of panic as I think about Brandy’s words.

Everything’s about to change.

Total vague pseudo-psychic crap, and yet the panic escalates, moving from my chest into my throat. I squelch it under a heavy sense of professional duty. I don’t have time for this. It’s sweeps, for Christ’s sake.

I don’t have time for this.

I pad down the stairs and slip out the back. By the time I get to work, I have myself half-convinced that she was just a figment of my imagination. It’s the desert heat giving me hallucinations, although in November, it’s really not that hot.

LSD
. Someone laced my morning coffee with—

Brain tumor.
Brain tumors cause hallucinations, don’t they? I know they make people smell toast when there’s no toast. Right? Something like that.

“Carly?” I look up and see Christopher in the parking lot, having a smoke. He really needs to quit smoking. If Lindsay finds out he’s smoking again, she’s going to kick his ass.

“Do brain tumors make you smell toast?” I ask as I walk toward the front door. Christopher tosses his cigarette to the side.

“I don’t know. Why? Do you smell toast?”

“No.” I reach for the door handle, but Christopher puts his hand on mine, stopping me from opening the door.

“What’s going on?” His eyes search my face, and his eyebrows are knit.

“Nothing. I’m fine. Just tired. I think I need some coffee, or something.” I hold up the tape and lamely add, “I got the tape.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He looks worried. Christopher doesn’t get worried easily. I must look like hell.

I pull on a bright smile. “I’m fine. Now get your ass in there and let’s get this bastard edited.”

***

When I return back home, Dad is there. My mother is not. My theories about hallucinations and brain tumors are beginning to hold water. I’m relieved.

Until I see that Dad’s bottle of scotch is empty. I walk into the living room and lean against the wall.

“Dad?”

He raises his head, a look of mild surprise on his face, as though he didn’t hear me come in. He probably didn’t. He looks a lot like he did in the months after she left, distracted and shell-shocked.

“She’s staying at the Sheraton,” he says. “She likes the beds there.” He offers a weak smile. “Apparently, they have good beds.”

I take a deep breath. I’m amazed and impressed that my shock has lasted as long as it has. I feel oddly calm and in control as I stare down at my old Keds. They’re dirty and there’s a hole forming over my left big toe.

“Where has she been?” I ask finally.

“New Mexico,” he says. “She had a lump on her breast.”

“Oh. God.” My mind swims for a moment before Dad speaks again.

“It was nothing. Turned out to be nothing, but for a while she thought maybe it was something, and…” He stares down into his glass, his expression confused. “So I guess that’s why she’s back. I guess she realized…”

He trails off. I feel as though I’ve been jerked on the end of an unforgiving tether. I can’t imagine how Dad must be feeling.

“What are you going to do?” I ask.

He releases a heavy sigh. “Can I answer that question tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” My heart tugs slightly to see him sitting there, slumped over a glass of scotch, staring into its depths. I am momentarily angry with him for letting her do this to him again, but I shut it down. “Where’s Five?”

“Staying at Rebecca’s tonight,” he says. “She’s going on that weekend trip to Flagstaff, remember?”

I nod, although I don’t remember.

“She’ll be back on Monday. It’s a good thing. I don’t know how I would have explained it to her.” He pauses for a moment. “I’m not sure how I feel about it myself.”

I get up, grab a glass from the liquor cabinet, and pour myself two fingers of scotch. I take one fiery sip, then turn to face Dad.

“How long was she here for?”

Dad shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

“What did she want?”

He looks up at me. “She wants to come back.”

“Well, she can’t,” I snap. My father’s face flashes disappointment, then falls into an expression of resignation.

“No,” he says finally. “I guess not.”