ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND US DOLLARS DEPOSITED IN YOUR ACCOUNT N° GHQ 115 Y C/O BANQUE POPULARE SUISSE GENEVA BRANCH PENDING ACCEPTANCE OF MODE OF TERMINATION. ACCIDENTAL ELECTROCUTION WHILE TAKING BATH PREFERRED MODE. PLEASE SIGNAL ACCEPTANCE SOONEST.
The professional’s response was immediate.
ELECTROCUTION FINE. MUST LOOK LIKE ACCIDENT FOR AT LEAST 56 HOURS. NEW LOCATION OF DR. DAVIDSON AND IDENTITY: GRANT PATTERSON, 90 JUNIPER STREET, ELLIS, IDAHO. GOOD LUCK.
* * * * *
“An’ then, an’ then the Power Rangers morphed into Megazords ‘cause they had…The Power!” Rafael said excitedly, pumping his little fist in the air and scattering a few spice cake crumbs. “An’ then, an’ then they were powerful beings like…like mastodons an’ sour-toothed tigers ‘cause they had to fight the evil Lord Zedd, but he was too strong for them, and he was going to take over the world, so then the Power Rangers morphed into Ninjetis!” He shouted the last word out, pumping the air again and grinning.
It was Wednesday afternoon and Julia had decided to reward Rafael for his renewed interest in his studies—and for turning Fred into a handsome mutt with glossy fur—by buying him hot chocolate and cake at Carly’s, hoping as well to stimulate a little teatime rush hour traffic for Alice. Rafael was giving her a blow-by-blow account of “Power Rangers”, but the plot kept escaping him and Julia had just about given up trying to follow it. She had her sketchpad out and was idly doodling.
“See—the Power Rangers had to help Zordan, an interchocolate being—”
“Galactic, squirt.” Matt had come over with another slice of cake, Rafael’s third. He slid it in front of Rafael. “Intergalactic being.”
“Galatic,” Rafael repeated obediently. He thought it over, then scrunched up his face at Matt. “What’s ‘galatic’, Matt?”
“Galactic. As in galaxy.” Matt tried to sound impatient and superior, but he was fighting a grin. Alice had obviously taken Cooper’s advice and had involved Matt in the diner. He was taking his new job so seriously he even dressed up to the point of having a shirt on. “From outer space.”
“Oh,” Rafael said seriously. “Outer space.” He was clearly thinking that over as he pulled the plate of spice cake closer.
Julia looked around, expecting Bernie to come pick Rafael up at any moment. Bernie had taken Cooper’s place the past few days in picking Rafael up. It wasn’t the same.
The diner was as crowded as she’d ever seen it. Apart from herself and Rafael, Matt and Alice, there were three ranchers sitting in a corner quietly discussing stock prices. Ruddy, weather-beaten men in faded flannel shirts, whitened jeans and scuffed boots, sipping tea. It was rush hour, but still. Tall oaks from little acorns grow, she reminded herself.
Rafael dug into his third slice with enthusiasm, continuing the ongoing saga of the Power Rangers. “And then the Power Rangers had to fight Ivan Ooze ‘cause he covered the world in purple slime and made all the parents want to kill themselves. And Ivan Ooze transformed into a giant robot and then the Power Rangers, they all transformed into a giant robot and they fought in outer space and Ivan Ooze got offed by a comet!” Rafael’s young face glowed. “Awesome!”
As a plot synopsis, it needed a little work.
“Kids.” Matt, all of seventeen himself, shook his head indulgently. He looked over at Julia, all business. “Will there be anything else, Miss Anderson? Freshen your tea for you?” He pulled a pencil from behind his ear and waited expectantly. Julia tried to look as serious as he did, but it wasn’t easy. Matt was trying to be so adult and professional. He’d even removed his eyebrow ring.
Don’t grow up too fast, Julia wanted to say to him. It’s scary out there.
“Not for me, Matt.” Julia shook her head. “And the name’s Sally.”
She had to give Alice points. The place was as dusty and as dingy as ever, but with Matt fairly quivering to attention and a few people around, it was a little less desolate. The tea had been excellent and judging from Rafael’s appetite, so was the spice cake. Then again, Rafael was guaranteed to love anything with starch, sugar and fat in copious quantities.
Julia smiled up at Matt. “If you don’t mind, we’ll just wait for Bernie to come pick up Rafael.”
“Sure, Miss Anderson—ah, Sally.” Matt grinned. “Take your time. So…I guess Coop’s not coming in this afternoon.”
“Cooper’s away,” Julia said between her teeth. She watched a palm tree in a large terra cotta pot grow on the sheet of graph paper in front of her. It had come from her subconscious, but it looked good. Inspired, she added a palm leaf stencil on the wall. “On business.” She bent her head and concentrated on her drawing. “’Till Friday,” she added. She bore down hard on the paper and the point of the pencil snapped.
“Oh, that’s right. To Kentucky.” Matt nodded. “The annual trip. Coop’s been planning that trip for months. Dad said that Bernie said that Coop was on the phone all afternoon the other day, trying to call the trip off, but he couldn’t.” He angled his head curiously, trying to catch a peek at the sheet of paper. “Can I see what you’re drawing?”
“He wanted to what?” Julia whipped her head up.
“Cancel his trip.” Matt leaned forward, nose ring twinkling in the harsh light of the overhead fluorescent strip. “Can I see what you’re drawing?” he repeated.
“What I’m what?” Julia looked at him blankly, pencil still, mind racing. Cooper had wanted to back out of his trip? Surely not—not because of her? No, of course not. He knew they could pick up on the sex again once he got back. This bereft feeling was all her own, a compound of fear and anguish and loneliness. Cooper probably never felt afraid or anguished or—
“Sally?”
“Who?” Julia started and with an effort collected her wits, which seemed to dim whenever she thought about Cooper. “Oh. What were you saying, Matt?”
He looked at her curiously, then tugged her sheet of graph paper out from under her elbow and towards him. “What’s this, Miss…Sally?”
“Oh…nothing. Just—” Taking a deep breath, Julia dragged her mind away from Cooper. “It’s sort of a hobby of mine. I like decorating and I was just bouncing around a few ideas for the diner.” She reached for the sheet, embarrassed. “It’s nothing, Matt.”
“No, hey, this is great.” Matt took in the palm trees, the curvy aluminum counters, the gaudy jukebox, the neon lettering. His Simpson-blue eyes, so like his sister’s, shone with excitement. “Really great.” He looked around the diner, then back at the sheet of drawing paper. “This would really work here.”
Despite herself, Julia was flattered. “You think so? I’ve always been partial to retro ‘50s funk, myself.”
“Is that what this is? I just think it looks great.”
“What looks great?” Alice wiped the crumbs off the table with a damp sponge, then sat down next to Julia and angled her head just as Matt had done. “What’s this?”
Julia was suddenly struck by the resemblance between brother and sister, which had been hidden behind Matt’s in-your-face trendoid dressing and body piercing. Now that she looked closer, Julia could see that Matt and Alice shared facial planes, coloring, gestures and expressions.
How long had it been since she had had a chance to observe families? Not since Singapore, her parents’ last posting. Her mother had made friends with a whole clan of interrelated English families who had been expatriates for three generations. The Devauxs had made a game of trying to pinpoint genealogy by looks and mannerisms.
She’d lost all that when she’d lost her own family. In New York and Boston, she’d met individuals, but with no idea of their backgrounds. She hadn’t the faintest idea whether her officemates resembled their siblings or even whether they had siblings. It had been so long since she’d had a taste of family life, even secondhand.
“Sally?” Alice was tugging lightly at the graph paper.
“It’s nothing, Alice.” Julia tried to hide her doodling with her elbow, but Alice pulled it towards her.
Julia cursed this habit of hers. Of course, Alice would think that it was a slur on the diner. The diner was dull and dingy, of course, but that was none of Julia’s business. Trying to change her environment was such an ingrained part of herself, she’d started toying with ideas without really noticing what she was doing. It came from her mother, who could never leave a room alone until it was precisely as she’d imagined it. Julia had spent her whole life redecorating and it seemed that minor details like death threats and banishment weren’t enough to break the habit.
“Don’t pay any attention, Alice. I was just, ah, imagining what the diner would look like if it were…” …nice. Julia bit her lip at the last minute. “I mean, if—” She sighed and gave up.
“You mean if someone had done something to it in the last thirty years?” Alice said.
“I didn’t mean to imply—” Julia began, then looked at Alice who was watching her steadily with a half-smile on her lips. Julia was beginning to know Alice well enough to realize that she was a straight-shooter. It was pointless to pussyfoot around the fact that the diner was as dismal a place as she’d ever seen. “Well…it could use a coat of paint.”
“And a wrecker.” Alice shook her head at Julia’s automatic protest. “No, it’s true. Mom never did anything to spruce the place up. She never made much money on the diner and then when maybe she could have afforded it, she got sick. Actually, I’ve been wanting to redecorate for a long time but…” Alice chewed her lower lip nervously. “I don’t know much about redecorating. It’s really not my thing. Like cooking.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Julia protested. “Rafael seems to be enjoying his cake. That’s his third slice.”
“It’s not mine,” Alice replied glumly. “I tried out that Sacher torte recipe you gave me. You know—the chocolate one?”
“And?” Julia prodded.
“And it was awful.” Alice sighed heavily. “It came out flat. And gummy. So I gave the recipe to Maisie and it came out great. It’s already gone. She made me the spice cake, too. Maybe if I redecorated, people wouldn’t notice that I can’t cook.”
“Maybe,” Julia said dubiously.
“So, Sally.” Alice leaned over to look past Julia’s sheltering arm. “What did you have in mind?”
Julia thought for a moment, then slid the sheet over to Alice. “Well, to tell you the truth, I was sort of thinking retro ‘50s funk.”
Alice’s smile turned glassy and Julia sighed. Maybe retro ‘50s funk wasn’t quite what Alice had in mind. “What do you want, Alice? I mean if you could just wave a magic wand, what would you turn your diner into?”
Alice didn’t hesitate a second. “A fern bar,” she said, in exactly the same tone of voice she might have said “heaven”.
“A…fern bar?” Julia frowned. “Isn’t that kind of—you know—kind of ‘80s?”
“Mmm?” Alice was looking a little dreamy as she glanced around the diner. “You mean old-fashioned? Maybe, but Simpson hasn’t ever had a fern bar before. I don’t think Rupert has ever had one either.”
With good reason, Julia thought and shuddered at the prospect of the ‘80s finally rolling over Simpson, the streets infested with suspendered yuppies sporting Adidas and women in power suits with big shoulder pads. “I don’t know, Alice. Do you really—” Then Julia took one look at Alice’s face, at the yearning and the stars in her eyes and shut up. She looked around Carly’s Diner, at the Early Gulag decor and winced. Even a fern bar would be better.
Julia shifted fabrics and color schemes in her head. It could be done.
She quickly flipped through the line drawings she’d made of her vision of Carly’s Diner until she came to the blank pages. Her ideas had been fun but this was Alice’s dream, after all. Julia determined to do her best to help Alice achieve it.
Decorating was something Julia could do in her sleep. Actually had. Once, right after the Devauxs had moved to Rome, she had woken up one morning in her empty bedroom with a complete decorating scheme in her head, down to the exact shade of royal blue on the ribbon trim of the curtain tiebacks.
Julia’s pencil hovered over the paper. “So.” She looked up at Alice. “Let ‘er rip, and I’ll see if I can keep up with you.”
“Let ‘er…rip?” Alice looked at her, puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” Julia said reasonably, “you’re going to need a floor plan and a color scheme for your fern bar. We’ll walk our way around it, and I’ll just sketch the plans for you. I’ve done this hundreds of times for friends. Where were you planning on putting the bar?” Julia doodled for a moment, then drew the outside walls. As the silence lengthened, she looked up. “Alice?”
“Hmm?” Alice had spilled some salt from the cracked glass saltcellar and was drawing rings in the granules with her forefinger. Her cheeks were pink.
Julia put her pencil down and tried to think of the right words. “Alice,” she said gently, “you do have some idea of what you want your fern bar to look like, don’t you?”
“Er…” Alice looked out the plate glass window. It was smudged and greasy. The street outside was empty. “Sort of.”
Julia felt as if she had walked into a minefield. “Alice,” she asked carefully, “have you ever actually, ahm, been in a fern bar?”
“Well…not actually inside one,” Alice explained earnestly. “I mean we used to go by what a friend of Daddy’s said was a fern bar on our way to the hospital in Boise when Mom was sick. It was so—so pretty. The hospital was horrible, and then we’d all drive back home in silence and the diner was closed and dusty and dirty and just so—depressing. And then a week later we’d drive back to the hospital for the chemotherapy and that was so depressing and in between, we’d pass by this wonderful place called The Trattoria and it was just so fresh and clean and—and cool. And everyone inside looked so ace and—” Alice bit her lip and shrugged. “I don’t know. Everyone in there looked so…happy and we were out there, looking in…and Mom…” Alice shrugged again and looked away.