Clint Eastwood sure as hell hadn’t settled for any early retirement.
Richard shook the thought from his head. Don’t ruin this.
Damn it. He should’ve waited until the next street before turning right. Now he was going to have to do that crazy backtracking nonsense through the bank that never should’ve been allowed to screw up the thruway so goddamn much in the first place.
He swung wide around the drive-through tellers and back onto the street.
Was that Ed behind him? Sunnuva gun.
Ed Baumgartner was following him.
He took the next right and checked his rearview mirror. Yep. Still there. Shoulda known.
Of all the miracles Ed Baumgartner could pull off—and judging from how many times he’d been in the newspaper, there was a goddamn lot—a successful tail wasn’t one of them. All right, so maybe he wasn’t tailing him. Maybe it was a total coincidence that Ed just happened to be at Home Depot the day Richard met his buddy Scooter there. And maybe he just happened to be there again when Scooter’s friend paid him for their last engagement. And maybe—just maybe—Ed happened to be heading to the movies this morning, too. But he sure as hell wasn’t likely to have forgotten which goddamn right turn to take off Nicollet Avenue.
Eldris must’ve put him up to this nonsense. Her and all her questions about where Richard was getting the money to pay for movies and dinners out when he’d been unemployed for twelve goddamn months. And there was the bag he carried back and forth. He’d noticed it moving across the floor of his closet. Just a few inches at a time, but it was moving, all right. He knew Eldris was in and out of that bag, checking up on him, as if it had anything to tell her about what he was up to.
Best he could figure, Eldris had opened her big mouth to Violet, who just couldn’t resist getting her fat little fingers into the whole mess. It would’ve been Violet who recruited Ed to tail him. After all, anyone with a brain knew Violet was no selfless do-gooder. Nah, she never did anything that wasn’t good for Violet. She probably figured she’d save the day—solve the whole mystery of what poor Eldris’s husband was getting himself up to—and then swoop in to claim all the glory, all the while rubbing it in his face.
Yeah, well. It could be that. Or it could be that this whole FBI business had him feeling tight as a tick on a fat man’s ass. He’d gotten the call yesterday he’d been waiting for and the news hadn’t been good.
“They definitely got something,” his lawyer told him. “Looks to me like they feel pretty solid about it. And it looks to me like they got it on Kyle.”
Just thinking of it made the eggs Eldris scrambled him for breakfast turn in his stomach. He swung wide into a parking space at the back of the theater lot and threw open the car door.
The fresh air cleared his head just in time. At least cleaning his upholstery wasn’t one more goddamn thing he had to worry about today.
Because there was enough, for chrissake. Kyle wasn’t involved in all this Watchers business the feds were questioning him about. And he knew for damn sure.
Yeah, they’d traced some of the EyeShine glasses to The Watchers. That wasn’t any news to Richard. But it wasn’t Kyle. He had the proof. He could tell the feds everything they needed to know.
Problem was, that tidy piece of intel was certain to make it worse for all of them—Kyle, Eldris and his goddamn self, included.
He pulled a napkin from the wad of drive-through leftovers Eldris kept in the glove box and wiped the sweat from his face and lip. He was going to burp those eggs through the whole friggin’ movie if he couldn’t find himself some Tums but quick. Maybe he ought to just skip the whole thing. Turn around and go home and call the lawyer for any updates.
He went to pull his car door closed but a hand grabbed the window, stopping him.
“I never can remember if this theater is the first right off of Nicollet or the second.”
Well, hell. Wouldn’t you know. Ed goddamn Baumgartner had pulled up and parked right beside him.
35
Cerise
BARB CAME HOME from work with a story. “You’ll never guess who called me today.” She dropped her bag to the floor and made a beeline for the restroom. “I’ll take Adam in a sec, but I’ve had to pee since I left the shoot.” She hustled down the hall and continued talking from behind the half-open bathroom door.
“So, I’m waiting for the guy to adjust the lighting on a sectional couch when I see my mother’s number on my phone.”
Cerise remembered. Today was a furniture sale commercial for a new client and the money was good, a positive influx of cash just as the paid portion of her maternity leave was ending.
“And like, no matter where the lighting guy moved his setup, the leather kept picking up a glare. So since I’m just standing around, I think, ‘Why not add to the crazy?’ and I picked up.”
There was a pause and Cerise could hear the toilet flush followed by the water running in the sink. A few seconds later, Barb reappeared in the kitchen and held out her arms for the baby. He’d refused to nap all day and Cerise was aching for a break. She’d tried all of her best tricks—taken him for a walk in the stroller, given him a warm bath and driven him around in the car for more than an hour. Finally, exhausted and out of ideas, she’d lain down with him on her chest in the bedroom, where they’d both fallen asleep.
Now she was starving. She handed over the baby without a second thought and began pulling a mishmash of leftovers out of the refrigerator as Barb continued her story.
“First thing out of her mouth, she says, ‘I do hope I haven’t caught you indisposed, Gigi.’”
Cerise laughed. “Ironic, given that you were in the restroom while telling me this story.” She loved Barb’s old-timey family nickname. Plus, Barb always mimicked her mother with a husky, golden-age-of-Hollywood drawl à la Katharine Hepburn, and Cerise couldn’t help but picture Mrs. Hesse in wide-bottomed pants and a hat, punctuating her opinions with the cigarette dangling from her fingers.
“Isn’t it?” said Barb. “Anyway, she says—” Barb became Katharine Hepburn again “—‘We’ll be arriving for the christening on the eighth and of course Hesse family tradition would hold that Adam wear the family gown. But we won’t be bringing it.’”
“Oh.” Cerise hadn’t realized there was a Hesse family baptismal gown. “Are you disappointed?”
“Not really. It hadn’t even occurred to me to ask for it. But now I was curious. So I said, ‘Any reason you wish to share?’” Hepburn again. “‘It appears to have yellowed.’ To which I said, ‘Too old, I guess.’ To which she replied, ‘Actually, bourbon.’”
Cerise rolled her eyes and continued scooping the leftovers from their plastic containers. “And they say being on set with kids and animals is bad.”
Relations between her and Barb had warmed considerably since the blowup over the birth announcements, as if just the airing of their conflicts had lessened their stink, like musty carpets hung out to breathe. Together, they’d chosen a birth announcement and agreed to have Adam baptized in two weeks on June 10—he would be nearly two months old. She couldn’t believe it.
Her mother, of course, hadn’t changed a bit. She was still head over heels with baptism plans.
But it had been Cerise’s idea to invite Barb’s parents to the ceremony. She knew her mother would be at least suggesting—if not attempting—the idea soon and Cerise wanted to get ahead of the action.
Barb resisted at first. Then reconsidered almost instantly. “I want them to meet Adam. And maybe they’ll be easier to tolerate in a group. Dilute the crazy.”
Cerise asked her mother to mail an invitation the next day. And, as of this afternoon’s phone call, the Hesses had accepted.
“Kids and animals are a nightmare, it’s true,” said Barb. “But I promise you, even eighteen hours of baby barf and puppy turds is easier than just five minu
tes with my parents. You really don’t know what we’re in for.”
“They’re hardly that bad.”
“Really?” Barb shifted Adam from her right shoulder to her left, but he didn’t stir. “That’s your first mistake in dealing with my parents. Never, ever assume you know what they’re thinking. They deal in inference. That’s their conversational currency.”
“Okay...” Cerise wondered suddenly if she had the brainpower to take this in tonight.
“Then she tells me they’ve made reservations at the Westin and did I think they’d be happy there?”
Again, Cerise faltered. “I just assumed they’d stay here. Or with my parents. Won’t they want plenty of time with Adam?”
Barb crooked a finger at her. “Aha! Mistake number two. When dealing with my parents, never—and I mean never—fall for the guilt.”
God, now Cerise was certain she didn’t have the brainpower for this. “I just assumed—”
“Nope!” Barb threw her hand up and Adam responded by squawking his displeasure. She sat down at the table and laid him across her knees, gently bouncing him back to sleep. She lowered her voice to a near whisper. “See, you got caught assuming again. Rule number one. Never assume you know what they’re thinking.”
Cerise waved off the theatrics and popped their dishes into the microwave. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. Had she even eaten lunch?
“I consider that a good rule in any relationship,” Cerise said. “The not assuming...”
“Yes,” said Barb, again with the finger crooking, “but it’s different with the Hesses. Their game is to keep you guessing. And they love it. They thrive on it. I think it’s better than sex for them.”
Gross. Cerise had never liked picturing parental sex, no matter whose parents were doing the deed.
“Barb, seriously. I’m about to spend three days with them. The last thing I want when I see their faces is to picture them naked.”
“Why? I’m sure my mom’s pictured us hundreds of times. I think she finds my lesbianism fascinating.”
This was getting creepy. And she said so.
Barb continued, anyway. “I told you that my parents were trust-funders-turned-hippy-types, right?”
Cerise nodded, unsure if she really wanted to know where this conversation was headed. She plucked their dishes from the microwave and put one down in front of Barb. She sat down and started in on her own.
“But did I ever tell you that from about the ages of two to four, I thought my mother was actually a woman named Joyspark?”
“What?” Cerise felt a spaghetti noodle slide dangerously close to the back of her throat and she had to gag it back up.
“Yeah, well,” said Barb. “Imagine how I felt.” She twirled a bit of pasta onto her fork while a smile—was it shock? Mirth? Bitterness? Cerise couldn’t tell—crept slowly across her face. “I never told you about her because I never wanted you to know. But it’s true. Every glorious bit. And since you’re about to experience Elliott and Amanda Hesse in person, you may as well know everything.”
Cerise felt her head begin to spin but she made a motion with her hand like, keep going. There was no choice now but to hear this out.
“Apparently, after I was born, Amanda decided she wasn’t hacking it as a mother. Too much work. So she booked a steamer ticket to Europe—you know, like old-money style—and told my father that he was ‘free’—” she made air quotes with her fingers while keeping an eye on Adam so he didn’t tumble from her lap “—to find a surrogate ‘mother and lover’—” again with the air quotes “—until she came back.”
Cerise didn’t know what to say. So she just kept quiet and let Barb set her own pace. It was Barb’s story to tell, and Cerise could hear from the tightness in her voice that she hadn’t done it often. If ever at all.
“And that’s when he found Joyspark.” She raised her eyebrows, as if the woman with the ridiculous name had been a foregone conclusion.
“Where?” asked Cerise.
“Where what?”
“Where on earth do you find a woman named Joyspark?”
Barb popped a forkful of pasta into her mouth. “How do I know?” She put a hand up to her mouth to keep from spitting. “I was three. I probably thought she was the babysitter for like the first year.”
Cerise nodded. She couldn’t even remember being that young. What does a child know at that age?
Barb took a few more bites, thinking and chewing. Finally she said, “You want to know the biggest irony in all this?”
Cerise knew she wasn’t looking for an answer, so she just waited for it to come.
“She was a pretty good mother.”
Cerise held up a hand. “Wait. Amanda? Or Joyspark?”
Barb snorted. “God, no, not Amanda. Joyspark. She was really fun. And gentle. Granted, I was little so I don’t remember much.” She spun her pasta around and around on her fork without eating it. “Mostly, we just hung out. Cooking. Walking to the park. She loved to fly kites, I do remember that.”
“And your dad?”
“Came and went. I didn’t really know any different.” She began to bounce Adam gently on her knees again, as if waiting for the motion to travel up her body and knock free tiny bits of memory from her brain. “And he liked to grab her butt. I remember that, too. She always wore these flowy, colorful dresses and the fabric would all gather up in his fist.”
They sat quietly for several minutes, Barb gazing down at Adam, and Cerise watching Barb. She didn’t want to push, for fear that her questions would unravel the threads slowly encircling them.
“And then, one day,” she said, “Amanda just walked through the front door and announced, ‘Mother’s home!’” She laughed with a pinched, bitter gasp. “I was like, ‘huh?’”
“You must have been so confused.” Cerise felt her heart tighten at a memory that wasn’t even hers.
“I’m sure I was, but it was like, the whole situation was already so crazy, you know? And I was so little. I didn’t know what to think. My parents acted like nothing happened.” She took a deep breath. “It’s only now as an adult that I look back on it that I’m like, what the fuck?”
She paused for another bite and a sip of water. “I mean, I know we’re new to this parenting stuff, but can you even imagine doing that to Adam? Sometimes on my drive home, I suddenly think, oh, my god, what if I get in a car accident between here and the house? I get panicky just being away for the day. I can’t—”
She stopped and waved the rest of her thought away. “Anyway, the Hesse family is a piece of work. You should know what you’re in for.”
Cerise had the sudden sensation that she was simply listening to a story, something out of a novel. She couldn’t connect the depth of its emotional well to the real life of the woman she’d known, loved, slept beside—and was now parenting with. Wouldn’t bits of this story have slipped out before? Even a tiny hint dropped when they’d had too much wine. But she hadn’t heard any of it.
God. Had she even been paying attention?
She felt her heart tighten another notch at the prospect of having failed her partner so fundamentally.
“I don’t want to live with secrets like this between us anymore,” she said, looking Barb in the eye. “Your parents betrayed you.”
Barb nodded slowly. “You understand now why I’ve kept them at arm’s length for so long.” She moved Adam back up to her shoulder and rubbed small circles into his back. He pulled his legs up into his chest and settled in, content and happy.
Cerise felt tears rush her eyes at the sight of it. Whatever scars Barb’s mother had left on her soul, the woman had not even touched her daughter’s deep, driving need to care for those she loved.
Feds Watching “The Watchers”
by Harvey Arpell,
staff reporter, Minneapolis/St. Paul Standar
d
June 9, 2018
Minneapolis, MN—“The Watchers,” the activist group that has claimed responsibility for a series of art installations erected outside Federal Reserve buildings across the United States, are reportedly under investigation by the FBI, ever since the first statue appeared in Minneapolis December 26 of last year. According to unnamed Bureau sources, the agency is now zeroing in on the group’s Minnesota roots.
Investigators have traced the eyeglasses used in the Minneapolis, New York and Kansas City installations to Minneapolis-based EyeShine, a nonprofit providing used eyewear to villages throughout Africa. It is not known whether the eyeglasses were obtained illegally, though there is no report of theft or burglary on record for the organization. Executive Director, Kyle Endres, could not be reached for comment.
The last statue for which “The Watchers” claimed responsibility was erected in Denver on May 9, though suspected copycat installations have appeared in San Francisco, Atlanta, Denver, Des Moines, Boston and Ann Arbor. In Portland, Oregon, an activist group claiming solidarity with “The Watchers” attempted to erect what they called the “Leaning Tower of Democracy’s Power” atop an Interstate 405 overpass. The structure toppled, forcing the Oregon State Patrol to close all but one lane of the freeway for nearly four hours until the discarded yard and farm machinery from which the tower had been constructed could be cleared from the roadway.
36
Richard
“WHY IN THE world do we have to go tonight?” Richard stood at the bathroom mirror as Eldris fussed at his waistline, tugging and tucking at his shirt, tsk-tsking at the way it fell. He let her. If she didn’t finish now, she’d go at him again at the party in front of a room full of strangers.
Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners Page 23