The Guilty One (15 page)

She had to convince Alana, though, or her sister would come after her. That was Alana—relentlessly competent, just like their mother; a believer that for all problems there was a prescription.

“Listen, Alana. If I tell you something, you promise you won't come unglued?”

“What kind of a question is that?” Alana asked after a fraught moment.

“It's just . . . something happened on Monday. I didn't tell you then because I was afraid you'd . . . I don't know, that you'd think I couldn't handle it. And the whole point is, I can. I
am
handling it.”

“Oh,” Alana said, and Maris could picture her sitting up straight, girding herself, holding on to the edge of her French walnut dining table. “Just tell me.”

So she did: starting with Ron's call from the bridge and ending with the long drive home, coming back into her house and realizing that it held nothing for her anymore. In telling the story, Maris felt an unexpected unburdening, as though tissue-thin layers of painful habit were being peeled away, leaving the new growth of possibility exposed.

“And there's something else,” she continued breathlessly, not giving Alana a chance to respond. Now that she was telling, she wanted to get it all out—everything but the hideout itself. She was Black Bart, confessing her last deeds before she went underground. “I talked to Jeff. It turns out that we have no money.” It felt funny to say it, especially since she'd injected a little laugh, trying to make it sound like an amusing state of affairs. “I mean, I have plenty for now, but apparently Jeff isn't making enough to cover the expenses.”

“Oh, Maris. I can't say I'm surprised,” Alana said darkly. She was the CIO of a startup that had something to do with alternative energy; Maris had never known exactly what she did, but Alana and Jeff had always had a lot to talk about. “There was no way that position was going to pay him what he was worth.”

“He was lucky to get it.” A rogue urge to defend Jeff: this was the old dynamic, but it took Maris by surprise anyway. After all, he wasn't on her side anymore. “I mean, he's hoping they'll move him up once he's been there a year.”

“So what are you doing? Selling stock?”

Maris took a deep breath, trying to decide how much to tell. Already, she'd built a more sizable lie than she had planned. “Yes, for now. But I may need to go back to work after all.”

“They'd give you the director job?”

“No, they filled that a long time back. But I could pick up tutor hours tomorrow if I wanted to.”

“Maris. Come on. This isn't a problem you can fix making fifteen dollars an hour.”

“Just for now.” No need to tell Alana that she'd rather die than go back to the Stern Center for Scholars, and see girls who'd played softball with Calla, boys who'd served in student government alongside her. Kids from the band, kids who would dutifully sit through the SAT test prep and apply to colleges and leave for the futures that Calla would never have. “I know I need to look for something else. Long term.”

“I guess it won't make a difference if I point out that I have a ton of contacts? I could get you informational interviews, internal postings.”

“I appreciate that. I really do. Maybe in a couple weeks. Alana, I hope you know . . .” But what, exactly, did she want Alana to know? Maris had doled out the truth in such a controlled stream: how she was handling things, what memories kept her awake at night, where she was when she found herself short of breath or on the verge of hysteria. Alana was the only person in the world who knew even a fraction of Maris's thoughts. But she didn't have it in her to give more. Not yet. “. . . I love you,” she finally settled for.

“Mmm. Me too.” Alana, like their mother, had never been comfortable saying it out loud. “Listen. How about I come to you? Just for dinner, if that's what you want. I just hate for you to be alone right now.”

Maris knew Alana wouldn't give up until she gave her something to hold on to. She couldn't tell her about the looming possibility of an appeal, or Alana would want to spring into action, and Maris wasn't sure yet what she could or would do if it came to pass. Everything had become so complicated. If only Ron had just gone ahead and jumped—or if only he and Deb could at least somehow simply vanish. “Maybe in a few days . . . how about I let you know?”

“I'd just feel so much better if I could see you. Please, Mar.”

“Okay . . .” Maris thought fast. She couldn't let Alana come to Oakland. She wasn't ready for her to know that she was living there. It would require too much explanation. And Maris wasn't sure she could even explain it. She could meet Alana in Linden Creek, since that was where she was pretending to be house-sitting, except the thought of returning filled her with dread. She'd been gone only a couple of days and already it was unbearable to imagine running into people she knew, seeing the places that had been hers for so long. “Tell you what—how about if we meet in the city? Maybe we could go to the Slanted Door?”

The restaurant was a favorite of Alana's; and there was the Ferry Terminal to wander through, with its fancy shops, to keep the conversation from settling too long in difficult places.

“Are you sure?” Alana sounded doubtful.

“It's what I need—something to look forward to,” Maris lied. “A chance to get a little dressed up. Maybe drink some wine.”

“Well, it'll be my treat. I can do any time. We could meet this Saturday; I could see if I could get a reservation—”

“How about a week from Saturday?”

“All right,” Alana said after a moment, in a tone that indicated it wasn't all right at all. “I'll do OpenTable and send you a confirmation.”

Maris realized she hadn't been online since yesterday. She would have to remember. Running away only worked if she kept the illusion going, and there were people—not nearly as many as there used to be, heaven knew—who would wonder what happened to her and, eventually, reach out.

Maris ended the call. Thinking of the Slanted Door had reminded her that she was hungry. She'd had only a banana since this morning. Outside, night was deepening to purple.

She would have to make a grocery run. The refrigerator was clean—she'd even gone around the shelves with the scrub brush. But the thought of navigating the aisles was exhausting. There was the Subway . . . a Church's fried chicken. The diner across the street. Probably more choices over on Telegraph.

She grimaced, imagining the next two weeks brimming with fast-food take-out bags and soda cups, greasy egg sandwiches, and gallons of coffee. The sort of diet she followed in college, before she met Jeff and started trying to impress him with her domestic skills. Well, two weeks wouldn't kill her.

No matter what, she needed a shower before she ventured out. Maris ran water in the newly scrubbed bathtub and stripped off her clothes. She took her time in the cool shower, lathering her hair with the strawberry-smelling drugstore shampoo, shaving her legs. She toweled off, wishing she'd bought a hair dryer, but it was too hot and she'd end up sweaty again.

She dressed in one of her new shirts, a shell-pink sleeveless polo. White shorts. She needed a belt—something else to add to the list. It was amazing, the number of items one took for granted, just getting through the day.

Decision time: for the Church's drive-through, she wouldn't bother with makeup. Or if she ventured over to Telegraph to see what was available, maybe a little concealer and lipstick. It would be easy. She had her paperback, she could eat at the kitchen table; the light from the new bulbs was plenty bright.

She was ready to go ten minutes later, her hair drying into an unruly mass, when someone knocked on the door—a gentle tap on the frosted glass pane at the top, unlike Pet's enthusiastic pounding. She opened it to find Norris standing there.

“Hope I'm not intruding,” he said quickly, before she could even say hello. “I just, I wanted to let you know, I stopped by at lunch today to fix that overhead light.”

Maris glanced up at it—she hadn't even noticed that the flickering had stopped.

“I have a key, of course,” Norris went on uncomfortably. “But I knocked first. I always do.”

“Oh. Sure,” Maris said, discomfited to know that someone could come walking in anytime, even if it was Norris, who seemed harmless. Awkward, maybe, and a little gruff, but harmless.

“And, I saw that you've done a lot already. I mean, wow!” He flashed a grin that was more of a grimace and tugged at his collar, staring at a spot over her shoulder, and Maris realized that he was actually shy.

“Would you like to come in?” she asked, pride at her handiwork mixing with relief. Shy, she could handle; she knew all about shyness, having battled it herself for much of her life.

Norris came inside and stood in the middle of the kitchen, hands on hips, looking around. Maris followed his gaze. She had stored her purchases in the dresser and bathroom shelves and kitchen cabinets; all that sat out on the scrubbed surfaces were the bottles of dish soap and hand lotion next to the kitchen sink, and the magazine and novel on the kitchen table. Her new dish towel hung neatly from the oven handle. The cheery new shower curtain was visible through the open bathroom door.

“Wow,” he said again. “You really knocked yourself out. George said he filled up the entire back of his truck.”

“George . . .”

“My friend, who hauled the trash away.”

“Oh!” Maris's face was getting a little stiff from smiling. “Well, I definitely feel more at home here now.”

“Yeah. Listen . . .” Norris scratched at his ear. “Pet says you're looking for work.”

She did? Maris winced, wishing the girl had kept that to herself. “Well, I'm figuring out what I want to do next.”

“Uh-huh, right. I was thinking, I mean, obviously you're an organized person. And hardworking. So, I have an opportunity, a few days' work, if you're interested.”

Maris's guard went up, already casting about for a polite refusal, but Norris barreled ahead.

“Up in my spare room . . . you may have seen, the, uh. Well, my mother passed a couple years ago, and I haven't—I mean, a lot of it's junk. Just worthless, really. I already took what I wanted. You know, what I could use.”

Maris nodded, thinking of the cut-glass pieces in the china hutch. The sort of things a man might keep to remind himself of his mother.

“And there's a lot of paperwork in there; Mom was kind of a pack rat, I know there's things in there that are important, but I mean, she saved everything.
TV Guide
s from years ago, you know, that kind of thing.” Norris seemed to relax fractionally. “Almost a hoarder is what she was. My sister and me, we threw out a lot of it when we were clearing out the place. But I had to pack some of it up and store it. Anyway. I could use . . .”

He got stuck, staring at the ceiling near the corner of the room, absently picking at a loose thread on one of his cuffs.

“You want someone to go through her things?” Maris guessed. “Sort out what's important from what isn't?”

“Yes, oh, yes,” Norris said, expelling a breath he'd been holding. And Maris understood: the task was still raw for him.

“I'd be glad to,” she said, before she'd even thought it through. “I'm not an accountant or anything—”

“You don't need to be. I thought you could just get all the financial documents together in one place and I can take them to my tax guy and have him go over them.”

“All right,” Maris agreed, imagining combing through the boxes stuffed with magazines, savings bonds, and old check registers. Her new landlord had complicated feelings about his mother's death, but then again, what adult child didn't? Maris's own mother had died almost six years ago, and it still caught her off-guard to remember that she was truly gone. But Nadine Parker had left her affairs so well ordered that there were no decisions to be made, and her few cherished possessions had slips of paper taped to them identifying who should receive each, just in case the detailed instructions in her will were somehow overlooked.

“I also thought . . . some of the stuff in those boxes, I think it might be valuable. I thought you might be able to, you know, figure it out. Maybe sell the stuff that can be sold, get rid of the rest.” He screwed his face into a scowl and, addressing the floor, added, “It would be a weight off my mind to be clear of all that.”

“Sure,” Maris said. “What sort of things? If you don't mind my asking?”

“Well, she was a collector, she collected things, I know that.” Norris shrugged. “Little, what do you call them . . . figurines, I guess you'd say. Coins, she had a lot of silver dimes and such. I don't know. Probably not worth much.”

“Sure. Sure.” Maris envisioned souvenir wineglasses and dusty church programs, and hoped Norris wouldn't be disappointed if it all turned out to be junk. “You know, this might be just what I need. Before I start job hunting for real.”

“Well, all right then.” Norris broke out into a real smile now. Why he'd chosen to trust her, a virtual stranger, she wasn't sure. Maybe Pet had put him up to it. “I work seven to four. I'm at the PG&E building over on Webster, is why I come home for lunch some days. But most days I don't, so you can work in peace. I don't guess it'll take you more than two, three days if you've got them. Take the weekend off, if it goes that long.”

“I—I think I've got the time. I can start tomorrow. If you want me to.”

“Let's make it day after tomorrow. Friday. That'll give me a chance to tidy up.” Now that it was settled, relief seemed to have caught Norris in its tide and dragged him into a friendlier mood. “Tell you what—I'm just about to go catch a bite with George, he's the fellow who hauled all that trash away. What do you say, want to join us?”