After Life (20 page)

Was I drunk? I didn’t know. The room was hot and shimmered. My mother, with her glowing face and bright-blue dress, seemed huge, monumental: big enough, even, to hide in.

“I want to help you,” I told her again. My eyes were springing small invisible tears.

She nodded. “Well, then, I suppose we can work together. It can’t hurt, can it?”

I could only say no.

7
there’d always been deer heads in the ha-ha

This is what I couldn’t help but wonder: how many people remembered Peter Morton?

I did, and my mother probably did, too. She never forgot anyone, and usually remembered their birthdays, the names of their children and pets, and could do a good imitation of them, too, with accents and gestures and favorite sayings. Dave the Alien didn’t know Peter well, but well enough to remember that I was his girlfriend, so that counted. Who else?

His family, of course. They were from Oregon: Portland and Eugene. His father died when Peter was in high school; his mother remarried a few years later. There was an older sister. I’d never met them, but from Peter’s descriptions I imagined them as a brilliant, good-looking, somewhat cold family. Their houses were full of pianos and typewriters and Oriental rugs, and small white-paned windows without screens. I imagined coffee mugs left on bookshelves and desks that folded down out of the wall. It rained a lot in Oregon, the fine kind of rain, after which the sun came out but didn’t burn. His mother was the pianist. Both the children took lessons, and they both turned out to be accomplished, though lazy, musicians. The dead father had been a doctor, an anesthesiologist, who left them lots of money, though the family had plenty already. Peter was angry with his mother for remarrying, and his sister was angry at him for being angry. His mother called once or twice during the time I knew Peter, but his sister didn’t. They had stopped speaking years before.

Some months after Peter died, his mother sent him a birthday card. In it was a photograph of her with her new husband, a ruddy, fat man, and a collection of blond stepchildren. The card itself had a picture of a South American blanket on the front, and nothing printed on the inside, but his mother had written
Happy Birthday, Petie,
in a precise, excruciating backhand. I resealed the envelope and sent it back to her, with a note telling her the same story I’d told everyone else: that he’d dumped me and left Train Line with no forwarding address. The following summer, when I went to Cape Cod with my mother, I sent her a typed postcard with Peter’s faked signature, telling her he was working as a waiter and had met this cool Mexican girl, and they were going to the Yucatán together. He’d had a fantasy about doing this, I knew. I remembered standing in front of a mailbox with my shoes full of sand, holding the postcard over the slot before finally dropping it in. Seagulls cried above me. It was probably the stupidest thing I’d ever done. To my surprise and immense relief, I hadn’t heard from her since.

Peter lived in Train Line for a year and a half. Probably half the people who were here then were still around, at least now and then; some, like Edgar Phinney, had died, others, like Nelson Karp, had moved on. Troy would remember Peter; he never forgot anything. Teeny Lawrence, too. She’d wanted to date Peter at one time, though she wasn’t his type at all. Her mother, Darva, might also remember him. How about the others, Robin and Winnie Sandox and Grace? Or Ferd at the grocery store, or the women who worked in the cafeteria? Could ten years erase a not-very-significant someone from your mind?

The answer, I suspected, was maybe.

My mother called Officer Peterson the next morning. He seemed pleased that she’d agreed to work with him, less pleased that I was going to be involved.

“I didn’t plan on hiring the entire Ziegfeld Follies,” he told her. “This is a low-key thing, all right? Just a little consulting.”

“Don’t worry,” my mother said. “My daughter’s very low-key.”

They discussed particulars. My mother wouldn’t be paid, but if her help proved useful she’d receive 50 percent of any reward money. There was often reward money involved in missing persons cases, sometimes a great deal. My mother hadn’t thought of this before. “You, of course, would get half of my share,” she said generously. She’d called me at the library right after she talked to the police. I could hear her breathing heavily into the receiver. She always breathed heavily when she talked about money.

“Oh, Mama, please.”

“I’m just being practical,” she said. She told me we had an appointment to meet with Officer Peterson at the state forensics lab in Hollington at the end of the week. “We’ll be able to see the actual bones! And touch them, too, I hope. I told Peterson it would be helpful if he lent me a bone or two to meditate on, but he said that was out of his jurisdiction. Maybe there’ll be a little one I can slip into my pocketbook.”

We’d try the Ouija again right after our trip to the lab, when the “vibrations” were still fresh.

“That sounds good,” I said. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d used the Ouija. High school? Junior high?

“I’m glad you’ll be there,” said my mother. “I’m too old for this.”

Later that afternoon I took Vivian to Maxwell’s for french fries and Coke, to reward her for getting a hundred on her spelling test. We were speaking again, but not much. As we walked, it occurred to me that one day Vivian would be too old for a babysitter, and there would be no reason for us to see each other. Maybe we could be friends, I thought, consoling myself. I pictured a teenaged Vivian telling me about her latest boyfriend, us giggling over sundaes at her favorite hangout—but the girl I imagined was not Vivian, and the laughing confidante was nothing like me.

Vivian got to Maxwell’s before me and stood waiting at the door. She wouldn’t go in alone. She had once, and the bartender made her cry by demanding to see her ID. She had trouble recognizing when she was being teased. She didn’t look at me when I reached past her to push open the door. It was a quiet afternoon, and the only other person in the bar was Troy Versted, the Australian medium, who was puffing on a small cigar. Smoke hung in the air like ectoplasm. He waved at us from his barstool as we sat down.

Vivian ordered her french fries—I made her do it herself, and told her to look the waitress in the eye—and then I gave her some quarters for shuffleboard. She trotted off, and after a few minutes Troy slid into her seat, across from me.

“I came here to meet your mother, but look who I found,” he said, gently tamping his cigar in the ashtray. “We have a martini date.”

We were sitting by the big front window, looking out over the lake. Large drops of rain slid down the glass. The bar smelled of stale smoke and beer and fried appetizers and rain. I couldn’t think of anything to say to Troy. I smiled at him instead.

“You look pretty,” he said.

“I do?”

“Rain in your hair. Did your mother look like you when she was young?”

“She was skinnier. I could show you pictures.”

Troy nodded. “That’s right. I remember. I suppose she wasn’t much older than you are when she first came here.” Troy was wearing a pale-blue-and-white golf shirt with matching pants. Another little cigar stuck out of his shirt pocket. “Funny, mediumship does that to women sometimes. They get bigger and bigger. Men get bony.” He patted his own gaunt chest.

“I hate it,” I said.

“Oh, you shouldn’t. Many men like a woman with a rump.”
Mini min,
he said, with his accent.

“Well, I’ve never met one.” Peter certainly didn’t like it.

“What about me?” said Troy.

“Okay, one.”

Across the room, Vivian’s shuffleboard puck went flying off the table. It hit the floor with a bang. She chased after it and caught it just before it rolled into the men’s room. Troy chuckled. He lit up his cigar again, sucked on it, and blew the smoke out behind him.

“So, I hear your mother’s working with the coppers.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Traitor!” He waggled his eyebrows. “The coppers are a medium’s worst enemy. Whatever is she thinking? Has she forgotten what her brothers and sisters have gone through? Has she forgotten the years of oppressive fortune-telling laws? Back when I lived in the city, cops once confiscated my Ouija board, told me I was a charlatan. I’d have gone to jail if they’d found any money on me. Good thing I’d spent it on booze.”

I couldn’t tell how serious he was. Troy with a Ouija board? “You’re not really mad?”

“Ah, no,” he sighed. “Jealous, I suppose. My career is going to hell in a handcart, too, but I’m too old to care, really.” He coughed a rattling, old-man’s cough and squinted at me through watery eyes. “So. Have you heard the latest?”

“About the skeleton? No. I don’t think I have.”

“They think they know how the poor bloke died.”

“Really.” Our french fries arrived then, so I leaned back, blinking and bracing myself for this new information. The waitress clunked down a crusty bottle of ketchup.

Troy reached over and took several of my fries. “Apparently, it was a brain injury,” he said, chewing.

I drank some Coke, trying to keep the shock from registering on my face. “Hmm. I wonder how they can tell something like that from a skeleton.”

He shrugged. “Oh, they have their ways! A little crack, I think it was, a hairline crack in the skull. Wasn’t obvious at first.” He touched his own temple with his long, bony fingers. “Blunt instrument. According to my sources, anyway.”

I called for Vivian then, and it seemed my voice echoed in my head, as if I were shouting in an empty theater. I put my napkin on my lap, fussed with my knife and fork, straightened the arrangement of condiments on the table. When I looked back up, Troy was staring at me, examining my face with his medium’s frank gaze.

“Am I making you nervous?” he asked, grinning.

“Of course not.”

“It’s a scary thought, though, isn’t it? A murderer in our midst.”

“Hush,” I said, indicating Vivian, who came wandering over. But it was too late.

“Who’s a murderer?” she asked.

“I am!” growled Troy. He picked up a spoon and brandished it.

Vivian smiled, delighted. “Who did you kill?”

“Time. I killed Time!”

I ate my french fries quickly. Troy, I decided, was the real thing. He could see right through me. “Eat up,” I told Vivian, who was still fooling around.

“French fries are fattening,” she said, making a face.

Troy guffawed. “The truth comes out!”

I felt myself blush. “Fine,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Troy was still chuckling, lighting another of his awful cigars, as I paid the bill and steered Vivian out the door. Let him get drunk alone, I thought, the miserable old alcoholic. Then I remembered that Troy had said he was waiting for my mother. My mother hadn’t said anything about it. Were they…
dating
? A headache crawled into my skull and lay down.

The ditch along Line Drive was deep and full of leaves. Vivian climbed down in and waded through them. They reached her thighs.

“I can’t wait until Halloween,” she said. She took a big handful of leaves and threw them into the street. “I wish it was tomorrow.”

“What are you going to be?”

“A witch!”

“That’ll be fun,” I said. It was still cold and drizzling. My headache was waking up, stretching its arms and kicking the backs of my eyes. I couldn’t stop thinking of my mother going to bed with Troy. “Are you going to be a good witch or a bad witch?”

She thought for a minute. “Just a regular one.”

“You have to be one or the other.”

“Which kind gets to have a broom and a big hat?”

“I think those are the bad witches.”

“I guess I’ll be bad, then.”

We walked through the gates, circled the park, and stopped to look at the fountain, with its naked gold baby holding the showerhead aloft in the rain. The water was turned off for the winter and leaves floated in the pool beneath. Through the trees, I noticed someone with a big umbrella come around the corner of Rochester Street. It was my mother, heading for Maxwell’s. At this distance she looked old and awkward and slow, though it was obvious she was hurrying. She was paying attention to the ground, careful not to step in any puddles. She didn’t see us.