Assumptions (8 page)

"No. Your place. What time?"

"Five?" Will looked casually at the ceiling,
then down the corridor, anything but eye contact.

"Sounds good."

Deirdre Callaghan wound her way through the
crowd. Will watched as she moved toward them.

Jordyn kept talking. "Should I bring
anything? Snacks or something? Emerson? Hello?"

"That girl with the black hair . . . I’ve
seen her before."

"Deirdre? Yeah, she's a student here."

"Here?"

"Would you like to meet her?"

"What? No."

"Oh, come on, Emerson." Jordyn called out to
her. "Deirdre!" She turned, waved at Jordyn, and walked quickly
toward them.

Will crossed himself sheepishly, looking down
at his unpolished shoes.

"Deirdre, this is Emerson – I mean, William
Emerson," said Jordyn.

"Nice to meet you, William." Deirdre smiled
softly.

"Uh, ‘Will’ is fine. You're Irish," said
Will.

Deirdre and Jordyn exchanged a look. Deirdre
took Will's hand in both of hers and shook it warmly. "Of course.
Will."

Will felt the pink rise in his cheeks again.
"Sorry, have I seen you somewhere before?"

"You have."

Will opened his mouth to speak. The bell
interrupted.

Jordyn reminded him of their plans. "See you
tomorrow, Emerson."

"Yeah. I mean, yes. Absolutely." Will
motioned over his shoulder. "I'm headed that way. Nice to meet you,
Deirdre. I, uh, I have to go. See you later, Quig." Will turned and
retreated down the corridor.

"See you, Emerson,” called Jordyn after him.
She and Deirdre snickered and headed the opposite direction. Will
looked over his shoulder. The girls chatted, heads together.
Deirdre turned back toward him and smiled.

CHAPTER TWELVE: CLEAN

It had been days since Timothy Stillman
packed up his truck and left the comfort of Provident. From time to
time he stopped to eat or to rest, but mostly he drove, taking the
long way back to the city. The thumping of washboard grooves along
the side of the dark highway startled him from his half-sleep.
Tired and hungry, he checked into the nearest and cheapest motel he
could find.

The lobby vending machine would have to do
until the complementary breakfast. "Served 6 AM to 9AM," the clerk
explained. “Don’t be late. They take it all away right on the dot
and you’ll miss it if you’re a minute past. Alarm clock’s on the
nightstand.”

Stillman stood before the machine and
considered his options. He pulled out his wallet, empty except for
a single wrinkled dollar bill, an OTB receipt, and a check for
ten-grand, made out to him, dated six months earlier. The machine
rejected his dollar twice. Stillman tucked it back into place and
pocketed his wallet, the appeal of peanut butter and imitation
cheese crackers not tempting enough to warrant a third attempt, not
even on an empty stomach.

He wished the clerk a good night and walked
to his room a few doors down the hall. He dropped his duffel bag on
the foot of the bed and tossed his keys onto a small desk with a
miniature coffee maker, a thin bar of hand soap, and a brochure
with a watercolor portrait of Abraham Lincoln on the front.
Welcome to Ottawa, Home of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates
.

Stillman leafed through the brochure and
dropped it on the nightstand next to the alarm clock. He sunk onto
the edge of the worn mattress and kicked off his boots. The dingy
teal bedspread invited sleep despite its disagreeable color.
Unpacking nothing, he crawled under, pulling the covers close
around his unshaved chin. He clicked off the lamp and slept off and
on until the late morning light sliced through a crack between the
stiff vinyl curtains.

Stillman crawled out of bed, pulled a
toothbrush from his bag, and dragged himself to the bathroom, not
bothering to look in the small mirror mounted above the vanity. He
had missed breakfast.

He re-packed his toothbrush then fumbled with
the coffee maker. He ripped open the complimentary packet of
coffee, nearly losing the grounds to the olive shag. He snapped the
carafe into place, switched the machine on, and waited for the
aroma to fill the room.

Stillman guzzled a cup of weak coffee and
dumped the rest, collected his things, and checked out. He plugged
his phone into the charger in his truck and merged onto Interstate
80. He settled behind a slow moving minivan, camping gear loosely
bungeed to the top, clean Starved Rock bumper magnet on the dirty
liftgate, kids' eyes glued to the DVD.

Two hours later, he arrived on the north side
of Chicago and collected a thick bundle of mail from the local post
office where, he swore, the clerk snarled at him as she handed it
over.

Stillman circled the block near his apartment
twice before he found a spot big enough. He grabbed his mail and
his bag and walked down the street.

The sensor on the door of his neighborhood
mini-mart bing-bonged as he swung open the door. The store was
empty of customers. The clerk greeted him from the storeroom door.
"Afternoon, mister." His accent was thick and his English broken,
but he seemed eager to chat. "Help you, mister?" he offered.

"Just grabbing a few things, thanks."
Stillman gathered a small bag of coffee, white bread, packing tape,
and a quart of milk.

"Good weather today. No rain, only sun."

"Yeah. It's good." Stillman dropped his items
on the counter. "This'll be all." He paid with a credit card.

"Nice day, mister." The clerk pulled out a
paperback and a dictionary and sat down behind the cash
register.

"You, too." The door sensor bing-bonged as he
left for home.

Stillman walked carefully down the mossy
steps in front of his garden apartment. He dropped his duffel bag
on the ripped couch inside the front door. He took the rest to the
kitchenette. He tossed the mail onto a second-hand bistro table.
His stained mug still sat upside down in the plastic dish drainer
on the counter. He unpacked his mini-mart bag, put a pot of coffee
on to brew, and sifted through the envelopes, most marked
"confidential" or "past due" or both.

The yellow box of sugar had solidified in his
absence. He chiseled out a couple of good-sized lumps with a butter
knife and doctored his coffee the way he liked it. He took a slow
sip then went to his bedroom.

His laundry hamper bulged. He pulled the
sheets off his bed and stuffed them into the flimsy basket. He
dragged it to the front door, pulled the clothes out of his duffel
bag, and piled them on top. He hauled it all across the courtyard,
down to the coin-op laundry room in the apartment opposite his. He
spent the next two hours washing, drying, folding, thinking.

When he returned to his apartment, the sun
hung low in the sky. He made the bed and left the rest of the clean
laundry folded in the hamper. He went to pour himself another cup
of coffee. His mobile phone rang, number unknown. Stillman answered
the call.

"Where are you?" the voice on the other end
demanded.

"What?"

"Are you in the city?"

"Yes," answered Stillman.

"You were supposed to deliver it by now. You
have the money. There's another ten for you when I get it. You need
the money and I need the package. I need it! Don't you
understand?"

Stillman did not speak.

The voice softened. "Look, a man like you
could clean up a few messes with twenty grand. That’s what you
want, isn’t it?"

Stillman frowned. "I'll call you when I get
settled."

"Fine. But, don't take too long." The line
went dead.

Stillman looked at his phone. "Why does every
conversation with you end this way?" He tossed the phone hard onto
the counter. The battery cover popped off and skittered across the
kitchen floor.

Stillman dug a suitcase out of the coat
closet, packed away his clean clothes, and zipped it shut, leaving
it next to his duffel bag at the door. He went back to the
kitchenette to finish his coffee. He sat at the wobbly table,
picking at his unopened mail then went for carry-out at the Thai
place around the corner.

After dinner, he shaved and showered. He made
his bed and slipped between the fresh sheets. He reached for the
lamp, hesitating before turning the switch. He pushed his covers
away and jogged to the front room. He rummaged through his duffel
bag and pulled out the small brown-paper package and Dotty's bible,
running his fingers along the deckled edges of the bible's pages as
he walked back to his room. He sat on the side of his bed and read
the passage marked with the blue ribbon. He laid the bible and the
package on his nightstand, crawled back under the covers, and
turned off the lamp, sleeping soundly for the first time in
months.

Morning came too soon. Stillman stumbled to
the kitchenette and reheated a cup of stale coffee in the
microwave. He popped a couple slices of bread into the toaster and
picked up the pieces of his phone. He shut off the ringer and put
it in a drawer. The toaster began to smoke. He rescued the too dark
bread, scraping it over the sink until it seemed edible. He
finished his meal, cleared the envelopes from the table, and
stashed them in the drawer with his phone.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE STUDY

Jordyn ran home after school. She changed out
of her scratchy uniform into Levi’s and a white t-shirt, plain
except for the word ‘maybe’ in clean letters written across her
chest. She threw on her favorite leather jacket and her new
sunglasses and headed for the el. She arrived on Will's doorstep at
five sharp and rang number two.

"Jordyn?" answered Will.

"Expecting someone else?"

"I'll buzz you in. We're on the second
floor."

“Number two. Think I got that.”

The lock clicked open. Will waited on the
landing, still in his school uniform. He watched Jordyn come up the
stairs. "Wow, not what I expected.”

“Did you think I’d show up in a prom dress or
something?”

“Or something. Nice shades.”

“Like ‘em? They’re Italian. From Rome. My
father’s idea of a souvenir.”

“Come in. Let me take your coat." Will took
her coat and disappeared down the hall, returning a couple of
minutes later with a large book in his hands. “Study's this way.
Follow me."

Will sped down the hall to a cozy room lined
floor to ceiling with mahogany bookshelves except for one wall,
papered in maroon and gold stripes. A pair of well-worn leather
armchairs flanked a side table with a small reading lamp. Somewhere
among the books, a carriage clock tick-tocked softly. Will laid his
book on one of the chairs and motioned to the other. "You can put
your stuff there. Hungry? I'll go grab a snack. Be right back."

Before Jordyn could speak, he was gone. She
tossed her backpack beside the chair and dropped her sunglasses on
the table. Two diplomas hung high on the bookless wall, one a
Master of Philosophy in Archaeological Heritage and Museums, the
other a Doctorate in Archaeological Studies, both granted to
William Robert Emerson, Sr., both with the four-lion crest of
Cambridge. Below the diplomas hung a few framed photos of a
light-haired man standing in the desert and below the photos
several vivid rectangles where the wallpaper had been protected,
unfaded behind whatever was there before.

An open box full of framed photos sat on the
floor. Jordyn pulled one off the top. A woman beamed at the camera.
Jordyn recognized her thoughtful brown eyes and dark hair. She took
another out of the box. A young boy and his family enjoyed tea
under the shade of a palm in a walled garden.

Will returned, two cups in his hands and a
box of biscuits tucked under his elbow. The bright smell of lemon
followed him in.

Jordyn held the photos in her hands. "You
moving?"

"No. Why?"

"The pictures."

"My dad took them down when we got back. He
didn't want any reminders."

"Reminders? Of what?" asked Jordyn.

"I thought you knew. Doesn't everyone?"

"Newbie here, remember?"

"Oh, right. It's a long story."

"I'm listening."

"Um, well, it's my mother. She's . . . she
disappeared," said Will.

"My mom took off when I was two. It's been me
and my dad ever since. I don't get it. How do they just leave like
that?"

"No. She didn't leave. I meant she was . . .
abducted."

"I'm so sorry."

"Yeah. So's everyone. It's okay. Really. I
shouldn’t have told you."

"No. I'm glad you did.” Jordyn pulled out
another photo of a young family in the middle of a crowded plaza.
“The woman in the photos, she's your mother?"

"Yeah. That’s Manger Square. In Bethlehem. We
were visiting some of my mother’s family at Christmas. A few of
them still live near there.”

“In Israel?”

“No. West Bank. They’re Palestinian
Christians.” Will squeezed the cups onto the small table.

“Just like in your photo. The tea, I
mean.”

“It’s okay, isn’t it? I got used to tea over
the summer. I forget I’m here now. I can get some water.”

Jordyn curled into the soft leather chair.
“No, it’s nice.” Jordyn sipped her tea, amber and sweet-tart.
"Deirdre invited me for elevenses; not this Saturday, but next.
Elevenses is tea, isn't it? You should come."

"Me?" Will shoved a biscuit into his
mouth.

"Is there someone else in the room?"

Will shrugged.

Jordyn shook her head. "We're meeting at a
place called Molly's. It's only a few blocks from here. Have you
been?"

Will took his cup and hastily washed down the
biscuit. "No. But, I . . ."

"You're coming. I'll meet you here at
ten-thirty." Jordyn took another sip of tea. “How long were you
abroad?”

“My parents started taking me on their digs
when I was seven. I’ve been every summer since. Mostly Israel.”