Preston Falls : a novel (36 page)

Mel sighs. "This book is so racist."

"You used to love it," says Jean.

"Sure, when I was like eight.'' Mel gives Roger a look, as if the book were his fault, but he's just staring straight ahead. "It's like everything black is bad."

"Right, that's true, but they don't mean it racially," Jean says. "It's more like just darkness, you know? And also you have to remember, this was written in a different time." Why is she defending this garbage? All the bad people are swarthy, and the women are like forget it. "Still, it's reaUy smart of you to notice that." Good: pat her on the head after you tear down her whole idea.

"And like in mysticism," Carol says, "they have, you know, light and dark?"

"Can't we just read?" says Roger.

"It totally makes sense that Daddy thinks this is so great," Mel says.

"How so?" says Jean.

"Because he's such a white male."

"In what way?" says Jean. "My little white female?" This must be her night to play dumb.

"I'm not being cute, Mother. First you're like. Oh, this is so important, and now you're treating me like a baby. You don't want to talk because it's about Daddy."

"I'm sorry," Jean says. "That did sound dismissive. Do you want to talk about Daddy? I know you miss him."

"/ don't miss him," says Mel. "I don't even think about him."

"I think he'd be hurt to hear that."

"Why?" says Mel. "He doesn't think about us, right? Why don't you just tell us. Mother? Because we're children?" Jean looks at Carol, who

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turns both palms up. "Every kid in school just about has parents that are divorced or something. It's not a big deal like it was in your day."

"Sweetheart, this is not about divorce," says Jean. "That's not what's going on. And I wish I had something more to tell you, for everybody's sake. But the thing is, right now I don't know exactly where he is or how to get in touch with him. All I can think is that he just went somewhere, maybe to Nonnie's. Or"—does she really want to say this?—"it is possible that he could be in some kind of trouble."

"Yeah," says Mel. "He's probably in jail again."

"He's probably dead," says Roger.

"Shut up, Roger," says Mel.

"Mel? That's not helpful," Jean says. "Your brother's allowed to say what he's worried about. But you know, Rog, if it really was that, we would've heard."

"Fm not worried, I just said it, okay? Are we going to read?"

"Okay, you're not worried. But if you were, you know you can come to me about it, right? And yes, we're going to read in a minute. But I'm glad this finally happened, you know? Because I think we needed to talk about it."

Mel's twirling a strand of hair around her index finger.

"And you know you guys can come to me too," Carol says. "If you don't mind talking to a crazy lady with a truck."

Mel and Roger don't even look at her. Poor Carol does try.

"It's real important right now," says Jean, "that we talk to each other."

"Yeah, right," Mel says. "It's so important that you never tell us anything. Mother, everybody knows Daddy left us."

"Who's 'everybody'?" says Jean. "Mrs. Miller?"

"Her and some other people."

"Great. Look, the minute I know anything, good or bad, I'll tell you guys. Promise. And by the way, I don't think you're too young to handle things. Either of you. You guys are both pretty grown up when you need to be," This pep talk is starting to go wrong: they're not grown up, and they shouldn't have to be. If Willis appeared at the door this minute, she'd slam it in his face. "So listen. It's getting pretty late, but I think we could all stand to zone out a little. Why don't we read to the end of this chapter."

"Yay," says Roger. "Really?"

"Gee, there's quite a bit," says Carol, flipping pages.

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"Can I just go to bed?" Mel says.

"Of course, sweetie. Why don't I come up and tuck you in, and Aunt Carol can start reading to Roger."

"No. I don't want you to." Mel gets up and shakes her hair out.

Take her at her word? Probably best. "Okay, sweet," Jean says. "I'll see you in the morning. Sleep tight."

"Yeah, right," says Mel. "Good night, Aunt Carol."

"Night, sugar," says Carol.

Mel just stands there, looking at the picture over the sofa, then turns and heads for the kitchen.

"So," says Carol. "Let's see. Okay. Remember Bilbo's giving him the coat of mail, right?"

As Carol reads, Roger edges closer to her. This hurts Jean, a little. But so long as he can still drop his guard with someone. Mel comes out of the kitchen, looks at them all, then turns and goes upstairs. Jean probably should've taken that look as an invitation to come up and tuck her in after all. She can't pick up the beat tonight.

When Carol gets to the part where Gandalf and Aragorn are arguing about whether to take the mountain pass or the dark and secret way, Roger's snoring. Jean carries him upstairs, pulls the covers over him, brushes the fine hair away from his soft forehead and kisses him. That sweet little-boy smell. And she quickly puts a hand to her eyes to keep the tears from falling on his face and waking him, like in that fairy tale with the candle wax. God, she's weary of being right on the edge.

She plugs in his night-light; the clutter loses its hard edges in the dim glow. Now: where in all this would he hide magazines? She doesn't want to find them, yet ignoring this isn't an option. Damn this world, for allowing all these things that you need to protect children from. Between mattress and box spring is such a cliche she almost doesn't check, but when she slides her hand under, there they are. She sticks her arm in up to the elbow and feels around: okay, just two. She brings them out into the hall to look.

It's two issues of something called Hand Gunner. She feels like weeping in relief that it's not like S & M pornography, then feels stupid for feeling relieved. Here's "Shooting Stances for Street Survival," with a man in a cowboy hat doing poses called "Instinctive" (one hand, like in a Western), "Weaver" (two hands, elbows bent) and "Isosceles" (two

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hands, arms straight). Here's "Ammo Insight." A column on why every handgun should have a "laser sighting device." Lots and lots of handgun ads. One shows a little safe you keep by your bed with your handgun in it. Surrounded by thick steel and cradled in soft foam, it's safe from curious fingers and waiting for that moment you hope never comes. But if it does, you know you can get to your handgun in seconds in the dark. Its tactile contours guide your fingers to the computerized control panel. You enter your code. The door instantly springs open. You've got your gun. This is too right wing to even think about, but it makes a kind of sense. The kids couldn't get at it. And she's here all alone.

So she'll tell Roger she found the magazines while turning his mattress. She'll say they're inappropriate—which he already knows, or why is he hiding them?—and he'll say nothing. She'll want to ask who sold these to him, but there's probably no law against selling gun magazines to children, and anyhow the real issue is what's going on with Roger. So she'll ask what he likes about guns. She won't preach. He still won't give anything away; it will be one more of those Roger dead ends. She's already lost him.

But she can't let that thought take root.

That night Jean wakes up and the bed's shaking. It must be an earthquake. She looks at the clock: 3:21. She's never been in an earthquake before. Isn't Westchester County supposed to be the most stable area in the world, geologically? The bed keeps shaking. It must be her, making the bed shake. Her whole body is shaking.

In the morning it strikes her that what's inappropriate isn't the magazines so much as the secrecy. Roger's face gets red when she tells him about turning the mattress. He wasn't hiding the magazines—he had them there so they'd stayT?^/. Jean ignores this and says that when she was a girl, she used to think she had to hide things from her parents when it usually turned out they were cool about it. An utter and absolute lie, of course, but Roger isn't even interested enough to ask what she hid.

At the station, she shoulders the yellow nylon duffel bag with her stuff for Atlanta, like a Let's Go! Europe college girl among all these serious commuters. Who actually do bustle around with briefcases, as if in some dance routine satirizing the 1950s. The sky's a clean bright blue after last night's storm, and up on the platform there's a cold wind whipping.

The only empty seat she can find on the 8:10 is next to a man with an expensive suit and haircut and a shave so close his cheeks gleam; the tiny broken veins look painful, and he smells of aftershave. Willis's word for aftershave was "stinkum." 7^. The man gives Jean one sidelong glance before going back to Grain's New York Business. She's got Emma in her duffel bag but feels stupidly obliged to think about her problems instead of escaping into a book. She looks out the window at whitecaps on the dirty river.

In the office, she tries Willis's mother again, and this time Sylvia answers, with her singsong "Hello" whose two-note o leaps an octave. Jean, as always, feels like saying Fine, so you went to Smith, just answer the phone like a human being. Typical Sylvia: she apologizes for not calling back, but she's been so preoccupied. Has Jean managed to find Willis? As if she'd misplaced him. Jean says no, but she's sure he's fine, and Sylvia says, "Oh dear." Well, she can't sit in judgment over Sylvia until she's been through what Sylvia's been through. (It's getting there,

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actually.) On the other hand, Jean still has to act like she lives on the planet, so what makes Sylvia so special? She doesn't seem aware that this is the week Willis was due back at work, so Jean glosses over that; why get her even more upset? Assuming that's what the Oh dear meant. If there really does turn out to be some sort of bad news, let Champ deal with his mother. And if Sylvia doesn't exactly find him a tower of strength in her old age, she has only herself to thank. Though Jean can imagine somebody someday saying the same cruel thing about her and her children.

She borrows Anita Bruno's Times and looks through the Home section, all about rich people and their gracious leisure. Infuriating. But of course here she is with her house in Chesterton (though not the really tony section of Chesterton) and another house in the country, kicking back and reading the Times, while underpaid Helen has to spend her days saying "The Paley Group" over and over in the same nicey-nice voice and is allowed to read a paper only if no clients are in the reception area. (This dates from the morning Jerry Starger saw the Post on her desk and decided it looked low rent. Which it actually did.) It does Jean no spiritual good, reading the Home section every Thursday so she can feel sorry for herself. But after a while, it's like so what. Plus she is a. designer. She's reading about how these hateful people redid their seventeenth-century mill in Normandy, when the phone rings.

"Mrs. Willis?" He doesn't say Karnes, so Jean knows right away this is it. "I'm Captain Anthony Petrosky, Vermont State Police? The reason I'm calling, we've been going over the missing persons report you gave the police over in Preston Falls."

"Yes?"

"I take it your husband hasn't been located since then."

"Has not? No."

"Well, what we were hoping, in that case, perhaps you could help us out on a couple of items."

"Of course," Jean says. "Do you have any—" She wants to say leads, but it sounds too tv to say to a real policeman. "Anything at aU?"

"We haven't located him, no. I'm sorry. But we thought it might be a good idea to contact some of your husband's associates up this way. If you could fill us in with a few names."

"Associates?"

"Anybody he knows."

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"He really doesn't know too many people up there," Jean says. "I mean, as far as I know."

"But he did know a few people."

"Well," says Jean, "actually not really. There's another family that comes up on weekends that we see once in a while because they have kids too. But I doubt he'd seek them out on his own. Or vice versa."

"Why's that?"

"We just don't really have all that much in common. Except the kids."

"So I take it you haven't called them."

"No, it honestly never occurred to me."

"Well, it wouldn't hurt to have the name."

"I don't know," says Jean. "You know, I hate for them to be bothered."

"Oh, I doubt we'll be bothering them. From what you say. It'd just be good to have on hand."

She punches up PHONE.PRSNL and gives him the Bjorks' three numbers and both addresses.

"Now, your husband also knows Mr. Reed, doesn't he?"

"Reed?" says Jean. "Oh. You mean—that was his lawyer. So I guess you know about the whole thing that happened."

"We know about the incident on Labor Day, yes. But your husband and Mr. Reed go back before then."

"No, not at all. He was sort of recommended to us at the time, you know, that we're talking about. / was actually the one who made the caU."

"J see," he says. "So they became friendly after Mr. Reed represented your husband."

"TheyJ/^?"

"This is news to you?"

"Well," Jean says, "ever since that happened, my husband had been staying in Preston Falls. So I wasn't really, you know, up to date."

"Okay, so how, exactly, did your husband come to meet Mr. Reed?"

"A neighbor of ours in Preston Falls recommended him," says Jean. "The man my husband gets firewood from."

"I see,'' says Captain What's-his-name. Jean is terrible with names. "Now, this neighbor: this is someone your husband knows pretty well?"

"Not really, no. At that point we were kind of desperate, and we

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knew, or my husband knew, that this man, you know, knew a lawyer, so we just, sort of, didn't know who else to call."

"Uh-huh." Jean dreads that he's going to ask for the name, and then she's going to have to say. Well, we knew he'd been arrested for drugs, or whatever the story was, because of course that would be in the computer. How could Willis ever have brought her, and their children, into contact with all this?