Circles of Confusion (25 page)

Claire decided to tell the story more or less in chronological order, beginning with the appraisal at Avery's. She tried, but once Evan realized the painting might be real he kept stopping her to quiz her about how much it could be worth. When was the last time a Vermeer had come on the market? How much had it been sold for? Did she know how much that translated into in today's dollars?

On her walk from the bus stop, Claire had imagined Evan taking her in his arms while she sobbed out her story. Instead he got the calculator from his desk and began to tap in numbers, not even looking at her while she talked.

And there was no way to tell her story without mentioning Troy and Dante, much as she was reluctant to. Here in Evan's practical apartment, all hard-edged modern furniture that could be wiped clean with a sponge, the two men seemed like insubstantial ghosts. They both cared so deeply about art, while the only art Evan owned was a reproduction abstract—shades of gray and black with a single slash of red—that had been the same one used in the furniture store's display.

Even though he was now paying more attention to her words than to money, Evan didn't make telling this part of her story any easier. He quizzed her from a chrome-armed chair while Claire sat on the equally uncomfortable couch across from him, holding her head in her hands like a penitent. She was so exhausted that her cheekbones felt as if they had been replaced by balls of lead.

"Do you mean to tell me that you went out with two different men in the jive days you were in New York?" Well, she hadn't meant to tell him that at all, but it had been impossible to avoid mentioning what she had learned over wine or espresso or bagels with lox. Evan continued to ask question after question, but about nothing that Claire considered important. What did this Dante do for a living, exactly? Why had she gone out to breakfast with this Troy instead of prudently arriving at the airport several hours early?

While Evan fixated on the wrong things, a part of Claire tried to make sense of the things that were really important, asking herself the questions Evan didn't know enough to. Were the break-in at her hotel and the destruction of her house related, or had two different people been behind them? And why would someone blow up her neighbor's car—especially if killing Claire would probably mean destroying the painting at the same time? And what about the man who had told her his name was Paul Roberts? Was that his real name? Was he a real cop? Did he know what had happened to Charlie?

The more questions Claire thought of, the more she realized she didn't have the answers. There was only one thing she was certain of. The painting must be real, or else why would it be causing her so much trouble?

A sound in the hall behind Evan made Claire straighten up, her mind blank with panic. Footsteps. Someone else was in this apartment, then. She had been foolish to think she had escaped. Paul Roberts must have broken in. She imagined silver eyes leveling on her again, remembered the way the gun had bit into her temple.

Moving faster than a thought, she ran for the door and began to fumble with the locks. Too slow. Too slow. Behind her, Evan was silent and she imagined his shock as he faced a gun—one of his feared statistics coming to life. She braced for a bullet that never came. Finally—although it was really only a matter of seconds— Claire turned to confront whoever had entered the room.

It took her a minute to recognize Marcia, Evan's receptionist from Kissling Insurance. For one thing, she lacked the strappy four- inch heels she habitually wore. But she was still dressed in a Marcia-ish way, in black satin tap pants and bustier, topped by a red satin robe that she made no attempt to close. Her legs were as impossibly long and slim as a Barbie doll's, and like Barbie, Claire saw that she was forced to walk on her toes, her Achilles tendon shortened by too many years of too-high heels.

Despite her outfit, or lack thereof, Marcia wasn't flustered at all. She sat on the arm of Evan's chair and regarded Claire coolly. Evan was the one who blushed, pulling at the collar of his pajama top as if he wanted to cover up the few blond hairs that sprouted there.

"What is she doing here?" It was Claire who should have said those words, but Marcia who spoke them, as calmly as if she were in her own apartment. Claire wondered how long she had been coming here. Since Claire had found the painting, she was seeing sides to people she would never have guessed existed.

"Nothing," Claire said. "I'm not doing anything at all." She sprung the last lock and stepped out into the hall. It was only as the door clicked closed behind her that she wondered where she would go.

IRITEI

Trouble, Claire realized, would best be faced by someone who was familiar with it. Someone who knew what to do when the police might be out to get you and old friends couldn't be trusted. Someone who knew how to keep his mouth shut. And it didn't hurt if that someone was family—someone like J. B., Susie's live-in boyfriend.

Claire called him from a pay phone on the corner, facing out, reflexively checking the passing cars to make sure none of them was a white, late-model four-door. Less than fifteen minutes later, J. B. was pulling up in his beat-up red pickup. At the sight of J. B.'s untrimmed beard, face pitted with acne scars and tattered blue-and- gray Pendleton that predated Nirvana by at least two decades, Claire felt her tension begin to unravel. And unlike Evan, J. B. didn't seem driven by a need to know exactly what had happened to leave her stranded at two in the morning on a downtown street corner with no money, no car and no desire to go home.

"Mind if I smoke?" J. B. asked after they had ridden five minutes in silence.

"Would it be okay if you waited until we got to your place? I'm so

hungry I feel nauseated." The last time she had used the word had been when she corrected Troy in Cri du Coeur, a world away from this battered pickup. The side window was cold against her cheek. She would have pulled her legs up on the bench seat, except the space was occupied by her nephew's dark blue car seat.

"So it sounds like the first thing you need is food. What else?"

"What?" Claire started, then realized she had been someplace between waking and sleeping.

"You called me. You're out all alone in the middle of the night and jumpy as a cat. I figure something is wrong. So what else do you need?"

Exhaustion engulfed her. "I need so much there's no point in starting to list it all."

J. B. shrugged, his skull-and-crossbones earring flickering in the passing streetlights. He and Susie lived on the southeast edge of town in an area where house fires were often fatal because people couldn't find the key in time to unlock their barred doors and windows. He pulled to a stop in front of the small turquoise-painted house he and Susie rented. The driveway was full of vehicles in various stages of decrepitude, with several more cars parked along the curb.

J. B. turned off the ignition, but made no move to get out. "Why don't you just tell me what you need."

"Okay." Claire took a deep breath and decided to take him at his word. "I need something to eat. And a car. And a little bit of money. Oh, and a place to sleep where no one will come looking for me. And ..." Claire's voice wavered on the edge of hysterical laughter, but she brought it into line. "I need to look like a completely different person. Think you can manage all that?"

EZ4U2SA

What she needed first, according to J.B., was an omelet. He paid no attention to her protests that she would be happy to eat something uncomplicated, like a bowl of cereal. Soon she was sitting at the Formica-topped table in their miniature dining room, marveling at the enticing smell of sizzling butter.

"Won't we wake up Susie and Eric?"

"Wouldn't kill either of them if we do. They both like to see you, and they neither one of them get the chance much."

That was true enough. Claire had only been to this house once before, when she helped them move in. And that had been before Eric was born. She watched as }. B. tilted the pan back and forth, then used a spatula to pick up the edge of the omelet and let uncooked egg run underneath. Giving the pan an occasional shake, he opened the refrigerator with his free hand and took out a Tupperware container. He shook something brown and glistening into the center of the omelet, folded it in half, and then let it brown on both sides before sliding it on a plate and placing it ceremoniously in front of Claire. Total elapsed time: five minutes.

With the first rich and woodsy forkful, her mouth filled with saliva.

"Mmm—what is this?"

"Chanterelles. We went out in the woods by Estacada to pick them today." He looked at the clock built into the oven. "I guess I mean yesterday. Then when we got home, I sauted them with butter and a little sherry and diced Walla Walla sweet onions. We had omelets for dinner, so that's just leftovers."

If so, they were the most delicious leftovers Claire had ever tasted. "How'd you know what mushrooms were safe to pick?"

"Oh, chanterelles aren't tricky. Even if you don't know much about mushrooms, you can't go wrong with chanterelles. Or morels. There's nothing bad that looks like either of them. My dad taught me lots of stuff you can eat that grows wild in the woods."

"What happened to him?"

"He got killed in a logging accident when I was thirteen, and my mom moved us here. From my mom, I learned how to grow pretty much anything."

Including, Claire thought, but tactfully refrained from saying, the basement full of marijuana that had put him in jail for eight months nearly ten years before. That had happened right after he met Susie. Claire had thought Susie was a fool for sticking with this man with his long hair, tattoos and what struck her as an affinity for trouble. But now that J. B. knew Claire had her own problems, he was revealing a new side to himself.

Her plate was clean except for a gloss of butter when a soft touch on her shoulder made her whirl around.

"Claire? What are you doing here?" Susie stood behind her, hugging herself in her purple terrycloth bathrobe.

J. B. answered for her. "She needed someone to help her."

Susie raised her eyebrows. "And you called here?"

Claire was embarrassed at her inability to find an answer. For a moment they simply looked at each other, each gazing into a nearly identical pair of blue eyes. Then Susie's question about calling sparked a memory in Claire. In her mind's eye, she saw Paul Roberts's carefully manicured hand as he wrote down all the numbers that circumscribed her life. Including her mother's phone number and address.

"Can I borrow your phone?"

Claire's panic grew as she listened to ring after ring. But on the sixth ring, Jean finally picked up, her voice drugged with sleep. Claire warned her not to answer the door to any strange men, especially good-looking men with silver-blue eyes. With or without a policeman's badge. In monosyllables, Jean agreed that she wouldn't. She seemed too tired to be annoyed by having been woken up, too tired to ask why Claire, always cast in the role of the good daughter, now seemed to be on the lam.

When she put down the phone, ). B. said, "Hey, Suze, Claire needs some different clothes. And some different hair. Do you think you could help her out?"

"I've got some of my fat clothes from after I had Eric she could have." Claire wanted to protest that she wasn't fat, and that besides, anyone would look fat next to Susie, who was whittled down to nothing by cigarettes, but she held her tongue as Susie continued. "I don't know about the hair, though." She picked up one of Claire's apricot-colored ringlets. "This is the kind of hair people pay good money for and you got it for free." Claire could hear an ancient edge of jealousy in her sister's voice. "Why do you want to change it?"

"My hair's too easy to spot. Anybody could scan a crowd and pick me out in a second. That's not what I need right now. Do you still cut hair?"

"Now and again. I'm not licensed or anything, so I only do it under the table for some of the neighbor ladies. But I like it. I could give you a cut and color if you want. You're lucky, 'cause I've still got some dye I bought for someone up the street but didn't end up using. You feel like being a brunette?" When they were kids, Susie had spent hours with her Kut 'N' Kurl Barbie. She had a talent for anything practical with a clear and immediate application. Whereas Claire had been good at calculus and English and sociology, subjects that hadn't taught her to do much except long to go to college, which they couldn't afford. Once she got of school and into real life, Claire found out no one cared if you could do three-dimensional calculus or name the periodic table. And the only thing her big vocabulary had been good for was in helping her understand some of the more obscure license plate references.

Susie disappeared and came back with a worn sheet to pin around Claire's shoulders. "How come you don't do this for a living?" Claire asked.

Susie sighed. "Oh, I'd have to go to school and get licensed, which costs money. And then you have to buy a station at an established salon, and that costs more money."

The sensation of the comb traveling across her scalp was unspeakably soothing. Even Susie taking her to the sink and spraying her hair with the vegetable sprayer failed to jolt her back into alertness. Claire kept her eyes closed and surrendered herself to the snip of scissors, followed by more combing, more parting, more snipping. As her sister began to massage dye into the remains of her hair with plastic-gloved fingers, Claire nearly fell asleep. She kept her eyes closed as Susie led her for a second time to the sink, opening them just long enough to see water the color of ink running down the drain.