Girl in Reverse (9781442497368)

by Stuber, Barbara

  “Did you say Lien Loo was your distant relative?”

  “Not distant. She was my mother.” The syllables vibrate in my ears, my bones. She was my mother. She is my mother. She is one of my mothers. She was once my mother.

  “I see.” He takes off his glasses, rubs his eyes, and fumbles with his handkerchief. “As I said, we lost track of her and her father. It was a great loss. W—where is she now?”

  “I thought maybe you would know. You said she didn’t come here, but she did. She placed me in the Sisters of Mercy Children’s Home when I was three, and after a while I was adopted.” My words sound strong, true, and terrible.

  He glances around as if looking for something, maybe the hidden door to disappear through. “So how is it you have these pictures and the jade?”

  “She left them for me.”

  “Where?”

  “At the orphanage.”

  “Are there more?”

  “. . . yes.”

  “I see.” He nods. Works his hands. His cheeks have a shadow of whiskers. It’s a strong face, one that could be famous—is famous, I guess, in the world of antique art, anyway. “Might you come back with those things? I am most interested. I need to do a bit of research. This is quite a revelation, to say the least. Saturday at ten o’clock?” He looks anxious, ready for me to leave.

  “All right. Saturday morning,” I say, as if I’m making plans to sort canned goods for the Future Homemakers of America Club.

  He turns and asks, “Your name?”

  “Lillian,” I say, and snap my mouth shut before “Firestone” escapes.

  Chapter 25

  Armed with my truth pin, I am about to burst the next Firestone balloon.

  While guilt can motivate a person to do many fantastic and insincere things, anger and resolve—maybe even a bit of fiery Gone Mom–ness—can motivate many fantastic and sincere ones. Mr. and Mrs. Donald Firestone hid Gone Mom in the attic. They don’t think it’s a big deal. Just ho-hum, la-di-da. I know what Mother would do if I tried to tell her that her mother and grandmother, the legendary women who handed down her sacred crystal and currently lost compact, were not real members on her family tree. She’d start growling. Or what if Dad found out that his father—who died in his prime after supposedly handing down his formidable business brains—was really an imposter? No ho-humming that away. No, sir.

  The radio is off. Dad is fidgety even while ensconced in “Old Smoky.” My brother acts like he’s waiting for a horror movie to start. He has already scarfed half a bowl of popcorn in the living room, a Firestone felony. Mother, outfitted in her house shoes, is not saying a word about the popcorn. She sits in the companion chair to Dad’s, looking scared of my box, which is making its second appearance on my lap. She should be.

  Joy is on her lap asleep or playing possum. I wish she weighed a thousand pounds so Mother can’t get up, something she will do any second now.

  My hands are frozen to the lid of my case. My tongue is dry. My heart is turned off. My nerves switched on high.

  Outside, snow dusts our lawn—lazy flakes that won’t live long. I imagine Ralph’s pigeons gathered, eavesdropping at the top of the attic stairs, ready to spread my message around the world.

  Dad crosses his legs. He jiggles one loafer off the toes of his right foot. “So, Lily, I see that you’ve brought that out again.”

  Ralph stops chomping and fixes me with a look of encouragement. I clear my throat and open my mouth, looking right at Mother. “This box contains some things that the lady who gave birth to me wanted me to have.” I inhale so sharply I cough. Joy stretches and repositions herself on Mother.

  My mother changes from looking scared to mildly bored—we already know about this, Lillian.

  “Some of these things”—I open the box and hold up the brush and the little metal stake with a string attached—“are left over from an archaeological dig in northern China in 1934.”

  Dad stops shaking his foot, leans in for a quick look. “How would you possibly know that, Lily?”

  I lift out one photograph of the dig site with the camels and crew in the background. It’s way too small for my parents to see. Ralph leaps off the couch and walks it over to Mother. He does the same with Dad. “It shows the place where she worked with her father, who was an archaeologist in China.”

  Ralph then walks all the pictures of the sculpture parts around. “These are pictures of pieces of a Chinese Buddhist sculpture,” I say. “They eventually found all the parts and put it back together.”

  My mother’s lips are sewn shut.

  Dad gives the pictures a glance. “And . . . how do we know this?” he asks with a mock lawyer tone.

  “The statue is all put back together now in the art museum. Ralph and I saw it. Remember the big newspaper article?”

  Dad sits back as if the mention of art has blown him into the safety of his armchair, but I can see the wheels turning in my mother’s head. “You and Ralph?” She gives my brother an imploring once-over. I know exactly what this is about. She’s going to use Ralph as a side door, a way out of this moment. How did you get to the museum without an adult? What eleven-year-old would be interested in this? Why, you’ve been sneaking around behind our backs!

  But Ralph keeps his eyes riveted to me.

  “The other things that I showed you at dinner are connected to the art museum,” I say.

  “Which museum?” Dad says.

  “The Nelson-Atkins Museum here in town,” I bark. Where’d you think?

  Silent questions bounce between us. “I was brought to the orphanage here because the lady who had me had connections to the art museum.”

  There! Said! I am outside of my skin, untouchable. I glare at my lap.

  Silence.

  I halt a colossal urge to try to explain Gone Mom, defend her for helping me to not die a slave in China. More silence builds around our huge, stifling togetherness. The living room walls cave. The air dies. Time sucks into a drain in the carpet. And still we sit, lassoed.

  Why? Because, miracle of miracles, for once, Mother is still here. She has not stood up. She hasn’t marched to her room.

  But Dad is twitching. He coaxes Mother with his eyes. Please, Vivian, go on upstairs and get us out from under this. I’m surprised he doesn’t get up and carry her.

  She stays put.

  “This lady . . . ?” she says, staring at the box with X-ray vision. “Where is she now?”

  I shake my head and swallow the word. “Gone.”

  She sniffs. “Gone where?”

  “China.” Or dead. But I feel her right here, right now, helping me, gutsy and unafraid, doing the extremely difficult and right thing. Relief floods from my eyes.

  Mother slumps in her chair, elbow on the armrest, cradles her forehead in her hand. What in the world is holding her here? I know she has Kleenex—perfectly folded—in her apron pocket, but she doesn’t hand one to me. It must be too much of an acknowledgment, a “giving in” to feelings about my past. But I do the strangest thing—I lay the bodhisattva’s hand photo on Joy’s little back.

  The snow picks up its pace. Ralph points to the fireplace and announces, “Hey, Dad, I’m gonna build a fire.”

  Dad hops up. “I’ll do it!”

  Ralph turns to him. “I’m the Scout, remember?” They head out the kitchen door to the woodpile on our screened porch. Cold air curls into the living room.

  I stand, propped upright on the rug in front of my mother. This is what Mr. Howard would call a “prism moment,” one that shines light, reveals what’s been hidden. Right now my mother is a prism revealing a rare bit of a mystery inside her. Or maybe the rhythm of Joy’s respiration is instructing her—stay put . . . don’t go . . . stay put . . . don’t go . . .

  The log arranging, flue checking, newspaper stuffing, and flame fanning take over the living room. Ralph and Dad exit to the kitchen. Next comes the rattle of more popcorn kernels into a pan and soon a burst of popping and shaking.

&n
bsp; Mother and I do not talk. The bodhisattva’s hand rises and falls with Joy’s breathing.

  “So . . . you’ve known about this for a while?” Mother says.

  I nod.

  My father may wear the pants in the family, but Mother wears the perfume—her mood reigns, soaks everything, rules the day, the night, and everything in between. But at this moment I cannot sniff her mood.

  She stares out the window. I pick up the photo and find my way back to the sofa. The streetlights are on now. Snow coats our front walk, the bare elm trees, and the cars parked along the street. Dad huffs into the room, leaves the popcorn bowl, and announces he’s going to shovel. I shoot Ralph a warning glance, but he’s already figured out he’s not offering to do it. Dad needs out.

  Mother, incredibly, amazingly, breathtakingly, plunges her Revlon Where’s the Fire? fingernails into the bowl and grabs a handful of popcorn. Joy hops down and bats pieces fallen on the carpet.

  Ralph and Mother and I sit munching and listening to Dad’s shovel. A million beginnings or a million endings sit between us in the room. I cannot figure out which.

  My mother looks right at me and says, “You cannot change the past!”

  I force my eyes to meet hers. “Yeah, but you can conceal it. You can cover it up with a tarp.” I take a deep breath. My voice quavers. I gather my box under my arm and stand up. “What if we had moved from this house? What then? Would you have just left my things for the new owners to inherit?”

  The fire pops, shoots sparks against the screen. Mother leans over and examines the carpet in front of the hearth for cinders. Ralph pokes the logs, then heads to the kitchen.

  Without an answer from Mother, I march upstairs. I am shaking so hard I can’t cry. I sit on the top step listening to Dad scrape stripes in the driveway snow. My parents’ bedroom door at the end of the hall is gaped open, the empty room sunk in twilight. I hear Mother rustle downstairs. Clear her throat. There’s a faint tap-tap, and the click of Dad’s lighter. After a moment the scent of cigarette smoke winds up the stairs to me.

  * * *

  Out of the blue at breakfast the next morning, Dad announces he is taking the afternoon off to teach Mother to drive, even in this weather. We all know he is making the supreme sacrifice, creating a colossal distraction, the ultimate filler-inner to keep the subject of Gone Mom swept under the rug, to keep her from creeping back from China.

  “Who knew you’d have a lead foot?” he says later, giving Mother a pat on the rear after their first outing. He actually seems proud of her. “We need to go car shopping!”

  “God! Gag. Everything feels fake now,” I say to Ralphie while we do the dishes. My head is on fire after our especially inane, trivial, feigned interest in boring nothing conversation at dinner—Mother: I’m switching to Bon Ami. I’m fed up with Ajax. Dad: There’s a hide-a-bed sale at Levitt’s this weekend. Mother: The milkman is out of small-curd cottage cheese. Why can’t cows make adequate amounts of all the curd sizes? Dad: I’m sick of the trials and tribulations of the Dionne quints, aren’t you?

  Ralph gives me a duh look and says, “Why do we need a hide-a-bed? Nobody ever visits us.”

  “So you notice the weirdness?”

  “Of course I notice it. After he’s done with Mom, Dad’s gonna put my pigeons behind the wheel.”

  Chapter 26

  I wake up Saturday wondering where I’ve been all night. Archaeologists have been digging in my dreams, but they weren’t neat and professional. They left piles of my unprotected roots and nerve endings exposed. Nobody, including Ralph, knows that in a few minutes I will be in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. I haven’t even told Joy. I wish she was with me.

  I scan the area for Elliot’s car, the same thing I do walking into school every morning—a habit that started up all by itself.

  I will walk into the Main Chinese Gallery and Dr. Benton will be waiting there, maybe with some other art experts. I will show them my things and they will ooh and aah and ask questions I can’t answer. And I will ask them questions they won’t answer, until there will come a horridly deep moment when Dr. Benton will blurt out the real truth about the Lien Loo cover-up. He will reveal that she’s dead or that she turned bad or that she lives right here in town and has a family full of people she actually loves.

  The wrist rest, jade piece, and slipper box are in my book bag, wrapped in a hand towel inside another towel. Dr. Benton was so clumsy with my pictures, I’m nervous he’ll drop the slipper.

  I’m early, which means freezing on the steps. The wind whips up my coat. I hear a rattle as the metal accordion gates behind the front doors slide open. Guards unlock each set and the museum is ready for business.

  An idea jolts me off course the moment I step inside. What if Dr. Benton contacted Gone Mom and she’s in here waiting for me? He could have.

  Shut up, imagination. Just shut up.

  I glance in the Sculpture Hall. No Elliot easel. I take the elevator instead of the stairs. I can’t run away in the middle of an elevator ride. I force my feet toward the Oriental art expecting to hear voices in the Main Chinese Gallery, but I don’t; only the closing swoosh of the elevator and the rhythm of my saddle shoes.

  I am a bundle of sparking nerves. My bag feels impossibly bulky. What if a security guard stops and asks to check inside it? Why wouldn’t he think I’d stolen my things right off the shelf? He’d insist on knowing my full name and take my fingerprints.

  I’m turning into Ralph.

  Nobody is in the gallery. I recheck my watch: 10:05.

  “Miss?”

  The voice comes from the temple. I walk over. Dr. Benton is seated on a bench along the wall, alone except for the bodhisattva. He’s wearing an all-American wool shirt and corduroy pants. Where are the colleagues he said would be here? I glance above him at the polished dragon pearl, glowing gold. I take two steps in and stop. “Sir?”

  “Would you mind accompanying me up to the Conservation Department on the top floor?” He points to the hidden door, the door I expected Gone Mom to walk through. “The lighting is excellent. We do much of our work up there, especially with the most rare and precious artifacts.” He sounds stiff and official and very different from his public personality.

  How would he know I’ve brought something rare and precious?

  I glance around. “But . . .”

  Dr. Benton motions to the security guard. “Roy, would you be so kind as to accompany us up to Conservation?”

  The guard nods officially, throws me a questioning look, sorts his keys, and unlocks the door. He acts torn to be following orders that seem wrong.

  Gone Mom is not waiting on the other side of the door. It’s just a huge utility closet full of brooms and ladders and feather dusters. There are also wide freight elevator doors and a steep metal staircase with a narrow railing. The stairwell walls are scuffed and gouged. Roy stays downstairs. I don’t blame him. I clutch my bag and follow the expert to the top floor. He does not look back to see if I’m coming. He does not say a word. He just trudges up and up, more slowly with each step—twenty-one altogether.

  At the landing Dr. Benton pushes open a heavy door labeled CONSERVATION. I squint into a big, sunny space on the roof with skylights and windows all around. It smells like the art room, but it’s not messy, more like a laboratory or an operating room. Gone Mom is not sitting on a stool. I have no idea what’s happening.

  Dr. Benton motions for me to put my bag on the table. He seems preoccupied. No doubt he’s got better things to do today. “Conservation is a hospital for broken art,” he says. “Conservators do their best repair work using natural light. But, of course, overexposure can damage the very objects we endeavor to protect.”

  Across from us, attached to a tilted easel, is a big canvas with a painting of a smiling young girl playing a tambourine. It looks old. The frame has been removed.

  Dr. Benton motions me over. “Look closely. The canvas on her upper lip is ripped. The art doctors are stitching and repa
inting it, plastic surgery so to speak. With something as intimate as her smile, the repair has to be perfect. The smallest difference makes all the difference.” He looks at me. “We suspect there’s another painting underneath. Another face beneath the face.”

  I clasp my hands behind my back, lean over a large magnifying glass on a movable arm, and study the little spot that needs fixing. There’s a tray of dentist-type tools and brushes that look like a miniature set of archaeologist equipment.

  “The conservator’s task is to uncover the layers: hidden underpainting, mealy bugs in the wood glue, fingerprints, cigar ashes, staples in the impasto—all the clues to an artwork’s creation and creator. Stories lurk under every surface.”

  Chunks of white marble hang on a contraption of slings and pulleys. Dr. Benton rubs one of the biggest pieces. “In 325 BC this was a lion. We suspect an earthquake near Athens ‘killed’ it. He’s getting a steel skeleton. They’re reconstructing him from the inside out. Still looks pitiful now, but not for long.”

  The entry door pops open. Dr. Benton jumps. I twirl around. A lady in a white coat starts in, sees Dr. Benton, waves I’m so sorry, and backs right out. It is the same woman I thought was Gone Mom.

  My heart pounds. Cloud shadows roll over us. Dr. Benton walks to the door and turns the lock from the inside. He takes a long breath, sweeps his hand.

  “Artworks are like people—fragile and complex. They migrate up here for different reasons.” He pats two stone busts positioned face-to-face. One is a pharaoh with huge ears and the other has a wavy beard and mean eyes. One is missing his nose, the other’s jaw is broken. “These two would have been mortal enemies in real life, but it’s never too late. After five thousand years they’re learning to get along in here.” He pats one head. “With no fancy label, no pedigree, it’s just you and your flaws. To me, Conservation is the most fascinating gallery in every museum I consult.”