by A. W. Gray
Jacqueline beamed at me and resumed her bouncing.
“That’s enough, I said.” Donna plopped the bags on the foot of the bed. Jacqueline halted and filled her cheeks with air. Then Donna said, “Thirty-four, thirty-four?”
“Huh?” I said.
“What, Mom?” Jacqueline said, eyeing the packages as only children can.
Donna rummaged in one of the bags and came up with a pair of pale blue denim Levis. She gripped them at the waist, shook them, and let the legs dangle near the floor. “These,” she said. “Thirty-four, thirty-four, the same size as you’re wearing. They’re pre-shrunk. I got you a couple of shirts, too. Improve your traveling wardrobe.”
“Space Mountain today, Mom,” Jacqueline said. “Spa-a-ace Mountain. I never got to go yet.”
Donna smiled wistfully and put her arm around Jacqueline’s shoulders. Side by side they were like child and grown-up photos of the same beautiful woman. Donna checked her watch. “It’s nine-thirty, Rick. Do you think we have time?”
“You women get out of here and let me dress,” I said. “We’ll make time.”
We rode the silver L from the entrance to Disney World to the gate leading to the Magic Kingdom, whizzing along high above acres of lawns like putting greens, bed after bed of sun-washed red and yellow and blue flowers, and ponds with still aqua surfaces like polished glass. There was a big, calm lake on our left; on the other side of the lake the rolling fairways of three championship golf courses. As far as the eye could see, the landscape was dotted with leafy hedges sculptured into perfect likenesses of Mickey, Goofy, Donald, and Dumbo. We rolled through a tunnel that bisected two hotels; on our right, six tanned and flat-bellied dancers shimmied in grass hula skirts. The train picked up speed and we went on our way.
The car in which we were riding was three-quarters full, families mostly, and one group of women in their seventies or eighties who gawked and rubbernecked and chatted like Well-I-Never. I was seated by the aisle with Donna on my right, and Jacqueline squeezed between her mother and the window. I’d chosen the yellow MacGregor Tournament knit that Donna had bought for me—the other shirt was a maroon polo—and the shirt and jeans felt good and smelled new.
At some point during the ride, Donna nudged me with her elbow. She gestured with her head toward Jacqueline, who was sitting on her knees with her nose pressed against the window. Donna’s voice was soft and warm and barely audible over the noise of the train. “She could have been yours, you know,” Donna said.
My vision blurred slightly and the derringer pressed into my backside. I nodded, shifted, and crossed my legs.
On the ramp leading down into the heart of Space Mountain, Jacqueline grabbed my hand and swung it back and fourth. “Goody toenails,” she said. “Goody, goody, goody. This is fuh-un. Mommy’s a scaredy-cat.” She cupped her hands at her mouth and yelled over the handrail, “Scaredy-cat, Mom. Scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat.”
We were in baking Florida sunshine, standing in line among men in Bermuda shorts, walking shorts, or jeans, women in everything from near-nothing sun-suits to floor-length casual summer dresses, and little boys and girls who giggled and jumped up and down and clamored for the line to move faster. The glassed-in entrance to the Space Mountain roller coaster—which was enclosed in a mammoth silver building in the shape of a rocket ship and the size of a convention center—was about forty yards in front of us. On my right, a square sign attached to the railing announced that the wait from this point was approximately a half hour.
“Scaredy-cat, Mom. Mom’s a scaredy-cat.” Now Jacqueline was waving her arms and shouting at the top of her lungs.
Donna was a good hundred yards away, standing behind a low railing that encircled Space Mountain’s perimeter. Her big, round sunglasses covered her eyes, and she wore a floppy straw sun hat I’d bought her, a pale blue hat with “WALT DISNEY WORLD” stitched in gold across its forward brim. In her shorts and snug white knit top, and with her perfect legs the color of dark rum, she stood out in the crowd like a movie queen. She smiled, waved, and blew a kiss in our direction.
My gaze shifted beyond Donna, over the heads of the throng to the huge building across the way housing the General Motors ride into the future. To the right of that building was the arch that separated Tomorrowland from Fantasyland, with men, women, and children streaming back and forth underneath the arch. As I looked once again to Donna, a flash of yellow caught my eye. I squinted and zeroed in. It was a yellow hat, bobbing in the crowd and approaching Donna from the rear.
My breath caught in my throat. I stepped forward and put one hand on the railing, ready to vault over, my free hand traveling to my back pocket and touching the derringer through the cloth.
A grizzled, white-bearded man wearing a yellow baseball cap and holding onto a cluster of green and white and red helium-filled balloons touched Donna’s arm and held out one balloon by the string. She smiled at him and shook her head.
I relaxed and backed away from the rail.
Jacqueline tugged the hem of my shirt. “‘S matter?” she said.
“Nothing,” I said. I took her hand and moved up in line.
The roller coaster whipped around corners and dropped suddenly in stomach-churning dips, speeding along in nearly total darkness. The bottom dropped from underneath us; we raced down a long incline in the blackness. I tasted my breakfast.
Jacqueline dug her fingers into my arm. “I’m sca-a-ared. I’m sca-ared” she wailed.
Hell, so was I. I hugged her to me, squeezed my eyes tightly shut, and took a death grip on the safety bar.
At Orlando International Airport, I told Donna to take Jacqueline on a stroll past the ticket counters. I watched them go, Jacqueline’s head on a level with Donna’s waist, Jacqueline’s round white overnight bag dangling from a strap held in Donna’s hand. Donna had changed her daughter for the flight: Jacqueline wore a pleated navy dress that reached her knees. On the dress were rows of identical outlines, a pink bunny rabbit kissing a white bunny rabbit on the nose. Jacqueline was wearing turned-down white socks and patent leather sandals that she scraped along the floor. As they passed the Ozark ticket counter, a rosy-cheeked man in his sixties smiled down at Jacqueline and patted her head. I ducked into the gift shop.
I went past a glassed-in counter topped by a computerized cash register between displays of Spearmint and Doublemint gum, Life Savers, and every flavor of Certs known to man, nudged my way around an enormously fat lady who was blocking the aisle, and found a newspaper rack. Passing over the Orlando and Tampa papers, I selected a Miami Herald, unfolded the paper, and spread it open.
There it was on the front page, midway down from the top, the most prominent headline screaming, “Search Continues for Missing Beauty, Former Football Star.” A crazy grin tugged at the corners of my mouth; all it took was a string of murders and some innovative reporters to transform the Offside Goat of the Decade into a star. I scanned a couple of lines of the story before side-by-side photos of Donna and me, positioned directly beneath the article, caught my eye.
These pictures were better than the ones I’d seen on TV. Jesus, a whole lot better. My image was one that I’d seen over and over, so many times that I was sick of the thing. It was the mug shot taken on my release from Big Spring, the one stapled inside the front cover of my parole officer’s file. They’d intentionally included the row of numbers across my chest; I knew them by heart, of course, 12959-077. My expression in the photo was a whole lot meaner than I really look—at least that’s what I like to believe. My hair was quite a bit shorter—during my last year in prison I’d worn almost a burr—than it was now, but otherwise the likeness was pretty good.
I had a sudden sensation of someone watching me, and I looked around the gift shop. A gray-haired lady, a grandmotherly type complete with spectacles, was standing behind the cash register and facing in my direction. Her gaze wasn’t directly at me; rather it was more behind me and over my head. Nonetheless, I shook the newspaper and held it highe
r, blocking my face from her view.
In Donna’s picture, her hair was short and in bangs. I couldn’t remember ever having seen her in such a hairstyle, so I assumed that the photo had been taken sometime while I was in prison, during the nine years while she was married to Jack and I was spending my nights dreaming about her. The picture was in color, the almost blue, almost gray eyes widened in a half question. Her features—the full lower lip, the straight, slim nose, the laugh crinkles at the corners of her eyes—were perfectly clear. The noose was tightening around us.
I folded the paper and returned it to the rack. As I left the gift shop, hands in my pockets and trying to appear casual, I felt the woman’s gaze on me again.
As I stood off to one side and watched Mrs. Morley give Donna a motherly peck on the lips, then crouch down to hug Jacqueline in earnest, I was surprised at how youthful she appeared. In fact, she didn’t look much different than when I’d been in high school; I would have recognized her anywhere. Her sandy hair had grayed and she wore gold wire-frame bifocals, but otherwise she was the same. Maybe a few extra wrinkles, but she’d strategically done her makeup to hide all that. She wore a tasteful summer cotton dress, charcoal gray, flesh-colored hose, and matching gray low-heeled shoes. Mrs. Morley had always been a stylish woman and would be until the day she died. Twenty years hadn’t changed her much, and another twenty probably wouldn’t do much more.
She let go of Jacqueline, avoided a skycap who rolled a baggage cart between us, came over, and properly hugged my neck. “You look well, Richard,” she said. Her hug had been firm enough and her smile was for real, but the corners of her mouth were bunched in worry lines. Mrs. Morley and my mother were the only people in my life who’d ever called me by my given name. My folks had been gone for some time: fifteen years to be exact. They’d passed on together in an auto accident, on their way up to Dallas to watch me play for the Cowboys.
“Thanks, even if it isn’t true,” I said. “I hope you’ve got enough of a layover that we can visit. I’m sorry about the circumstances, Mrs. Morley, but—”
“Shh,” she said, glancing cautiously toward Donna. She was busy with Jacqueline, checking the little girl’s outfit, making sure that her daughter’s face was presentable. Mrs. Morley said to me, “I have an hour until the return flight, and I do want to visit with you. Alone, at first. There are some things I wouldn’t want little Jacqueline to hear.”
I nodded, then went over, and whispered to Donna, “Take precious somewhere for a few minutes. Your mom wants to read me the riot act or something.” I winked at her. Donna threw a sharp glance at her mother, who nodded.
Donna bent and said to Jacqueline, “I think I saw a couple of toys you might want to take with you. Back there, in the gift shop.” Then she took her daughter by the hand and led her away, Jacqueline doing a happy little skip-step at her side. I escorted Mrs. Morley into the restaurant located just beyond the security checkpoint. We found a table, ordered two coffees, and eyed each other. I’d seen this same expression on Mrs. Morley years ago, when Buddy and I had been in one mess or another, and I didn’t think I was going to like what was coming.
I broke the silence. “You don’t know how much this means, Mrs. Morley, to know there’s still someone to count on.”
Mrs. Morley sipped the coffee and set down her cup with a soft, glassy clink. Her lips were in a rigid line. “I didn’t want to make a scene in front of Donna, Richard,” she said, “and especially not in front of Jacqueline. But as far as counting on me goes, the only thing that my coming here proves is that blood is thicker than water. Buddy didn’t want me to come at all.”
“Buddy? You’ve talked to him?”
“Daily. He’s worried sick about his little sister, just as I am. I’m not doing this for you, that you can count on. Didn’t you do enough to Donna a few years ago? I wrote that off to you being a young man, but what you’re into now certainly isn’t kid stuff. You weren’t such a bad boy, Richard, but I don’t know what’s happened to you in the past couple of decades. I don’t think I want to know. I do think my baby girl is out of her mind for going along with you, but at least my grandchild is going to be safe. That much is a relief.”
My mouth was hanging open. Of all people, I hadn’t expected this from Mrs. Morley. The expression on her face reminded me of the look on a red-faced man who had stuck his nose just inches from mine in the federal courthouse hallway just moments after my conviction on the cocaine charges. “Fucking dope dealer,” the guy had said. “They ought to put you away until your ass freezes.” Now I swallowed hard and said to Mrs. Morley, “Now hold on, ma’am, I didn’t—”
“Didn’t what?” she said. “Don’t tell me what you didn’t do, I don’t want to hear about it. Nobody says the kind of things they’re saying about you unless there’s something to it, so don’t pretend to be lily-white, Richard.”
I sipped some coffee, studied my knuckles. Finally I said, “I don’t blame you for the way you feel, Mrs. Morley. Fifteen years ago I felt the same about people who’d been to prison as you do. But things happen, and everything you read in the paper or hear on the television isn’t true. I didn’t kill anyone, Mrs. Morley, and Donna didn’t have anything to do with anyone dying, either. And I’ll tell you something else. I love your little girl, Mrs. Morley, and I’m going to do everything I can to take care of her. I’m going to try to get her out of this mess, and I think I can. That’s all I can promise, to try, and if you don’t believe me, I can’t do anything about that.”
Mrs. Morley watched me in silence. Her jaw was firm. This was very much a lady, but she could be tough as well. After all, she was Buddy Morley’s mom. She said, “I’m praying that you’re telling the truth, Richard. For my little girl’s sake, I’m getting on my knees and talking to God every night. I’ll tell Buddy what you said. It might make him feel better about you.”
The good-byes we said at the boarding gate were far too formal and far too strained. After she’d finished telling me how the cow ate the cabbage in the restaurant, Mrs. Morley had taken Donna aside. It had been my turn to entertain Jacqueline, which I’d done with an ice cream sundae. When we returned, Donna’s gaze was averted from her mother, and Donna’s mouth was twitching at the corners. Mrs. Morley had let Donna have it as well; maybe not with both barrels as she had with me, but enough so that Donna was more than a little shaken.
It was Jacqueline who broke the ice for all of us. She made it like a little trooper all the way to the doorway where the flight attendant was collecting the boarding passes. Then, without warning, she left her grandmother’s side and ran back to Donna, patent leather sandals clicking on tile and her little pleated skirt swirling about her knees. She hugged Donna about the thighs and clung to her as though the world was ending.
“Oh, Mommy,” she said between sobs, “let me stay with you. Please. Please, I’ll be a good girl.”
Suddenly I couldn’t watch. I turned away and wiped tears from my eyes with the back of my hand. By the time I got ahold of myself and turned back to them, Mrs. Morley had joined Jacqueline. She was hugging Donna’s neck, and her gaze met mine over Donna’s shoulder. A tear rolled down Mrs. Morley’s face and dropped from her chin.
She stepped around Donna and Jacqueline and hugged me as well. She was crying as she said, “I do get carried away, Richard. Can you forgive me?”
“I already have,” I said. “You just take care of Jacqueline. I can’t promise how this will turn out, Mrs. Morley, but I can tell you a couple of things. I’m sure no saint, my track record shows that. I don’t know if I can clear myself or not. I’m on the wrong side of some people who have a lot of clout. But I’m going to protect your daughter. That much you can count on.”
We said our good-byes a second time, with a different meaning, and Jacqueline and Mrs. Morley boarded the plane. Jacqueline paused just before entering the gate, turned, and favored us with a tiny wave. Now she was smiling.
On the way back to the Radisson, it began to rai
n. The storm gathered in what seemed like seconds; one moment the clouds were white puffs in an ocean of blue, the next they had joined to blot out the sun and to send large drops plummeting down to slicken the pavement and muddy the windshield. I’d never before driven a Taurus, and it took a few seconds for me to locate the rental car’s wiper switch. Finally the wipers rose hesitantly from their compartments and thunked monotonously back and forth.
As rain-silhouetted forests paraded by on both sides, Donna leaned back and crossed her legs, her knee close to the dash. She closed her eyes, then said, “Mother teased me to death about you.”
“She didn’t look to me like she was teasing,” I said. “She looked pretty grim.” I slowed the car, peered through raindrops like a thousand falling pencils, recognized the intersection, and turned onto the thoroughfare leading to the Radisson.
She rolled her head on the seat back and looked at me from a slanted angle. “Oh, not back there at the airport, silly. Years ago, when we were kids. When I was a kid, you and Buddy always seemed like men to me. Mom teased me quite a bit, but it was really more Buddy’s doing. I was ten and had this horrible crush on you, and Buddy found out. He told Mom. She pulled my chain a little, but Buddy was downright mean. Every day he’d threaten to tell you about it, and every time he did that I’d about die. You know how big brothers are. Can you remember the time your football letter jacket was missing from your locker?”
I had a tickling of memory, not a clear image. High school seemed a hundred years ago. “Seems like I recall something about it,” I said.
“Well, if we ever get out of this,” she said, closing her eyes and facing front, “I’ll return your property to you. It’s still somewhere at Mother’s, I think.”
I drooped my hand over the wheel, steering with my wrist. “You?”
“Guilty,” she said. “I was in fourth grade and not even supposed to go near the high school. I asked one of the building janitors which locker was yours, told him I was your sister and I had to leave something for you. I rolled your jacket up and carried it under my arm. All the way home I expected to hear sirens. God, I was so petrified.”