The School on Heart's Content Road (39 page)

Now he sees, coming from one of the two connected mobile homes, Willie with a gun. He turns back around to face the weirdly perfect ranch house where he has heard ordinary schoolteachers live. Probably very thin-lipped Mr. Carney look-alikes. But Mickey sees no sign of life there presently. It
looks
like a safe haven from here.

The sound of Willie's work boots on sand and then tar, coming closer, make color and light against Mickey's closed eyelids as he draws hungrily on his now-short cigarette. He has a sudden desire to chew up the cigarette and swallow it, hot end and all.

Willie's gray eyes are fixed on Mickey's face even before he gets around the truck. “
I thought you were following me, Roger!!!!
” Willie shrieks. “You sure are in love with that truck handle.”

Mickey's eyes drop to Willie's right hand. It's a service pistol. A Colt, Mickey observes.

Willie stands squarely, more military than a TV Western, but absolutely over-the-top showmanship. They are eyes into eyes, no words, Willie grinning, sort of, his bucktoothed grin, Mickey straining not to lower his eyes.

Now Willie whispers, “Max, I want to give you this Christmas present.”

Mickey's eyes fall now firmly to the pistol.

Willie snickers. “I am giving you this Christmas present”—it is August—“because it bothers me so much that I want to wet myself—bothers the hell outta me—to see a member of my militia going all around out in the open air like you do, all. . . .” Willie wiggles and shudders all over, signifying what, Mickey isn't sure. “I am giving you this Christmas present so you need to put out your hand for it . . . but, Chuck, you gotta promise me that no matter how grateful you are, you will
not
hug me.”

Rex is out there somewhere, sane, strong, Godlike Rex, wayyyy out there on the edges of Willie Lancaster's zone of twisted lights and sounds—and now the absence of sound. Here is Mickey, dead to everything except the soundless look of Willie's muscular hand holding out to him, muzzle down, the gun.

Midnight. Tree house residence of Michael Gammon.

He is surrounded now—by the feeling. He falls asleep with it—the feeling. He dreams the feeling. He wakes with the feeling. It is a feeling that is dumb and confusing but it is good. A kind of security, like high walls. Shoulder to shoulder. Brother to brother. The gun? Yeah, but when he dreams it, there's no steel, just that muscular hand and the gray eyes, the voice, the moment.

Spread out on the floor of the clothes-making shop.

It's a full-sized flag. Dark blue. Painstakingly assembled with pieces of almost expertly dyed cotton sheeting to resemble the State of Maine flag, but with an arch of yellow-gold letters across the top that reads
THE TRUE MAINE MILITIA
. Three teen girls on their knees. “What about the eyeball on this moose?” “It's
way
too big.” “Dorky-lookin' moose! We gotta fix it!” Meanwhile, leaning in one corner of the room, a hornbeam pole
with an eagle carved on the top. Eagle came out perfect—almost. This will be the flagpole in due time. This will be the True Maine Militia. “Waaaay better than Rex's militia,” someone whispers. “Yeah, 'cause we aren't
afraid
to go public. We
love
public.” A pleasurable sigh, then another teenage girl voice. “No limited membership. We welcome the
world
!”

There's been some plans to get Jane settled, not just daytimes but nights too.

Maybe with Aurel and Josée, or with the Butlers, or with old Lucienne in her little shady house at the end of the brick path, closest to the shops and the quadrangle of trees and mowed grass. That would make a lot more sense than the present arrangement. Gordon feels uneasy about the farm place, not gated off in any way. Strangers often stop there, either first or after they find the Settlement road blocked. The phone rings and rings. Much confusion since Ivy Morelli's feature story went to press. And then the “angry white men” photos. Everyone suspects it's just a matter of time before the
DHS SWAT
teams come through the door of the farmhouse some night to “rescue” Jane. Tear her out of bed, shove her into a social worker's car, and off they go. It seems better all the way around if Jane were settled with one family or person instead of the constant shuffle of nighttime sitters here.

But this dusky September evening, Jane is still a resident of the old St. Onge house. She has refused to hear a story or play a game, so Bev and Barbara hang out in the old dining room, looking over some old photo albums that Marian, Gordon's mother, left when she moved, almost everything in this room the same as when Marian lived here, even a bookcase with her “ceramics”: dogs, deer, horses, Jesus in the manger, Bo Peep and a sheep, some cherubs. Marian St. Onge has a
fetish for cherubs. Her cherubs here are painted a blushing pink. Wallpaper is blue. Room cool, usually closed off. Some of Gordon's papers and books, maps and letters are in cardboard boxes stacked in one corner. A braided rug, the factory-made kind, with blues to match the walls. Some phonograph records: Frank Sinatra, Lawrence Welk. Curtains, white with frills. Not Marian's curtains, though. These white frilly things were Claire's touch when she was here as a young wife.

When Gordon comes in, he catches Jane spying on Bev and Barbara: Jane beside the partly open dining room door in the little hall. She is making a picture in one of her small notebooks and wearing her secret all-seeing heart-shaped glasses.
Deep
concentration. Gordon's sudden appearance makes her really jump.

Gordon pretends not to notice that he's caught Jane at something, and Jane pretends that she hasn't been up to something, and the moment passes.

Now, out in the kitchen, Gordon is running a glass of water for a couple of aspirin. He turns and sees she is now sitting at the table, her glasses on the table, folded. She is glaring at him, her round dark eyes filled with mortal contempt.

“What?” he asks.

“You ugly pig.”

He blinks. He grins. He snorts, like a pig.

She rises most dramatically. She is dressed in a little pink sweater made by one of the mothers. She has such long-limbed ease, more beautiful than any ballet or symphony, that old African grace that swims through tall grass and rolls with hard orange suns. She opens the refrigerator door and lifts out a long speckled enameled pan
. . . empty
. “What. . . is . . . this?”

He cocks his head, squints. “My mother brought something for me when she was here the other night.”

She sniffs the pan. “What . . . was . . . it?”

“Éclairs.”

“How . . . many?”

He shrugs. She shoves the empty pan back into the refrigerator and turns, the door closing behind her soundlessly. She sinks gracefully to the floor, wraps her long sweatered arms around the knees of her long
knitted matching pants, and buries her face. “I want my Mum,” she says, against her knees.

He says, “Jane. I'm sorry. I should have saved you one.”

She raises her face, tears wiggling in her huge black eyes, spilling now. Her mouth opens, a large square of real grief. “Mumma,” she whispers. Softly, wearily. Turns her head slowly from side to side, tears dripping from her chin. “I can't stand it here,” she says into Gordon's eyes. “Because you are so fat and full.”

He tries not to smile.

She says quaveringly, “I can punish you.” She sniffs. Her voice now bears a hard edge. “I got secrets about you, Gordie. About the milishish. Milishish are wrong. Everyone says they hurt kids. They
bomb
kids. I am going to tell. I know of a
DARE
man who is nice. I will tell him, and I will tell him to tell the other ones, the ones that's narcs, and you will be very very very very sorry.”

Gordon stands frozen, looking at Jane's slim fingers, now picking at the knee of her knitted pants. He is seeing something, something that is not in this room. He is
seeing
.

Barbara, a short, ruddy, square, gray-haired person, is in the door of the kitchen now, and she says firmly, “Jane. People are not pretty when they blackmail.”

Gordon steps over toward the refrigerator, to Jane sitting on the floor, her eyes unblinking.

He says, “What
DARE
man, Jane?”

Jane's eyes drop. “A nice one. He likes me. I bet if I told him to, he'd get the narcs to put you you-know-where.”

Barbara is deathly silent. Behind her, Bev, also short, square, ruddy, and gray, is putting a hand on Barbara's upper arm, like steadying herself while walking a narrow board over high water.

Gordon squats down to get his face closer to Jane's. “What
DARE
man?” he asks again.

Jane squinches her nose. Laughs nervously. “Just joking.”

Gordon takes Jane's shoulders, pulls her slowly to her feet. Hugs her head hard, maybe a little too tight. Rubs her hair. He looks into the eyes of the two women in the door. He shakes his head slowly. He says, “We need a lot of time to ponder certain profoundly painful possibilities in Jane's past—and Lisa's
present—
before we react. For now, a moment
of silence, aye? And a nice long quiet night to follow where we don't react. You know? We're just going to ponder . . . the possibilities.”

Word goes around the Settlement.

A serious development. There shall be one appointed person at all times to make sure that Jane Meserve never steps off the property. No more little strolls out on the tar road. Never alone with the phone or with visitors.
Never
. And the profoundly painful possibilities of Jane's part in her mother's arrest are discussed.

Secret Agent Jane tries to make sense of the recent past, before she came to the Settlement.