The Queen of Everything (28 page)

"At the police station now," she
said.

"What?" I cried. Her words made no sense to me.
She might as well have been moving her mouth without sound, that's how little I
understood her. "What?"

"Questioning, you know, they're questioning
him. I still don't believe it. There is no way on this earth ... I
know
him. I know my own son."

"Grandma, Jesus, what? Is he dead?"

"Oh, sweetie, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm
not thinking. I thought you knew. I'm so sorry." She grabbed me and clutched me
to her again, her hands pulling my head to her bony chest, her palm covering my
ear as if she didn't want me to hear what she was telling me.

"They think he killed that man. Oh Lord, I
can't believe I am saying those words. That D'Angelo man. They found blood
..."

That's when I screamed. And
screamed.

And, please, I can't stand to remember what I
felt inside right then.

I begged God that Peppy Johnson was only
getting carried away on the radio again. The

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police would only say that yes, my father was
there. My father, whoever he was. I hated thinking of him in his white coat,
sitting across from that creep, the Tiny Policeman. Nothing seemed real. I felt
like I was faking the part, acting in some stupid TV movie; nothing like that
happens in real life. Not to people like me, not to people like my dad, who
changes the oil in his car and pays his bills on time and gives money to the
Fire Fighters' Fund whenever they call. I mean, imagine it. Your father. Your
father.
I can tell you, though, it does happen. To people like
me.

My mother wanted to come get me. She insisted.
I said no. I said, "Don't you understand? I need to be here when he gets home."
If he ever got home. Grandma was there with me anyway. It got later and later.
Grandma called the station again. Yes, he was still there.

We were two baby birds, abandoned in their
nest. Weak and lost and stuck, thinking only of who was not there. I could not
understand what was happening. My body and I seemed separated from each other.
The phone made us both jump as if it were a gun shot. Once it was my father's
nurse, concerned. And then, someone selling carpet cleaning. The idea that
someone was just out there, selling carpet cleaning, was ludicrous and
thoughtlessly mean. Finally someone from Peppy Johnson's station called. My
grandma

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slammed down the phone. I doubted she had ever
slammed down a phone in her life.

Grandma had been organized enough to bring a
small suitcase, which I lifted from her trunk and carried into the house. She
put on her robe, her legs looking thin as a crane fly's underneath. All of her
was thin, hands and legs and the skin on her face. Thin and veiny and too old to
be dealing with something so large and evil. Grandma made us soup and toast,
which neither one of us ate. Grandma just sat there, stirring and stirring.
There was a knock at the door, which made us jump.

"Oh Lord, what next?" Grandma said.

We ignored it. Doesn't your heart beat like
hell when someone is knocking at the door and you are hiding inside? But the
knocker was persistent. I walked soft steps to the door. I peered through the
peephole.

"It's Ms. Cassaday," I said.

"Jordan," my grandmother said when I turned the
knob.

"My teacher," I said. "It's okay."

Ms. Cassaday pushed inside, hugged me. It was
funny to be hugged by my teacher, to have her there standing inside my house.
"Okay," Ms. Cassaday said. "The thing is, if he's there without a lawyer ...
Well, he needs one. Mrs. MacKenzie?" Ms. Cassaday asked Grandma.

"That's right," Grandma said.
"Jordan's

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grandmother. Pardon my attire ..." Grandma
patted the sleeve of her housecoat.

"Under the circumstances, I'm surprised you're
even upright. Elaine, a friend of mine, suggested I bring this to you." She
handed over a business card to Grandma. "Her brother is an attorney. We thought
you might need his help." Grandma nodded. "He'll take good care of you. The
radio said ... Well, I got worried. Jordan's one of my best students. And this.
I mean ...
goddamn."

Grandma smiled weakly. "I won't keep you," Ms.
Cassaday said. "Call the lawyer, okay? So I can sleep tonight?"

She whispered to me on the way out the door.
"Be strong." It made a lump start in my throat. But I didn't want that. Crying
would mean it was real. The girl in my body pretending she was me didn't want
that.

In the driveway I could see Ms. Cassaday's old
car and the shape of someone waiting in the passenger seat, Elaine Blackstone,
probably. I wondered why it was to our house they came, and not to the D'Angelo
house to see Markus and Remington. That's where most people would have gone.
That's where I would have gone. I pictured the two of them talking, Ms. Cassaday
and Elaine Blackstone. Over the kitchen sink as they washed the smell of oyster
off their hands, if they ever could get that smell

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off. I guess they probably knew something about
where I was right then. About people thinking thoughts about you that had
nothing to do with who you are.

Grandma sat on the couch. "You get old," she
said. "And life gets increasingly filled with horror."

There was nothing I could say to that. Instead
of answering, I went into the kitchen. I took that stupid plant Dad had been
watering with coffee and I threw it away. I dumped it right in the garbage, pot
and all. It was the strongest thing I could think to do.

The problem was, there was no body. No body, no
witnesses, and my father was insisting he knew nothing about what happened to
Wes D'Angelo.

And they believed him. Because he had never
done anything like that before. Because he seemed to be telling the truth. So at
first they believed him and he came home.

We were living in a house of cards. Our steps
were careful, our words were careful, even our thoughts were careful. You can
live like you're holding your breath, and that's what we did. I suppose we were
the only ones on the island not talking about the murder. Peppy Johnson at the
radio station took callers on the topic. Bill Raabe, my father's best friend and
our

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neighbor down the street, was quoted in the
newspaper "He was absolutely crazy about her. It reached a point where his
friends were seriously concerned." A sign on the old oil tank said,

GOOD THING MY WIFE'S GOT 20-20
VISION.

God.

Grandma stayed with us. My mother called three
times a day, asking me to come home. I wanted to sleep. Sleep lured me, the way
it does when you're upset, only to tease you viciously once you finally pull the
covers up. Waking up has the meanest trick, that first moment before you
remember.

I was questioned by some detective who had come
in from Seattle and who had shoved the Tiny Policeman into the role of second
fiddle now that he'd finally got his big chance. They asked me a bunch of stuff
as Elaine Blackstone's brother sat by me with his hand on my shoulder. No, I'd
said. I'd never seen a hat like that in the house.

But what I saw in my mind was those bulging
pockets. Fat with intentions.

I said, "It looks like anyone's hat, the hat of
thousands of people."

What I thought was,
He wore a hat?
This
was my father we were talking about. Dad with his toe poking out from a hole in
his sock. Dad, who used the eye chart with the cows and chickens and pigs for
the little kids who couldn't read

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yet. Who pushed the phoropter gently to their
face, saying so they wouldn't be scared, "Now look at this funny pair of
glasses. These are the biggest, funniest pair of glasses ever, and you get to
wear them!" He could be so embarrassingly corny, my father.

"I mean, the whole thing's ridiculous," Melissa
said. "He probably got on a ferry and got the hell away from that woman. I can't
believe that they're doing this to your father."

"He went out on my
bike
that night," I
said. We stood in my driveway. I showed up for work at True You that morning,
but Laylani said I could go home, the stress I must be under.

"I mean that just makes a ton of sense,"
Melissa said. "What, he lugged that man somewhere on your bike? I'm
sure."

"Right, that bike can barely carry me," I said.
It struck me how unbelievably odd it was that I was having that conversation.
But it was good. To finally be able to speak about it. It was like air whooshing
out a balloon.

"What do they think, he hid him in here?" She
knocked on the hood of my father's old Triumph, hidden under the tarp. "Jeez, I
can't believe any of this. I know your dad. Your dad wouldn't hurt a
fly"

Isn't that what the neighbors on the evening
news always said? The ones in too-tight pants and bad perms? He wouldn't hurt a
fly?

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"Jordan?" Grandma came outside, her purse over
her arm. "I've called Mrs. Beene. They're expecting you. Your father has gone
back to the station. Mr. Blackstone advised me to stay put, but I simply can't
sit here and do nothing. I will sit
there
and do nothing if need be, but
I won't have your father there all alone. He is still my son."

"How many times are they going to talk to him?"
I said. "This is crazy."

"I don't want you alone. Will you do that?" she
said. "Just stay at the Beenes' until I come get you."

"Okay," I said.

Melissa looked worried. Like she'd just been
told she'd be holding that stick of dynamite a little longer. I had the feeling
she'd have been relieved to go home alone. Hell, I bet she'd have given her
right arm to be with Chantay West right then. She'd have been thrilled to join
her in eating a meat-loaf sandwich, even.

I watched Grandma drive off, her head a small
white puff over the steering wheel. Inside the house, I could hear the phone
ring. Melissa glanced at the house anxiously. "Just ignore it," she advised.
"See? Mom's looking for us. We're corning!" she yelled to Mrs. Beene, who had
appeared in her front yard.

The phone started to ring again. I was worried
it might be important. "Just a sec," I said.

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"Ignore it, Jordan," Melissa said again. But I
was already running toward the front door.

"I can t," I said. By the time I reached the
phone it had stopped, but the message light was blinking. I pushed the play
button.

"Jordan? It's Laylani. Laylani Waddell over at
True You?" For a moment I smiled. I mean, there wasn't exactly more than one
Laylani Waddell in my life. "I just wanted to tell you. Um, I think we'd all be
more comfortable if you didn't come into True You anymore. You know, considering
the circumstances."

Laylani paused. I listened to the sound of the
tape whirring, watched the small reels going round. Finally her voice returned.
"Buddy and I both talked and brought it to the Lord, and well, the girls at True
You just have to come first." I pictured Him, their Lord, sitting across a big
desk from Laylani and Buddy, nodding his head meanly in agreement with
them.

Laylani was quiet again. When she spoke again,
her voice was strong. "So what I'm saying is, Jordan, you're fired."

The click of the phone hanging up sounded
guilty. It didn't sound guilty enough.

"What I was thinking," Mr. Beene said, "was
that I could cook us up something on the grill. Sound good?"

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"Doesn't that sound wonderful?" Mrs. Beene
said. "I know I've got steaks."

It was pitiful how cheerful they were all
being. And how nice Melissa was being to her parents. As if she was suddenly
pretty grateful she had any mother and father but mine.

"I'll get the bag of briquettes, Dad," Melissa
said.

"Great!" he said.

We all stood around on the back deck, watching
the coals get hot. And let me tell you, that takes a long time. Mr. Beene talked
about weather systems. About the weather in the east. About weather back in
1962. "I wonder if there is going to be much of an Indian summer this year," he
said. He wiped a little sweat off the top of his shiny head. "Then again I don't
know. And should we even be saying
Indian summer
anymore? Maybe we should
say
Native American summer."

"By the time you say that, it'd be over," I
said.

Everyone laughed. Too hard. Too long. Mrs.
Beene slid open the screen door and stepped out onto the deck with raw steaks on
a plate, which she handed to Mr. Beene.

Mr. Beene stabbed them with a long fork and
laid them on the barbecue. "Ah, nothing like fresh kill," he said.

"Larry," Mrs. Beene said.

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"Oh jeez," Larry turned red. Even the top of
his head. "Hey, I'm sorry," he said. "What a stupid..."

"It's all right," I said. God, was this
supposed to help? I didn't want to be with them, standing around that barbecue.
"Excuse me," I said, and got up. Even
excuse me
was not the kind of thing
I usually said when I left a room. That's something girls in the movies said.
Ones whose fathers might have killed someone.