Becoming Ellen

by Shari Shattuck

  When she opened the door, Runt jumped up, celebrating her return with his usual abandon, then stopped, sniffed the air fearfully, and began to bark a steady rush at the detective, repeatedly looking back at his people to make sure they were paying attention.

  Justice called out, “Hey, Ellen! You’re late. Did you stop for some—” His words cut off as the detective stepped in behind her and in a friendly, confident voice ordered Runt to sit. Runt sat. Justice switched gears. “Well, Detective! Good morning.”

  Temerity, who was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and toast, snapped her head up and around. “Who is it?” she asked.

  “Temerity, this is Detective Barclay. He’s the gentleman who helped Ellen on the bus.”

  “Actually,” said Barclay, his white teeth gleaming, “it was the other way around. That’s why I’m here.” Ellen crossed quickly to put the kitchen counter between her and the unfamiliar presence.

  “And you saw Ellen downstairs?” Temerity asked incredulously.

  “No. She saw me.” Barclay’s face sobered. “Speaking of. Have any of you noticed a young man who might be homeless outside your building?”

  Ellen looked at her friends. Both of them were pictures of innocence. “Well, there are certainly homeless people around,” Justice said, not committing.

  “I miss a lot of details,” Temerity said evasively, but honestly.

  “This is a boy, eleven maybe twelve, I think he might be living somewhere in your alleyway. I’ve seen him twice now. If he’s a runaway, he needs to get back home.”

  Temerity rose. “You never know these days,” she said. “Depends what he ran away from. Can I get you some coffee, Detective?”

  “Oh, no thanks. I’m headed home to sleep after this. So, without further ado.” Reaching into his black leather jacket, Detective Barclay produced a large envelope. “I hope I didn’t crush it,” he muttered, and pulled from it an official-looking document, thick parchment with colorful designs. With a grin, he held it out to Ellen. “I’d read it, but since it’s just us, I’ll let you.”

  Ellen took it between two fingers, almost afraid it would be hot to the touch. She was still distrustful that it was a summons of some kind, and she stared at the fancy wording. Justice came to stand at her shoulder.

  “What does it say?” Temerity asked impatiently.

  “It’s an accommodation from the city, thanking Ellen for exemplary bravery and assistance to law enforcement in a time of need,” he told his sister. “Well, isn’t that something.”

  Ellen thought it was something, too, but she wished it would go away. This was why she didn’t get involved. She only wanted the detective to go away. It wasn’t that she didn’t like him, or thought that he meant her any harm. It was only that she didn’t want anyone to look at her. She had talked to three people in the last couple of days. That was more than in the last six months combined, and she felt besieged.

  “Well, that’s great!” Temerity said. “Congratulations, Ellen. See? I told you that you were brave. Now you have it in writing, so that proves it!”

  Barclay cleared his throat and looked slightly abashed. “On a personal note, I’d like to add that I owe you. If you ever need a favor, please ask.”

  Justice was watching Ellen, she could feel his eyes on her from the side, and though she had learned not to mind Justice’s regard, it was one more set of eyes now than she could bear. She shuddered involuntarily, and Justice, turning briskly to the detective, stepped sideways to shield Ellen from his view. “So, how about some toast, or juice? Sit down, sit down. What can you tell us about the rest of the people on the bus? What about the woman who was injured?”

  Barclay went to the table and took a seat. Ellen gratefully shifted over to the seating area and sank into the winged armchair, out of view. She pulled Mouse onto her lap and curled over him, making herself as small as possible.

  “I was just telling Ms. Homes. The driver is back at work and the little girl has been placed in an excellent foster home.”

  “So that means that her mother . . . ?” Justice asked.

  “Is not doing well. I can’t say much, except that she’s in a coma, and it’s not looking like she’ll come out of it.” He sighed. “So unfair.”

  “What will happen to the guy on the bus? Will he get off by plea-bargaining?” Temerity asked, incredulous.

  “Oh, no. Too many previous arrests and, of course, he’s responsible for the bus crash. His sentence will be shortened a bit because he was on a certain kind of methamphetamine we’ve been trying to track down and he offered to turn in his source.”

  “So much for honor among thieves,” Justice said.

  The detective smiled grimly. “Or drug addicts. We keep getting close to the ring producing this stuff, but it’s been tricky. The street meth they’re producing is particularly toxic, we’ve had nine related deaths so far. Evil stuff. Usually meth is produced in small batches and it’s hard to track, but this stuff has been cut with animal tranquilizer. It makes people jump-off-buildings crazy.” He shook his head. “And it’s being mass-produced.” He leaned back. “Get this: our friend from the bus told us that it was delivered packaged as ‘gourmet food.’”

  Ellen’s head jerked up. Gourmet food? But before she could muster a voice, Temerity was back on track, allowing Ellen to dismiss the coincidence.

  “So . . .” Ellen could hear the purpose in Temerity’s voice, but she doubted that anyone else would. “What does the fact that her mom is in a coma mean for Lydia?”

  “The little girl?” The detective grimaced and thanked Justice for the glass of juice he handed him. “It depends. The way the law works, she will stay in foster care until her mother, or some other relative, can care for her again.”

  “And what if they can’t?” Temerity asked pointedly.

  “Then, hopefully, she will be adopted.”

  Ellen couldn’t help it, in spite of the burning in her cheeks heating to the point of spontaneous combustion, she said, “That didn’t work for me. They never found my mother, or anyone else to sign off on custody, so I couldn’t be adopted.” She didn’t mention that no one had wanted to adopt her—that wasn’t the point. Lydia was the point. Just putting herself out there enough to make the comment leeched energy from Ellen, and despite the tension in every muscle, she felt the exhaustion of her stressful interactions over the last few days weaken her bones.

  “Yes, that can happen,” the detective said.

  “But what if Lydia’s mom dies?” Temerity plowed on.

  Justice exclaimed, “Tem, please, how awful!”

  “Well,” Temerity said, crossing her arms. “What if?”

  “Then she would be an orphan,” Detective Barclay said. “And that’s a very different circumstance.”

  Temerity drummed her fingers against her upper arm. “Is there any other way? I mean, let’s say that Lydia’s mom, or anyone in that condition, doesn’t wake up, but doesn’t die, is there some other way? I mean, it doesn’t sound like it’s fair to the kid in that situation.”

  The detective took a long sip of juice as he studied Temerity over the top of the glass, taking her in. “Well,” he said, “a judge can have the mother declared physically incompetent, but it has to be extreme. It can’t just be that she’s, say, in a wheelchair. I’m talking legally brain-dead.”

  “And who would be in charge of that?” Temerity asked.

  The detective pursed his mouth and thought. “Well, her doctors, of course, but someone would have to instigate the investigation, then there would be a hearing for competency . . . but that would be at least a year off,” the detective said firmly. “That’s the minimum time to wait and see if family steps forward. Or if we can flush them out, more likely,” he ended grimly.

  Ellen thought about the letter she’d received, with its mysterious copy to Frank Homes, and hoped Temerity
wasn’t having the same thought. Wasted wishing of course, because, much to Ellen’s distress, her friend asked, “And what if a relative did show up? I mean, months, or even years later?”

  The detective set down his glass and addressed Temerity a bit more severely. “You have quite a few questions. Are you interested in this topic for some specific reason?”

  Please don’t say it, Ellen was thinking desperately.

  “Well,” Temerity said, and Ellen’s fingers on Mouse’s head jerked. He twisted and bit her lightly. “I didn’t know anything about the foster care system—I expect most people don’t—until I met Ellen. She was raised in foster care and it wasn’t exactly a warm and fuzzy experience for her.” Temerity gestured in Ellen’s general direction. “But let’s just say, for the sake of argument, purely hypothetically, that Ellen found out she had a relative she never knew about.” Ellen’s heart stopped as though it had been flash frozen and broken into little, icy marbles, like a plastic bag of peas in a freezer. Temerity went on. “How could she find them?”

  “I’m going to bed,” Ellen half shouted at the same time, unable to take even one more reference to herself or one more second of the pressure of notice without ending up compressed into a small, petrified lump of organic matter. “Really tired. Night.” She loped for the door to the hallway. Once it was safely closed behind her, she stopped and pressed her ear against it, but all she could hear were the low murmurs of polite conversation.

  Ellen hurried up the stairs and into her room, and sat on the edge of her bed, trying to catch her breath and calm herself. It was too much, she couldn’t do it. She counted four new people, four, whom she had willfully interacted with in the last two days. The scrutiny and the involvement were like subjecting herself to lethal, airborne chemicals or mercury contamination or . . . something, she didn’t know, but it was poisoning her.

  Sliding off the bed, she went into the bathroom, locked the door, drew a warm bath, turned off the light, and felt her way into the water. The waves of displacement rocked her quietly as she let herself float. She stayed there, in the warm, gently swaying blackness, feeling as little as possible, and listened to the thrum of the hot-water heater on the other side of the wall. It was a constant but fluctuating sound, not unlike a heartbeat heard from deep inside the womb.

  21

  It was much later that Ellen made her way out of the bathroom and into her bed. A solid eight hours of sleep ended and she opened her eyes to a darkened window. Night had fallen and she had slept straight through. Slightly panicked, she checked the clock radio. It was only seven thirty, plenty of time to get to work.

  Ellen got up, dressed, and went downstairs. Temerity was playing the violin under the big windows, and the sound plucked at Ellen’s heart. Though it was beautiful, it sounded to her like loneliness calling her name. On the floor at Temerity’s feet were the plain white sheets of the perforated music score that had been delivered. Temerity stopped when Ellen crossed the floor.

  “Sleep well?” she asked.

  “I thought you had a concert tonight.”

  “Nope, this afternoon. Special show for schoolkids. I’m already back,” Temerity said.

  “Have you heard from Seth?” Ellen asked as she made herself some coffee.

  Temerity’s brow furrowed. “No, not since this morning, but I didn’t really expect to. Did you?”

  Ellen sat down on one of the stools and told Temerity about her visit to the state facility, her exchange with Lydia, what the grown-ups had discussed, and finally, about Seth’s exam at the clinic that morning.

  Temerity listened eagerly. When Ellen had finished, she said, “He shouldn’t be in that freezing basement, he won’t be able to get better. What time do you need to get on the bus?”

  “Nine is good.”

  “Terrific, then there’s time.” Temerity actually rubbed her hands together so briskly that Ellen half expected sparks.

  “For what?” Ellen asked.

  Temerity faced her almost directly and smiled radiantly. “You never know what the day will bring.”

  “Or the night, as the case may be,” Ellen said, turning to look at the bleak, freezing evening outside.

  “Oh, is it dark? I hadn’t noticed,” Temerity said drolly, and then she laughed. A laugh that was round and unapologetically fat, but filled with life and fearless delight—Temerity’s laugh. “Makes no difference to me.”

  Ellen wished she could say the same, but she couldn’t.

  She preferred the dark, where it was easier to hide and there were far fewer eyes to see, except, possibly, Temerity’s.

  What the night would bring, Ellen discovered, was a party at a gallery. Temerity had been invited and she wanted Ellen to go with her.

  “You want me to go to a party?” Ellen choked, the calm from her extended bath and sleep evaporating instantly.

  “You don’t have to wear sequins and toot a horn,” Temerity told her. “You don’t even have to go in. I just need you to check it out for me. You know, give me the layout. Usually, I wouldn’t go to an art show, what’s the point?” she said with a cackle. “But the artist is the sister of someone in the orchestra, so I said I’d make an appearance.” Temerity laughed again.

  Ellen didn’t like the look of the gallery at all. It was brightly lit, with huge sidewalk-to-ceiling windows through which she could see an open space with nowhere to hide. Huge, colorful canvases were dramatically lit on the brick walls, and in the center of the room sat a grand piano, the player with his back to them.

  “Okay, this is as far as I go,” Ellen told Temerity. “The door is about ten steps ahead on your right.”

  “Can you see in?” Temerity asked, unfolding her stick as she let go of Ellen’s shoulder.

  “Perfectly. It’s like a big fish tank.”

  “Adult swim. Not your favorite thing, the adult swim,” Temerity said grimly. “Okay, thanks for helping me out. Wish me luck.”

  “’Luck,” said Ellen, though she didn’t for a second think that her fearless friend would need it. Ellen watched Temerity go in and then she shifted herself to stand just off the curb between two parked SUVs. One of the bumpers was the right height to perch herself on, so she did, bracing one foot against the bumper in front of her. It must have been overly warm in the gallery, because the door was propped open, and Ellen could hear the murmur of conversation. The evening was frigid, and Ellen’s breath hung in the air in front of her. She blew into her hands in their loosely knit mittens, purchased at the thrift shop, and hoped that Seth was keeping warm.

  Watching Temerity enter a new space was always a worthy exercise, not because of Temerity, who did almost everything with complete confidence, but because of the other people watching her. Tonight the “other people” were stylishly dressed, painstakingly groomed beautifuls. “Beautifuls” were what Ellen called the type of people who would watch themselves go by in a window reflection, completely oblivious to the fact that a murder was being committed just inside. Ellen saw them on the street often enough, constantly checking to make sure they were being noticed while pretending complete disdain for the presence of the unattractive others. Ellen’s keen observing had long ago taught her that these people thrived on the attention of those others, without whom they were nothing. And now these people, their self-worth so obviously reliant on their physical appearance, so certain that they were more valuable than their less-attractive fellow beings, were faced by a person for whom physical appearance had no meaning, and they had no idea how to respond to that. Temerity and her blindness rendered them worthless.

  It was fun to watch.

  Temerity stopped a few feet inside the gallery and turned slowly, unaware, except perhaps for the change in the conversational murmur, that everyone there had turned to watch her warily.

  Ellen watched the beautifuls shift uncomfortably. Suddenly, with a little cry of delight, a tall, effemin
ate man called out, “Temerity Bauer, sexy, darling, gorgeous girl!” and rushed toward her. Temerity smiled and turned toward him as he descended on her, wrapping an arm around her waist and leading her toward a group of people who were obviously her musician friends. He snatched a glass of champagne from a tray and pushed it into her hand that wasn’t holding the stick. Temerity laughed and Ellen relaxed.

  She settled in to wait. Temerity hadn’t said she should, but she had some time before she needed to reboard the bus, and watching this spectacle through the picture glass was enjoyable, like a parade from the safety of a balcony.

  The cold air could not stop the warm sensation of pride that Ellen felt as she watched her friend mingle and amuse. She was obviously popular. No surprise there, Ellen thought. She had never known anyone so kind or so brave, and Ellen treasured even the twinge of jealousy that Temerity’s admiration inspired.

  A tall, swarthy man positioned himself near her friend. He leaned down and spoke in Temerity’s ear, and Ellen could tell from the way Temerity shifted away and crinkled her nose, her smile stiffening, that she did not care for him. The man’s shirt was unbuttoned too far down, revealing a furry chest. Ellen smiled. Between Temerity’s reaction to the man’s scent and the hair, she knew this must be the infamous bassoonist.

  Ellen wished she could go in and rescue her friend, but it was unthinkable, and it wasn’t like Temerity was in danger. Ellen mused on what it would be like to meet someone and not be able to see what they looked like. She realized that she based the majority of her assessments on the physical. Not if someone was pretty, or skinny, or old, but the way they dressed, they treated others, their mannerisms all told her so much. Without that . . . Well, for Temerity it was different, she knew.