by Billie Letts
Ivy was naturally pretty but did nothing to enhance her looks. She had fair skin, a complexion so light she looked pale, but she refused to wear makeup. She wore her long, honey-colored hair pulled back in a braid exactly as she had since she was a girl, and no amount of cajoling by her mother had persuaded her to change it.
At thirty, she still had the athletic frame and posture she’d had as a teenager, but her shape had changed considerably over the past few weeks.
When she came home back in May and said she’d quit her job in Chicago, Teeve wasn’t much surprised at the news. Ivy had never been much of a “stayer.” She’d quit piano lessons when she was eight, dropped out of Girl Scouts at eleven and attended only three meetings of the Honor Society before she stopped going.
But when Ivy said she’d come home “to stay for a while,” her tomcat, Bernie, in tow, Teeve knew something was going on. The girl had hated DeClare, had been so anxious to get out that instead of attending her high school graduation, she had headed for Amsterdam to join the Greenpeace fleet in protesting the killing of whales in the North Sea.
But now, the shock of Ivy’s return a few days earlier had begun to wear off when Teeve remarked that Ivy looked like she’d lost weight.
“Well, that’s fixing to change, Mom.”
“How’s that?”
“I’m pregnant,” Ivy said, then asked, “do you have any blue thread?”
Two weeks passed without another word from Ivy about her situation. Finally, Teeve couldn’t stand it any longer. Trying to sound unrehearsed, she said, “Honey, why don’t we sit down, have a cup of coffee and—”
“Have one of those mother-daughter talks?”
“Oh, no. Nothing like that. I thought we might . . . you know, just visit.”
“Okay. I got pregnant by a guy I slept with three times. Well, four, I guess, since we did it twice in one night. I’m not going to marry him, I don’t even like him much. I was on the pill, but apparently he had some mighty powerful sperm.
“I’ve seen a doctor who declared me ‘healthy as a horse,’ a cliché I didn’t care for. I bought a book called What Every Pregnant Woman Needs to Know, my bowels move regularly, I do not crave strange foods and I throw up every morning.
“I’m going to have this baby in six months, more or less, and I don’t really know how I feel about that yet, but I suppose I’ll figure it out as I go. Any questions?”
“No,” Teeve said. “I guess that about covers it.”
“Good. I’m glad we had this talk, Mom. Morning paper come yet?”
Now, three months later, Teeve didn’t know any more than she did when Ivy had first told her of her pregnancy. But she knew her daughter, knew that pushing her wouldn’t do a damn bit of good.
“Psst.”
Teeve, preparing a takeout order of Reubens, glanced up to see Ivy motioning to her from the lunchroom door.
“You know that guy out there?” she whispered.
Looking over Ivy’s shoulder, Teeve saw that the man with the bandaged arm had returned.
“He came in ten, fifteen minutes ago,” Ivy said. “Just stands there and watches the kids. I tried to make conversation with him, but he doesn’t say much. I think he’s up to something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, but he’s creepy. Might be a pedophile.”
“Well, watch him.”
Teeve stayed busy for the next half hour, but she took a break when the kids cleared out for their one o’clock classes.
“What happened to that guy who was hanging around?” Teeve asked.
“He wandered out a little while ago.”
“Did you ever find out what he wanted?”
“I couldn’t get anything out of him. Seemed like a weird one to me, but I don’t trust any man who wears a necklace. I’ve gotta run. Got an appointment with Doc Bruton in a few minutes.”
“Okay. See you later.”
After she closed the lunchroom at two, Teeve swept out, wiped down the tables and took the trash out to the Dumpster. Then she went into the pool hall, where two regulars who worked the early shift at the toy factory were shooting eight ball.
As she passed the front door, she was disturbed to see the man Ivy called “creepy” standing on the porch, watching her through the screen. She went behind the counter, where she feigned interest in yesterday’s paper, holding it in such a way that she could see him peripherally as he opened the door and stepped inside.
When she lowered the paper, he was standing on the other side of the narrow counter, staring at her.
He was even better looking up close than he was from a distance. He had radiant brown eyes, and bronzed skin that did not, she guessed, come from a tanning bed, and his dark hair, shiny and thick, fell softly across his forehead.
“If you came in for lunch, you’re too late.”
He looked the room over, taking it all in as if he hadn’t seen it before.
“Lunchroom’s closed,” she said.
His eyes came to rest on a framed print of five nattily dressed dogs playing poker.
“There’s a café in the next block. The Pantry. You can’t miss it.”
“I’m not interested in eating,” he said.
Teeve had a notion that he might be another agent from the OSBI. One of the state boys showed up every couple of years or so, trying to catch someone making a wager, a holdover from Navy’s bookie days.
“What are you interested in?”
“Change for a dollar.”
He pulled a bill from his pocket and pushed it across the counter with his bandaged arm.
“Looks like you had an accident.”
He shrugged, a kind of “it happens” gesture. After she dropped four quarters onto his palm, he got a Coke from the vending machine, then wandered toward the eight-ball players and watched their game until they finished.
As they walked out, Teeve remembered reading about a robbery that took place over in Wagoner a few weeks back, a woman held up at the Git-N-Go where she worked.
“You know, I was just getting ready to close up and—”
“Sign in the window says you’re open until six.”
“Usually I am, but I have a meeting to go to.”
“Will you be back?”
“What?”
“Are you going to open up again after your meeting?”
Teeve was tempted to tell him it was none of his business, but she didn’t.
“Why? Are you planning to come back?”
“I might.”
She’d had enough then, didn’t give a damn if he was the law or just some thug hoping to clean out the cash register. She was tired of the game.
“Look. If you want to shoot pool, fine. If you want to play videos, that’s fine, too. But if you’ve got something else on your mind, then—”
“I’m trying to locate someone. I think she might be related to you.”
“Who’s that?”
“Gaylene Harjo.”
Teeve tensed, threw him a look of warning. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m not quite sure,” he said. “But I think I might be her son.”
Chapter Five
Teeve didn’t buy it. Not at first.
She was certainly not swayed by the letter he showed her, a letter from a California attorney who had arranged an adoption in 1972. She didn’t trust much of anything coming out of California and had no use for lawyers at all.
And when he produced a birth certificate for Nicodemus Jack Harjo, she dismissed it. Documents, she knew, could be had for a price.
But then an old memory stirred . . . a lamp crashing to the floor, a baby screaming in pain.
Little Nicky Jack had crawled beneath a table in her living room, entangled himself in an electric cord and toppled a heavy ceramic lamp. She had helped Gaylene hold him down while the emergency room doctor pulled loose flaps of skin together and put fourteen stitc
hes into his head.
Now, reaching across the counter, she used her fingertips to brush his hair back from his face. And there it was. Running from his widow’s peak into his hairline. A thick, jagged scar.
Teeve thought briefly about slipping next door to the liquor store for a bottle of bourbon. She hadn’t had a drink in years, not since the day Navy left her, but she could use one now.
Instead, she turned out the lights in the pool hall, locked the door and put the CLOSED sign in the window.
Seated at a table in the lunchroom, they suffered through several uncomfortable moments until both spoke at once.
“This must seem—”
“I don’t know how to—”
“Sorry.”
“Go ahead.”
While she took off her glasses to examine an imaginary spot on the lens, he studied a stain on the tabletop.
Finally he asked, “Are you related to her?”
“Gaylene? I was married to her brother.”
Following another uneasy silence, Teeve said, “Everybody thought you were dead.”
“Dead? Why would—”
When someone began knocking on the door of the pool hall, Teeve put a finger to her lips.
“If you need to get that—”
“I don’t.”
They waited until the knocking stopped, then Teeve said, “How about a cup of coffee?”
“Okay.”
They didn’t try conversation again until she returned to the table with two cups and a carafe.
“Would you like a slice of pie?”
“No, thanks.”
“Peanut butter.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I make peanut-butter pies.” The only sound in the room was the clinking of her spoon as she stirred sugar into her coffee. “I guess I should say welcome back or something like that, but I don’t suppose this seems much like home. You were only ten months old when . . .”
The unfinished sentence hung between them for a few seconds.
“When what?”
Teeve studied his face. “You don’t have a clue, do you.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
When the phone in the pool hall started ringing, Teeve shook her head, an indication that she didn’t intend to answer it. But when it became obvious that the caller wasn’t going to give up, she went to the front and picked up the receiver.
Teeve’s visitor overheard little of her whispered conversation, but uncomfortable with the thought that she might think he was eavesdropping, he went to the sink, poured out his coffee and rinsed out his cup, making a noisy job of it.
“My daughter,” Teeve said when she came back. “She was at the door earlier. Thought something had happened to me.”
“Did you tell her . . . about me?”
“No.”
“I’d like to keep this quiet.”
“That might be hard to do. DeClare’s a small town.”
He nodded. “I looked around after I got here last night.”
“Where did you stay?”
“The Riverfront Motel.”
“If you checked in as Nick Harjo, everyone in town will hear about it.”
“I used my own name. Well, I used my other name.”
“And what’s that?”
“Mark Albright.”
“Mark Albright,” she said, testing the sound. “Tell me, Mark Albright, where have you been all these years?”
“California. I’ve lived there all my life.” He twisted his lips into a wry smile. “At least I thought I had.”
“You mean you didn’t know . . .”
“That I wasn’t who I thought I was? No. I learned three weeks ago that I was adopted.”
“Adopted.” Her voice had an edge to it. “How did you find out?”
“My mother died two years ago, Dad . . . earlier this month. I found the decree of adoption and birth certificate in their safety-deposit box.”
“You have any idea why they never told you?”
“I’ve thought about little else for the past three weeks. My father . . . well, he was a very private man. Quiet. Thoughtful. Stayed in the background. But my mother was extremely well-known. Enjoyed the spotlight, but maybe she didn’t want the press to pick up the story, start digging around.”
Teeve looked puzzled.
“We lived in Los Angeles; my mother was in the movie business. Everything’s a story in Hollywood.”
“Was she an actress?”
“For a while, but she gave that up years ago. Became an agent. A pretty powerful agent.”
“You ever think maybe there was something strange about the way they got you?” Teeve asked.
“Like what?”
“Something they were trying to hide about the circumstances of your adoption?”
“What? Why would I think that?” He was beginning to look and sound agitated, angry. “Lots of people don’t tell their children the truth about their adoption. And if you’re trying to blame my parents, then you—”
“But you don’t have all the facts. You don’t know the truth of what went on here.”
“That’s why I came here. I want Gaylene Harjo to tell me her side of the truth.”
“She can’t do that.”
“She can’t? Or she won’t?”
Teeve leaned forward, reached across the table and put her hand on top of his, but he pulled free of her touch.
“Gaylene’s dead.”
She waited for some response, watched for a reaction, but could see nothing more than the muscles clenching in his jaw.
“She was murdered. The same night you disappeared.”
September 7, 1966
Dear Diary,
Yipee! I’m a freshman at last. Freshman is a really cool word because when your in the eighth grade theres no one word to describe what you are. You have to say I’m an eighth grader or I’m in the eighth grade but when you get to be in the ninth grade, you can just say I’m a freshman. That word says it all.
Me and Row have all the same classes except for last period, she’s taking home ec and I’m in auto mechanics. I think I’ll be alot better off knowing how to change spark plugs than learning how to fix sponge cake or make an apron. Besides I don’t want to be a housewife, not ever. I can’t see how a woman can be happy if all she gets to do is cook and sew.
I don’t even know for sure that I want to get married but sometimes I think wearing an engagement ring would be neat.
Spider Woman
September 26, 1966
Dear Diary,
I won a red ribbon today at the county fair for my watercolor of the tiger lillies in Mom’s garden. To celebrate Daddy took Mom, me and Row to the Dairy Queen for milk shakes. I felt like a celebrity.
My art teacher says she’s surprised to find a girl as young as me knows so much about art and artists. I told her about how Mr. Duchamp had gotten me interested when I was just a little kid.
I can’t wait to tell him tomorrow about my red ribbon.
Spider Woman
Chapter Six
He left the pool hall abruptly, loaded down by the weight of what he’d just learned.
All his life he’d had other people taking care of him—nannies, drivers, cooks, secretaries, accountants, lawyers, a father, a mother . . . or two. Most had served him for money, a few for love. But now he was on his own. Neither money nor love could provide him with what he needed—someone else to deal with this mess.
He didn’t doubt that a killing and abduction had taken place here, could think of no reason for the woman to lie. But he needed more than a scar on his forehead to prove he was that stolen child.
At the newspaper office he spent nearly two hours looking at microfilm, reading about the discovery of the girl’s body and the stab wounds it bore, the weeks-long search for the missing baby, the suicide of a man arrested for the crime.
He saw grainy black-
and-white photographs of Gaylene Harjo at eighteen and found in her features his own high cheekbones, broad nose and deep-set eyes. And he studied a picture of Nicky Jack Harjo at ten months, staring into the same face he’d seen in pictures of himself taken on his first birthday.
Suddenly the room seemed to grow smaller, the walls pulling in on him. He tried to draw a deep breath, but his lungs wouldn’t allow it. Gulping for air, he bolted from the building.
Outside, he squinted against the sunlight, pain shuddering behind his eyes. He started for the motel but had gone less than a block when the first wave of nausea washed over him. Tasting bile, he turned into a narrow alley and vomited.
In front of a hardware store, he stumbled and fell to one knee. When he got back on his feet, he braced himself against a windowpane, trying to clear his head. But a man gesturing at him through the glass sent him shuffling away.
On the lawn of the library, he was sick again. He thought about going inside to rest, but he knew he would never make it up the front steps, so willed himself to move on down the block.
He was light-headed now, so dizzy that he pitched into a brick storefront, scraping his cheek.
“Hey, mister. Are you okay?”
The voice, a woman’s, came from somewhere behind him, but looking back would have cost him energy he didn’t have. His legs, quivering with the strain of each step, felt rubbery, and the sidewalk beneath his feet seemed to be rolling.
By the time he reached the motel, he looked like a wild-eyed drunk on the back end of a hard binge. He had a tear in the knee of his grass-stained slacks, his shirt—tail flapping—was ringed with sweat; his cheek was bruised and bloody, and his hair looked like matted fur on a wet dog.
Later, he wouldn’t recall the motel housekeeper helping him to his room, wouldn’t remember falling inside the door or crawling to the bed. But he would have no trouble calling back the face of the girl he dreamed of, the face that would return to him in sleep again and again.
Teeve, in robe and house shoes, was waiting on her front porch when Mark’s car pulled into the drive just before eleven that night. She doubted the doorbell would wake Ivy, but she didn’t want to take the chance.