Another thing about Uncle Frosty—he never tries to do me out of a good hard cry. He just minds his own business and lets me rip. About a mile from the airport I said, “Sorry. This is almost over.”
He smiled, remarked that it sounded about six months overdue, and waited till we reached the freeway before he said, “Shan, I’m loaded with questions. I don’t like to pry into your private life, but—”
“I don’t have a private life. Too many parents.”
“All right, then—I think you’d better tell me what’s been going on this year. Why didn’t you tell me long ago?”
“Oh—I suppose I kept thinking it might get better.” Actually, I’d spent the first awful month refusing to face facts, the other nine grimly saving face. “It’s just been a disaster, start to finish. But I’ll tell you if you like.” So I told him, for several miles, about the Siberia that was Mary-High, the strangers my old friends had turned into, the innumerable In groups who agreed on only one thing: I was Out. “If I could just have been anonymous—plain Shan Lightley. But no. I was Greg Lightley’s daughter. My word, how I wish Dad had never begun that TV freelancing! When I was little, nobody knew or cared what he did for a living. Now every time you turn on a newscast there he is, standing beside the Elysée Palace or somewhere, being madly intelligent and interesting, and impossible to live up to . . . Or else I’m Mother’s daughter! People hear about that, and then they look at me. With utter incredulity.” An odd sound escaped Uncle Frosty, and I added, “Laugh if you like. It’s a very mixed blessing to have a mother who looks like mine.”
“Well, old dear, I know. So what did all those peerless beauties at Mary-High do about it? Make scathing remarks?”
“Oh, no. They talked only to each other. I could sit in a whole room full of girls I’ve known since grade school and never be directly spoken to once. I mean it. Uncle Frosty, it makes you feel inanimate, like a chair. Of course, I had nothing to say to them, either. I suppose I never acted natural.” I stared out the car window, wondering what was natural. For years I’d simply acted as various people expected me to act. Mother wanted a naive schoolgirl, the younger the better. Madame Fourchet took for granted a gawky American with an A average and a personality like an ingrown toenail. Dad and Jeanne expected a congenial companion who could talk newspaperese, figure a tip in dinars, and get herself from Lausanne to Helsinki with a minimum of fuss. Aunt Doris only wanted back her happy little hoyden, but that was hardest . . . And I was tired of adapting, switching languages and attitudes, memorizing American slang—oh, I’d tried to adapt to Mary-High, too, early on when I was still trying anything. But it was like trying to adapt to a family party. I said, “No telling how I acted. I know I smiled until my jaw ached. All I could think of to do. Smiled and smiled and smiled.”
“‘The foolish face of praise,’” Uncle Frosty quoted. “‘. . . the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease, in answer to conversation which does not interest us.’”
“Who wrote that?” I asked in astonishment.
“Emerson.”
“Well, it’s a speaking likeness of me anytime this ten months.”
“You did speak sometimes, then.”
“Yes, and always regretted it.” I turned to him in real bewilderment. “Uncle Frosty, do I have a British accent? Mother keeps complaining that it’s American!”
Uncle Frosty cleared his throat. “Well—let’s say it’s not pure Mary’s Creek. And you do tend to forget that lorries are trucks here, and lifts are elevators—”
“Oh, that lot. And nobody here says ‘frock.’” I brooded a moment. “I hold my knife and fork wrong, too—did you know that? Wrong for America, right for everyplace else in the world. My word! Why do I have to learn to eat differently to get on with people? Why do I have to keep changing myself, wherever I am, whoever I’m with?”
“You don’t,” Uncle Frosty said patiently.
“I can’t.” I suddenly felt desperate. “Don’t think I wouldn’t. I’d trade lives with anybody, tomorrow morning. But you can’t go back and not live places you’ve already lived, or unlearn things you know, or pick different parents—you can’t get out, you’re just trapped inside yourself!”
“Shan, old dear. There’s no need to get out. Give yourself a little time—”
“I don’t have any time. Uncle Frosty, I’m eighteen years old—I’ve got to find someplace to live, something to do with myself! I don’t belong anywhere. Except airports. In Europe, I thought I was American—I thought that was my trouble. But people here think I’m European. I’m just nothing, nobody identifiable. Basically.”
“Oh, there’s not a thing on earth wrong with you basically.”
“Something must be, or people would like me better. Wouldn’t they? And I’d find people I liked. Aunt Doris says I’m too critical of the Mary-High lot—maybe she’s right. Or maybe Dad is—he says I close my mind against Europe. And Mother says . . . Oh, I don’t know. Whichever parent I’m with, I decide that one’s probably right. Until I get away from them. I’ve got to find my own answer. Some kind of new one.”
“The University of Oregon would be new, wouldn’t it?”
“No! It’d be just a larger version of Mary-High, and I’d loathe it. And everybody’d loathe me, as usual.”
Uncle Frosty sighed rather lengthily. Presently, we swung off the freeway and stopped at a traffic light. He said, “Let’s back off from this whole thing a little. What do you actually want out of life, Shan, anyway? What sort of thing would you like to do, or be, or have, before you die? Now don’t just say something—think about it before you answer.”
I thought about it, but all I came up with was what other people wanted me to be or do. Aunt Doris hoped I’d marry some nice steady boy and live forever in Mary’s Creek. Mother thought I should stay in London and try for the stage—when she found a moment to think about it. Dad, of course, was bound I’d go to college—somewhere, anywhere, though he failed to mention what I was to do with all this education once I’d got it.
“I don’t know,” I told Uncle Frosty irritably.
“Oh, sure you do. Everybody does, at least vaguely. Just sort of squint your eyes and see what shape your inner man—inner girl—has been gradually assuming for eighteen years. For instance, you used to write stories—remember? You were going to win the Pulitzer Prize.”
Oh, I remembered. At one time I was going to be a U.N. interpreter, too. And later a prima ballerina, and later a film star. I’d had dozens of fervent ambitions, and they’d all worn out faster than my shoes. “Uncle Frosty, my inner girl hasn’t any shape at all; she’s just a mass of protoplasm. If you want to know, I’m bored stiff with her. What I’d really like is to start fresh, be somebody else altogether, and never hear my name again.”
He didn’t answer—understandably enough. I sighed and stared at my hands. Long fingers, rectangular nails a bit paler than the tanned skin around them—I’m the odd redhead who gets a tan. Good hands for the stage, Nevin had told me once. Great. I wasn’t going on the stage. My head was beginning to feel queerly detached—as if it were floating somewhere just above my shoulders. I reached up to sort of steady it, saying, “I do keep feeling so odd.”
“You probably need some lunch.” Uncle Frosty glanced at his watch. “Holy smoke. I should think so.” He turned sharply, backtracked a block or two, and we came to rest in the parking lot behind a restaurant. “You know, Shan,” he said as we left the car. “I may be having an idea about you. It’s just a-borning. Give me a few minutes—I’ll tell you as we eat.”
4
It may have been that statement, or it may have been the aroma of charcoal-broiling—or maybe just the aftereffects of soul-baring and a good cry. But by the time we’d ordered, the world began to seem a slightly brighter place. I kept thinking, at least I’m not on my way to London—and I’m not in Mary’s Creek. I was
still in the States, though, and from my brief but wild exhilaration on that parapet, I knew I wanted to be. I had no idea what came next, but I hoped Uncle Frosty was about to tell me.
He thought it over until we’d got our hamburgers and begun on them. Then he said abruptly, “See here, Shan, would you be interested in a little bargaining?”
I felt a bit suspicious of that. “What kind of bargain? If it involves college in any form, I wouldn’t.”
“No, it specifically does not involve college—that’s its point.” Uncle Frosty gave me the mustard and a slightly exasperated glance. “You and your dad! You’re exactly alike. Both want everything settled right this minute—and settled your way and no other. Neither one of you thinks he’s human and might change his mind. Well, I think you both are. In my opinion no decision at all ought to be made just now. About college or anything else.”
“But one’s got to be! I can’t just—”
“Wait. I’m about to take off on a flight of fancy.” He ate a bite of hamburger, staring past me. “All right, now listen. Suppose you were to stay right here in Portland, for the summer. You don’t go to business school, you get a job. You earn your own keep, mind your own business, run your own life. Everybody you know, especially parents, stays strictly away from you and out of your affairs. You needn’t even give anybody your address—you’re incommunicado. All this goes on for three full months.” He waited while I absorbed that—felt trap jaws opening, bricks lifting off my head. “Well? What does that sound like?”
“Heaven,” I quavered.
He smiled. “I thought it might. Well, Shan, I’ll undertake to arrange those conditions—as my part of the bargain. Here’s yours: in return for all this let-aloneness, you shelve the whole question of college for those three months. You refrain from making up your mind one way or the other—in fact, you try hard not to think about it at all. Then at—well, say at the end of August—we take another look. If you still say no, all right. It might be for better reasons.”
We sat for a moment, not speaking. Then I said tremulously, “A breathing space. A sort of three-month Nirvana. Do you mean it?”
“I do. If you think you can do your part.”
I could feel myself beginning to bubble internally like a bottle of champagne. “Well, you’re on! I’ll be so glad not to think about it. I’d even considered a job, you know. But Aunt Doris—”
“I’ll handle your Aunt Doris. And your dad.”
Dad. I swallowed, and the bubbles began to subside. “He’s going to thunder and lightning. He’ll say I’m not trained for any job. It’s true.” I gnawed my lip, then brightened. “D’you think anybody’d want translating done? Or—”
“I think somebody might easily want envelopes addressed or telephones answered.”
“Oh.” The brightness dimmed a bit. “Or dishes washed.”
Uncle Frosty grinned and said it might not come to that, and to get on with my lunch. He went on with his own, adding, “The chief thing is to get busy enough with something else to quit thinking about yourself for a while. That’s the crux of my idea. And while you’re going through the want ads—well, you can do a job for me.”
“For you? No. That won’t wash, Uncle Frosty. I don’t want made-up work.”
“This is a bona fide job. With pay. The fact is, I badly need somebody to go rent a certain room and occupy it for about three weeks, at near-starvation wages. If you agree, you’re hired.”
I stared at him over my lifted fork. He seemed quite serious. “Well—jolly good, then. But what an odd thing to need. What happens after three weeks? The room turns back into a pumpkin?”
“No, my pet detective gets free from another job he’s on and takes your place.” Uncle Frosty pushed aside his plate and explained the problem. The boardinghouse this room was in was quite near Fremont College, and while the room was empty now, it might soon be snapped up by some student arriving for the summer session, which would begin shortly after the present term ended. “In three weeks, my sleuth can take over; then you can move to better quarters. Our guest room, if you like. Strictly under the terms of the bargain, naturally. Mona and I will behave as if we didn’t know you.”
“Yes, all right—but tell me why you’re suddenly involved with what sounds like cloak-and-dagger fiction? I thought you only filed lawsuits and wrote wills and that sort of thing.”
“This is that sort of thing. There’s a will—one you’d never believe if you saw it in fiction—and there’ll probably be a lawsuit. Depends on what my man finds out.”
“Why wouldn’t I believe in it? The will, I mean?”
“Because the thing is twenty-two carat oddball. Wouldn’t your credulity be a little strained if you read about a bequest of $50,000 to be granted in scholarships solely to students who want to study subjects of no practical value to them?”
“No practical value?”
“That’s right. And there’s a bequest of $7,500 to a man named Kulka, specifically for the establishment and maintenance of a weed garden.”
I put down my cup and stared at him. “Uncle Frosty, where did you get this will? You never drew it up, surely?”
“Heaven forbid. The whole thing was dumped on me just last week in San Francisco. By Newton, my now-bald buddy from law school.” He explained: Newton had come around to his hotel, bringing a Mrs. Lorna D. Watson of Oakland, who wanted to contest her mother’s will. Since her mother had moved to Portland four years before and died there the previous spring, probate and the suit—if any—would be in Portland, and Mrs. Watson needed an Oregon lawyer. Uncle Frosty had agreed to take the case. “For auld lang syne. Before I’d read Mrs. Elizabeth Dunningham’s will. That’ll teach me to be sentimental.”
“But you’re joking, aren’t you? She didn’t actually say weed garden? Right in the will?”
“She did. What’s more, she left one fellow $10,000 to go fishing.”
“Why, she was crazy as a bedbug, wasn’t she?” I said in awe.
Uncle Frosty said he suspected it. “That’s no help to me in trying to break the will, though. Being crazy as a bedbug isn’t legal grounds for contesting.”
“Not even if she was obviously dotty and you could prove—”
“Not even if she’d spent the last fifty years in a mental institution and left her entire estate to establish a home for indigent mice. She could still have a valid will.” He reached for the check and dug in his pocket for a tip. “We’d better get home and start proceedings on that transatlantic phone call. Feeling better?”
I was feeling remarkably better. As we walked to the car, I took a deep breath of warm June air and marveled at how good I felt. He’s right about me, I thought. I’ve been in an egocentric rut a mile deep. A job is what I need, a good hard one, something to get my mind on . . . Just now I couldn’t get it off what he’d been saying. As we turned away from midtown traffic and started winding up into the west hills toward his house, I said, “Uncle Frosty, is her will valid?”
“Mrs. Dunningham’s? I’ve no way of knowing yet.” He glanced at me, smiling. “You seem very interested in that will.”
“Well, my word! Who wouldn’t be? Can you imagine anybody wanting a weed garden?”
“I can imagine somebody wanting $7,500 with no very binding strings attached.”
“Oh!” I pondered that a moment. “You think it’s all a plot of some kind? To get her money?”
“I don’t know what I think yet; I’ve barely had time to read the will, so far.”
“But that’s what you suspect? That she sort of fell among thieves?”
“It’s certainly one possibility. She’d never set eyes on any of these legatees until she moved up here four years ago. Her daughter—this Mrs. Watson—hasn’t set eyes on them yet. Then there’s another”—Uncle Frosty jammed on the brakes to let a bus thunder across our bows—“odd fact. All the lega
tees live within one square block of 1234 College Street—that’s the boardinghouse where the old lady lived in Portland, and finally died.”
“You mean the neighbors ganged up on her?”
He shrugged. “Could be. She already had a perfectly good will, dated a week after her husband’s death—that was about five years ago. It left everything to her only child, Mrs. Watson. In the new will, Mrs. Watson isn’t even mentioned. And the new will’s dated just a couple of months before her death.”
“My word!” I said with relish. It scarcely took a lawyer to catch a whiff of fish in that. We’d driven the last two blocks and were turning into the driveway before it occurred to me to ask where the detective came into this. “And what’s that room I’m to rent got to do with it?”
“Everything. That’s the room Mrs. Dunningham lived in for four years, and died in last March eleventh.”
“It’s what?”
He grinned as he cut the engine. “Well, I’m not sure it was her room, but it’s the same boardinghouse. And presumably the same neighbors are still around. Do you begin to see my devious methods? Come on in the house. Mona’s still at Symphony Committee meeting, but you know the way to your room.”
We went in, and I took the camel-bag up to the guest room, wondering what I might have thrown in it when I packed yesterday. I didn’t open it to find out, though. I stood a moment pondering Uncle Frosty’s devious methods, then went back down to find him. He was in his study, just pushing the phone aside. I said, “Look. Let me see if I have this straight. You’re planting a spy in the thieves’ nest, is that it? To see if they’ll give themselves away in an unguarded moment? And I’m to be substitute spider in the middle of this web until the real spider takes over?”
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