The Secret Letters

by Abby Bardi

  The attic was almost empty. All that was left were boxes of seasonal decorations, labeled in Frank’s handwriting. The other crap that had crowded the room had disappeared. I picked up a box that said “July 4th” and carried it downstairs, then went back for another one. As I stared at the bare part of the attic, I realized that if there were any other clues about Fallingwater’s whereabouts, about his relationship with my mother, or about my paternity, they were on their way to the landfill.

  And Fallingwater—my father, the man who took me hunting and fishing and taught me everything I knew about nature, who talked to me about everything under the sun and took my childish questions seriously, listening to every word I said like it was the most interesting goddamn thing he’d ever heard, the man who sang me to sleep at night with Indian lullabies—had disappeared without a trace.

  IX

  Pam was baking a red-white-and-blue cake, one of our mother’s recipes. “They’re calling for thunderstorms,” she said when she saw me.

  “Don’t believe those stupid weather reports,” I said.

  She was wearing a stars-and-stripes tank top and a matching scrunchie in her hair. Our mother always wore holiday-themed outfits, and when Donny used to tease her about the size of her American-flag apron, she always said, “It’s a big country.” Thinking of the two of them, I suddenly felt like crying, and pinched myself hard so I wouldn’t. Norma had said something about Mom and Donny being together in heaven, with Frank, but Pam and I agreed this was bullshit.

  “It never rains on the Fourth,” Ricky proclaimed, like he was a meteorologist. In spite of the heat, he was wrapped around Star, who somehow managed to stir the cake batter.

  “It always rains on the Fourth,” Pam said in her “you idiot” voice.

  Ricky pondered for a moment, then looked hopeful and said, “This time it won’t.” He took Star’s hand and twirled her toward him. She dropped her fork on the counter and they danced across the room. He couldn’t possibly remember this, but Frank had danced with my mother like that. Suddenly I could see both of them, my mom yelling at everyone to get moving and get grilling, and Frank going on and on about the fireworks he had bought and how great they were going to be. Whenever I thought I was feeling better about my mother’s death, something would happen to set me off and all of a sudden, I was back down the rabbit hole. Now, watching Ricky and Star’s bumbling waltz, I felt my throat start to close up, so I sucked down some asthma medicine, then went outside to get some air.

  Pam had decorated the yard the way our mother always did. A flag tablecloth covered the picnic table, strings of red-white-and-blue lights hung from the clothesline. Even the dogs, who ran up to bark hello, were drooling over jeweled flag bandannas around their necks. I walked to the edge of the patio where the creek disappeared under the house and flowed down Main Street. For many years, we had tossed plastic forks and knives into the water and watched them sail away.

  Pam had told me Tim might be at the party, but I was still surprised to see him and Alex in the garage, where the beer was, talking to Milo. Tim’s skin was dark and leathery, and the roots of his hair were white. His friend Alex was as buff and shiny as a movie star. I thought of asking Alex about his fitness regimen, then forgot about it. When my ex-husband used to say I didn’t care enough about what I looked like and ought to think more about my appearance and try to lose some weight and blah blah blah, I argued with him, but he was right, I didn’t care.

  The garage walls were still covered with Frank’s license plate collection. He had spent years collecting them but had never found New Hampshire or Montana. It was sad that he had not lived long enough to figure out how to use eBay.

  “We had haggis in Edinburgh last year,” Alex said.

  “I love the haggis,” Milo said in what was probably supposed to be a Scottish accent.

  “What’s haggis?” I made the mistake of asking.

  “Oatmeal, suet, and lamb’s liver, packed into a sheep’s stomach bag, my lassie,” Milo said.

  I almost spat out my beer. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

  “It sounds awful, but it’s delicious,” Alex said.

  “You might want to serve it in your restaurant,” Milo suggested.

  “Whose restaurant?” Tim asked.

  “My restaurant,” I said.

  “You’re opening a restaurant?” Tim laughed like this was hilarious.

  “Yep.”

  “What kind?”

  “My kind.”

  “And that is?”

  “Southwestern fusion. Kind of Mexican, kind of Indian.”

  “Curry?” he asked.

  “He’s being deliberately obtuse,” Alex said. “Is India in the southwest, Tim?”

  “It is if you’re in China.”

  “Quite the geographer,” Alex said.

  I expected Tim to slug him, but he just laughed. “So you’re serving tacos and shit?”

  “Yeah, tacos and shit. And enchiladas suizas, homemade non-GMO tamales, black bean cassoulet, chicken mole, bass with cilantro pesto—”

  “And where is this culinary palace going to be?”

  “On Main Street,” Pam said, joining us.

  “I guess everyone knows about this but me,” Tim said. “Always the odd man out.”

  “Oh, please,” Pam said. “I was the odd man out.”

  “Poor Pam,” Milo said.

  “Don’t believe her,” Tim said. “She was so spoiled, with her golden curls.”

  “You had golden curls, too,” Pam said.

  Tim’s hair was so short now you couldn’t tell it had been just like Pam’s when we were little. It was hard to believe my adorable big brother had grown up into this creepy tough guy. “Why are we talking about hair?” He scowled, making his nose look even more crooked. He broke it in a fight in high school and it never healed correctly.

  “You brought it up,” Alex said.

  “You were praising my curls,” Pam said.

  “They looked stupid,” Tim said.

  “Did not,” Pam said.

  “Did, too.”

  “Mom was always trying to get a comb through Pam’s hair, and she’d threaten to shave it off if Pam didn’t stop screaming,” I said.

  “Your mother threatened to shave your head?” Milo asked.

  “I knew she’d never do it. It was just some weird shit she said.” Pam was quick to defend our mother, though I knew she had spent hours talking to a therapist about this.

  “Why are we still talking about hair?” Tim asked.

  “It’s a sore subject with him,” Alex said. “He thinks his hairline is receding. Of course, it isn’t,” he added, though it was.

  “Tell us more about your restaurant,” Milo said.

  “There’s not much more to tell.” I didn’t really want to say any more in front of Tim, who would just put a negative spin on everything and make me feel stupid.

  “When are you opening?” Alex asked.

  “I’m shooting for early September. I need to do some remodeling first.”

  “What the hell do you know about running your own business?” Tim asked.

  “Everything I know, I learned from you,” I said.

  “What business are you in?” Milo asked him.

  “He’s in repo,” I said.

  “Collateral recovery.” Tim thought this sounded better.

  “A charming line of work,” Alex said.

  “It’s okay,” Tim said. “It’s what I do.”

  “Isn’t it dangerous?” Milo sounded intrigued.

  “Not really. Sometimes people try to shoot me, but they usually miss.”

  “And you like that?”

  “I don’t have to like it. It’s better than sitting in a fucking office somewhere. Or living out of a suitcase like my old man.”

  “I think sales would be a great career for you,” Alex said. “Lots of travel. Fewer gun threats.”

  “Your father was a traveling salesman?” Milo asked Pam.
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  “Yep,” Pam said. “A cliché.”

  “I think he lived up to the stereotype,” Tim said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Pam asked. “Are you saying our father was a philanderer?”

  Tim let out a nasty little laugh. “This is news to you?”

  “How do you know?”

  “Everyone knew.”

  “What evidence do you have?”

  “You and your damn evidence. If you want to know, he told me.”

  “He told you what?”

  “What a babe magnet he was.”

  “Our dad was a babe magnet?”

  “He was on the road all the time, Pam. What did you think he was doing, bowling in tournaments?”

  “That’s disgusting. I’m going to go vomit now.” Pam stalked off, ducking under a string of American flags in the doorway.

  “Grow up,” Tim called after her.

  By the time it got dark, our neighbors had run out of beer and crammed themselves into our yard. We had ten coolers, as always, so they kept pouring in while we waited for it to get dark. Everyone knew we had the best illegal fireworks in town, imported from West Virginia, where they were legal. Bill Barlow had started the tradition and Frank kept it going, and when Frank died, Norma’s husband Bob took over, trying unsuccessfully to make my mother like him.

  “We better get cracking before it rains,” Pam said to Bob, who agreed, since he agreed with everything.

  “It’s not going to rain,” Ricky yelled. Everyone ignored him, and Bob started unloading boxes from his SUV.

  We were standing outside the garage, waiting, when I felt the first raindrop. Another fell, then another. Pings of water turned to steam on my bare arms. (I was wearing one of my buffalo tank tops, though Pam said it was tacky.) Bob rummaged hurriedly through a box of fireworks, then yelled for everyone to stand back while all the kids on our street pushed forward to help him. My mother had a lot of grisly stories about important body parts on July 4th that would always end with, “Watch out, you kids!”, though the point of the stories was to enjoy other people’s bad luck.

  “Watch out, you kids,” Norma screamed as Bob lit a Roman candle. It shot into the trees with a whine, and everyone made that soft aah sound people make.

  For the thousandth time, it occurred to me that my mother was not a nice person, though she was funny, and I wondered why I still missed her, and why I would give anything to hear the sound of her voice shrieking at us to stay back or we’d get our eyes poked out. It seemed crazy to me to miss someone so much when they never did anything but drive you nuts when they were alive, but something about this party was making pain shoot right through me, then burst into the air in a thousand colors. Every year of my life, I had stood in this backyard, and my mother had always been there, and now she wasn’t. Only the fireworks were the same, exploding above us and raining ashes down on our heads. Bob lit a rocket, then an aerial repeater, then a “16-Shot Bada Bing.” Everyone made the aah sound again.

  As the rain started to speed up in big splashes you couldn’t ignore, Bob picked up his pace, too. He dove into the box and lit a Bodacious, and it crackled into the air and exploded into stars. More aahs, and the sound of rain smacking the trees. He reached for another Roman candle and was about to light it, but Norma grabbed his arm. “It’s upside down,” she shrieked in her high-pitched Norma voice that only dogs could hear, as Donny always used to say.

  “Upside down?” Bob said. He stared stupidly at the candle as the fuse sizzled. Norma reached over and turned it around. He opened his mouth as if about to say something, then closed it. There was a whooshing sound, and suddenly, Bob was screaming. I’d never heard him raise his voice before, but now he was howling like a banshee, whatever that was, one that used cuss words. We all rushed toward him trying to help, but a neighbor who was an orderly shoved us out of the way and stepped in to look at Bob’s hand, then made a face like it was pretty gruesome even for a pro.

  Then Bob turned on Norma. “You stupid cunt,” he snarled in a voice I had never heard before.

  There was a stunned silence, and then Norma began yelling back that it wasn’t her fault, and while she and Bob were screaming at each other, Milo offered to drive everyone to the county hospital, and he and the orderly led Bob away, still cussing like a crazy person. Pam grabbed Norma, Bobby, and Billy, and they got in the Grand Dame—Pam had the keys in her pocket—and drove off. I figured the shit would hit the fan about that later.

  “Now what?” I said to Tim as the neighbors began to stream out of our yard, grumbling because the show was over.

  “Get me a beer,” he said. There was a clap of thunder, and it poured.

  X

  My restaurant. My restaurant. Each time I said these words or even thought them, a tingling feeling ran through me as if my blood had turned to champagne. Every morning when I woke up, I ran downstairs to my restaurant—my restaurant—and before I knew it, it was time to go to bed again. There was so much to do, so many decisions to make, but it didn’t feel like work. After taking orders from other people my whole life, now I was in charge of every detail from the napkins to the toilets. Sure, it was an awesome responsibility because so much money was on the line, but that just made it more exciting, like hang gliding or bungee jumping (two things I was pretty sure I would never actually do).

  Every day, all day, was total chaos as deliverymen stomped through the dining room, tracking dirt across the floor and bitching about the bad access to the kitchen. Deliveries could only be made through the front door because the restaurant backed onto the creek. I knew this had driven everyone at the Chelsea Grill nuts, too, but nothing could be done about it. I couldn’t afford to move the kitchen. In fact, there wasn’t much I could afford. But as everything moved along, the Chelsea Grill faded away and in its place, the picture I had in my mind began to appear. Maybe it didn’t look like much yet, but I could picture exactly how I wanted it to end up. It wasn’t going to be easy or cheap, but I was going to make Falling Water real.

  Pam was helping me with the decorating, since she was an artist and good at that kind of stuff. We painted the walls a shade of orange-pink called Salmon Peach with a trim called Kiwi. At the top of the walls, she stenciled herds of buffalo, though you couldn’t tell what they were unless you were up close. They paraded across an accent wall called Mango Punch. All the colors she chose were named after foods, which seemed like a good thing.

  But I couldn’t get her to paint a sign for me. She said she didn’t do lettering because it wasn’t real art. I told her it didn’t have to be art, just a fucking sign, but she flat out refused to do it. I wanted something that looked amazing, not just an ordinary sign, and I had no idea where I was going to get it, until one day that weird guy Ray turned up, looking for a job as a dishwasher that he said I had promised him. I didn’t remember promising, but since I didn’t have anyone yet and he was a good dishwasher, I said okay.

  “You know what you need here,” he said. I was expecting him to say I needed a heliport on the roof so we could shuttle customers in from Pluto, but he said, “You need an amazing sign for the front.”

  “You’re so right, Ray,” I said. “That’s exactly what I need.”

  “I could paint one for you.”

  “Seriously?” I thought about it.

  While I was thinking, Ray added, “I could do it on spec.”

  “Oh, sure, on spec.”

  I guess he could tell I had no idea what that meant, so he explained, “I could paint it and then if you like it, you could pay me. If you don’t like it, you don’t pay me.”

  “How much?”

  “How does fifty bucks sound?”

  It sounded like a bargain so I said, “Done,” and we shook hands.

  “What’s the place called?” Ray asked as he was leaving.

  “Falling Water.”

  “Like the Frank Lloyd Wright house?”

  Everyone seemed to know about this. “No, two words. Falling.
Water.”

  “Amazing,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said, walking him to the door—my door. “It is amazing.”

  About a week later, Ray showed up with a big sign that said “Falling Water” in weird lettering with a bunch of rainbow colors dripping from it. At first I thought, hey, no fucking way I want all this psychedelic crap hanging up there, but as I stared at it, it grew on me. I pictured it outside the front door, different from the other tasteful, boring signs on Main Street, crazy and colorful like our food was going to be. There was no doubt I was going to catch some shit from the town’s Historic Commission, since they only allowed colors that were part of the “color wheel,” but I decided to go with it.

  “Ray, my friend,” I said, “you just made yourself fifty big ones.”

  He smiled his pirate’s smile.

  ***

  Once our tables had been laid out, the crazy walls behind them were like scenery in a play. My food orders were starting to come in, and I had to find places to put everything. The kitchen wasn’t how I wanted it yet, but it had the basic stuff I needed, and I kept tweaking it. I had hired Heidi from the Chelsea Grill as manager and maître d’, but I still needed a few more waitrons (a term I picked up from Milo, who said it was “gender neutral”), and for the life of me, I couldn’t find a bartender.

  I was complaining about this to Pam one afternoon as we sat at the bar. (My bar.)

  “No,” she said.

  “No what?”

  “No, I will not be your bartender.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You keep hinting around, and I just have to tell you, the answer is no. I’m way too busy.”

  “I wasn’t hinting around.” This was true—it hadn’t even occurred to me. “But now that you mention it—hey!”

  “No, Julie, no. No. Sorry.”

  “Oh, come on. It would just be temporary. Just till I find someone else.”

  “No. Really.”

  “But you’d be so great. You make great drinks. You’re friendly and efficient.”

  “NO.”

  “But—”

  “Do you know what ‘no’ means?”