The Real Mother

by Judith Michael

  “Why would he want to scare them?” Doug asked.

  Carrie shrugged. “I haven’t figured that out yet. Maybe he was some kind of criminal and he wanted to build his own building to… oh, you know, hide stolen treasure or make counterfeit money or maybe package marijuana in those teeny bags the kids have at school…something like that. Writers can’t think of everything at once, you know.”

  “Abby?” Sara asked. “Do you want to come with us? We won’t be long, so if you want to stay here, it’s fine.”

  “I’ll come,” Abby said. She had been watching the crowd incuriously, until the television trucks appeared. There was no way she would sit in the car, invisible and ignored, when television cameras were around.

  “Maybe he didn’t scare them,” Doug said as they walked up the road. “I mean, maybe he promised them money or something.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Carrie said generously. “I’ll give it some thought.”

  “And who knows?” Reuben said to Sara as they walked ahead of the others, “maybe Carrie has the answer.”

  She smiled. “Do you happen to know any criminals who have stolen treasure to stash, and would build a new structure for it?”

  “Not one. But they’d hardly keep me informed.” He took her hand.

  (“They’re holding hands,” Doug hissed. “So?” Carrie asked, as if they saw a man hold Sara’s hand every day. “They’re friends,” she said loftily. Abby said nothing, remembering when she had had someone to hold her hand.)

  Reuben and Sara exchanged a swift glance of amusement. He had lightened up by now; whatever this was, he could deal with it. This wasn’t the first time a large-scale development had aroused opposition, but at River Bend, he and Isaiah had found it easier than most, winning approval from the mayors, city councils, and police chiefs of nearby towns, presidents of clubs and organizations that had a voice in civic affairs, and from neighboring newspapers that had swung from tepid to enthusiastic. They had been expecting the final approval—a vote by the city council of the adjacent town of River Bend to annex Carrano Village West—and then the county would sign off on it and they would begin.

  But now there was something else. Reuben had told Sara about two letters to the Chicago Tribune, which might suggest someone organizing opposition behind the scenes. If the people here today, a ragtag semblance of a demonstration, had been convinced to show up, the entire picture would change.

  Even as he thought that, the crowd was growing. Police appeared and spaced themselves out along the road, watching as people drove in from neighboring towns and took their places in the line, looking less ragtag and more organized by the minute. Laughing and chatting, dressed in shorts and jeans, jogging suits and gardening clothes, they carried banners and placards. One boy rested his on his shoulder, as if it were a rifle.

  SAVE THE PRAIRIE

  Another waved his as if swatting flies.

  BUILD PARKS FOR THE PEOPLE

  Reuben shook his head. “They should get together. Figure out how they’re going to do both.”

  The straggly line now stretched around the corner. The people at the front were making no move to start marching; the whole line stood comfortably in the warm June sun, talking animatedly as if they had just met at a shopping center, and had the whole leisurely day to socialize.

  “What are they waiting for?” Sara wondered. She turned as cameramen and reporters piled out of the trucks. “Well, of course. What else could it be? These days nothing happens unless there’s an audience. Reuben, this could be terrible publicity.”

  He nodded. “We’ll counter it.” They reached the front of the line, where Sara almost brushed against three women wearing aprons— Aprons? As if they just dashed from the kitchen, foods merrily bubbling away while they take a quick break for a demonstration? How very spontaneous. Which could be exactly the appearance someone wanted—and two young boys, each holding the end of a banner that flapped between them. Sara craned her neck to read it:

  GOD MADE THE PRAIRIE

  AND HE SAID IT WAS GOOD

  The boys saw her, and one of them shrugged to show this wasn’t his idea. They were about fourteen, handsome and supremely confident in rumpled T-shirts hanging out of baggy cargo pants dragging on unlaced running shoes. Meeting Sara’s ruminative glance, they grinned conspiratorially and vigorously began to flap the banner like a sheet in the strong hands of a washerwoman, and suddenly they were in a slyly sexy tango, one wrapping himself around in the cloth as he whirled toward the other, then unwrapping as the cloth wrapped around his partner. “Hola!” one of them cried as they twirled, the center of a circle of watchers laughing and making suggestive comments, until the boys collapsed, out of breath, gasping with laughter. “What the hell you kids doing?” A tall woman loomed over the boys on the ground. “This is a march, not a circus!”

  “We ain’t marching,” one of them pointed out. “It’s boring, Ma, you said it would be fun, but nothin’s happening.”

  “You see the TV cameras? You want to be on the news tonight dancing like a couple a hookers? Idiots! Get yourselves up; we’re starting in a minute.”

  Reuben stood behind her until she turned around. “Could I talk to you a minute?”

  She appraised him. “You a reporter?”

  “Yes,” he lied easily. He pulled out his wallet and began to thumb through it. “My press card…”

  She waved it away. “It’s okay.” She looked around. “You got a cameraman? You’re gonna want my picture.”

  “He’ll be here in a few minutes. He’s somewhere along the line. It stretches a long way; how many people are here, would you say?”

  “Oh”—she waved a hand again—“five thousand give or take.”

  Sara swiftly counted a dozen people near her and did a rough calculation of the line. Maybe three or four hundred. But still large enough to get a lot of attention.

  Reuben was nodding seriously as he wrote on a pad of paper. “And you’re the leader?”

  She laughed. “I’m just that kid’s mother. But I know everybody. You can ask me anything; you don’t need to talk to anybody else.”

  Reuben nodded again. He saw Sara edging away. “You could stay.”

  “No, you do your…interview. I’d like to meet some of the people.”

  As she greeted one of the demonstrators, Reuben turned back to the woman. “And your name?”

  The woman whipped out a lipstick and slid it expertly over her lips. “Charlie Donavan. Short for Charlotte, but nobody but my parents, God rest ’em, ever called me that. They thought it sounded like a princess. I told them it sounded like the name of a city.” Her laughter rang out again.

  “Or a dessert,” Reuben murmured, but she looked at him blankly, and he said, “Who organized this march? It’s very impressive.”

  “Right.” She looked with satisfaction at the line, beginning now to grow restive. Her glance lingered on Sara, taking in her brown-and-ivory checked shirt and narrow khaki pants, sleeker and probably a lot more expensive than any clothes worn by the marchers, then came back to Reuben. “Organized it? I don’t know. I mean, I know, but I don’t know. You know what I mean?”

  Reuben shook his head.

  “This guy, young kid, came to my neighbor, Ted his name is, and said he’d help get signs and banners, whatever, if we wanted to protest this village, what’s its name, Carrano. He said we could force them to make it really small, or get rid of it period, if we had lots of demonstrations.”

  “And why would you want that?” Reuben asked, writing on his pad.

  “Well, you know, all those people tramping in, more traffic, garbage pickup, fire protection, police…And they’re only going to let in young families! Anybody tell you that? Nothing but kids. Not even a token grandparent! You know what’ll happen to our taxes to pay for all those new schools? They’ll go out of sight, and what could we do about it? Not a damn thing.”

  “But you’ll have better fire and police protection than you have no
w,” Reuben said, “and your schools will be better, because the larger and more diverse the area, the more attractive it is to the best teachers. And everything will be open to you, free of charge—gym, swimming pool, tennis courts, playing fields, meeting rooms—everything this area doesn’t have.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You the guy behind it?”

  “Those are some of the arguments I’ve heard in favor of it.”

  She considered. “Maybe. Nobody told us any of those things. Swimming pool? Nobody said a word. But, wait a minute. You said diverse, right? I know what that means, it means people you don’t want, that’s what it always means. We’d be paying sky-high taxes and end up with African-Americans—now there’s a hoot, they aren’t from Africa any more than I am—and Mexicans, and they don’t even speak English, so we’d end up paying for English classes in American schools. I mean, come on. And Jews, too, probably. This guy naming the town after himself, Carrano, his name’s Isaiah. A dead giveaway. I’ll tell you, it just destroys a decent town overnight, is what it does.”

  Reuben struggled to keep his face still. “Does that mean you’ll be having more than one demonstration?”

  “Right, right. This kid who helped Ted put it together? He said it has to be cumulative, you know, adding up to steady pressure, so they’re already working on the next one. Ted says this kid says it’s like a virus, if we let ’em build this town it’ll spread like a, you know, virus, and pretty soon we’ll be paying for all these outsiders pushing their way in every place you look. Where’s your photographer? I gotta go; we’re starting in a few minutes.”

  “Who says?” Reuben asked.

  “What?”

  “Who says you’re starting in a few minutes?”

  “Oh. I don’t know; that’s just the time.”

  “What is Ted’s last name?”

  “Ted Waszenski. But you don’t need him. I’ve told you everything.”

  “And he agrees with you that you don’t want diversity?”

  “Listen, nobody wants that, you don’t, either, I bet. You want to know your neighbors. You want safety. Diversity means everybody in the pool, right? It destructively destroys a decent town. That’s catchy, isn’t it? I really like it. I’m gonna put it on a banner for next time; really catchy for the cameras, you know?”

  Reuben frowned. Twice she had broken out of her vocabulary. She didn’t get those phrases from Ted, I’ll bet. The kid, whoever he is, the guy with the clever phrases, the catalyst.

  “I really gotta get going,” Charlotte said. “Where the hell’s your photographer?”

  “I have no idea. But he’ll be around. I’ll tell him to look for you.”

  “Charlie Donavan.”

  “I remember.”

  “And there’ll be a story about me.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  She stood uncertainly. “I mean, you know, we’re a nice neighborhood here, we don’t bother nobody. We take care of ourselves, we don’t ask for any handouts, and it’s not right for people to come shoving in here and expect us to pay for everything. Schools and all, you know. It’s not right.” She looked at him, as if waiting for approval, or at least understanding. “I mean, look, we just want to know what we’ve got, you know? What’s ours. This isn’t a fancy place, but it’s what we’ve got and we like it. We like the way things are; we don’t want them to change.” She shook her head. “We don’t want change, period.” In a moment, when Reuben said nothing, she turned and drifted back to the line.

  Reuben looked around and found Sara, closer to him than he had expected. “I don’t usually lie,” he said. “But if journalists can sometimes shade the truth, I assume so can developers.”

  She nodded. “Who seem to learn quickly.”

  There was a pause. If it was his turn to wait for approval, none was forthcoming. “Where are the children?” he asked at last.

  “Wandering around, looking at people. I told them to meet us here in”—she looked at her watch—“now, in fact.”

  A television reporter and cameraman approached them. “Real ones,” Reuben murmured.

  “You’re Reuben Lister,” the reporter said. “Saw your picture when Carrano Village West was announced. Got a minute to talk?”

  “I’ll find the strays,” said Sara, and left them, the reporter already asking his first question as some of the marchers looked on curiously.

  Restiveness was making the line more ragged. Conversations flagged and people stepped to left and right, trying to see the head of the line, trying to identify a leader to tell them what to do. Reporters had talked to some of them, but as soon as they left, demonstrators began to drift away, bored and thinking now of other ways they could spend a sunny Saturday. Most remained, because cameramen were setting up tripods for the start of the march, and they did not want to miss the chance to see themselves on television that night.

  Sara reached the end of the line as a helicopter swooped in, hovering above the demonstrators. A helicopter for a small march that wasn’t even publicized? And then she recalled what Reuben had said. Well planned, indeed.

  “Sara!” Doug shouted, and she saw him with some young people at the end of the line, Carrie a few steps away, talking to a girl about her age. Just then a cheer went up and the line began to move. Between the shuffling marchers, Sara saw Abby, talking to a young man with a crew cut who was smiling at her expectantly, as if hoping for her favors.

  Abby saw Sara and bolted to her side. “See you!” she said over her shoulder, with a brief wave to the startled young man. “He is so boring,” she hissed to Sara. “Thank heavens you came; I couldn’t stand another minute.”

  “You couldn’t just walk away?” Sara asked mildly.

  “I could, but…he was so needy. You know?”

  From the front of the line, a chant began, rolling toward them like the long swell of a wave. Sara and Abby found Doug and Carrie watching openmouthed as the demonstrators boisterously chanted, “No…no…no… Carranno! No…no…no… Carranno!” Soon the rhythm and the words propelled the marchers: they pumped their placards up and down, especially when passing one of the cameras spaced along the march. Sara saw several of them punch their fists into the air, and wondered if they knew that was an age-old gesture of revolution.

  On impulse, she fell into step with a pretty young woman pushing twins in a double stroller. “What is this march all about?” she asked.

  “We’re against the town,” the young woman said.

  “Why?”

  “Oh…lot so freasons. Somebody said it’d be bad for us, too many people or cars, maybe both. Tell you the truth, I don’t really care, you know? I don’t know if I’d hate it or not. But it’s a gorgeous day and I wanted to take the kids for a walk anyway, so I said, why not? It’s always nice to have a plan when you’re walking.” She paused. “Actually, you know, it might not be too bad, the town, I mean. So many of the kids around here are older; it’d be nice to have a whole town of little ones my two’s age. That’s what they said, you know that? Only young families could buy in there. Tons of little kids. It sounds really nice. But,” she added hastily, “don’t tell anybody I said that; they’re all against it.”

  “Maybe they agree with you and are afraid to say so,” Sara said. “If you don’t tell them how you feel, you’ll never know what they really think. You could all have the same ideas and never know it.”

  The young woman frowned. “But if they’re really against it…”

  “Then you could change the subject.”

  After a moment, the young woman smiled. “That’s a thought.”

  Reuben was at the corner where Sara had left him, standing with his back to the marchers, arms folded, his face dark with anger. “We’re not staying for the speeches,” he announced. “We’re getting out of here.”

  “Why?” Doug asked.

  “Because we’ve had enough!” he snapped. “I’ve had enough. Enough jabbering to last a lifetime from these—”

  “Are you
mad at us?” Doug asked in a small voice. “I mean, I know we didn’t come back when Sara said to—”

  “Reuben isn’t—” Sara began.

  “—small-minded, stupid, mean, petty, bigoted cretins.”

  Carrie was watching Reuben admiringly as he reeled out the adjectives. “Sara likes that word, too.”

  “Us?” Doug asked in a frightened voice. “That’s us?”

  Sara put her arm around him. She was furious with Reuben. “Of course not. This is absurd. No one would talk about you that way.”

  “But… Carrie said you said Abby was a cretin.”

  “I did not!” Carrie cried.

  “You did! You told me—”

  “I said Sara said she could be something between Shakespeare and a—”

  “Okay, you two, that’s enough,” Sara said sharply, too angry to be amused. “Come on, back to the car.” They walked in silence, Sara’s arm around Doug’s shoulders. She could feel his tremors through the fabric of her shirtsleeve. “Doug, you’re fine; don’t exaggerate. It wasn’t about you; Reuben wasn’t talking about any of us.”

  “And I shouldn’t have talked that way at all.” Reuben turned to them as they reached the car, his eyes puzzled, as if he suddenly found himself in the middle of a play and had to find his place and pick up the right dialogue. His hands were still clenched, but as much with the effort to subdue anger as with anger itself. He told himself he had no right to dump his unfiltered visceral reactions on others who could not deal with them. And why should they have to try? What did they owe him that they should tolerate his explosions? Nothing; they had no debts (or affection, he acknowledged) that would lead to tolerance. If he could not handle opposition or intolerance unfamiliar to him because he did not choose intolerant people for friends, the least he could do was keep quiet. Especially with Sara and her children (not really hers, but, yes, hers) whom he wanted to impress, whom he wanted to like him, admire him, ask to see more of him. Especially, most importantly, with Sara, to whom he never wanted to show signs of weakness or failure, both of which he knew were demonstrated by giving free rein to fury.