The Mirror (43 page)

He grabbed the notes he should have worked on the night before and left the apartment. As he locked the door, the girls living next to him did the same. One was interesting, the other not. Both invited him with their eyes.

"Fucking world," he snarled, to their apparent delight, and stalked off down the hall, leaving them giggling behind him.

The rumble of the Porsche didn't satisfy him this morning. The rush-hour traffic the length of Boulder set his teeth on edge. Gone was the last yellowness of the bruise Shay's father'd left on his face. The stitches were cut from the back of his head and much of the hair grown out where it had been shaved away from the wound.

But the wound inside Marek had grown. His mother'd visited his dreams, asking, "Where is your wife, son? Where is your child, Marek?"

The weird part of the whole damn dilemma was he liked Shay better crazy. He couldn't account for this unreasonable instability in his emotions.

"Emotions, Jesus," he said to the Porsche as he whirled it up the mesa road to NCAR. He thought he'd learned to control them better at his age.

Marek breathed deeply of the fresh air as he headed for the building Shay had called a castle. Martin Black had invited him on a hard-rock jaunt for Saturday. Marek decided to accept. That was the way to exhaust and exhilarate himself out of this agony, this mood that kept him driving streets and back-country roads till all hours in a hopeless search.

"Hell, she's probably dead or in Alaska by now," he said to the elevator button, and jabbed it.

Shay was right. The place was odorless.

No more whispered talk about the strange disappearance of his fiancee that would end suddenly when colleagues and secretaries discovered he was near. Fads in gossip were over quickly in this busy world.

No one teased him any longer about getting rid of the Porsche and joining the station-wagon set.

He nodded to a few people, hated the sympathy still in their eyes, was glad to get to the open air of the catwalk.

Old girl friends called him again. He received invitations to parties. But he didn't go. The good times had paled.

Throwing his notes on the desk, he stared at the city from his tower office.

Then Marek turned to the scrawled writing on the blackboard, the haunting message circled so the janitor wouldn't wash it away.
I am Brandy.

10

Brandy McCabe stood before a line of graves bordering one edge of Ansel St. John's junk-filled yard.

Weeds had been cleared away here and the mounds ringed with milky quartz pebbles. Five tiny graves and four large ones. At the head of each a white cross with lettering carved in the wood and painted gold.

The same words on all nine crosses. S
TINA
M
ARK.

Wind billowed her long skirt. Metal clanged on metal where her host worked on some rusting machine on the other side of the house.

Were these the graves of other goats and cats with the name so common in this place? This odd burial ground increased her anxiety about Mr. St. John.

An automobile traveled too slowly along the road. Brandy crouched behind a windowless hulk, raising her head just enough to peer through a portal that'd once held glass. The torn seats gave off a smell like that of moldy blankets.

A familiar silver-green vehicle dazzled in the sunlight and turned into the drive.

Happy barked and lunged at the end of his chain.

Marek Weir stepped out and stood looking about him from behind darkened spectacles.

Brandy experienced a glut of emotions at the sight of him. Relief that he'd not been killed by Shay's father. Horror that he'd tracked her down. Longing to feel just once more before she returned to her own world the heat of his breath as when he'd kissed her in that saloon with the hanging plants. Shame at the betrayal of these thoughts. The urge to flee before he could take her back to the Gingerbread House.

But she slumped to the weeds and covered Shay's face instead. The diamond had slipped around and lay cold against her skin. She began to pray fervently but was interrupted by Mr. St. John's curt command to Happy. The incessant barking stopped.

Brandy crawled up to peek again. Ansel walked toward Marek, wiping his hands on a rag. Ansel nodded, gestured, shrugged. Marek stood with hands on slim hips, head lowered to watch the old man's face.

Finally they shook hands. Marek slid into his automobile and drove away.

Brandy watched Ansel stroll toward the machine he'd been working on, as if nothing of importance had occurred.

She skirted around the back of the house. "Mr. St. John, what happened? What did he say?"

"Said his name was Marek Something-or-ruther." Ansel leaned his weight on a long metal handle and grunted. "Said he was looking for you."

"You mean he doesn't know I'm here?"

"Hand me that there hammer." He beat the handle with the hammer and yelled over the noise, "Told him I hadn't seen you. Ain't nobody can lie as good as me. Here, you lean on this and we'll both try."

Brandy moved to help him and she could hear his joints crack as they tried to force the handle.

"Eh . . . dang thing. Take a blowtorch to get it off. Never mind. Don't hurt the little one." He stood back and wiped his forehead on his sleeve. "That young buck give you this?" He touched Shay's engagement ring. "And the baby you're growing?"

Brandy felt a hot blush on Shay's cheeks. "Yes." I
assume so.

"Ought to be some baby then. Why'd he want it killed, I wonder."

"It's not him. It's her . . . my parents. They mustn't find me."

"They won't. Thought you was pickin' corn for supper. Hunt up some eggs to go with it while you're at it."

She'd seen no sign of a chicken house. "Where do the hens lay their eggs?"

"All over. That's why you have to hunt 'em."

Ansel St. John didn't approve of eating meat and although Brandy missed it she found the fresh eggs and vegetables, lightly salted and buttered, more satisfying than the highly seasoned food Rachael cooked.

They sat now over such a meal and Brandy obediently fed Shay and her baby some goat's milk.

"That Marek fella sure sounded torn up about losing you." Her host stroked mashed food from his beard. "Could hear the TEARS in his voice."

"What kind of man gets his fiancee with child before he weds her?"

"Any kind that can get away with it. I ain't for judgin' neither of you. But that boy's hurtin' deep."

"I don't wish to discuss Mr. Weir."

"Sure did when you was sick. Kept callin' his name over and over."

"I did no such thing."

"Did so." He buttered a slice of dark bread and dunked it in his tea to soften it. "Told me a lot of things. You was awful sick for a while. Said you was Brandy McCabe and looked in a mirror and then you was Shay Garrett."

Brandy set down her ear of corn and stared. "What else did I say?"

His lips pursed out and then retreated around toothless gums. "Spoke of some people I used to know of when I was a kid. Sophie and Elton McCabe. Nora Labsap. Them McCabes was big news way back then. My pappy used to haul coal to the Gingerbread House, you know. 'Course I never knew John. He died before I was born but the stories about him outlasted his dying for many a year. Raised more hell than ten men put together in his day. Owned half of Water Street too."

"He did not!"

"Did so. Biggest joke in town when old Sophie led the crusade to shut it down after he was dead. Then she couldn't figure why her income shrunk so. Real religious, that Sophie. Livin' off whores and gambling and booze and not knowing it."

Brandy jumped from her chair much like he did when preparing for an oration. "You're lying."

"SIT DOWN!" Stina Mark started up from her box of kittens, but Brandy sat. "You think I'm mad too."

Ansel pointed his fork at her. "I can outfib a politician if I want to. But I ain't now. You eat some food for that baby and I'll talk. Else I won't say another word. Ain't you a bit curious as to what happened after you left?"

Brandy took a bite of egg. "What happens to Nora? I know about the others."

"Nora Labsap? Married some bartender at Werely's Saloon. Your ma and her friends put him out of business. Moved to Cheyenne, as I remember. Don't know what came of them. Your brother Elton died of the great influenza. Like the plague it was."

"He never marries."
Don't listen to him, Brandy. He may he your savior now but he's got a tile loose somewhere.

"Never did. Today you'd call him gay. Back then the words was harder. Got affianced once but discovered his field of interest laid in other directions. Old Sophie did her best to cover it up."

"Gay? Elton is a very solemn young man. He--"

"Real joke was after Sophie lost her money she kept the Gingerbread House goin' off her daughter's husband. He was a Maddon. Big a hell raiser as old John McCabe till he met Brandy. Had a ranch out of Nederland. His brother run booze during prohibition. They was twins. Stories about them two'd burn a lady's ears. That Brandy tamed 'em though. She was a woman and a half. Little thing. Surprised everybody. Rumor had it she was crazy too, but if she was, she sure knew how to use it."

"But I am Brandy."

"No, you're Shay Garrett. Better get used to it. Won't be easy, but you're a scrapper. Never saw nothin' fight for life and breath as you did when you was sick." His eyebrows moved up into grizzled hair. "Now, if it was me, I'd do some worrying about that mirror. Don't seem right to let it loose in the world." He scratched his chin under his beard. "That Maddon twin Brandy married, his old man was hung for murder and his mother was a whore."

Brandy covered Shay's ears, but it didn't help.

"That boy was a legend, and so was his brother. Them Maddon twins could out curse, outride and out bastardize--"

"Mr. St. John!"

"Sorry. Keep forgetting you're from a different time than Lottie, even if you're much of an age."

"You . . . believe me then? What I said when I was ill? That I'm--"

"Never heard of a mirror could do what that one did to you. But there's a lot of crazy talk in this world. Old Ansel's learned to filter out the RING OF TRUTH when he hears it. Anybody your age who'd treat somebody mine with respect, callin' me Mr. St. John ... I mean you ain't from
this
world. Ain't seen anybody scrub a floor like you do since ..."

He patted her shoulder. "Think we need some ice cream or dessert. Lottie don't believe in sugar but when the cat's away . . ." He opened the icebox, produced a colored paper box and spooned ice cream onto her plate. "Get much more addled and I'll start buying coffee again,"

"I do miss coffee."

"You too? Lottie talked me off coffee and sugar. She's into stuff you wouldn't believe, my granddaughter. Had a TV once. Good company for an old man. Lottie stuck a shovel through the screen. She was right about the stupid stuff it said but I was old enough to know better. But then she raised the money against the taxes to keep my place from the bulldozer. Passed the hat amongst her friends and they don't have scratch."

"Where's Lottie now?"

"She's like the hens. All over. Last I knew she was raisin' money to save a prairie-dog colony and living in a shack with three men. She has appetites, does Lottie."

"Living with . . . alone? You mean--"

"Sleepin' with 'em. Hurts your lady ears, I know. But that Lottie'd made a fortune on Water Street in your day, even paying cumshaw to your dad. Now they only get board and room and call it liberated instead of business. But Lottie makes out. She ain't no fool."

"How can you permit her? Are her parents dead?"

"Mother's out East somewheres, a social worker. Never met the father. Beth's married and divorced so often I lost track. So did Lottie."

"What does a social worker do?"

"Nothin' for their own, I can tell you. But that Marek now--"

"I don't wish to discuss him."

"He don't appear to be the kind to let go of his own. If that's his baby you're carryin' you better set your mind to being Shay Garrett and Mrs. Marek whatever. That boy's one problem's going to keep comin' back."

Late the next day when Ansel drove his rattling truck off to town Brandy explored the unused portion of the house. A dining room, a parlor, three bedrooms upstairs. All furnished and covered with dust and cobwebs, rotting dust sheets and curtains. One bedroom had been more recently used. Lottie's most likely. Books, shoes, a radio box and pictures on the walls. Large unframed photographs of naked men . . .

Brandy knew she shouldn't look. But she did.

Her curiosity about this sinful world was outdistanced only by her desire to return to her own.

She fled outside to the sky and earth, to the mountain range she could trace from memory.

At the back fence, Olina, Oscar, Luvisa and Arvid--the smelly Swedish goat family--rushed up to greet her.