by Gerry Boyle
“Now that’s funny,” I said, then turned and walked to the street while the guy told me what he oughta do to me.
I got in the truck. Mandy looked at me, interested but not wide-eyed. “What, you know karate or something?” she said.
“I know this guy named Clair,” I said.
“He knows karate?”
“He knows all kinds of things,” I said and told her there was no room at the inn, put the truck in gear, and drove off.
I turned back toward town, drove on through. At the head of the bay, I swung west, out of town and into the country. After a couple of miles, I pulled over. “I’ve got to make some calls,” I said.
Mandi nodded and smiled.
I got out and, standing by the side of the road near a dense bank of spruce woods, called Roxanne at work. Got her voice mail again and called her cell. She answered, road noise in the background.
“Hey,” I said. “Where are you?”
“Going to see kids,” she said. “Where are you?”
“On the way home. Did you get my messages?”
“I’ve been out of the office, and there’s something wrong with my cell. Says my mailbox is full but won’t let me in.”
“I called,” I said.
“Everything okay?” Roxanne said, on alert.
“With us, yeah. Sophie’s fine. Taking a nap, Mary said.”
There was a pause. A truck passed me and Roxanne said, “You sound like you’re standing in the middle of the street.”
“The side,” I said.
“Why?”
“Mandi’s in the truck,” I said. “She’s having kind of a bad time of it.”
“Why?” Roxanne said, and I told her. When I finished, there was a very long pause.
“But her name isn’t really Mandi. It’s Sybill Lasell, according to her driver’s license. Says she lives in Portland.”
“So Mandi is her—”
“Stage name, I guess. I suppose you don’t want people knowing who you really are.”
“So you want to bring this Mandi-Sybill person—”
“Just until she can get around again. If it was the wrist or the ankle it would be one thing but—”
“Jack, you barely know this woman.”
“What could I do with her? Leave her in a wheelchair on the sidewalk?”
“There’s nobody else who could—”
“No. We went by the shelter and there were these dirtbag guys there.”
“So—”
“So, she’s alone.”
“Not all the time,” Roxanne said.
“No,” I said. “But she says she has no friends around here. Her family is . . . I don’t know where her family is.”
“Jack, she’s a prostitute. Or something close to it.”
“I know. But she’s nice. And smart. I mean—”
“We don’t have room.”
“Clair and Mary do.”
“Have you called them yet?”
“No, I wanted to talk to you first.”
The road noise subsided. Roxanne had pulled her car over and shut off the engine.
“And what if I say no?”
“I don’t know. I don’t really have a Plan B.”
“Is this someone we want around Sophie?”
“She’s not what you think, honey. She’s, well, I can’t quite figure her out, but she’s not tough or loud. She’s pretty normal and—” I paused as a pickup roared past.
“And what, Jack?” Roxanne said.
“If she were a kid, you’d want to help her,” I said. “She is like a kid in some ways.”
“But not in others.”
A long pause.
“This is not normal, Jack.”
“I know.”
“She doesn’t have a thing for you, does she?”
“No, she’s like a kid. It’s like I’m her father or her uncle or something. And honey, here’s the other thing. What if this guy comes back? Now she really can’t defend herself at all.”
Roxanne didn’t answer. I could picture her thinking, and then she said, “If Mary and Clair are okay with it.”
“Right,” I said.
“But you know they will be. She’ll be another fawn with a broken leg, the owl with the broken wing.”
“And they all went back to where they came from when they got better,” I said. “As soon as Mandi can get around—”
“You don’t even know where she came from, Jack,” Roxanne said. “You don’t really know anything about her.”
I looked back at the truck, Mandi sitting there. She was turned toward the woods, and as I watched, she wiped her eyes. Once. Twice. Then a third time. Tears. After all she’d been through, it was the first time I’d seen her cry.
Chapter 12
The phone was busy at the Varneys. As I got in the truck, Mandi gave her red-rimmed eyes a last wipe and mustered a semblance of a smile.
“I’d have you stay at my house but we only have two bedrooms,” I said. “Clair and Mary, they’re right on the road. A big house, their kids are grown. They watch Sophie when we’re working.”
“Nice people?”
“Nicest people in the world. I work with Clair in the woods sometimes. He was a career Marine, fought in Vietnam.”
“That’s where he learned karate?”
“He was in this thing called Force Recon. Kind of like Navy Seals.”
“Huh.”
The smartest, wisest man I know. Mary, she’ll do anything for you. Rock solid. They both are.”
Mandi looked away. “Then they’re not gonna want me around.”
“Sure they will.”
“They don’t even know me.”
“They know me,” I said. “And you’re a—” I paused for an instant and she caught it.
“I’m a what, Jack?” she said, staring straight ahead.
“You’re a friend of mine,” I said.
“They won’t believe that.”
“Why not, Mandi?”
“Because it isn’t true.”
“Sure it is,” I said, starting the motor and putting the truck in gear, giving her arm a gentle pat.
“Oh, but you shouldn’t do this, Jack,” she murmured as I pulled out onto the pavement. “You really shouldn’t.”
We drove north on the winding two-lane road, past the occasional house, miles of woods, a place where loggers were yarding logs by the roadside. Some of the houses were meager, handbuilt little places with sheds with blue tarps over leaking roofs. A few were big and new, set back with dug ponds and ski boats on trailers. There were pastures with the first crop of hay just cut, bales scattered like something left behind in a hurry.
Mandi looked away, out the window. She was silent, her good hand folded over her broken wrist on her lap. As I drove I tried Clair and Mary again, got the busy signal. I put the phone down, glanced at her, left her alone as we climbed the hills outside of Knox, dropped down into the valley with cows dotting the hillsides. We passed a big farm, a black-shuttered house with spreading silver maples facing the road.
As we passed, Mandi’s gaze lingered on the place, her head turning, and then we climbed to the crest of Knox Ridge, saw the pastures and ridgelines rolling away to the east.
“Almost there,” I said.
“This is beautiful,” Mandi said. “You live here?”
I pointed to the ridges to the west.
“That way.”
“Huh, with your wife and your little girl. Your wife’s really pretty, I bet.”
I nodded.
“What’s she do? Stay home with your daughter?”
“No,” I said. “She’s a social worker. Takes care of abused and neglected kids.”
I felt Mandi tighten up, saw her good hand clench.
“But you said—” She paused, looking out. “You said you only had two bedrooms.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “I don’t mean she takes care of kids in our house. She’s a child protective worker. For the state
.”
“Oh,” Mandi said.
“What’s the matter?” I said.
“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all.”
We drove the rest of the way in silence, Mandi watching the woods slide past. We turned off the main road, drove south down a single-lane paved road, then swung west again, onto a dirt road that wound through tall maples and oaks. There were stone walls extending into the woods, dark lines slipping away into the undergrowth. As we came over a crest in the road, we came upon a flock of turkeys, crossing single file like hobbling old men.
“Sophie loves the turkeys,” I said. “She calls them gobbles.”
Mandi smiled, didn’t comment.
A long bend, past a gnarly old oak, three apple trees that once grew in a dooryard but now were part of the forest. We passed my house, a shingled, steep-roofed place with a deck and a porch on the back, a shed attached to one side, a rope swing on the big maple out front.
“That’s home,” I said, and Mandi nodded. We continued on, drove five hundred yards, and swung in beside a big white colonial, the shingled barn facing us. Clair’s big Ford pickup was parked by the open barn door, from which the back end of a John Deere tractor extended.
I pulled the Toyota up and parked. “I’ll be right back,” I said. “Stay put.”
“I thought I’d run for it,” Mandi said, and she smiled, her game face back on.
I walked to the barn, squeezed by the big tractor tires. There was music playing inside, as always. Opera. My eyes adjusted to the dim light and I looked around for Clair, saw an oil drain pan on the floor. After a minute, I heard footsteps from the loft, and Clair appeared at the top of the stairs. He was carrying a case of motor oil and clomped his way down, turned, and walked to the bench in the workshop. He put the case down. I walked over.
“Suppose you’re here for that rotten daughter of yours,” he said.
“Well—”
“She’s a trial. Don’t know how we put up with it.”
“You’re a saint.”
Clair smiled. “Last I saw, she and Mary had the girls’ dolls out and were having a tea party.”
“Great,” I said. “I’ll never get her to come home.”
“Okay, she can stay,” Clair said. “Twist my arm.”
“Well, I might have to, because I’ve got another favor to ask.”
Clair looked at me, turned serious. I leaned on the bench beside him, told the story. He listened, arms crossed, Semper Fi tattoo stretched across his upper arm.
“I’ll talk to Mary,” he said.
“Okay,” I said.
“But she’ll say yes.”
“I thought she might.”
“How’s a girl end up like that?” Clair said.
“Probably not easily,” I said.
“Wouldn’t be your first choice.”
“No.”
“When you’re ten, dreaming about what you want to be when you grow up.”
“I don’t think she’s grown up yet,” I said. “There’s still hope.”
He picked up a radio from the bench, walkie-talkies they used to call between the house and barn.
“Hey,” Clair said. “You there?”
She was, and Clair asked her to come out. She did, passing the young woman in the truck on the way. Mary came into the barn, said, “Yes, Sophie can stay.”
She smiled. Then Clair retold the story, remembering all of it.
“She’s not what you might think,” I said. “She’s sort of gentle.”
“Well,” Mary said. “Why don’t you get this poor girl inside.”
We stepped out of the barn and into the sunlight. Clair opened the truck door and smiled. His tanned face was framed by silver, short-cropped hair. His arms were big and muscled, your grandfather on steroids. Roger would have his hands full.
“I’m Clair, Miss,” he said.
“And I’m Mary.”
“I’m Mandi,” she said, turning to them and smiling. “It’s nice to meet you both. Jack told me lots about you.”
“You’ve had a rough stretch, I hear,” Clair said.
Mandi shrugged.
“How ’bout some lunch,” he said, and he bent down and offered his hand. Mandi took it and Clair pulled and she slid out of the truck, got her good foot on the ground. I came around with the wheel chair and Clair said, “We don’t need that. You get one side, I’ll get the other.”
We half-carried her to the back stairs, full-carried her up the stairs and in. The kitchen smelled of baking—muffins, bread?—and Mary already was standing by the big slate sink, arranging muffin tins in a baking pan. Sophie was stretched out on the floor, tongue sticking out in concentration as she drew. There were crayons scattered around her like fruit fallen from a tree.
“Daddy,” she said, and hoisted herself to her hands and knees, then froze as Mandi hopped over the threshold, Clair following, holding her arm.
“Mandi, this is Sophie,” I said.
Mandi said hello and smiled.
“Now get yourself into a chair there at the table and we’ll get you some lunch,” Mary said. “How ’bout a nice turkey sandwich. Sophie and I just made anadama bread.”
“Sounds wonderful,” Mandi said.
“I mushed the dough,” Sophie said.
“I’ll bet you’re a good musher,” Mandi said. “And an artist. Look at that picture. Is that a bird?”
“Two birds,” Sophie said, turning back to the paper on the floor. “One is the baby bird and one is the momma bird. The momma bird is worried ’cause the baby fell out of the nest.”
“Well, I hope she finds her way back home,” Mandi said, her tone gentle and soothing. And then to Mary, she said, “This kitchen is so cozy. It smells so good. You must spend a lot of time in here, the fireplace in the winter.”
“Home and hearth, as they say,” Mary said. “Now, let’s let you get yourself together. You brought clothes?”
“In the truck,” I said. “I’ll bring in the bag.”
Sophie began her interrogation. “You got hurt. Were you in a accident?”
“Sort of,” Mandi said. “I sure didn’t mean to get hurt.”
“You hurt your hand and your foot,” Sophie said, moving closer, peering at the wrapping on Mandi’s ankle. “How’d you do that?”
“I fell out of bed,” Mandi said.
“I used to have a bed with sides,” Sophie said. “Now I have a big-girl bed.”
“Good for you,” Mandi said.
“You should get a bed with sides and you couldn’t fall anymore.”
“Maybe I will, Sophie,” Mandi said, glancing at me and flashing a smile. “Maybe I will.”
I went out to the truck and Clair followed me. I hefted the bag out of the truck bed and we stood.
“Thanks for doing this,” I said.
Clair shrugged. Roxanne was right. A fawn with a broken leg. An owl with a bad wing. A young woman beaten by a john.
“Seems like a nice-enough person,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Something not right, though, doing what she’s been doing. Drugs?”
“Not that I can tell. No sign of that at all. She does like chocolate, that’s all I know.”
“Musta been abused somehow when she was younger,” Clair said.
“I don’t know. She says almost nothing about her past, or about herself, for that matter.”
“Seems kind.”
“Yes,” I said. “Sort of calm. Even when I found her, she wasn’t hysterical or anything. Kind of like she expects this kind of thing.”
“And puts herself in a position for it to happen,” Clair said. “You know, in the war, the women, the ones who came to the American guys, it was like they didn’t know they could expect any better.”
“I don’t know why Mandi would feel that way. But then I don’t know—”
I paused. We both turned toward the road where a car was passing slowly. It was a beat-up Jeep, black, an old Cherokee lifted up o
ver big off-road tires. A guy alone, dark beard, black baseball hat, and a white arm hanging out the open window.
“Third time in the last few minutes,” Clair said, “back and forth.”
“Never seen it before,” I said.
As the Jeep neared my house, it braked and continued on, but slowly.
“Roxanne home?” Clair said.
“Not yet,” I said. “Guy was following her this morning. I warned him.”
“What about Mandi?”
“Just said it was a guy named Roger.”
“Cops pick him up?”
“I don’t think she told them,”
“Let’s check this guy out then,” Clair said.
“I’ll bring her bag in.”
“We’ll take my truck,” Clair said, and he started for the big Ford. I dropped the bag in the kitchen, said we’d be right back. Sophie was showing Mandi a scab left from when she skinned her knee running up the stairs to the deck. I came back out and the truck was pointed toward the road, idling.
I got in. Glanced at the shotgun in the gun rack, Clair’s Remington pump.
“Partridges,” Clair said.
“When’s the season start?” I said.
“October.”
“Can’t be too prepared,” I said.
“Damn straight,” Clair said, putting the truck in gear and accelerating hard out of the dooryard and onto the road.
Chapter 13
We drove fast, a dust plume trailing behind us. When we got out onto the pavement of the main road, we paused, looked both ways, but didn’t see the Jeep.
“He could’ve taken off, soon as he passed my place,” I said.
“Didn’t seem to be in that kind of a hurry. Not any of the times he went by.”
Clair looked up and down one more time, then turned the truck around and headed back. He didn’t speak and I knew not to, not when he was hunting.
He drove slowly, the motor rumbling softly. I watched the trees on both sides, peering into the shadows where overgrown farmland cut into the woods. Clair was staring intently straight ahead and suddenly he hit the brakes. Stopped. Backed up.