She was clearly taken aback; then shook my hand. “You’re Eunis.” She was strong.
“Yes.”
“I guess we all need appointments to see the great man.” Her lips were tight, her perfect teeth hidden.
“Sorry.”
“Yes, well, I guess it comes with the territory. But it would be nice to see him once in awhile. It’s every night now.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“You’re done with the Miss USA, right?”
“Yes.”
“Ever find that guy you were looking for? I told Vic you called.”
“I did, thank you.”
She kept studying my face. Then checked the waiting throng; slapped her skirt and stood up. She flashed her perfect teeth. “It was nice meeting you.” She walked out and I did the same a few minutes later.
***
It had been almost four days since Atara confronted me in the parking lot and her subsequent silence was deafening. An hour didn’t go by without me expecting her to show up at the farmhouse, violently. Yet now more than ever, with the threat of a tape, the comb was my best insurance against her attacks, even though her precious comb also brought the peril. A paradox.
I knew no exchange would guarantee my safety. The best I could hope for was a stalemate. Maybe spending time around Roddy had made me more tactical.
She wasn’t the taciturn type. The suspense finally got to me and I found her number on my cell, from the call she’d made to me that final day in the pleasure ship. When I called I was surprised when Levi answered.
“Who’s this?” His honeyed voice instantly recognizable.
“Eunis.”
“How’d you get my number?” Train signal bells jangled behind him.
“You know she’s here in Minnesota.”
“I do.”
“You too?”
“No, and I told her not to, but she’s a women of great beauty and great will.”
Beauty, absolutely; will, more likely malevolence.
“What do you want?”
“I don’t have your comb.”
“Don’t tell me, tell her. It’s not my business.”
“Call her off. Tell her to come home.”
I sensed his amusement across the space. “I’m not home, and she’s got a mind of her own.” More train noise. “The sun could be jealous of the stars. Would you like to meet me for a few days?”
“No.” But part of me missed his body; part of me missed his admiration.
“Then good luck.” He hung up.
I walked back into the house, watching the woods, the shadows, for any movement.
***
“The hell you are,” said Momma when I told her that Lyle and I were planning a drive. “My party,” she growled.
“We’ll be back for the party,” I said. A lie. I expected her face to show the usual apathy, but she seemed genuinely hurt.
“I’ll expect it. This could be my last. Please.”
***
The lodge ceilings were high, the dark logs rustic and grand. Rooms split off in different directions reminding me of the grandeur of Levi and Atara’s palatial ship, although their apartment had become a kind of sinister museum, palatial but sinister. The lodge, however, reeked gravitas. Signs announced that it was built in 1905.
“You’ve never seen the headwaters of the Mississippi?” Lyle stuck his nose against the smell of the old wood.
“No.”
And that’s where the front desk sent us, a rotund formal man with especially small ears saying, “She’ll be out along the trail somewhere. You can’t miss Constance, can’t miss her smile. She’s an institution here.”
So we began the walk, mud and puddles, passing interpretive signs and a few small families returning in the late Saturday afternoon light. Kinglets and vireos —I never could tell the difference— looping from tree to tree, chipmunks waiting for food to drop along the wooded trail.
“I used to dream of floatin’ like Huck Finn down the Mississippi, get as far away as possible,” said Lyle.
“Me too! But I’d start here, not in Missouri. All the way down.”
“Coulda met Johnny Ray early on, maybe played New Orleans.”
The trail opened up and I saw lake water beyond. A squat woman with a brown baseball cap talked to a young couple.
“Here we go.” Lyle pointed at the lake. “All’s we need is a raft.”
“Thank you,” said the young woman, letting her hand drop from the young man’s, and as the squat woman removed her baseball cap to itch her head, I saw hair so thin her crown showed through, like the older woman at the Drink ‘n’ Dive.
“Did you know,” I heard the squat woman say, “that Itasca means ‘truth’ of the ‘head?’ Yes. Walk around. It will be good for you. It will be good.”
“Thank you, Constance,” said the young man shaking her hand again because she’d offered it again, while he tugged his partner away with the other. “You’ve been very informative.”
“No, thank you.” Constance turned to bid them farewell and smiled broadly. “Thank you, thank you. Come again. En-joy!”
Lyle and I were no more than twenty feet from Constance, who turned to us as the young couple departed.
“Here you are at the headwaters of the Mississippi,” she said to us, “where the mighty river begins its 2,552 mile journey to the Gulf of Mexico.” Her yellowed teeth and shining blue eyes lit up most of her face, as her head bobbed left and right in pure pleasure at seeing us. “I’m Constance. Is this your first visit to Itasca State Park?”
“No/yes,” Lyle and I responded in unison.
“Well, welcome. I’m Constance. I can tell you a lot.”
She was mid-forties, I’d guess, but it was hard to tell because her face was out of proportion: flattened nose, wide curved eyes, like a child. She had a full or partial extra copy of chromosome 21: Down syndrome. A kind, happy face, despite its dysmorphic structure. Perhaps Johnny Ray had made a mistake.
Lyle made eye contact with me as if to question our purpose.
“I’m Eunis.” I held out my hand, a rare initiation for me.
Constance took it with both of hers. “Hi, Eunis, I’m Constance. Welcome.”
“This is my brother, Lyle.”
“Hi, Lyle.” Constance waved. He waved back.
“So this little stream becomes the mighty Mississippi?” I said. “I’ll bet you’ve met a lot of people since you’ve been here at the park.”
“A lot.”
“Do you remember a friend of mine, Harold Cloonis?”
Constance’s face went blank, then shined ever more brightly. “I remember. I remember Harold.”
“You do?” Still, maybe Johnny Ray had been confused about their relationship.
“He was my boyfriend for a while,” she said proudly. “You know him too? Is he your boyfriend now?”
I might as well have had sawdust in my head. I was dumbstruck. “No, not now.” I thought about telling Constance.
“He is a nice man. I love him. I am glad I know him. He is a nice man.”
I swallowed. I collected myself. “Yes, he is. What do you remember about him?”
“He was nice. He took care of me. He made me feel . . . ” Her eyes were mischievous. “. . . well, like a woman. I like that!” She faced Lyle, tilted her head. He smiled at her.
I couldn’t imagine. “Why did it end, you and Harold?”
“He had to go. Okay, it was okay. I knew he wouldn’t be forever. Forever is long. He is a nice man.”
I was on autopilot. “When did you stop seeing him?”
“I don’t know time so well.”
“Well, thank you.”
“Do you want to hear about the headwaters of the Mississippi?” Constance’s little engine was raring to tell.
“No, thank you, we have to go, but it was a pleasure meeting you, Constance.” I turned, gathering Lyle in the process. The pattern was clear, and I fit perfectly in it.
<
br /> “You too, Eunis and brother.” She waved. “You too. Enjoy! Say ‘hi’ to Harold. Tell him Constance loves him.”
If Lyle hadn’t been with me I would have cried all the way to the car, and then I don’t know what.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
We didn’t talk much on the way home, traveling through dense unsettled knob and kettle woodlands of virgin red pine and bloodroot. Now I understood why Harold was so resistant to bringing me to the park.
Without turning to Lyle I finally said, “I wanted us to be together. Spend some time.”
His eyes went soft. “Thank you.”
“You’re the brother I never had.”
“Right.” He chortled and rubbed my shoulder.
We became quiet again, Lyle probably wrestling with his demons or perhaps contemplating his last visit to the Mississippi and never riding it to its end. Me gripped by my painful inconsequence, how easily Harold had exchanged us all. No more than a factory part.
Finally Lyle asked, “Who told you about Johnny Ray?”
I was struggling with my thoughts. “A text. Don’t know who.” Or why.
Again we reverted to silence.
We stopped at a bar restaurant in the middle of the woods because Lyle was particularly gaunt and there were few places to stop before Bemidji. The food — a plump lightly fried walleye with chips and a cheeseburger with slaw and chips — turned out to be pretty good, though the place was full and festive and rowdy with music. Neither of us fit in. We ate quickly, leaving an obscene amount on our plates.
On the way out I caught a glimpse of Victor in a booth, beyond the dance floor. He reached across the table, addiction in his eye, and met the hand of a woman. Fingers intertwined. I couldn’t see her. He didn’t see me.
I moved to the far end of the bar to get a better look. A cocktail waitress pushed past me through the crowd. He kissed the woman’s hand then looked up and toward the bar, as if he was aware I was watching him. I turned away and ducked my head. I don’t think he saw me. It was none of my business.
When we got to the car, my windshield was fissured in veins, a one-way assault from a crowbar or baseball bat.
“Oh shit,” said Lyle.
Around the dark dirt parking lot nothing moved.
Lyle yelled, “Come out you fuckin’ coward!” But there were only crickets and the music and laughter from the bar.
“I’m going back in,” I said.
“Talk to the owner? I better come with you.” But he leaned heavily against the car.
“Not necessary. Will you be okay?”
“I’m fine.”
By the time I got back inside and fought my way to Victor’s booth, it was empty. I scanned the dance floor. I corralled a waitress and yelled above the din. “Did you see the woman with the guy in that booth?”
She looked at me like I was insane, then yelled, “You kidding? You see this place?” She shrugged me off. “I got six tables, she’s got nine. Juliette, that bitch, didn’t show. No time for getting familiar with nobody tonight.”
And with that she headed to the bar.
***
The glare of the fractured windshield fought me all the way home. After we passed through Bemidji and non-existent Puposky, with the farmhouse minutes away, I broke the silence. “Your Martin,” I said speaking of his once constant companion guitar. “You’ve stopped playing.”
“What’s the point?”
“I haven’t heard you sing in years.”
He managed little more than a sucking-air sound.
“It brings you pleasure. It’s your thing, it’s your beauty.”
“Was.”
“Your dad loved music, remember?”
“O’course. And he was your dad too.” Even in the dark I could see Lyle turning to me to acknowledge it. “He gave me that toy ukulele. He got me started.”
“And,” I reminded him, “he hummed those songs, remember? What was the name of that guy?”
“Ralph Stanley. He loved Ralph Stanley.”
Papa Karl would hum the songs just fine but he’d never sing any of them, like his mouth was sewn shut when it came to singing. Maybe that’s why Lyle took it up, so he could sing for his father. “You brought your guitar to the hospital. You sang him a couple songs.”
“I did.”
“He couldn’t speak. He could barely move a finger or bat an eye, but he could hear. You put a small curl on his mouth. I’d call it a smile.”
“I don’t remember.”
“I do.”
“Your point?”
“Play. Play for me. Play for Momma. Mostly, play for you. Leave us a piece of your beauty. Leave something of you I can hold on to.”
Silence. We turned on to Smith Road. Pressure built around my shoulders, fatigue parched my eyes. I steeled myself. “I hope Momma’s asleep.” At the farmhouse, the kitchen light was on.
“You ungrateful little bitch!” screamed Momma when we entered. Bottles and shrapnel shelled peanuts surrounded her. “Your real sister Carly came all the way to see you, Lyle, and your freak sister ruined everything, as usual.”
“Momma!” Lyle yelled without hesitation, a single searing accusation so damning I thought that, in that moment, my brother had shorn his fear and regained his health.
“She’s a devil, Lyle. She’ll drag you down like she has me.” Momma spun around, clutched her chest and fell to the floor.
Lyle staggered, I ran to her. “Momma!” I squatted next to her and raised her to her elbows. “Momma, what happened?”
She reached out for him, quivering. “Lyle, my baby.” She looked up at me. “You’re trying to kill me.”
“No, Momma.”
Lyle brought her a glass of water. She sipped it. We sat her up. “Don’t you touch me,” she said flinging my hands away. “Lyle.” She reached for him, pleading, and with every once of strength he had left he was able to pull her to her feet.
Then he collapsed.
“Lyle!” I knelt by my brother, cradling his head in my hands.
He was dazed. “I’m okay,” he said to me. “Just dizzy.” He took slow, shallow breaths and stared blankly at the garbage can.
Momma faced me, hands on hips, teeth bared. “Ya see what ya done.”
I was empty. There was no shelter from any of it.
***
Over the next few days I did my best to avoid Momma, mostly working on the skin of the house. It also kept me out of town, where I had no interest in bumping into Victor. I was ever vigilant for Atara but there was no sign of her, which made me even more uncomfortable.
My plan was to stay, tending to Lyle until he passed and I’d solved Harold, and then who knew? I’d never planned on leaving Momma because I’d never planned on coming back in the first place. But now that I was there, a blunt pulse followed me around.
And when would be an appropriate time to leave, if ever? The allotted time, though, the appropriate amount of time, was already a concept I’d have to reckon with. It also suggested the possibility of a Sisyphean existence without parole. Every breath, in or out, was a breath of low-level depression. I couldn’t shake it.
Momma wouldn’t look me in the eye. We didn’t speak. I heard Lyle strumming his guitar in his room, creating a warm, momentary micro-climate around my heart. Carly left the morning after the party without a word, just a note saying she’d be back within the week.
“You got a call from some guy in New York,” Momma said when I came in for a bite of lunch. She held my phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Don’t get sassy with me. Your damn phone just kept ringing, disturbing my peace and quiet.”
“What guy?” More than ever I hoped it was Roddy, saving me from the isolation I’d created for myself.
“Anthony somebody, and he wants you to call him about the comb. He sounded scared. You bringin’ your cursed demonkind down on him too?”
I grabbed the phone out of her hand. “Don’t pick up my phone ever!�
��
“Why? You gonna hurt me like you did that tusser husband of yours?”
I closed my fist.
“You think I don’t know?” She inched backward.
It was the second time I’d recognized the fathoms of my anger, and yes, my capacity to hurt someone. It should’ve scared me, but it didn’t. “Then if you know, you’d better not mess with me.”
Momma lowered her eyes. “Ungrateful bitch.”
I reckoned I’d go for a drive. It was time to try Harold’s parents again.
“Anthony, this is Eunis,” I said, leaving a message on his voicemail. “Please just sit tight. Nobody could have any idea you have it. Nobody.” I believed that was true, I really did. “They’re fishing.” I didn’t know what to say regarding Junior, so I said nothing.
I also believed that Carly had left town. Yet while pulling into downtown for groceries and Lyle’s medications, I spotted Carly’s fire engine yellow convertible, the luck or curse of a small city. As I slowed to be certain, Carly came out of a bright building, The Cosmetic Center:
Certified Laser and Injection Nurse
Contour your body – freeze fat away
Reduce unwanted hair – laser hair reduction
Define your features – Botox, Xeomin, Juvederm and other injectables
Rejuvenate your skin – remove spider veins and brown spots
And plastered across the window: “My skin lies about my age, so I don’t have to.”
On the go taxidermy for humans. But why say she was leaving town?
Carly ducked into the nearby pharmacy. My phone jolted me. I stared at the number almost long enough to lose the call before picking it up.
“Yes? Hello?”
“Eunis, it’s Gordon. Can we get together one more time before I leave?”
“Gordon? Did you text me about Johnny Ray?”
“Who?”
“Johnny Ray Bardo. You texted me. Nearly a week ago. With his name. I’m pretty sure it was from your phone.”
“Can we talk weather?” he said. “I’m really not familiar with this guy. I’d tell you if I was.” That breezy earnestness I’d come to trust. “Would you be willing to come to our offices and meet my general manager? We’ll have to fudge your experience a little bit, but he values my opinion. Your instincts and smarts, you’d really fill a void we have right now.” He added, “You’d be behind the scenes, I’m afraid. Not on screen, I mean.”
Beautiful to the Bone (The Enuis Trilogy #1) Page 35