He sighed and then turned and walked to his car, leaned in through the window and then came back carrying a pen and his clipboard-box. I gave him my mother’s name, license number, and social security number without missing a beat. Helping her fill out all those insurance forms had some benefits.
It worked like a charm. The cop sat in his cruiser for a few minutes and then came back with a ticket, which I signed with my mother’s name. He told me to drive safely, and I nodded and smiled, then stuffed the ticket into my mother’s glove box. I’d get that paid before she found out about it, I decided. Surely I would. Probably.
I arrived at the funeral home half an hour after the service was scheduled to begin. My only parking options were either up at a covered entrance where I’d be blocking the hearse, or at the far end of the parking lot. Seeing as how I was late and had another trip to make with equipment, I parked in the covered drive, with a vague plan to move the car before the service ended.
Just inside the door was a sign with the names and locations of the funerals in progress. The McLeod funeral, which was the one I was looking for, was being held in the Serenity Suite. I remember thinking that was funny. The Serenity Suite? As opposed to what? The Agitation Suite? I hurried along the carpeted hallway and eased open the door labeled Serenity and stuck my head inside. A man who looked a little like Jeff Bridges, his hair slicked back in a ponytail was speaking from the podium; next to him was an open casket in which rested Mr. McLeod, I presumed. My mother was standing along the left side of the room, her camera poised. She saw me in the doorway and welcomed me with a frown. Several guests noticed her scowl and twisted in their seats to find its cause. Me.
I hurried out to the car and grabbed the rest of her gear. When it was all piled in the hall, I slipped back inside the room. My mother’s camera bag was on a seat in the last row of folding chairs. I moved it under the chair and sat down.
I concentrated on being invisible. My mother moved around silently, first on one side and then the other taking photos of Mr. McLeod in his casket, and the minister—I’m assuming he was a minister, even if he did have a ponytail—at the podium. The family was up front, so I couldn’t really get an idea of what they looked like, but glancing around the room I saw a lot of long stringy gray hair, and some tall eighties bangs. I counted three mullets. I remember thinking I had entered some tragic bad-hair time warp, but I also remember feeling relief. I looked like shit that morning, but I was dressed more appropriately than most of those people. My black slacks might be getting shiny in the seat, but they weren’t skintight leather or acid-washed denim.
I sat quietly in hangover misery, sipping my coffee and counting the heartbeats thumping in my head, ignoring whatever The Dude of God was saying up front. I noticed that I needed to take my shoes to the shop and get new heels. I noticed that the woman sitting in front of me was wearing underwear a good three inches too tall for her low-rise jeans. I noticed that the arm of the man sitting next to me was covered in a thick pelt of wiry gray hair with a bald strip on his wrist where the stretch-band of his Timex sat. How many years had it taken for that watch to pull all that hair out, one strand at a time? I focused on the jump of the second hand of his watch. I noticed that my coffee was half gone, and I didn’t feel even one bit better.
When the minister finished talking, he made a little motion, and a woman in the front came up to the podium. She was heavyset, in her fifties, and had black hair with a few short spikes on top, the rest falling to her shoulders. She wore a red blazer that looked about twenty pounds too small, a tight miniskirt, and converse high-tops. There was a shuffling sound throughout the room. I wasn’t the only one who sat up straighter as this super-size Joan Jett settled in behind the microphone.
She spoke in a pack-a-day growl introducing herself as Candy and then thanking us for coming to say good-bye to Bowser. I really think she said his name was Bowser. She started talking about meeting him at a Moody Blues concert and then drifted off into some riff about all the concerts they’d attended. As she droned on about show after show, I imagined that I could almost smell the marijuana—although it might have actually been coming from hairy-arms sitting next to me. Candy kept talking about this and that, Rolling Stones, Queen, Harley Davidsons, Jack Daniel’s, lung cancer . . . blah blah blah.
Just when I thought I might have to go outside and have a cigarette—references to lung cancer always gave me the urge—the woman broke down in big showy sobs and left the podium. Some crackling from the speakers in the ceiling hinted that music would now begin. Finally, the closing hymn, I remember thinking. And I lifted my cup of coffee to my lips, just as the sound system played a distinctive guitar and drum riff.
The music was loud, but not loud enough to cover my bark of laughter. The man next to me shouted “Hey!” when I spewed coffee on his arm, and low-rise, sitting in front of me, jumped up when she felt moisture hit the exposed small of her back.
Still coughing and snorting, I hurried to the bathroom. I spent as long as I could blotting the coffee from my roommate’s white button down, but eventually I emerged, finding the Serenity Suite doors open and Bowser’s friends milling in the hallway. I weaved my way through them and back into the room to join my mother. She was taking photos of the family posed around the casket. I carried over the tripod and the lights, then followed her curt instructions as she took various groupings with and without the deceased guest of honor.
When things finally wound down, I waited quietly for my mother to finish packing up her camera, and then I picked up the tripod and lights and followed her. The lobby was tiled and had an aggressive fountain right in the center, so everyone had to raise their voices to be heard over the terrible acoustics. Everyone except my mother, that is, because she wasn’t speaking to me.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She frowned, saying nothing.
“I’m sorry I was late.”
More frowning.
“I’m sorry I coughed.”
The frowning continued, but now with narrowed eyes.
“Okay, laughed,” I admitted. “It was wrong, I know it was, and I’m really, really sorry.”
Her expression eased a little, and I couldn’t resist adding, “But, come on . . . who plays ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ at a funeral?”
She glared at me, but to this day I would swear that I saw just the slightest twitch at the corner of her mouth. When she finally spoke, however, all she said was, “Your shirt is ruined.”
I shrugged. “It’s not my shirt.”
She gave me a look that told me I had once again confirmed her low expectations.
“The oncologist’s office called,” she said. “They have a cancellation this afternoon.”
“I have to work tonight . . .”
“The appointment is at one thirty. Let’s go get lunch and then go hear about my test results. We’ll be finished in plenty of time for you to get to work.”
I put on an apologetic expression. “I can’t do it. There’s a mandatory meeting at work this afternoon.” I told her this because it sounded better than the truth, which was that I had a voluntary lunch date with Eddy the new bartender. The date was in his apartment, and I figured that if things went well, Eddy and I would probably both be late for work.
“But—”
“Just keep your appointment for Monday.”
“I’d rather go today.”
“I’m off work Monday. If you want me to go, it will need to be then.”
While my mother and I were talking, I’d been watching a man in a gray suit and a name tag work his way methodically through the crowd, saying a few words and then moving on. I was pretty sure I knew who he was looking for.
“I already took the appointment for today,” my mother said, “but I do want you there.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to untake it.” I picked up the tripod and tucked it under one arm.
“But—”
She was interrupted by the gray-suited man who�
�d finally reached us. “Excuse me,” he said.
I looked at his slick dark hair, tidy mustache, and pale skin and wondered if he’d resembled a member of the Addams family before he worked at a funeral home, or if the job had caused it somehow.
“Do either of you drive a red Malibu?”
My mother and I both said “yes,” which seemed to confuse him, but only for a second. “You must move your car, immediately,” he said.
My mother made one of those exasperated sounds that mothers do so well, and then said, “Where did you park?”
Before I could answer, the man said, “She parked in the porte cochere!” His horrified tone of voice making it sound as if I’d done a naked interpretive dance in his fancy French covered parking rather than just leaving a car sitting there.
“It was raining,” I explained.
“You know,” my mother said to me, “you still need to get all that crap out of the back of your jeep.”
“Excuse me! You really must move your car right now.”
My mother continued to talk to me, ignoring the man. “I’m parked on the north side of the building. Pull the Malibu around and we can swap out everything in the cars while we finish our conversation—”
“Ladies, please!” The man was bouncing on his tiptoes with impatience.
When I think back on that day, I can’t help but dwell on how easy it would have been to just do what my mother asked. To drive the Malibu around to where she’d parked my jeep. We could have traded out all the crap in our cars. Given a few more minutes to work on me, she probably would have convinced me to postpone my date with Eddy, and that would have been just fine. A Saturday nooner is every bit as much fun as a Friday one. But I was tired and hungover and still cranky about the whole funeral-in-the-rain thing. I’d had enough of my mother for one day.
“I don’t have time,” I told her.
“I simply must insist!” the man shouted, his black mustache twitching.
“Settle down, Gomez,” I said, then I turned to my mother. “I’ll come over tomorrow. We’ll clean out the cars then.”
“But—”
The man grabbed my elbow and began tugging me in the direction of the door. I went along without a struggle since he was escorting me to my car, which was where I wanted to go anyway.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I called back to my mother.
I was at the door when I heard her say, “Mattie!”
I slowed and turned. “What?”
She said something in reply, but with the fountain noise and the hum of conversation I couldn’t hear it.
“What?” I called back again. Gomez was still tugging and the crowd was pushing us farther apart. I had to struggle to keep my mother in sight.
“Be careful,” she shouted. I heard “remember,” and then something else I almost made out, but by that point I was out the door and could only hear bits and pieces of her parting words. The last word was “upholstery.”
I looked down at the tripod in my arms and saw that it was missing the rubber tip on one leg. I was annoyed, of course I was. Her precious fucking Malibu with its stupid tuck-and-roll upholstery. I considered shouldering my way back in there to tell her she could just drive her own damn car if she loved it so much, but the crowd was thick and the hearse was now surrounded by several men in suits, all glaring at me. So instead I just yelled “Everything will be fine” in my mother’s direction as I opened the car door and tossed in the tripod.
I never looked back to see if she heard me.
CHAPTER 41
Luke doesn’t say much on the way home from Richard Hambly’s except to ask if I’m hungry. We drive through a McDonald’s, which wouldn’t have been my first choice, but for once in my life, I keep my damn mouth shut. I’m not always good at picking up clues, but I can tell that Luke is annoyed, and I don’t blame him. First he had to drive me to the middle of nowhere and then he had to watch me make an old man cry.
When we pull up in front of my grandmother’s house, Luke turns to me and asks, “So, did you get what you wanted?”
I’m pretty sure he’s not talking about the Quarter Pounder and large fries in the bag on my lap, but I’m not sure how to answer his question. Mr. Hambly’s story didn’t shed any light on what happened to my mother, but it did explain Fritter’s refusal to discuss my grandfather’s death. In the end, the visit with Hambly was a little like ordering a Happy Meal but ending up with a Big Mac Combo. I didn’t get what I wanted, but I got more than I expected.
“I’m sorry I dragged you into this,” I tell him. It’s not answering his question, but it’s what he wants to hear.
He tips his head in acknowledgment of my apology. “Is hanging out with you always this interesting?”
I grin. “I’ve been compared to a natural disaster.”
“Which one?”
“All of them.”
Luke snorts a little laugh. “I’ll shore up the levies for tomorrow night.” This is his way, I think, of making sure that our date for tomorrow is still on.
The evening sunlight illuminates the left side of his face, accentuating his cheekbone and chin, while casting a shadow across his full lips. He’s turned toward me, one very muscular arm draped over the steering wheel. Good Lord. He’s actually quite handsome. How could I not have noticed before?
“We may need extra sand,” I reply, reaching over to ruffle his hair, just the way he hates it.
Once inside the house, I notice that my already filthy jeans now have a grease spot on one leg. I can put off doing laundry no longer. After eating, I go upstairs to try on some of my mother’s old jeans, but they are way too small. The only pants that fit are a pair of groovy aqua velour sweatpants, so I put those on, gather up a load of clothes, and trudge out to the garage. The washer and dryer are circa I Love Lucy, but I persevere.
I call Queeg to check on him, but Min He answers his phone. She reports that his biopsy went well, but he’s sleeping now. When I ask her to please let him know that I called, she asks why I didn’t call earlier. If I had a good answer to that question, I’d give it to her, but since I don’t I tell her that it’s none of her damn business. She hangs up without saying good-bye.
It’s time to start my stakeout, so I turn off all the lights and sit on the sofa to wait. Sigh. There’s enough of an evening glow coming in through the windows that I can kind of read, so I pick up a magazine from the coffee table. I flip through the pages, mostly thinking about how quiet the house is without the dogs and how much stakeouts suck. But I also find myself wondering: is it marketing genius or some more subtle cosmic force that makes every elderly person on the planet subscribe to Arizona Highways?
It’s full dark when a noise startles me awake. Once I remember where I am and why I’m asleep on the couch, I sit up and rub my face and listen for the sound that woke me. I hear it again; it’s coming from the kitchen.
I pad to the kitchen doorway and peer around the corner. There’s just enough ambient light for me to see what’s making the noise. It’s Tawny wedging herself through the little doggy door. I watch in wonder as she inches her way forward. It’s exactly like childbirth, but only if babies emerged from the womb fully clothed and cursing under their breath. She has one shoulder through the door, and as I watch, she squirms until the other pops through. I wait until she’s struggling to get her hips in without losing her pants, and then I turn on the light.
The look on her face is priceless, simply too good not to save. I pull out my phone.
“Smile!” I take the picture even though her expression could in no way be mistaken for a smile.
I grab her a beer and set it on the kitchen table, pull out two chairs and then sit in one and wait. Meanwhile, she’s rocking back and forth, pausing to pull her pants up every so often until she finally gets the rest of her body on this side of the door. Standing, she brushes herself off and then comes over to sit at the table.
“You should join a circus,” I say.
She twi
sts the top off the Bud and gags down a swallow. “How’d you figure it out?” She’s trying to act cool, but I can tell she’s secretly pleased that I’ve discovered how clever she is.
“You’re not as smart as you think you are.”
“Whatever.”
“You were careless. Leaving my stuff in your truck, and there was a cigarette butt in the turd you left on the shelf this morning. I happen to know the Winstons have a cigarette habit.”
She thinks about this and nods. “Where are they, by the way?”
Her question catches me by surprise. I’d assumed that she had them, but her confusion looks genuine.
“You tell me. They were gone when I got home last night.”
Her expression changes from tough to stricken. “They were here when . . .” She pauses, reluctant to confess.
“The gate was standing open when I got home last night.”
“I thought I shut it,” she says, blinking back tears.
“I know.”
“I meant to shut it—”
“The latch is messed up. It could’ve happened to anybody.” I don’t like the girl, but her guilt makes me squirm.
She nods and sniffs.
“But my other stuff didn’t run away.”
“Other stuff?”
“The guitar strap, the camera bag, about a thousand negatives.”
She shrugs. “Not ringing any bells.”
“Come on, the strap doesn’t belong to me, and the camera bag was my mom’s.”
“So?” Tawny keeps her expression cool. She’s trying to tough this one out.
“Please,” I say, surprising both of us, I think.
Tawny sighs and sets down her beer. “Okay.”
On our way out to the truck Tawny explains that Fritter instigated the theft—of the negatives, anyway. According to the girl, when she mentioned our plans to print some of the old negatives at the house, Fritter went ballistic and insisted that Tawny make sure that didn’t happen. The girl’s plan had been to swipe the negatives at some point when we were working in the darkroom, but when I bailed on her and went home with Father Barnes, she instituted an alternate, more punitive plan.
The Art of Crash Landing Page 23