by Susan Wilson
The gala looms over his weekend. Ticket sales have been respectable, and the artists themselves have been bustling with last-minute preparations for hanging their show. His tuxedo is hanging in the small closet in the bedroom, safe in the dry cleaner’s plastic bag. His shoes are polished. Gina would have reminded him to bring black socks. She would have helped him tie his bow tie. She would have overseen the final dog hair removal after he recklessly sat on the couch. She would have gone with him. They would have deconstructed the evening on the way home, laughing at the foibles of human nature on display, all the poseurs in their dress-up clothes. She’d have helped him put into perspective the successes and failures of the event.
Chance is back in the cabin, having figured out how to paw the screen door open. He climbs up onto the couch, rests his head in Adam’s lap. Adam fingers the dog’s ears, the whole one and the chopped. “Wish you could come with me.”
The chopped ear wriggles at the word come.
“Want to be my date?”
Date. An inflammatory word. Poor Kimberly. Poor Next Door Beth.
The dog throws a deep sigh. Picks up his head and listens to the voices just audible to Adam. Skye’s and Cody’s.
* * *
“You did what?” Cody can’t believe this. Her mother has freakin’ fired Mingo. “I can’t believe you would do that. Why? He’s been doing a great job, even with the shitty jobs that you make us do.”
Skye pats the couch, as if Cody is some kind of dog that needs to be invited up. Nonetheless, Cody sits.
“He stole Mr. Simonson’s medications. And I have no idea if he’s been doing this all along.”
The heat of realization climbs up her cheeks, and Cody breaks into what she knows is called a “flop sweat.” Embarrassment, guilt, horror. Oh Jesus. This is her fault. The next thought is even more oppressive; evidently, he didn’t rat her out. He took the fall. Unless he tried to throw her under the bus and her mother, always her champion, refused to believe him. That seems the most likely, but she has to find out. “How do you know? What proof is there?”
“Mr. Simonson said that his vial of pills, pain pills, was gone. What else can have happened?”
There it is, the chance to make it right by Mingo. The chance to utilize her own escape plan, that she didn’t see a vial, but there was something crunchy under the rollers of the vacuum. Did Mr. Simonson look under the bed skirt? A beat goes by, a second. Another and it’s too late. “I just don’t think Mingo would do that. He’s happy here.”
Skye takes Cody’s hand in hers, pats it. If she’s surprised that Cody doesn’t pull away, she keeps it hidden. “It hurts, I know. I really feel terrible about this, but I have to put my guests first. You know that.”
Cody pulls her hand away, gets up, and stands in front of her mother. Again she thinks that she can finesse this mistake, and again the devil on her shoulder reminds her that one little slip and she’s the one under suspicion. She’s the one who will suffer the consequences. She’s the one who will trigger a disaster if Molly’s name comes into this. “Where will he go?”
“I don’t know. I’m giving him a couple of days to sort it out, but he won’t be cleaning rooms again. That’s going to be you and me for a bit.”
“Okay.” Cody’s mind is racing; she barely notes Skye’s words.
“Do you think that friend of yours, Molly, might want a job?”
“No.”
She’s done with Black Molly. Somehow, someway, Cody has to put a stop to this blackmail.
* * *
Mingo is in his room, stuffing a backpack with the few things that he owns. A couple of shirts, socks, a jacket. The other pair of jeans. The crisp kicks that he wears when he’s not working.
“Can I come in?”
He looks at her with hooded eyes, contemptuous, but doesn’t say no. He keeps stuffing the backpack.
“Where will you go?”
“What you care? Just outta here. Gone. Back where I belong, on the streets with my boys.”
“I’m so sorry.” She’s afraid to say more, afraid that to say anything else is to admit that she understands his sacrifice. A sacrifice she doesn’t deserve. Another secret to keep.
“What does that mean to me?”
“I’ll keep talking to her; I’ll try to get her to change her mind.”
“Don’t bother. Once you fuck up, you’re fucked-up forever in most people’s eyes.”
“I know I can talk her out of it.”
“Don’t you see, girl? It’s spoiled. It’s done. Let it go.”
Mingo shoulders the backpack, flips up the hood of his sweatshirt. “Get outta my way.”
“Don’t go. She said you can stay a couple of days more.”
“Ain’t stayin’ where I ain’t welcome.”
“What about the terms of your probation?”
“Don’t see how that’s your concern.”
“It is. I’m the one—” Cody stops.
“Yeah. I know. You stay away from that girl, that fat Goth bitch. This is your transformative moment, Cody. Your ‘Get out of jail free’ card. Don’t screw it up.” Mingo pauses, places a hand on Cody’s cheek. “You gotta get over yourself, girl. You’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.”
As Mingo storms down the back stairs, her tears flow, like no other tears she’s ever shed in her life. No longer the tears of a selfish child, but the full-blown tears of one who finally understands how destructive she’s become.
CHAPTER 35
I’d left Adam sitting on the couch, holding an object in front of his face and touching it gently every few minutes. I think it’s called a book, but don’t quote me. Anyway, now it was time for some outdoor fun. Ever since we moved into the little house, we’ve been having lots of outside fun. I can’t wait to see what Adam has in store today. Yesterday, or maybe the day before that, we drove into the sky, then got out of the car and hiked back down. We were pretty tired and slept hard that night. Best part was that before we got back to the little house, Adam went into a restaurant and brought back a whole hamburger just for me.
I have to work hard to get Adam’s attention, pressing my jaw down on his knee, whining, climbing up beside him, resting my muzzle over his shoulder. But once he puts the book down, he’s all about making me happy. “Go for a walk?” Sweetest tongue language ever. Except maybe Want some?
* * *
It is a spectacular afternoon, made even more special by the fact that he has nothing on his agenda except getting the dog out for a good hike. Later, he’ll leave Chance with Mingo and head down to Mass MoCA, a cultural destination he’s been meaning to visit since he started coming to this area. Mosley and the crew always speak of it in hushed tones, the Everest of their artistic ambitions. First he’s got to return this book to the little lending library set up in the office.
Skye is leaning against the porch rail when Adam comes around the corner. She has this look on her face, inscrutable. It takes some of the natural kindness out of it, leaving a harder beauty. “I suppose you heard that I fired Mingo.”
“I had not. What happened?”
Skye doesn’t answer.
Adam wishes that he could be shocked at Skye’s canning Mingo, but he knows all too well that the recidivism rate for kids like Mingo is pretty sad. He’s sadder for Skye, who had placed such faith in her nice-lady instincts. It’s tough to be wrong about someone. It makes you second-guess yourself on lots of other choices. Unfortunately, it means that not only is Mingo gone but so is Lucky, and that is worrisome for him. With no job, no housing, it’s not a good situation.
She looks so stressed that he finally has to say something. “You all right?”
“No.”
Adam climbs the steps to the porch, takes Skye by the elbow. “You want to talk about it?”
She glances down at his hand on her elbow. “There’s nothing I can tell you. It’s what you might have expected.”
Apparently, yesterday’s openness has become today’s stone wall. �
�Skye?”
Nothing. She looks at him with those stress-bruised eyes and he thinks she’s never looked relaxed, or seemed like she takes any enjoyment in this place, in her accomplishments.
“Hang in there.” Adam touches her arm again. Moves closer, puts his arm around her. “These things happen.” He’s surprised at his own disappointment in Mingo. It keeps him from suggesting even a hint of “told you so.” He takes no joy in being right. At the same time, he feels a bit like a sucker. Even he’d begun to believe in the boy.
This time, she doesn’t pull away; neither does she seem to notice. She’s staring out over the parking lot; her head is shaking slightly, as if she’s having an argument with herself. “I’m really tired, of this. Of every day being a battle.”
There’s really nothing he can say. He can’t thrust some platitude on her and not come across as a pathetic old fart.
“Sorry.” She extricates herself from his arm. “Unlucky for you. You’re around so much that you end up seeing the Mitchells, warts and all.”
“I think that’s a good thing.”
Chance has done his reconnoitering of the area and is back up on the steps with them. He presses his head against Adam, then moves to Skye’s side, does the same thing with her. “Chance, don’t be a pest.” Adam pats his leg and the dog returns to his side.
“He’s not a pest. He’s a good boy.” Skye calls the dog back, gives him some love, which gets her a smile from Adam, one tick away from an “I told you so” smile. He’s been waiting for Skye’s Road to Damascus moment.
“Look, this may be last notice, and maybe borderline, but would you consider going with me to the gala?”
“A date?”
“If you want it to be. Otherwise, look at it as a nice free dinner and a night away from your responsibilities here.”
Skye folds her arms across her midriff in the classic body language of uncertainty. He’s surprised himself with the suggestion, and is equally surprised at his building disappointment; surely she will find some kind of reason not to take him up on his invitation. Then Skye drops her arms to her sides. Nods. “I’d like that.”
Instead of heading out for the day’s planned hike, Adam drives toward North Adams. Turns out that he actually has forgotten to bring black socks. Chance is riding shotgun, his muzzle resting on the half-open passenger window. Adam reaches over and grabs a handful of neck skin. The feel of the dog’s soft skin in his fingers is good and Adam wishes that Skye had such a comfort. While in town, he’ll keep an eye out for Mingo. If the kid is back in trouble, Adam wants to recover the dog.
* * *
I’m gonna tell Every time the text message alert dings, it’s the same. Im tellin yr mom today Every fifteen minutes, the same message, the same threat. I know what you saw
The threat of it, of Molly revealing the Secret because Cody hasn’t brought her anything more, keeps Cody staring at her bedroom ceiling. And the guilt over what happened to Mingo vies with the ever-present fear of Johnny coming to make sure there is no living witness left to Randy’s death. A stew of worry keeps her wide awake. She wishes that Mosley had given her some pot yesterday, but he’s getting cheap with the freebies. And he’s been too busy to work with her, as student or as model. He told her as much the other day: “Got all I need for now. I’m just doing the finishing touches now. I don’t need you for that.”
She’s rolling over and then over again, pounding her pillow with such violence that Cody hears her mother get up to come see what’s wrong.
“Cody. What is the problem?”
If Skye had stood at the door and suggested that a little warm milk might help, she would have just yelled at her mother to get out. But Skye doesn’t. Uninvited, she sits on the bed and does that thing that mothers for centuries, since the dawn of time, have done. She strokes Cody’s hair back from her face and presses her lips against her daughter’s forehead, as if what ails Cody is determinable by temperature. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
It’s different this time. Skye’s voice holds an unlimited reservoir of maternal love; despite the months of emotional separation, it says, No matter what, I’m your mother. In those three words, “What’s wrong, sweetheart?,” Skye has offered her unconditional love, and all Cody wants is to fall into that safe maternal place.
“Mingo didn’t steal those pills.”
Skye sighs. “Then who did?”
This is the ultimate example of her mother’s blindness. A woman who makes no bones about the illegal mischief she once got into has this ginormous blind spot where her pot-smoking, beer-drinking daughter is concerned. Cody is so undeserving of this trust that she can’t hold it in any longer. “I did.”
If she thought that telling the truth would be like lancing a boil, the relief utter and complete, she is mistaken. The guilt, the grief, and the fear are still there. But halved. Shared. She waits for Skye’s reaction, half-hoping that her mother will do like she used to do when Cody’s worst infraction was breaking something and then lying about it. Her mother would always say that no harm would come if she spoke the truth. Upon coming clean, punishment for the breakage would be forgotten and, generally, a reward for truthfulness would be given. The shards swept up and thrown away.
Skye moves her body away from Cody’s in a subtle retreat; the hand stroking her hair drops. “Say that again.”
And then it hits Cody that confessing this theft opens up a whole new raft of problems. Her mother is going to want to know what she was doing with the purloined pills. Was she taking them? Selling them? Thanks to Randy, Skye has more than a passing acquaintance with drug culture.
Skye reaches across Cody and turns on the light. “What did you say?”
“I stole them. I gave them to Black Molly.”
“What did you say?” This hollowed-out repetition frightens Cody.
Cody considers lying, but she finds herself unable to come up with the energy. “She … she made me.” Cody prays that Skye doesn’t ask her how Black Molly was blackmailing her.
“No one makes you steal.” In place of the comfort and understanding, Skye is stiff with anger. “I don’t know what I’m more upset about, Cody. The fact that you stole the pills or that you let me believe that Mingo—your friend, the kid you begged me to take a chance on—did it.” Skye gets off the bed and begins to pace around the tiny room, kicking discarded clothes out of her way as she does. “I don’t know what to do about this.”
“Please, don’t do anything. Except, maybe, hire him back.”
Skye stops her pacing, stares at her daughter. “You do realize that you’ve committed a crime?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
Skye’s face in the soft lamplight looks pinched, drawn. “I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
It’s what Mingo said about himself.
“You are your father’s daughter.”
CHAPTER 36
Cody sits in the office, a pile of paperwork in front of her, a wastebasket nearly full beside her. She’s to sort through things, file what she should, toss the rest. She has no phone. Mom has taken it away from her, and the relief is astounding. Without the phone, and its near-constant texts from Molly, she’s safe. In a weird way, it’s like she’s not being punished. Not only is she free from the onslaught of texts but she’s forbidden to enter the rooms. This is clearly a twisted idea of Skye’s, but if she thinks that not trusting Cody in the rooms is a penalty, an illustration of her deep disappointment, Skye is sorely mistaken. A little filing is a fine substitute for cleaning toilets.
Being forbidden the AC, that’s a little harsher. She’s no longer afraid of Mosley’s ratting her out—what more can he do than her own confession has done to further destroy her relationship with her mother? Stole some pot? Ha! Who cares? She’s filched actual drugs. Pot is no biggie. She can just hear her mother laugh. It’s more that she’s actually made some progress in the past few weeks, and even Kieran has complimented her on her work. She’s got some momentu
m going, and being denied access to her art space is painful. Besides, the AC is the only place where she can put everything aside and just focus on something pleasurable.
But what truly hurts the most is being given the silent treatment by her mother, being treated with the kind of hostility that she herself has dealt her mother for more than a year. It should make things easier. If they don’t speak, then there will be no accidental revelations. But it still hurts. It’s the first time in her life that Skye hasn’t been there for her.
Cody has the bills sorted into paid and unpaid, then alphabetized, arranged by date and ready for filing. She slices her finger on a file folder. The blood oozes, streaking the top of the folder, where the stain quickly turns brownish. She should make a new folder, but Cody kind of likes the idea that she’s bled over this make-work job.
She hears the sound of the housekeeping cart being wheeled by. Skye tending to the rooms. For the first time in their ownership of this white elephant, they are at 90 percent capacity. One room unoccupied. No help.
“Mom?”
Skye glances back at Cody. Doesn’t speak.
“I’ll help you.”
Skye doesn’t answer.
* * *
I’m alone in the office when a rather nice-looking man comes through the open door. I’m a sucker for type. Like Randy, this guy is dark-haired and dark-eyed. He’s got a jaw like an old-fashioned Hollywood star, a Kirk Douglas or Cary Grant. A dimple square in the center of his chin. I give him my best hello and he asks if there’s any chance I have an open room. One more room. I can’t believe that I’ll be at full capacity with the click of the mouse. Two nights. Sweet.
He fills out the registration form, slides it back to me. Tom Blair. An address in Rhode Island. He’s left the auto information blank.
“Just fill out the line for your car.”
“Can’t think of the tag number. It’s a rental.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just the state is fine, and make and color, if you don’t mind.”