The Queen of Everything (11 page)

He was in a tuxedo. Mr. D'Angelo, lying there
pieced together in our driveway. It was a younger him, a little narrower in the
face, but him. Yes. He stood alone, with some flowers behind him, in a garden,
maybe. He had a smug smile. His large chest strained against his jacket. A
carnation was pinned to his lapel.

One thing was for sure. This photo, ripped up
and discarded in anger, did not belong here at our house. This photo of a man
who was not even one of us, dressed for an occasion we were not a part of. It
frightened me. Frightened me in a way that I had never felt before. It was the
sudden realization that terrible things might not just be for other
people.

I gathered up those pieces. When I stood,
my

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knees were imprinted with the bumpy design of
the rocks from the driveway's cement. My hand, the one that held those pieces of
Mr. D'Angelo, trembled. If I had to put a name to my fear right then, I don't
know if I could have. I just knew something was wrong. Very, very
wrong.

I slammed the front door.

"Dad?" I called.

"Jordan! Just a second, okay?" I heard the junk
drawer in the kitchen slam shut, then heard Dad run up the stairs.

I slid my backpack off. I yelled up the stairs.
"Dad?"

"In here," he called from his room. "Just a
minute. I'll be right down." I heard the slide of his dresser drawer. A moment
later it slid shut again. My father appeared at the top of the
stairs.

"What are you doing home?" he asked. He was
slightly out of breath. He looked at the shreds of photograph I held in my hand
and did not acknowledge them; I might have just brought in the newspaper or a
flyer for lawn-care service that had been stuck to our front door.

"What is this?" I held the pieces out to him.
They were shaking. I could see that. My hand was doing this ridiculous dance. My
heart leapt around like crazy. That fear--it felt something like anger. Like
rage.

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"What is what?" he said stupidly. He came
downstairs. He was getting ready to leave. His coat was on. He was tucking a
scarf into his jacket with one hand. He held his keys in his palm.

"This. A picture. I know who this
is."

"I was just leaving," my father said. He shook
his head at himself. "I put on my seat belt, took off the parking brake, and
didn't even have my keys. I'm dangerous," he laughed.

It didn't seem so funny. "Where did you get
this?" I demanded. "This doesn't belong to you."

He moved toward the door. I followed. "I'm
late," he said. "Date."

"Not with Bonnie. I saw her today too. I think
you'd better tell me what's going on here. I think I ought to know what's
happening here. I think maybe I have that
right."

He looked at the photograph, still held out to
him, still shaking. He sighed. "I met someone, Jordan. Okay? I met
someone."

"I know you met someone. That's fine.
Congratulations. That's terrific. I know who you met. I know who this is." I
shook the pieces of the photo at him.

"Okay. She's married. Okay? That's true. There
it is."

"So she's married, big fine fucking deal. I'm
talking about
this.
This is not about married. This is not about some
fling with someone

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married.
I mean, it's creepy, all right?
Her husband's picture? Shit, Dad. Where did you even get this?"

"Why do you need to use that kind of language?
Would you watch your language?" I liked this. This was Dad talking like Dad
again. I watched him. I couldn't understand why he was wearing a scarf when it
was summer. He breathed in hard. He lifted his eyes to a corner of the ceiling.
It looked like his eyes were filling with tears. It couldn't be, though. I'd
never seen my father cry in all my life.

"I took it," he whispered. He blinked, kept his
eyes focused on that corner of the ceiling. "It was in this album they have
under the coffee table. I took it from this album." He didn't seem to be talking
to me at all. For a moment I was confused. This was where he was supposed to say
something comforting. This was where he was supposed to explain it all away as
some petty fit of jealousy, like the one I had in the second grade when I poked
a hole with my pencil stub through the school picture of my best friend, April
Pettibone, when she decided she didn't want to be friends anymore. He was not
supposed to make everything worse. I was not supposed to be picturing him
sitting on some expensive floral sofa, lifting the corners of Wes D'Angelo's
picture from their black triangular tabs and folding it the way photos should
never

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be folded. I didn't want to imagine him tucking
it into his jacket pocket.

His almost-tears made me want to be gentle. He
suddenly seemed so fragile. My anger disappeared quick as breath on a window.
But that fear was rolling and gathering layers sure as a slow, heavy snowball.
It wasn't sure whether it should stop yet. It had no real place to
settle.

"Jesus, you stole this from their house?" I
said softly.

"Stole it, I don't know. Took it. Okay?" His
eyes came back to me again. "Do you think I'm proud about that? It was a wedding
album too. A wedding album." He laughed a little wildly. He raked his fingers
through his hair. Shit, shit. I wasn't sure I knew this guy. I wasn't sure he
should be here, in my and my father's house.

"God, Dad. Why would you do such a
thing?"

"I don't know, I don't know. I don't know," he
said.

His eyes went back up to that corner of the
ceiling.
Please God,
I prayed,
Don't let him start crying.
I
wondered if I should call someone. I wondered who exactly I would call. "Jeez,
Dad, come on."

"He mistreats her," he said to me again. "I
hate that he mistreats her."

He looked at me. I wondered what he saw. I
wondered if he saw me or just a body who

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happened to be there to hear his voice. I mean,
this was not the kind of conversation Dad and I had.

"And this is your problem, how? What do you
think you're going to do? Fight him? Disappear with her into the
sunset?"

"I wouldn't fight him."

"Well, jeez, I guess we all ought to be
grateful for that. What are you doing this for exactly? I mean, this is
obviously going in bad directions already. No one is worth that kind of
trouble."

"Oh, you're wrong," he said. "You're wrong
about that." His hand was on that idiotic scarf. His eyes, those calm eyes that
watched Mariners games on television and chose a tie from the rack in his closet
and checked the rearview mirror twice before changing lanes, they had an
intensity I had never seen before.

"I met her when she came into the office for an
exam." He smiled. "And sure, I was attracted to her right away, but a man like
me? With a woman like that?"

I wasn't sure I wanted to hear this. This was
something he should be telling Bill Raabe, not me. I knew everyone liked to tell
their little love story, but you know, thanks but no thanks.

"She came back later. She was sitting on the
hood of her car when I came out. Wow. Just sitting there looking at me." He
shook his head at the memory. He seemed lost in it. I wondered if he

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had forgotten I was there. "And then I went
over to her and she just... she took my hand. Traveled it up underneath her..."
He started to laugh.

I was sure I didn't want to hear now. I
wondered if I should remind him I was his daughter. That I shouldn't be told
these things.

"Shirt," he said. "Her shirt. And then she
said, and it was something I will never forget, she said, 'I chose you.' Just
that. 'I chose you.' Jesus, a man like me."

"Oh, Dad, come on. God, I'm sorry, but this is
making me sick. This is a bunch of crap. And you hurt Bonnie. You treated Bonnie
like shit. You're acting crazy. Stealing that from their house. Ripping it up
like that. That's angry, Dad. An angry thing to do. Crazy." I twirled my finger
around by my head in case he was in doubt about what I meant.

"Bonnie," he said. He was suddenly angry. He
spit the words. "I've had a hundred Bonnies! I'm sick to death of Bonnies. My
whole life has been Bonnies. I'm tired of being safe. I don't want to be safe
anymore. Forget it. Just forget it," he said. "Forget this whole conversation."
His face got red. That scarf he had on in the middle of summer couldn't have
helped matters.

"I thought you were sleeping at your mom's
tonight," he said. For a moment he was just Dad again. Normal Dad. Ha, ha. Just
normal Dad.

"It's not that cold out," I said.

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"What?" he said.

"It's not that cold out. For a scarf." I mean,
it was ridiculous. He had this muffler wrapped around his neck and tucked into
his coat like we were expecting a blizzard. "Look outside." I pointed out the
living-room window. I realized I was still clutching the pieces of that awful
photograph. I had made his damage worse; I had crumpled them in my hand. I let
them drop to the floor.

"You don't need this," I said. I grabbed a
pinch of the scarf.

"Don't." He shrugged off my hand.

"Come on, it's like seventy degrees." I took
hold of the scarf again. Tried to pull.

"Knock it off, Jordan." He pulled
back.

"What?"

"I said stop it."

"What are you hiding?" Shit. Shit, now
what?

"Nothing."

"I want to see."

"Goddamn it, Jordan. I said stop."

I kept pulling. He grabbed my wrist. He took
hold of my wrist and squeezed hard. He had never touched me before in anger. But
now he was bending my wrist a little. My hand actually twisted
around.

"Jesus, Dad. You're hurting me."

His eyes looked shocked. He dropped his own
hand from mine. I was still pulling on that

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goddamned scarf. It dropped from his fist. It
fell loose; an almost elegant slip from his collar. "Oh my God," I
said.

"Goddamn it, Jordan!" He put his hands to his
neck.

"Oh my God!"

His hands could not cover the endless red marks
that snaked around his neck, disappeared down into his shirt. My mind provided
the image: her mouth bent to him, sucking hard. His neck arched for
more.

"That is so sick!" I shrieked.
"Sick!"

He eyed the closed door nervously. "Shut up,
Jordan. Jesus."

"What the hell are you doing?" I
cried.

"I'm late," he said. "Don't you understand? I'm
late."

"This is
crazy."

"I mean it, Jordan, I've had enough of this!"
He yanked open the front door.

"What is she doing to you?"

"God." He sighed. "Never love anyone this
much."

He put his head down, strode to his car, and
got in. He gave the car too much gas, and it almost stalled. The engine ground
as he turned the ignition again.

Pieces of Wes D'Angelo's wedding photo were
scattered around my feet. The scarf just lay there on the floor, a red woolen
puddle.

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Chapter Six

I followed him. I'm not even sure exactly why;
my first feeling was of such disgust I would have been happy if I never saw him
again for the rest of my life. And anger. The thundering kind of fury that
sweeps you along and forces you forward, making you want to do something,
anything--throw things, slam doors, get back on your bike and ride down to Crow
Valley to see if your father was where you suspected he was. I was afraid for
him too. It was as if I was watching him suddenly run out onto a freeway, this
man who had always used the sidewalk.

But when I actually did see his car, parked a
bit up the road from the D'Angelo house, I was so mad, so one hundred percent
mad, there was

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no more room for fear. There is nothing that
can piss you off half so much as being right.

"Get a fucking
brain,"
I
said.

The driveway was free of Mr. D'Angelo's black
Porsche. My God. Could sex make a man so stupid? And hey why was I alone there,
left holding the bag of morals? Wasn't he the one who taught me all that stuff?
Do Unto Others; Never Lie, Cheat, or Steal. What was all that, just some
birdshit on a windshield? Erased with a flick of the wipers?

I didn't want to go home. I was too furious to
be in one place. So instead I rode clear to the other side of the island, all
the way to the Hotel Delgado, one of my favorite corners of Parrish. It really
is like a corner; that's part of why it feels so good there. The big brag is
that Teddy Roosevelt once stayed at the hotel, and it's a place you could
picture him leaning over the porch rail or maybe standing at one of the
shuttered windows, staring out through his round glasses over the cozy inlet of
the Delgado Strait where the hotel sits. The hotel is over one hundred and fifty
years old and wears a thick sweater of ivy whose loose threads trail down white
trellises. Around the hotel runs a cobblestone street, with paths that lead to
rose gardens full of flowers so ancient they are as big as grapefruits and smell
as strong and powdery as an old lady's perfume.