The Shape of Mercy (12 page)

Papa says we are to go.

M
y father called me with a business proposition, as he called it. He asked if I would assist one of his staff members in writing a proposal to develop a multifaceted art gallery.

“Bens a whiz at technical writing, but this project needs to appeal to a group of investors who speak the language of art, not commerce,” Dad said. “You speak both. The wording in this proposal will sway them one way or the other. I want them to be swayed to build. I need a good writer on this one.”

I had been sitting in my car in Abigail’s driveway when my cell phone rang, about to pull away, and my mind was somersaulting on the names of three women—Tituba, Sarah Osborne, Sarah Goode. All I knew of these women was the little I remembered from Arthur Miller’s play and Mercy’s agitated thoughts.

I only half heard my father’s request.

“You want me to write what?” I said.

“I want your help. I’m not asking you to write the whole thing, Lauren. I just want your insight on this one. Ben will be able to tackle the technical beauty of this project, but I need a writer who understands aesthetics.”

I’ve never thought of my dad as a good liar. He doesn’t lie. He doesn’t have to. I wasn’t going to accuse him of lying to me, but he was withholding something. He had at his command a host of artistic people who understood aesthetics and could write.

I slowly eased out of Abigail’s driveway and onto the road. “I don’t understand why you’re asking me. You’re surrounded by expertise.”

“I’m asking you because you can do this. And because the investors are members of a family who appreciate art and literature. I know they’d like a proposal crafted for them by my daughter who also loves art and literature. It would give us an edge over anyone else’s design. It would be a wonderful debut project for you, Lauren. You’re perfectly suited for it.”

I do believe he was complimenting me, but “perfectly suited” seemed a bit of a stretch.

“How so?” I asked. “I don’t know anything about land use, Dad.”

“I don’t need you for that. I have architects and civil engineers on my staff. Ben will take care of the technical part of the proposal. I just want you to help him interpret our research data and make sure the proposal fits what this family of investors will appreciate. It’s not the technical ingenuity that’s going to sell them. It’s the aesthetics and attention to the artistic elements. We’re looking at creating a gallery dedicated to art and literature. It’s going to be quite different. I know this kind of project will resonate with you, Lauren. You can’t tell me it won’t.”

I pulled onto a twilight-lit thoroughfare. “How come you didn’t mention this when I was home for Uncle Loring’s party?”

“I barely saw you. Between entertaining the other guests and running errands for your mother and aunt, I had only a few minutes to myself. And you were always nowhere to be found, I might add.”

I was hiding from Raul, Dad, because he made me feel like a fool, and for some reason I actually found him attractive.

Dad continued. “Besides, we weren’t sure last week we were going to move forward on this one. But now we are. It’s a fabulous project, Lauren. You’ll love what this gallery will house.”

“How many hours are we talking?” I said, still unconvinced.

“That depends on you. I’d say ten to fifteen tops for the whole thing if all you do is edit and tweak. More if you want to have more input, and I think you will. You could do it in a couple weekends. I know you don’t work for Abigail on weekends. You could do it here at the house.
Or there, if you insisted. But all the drawings, models, and schematics will be here.”

Uneasiness crept over me. I wanted to do the project, and I didn’t. Dad was right about my interest. That unnerved me as much as anything. I didn’t want to be tricked into a budding career as Dad’s up-and-coming, sonlike heir.

“Is this part of a bigger plan, Dad?”

He paused only for a moment.

“Everything is part of a bigger plan. Don’t think for a minute it’s not. You don’t think I know you’ve got a bigger plan in attending a state school? You don’t think that Abigail has a bigger plan for this transcription you’re doing? Everything small is a part of something bigger. That’s just how it is.”

“So you admit you’re tying to woo me into coming to work for you,” I said, slightly miffed at his mini-lecture.

Dad laughed. It was gentle, not unlike Raul’s smooth laughter, like he was amused at my innocence or naiveté.

“I’ll pay you thirty dollars an hour,” he said, “and you can give it all away to charity if you want.”

He had admitted nothing.

“Come home this weekend and look at the plans and the research data,” he continued. “If you’re not impressed, I’ll find someone else. No hard feelings.”

I flinched as if I’d been pinched. Find someone else. He’d find someone else.

That thought annoyed me.

“This weekend?” I said.

“You have other plans?”

No. No, I did not.

“I can come,” I said.

“Good. I’ll tell your mother. She was just saying she hardly saw you at the party.”

“There were a lot of people in and out of the house,” I said, turning into my dorm parking lot.

“I didn’t even get a chance to ask you how your work with that diary is going.” He seemed genuinely interested.

“It’s going well.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s fascinating. Haunting, sometimes. Today I transcribed Mercy’s entry about the first arrests. Three women were accused initially.”

“Was she one of them?”

“No. One was a West Indian slave named Tituba. The two others were older women, one named Sarah Goode and the other named Sarah Osborne.”

“And these are the actual people mentioned in history books?”

“Yes. They were women Mercy Hayworth knew. She was shocked at their arrests. She couldn’t believe they were witches.”

Dad was quiet.

“Dad?” I checked my phone to see if we were still connected.

“I’m here. Sarah Goode. Yes. There was a Sarah Goode who invented the Hide-A-Bed.”

Hide-A-Bed? “Dad?”

“Not your Sarah Goode, though. This was one was born in 1850.”

“Dad, what are you doing?”

“Googling her name.”

I gasped.

“Oh, here’s yours. Here’s the record of her trial and execution.”

“Dad!”

“What?”

“I’m not supposed …” But I didn’t finish. How could I tell him I’d promised Abigail I wouldn’t look at any information on the Internet until I was done transcribing the diary?

“Not supposed to what?”

“Nothing.” Curiosity overpowered me. “What does it say about Sarah Goode?”

“The grammar is terrible. Couldn’t they spell? Ah. She appeared as a wolf. That’s
wolfe
with an
e.”

I shivered. “That’s impossible. She wasn’t a witch.”

“It says her name was in the devil’s book. That’s
booke
with an
e,
too. And they spelled
devil,
d-e-v-e-l-l. She had three birds—two black, one yellow—and the birds hurt the
Children,
capital C. Doesn’t say which children. I never saw such poor sentence structure. How can you decipher this stuff? Is the diary like this?”

I didn’t want to hear any more.

“No, the diary isn’t like that,” I said.

“Well, there’s just the one Sarah Osborne. Her name comes up in the first page of hits. This one says she maintained her innocence throughout her trial. And she was searched for a witch’s teat, whatever that is. The slave Tituba testified Sarah Osborne was a witch.”

“She wasn’t.”

“Osborne died in prison. You know, you really should ask Abigail what she plans to do with the diary when you’re done, Lauren. You should protect your interests.”

My interests. “I’ll ask her sometime.”

“So what’s this girl’s last name? The girl whose diary you’ve got?”

If I told him Mercy’s last name, he would do an Internet search right then, and I would be unable to resist asking him to tell me everything.

“Dad, I promised Abigail I wouldn’t do research on my own until the diary was finished.”

“Why?” He sounded amazed.

“Well, knowing too much might affect the way the diary comes across as I’m transcribing.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Lauren. You already know how it
ends. She gets hanged. Besides, you’re just transcribing. I don’t see why Abigail would have you make that kind of a promise.”

“I don’t know. She’s old. She’s eccentric. This diary is very important to her. Old people sometimes do things that seem a little extreme.”

“All the more reason to find out what her plans are. I want you to promise me you’ll find out.”

“I promise. I’ll ask her. When the time seems right.”

We were both silent for a moment.

“So you’re coming this weekend?” Dad finally asked.

“I’ll drive down Saturday morning.”

“Okay, then. Thanks, kiddo.”

“Sure, Dad.”

We hung up.

The windows were down in my car, and I heard the chirping of birds as they sang the end of the day. In my mind I saw three birds. Two black, one yellow.

A
s I packed a few things to take home with me, my dream from a few nights before filled my thoughts. I saw my empty Paris pictures suddenly teeming with people. In my mind, I heard Abigail asking if I had met up with any high school friends while I was home and I heard my own voice saying no, I hadn’t.

I pictured Robinson Crusoe—I had begun to read the book—alone on his island with nothing but goats and a mimicking parrot for company. King of his own little universe, but with no subjects to adore him or even usurp him.

Alone.

I decided to prove to myself I had friends.

I turned to Clarissa, who sat cross-legged on her unmade bed, eating ramen noodles raw, crunching them like peanuts while she read from a textbook.

“You working this weekend, Clarissa?”

“Of course.” She didn’t look up.

“Want to get out of it?”

Her eyes met mine. A curl of raw noodle was hooked over her bottom lip. “Why?”

“So you can come home with me for the weekend.” I couldn’t look at her as I said it. I folded a bra in half and waited for her response. I was prepared for anything.

“Really?”

She sounded incredulous. I couldn’t tell if it was because she had no desire to come and didn’t know how to tell me or because she was shocked at being asked, since I had never asked her before. She was my roommate our freshman year too.

“No big deal if you don’t want to come,” I said quickly.

“I’d have to be back by six on Sunday. Can’t get out of that one. I work seven to midnight.”

“So you’ll come?” Now I sounded incredulous.

“If you want me to.”

“I do. I want you to come.”

“You’ve never asked me before.”

“I know,” I said.

We just looked at each other, wordless, for a few moments. We both knew we had absolutely nothing in common except an address. She had never asked me to her parents’ house, either. They lived 150 miles away in Bakersfield.

“Sure. I’ll come.” Clarissa stood and brushed noodle fragments off her holey cutoffs. “What do I need to bring?”

I shrugged. “Nothing special. A swimsuit if you want to use the pool. We can go out Saturday night if you want.”

Clarissa snorted. “Yeah, but we don’t need any clothes for that, ’cause we’re strolling naked down Rodeo Drive. Forget the underwear!”

I stuffed some pajamas in my bag. “Very funny.”

She yanked a canvas tote off a bedpost and stuffed the oversized T-shirt she slept in inside it. “It
would
be funny. It’d be hilarious. You’d get your name on the society page.” She whipped her head around to look at me. “But you’ve probably been there lots of times!”

“Yeah, sure. Lots of times.”

Clarissa laughed and threw a pair of sequined flip-flops in her bag. “So do you have a butler and maid and everything?”

“Yeah, and a shoeshine boy and a chauffeur and a scullery maid and a footman.”

Clarissa smirked. “C’mon. What’ve you got?”

“A couple gardeners.”

“Really? That’s it?”

“We have a housekeeper.” I sighed. Eleanor was more like a doting aunt.

“Does she bring you your dinner on plates with those silver dome things on top?”

I began to wonder if I’d made a mistake asking Clarissa to come. “Only on your birthday,” I quipped.

“I always thought that would be cool, to have your dinner arrive all hidden away like that.” Clarissa tossed in her toothbrush and a makeup bag. “Well, I’m ready.”

I didn’t tell her the dome lids weren’t there to make you feel special. They just kept your food warm.

“Don’t you want to call to see if you can get off work?” I asked.

“I can call from the road. I’ll say I’m sick. I could use a break.”

“You’re going to call in sick?”

“Yep. I am sick. Sick of working all the time.”

Clarissa tossed the rest of her dry ramen noodles into the trash.

I grabbed my bag and
Robinson Crusoe
, and we left.