by David Gates
“But Carol—the police are on this.”
“Right. Well, this is somebody who’s worked with the police, okay? On exactly this kind of thing. I mean, they keep it very hush-hush, but you remember the little girl that was missing in Peekskill?”
“Oh crap. This isn’t some psychic or something, is it?”
“Well, she’s a reader, yes,” says Carol. “But this isn’t some crazy-person, Jean. Like I told you, the police even use her.”
“Here we go.”
“Jean, you can’t just dismiss this person. I used to go to her years ago, when Dexter and I were living up in West Hurley? Plus a lot of famous people go to her, like I think Bob Dylan went one time?”
“Great.”
“And listen, she has told me stuff. Like one time—okay?—she told me somebody that was out of my life was going to reappear, and a week later, or like a month later, I got a letter from Gid? First time in five years? Come on.”
“Uh-uh,” says Jean. “Sorry, no way.”
“Why? What do you have to lose? Your faith, right? That everything is just, you know, on the surface and that there’s no other dimensions except what you’ve been narrowly taught to accept.”
“Carol, we’ve had this discussion. Many times.”
“Okay, but these are actual documented facts, the things she’s done.”
“Documented?”
“Jean, this person is really known. She’s not some fly-by-night. Like I say, even the police go to her. Not because they of all people buy into—you know—but because it works. You can’t just dismiss that.”
“Oh God.”
“Will you just try her? Not decide anything, but just go with an open mind?”
“Oh God.”
“Okay, look,” says Carol. “I’m going, irregardless, okay? I’m very concerned about this.”
“You think I’m not?” says Jean.
“Yes, I know you are. And that’s exactly why … Look, I respect your beliefs, and I just hope, you know, that you respect mine.”
“Carol, I’m not trying to … Okay. Okay, fine. I’ll go along with you on this, but if—”
“Okay, great, that’s all I’m asking,” Carol says. “And I promise you won’t be sorry. So anyway, find out what train you can get, and we’ll—”
“Where is this person, exactly?”
“She’s up in Beacon.”
“Beacon?” says Jean. “God help us. Okay, fine. Look, this is your show.”
At quarter after five, they’re in this absolutely grim little city, whose main street dead-ends at the Hudson River. Mrs. Porter lives on some side street; on the corner, black teenagers—baggy jeans, caps on backward—stand around a metal barrel with leaping fire inside. Carol parks in front of the one decent building on the block, a narrow three-story brick house, painted white, whose shutters have little cut-out crescent moons; she locks The Club on her steering wheel. They climb the three steps to stand under the aluminum awning and Carol pushes the doorbell: an Avon-calling chime sounds inside. There’s a sign on the door reading ESTAMOS CATOLICOS ROMANOS. If this woman is such a whiz, what’s she doing here? But Jean instantly reproaches herself: truly spiritual people live where they’re needed, among the lowly.
“Believe me, I know how weird this looks,” says Carol. “Actually, it’s sort of gone downhill since I was here.”
“She’s Spanish, this woman?” Jean means Hispanic, but that sounds racist, and she feels stupid saying Latina.
“No, why? Oh, the thing. No. Just a lot of Dominicans or something in this neighborhood. I think it’s to keep like Jehovah’s Witnesses away.”
A smiling woman opens the door. That’s the first thing you notice, the smile, and only after that the doughy face and white beauty-parlor hair. She wears half-glasses with a strap fastened to the earpieces and a Marimekko flower-print dress—though would this woman wear real Marimekko?
She notices Jean’s look. “Yes, it’s gay, isn’t it?” She smiles. “Won’t you come in? Now, you’re Mrs. Willis—anyone could see the two of you are sisters. I’m Margaret Porter. And you look wonderful, dear. I knew moving out there was the right thing for you. Now, you’re visiting for how long?”
“Well, I was going to go back this week,” says Carol. “But now …”
“Of course,” Mrs. Porter says. “It’s uncertain, isn’t it? But you know, I’m so ashamed, I forgot to ask when you called: how is your son? You were so concerned about him.”
“Oh, he’s great. He’s at the University of Washington.”
“You see? Isn’t that wonderful?” Mrs. Porter stretches forth a hand to indicate the living room, where Jean sees a cat’s tail disappearing behind a pea-green Naugahyde sofa. “Come in and make yourselves comfortable. Would you care for tea or coffee?”
Jean shakes her head, then remembers her manners. “Nothing, thank you.” Carol hadn’t prepared her for the picture of Jesus with the red, heart-shaped heart coming out of his chest, or the grove of candles on the table beneath it.
“Not for me, thanks,” says Carol.
“Please sit wherever you like,” Mrs. Porter says. Carol takes an armchair upholstered in faded rose, and Jean sits down at one end of the sofa before noticing the tangy-smelling litter box right beside her; of course, she can’t relocate without giving offense. Mrs. Porter takes the far end—smart lady—and sits with her hands folded in her lap. She closes her eyes, then opens them.
“Mrs. Willis,” she says. “Let me make sure I understand. Now, your sister tells me that Mr. Willis hasn’t been heard from in some weeks, that you’re very concerned about him and that your family’s in trouble.”
Jean looks at Carol, who’s looking at Mrs. Porter. Carol took it on herself to say this?
“Are you and your husband separated?”
“Well, not—you know—calling it that,” Jean says. “He took a leave of absence from his job, for two months, and he was up in the country working on this old farmhouse we own. He was supposed to be back at his job in New York on Monday, but nobody there has heard from him either.”
“I see,” says Mrs. Porter. “And he was?”
“He was what? I don’t follow you.”
“Oh well,” she says. “That’s all right. It’s just a thing I do. It can be helpful to see what springs to mind, if anything. Some people will say, ‘He was fifty-five,’ or they may say, ‘He was a carpenter’ or ‘the handsomest man I ever saw.’ Whatever happens to be uppermost. And we can sometimes go from there.”
“I guess nothing is uppermost,” says Jean.
“Oh, that’s perfectly all right. What this tells me is that you’re an alert person and not drifting off in your own thoughts. Perhaps you’re somewhat guarded. Or just wary in this particular situation. Most people, I have to say, are relieved when they find I don’t sit around boiling bats.” Her little laugh sounds as rehearsed as the line itself. “Now. You’ve brought me something of your husband’s?”
“I did,” says Carol, reaching down for her purse. Mrs. Porter looks at Carol; Carol looks back. “I didn’t tell her a whole lot about this.”
“I see. Well, then, no wonder you’re wary, Mrs. Willis. Good heavens. What must you imagine?”
“Okay,” says Carol. “Pair of socks.” She holds them up. “Obviously. A hat.” Willis’s Yankees cap. “Passport?”
“You went through his drawers?” Jean says.
“Razor?” says Carol.
“Ah. Give that here.” Mrs. Porter leans toward Carol, who hands her a blue plastic razor. “You see, he would’ve held this while looking at himself in the mirror.” Smiling, she holds the razor up with thumb and forefinger. “You should understand, Mrs. Willis, that it doesn’t matter whether or not you believe in this.”
“I guess that’s good,” says Jean.
“All I need you to do at this point is let me have just a few moments of quiet. You can read a magazine if you like”—she gestures at the coffee table—“or watch, if you c
are to. You won’t disturb me, though I’m afraid there’s not much to see. An old lady sitting with her eyes closed can’t be very entertaining.”
Jean looks at the coffee table. Reader’s Digest, McCall’s, People, a newspaper called St. Anthony Messenger. An old Newsweek with a cover story glorifying fat Jerry Garcia. Neither she nor Carol reaches for anything.
“So, we’ll speak in a few minutes, then,” says Mrs. Porter. “Just make yourselves comfortable. You don’t have to be statues. As I say, the only thing I ask is that you not talk or make a lot of racket.”
“We won’t,” says Carol. Like a four-year-old.
Mrs. Porter closes her eyes, squeezes the handle of the razor in her left hand and folds her right hand over it. Her lips move, as if in prayer, then stop. Her breast rises and subsides, rises and subsides. Jean looks over, and Carol’s eyes are closed too.
Jean closes hers, takes a breath, lets it out—and the bottom just falls away from under everything.
She feels her lips coming apart like a sticky seal peeling open, and her jaw dropping down to her collarbone, and then drool creeping over the corner of her mouth. That makes her eyes fly open: she’s on somebody’s couch, gasping. Never has she gone so deep so quickly. Mrs. Porter and Carol sit there, eyes still closed. She hears ticking; she turns and sees a banjo clock on the wall over her right shoulder. Twenty to six. What just happened seems already less profound and terrifying. She’s exhausted, that’s all, and she dropped off for a second.
“Well, he’s somewhere with trees and grass,” says Mrs. Porter. Jean whips her head around again to look. Mrs. Porter’s eyes are open and she’s talking as normally as before.
“What?” Jean says.
“Goodness, that sounds awful, doesn’t it? Like a cemetery. But it’s definitely not a cemetery. This has been a difficult time for him. But he’s come through something. You’ll see him again, that’s almost certain.” Then Mrs. Porter bends forward and makes smooching noises. “Moses? Come and be sociable.”
“That’s it?” says Jean. “He’s with the trees and the grass and I’ll see him again?”
“Almost certainly,” Mrs. Porter says.
“Excuse me, but isn’t that, like, a little thin?”
“Jean,” says Carol. “Let her finish.”
“Oh no. I’m finished,” Mrs. Porter says. “But I’m as certain of that as I am of sitting here talking to you.”
Jean shakes her head. “That was nothing.”
“I can understand why you’re disappointed,” says Mrs. Porter. “If it makes you feel any better, I’d say you’re at about the fiftieth percentile. If you see what I mean. Sometimes you’ll get nothing but a single word that nobody understands. Or a note of music—I’ve had that happen. It’s not like watching television, Mrs. Willis.”
“Really,” says Jean.
“Now, what I’ve told you is a rough translation into words of certain feelings, or impressions. I take it your husband is also someone who guards his feelings?”
“Oh please.” Jean gets to her feet and picks up her purse from the floor.
“Jean,” says Carol. “Would you let her finish, for Pete’s sake?”
“She is finished,” Jean says. “Weren’t you paying attention? Willis is out with the grass and the trees and I’ll see him again. He’s probably playing golf. In Boca Raton. How much do I owe you, Mrs. Porter? And could I have my husband’s razor back, please?”
Mrs. Porter hands it to her, shaking her head.
“I’m not in business, Mrs. Willis,” she says. “Haven’t you understood?”
7
“I still don’t want to talk about it.” They’re at The Hideaway, Carol working on a Cobb salad served in an edible shell, Jean with a shrimp cocktail in front of her and a martini for which the shrimp cocktail is the excuse. Jean spoke exactly one word all the way from Beacon back down to Chesterton: when Carol asked if she wanted to stop for a bite to eat, she said, “Fine.”
“All I want to say is I’m sorry, okay? And then I’ll get right off the subject,” says Carol. “But I do have to say I have heard her be better, which is the only reason I—”
“Listen,” says Jean, “I want to ask one thing of you. That you mention this to no one, you understand?”
“Believe me, I—”
“As far as the kids, I just had to work late, okay? Anybody else, it’s not their business anyway.”
“Look, don’t you think I’m embarrassed?”
“I’m sorry, I know you are,” Jean says. “And I know you meant well.”
“I really did.”
Jean takes another sip of the martini; it tastes as poisonous as the first two sips. The shrimps curve over the rim of the metal bowl like the toenails of some animal. “I don’t want these,” she says. “You want any?”
“Not really,” says Carol. “I might take one. But you have to eat. You want some of mine? This thing is huge.”
“Don’t worry, you’re not going to have to carry me into the house. I can’t drink this either.”
“Oh, could I have a sip?” says Carol. “Can you believe I’ve never tried one of these? And I’m how old? Don’t answer that.”
“Be my guest.”
Carol picks up the martini glass with her fingertips and takes just the littlest bit on her tongue. “Ee-eew. That’s what businessmen drink?”
“It feels like it warms you all the way down your front. I just wish I could stand the taste.”
“All the way down?” Carol says. “Honey, if a drink could do that. You know, I sometimes think, I’m only forty-seven. That’s not old anymore. And I don’t look terrible.”
“Of course you don’t; you look great.”
“Okay, I look great. Damn it, I do look great; I am not going to send myself negative messages. But here I am, you know? These are supposed to be the best years of your life sexually, and I’m, you know, high and dry. Could I have another little hit?”
“All yours,” says Jean.
Carol takes another tiny sip. “Yick,” she says. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to get into this. You start to dwell on it, and it just turns all your positive energy against you.”
“No, you have a right to feel cheated. And being stuck here for two months—it’s kind of a black hole as far as meeting anybody. God, Westchester.”
“Honey, this has been a lifesaver. When Dexter first went away to school, it was like this great weight was just lifted off, but then—I don’t mean he’s a weight, but I was just suddenly sort of floating off into the sky, you know? And that’s where I’ve been. I was thinking about it the other day, when I took the kids to the museum and we saw that Naturemax thing? You know, the camera must be in a balloon or something and you’re way up above everything and you’re floating, like? So it’s sort of been a very scary time, though it’s also been really freeing, you know? And when you called in the middle of all that, I just thought, well, this is the voice of, you know, not God as such, but sort of the voice of the next thing.”
She takes a shrimp between thumb and forefinger, dips the end in cocktail sauce and nips. “Mmm. I never think to get these guys.” She dips again. “I just feel that, sexually, I still have something to, you know, contribute—does that sound crazy? Okay, I shouldn’t say crazy, because that’s putting yourself down, but you know what I mean by ‘contribute’?”
“Yeah, I guess,” says Jean. “This just isn’t a real comfortable subject for me right now.”
“Okay, I respect that, I really do,” says Carol. “Listen, could I take just one more of those?”
“Please, take them all.”
“Maybe two more,” says Carol. “So anyhow, what do you think you’re going to do? You know, now that I’ve been such a big help.”
“No idea,” Jean says. “Maybe try to hire somebody? I looked in the yellow pages today, and there’s just a huge number of, you know, investigators. Some of them used to be regular police detectives—they say. I don’t know how you
’d ever check. Or my other idea was maybe to go back up there and try to get somebody, since that’s actually where … you know.”
“It’s such a long way, though. I could never see why you wanted a place so far away.”
“He wanted it,” Jean says. “Because it was far away. Listen, can I ask you something? What do you think is going on? Where do you think he is?”
“What do I think? Me personally?”
“I mean, I know you don’t know. But just what you feel, in your heart of hearts.”
“Okay, my honest opinion?” says Carol. “He found some little cupcake up there and they went off together. I never knew a man who could keep it in his pants. Unless you wanted it.”
“But then why would he have to run away?” says Jean. “I mean, he could’ve just, you know, stayed up there and kept doing it.”
“It’s men’s nature to run away.”
“Oh please.” Jean reaches for the martini glass, sniffs, sets it down without drinking. “Crap,” she says. “So meanwhile, what am I supposed to tell Mel and Roger? I can’t keep pretending he’s at his mother’s. Who, by the way, never called me back.”
“Well, here’s what I did. You know, when Gid did his little number? Which is why I say it’s men’s nature? Anyway, I told Dexter that Daddy had become a cowboy and he had to go off on a long trail drive. And guess what—Dexter loved it. He was proud of the fact. Of course, he was only four.”
“I don’t remember you ever telling me that.”
“I guess that was kind of the last of my real stoned period. Like spirits would sometimes speak through me? And some of them were good spirits and some were sort of not. But I actually think in this case it was an incredibly wise spirit, that had my good at heart and that knew Dexter was just a little boy who was real into cowboys. Like I could’ve said, you know, ‘Mommy and Daddy both love you very much but we decided it would be better’—all that caca.”
“Right,” says Jean.