“It really was something,” Cam said, “a big motherfucker.”
Margaret saw the green horizon on the other side of her now, as the storm moved off.
“They go from the Southwest to the Northeast,” Tracy said.
“How do they know what they’re doing?” Margaret said. Then she remembered the science column in the newspaper: “Why do cyclones swirl in one direction across the U.S. and in another direction south of the equator?” The cars were starting to roll again. Margaret looked over at a station wagon. A woman was holding a baby up to the window; the baby’s face was contorted, red. It was wailing.
It was the rush hour when they came into the city. The traffic was stopped and it gave them time to look at the skyline, follow the Sears Tower until its point dissolved. Tracy was leafing through an old Holiday Inn directory. Cam said that a Holiday Inn was too expensive.
“I don’t want to go to one of those really cheap motels with paper bath mats. If we have Laurence, it has to be decent,” Margaret told Cam.
“I’ll have to use your card,” Cam told her.
Tracy said, “Does it matter? We’re coming in here so you can go soul-to-soul with the Arrow Collar, not so we can take a sauna.”
“A pool would be nice for Laurence,” Margaret said.
“You want a pool? There’s the whole lake.”
“I don’t see any lake,” she said.
“It’s over that way,” Tracy said.
Margaret looked over the hoods of the cars, trying
to find any sign of Lake Michigan. Then she saw a billboard with a familiar face. It was Merv Griffin’s face. “Look at that!” she said.
“Merv Griffin?” Cam asked.
“He’s coming to that dinner theater,” she said. She was smiling.
“We’re not going to hear Merv at any dinner theater,” Cam said.
Tracy said, “God, Merv. I haven’t seen too much of him lately.”
Margaret told him, “He’s a big producer. He makes shows for syndication. They say he has a business sense.”
“He can make millions, but he’s still a three-dollar bill,” Tracy said.
“He’s of that persuasion, that’s sure,” Cam said.
“What do you mean?” Margaret asked.
“He’s like the stamp that has the airplane flying upside down,” Cam said.
Margaret was laughing. “You mean he’s gay? I think he’s probably just like Tracy. You can’t spend years with Arthur Treacher and Viva, people like that, and maintain any kind of innocence.”
“That’s what we’re saying,” Cam said.
“I’m not arguing,” she said. “I knew his marriage was bad when he said his wife wore vanilla extract behind her ears instead of Chanel.”
“Is that right?” Tracy said, “His wife used vanilla for cologne? She smelled like cookies—”
“I still like Merv,” she said, her voice firm.
“Dinner theater is out!” Cam told her.
“He had some famous songs, you know standard numbers,” she said.
“Are you still at it?”
“We have to eat somewhere,” she said.
Margaret read the grid on the city map and found the block where Lewis’s apartment should be. After making some wrong turns, they asked directions. Then they found the right area and patrolled the neighborhood in the Duster. It was pretty bad, there was trash lofting over the sidewalks, the cars were double-parked where some action was happening and Cam had to wait. Yet, some of the buildings had green canvas awnings, a few of the storefronts showed pretty marquees.
“Looks druggy around here,” Tracy said.
“Who is that?” Cam said. They saw an older man walking down the sidewalk with three French poodles in a triple harness. The dogs were grey at the muzzle. “He looks kind of dapper.”
“A dandy,” Margaret said. “His dogs are ready for social security.”
“That’s not him,” Cam said.
Then they found the building,
THE
GREGORY
HOTEL
written in red and white tile above the front entrance. A dirty square of Astroturf covered the sidewalk before the big glass doors. One door had strapping tape following a crack.
“It’s not world-class,” Cam said.
“No, but it’s charming, it’s Art Deco,” Tracy said. There were two waist-high urns, one at either side of the entrance. The urns showed some salmon-colored geraniums. Cam told them they should find a motel near the Gregory, he’d be in and out in no time. They could relax, watch Johnny Carson. They’d drive back to Wilmington the next day.
“Sounds good,” Tracy said. “Maybe we’ll go find that cemetery tomorrow.”
Margaret said her head was aching, they almost got sucked up in a twister, and Tracy better shut up about visiting any graves. Tracy said that it wasn’t a real twister. “You have cancer of the imagination,” he told Margaret.
“It was a funnel cloud,” Cam said, taking Margaret’s side of it.
A funnel cloud. Did a funnel cloud pour its contents, those wet sheets, the water white as muslin? Or did it siphon the world upward? This was a question for the science column. Whatever the answer, it was just another detail she found strangely telling. It was true, wasn’t it? The past few days were crazy, revolving. The world was spinning, the horizon bulging, expanding beyond human perception. How was she supposed to keep free of these spirals? Sometimes she hyperventilated, she felt her heart palpitating, the palpitations increasing for moments at a time, then diminishing—until she couldn’t verify if her heart was beating at all.
“I can’t feel my heart beating,” she said to Tracy.
Tracy said, “You aren’t supposed to feel your own heart beating. It’s when you notice it pumping that something is wrong. You’re confusing a symptom with a strength.”
She told him, “It doesn’t have anything to do with the heart, anyway. Does it? Let’s be straight. It’s the mind. It’s the mind playing tricks on the body. That’s what I hate!”
…
They rented two rooms that connected if they unlocked a set of doors. The rooms were identical, with heavy maroon drapes and carpeting. Cam showed Margaret the setup and she told him what she thought of it. “It’s a fucking mortuary,” she said, but she had her shoes off already and he knew she wasn’t going to make him find another place. The hotel was cleaning up after some conventioneers, but their rooms were ready and Margaret walked through the first one right into the other, deciding which side she liked better. Laurence turned on the television and found “The Muppets.” Thank God for these Muppets, Margaret thought. She watched the show for a moment, attracted to the cloth puppets, their felt eyes and pilled cheeks.
“What’s that sound?” Tracy said.
“It’s that marble fountain out in the hall,” Margaret told him. “It’s noisy.”
“Like something’s frying. That spattering.”
They went to see the fountain with Laurence. It was a tall display of miniature Greek statuary and descending trays, shaped like grape leaves, made of marbleized plastic. The water fell, level by level, to a scalloped trough on the floor, and circulated back. Tight, bouncing drops sounded like a paradiddle on a snare drum. It mimicked, then directed everyone’s tension. “Shit, it makes a racket.” Tracy said. “Smell the chlorine?”
Margaret gave Laurence a penny, but he missed the fountain and the penny rolled down the hall along the dirty baseboard. There goes one wish, she thought. “No, don’t get that one, the floor’s too dusty,” she told the boy. She gave him a new penny.
Tracy rested on one of the double beds. He looked at the ceiling. Margaret thought of Tracy crushing the water jug against her face. She remembered Tina listing the herbs for Tracy; Margaret could still hear her sister’s clean enunciation. These incidents had frightened her, but she hated it when Tracy ignored her. No matter what happened, his silence was what unnerved her. He made it clear that she was banished from his kingdom, his wordless reign. His silence seemed to manipulate every dust mote, every swirl of sunlight until she couldn’t stand it. Margaret went over to the bed and climbed onto Tracy, full length. Her toes pushed off the insteps of his feet and she balanced herself, the small hill of her pelvis, against him. She kissed his mouth, ready to accept the rich greeting she expected, his breath accelerating, but he rolled her off of him.
Cam walked in from the other bedroom. His eyes were narrowed, as if he had been walking into some floodlights.
“It’s set,” he said. “We’re going over there. We’re all going over there for some kind of dinner.”
“You called the Arrow Collar? You actually spoke to him right now? You don’t waste a second,” Tracy said.
“Dinner?” Margaret asked him. “That’s bizarre. Dinner after all these years? Not me. I can’t go over there.”
Cam said, “I told him I was his son who he had never met. I said, Lewis Goddard? This is your son, Cameron. He didn’t know what I was talking about.”
“He drew a blank?” Tracy said.
“Dead at the end of the line. Then I gave him her name.”
“My name?” Margaret said.
Cam looked at her. “No. Elizabeth. I said that name.”
“Did he know who you were talking about?”
“Absolutely.”
Cam was showering in one of the bathrooms and Tracy went down to find the
Chicago Tribune
and the
Sun-Times
. Margaret put Laurence in the bathtub on the other side from Cam, and she gave him her plastic hairbrush with the hollow handle and one of her flip-flops so he could float them in the water. Then she went and sat down on one of the beds. She called the hotel operator and placed a call, but her daughter still wasn’t home. Perhaps they were riding the cabin cruiser or they’d driven to the harbor to see the new Baltimore Aquarium. She asked for another number in Wilmington. She was calling Elizabeth, but it was Darcy who answered the phone. Margaret recognized her sister-in-law’s voice, and the shock of it kept her words back for a moment; then she said, “Darcy, this is Margaret.”
“Where in the hell is my son?” Darcy said.
“He’s fine. That’s why I called. To tell Elizabeth not to worry.”
“My son has been kidnapped, do you realize that? Do you know you’re an accomplice? An accessory?”
Margaret said, “Shit, am I Patty Hearst? Am I? I’m his aunt, for Christ’s sake! It’s this thing with Cam’s father, you know, it’s finally getting going—”
“Cam is breaking the law, he’s stole my child and took him across state lines, you tell him that. Tell him he’s across state lines.”
“Look, we’re driving back soon.”
“He’s out of Delaware, and that’s his big mistake, that’s a federal mistake.” Darcy kept telling Margaret about these state lines as if the offense, the violation, was against these boundaries and had little to do with the unity of their family.
Darcy went on, “You aren’t here to pick up your daughter. What kind of person are you?”
“Celeste doesn’t come back until Sunday,” Margaret said. “What day is it?”
Darcy told Margaret that Phil was delivering Celeste that afternoon. “Elizabeth doesn’t know what to do with her until you get back. Phil is pretty burned up to hear you drove to Chicago. He agrees that it’s irresponsible. He says it’s just another example.”
Margaret wanted to ask Darcy why Celeste was coming home early, but she didn’t continue. She was afraid to ask. Maybe her daughter couldn’t wait the weekend, she was disconsolate. Perhaps she’d had some kind of an accident, some stitches or something. A wave of helplessness rocked Margaret onto her feet and she jerked the phone from the table and pressed it hard against her waist. She thought of the distance between herself and her daughter, a thousand miles like a sea of glue.
“It’s ironic, it’s ironic in the most fucked-up way,” Darcy was saying. “You’re out there with my kid and I’m here with yours.”
“Is Celeste there?” Margaret asked. “Let me talk to her. Put her on.”
“She’s not here, not
yet
,” Darcy said. “I’m telling you. She’ll be here any minute. Looking for her mother. Believe-you-me—”
The conversation became strange, undulating. Margaret lost the thread of its meaning, and she felt a threat, an ominous tenor in the other woman’s words. Just who was kidnapping who, Margaret started thinking.
“Darcy? Are you listening to me? Let’s say we switch kids for a day. I’ll take care of Laurence, and you promise to watch Celeste. Even-Steven.” Margaret waited for Darcy to answer. “I’ll bring Laurence home safe as soon as I can. You explain it to Celeste. Tell her something a kid can understand.”
“Isn’t she used to this insane stuff after living with you and that weird reporter?” Darcy said.
She heard Cam coming through the other room. “Don’t worry,” she whispered to Darcy, “Laurence is okay; he’s taking a bath right here.” Then Cam was standing there. He jerked the telephone out of her hands and slammed it down on the bed table. He picked the receiver up. Darcy was still on, Margaret could hear her voice, an insectlike murmur that stopped and started. Cam said something to his wife, he was giving her his condolences; he was acid. Then he crashed the receiver down once more.
“Stupid shit,” he said. He pushed Margaret down on the bed. “They can trace that. Did you have to do that?”
“You can’t just steal your kid and forget that his mother exists—”
“First, let me tell you something. A man doesn’t steal his own child.”
“Yes, he can. It’s against the law. Legally, I mean, somebody steals his kid if he’s not supposed to have him.”
“I’m not supposed to have my own kid? Since when did you decide this?”
Margaret looked down at her feet, she pushed one foot forward, then the other until her toe snagged on the shag carpeting. “I just mean—”
Cam turned up and back before the window, walking like someone who’s burned his hand or slammed his fingers in a drawer. He said, “Who’s asking you to pony express our plans to her? I’m the one to tell her if I’m coming home.”
“Aren’t we going back tomorrow? We’re not staying here, are we? I have to get Celeste—” She looked at her brother. They stared at one another. They both felt the same surge—they saw how their tactics regarding their offspring were turning a corner, becoming twisted. Cam’s mouth turned up on one side. It wasn’t a smile she recognized, she had never seen a smile like this. It looked ingenious and desperate all at once, like a soldier who is wearing grey suddenly recognizes his brother is wearing the blue. They could shoot one another, for what?