Mary Wolf (9 page)

“That's wonderful news. We've been so worried, honey. Nobody's heard from your father lately.”

“Well, we've been pretty busy. We've been on the road.” It's hard to speak softly; I want to shout, I'm so glad to hear her voice.

“How's the baby?”

“Fine. He's so cute. You should see him, Aunt Belle.”

“I wish I could. Can you send me a picture?”

“Our camera's broken, but we're going to buy a new one. We'll get one soon. Things are going real good.”

It's true. I can see who my parents used to be, all those miles and children ago. Daddy's not so thin, and Mama's not so fat. They laugh a lot more. They're happy.

“How are the children? How's Danielle doing?” Danielle was Aunt Belle's special pet. We all were.

“She's fine. Erica, too. They love this place. They watch movies all the time. There's a VCR, and a satellite dish that gets hundreds of channels.”

“And Polly?”

“She's fine. She's getting real big. She's not a baby anymore.”

Aunt Belle sighed. “You give her a hug for me. She probably doesn't even know who I am.”

“Yes she does. We talk about you all the time.” The truth would only hurt her feelings.

“Oh, honey, I'd love to see you. Can you come back for a visit before school starts? I'll send you the money for a plane ticket.”

I'm flying away, walking into the airport, searching for my aunt in a crowd of faces. “Mary!” she calls. I rush into her arms.

“Sometime, but not right now,” I say. “Mama needs help with the kids. They're a handful. So how are you doing? How are Grandma and Grampa?”

“Everybody's fine, but we sure miss you guys. Does you father like his job?”

“He loves it. It's great.”

“The last time we talked, you said his stomach was bothering him.”

“It hasn't been, lately. He's doing fine.”

“I guess he's pretty mad at me,” she says.

“Not really. He knows you love him.”

“Yes, I do, and I always will, even when I don't agree with him. Will you give him my love? And your mother and the girls, too? We miss you all so much. Are you playing your guitar?”

“Yeah, and I'm getting pretty good, if I say so myself. Maybe I can play for you on the phone sometime.”

A door is opening, there are footsteps in the hall.

“I have to go, Aunt Belle. Andy's crying. I don't want him waking up the whole house.”

“But honey, where are you? You haven't given me your phone number!”

“I'll call back soon.” I hang up on my aunt. She's saying, “Mary, wait!”

Daddy's in the doorway. “Who're you talking to?”

“I was checking the time. This clock is slow.” I fiddle with the dials in the coffee machine.

He stretches and yawns. “What're you doing up so early?”

“I'm not sleepy. Are you ready for some coffee, Daddy?”

“Not yet, honey. I'm going back to bed.” I hear the toilet flush, then his bedroom door closing. I go out to the deck and smoke a cigarette, blowing blue fumes into the fog.

Mary, wait.

Most days Daddy's busy patrolling the development, looking for trespassers and things that need fixing. But today's his day off. He's taking the family to lunch. I offer to stay home and look after Andy. Being alone is a rare treat for me. Mama promises she'll pick up new guitar strings at the music store in Mendocino.

Andy's so alert; he notices everything. I show him the world and explain what he's seeing.

“Look at that deer, Andy. She's looking right at you. She's telling her baby: ‘See that little boy?' And look, there's a squirrel way up in that tree. Can you hear the funny noise it's making?”

While Andy naps, I watch a movie,
The Godfather
. It's violent and beautiful and tragic. I study Al Pacino, watching his character change into the kind of person he always despised. The more dangerous he becomes, the more quietly he talks, his voice like a gun with a silencer.

The family returns at suppertime, bearing balloons and sunburns.

“You should've gone, Mary,” Mama says. “We had a wonderful time. There was a carnival in town.”

“I rode the camel!” Polly exclaims.

“You did?” I scoop her up. “What a brave girl you are.”

“It had great big teeth like this! And they were all yellow!”

“See what you missed?” Daddy's face looks pink and healthy.

Erica heads for the couch. “Oooh, my tummy hurts.”

“One snowcone too many,” Mama says, rubbing her belly.

Danielle shoots down the hall, staking a claim on the TV.

“Did you remember my strings, Mama?”

She slaps her forehead. “Oh, Mary, I'm so sorry. I completely forgot.”

Daddy put his arms around me. “We'll run up there tomorrow. Just you and me. I'll treat you to lunch.”

“Don't you have to work?”

“I'll tell them it's an emergency. My best girl needs guitar strings.”

Worn out from their big day, the girls go to bed early. Mama bathes Andy and puts him down. Then she and Daddy and I watch baseball. Sometimes being the oldest feels good.

The light outside is silver and the breeze is soft, reminding me of long-ago summer nights; barbecues in our backyard with all the family, Grandma and Grampa, Aunt Belle helping Mama, a baseball game squawking on the radio, the girls chasing fireflies in the twilight.

I want to give my parents the love Aunt Belle sent them, but I know my father would refuse it.

He goes into the kitchen to make Mama some tea. He's gone a long time.

“Where did that man go?” Mama rolls her eyes. “Has he fallen asleep?”

“I'll get your tea, Mama.”

“Thank you, honey. With a little milk. And see what your father is doing.”

I go into the kitchen and fill her favorite mug, and set it in the microwave to boil.

There are voices outside. Daddy's talking to someone. His voice is ragged; it gets big and angry, but the man he's talking to is louder.

I move to the front door, which is slightly open. They're standing in the driveway, arguing.

The man's saying, “I don't know who you are or who the hell you think you are, but I want you out of here in five minutes.”

Then Daddy's voice, all jumbled and worried, speaking so softly I can't hear him.

The man again. “Don't give me that crap. I talked to them myself, not an hour ago, and they have no idea who you are or what you're doing here. I could call the sheriff right now and have you arrested.”

“No, don't do that.” Daddy's pleading.

I step out the door and onto the walkway. The porch light shines on the man's face. He stands next to a van with a sign on the side that says S
EASCAPE
R
EAL
E
STATE
D
EVELOPMENT
C
OMPANY.

Daddy looks down, ashamed. “Mary, go back into the house.”

I turn to the real-estate man.

“My name is Mary Wolf. This is my father, Andrew Wolf. He owns the largest insurance company in Nebraska. Apparently there's been some kind of misunderstanding. But you're making a greater mistake to insult him. My father's an honorable and important man.”

The man and Daddy gape. I am an ape spouting Shakespeare. I am Al Pacino playing Mary Wolf.

“He's the one who's got some kind of misunderstanding,” the realtor says. “You people have no business being in this house. I could call the sheriff right now and have you arrested for trespassing!”

“Call your attorney, while you're at it. I'll call the sheriff myself, if you don't stop shouting. There are children sleeping in this house and I won't have you wake them.” I fire words at him, cool as steel.

“I don't know what kind of game you people are playing, but you'll have to get out of this house right now!”

“Really? The Murphys will be surprised to hear that.”

That floors him. “You know the Murphys?”

“Of course,” I say. “The Murphys are old friends of our family.” Their name is on the beach pass on the bulletin board in the kitchen. A photograph of their children hangs over my bed. “They gave us permission to stay here. We're their guests.”

“That's not what they told me on the phone just now.” But the realtor's fumbling for words; he's baffled.

“I'm going to call them myself, as soon as I go inside, and tell them how badly we've been treated. They won't be pleased. Nothing you can say now will keep us from leaving. We'll be on our way tomorrow morning. However, I should point out that under California law—” Then I'm rattling off scraps from newspaper stories, civics classes,
People's Court
reruns. Mama loves to watch
People's Court
.

I drown the real-estate man in words, making him an offer he can't comprehend.

“I trust I've made myself clear,” I conclude. “We'll leave tomorrow morning. In the meantime, don't bother us again.”

The man is stunned. His eyeballs bulge. Has he won or lost? He's not sure. He gets into his van and backs down the driveway, spitting up gravel in his haste to escape.

Al Pacino deserts me. I'm alone inside my head. This is no act; I am nothing but a liar. The bridge of my nose burns with tears, rage.

“Mary,” Daddy whispers, “I can explain everything.”

“Don't,” I say, and go back into the house.

Ten

There wasn't a lot of chat the next morning. We got out of that house like refugees fleeing a hurricane, or a holocaust.

I couldn't tell if Mama knew why we were leaving. She masks her thoughts even from herself.

Danielle said, “What about your job, Daddy? Aren't you going to keep fixing things?”

“Everything's fixed,” he said, stuffing groceries into a cardboard box.

“What about the trespassers? Don't they still have trespassers?”

“They're gone,” Daddy said. “Get your shoes on. We're leaving.”

Her angry face closed like a fist.

Daddy's stomach was killing him, so I got behind the wheel and drove down to the highway.

“Which way? Left or right?”

“Left,” Daddy said. “We've already been up north.”

“Where we headed?”

“South.”

“I mean specifically.”

“South, I said. Specifically. You heard me, Mary.”

The sun was a white ball behind a sheet of fog. A few miles down the highway we stopped for milk and Rolaids at a grocery store in a tiny town called Elk.

Daddy and I got out. A hitchhiker stood near the RV; a guy maybe forty, maybe younger, if he'd had his teeth. A sack of aluminum cans was slung over one shoulder and he carried a bag of groceries with a loaf of bread sticking out.

“You know any place to camp around here?” Daddy asked him.

“Sure,” the guy said. “Down the road, about fifteen miles. I'm going there now.”

He wasn't going anywhere. Another car drove by.

“What's it like?” Daddy said.

“Good people. You can hang out for a while. The rangers don't hassle us much.”

Daddy frowned; the man had seen through our thin disguise. We weren't a family on vacation; we were a family on the lam, looking for a hideout.

“Thanks,” Daddy said. We crossed the highway and went into the store. The man was still there when we came back.

“You done with that can?” he asked me.

I finished my soda and handed him the can. He put it in his sack.

“They're worth five cents at the place in Fort Bragg. I got all these beside the highway. It's amazing what people throw out. You sure you don't want it?”

“You can have it,” I said.

Daddy sat in back with Mama and Andy. I got behind the steering wheel. The hitchhiker held up his thumb, smiling.

I said to my father in the rearview mirror, “We might as well take him with us.”

“Why? We don't even know him.”

“He's going where we're going. He gave us directions.”

“Hey, man,” the guy said, “I'm not a maniac or something. What do you think: I murdered a family and stole all their groceries?” His smile was as happy and toothless as Andy's.

“You could be, for all I know,” Daddy said.

“So could you, man,” the guy pointed out. “I'm willing to take my chances.”

He sat up front, next to me. His name was Dave.

“Thanks for the ride,” he said. “My car's crapped out. It usually runs real good. It's a Mustang.”

“Those are nice.”

“How long you been on the road?”

“Two years or so. I don't know, exactly.”

He nodded. “It's hard keeping track when you don't get the paper. I mean, how much difference is there between Saturday and Sunday?”

“Depends on the Saturday or Sunday.”

“True. Mind if I smoke?'

“No.”

“Yes,” Daddy said.

Dave pulled out a sack of tobacco and rolled one for himself and one for me. I put on my newest Bonnie Raitt tape.

“Turn that down,” Daddy said.

I turned on the fan so the smoke wouldn't bug him.

“Two years.” Dave exhaled smoke. “That's a long time.”

“We're on vacation,” Daddy explained. “We live in Nebraska.”

“Nebraska, huh? I had a girlfriend from Nebraska. Or maybe it was Kansas. Someplace back there.”

“What's the campground like?” I asked him.

“The beach? It's all right. You can stay as long as you want. The rangers are pretty cool.”

“Are there showers?”

“You got to be kidding. But there's outhouses and they pump them out pretty regular. It ain't bad.”

“We won't be staying long,” Daddy said. “I've got a job in San Francisco.”

“That's great!” Dave swiveled around to look at him. “What do you do?”