A Small Crowd of Strangers

by Joanna Rose

  The kettle trilled in the back room.

  “Hot tea before you go out in the heat is good for you,” she said. The beads clicked gently as she passed through, and the kettle stopped whistling, and she said, “Stealing is really a crime against the self, you know.”

  The cranes hung still. The sun shone on the shelf where the ephemeris had been, where the two girls had been. Pattianne stood still, next to the desk, hating them.

  Elizabeth said, “It seems like a crime against others, but it’s not. Loss is a part of life. But to live with the crime of theft creates a dissonance in the spirit.”

  She came back through the clicking beads with two white cups of tea. Our Queen Has Forgiven You. Put Your Brown Shoe Back On.

  “They’ll live with the dissonance,” she said. “Unless, of course, they return it, which I doubt, and then they’ll have to apologize to you, directly.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you’re the one they stole from. When you do something wrong, you need to make it right with the person you wronged. That’s why murder is such a karmic fuck-up. You can never apologize to the person you killed. You have to carry it in your heart and then deal with it in your next life or whatever.”

  She held out a cup of bitter perfumed tea.

  “Thank you,” Pattianne said. She put her shoe back on.

  On Saturday morning, Frankie was outside, doing a lot of banging, and Michael was at Sacred Heart for Reconciliation. She took her coffee and opened the front door. The air had a dry, weedy smell. A row of storm windows leaned against the front of the house, strung with black webs of dust, and Frankie, backing out from under the porch, dragging yet another storm window, was all strung with black dust too, the butt of his jeans, the shoulders of his T-shirt, his hair.

  Pattianne said, “Do you do this for everybody?”

  “Eleven houses,” he said, and he leaned the window up next to the others and went back under the porch. In just the last week, the sun had become a welcome thing, warming her cheeks and shoulders. The sugar maple had red leaves along one side, and another tree, a tall, skinny tree with small, round leaves, was starting to turn yellow. The yellow leaves moved in the air, even with no wind.

  Frankie backed out again, pulling another window. A big blue-gray bird hopped down near the walk and screeched.

  “Sure, now you’re Mr. Nice Guy,” Frankie said to the bird.

  He leaned the window against the house with the others. The bird screeched again, and another bird, same kind, hopped onto the grass near the first bird. Frankie went around the side of the house. When he came back, dragging the hose, both birds screeched.

  “What’s with those birds?”

  “Gray jays,” he said.

  He turned the hose nozzle and the birds flew off, not very far, into a pine tree, where there was yet another one. Frankie squirted the windows.

  “They seem to have something in mind.”

  “I am of three minds,” he said. “Like a tree that holds three gray jays.”

  “What?”

  He squirted one window, into each corner, one corner at time.

  “That’s a poem, but it’s about blackbirds,” he said. “Not jays. Jays are usually pretty secretive. It’s probably a food thing. Fall and all.”

  A flock of tiny birds, no bigger than specks, swooped between the trees, making a flutter in the air. They disappeared into the top of the sugar maple, and the sugar maple became full of squeaks and peeps.

  Today was Rick and Lily Smith Day. Horse Day. Lutheran Minister Day.

  It was supposed to be last Saturday. Michael had come home from going to Confession or whatever, and she stood in the bedroom brushing her hair and told him she had cramps.

  “Cramps?” he said.

  She didn’t have cramps, she hardly ever got cramps, especially since she started taking birth control pills and her periods got so perfectly regular. But she didn’t want to go to Rick and Lily Smith’s house and ride horses and be sociable.

  “My period,” she’d said.

  He took the brush, put it on the dresser, and laid his hand flat on her stomach. She laid her hands over his and turned her face away from the mirror, to the dark hallway, away from the lie of it. It wasn’t even his sin. It was hers, and she didn’t consider it a sin. Except the not telling him part. She would tell him somehow. When she was ready to quit taking them. Or she could tell him they were just to make her periods regular, some women did that.

  Horse Day got moved to this week.

  The Sears store was at the edge of St. Cloud. It was a sharp edge, a straight street. Along one side was a sidewalk and shiny new houses in a row, a ranch-style house with a garage that took up the whole front, then a Cape Cod with shutters, then a ranch, then a Cape Cod, all along the street across from the Sears store parking lot. Farther along the straight road was the Kmart.

  Rick and Lily Smith lived a ways out in the countryside—that’s how they said it here, a ways. The long road ran straight for a mile, crossed another straight road, another mile, another road. The car windows were all open, blowing Michael’s hair. It was almost too windy to talk.

  “My mom was into horses,” he said.

  Mrs. Bryn in jodhpurs and a short red jacket. Her long legs in tight-fitting black boots.

  He said, “I think what she really wanted was to be the queen of the rodeo.”

  Pattianne rolled the window partway up.

  “The queen of the rodeo?”

  “I’m joking,” he said. “But she lived out west for a while before she met dad. Montana.”

  Mrs. Bryn with a history. Pattianne rolled the window up the rest of the way. “So why did she come back?”

  “What do you mean, why did she come back?” Michael said. “What was she going to do, stay there? In Montana?”

  He turned on the radio, fiddled until the static cleared to a football game.

  “Vikings, Detroit,” he said.

  She unbuckled her seat belt and turned so she could face him.

  “It would be great if the Vikings went to the Super Bowl,” he said. “Since that we’re here. You should keep your seat belt buckled. Now, what’s the name of their road? We take a left somewhere—Coldwater Road?”

  Michael’s face from the side was a little boy’s face. His nose went up a tiny bit, and his lips pouted out, and it was impossible to imagine him as an old man.

  “I say Go Vikings,” he said.

  Red-winged blackbirds flew out from tall grass with purple flowers. Brown birds with yellow stripes dotted the telephone wires in twos and threes. Reverend Rick’s map was squares and neat names written along the squares, one mile each, the way the roads were out here, long and straight, one mile each. Their house was marked with a small star, eight squares from St. Cloud. At Coldwater Road, Pattianne wanted to keep driving, but Reverend Rick’s map was too perfect to miss the road, or pretend to miss the road.

  She never wanted to get somewhere, always wanted to keep driving. She’d been hoping it would take longer to get to Reverend Rick’s house. She was trying to remember wanting to ride horses.

  Their driveway was long and straight, too, a wire fence along one side, up to a two-story house in a patch of green. There was a small white barn. The wire fence had thin flags of white cloth hanging still. They drove up the driveway and stopped, and when the O-Bug’s engine quit, the air was quiet in a loud way for a bit. Then bird sound came in, and the horse smell. The gray front door was right in the middle. The windows had gray shutters. Pink cosmos still bloomed on either side of the front door. Even the cosmos were orderly.

  Two horses stood along the fence close to the house. She liked the way horses stood with one back leg cocked, kind of casual. These horses looked bulky. One of them was gray and black. The other was just brown and dusty.

  Michael put his hand on her knee.

  She said, “What?”

  “You feel okay?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Why?”


  “You seem kind of quiet.”

  When Michael said that, he meant he was being kind of quiet, and she wondered how long she had known that.

  Reverend Rick came out the front door.

  “Welcome,” he called out, waving his arm, walking out to the car.

  Michael’s face went into smile mode, like his most important job was to smile at Reverend Rick, and it was. Michael was the front man. Their marriage had its structure, which was slowly, in these small moments, becoming clear to her.

  He got out of the car and stretched out his arms like he’d been driving for days. Rick slapped his hand into Michael’s in a big business-guy handshake. His face split in a grin and there were neat, square, very white teeth and nice eye crinkles.

  “Come on in,” he said. “Pattianne, feeling better?”

  Like she got to wear a sign now, Has Menstrual Cramps.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Yes.”

  Rick put one hand on Michael’s back, one hand on her back, in between her shoulders—not as tall as Michael, not much taller than Pattianne—and they went up to the front door, and there was Lily, pushing open the screen door, a baby in one arm. She wore jeans and a sleeveless white blouse, and her arms were thick and tanned, and she was saying, “Come in, come in, come right on in. This is LeeAnn. Come on in.”

  A living room with gray and green furniture and gray carpeting and white draperies, and a decoupage plaque of Jesus, and some sheep over the couch, right in the middle.

  “Gorgeous out here,” Michael was saying.

  “Any trouble finding the place?” Rick asked. Not joking.

  “We’re just finishing up,” Lily said. That baby was as blond and round and pink as a baby could be. “Come on in.”

  They moved in a small group through the living room, through an archway, into a wide kitchen with three kids sitting on a bench at a long table, little kids, with crayons and paper. Thick, straight, blond hair on all three heads.

  Lily said, “This is Mr. Bryn and Mrs. Bryn.”

  Michael stepped to the end of the table and put his hands in his pockets. The three kids stared at him.

  “Hello,” he said. “Now, what are your names? Tell me one at a time so I don’t forget.”

  The kids looked at Lily. Rick stood back with his arms folded across his chest. No eye crinkles.

  Lily said, “Lawrence?”

  The biggest boy stood up and said, “Lawrence. I’m eight.”

  He had two huge front teeth.

  He sat down quick, and the girl stood up, and she looked at Lily and said, “I’m Lisa, seven,” and she sat back down.

  The last one on the bench was a little boy. Lisa and Lawrence looked at him, looked at Rick, at Michael, at Pattianne. He had a red crayon in one hand and a blue crayon in the other, and he put the red crayon on the table and put the blue one in his mouth. Lily reached across the table, took the blue crayon out of his mouth, and set it on the table in front of him. He reached for it, and she covered it with her hand.

  Rick said, “Lee we’re waiting.”

  The little boy held his hand up in front of his face and looked at it, and with his other hand he pushed two fingers down and then held up his hand, two fingers and his thumb sticking up. “Three,” he said.

  “Very good, Lee,” Lily said. “Now, can you tell Mr. Bryn your name?”

  Luke waved his hand in the air and said, “Three.”

  It would probably be her turn next. Pattianne, thirty-one.

  “Okay,” Lily said. “Let’s clean up.”

  And Rick said, “Come on outside.”

  The backyard was fenced in, and beyond the fence, a grassy field stretched away to trees a long way off. Rick, Michael, and then Pattianne walked along a cement walk that went right through the middle of the very green grass. In one corner, an empty garden patch with tomato cages stacked to the side. In the other corner was a swing set. If the swing set were set on top of the empty garden patch, the sizes would be a perfect match. They followed Reverend Rick, in his tight jeans and boots. There was something about boots that did something to a guy’s butt, and Pattianne thought of saying, Cute butt, Reverend Rick. And what a bad thing that would be to do. He planted his legs apart and slid the barn door open sideways.

  The barn was wide open on the other end, and sun slanted in, the air lit with motes. Rick took a hanging bundle of leather straps and, holding the straps behind him, went through the doorway, out to the field that sloped down to the road. Michael’s butt wasn’t as round. His legs were longer, straighter. Rick’s legs went to the ground in a different way, like they were going right into it.

  The brown horse was just outside the doorway in the sun. She stopped inside the doorway. The other horse was by the fence, watching. Rick kept the leather straps behind his back and let the brown horse eat out of his hand, the horse all snorty, big wet lips. Then Rick slipped the leather onto the horse’s face, and it stepped sideways. Its front foot kicked at the dirt, and Rick was going “Hey, ho, hey,” and then he turned and came toward Michael and Pattianne.

  “This is a hackamore,” he said. He was leading the horse by its face. “We won’t bridle him up yet.”

  “Hackamore,” she said.

  Michael said, “Pattianne’s always wanted to ride.”

  And Rick said, “This is Navarre.”

  Michael reached right up and touched Navarre along his long horse face, and Navarre shook his head like he hated that.

  “Hey, ho,” Rick said. “He’s part Arabian. See how pretty his ears are?”

  Navarre’s ears were flicking forward, and then they’d lie down, back, like he was suspicious, and she was the one he was suspicious of.

  “So,” Rick said. “What do you think, Pattianne?”

  She said, “Nice barn.”

  “Why, thank you,” Rick said, but Michael laughed.

  “Here, Michael,” Rick said. “Hold right here,” and Michael took some part of the hackamore and Rick came back, past Pattianne, into the nice barn, and Michael stood there petting Navarre’s face, his hand right there by Navarre’s mouth, Navarre’s lips working like he was Mr. Ed. When Rick stepped back out into the sunlight, he had a loop of blue nylon cord with a heavy hook. He walked right up to Navarre and hooked the hook onto the hackamore, and then stepped backward, letting out cord from the loop. Michael kept petting Navarre’s face like they were old pals.

  Rick backed all the way to Pattianne. He held out the loops of cord and said, “Here.”

  Her hand reached for it, her fingers numb, and her elbows telling her hand don’t do it.

  He said, “You can handle this lunge line. Just hold it, there.”

  She took the loop of cord in both hands. “What will he do?”

  “Nothing,” Rick said. He had square short fingers, clean short fingernails. “Do you have a dog?”

  “No.”

  Michael stepped away from Navarre and leaned against the fence, his hands in his pockets, like an old cowhand from the Rio Grande.

  Rick said, “Did you ever have a dog?”

  He took one of her hands off the loop of cord, turned her palm up, and laid the leading piece of cord across her palm. He closed his hand over hers.

  “A dog?” she said. “Yeah.”

  Navarre just stood there, about ten feet away from her. Maybe closer.

  “What was your dog’s name?”

  “Starla. She was a spaniel.”

  “Was Starla a good dog?”

  Rick tugged at the line and Navarre’s head moved.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well,” he said. “This will be just like taking Starla for a walk on a leash.”

  His hand held hers with the lunge line, his other hand on her back between her shoulders, pressing there. He tugged at the lunge line again, and this time Navarre stepped along, toward them, and Pattianne stepped in the direction of away, and Rick led them both out into the middle of the dirt.

  Rick said, “He’s a good boy,” and
he loosened his hold on her hand. There was no tension on the line, and Navarre just came along. She could feel the big footsteps through the dirt.

  “Okay,” Rick said, and then instead of taking the lunge line back, he let go of the line, of her hand.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “Give him some line.”

  She let a loop out.

  “Little more,” he said.

  Navarre stopped coming toward her, but his mouth kept working, and his nostrils, and his tail. Black tail. Brown horse, black tail. Black mane. Black eyelashes, beautiful black eyelashes. Eyes.

  “Okay,” Rick said. He put his hands on her shoulders and started moving her around in a slow circle, and Navarre started going in a circle, too, around the dirt, around them, past Michael, his footsteps a steady, even, hollow sound on the dirt.

  “Good,” Rick said, and he took his hands off her shoulders. “Do that.”

  “Why? Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere. I’m right here. Go ahead.”

  And she did. She made Navarre go around in a circle three times.

  Then he said, “I’m going to get Fanny. You just lead Navarre around like that, get used to him at the end of the leash. Fanny’s the gray.”

  Michael had hopped up to the wooden crosspiece of the fence. Pattianne turned partway. Navarre took a few steps. She stopped. He stopped.

  “Make a slow circle,” Rick said. “Don’t get yourself dizzy.”

  They didn’t actually get up on the horses, there weren’t even any saddles, just another hackamore on the gray horse, and they took them for a walk out in the field to a path worn along the fence line. Navarre’s ears kept twitching around, but Fanny just walked behind Michael, her face down low. Navarre stopped and stuck his face into some bushes, so Pattianne stopped too.

  Rick said, “Don’t let him tell you when to stop. Hey ho, come on boy,” and he reached out and tugged at the line. Navarre ripped leaves off the bush and started following again, chewing leaves, a branch sticking out of his lips, and his teeth crunching the leaves like they were bones.

  Rick said, “He’s a good boy, Fanny’s baby, born right here. Fanny was born on the next farm over.” He waved his arm eastward, and Navarre’s ears flickered. “They had her named Fantasy.”