They pulled out even as Jessica and Davy were walking toward them. "Bye!" Lydia said to fill the air. "Bye!" She turned toward Norm as if to kiss him. Only when they were safely out of range did she draw back and ask, as if everything were perfectly normal, "So, are you ready for your talk?"
"What the hell was that all about?" Norm asked.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I always get emotional when my kids leave. Davy had to go back to Chicago early."
"You were certainly in a hurry to get out of there."
They turned onto Woodward and headed toward the highway. "I'm terrible with departures," Lydia said, leaning away. "Why linger and prolong the letdown?"
Norm adjusted his side mirrors. "Well, it sure took me by surprise," he said. He smoothed his ponytail and touched the rims of his glasses, as if to busy his hands while recovering from an affront.
Lydia felt the urge to change the topic. Without thinking, she launched into the story that M.J. had revealed, filling in the spaces with her own deductions, about what really happened to Tucker. She said that she couldn't believe it at first, but Norm's conspiracy theory had turned out to be true.
"There were a lot of people out to get Tucker," she explained as Norm turned off I-96 and headed for Dearborn. "But one man had all the inside scoop. I can't tell you his name because I promised not to betray my source. But a single individual had access to all of Tucker's records, and he alone leaked them to GM.
"So, just like you said, Norm, there was a Big Three conspiracy. GM passed all the mole's information onto the press and prosecutors at the SEC. Not long after that, Tucker was too busy with court dates to make cars."
"That's quite a story, Lydia." Norm didn't seem as shocked as she'd expected, but he wasn't smug about the news either. For that, at least, she was grateful.
As they drove past Fairlane, Henry Ford's sprawling estate, and turned at the Ford Museum, Lydia wondered again if she would ever fully process what her father's likely betrayal had meant to her, to her work, to countless lives both during and after Tucker's swift rise and fall. Tens of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs had been lost. The impact on the future of postwar transportation was immeasurable, all because of her father's wounded pride.
Norm pulled into a park within view of the famous Ford Rouge plant. "A lot of Ford people will be here, actually. I think they're starting to think in the right direction, if we can wean them off SUVs." He told the parking lot attendant that he was with the convention, then pulled onto the grass, parking under a sign that read FUEL CELL CONVERTIBLES.
Norm grabbed his briefcase from the back of the car, took out some typewritten pages, and started writing in the margins.
Lydia began to have misgivings about what she'd said. She worried that he'd try to track down her "source," that he'd go to the car archives and find out that her father worked for Tucker. Why did she keep putting herself in a position, with her children, with Norm, with everyone lately, where she had to say something, and the words kept coming out? "I hope you won't use my name." Lydia looked him in the eye.
"Oh, don't worry about that." Norm hastily scribbled on the back of a page. "I'm talking about the fate of maverick designers. It's a cautionary tale."
"I still haven't even confirmed what I just told you."
Norm stopped writing for a moment. "The whole point of my talk is to get the big corporations to listen to the visionaries. I don't want the Tucker tragedy to happen again." He gestured all around him. The park was dotted with cars like Norm's—ordinary-looking compacts that ran on natural gas, hydrogen, or electricity.
"Okay," Lydia said, while Norm continued to write. "I just want to be sure."
"So, what do you think?" He looked at his watch. "We've got more than an hour to kill before my talk. If you don't mind, I'd like to make some changes to this. Why don't you look around, check out the exhibits."
It was calming to tour the booths on emergent technologies, watching engineers demonstrate their inventions, and after a while Lydia felt sorry for not saying a real goodbye to Davy. She had left without her purse or keys and here she was, stuck, playing up to Norm in order to keep her secret. She had almost handed over her father's name to him.
She took flyers from the Sustainable Energy Association, Electricore of Illinois, the Sons and Daughters of Mother Earth. Many had driven long distances just to park their hybrid cars and stand next to poster boards that read MPG Unlimited and Take a Pass on Greenhouse Gas. She checked out the display for the Electric Drag Racing Club and the Great American Solar Challenge, where later today ten solar cars would begin a race across the plains, over the Rockies, to finish in, of all places, Oregon.
When Lydia returned to the spot where she'd left Norm, she couldn't find him. She waited for ten minutes next to his green convertible and, when he still did not appear, she went into the main tent to find a seat for his talk.
A colleague of Norm's was introducing him as a "pragmatic Utopian" and a "modern-day green knight." Norm took the dais and surveyed the crowd of no more than fifty people. His eyes stopped briefly on Lydia, and she could have sworn that she saw him press his lips together, as if to say, I'm not responsible for these words.
20
AFTER DAVY LEFT, Jessica sat on the front porch, stunned by her mother's swift departure. She had assumed after all the build-up that Norm would stop in for breakfast or at least come up and introduce himself. He'd been gone for over two weeks, had never met the family, and still had barely bothered to get out of his car.
For all the time Jessica had put in worrying about him, though, he didn't look so threatening. From a distance, anyway, he seemed nothing like the hulking figure that she had imagined. If this was a "man of appetites," he had an impressive metabolism. He looked like a lot of people in Eugene—a little stooped and washed out. This should have given her comfort, but it only addled her more that Norm wasn't the man she'd expected.
Inside the house, the air felt trapped and heavy. Jessica wanted to call her mother's cell phone and demand to know what was going on, but there were Lydia's purse and phone on the front hall table. It made no sense, how she'd taken off like a shot, waving her arms. She hadn't even said what time she'd be back or when Ivan would arrive. The more Jessica thought about this rescue mission for the Spiveys, the angrier she got. Someone had to put her foot down. If Lydia wouldn't do it, then it was up to her.
Jessica went into the kitchen and grabbed her mother's note. It had Cy's number in Arizona and Casper and M.J.'s hotel information in Saugatuck. Enough was enough. Her father would have to solve this problem on his own.
"You sound very tense," he said, after Jessica had told him she had far too much work to do. "I know change can be hard. We've been in transition ourselves. Ellen and I are getting into Pilates. You should try it. We got the instructional video and the ball. It's doing wonders for our stress—"
"Dad," she interrupted him. "I don't think you understand. I'm not picking up the Spiveys. Period. That's it."
"I think your mother will be disappointed."
"You're in no position to speak for her. If you want the Spiveys to have a ride home you should fly here and do it yourself."
Nothing seemed to register with her father. "I'm reminded of a Hopi saying: Do not allow anger to poison you."
"This is not about my anger, Dad. It's about you dumping your troubles on other people. You know what I've been doing? Going through the basement, which is filled entirely with your crap. What do you want me to do with it?"
"This kind of conversation is not constructive, Jess. But when you feel better, I want you to know that I'm always available." He spoke at an oddly rapid pace, his voice rising. She recognized this as his obscuring mechanism, like a squid clouding the water with ink.
"I'm not doing it," she repeated, but quietly now. "You'll have to find some other way."
After hanging up, Jessica went to her room and found Bedlam pawing through old sheets, making a nest for himself on the floor. She fini
shed going through the boxes of towels, sheets, duvets, blankets, none of them worth keeping. Then she went up in the attic and tunneled in deeper, working in the inferno without bothering to bring the boxes down. It felt good to sweat, the dust turning to dirt, sweat sliding down her arms. She pushed aside the furniture, tore through boxes barely looking at their contents before deciding this is to keep, this is to throw away.
She set Ivan's toys by the stairs. There were matchbox cars, hot wheels and metal soldiers, a poster he used to keep over his desk of Evel Knievel up on one wheel, his red, white, and blue cape flowing behind him: "There's a little Evel in all of us."
She hunted down everything she could find that she knew with certainty was her father's. She couldn't believe how much stuff he had left. Not just video equipment, adding machines, radios, golf clubs, and the laminator that Davy had used to make fake IDs for his band. Cy had left his baseball card collection with the complete 1961 Tigers, high school report cards, projects and diplomas, even his birth certificate. He had left a box of his father's poker chips and the vintage card table where Kurt Modine hosted his UAW friends on Saturday nights; next to it were half a dozen more boxes of his mother's pictures, letters, jewelry, and clothes. Jessica set all this aside to mail to Cy in boxes stamped FRAGILE, HANDLE WITH CARE. The rest of it she hauled down to the garage. When she had moved everything of her father's she could find, his stuff for the yard sale spilled onto the driveway.
Jessica was lying on her back on the warm slate patio when her mother appeared around the side of the house. "What are you still doing here?" she called out.
"Don't look at me. How about you? What exactly were you up to this morning? You took off so fast you forgot your purse and keys."
"Wait a minute. That's not what I'm talking about," Lydia said. "You were supposed to pick up the Spiveys. Why aren't you on your way to Saugatuck?"
Jessica looked at her watch. Four o'clock. It wasn't like her mother to ask her to leave the house to drive clear across the state on an errand. Lydia was the type to overcompensate, always going out of her way to take care of every small detail. She never would have asked her kids to do something like this before. "Sorry, Mom," Jessica said. "But there's been a change of plan. I called Dad and told him to come get the Spiveys himself."
"You didn't."
"Sure I did."
"He's in Arizona, for God's sake." A worried look crossed her mother's face. "Dammit," she said, and went inside.
Clouds had bunched to the south over the zoo, the scent of a coming thundershower in the air. Jessica got up and stretched her back, then went into the house to grab trash bags for her father's junk.
Her mother slammed down the kitchen phone. "They already bought tickets. Can you believe that? They're actually coming." She sat down heavily at the table. "I wish you'd told me you didn't want to go."
"We have too much to do." Jessica couldn't help but smile a little. She felt almost happy at the thought that she had finally gotten through to her father.
"He said you were very negative."
"I have every damn right to be."
Lydia looked out the kitchen window, where the sky had grown dark. "I know it's not your fault, but I thought we'd agreed you were going to do this."
"Well, it doesn't matter now, does it? Why do you care so much about the Spiveys, anyway?"
The question hung in the air. Her mother sighed and looked out toward the garage. "What's that stuff?"
"It's Dad's. It won't even all fit in there." Jessica grabbed a handful of trash bags, but as she started to tear them into sheets, the rain poured down.
She and her mother shot out the back door and tried to cover Cy's boxes, but with nothing to secure them, the bags kept blowing away. Lydia was trying to cover an old globe, and Jessica was doing the same with some winter coats, when the two of them stopped and looked at each other, both drenched, and began to laugh. Jessica threw the coats into the air. The globe, made of paper and cardboard, seemed to melt in her mother's hands.
Back inside, Jessica showered and put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt from the organic grocery with the words Shiitake Happens on the front. She took Bedlam down to the kitchen and saw that the rain had let up, and her mother and Ivan were laying Cy's things around the patio to dry. Jessica went out to say hello to her brother.
"Shiitake happens?" He gave her a hug. His shirt was damp and sweat beaded at his temples.
"You look like you could use a cold drink." Jessica held on to Bedlam's collar.
"And a shower. The AC in the Taurus is shot."
She let go of Bedlam, and as Ivan kneeled down to pick up a box, the dog licked his face. "Yuck. Is this your beast?"
"Bedlam, Ivan. Ivan, Bedlam. You asked for a shower," she said.
"He's a scraggly son of a bitch, isn't he? There, there." He patted the dog. "I think I'm going to call you Dirty Harry. So what can I do?" he asked. "I want to make myself useful."
In the attic Jessica showed him the stuff that she'd set aside, but he wasn't much interested in lingering over his old toys. He had clearly come here for one reason—to finish the job where Norm had failed. He skipped the shower and went straight to work.
Too tired to do any more today, Jessica joined her mother for a glass of wine on the front porch. "So Norm didn't look at all as I'd pictured him," Jessica began. She went out to the end of the front walk to see how far the painters had gotten with the house. They'd finished half of the front now and had taken most of their ladders away.
Lydia sat on the top step and sipped her wine. "The house should be done by Friday," she said, ignoring Jessica's comment.
"I had hoped to meet him, you know. And Davy did too. When are we going to have a chance?"
"It shouldn't be long. He just got back, so we had lots of appointments today."
"But he should be here, Mom, helping us out. I mean, what exactly happened this morning?"
"Do you really want to know?" Her mother stood up. "Wait here." She set down her glass of wine and went back inside. A minute later she returned with a marker and a red and white sign: FOR SALE BY OWNER.
Jessica's heart sank.
"We saw a real estate lawyer today and we've had this sitting around just in case." Lydia wrote her phone number in the white rectangle and held out the sign. "Would you like to do the honors?"
Jessica sat down on the steps and crossed her arms. No, she wasn't going to do the honors. So they had been thinking about this all along. "And where are you moving to?" she asked.
"We're working on that," Lydia said. "I'm not worried. We'll find something."
"You're sure you want to go through with this? It's a huge step, you know. I hope Norm's not pushing you into it."
"We want to do this. Can't stay here forever."
"Well, it's your house." Jessica turned away.
Lydia planted the sign under a dogwood tree on the corner of the front lawn. As she returned to the porch a van pulled up to the house. The side read, in large letters, MIKE "CHICKIE" PATERAKIS. Wasn't this the same van that had been here a couple of weeks ago?
A cheerful, gaunt man came up the walk. He had a "Chickie" patch on his beige workshirt and the pallor and shape of an El Greco martyr. "Hallo," he stopped in front of Jessica and bowed. "I've seen your picture around the house. You must be the daughter. What brings you around?"
Before Jessica could answer, Lydia rushed toward him. "Chickie," she said. "How's the Nomad working out?" She turned to Jessica. "He's the guy who bought it."
"True enough. That's one reason for my visit. And here's another." He reached into his workbelt and pulled out a book. "Have you read this one, by the way?" It was a copy of Together on the Line. "I found it at The Browsery. Wanted to get your Jane Hancock."
"I'd be glad to," Lydia said, taking the book.
"Hey, the yellow looks great. I told you those painters were fast. I bet they've finished up the kitchen, too. I'd love to take a look."
Jessica wondered why C
hickie seemed to know so much about the house.
"We'll only be a minute," Lydia said, already opening the front door. "You can wait outside."
"Why?" Jessica asked, but her mother didn't answer. She went down to the curb and inspected Chickie's van. The sign on the side said he was a general contractor. The back was covered with bumper stickers, and when she looked in the windows she saw a mess of books, newspapers, wood scraps, fixtures, electric wire, piping, and tools.
As Jessica walked slowly back to the house, her mother and Chickie reappeared. "How's the garage looking, Jess? Chickie needs some missing parts to the Nomad. What are they, again?" she asked him.
"A couple of fender skirts." He wiggled his finger in his ear. "I know I saw them when I was looking the car over. But I realized I drove off without them."
Jessica told him that the garage was packed at the moment and she'd have a difficult time finding anything there. "If you'd like, you could come by our yard sale on Saturday. By then we'll have everything cleared out of the garage."
But before Chickie could answer, Lydia said, "Oh, no. I'll just bring you the fender skirts when they turn up. I have your address."
"I don't mind coming by. I'm a junker from the old school." Chickie started down the steps. He stopped and did a double take at the FOR SALE BY OWNER sign. "Wait a minute. You didn't tell me you were selling," he said. "I wouldn't have done such a thorough job if I'd known you were planning to move. We could have cut corners, you know."
"What are you talking about?" Jessica asked. Lydia answered for him. "Oh, nothing. He just did some touchup, a little here and there."
Chickie stopped at the bottom of the steps. "Touchup? You're joking, right?"
"Just joking," Lydia said and gave Jessica a wink.
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