Blurred trails of light zip by, the springs of the seat whine with every dip in the road. The exits and street signs mean nothing to me until I spot a white building with a dainty lace appearance—but the closer we get, the less familiar it looks. We take an exit and the traffic slows, so many cars, at times I feel as if the van is slowly inching its way backward but that can’t be. Lights move like tracers through my field of vision, one second I’m in a dark tunnel, the next in a brightly lit area. Nothing feels right. Before I know it, we have left upmarket stores and smooth black glass exteriors behind and we come to a halt at a gas station where two women exit and get into a car idling in the parking lot.
By now the women have begun to whisper, one of them turns around and looks at me, all the while they speak fast and furiously. One of them eyes my purse. Though there’s an aisle separating us, there’s no doubt she has recognized it for what it is. Though I have picked the most unassuming bag in my closet, an inconspicuous and ordinary black hobo bag, it’s a Valentino Garavani for $2,500. I’m clutching the softest calfskin money can buy.
I stuff the purse between my body and the window and close my eyes. Just for a minute, I tell myself. Images are painted on my eyelids, images of Penelope’s face, smeared with blood. Fear shoots through my body, my lungs panic for air. My arms flail and I’m reaching for something to hold on to. When I rip open my eyes I find my Garavani hobo bag in the aisle, its contents scattered across the grimy floor. My rings and the gold bracelet have come to rest on the dingy carpet for everyone to see.
“Hector,” a woman calls out to the driver. She speaks rhythmically, melodic words strung together, one laced through the next, robato and bolsa and what are the odds that the only sentence in Spanish I recall is cuántos libros hay en la bolsa? I don’t know the word robato but it’s self-explanatory, and the women are shouting and carrying on, pointing at the jewelry, at my purse, at me.
The van comes to a halt and I steady my body by pressing the palm of my hands against the seat in front of me. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. Hector unfastens his seat belt and walks toward me.
“Where did you get this?” he asks and points at the jewelry strewn across the filthy carpet.
What are they thinking, I stole it?
“What are you saying? Are you accusing me of stealing?”
“Did you?” His face is a blur, his body so mighty and hunched over me.
I lose my confidence and shake my head no and rise from my seat. No no no no no no no no. It’s mine, it’s mine, I repeat, over and over. I drop to the ground, on my knees in that small space that Hector leaves for me, and I scoot across the aisle of the van, over the filthy floor. I gather the jewelry pieces, hear myself say mine mine mine, and I hear the words coming out of my mouth, this is mine, I don’t want you to steal it. That’s not what I mean and maybe all they hear is steal and that’s all it takes. I try to push my way past Hector, I want to sit down, fold in on myself, want to become invisible, but he looms over me and he stands uncompromising.
“No,” he says in a menacing voice. “You get out of here.”
“No, please, no. I don’t know where I am. Please don’t—”
“I’ll call the police if you don’t,” Hector says and reaches into his chest pocket, and a cell phone appears in his hand. “Leave and don’t come back.”
“No, no, no, you don’t understand,” I say without a hint of authority in my voice. “Don’t call the police,” I add and reach for his phone. I want him to put it back in his pocket but he’s not having any of this. Instead of backing up he takes a step toward me and I rise to my feet. “Okay, okay, I’ll leave.”
I pull the door handle and yank it toward the back but my hand slips off the smooth metal grip. A couple more pulls and the door opens. I step outside but my purse strap catches hold of an armrest. Hector slides it off and slams the door shut. The van speeds away.
Gasoline wafts at me. Run-down pawnshops, liquor stores, and dingy supermarkets. Behind me the gas station, on the left a taqueria, on the other side a warped parking lot with cracked asphalt bordering against a brick wall. I clasp my purse against my chest. I want to cry.
People pass by, some nod, some bump into me as if I’m in the way. My hands are shaking but I manage to get my phone from my purse. GPS. There’s a map function on my phone and Marleen has explained it to me but I don’t recall a single detail. It sounded logical and listening seemed unnecessary and I couldn’t imagine a scenario in which I’d need to know my location. I give up and enter the gas station.
A woman sits on a stool behind a counter. She is young, almost childlike with her clean face, impeccable skin, and dark hair down to her shoulders. She apparently wants to look older with her airbrushed brows and her winged eyeliner. Her teeth are crooked and she smiles with her lips together, except when she forgets.
“Next,” she says without looking at me.
“Hi.” I try to sound cheerful.
“Yes?”
“Do you have maps?” I ask.
“Maps?” she asks and raises one of her perfect eyebrows. “Like paper maps?”
“Yes, a map, a regular map. You know, one you fold out, with streets and directions,” I say, not wanting to sound sarcastic but I can tell I do.
“No one uses paper maps anymore, lady. Don’t you have a phone?”
“I do,” I say and offer it to her.
“You can use it like a map. See.” She grabs it and her fingers swipe across the screen, two, three times. She hands it back to me. “Google Maps, here you go.”
I stare at the screen. I see a map, partial at best. I still have no idea where I am. “How does it work?” I ask.
Customers behind me impatiently shift their weight from left to right, their irritation palatable, annoyed that I can’t comprehend the smallest of things.
“You are here,” the clerk says and points at an address. “Just type in where you want to go and it’ll give you instructions. You paying for gas?” she adds and I realize she’s talking to the person behind me. I step to the side.
I type in Preston Hallow Road and the map shifts, zooms out, changes angles. A blue rectangle with the words Get Directions. I click on it. Now there’s a blue line and a red dot. It says thirty-eight minutes to get there. I click on the green GO button and the map shifts and zooms in once again. The gas station is the starting point, my destination is Preston Hallow Road. Arrival at 7:42 p.m. In 38 minutes: 14.8 miles.
“Turn up the volume,” I hear the girl’s voice call out to me. “If you turn up the volume, it’ll tell you when to turn. If you’re driving and can’t look at the map.”
“Thanks,” I say. “But I’m going to need a taxi.”
“Just call an Uber.”
I look at her, puzzled. I have no idea what she’s talking about. This is what it must feel like being released from prison and having ended up in some sort of futuristic science fiction world, almost as if a time machine has catapulted me here.
“A what?”
“It’s like a taxi, but cheaper. There’s an app. You download it and it tells you how long until the car gets here. But you’re gonna need a credit card.”
Marleen handles everything money related including my credit cards. I have less than two hundred dollars to my name. I open, then close my mouth.
“God, lady, where have you been?” she asks but not without empathy. “Let me call you a taxi. You have money, right?” the girl asks, one eyebrow raised as she eyes my stained clothes.
“I do.”
“Okay. Wait outside. I’ll call you a taxi. But download that Uber app or put a cab company in your contacts. Makes life easier.”
“I will,” I say though I have not understood a single word. “Thanks,” I add and grab a bottle of Coke from the cooler. I feel compelled to buy something though I don’t see how this is of any significance.
I pay and step outside. I haven’t had a Coke in I don’t know how long.
A group of teenagers spill from a convenience store and bump into me without apologizing. Across the street is a park and I sit on a lopsided bench by the entrance. I smooth my hair back and realize the ponytail has come undone. Behind me in the park there is a screaming match going on, and the cars in the nearby parking lot rev their engines. I open the Coke bottle and it fizzes and spills all over my hands and thighs.
The taxi arrives. The driver has closely shaved dark brown hair, wide shoulders, and strong arms. He adjusts the mirror and makes eye contact as I tell him where to take me. Preston Hallow Road in Highland Park. I’m asking him to take me to a place where strangers on bikes cause people to call the police for fear of thieves and robbers staking out the neighborhood. He holds my gaze via the rearview mirror, and I can almost hear him think; I’m not a Highland Park resident, not with my stained scrubs and messy hair, but I pass for one of the invisible ones, the ones who tend to the rich, someone who has employee business there.
“Highland Park?” he asks and rolls down the window.
“That’s what I said. Is there a problem?”
He raises his hands, palms up, as if to apologize that he overstepped his boundaries.
We take off and outside the exits fly by; Fourth Street, Mockingbird, Bender Lane. It isn’t until we leave the city behind and he takes the Preston Hallow exit that a familiar feeling sets in and I remember every curve in the road, every sign, every tree, every open field, every fence, and every house.
* * *
• • •
Preston Hallow Road is the major artery leading to Preston Hallow, an enclave of the city but really a town in itself. How often, at parties, we talked about how Preston Hallow came to be: the first house a farmhouse with horse pastures and stables, then whatever farmland acreage was left was carved into rectangular parcels and then money moved in, a community of doctors, entrepreneurs, industrialists, and lawyers.
Preston Hallow is an accumulation of Colonial and Greek Revivals on plats large enough to keep styles from clashing, mansions set back at the end of winding driveways, most of them disappearing behind tree lines. Pure perfection with columns and gabled roofs, handwrought cast-iron gates, the landscaping rivaling country clubs; a perfect balance of lawn, pathways and plants, groundcover and trees. Most of all, beyond the stucco and the bricks and the oversized front doors, the families living within those walls, so onlookers imagine, are the luckiest and happiest of them all.
I used to believe that, too.
18
DONNA
Pull over right here,” I call out and point at a three-story building to the right. We are a quarter mile or so from Preston Hallow Road. “Can you let me out here?”
My voice sounds impatient, and he stops the car and I get out and hand him the money before he can answer. Twice I close the door too softly and it isn’t until the third time that I manage to put enough strength into it and slam it shut.
The light is perfect, a soft dusk turning the sky into shades of pink and peach. The tall metal streetlamps cast an artificial glow onto the walkways below, illuminating fallen leaves. In front of me sits the Preston Hallow Academy, a private school we called simply the Academy. The building looks peculiar in the dark, lit by floodlights pointing at a large plaque. A sapphire blue coat of arms, a banner proclaiming Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. They must have added another building, it’s been a decade since Penelope graduated, so it’s not at all odd that it appears foreign to me.
I enrolled Penelope in Preston Hallow Academy when she was thirteen. It was her first private school, and when I told her before the semester started that uniforms were required, she thought it to be a joke—khaki skirts and navy-blue shirts seemed laughable—but I had stocked up on skirts and socks and shoes and polo shirts. Though Edward had complained that Preston Hallow Academy tuition was expensive, I had insisted.
Penelope’s first day was in stark contrast to my first day of high school. The Academy had a three-story atrium made of glass and looked more like a college than a high school and according to the map we were given, there were three gyms, one weight room, a pool, and two libraries. As students and faculty moved from building to building between classes, they got to enjoy sculptures and pottery and perfectly pruned groundcover within its predetermined boundaries. My school was a square one-story building with chain-link fence and a small LED marquee with crumbling blacktops where we ran laps in a stuffy gym without air-conditioning.
Standing here, so many years later, I can almost hear the footsteps of the stream of students emerging from the front doors, echoing in the deserted square. An image of Penelope, lanky and tall, rushing up those steps in the morning, dark marks on her back from her still-wet hair, smelling of Dana Love’s Baby Soft Cologne.
Every morning I gave Penelope an encouraging nod as she exited the car and every afternoon I sat in a line of SUVs with other mothers where, at pickup, school employees not only opened and closed car doors but called out a joyful don’t forget your seat belt and have a great day. Among all those students, a man in blue overalls shuffled about with a toolbox, getting lost within the sea of school uniforms and groups of students moving about. Every day I sat in the parent car line and fought the memories of my childhood.
I’ll spare you the details but I walked to school except when it rained, when I rode in the passenger seat of my father’s Buick Century, with the transmission slipping every few minutes. My father, a janitor, was diagnosed with lung cancer a year into his retirement. Thirty years of unclogging toilets, tightening door handles, and replacing broken windows and one year was all he got. It tore at me on certain days, some more than others. Once, I cried, holding up the line and cars honking at me as Penelope snarled at me, go, Mom, go, everyone is staring.
The Academy. Passing below the banner promising Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, I wonder what else this night will have in store for me. I walk and walk what seems like a long way but then I see it in the distance. My house. There’s no going back. Why stop now. I have come this far, have I not?
* * *
• • •
If a universal memory of Penelope is storming up school steps, Hawthorne Court’s is that of a Tudor in silent repose with precision landscaping, perfect proportions of shrubs, and mulch surrounded by lush green grass. If it were daylight that’s what would reveal itself, but everything appears dull and monochrome, only a sliver of a moon hangs in the sky but that’s more than enough light for me to find my way around. I know every inch of this property, I know where the power lines are buried, where the underground cables snake below the lawn to light the corner posts in heritage-red brick.
Hawthorne Court is a gray blur but soon it’ll come into focus.
Down the street, though down the street doesn’t sound right, it’s a quarter mile or more, there is Ward Quentin’s house, partner at a midsize law firm, previously based in New York. Bachelor. Always brought different dates to parties. To the right of Hawthorne Court sits a Colonial: Jane and Erwin Goodward. Erwin owns car dealerships all over the state and it’s impossible to count the cars on his lots, that’s according to the TV commercials he runs excessively. I got more cars to choose from than you can count. He paid $4.19 million for the house. I have trouble remembering him, but I knew his wife, Jane, the book club hostess.
I wonder if they still meet, women sitting ramrod straight on couches with hard cushions, balancing teacups atop saucers, Villeroy & Boch, white with gold rim. I loved the sound, the chatter of it all. The conversations—every first Tuesday of the month, three to five o’clock—centered on our children once we got the book talk out of the way.
“How is Penelope doing? Is she still at the university?”
“Well you know, she’s trying to find herself. She isn’t sure what her passion is quite yet.”
The facts wer
e Penelope skipped classes and was expelled but I didn’t say that. What was there to say? My daughter, though intelligent and bright, can’t manage to make it from one semester to the next, can’t keep an apartment, and can’t keep her head straight for anything? In conversations with friends and neighbors, I might have mixed up the lies I told, about college and traveling and finding herself. They probably thought me to be scatterbrained or dishonest, or both.
When Penelope came home for the summer for what we thought would be two months before returning back to college for her sophomore year, she left a few days after her arrival at Hawthorne Court and we didn’t hear from her. Days turned into weeks. I inquired at a precinct without mentioning my name and that’s how it was explained to me: She is free to come and go, she is an adult. Unless there’s reason to believe a crime has been committed. Or if there is a history of mental problems. I hung up the phone then. Penelope was twenty-two. A foggy time during which we should have come up with a more logical approach to her unpredictable behavior. She told us later she went hiking with friends but forgot to tell us where and with who. She returned like one of those stray cats with a dull coat and bald patches, in need of deworming. She slept for days and that was that. Is that something that needs discussing at book club meetings and cocktail parties?
The house to my left. The Atwals. The husband Indian, the wife Hawaiian, but I can’t be sure. It’s not polite to ask people about those kinds of things. I recall the family owning gas stations but it could have been something else. Hotels maybe. There was the wife and there were other women living in the house, his mother or sister, I believe. Their daughters were of breathtaking beauty, all three of them. Not one ugly duckling among them. I often wondered where this would lead, three girls each a year or so apart. They’d all reach their teenage years around the same time and I thought better you than me. The Atwals did come to the housewarming party and they loved the house, they were oohing and aahing plenty. They never attended any functions after that, though I invited them. I’d like to think their social life was just ascetic. Their lawn needs watering, those yellow patches are unsightly. Was there a reason they avoided us after that night? I don’t—
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