by Hannah Tinti
“Who’s the woman on the walls?” he asked.
“That’s my mother,” said Loo, and instantly regretted it. She’d felt concern for Marshall down on the beach, but now it seemed wrong to have him walking around in her father’s clothes. She wasn’t sure why she’d let him into the house. He was looking too closely at everything, stripping her life to the bone. His eyes rested on each object with an eager curiosity—the chair, the bookcase, the picture hanging on the wall—noticing everything in the room but Loo’s uneasiness.
“Nice rug.”
“We’ve had it forever.”
Marshall bent down and stroked the head of the bear. “He looks pissed.”
“My dad calls it our guard dog.” When they had lived on the road, sleeping in the truck, Hawley would wrap the skin around her like a blanket, and she’d wake up to the bear’s glass eyes staring into her own.
The boy took a step back, as if Hawley’s name might bring the bear to life again. Then he seemed to collect himself, and walked into the kitchen and sat at the small wooden table in Loo’s regular spot, like a customer ready to be served. And Loo was used to serving, and so she poured some coffee, then took Marshall’s clothes and threw them in the dryer. She sat down in Hawley’s chair. She could feel the boy’s eyes watching her, and a prickly sensation started along the back of her neck, as if her body had been dug up from the cold, wet sand and turned out into the glare of the sun.
“You look like your mother.”
“Only when I’m being good.”
It took a moment for Marshall to realize she was not joking. Then he said, “You must always be good.”
Loo spun her mug on the table, round and round her father’s watermark.
“Do you want me to leave?” Marshall asked.
“No,” Loo said. “Just don’t talk about her.”
“All right,” said Marshall. But Loo could tell now that was all he could think of, the woman with the dark hair and green eyes and the bathroom with its bits of paper and photographs and old buttons and dried flowers. She looked over at Marshall’s shoes, which she had set on the windowsill to dry.
“You always wear wing tips when you go to the beach?”
“My mom makes me wear a tie when we go canvassing. I knock on the Republican doors, she knocks on the Democrats’.” There was a bowl of shells in the middle of the kitchen table. Mussels and lady’s slippers and a few small conch that Loo had collected over the years. Marshall chose a lady’s slipper and began to turn it over in his fingers, the shell lined with purple, the inside thick as cream.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” said Marshall. “People don’t even try to be polite. They just slam the door in your face.”
“Like me.”
“Like you,” said Marshall. “Like everybody. I’d rather be drawing, or out on the water, but it’s important to my mom.”
Loo pressed her fingers around the mug. Although she didn’t like Mary Titus, she was still curious about her, in the way that she was curious about all mothers. On the street, at the beach or in the supermarket she watched them change diapers, wipe mouths, fix hair, tie shoes, apply suntan lotion, break up fights and endure tantrums, sometimes fussing with kisses and hugs and sometimes cursing at or hitting their children or ignoring them completely. Even in their neglect, these women seemed powerful.
“What will she do? When she finds out you lost the signatures?”
“I don’t know.” Marshall put the shell back in the bowl. “When I was little we’d go around protesting with my stepfather. But after he left, my mom stopped caring. She got really depressed. For a while she even checked herself into an institution. I had to go live with my aunt. Then Whale Heroes happened and my stepfather was on TV, and my mom got so mad that she snapped out of it. She started working on the petition. She said she wanted to make her own mark on the world.”
“What about your real dad?”
“What about him?”
“She told me he was a fisherman.”
“He died when I was little,” said Marshall.
“Do you remember him?”
“Sure,” said Marshall, glancing over at the bathroom. “But knowing them doesn’t always make it better.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t think he wanted a family. I mean, he loved my mom. But mostly I just remember him making excuses to leave us.”
Marshall’s eyes floated down to Loo’s star chart, set underneath the sugar bowl as a coaster. “Is that a planisphere?”
Loo nodded.
The boy picked up the wheel, and Loo watched him spin the dial to the correct day and month. She still remembered the first time she’d used it, watching a meteor shower from the balcony of a roadside motel. The chart in her hands. The desert an orchestra of light over her head. Some of the meteors were thin white lines shooting through the blackness, others were giant, shimmering blazes that flashed straight down to the horizon. She remembered feeling an overwhelming sense of alignment. As if holding something that had belonged to her mother allowed Loo to reach through time. Something is making this happen, she’d thought. The whole world is alive and moving and I was meant to be here doing exactly this.
Marshall lifted the planisphere to the window. Small pinpricks of sun shone through the plastic and onto the kitchen table. Loo touched his arm, her hand resting for a moment on the fabric of her father’s shirt, a navy-blue plaid she had washed without thinking for years but now noticed was the same color as Marshall’s eyes. A loose thread was hanging from the end of the sleeve, and she reached for it, thinking, This is right, this is right, pulling until the string came loose in her hand, separating from the shirt.
Marshall leaned closer. Loo felt his breath on her cheek. Saw his lips open. Then his eyes fixed on something behind her shoulder and he stopped. He lifted the arm she’d been tugging at, and pointed at the kitchen counter, where a .357 Magnum was resting between the breadbox and a bowl full of fruit.
He said, “Is that real?”
“Oh,” said Loo. “Yes. You want to see it?” She went over to the counter and picked up the revolver. She checked to see if it was loaded, then set it in front of Marshall. The boy stared at the .357 for a moment, then picked it up, weighing the metal in his hands.
“Heavy.”
“They always are.”
Marshall turned and stared at her. “This is yours?”
Loo shook her head. “I use a rifle.” She crossed the living room and opened the chest in the corner and took out the M14. She kept the gun pointed down as she went back to Marshall, then laid it gingerly on the table. The wood glowed from years of polish, the trigger hung loose. Loo ran her fingers down the side. “That’s my grandfather’s name, on the barrel. He used this in the war. These marks on the side—that’s how many men he killed.”
She pointed to the fifteen notches carved near the handle. Loo had grown up with guns in the kitchen, guns in the bathroom, guns in the car, but this one was special. When her father picked it up, the rifle was practically an extension of himself. It was the oldest gun in his collection, the one he had carried through the past he would not speak of. The rifle was the most impressive thing in the house, the best she had to offer.
“You want to try it out?”
“I’ve never shot a gun before,” said Marshall. “The only weapons I’ve ever used were on my stepfather’s boat, trying to slow down a whaler. And those were just stink bombs and prop foulers.”
The rifle stretched across the table between them. Loo watched the boy watching the gun.
“I could teach you,” she said.
Marshall ran his fingers over the kill marks the same way he had touched the lady’s slipper. Then he pulled his hand away.
“I don’t know.”
“Come on.” Loo returned to the chest, slipped a few magazines and a box of ammo into the pocket of her shorts and headed for the door. Marshall stayed at the table. But when she turned at the entryway and lo
oked back at him, he left the table and followed, as if she were a magnet drawing him away from his better judgment.
She gave Marshall a pair of her father’s boots and they headed into the ravine behind the house. The light was filtering through the leaves, creating layers upon layers of green. Once they were fifty yards in, it got darker, and the temperature dropped. Loo led Marshall down a steep slope toward the sound of moving water until they reached the gully that Hawley used for target practice.
“Here.” Loo handed Marshall the rifle. Then she took the box of ammo from her pocket and started loading one of the magazines. Marshall held the rifle as if he were waiting for it to go off, even though the safety was on and it was not loaded.
“What’s wrong?”
His neck flushed.
“Are you scared?”
“No,” he said.
Loo paused over the mag, a bullet in the palm of her hand. She did not say anything in return, only motioned for him to give the rifle back. Marshall passed it over, his face anxious. Loo wondered if she had made a mistake by bringing him here, but the clip was already loaded. The safety flipped. The handle of the rifle pressed high and tight to her shoulder. The sight was there to guide her as she tilted her head slightly, lifted the barrel a fraction of an inch, took in a breath and let half of it out. She squeezed the trigger.
And there was the boom.
The sound was so loud it pushed everything out of Loo’s mind—like an eraser wiping all her thoughts clean. For a brief moment she was nothing but a person in a place and there was no past and there was no future, only this single moment where her life flashed open—and she was awake and she was alive and she was real. Then the boom began to fade until it was only an echo, and she was her old self again, the memory of the previous moment nothing but a powdery smell in the air, like a match lit and quickly blown out.
Loo pointed at the mark she’d made in the distance, the bark exploded from the mossy base of a tree and scattered across the forest floor. She passed over the rifle. “The trick is to hit the same spot.” She put her hands on Marshall’s shoulders and stood behind him, positioning his body like a marionette’s—legs, hips, shoulders, fingers. She pushed until the wood was nestled into the crook of his arm.
“That’s going to kick,” she said. “Most of the power’s going out with the bullet, but some of it gets sent back into your body.”
“Kinetic energy,” said Marshall.
“See?” Loo said. “You’re going to do fine.”
Marshall kept perfectly still while she leaned her head toward him, until her cheek nearly touched the length of the barrel. “Look,” she said, and he bent his head so that it was next to hers. She could smell his hair, damp and earthy, like long grass after the rain.
“The bullet won’t travel in a straight line,” said Loo. “It gets pulled down. So you should always aim a tiny bit higher. You’re shaking,” she said. “Stop shaking.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s instinct. You’re afraid of what’s coming. But that’s the best part.” She wrapped her arms around him. “Take a breath,” she said. She heard Marshall inhale deeply, and she opened her lungs and took the air with him. Between the raised metal sights, there was the mark she had already made. She slid her hand through the trigger guard, then pressed down on top of his broken finger. The whole world was waiting.
“Now,” she said.
Bullet Number Four
THE DINER WAS RIGHT OFF the highway, just like Jove had promised. In the parking lot there was a sign with the name in lights and a cartoon drawing of a giant hairy pig with tusks, munching on a slice of blueberry pie. The place was old-fashioned—a railroad diner, booths along one side and a long counter edged with chrome, a door with a bell and a big neon clock set near the ceiling. There was one waitress on duty and a cook behind the kitchen window, frying some bacon and sometimes stepping out to work the cash register. It was between the breakfast shift and the lunch shift and the place was nearly empty, just Hawley and a couple of old truckers drinking coffee in one of the corner booths, taking their time before getting back on the road.
Hawley took a seat at the counter and ordered some eggs. He’d just finished a string of jobs in Florida—two that went well and one in Gainesville that went bad—and now he was making his way back up the Eastern Seaboard in a stolen car. He’d made it as far as North Carolina, but the southern heat still had him sweating. Once this favor for Jove was finished Hawley didn’t have a plan, but his gut told him to keep going north, maybe all the way to Nova Scotia. He’d never been there before but he’d seen pictures. He’d started having dreams of cold water and rocky shores.
At long last he was going to meet Ed King, Jove’s old friend from prison. Since King got out he’d been handling security for a few high-end gangsters and running deals, collecting lost merchandise. As cover he owned a boxing gym and occasionally fixed fights on the side, banking on the gloves he’d worn himself back in the day. King had had a reputation for punching opponents so hard in the head that it sheared the nerves from one side of the brain to the other. The men who’d fought King would have to relearn things—how to walk, how to talk, who their wives were. Finally he had killed a guy in a bar and had been sent to jail for manslaughter. That’s where he’d met Jove. Hawley had never been to prison but he knew that men who did their time together were like soldiers who served in the army—bound for life, even if they didn’t like each other that much.
Jove was in jail again now, doing two years for possession of a stolen firearm. He’d been picked up right after delivering Talbot’s watch, running through a red light in downtown Seattle. It was Jove’s fault for not being careful but Hawley still felt bad about it. So when he got the message through Jove’s lawyer, telling him where to find the key to a safe-deposit box and asking him to make the drop at the diner, Hawley wrote back a postcard saying he’d take care of it. This was a big bet, nearly all the savings Jove had, on a fight Ed King was calling. Enough to finally get that sailboat on the Hudson if it came through, and it would come through—it was a sure thing. Jove encouraged Hawley to put money in, too, but Hawley bet only on games where he was holding the cards.
The cook put the eggs and toast in the kitchen window. The waitress picked up the food and slid the plate in front of Hawley. She gave him silverware and a napkin and brought a mug and filled it with coffee.
“You want milk and sugar?” she asked.
“I’m sweet…”
Hawley remembered saying the same words to Talbot’s wife, and before he knew it, he was thinking about her milky eye. He still felt sorry about her, and he still worried sometimes about Talbot tracking him down. But nearly a year had passed and he’d stopped looking over his shoulder.
He’d meant for things to be different after the job on Whidbey, after the whale had left them and they got the engine started and made it back to Seattle. But once they tied the dinghy up at the dock and delivered the watch and got their payment and parted ways at the train station, Hawley bought his ticket as planned and went on to Oklahoma for the next job. It was easier to fall back on what he knew than try to change, even though he understood things weren’t right anymore. At night he had strange dreams, and Maureen Talbot snuck into his thoughts, holding a metal pitcher suspended over his cup of coffee and asking him if he needed milk or sugar.
“…I’ll take it black.”
The waitress put the pitcher down and went back to wiping the tables and Hawley started in on the eggs. He hoped King would show up soon. He wanted to get on the road again and it was nearly 11 A.M. The neon clock shone like a beacon, the second hand running smoothly from one number to the next.
The door opened, chiming the bell, and a girl walked into the diner. She was in her twenties, with dark hair and a narrow waist and a pair of hips that she nearly had to turn sideways to fit through the entryway. She was wearing a black dress and heels and gloves that came to her wrist and a small hat with a sprig of black veil
that fell across her eyes. She walked through the diner, swinging one hip and then the other, and then she slid those same hips over the edge of a stool by the counter, right next to Hawley.
The girl took off her gloves and unpinned her hat and set it beside her purse. Her hair was a mess of tangles; it made her look like she’d just gotten out of bed. Hawley had to force his eyes back to his plate so he’d stop imagining it: her long hair tossed over a pillow and her naked back and that pair of beautiful peach hips slung sideways underneath a clean white sheet.
The waitress was outside smoking. The cook stuck his head through the kitchen window and asked the girl what she’d like to eat. She ordered a hamburger and a glass of water and the cook said it would be right up. While she waited, the girl read the menu and then she kicked off her high heels and started spinning around and around on the stool. Hawley tried not to watch but he couldn’t help it. Each time she turned, her knees nearly touched him and then he shifted a little and they hit.
“I’m sorry,” she said. But she didn’t look sorry at all. And she didn’t stop spinning.
“You’re going to lose your lunch.”
“Haven’t had it yet,” said the girl, and started turning in the opposite direction. She pushed off with her toes and spun in a circle, smooth as a carousel.
“I love these seats,” she said. “I love that no one can move them.”
He’d never really thought about it before, but Hawley had to admit there was something nice about the bright-red stools, all bolted in place and lining the chrome edge of the counter.
“Where you headed?” he asked.
“Oh,” said the girl, “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You live here, then?”
“Nope,” she said. “Guess again.”
“I’m not so good at guessing.” Hawley moved the duffel bag with all of his things and the smaller satchel with Jove’s money in it, shoving it between his stool and the counter. He took a sip of coffee and another bite of eggs. There were mirrors angled in the corners of the diner, one over the kitchen window and another at each end, so the waitress could keep an eye on the tables and the door when her back was turned. Most diners were set up this way. It’s why he liked eating in them. That and he could sit alone at the counter and no one would think it was strange.