The next morning Kev arrived at her doorstep before the delivery truck.
“Are you finished painting?” he shouted.
Grace opened the door. “Yep. I’m done. Come on in.”
Kev’s eyes widened as he climbed the steps and entered the cabin.
Grace stood behind him and softly closed the door.
Kev’s mouth hung open and he backed up into her, grabbing at her shoulder. She could sense his fear and cursed herself for failing to anticipate this.
“It’s OK, Kev. They aren’t real. I painted them.”
“Why?” he asked, gripping her hand now, but staring at the ceiling.
“Well, I think it’s kind of fun. These birds and animals are pretty, don’t you think?” She hoped he’d like the color and fantasy of it: the ceiling covered in shades of green like a jungle canopy with shafts of sunlight shooting through it; hiding in the corners and tucked among the curving logs of the walls were creatures, birds with fanciful plumage, frogs and snakes in brilliant colors.
“Ummm. Maybe, maybe not.” His voice was low and she could sense him trying to overcome his own fright. “Why did you paint snakes?” Kev pointed with his free hand to a large, dark serpent coiling in the corner.
“Snakes live in the jungle too, Kev. In some countries far away from here, there are real jungles where animals and snakes and birds like these all live together.”
“But not in here. Right?”
“That’s right. None of these guys live here. I just made them up.”
At that, Kev relaxed. “Oh.” He turned and looked closely at her face. Then he stepped away from her into the center of the room. He looked from wall to wall—everywhere there was jungle greenery and lush, tropical flowers. In one corner a long-tailed monkey dangled from a vine, and peering from another corner were the golden eyes of a tropical cat.
Finally, Kev smiled. “You’re a good maker-upper, Parrot.”
Grace breathed her own sigh of relief. “Thanks, Kev. I’m glad you think so.”
Kev stayed to watch the appliances get unloaded and as Walt began to work he said, “Don’t be scared of the snakes, Mister Walter, Grace made them up. They won’t bite you.” Then he looked at Parrot. “I can come back here. I’m not scared.”
“Great, Kev. Come back on Saturday. Everything should be done by then.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” he called as he shuffled out to the street.
***
By the end of the week Jane had taken Grace to the bank and put her niece’s name on the café account. This was tantamount to a public announcement and they both knew it.
“OK. Monday morning I’m gone. Sherrie’s gotta move out of her place, so I’m hitting the road. Found a room in one of those big boarding houses in Seattle. It’ll do till I get a job. Here’s the phone number.”
Grace took the paper Jane held out to her. “Gonna wish me luck?”
“It’s gonna take a hell of a lot more than luck, kiddo. Honestly,” Jane shook her head, “I just wish you’d come to your senses.”
***
Over the weekend Grace spent hours at the café, washing the windows, cleaning the neglected corners, and making a few pies, though there were still no customers. The town was waiting for Jane to leave and no one pretended otherwise.
On her way out Monday morning Jane parked her truck in front of the Hoot Owl. She got out, stood by the open door and called to Grace, “One piece of advice, Parrot—and I’m not setting foot in that place again—don’t order in bulk if you can help it. It only saves you money if you use it all up. And, believe me, you won’t.”
Grace put down the mop and stepped to the door, “Goodbye, Jane. I might have a few more questions.”
“Look, anything you don’t know by now can’t be that important.” She stuck her head in the door and looked over at the jukebox. “That’s the only thing I’ll miss, and it won’t be for long, I’m sure. Oh, yeah, I left a chocolate cream pie in the freezer for Kev. After that’s gone, you’re on your own.” She slapped her hands together and climbed back into her truck. “Good riddance, Prosperity!” she shouted out her window as she drove away.
From the doorway Grace stared at the truck till it turned off Main Street and was lost in the trees.
***
Earlier in the week Grace had gone by Lyle’s trailer and asked for his help. “I don’t think there’ll be much money for a while, but I know I can’t handle the place alone. Would you consider it?”
“Are you kidding? I’m there in a heartbeat.” At five foot four with the broad shoulders of a wrestler, Lyle looked Grace in the eye as he stood at the door, barefoot and unshaven, but eager. Lyle had bounced from job to job since his tour in Vietnam. He was now approaching his fortieth birthday and had weaned himself from the drug habit he picked up along with the medal that hung from his bathroom mirror and the jagged scar that ran from his right foot to his groin. He’d come to Prosperity thinking he could hide out till he got clean, then he’d move on. Now, three years later, he was straight and stuck—trapped by a disability check, empty days, and his fear of the temptations that lay outside Prosperity.
“Hell, once Jane’s out of town, and not rubbing her environmentalist nose in everyone’s face, they’ll come back for the food.”
They agreed there was nothing to lose by keeping the place closed for a while after Jane was gone.
“It’ll take more than a couple of days for folks to believe she’s really left, you know. We might as well do it right and clean up in the meantime. Maybe a few new items on the menu would help.”
Grace hoped she could convince folks she wasn’t on Jane’s side in their battle. It was going to be tough. Maybe they ought to make a big splash, a “Grand Reopening!”
Lyle rolled his eyes at this idea. “People around here like to figure things out for themselves, you know that. They don’t like to be hit over the head with stuff. They’d just laugh and walk away.”
Hearing this, Grace knew it was the truth. When Jarvis closed up the hardware store and Sherman’s started selling all his inventory, you would never have known except for a small piece of notebook paper pinned to the front door of Jarvis Hardware. If you got up close enough you could read the clumsy pencil lettering that said, Get it at Sherman’s. It was the gossip tree, the Prosperity telegraph, that spread its sturdy boughs across the community and filled everyone in on Tim and Norma Jarvis’s divorce, and the bills that had been piling up. Sherman handled the extra business without so much as a wider grin.
So, instead of planning some grand party, Lyle and Grace spent the first week after Jane’s departure giving the Hoot Owl the deepest cleaning it had ever had. When Kev showed up first thing Tuesday morning, Grace let him in and gave him a piece of the pie Jane had left for him. Then she tried to explain.
“I’m in charge of the café now, Kev. Jane’s moved to Seattle.”
“Maybe, maybe not!” He opened his mouth, full of pie, and laughed hard, spraying the table with chocolate cream. “You and Jane are playing a game.” He grinned at her as he crumpled his napkin in his awkward fist and rubbed it over his face. Then he became serious. “Did you make it up, like the snakes?”
“No, Kev. It’s real. I’m staying here. I’ll give you your pie in the morning.” Grace stopped herself from wiping off the table—she could do that after he was gone. Instead she sat down opposite him. “The café is going to be closed for a couple of days, but I’ll be here cleaning. We’ll open up on Monday and I’ll expect you to be my best customer.”
“You’ll go to the post office like every morning?”
“Yes, Kev. Like every morning.” Grace looked at the boy’s wrinkled forehead. Only a few weeks ago she’d been ready to abandon Kev, thinking he was stuck but she didn’t have to be.
“But, you know, it’s OK if things aren’t the same every morning. Maybe one day you’ll try a different kind of pie.”
“Ha! Maybe, maybe not!” The cloud that had troubled his fa
ce cleared and his eyes sparkled. Then he pushed himself out of the booth. “I’m going home.”
***
Lyle put a bit of fresh paint on the woodwork and Grace cleaned out the window boxes, dumping the cigarette butts and filling them with soil. Mrs. G had come by one morning and, seeing the efforts Grace was making to spruce the place up, she’d offered a couple of pots of daffodils that had just begun to bud. “You can transplant the whole lot into those window boxes. They’ll bloom in a few days.”
“This is why I couldn’t leave,” Grace said as she gave Mrs. G a hug.
The menu needed a redesign and Grace threw herself into the task, illustrating it with drawings of the forest. They decided to add a Reuben sandwich and a daily special to give themselves a little room for creativity with the leftovers. Rather than spend money to get the new menu printed, Lyle took the new menu up to the post office and used the copy machine. Grace colored each one by hand.
***
In the still-dark of Monday morning, Grace walked up the street and heard some kind of animal scurry around in front of her. As she got close to the café door, the neon sign in the window of the Bullhook cast enough light for her to identify the tail of a rat disappearing behind the building. A whiff of sulfur hit her nose.
Before Grace could grasp what was going on, the sound of slow-moving tires crunching down the street startled her. She spun around. Henry Martin pulled his pickup into the spot in front of the café door. His headlights illuminated on the whole scene. Egg yolk ran down the front door. Brown shells littered the sidewalk. Grace’s keys slipped from her hand and landed in the gooey mess on the sidewalk. Something dark dripped onto her newly planted daffodils. She traced the dark drips up the window to a cartoonish painting of a burly guy sitting at a table holding a fork in one hand and knife in the other. In a bubble over his head were the words “We want Spotted Owl Omelets!”
Henry leaned his head out of the window and said, “Don’t let it get to you. It’s nothing.”
Henry wore a dirty green cap with a Mariner’s blue trident embroidered on the front. Beneath it his long hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He gave Grace one of his rare smiles and his gold eyetooth gleamed in the streetlight. Henry had been one of Jane’s most loyal customers. In spite of what the rest of the town did, he had always stopped at the Hoot Owl first thing in the morning for his coffee.
“They meant it for Jane. She’s been getting stuff like this for a while.” His voice was soft, almost a whisper.
“She has?” Grace breathed out slowly. Pulling her eyes away from the caricatured face painted on her freshly scrubbed window, she turned to Henry. “She never said anything.”
“Well, she wouldn’t, would she?” By now he’d turned off his engine and gotten out, closing the door carefully as if trying to preserve a bit of the early morning quiet. He took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. He may have meant her to use his offering to wipe up the mess, but as soon as she took it the tears started to flow and she blew her nose.
“Your aunt isn’t a bad person. She just gets too passionate about things. You know what I mean?”
“But she’s gone now. Don’t people know that?”
“Well, I’d say not everyone got the message yet.”
Grace looked back at the cartoon figure. “Unless this was meant for me.”
“Why? Who would want to get to you, Parr…er…Grace?”
She stooped to pick her keys out of the goo.
“Let’s go in. I’ll start the coffee.” She stuffed the handkerchief in her pocket. “I’ll wash it and get it back to you.”
“That’s OK, you keep it.”
She unlocked the door, stepped in and switched on the lights. The café sparkled from its recent cleaning. An image flashed across Grace’s mind’s eye of herself bouncing on tiptoe in her new clothes as she waited for her father to walk her to school on her first day. On that day and on all the other special days—her first lost tooth, the day she first drove, her first date—there had been this emptiness, this hollow place inside her. The place her mother should have filled. And on those days when the tooth fairy didn’t show, or Daddy forgot to read to her like he promised, or he seemed to not even know she was there, and today when the grand reopening she’d hoped for was ruined, the empty space was big enough to lose herself in.
“Damn it.” Grace fussed with the coffeemaker. Thoughts of her mother had been hovering around as she spiffed up the café. Seeing the mess outside was like having someone you love come close up behind you and instead of embracing you in a warm hug, give you a kick in the rear.
Henry slid onto his customary stool. “Looks nice in here.”
Grace grunted and began filling a bucket of water and gathering rags.
Lyle pushed through the café door. “What the fuck? Those idiots!” He checked the bottoms of his shoes and then intercepted Grace.
“Here, give me that. I’ll clean it up. Jesus, they’re doing this all over the state. Couldn’t they be a little original at least? It’s not like they’re going to get any publicity up here.” He carried the cleaning supplies out to the sidewalk. The door slammed behind him.
Chapter 7
July 11, 1991
Walt got everything done yesterday. I stood in the middle of the cabin and cried. It is so cool! Every time I come in the door I get this eerie feeling, like just the second before I entered the whole jungle was alive with birds singing and creatures scurrying between the logs and bugs flying around. Everything freezes and goes silent when I enter. Then I can feel my mother. It’s so weird. Like she’s right here with me and she’s happy. I want to show it to Pat so much. He’d love it! But he just wants to fight. If I’m not willing to help him destroy that nest, I’m the enemy. I know those were his stupid cartoons on the window. I’m not going to play this game. I just wish I didn’t miss him so much.
(here several sketches of various jungle birds and animals.)
Grace woke to the sound of pickups pulling into the mill, bumping across the gravel lot, cab doors slamming. The air was full of men’s rumbling voices and the smell of exhaust. For nearly a month, the mill had been mostly quiet—two or three log trucks leaving the yard in the morning coming back loaded on a single run in the afternoon. All Grace had heard was that the men were reorganizing, trying to figure out how they were going to fulfill the contracts Jackson had signed. More and more restrictions were coming down from the government.
But this morning something had animated everyone.
Grace looked out her window and saw a group of familiar faces. When these guys got together in the morning that used to mean business at the Hoot Owl. Since she’d taken over, Grace hadn’t seen one of them.
OK, then. Grace thought. You won’t come to me. I’ll bring my mountain to you. She dressed and ran over to the café. She’d made a few pies and stuck them in the freezer so she’d always have something in case some hiker wandered in. Now she pulled them out, cut them, and laid the pieces on a tray. She took a deep breath, picked up the tray, and walked back over to the mill. She couldn’t really afford to give away food, but then, it was all going to go to waste if no one bought it.
She stepped onto the gravel of the parking lot, holding the tray in front of her like a peace offering.
“What’s this?” Terry Childers had been a regular at the Hoot Owl back before what Grace had begun to think of as the big rift. He hadn’t had as much as a cup of coffee at the café in weeks. “Your favorite, Terry, apple crumble.”
“Jesus, Parrot. How am I supposed to resist this?”
“You’re not. What’s up, anyway?” Grace hoped that a taste of her pie and some casual conversation might remind him what he’d been missing. But Terry grabbed a slice off the tray and turned away from her to talk with Burt Samson.
“You got the light rigging ready? Looks like we’ll be needing it.”
“Yeah. It’s all stored in the shed behind the office.” Burt had his broad ba
ck to Grace. She stared at the slight stoop of his shoulders and the worn elbows of his flannel shirt. The tray felt heavy in her hands and she started to back away.
“We got some guys here never worked nights. We’ll have to take it easy.” Burt’s deep voice stood out from the general din around her. He’d turned in her direction. “Hey, Parrot, what you got there?”
Grace looked up and took a step toward him.
Instantly she was surrounded; hands, thick-fingered and black-nailed, reached out for the free food. A few mumbled “thanks Parrots” but the men clearly had more urgent business on their minds. It was like she’d entered a corral full of hungry horses ready to bolt. She held her ground, kept the tray out in front of her and listened to the swirling talk.
Some new government regulation meant that time was getting short to cut the wood in the national forest outside of town. The mill had a contract that was going to expire and everyone feared it wouldn’t be renewed. It was now or never.
When the tray was empty, Grace backed out of the throng. As she walked away from the yard, she passed the mill office. The door was open and she caught a glimpse of Pat standing in the shadows.
***
“What happened here?” Lyle stood in the café kitchen looking at the mess of empty pie plates she’d left behind. “We get an early morning rush?”
“Yeah, in a manner of speaking, only we didn’t make any money.” Grace told him what she’d done and what she’d overheard.
What We Take For Truth Page 9