The Fortunes of Indigo Skye (12 page)

Asking her to take me now would be like asking
a tornado to kindly stop for a sec. I can only hope she'll run out of energy in
the kitchen, because I can see me coming home to a bedroom empty of everything
except a stripped mattress.

Anyway, it's spring delicious out, and I don't
mind walking. We had nearly two weeks of sun so far in May, which in the Seattle
area means that any day now, Mother Nature will make you PAY. Better enjoy while
you can. The air smells like juniper and roses and warm cement, and Mrs. Denholm
next door has her sprinkler on already, one of those old-fashioned sorts that
look like a miniature fountain and only cover a three by three area, and Buddy,
the Yeslers' golden retriever, follows me only as far as the mailboxes, like a
good child who stays in the yard like he's told.

Visions of envelopes are dancing in my head, or
maybe not dancing, but walking really fast. I've thought so much about the
envelope that the idea of it is close to being worn and tired, as if it had
stayed up too late having more than its share of a good time. Caution is
creeping in, not bloody-knife caution, but the guardians of disappointment. The
excitement of not knowing has been so fulfilling that the knowing can't possibly
compare.

Trina isn't at Carerra's yet, no Thunderbird at
the curb. Jack the dog rises from his tired haunches and greets me with a nose
to my palm as I go in.

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I do a double take when I see Trina already at
her booth. "Where's your ... Oh, shit," I say.

"I don't want to hear a word. Not one word,"
Trina says. "It's gone," I say.

"Good riddance," Trina says. But something's
wrong with her face. Her cheeks seem bigger and her eyes smaller, and then I
realize her face is puffy from crying.

I get this hollow-horrible feeling, that cavern
of loss. Along with it comes an awareness--the kind that comes when you realize
a situation is a few layers deeper than what it seemed. Getting rid of the
Thunderbird is not a way to exorcise Roger. Trina needs the
money.
Suddenly that fact is a secret we're all keeping--Trina from us, us from Trina.
I don't know what to do. "Pie," I say. I put my stuff down quick, put on my
apron and wash my hands, and understand why people feed grief with macaroni
casseroles.

Joe ambles, shakes his head sadly, and then
Nick, too.

"Who bought it?" Nick says. "Tell me it at
least went to a good home."

"Tell us you got a fair price," Joe says. He
lifts himself up onto the counter stool, opens a menu and peruses, as if it's
the first time he's seen it.

"My cousin," Trina says. "He's always ..." She
clears her throat, straightens the wobble in her voice. "Admired it."

The kitchen door swings open. Jane's got a new
haircut, and it's short and swoopy-banged, youthful around her strong face.
"Come on, people, it's a
car."
Her voice has the buoyancy of the
well-intentioned lie. "Indigo! God. The envelope! Let me go get it."

She bustles to the back and Funny Coyote comes
in, her backpack over one shoulder, and so does the same couple with the toddler
from the weekend before. Just my luck, they liked the

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place. I fetch the high chair and the menus and
then Jane is back. "Cute new hair," I say.

She combs the ends with her fingers, the ones
that are not holding the large yellow envelope. "You think?"

"Absolutely," I say.

She hands the envelope to me. "Well? Here it
is. Do you think he'll be in today?"

"I don't know," I say. But I do know. Because
as I hold that envelope and see my name on it, written in the lovely, polite
loops of the Vespa guy's handwriting in black ink pen, I understand it holds
something decisive.

"What are you waiting for?" Nick Harrison
says.

I turn the envelope over, run my finger against
the licked-down edge. And then: "No," I say. I don't want to open it like this,
as if its contents are a party trick for the amusement of all involved. It's my
name that's there, it's to me, and it's between me and Vespa guy. I feel like
this requires special surroundings, the right time. Me alone, sitting at the
edge of my bed, unhurried.

"You've got to be kidding me," Funny Coyote
says. "You're not gonna open it? Somebody hand me a knife."

Trina hands Funny her butter knife over the
back of the booth, and Funny brandishes it menacingly for a moment before
setting it down on her napkin. I'm saved, though, because the people with the
toddler catch my attention and ask for a banana for Junior,
To help keep him
busy,
because Junior is scootching and squirreling way down in the high
chair seat, so that his chin is nearly on the tray and his body is dangling
beneath.

I fetch the banana and Junior is righted again
with screaming protests and then a couple comes in and sits at Leroy's table,
which is going to piss him off. Leroy comes in and glares at the

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couple who will eye him nervously through the
rest of their meal, though Leroy joins Joe at the counter and does something he
never does: orders Joe's same full breakfast. Bill, the creep that works at True
Value, comes in and sits with Nick when he's just been served his oatmeal, and
the toddler is tossing pancakes to the floor and watching them drop, and Joe and
Leroy begin to arm-wrestle and knock over a ketchup bottle.

Finally, Nick leaves; his bowl sports two
leftover raisins looking at me like slightly crazed google-eyes, and I wipe the
cold glue of banana off the floor and legs of the high chair. Someone comes in
with the name of Ronald Reagan; he's young and tall and has dreadlocked
ringlets, and tries to disguise his name by signing his credit card slip
"Ronny." I add his name to the list of "famous" customers that we keep behind
the counter. You wouldn't believe how many regular people are saddled with the
names of the rich and famous--we've had James Bond and Daniel Boone and Jenny
Craig and Martha Stewart and even a guy named Tom Cruise, who, if I remember
right, was about eighty years old. I'm working late, late enough to see Trina
leave next, and she walks down the street with the saddest pair of knee-high
boots you've ever seen, scissor flicks of despondent white disappearing around
the corner. After Trina, Joe and Leroy leave together and Funny takes out her
tablet and starts to write. No Vespa guy, I am right, and I work the lunch crowd
of corned beef and turkey and mounds of potato salad and pickle spears until
it's time to go. I do a last favor for Jane and take Jack out for a pee, and it
makes him so happy and satisfied that it makes me happy and
satisfied.

Jane seems to have forgotten all about the
envelope, because she is fully submerged in new haircut love/insecurity. I've
caught her peeking at her reflection in the glass of the dessert case
with

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the intermittent smiles/scowls of
acceptance/rejection we give our new selves. There are few things that can make
as us vulnerable as new hair.

"God, Jane," I say. "You just look like a whole
new person."

"Really?" she says. She scrunches her nose.
Either it's self-doubt or her allergies are bothering her again.

"It's great," I say.

I pat Jack's black satin head and leave with my
envelope in my hands.
Indigo Skye,
it still says. When I get home, I
place it under my pillow, and smooth out the cotton of the pillowcase with my
palm. If I open it now, what's coming will be instead what has come. This time,
right now--it's the instrumental before the vocals, the love before love's been
admitted, the Christmas eve before the Christmas. Some things need a delicious
before,
and this envelope is one of them.

We're almost late to the MuchMoore party
because I worked the lunch shift and Severin says we need to be there by four
and then he tells me I need to wear nylons, which makes me want to shoot him
because I hate nylons, and then I have to go hunt through Mom's underwear drawer
for a pair, and the only ones she has make my legs look Ace-bandage-y and granny
pale. Nylons are in my top three worst feelings, along with tight jeans and
clothes still wet from the dryer, so my legs are already cranky. Then Trevor
comes, and Severin says he needs to wear a tie, and now Trevor's gaze is
murderous because he hates ties, and required strangulation clothing was not
part of this deal. Severin looks around for an extra tie, and plucks out this
hideous clip-on that he has from when he was maybe ten, and it's not only too
short, but it's got penguins on it. Already, I'm getting a bad feeling about all
the
need to's
that apparently must

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be met to be acceptable in the presence of the
wealthy.

We pile into Trevor's Mustang; Bob Weaver looks
hideously splotchy with the flat, steely gray of primer. A few days ago, the car
developed a death rattle, which has now turned to some serious and hugely loud,
thunderously pained cry for help. I clap my hands over my ears.

"The muffler," Trevor shouts in his too-short
penguin tie.

"Oh, great," Severin says. He's already
shifting around in pre-embarrassment and it's only us. He's all spiffed up
himself, looking sharp in the shirt and tie he wore to homecoming last year, and
his face is smooth from just being shaved.

"You don't have to ride with us, you know. You
could walk," I

say.

"I'm fine," he says, or rather, it's what his
moving lips mouth, since you can't hear a word anyone's saying. It's the kind of
fine that's obviously not fine.

We drive across town, and I imagine people
ducking in fear at what they think is a descending jet; I picture dogs with
sensitive hearing whimpering and hiding under beds. We cross over Lake
Washington, and Trevor's driving only about thirty-five, because every time he
accelerates, you can feel your kidneys rattle from the vibration. The Moores
live on Meer Island, this dollop of land in an inlet of Lake Washington, which
is full of waterfront houses set down at the end of secluded, gated
drives.

Severin is shouting directions that he reads
from a piece of paper. There's a right here and then a left and you can feel
yourself curving closer to the water. Severin has been here before, but he's
getting nervous and snappish and we make a wrong turn and have to turn around in
someone's driveway, meaning Trevor's Mustang has just shattered all the crystal
in their cabinets.

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Severin's head is still bent over that piece of
paper, but there's no need to look anymore, because it's suddenly obvious we're
here. There's a spotlight, one of those huge, rotating, blinding columns of
light outside a high pair of open iron gates, flanked by a couple of guys in
black pants and vests. The guys are talking into walkie-talkies.

Trevor lets out a low whistle.

"Are they expecting the president, or
something?" I ask.

"That's just Mike," Severin says. "He works
with me in shipping. I don't know the other one. Roll down your
window."

Mike steps over to the car. "This is a private
party," Mike says. His vest has got some man's face on it, with happy 55, chief!
printed underneath.

"Mike, it's me," Severin says from the back.
"Severin?"

Mike peers inside with narrow eyes. "Oh, cool,"
he says. "The waitstaff is supposed to meet in the catering kitchen. Man, you
realize you got something wrong with your muffler?"

"No, hey, thanks for letting me know," Trevor
says. We roll up the window. "Maybe he should be a car mechanic," Trevor says.
"He's obviously got some kind of intuition." He rolls his eyes at me, and I roll
mine back at him. Mike is talking on his walkie-talkie, which seems pretty
ridiculous, because he's talking to another kid with that same old guy on his
vest, who's just standing on the other end of the driveway, and who's now
gesturing wildly for us to stop.

"I'm supposed to park the car," the guy says.
"Valet." We pile out, and Trevor hands the kid his key. "You better bring me
back a Mercedes or something," Trevor says. "Little key mix-up, heh, heh,
heh."

Trevor's swingy and relaxed, but I'm getting
this dark, rolling

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feeling in my stomach, black clouds moving
across gray sky-- maybe not dread, but the self-protective distancing that dread
brings.

The house itself is sprawled and layered, three
that I can count, and there are wide steps that lead to the doorway, and each
step is lit with toddler-size hurricane candles and decorated with vases of tall
stalks of lilies. Musicians in black suits and long black skirts set up chairs
and music stands on a balcony overlooking the entry, and they are all wearing
the vest with Chiefs face. The door has a big basket of umbrellas (in case of a
sudden storm, I guess), and his image is on those, too. It's getting a little
bad-dream creepy, this old guy's face everywhere. A little man with a bald head
and one of those cowboy string ties runs around rabbitlike, talking into the
sort of microphone head pieces that you see on movie directors or air traffic
controllers. We descend the stairs and my ace-bandage nylons feel scratchy with
shame. Trevor senses my nerves and takes my hand, but I let it go--displays of
support seem weak and middle-class. In the entryway of the house itself, on the
wide marble floor, are cutouts of Chief; his head is on various bodies--Elvis,
Han Solo, Einstein (he's wearing a wild white wig and small glasses, carrying a
book that's labeled
Theory of Relativity).
Chief is a bodybuilder, with
perfect six-pack muscles. Chief is God, with a white robe and a halo of light
behind his head. A photographer with a long lens is already snapping photos, and
another black-vested man stands on a ladder and adjusts the lights that shine
down on every Chief cutout.