Closer Home (15 page)

CHAPTER TEN

When Dale walks into his house at the end of the day, there’s a light blinking on the answering machine. One new message. The display shows an unfamiliar number. Probably a telemarketer, he tells himself, but can’t quite silence the burst of hope that Lise has finally called. Fear follows fast on that first thought. What if she’s in trouble? What if it’s a call to tell him she’s hurt or dead?

Spike whines and presses against his leg, asking for his usual pats.

“Just a minute, boy.” Dale pushes “Play.” After the beep, he hears the sound of breathing. And then, nothing.

He stares at the little red light and doesn’t press “Delete.” Maybe it’s a wrong number. Maybe it’s Lise. He can’t remember ever feeling so helpless and off-balance. There’s nothing he can do, not until she chooses to come to him, and her history of asking for help is pretty damn thin.

His skin itches with unrest even though it’s been a long day of hard physical labor. Nothing in the fridge looks interesting, and he’s not really hungry, but he knows he needs to eat. In the end, he makes himself a sandwich and manages to swallow half of it, but it tastes like sawdust and he gives the rest to Spike. He thinks about bed, but there’s no way he’s going to sleep. Not yet.

It’s not often that he gets all wound up, but when he does, it helps to lose himself in a project, and there’s that box for Ariel he’s been wanting to make. Once out in his shop, surrounded by the smells of wood and sawdust, he immediately feels calmer and more grounded. A moment of puttering, pulling out his tools, and then he takes a long look at the plans he’s drawn up. He’s a builder, not a furniture maker, and he wants this project to be as close to perfect as he can make it. Most of the principles are the same as framing a house, just on a finer scale. “Measure twice, cut once,” as his dad always says. But on this keepsake box even a fraction of an inch off true will show, and Ariel deserves nothing but the best.

He’s drawn the plan from memory of the cedar chests Callie and Lise were given by their grandfather, but he’s switching things up a little. He went looking for cedar, but a friend had ordered in a supply of curly maple. Beautiful red-gold wood, with smooth, dark swirls and spirals that will glow once it’s polished and stained.

In a moment of self-doubt, he hesitates to make the first cut. Memory shakes him as he pictures the shape of the chest in his mind.

Prom night. He’s sitting on the windowsill in Lise and Callie’s room, watching Callie stow her T-shirt into what her grandfather had meant as a hope chest. Callie’s is more of a rat’s nest, a mishmash of her life and the lives of others. She’s like a magpie, shamelessly purloining shiny things that catch her fancy, then forgetting about them. Dale catches a glimpse of a friendship bracelet he made for Lise when they were in sixth grade and feels a sharp pang of hurt. Did Lise even miss it? Probably not, he tells himself.

“That shirt’s still wet, Call. It will go moldy.”

She turns to look at him and grins, her hair drying in spiral curls around her face. “Cool. I have no objection to mold.” Then she frowns. “On the shirt, anyway. I don’t want it all over everything else. Too bad you didn’t wear a tux. One of those plastic bag things the suits come in would be perfect.”

“If I’d worn a tux, you would have worn a dress, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

He can’t help his eyes moving over her body with appreciation. It feels wrong, since he remembers when she was just a little kid. But she’s not that now. She’s spent the entire evening making sure his hands have touched nearly every inch of her.

She catches his eyes on her and turns toward him, hands deliberately pulling down the hem of the oversize shirt she’s wearing so that the fabric goes tight on her breasts. Her bare legs are brown and slim, and he’s not at all sure she’s wearing anything under that shirt. His heart picks up its tempo, sending heat through his body and firing the hard-on he’s been fighting all evening into full throttle.

Callie, looking anything but sixteen, slides the shirt up onto her thighs. Dale swallows. He should go home. She’s Lise’s sister. But Lise doesn’t want him, will never want him. The thought of her snuggled up with Kelvin in the back of that GTO makes him sick. He’s heard all the gossip, knows what Kelvin’s got planned. He wants to believe that Lise will never go for it, but then, he never thought she’d go out with a jerk like that in the first place. He thought he knew her; he was wrong.

The coals of anger that have been heating his belly for weeks flame up. Forget Lise. Callie wants him. She raises her eyebrows in a question. He makes some sort of movement of assent, and she is halfway across the room to him when they hear footsteps on the stairs. Callie freezes, her head swiveling toward the door. Dale knows those footsteps. His heart skips a beat.

The door flings open, thudding against the wall and bouncing back. Lise stands there, barefoot and rain wet, the skirt of her dress ripped halfway up her thigh. Her gaze travels from Callie to Dale and back again.

Nobody moves. Nobody speaks. It’s like they’ve been transformed into statues. His own breathing is loud in his ears, and his face is hot with a mix of emotions he can’t begin to sort and identify. He manages to break the spell and takes a step toward her, but Lise warns him off without a word, barricading her body with her arms crossed over her breasts.

“For God’s sake, Dale. She’s
sixteen
.” Her voice drips acid. The look she gives him is equal parts hurt and outrage, and he wants to start babbling excuses.
We haven’t done anything. We were just talking.
But he knows damn well what he was about to do and that stops his tongue.

“Looks like the Ice Queen melted in the rain,” Callie says. “Never thought you had it in you. Was it good?”

“Best night of my life,” Lise answers. The strap of the dress has slipped off one shoulder. She hitches it up with one hand. Shivers. “Get out. I need to change.”

Callie, damn her, crosses the room and takes possession of his hand. “Come on, Dale. Let’s go hang out in your car.”

“Put some clothes on,” Lise says, in the big-sister voice that always irritates Callie.

“Don’t need any.”

Dale can’t tear his eyes from Lise’s face as Callie tows him from the room. Did she, or didn’t she? Her eyes are shuttered, chin high. She’s shut him out. His mouth tastes like ashes as he stumbles down the stairs behind Callie.

In all the years that have passed, they’ve never talked about that night. Now it’s been too long. The wall is too thick. So he does what he always does and pushes the memories away.

The wood is smooth and solid beneath his hands. Predictable. He knows how it will behave, what it will do, and there is comfort in that. One more measurement just to be sure, and all of his worry and heartache fall away as he loses himself in the process of creation.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I’d hoped to be inconspicuous, but there’s no more than a handful of mourners in the tiny chapel and we camouflage about as well as white rabbits in black dirt. There are no ushers, and I choose a row about halfway back, avoiding the statement made by choosing either front or back. We’re neither close friends nor shirttail relatives.

This funeral is night-and-day different from Callie’s. No open casket for one thing. Bryce is locked up tight in a shiny black coffin glittering with brass. A single wreath of white roses rests on the lid. In front of it, on an easel, sits a poster with a full-color headshot of the deceased. He’s recognizable as his high school self, good-looking still, but his features have coarsened; the lines engraved in his forehead and cheeks don’t bear the stamp of kindness. His iron-gray hair is shiny with gel. His eyes, even in the photo, look unfocused, as though he’s three sheets to the wind with a drink in one hand.

Two women sit side by side, front and center. Their shoulders touch, but they might as well be sitting with a mile of empty space between them. One is small and plump, clad all in black with an old-fashioned mourning hat that obscures her face with netting. The other is taller and younger. Her bleached hair is short and spiky, the better to show off her heavily studded ears. She’s thin to the point of skeletal, with a long-sleeved black shirt hanging off her bony shoulders. Her jaws work rapidly on a wad of gum and her fingers twitch restlessly.

Three men sit together in a row, all in button-up shirts and ties, their hair slicked back. They have the same sort of resigned boredom as people waiting on a delayed flight at an airport. One of them frowns over his smartphone, reading a message and texting a response. Two elderly women in conservative dress, both carrying prominent Bibles, sit well away from the men on the other side of the chapel.

The minister glances at his watch, clearly wanting to get on with things.

“Let not your hearts be troubled, you believe in God, believe also in me. In my house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you.”

He stumbles over the words as though he suspects, as I do, that if Bryce is in a place with many mansions, he’s probably figuring out a way to break and enter. The sermon is mercifully short, as is the eulogy. There’s not much to be said. Bryce was born, he lived, he died. Any of his more daring exploits can’t be talked about in public, I suspect, due to legalities.

The spiky-haired woman sobs aloud, but her face is dry. The old woman sits quietly with her head bowed, a handkerchief held to her lips. I can’t see her face, but she must be Bryce’s mother. Her husband died when I was just a little kid. I’d forgotten that, but all at once I remember, clear as clear, my dad telling my mom that old man Halvorson blew his brains out in the middle of his kitchen.

I was ten. Bryce would have been the same age. A twinge of compassion twists through me. Maybe Bryce would have been different if his father had been different. I don’t remember how he was in school before that day, only the bully he became later.

Ariel sits pale and quiet, her hands folded in her lap, eyes downcast. When the service is over, all the mourners file out, except for Mrs. Halvorson. She doesn’t move, as if she hasn’t even noticed that everyone is gone. When I walk over and take her hand, there is a delayed reaction time before she registers the touch. She looks dried up and small, as if all of the juice has been sucked out of her and there’s nothing left but skin and bones.

Her fingers are cold, the skin rough and dry, her eyes empty. She smells of old polyester and mothballs. Her blank expression reminds me of my mother’s, and I look around to see if anybody is there to take care of her. Too late, too slow. Her fingers tighten around mine.

“Callie, isn’t it?” she says. “One of them Redding girls.”

“I’m Lise.”

“None of mine could be here,” she goes on, as if my name is irrelevant. “Joseph is in California. Got no car, he says, no money for a plane. Janet is busy with the babies. Three of them, and I haven’t seen a one of them.”

She’s got me trapped, partly by the hand but mostly by her emptiness. Out of my peripheral vision I see Ariel and Shadow waiting at the back of the chapel. Ariel is watching and listening, and that makes me shudder. This is not what she needs for a grandmother. Shadow leans against a pew, playing with his phone.

“I’m not long for this world, myself. Something wrong with my heart, doctor says. It could drop me any minute. Just once before I die, I’d like to see the little ones.”

All of this is delivered in a lifeless monotone. A bubble of panic rises up inside me, the thought that I’ll never break away, will spend the rest of my life listening to her litany of troubles. I want more than anything in the world to detach her clinging hand, but can’t bring myself to do it.

“Just like his daddy, Bryce was. Thoughtless. Thoughtless.” She shakes her head, and I stare at her in dawning understanding. The minister’s lack of conviction. The closed coffin. Maybe I’m wrong, though. I want to be wrong. I glance at Ariel, who has moved to the back of the chapel and is talking to Shadow.

Lowering my voice, I ask, “Mrs. Halvorson, how did he die?”

I hear soft footsteps behind me and look up to see the undertaker hovering. He’s got dandruff on the shoulders of a threadbare black suit and an insincere smile pasted on his face. I catch a whiff of the inevitable breath spray. But to me he looks like an angel of mercy, come to rescue me from the answer I don’t want to hear. He holds out a hand.

“Come now, Mrs. Halvorson. It’s time to go to the graveside. Let me walk you to the car.” She stares at his hand as if she doesn’t know what it’s for, then finally reaches out and lets him help her to her feet. As soon as she’s in motion she forgets all about me, transferring her attention and her complaints to her escort.

“Didn’t think about his mother at all, did he?” She shakes her head, leaning heavily on the supporting arm of a stranger.

Ariel’s eyes follow her out the door. “Should we go to the graveside?” Her voice sounds childlike and small.

“No. You’ve seen enough.”

Shadow puts an arm around her and pulls her close. “How about we go eat? I’m hungry.”

She doesn’t agree, but lets him lead her out the door. I’m okay with that. If I can get her in the car, I have her at my mercy. Back to Pasco and the airport.

But the instant I step outside the door, the spiky-haired woman runs interception. I hear my mother’s voice in my head, echoes of rare childhood trips into the city wilds of Spokane.
Keep walking. Don’t make eye contact.

But this woman’s right in front of me, and this is a funeral and it’s already too late. Her eyes are dark brown, the pupils constricted and tiny. Her mascara is smeared, emphasizing dark circles. Her foundation fails to completely cover a bruise on her left cheekbone. “You got a light?”

“Pardon?”

She waves an unlit cigarette in my direction. Her fingers, heavy with silver rings, tremble visibly. “Lost my lighter. Really need a smoke before the grave. His, not mine.” Her lips jerk up into a smile, revealing stained and broken teeth.

“I’m sorry. I don’t have a lighter.” I start to skirt around her, my only thought to get Ariel out of here and away. Shadow has other ideas.

“I’ve got a light if you can spare me a smoke.” He pulls a book of matches out of the pocket of his pants and stands waiting. It takes her a minute, considering, but she nods and taps another cigarette out of an almost-empty package. Shadow leans in close to light her cigarette before applying the match to his own. She sucks in smoke all the way to her toes, holds it, then blows a long, thin stream into my face. I wave it away and step back, forgetting to play polite.

“I’m sorry,” she says, as she does it again, her eyes staring directly into mine, bold as brass. “Does smoke bother you, then?”

I turn away and take a step toward the car, looking back to see if Ariel is following. “We really need to go.”

Ariel glances from me to Shadow, who’s leaning against the side of the building as if he plans to stay awhile. She steps up beside him, reaches for his cigarette, and inhales. Her eyes are on me as she does so, and I choose not to give her the reaction she’s looking for. Not here, not now.

Spiky works on her smoke with true dedication, but once it’s burned almost down to the butt, she looks at me and says, “Bryce never mentioned you.”

“I wouldn’t think he had. Haven’t seen him in sixteen years.”

“Are you his wife? Or were you, I mean?” Ariel asks.

The woman laughs, short and sharp. “Nothing so official.” Her fingers and the glowing end of the cigarette are now almost touching, and she drops the butt and grinds it into the sidewalk with a sharp twist of her high heel.

Ariel persists. “So he wasn’t married? No kids?”

“Him? Likely got kids planted all over the countryside. If there’s a wife, he never said nothing. Didn’t have a ring, for as much as that matters.” She starts down the stairs and then turns back. “You guys coming to the graveside?”

I can’t read Ariel’s face and wait for her to answer. There’s color back in her cheeks, a faint flush that could be anger or shame or determination. “I think we’ll pass,” she says.

Good. She’s had enough. We walk to the car in silence. Ariel and Shadow pile into the back, side by side. They reek of smoke and I crack my window to let the fresh air roll in, eyeing them both in my rearview mirror.

“Girlfriend or hooker, what do you think?” Shadow asks Ariel.

“No reason she couldn’t be both.” Ariel’s words are short little jabs. Angry, then. Good. Anger is healthy.

“Fine stepmother she’d make,” Shadow says. “A whole new life of adventure, just waiting.”

“Why do you have to be such an asshole?” But she’s laughing, and I breathe a sigh of relief as I shift the car into reverse. As long as she doesn’t get sucked into believing she’s a monkey in this circus, she’ll be okay. Now it’s back to the hotel, and tomorrow I’ll find a way to get her onto a plane and home, Ricken or no Ricken. Sooner the better. Bryce’s woman might just have been measuring up the competition for his will, but if she’s recognized Ariel or me, she’ll definitely call in the media. I shudder at the very idea of a news story connecting me to Bryce.

I’m driving across the parking lot when Ariel leans forward and says, “I want to go to where he worked.”

“What?” My foot hits the brake all by itself, and we all lurch as I slam to a stop.

“I want to see where he worked.”

I crane my neck and swivel around to look at her directly. “Honey, don’t you think you’ve seen enough? He wasn’t a nice man. He didn’t hang out with nice people. And there’s no way to know whether he was your father or not.”

I’m wasting my breath. She’s going, with or without me. All things considered, I might offer a modicum of protection, or at least be there to pick up the pieces after the fact.

“Oh, hell. All right. Somebody tell me where to go.”

Yakima strikes me as cramped, dark, and dirty, even though it’s not really any of those things. The wide sky overhead is blue and cloudless, spring sunshine lighting up sidewalks and streets. Thanks to Google, locating the car dealership where Bryce worked is easy. It’s not much more than a dirt parking lot full of dusty used cars. A square building, once lime green, now faded and peeling, bears the sign “Jim’s Cars: Make an Offer, We’ll Make You a Deal.”

I wedge the rental into a space between an aging Suburban and a Ford pickup with a dented fender. Before we get our doors open, a sales guy exits the office and heads in our direction. His pants are belted low to accommodate the swell of his belly, and he hitches them up as he walks. Pinstriped shirt, blue tie, buzz-cut hair, and the inevitable toothy smile pushing back heavy jowls. He reminds me of a bulldog after a bone.

His hand is out for the shake when he’s still four feet away. “Good afternoon. My name is Jim. How can I help you lovely ladies?”

He goes for the two-handed shake, engulfing my hand in one of his and then laying the other on top, politician-style. His hands are big and soft, no calluses. “We’ve got some almost-new cars that would be perfect for you. I’ve even got a hybrid. Only four years old. Single owner, well maintained. Best deal in town.”

“We’d like to work with Bryce,” Ariel says, beside me. “My friend bought a car from him a while back.”

Jim, still clasping my hand, gives her a long, deep look. “Well, now. He’s not here, missy.”

She tilts up her chin and smiles at him, making sure to display her dimple. “Maybe we could come back?”

“Ah, see, that’s the thing. Bryce won’t be coming back. He died last week. Right here in this very lot, as it turns out. So I reckon you’re stuck with me.”

There’s something about his voice that doesn’t ring true. It’s more than the whole sales-guy thing. His face is open and harmless, despite the veins in his nose and cheeks that hint of plenty of hard drinking. His eyes, a muddy shade of greenish brown, are intent, moving from me, to Shadow, to Ariel, and back again.

All at once, his touch feels intrusive and I pull my hand away.