I had all sorts of money but I couldn’t help. It was like watching diabetes slowly destroy Dad.
And then E.W. made his move.
“L.G.?” I CALLED out, listening to my voice echo a little among the tall ceilings of the piano factory. The huge loft had become home; the giant factory windows looking out over the city, the warren of big rooms divided by walls of thick vintage woods.
When I got home from school every afternoon, Lawyer George was usually at his desk in the area that served as offices. I knocked on the door of the apartment he shared with his wife, Vickie, and their baby son, Morrow, and was surprised when there wasn’t an answer.
“I arranged for us to have a private moment,” Uncle E.W. said, behind me.
I whirled to find him standing in the center of the main room, at ease among the walls filled with Dad’s bookcases, commanding the islands of comfortable couches and tables stacked with more books. He was fifty years old then, with a slash of gray among the black hair at each temple; a big, hearty man with football shoulders. He wore fine suits; a soft dark gray one this time, with no tie and an open-collared shirt, as if he were ever casual about his appetites. He had four ex-wives and two daughters. Daughters didn’t matter to him because they would marry and drop the Wakefield name. The one failing of his life was his inability to breed sons.
I was his only male heir. My curse.
“Hard times have befallen your MacBride friends,” Uncle E.W. said.
Watch. Listen. Don’t say too much. Lawyer George and I had spent a lot of time talking about ways to handle my uncle.
“They’re doing okay.”
“I understand you’ve tried to help them. I admire your maturity, Jay. It’s hard to believe you’re only twelve years old. I’ll be honest with you. I wish you were my son.”
I wanted to hit him. No, I wanted to kill him. The way he killed Dad.
“What do you want, sir?”
He sat down on the edge of a library table, drawing up one long leg, letting his polished shoe swing gently as he rested his hands on his knee. “I’m here to tell you that I’m going to have to step in.”
My blood froze. “What do you mean, sir?”
“I’m really sorry, son . . .”
“I’m not your son.”
The air chilled. His eyes, gray eyes like mine and Dad’s, some called them wolf eyes, went dark. “I know you’re fond of George Avery, and your dad trusted him, but it’s come to my attention that he’s been hiring people to spy on my business and steal information.”
I could barely breathe. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you, Lawyer George had told me, more than once. Your interests, not your uncle’s. My job is to do what your Dad trusted me to do. And the one thing you and I both have to remember: Never trust your uncle.
“Anything he did, I told him to do. I ordered him to do it.”
“I see. Share some examples with me.” My silence made him sigh. “That’s honorable, Jay—your lie. Unfortunately, poor George is neither a very good attorney nor a very good corporate spymaster. I suspect the only reason your dad hired him was pity. As usual, he had a soft heart for a lapdog. George has made a very good friend for you, I do understand that. But he’s not cut out to remain as your guardian, or as the manager of the estate you’ll inherit when you’re of age. Nine years from now. Your dad had a lot of faith in you. Most fathers wouldn’t allow such a valuable estate to be turned over to their only child that early. But until then . . .”
I lunged forward, fists clenched. “I decide, not you! I want George back. And Vickie, and their baby. You leave George alone!”
“I can’t do that. He’s crossed some lines, and I have proof enough to force a change in your guardianship. What kind of uncle would I be if I let your legacy—which is part of the same legacy I share, and that my daughters share, the entire Wakefield legacy, no matter which of us controls what piece of it here and there—what kind of responsible steward of that legacy, of your future, would I be, if I didn’t step in and take charge?”
“What’ll happen to George?”
“That depends on you. I want you to give me a chance. Come be part of my world. Learn what I do, why I do it. I’d love to see you become my second-in-command someday. I’m not so bad. And if you give me a chance, I can be generous. George will lose his law license for what he’s done. To my way of thinking, he deserves at least that, but he won’t go to prison if you and I can come to an agreement. And your friends, we should talk about them. As your guardian, I have the authority to use your dad’s money to help your friends as I see fit. And all I ask is that one day, when your dad’s will turns control of the Free Wheeler property rights over to you is that you give me permission to mine it. You see, the fact that Mrs. Whittlespoon ‘owns’ the access right doesn’t mean she’s the only one who has say-so. You’ll be the property owner.”
I shook my head. “I won’t do it. Ever. Dad died there.”
“I want you to grow up to be your own man, Jay. I had to learn that lesson, too. Your Grandfather William wasn’t much of a role model. He drank, he gambled—obviously—he didn’t manage the business very well. I had to grow up in a hurry. Your father was never healthy enough, or . . . strong-willed enough . . . to save our legacy, so I took over for the both of us. It wasn’t fun. Or easy. Believe it or not, I was once an idealistic young boy like you. Let me help you face the realities.”
He held out a hand. “Shake my hand. Give me your word that when you turn twenty-one you’ll allow me to mine that property. In return, you’ll get George back, and your MacBride friends will have all sorts of good luck. Wouldn’t you like to see them make so much money they can afford to move into the city, open more restaurants, and live the kind of life we live?”
MacBrides don’t take hand-outs.
Never trust your uncle.
“Can I think about it?”
He smiled just a little as his eyes went darker. “Jay, I am going to control your life for a long time to come. Anything that’s not specifically spelled out or forbidden in your dad’s will, I can handle as I see fit. Property management, rental rates, your education, where you live.”
“He told Lawyer George how to handle all those things.”
“That’s not the same as putting them in a will. You can make your peace with that, or you can fight me. I hope to win you over.”
My heart sank. No one was going to win anything. This was how it felt to fall on your own sword. To honor your father, to honor a promise you barely understood, but knew you had to honor it anyway. I wouldn’t destroy Free Wheeler, not for George’s sake, not Mama MacBride’s, Tal’s, Gus’s, not even Gab’s. And certainly not for my own. I can’t.
“I’m never going to change what Dad wanted done. You can’t make me. You won’t hurt George. You won’t hurt the MacBrides. I’ll tell everyone who’ll listen. I’ll tell Sergeant Charlie. It’s against the law to threaten people.”
“We’ll see,” he said. And smiled.
Gabby
THE P, B AND S was going to re-open. Mama had come out of her misery enough to gather cleaning supplies, tie a bandana around her hair, and shoo the three of us into Daddy’s pickup truck in our work clothes and with hopeful thoughts. It was a Saturday morning in March, with bright blue skies and the first warm pop of spring in the mountain air.
I tried to call Jay, but he didn’t answer. I hadn’t seen him since Thursday, which alarmed me. Since the diner closed in January, we’d stopped coming into town, but Lawyer George dropped him off at our house most days, to hang out.
“We’ll walk up to Pack Square and rassle him out,” Gus assured me. “Make him come get dusty and sweaty and mop some floors.”
“I’ll make him some cookies,” Tal announced. She still wasn’t talking much since Daddy died. Jay was a good influence.
/> Even Mama smiled, though the skin under her eyes was dusky blue, and when her mouth caught the light in an odd way it seemed to have a gray shadow around the lips. I hadn’t gotten a sweet gherkin love-feel from her spirit since Daddy died.
But I felt almost cheerful. The streets were busy, the tourists were out, the guitar players and mimes and jugglers were warming up on the corners, and I began to hope we’d get back to our baskets full of biscuits, me and Gus and Jay, pushing the memory of January away, even as the spring sunshine made my eyes burn and tear.
We rattled down Lexington, just like the old days except for the giant empty spot where Daddy would never return. I was rubbing my eyes when Gus sank a hand onto my forearm so hard I yelled. Mama slammed the brakes. I threw one arm across Tal. Even wearing seatbelts, we almost hit the truck’s dash.
Mama threw open her door and leapt out, almost getting hit by a car. Horns blared. She left the door hanging and ran toward the diner. Gus was already out of the truck and running after her, yelling at me to hold onto Tal. I snatched off our belts and hoisted Tal in my arms, struggling to climb out while craning my head around Tal’s to see what Mama was staring at on the diner’s door.
As I lumbered up behind her and Gus, the absolute shock nearly buckled my knees. The door was padlocked. An ugly yellow sign had been taped over the glass at eye level.
EVICTION NOTICE
Missed Payment - March
TW Properties
It couldn’t be. TW Properties. Thomas Wakefield. Jay and Lawyer George. No way would Jay and Lawyer George throw us out of the diner just because Mama was late on one month’s rent. Or ever late. Or not paying at all. Jay wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.
I whirled and headed up the sidewalk. “I’m going to find Jay!”
Mama put a hand to her chest and staggered. Gus grabbed her by one arm. Tal screamed. “Stand down, Gabby!” he yelled.
I took one look at Mama’s face then hurried to the truck and helped him hoist her into the passenger side. Tal crawled in next, with me following. We held Mama upright while Gus drove to the emergency room.
“I’M JUST FINE,” Mama said that night, standing in our kitchen at home. She didn’t look fine, and she wasn’t fine, and we knew it. The ER doctor said her blood pressure was high, and had given her pills to take, plus something to calm her nerves. Now all we could do was pretend that everything would turn out okay if we helped her bake an apple pie. Tal stood beside her, holding a spoon in one hand and Mama’s elbow by the other.
“Jay?” I said into the phone for the tenth time. I was talking to an answering machine with Lawyer George’s voice on it. Again.
As I put the phone on its cradle in the living room, Gus and I traded a grim look. I shook my head. Tears burned my eyes. “He wouldn’t ‘go Wakefield’ on us. No way.”
Gus’s mouth flattened. “I don’t understand how Mama got kicked out of her lease, then.”
From the kitchen came the sounds of the heavy glass pie dish hitting the linoleum and the soft thump as Mama slid to the floor with Tal desperately hanging onto her.
“YOUR MOMMY had something wrong inside her head,” the counselor said to us that night, at the hospital. “A kind of bubble. A little balloon.” We sat on a couch in a small room where they take children to talk down to them—in well-intentioned ways. It had the dull psychic aroma of old bread, despite the low lights and soothing blue-gray walls and couch cushions sprayed to smell like comfort.
She’s dead. Gus and I knew that. Mama had been dead when we held her cold hands. Dead when the doctors blocked our view of the monitors. We all felt her food spirit hug us, drift around us, drift into the part of us where, if we stayed very still and quiet, we could commune with her. Daddy was there, too, both of them. Which was why Tal was curled up under the couch, not making a sound. Tasting them.
And then. “I smell liver,” Gus said under his breath.
I nodded.
A very bad omen. From under the couch Tal said, “Chicken liver. We need to go.”
Gus and I stood. The counselor, a small brown woman with big hair piled above little glasses, got up swiftly, flicking the clip of her ink pen while looking at us the way people do when three children spout strange non sequiturs after being told Mommy died of a brain aneurysm.
I knew how to massage a customer. “Would you mind if we took our baby sister around the corner to look out the big picture window at the mountains and the stars? The ‘liver’ thing is kind of our secret code for just needing to give each other a hug.”
“Oh! Of course!” Looking relieved, she escorted us out the door and down the hall. “Right around there. Come on back whenever you’re ready. I’ll be here!”
The moment we were alone, we huddled in front of nighttime Asheville, that big lonely mountain sky over the city, all that beautiful emptiness out there beyond the thin glass. Jay, where are you? What have you done? We held hands tightly, with Tal between Gus and me. “Why haven’t they let us call anybody?” he said between gritted teeth. “I don’t like the feel of this. We’re leaving. And we’re not asking anyone’s permission.”
“We’ll go down those stairs,” I agreed, looking at an emergency exit sign.
“Yeah. Once we get to the street I’ll find the nearest cop. He’ll call Charlie. Charlie’ll come get us. And he’ll call Delta. She’ll take us to the Cove.”
Tal tugged on our hands. “We have to go get Ralph and Mr. Sam, too.”
“We will,” Gus said.
“And then we’ll have time to cry some more?”
We hugged her. We’d spend the rest of our lives crying, or trying not to.
Jay
I HAD BEEN ON lockdown in the loft for two days. The first sign that Lawyer George could not be kept away from me came when I heard tapping on the ceiling tile above my bed. As Dad’s able-bodied assistant, he’d crawled through every nook and cranny of every building Dad owned, loving the old places as much as Dad did. His knowledge of the piano factory’s rafters came in handy when he lowered a knotted rope through an open ceiling tile in my bedroom. Uncle E.W. had stationed security people at the doors. To say Lawyer George was furious about the MacBrides’ eviction was an understatement.
I climbed into the rafters, dressed for mountaineering, with a backpack full of Dad’s books and my pockets heavy with change I’d earned selling biscuits. I had no immediate plan other than escaping, then telling Gabs, Gus, Tal and Mama MacBride about my new circumstances, then deciding what to do next, on Lawyer George’s advice.
“How are you?” he whispered. “Here. My wife sent cookies.”
In the beam of a flashlight his face looked sad and a little funny cased in a dark sock cap. He was only in his late twenties, and baby-faced. Lawyer George didn’t fit the image of a burglar any more than he made a very good corporate spymaster. He had been doing what he felt he should to find out what Uncle E.W. planned, and he’d never told me he was doing anything underhanded. He protected me by just sharing what Thomas Wakefield’s orphaned son needed to know: that my uncle was maneuvering to get control.
Lawyer George and I didn’t speak again until we were outside in the spring chill, at the bottom of a fire escape in the building’s narrow alley. That’s when Lawyer George took me by the shoulders and looked down at me sadly. “There’s no easy way to tell you. This morning, Mrs. MacBride went to the diner and found an eviction sign on the door. Earlier tonight, at her home, she collapsed. She had a stroke. She’s . . . she’s dead.”
I stumbled backwards and hit the wall. I wanted to yell and punch something. Mama MacBride. “Where are Gabs and Gus and Tal?”
They’re at the hospital. We have to go get them. I have a bad feeling E.W. is closing in.”
“Why would he . . . they don’t mean anything . . . he killed Mama MacBride.” The horror struck me. Because of me.
I stared at Lawyer George, who held onto my shoulders hard and looked worried.
“Jay? Jay? Talk to me.”
I rasped out the details of my conversation with E.W. The deal he’d tried to strike. My refusal. You can’t make me. “It’s all my fault,” I groaned. “He’s taking revenge on them to punish me.”
Lawyer George cupped my head as if that remark made him feel both sad and proud for me. “Let’s go get your friends. My car’s parked on a back street over—”
Headlights swung into the alley.
A big town car purred down the narrow lane. At the alley’s other end, headlights blocked our retreat.
Uncle E.W.’s driver could be seen in the front seat.
Gabby
“RUN!” MR. SAM shouted. “I’ll draw the monsters this way.” He headed into the ER parking lot, flapping his bony arms and waving at the strangers trying to catch him, and us. Gus signaled me from behind a greening azalea hedge, using hand signals Daddy had taught us from his army days. I grabbed Tal’s hand and shot down a shallow bank in the deep shadows behind a line of landscape lights. I heard Gus’s footsteps heading up a gravel drainage lane.
If we can just find a regular policeman, one of Dad’s buddies . . . why are we being chased instead of helped?
Tal stumbled and fell. I helped her up. We were both panting. A large athletic woman in some kind of uniform sprinted around a corner and pounced on us. “Got them,” she said into a shoulder mic. “Now, girls, calm down. We’re Protective Services. We’re here to take you somewhere safe until you get a new home.”
“Liver!” Tal shrieked. She kicked the woman in the shins and took off. I followed just far enough to hit a curb after Lady Godzilla snagged the back of my denim jacket. My cheek bruised, my palms scraped, I watched Tal be scooped up. Shouts and scuffling sounds from the ER lot indicated that Mr. Sam was putting up the best fight an ancient old man armed with hallucinations and deep love for our family could manage. Tears slid down my face when I heard him make a pained noise. And then, silence.
Lady Godzilla held me by the collar as we walked over. My heart fell at the sight of Mr. Sam sprawled limply on the pavement. A gurney was already being rushed out to him. And over to one side of the lot, two beefy men led Gus out of the hedges with a tight grip on his arms. His face was scratched, and he was struggling.
The Pickle Queen: A Crossroads Café Novella Page 5