“I want to draw him, Mommy. I want my crayons.”
Grace grinned.
Day by day, creature by creature, leaf by leaf, Grace began transforming the cabin into her fantasy. She told Walt to knock before coming inside, giving her time to drop the sheets she’d tacked to the tops of the walls. He knew she was painting, but she wouldn’t be ready for him, or anyone, to see her work until the full effect was complete.
Kev had added a new phase to his morning routine. After eating his pie at the Hoot Owl, he would walk up to Grace’s cabin and knock on the door.
“Are you finished painting?” he’d shout.
“Not yet, Kev.” Grace would answer.
She had offered to show him what she was doing, but Kevin had shaken his head and said, “When it’s all done, it will be ready.”
And Grace certainly couldn’t argue with that.
For the last week, as Grace crafted a tropical jungle inside her cabin, Prosperity had been drenched in a near constant downpour. Even with his determination to get the cabin comfortable for Grace, Walt was temporarily defeated by the persistent rain.
But Walt’s slowed progress, even the constant showers, barely registered with Grace. When she opened the door and stepped outside to get water or breathe the forested air, Grace often felt a shiver of surprise that the outer world still existed—the smells of early summer, diesel exhaust and moist earth sighing in the slowly accumulating warmth, frog song and the hollow rumble of big trucks. And the rain.
All the living, shadow-casting trees had long since been taken from the area surrounding the cabin. Even under the veil of the unbroken storm, anyone entering or leaving Grace’s new home was visible from the mill, the school and the few houses across the street. The shelter of the forest was a short walk up the road and Grace couldn’t avoid being seen as she headed up toward the hiking trails.
But Grace Tillman walking in the forest, rain or shine, had long been a common sight. Pat could have just waited for her to step out, he could have pretended a casual, accidental meeting. It took a clearer intention for him to choose a moment when he knew she was inside to approach the cabin.
It was later, after she’d calmed down, when it occurred to her that she’d been thinking about him with real fondness when he showed up. In fact, Patrick had been constantly on her mind in the last couple of days as she conjured a jaguar sitting high on the wall above the fireplace. That large cat, especially his eyes, had brought back a sweet memory of Pat at age ten, when he’d rushed at her from across the playground to tell her he’d seen a lynx, a real one! His dark eyes were full of amazement, and tiny drops of sweat outlined his forehead. He smelled like he’d slept on a bed of cedar boughs, which, it turned out, he had. He grabbed her arm and pulled her into the shadow of the school building where no one could hear them.
“I didn’t tell anyone, not even Dad. I’m just telling you.”
“What are you talking about?” Grace remembered being more annoyed than curious at that moment. He’d pulled her away from a game of kickball and Shauna was staring at them, her fists on her hips, furious.
“The lynx. A real, live lynx. I saw it last night when we were camping up over Hancock Ridge.” Like all the guys in their class, Pat was in the Boy Scouts and they got to do lots of cool stuff like backpacking up in the mountains for over a week in the summer. Grace only got to do that with her father and Jane. “It was so cool. It had yellow eyes, Parrot. I saw its eyes. It was slinking over a boulder just ahead of me. I almost didn’t believe it was real, ’cause it disappeared so fast. But it was. If I told my dad or the guys, they’d want to go hunt for it. But I couldn’t kill it. I just couldn’t.”
Grace realized, as she was painting that jaguar, that that had been the moment when she first fell in love with Pat. She just hadn’t known it then.
At the sound of his knock, she wiped her paint-spotted hands on her jeans. The rain had tapered to a fine mist, but the air still held a chill that rushed in as she opened the door. Pat stood on the bottom step, placing them eye-to-eye. His feet were planted in a wide, firm stance and his arms were folded across his chest. His face was dead sober. Water dripped from the beak of his cap.
Grace’s first impulse was to grab hold of him and pull him inside and show him her creation. But the anger he emitted stopped her. She positioned herself in the doorway so he couldn’t see inside. She tried a timid smile. “It’s nice to see you.”
“I just need to know something.” He looked down and dug his hands deep into his pockets as if they might betray him. “You here for good?”
She poked her head out and looked from side to side. No obvious witnesses, but this was Prosperity; somebody was always watching. “Let’s take a walk.”
He stepped back. “It’s a simple question, Grace.”
She reached behind her and grabbed her rain jacket, then stepped out and pulled the door closed behind her. “I need to get some fresh air anyway.” She took a deep breath.
“You’ve got yourself pretty close to the action for someone who isn’t on our side, so I need to know if you’re staying.”
“What action? You mean the mill?” They were walking up the road toward the back of the mill yard. Without talking about it, both of them headed instinctively toward the woods where they’d have some privacy.
Pat looked over his shoulder toward the office as they passed. Grace noticed his body stiffen. He walked faster and motioned for her to keep up.
“Afraid you’ll be caught fraternizing with the enemy?” Grace stopped. Pat was several strides ahead by the time he turned to look at her. “I’m not picking sides, Patrick. I don’t want any part of this war; there’s not going to be a winner. Things are never going to be like they were. You’re an owner now, you’ve got to see what’s coming isn’t going to be stopped by scaring that owl away.”
He stepped up to her and put his hand under her chin. He gently turned her face to look at his. “You want to know what I see? I see a girl who is as tied to this town and logging as I am. She’s just too stubborn to admit it.” He let his hand drop from her face as his eyes locked onto hers and held them. Then he took her hand and led her slowly toward the trailhead. “What are you going to do, anyway? I hear you and Jane aren’t even talking. She’s gonna lose the café, you know.”
“She doesn’t care if she loses the café. She’s leaving town anyway.” A familiar warmth started to flow from his hand through Grace’s body. “She’s renting the house to Sherrie Thomas.” Grace hated the whiney and bitter sound of her own voice. “I don’t want to talk about my aunt.”
“Yeah, well, at least everyone knows where they stand with Jane.” Pat looked at Grace. He waited for a long moment, his eyebrows raised. The question of her loyalty hung between them.
She pulled her hand away and spoke out to the trees. “For the first time in my life I have a home of my very own and I’m not going to walk away from that. I don’t know what’s next.” Then she looked back at him. “I don’t even know how I’m going to survive, but I would like us to be friends again.”
Pat stared over Grace’s head, back toward the mill. “I don’t have time for this.” His voice was firm, but the sadness in his eyes was unmistakable. “We have to grow up, Grace. Maybe no one is going to win this battle, but when it’s over people will remember what side folks were on and that’ll tell ’em who their real friends are.” He walked back to the mill, leaving her there at the beginning of the trail.
Chapter 6
The sun broke out, warming and misting the air with thin clouds of evaporation. The water that had collected on every surface trickled in sparkling beads from branches and roofs. The town glowed like a bearded hermit stepping from his annual bath.
As Jane approached the cabin, she looked up and down the muddy street, wondering how many folks were standing behind their curtains watching her. Everyone was well aware that Grace and Jane weren’t speaking—it was the loudest silent argument in town. Jane had few support
ers in Prosperity these days and nobody liked the idea that Grace might be hurting.
Walt and Ed stood looking down into a sloppy trench that ran from the side of the cabin out to the street. “Is that where you’re going to bury the next kid who shows up to save the trees?” Jane couldn’t stop herself.
Walt looked up, ignoring her question. “’Bout time you showed up.”
“Is she home?”
He shook his head. “She took my truck and headed down to Cooper. Said she was going to see if anybody was hiring waitresses.” He stepped back from the ditch and walked up to Jane. “Why’d she have to do that, I wonder?”
“You can keep your wondering to yourself. Just tell her I was by, I want to talk to her.” Jane might have to eat some crow for her niece, but she didn’t have to add a lecture from Walt deVore to her list of humiliations.
She turned around slowly, giving any hidden observers an opportunity to see how she’d made the first effort. Then she ducked her head and hurried away.
***
That evening Jane sat at the counter in the café. Before her was the inventory she’d begun: cutlery, mostly still usable; plates, bowls, cups—all white, most chipped; huge, dented pots, most with lids; metal mixing bowls, no matched sets; salt and pepper pairs (how many?); sugar dispensers (how many?); one nearly empty cash register; one jukebox. Only three people had responded to the ad she’d placed (“restaurant closing, everything for sale”), but when they showed up they just shook their heads.
She’d called the phone company earlier in the day to disconnect the phone, so she was surprised when it rang.
“Jane here.”
“Walt said you came by.” When Walt first told her, Grace just nodded and returned to her painting. Half an hour later she opened the cabin door and asked Walt what Jane had wanted. He shrugged his shoulders.
The more her painting grew, the more attached Grace was getting to the cabin. But it was becoming clear that Jackson’s money would barely cover the costs of all the renovations. Grace still hadn’t found a job, and if something didn’t turn up she’d have to leave town soon. On her trips Sherman’s or walking down Main, Grace was having trouble keeping her eyes from turning toward the Hoot Owl.
“Right.” Jane paused. “I’m leaving a week from today. No one is going to step up and buy this café from me. No big surprise there. Thought I might sell some of the fixtures and stuff, but didn’t. So, that’s it. Didn’t make any sense to leave without telling you.”
A long pause on the other end, then, “Aunt Jane?”
“I’m still here.”
“What if I…?”
“What?”
“Never mind. Forget it. I’ll find something else.”
“Right. That’s what I thought. I’ll let you know my phone number. When you come to your senses and realize you need to get out of this dump, call me.”
Grace hung up the phone. So, that was it. No Jane. No Hoot Owl.
She found her brush and returned to painting the head of a snake that poked out from under a large palm leaf on the frame of the bathroom door. She’d finished the walls and ceiling in the main living area and she had to admit, the effect was pretty spectacular. There were a few areas that needed work—that one corner where the perspective was off, and the jaguar looked like he was sitting in midair—but it wasn’t bad. Last week she’d been ready to give up and throw a coat of white all over it. But then she’d hit on a way to scale her sketches that allowed for the irregularities in the sizes of the logs and that had helped a lot.
She couldn’t keep this whole thing a secret much longer. Walt needed to get inside and install those appliances. And she had to get some kind of a job.
Cooper hadn’t yielded a single possibility and Grace couldn’t imagine traveling farther down the mountain every day for work. How would she do it anyway? She couldn’t borrow Walt’s truck indefinitely.
Was taking over the Hoot Owl really such a bad idea?
The Hoot Owl had once been Annie’s Pies—her mother and Jane had been co-owners. At three, little Parrot had sat on the counter in the café kitchen while her mother rolled out dough. At thirteen, she’d begun working there herself. She’d done every job in the place except paying the bills. She could learn that pretty quick.
It was clear that Jane’s crazy anti-logging politics had driven a lot of folks away from the café. If Jane were out of the picture, things would be different.
But would she ever consider turning the Hoot Owl over to Grace?
Grace dropped her brush into a jar of murky water, wiped her hands, and picked up the phone.
“Jane? Look, what do you have to lose? If things don’t work out, I’ll shut it down myself. I could see if Lyle would come back and help me out for a few hours a week. I don’t think he’s found anything else since you let him go.”
“Oh, Jesus, Parrot. That cabin’s not enough of an albatross around your neck? You want to take on a failing café too?”
Grace knew better than to respond to this.
“And what are you going to do about the bills? Even if you don’t have customers, those bills are still there. I’m getting ready to declare bankruptcy and let the bank have it.”
“Give me a few months. What difference will it make? If I can’t turn it around, you can still do that.”
Grace held her breath while she listened to sounds of Jane fumbling for a cigarette, lighting it and inhaling. She looked around her. With her own hands she had created a tropical jungle in the middle of the Cascade Mountains. How hard could it be to run a café?
“OK, Parrot. I guess you need one more dose of reality to smack you in the face before you’re going to understand.” Jane took another drag on her cigarette. “OK. Six months. You run it and I’m putting your name on everything right along with mine. I’m not sitting back and letting you put me deeper in debt than I already am without you carrying your share of that load.”
“Really? You mean I’d be half owner?”
“Goddammit, Parrot! When are you gonna take off those fuckin’ rose-colored glasses? Yes, I mean it. You want to take on the café, you’re gonna have to pay the bills!”
“Thanks, Jane. I never thought…”
“I know you never thought., But you’d better start thinking now, little girl. Go ahead, see if you can butter the town up, remind ’em who your daddy was, and maybe they’ll forget about you being my niece. Six months. Then I’m pulling out of my half of the business—it’ll be all yours or we’re bankrupt together. Come by tomorrow and I’ll go over things with you.”
And she hung up.
Grace continued to hold the receiver to her ear and let the dial tone buzz through her head. What just happened? She’d never experienced a tornado, but she imagined this was what it felt like after you’d been picked up by a wild wind and landed in a new reality. In a daze she lowered the receiver and looked at the monkey climbing over a log near the ceiling, at the toucan in the corner looking down its long bill, at the red-and-black snake whose body appeared to slither between the logs—her roommates. “Wow.” She sat on the floor and spread her legs out in front of her. Leaning back on her hands, she started to laugh.
***
It was a long night. Wearing a headlamp and getting up from her work now and then to reposition the lamps, Grace painted. A focused energy drove her; she didn’t pause to question a single stroke. Her hands moved in direct response to her vision, each brushstroke, each color knew its place. When finally her hands could no longer guide a steady brush, she lay back and took it all in. A jungle, a tropical tangle of greenery populated with exotic birds, flowers of brilliant contrast, creatures she’d seen only in her dreams. This world breathed its humid breath on her and she was calmed.
***
The morning had aged toward noon by the time Grace roused herself. She pulled the sheets off the walls, raised the narrow windows, and opened the front door to invite the fresh air and sunlight inside. Kev may have come by, but she’
d slept through his knocking. Too bad. It was time to show this place off and if it wasn’t going to be Kev, Walt deserved to be her first visitor.
She’d expected to find him working outside on the stubborn drainage ditch, knee-deep in mud as he had been for the last several days, but he was sitting in his truck, head back, asleep.
Grace knocked on the truck window. “Hey, you OK?”
Walt sat up, startled, and rubbed his hands over his grizzled face. “Whew. Just sat here for a minute to catch my breath. We finished that damn ditch and I’m ready to get things hooked up inside.”
“OK then. Come on in.”
Grace stood back, allowing him to take his time climbing out of the truck, walking up the steps. She didn’t want him to see her biting her lips, pinching the sides of her jeans with her nervous fingers, but she followed close behind as he entered the cabin.
He took a couple of steps inside and stopped. She held her breath. Slowly he turned left to right, then gradually he tilted his head back, back, back. His jaw hung open as he turned, inch by inch, till he’d made a complete circle. Then he made a snorting noise through his nose, straightened up, and looked at Grace. “You’ve been busy.”
She let out her long-held breath as she nodded. “What do you think?”
“Oh, it’s something your momma would love all right.”
“Huh.”
“Yep. It’d make her downright happy, I’m sure. So, tell me when the stove and all will be delivered. Let’s get this thing wrapped up. I could sure use a beer.”
“Right. I’ll call them today. Should have it by tomorrow or the next day.”
“Good deal. Give me a call when they get here then.” And he walked back to his truck, climbed in and drove off.
Grace stood on her front step, her hands on her hips watching him. OK. My mother would have loved it. Not too bad, coming from Walt.
***
After arranging to have the rainbow of appliances delivered the next day, Grace considered Kev. She wanted to show him what she had done as she’d promised, but she expected once he saw it, her cabin would be all he would talk about for days or maybe weeks. She had loved the hours by herself crafting this jungle, turning her imagination inside out and inhabiting that vibrant space as it developed before her. A walk in the forest alone had always been her favorite activity, and living in this exotic space by herself brought her that same joy. Once Kev broadcast her accomplishment to the town, she could forget about being alone. But maybe that was just as well. If she were going to start running the café, she was going to need all the friends she could get.
What We Take For Truth Page 8