Triple Love Score (34 page)

Ambrose followed up with a simple text: “Keep doing this.”

“Sure,” she said to herself, plunking down on another identical bedspread. “At what cost?” She looked down at her phone. Still no return call. The twenty texts she sent remained unanswered.

O
REGON WAS KNOWN for its rain, but when she emerged from the airport in Portland, the sky was such a spectacular blue that she almost thought she had taken the wrong flight. But the green Prius taxicab that ferried her to the hotel downtown clearly echoed the eco-friendly reputation of the Pacific Northwest. And by the time she emerged from her hotel to head to the event, a light misting drizzle frizzed her wavy hair into an untamable tangle. At least the scenery matched her mood.

At the last stop, in Seattle, Scott had broken his silence only to ask for “some time to think about things.”

“Okay,” she replied. “I love you. And Lynn.”

“I hope so,” he answered.

She stood outside Powell’s, staring at her reflection in the door trying to pat down her hair to some respectable form when a hollow visage appeared next to her own in the glass. “Oh,” she exclaimed, bouncing back and knocking into the lady’s walker. Luckily, the nurse aide, a woman in navy blue scrubs with a print of tiny rainbow hearts, steadied both the lady and Miranda. “Sorry,” Miranda said. “Thank you.”

The lady with the walker stood rigidly upright. A bandana held back thin wisps of blonde hair. Her skin was pale, white like paper, with the blue of her veins clearly visible on both of her arms. Her eyes were sunken with deep purple circles ringing them. Despite her obvious frailty and short stature, the woman was downright regal. A queen.

“Let me get the door,” Miranda said.

“You’re too kind,” the lady said. She moved slowly forward with the aide trailing in her wake.

The event went well. Plenty of people attended. The local color word sculptures featuring espresso and hippies elicited enough laughter that Miranda blushed and looked at the floor. She noticed the Queen standing in the back, a cup of coffee in her hand. The Queen raised her cup while everyone else applauded at the end. This event also featured a book signing. It seemed the whole room stayed to get their copy signed, from a few older hippy ladies wearing flowing yoga pants with their gray braids hanging squarely down their backs, to a new mom with a baby in a sling, to a pack of hipsters with their skinny jeans and ironic Fedoras. The Queen, though, didn’t get in line. Just as well, Miranda thought. The line was long, but she couldn’t help personalizing each book. Sometimes, if the person had a request during the event, she would draw in their word sculpture on the back page. The mother with the baby loved that; the book was a gift for her twin sister, who also had a baby the same age at home. “Sisters, mothers, friends, tired,” it read.

She packed up her bag, helped the clerk box up the Scrabble boards to be sent on to the next location, and said her goodbyes. When she reached the front door, the aide blocked her way.

“She wants to speak to you,” the aide said.

“Oh,” Miranda said. “Sure.”

The Queen was arranged on one of the overstuffed couches that rested in niches around the store. She lay with her legs stretched out across the couch. With a slight wave of her hand, she motioned for Miranda to take a seat on the footstool next to her.

“Congratulations,” the Queen said.

“Thanks. It’s a fluke really. I never thought I would have a book, or at least not a book like this.”

“No,” the Queen said, “not that. This.” She pointed her bony index finger at Miranda’s engagement ring.

Miranda felt her cheeks blush again; she still wasn’t quite used to the attention the ring attracted; when Stanton had purchased it, his motto was bigger is better. In the florescent lights of the store, the ring exploded with sparkling light. Despite everything, she didn’t want to take it off. She still wanted to marry Scott. “Oh, this, yes, just got engaged. It was my mother’s,” she added quickly. “I’m afraid it is quite obvious. Especially in light like this.”

“No, love, that’s not it. I know you. Well, not personally, but I know you all the same. You’re marrying Scott Cramer. The Scott Cramer.”

“What? Do you know Scott?”

The Queen let her head drop back as an enormous cackle escaped her. She laughed until it turned to a cough wracking her body with tremors. The aide quickly handed her some water and the tube to a portable oxygen tank she had strung over her shoulder. Miranda hadn’t noticed the tank before.

“So, you don’t know who I am?” the Queen asked when she finally regained her composure. “No idea. You aren’t here for some reason.”

“No, Ambrose, the publisher set this up.”

“Oh, Ambrose, I know him, too. Was always quite the big shot. Bit of a nerd, but that seems to have worked out for him. Unlike myself and my current state of being. Maybe I should have hit the books more instead of other things.”

“I don’t understand,” Miranda said. And then it hit her. The color of her hair, the shape of her eyes, the slight dimple on her chin. Lynn. “Wait,” she said, “you’re Lynn’s mom.”

“I am. Or rather I was. I guess that’s your job now.”

“It’s not like that. Being a stepmother is different.”

“Wait a minute,” The queen said. “You don’t want to be Lynn’s mother?”

“No, it’s not that at all. I love her. It’s just, you are her mom.”

“Not really, Love. I check in from time to time, but Scott does a pretty good job keeping me away from her. Can’t say as I blame him, things being what they are, but well, I’m sure you have lots of questions.”

“I do have lots of questions.”

“Well, I have lots of answers. Just not now. I could be free tomorrow.”

“I can meet you tomorrow,” Miranda said.

“Of course you will,” the Queen answered.

She texted Avery to see if she had looked into Cassadee. “Sure,” Avery replied. “I was waiting until you got back. Emailing now.”

The email contained multiple court documents. The final page, a summary sheet, listed offenses Miranda knew best from watching crime dramas on television. Intent to distribute. Accessory after the fact. Resisting arrest. Public intoxication. Prostitution. Attempted assault and battery. The sheet showed lots of addresses and a few aliases. On one drug charge from around the time Lynn was born, Scott Cramer appeared as a known associate. She read through Cassadee’s statements to a variety of judges and parole officers. In each, she always clung to her innocence. “I didn’t do nothing,” was the most common phrase. Nothing in those pages could ever help Lynn understand or know her mother. Somehow Miranda had expected something different, like a dossier from a spy movie or an FBI profiler report—something that said who Cassadee was as a person and not just what law enforcement charged her with doing.

The last page detailed her release on parole to hospice care.

Miranda didn’t feel right letting this woman just waste away without having something to pass on to Lynn. One day Lynn would ask, and Miranda would want to have answers. Her father, Avery, Bunny, and Linden didn’t just wipe away the memory of her mother; they celebrated her birthday, raised toasts in her honor, and talked about her all the time. Scott picked Lynn’s middle name for her. No one ever let her be forgotten. But despite all their best efforts, being without her mother felt like walking around with a shard of glass up against her ribs. If she hugged something too tightly or moved with too much excitement, the sharp edge pierced and stabbed her. It made her hang back, observe, wait. She didn’t rush in or get too happy. If Miranda could feel that way with twelve years of her mother’s love and attention, what could Lynn feel with none? Miranda imagined double the loss when Lynn finally found out that Scott wasn’t really her father and was just some guy Cassadee picked for the job. What could it feel like to lose both your parents without ever even knowing them? Not for the first time, Miranda wished she could climb into the window seat next to her mother’s chair and ask her. She would beg her to tell all about how exactly you prepare a child for loss.

As she climbed into hotel bed number thirty-something, Miranda listed the things she wanted to ask. The things no rap sheets contained. Where did you grow up? What did your parents do? What is your favorite color or album? What was her father like? What was his name? Why did you give her up? The last one was probably the biggest question of all. Miranda couldn’t imagine any answer that would justify why someone would walk out on that child. She let the questions flood her mind until sleep finally took over.

She made it through the event the next day without spotting the Queen. Her absence came with relief; if Scott knew she even talked to Cassadee, he would probably never forgive her.

Miranda helped the staff with clean-up and hung back chatting with them about ideas for her next book. A petite young woman, maybe all of eighteen in a cardigan with pearl buttons and cat’s eye glasses proposed erotic word sculptures. After the girl said it, she covered her mouth with her hand, and her cheeks blazed red. One of the hipster boys from the coffee bar made it worse by saying, “Jill, will you come over and read it to me?”

Miranda couldn’t believe it possible, but the girl flared an even deeper shade of red. But something about the way the hipster boy looked at her, and she at him, told Miranda that they would write those poems themselves soon enough. A pang of longing for Scott filled her. She wanted to be looked at like that. Then Miranda felt a light touch at her elbow. She wheeled around and was startled to find Cassadee’s aide.

“Ma’am,” she said. “Dee is waiting in the car. She really shouldn’t have come out today. It’s not a good day for her.”

“Not a good day?” Miranda asked.

“I shouldn’t say nothing,” the aide continued. “But she’s really sick and won’t listen to reason none. The girl could sell a lady in white gloves ketchup popsicles. Just because she convinced me to take her here doesn’t mean I have to go all along with it. You should know.”

“Thank you. I’m Miranda by the way.”

“Oh, I know who you are. The minute that engagement photo popped up on Facebook, it’s all she could do to not talk about you. You be careful miss. The wounded are more dangerous.”

Miranda nodded as if she understood, only she didn’t.

Cassadee the Queen waited outside for them in the driver’s seat of an old Volkswagen Golf. The aide turned at the car and disappeared up the street with a little wave of her hand.

“Get in,” Cassadee said through the open passenger-side window.

“You’re driving?” Miranda asked, looking at the oxygen tank, moving it over to make room to sit. She kept her door open, not wanting to go anywhere with Cassadee. Not yet any way. Something about the whole thing didn’t make sense. Cassadee had lost some of her composure from the day before; she moved her head from side to side like she couldn’t keep her eyes focused on any one thing.

“Nah, but I could. I kept my license. Never got popped while driving. Only walking, and you don’t need a license for that. I just like to sit up here. I like to imagine getting on the highway and cruising all the way down to Baja. I’d like to pull up next to some surfer beach and lay out in the sun smoking a bowl.” Cassadee leaned her head back and took in a few deep breaths that shook her whole body. She stayed like that for a few minutes, obviously transported to the place in her imagination. “Ah, that’s real nice,” Cassadee finally said. “So you had questions?”

“Yes,” Miranda said. “I was hoping to know more about you. I think Lynn should know you; Scott seems to think that you didn’t want to see her. I just can’t believe that’s true.”

“So he trusts you and everything, right? And vice versa?”

Cassadee’s pupils were dilated, and she couldn’t hold eye contact; her gaze kept darting to cars passing in the street and a couple walking by with a dog.

“I was just hoping to know more about your life, things from when you were little, like Lynn is now. I want to get to know you. I want Lynn to know you.” Miranda said.

But it was like Cassadee hadn’t even heard her. “But the thing is, I need money. And I think it’s your fault I’m not getting it,” she said. “Because you see, he used to trust me. We were friends. If I called, he came. Well obviously, but I mean even after the child. He really kept up with me. I think he even forgave me for lying and saying the child isn’t his. He’s like that. Good. But something has happened. Won’t talk to me.”

“Lying?” Miranda asked. “Lying that he is the father?”

“Don’t you contradict me. I lied that he wasn’t! I said what I said. To keep him on his toes and keep him sending the money. I saw how he looked at the child. If he thought for a minute he could just have her without me, poof, there goes my chances. The hospital helped me right good without even knowing it. Telling him the child was early. Pennies from heaven that was.” Cassadee made a fist and started tapping it against the steering wheel. “But, yes, it’s your fault. I get no money, and you stole the child. You steal her, and you don’t pay; that’s not right. I need that money. They don’t give me all I need. There’s things I need, you see. Things.” She exhaled the last word so sharply that her spittle splattered all over the windshield. “Without my things, my brain doesn’t work right. I shake more. They don’t understand the power of alternative medicines. They are so close-minded. It’s not like it’s going to kill me now. I’m already dead.”