Back out in the hall, I look at the final door. I’m reminded of dreams I’ve had—surely everyone has had them—where I’m walking down a familiar corridor and suddenly see a door I’ve never noticed before. That instant of wonder mixed equal parts with fear—there’s been an echo of that feeling with every step I’ve taken through this house. But now, my hand turning this last doorknob, the feeling is strong enough to take my breath away. Even though I already know what I’m going to find.
CHAPTER 11
The summer I turned eight years old, my mother worked as an assistant at a photography studio. More often than not she brought me with her to work, since her boss didn’t mind and the only other option would have been to pay a babysitter. Mr. Nester, her boss, had Brylcreemed black hair and oversize dentures that gave him a Jerry Lewis smile. He had a dozen telephones in his office, and he was always talking in code when he was on one. Looking back, I now understand that he was a bookie and the shoddy photography studio was just a cover, but back then I found him mysterious and oddly compelling. He was loud and always laughing, friendly on the outside, but dark on the inside.
Mr. Nester was one of those people who dislike children but pretend otherwise when in the presence of other adults. He would be all “Hello, sweetheart” when I walked in the door, but on the occasions he and I were alone together, he delighted in terrifying me. No sexual stuff—thank God—yet there was something wrong with Mr. Nester. He prided himself on being a practical joker and thought an eight-year-old was an appropriate target. The pack of gum that snapped shut on my finger, the shock pen, the fake blood, the rubber foot he left sticking out from under his desk . . . And when I invariably screamed and cried, Mr. Nester would laugh, his yellowed Chiclet teeth glowing in the dim light. He’d say I had no sense of humor, then a phone would ring and he’d disappear back into his office.
He liked to say “If I were a bettin’ man” before most of his declarations. It was years before I could tie that joke in with the bank of phones. At the time I thought he was saying “If I were a bitten man.” I couldn’t imagine who would possibly be brave enough to bite somebody who was so mean and had such massive teeth.
It was fun watching my mother take photographs, but when it was time for her to develop them, I was faced with the choice of staying with Mr. Nester or following her into the darkroom. I chose the darkroom, but I’d hesitate long enough at the threshold that my mother would grab my arm and pull me inside so she could close the door. When it was time for total darkness, she’d sit me in a chair and put something in my hands, a pen, her keys, a Coke can, whatever was nearby. “Hold on to this for me,” she’d say. “Don’t drop it.” Then she’d turn off the lights.
When the safelight could stay on it wasn’t so bad. The amber light made it hard to sit and play quietly; it was too dark to look at picture books, but the muted light made the darkroom almost cozy. My mother was right there, and I could watch her moving back and forth purposefully. But there were times, of course, when there could be no light at all in the darkroom, and in those minutes that felt like hours, I sat cocooned in an airless black so complete that it was hard to tell if my eyes were open or closed.
In that thick darkness I held tight to whatever talisman my mother had handed me. Sometimes through the thin walls I could hear Mr. Nester shouting into his phones, and over that I could hear my mother’s voice, singing gently, reminding me that she was there, promising me that everything was going to be okay.
If anything, it’s a little too warm in my grandmother’s house, but I have goose bumps, standing here in the hallway, looking into this room, its contents only vaguely revealed under the safelight’s glow. I stick my arm further inside the doorway and find the switch that turns on the overhead light. I can now see that the darkroom equipment is cobbled together with thrift store finds: a washstand, a long desk lined with trays, brown glass jugs setting underneath, plywood nailed over the window, the Velcro strip across the wall above the door that once held the heavy black fabric now folded on the floor. There’s a wire hung diagonally across the room, and a light box on a card table set up in the far corner. I walk over and pick up the jug of stop bath, cracking the lid for only a second. The vinegar odor that escapes—so sharp I can taste it—burns my nose and makes my knees go wobbly. For a second I’m back there in the dark, waiting to see my mother again.
The pillowcase containing Nick’s strap and the jewelry box fits snugly in the bike basket, but I still take off my belt and fasten it around the whole thing to avoid spillage during the inevitable falls. My bike riding skills are rusty and rudimentary to say the least. I walk the bike down the driveway and onto the street, put my feet on the pedals, ride a few wobbly yards and then put my feet back on the ground, considering the downhill slope before me and the stupid thing I’m about to do. The shitty thing. I know that it’s not okay to sell stuff that doesn’t belong to me. It’s not that I’m lacking a moral compass, it’s that I’ve found life to be easier when I leave it in my pocket. It’s no mystery who taught me that lesson. Even Mr. Nester knew.
“If I were a bettin’ man . . .” he used to tell me, showing me his yellow teeth in what I’m sure he thought was a smile. “I’d say the odds are you’re gonna grow up to be just like your momma.”
CHAPTER 12
The good news is the pawnbroker didn’t call the cops. The bad news comes in two installments. First, I still have no idea whether or not Nick’s guitar strap is actually worth a bundle, because I made the dumb mistake of nodding when asked if the strap belonged to me. It took the broker about two seconds to figure out that I don’t know jack about guitars, which made me having the strap seem more than a little suspicious. The second piece of bad news is that my grandmother’s jewelry is all total crap—his words not mine. The pawnbroker went on to explain—quite emphatically—that he didn’t buy stolen goods or total crap. I quickly refuted the latter, pointing out that he does, in fact, sell total crap because not only was there an Incredible Hulk cookie jar displayed in the window, but on a nearby table I noticed a boxed set of Lawrence Welk DVDs. Sadly, the broker didn’t think that was nearly as funny as I did.
So here I am back out on the street, still in possession of my grandmother’s total crap jewelry and a collector’s-item-near-mint-condition-brown-leather-guitar-strap-signed-by-Jimmy-Page-and-Jeff-Beck. It’s not easy coming to grips with the fact that I’ve just been thrown out of someplace called Ye Olde Pawn Shoppe. I swear, if this shit were happening to anybody else I would be totally laughing my ass off.
I take a couple of deep breaths, shake off this most recent humiliation and come up with an alternate plan. As Queeg likes to say, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. I rode right past a bank on my way to the pawnshop. As a matter of fact, I fell and deposited a bit of elbow skin on a curb near there. Unfortunately, the bank is near the crest of an impressive hill and there’s no way I’m going to get up there on a bike. So I pull the bike close to the building, behind a sagging baby swing, and then pop my head inside the pawnshop and tell the broker I’m leaving it parked outside for a few minutes. Before he can open his mouth to argue, I sling the pillowcase-bundle over my shoulder and hurry away.
Even though the day isn’t overly warm, I’m sweating by the time I reach my destination. When I open the door of the First National Bank of Greater Gandy—the name of which can’t help but make me imagine, with a shudder, the existence of a Lesser Gandy—the air-conditioned air feels like heaven. I tell the woman at the main desk why I’m here, then I grab a cherry Tootsie Pop from the big bowl on the side table and settle down on the sofa to wait. Mere seconds after I put the candy in my mouth, a woman comes over to get me, so I rewrap my pop and slide it into my pocket as I follow her to a glass-walled office.
A man stands when I enter, smoothing down his tie over his shirtfront. The sign on his desk says, Gordon Penny, a perfect name for the man. Penny because he’s a banker, of course, and Gordon because he looks like the name Gordon sound
s, no sharp angles, just soft doughy curves arcing one into the other.
He looks me up and down, his gaze registering my damp shirt and the pink pillowcase in my hand. When he takes my hand in a limp, moist grip, he twists his wrist to where his hand is underneath and mine on top. For a crazy second I think he’s going to kiss my hand, but instead he just pumps it up and down. Mr. Penny must think he’s being gentlemanly, but it feels more like he thinks I’m a dog.
We sit facing each other across his desk. Mr. Penny’s shirtsleeves are rolled up to the elbows, the folded cuffs cutting deeply into his forearm flesh. His tie is loosened, top shirt button mercifully open, but the buttons around his middle are working overtime.
It’s only three o’clock, but it’s already been a long day, so I get straight to the point. “I’ve inherited some property in Gandy, but my car has broken down and I’m a little short on cash. I’m here to see about getting a loan.”
“Using the property as collateral?”
“Exactly. Can that be arranged?”
“You betcha. We just need the paperwork from the probate hearing.”
“That could be a problem.”
“There’ll be a copy on file at the courthouse.”
I explain my situation, playing down the three-month wait, and of course not mentioning any claims pending against the estate. Mr. Penny asks who’s handling the probate, and I tell him.
He leans back, his chair groaning in protest. “Well, I need to have me a chat with old Charlie first. But he’s off on a fishing trip as I recall.”
I nod.
He chuckles. “That man doesn’t fish to live, he lives to fish.”
“Is that right?”
“You betcha. I bought him a T-shirt for Christmas last year that says Women love me. Fish fear me.” Mr. Penny is smiling, but his narrowed eyes belie his friendliness. “This wouldn’t happen to be Matilda Thayer’s place we’re talking about?”
“It is,” I say.
“That’s a mighty nice little house.” Still leaning back, Mr. Penny laces his hands behind his head, props a foot up on an open drawer and begins to rock back and forth. As he continues to talk, the screams of metal fatigue grow stronger. “I took piano lessons from Miss Thayer.”
I nod along, still waiting for him to get to a point of some kind.
“Can’t say as I ever had a knack for it. It was mostly so I’d have a chance to see Genie once in a while.”
“My mother.”
“You betcha.”
He studies me, chewing on his lip, continuing to rock his chair. Squeak, squawk, squeak, squawk. The credenza behind his chair looks solid and just far enough away to cause a head injury the day that chair gives way. Instead of buying T-shirts for his friends, Mr. Penny would be wise to invest in a helmet.
“You don’t really favor your momma,” he tells me. “Maybe a little around the edges.”
Ugh. I don’t know where my edges are exactly, but I do know that I don’t want this man looking at any part of my body.
“Genie was a looker, all right. That blond hair, those big green eyes . . .” He sighs and licks his lips with his thick tongue. “She had a spark, like she was special. Know what I mean?”
He pauses, brows raised. He’s looking for an answer to that question, but he’s out of luck. I’m still back at blond. My mother was a redhead.
“Running around with that camera,” he continues. “Acting like she was the next . . . I dunno. Who’s a famous lady photographer?”
It takes me a minute to realize that he’s waiting for an answer to this one, too.
“Diane Arbus?” I say. “Annie Leibovitz?”
“Never heard of ’em.” He frowns as if this were my fault. “And there was her music, of course.”
“Music?” I wonder if he’s about to ask me to name some famous musicians. In fact, I’m so busy compiling a mental list of musicians that a man like Gordon Penny would recognize, that I almost miss what he says next.
“Hell, you’ve heard her play the piano.”
I work at keeping my face neutral. I never saw my mother so much as touch a piano.
“She was such a big deal with her music scholarship to somewheres back east.” He pauses to heave a deep sigh, pink flesh winking from between the straining buttons on his shirt. “I’m sure you know the whole story . . .”
“Sure.” I shrug, struggling to seem casual. “But I’m interested in your opinion.”
My mother never went to college. Or so she claimed.
“My opinion . . .” He smiles again, his eyes narrowing unpleasantly. “Is that your mother was too big for her britches. She paraded around this town, carrying on, laughing . . .” He shakes his head as if laughing were a bad thing. “And then bang. One day she was gone.”
I wait, hoping he’ll say more. There are all sorts of ways to be gone.
“When she first left, everybody thought she’d just gone on back up to school. But then she stayed away that Christmas and again that next summer . . .”
He pauses here, and I watch him watching me. I’m trying to hide my confusion, but I can’t imagine that I’m successful. I knew my mother’s point-blank refusal to discuss her past was strange, but I’d always chalked it up to a garden-variety unhappy childhood. It had never occurred to me that there was anything actually mysterious about her silence.
“Eventually people started asking questions, but her momma wasn’t talking, and nobody else had a clue. That last summer Genie had been all hot and heavy with Trip, but even he claimed ignorance. No surprise there.” He lifts a lip in a little sneer at the word Trip, so I suspect that it’s a nickname for some good-looking boy. I furthermore suspect that good-looking is something Gordon Penny was not.
“This is a small town, Miss Wallace, a hard place to keep a secret. I nosed around about your momma, believe you me.” He leans forward and looks me straight in the eyes for perhaps the first time. “But I never sniffed a whiff of whatever happened.”
I feel a chill at the cruel pleasure I see in Gordon Penny’s eyes.
“A few years back I heard that Genie passed. I am deeply sorry for your loss.” He doesn’t look sorry.
I clear my throat and manage an uncomfortable, “Thank you.”
“Ms. Wallace, may I ask you a personal question?”
I hesitate before nodding. I can’t imagine wanting to tell this man anything personal.
“How old are you?”
What is it with these people and my age? “Thirty.”
“Any older brothers or sisters?”
I shake my head.
“Well, I’ll be. I guess I was wrong. All this time I thought she’d gone and got herself in trouble.” He curls his thick fingers in air quotes around in trouble.
The age question is making sense now, but unfortunately I have to disappoint all the fine citizens of Gandy who want me to be the solution to the mystery of my mother’s disappearance. My mother was twenty-five when I arrived, a product of one of her many doomed, short-term relationships. And though I never really knew him, the identity of my father is well established. He was, depending on how much my mother was drinking when asked, either a bartender with a sensitive soul, a redneck asshole who took advantage, or my personal favorite, M. Y. O. Fuckin’ B. Now bring me my cigarettes.
Mr. Penny is still looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to give him some clue as to why she left. I compare the girl he described with the woman I grew up with, and I feel a prickle of anxiety. She wasn’t pregnant with me, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t in trouble. There’s more than one kind of trouble.
I clear my throat and say, “About that loan . . .”
He shakes his head. “You don’t legally own that property.”
“But—”
“We might could arrange a signature loan, depending on your credit rating of course.” He can’t resist a quick glance at the pillowcase under my chair.
I don’t have to reply; he knows checking my credit rating
isn’t going to improve this situation.
“Have you got anything else to use for collateral?” he asks.
“My car, maybe.”
“Some payroll-loan places offer auto title loans. You give them the title, they loan you some money. Of course, the amount depends on what your car is worth.”
My car title is in a file cabinet in Queeg’s trailer with all my other too-important-to-be-accidentally-thrown-away paperwork.
“How about a guitar strap?”
“Excuse me?”
I dig in the pillowcase at my feet, pull out Nick’s strap and then set it on Mr. Penny’s desk.
“It’s a collector’s-item-near-mint-condition-brown-leather-guitar-strap-signed-by-Jimmy-Page-and-Jeff-Beck.”
Under the fluorescent lights the sweat-stains on the leather look especially grim, each amoeba-shaped spot outlined in a darker brown. The ink of the signatures looks purple and cheap. Gordon Penny leans forward to look at the strap lying across his desk, but he’s careful not to touch it. After a few seconds he looks back up at me with a question in his eyes. I’m not sure what the question is, so I start answering all the ones I can think of.
“Jimmy Page was the guitarist for Led Zeppelin. Jeff Beck was . . . is . . . well, he’s a famous musician, too. It’s near mint condition . . .” I’m watching the banker’s eyes to see if anything I’m saying is having an effect, but so far it doesn’t seem like it is.
“How much is this worth?” he asks.
“A bundle,” I reply.
“Maybe you should try a pawn shop.”
Well, shit. I sigh and then put on my most winsome smile. “Couldn’t you bend the rules for the daughter of an old friend?”
He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Ms. Wallace.”
Apparently, the smile works better with clean hair.
He stands, and so I stand and shake his extended hand, again the good dog. Woof.
As I’m stuffing the strap back in my bag, he says, “Once you get that paperwork on the house, you come on back here, all right?”
The Art of Crash Landing Page 7