“I don’t see a problem,” she said calmly. “How long do you think this would last?”
“Four weeks? Six? Not forever.” Lillian squeezed her shoulder. For a scientist she was getting a little touchy-feely. “I’m so glad, dear. Having strangers in the house is really intolerable. I’ll try not to be a burden. Living alone can be very tricky.”
I know. I know.
Isabel sat in the Volkswagen, eating her McDonald’s salad. The rehab hospital was on the outskirts of Champaign, one of those nondescript, low-slung complexes whose very blandness suggested hidden atrocities. When she left Dr. Mendel, Isabel had driven around the north edge of the city, crossed under the interstate, and ran into the first fast food restaurant she could find. Once again she’d hardly eaten all day. Getting to be a bad habit. Maybe if she was making breakfast for Dr. Mendel she’d start having something besides coffee in the morning.
Already she was kicking herself for telling the professor she’d be her live-in help. Her concerns about Dr. Mendel’s nighttime ‘issues,’ her impatience and irritability, her bossiness: all loomed large in Isabel’s mind. Lillian was going to be a royal pain in the ass. What was a $100 per week when you were a slave? She should have told the professor she’d think about it. But Lillian Mendel had done so much for her. Brought her back from Europe, given her purpose when she thought she couldn’t go on. Her thesis advisor to boot. A god-like figure. Goddess.
She set down the salad on the seat with a splat. She should go back and work on her lectures. Instead she picked up her chocolate shake and sucked on the straw. Two girls came out of McDonald’s, holding their paper cups, laughing. A blonde and a redhead, in cut-off shorts, flip-flops, and tank tops, young and tanned. College girls, or maybe high school. They looked happy, so carefree. They wouldn’t be emptying bed pans or driving to all-night pharmacies in bedroom slippers.
The blonde got behind the wheel of a green BMW, talking to her friend. Something about that profile, the tilt of the nose. Or maybe the short shorts. Isabel thought of Wendy. Who she wasn’t supposed to care about any more.
The green Lexus with Illini and sorority stickers on the back window tore out of the lot. College girls, enjoying the last few days of summer before classes begin, squeezing out every last idea of fun before things got semi-serious.
She had two days until she was going to be slammed, both by classes and the domestic needs of Lillian Mendel. She couldn’t forget Wendy just because Lillian said so. Isabel knew what it was like to completely lose it with your family, to say ‘enough’ and chuck them all. Sometimes you just had to vanish.
Two days then, before things really got serious. Two full days. She had one last idea. She turned the key and pulled out of McDonald’s, heading south.
Chapter 21
‘The Family Guy’ was blaring from the television. Not the cause of Jonny’s falling asleep, fully clothed, beer in hand, but it didn’t help. The beer bottle had slipped into his crotch. It was late Sunday night. He didn’t want to think about the botched weekend. A hand on his shoulder made him jump.
Artie said, “You aren’t going to believe this.” He was holding the cordless phone.
Jonny sat up, catching the bottle in the nick of time. “What?”
“It’s Wendy. She wants to talk to you.” He pushed the phone toward him.
“What? Wendy?!” Jonny yelled into the receiver. “Where are you?” He listened for ten seconds. “I’ll be right there. Don’t move.”
Artie took the phone. “Where is she?”
“Come on.” Jonny turned back at the stairs. Artie seemed glued to the floor. “You coming or not?”
Artie, the cool head, insisted on driving. To the airport. The streets were quiet, everyone home asleep or watching the Cartoon Network. He drove his Pathfinder up the freeway ramp and put the pedal down hard, passing a semi and a carload of teenagers.
“Easy now. She said she’d wait,” Jonny said.
“And you believe her? She didn’t sound too with it to me.” Artie glanced at him, knuckles white on the steering wheel. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Hell if I know. I spent the summer there?”
Artie nodded, accepting that. “We should call Mom.”
“Wait until we see her.”
“What did she say?”
“To pick her up. That she’d explain later because she was tired.”
The sprawling airport complex sucked them in, spitting them out neatly at Baggage Claim. Jonny jumped from the car, jogging to the doors. Inside the luggage carousels sat idle. A man was gathering up carts, another swabbing the floors. Jonny asked where the pay phones were. He began to run down the hall. The Pathfinder, lights blazing, inched along the curb even with him.
He reached the bank of pay phones set into the center of the hallway. Where was she? He turned around. There, curled up on a bank of plastic seats, was a thin blond girl in baggy pants and flip flops, a backpack under her head.
“Wendy!”
Her eyes opened and she sat up, rubbing her eyes. Jonny hugged her, sinking to his knees. She smelled of diesel fuel and cigarettes, with an undertone of fried chicken and perspiration. Her mascara had left black rings under her eyes but she looked essentially unharmed after her ordeal.
“What the fuck did you think you were doing?” he said, shaking her shoulders then holding her tight against his chest. “Are you all right?” She muttered ‘yeah’ sleepily.
“You little shit. Come on. Artie is out of his mind with worry. We all have been, you know.”
Sonya pushed her into a shower first thing. Artie made more coffee and they sat around the kitchen table waiting for the escapee to emerge for questioning. On the drive home from the airport Wendy hadn’t been very forthcoming about what she’d been doing for a week on the road. She spent most of the time pouting with her eyes shut. Artie had called their mother and father, cursing that it took two phone calls.
“I told them we’d bring her back to Red Vine tomorrow,” Artie said in the kitchen. “Apparently she’s missed three days of school, or practice or something.”
Sonya volunteered to drive her back. Her own school didn’t start until Thursday. She also wanted, she confessed, to give Wendy a piece of her mind. “How did she get to the airport? Did she fly in from somewhere?”
Jonny poured sugar into his coffee. “That’s the usual method.”
“From where?”
No one knew. Wendy finally joined them in a pair of Sonya’s track pants and a t-shirt. She glanced at them and opened the refrigerator. “Have you got any apples? I’d kill for some fresh fruit.”
“No fresh produce where you’ve been?” Sonya asked.
“Not a single cherry tomato.”
Wendy put together a salad with walnuts and cheese and a side of sliced apple. She poured herself a glass of milk and sat down.
“I bet I lost five pounds. The castaway diet, that’s what I’m calling it when I write my book,” she said, smiling slyly. “A bestseller.”
“Pretty romantic then, on the road?” Artie said, glaring at her with hard blue eyes. “All swashbuckling and high adventure?”
“A few giggles,” she said. She shoved lettuce into her mouth. Jonny got up and switched the coffee for a beer.
Artie slammed down his mug. “Jesus Christ, Wendy. Your mother has the sheriff looking for you. We’ve all been worried stiff. You never even called to say you were okay. Jonny went all the way down to the middle of Illinois looking for you, thinking you’d stowed away on a college bus.”
“He did?” Wendy looked up at Jonny, now leaning against the fridge. “What made you think that?”
Isabel’s idea. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Where were you?” Sonya demanded. “What have you been doing?”
“Here and there. This and that. Nowhere special, nowhere dangerous.” Wendy stretched both arms into the air and yawned before attacking her salad again. “Does it matter? I’m back now and m
y life will be so massively dull I’ll probably die of boredom before Christmas.”
Jonny put his hands on her shoulders. “Not if we strangle you first. Punk.”
She twisted away, mock-stabbing him with her fork. “Squeeze-boxer.”
“In Red Vine that’s not an insult, you know.”
Wendy gave a groan. “Red Vine! Argh. Do I really have to go back?”
Artie and Jonny were both late for work the next morning. The reunion stretched late into the night with more phone calls to and from Red Vine, Margaret crying on the line, Ozzie hollering, Wendy being Wendy, Miss No-Regrets. Sonya tried to play umpire and mostly glowered. Artie tried to reason with his little sister, explaining things no teenager wanted to hear, about the future, about patience and empathy, and taking time to grow up. About freedom coming with a price, getting a good education, and other nuggets of wisdom. Even Jonny got bored. Wendy just got angry and stomped up and down the living room, waving her arms.
At dawn they dragged themselves back to the coffeepot. Wendy declared that her mother said she could spend two-hundred dollars on school clothes and that Sonya would take her to the mall before they headed back to Red Vine. News to Sonya apparently. Artie rubbed his face and retreated to the bedroom.
“And where is this two-hundred dollars coming from?” Sonya asked, sitting at the table. Her hair went in six directions. By contrast Wendy looked fresh and rested.
“Mom will pay you back. Don’t worry your crazy little head. She’s good for it, Sonya,” Wendy said.
“Nice prize for running away,” Jonny said.
Wendy shot him a look. “You should understand, above everybody.”
“I never ran away from home and aged my parents years in a week.”
“I mean— oh, forget it.” Wendy hunched over her coffee, pouring in more cream. “You aren’t worth it anyway.”
Jonny frowned. “I’m not worth an explanation?”
“No, you’re not. You can’t even—” Wendy sighed. “You’re all a bunch of morons.”
Sonya rolled her eyes at Jonny. There was no talking to the child. Spoiled, willful, undisciplined, rude: he hadn’t heard his sister be quite so insulting before. This week had changed her, for the worse.
“I hope you’re better mannered when you talk to Mom and Dad. And apologize for all you’ve made them go through,” he said. She stuck out her tongue at him.
As Jonny headed out the door to work, Sonya caught his arm. She pulled a boarding pass out of her pocket. “I found this in her backpack. She did fly into the airport, from Chicago. Where did she get money for that?”
“Did she have Mom’s credit card?”
“I’ll ask her, you can count on that. She’s wild, Jonny. Artie has thrown up his hands. Your parents better put the clamps on that girl or she’s going to be lost, I’m telling you. If it’s not too late already.” Sonya rubbed her eyes. “Do you think she stole their card?”
“Ask her. And Mom.” He touched her shoulder. “Relax, Sonya. She’s home. It could have been worse. Much worse.”
As soon as he reached his desk and threw his jacket on a chair Sven informed Jonny that Gary Johnson, senior partner, had been looking for him. Something about blowing off Jill Martel’s project. Sven said he’d tried to explain about the family emergency but Gary seemed really pissed, like there was some intentional slight because his boss was female.
The day went downhill from there. Jill Martel was distinctly cool. Odd after all her concern of Friday. The Hefflin project morphed into a movie theater complex. Gary railed on the telephone: every partner, junior, senior, black, white, male, female, was equal. At the end of the day, Jill came by his cubicle one last time. No coffee cup, all business.
She rolled out the preliminary drawings she’d been working on all weekend, or so she said. She explained the importance of street value, parking availability, landscaping, snow removal. Nothing he hadn’t heard before.
As she secured her rolled-up plans under her arm to leave, he said, “My sister came home. I thought you’d like to know.”
“Your sister?” She frowned.
“The runaway? The family emergency?”
Her face transformed. She really had forgotten or was a great actress. “Oh my God. I totally forgot. Is she all right?”
He waited a beat, turned in his chair to face her. “She’s okay.”
Jill sat down suddenly, smashing his jacket. “Is every week like this? Am I going to go insane?” She leaned toward him. “Do you work weekends normally?”
“It happens.”
“Next weekend— no work. Okay?” She smiled at him, possibly the first time she’d smiled all day. “You and I should do something, what do you think? A drink, a walk around the lake, a movie? We should start planning it today or we’ll end up working all weekend again.”
He hadn’t worked all weekend. Maybe that was her point. She was smart and attractive. He didn’t click with her but he wasn’t going to be a monk, not at his age. On the other hand she was his boss, which made things sticky. He said, “We can talk about it, sure.”
She stood up. “I’m so glad about your sister, Jon. Really.”
September was a blur of late nights and weekends at work or in Red Vine working on the grain bin. Jonny moved into a studio apartment, the kind of place favored by out-of-town executives and penniless divorcees. The Hefflin project turned into a boondoggle, an unformed idea that died a little every Friday then was reborn each week. Jill agonized openly, requiring metaphorical handholding and the occasional cocktail. She had few friends in the Twin Cities. He wasn’t really her type, or vice versa. They both knew it. They never got past a quick hug and a peck on the cheek. So it came as a surprise when she asked him to attend a wedding with her the second week of October.
“I hadn’t planned on going,” she said in the lunchroom one Tuesday. “My ex.” She made a face. “Then I thought, Christ. If he has the balls to invite me I can sure as hell go.”
“You’re divorced?” She’d never mentioned it. But a quick marriage wasn’t unheard of, even among the over-educated. Look at him and Cuppie. Or Isabel and her slimy Alec. They popped into his head often at night, lying on his Murphy bed, staring at the red neon sign of the department store across the street. That kiss on the lawn. What might have happened. His divorce had moved into the final stages. Cuppie wasn’t fighting it.
Jill shrugged. “We were only engaged a few months. He snored something awful. And his feet! You never really know somebody until you see their naked feet. I can’t go alone. Please, Jon?”
The wedding was in Chicago, on a Saturday. Jill’s ex was a partner at the architecture firm where she’d worked previously, a large, multinational group in a tall, shiny building. Her life had been on the upswing there. Now it had sunk to the lows of Minnesota office parks. They were in a cab, on the way to the reception in a downtown hotel. They’d decided to skip the service itself. What was the point of that torture.
Jill was ready for battle in a bright yellow dress that showed off her curves. She’d ditched her square glasses for contacts and twisted her hair up off her neck. Jonny slouched beside her in the taxi. Why was he here? She was his boss. That was the answer. Her face was stiff with fear as she powdered her nose for the tenth time.
“Why are you putting yourself through this?” he’d asked as they flew down. She’d insisted on paying for everything, including his airline ticket.
“To show him that there are no hard feelings, of course.”
Now in the cab he asked, “What’s his name?”
“Roger, sweetie.” She called him ‘sweetie’ like he was her son, or lapdog.
“And who is he marrying?”
“Some bitch from interior design. Charlotte. A little schemer in thigh highs.”
“But you don’t care.”
“Of course not. Here we are,” she called to the driver. “How do I look?”
Jonny helped her out of the cab. She was wearing very high h
eels and wobbled a bit. Still, they made her legs look great. “He’ll be sorry.”
The reception was well underway. Dancing to an elderly swing band, loud talk, tuxedos. They found their place cards at a round table on the back wall, empty but for a shawl and a purple tie. Jill pulled him to the bar where she threw back a glass of champagne and smiled, grabbing another.
“Easy, girl,” he muttered. She walked in the crowd. He ordered a beer from the bartender and kept his place, one elbow on the bar. The bride and groom were surrounded by guests. Roger shopped at Big & Tall and sported a receding hairline, his indescribable feet in patent leather. The little schemer resembled a very large cake ornament.
Jill found her old friends and was hugging and giggling. She turned and pointed him out, waving. The girls waved too, and he raised his bottle to them. They turned their backs and laughed. No point in actually meeting her friends.
Jonny ordered another beer. When he turned back to the crowd he found a woman staring at him. Pretty and small with honey blonde hair piled up on her head, she wore a gauzy green dress. Holding her champagne flute she tilted her head and frowned at him.
He nodded politely. She didn’t move, fixated on him. He looked away, feeling uncomfortable. High society version of a smackdown?
The song ended, a new one started. The mystery woman arrived at his side, holding out her glass triumphantly. “I got it! Polka boy!” She pounced forward, palming him on the shoulder. “How ya doin’, bro?”
Jonny lurched, spilling a little beer on his jacket. “Okay.”
Whoever-she-was laughed loudly. “You don’t know who I am, do you? It’s Daria! Isabel’s sister, silly.”
She looked so— different. Although bright as a parrot she was elegant— and taller— with her hair swept up and high heels. Weird to see somebody who knew him from Red Vine in a place like this, with crystal chandeliers and bubbly. That mansion on Lake Michigan, bossing around the servants, that was Daria’s territory. He looked at his mismatched pants and sports jacket and felt, not for the last time, inadequate.
“Jesus, Daria. Good to see you.” A couple stepped up to the bar and spoke to her. He hoped she wouldn’t bring up the accordion.
All Your Pretty Dreams Page 20