by Lucy Carol
Ann was beaming. She asked, “Is the management treating you well?”
“Yeah, they’re really nice! If I need anything they jump on it. It’s almost weird.”
Ann nodded, seeming very satisfied. She caught the waiter’s attention and said, “Check, please?” The waiter came over with the check, passing by the woman who had inquired about the restroom earlier, each of them brushing past the table in opposite directions.
Feeling her confidence build, Madison decided to try Spenser’s idea of the mother/daughter talk about boyfriends, though she would have to embellish the truth a little. More than a little. Quite a bit, actually.
She put on a conspiratorial little smile and leaned in saying, “And guess what? I have a boyfriend.”
Ann looked up from the check, her eyes soft, and said, “I’m not surprised. You’re so pretty. Those sparkly green eyes have always taken my breath away.” Madison thought her heart would burst.
“So tell me,” Ann joined in with her own conspiratorial smile, “What’s his name? What does he do? Is he really cute?” Madison couldn’t believe this moment. This was the best moment ever. Just like normal people!
She giggled. “His name is ExBoy, he sells his artwork, and he’s beyond cute. He’s hot!”
Ann’s face didn’t move for a second. In a faint tone she said, “ExBoy? Did I hear that right?” The light in her eyes seemed to be having a brown-out, flickering with the strain of staying on.
“Yeah. He’s the one who found the apartment and told me about it. I really owe him for that.”
“You don’t owe him anything,” Ann blurted. “Anyone can find an apartment, it doesn’t mean anything. With a name like ExBoy he… he’s probably a crook. You can’t trust people like that, Madison, you don’t want to be with a crook.”
Madison stiffened. We’re normal people, all right.
“Why don’t you date a nice man?” Ann’s tone was pleading. “Someone who would never get in any trouble, or ever give you any reason to worry, or—” Her words came to an abrupt halt as her hand came up over her mouth.
She lowered her forehead into her hand. “I’m sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t do that to you.” She looked back up and said, “Please don’t go.”
Scattered voices from around the restaurant with their clinking china were all that Madison could hear. A tiny leaf quivered and fell onto their table.
It occurred to her that Ann had just done something that she had never done before. She had stopped herself. So Madison did something that she had never done before, either. She said, “I’m not going anywhere.”
*****
As they were leaving, the waiter said, “Please come again, Ms. Cruz.” She answered with a pleasant, “Thank you.” The sun was still coming in through the large front windows, pouring heavy sunbeams into the room. Summer was in its glory. Madison noticed one sunbeam hitting directly on the head of the lady who had brushed past their table earlier. The sunbeam revealed her hair to actually be a stunning dark red color, leaving Madison with the idea of trying that color someday. She admired the hair, but the woman didn’t notice, continuing to look down, reading her book, sipping coffee.
Stepping outside, they walked in the direction of Madison’s car parked down the street. People getting off work caused traffic to slow its pace as more cars appeared, congesting the streets. The occasional honk or street musician added to the sounds of footsteps, car engines, and police whistles. Madison carried the large envelope of old photos under her arm, her high heels clicking on the pavement.
“Madison.” Ann exhaled. “Thank you for sticking it out with me back there. I still have a lot to figure out about myself. I’ve been going through… some changes, lately.” She removed her suit jacket, draping it over her left forearm and rubbing the back of her neck with her other hand as she looked down at the sidewalk.
Madison could see the tension and weariness. She swallowed, searching for the right thing to say, then settled for, “I’m trying to use adult eyes.”
“Adult eyes?”
“Yeah. You know. The kid inside me had a head start in forming my opinions, but it’s not her turn anymore.”
Ann seemed to take this in and nodded her head. “You’ve come to that conclusion much sooner than I did about myself.”
“When did you come to it?” Madison asked.
Ann answered in a rueful tone. “A few weeks ago.”
Looking up, Madison saw a tall suit across the street, walking down the sidewalk. Aaron Reed, she smiled to herself. Must be getting off work, too. He said she has pictures of me in her office. All ages. She was too embarrassed to ask Ann for confirmation. Not yet, anyway. Aaron made a call on his cell phone but kept walking.
“We had a good start today,” Ann said, “but there’s going to be a lot to talk about. There’s so much to tell you. I decided not to try to fit in too much today.”
“Do you want to talk about it tomorrow?”
“I can’t. There’s a problem.” She huffed, “Lots of problems. I need to wait for events to settle down.”
Madison stopped walking, letting passersby flow around them. “What are you not telling me? Does it involve Grandpa?” She had tried not to sound too intense.
“No, it’s FBI business.” Ann looked at her puzzled, then added, “Dad was doing well when I saw him.”
Madison said, “I wonder if he’s getting out enough. He should see friends. Which ones are his very best friends? The ones he would tell anything to?”
Ann’s quizzical look deepened and Madison knew her line of questioning about Grandpa didn’t feel natural. But after a pause, Ann answered. “That would be either Ray or Mitch. Those three started out together in gardening jobs at the UW.”
“I think I remember those old guys.” Madison said. “They would get together once in a while.”
Ann said, “I’d say mostly Mitch. When I was a kid, Dad gave his son a job. Then when Mom died, Mitch kept an eye on Dad, cleaned him up when he got too drunk.” Ann looked down, and said, “One of the reasons I took you to Philadelphia so suddenly was because Dad fell apart. The impact of Mom’s death almost took him with her. But in an odd way, your rebellion out there in Philadelphia was a blessing. He sobered up fast when he realized how much you needed him. It gave him a purpose.” She looked off into the distance. “I couldn’t take that away from him.” Her fierce eyes glistened, tears refusing to leave their corners.
Traffic continued its pokey downtown pace while the distant roar of an accelerating public bus could be heard. “Anyway, Mitch was the one who held him together at that time. Later still, Dad gave a job to Mitch’s grandson. They’ve always looked out for each other.”
“I had no idea.” Madison blinked. Had she been that self-absorbed? So much for the old invisible-kid-in-the-room trick. I guess they could hide things when they really wanted to.
Ann said, “I’m sure he still sees his friends, but you could ask him.” They resumed walking and soon approached Madison’s car and the moment for saying goodbye.
Madison chose to offer a light little hand clasp with one hand, while patting Ann on the shoulder with the other hand. She knew it probably looked as awkward as it felt. But her emotions were too raw to trust herself to offer a hug. Not yet. She was walking a tightrope here, navigating between a nervous reunion with her mother and mysterious trouble with her grandfather. Clearly, there were ongoing secrets on both sides. Madison was going to have to do a little secret scheming of her own to get to the truth.
She climbed into her car, feeling the car’s interior heat from being parked there in the sun, and started the engine. She hit the power button to lower all the car windows and let some of the heat escape. Ann bent down to be seen at the passenger window, saying, “Thanks for offering to meet me where I work. I loved it.”
“It was pretty impressive,” said Madison. “There are a lot of hot guys working there.”
Ann blinked and smiled. “I guess there are.”
<
br /> “I met one named Aaron Reed. I might want to have his baby.”
“What?” Ann laughed.
Madison waved at her and pulled into traffic. As much as her mother’s reaction to ExBoy annoyed her, she figured there wouldn’t be any harm in having an imaginary break-up with her imaginary boyfriend.
Chapter Thirteen
She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of it sooner. The best place to hide something wasn’t a place they would never think of because eventually they’d think of it. It wasn’t a place that was guarded because eventually they’d find a way in.
The best place to hide something would be a place that was so chaotic you wouldn’t know where to start, and eventually you would talk yourself into thinking that it couldn’t possibly be there. The only thing you would find in this place would be something you weren’t looking for. Therefore, she should hide the contents of the box in the battered warehouse of Robot Moon Productions. She swung the car around and headed north to Ballard.
Robot Moon Productions was an indoor junkyard to most eyes, but it was prop heaven to stage and local indie film crews on a shoestring budget. Even parades, conventions, exhibitions, and trade shows needing some sort of prop or display eventually found their way to Robot Moon.
And if Robot Moon didn’t have it, it could be custom built. The owner was a young woman everyone called Target, and if need be, she knew a lot of talented industrial designers to bring in for the odd job. Need a stuffed crocodile? A dentist’s chair? A lifeboat? A coffin? Robot Moon probably had it, somewhere in there. Madison decided that the contents of Grandpa’s box needed to sit amongst an acre of theater props until Grandpa got back.
She’d brought all the papers with her, tucked away in her purse, when she’d come to visit Ann. There was a moment at the FBI guard station when her heart went into her throat. She had forgotten about the purse search. But the guard had pushed the folded up paperwork aside as he looked through the purse contents, and had treated the paperwork like everything else in her purse—as insignificant.
Pulling up into the big empty parking lot, she avoided the potholes and larger pieces of concrete rubble scattered around. She picked a parking spot on the edge of the lot where wild blackberry bushes were invading from around the side of the building, thumbing their noses at the old concrete and growing wherever they damned well felt like growing. The tough, thorny, wild blackberry bushes of the Pacific Northwest were the cockroaches of the plant world. Madison knew they would be here long after humans were gone.
Getting out of the car she looked up at the wall of the warehouse to the familiar logo of a robot bending over with his pants down, exposing a non-genital but well-rounded shiny metal butt. Heading into the warehouse, she stopped inside the door where old computer gear sat on an even older desk. The gear was so old it should have been part of the props on display. But instead, these old parts were actually in use for the warehouse business.
And there was Target sitting at her desk, her signature brown wavy haired bangs from the left side of her forehead, curled inward, the hair tips meeting the tips from the bangs on the right side, thus her bangs formed an open circle on her forehead. The small birthmark on her skin in the center of the circle turned it into a target. She had always laughed it off saying she had a death wish anyway and figured it was appropriate. She sat at the old wooden desk, reading her computer screen, freckled arms and hands behind her head, elbows calloused and pink. Her boyish skinny frame swam inside one of the many faded t-shirts she found at comics conventions.
“Madison! Look at you, all girly-girl and fancy. Wow!” Her eyes twinkled as she finger combed her bangs up off her forehead.
“Hey, Target. You like?” Madison turned in a circle, her purse swinging from her wrist. “Borrowed it from a friend. Thought I’d come and scare you with it.”
“That don’t scare me. I know how to fix up and get snazzy, but don’t tell anyone. Got a reputation to protect.”
“I didn’t mean that. I meant being all feminine. You told me you’ve never once worn a skirt.” Madison said.
“Well, now, that’s true, but it wouldn’t scare me. It would just scare the shit out of everyone else. Don’t you think?”
“No one would be expecting it. That’s for sure.”
“So what’s up?” Target asked. “Are you working props this time? What’s the show?”
“There’s no show or project. Actually,” Madison began, “I have a few small things that need to be hidden for a while.”
Target’s eyebrows went up, full of question. Madison continued, “It’s nothing bad or illegal, just some old newspaper clippings that a friend doesn’t want to be caught with.”
“Why can’t you keep it with you for a while? Or in your house or your car?”
“Because someone might want to take it from me. Look, I know it sounds weird. Okay, it is weird but he seems to think—” Shut up, Madison.
“He?” Target started to smile. In spite of all appearances, Target was straight and loved men. She just had to wait till the right type happened along now and then. The type that liked…Target. After all, Madison knew not all guys went for girly-girls.
“Yeah. So would it be all right? Look, I’ll show it to you.” She pulled out the paperwork from her purse and held it out to Target who took it and turned it over a few times while she looked confused. She finally shrugged her shoulders and reached into a drawer, pulling out an envelope, and stuffed the papers into the envelope. Looking up she said, “You want me to keep it in my desk?”
“No, I thought we should keep it in a prop.”
Target shook her head, “That wouldn’t be very smart in this place. It might get moved around or rented out to someone. Worse, they might purchase the prop so they can destroy it in their film.”
Madison looked out into the warehouse, seeking the right way to go about this, when Target said, “I’ve got an idea.” She pulled out a big cardboard tag with thin wires attached. She wrote on the card, “Reserved. Project Title:”—and stopped. She looked up. “What should we call the film this is reserved for?”
“Hot Scheming Mess. That’s what this whole stupid thing is turning into.”
“Good enough,” Target said, and added the rest of the words to the card, then handed it to Madison. “Now you just need to pick the prop it’s going to go in. But pick something that is less likely to be rented. I may not act like it, but I really would like to make some money.” Everyone knew Target inherited the huge warehouse and only needed to pay property tax. But the money from her prop rentals and designs was enough to support her and keep her happy. For now.
Madison took the cardboard tag and the envelope with Grandpa’s paperwork in it and walked deeper into the warehouse, looking around.
There were long rows of shelving along the walls at different heights. Medium sized props such as luggage, vacuum cleaners, and sewing machines were kept on the floor underneath long wooden tables that held table lamps, sets of dishes, and coffee makers. The next level up was shelving that held pillows, carpets, tapestries, blankets. Overhead were dozens of kitchen chairs in every style and color, attached to large hooks that hung down from the ceiling of the barn. Besides the perimeter, there were rows upon rows of shelves at different heights in the center of the warehouse. The shelving in the warehouse was a mish-mash of different types, from sturdy old dusty wood, to metal grating and brackets that sprang from the walls and ceiling. There was furniture of every kind, car parts, toys, medical gear, kayaks, toilets, and gazebos. There were plenty of things that had no category to live in, but Target had found a place to store them.
Madison made a point of passing by anything that could be used in an office scene, or a kitchen or bedroom scene and looked for something a little less likely to be needed. Then she saw it.
A huge Victorian era grandfather clock was crammed between a few bookcases on one side, and fake trees on the other side, with baskets of fake flowers at the foot of the trees. Madis
on walked up to the grandfather clock and opened the tall glass door to peer inside. A four foot long pendulum was unattached and leaning into the back corner. Most of the clock guts were missing from inside, making it easier for Madison to reach her hand up into the small square area behind the clock face, and leave the envelope of Grandpa’s paperwork that had seemed so important to him. She closed the glass door and wrapped the thin wires of the cardboard tag around the door’s handle. Hanging sideways, the tag would tell anyone who was considering the clock that it was already reserved.
Walking back towards Target’s desk, she passed a plastic bin with a small assortment of fake handguns. One in particular caught her eye with its matte metal luster. The grip appeared to be walnut wood, smooth and highly polished; its dark golden hue added to the grace of its curves. She picked it up. It was even heavy. But more importantly, it looked real. She took it.
Coming up to the desk, Target sat there with her head leaning down on her palm as she sketched on a pad. Madison assumed some new prop design had been ordered.
“I’ll take this, too,” said Madison, showing her the fake handgun. “What do I owe you?”
Target looked up with a casual air at the gun, her eyes leading up to Madison’s face and holding there a moment. “I thought you said there was no project.”
“There isn’t. I just need to practice in the mirror. Last audition didn’t go so well.”
Target held her eyes on Madison for another second then said, “Just take it then.”
“Thanks, Target. And thanks for letting me leave the paperwork in that clock. As soon as he gets here, he’ll take it off your hands. I’ll sleep better knowing it’s safely stored away.”
“No problem,” Target’s bangs crept back onto her forehead. She pushed them away again. “Now if you’ll bring me some new business, I’ll sleep better, too. I’m doing props for Zombie Prom in a few days. But after that it’ll be getting pretty thin around here.” She stood up from the desk, walking with Madison toward the door.
“I’m in the same boat.” said Madison. “Phil is so desperate he took a booking for a singing telegram from a dying man that wanted to be sung to at his own funeral. Big money.”