I started, as if waking, surprised I was in a booth in the Rainbow Café. Both Maud and the Sheriff were looking at me.
“You seemed to be thinking so hard,” said Maud.
“I guess I was in a brown study.”
She smiled. “Well, I have to get back to the counter.”
The Sheriff said to me, “Come on. Let’s check the meters.”
I was suddenly flooded with happiness. It was what we used to do before the Ben Queen business came up. I had arranged my spitballs on the table and now wiped them into my hand and dumped them on the empty doughnut plate.
But as I followed him to the front of the café I felt a little of this joy slip away. I thought it would never be exactly the same between us, me and the Sheriff, and this wasn’t his doing, it was mine. It was the price I had to pay for keeping quiet about Ben Queen, and now maybe even for Dwayne.
I followed the Sheriff through the door, hardly bothering to do more than glance at the pastry display. But my eye did land on a Boston Cream Pie that I might come back for.
We walked down Second Street and had no sooner ticketed Dodge Haines’s shiny new truck for parking in the loading zone of McCrory‘s, than I saw Bunny Caruso coming out of Rudy’s clothing store right across the street. She was trying to balance one of the Rudy’s bags with a load of dry cleaning from Whitelaw’s, trying to hike one up with her knee to get a better grip.
No! I thought. As she was on the other side of Second Street, I might be able to get the Sheriff’s attention so he wouldn’t see her.
“Looks like Bunny needs some help,” he said, making to cross the street when I caught his sleeve.
“Oh, she’s a lot stronger than she looks and we’ve got nearly all the meters to do.”
“I’ll just give her a hand. You can go on ahead for a minute.”
So, of course, I had to follow him to try and stop Bunny from saying anything about giving me a ride. This was all becoming such a load on me, a lot heavier than the cleaning bags. I guess when your conscience bothers you it’s like bags filled with bricks.
“Well, hi, Sam! Hello, Emma. I swear, Sheriff Sam DeGheyn, you are the absolute last gentleman left on this planet.”
I said, “He sure is. My mother and Mrs. Davidow always say so.” Then I launched off on an account of Sam’s changing a tire for Lola Davidow. Just taking up talking space. The Sheriff looked at me quizzically, as I was being pretty effusive.
Then, as I feared she would, Bunny smiled at me. “Did you have a nice dinner? I know the Silv—”
I jumped all over “Silver.” “Oh, yes. There’s nothing like my mother’s fried chick—”
Bunny jumped all over “chicken.” “No, but I mean with your—aunt? Was it an aunt?”
The Sheriff was holding both the dry cleaning and the Rudy’s bag. “You both seem to be talking at cross purposes.”
Bunny squinted up at him; so did I. It’s one aspect of our nature we have in common, Bunny and me: our squints.
“Maybe if you’d stop interrupting each other—” He smiled.
Bunny laughed, opening the door of her truck. “Oh, it ain’t nothin’, just small talk.”
I agreed eagerly as the Sheriff stowed the bags and shut the door. “I just remembered, Bunny, you live out on Swain’s Point. There’s a young girl was reported disappeared in the White’s Bridge area.”
“How terrible.” It was not empty words of concern; Bunny sounded sincerely troubled. “When did that happen?”
“Last night, sometime around eight, nine o’clock.”
“Well, who was she?”
“That’s just it. We don’t know.”
I had stepped back into the shadow cast by Rudy’s awning, creating the scene which I feared was coming: Bunny would say, Why, last night’s when I drove you out to the Silver Pear. They both look at me. I put on my dumb expression; the Sheriff mightily surprised/angry/disappointed. He demands to know: Why didn’t you tell me you were near the scene of the crime?
None of this happened, except I did put on my dumb expression, which turned to sheer amazement when nothing like this took place.
Then the Sheriff and Bunny said Good-bye, be seein’ you, and we went back to walking our beat. My mouth still must have been open, for the Sheriff asked me what was wrong.
“Nothing, nothing,” I said. I vowed to go immediately af ter the meter walk to St. Michael’s and kneel down before whatever was there, and tell Father Freeman that now I believed in miracles. He might suggest I join a convent later on, and I’d probably agree, for joining would be many years away and by then he’d have forgotten I agreed. (It would certainly be preferable to making any promises to the camp-meeting Christians, for I’m sure they’d suck you right in and not give you a chance to change your mind.)
I said, “I guess it’s going to be nearly impossible to find this girl. I can’t imagine nobody missing her.” Actually, I could. I could imagine it six ways from Sunday.
The Sheriff nodded thoughtfully. “It’s sad, really.”
“Why?”
He was slotting change into Miss Isabel Barnett’s meter. He never ticketed her because I’m sure he realized how forgetful she was. “To think a girl could go through all of that, and no one ever know about it.” Sadly, he shook his head.
It was easy for me to pick up on her trials and tribulations.
“And she’d have been scared to death. There’s hardly anyone lives out there excepting Mr. Butternut—”
“Buttercup.”
“Buttercup. And those woods are really dark, I mean really dark. Not just your average night-dark, electric-out-dark, cave-dark, or even blind-dark—”
“You know a lot about the dark.”
And suddenly, I remembered that I was not supposed to know a lot about the woods. “Will told me. Will and Mill, you know how they like to nose around whenever something happens. They went out to Mirror Pond after the murder.”
“They shouldn’t be doing things like that. Tell them.”
“Uh-huh.” That didn’t interest me at all. “But getting back to this poor girl, why, a lot of things could have happened. She could have starved or died of exposure.”
“Oh, I doubt she’s dead. There’s more than one way out of the woods. She sounded smart, the way Mr. Buttercup talked about her. He said she was as stubborn as Abel Slaw’s mule.”
I was not! I stopped and put my hands on my hips. “Something wrong?”
“Well, no!” I shrugged and walked on. “But it doesn’t make any difference. No family’s reported any missing girl.”
“Um. There is a good reason why they wouldn’t have.”
“What?”
“She’s not missing anymore.”
Once again, I stopped dead. “Not missing?”
He nodded. “She might by now be right back where she came from.” He’d stopped and was writing out a ticket for Helene Baum’s canary-yellow car. Above the law, she thought she was. He ripped it from the book and stuck it on the window, making a little rubbery twang with the windshield wiper.
“But—well, wouldn’t you be furious if that’s so?”
“No. No harm done.” He smiled. “Would it be better if the poor girl was still missing?”
“But all the trouble she caused you! Getting the state police out there and having to talk to Mr. Buttem—Buttercup, who’s probably a hundred and talks a blue streak about his family—I mean he sounds as if he does.” (That was close!) “I mean, you would have to be awfully disappointed after all of the trouble you went to.”
The Sheriff stopped and adjusted his black glasses and looked skyward. “The only thing that disappoints me is I’ll never know her. She sounds like a girl worth knowing.” He sighed.
I gaped. I felt like a firecracker sent sparks of its hot self racing through my veins.
Then we walked on, left Second Street for Oak Street, walked and walked in our old friendly way, with me trying to figure out a way to let the Sheriff know the girl wa
s me.
18
A new decor
The Abigail Butte County Library is a building of pale brown brick, and one of my favorite places. Miss Babbit doesn’t talk down to kids the way most adults like to do, as if our puny brains could only take in information spoken very slowly and clearly. It’s the same way adults talk to old people.
After serving lunch, I had gone down to the Pink Elephant to think about Florida. It was then that I decided to take my painting of flowers and water back to the library to exchange it. I handed over the Manet or Monet—I couldn’t keep them straight. I think when they both discovered they were going to be painting pretty much the same things, one of them should have changed his name. But then they might have thought it was fun confusing people, like twins who let you think they’re each other.
Miss Babbit asked if I’d enjoyed the painting and I said yes, I was going to look at some others, which I did. But none of them looked like Florida, except possibly one with a palm, some fruit, and two naked women. Miss Babbit came to stand beside me and said that the painting was a Gauguin. I was amazed she seemed not at all embarrassed for us to be staring at the naked women. I asked if it was supposed to be Florida and she said, no, the South Seas. She went on to tell me about Tahiti and Gauguin taking off—quitting his job, leaving his family in Paris to run off to Tahiti. Eyeing the naked women, I thought, no wonder.
Miss Babbit had to leave to take care of Helene Baum and Mabel Staines, who I would be surprised to hear ever read a book.
Under “Travel, U.S.” I located two big Florida books, full of photographs, which I dragged over to a table to leaf through. I was searching for palm trees, mainly the royal palm. I wasn’t disappointed; stately palm trees lined avenues and beaches, grew in profusion in parks, eclipsed the sun and moon with their black trunks and dark green fronds silhouetted against a sky full of melting crayon colors, so vivid the scene looked artificial, unreal. I found a royal palm in daylight, taking up the whole of one photograph, that was just perfect. I marked the place and looked for the Tamiami Trail. I found sections of it in the next book. Some bits of it were really not that pretty, so I ignored those and marked a picture which was, showing palms unreeling down a highway, into the blue distance.
I was suddenly very tired, as if a load of flour had just been dumped on me. I figured I was thinking about Paul and Do-X-machines again, so I rested my head on my outstretched arm on the table and looked at the pictures sidewise, lazily turning the pages. It was an interesting angle that gave the palm trees the appearance of moving when I slowly turned the page. And then there were pictures of beaches and buildings, and interior shots of rooms. One of a hotel lobby caught my eye. There were white pillars around which sat poincianas with flame-red blooms. They were truly beautiful, especially with the white backdrop of the pillars. This lobby was quite luxurious, with crystal chandeliers and bamboo furniture and a deep-looking dark green carpet. The photograph was not identified, but I decided this had to be the lobby of the Rony Plaza. I continued looking until I found the outside I wanted. This sat directly on the beach, surrounded by royal palms and coconut palms (and probably others I didn’t know), a towering pink and white building that reminded me of one of my mother’s birthday cakes.
I felt my time had been well spent and took both books over to the copy machine. Not only could you copy, but you could enlarge on the machine, which is what I did, first copying one-half of each image and enlarging as much as I could, then doing the other half. I read the message about how it was illegal to copy pages of a book without prior permission, but since I had no idea how to get that, I figured I could take my chances. The halves I could scotch tape together later.
Now all I had to do was buy poster board and crepe paper and take a taxi back to the hotel. I walked to the stationery store (which was really more of a jumble store that sold comic books and regular books besides typing paper, ink, pencils, and pens in addition to stationery) and bought these with tip money that I always had a supply of in spite of Vera’s keeping the big tippers for herself.
I almost got weary again thinking of all the things I had to do: I had to wait tables, I had to go to Cold Flat Junction, I had to solve this mystery of Fern Queen and the Girl, I had to find a new decor for the Pink Elephant.
Life certainly wasn’t about to leave me alone.
Back in the Pink Elephant I settled down to copy the two halves of the royal palm picture. I had green crayons and brown and gray with which I filled in the tree on the poster board. It was hard to draw, since the palm, even enlarged, was still smaller than what I wanted. But I finally got the outline right. I finished coloring the trunk and then cut up the green crepe paper and pasted wide strips to the top of the tree. I also colored and cut out a few coconuts to attach beneath the palm leaves. Finally, I cut around the tree as well as I could, leaving the extra at the bottom, which I then folded back as a support. It worked very well.
I had the missing coconut that my mother had been looking for, one of three brought back from town by Mrs. Davidow, and now took it up to the kitchen, which was empty except for Walter. I got a hammer and a screwdriver from the storeroom and asked Walter if he’d help me open up the coconut, and he was pleased to do it. Soon, he’d got it open and I poured the milk off into a cup. Then we each ate a piece and agreed it was “real good.” Walter said come dinnertime, I should take a piece on a platter into “the old fool.” Walter laughed his gasping laugh.
It was nice having the kitchen to ourselves with nobody to neb around and ask what we were doing. I sat on the stool my mother kept near the stove, and Walter leaned back against the serving counter. We ate another piece of the coconut. He asked where they came from and I told him coconut palms, as far as I knew.
“They’re all along the Tamiami Trail, rows of coconut and royal palms.” I didn’t know this, of course, but it offered a chance to say “Tamiami.”
“Where’s that?”
“In Florida.” I bit into my piece of coconut. It had the most wonderful cool and unsweet flavor. I could hardly wait to turn it into the drink my mother described. Probably I could do it in a blender.
“That’s where Miss Jen and Mrs. Davidow are going.” He made it sound like some huge coincidence.
I told him that was right. “Ree-Jane, too.”
Walter shook and shook his head. “She’s gonna drive that there white car straight to hell.”
Knowing Walter, he meant literally.
“Wish’t I could go to Florida.” He sighed.
“Me, too.” To keep him company, I sighed too.
I needed a number of other things, one being a fan and a bucket of sand. I decided to visit the Big Garage, even though Will and Mill didn’t welcome visitors. On my way across the backyard, I stopped at the sandbox kept there for the small children of guests. The spade and sand bucket were a weathered blue, and rather small for my purposes, but they’d do. I filled the bucket and set it down on the walk to collect on my way back.
I knew Will and Mill had at least one fan in there, for I had seen them use it. As there was no electrical outlet in the Pink Elephant, I would just drop a long extension cord out of the dining room window above it.
As I walked up to the Big Garage, I took comfort in the knowledge that Will was being left behind, too. Still, I couldn’t kid myself into believing they thought of Will and me in the same breath. Will was another thing altogether for most people. He was only there in spurts, when he’d appear to carry someone’s bags or bus the dishes. Most of the time, he was either gone (with Mill, over to Greg’s for Moon Pies and Orange Crush and to play the pinball machine) or they were both up in the Big Garage. Since Will didn’t seem to be around, people had a chance to miss him. He’d come and go in an almost magical way. I’d guess you could say he was the pure performer. He was always on stage.
I heard the piano going, and they were singing some old gospel song, interrupting it now and then with hysterical laughter. When I knocked on the door that
seemed bound shut from the ivy growing on it, the laughter stopped suddenly, as if I’d dreamed it. Then there came noises of the sort that went with whisking things out of sight. I knew Will would come to the door and open it only a half inch to keep me from seeing in. It was all so melodramatic.
“What do you want?” he asked through the narrow opening. He spoke to me sometimes as if he couldn’t remember who I was, or what I was doing on his planet.
I scratched my elbow. “I just wondered if I could borrow that fan.”
“The rotating one?”
I wasn’t sure, but I just said yes.
“You’ll have to bring it back. We use it for special effects.”
“Bring it back when?”
He shrugged. “Whenever. We’re not using it right now.”
I waited while he went to get the fan. When he returned, I asked him about Florida and how he felt about not being allowed to go.
“I could go.”
That stunned me. What did he mean?
The door opened a bit wider as he shoved the fan through, and I could see him shrug. “I just didn’t want to go. Why would I want to spend days in a car with Ree-Jane?”
I stood there, staring. When he asked what else, I shook my head. Then he closed the door.
The fan was taller than I was, but it didn’t weigh much. Holding it up a little from the gravel road, I walked back around the rear of the kitchen to the Pink Elephant. I felt it was awful of my mother not to tell me that I wasn’t going to Florida with them, and that Will had been asked, but said no. I knew my mother could hardly ever bring herself to talk about anything fraught. I felt I was of no account. Then I saw Walter on his way back from the mint field with a bouquet of it in his hand. It was a relief to see here was someone of even less account than I was. When we met up, I asked him to go and get the sand bucket.
19
Their Florida vacation
The next day they left. And what a leave-taking it was; it had started three days before they all piled into Lola’s station wagon and actually went. My mother was, of course, too busy doing real chores to participate in the preparation. Ree-Jane modeled her new Heather Gay Struther clothes again, and that took quite a bit of time in itself, as she’d finally bought three dresses, a pale yellow linen suit, an evening gown, and three bathing suits.
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