Follow the Dotted Line (30 page)

“All the kids are coming?”

“Nice, huh?”

“But how can everyone afford—”

Mitch put his hand up to stem the flow of protest.

“And now it’s about the money?”

“Okay. Okay,” she relented. “I’ll shut up now.”

He lit a delicate, cigarette-sized cigar and handed it to her. “I think you’ll like this. Has a hint of chocolate.”

Andy sat back and drew the vapor into her mouth. It tasted amazing. Mitch lit something that looked like a baseball bat in comparison.

“I told each of them I’d send a little check to help out. I want everybody here. I really want to do this. More importantly, I really can. So let it go.”

On her son’s prompt, Andy exhaled and wondered why everything, even her ex-husband’s memorial service, had to be cost-effective in her mind. The feeling was genetic, she was sure. At least two people in every generation of the Baders had been maligned as ‘penny pinchers,’ according to family lore. Proudly, often stupidly, Andy had carried that ignoble torch higher than anyone else among the baby boomers.

“Thank you, Mitch. That’s really nice,” she told her son, successfully stifling her biopsychology and secure in the knowledge that Mark Kornacky himself wouldn’t have given a damn how much the plane fare cost his children.

“Now about the music,” Mitch trotted on. “I’ve already decided which songs I want to go on the CD mix, but I’m not sure what kind of music to use for the service.”

“There’s a service?”

“Melissa’s going to handle the nuts and bolts of that. It frees me to concentrate on the music. You know, she’s pretty spiritual.”

“Any particular denomination of spirituality?” Andy asked, both horrified and intrigued by the prospect of a service planned by The Impresario.

“I just told her it had to be completely inoffensive.”

Not ‘according to Scripture,’ not ‘meaningful’ or ‘moving,’ just ‘completely inoffensive,’ Andy mused.

“What’s inoffensive?” she asked.

He shrugged and puffed out a small, but surprisingly dense, smoke ring. “You know, no schmaltzy tributes to Dad’s character and no homilies about meeting up in the afterlife.”

“You don’t think any of us believe in the afterlife?”

“No idea. I just think Dad hasn’t spent that much time with any of us in this one,” he said. “Seems hypocritical to go on and on about getting together in the next. So I told Melissa to avoid the subject all together. Any objections?”

Well, this was a bracing revelation, thought Andy, who had to admit she’d never seriously pondered her children’s attitudes toward the afterlife and wasn’t all that clear about where any of them stood. As a mother, she’d definitely put them off believing in hell. But she had been a real waffler when it came to heaven. Still was.

“No. No objections,” she said.

“The net and net is, I’ve decided to hire an acoustic guitar and singer for the actual service.”

“Why hire a guitar player? Or singer? Just ask Ian.”

“Nope. He’s part of the family,” Mitch said, firmly. “I’m not going to impose on him. I’ll find somebody worthy of his approval, I promise. But my question to you is, what was Dad’s favorite song?”

“Hmm?”

“I mean, a song that might be appropriate?”

Andy drew a deeply disturbing blank. “I’m not sure.” She shuffled through the options. What music had Mark liked when she first met him? What had he listened to when the kids were young? What might he like now? “Tell me again what you’re asking.”

“Let me put it this way. Are you okay with using a song from The Band?”

Andy gave a careless shrug. “Why not? Did your dad like them?” she asked, a tad ashamed she didn’t know the answer herself.

“Not all that much. But he loved this one cut. From the ‘60s. About somebody named Fanny. We used to sing it together in the car when he drove me to soccer. I thought maybe you knew why he played it all the time.”

Andy didn’t. But she knew the song.

I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half past dead
I just need some place where I can lay my head
"Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?"
He just grinned and shook my hand, "no" was all he said
Take a load off, Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off, Fanny
And (and) (and) you put the load right on me
(You put the load right on me)

“I think that’s perfect,” she said, imagining father and son half singing, half shouting the lumbering melody and strangely alluring lyrics in the Volvo station wagon, as they tooled down Ventura Boulevard.

“Don’t suppose you know what the words mean.”

“No. Do you?”

Mitch shook his head. “I asked Dad one time.”

“What did he say?”

“He said it was either about sex, drugs or redemption. He wasn’t sure which. And he didn’t care. He just loved to sing it.”

It was the most uncontaminated memory Andy had ever heard Mitch recall of time spent with his father, and she felt a tear pool along the rim of her lashes. “I think it’s perfect,” she repeated, maneuvering to keep the excess emotional moisture out of her eyes and voice.

“Good,” he said, seeming not to notice. “Then our work here is done.” He stubbed his cigar and stood up with an urgent, but unannounced, purpose.

“It is?”

“We’re running a little short of time. Melissa wants me to help her with Harley before you leave tonight.”

Andy was struggling to follow this abrupt turn in conversation. “Help with Harley?” she asked, surprised and a little perturbed. “What does that mean?”

“Think of it as career counseling,” Mitch advised, as if she needed his assistance in understanding Harley. “He seems to be riding some kind of vocational pendulum at the moment. Haven’t you noticed?”

“Haven’t I noticed?” she repeated, instantly incensed. Who did he think the boy was living with? And what gave her bull of a son the right to go rummaging around in this particular china closet? “Have I noticed that I am living with a multiple personality?” she huffed. “Is that what you’re asking?”

“Okay. Okay. I put that badly. Of course, you’ve noticed. Everyone has. All I meant to say is that Melissa and I know you’re having a hard time with him. And we thought we might be helpful. Somehow.”

“How-how?”

“It’s too complicated to explain. Just don’t worry about it.”

“What? Are you taking over Harley now, too?” she blurted out, her voice cracking with convoluted emotion. “Have I managed to become irrelevant in this area, along with all the others?”

Mitch realized he’d unintentionally hit one of his mother’s panoply of raw nerves and decided on an immediate withdrawal. “We just had this idea. And we wanted to try it, Mom. Don’t be so proprietary. Okay? Now I really gotta go.”

This was what she both hated and loved about Mitch. He could be heartbreakingly helpful. He often was. But his incurable confidence in having a better solution to any problem, particularly hers, made Andy want to bare her teeth. Which she did. Fortunately, the intensity of her snarl was muted by the fog of tobacco spewing out of her mouth.

“You presumptuous—,” she began mumbling through clenched bicuspids.

“I know. I know. But you’ll thank me some day,” he said, cutting her off and nearly patting her on the head, then thinking better of that idea. “In the meantime, Berkeley is waiting to play Gin Rummy with you in the living room. We’ll take care of Harley in the sunroom.”

The card game, along with the baby Buddha persona of her granddaughter, returned Andy to a state of near-calmness within half an hour.

“You and Dad remind me of AP chemistry,” Berkeley said, after losing the second game in a row.

“Did you just throw that last hand, Berkeley? So that I would win?”

“You used to do that for me when I was little.”

“You knew I let you win?”

The girl smiled so sweetly that Andy actually ached a little. “You knew I liked to win,” Berkeley said. “I know you like to win. Just returning the favor.”

Andy smiled back. “Why do Mitch and I remind you of chemistry?”

“Similarly charged atoms repel one another. It’s a law of nature, Grandma Andy. You can’t help upsetting one another.”

“He doesn’t upset you?”

“Sure. But I’m not like him, the way you are. I don’t compete for energy in the universe the way the two of you do.”

“I nearly flunked chemistry,” Andy laughed. And, yet, it was the most apt description of her relationship with her elder son that she’d ever heard. “But you’re right, Berkeley. I guess we can’t help ourselves. Your deal, honey.”

The girl shuffled the cards and distributed 13 to each of them. “Did you find out anything more about what happened to Grandpa Mark?” she asked.

“A little,” Andy said, hoping to avoid a genuine discussion. “Nothing definite.”

“Does Dad know you’re going to Big Bear this weekend?”

Silent alarms sounded. Andy squared her shoulders slightly, as if this might help her fortify her position. “How do you know where I’m going this weekend?”

Without comment, Berkeley drew from the pile and laid down three aces.

“Harley said something to you. Didn’t he, Berkeley?”

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that.”

“Well, at least he swore you to secrecy. I know it may sound a little adolescent—present company excluded, honey—but I don’t think my kids would approve of the direction my research is veering. It’s a little melodramatic. Even I find it kind of crazy.”

“Then why don’t you just stop? Do you think Grandpa’s still alive?”

“Let’s just say I don’t think he died of natural causes,” Andy said with highly inappropriate candor to the 14-year-old sitting across from her. In for a dime, in for a dollar. “And that really pisses me off.”

With the wisdom of the old soul Andy believed her eldest grandbaby to be, Berkeley declared, “Truth can be a dangerous goal, Grandma Andy. But it would be really epic if you nailed that palm reader’s ass.”

A Dotted Line to Follow

Whatever Mitch and The Impresario were up to, it involved giving Harley a brand new ‘do,’ which he sported without comment on the drive up to Big Bear the next afternoon. It was a little shortish, a little spikyish, and centuries removed from his Hassidic cut—or non-cut, to be more accurate. The new coiffure, along with the shedding of excess pounds, made him look years younger and irksomely cuter, Andy thought, despite the residual black-on-black pants and shirt. Melissa clearly had an eye for something in the boy that Andy couldn’t conjure in her wildest dreams.

“Let’s go over the plan,” Lorna said, guiding her new car up the mountain like it was the Senior Ladies’ Grand Prix.

“I’m going in alone,” said Andy. “A click and dash. You’re sure about where the passport is located?”

“Unless Tilda moved it.”

“Okay. She should leave for her Saturday Night Séance at the bookstore about 8:30. The minute she leaves, I’ll go in, and you get ready to peel off as soon as I come back out.”

“We’re going back to LA tonight, right?” Harley asked. “As soon as you’re done?”

“As soon as I’m done.”

“Because Melissa is picking me up before midnight at Lorna’s, remember.”

“We know,” Andy smirked. “And we’re not allowed to ask why.”

“It’s part of the program, Melissa says.”

Apparently, the tried-and-trendy talent scout had her nephew on some kind of ‘transformation regimen’ that was going to locate his ‘inner Harley’ and rip it out of him for the world to see.

“You’re sure she’s not giving you drugs?” Andy asked, not for the first time.

“Will you stop that, Andrea?” Lorna said, her voice crackling with impatience. “I have no doubt Melissa knows exactly what she’s doing. And you need to concentrate on what you’re going to be doing!”

The trio of re-offenders reached their destination a few minutes before 8:00 p.m. and waited for Tilda to exit the cabin.

“The place is dark,” Lorna said. “Maybe she’s gone already.”

“Could be,” Andy agreed. “Harley, why don’t you go up and knock on the door? If she answers, just pretend you want another reading.”

“But she won’t have time, if she’s going to make the séance,” Harley pointed out.

“That’s right,” said Andy, her words edging uncomfortably close to sarcasm. “And you will politely tell her you’ll come back another time.”

“Should I make an appointment?”

Instinctively, Lorna reached over to restrain her friend from any further interaction with the boy.

“Your choice, Harley,” Lorna replied. “Just see if Tilda’s home. Now.”

Harley obeyed and was back in the car within five minutes to report what both women had hoped; the coast between them and the passport was clear.

“Looks like we’re a ‘go,’” quipped Andy, as she climbed out of the car. She flipped up her hoodie, slipped her hands into a pair of latex gloves and stepped into the street, now saturated with darkness, and headed directly for the butt of the carved bear on the porch. The key, she signaled with a thumbs-up that no one in the car could actually see, was still there.

Andy was inside the cabin and on her way across the living room, bound for the desk under the stairs, before she was conscious that the only sound she could hear was a pounding thud in her chest that reverberated in her ears. I might as well be deaf, she thought, as she switched on her penlight and located the desk. She scanned the top briefly, noting a pile of junk mail, receipts, a stapler, paper clips, a coffee mug, and a cell phone at least two generations newer than her own. Pushing aside any conclusions her inquiring mind might draw from what was clearly the same crap she had on her own desk, she focused her attention on the second drawer down on the right. She slid it open and pulled out Tilda’s passport.

The closer she came to completing the task, the louder her pulse hammered against her eardrums. Unlike lying to her children, breaking and entering didn’t seem to be getting easier with practice. Opening the little blue book with her left hand, she pulled her cell phone out of the hoodie pocket with the right. Her hands were shaking the way they used to shake at pitch meetings just before she was about to do her shtick. So much of her search for Mark relied on the success of this moment, she reminded herself. And yet she couldn’t seem to do it with either a steady hand or the slightest bit of aplomb, whatever the hell that was.