Closer Home (25 page)

“Yes, I’m sure sales
are
wonderful. We need some advice and you’re the only person on the team who is straight up. How do we play this so I get to stay with my aunt? Ricken goes down, you understand?”

She listens, nods. I fidget, unable to hear the other side of the conversation. Catch myself chewing my fingernails and trap my hands between my thighs. It’s all I can do to keep from grabbing the receiver out of Ariel’s hand and asking my own questions. The voice on the other end goes on at length. Ariel nods occasionally, says, “Okay,” and that’s it.

She hangs up and then sits there, looking at me, saying nothing.

“What did she say? Do you need a paper? A pen? You didn’t take notes or write anything down at all.”

“Three basic things,” Ariel says, ticking the items off on her fingers. “One: get a new team—attorney, accountant, PR. Two: do an exclusive. Three: be photographed going about ordinary-life shit, which includes me doing something about school.”

“That’s it? That’s all she had to say?”

“Pretty much.”

“Long conversation for that amount of information.”

“I condensed.”

We sit and stare at each other.

“We have money,” Ariel says. “We can pay for things. Like your car—you could just leave yours at the airport and buy a new one. That’s probably what Mom would do. Or get a limo and hire a driver. Do they have those here?”

There is one stretch limo in town. It gets rented out for prom and weddings. I try to picture myself being driven around Colville by a paid driver. I shake my head. “We don’t have the money yet. And I don’t want a new car. I like my car.” But her words do give me an idea.

“You’re a dinosaur,” Ariel says, as I flip through the alphabet tabs in the phone book. “Or a Luddite. That’s a thing, right? Or is it Mennonite?”

“Good thing for us if I am.” I punch a number into the landline phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Improving the local economy. Hang on.”

The first of my students doesn’t answer. The second one does.

“Hey,” she says. “You’re famous!”

“Yes, well, that’s beside the point. You want to make some money, Lexy?”

“Always. I’m broker than broke. What’s up?”

“You have choices. Number one: Get somebody to drive you to the airport and bring back my car. I’ll pay you both. Forty bucks an hour, plus lunch and obviously gas.”

“Okay. What else?”

“I need somebody to run errands—groceries, that sort of thing. Same pay scale. You in?”

“For sure! I can’t go to Spokane today, got stuff this afternoon. But I can do errands this morning.”

“Can you find somebody to do the Spokane thing? Pick a safe driver.”

“Naturally. I’m all over it.”

I give her a grocery list. Then I call Safeway and talk to the manager, who’s more than willing to set up an account for me. The biggest problem is distracting him from the topic of my face on the magazines in the checkout aisle.

I turn to Ariel. “What’s next?”

“School.”

It’s the middle of May. School’s out in a month. We agree that throwing Ariel into a brand-new class for such a short time, especially with all of the media bullshit, would be cruel and unusual punishment. Again, the phone is our friend. A call to the principal at her school in Vegas, an explanation of the situation, and an agreement is easily reached. Ariel is an excellent student. There is no reason why course work can’t be e-mailed to her. Textbooks can be shipped. If she’d like to make arrangements to sit for her exams at the local high school, that can easily be arranged. We thank him with the promise of a new scholarship fund in Callie’s honor.

We work both phones, her cell and my landline, taking care of business. Ariel is cool and efficient on the phone, and between the two of us, we get things done. Still, we’re both more than ready for a break by the time Lexy arrives with groceries and supplies. She and Ariel circle each other a little warily at first, but by the time we’ve stashed all of the groceries, they’ve discovered a shared love for some TV show I’ve never even heard of and are chattering away like magpies.

They exchange numbers when Lexy leaves, with an agreement to meet later online.

“If you want to give me the car keys,” Lexy says just before braving the front door, “Dax says he’ll go get your car.”

“Done. Tell him to be careful, will you?” I’m not in a position to be choosy, but Lexy’s brother is known as a risk taker.

She grins. “He’s really a good driver. Like he says, speed has nothing to do with it.”

I watch her walk down the sidewalk, waving at the cameras like they’re old friends, but ignoring all the questions. A bubble of gratitude rises in my chest. There are so many good people in this town. I want to be able to live here, which means finding a way to handle the press.

And so, at last, I do the one task I’ve been putting off all day.

Melody Smith’s business card is still in the pocket of the jeans I bought in Portland. I silently wish for the call to go to voice mail, but she picks up right away.

The first words out of her mouth after I identify myself are, “What on earth did you do to Ricken?”

“Never mind Ricken. Are you ready for your exclusive?”

Ten minutes later, my fate is sealed. Melody will catch the next plane to Spokane. Tomorrow, she’ll spend the whole day with us. We’ll act normal and responsible and she’ll document it. That’s the theory, anyway. I have my doubts.

“I don’t know how to do this normal thing Glynnis talked about,” Ariel says. “That’s on you.”

“I’m not so good at it myself.”

“What do you usually do this time of day?”

“Usually I’m teaching lessons.”

“And then?”

“I go see my mother.” I feel sick at the thought of a camera in the nursing home, my stomach churning.

“I want to see her,” Ariel says.

“She won’t remember you. It’s not a fun visit.”

“I can’t remember her hardly at all, and I don’t even know what Grandpa looked like. Are there pictures?”

“What kind of pictures?”

“You know—photographs. Of the family. Of Grandma and Grandpa. And you and Mom when you were kids.”

I start to tell her no. Nobody was interested in pictures. But then I remember something. I climb the stairs and walk into my parents’ bedroom. It looks different with the blinds open. The air smells fresh and clean. Sunshine lies across the bed, lights up the wood on the dresser. Good wood. It glows warm in the light, under inevitable flecks of dust. Tucked into the back of my mom’s closet, behind another handmade patchwork quilt, I find what I’m looking for.

Ariel is right beside me and we both sit down in a pool of sun on the carpet, the dusty shoe box in front of us.

“I’m not sure what’s in here. Stuff Mom squirreled away. A few pictures, some other stuff. I glanced at it but didn’t sort the rest.”

“Why not?”

I shrug and don’t answer. Ariel brushes away an accumulation of dust and peels open the cardboard flaps. There’s a photograph on top.

Mom and Dad stand side by side in front of the house. It’s summer. The grass is green, the trees in full bloom. Mom cradles a baby in her arms. She’s not looking at the camera; instead, her eyes are fixed on the tiny face at her breast. Just a small smile on her lips, but she glows with happiness and love. Dad stands beside her, shoulders back, chin up, eyes looking directly into the camera lens. No small smile for him, he’s laughing outright. One arm is around my mother’s shoulders.

I have no memory of ever seeing them that way. They certainly never looked at me or each other like that any time I can remember. I’m not sure where I was when the picture was taken. Staying with friends, probably, while Mom was having Callie. It makes me feel shut out. Forgotten. One moment of pure family joy, and I wasn’t a part of it.

“Are there any of Mom?” Ariel asks.

“Besides that one? I don’t know. Dig a little.”

“This is you,” she says, holding out the photo.

“It’s Callie. She was born in the summer. I was born in February.”

Ariel turns the picture over. “It says here, on the back.”

“Let me see.” The edges of the photo are soft with wear. The picture itself is a little blurry, taken by an inexpert photographer on a 35 mm, before everybody had smartphones and digital cameras. Printed on the back in my mother’s loopy handwriting are a name and a date.

“Annelise. Spring 1979.”

My body goes perfectly still. A breeze from the open window stirs through the room, carrying the sweet fragrance of lilacs. In the right-hand corner of the picture, behind Dad’s shoulder, there is an unmistakable riot of purple. Callie was born in July, well after lilacs. The baby in the picture might be a couple of months old, but no more.

I’d assumed that my parents could only maintain that level of happiness for a day or two at most, that it must have been connected to a recent birth. But it’s not Callie in this picture. It’s me. My chest fills with warmth. There’s not room enough, and it expands into my throat. Tears well up to make room for it, and for once I let them fall without trying to hold them back.

Ariel glances up at me from under her lashes but doesn’t ask questions. Which is good, because I have no words to explain. I lay the picture down beside me, where I can keep looking at it, reminding myself of this new reality. My parents loved me once. They were happy. Maybe whatever happened after that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with forces and circumstances over which I had no control.

A memory floats upward on the warm currents of this new emotion. Just a small one. A soft hand on my forehead, a voice singing me to sleep. I must have been very young. Before Callie, probably. In my mind, I add the face from the picture, hanging over my bed, gazing at me with that kind of love.

By the time I’m able to see through my tears, Ariel has sorted out a small pile of objects. A silk handkerchief, embroidered with tiny perfect stitches: “Jack and Emma, Forever, 1977.” Could my mother have done this? I’ve never seen her with a needle in her hand. There’s a little plastic bag of baby teeth. My father’s wedding ring. And then the pictures. Only a handful, maybe fifteen at the most. There’s me sitting on the couch, smiling a gap-toothed grin at the camera, my baby sister propped against me. Callie and me in the fishing boat with Dad when we’re older—both skinny, blonde pigtailed ragamuffins, but grinning ear to ear. Dad wearing a hard hat, either going to or arriving from work, lunch box in hand. He’s smiling, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. The lines are in his face. His belly is rounding. I remember the hard hat and the not-quite smile.

The last picture Ariel holds for a long time before she passes it on to me.

Callie and I stand side by side, arms around each other’s shoulders. She’s a little taller than I am. Her hair falls in lazy golden curls; her eyes and her smile are bright and true. My eyes are tired and my smile looks like Dad’s in the going-to-work picture. My hair is a darker shade than hers, not quite blonde, not quite brown, but in the sun it gleams like burnished maple. We’re huddled in winter coats, black dresses and high-heeled shoes a sharp contrast to the expanse of snow. In front of us, each of us with a hand on her shoulder, a little girl. Wild blonde curls, a mischievous grin.

“I remember Grandma taking that picture,” Ariel says. “I mean, I don’t really remember her. But I remember it was her that took it. Outside the house. After the funeral.”

I remember it, too. Mom in some strange, becalmed place in the grief process, acting like Callie was home for a holiday instead of a funeral. Insisting on pictures, despite the cold and snow. The weird evening meal sampled from the casseroles and potato salads brought in by the neighbors and church ladies, ending with a store-bought, oversweet apple pie. I remember the greasy feel of the piecrust smooth on my palate.

And I remember that night, back in our old room, how it feels like a sleepover. Callie and I talk for a while, cozy and friendly, as if there has never been any bad blood between us. The years of constraint and difficult conversations, like it’s been since she ran off when Ariel was a baby, all seem to melt away. Under that influence, I haul out the guitar and we sing some old songs, harmonizing, her soprano and my alto, and I wonder why we never sang together growing up. I get lost in the music until I find myself playing my newest song for her. Callie makes me play it over and over until she can sing it with me.

And then we just sit there looking at each other in the dimly lit room. She’s cross-legged on her bed, one hand resting on Ariel’s tumbled curls. “You should send that one somewhere. Record it. Do something.”

I shrug. “Maybe.” The idea sets my teeth on edge. If I put the song out there for the whole world to see, it won’t be mine anymore. It will grow and change and wander off until maybe it’s a thing I no longer recognize and can’t call my own.

“Music was never meant to be hoarded, Lise. It’s supposed to be free. For everybody.”

I put the guitar aside, leaning it carefully against the wall where it won’t fall over. “It’s late. We should go to sleep. Mom’s going to need us in the morning.”

“Just think about it,” she says.

That was her last visit. A few days later, she and Ariel drove away, and the next time I saw her, she was lying in the coffin.

“You remember?” Ariel asks now.

“I remember.”

“Can I keep it?”

I hand it back to her. “You can keep all of them if you want.” Getting up, I leave her there. Too much thinking, too much remembering. Restlessness drives me down the stairs and into a cleaning spree. Not that the house is dirty; my student has done a better job than Mom ever did. Or me. Cleaning is not my favorite thing.

But now, not daring to brave the reporters outside the door, cleaning gives me something to do with my excess energy. I scrub the floors, vacuum the carpets, polish the furniture with the real polish, not the lemon spray-on stuff. And then I make us a dinner out of the groceries Lexy brought us. Baked potatoes, roasted chicken, steamed broccoli.

What Ariel does during that time, I don’t know, but she comes down for dinner with her eyes puffy and her face blotchy.