“There you are!” Mack said from the doorway, and she turned with a startled cry. “I’ve been all through the house looking for you,” he said. “You know when Frances will be back?”
“Probably not until supper,” she said, tensing back. He didn’t belong up here. He made her nervous, walking around like this and touching things.
“I can’t find the small toolbox,” Mack said. He was poking through a stack of framed pictures. “You didn’t see it, did you?”
“No.”
“I thought maybe you came out and saw it and you put it somewhere. You know, to get it out of the way or something.”
“I wouldn’t do that.” She turned to watch where he went now. “Why would I do that?”
He shrugged. “Just figured I’d ask.”
He squatted in front of a yellowed portrait of a young man posing by a table of books, his dark suit trimly tailored to his long thin body, his pale-blonde gaze aloof to the point of boredom. “That’s Mr. Beecham,” she said when he asked.
Tilting it, he blew soot off the glass and held the picture close to his face. “Ooo, the same scum look your aunt gave me this morning. They say, after enough years together, people start to look alike.”
He was right. She could see that same cutting disdain in Horace Beecham’s rigid smile.
“But she didn’t even know him then. And, besides, they were only married five years,” she said, so anxious for him to put the picture down that she could not take her eyes from it.
“Five years!” He looked up at her. “Then how long has she been a widow?”
“Twenty-one years. I was eleven when Mr. Beecham died.” Why had she told him that? It was none of his business, and, for that matter, he shouldn’t even be up here. She began to push the last box into the corner.
“I’ll do that,” he said, coming quickly to lift it. His arms were slick with sweat, and his T-shirt stuck to his back in wet puckers. He looked around. “Any more?”
“No. That’s all. I’m all done. I’m done!” she said, too emphatically.
“This all your father’s stuff?” he asked, nudging the largest box away from the smaller ones.
“I had those straight,” she warned, the sight of the crooked boxes as unnerving as blaring sirens. Her breath came tighter and tighter.
He set a carton on the smaller one in front, the entire pattern now totally misaligned.
“Leave that alone!” she ordered. “Don’t you touch those boxes!”
His hands flinched back as if scorched and he spun around. “I thought maybe you put his tools up here.”
As she hurried past him, he stepped so quickly aside she heard a thud and then a painful curse as he banged into something.
“There aren’t any tools up here. It’s all his clothes and things,” she muttered, heaving the boxes back into place. “Why would I bring tools up here? All his tools are in the garage. You’ve got all his tools.…”
“These his too?” he asked, touching the clubs in the sooty golf bag that sagged against the whitewashed chimney.
“Those are Mr. Beecham’s!” she warned, adding that just about everything here was Mr. Beecham’s.
She followed him as he roamed between the cedar chests and old trunks and wooden crates of books and ship models and tarnished silver platters and golf trophies and a rack of overcoats and tails and now a dusty top hat, which he put on. She bit her lip. He was trying to antagonize her, to goad her.
“Look at this!” he called. He had found the mounted animal heads that used to hang in Mr. Beecham’s dark study downstairs. “That’s a lion, and a water buffalo, and a … Christ, a gazelle. Why the hell would anyone shoot a gazelle?” He stared at the creature’s blank lustrous eyes. “What could have been the point?” he asked. “A gazelle! All they do is run. They’re so graceful and small,” he said.
“I guess it’s like a deer,” she said defensively. “People shoot deer and stuff them like that.” Her skin crawled. He shouldn’t be touching things that weren’t his. Especially Mr. Beecham’s things. She never touched Mr. Beecham’s things. If he broke anything, she would be blamed. “Please don’t!” she said, seeing him stroke the spiraling horns.
He spun around. “Don’t what?”
“You don’t belong up here!” she said. “You’re going to break something!”
“Break something!” He laughed. “Me, who would harm neither man nor beast, break something?” He looked at her, shocked. “What do you think I am?”
A prickle of fear grazed the back of her neck as she remembered the soup can smashing the windshield. She looked toward the distant door.
“Tell me! Do you think I’m good? Or do you think I’m bad?” he asked, his bright eyes cutting to hers with an intensity of sore heat, a sudden rawness like stripped skin.
She shrugged, and he asked again, in a menacing rumble.
“I think you’re good,” she said, her whisper weightless as the shafts of lightdust at all the windows. Her glasses slid heavily down her nose. She pushed them back and held them in place with her finger.
“And I think you’re good,” he said solemnly. “But are you pure of heart? Are you?” he asked, taking a step, then another toward her. “Are you pure of heart, Martha?”
She darted past him, through the door, and down the stairs, her heart pounding as he ran after her.
“Martha!” he called. “Wait! Don’t run!”
He was crazy. A crazy man was chasing her. At the end of the second-floor corridor, she slipped inside the white alcove that opened into this cavernous old linen closet with its paper-lined shelves of unused sheets and pillow cases and table linen, all covered with dusty plastic, and its deep wall bins for blankets, the small brass latches black with disuse. As a child she had hidden in these bins, sepulchered for hours on end, only to find, when she would finally reappear, that no one had missed her.
Downstairs, doors opened and closed as he searched for her.
“I was only kidding!” he called near the bottom of the stairs. “Martha! I was just fooling around! Jesus Christ,” he muttered, and then the screen door banged shut.
The saw screamed on and she hurried downstairs and out the back door, running toward the garage stairs.
“Martha!” he called, and she turned with a gasp as he came toward her, shirtless, his face and arms in the sun coated with grime. He held up his hand. “I was kidding around. I was just saying weird, off-the-wall things. I do that. It’s just a weird thing I do. It scared you and I’m sorry. Really … Martha?”
She rubbed her arm, nodding, staring at the worn spot on the toe of her canvas shoe.
“Okay?” He touched her forearm and she flinched. “Okay?” he asked again.
She nodded. “Okay,” she said, backing up the steps. Just leave her alone. Let her go. She had less than an hour now to get into town and meet Birdy coming out of the beauty parlor.
The square white house with its mauve shutters and gray front door stood close to the sidewalk, behind a fence of unpainted lattice sections that had buckled and sagged back in places, as if caught in a permanent breeze. Each time Martha passed the house she slowed way down, staring at the lavender venetian blinds on the little cellar windows. She had never been inside, but she knew from Birdy that the beauty parlor was down there in Lucille Faro’s basement. There were two sinks, two chairs, and three hair dryers, with most of the floor space taken up by a huge playpen for Lucille’s twins. Lucille’s husband had joined two playpens together by welding the sides and weaving the mesh and rebuilding the bottom. The twins’ names were Ivy and Rose, and though she had never seen them, she knew Ivy was blonde and Rose was the redhead.
Birdy knew everything about everyone in town and was so candid about her own life that, listening to her, Martha would get this bloated feeling and her eyes would smart with the pure dazzle of so much talk.
She paused in the cool shade of a maple tree. It was getting late; Birdy was due back at the Cleaners in five minutes. M
aybe she wasn’t even down there. Maybe she was sick or had switched her day. Martha might be out here pacing back and forth all afternoon and unless she went to the Cleaners she wouldn’t know where Birdy was and she couldn’t go there couldn’t go there couldn’t go there. Not to the Cleaners. Not there where they called her thief. Not yet. Be calm, now. Just open the rickety gate and ring the bell. All she could do was ask. That’s all. “Just ask. That’s all you can do,” she muttered.
“Oh!” said the skinny young woman in a pink nylon uniform when she opened the door. “Can I help you?” she asked through the screen.
“Is Birdy Dusser in there? I have to see her. It’s very important.”
“Well, gee, I …” the woman stammered, in a flutter of frosted pink eyelids. “I’ll go see.”
She seemed to be gone a long time. Maybe she had stopped to perform some crucial next step on a perm and she had forgotten all about her out here on this narrow wooden step. Or maybe Birdy was hiding in there, hoping she would get tired of waiting and go away. Martha turned and came off the steps.
The door opened. She followed the young woman down steep cellar stairs that were carpeted in a thick purple shag. She sniffed at the smell of sweet chemicals and mildew. She sniffed eagerly at the damp redolence of hair chemicals and mildew and now at the churning washer and dryer and the musty piles of soiled towels. It smelled of secrets. It smelled of women, an intimacy of women so deep in this fertile darkness that she gasped, as starved for air as if she had burrowed straight through to the core of the earth.
Birdy was getting up from one of the dryers. The short yellow cape on her shoulders reflected the light, so that for a moment, in the darkly paneled basement, her glowing face was all that Martha saw. Her dark hair was tubed on pink-and-white foam rollers. An older woman in green shorts sat under the adjacent dryer, which she switched off the minute she saw Martha. Lucille Faro stood with her back to the huge playpen. The twins faced each other in a litter of bright plastic toys that squeaked and honked under their fat legs now as they scrambled upright, their round bellies pressing against the mesh.
“Martha!” Birdy said, hugging her, and Martha’s eyes closed as she sighed Birdy’s name in a soft deflation of longing.
“You look great!” Birdy said, stepping away.
Her hands opening and closing at her sides, Martha had all she could do not to pull her back.
“Doesn’t she look great?” Birdy asked the women, but their stony stares and angled heads never wavered. “Must be all that mountain air,” she said, pulling out her curlers and dropping them into a pink sand-pail monogrammed LUCY in a swirl of silver glitter. “You even look like you put on a pound or two in all the right places.” She winked. “As you can see, mine’re still piling up in all the wrong places. But I’m thinking of joining that exercise place on Cottage Street, the one that just opened.” She climbed up into the chair. “Comb me out, Luce?” she asked through the mirror.
“You still want me to make that call for you?” Lucille Faro asked, staring.
Birdy’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “No, I think it’ll be okay. Anyway,” she said, her eyes back on Martha’s in the mirror now, as Lucille styled her hair with a long-handled brush. Martha smiled, watching Lucille’s rough red hands shape Birdy’s sausaged curls into a soft cap of shiny waves. “It’s this whole new concept where they strap you onto these machines that push and pull and pump and do all the work for you. My sister signed up. Beverly. You remember Beverly?” Birdy bent her head and closed her eyes while Lucille sprayed her hair from a gold can. “She’s on third shift at the General and she says it’s great. She lays there and sleeps while the machines do all her exercising.”
Martha nodded vigorously, interjecting “yup”s and “uh huh”s whenever she could. Still talking, Birdy slid out of the chair and paid Lucille.
They came along the sidewalk with Martha so deep in the thrall of Birdy’s bubbly monologue that she tripped for the third time. Birdy’s arm shot out, but she caught herself. “Watch your step,” Birdy warned now, as they crossed Merchants Row. They were nearing the Cleaners. “I have to talk to you,” Martha said, grabbing Birdy’s arm. “It’s very important.”
Birdy’s eyes flickered in the direction of the Cleaners, then back at Martha. They sat on the bench at the downtown bus stop. Martha raised her voice over the rumble of passing traffic.
“… And I went in to put the fig squares in your basket and I saw him. He was taking money right out of the cash drawer and he did this,” she said, sliding her hand down the front of her pants. Encouraged by Birdy’s weary smile, she went on. “It’s not fair that I get fired when he’s the one that’s stealing. But worse than that, Birdy, as far as I’m concerned, is that it’s probably still going on. I know he’s still stealing money every single day and you’re probably putting your own back in so he won’t get in trouble. He’s using you, that’s what he’s doing! He doesn’t care about you like I do!” Her heart swelled in the silence; Birdy finally believed her. “Birdy, you’re my best friend,” she whispered. Seeing Birdy this sad just tore her apart. Poor thing, she probably thought Getso was her last chance. “You’re the nicest person I’ve ever known. I could always talk to you. You were always so kind and you made me laugh and I’ve missed you so much.…” Her voice broke.
“And I’ve missed you too. Aw, poor kid,” Birdy sighed, patting her hand. “You know, Wesley keeps asking if anyone’s heard from you. Mart, I’m not your only friend. You’ve …”
“Yes, you are!” Martha cried, seizing her arm with both hands. “You are! You’re the only one!”
“Martha, let go of me.”
The look on Birdy’s face frightened her. “I’m sorry. Oh, Birdy, I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?” She tried to stroke Birdy’s arm where it was red, but Birdy pulled away. “I never want to hurt you. You know that.”
“Sure, honey,” Birdy said, standing up.
“All I want is for us to still be friends,” she said. She held out her hands, and then, to still their trembling, clasped them to her chest. “That’s all I want!”
“I know.”
“I mean, we don’t have to do anything together or anything.” She laughed nervously. “I just want you to like me, that’s all I want.”
“I like you. Of course I like you.”
“Then will you tell John I didn’t steal his money; that I’d like my job back?”
“Well, I’ll certainly mention it,” Birdy said, her voice like her smile, suddenly too bright. She had seen Birdy do this to others. She was being placated. Being humored.
Breath held, Martha sat very still, certain something was going to fall and break. Any sudden movement or noise might trigger the catastrophe that loomed.
She watched Birdy swatting the wrinkles out of her pink skirt. Wrinkles. She was worried about wrinkles.
“You don’t believe me, do you? You think I did steal that money,” she whispered.
“Of course I don’t!”
“Then who do you think stole it?”
“It was probably just one of those crazy mixups. Like the wrong night-count or something.”
Martha grabbed her wrist. “No! Don’t you understand? It was Getso! I saw him! I watched him! What do I have to do to make you believe me? Go to the police?”
“The police! Oh my God!”
“See, that’s what he’s afraid of. That’s why he won’t let us talk on the phone! That’s …”
“Martha! Keep your voice down!”
“That’s why he tried to attack me at the Superette the other day!”
“Martha, you fell. He saw you fall. He tried to help you up. Charlie, in the van, saw the whole thing.”
“Then Charlie’s lying too. He attacked me! That’s what he tried to do!” she shouted. “And I have a witness! He’ll tell you! You wait! You wait right here. I’ll call him and he’ll …”
“Listen to me! You listen to me!” Birdy panted, her face raging at Martha’s.
“I didn’t want to say this, but there haven’t been any more shortages since the day you left. Do you understand?”
“No! No, I don’t! I don’t understand!” she cried, thumping her chest, and then it came to her. “He’s waiting! Don’t you see, Birdy! That’s how evil he is. He’s waiting, that’s what he’s …”
“Martha, I’m going now. Please. Please, stop.” Birdy stepped off the curb.
“How can you believe him and not me? You’re my best friend. I wouldn’t lie to you! Birdy! You’re my best friend! Come back here! Birdy!” She started to chase her, but Birdy had already crossed the street. The light changed, and now the cars surged forward, trapping Martha on the island in the middle of the traffic.
Ten
The sun was starting to set. Frances sprawled in a lounge chair by the pool. After twenty-seven holes with Heidi Pierce and Ann Clyde and Ruthie Baxter, her body was as drained as her nerves were frayed. All they had talked about was Anita Bell’s suicide attempt and the ugly scene that had taken place between Steve and his daughters in the hospital waiting room.
When they had finished playing, Frances had come straight home. After her shower she had come out here and plunged into the water and she still felt grimy.
Mack stood over her, talking. As anxious as she had been to get away from everyone at the club, the thought of being alone filled her with dread. She nodded, only half listening; the man would talk to a wall as long as it didn’t move. Her face flushed angrily. Steve’s daughters had called her a whore in the hospital waiting room. A whore. And, according to Ruthie, Steve had wept.
Now Mack was laughing. When he couldn’t find the toolbox, he said, his first thought had been Martha. “I thought, you know, because they were her father’s tools, maybe she didn’t like me using them. Especially after the incident with the gloves,” he said, shrugging with a sideward glance up at the garage. His voice dropped. “She really got upset.”
God, what now? What had she said? What had she done? Would he quit too? Then what would she do? No! she thought, raising her head slowly. She couldn’t be alone right now—not with this mess, not with Martha teetering on the brink of hysteria. Frances could tell. She could always tell.…
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