First Avenue

by Lowen Clausen

  By the time she walked out of the bookstore, the man had disappeared. She could walk up the block after him, but she wouldn’t know which way to turn. For the first time she began to feel a little uneasy about her game. The Donut Shop was just across the street, and her break had gone on long enough. Pierre wouldn’t like that she had left. Too bad what Pierre would not like.

  She walked back into the Market where she bought a shiny red apple from the produce stand on the corner. She took big bites from the apple as she headed back to work.

  She walked into the Donut Shop and made certain Pierre saw her take the last bite from the apple. He was behind the cash register. Bill didn’t look up from the doughnut machine. Pierre watched her, but said nothing. She expected he would at least say something.

  She threw the apple core into the garbage and washed her hands at the triple sink. Bill remained intent upon not seeing her. He hardly saw anything when he tried.

  “I took a break,” she told Pierre. “It was slow in here.”

  “Next time you wait until I come back,” Pierre said.

  “Sure. It was after ten. I thought Bill could look after things.”

  “You wait next time.”

  “Okay.”

  He went into his little office and closed the door, and she took care of the customers who bought the doughnuts Bill made with such diligence. There would never be enough customers for all the doughnuts.

  Chapter 29

  As soon as Sam walked into the Donut Shop, he experienced an eerie sensation. He felt like ants were tiptoeing across the back of his neck. He looked around for the ants’ nest. Maria was in back washing dishes. Bill, with his scowling face, was at the front counter. Sam walked up to the counter and nodded to the cold pair of eyes behind it. There was no clue in those eyes why the scowling boy was at the front instead of Maria.

  “Your boss here?”

  “No.”

  “When do you expect him?”

  “He didn’t tell me.”

  Sam swiveled back and forth a quarter turn in the stool and scanned the room carefully.

  “I’ll have a cup of coffee,” he said, although it was close to noon and he had already had all the coffee he wanted.

  Reluctantly Bill poured him a cup. He spilled onto the counter and pretended not to notice. Bill and his scowling face moved to the opposite end of the counter and looked away. Sam saw Maria in the back. He wished she would come forward.

  “I’ll have some milk with this,” Sam said to the boy.

  “It’s in those packets,” Bill said. He flicked his finger toward the wire rack that held sugar and creamer packets.

  “I’d like some real milk. That packaged stuff will give you cancer.”

  The boy hesitated as his brain clinked through the options he might have. Sam looked to the back.

  “Young lady, do you have any milk back there?”

  Maria went to the refrigerator beside the doughnut machine and brought out a carton of milk. Without saying anything she came to the counter and poured the milk into his cup. Then she lifted the cup and wiped up the spilled coffee with a napkin. Her expressionless face was loaded with meaning, but Bill was too close for her to unload it.

  She went back into the kitchen. Sam heard metal pans striking the metal sides of the sink. Sam looked at Bill who looked out the window.

  “The fog is lifting,” Sam told the boy in case he would not know what he was seeing. “The wind is blowing it off. Got a storm coming, they say.”

  Bill nodded perfunctorily, but it was clear he wasn’t eager to enter a conversation.

  “Going to have rain sometime tomorrow. Do you like rain, Bill?”

  The boy shrugged his shoulders and then began to fidget with something below the counter. Sam leaned forward to see what the boy was fidgeting with. It was a box of plastic spoons.

  “Do I make you nervous?” Sam asked.

  The boy folded his arms across his chest and looked at Sam.

  “I’m not nervous.”

  Sam waited until the boy looked away again.

  “Did you make this coffee?” Sam asked.

  The boy’s face twitched as he contemplated that question. Sam wondered if the boy would have the nerve to ignore it.

  “She did.” The boy gestured toward Maria with a brief movement of his head.

  Now he wondered how long it would take the boy to move. Sam took a sip of the coffee Maria had made and waited.

  “A little rain might help business,” Sam said. “Seems a little slow today.”

  One of the few customers got up to leave, and Bill moved quickly out to the dining room to clean up the table. It was as fast as he had seen Bill move. At the same time, Maria carried a pan to the front and stashed it below the counter.

  “A little more coffee?” she asked. She had already picked up the coffeepot and began pouring into his cup before he answered.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  Maria carefully poured a little on the counter beside his cup.

  “Sorry about that,” she said. She wiped the counter with napkins just as she had done the first time and then lifted his cup and placed a napkin beneath it. There was something written on this napkin.

  Sam picked up the cup and read the message written in pencil.

  “Can you meet me at 3:00 at Silve’s?”

  Sam nodded with an almost imperceptible movement of his head as he folded the napkin in his hand and wiped his lips.

  The attentive Bill returned to the counter.

  “Pierre said I was to watch the front,” he told Maria.

  “Fine, you watch it then.” Maria pushed the milk carton toward him. “This goes on the top shelf.”

  The boy picked up the milk carton as though it weighed fifty pounds and put it back in its place in the refrigerator. Maria returned to the kitchen, and Sam didn’t look at her again.

  “Of course, if it rains,” Sam said, picking up the conversation where he had left it with Bill, “it’s just as likely to keep all your customers away.”

  Chapter 30

  It’s after three,” she said. “Do you want me to work overtime?”

  Maria had planned the words carefully when three o’clock passed and Pierre had said nothing to her about leaving. She had cleaned the kitchen, swept the floor, cleaned the tables, wiped the coffeemaker, the counter, and the doughnut case, and arranged the cups, sugar packages, and straws each time one of the few customers disrupted the pattern she had made. She was not interested in the order of paper cups in the Donut Shop.

  Pierre looked at the clock in the kitchen and got off the stool behind the counter. He had done nothing the last half-hour except sit on the stool at the end of the counter and watch. It gave her the creeps. As she expected, the word “overtime” had gotten his attention. His red-streaked eyes looked at her again. Their coldness made her shiver.

  “No overtime,” he said. “You can go.”

  Without stopping to wash her hands, she started for the door.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, but she knew she was only saying words that carried no meaning. Pierre said nothing in return. She doubted she would ever return to the Donut Shop. She would talk to Sam about that, if he were still waiting.

  Because she was certain Pierre would watch her as she walked away from the Donut Shop, she didn’t cross directly into the Market. She walked two blocks east to Third Avenue where she usually caught the bus. Then she walked north a block before turning back. She stopped several times to look in store windows in order to sneak looks backward.

  After crossing First Avenue she walked downhill into the Pike Place Market where she felt safer. There were more people, so many that they could not separate themselves on the sidewalks. They overflowed onto the brick and cobblestone streets. She remained at the edge of the sidewalk and stepped into the street when the sidewalks became too crowded. She left the narrow path to those willing to turn, stop, and touch shoulders.

  She saw a man sitting
on the curb with hair like her Uncle John. It stood up in the back and came to a sharp point in front. It was not her Uncle John, of course, but just as she reassured herself that it had been an illusion, she saw an old woman laboring up the hill with a face like her grandmother’s. Maria stopped in the middle of the street and looked around to see where she was. What was this place? Although late to meet Sam, she turned back and watched the old woman bend to the contour of the hill.

  She saw him standing outside the half-door. He was leaning on the side of the building with his arms folded. Inside, Silve sat on a wooden stool and fanned himself with a newspaper. When Sam saw her, he stepped away from the supporting wall.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said.

  “No problem. We were just beginning to wonder if we should send out the cavalry.”

  He opened the half-door and motioned for her to go first. He wore a dark blue sweatshirt and blue jeans. He seemed to like blue in or out of uniform. He glided behind her silently as she walked down the steps into the dining room.

  “You close up, sir,” Silve said. He had walked down the steps behind them. “You want a Coke, honey?”

  “No thank you.”

  “Help yourself if you do. I’ll lock the door on my way out. When you leave, just pull it closed.”

  “I’ll do that,” Sam said.

  “I’ll see you in the morning, sir,” Silve said. There was a display of cheerfulness in his creased face, but as he turned to face the stair, he became weary again. “Ah,” he said as he placed his hand on his bent leg and pushed himself up the last step.

  Sam watched the old man go up the steps. His eyes remained far away although they looked toward her. Then he smiled in a way that was something like Silve’s, the same brief expression of cheerfulness. It was probably a smile for the old man and not for her.

  “I saw Pierre talking to a man today,” Maria said. “They met in the bookstore across from the Donut Shop.”

  “The Re(a)d and Green?”

  “I didn’t notice the name. It has flowers in the front.”

  “That’s the Re(a)d and Green,” he confirmed.

  There was so much to tell she was afraid she would not find the beginning. She was also afraid he might be disappointed that he had waited.

  She told him about Bill coming late, Pierre’s impatience, and Pierre walking down First Avenue one way and then back on the other side to the bookstore. She told how she had left Bill and walked out for a break. She described the man in the bookstore and the way he and Pierre talked to each other.

  “It wasn’t one of the beat cops, was it?” he asked. “You know, in regular clothes?”

  “It wasn’t either of them,” she said.

  “Thank god for that.”

  “I saw the book he bought.”

  “Pierre?”

  “No. He left. The other man.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “I went inside the store after Pierre left.”

  “Inside?”

  “I stood behind him.”

  “Maria, you shouldn’t have done that.”

  “He didn’t recognize me. How would he know who I was?”

  “Maybe he’s seen you in the Donut Shop.”

  “He’s never been inside.”

  “You might not remember him.”

  “I would have remembered.”

  “Don’t take chances like that.”

  His voice sounded the same as her father lecturing her about school grades.

  “Do you want to know what the book was?” she asked.

  His lecture face broke into a smile. It was like the smile she had seen before, except it was coming closer to her. “Yes,” he said.

  “It was some kind of war book. There was an old cannon on the cover. The title said something about ‘stillness.’“

  “Stillness?”

  “That’s what it said.”

  “All Quiet on the Western Front?“

  “No. It had the word ‘stillness.’ I didn’t see the rest of it.”

  “That’s good information, Maria. Really good information. But you need to be more careful.”

  “Okay,” she said. She had planned to tell him that she was not going back, but she was changing her mind. She would like to see that smile again.

  “Pierre is a dangerous man,” he said. “He might be selling drugs. Have you seen anything like that?”

  “No, but all those kids who hang around must have something to do with it.”

  “That’s what we think, too. He does strange things when he leaves the Donut Shop. He doesn’t just go across the street.”

  “You’ve seen him?” she asked. She wondered if he had been closer to her than she thought.

  “No. I can’t tell you about that right now.”

  Somebody else, she thought.

  “Has he ever said anything about Alberta, the girl who worked there before you?”

  “No. He hardly says anything to me.”

  “Well, if you see or hear anything, let me know. I’ll be around in the morning.”

  “Okay.”

  “That was pretty slick today with the napkin. Did Bill see anything?”

  “No.”

  “Why was he in the front instead of you?”

  “Pierre said he wants me to learn how to do the kitchen work.”

  “I didn’t like the feeling I got when I went in there today. Friday is still the last day. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. No more napkins. I’ll meet you here at 3:00 or whenever you get off until Friday. Then it’s over. If something shows up in the meantime, that’s fine, but don’t follow him around again. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  The smile came this time without information. Maybe she had been foolish to follow Pierre. She wouldn’t do it again.

  “What do you say we go home?” he asked.

  He got up from the table before she could say anything. One of these times she would have to say something. Friday, she decided, rising with him. Friday would be the day.

  Again there was the awkwardness going up the steps with him. Should she lead, follow, squeeze by? It was silly to even think about. Outside there was enough room for them both.

  “I have a boat to catch,” he said.

  “Do you take the ferry?” she asked.

  “No. A kayak. Coming from Alaska, you should know all about kayaks.”

  “I’ve never been in a kayak.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “There aren’t that many in Anchorage.”

  “Not many here, either,” he said. “Which way are you going?”

  “Up there, I guess.” She pointed up the ramp.

  “Okay. See you here tomorrow.”

  Sam turned and walked down the ramp past Silve’s front door. She waited until he disappeared around the corner. Then she walked up the ramp and stopped under the metal canopy. Its afternoon shadow reached into the street.

  She was amazed how many different voices there were beneath the canopy. A fish man yelled with excitement, and she turned and saw him lift a salmon from the ice display in front and throw it over the counter to an older man who weighed and wrapped it in white paper. The purchaser smiled as if he had won a prize.

  “Two dollars and fifty,” she heard another voice say. She turned away from the fish man and saw a Chinese woman—she thought the woman was Chinese—hand a sack to a buyer across neat rows of green and yellow onions. A black man in a suit exchanged money for the sack. He held other sacks, too.

  She walked down a row that was like an outdoor supermarket, except people were behind each counter. Honey, fruit juices, apples. Where two streets met at the end of the Market, wooden animals stood on display. There were bears and deer, whales with curved tails, and wolves. An old Indian man sat carving and blowing chips away with his breath. He didn’t seem interested in selling. That was the job for a young woman, his daughter, his granddaughter, maybe. She stood with her hands behi
nd her back. A customer showed interest in one of the carvings, and she placed that carving in front for inspection. It was a bird with outstretched wings. The young woman didn’t try to improve the bird with her voice.

  In the girl’s silence Maria heard another voice.

  It was warm then, Maria, and never night.

  She looked above the young woman’s head and feared that nothing more would come. But more came.

  Two villages at the top of the world with a river between them.

  There was the red raven, Maria remembered, that dropped food for the villages. There were many red ravens.

  No one was ever hungry.

  And then one day.

  One day, her mother’s voice repeated, a boy and a girl, one from each village, started arguing what they should call the river. It had no name. The boy said it should be called Hope, but the girl said it must be Peace. Adults heard the argument, and the argument spread through the villages.

  The argument would not go away.

  People from each village shouted across the river the name they had chosen. The two villages began to hate each other because they could not agree on the name. Peace, Hope. Each side shouted names across the river that now separated them.

  The noise from the bickering frightened away more and more of the red ravens. People became hungry, but they would not stop shouting. Instead they shouted louder and blamed the other village for the hunger.

  One day the girl and the boy left their villages at the same time and walked alone upstream. They were tired of the noise from the bickering. They saw each other across the river and remembered the good friends they had once been. They had never cared what the river was called. It had only been a game between them. They could speak softly because they were away from the noise.

  Maria took a step, but she was afraid she would lose her mother’s voice if she left the young Indian woman and the woodcarvings.

  They made a plan.