Shattered Echoes

by B. A. Shapiro

  In an attempt to broaden my intellectual horizons and to pull me from what she called my “hermitude,” Babs had dragged me to her friend Ron’s latest opening. Ron was hot, he was in, and all of Boston’s second-rate celebs—the weekend anchor people, local politicians, radio personalities, and university intellectuals—were there.

  But I wasn’t impressed, and I wasn’t thinking about art—all I could think about was Isabel. They were all babbling on about the use of negative space in the tactile-auditory presentation of conceptual smoothness—or some such nonsense—while I thought about Isabel’s chutzpah.

  I gave up trying to fight my way down the stairs and squeezed myself into the narrow window seat in the corner of the landing. I sipped the flat champagne and looked out at the expensive shops of Newbury Street. The one directly across from me had a single mannequin in the window. She wore a simple pink T-shirt. It probably cost two hundred dollars.

  Chutzpah is a Yiddish word that loosely translates to guts or spunk or balls, but however you translate it, Isabel had it. The way she had struck back. The shrewdness she had shown by finding just the perfect act—a small thing, but the thing that would go straight to Montague’s heart. I shivered. There also was a slight insidiousness to her actions, a tiny touch of evil beneath the cunning. No. I shook my head. No. Montague deserved everything he got.

  “Isn’t it just deplorable?” A jolly, art-looking type in a long flowered skirt and bandanna leaned against the wall next to me.

  I looked at her blankly for a second and then nodded. “It’s not my kind of stuff either.”

  Now it was her turn to look confused. “Oh, no—not Ron’s work. Ron Coller is clearly a genius.” She squinted at me through her red-rimmed glasses. “I meant the Gardner Museum.” She turned away.

  “Terrible, just terrible,” I murmured as she went in search of a companion with better taste. The Gardner Museum theft was terrible. Two disguised men ravaging Belle Gardner’s sanctum, taking from her what she had prized most, stealing the piece of her she had hoped would always remain alive. I wondered what Isabel thought of her idol’s violation.

  “There’s no crime worse than kidnapping.” A broad-shouldered man took the arty woman’s position holding up the stairwell wall; he was attractive in a colorless kind of way and there was something vaguely familiar about him. “Katy Williams was at the station yesterday, and the poor woman is out of her mind with worry,” he said.

  “They haven’t found the little girl?” I shook my head and remembered where I had seen him: he did late night weather on Channel 5.

  “If there’s no ransom note by the third or fourth day, you have got to begin to think the worst.”

  “What monsters!” I cried. “What gives them the right? What gives anybody the right to step in and destroy someone else’s life?”

  He looked at me as if I’d suddenly gained a hundred pounds; he slid along the wall toward the stairs. His smile was small and forced. “I don’t know.” He shrugged and walked quickly up to the third floor.

  I turned and looked back out the window. Newbury Street was such a fantasyland. A land of alluring, expensive baubles, displayed with their best sides showing. Even the trash barrels were of tastefully stained cedar.

  Three teenage boys sauntered down the street, strutting their horny manliness in tight jeans and short parkas. They stopped in front of a cedar trash barrel. One kicked the barrel’s base. Another gripped the top edge and began shaking; the third helped the second. At first I didn’t understand what they could be doing. But as I watched, I realized they were trying to knock it over. For no reason other that the pure pleasure of destruction. I stood up and pounded on the window. “Stop it!” I yelled. But they didn’t hear me. They continued until the barrel came loose; it fell, and the garbage spewed all over the sidewalk. Laughing with pleasure, they kicked the debris into a larger circle, then thrust their hands in their pockets and ambled away.

  Defeated, I sat back down. I drained my glass and stared over the heads of the crowd as they nodded and sipped like so many bright-colored, self-satisfied birds. I found Babs among the heads; she was talking to a tall, willowy woman in a figure-hugging silk dress. The woman turned, and I recognized her; it was Brook Prescott, one of my least favorite people. I’d had the rotten luck to share an office with her at Wang—she was a rich bitch who worked for a lark. I tried to swap offices, but no one in the company could stand her, so I was stuck. From the pinched expression on Babs’s face, she wouldn’t have switched offices either.

  Babs was scanning the room, searching for a way out of the conversation. I waved, but she didn’t see me. Whatever Isabel had done was warranted. She had been trapped; she could watch a piece of herself die every day or she could fight. She had chosen to fight.

  I didn’t notice Babs standing next to me until she spoke. “You know, kiddo,” she said, “it’s impressive you finally got your butt out of that apartment, but somehow I get the feeling that you’re still there—or somewhere—because you sure as hell aren’t here.”

  “I’m here, I’m here.” I turned and looked at her. “I’ve just never been hot on conceptual art.”

  “Lighten up, Lindsey. Open your eyes. Open your mind!”

  “To that?” I pointed to a massive piece of wood that took up almost the entire second floor of the gallery. “I mean, really—forty thousand dollars, for a slightly sanded tree trunk? I don’t care how much tactile-auditory smoothness it has.”

  Babs burst out laughing. “Tactile-auditory smoothness! I love it. I’ll have to tell Ron. Visual-tactile,” she corrected, “and it’s the simultaneous stimulation of these usually separate senses within a single piece …”

  I stopped listening. What else could Isabel have done? How many options did a twenty-year-old girl have in 1884? With no parents, few friends, and that awful Mother Davenport—

  “Earth to Lindsey! Earth to Lindsey!”

  I smiled sheepishly. “I’m listening.”

  “Yeah, and I’m Cleopatra.”

  I didn’t argue when Babs suggested the new upscale vegetarian restaurant around the corner on Clarendon Street. I even forced down a bizarre mixture of brown rice, carrots, bean sprouts, and tofu. “How do you veggies eat this shit?” I asked. “And why do you mix it all together?”

  “You know, Lindsey,” Babs said, “one of your problems is that you aren’t very open to new experiences. You have your ideas and your apartment and your job—and that’s about as far as you reach.”

  “Hey, pal, give me a break here. I—”

  “Don’t you want more? Don’t you want to go to openings and parties and meet people with new ideas? What do you know about what’s happening in the world? Don’t you want to do more than just huddle inside your hermitude like some overworked monk?”

  “Yeah, it’s really great to know what’s going on in the world,” I said sarcastically. “You get to learn wonderful things like how people kidnap four-year-old children and steal priceless art.”

  “Oh, Lindsey!” Babs threw her hands in the air. “Sometimes I wonder why I bother.” She put her chin in her fist and stared at her plate.

  “’Cause I’m worth it?”

  She scowled at me.

  “Look, I’m here now—you’re having some effect. And I am interested in new things. Tell me about your new classes in interior decorating.”

  “Interiors.” She continued to pout at her tofu.

  “Interiors—tell me about your interiors classes. I really want to know.”

  “Well …”

  “Come on.” I touched her hand. “What’s the neatest thing you’ve learned?”

  “It really is fabulous stuff.” Babs, never one to hold a grudge for long, launched into a lengthy and detailed discussion of her new career; and I actually listened. For, truth be told, I was getting a little lonely for some human companionship. Isabel, despite all her many fine qualities, just wasn’t enough.

  As I listened to Babs, I felt a strange sp
ot of pressure on the side of my head, accompanied by—for lack of a better description—a little pulse of emotion. I suddenly knew that Isabel wanted me home, that she was annoyed by the length of my outing with Babs. This wasn’t like the daymares, where I watched as if I were at the movies; this was more as if I were inside a movie, or inside Isabel, or as if Isabel were inside of me.

  “But the structural—really the architectural—aspect is the part I find the most fascinating,” Babs was saying.

  “So is it time for yet another degree?” I asked, wondering how I was going to get out of the restaurant without evoking Babs’s fury; she had a full evening planned. The side of my head pulsed again.

  “Lindsey! Lindsey Kern! And Babs Putnam. You’re from completely different pieces of my life!” Brooke Prescott sauntered over to our table, her black dress shimmering with every understated, but contrived, swish of her hips.

  “Hi,” I said in a tone I saved for acknowledging the presence of poisonous snakes.

  She returned my greeting with a nod that didn’t disturb a single hair of her long blond mane. “You weren’t at Ron’s show, too, were you?” she asked me. “You don’t seem the type.” Before I could answer, she turned to Babs and raised her pencil-thin eyebrows. “How on earth do you two know each other?”

  Babs smiled sweetly. “Lindsey and I are lovers.”

  “Barbara, Barbara, Barbara. Still the same overstated Barbara.” Brooke sighed, and her smile was pseudosad. “I happen to know that this lady is married to the most gorgeous hunk of man ever put on this earth—there’s no way she would ever choose you over him.” She scanned the restaurant and then looked down to count the plates on the table. “He’s not here?”

  “He’s not here.” I looked at Babs for help.

  “Brooke—” Babs began.

  “The last time I saw you two was at your going-away lunch at Wang—remember, Lindsey?” Brooke’s smile was not kind. “You had that impressive black eye, and Don Kish—who had had a few too many—was all over you about being an abused wife. Do you remember how funny he was? We all thought he was a riot, but as it turned out, your handsome hunk didn’t agree. What’s his name? Cary? Casey?”

  Babs grabbed Brooke’s wrist; I think she even gave it a little twist. “Brooke! There’s something you should—”

  “Clay! It’s Clay!” Brooke pulled her arm from Babs. “Clay—who also had a few too many—hauled off and punched Don! Gave him a black eye even bigger than hers! Can you believe it?”

  “Drop it, Brooke,” Babs ordered.

  Brooke smiled sweetly. “So where is your blue-eyed god tonight? I hope you didn’t leave him home alone?”

  I swallowed, but couldn’t speak; it was like the daffodil dream when I looked down to find my feet encased in ice. “We’re not together anymore,” I finally managed to whisper.

  “Oh?” Brooke’s smile was sincere for the first time. “Can’t say I’m terribly surprised. A man with all that macho fire must be great in bed but a bear to live with.” Her smile broadened. “I assume I’m free to pursue.” It was a statement rather than a question.

  “Leave her alone, Brooke,” Babs yelled. “Clay’s—”

  “Clay Kern?” Brooke touched my shoulder. “Clay Kern in Lexington? Is he in the phone book?”

  “Just shut up,” Babs snapped. “He’s not in the phone book—he’s dead.”

  “Babs, Babs, Babs.” Brooke threw up her hands in mock despair. “Still don’t know when to let it go, do you? Still pushing those practical jokes until no one thinks they’re funny anymore.” Brooke shook her head, then bowed slightly. “Excuse while I go call a dead man.” Her laughter pealed across the restaurant as she gracefully made her way back to her own table.

  “Hey, Lindsey, sweetie, you okay?” Babs asked after Brooke had sat down. “Lins?”

  “I’m, I’m, fine. But if you don’t mind I, I think I’ll head on home.”

  “Hey, Lins, I’m really sorry. That woman is a vicious bitch—always has been, always will be. I’ve hated her since our first classes at the Athenaeum.”

  “Yeah, I can see why. I’ll see you later; I’m going to go.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Babs said. “I feel kind of responsible.”

  “No, no. No, I’m fine, really. I just want to go home and be alone.”

  “What about the movie?”

  “You go. I’ll call you tomorrow.” I dropped too much money on the table and ran out the door.

  I hurried down Clarendon Street, wrapping my coat tightly around me as I headed into the cold wind. I had to give Isabel credit for shrewdness. As with Montague, she had pushed just the right button; she had found the perfect way to get me out of the restaurant without angering Babs. It was clear that Isabel had been no ordinary person, as she was no ordinary ghost. But couldn’t she have come up with a kinder method of bringing me home?

  I took the stairs two at a time. When I got in the apartment, I looked around, confused. There was no lavender, no breeze; I didn’t sense Isabel’s presence. Had I been wrong? Was I taking this whole thing too far? Had Brooke Prescott just wanted tofu for dinner?

  I walked slowly into the living room. Then I saw the dining area; it had been turned into a stage for the most amazing tableau. It was wonderful—Isabel had somehow blown a static kind of life into two of my old bridesmaid dresses. There was something about the way she bent the sleeve of the purple silk from Linda Feinstein’s wedding, and curved the back of the pink lace from Clay’s sister’s, that transformed the lifeless garments into two nineteenth-century women having tea. I was enchanted.

  I went into the kitchen and put up some water. Ceremoniously I carried the cups and saucers, the spoons and the napkins, the teapot and some cookies, to the table. I placed a cup in front of each of the ladies and put two more down for Isabel and myself. I nodded to the ladies, I nodded to Isabel. They watched with the quiet attentiveness of proper Victorian dames as I poured the tea.

  When I looked up, I had to grasp the teapot in both hands to keep it from falling. For, instead of my few stale and broken Oreos, the table now held tea cakes and biscuits and scones and petits fours, all arrayed on delicately painted bone china. There was a tablecloth of the finest linen, and the smell of powdered sugar and marmalade filled the air. Mesmerized, I reached out to touch the sweets, but as soon as my finger met the vision, it crumbled and my Oreos sat on the table once more. Isabel’s talents, although quite impressive, were obviously limited to the boundaries of my imagination.

  I took a sip of tea. “Isabel,” I said to the empty seat across from me, “I know why you did all those things.” I thought of teenagers kicking trash barrels, of thieves gloating over Rembrandts and Vermeers they couldn’t display, of kidnappers breaking a mother’s heart. I thought of the party where I had dumped a bucket of ice on Clay’s head because he’d had one too many shots of tequila and was being a complete ass. I raised my cup in salute. The ladies watched politely.

  It was a perfect winter afternoon: there was barely a cloud in the sky, and the sun was everywhere; it was cold enough to bring a healthy flush to the cheek, but warm enough for comfortable toes. The weather had pulled me out for lunch, and I was strolling across the Public Garden when I noticed a crowd of people standing by the swan boat dock. As I drew closer, I saw huge lights that seemed quite unnecessary under the blazing sun, and thick coils of cable snaking across the winter-yellowed grass to two Channel 5 vans parked on Boylston Street. A bland-faced anchorman, puffed up with his on-location importance, was speaking into a microphone in a hushed, dramatic tone.

  “What’s going on?” I asked a woman standing at the edge of the crowd.

  “Kisha Williams,” she said without turning.

  I looked at the equipment dredging the swan boat lagoon. “She’s in there?”

  The woman looked at me for a moment. “No one knows.” She turned back to watch two divers in shiny wet suits pull themselves up on the dock. “There’s been some kind of tip.�
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  “That she’s in the water?”

  The woman nodded her gray curls.

  I gasped, and the woman leaned toward me and smiled. “Do you know the family?” she asked. When I shook my head, she turned back toward the lagoon.

  I walked behind the dock, closer to where Katy Williams was standing. Her familiar face was drawn and full of lines never visible during newscasts about her troubles with the mayor. I assumed the tall, hauntedlooking man on her left was Kisha’s father. A stocky man in work clothes came up to them and shook his head. Katy buried her face in her husband’s coat.

  Katy was huddled and bent and pulled into herself, silent and stiff in her fear and her sorrow; I was reminded of the image of Isabel I had seen in the shower curtain: a tiny figure of grief, full of dread and horror and misery. What could be worse than the fear of losing a child? I asked myself sadly. The answer seared through my brain: the reality of losing a child.

  “All because of some stupid teacher’s contract?”

  I turned to the skinny kid in a jacket and tie who stood to my right. “Teacher’s contract?”

  He looked mildly disgusted. “You know—it’s been on the news for days—the School Committee stuff. They think someone killed the kid to get Williams to change her vote.”

  “What kind of sick mind would think if they hurt a little girl, her mother would do what they want?”

  “What if they didn’t plan to kill the kid?” He became very animated and waved his hands in my face. “What if they got scared? Or what if the kid was such a pain in the ass, they tried to shut her up and she accidentally got killed?” His eyes shone with excitement.

  “You watch too much TV.” I walked away. I looked over my shoulder at Katy Williams, who was now clinging to her husband and sobbing openly. A policeman led them to a parked squad car. It was all too awful for words.

  I walked through the barren gardens. Yellow stalks of last year’s flowers were bent and trampled in the beds, pieces of garbage caught between them. Then sun dipped behind a cloud, and a cold gust of wind whipped a crumpled McDonald’s cup free of the sticks. The battered cardboard was airborne for a moment, somersaulting in the breeze; then it fell to the ground, caught once again by the dead flowers.