‘Afternoon,’ he said, looking bored.
‘Afternoon.’
She checked in, paid cash, on impulse signed her name as Ellen Wilson. She didn’t bother inspecting the room. She got back in her car. At that point she remembered what everyone used to call that motel. The Bates motel. Oh well. She drove through Rustic, past the little shops selling maple syrup and maple candies, handmade aprons and rag dolls, past the restaurant, Dottie’s, where she and Rick went almost every Friday.
Their lives together had had a whole routine, a way they did the same things over and over, that made it seem as though that was the way the world functioned, like spring turning into summer, summer turning into fall.
She took a turn and drove down a short street to the Arts Center, parked in the lot across the street. Every day except Sunday and Monday she’d driven to the big red converted barn. There was a sign in front that said ‘Seven Vermont Artists’ and a sign on the door that said ‘Closed’. A line from a children’s poem her mother used to read her came into her head.
They stole little Bridget for seven years long,
And when she came back all her friends were gone.
She felt tired, jet-lag, the terrible house of the dead aunt, the long drive here, everything – so tired. For a moment the earth seemed to whirl around her as if she were on a revolving sphere. She closed her eyes for a few minutes.
Well, she thought, at least I got away from the cold. She wanted to giggle, but knew if she did she would lose control.
Time to go.
She started the car and drove just to the far side of town and down a diminishing side street to a house with an old gray pickup parked in the driveway, the same vehicle that frugal Rick had always had. The mailbox was guarded by a seven-foot-tall twig man, one branch raised in greeting, one of Rick’s creations. The barn-like structure that was Rick’s studio was surrounded by tall twiggy figures, some of whom she already knew, pointing twiggy arms to the sky, as if to say, God knows.
The two-story wooden house looked the same, painted a silver green, her choice, the color of spring. If she went inside she would know each room by heart, but would no longer belong. The house had belonged to Rick from the start, but she’d never minded that. They’d never gotten married; she’d never minded that either. Idiot. She slowed down, just creeping along. For a brief moment she imagined herself pulling into the driveway, getting of the car, walking to Rick’s studio, putting her head in the door.
‘I’m home!’ she would say.
Then she lost her nerve and drove right past. What the hell am I doing here? she wondered. It seemed to her when she left the motel in New Jersey she’d had a plan, but she no longer knew what it was.
She turned around and drove back to the square in the center of town. She parked her car, put on the big straw hat, her Ray-Ban sunglasses and got out. She sat on a bench with her bottled water. It was so peaceful here with no freeway noise, just birds and dogs and people. A couple of benches down was a young woman with a toddler and on another bench an old man, reading a newspaper. Kate was invisible, in her hat and sunglasses.
Invisible like the woman in the photograph, in her big straw hat and sunglasses, the woman in the photograph in the bedroom of Ellen Wilson’s deceased aunt’s house.
She sat for a long time, eyes closed, listening to her iPod, Lisa Strange singing ‘Lost’.
All the days are gone: lost. The houses. Lost. The parks. Lost. The winters. Lost. Every fall we had: lost.
She opened her eyes. Across the street, the door of the drug store opened and a blonde woman in a black tank top and long swirly ethnicy skirt came out. She was laughing, turning her head to look at the man behind her. A bearded man with longish hair in a faded black T-shirt, tattered jeans and work boots.
Rick. It was Rick and his new girlfriend, Hannah.
She’d known Hannah but not well – she wasn’t a local. She’d shown up in town one day about a year ago and just stayed. She worked in a clothing store, everything handmade, some of it by Hannah. Hannah would come to the gallery from time to time, dressed in her ethnicy handmade clothes, peruse the show, ask questions. It wasn’t till later that Kate realized Hannah was there to make sure Kate was, so she could go see Rick.
She watched as Hannah sashayed over to an old Volkswagen, got in. Rick stood and watched as she drove off. The dizziness Kate had felt at the gallery, swirling in a vortex of anxiety, was back. She suddenly recognized what it was masking. Rage. Rage at Hannah. Hannah could die slowly and painfully of some kind of cancer for all she cared. She would be glad, glad.
Hannah was gone. Rick turned the other way, walking, headed for home most likely. Now was the time to talk to him; she only had to call his name.
Rick!
But she didn’t. It was over. She already knew that, but maybe that was why she’d driven all this way – just to make sure. She had a little flash of herself and Rick, back when they lived in the city, dancing in some bar in the Village, in love forever and ever. Then it was gone. She reached into her purse, got out her cellphone and called Bethany, her closest friend in Rustic.
‘Kate! Where are you?’
‘Arizona,’ Kate said, because she felt too vulnerable for old friends and socializing; not here, anyway. ‘Listen, this is very important. I need to find an old friend, Ellen Wilson. Rick might know where she is, but I don’t want to talk to him.’
‘I wouldn’t either,’ said Bethany. ‘I never speak to Hannah, you know. She’s just scum. I miss you.’
‘Miss you too,’ said Kate. ‘I really really need to find Ellen.’
‘Okay,’ said Bethany decisively. ‘I’ll call Rick right now. I’ll get back to you as quick as I can.’
Kate waited. People passed by. The trees would be turning soon. She knew fall and winter here by heart. After an hour or so, Bethany called back.
‘I didn’t mention you, like you said. He doesn’t know where Ellen is, doesn’t know anything about her, but he gave me two numbers for a Mandy Foster who might know.’
‘Mandy! Of course.’
‘She’s not Mandy Foster any more; she’s Mandy Fleming. She’s still in the city, teaching psych at Columbia. Here’s the numbers, cell and home.’
Kate added them to her contacts. ‘Thanks, Bethany. You’re my friend forever and ever.’
‘I can’t believe you’re in Arizona! All those right-wing people with guns.’
‘Instead of Vermont, with all those left-wing people with guns, you mean,’ said Kate.
Bethany giggled. ‘Not left wing, independents. We all miss you, not just me. We’re all on your side.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Kate said.
‘Anyway, you should come back to Rustic and visit.’
‘Maybe I will sometime,’ said Kate.
TWENTY
Tempe, Arizona, on the outskirts of Phoenix, had grown from a population of twenty thousand to two hundred thousand in fifteen years. Mile after mile of brand new developments lined the freeway: beige stucco houses with red tiled roofs. Malcolm took an exit in Tempe, drove down a street, turned and turned again, and ended up at a little mall, brand new too he’d bet, in spite of the weathered-looking beige stucco shops. Up close Malcolm could tell that the tiny cracks on the stucco had been painted there with a fine brush.
Polly’s Collectibles had a bright-red door and a creaky-looking metal sign overhead with the name in old-timey gilt letters. In the window display he recognized a tin and enamel toy train, just like one that had languished in his parents’ basement many years ago, and a hideous lamp that looked like a rocket, an item he had once coveted when he was eight.
Ahem. He pushed open the door, which tinkled. Inside it smelled of the past, though he couldn’t say just why or even describe what the past smelled like, that past seen in old magazine advertisements of happy couples in convertibles heading into a sunset. He browsed his way to the back where out of the corner of his eye he could see a thin blonde woman: large silver earrings, a br
ight-blue peasant blouse. He picked up a hefty turquoise ceramic ashtray, oh, speak of the past. A sticker on the bottom said seventy-five dollars. He set it down.
He was almost at the back. His phone was in his shirt pocket, already set to take a picture.
‘Good morning,’ said the blonde in a pleasantly surprised voice, as if she had only just noticed him.
‘Good morning. Are you the Polly of Polly’s Collectibles?’
Her smile dimmed slightly; he wasn’t sure why. ‘Yes?’ she said.
He looked at her blonde hair – short, with straight across bangs. Was it a salon do or au naturel? He wasn’t sure what either of those descriptions meant, exactly, but he would probably go with the salon do for her. He took his phone out of his pocket.
‘Always liked the name Polly,’ he said. ‘Reminds me of gentler times, you know? And I love those old collectibles,’ he said, holding up the camera and taking a picture of the ceramic ashtray. He turned the camera then, got Polly, just before she realized he was taking her picture and put her hand up to her face.
‘What are you doing?’ she said indignantly. ‘Who are you? I’m tired of these asshole reporters coming round, asking me underhand questions.’ She held out her hand like it was a microphone. ‘This last one? You know what he asked? How did it make you feel about the Obama administration’s immigration policies when you found out your dad had been brutally murdered by a Hispanic?’
‘They did that?’ Malcolm asked, genuinely disgusted.
‘Nothing’s anything any more around here except politics.’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘You publish that picture in any kind of media without my permission, I’ll sue you.’
Could she? Even if he put it on the Internet? Malcolm didn’t know. He didn’t care. He just wanted to show it to Sid the bartender. ‘Look.’ He spread his hands wide. ‘I’m not the press. I’m not here to invade your privacy.’
‘I think you just did.’ Her eyes were the color of blue steel now. Then they wavered. ‘You’re not the press?’
‘Nope. I swear it.’
‘Then who are you?’
‘My name’s Malcolm MacGregor,’ he said. ‘My wife, my ex-wife now, had the same damn thing happen to her – her father got murdered. She was so upset—’ He paused. ‘I don’t know, I guess I wasn’t there for her in the right way. Broke up the marriage. Then I heard about this case and, well, I don’t know, it’s hard to talk about and all—’ He lapsed into silence, exhausted suddenly with his own lies and, even more, a tiny grain of truth he felt might be in them.
Polly looked sympathetic. ‘I guess you’ll have to learn to live with yourself, so maybe the next time someone needs your help you’ll be there for them. My husband’s there for me, and I love him for it.’ She paused and looked off into the distance. ‘You know, we kind of always learn things too late. I’ve been, well, kind of estranged from my dad. It breaks my heart now.’
‘Wow,’ said Malcolm. ‘I’m real sorry to hear that. Sad. What about your mom? Same thing?’
‘My mom? She’s been dead for a while.’
‘Your mom wasn’t Carrie then?’ he asked, although he knew the answer.
‘Her? Carrie?’ She shrugged again. ‘No. She was just Carrie. Okay, I guess. Wishy-washy, getting by on her looks.’
‘This was a first marriage for Carrie, I noticed.’
‘Yes.’ Polly frowned, two sharp lines appearing between her eyes. ‘She doesn’t – didn’t – have kids, so I guess she didn’t have any reason to. She had a couple of kind of long-term things, but I doubt if her last ex gives two hoots that she was murdered. He’s been married for a while.’
‘You ever been to Dudley?’ Malcolm asked.
‘No,’ said Polly. Her voice was suddenly out and out hostile. ‘Why are you asking me these questions? I thought this was all about your wife’s murdered father.’
‘It is,’ Malcolm began, ‘but this is—’
‘Why don’t you just leave?’ Polly said.
So he did.
Malcolm was invited to his brother Ian’s for dinner, but first he made a side trip to his old neighborhood, just two more stops down the freeway. He drove slowly through the development, which bore a marked similarity to all the places he’d passed on his way to Polly’s Collectibles. Beige stucco, red tiled roofs. The sun was high in the sky, draining the color from the lawns – lawns of all things, in what was basically desert. Every fifth house or so had sprinklers going full blast.
Then there it was, the ‘For Sale’ sign hanging on its post, a little dusty, as if the realtor had forgotten about it, which it felt like they had since no offers had been made. Beige stucco, red tiled roof, louvered blinds closed as if to preserve the privacy of the ghosts inside. He drove by slowly. They’d had gravel for a lawn, red bird of paradise, a palo verde tree in the middle. In spring it used to be full of yellow blossoms. Cindy used to point it out: ‘Look, how beautiful, and you just sit inside in front of that TV, you don’t even notice.’
Or at least she pointed it out when she was trying whatever new meds she was on and they were working.
Did he spend that much time in front of the TV? It hadn’t seemed that way to him. After all, he worked a full-time job. But somehow remembering her saying that now, and remembering that it was probably true – a way of avoiding her – pained him more than usual, a pain that felt as if it had no end, bottomless. He accelerated, driving a little too fast, back to the main road and on to the I10 freeway, headed for his brother’s house.
Kate drove back to the Shady Grove Motel, carried her stuff into the room. There was a little porch with a retro cast-iron chair outside the room, so she went back out with her cellphone and sat. The day was winding down, but it was mellow outside, smelling of woodchips and grass. Everywhere there was grass, grass, grass. It calmed her down. For a moment she felt at peace in woody Rustic, Vermont.
Time to go back to work. That was what her little vacation had turned into – work. She called Ellen’s number once again, just in case, but, of course, no one answered. Then she called one of the two numbers for Mandy that Rick had given Bethany. It rang and rang. Waiting for someone to pick up or for voicemail to kick in, Kate suddenly felt weary, as if she’d been running in place all day and had gotten nowhere.
‘Hello?’ A man’s voice, just when she was about to give up.
‘Could I speak to Mandy?’
‘Not here.’
‘Thanks, I’ll try her cell.’
‘She left it here this morning. Boy, I bet she’s pissed. Anyway, this is Phil.’
‘Phil.’ Kate’s voice was flat. She had no idea who Phil was. ‘Phil—?’
‘Well, never mind, who’s this?’
‘Kate, I’m an old friend.’
‘Kate, hey. The Kate who’s with the sculptor – what’s his name – Rick? Rick Church?’
‘Used to be,’ Kate said. ‘You’ve heard of me?’
‘Course. You guys are old friends. Saw you in some video that Mandy’s having digitized.’
‘Really? What kind of video?’
‘People goofing off at parties, stuff like that. Listen, Kate, Mandy won’t be home till late – she’s got a seminar – but she’ll be excited to hear from you. Where are you, anyway?’
‘In Vermont.’
‘Like I said, Mandy would love to see you. You coming into the city? We got a spare room here you can sleep in.’
‘You know,’ said Kate, suddenly happy, ‘I just might. What’s the address?’ He gave it to her, somewhere on the upper west side, and she wrote it down. ‘Phil?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I’m looking for another old friend, Ellen. Ellen Wilson. Does that name ring a bell?’
There was a silence, punctuated by static and blips.
‘Hello?’ Kate said. ‘Phil. Are you still there?’
‘Yeah. This connection sucks. Listen, Kate, come into the city, okay? I know Mandy would love to see you.’ He was shouting now over the blip
s and the static. ‘You can talk to her about Ellen.’
Kate got off and went out on search of food, complicated by the fact she didn’t want to run into anyone she knew. She drove ten miles to the next town over, to a little diner she remembered off a side street, and it was still there. Besides the waitress, there was only a bearded old man sitting at the counter and a young couple at the back. She ordered a bowl of vegetarian chili and watched it get dark outside as she ate, the trees silhouetted against a cobalt, then an indigo sky.
Going out to the car, she saw the moon was just rising behind the darkness of the trees. Tired and a little disoriented, it struck her that it was rising in the wrong place, as if by some cosmic mistake it was not just herself but the entire solar system that had gone off kilter – the moon hurtling ever closer to earth.
‘Malcolm! So good to see you.’ His sister-in-law Sally advanced towards him, gave him a big hug. Sally was dark and pretty with a Chinese kind of haircut, straight bangs and blunt. She was wearing a white polo top, white shorts, silver jewelry and flip-flops.
‘Looking good,’ Malcolm said, because she was.
‘Ian’s outside firing up the grill as we speak.’
The house was in a nice part of Tempe, nicer than the house in Mesa where Malcolm had lived with Cindy, nicer as befitted the son who had finished law school as compared to the one who had dropped out early. Beige stucco, red tiled roof, desert plant landscaping – the usual Southwestern look, like the house he’d lived in with Cindy, but a bigger house and airy.
Malcolm followed her through the living room, Southwest art on the walls, Indian pots by the unnecessary fireplace.
Ian came in from the back followed by Shawn, his five year old.
‘Hey, hey, hey!’ Ian said.
‘Uncle Mac!’ Shawn ran over and grabbed Malcolm’s leg. ‘Walk!’ he said. ‘Walk!’
Malcolm walked, zombie style, with Shawn clinging to his leg and giggling until he fell off. ‘You’re getting too big,’ Malcolm said. ‘Bigger every time I see you. So what’s for dinner?’ Malcolm asked Sally.
‘Not chicken,’ said Sally. ‘It’s ready now, come on.’
Empty Houses Page 11