by Sarah Graves
I didn’t say anything about the police wanting to talk to her. She was spooked enough. “Okay? Have we got a deal, here?”
You know, I think for an instant she almost believed me, or wanted to. But then her teenaged distrust of anyone who actually knew anything, or could do anything for her, kicked in.
“I just came to warn you,” she said stubbornly, clinging to the control she imagined she had. “Before I leave town.”
She reminded me so much of myself at her age, I wanted to throw a net over her, because I was not always confident, sane, and in command of a talent for making the most of other people’s money. I know what New York’s Port Authority bus terminal is like at night, alive with hustlers as smooth as predatory reptiles. At Hallie’s age I was fresh off a Greyhound myself, straight out of deepest coal country, bound and determined to put a world of difference between myself and where I’d come from.
I’d done it, too, but I hadn’t been addicted, then or later: lucky. It was the difference between me and Hallie.
“Where are you going?” I asked casually, busying myself at the workbench. “I’m sorry about Ken, by the way. Looked like you two had a decent thing working, the trailer and all. And the dog. What’s his name, Cosmo? What’s happened to him?”
I was trying for a sympathetic connection, but it blew up in my face. Her expression clouded, her lips twisting bitterly.
Come on, Hallie, I thought, give it up; you don’t have to go through this. It’s too much for you, or anybody.
“Look,” I said, “wherever you’re going, I’ll drive you. Or you can stay the night here. Just don’t go out there by yourself again, okay? Because if you do, I’m going to worry about you.”
I took a step, reaching out. She flinched in response, and skittered halfway back up the steps. “I’m going to Portland, a rehab place, I’ve got friends there, I’m going to get straight.”
The words tumbled out, too fast to be the truth, sounding just like the things some of Sam’s friends had told me, back in Manhattan.
“I can’t,” she babbled, using phrases she’d heard from some counselor, “straighten out here, where I’m exposed to all the old situations, the same old people and temptations.”
“Sure.” She was as good as gone already.
“So,” I brushed non-existent sawdust off the bench, “if you are going, you won’t need those people and temptations anymore. So you could tell me who it is you’re getting the stuff from.”
Hallie’s eyes narrowed. They were blue, and her pale blonde hair was natural.
“Was it Ken? Because,” I went on smoothly, “I’d like to keep other kids in town from going through what you’re about to. The work of rehab and all. Wouldn’t you want to help?”
If she gave me a name and it wasn’t Ken’s, all Arnold would have to do was find the slimebag and slap him—selling to kids—into custody, so I could not rip his lungs out with my bare hands before he made it even as far as the county courthouse.
“Yeah,” Hallie spat scornfully at last, “it was Ken. Happy now? And since he’s dead, maybe you all can decide he was Jack the Ripper, too. I,” she announced, “am getting out of here.”
She turned, then nearly fell back down the steps at the sight of Sam, standing silently behind her. Sucking in a breath, she shoved past him up to the landing.
“You’d better remember what I said,” she grated out. “Don’t be stupid, okay? Keep your noses out, you and your friend.”
Then she was gone; the screen door’s slam like a gunshot and her sandals thumping across the porch, out into the darkness.
“Wow,” Sam said. “What was that all about?”
I released a sigh. “That was me, being the biggest fool in the world. Damn it, I should have handled her better.”
Sam came down and began helping me put the tools away. I’d forgotten what a pleasure it was, having him around.
“Yeah, well,” he said. “With Hallie, it’s not exactly easy.”
“You know her?” I asked, surprised; it hadn’t occurred to me that he might. But of course they were nearly the same age.
He nodded. “Seen her. She travels with a different crowd.”
“What do you know about her?”
The screen door sounded again, and Victor’s confident step crossed above our heads.
“I know her old man whacks her around,” Sam said. “Acts like he’s concerned about her, a lot of big talk. But he’s an animal with his fists. Or so,” Sam finished cautiously, “I’ve heard.”
“And you would know all this how?”
“Daigle.” Thus the caution: teenaged boys dish the dirt as exuberantly as girls. They just don’t want anybody thinking so.
“Daigle’s grandma lives next to the Quinns. And,” Sam went on, “I know the cops are looking for her, but they’re not asking the right people. Not that any of the kids in town would tell.”
Of course not: more teenaged code of honor. “What about Ken Mumford? Heard any scuttlebutt about him?”
Sam hung the belt sander on its hook. “Yeah. Daigle says he treated Hallie decent. Not, like, taking advantage of her.”
He eyed me sideways to see if I understood, and I indicated that I did in order to save him having to draw me a diagram. It’s another trait of teen boys: where their mothers are concerned, they cling passionately to the doctrine of virgin birth.
“He, like, supposedly loved her. But,” Sam went on, “Hallie was just using him, like, for a place to stay and so on. What she really wanted was to go to Portland. More nightlife.”
Sam shook his head wryly, indicating how well he thought Hallie would survive Portland nightlife. “But that Ken, what a sucker. She even has another boyfriend around here. But Ken didn’t know anything about it.”
My antennae went up. “She seemed pretty broken up over Ken’s death, though. And who is this other guy?”
He snorted softly. “Girls like Hallie are sentimental in a weird way. Like if their cat dies, they never paid it attention, now they’re crushed. Everything is all about them, you know?”
He was right, I realized: histrionics were no evidence of affection, or for that matter of anything else.
“Know any more about the mystery boyfriend?”
“Some older guy. But nobody’s gotten a good look. A glimpse on the seawall once in a while after dark. It’s where they meet.”
He tested the blade on an X-ACTO knife, began replacing it. “There’s this kid, Peter Mulligan, really ticked off about it. A high school kid, smart as heck but kind of shrimpy. You know, a nerd. He’s like, almost stalking her.”
If my antennae got any higher they would pierce the ceiling.
“He walks around with really deep books in his pocket,” Sam continued. “But what he really does is watch TV. Like, just sits there and watches for hours, when he’s not out spying on Hallie.”
“But you don’t know who this other guy is, the older one. His name, where he lives, or exactly how much older he might be.”
Old enough, maybe, to buy dope in a bigger town, Portland or Bangor, then bring it back here for Hallie and her friends to have a taste. After which, I theorized, they would want more.
“Mom.” Sam smiled patiently. “You could use these clamps as thumbscrews, maybe strip one of these electric wires and zing me with it. Try to get more out of me. But honest—”
He tipped his head wryly. “Honest, that’s all I know.”
“Thanks, kiddo. I wish I could’ve helped Hallie, though.”
He stopped. “You offered?”
“Yeah. Told her I’d drive her to Portland, to the rehab.”
Sam smiled sympathetically. Heroin was in vogue again, the kids thinking it was safer than crack or amphetamines.
“Then,” Sam said, “I guess the next move is hers.”
“Right. As usual.” I snapped the lights out, following him upstairs. “How’d you get to be such a smart kid, anyway?”
From the front room came the blare
of the TV. Victor’s new lifestyle included, apparently, broadcasts of beach volleyball lasting into the wee hours. At the sound of his father’s presence a worried expression returned to Sam’s face.
“There’s a fifty-fifty chance I inherited it,” he said.
20 “He what?” Ellie gripped the telephone in both hands. “How?”
Four brief hours after shooing Victor to bed, I awoke to the smell of coffee and pancakes. From the window, I watched the last wisps of night fog trickling away, little gleams of early-morning sunlight reflecting from the streets steaming with moisture.
Downstairs I found Sam eating a big breakfast. Ellie was in the telephone alcove, in my apron, with a load of laundry already running and juice squeezed into a pitcher on the table.
“When did he do this?” Ellie demanded into the phone.
I poured a glass of fresh orange juice and dumped it down my throat, praying for an energy boost. Meanwhile Ellie looked dewy and fresh-faced as always, her hair pulled back in a garish green-plaid scrunchy that set off her turquoise T-shirt and purple sweatpants. On her feet were a pair of bright yellow sneakers, and her earrings were the tiny square-cut emeralds that George had given her for her birthday.
If anyone else wore this outfit it would be ridiculous, but color combinations that blend as harmoniously as a car crash look smashingly well chosen on Ellie, possibly because she shines right through whatever she is wearing, anyway.
Although at the moment what shone through was bright red fury generously mingled with frustration. “Where?” she demanded.
“What’s going on?” I asked Sam, pouring myself some coffee.
“Dunno. She was here when I got up, and then the phone rang. And boy, is she mad.”
“She made the pancakes?”
He nodded through a mouthful, swallowed. “Uh-huh. George had to go out early, boiler exploded over at the grade school. So she decided to come over and be useful, she said. Man, these pancakes are great. Here, try some.”
He poked a pancake-loaded fork at me. “Open the hangar,” he crooned persuasively, “here comes the airplane.”
A person, I believe, should be allowed to drink a quiet cup of coffee. But I opened my mouth obediently, just the way he used to when I used the airplane routine on him.
The pancakes entered. Whereupon my own eyes snapped open and my taste buds performed the macarena. “Hey,” I said.
Sam grinned. “Pretty good, huh?”
“I don’t understand,” Ellie said into the telephone, “how a man in handcuffs, in an official police squad car—”
She waved a hand as if brushing away a swarm of unwelcome news. “I have to hang up, now, before I lose my temper.”
She listened. “Yes, I will tell her. No, I won’t tell anyone else. Thanks for calling.”
She smacked the phone down. “Ellie,” I said timidly, “these pancakes are delicious.”
“Thanks,” she replied. “They’re made of Victor’s buckwheat flour. But try,” she went on, “swallowing this. Ken Mumford’s old jailhouse buddy Ike Forepaugh has escaped.”
“You’re kidding.” I chased the pancake with coffee, hoping the sugar-caffeine jolt would kick in soon.
“On the way,” she continued, “to the lockup in Machias. He faked a seizure, got them to undo the handcuffs late last night.”
Sam got up. “Gotta go. Daigle’s waiting. Thanks, Ellie.”
I opened my mouth to ask him where they would be going, what they would be doing, and when he would be back, but by the time I got these thoughts straightened in my head, he was already gone.
“So that’s why …” I began. Then I realized the other import of what Ellie had reported: Hallie, out on her own with Ike Forepaugh on the loose.
“I am so disgusted.” Ellie moved a load of Sam’s T-shirts from the washer to the drier, and started a load of towels. Besides her culinary acumen, she has mastered the art of making housework fit into the moments between moments, so that in her house every surface is always shining and the air smells of soapsuds and furniture polish, but she is never actually cleaning.
Then she heard what I’d said. “Why, what?” she asked.
It’s those in-between moments that I’d like to get a handle on. Somehow I think they make all the difference.
“Why,” I said, “Arnold didn’t have time to listen to me last night. I called him, after Hallie Quinn left against my advice.”
I hadn’t enjoyed keeping my promise to Arnold much. It felt like ratting on someone. But now I was glad I had done it.
Ellie looked over at me from the perfectly clean kitchen sink. The mixing bowl was back in the cabinet, and through the kitchen window I spied fresh eggshells out on the compost heap.
“Maybe,” she suggested—the griddle had been scoured, and the cabinet fronts were spotless—“you’d better tell me about this.”
So I did, including what Hallie had said and the things Sam had told me, and the part about Victor moving to Eastport.
“Which might have a silver lining. If he’s moving here,” I said, reciting the mantra I’d been repeating for the last twelve hours in hopes it would start sounding believable, “then maybe he won’t give Sam so much grief about coming back, too.”
“What about his wanting Sam to go to college, though?” Ellie asked. “Don’t you think he’ll still be difficult about that?”
“I’m not so sure. He’s aware that the only way Sam can study is if someone reads the material aloud to him, or puts it on tape.”
I drank some more coffee. “He knows Sam wouldn’t be able to survive at any of those schools. So maybe he’s just been using the idea to bully me. Maybe he’ll back off from it.”
Ellie made a disgusted sound. “You,” she said flatly, “are in denial. Victor’s not going to give up his plan so easy. He’s been working too hard on it. And when has he ever seen reality until he was forced to?”
She paced the kitchen, folding dishtowels as she went, pausing only to wipe the refrigerator, tie up the trash, freshen Monday’s water bowl, and rearrange my spice rack.
“And there’s something wrong with Victor,” she announced. “He’s sick, or he’s had some disaster. I started to try to tell you the other day, on our way out to Ken’s: Victor is different, somehow. And I think it’s something serious.”
She paused, thinking. “And it’s more than him wanting control. He wants Sam to go to college for his own prestige. And he’s too stubborn to admit it won’t work out, until it doesn’t. If it doesn’t,” she added doubtfully, glancing at me.
“But Sam’s not going to get admitted, anyway, is he? That’s why I want him focused on a realistic goal, so he’s not too crushed by the rejection. Or by getting admitted and failing. That would really hammer his opinion of himself.”
I took a breath. “But the admissions people at the schools must realize Sam’s too dyslexic to make it in their environment.”
“Maybe,” Ellie said. She sat down across from me, looking troubled.
“But Jacobia, that’s not the point. If Sam comes out with anything other than what Victor wants for him, Victor will blame you. And to get Victor off your case, Sam will do whatever Victor says. Don’t you see? To protect you. To save you from a showdown with Victor.”
“That’s … that’s ridiculous,” I managed.
Only it wasn’t. Victor would do anything to get his way, including the sort of emotional blackmail she was describing. As for protecting me, when I’d moved to Eastport Sam had accompanied me—as I’d learned later—only because I’d said I wouldn’t come here unless he did, too.
At the time, it had been Sam’s drug habit that concerned me; that, and his ever-present cadre of depraved little pals. But to Sam the trouble centered on me and Victor, and the angry campaign Victor mounted after the divorce, to punish me for rejecting him.
In short, I’d proposed the Eastport move to save Sam, but he had accepted it to save me; his mother had been crying all the time, and he’d want
ed it stopped.
Now he was forming a new relationship with his father. But if he saw the bad old days starting again …
Well, once again, Sam would probably think it was up to him to do something about it.
“Having his dad here probably seemed like an okay idea while Sam was planning it. Victor, I guess, was on good behavior around him, while they were in New York. But now that it’s happening …”
Ellie nodded. “Victor’s not going to take Sam’s ideas lying down. And I think Sam’s just going to surrender.”
He would, too; he was sixteen, and gallant to a fault. To keep the peace, he would go along with Victor’s program until it demoralized him completely.
Or until I showed him that he didn’t have to.
Which meant it wasn’t going to be enough to triumph in small skirmishes: letting Victor do some of his own cooking, for instance, or snapping off the TV and sending him grumbling up to bed instead of allowing him to keep the whole household awake.
Instead, for Sam’s sake—and preferably in his presence—I would have to have World War III with Victor.
And I would have to win.
From the front of the house came a shivery tinkle of glass, as if someone were passing under the pendants of the hall chandelier.
I peeked through my fingers. “Don’t tell me Victor is up.” I hadn’t assembled my tanks and rocket launchers, yet.
“No. I think it’s only the ghost,” Ellie smiled.
But I didn’t smile back. For a long time it had been a joke between us: the idea that my house was haunted. Lately, though, the notion had grown less charming, because the problem I’d begun having was this:
A chill on the stairway or the sense of a presence is one thing. I can tolerate a haunting like that. But once you have physically perceptible manifestations—spoons and window shades developing their own odd behaviors, mirrors that seem to ripple at you when you look into them, and in one unpleasant instance an icy fingertip applied, suddenly and startlingly, to the back of my neck—you are over the edge.