She hated every minute of it. Jayne knew, because on bad days her mother told her so. She hated making breakfast and seeing the broken burner that she couldn’t afford to fix. She hated making school lunches and she hated making dinner. She hated the headaches and backaches and the cough she was starting to get from her Camel Lights. She hated that nobody loved her. (In these moods, she forgot about Jayne, who loved her so, terribly much.) She hated the Silver Eagle, serving drink after drink after drink. She hated Jayne, who trapped her with her needs, made her stay, canceled every route to a different life.
But everything changed with the needle. Jayne has thought it through back and forward and back again, and the needle is where it ends. The first time Jayne’s mother opened her arm, exposing the pale, perfect skin inside her elbow, and allowed someone to use a syringe to puncture one of her healthy, blue veins, it was over. The medicine flowed into her bloodstream. Her head fell back. She was not a mother anymore.
11
Suzette
As she drove home from the hospital, Suzette thought idly about what Hyland might be making for dinner. He’d gone through a Chinese phase recently, and before that, it was all about the sous vide machine he’d bought at the culinary store on Montrose. My God, the boiled steaks were incredible! Most evenings, he’d finish up work by five, stop by the market, and begin preparing their dinner. By the time Suzette came home, worn out and ravenous, Hyland would be chopping and sautéing and the house would smell wonderful. Their cleaning lady, Nancy, bought fresh flowers for the dining room. She polished Hyland’s family silver and set the table, every night, for two.
The rush-hour traffic slowed to a complete standstill. Through her tinted window, Suzette looked at a homeless couple camped out on the median with their dog. The man was youngish, with a scrawny frame and hair down to his ears. The woman might have been a teenager but looked forty, her face deeply lined. The dog was some kind of pit bull mix, shiny and frightening, panting under the Houston sun.
Suzette rummaged in her purse, but had no cash. The girl moved close, and Suzette fixed her gaze firmly on the car in front of her, an Oldsmobile with a POE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL bumper sticker. The girl hovered in Suzette’s peripheral vision. Suzette might have (easily) become a person like this, slipping off the rails of society, though she’d never have gotten a dog if she couldn’t care for it properly.
Suzette had grown up with a dog, a sweet, fluffy thing named William Blake (Blakesie). Suzette’s father had been an English professor before his death; Suzette’s mother had been his student. On the walls of their farmhouse, Suzette’s mother had hung framed reproductions of Blake’s creepy drawings of Heaven and Hell. Suzette hated those drawings. But she loved Blakesie, who slept with her at night. Suzette could still remember his wet fur smell, how warm he had been in her arms. No matter how things were at home, he was there. But every day she went to school, and left him unprotected.
Sitting on Westheimer, Suzette remembered how Blakesie, fifteen years old and hard of hearing, had followed Suzette on his last morning, never more than a few inches from her heels as she made her school lunch. It was May in upstate New York and the air was warm and completely alive with all the bugs and plants that had gone dormant during the endless winter.
She’d been annoyed with Blakesie, shoving him aside with her ankles, rushing around jamming her books in her knapsack. Her mother had been asleep. In the Houston traffic, Suzette was overcome with decades-old remorse. She should never have left Blakesie. She knew what her mother was capable of.
—
Suzette hit the garage door opener and parked next to Hyland’s Volvo. She entered the kitchen to find it dark. On the counter was an empty box from Pizza Hut. “Hyland?” called Suzette.
He didn’t answer.
In the living room, Suzette found a pair of socks and a Bud Light bottle. In the bedroom, her sleeping husband. Suzette yanked open the curtains, her hands shaking. (How many times had she entered her mother’s dark, pungent bedroom?) “Get up!” she said. “This is no way to behave, Hyland. Jesus!”
Hyland rolled over, his eyes still shut.
“Everything is a mess!” said Suzette. “Where’s Nancy?”
“Sent her home,” said Hyland.
“This is no way…” said Suzette.
Hyland sat up, bleary-eyed. “We’re never going to find her,” he said.
“What about dinner?” said Suzette. “You didn’t call. I didn’t get anything.”
“Dinner?” said Hyland.
“It’s dark,” said Suzette. “The whole house is dark! You left your socks…you left your pizza box…”
“Did you hear what I said? We’re never going to find Dorrie,” said Hyland. He looked at Suzette, and must have seen something in her expression. He made an effort to calm himself, sat up straighter. “I’m not your mother,” said Hyland. “I’m just sad. I’m…overcome. What the hell are we going to do?”
Suzette shook her head. She felt a loosening, as if the fabric of her life were being pulled apart. “We need to make a plan,” she said. She cleared her throat. “Dinner, let’s make some dinner. We’ll make a list. And then—”
“I’m sorry,” said Hyland.
“Do you have a pen and paper?” said Suzette. “Let’s find a pen and paper.” She began to rummage in her bedside drawer.
“If I hadn’t asked for more…” said Hyland.
Suzette faced him, eyes alight. She bit her lip to keep from saying the words, but they came out anyway. “That’s right,” she said.
“Fuck you,” said Hyland, his voice loud. It was as if he’d been waiting for a reason to yell at Suzette, at someone. “Fuck you and your complete lack of emotions!”
Suzette shut the drawer, straightened, and walked out of the bedroom. She gathered her hands into fists, moving back through the house to the garage. Lack of emotions! She had spent her whole life learning how to observe, rather than be felled by, her emotions. It wasn’t an easy skill, tearing yourself from yourself, remaining at a distance from your heart. Watching instead of feeling your deepest desires, keeping tabs on them, staying safe. If only she didn’t have emotions at all—if only!
Suzette entered the garage, unlocked her car, and climbed inside. She would get takeout, is what she would do. She would put a good dinner on the table and they would go from there. She could already see the serene evening in her mind: chopsticks resting next to a list of methodical solutions. It was going to be fine. It was going to be fine.
Although she’d expected him to, Hyland didn’t follow.
Suzette drove toward Try My Thai, planning on pad thai or a green curry with warm rice. But then she found herself veering the Lexus onto I-45 toward Galveston. Confronting Dorrie’s mother, whom Suzette had never met, was not a smart plan of action. Suzette said aloud, “I’m going to turn back. Right here. I’m going to turn around and get Thai food.” But she did not turn back, did not even put on her blinker. A ghost self rose within her, thrillingly stupid, a bit out of control. Suzette saw herself pounding on the door of a Galveston house, demanding the whereabouts of that idiotic child, Dorrie. She felt giddy, doing the dumb thing, for once.
Suzette placed a call to the Houston PD, getting Detective Whitlow on the line. “I was thinking that someone should go to Galveston and talk to Dorrie’s mother,” she said, her voice measured and calm.
“I went out there myself,” said Whitlow. “Patsy Muscarello says she hasn’t got a clue. She’s a religious old lady, works at Sea-O-Rama selling corn dogs. She seemed ashamed, to tell you the truth.”
“Ashamed?” said Suzette.
“Yeah, it’s the Catholic thing,” said Whitlow. He sighed. “My wife’s a Catholic. Everything’s your fault, is what it comes down to. Ms. Muscarello’s mother seemed embarrassed about her daughter. Told me she’d contact me herself if she heard from her. I’m sorry, Dr. Kendall, we’ve done about all we can.”
“I’m going to go talk to her,” said Suzette, press
ing the accelerator of the Lexus, watching the odometer climb above the speed limit.
“Don’t,” said Whitlow. “I promise you, Dr. Kendall. You’ll just make things messy. This Dorrie, she’s flown off the handle, but she’ll be back to roost, mark my words.”
His statement was so asinine (flown off the handle?) that Suzette almost told him so. Instead, she inhaled deeply. “I’ll just go home then,” she said, watching her speed rise. She would be on Galveston Island by nine.
“Good idea,” said Detective Whitlow. “You need anything, call me directly.”
Suzette knew Whitlow was doing his best. But she wasn’t convinced that his best was nearly enough. As always, Suzette was going to have to handle things herself.
12
Dorrie
When I left my room again, the girl and the druggie were nowhere to be seen, their door shut. Yet the resignation I had seen in the girl’s face reminded me of how trapped I had felt, when I was too young to run away. Could the sweet girl possibly belong to that wrecked woman?
I had run out of money. I was tired and hungry. I’m embarrassed to admit that I thought about driving back to Texas, just giving up and returning to the fold. Your father and Suzette would be fine parents, I knew: the mansion on Drexel Drive (I’d driven by it—its front door was flanked with blazing sconces and columns, like pictures I’d seen of the Acropolis!), the nursery with the crib Hyland had picked out. He’d shown me pictures in the Pottery Barn catalog. And the Kendalls had said I could visit you. I’d suggested you could call me Aunt Dorrie, but Suzette had laughed—a high, dismissive sound that said no way.
I considered it, my love, but I decided again that I couldn’t live without you. It wasn’t possible and that was that. I couldn’t even imagine a life without you, not anymore.
Back in Room 29, I must have slept, because when I woke the sky was violet. I peeked anxiously outside the door and—seeing the coast was clear—stepped into the evening. The Astroturf was hot and prickly against my bare feet, the smell of tar and molten plastic somehow comforting. I peered down to the pool area. I saw the girl in the broken chair. She looked up.
Her face, so sad, glowing in the evening light. She turned back to her book, a new book. She must have finished Forever…I took a breath. “What are you reading?” I called.
She looked up again, startled. “Um,” she said, looking at the cover as if she didn’t know. “It’s called What Have You Lost?”
I asked her if it was good.
“Yeah. It’s poems,” she said.
I asked her name.
She paused, put her finger in her book to save her spot, then called, “Jayne.”
I said, “Hi, Jayne.”
She shaded her eyes, peered up. “Hi,” she said.
I wanted to keep talking to her, this sweet, miserable girl. But I couldn’t think of one thing to say.
13
Jayne
At last, Jayne had found another mystery to solve, and the mystery was the woman in Room 29. Who was she? What was she doing at the Motel Claiborne? Was she hiding something—some treasure or a dead skeleton—in her room? Had she murdered someone? Was she going to?
Jayne couldn’t tell if the woman in Room 29 was sick like her mom. Like Jayne’s mom, the woman spent most of the day inside. Whenever she came out to buy a Sprite or peanut butter crackers from the vending machine, the woman looked scary. Her hair looked like small animals had made matted nests of her black curls. Her eyes looked freaky, too, like Jayne’s mom’s eyes when she didn’t have enough medicine. But no boyfriends went into Room 29. From what Jayne could tell (hiding in the stairwell) the woman worked by herself. But whenever she came out of the room, she looked up and down the hallway, as if expecting to be busted. Jayne wrote this down. A good private investigator, she knew, paid attention to details.
By the entrance to the pool, there was a spot where a magnolia tree had pushed the fence aside. Between the fencing and the tree, Jayne made a special home for herself and spent evenings there when her mom was working. She had a pillow and a comforter someone had left outside their room. When it rained, she put her things inside the shed where the pipes led to the pool, to keep them dry. From her secret home, she could keep an eye on her mother and also on the parking lot.
Jayne kept track of all the people who entered and exited the Claiborne. It was 8:57 P.M. when the woman from Room 29 came outside. (Jayne checked her Casio watch, which someone had left on the bedside table of the room Jayne shared with her mom.) Jayne’s mom had been working with a white boyfriend for twenty-three minutes. Night was the worst time at the motel. Everyone was out and about at this time, full of medicine and really loud and stupid. The early mornings were best, when everyone was asleep.
The woman walked back and forth on the second-floor landing. At 9:09, the woman went back inside Room 29 and shut the door behind her. Jayne wanted to go upstairs and visit the woman, but she knew that bad men were in the parking lot at night, so she stayed in her secret home.
14
Suzette
Galveston had been founded by pirates, Suzette knew, and then had been decimated by hurricanes again and again. Suzette liked the briny, near-fetid smell of the island and the way it kept on rebuilding—raising the grade of the entire city after the Great Storm of 1900, erecting new houses along the water every time the old ones were destroyed. In truth, she’d never considered what it must have been like to grow up in such a place: a playground for others, an island most visitors departed with a sunburn and a trinket, perhaps a hangover. There was a hospital and Galveston was a cruise ship mecca, but Suzette figured it was a place most kids left as soon as they were able.
Dorrie had told the Kendalls that her plan was to use the $35,000 to go to college. She’d been accepted at Rice, said Dorrie. What on earth had changed her mind? Suzette couldn’t fathom what would make someone decide to turn down a fortune and go on the lam. Was Dorrie mentally ill?
A peeling sign welcomed Suzette to the island. She found her way to the Seawall, quiet in the deep evening, and trolled along slowly. Where was K½ Street? (She needed one of those GPS units.) How did the owners of all these homes support themselves on-island? (Suzette made a note to read up on the subject.) Should she stop for a rum drink? (No.) Finally, she located Patsy’s rickety-looking bungalow.
In the rearview mirror, Suzette arranged her hair and applied lipstick. Hyland was probably worried sick about her, and good, thought Suzette. She climbed from the car, tucked her silk blouse in neatly, and walked to the door. One of those wooden wreaths Suzette had seen in the SkyMall catalog was affixed to the door. WELCOME TO OUR BLESSED HOME, said the wreath. Suzette looked for a bell but didn’t find one, so she knocked.
After about five minutes, the door opened partway. A woman in a boxy bathrobe with a bun and granny glasses peered out. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Muscarello? I’m Suzette Kendall.”
The woman paused. Even in the dim light, Suzette could see that she wasn’t as old as she tried to make herself look. She was close to Suzette’s age, in fact. “I see,” said Patsy. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. But I don’t think I can help you.” She began to shut the door.
“Please!” said Suzette. “I don’t know where to go. I…Please, Mrs. Muscarello. Please help me.”
The woman looked at Suzette for a minute, and then she nodded. When she opened the door enough to permit entry, Suzette shocked both herself and Patsy Muscarello by leaning toward the woman, putting her arms around her. Patsy hesitated only briefly, then accepted Suzette’s embrace and patted her on the back. “It’s OK, dear,” she said. “It’s all going to be OK.”
Suzette regained herself. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s OK,” said Patsy.
“I don’t know what came over me,” said Suzette, honestly. She cleared her throat. “I’m here to see if you have any idea…any thoughts at all…about where I can find your daughter?” At the word daughter, Suzette was seized w
ith the desire to fall into Patsy Muscarello again, but she summoned herself and resisted.
“Would you like something to drink? Some tea?” said Patsy, leading Suzette into a small but tidy kitchen.
“Sure, thank you,” said Suzette. She looked around the room, taking in the orange linoleum floor, particleboard cabinets, and olive-colored refrigerator. Suzette remembered hearing about an art exhibit in which an artist made a life-size replica of his 1971 childhood kitchen. Patsy’s kitchen could be a museum piece, thought Suzette. At the haughty thought, she felt stronger, more like herself and less like the woman who had childishly begged for a warm embrace moments before.
“I appreciate your time,” said Suzette. “We need to talk about a few things.”
“I suppose,” said Patsy. She put tea boxes and coffee tins in front of Suzette, and Suzette shook her head.
“Oh, have a cuppa,” said Patsy.
Suzette shrugged, pointed to Sleepytime tea. Patsy Muscarello was like a mother from a movie. The housecoat! The International Coffee in various flavors! “So I have a few questions,” said Suzette. “First of all, do you have any idea where Dorrie could have gone?”
Patsy looked deflated. “I don’t. I have no idea. But I’ll be honest with you, Dr. Kendall, I thought this whole idea was a bad one. By the time she told me about the whole…” Patsy made a disgusted face, then continued, “By the time she told me…your husband had already…”
Suzette put her head in her hands.
“I told Dorothy she’d regret this. She’s so young, and she’s fragile, more innocent than most girls.”
The Nearness of You Page 8