The Mentor (18 page)
Authors: Sebastian Stuart
Anne takes a drink of water.
“Oh, that. Just that the
Home
website is up. It looks great. Sales are strong.”
“Why, of course they are. Oh, look, it’s Sadie Post.” An L.A. X-ray approaches the table in a shimmery white pants suit no self-respecting New Yorker would be caught dead in, even
before
Labor Day. “You naughty girl, you didn’t tell me you were going to be in New York. You know my celebrity daughter, don’t you?”
“Mother, I didn’t realize how late it was. I’m not going to have time for lunch.”
“Then you’ll join us,” Sadie says to Frances.
As she walks out into the reviving air Anne has only one thing on her mind—revenge. She takes her phone from her purse and calls Kayla.
As Charles’s Jaguar approaches the Newark Airport exit, Anne is taking a mental inventory of what she’s packed for her overnight trip to Chicago: jogging shoes for her run by the lake, a suit for her tour of a South Side textile factory she’s thinking of contracting, a dress for dinner, slacks and a shirt for the flight home. Usually these quick mental scans reassure her. Not this time.
Anne looks out the window at the airport approach road lined with squat, graceless buildings. Suddenly the world seems a bleak, senseless place. Dread sweeps over her. The day after tomorrow she’ll have the abortion.
She looks over at Charles. The other night, in the middle of a conversation, he forgot what they were talking about. She reaches over and touches his forearm. “I hate to be going away right now.”
“It’s only overnight.”
“Overnight can be a long time.”
“Anne, don’t worry,” he says, not taking his eyes off the road.
“I can’t help it.”
“What about the pregnancy?”
“It may just be that stress has been throwing off my period. You know how that sometimes happens to me.”
Charles pulls out a pack of cigarettes.
“Oh, shit, give me one,” Anne says.
Charles hands her the pack and she lights one. He doesn’t.
The cigarette tastes hot and acrid, but she keeps smoking it. “I don’t understand why you fired Nina.”
“Let’s face it, Anne, she wasn’t delivering.”
“But she’s a friend.”
“I know she is. And I hope she can remain one.”
“Would you mind if I called her?”
“I’d rather you didn’t. Look, Anne, it wasn’t easy for me. I think a fallow period would be best.”
“I don’t know if I can just let her go like that.”
“For Christ’s sake, Anne, the woman is losing her touch. And I’m not going to let friendship or anything else stand in my way.”
There it is again, that tone in his voice, that harsh, heartbreaking tone. It scares Anne.
“Your work’s going well, that’s the most important thing,” she says, almost to herself.
Charles pulls up in front of the terminal, they get out, and he retrieves Anne’s bag from the trunk.
“You can still surprise me, Charles.”
“I hope the trip is a success.”
Anne throws her arms around his neck and kisses him, long and hard, not wanting to let go.
“I’ll call you tonight,” Charles says.
“I love you.”
Anne picks up her bag and walks to the terminal doors. She turns and smiles at Charles. He smiles back and waves. She walks into the terminal and then turns for one last look. The car is gone.
…
As Charles pulls away from the terminal he reaches for his car phone and punches in Emma’s number.
“Hello?”
“Listen, Emma, I’ve got some appointments today, let’s take the day off. Don’t bother coming in.”
“But what will I do with myself?”
“I hope you’ll write.” Charles smiles—she’s at a loss without him.
“Of course.”
“I’ll call you tonight. I’ll try to make it down there so we can get a little work done.”
Charles listens to Miles Davis as he drives across Pennsylvania, propelled by his need to understand Emma, to discover what it is in her past that she guards so warily. He looked up Munsonville in his atlas and there it sat, surrounded by other small towns, black dots connected by red lines on a green background. It was there, in that western Pennsylvania town, that her life—and their book—began, and he needs to see it in three dimensions, to smell it, hear it, feel it, to find Emma’s place in it.
It’s afternoon when he exits the turnpike. The countryside is bleak—low hills littered with mobile homes and sagging barns. As he approaches Munsonville, the scene grows bleaker still, the small houses close together, aluminum-sided, painted dreary shades of light green or dark brown; the children playing in the ratty front yards look ill-kept and furtive, suspicious of life already. In the center of town, the houses give way to nineteenth-century brick buildings. The only businesses that seem able to survive on the beat, forsaken streets are bars and pizza parlors. Some of the empty storefronts have droopy For Rent signs taped to their windows; others just sit there, hollow and abandoned. A very pregnant
girl wearing a dirty Palm Springs sweatshirt slowly pushes a young boy in a stroller.
Charles finds the palpable air of decay evocative, almost romantic. He thinks of Emma walking these streets, wonders which house she grew up in, wonders where her mother lives. Emma said she’d remarried. What’s the stepfather like?
Munsonville High is set on a rise just outside of town, an imposing American Gothic edifice built in a more optimistic time. The hallways have that deserted, slightly eerie after-school feeling. Charles walks past posters warning of HIV transmission and the dangers of cigarettes, past a cabinet filled with dusty trophies, until he comes to a frosted-glass door that reads: Guidance Office. He knocks.
“Come in.”
The front room is empty, but a woman is sitting at a desk in one of the four small offices that open off it. She’s reading something in a folder. A sign on her desk identifies her as Claire Eldredge.
“Ms. Eldredge?”
“Yes.”
Charles guesses she’s in her late fifties, large, one of those round-faced women who has probably looked the same since her mid-twenties. She wears her glasses on a chain, a loose gray dress, no makeup. Claire Eldredge’s one vanity appears to be her hair, which is an unnatural brown, styled in a helmet of tight curls.
“I’m sorry to disturb you.”
“I rarely leave before six. This job just keeps getting harder.” She looks at Charles expectantly.
“My name is Charles Davis.”
“The writer.”
“Yes.”
If Claire Eldredge is impressed, she does a good job of disguising it.
“Have a seat. What can I do for you?”
“One of your former students works for me. I’ve become a little concerned about her.”
“What’s the student’s name?”
“Emma Bowles.”
Claire Eldredge’s face grows grave. She leans forward on her elbows.
“I believe she graduated five or six years ago,” Charles says.
“Emma never graduated.”
“She didn’t?”
Claire Eldredge closes the folder on her desk and puts it aside. She takes a pencil out of a cup and turns it between her fingers.
“Emma was gifted, but I could never reach her. She was very much a loner.”
“Can you tell me anything about her family?”
“The father ran off when Emma was very young. Helen Bowles wasn’t the most stable person to begin with.”
“Her mother?”
“Yes. She painted. Or did at one time. Went to art school in Chicago. Fancied herself a bohemian. Dressed outlandishly. Hated Munsonville and wasn’t shy about letting people know it. They lived above the hardware store downtown. She drank. Pills, too. The household was chaotic. Emma did all the shopping, cooking. Not that there was much of either. Helen wouldn’t let Emma have a life of her own. Personally, I think she hated her daughter for being bright and talented.”
“She certainly is talented.”
“More than once she came to school with bruises. She’d often start to cry for no reason. We did a couple of home visits, but Emma always defended her mother. Afterward everyone said they saw it coming.”
“Saw what coming, Ms. Eldredge?” Charles asks too quickly.
Claire Eldredge looks him in the eye. “What exactly are your concerns, Mr. Davis?”
“Well, I’m not entirely sure. She seems so unhappy, so unstable. I want to know why.”
“There’s bound to be instability with a history like hers. I’m glad she’s working for you. Give her my best.”
“Ms. Eldredge?”
“I’ve said too much already. It’s all in the past. Everyone deserves a second chance.”
Munsonville’s boxy one-story library is drafty and ill lit, smells of floor wax, and has a meager array of current titles displayed on a folding table. It’s staffed by one distracted middle-aged male librarian. Charles sits in a far corner staring at the screen of a microfilm viewer, scrolling through front pages of the
Munsonville Daily Press
. Hyperalert, focused like radar, he scans past stories of storms and car crashes—and then he stops:
MUNSONVILLE WOMAN BLUDGEONED TO DEATH
DAUGHTER CONFESSES TO CRIME
HELEN BOWLES, 36, of 12 West Bridge Street, was murdered early Tuesday morning, according to Sergeant Rupert Markum of the Washington County Sheriff’s Department. At 3:14
A.M.
, a 911 operator received a call from the victim’s daughter, Emma Bowles, who stated, “I hurt my mother.” Officers Ellen Grady and Karl
Werner responded to the call, and when they arrived at the scene they discovered Mrs. Bowles’s body lying on the floor of her daughter’s bedroom. The victim had received multiple blows to the skull from a blunt instrument. A small metal lamp found beside the body was covered with blood. According to Officer Grady, Emma Bowles was sitting on the floor near her mother’s body and said, “I did it.” Officer Grady described Miss Bowles, 15, as “weirdly calm.” She was taken to Juvenile Hall at the Washington County Jail, where she is being held on $100,000 bail.
Accompanying the story is a photograph of Emma’s bedroom. Helen Bowles’s body is covered with a blood-soaked sheet. There’s an old iron bed, a cardboard dresser with a goldfish bowl on top, unruly piles of books everywhere, and a poster of Edward Hicks’s
The Peaceable Kingdom
on the wall. The walls are splattered with blood, sperm-shaped streaks, as if someone holding a sopping paintbrush had whirled around and around in the middle of the room.
Charles feels a sense of disbelief, as if the story and picture aren’t real, exist only on the screen. He sits stock-still, suspended, his breathing shallow, the library silent. Finally he resumes scrolling.
DAUGHTER CLEARED OF MURDER CHARGE
Jury Rules Teen Not Guilty in Killing of Mother
A WASHINGTON COUNTY jury has found Emma Bowles, 15, not guilty by reason of insanity in the March 12 murder of her mother, Helen Bowles. The deciding factor, according to one member of the jury, was the testimony of a psychiatrist who examined Miss Bowles and reported that she was the victim of chronic abuse. A medical examination offered in evidence documented broken bones, contusions, and sexual trauma suffered by Miss Bowles at her mother’s hands.
Accompanying this article is a photo of Emma, wearing a jail-issue smock, being led out of the county courthouse. She looks passive, tranquilized, her hair tangled, her eyes vacant.
“Closing time,” the librarian calls to Charles.
“Five minutes,” Charles says, his eyes avid on the screen as he scrolls forward, pulse pounding. The librarian lets out a weary theatrical sigh, which Charles ignores.
EMMA BOWLES ATTEMPTS SUICIDE
OFFICIALS AT Keystone State Psychiatric Hospital in Randall reported that Emma Bowles attempted suicide last night. She was discovered hanging from a ceiling pipe in the women’s lavatory. Rushed to the infirmary, Miss Bowles was resuscitated and is now listed in fair condition.
Miss Bowles has been at Keystone State for seven months, since being found not guilty by reason of insanity in the murder of her mother. She was committed to the hospital by Judge Leo Holder-man when found to be a danger to herself. Dr. Alton Waters, the head of the hospital’s juvenile ward, stated, “The staff at Keystone is saddened by Emma’s setback. She seemed to be making progress. However, she is consumed by guilt and recently complained of aural hallucinations. We may be seeing incipient schizophrenia.”
As dusk descends, Charles walks down Main Street. The neon glow from the bars and pizza parlors softens the forlorn street. A little girl appears at the open door of one of the bars, looking around for someone to play with; a melancholy Country Western song drifts out from the jukebox.
Charles turns onto West Bridge Street, which has no comforting lights, just a row of vacant brick buildings that give way to scruffy fields and the sky beyond. He comes to number 12. Under the For Sale sign over the doorway, he can make out faded lettering: Oversby Hardware. The windows of the apartment above are blocked by yellow shades. Charles tries the door that leads up to
the apartment—locked. He walks down the narrow alley that runs alongside the building. At the far end is a wooden staircase leading to the second floor.
Charles looks around: no one. He climbs the stairs. At the top is a door with a square of small windows in it. Again, locked. He tries to force it; it rattles but holds. He jabs his elbow through one of the windows; the glass shatters. Charles freezes, waiting. The faint wail of the jukebox is all he hears. He reaches in through the window and releases the lock.
Charles finds himself in a dark, dusty hallway. The building is too quiet, as if someone is hiding in it. At the end of the hallway is a door. He gives it a little push and it swings open.
Charles moves slowly into the apartment. Dim light struggles in through the cracked shades. He stands still while his eyes adjust. He takes out the pocket flashlight he keeps in his car and runs its beam over the scene. The living room is piled with crates, window screens, rakes—remnants of the dead hardware store. Water stains bloom on the floral wallpaper. He walks into the bathroom; the sink, tub, and toilet are dry and rust-stained. The linoleum is curled up at the corners, the air dense with dust motes.
