All I could picture was Lana Jean’s dirty hair. “Does Kluney have a health inspector?” I asked.
“No time for jokes,” Mom said. “Come on … I’m hungry.”
Kennedy’s Grill looked like nothing more than a wooden storefront on the outside, but the inside was clean and shining. No tablecloths, but the heavy oak tables were well scrubbed, and the menu wasn’t too bad. There was the usual chicken fried steak and chicken fried chicken with globs of cream gravy and plenty of fries, but there were a lot of other things, too, like grilled chicken, barbecued ribs, fried shrimp, spaghetti, and baked meatloaf.
We had no sooner ordered than I caught Mom staring over my shoulder at the door to the kitchen. “I think someone’s trying to get your attention,” she told me.
It was Lana Jean, swathed in an oversize white cotton apron. She was leaning through the door to the kitchen, hanging on with one hand and waving with the other.
I left the table and went to see what Lana Jean wanted.
“He’s out in the alley, talking to B.J.,” she whispered.
“Who?”
“Travis. Come on. I want you to see him.”
“Why don’t you point him out at school?”
“No! Come on. Now. B.J. left the door partly open, so you can sneak a good look.”
“I don’t want to sneak. I—” But Lana Jean had grabbed my hand and pulled me into the kitchen.
The cooks were so busy, they didn’t pay any attention to us, so I allowed Lana Jean to tug me toward the back door. She paused only long enough to jerk her head toward racks of dishes that were ready to be put into the large washing machines. “That’s what I do,” she said, and I felt greatly relieved.
When we reached the back door Lana Jean gave me a little shove, so I came down hard on my left foot, slapping the bare linoleum, and grabbed the open door for support.
B.J., swathed in an oversize apron like Lana Jean’s, and the tall, broad-shouldered guy with him immediately stiffened, like rabbits caught in a car’s headlights, and stared at me.
It was easy to see why Lana Jean was physically attracted to Travis. He was good-looking, with a thick head of blond, curly hair, and dark, penetrating eyes.
His unwavering stare embarrassed me. Never before had I felt so stupid. I was sure they were thinking I’d been spying on them, so I stammered, “I—I’m sorry. I was looking for the ladies’ room.”
“It’s at the other end of the restaurant,” B.J. snapped.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, and quickly turned away. I heard the door slam shut behind me.
“Isn’t he great?” Lana Jean whispered. She hugged her arms and rocked back and forth on her toes and heels. “You can see why I like him so much, can’t you?”
“I just saw what he looks like,” I told her. “I don’t know anything else about him. I have no idea what he’s like.”
She blinked in surprise. “He’s cool. Real cool. And a lot of the girls like him, but that doesn’t matter right now. I just wanted you to get a look at him.”
Across the room a man yelled, “Lana Jean! Get this rack of dishes going! Now!”
With a conspiratorial smile and a wink, Lana Jean whispered, “I’ve got to get back to work,” and trotted toward the dish-washing station.
As fast as I could, I dodged my way out of that kitchen and went back to where Mom was waiting for me. A couple of mixed-greens salads, swimming in ranch dressing, were already on the table.
“What’s the matter?” Mom asked me. “Your face is red. Are you feeling all right?”
“Just embarrassed,” I mumbled, and stuffed a forkful of salad into my mouth. “Lana Jean insisted that I take a look at her boyfriend, who was out in the alley.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Mom reminded me, so I didn’t talk at all. I was so hungry I wolfed down a large plate of fried shrimp and a baked potato before I even looked up.
Mom smiled and gave a contented sigh. “The world looks much better on a full stomach, doesn’t it?”
“You bet,” I said.
She signaled to the waiter for more coffee and asked, “Now, why don’t you tell me more about the friends you’re making at school?”
“There isn’t much to tell. I’ve only been at school a few days. There’s Tammy—who rides the bus with me—and Julie, but it takes a while to make friends.”
“Don’t hesitate to invite any of them over,” she said.
“If they ask me first,” I mumbled.
Mom didn’t give me the pep talk I halfway expected. I could see she was still thinking over that dance on the beach.
“That reminds me,” I told Mom, in an attempt to keep her in the here and now. “That girl you saw in the doorway—Lana Jean Willis—is coming over on Saturday afternoon. Our English lit teacher asked me to help Lana Jean with her journal writing.”
Maybe just saying her name aloud made Lana Jean appear. Mom smiled and beckoned to her, and Lana Jean walked over to our table.
After the introductions and Mom saying how nice it was we were going to work on our journals together, she suggested, “Afterward, maybe the two of you would like to go to the carnival together.”
“What carnival?” I asked.
“Haven’t you seen the signs posted in the stores around town about the traveling carnival?”
“No,” I said. “And I haven’t seen the carnival either.”
“It’s not here yet,” Lana Jean told me. “It’s going to be set up on some vacant land south of town.”
“Mom,” I complained. “You want us to go to some kind of a kiddie carnival?”
I startled myself at how negative I sounded. Mom looked surprised too. “Don’t knock it until you try it,” she said. “Those traveling carnivals aren’t for kiddies. The whole town usually turns out, because there are always a few rides and booths with games—things like throwing a baseball at bottles, or tossing pennies into dishes—and they’re fun. It’s something different to do on a weekend night. I’m sure that the kids from your school will be there.”
“Everybody goes!” Lana Jean said, and her eyes crinkled at the corners as she grinned with pleasure, just thinking about it, I guess. “It’s wonderful because—”
Mr. Kennedy hissed at Lana Jean, and she raced back into the kitchen, not even waiting to explain the carnival’s wonderfulness. I wasn’t convinced.
Mom paid the bill, and we headed for home, which shone like a beacon. “Maybe I went a little overboard on yard lights,” Mom said, but I could tell she was as glad as I was for all that brightness.
“The lights ought to scare off any prowlers … or burglars,” I said. I glanced suspiciously at a dark pickup parked just down the road. What was it doing there?
“Don’t worry about burglars,” Mom told me, a teasing note in her voice. “Remember? According to the sheriff, all criminals come from out of town.”
“I don’t care where they’re from,” I said, remembering the footprints and the beer cans and the butt-stuffed ashtrays. “I just don’t want them around our house.”
As we reached the kitchen door, the outdoor lights suddenly went off, plunging us into a black hole. Blinking, trying to adjust to the dark, I heard running footsteps, first inside the house, then across the yard on the other side. The pickup suddenly started up and took off fast, splattering a burst of gravel.
For just an instant Mom and I clung to each other, both of us thinking the same thing. Gingerly, she turned the doorknob and slowly opened the door.
“They unlocked it from inside,” she said. “So how did they get in?”
I found the answer as soon as I began looking around. The small bathroom window was wide open.
Mom, of course, had run right to her desk, letting out a screech when she saw her computer and laser printer weren’t where she’d left them.
“It’s okay!” I yelled. “Look! They’re on the floor next to the door to the porch.”
Mom sank into a chair and closed her eyes. “
The novel was on my hard disk. I ran off a copy each day, but I’d made changes, and—”
“Don’t worry, Mom. It’s all right. They didn’t take your computer. I guess we surprised them.”
Mom sat up, and color began to come back to her face. “They must have run through the porch door and around the house, cutting back to the road behind the garage.”
“Why don’t we see what they did take?” I asked.
“Right,” she said, “and then I’ll call the sheriff.”
We searched through our bedroom chests of drawers and closets, looked through all the kitchen cabinets, and came up with very little. The burglars had found fifty dollars Mom had stashed away, but nothing else seemed to have been stolen.
Half an hour later the sheriff showed up, walked around the house inside and out, and said, “Lucky you folks came home when you did, or they woulda made off with your computer stuff and that radio.”
“What radio?” I asked.
He pointed to a small black transistor radio, with headset attached, that was on the floor behind Mom’s laser printer.
I reached for it, then hesitated. “Can I touch it, or do you want to take fingerprints?”
The sheriff shook his head. “We don’t take fingerprints. Doesn’t do any good. Whoever did this is long gone, probably on his way to Houston. Go ahead. It’s your radio. Do whatever you want with it.”
“It’s not my radio,” I told him. I handed it to Mom. “I’ve never seen this radio before.”
“Neither have I,” Mom said. She held it out to the sheriff, who examined it closely.
Finally, he looked up. “Then where’d it come from?” he asked.
“We don’t know,” Mom said.
He chuckled. “Maybe the burglar left it in exchange for your fifty dollars.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Mom told him. “This radio doesn’t belong to us, so what is it doing here?”
“Maybe the burglar likes music while he works,” the sheriff answered. “You know what William Congreve wrote: ‘Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast.’ ”
I wished he’d stop trying to be funny. I was still feeling creepy, knowing someone had been in our house while we were gone.
“I have a better idea,” I told him. “The radio might have been stolen from someone else. What if the burglars hit more than one house tonight?”
“They would have stashed the haul from the other house in their car. They wouldn’t carry it along with them.”
I hated to admit to myself he was right, but leaving us someone else’s radio didn’t make sense.
“I’ll check it out,” Sheriff Granger said. “Let me know if you have any other problems.”
It wasn’t until later, when I was in bed, with all the lights—inside and out—turned off, that it dawned on me how very isolated Uncle Jim’s house was. Mom had been drawn to it not only by the low cost of living, but also by the silence. No traffic, no sirens or traffic helicopter, no countless phone calls with people selling siding, carpet cleaning, or symphony subscriptions, no door-to-door salesmen or kids hawking candy bars to raise money for their schools. Here at the ocean this constant cacophony was replaced by a symphonic rhythm woven by the sea and the breeze to form a special kind of peace.
Angry at the shadowy forms who had shattered that peace, I punched at my pillow, squiggled down under the blanket, and tried to go to sleep.
CHAPTER FOUR
By the time Wednesday afternoon arrived, I’d been so busy concentrating on just getting through each day at school, I’d almost forgotten about our prowlers. When our dog-alarm went off and I heard a car pull up and stop by our gate, I automatically went out to see who it was.
A woman—she looked as if she was in her twenties—got out of the car and stood, with her hand on the open door, just staring at me. Her dark hair was tied at the nape of her neck with a limp ribbon, and her face was pale. One hand was clamped to her midriff, where her faded blue shirt met the waistband of her jeans, as though her stomach hurt.
“Hi,” I said. “Can I help you?”
I saw her throat tighten as she spoke. “Does Eve Gillian live here?”
“Yes,” I said. “She’s working right now. Is there something I can do for you?”
“I need to talk to her,” she said. “Now. I really need to talk to her bad.”
Back in Houston I’d fielded phone calls so Mom wouldn’t be disturbed, and helping Mom stick to her work is what I should have been doing in Kluney. The woman’s skin was drawn tightly across her cheekbones in fear, and I quickly decided that in this case Mom would want to be interrupted.
“Come on,” I said. “Mom’s in the living room.”
The woman slammed her car door and threw open our gate, nearly running down the walk. I led her through the kitchen door and into the living room where Mom was typing fast, her eyes on the computer screen.
“Mom,” I began, “I hate to interrupt you, but …”
Mom gave a little shake of her head and looked at us as though for a moment she couldn’t remember where she was. Then her eyes seemed to focus and she twisted, climbing from her chair. “Yes?” she asked. “Do you need me for something?”
“I need you,” the woman answered, and she began to cry.
Mom went to her, took her shoulders, and murmured something. I was curious but I knew this was no place for me. I went out on the front porch, sat on the rough wooden flooring, and began doing my stretching exercises. In spite of the practice hours I’d been putting in, I was not in the shape I should be. Write fast, Mom! Write fast!
The windows were open, so the voices floated out as clearly as though I were in the room. Not wanting to eavesdrop, I stood up, but what I heard made me sit down again.
“I’ll be in trouble if they find out I talked to you,” the woman said.
She blew her nose and made little snuffling noises as Mom asked, “Why?”
“Because everyone knows that you write about these things and the law gets into it and the government gets involved, and some people get hurt.” She sighed. “But people are getting hurt already.”
“What’s your name?” Mom asked.
“Anita.” Her voice had risen, as though she were going to give a last name, but she didn’t.
“Sit down, Anita, and talk to me,” Mom said, and the direction of their voices changed as they moved to the sofa.
“I had carried my baby only five months when I lost her.” Anita’s voice was so hollow, I could picture the way she had held her hand across her stomach, clutching the child who was no longer there. “And my little boy—he’s five, but he doesn’t play good, like a five-year-old ought to. He’s always tired and he gets sick a lot.” There was a pause before she said, “I tell my husband there’s something wrong with the land we’re on, and he tells me I’m crazy; but I’m not crazy. I seen a TV special on what they call toxic … toxic …”
“Toxic waste?” Mom suggested.
“Yes. And I read the articles you wrote about what was probably going on in Brownsville. The babies …” Anita’s voice broke and she sobbed, “Nobody should do those things to babies.”
Mom’s voice lowered, and I could imagine her patting Anita’s shoulder, trying to help her calm down. Finally I heard Mom ask, “What makes you think your land is toxic?”
“Just what I told you,” Anita answered.
“Is it on landfill?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you anywhere near power lines?”
“No. We’re south of town, on a little rise that leads down to Gooley’s Wash.”
“I’m not familiar with Gooley’s Wash,” Mom said. “What is it?”
“It’s a stream of sorts. Mostly it only has a little water in it, but it carries a lot of water when it rains.”
“Are there other houses near you?”
“Yes. There’s the Werts and the Bantrys. The Werts are gone all day, both of them working full-time at their store, but Mrs. Bant
ry has been poorly ever since their son moved the old couple into their new house.”
“These are all new houses?”
Anita must have nodded, because Mom said, “What was the land like before the houses were built?”
“I don’t know,” Anita said. “I never got down there, never paid much attention.”
“It was all open country? No buildings at all?”
“Oh, there’s a building,” Anita told her. “I thought you meant what was on our prpperty itself. There’s a company nearby that’s been there for a long time. It’s a waste disposal company run by the Hawkins brothers. They’re the ones who built and sold the houses.”
It was all I could do to keep from groaning out loud. I knew that Mom was thinking the same thing I was. A waste disposal company could mean illegal dumping of toxic waste. That would mean a red flag to Mom. But she had the novel to write, and she couldn’t get sidetracked. Not now!
“Give me your address,” Mom said. “We can make an appointment for you to show me around your property.”
“I can’t do that,” Anita said, and I could hear the fear in her voice. “I thought you could just do whatever it is you do to find out about these things, and no one would know it was me who came to see you.”
“Seeing the property and talking to the people who live on it is part of what I’d need to do,” Mom said.
“I knew I shouldn’t have come. I don’t want to get in trouble.”
“I don’t understand, Anita,” Mom said. “Who are you afraid of? Who would cause the trouble?”
“My husband, for one,” Anita answered. “He’s not only kin to Billy Joe and Bubba Hawkins, he works for them, as do a lot of people in Kluney.”
Her voice grew fainter and I could tell that she was walking to the kitchen door. “Leave me out of it,” she begged. “Please!”
“You came to see me,” Mom reminded her, “because of the baby you lost and because of your little boy. You asked for my help, but I can’t help you if you don’t help me.”
“I—I’ll think about it,” Anita mumbled. I heard the door slam and her shoes slapping the pavement as she ran up the walk toward her car.
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