I had perfected this skill by the third tollbooth on the Illinois toll road. Of course it helped to be driving a convertible with the top down; my wide overhand lob was the key.
After about three hours of sixty-five miles per hour, however, my coin-tossing was the only thing served by having the top down. I was burned to a crisp, Kady had gotten something in her eye, Jean had let the map blow away, and we all had highway hair.
The road we were on got busier, wider, more complicated. Traffic sped by and around us. We were three girls in a convertible and obviously people felt free to establish contact. They waved, we were mooned, and one carload of clowns pulled alongside and tossed trash into our backseat, splattering Jean with warm soda. “I don’t like this,” I shouted to the twins. “It will be dark soon, we’ll be hitting the city, I can’t handle it if things get any friendlier. To top it off, we don’t know where we’re going.”
Kady cupped her ear and shook her head. Odd that she couldn’t hear me because we could both hear Jean, in the back, swearing as she wiped off the soda.
I peeled off onto the exit ramp for an oasis and pulled in next to a van filling up with children. “Cool car,” one of them said between licks of an ice-cream cone.
“Hands off,” I answered as I put the top up.
As we walked toward the oasis restaurant I looked back and saw the little wretch leave a creamy handprint on the car. “We need a plan,” I said as we slid into a booth with our suppers. “I’m all for spontaneity, but what we’re doing suddenly seems stupid. I especially do not want to hit a huge, strange downtown on a Saturday night and cruise up and down looking for a hotel.”
“Then we get one along the way and go downtown tomorrow,” said Kady.
“Where along the way?”
Kady thought. “Let’s look for an airport.”
A plane was taking off overhead as we exited the oasis complex. No motel walls could block out that noise, but I suspected I’d sleep through anything; we’d left Penokee at six AM and I was dead.
The vanload of children was gone, but my car had attracted another audience—at least a dozen adults were crowded around the ’Cuda.
“Is this yours?” a tall middle-aged woman with Dutch-girl braids said as I approached, keys dangling from my fist. “It’s just gorgeous. Love the power-bulge hood. Is it original?”
“I’m not sure,” I said as I unlocked the car. People stepped back. “It’s really my brother’s.”
“You going to ’Cuda Con?” asked Dutch Girl.
The twins and I exchanged glances. “’Cuda Con?” I asked.
“The international car show is going on in Chicago this weekend. ’Cuda Con is sort of a subgroup. Barracuda convention, get it? That’s where we’re going. It’s an annual caravan. Three of us left Dallas two days ago, and we’ve been picking up cars and drivers ever since.” She thumbed behind her and the ’Cuda crowd parted, revealing several beautifully restored Barracudas parked on the tarmac outside the oasis.
“Are you headed into the city, possibly somewhere near the lake?” asked Jean.
Dutch Girl nodded. “Hilton.”
Jean and Kady eyed each other, then looked at me. I shrugged. “Do you mind,” Jean asked, “if we ride along?”
Dutch Girl and the others in the caravan made their pit stop; then we all rolled out together, a long line of muscle cars headed toward the giant city on the inland sea.
CHAPTER 3
What a view!” Kady pulled back the curtains and let in the sun. I rolled over. Jean threw a pillow at her sister.
“Hundred and thirty a night, there better be a view,” I grumbled. “One of you snored. Who was it?”
“Must have been your dream,” Jean said. “What time is it?”
“Nearly noon,” said Kady. “You two deadheads slept through three phone calls. I told you not to watch that late movie.”
“Who called?”
“The concierge called about the show tickets; they’re holding matinee seats at the box office window. Mom called and said she got the message and she’s happy we’re staying someplace nice.”
I opened the minibar, grabbed a muffin, and checked the price list as I unwrapped it and took a bite. Five bucks. “She has no idea how nice,” I said.
“And Beverly called,” Kady continued. Beverly was Dutch Girl, our protector. “She twisted arms at the front desk and they’re letting us have a late checkout. Arden, she also said that you should call her by noon if you want to go to the car show with her.” She eyed me suspiciously. “What did you tell her?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you going to ’Cuda Con, maybe just to look around?”
I opened a container of orange juice. Four bucks. “Why would I want to do that?”
Jean slid out of bed and stretched. “Underwear dry?” she asked her sister.
“Thanks to me, yes. Lucky there was a blow-dryer.”
“Oh, listen to the martyr: She had to dry the underwear.”
They wrestled verbally some more, but I tuned it out, a polished skill. Besides, I was ready for another five-dollar muffin.
*
Back home in Penokee, Wisconsin, I could pull off cool, no problem. But in Chicago I was obviously small-town stupid on the loose. Leaving the hotel with my neck ratcheted back several degrees so I could gawk at the skyline, I walked off the curb and nearly got slapped onto the hood of a speeding taxi. Then, always the eager beaver, I stood first in the pack waiting to board a bus headed uptown. Its door swung open abruptly, nearly knocking me over, and I got pushed back by a horde of exiting riders. I tripped going up the steps and dropped my fare. The bus lurched forward and I toppled into a seat, nearly landing in a woman’s lap.
She tipped her head toward me and looked at Kady. “Where she from?” she asked, a honeyed accent to her English,
My friend sighed wearily. “Wisconsin.”
The woman nodded. Uh-huh.
*
“I don’t feel good about this,” said Kady. “Please come to the show with us. I guarantee you’ll enjoy it.”
“I don’t care how good this guy is, I’ve seen enough juggling for a lifetime.”
“You can’t wander the streets of Chicago by yourself.”
“I certainly can, but I don’t plan to.” I pointed toward the massive building looming behind the theater. “I’ll go in the Art Institute; that’s safe enough and I should be able to find plenty to hold my interest for a few hours.”
Kady appeared ready to debate more, but Jean intervened with a firm tug on her sister’s sleeve. “Let her loose,” she said. “It’s almost showtime.”
Kady nodded and pointed to the theater’s doors. “We meet right here in two hours.”
Two hours—ha! The minute I walked into the museum I knew I’d need two lifetimes to see everything. The place was huge.
Way too huge for the sulky little guy I encountered by the rack of guide brochures. He swatted the bootee-bound feet of an infant sibling dozing in a stroller while his parents studied gallery maps.
“Cool place, huh?” I said to him. “Did you see the lions outside?” He tossed a sullen glance my way and then swatted the baby harder.
I leaned down, “I’m guessing that the best thing to do in a place like this,” I whispered, “is count all the pictures with naked bodies.”
His hand froze midswat as he stared at me. I could see a giggle rising and I turned and fled.
I’d been to plenty of museums in my life. There was the fishing museum in Hayward, the hat museum in Ripon, the farm implement museum in Trempealeau, the shoe museum in Des Moines, the underwear museum in Worthington. All respectable landmarks of Midwestern culture, but I don’t recall that any of those places rendered me awestruck and woozy. And after only an hour of picture gazing, I was clearly woozy.
“Those Impressionists sure could paint,” I murmured to a mink wrapped woman planted in front of a Monet.
She nodded. “To say the least.” She eyed my ea
rrings (modified fishing bobbers), my newest bowling shirt (“Hubie”), my too-many-days-on-the-road personal grooming. “First impressions are dangerous, dear, but I might have taken you for more of an Abstract Expressionist fan.”
“Headed that way now,” I replied cheerfully, and turned, as if I knew where I was going, to walk through the labyrinth of hallways and galleries. I edged around a tour group as a family hurried out of a gallery. Mom pushed the stroller fiercely, while Dad walked with a boy slung over his shoulder. The boy was laughing hysterically.
My sullen little friend, only something had cheered him immeasurably.
“Stop it,” growled his father. “Stop laughing.”
The boy spotted me. “I got up to thirty-three,” he gasped as his family resumed their hurried exit. He pointed. “The one in there’s the best!”
It was the best. Matisse, Bathers by a River. A huge thing with four naked forms, black strokes on green, gray, and blue. It had driven the little guy to hysteria, but it muted me. I sat down to stare.
I snapped out of it when the mink glided into my view. “Nice, yes?” the woman said. “But I hate the frame; it’s the only one I notice in the entire museum; absolutely wrong.” Mink glided away.
Once again, illumination. The frames. Evidently the good ones shouldn’t be noticed, and I hadn’t. I’d spent over an hour gawking at great pictures and hadn’t noticed a single frame.
So long, ArdenArt. Why burn the creative juices to prop up someone else’s work? No way I wanted to keep on making frames for other people’s pictures, drawings, and faces. Surrounded by some of the world’s best art, I knew what I wanted to do: make the stuff that goes on the inside.
A bit shaken by this personal revelation and upheaval, I did what anyone would do: hit the gift shop. When Hannah had last called home she’d warned me she was bringing presents from Arizona, so maybe it wouldn’t hurt to do the same from my impromptu trip to Chicago.
A mobile for the nursery, a Cassatt print of a mother and child for Claire, a necklace for Hannah. I debated buying some onyx-and-silver earrings for Jace. He’d need just one, of course, but spares are always nice. They were gorgeous, but I worried that they might be too personal and expensive a gift for a recently revived long-distance thing.
“Handsome studs,” a clerk said, appearing out of nowhere to monitor my browsing.
“Wrong word choice,” I replied, and decided to get Jace a T-shirt.
CHAPTER 4
How was the show?”
Jean leaned against the theater wall. “Wonderful,” she whispered. “Stupendous, sexy, out of this world, beautiful.”
I set my shopping bag down and turned to Kady. “Did she say sexy?”
Kady nodded. “She did. My sister has this thing about guys wearing bodysuits. We bought you a souvenir.” She pulled three large cube-shaped beanbags out of her backpack. “The yellow one’s autographed.”
“For me?” I said skeptically.
“Fine, then; I’ll keep them. If you change your mind, you can have Jean’s.”
“It was truly humbling,” said Jean. “I may never juggle again. Why should I? I’ve now seen the best and why should I bother? Never again.”
“Fat chance,” I said to Kady.
She nodded. “I bet she doesn’t last half an hour before she’s tossing something.”
It took twenty minutes. We walked into the lakeside park, where we joined the slow-moving promenade. A few blocks away, near a huge pink fountain guarded by garish gold statues, we bought some food from a vendor and found places to sit and eat. The skyline loomed, gray and dark, shadowed by a few low clouds.
A little boy trying to keep up with his parents stumbled on the concrete and scraped his knee. He sat, held it, and bawled. His mother coaxed him to rise. No luck. He just screamed louder, and his baby sibling joined in. The sunburned parents exchanged exhausted looks. The dad shifted a diaper bag to a different shoulder and rocked the stroller. Jean reached into her sister’s purse, pulled out her souvenir beanbags, and began tossing the colorful cubes up and down. Kady nudged me and we both smiled. That’s when I checked my watch. Twenty minutes. The boy stopped crying and stared at Jean. She puffed her cheeks and made a face. He smiled. Without taking her eyes off him she tossed a bag to her sister, who automatically caught the cube and fed it back. Within a moment Kady had her own cubes flying, and the show began.
“Don’t you dare put out a hat for money,” I warned as I rose with our garbage. “It’s probably illegal here and I sure don’t have the cash to bail you out of a Chicago jail.”
The nearest trash bin was overflowing. Gulls pecked at the spillage. Good citizen from a small town, I started picking up the mess and smashing it into the bin. A blader whizzed by, tossed a drink cup stuffed with wrappers. He rolled on out of sight as his trash hit the ground. “Slob!” I shouted, and at least fifty people turned and looked at me.
A crowd of children and weary parents had gathered around Kady and Jean. It was hard to tell who was happier—the kids or their parents, who were obviously thrilled to have someone else entertain the children. I couldn’t see the show but I heard the silly noises: Kady’s “ugh, ugh” and Jean’s “gotcha, baby,” followed by plenty of cheers from the audience.
Behind them, Lake Michigan was a placid gray sheet. I stared at the water until my eyes blinked and teared, then looked back at the people surrounding my friends. There were even more now—children galore, mothers and fathers, a few scoffing kids my own age, one policeman, and a few yards back, alone, a man in a blue dress shirt and jeans. Short guy, kind of bald, tan, no beard.
There he was.
Scott leaned forward, peering in disbelief at the crowd, stunned to recognize the performers, his carefree day in Chicago now ruined. Then he looked around, a startled deer. Could he still get away, had he been seen?
I pounced on him before he took a step. Sprang from behind and pounded him on the back.
“You bastard! I should kill you! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.”
He sank under my punches. “Oh, God,” he said. “Oh, God,” he murmured again and again, maybe ten times more. I didn’t quit hitting.
“Stop it,” he said finally, wearily.
“Like hell I will. I hate you, I hate you. How stupid did you think I was?”
I felt someone tugging on my arm. Jean pulled me away just as the policeman put a hand on Scott. The juggling was over and the crowd had turned, all eyes on me and my brother. Parents began to hurry away with their young, while the kids my age stayed and watched. This is better! their faces said.
“None of this,” the policeman said.
“You heard him, Arden,” Scott said. “Cool off, now.”
“Just a brother-sister thing, Officer,” Kady explained. “She’s very mad at him. She hasn’t seen him for a long time. He forgot to write. That’s all.”
The policeman wasn’t so sure. “That right, miss?”
I nodded, but kept my eyes on my brother.
The cop patted the air with his hand. “Everything okay now?”
“Just fine,” I snapped, eyes still on my brother. The cop left.
“What are you doing here?” Scott said.
“What am I doing here? You’re the one who’s supposed to be dead.”
“Shhh,” Jean cautioned. “You’re getting loud again.”
“Arden,” said Kady, “I am very, very sorry. Huge apology, okay? None of us should ever have doubted you.”
“So I fooled someone?” Scott said.
“We all thought you were dead,” Kady said. “Thought you were frozen solid under the ice. Not Arden, though. She insisted it was all a stinky stunt.”
Scott lifted a hand and reached for me. “I knew it would work if I could just fool Arden. I knew that would be the tough part.”
I backed away from him. “Stop it, dead man; I don’t want to listen to you.” I walked to the nearest empty bench, sat down, pulled my knees into my arms and glared at him. Kady f
ollowed, ready to nurse if I collapsed. Jean stayed with Scott, ready to chase if he bolted.
“Should I call someone?” Kady asked me.
“No.”
“Al or John, maybe. Or Claire. They’ve got to know.”
“They will, but I get to tell them.”
Scott stuffed his hands into his pockets, looked around, shuffled nervously, watched me. He picked up some litter, walked it to a trash barrel, then came over to me. Jean followed him closely.
“What are you doing?” he said to her.
“Making sure you don’t get away.”
He motioned toward the bench. “May I?” he asked Kady. She nodded and gave him her spot. He sat, placed a hand on my knee, and said, “So, Arden, how were your grades?” I couldn’t help it, I collapsed and cried. Fell against his shoulder and emptied months of pent-up tears and snot on his shirt.
“Give us some time?” he asked the twins.
“Arden?” Jean said.
“It’s okay,” I said. “He’s not going anywhere.”
Kady nodded. “We’ll go hunt down some ice cream.”
“We’ll be right here,” I said as I wiped my face on his shirtsleeve.
Scott leaned back. “Yuck.”
“Oh, I am so sorry, I am sooo sorry: I messed up your shirt, what an awful thing to do to someone. Can you ever forgive me?” I turned away from him and looked at the thousands of joyful summer-happy feces. My brother was back from the dead; wasn’t that how I was supposed to feel?
“How’s Claire?”
I snorted. “You care?”
“I do.”
“She’s fine. About to be a mother again, but you know that. She’s getting so big it looks like she could pop any day. By the way, they’ve moved into the house.”
“What?”
“Last month. I had all that room, they were cramped out at the park, she’ll need help with the two kids, and who better than the baby’s aunt. Especially since the father isn’t around.” A smile spread across his face, and he turned away to hide it. “What’s the joke, Scott?” I snapped. “I don’t see anything funny about any of this.”
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