“Oh, so that’s where you were. Well, that’s good. I’m so glad. I was feeling guilty thinking of Rudy all by himself, but I was helping Mom. All her little details, and that’s when she told me about Ginny, so naturally I wouldn’t leave them alone like that. Actually, I called you a couple of times, but you weren’t home, and, I’m sorry, I know you think it’s quirky, but I’m not good about leaving messages, and then it got too late to keep trying, so that’s why I thought I’d leave a little early this morning and try to catch you before you left for work. It’s just all starting to come too close together. I mean . . .” Her voice broke and she took a deep breath.
Fiona continued to stare.
“Fiona, I asked you not to invite George, and now I find out you went ahead and did anyway. I don’t understand it. I mean, things are complicated enough now. I don’t need George there. I don’t want him there! I absolutely don’t!”
“What do you mean, Lizzie? What’s George got to do with anything else?”
“It’s what I just told you. It’s everything that’s happening. And Mother and Daddy are going to have all those people there, and it’s just all too much tension. They don’t need that!”
“Tension! Because George comes to a party there’s going to be too much tension? What the hell are you talking about, Lizzie? What do you really mean?”
Elizabeth’s mouth trembled. She sat with her head bent. “Please tell him not to come,” she whispered.
“No,” Fiona said, shaking her head. “Not unless you tell me why.”
“Please. Please, I’m begging you, Fiona.” She buried her face in her hands. “You don’t understand. It’s just all too much. It’s all piling up, and I don’t know what to do,” she gasped.
Fiona touched her shoulder. “Why don’t you try just being honest?” she said softly.
Elizabeth’s delicate face shot up from her hands, the perfect, chiseled features cold, tearless, inviolate. “Everything’s always been so easy for you, hasn’t it? You just do what you want, say what you want, go where you want, and you never look back. So you never know how much you hurt people. You have no idea how much damage you do or the harm.”
Fiona picked up her coffee and stood over her. “Get out, Lizzie! And get out fast unless you want this added to that thirty-pound costume you’re wearing.”
Chapter 15
Late afternoon now, it had been a brilliant day, but cold, with an unrelenting bitter wind. Fiona looked up to see Larry Belleau getting out of Patrick’s car that was parked at the curb. Larry leaned back down and said something to Patrick. He turned, then, nodding vigorously, hurried into the coffee shop. He wore only jeans and a T-shirt. His nose and plump cheeks were red from the cold, and he rubbed his big hands together with glassy-eyed excitement. “Fiona! Fiona!” he called, though she stood directly in front of him. “Patrick says come outside quick he wants to talk to you.”
“Larry, what are you doing with Patrick?”
He shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“No!”
Maxine came into the dining room. She glanced warily between Larry’s agitated bulk and the rumbling car in the street, then hurried back into the kitchen.
Fiona stepped closer and lowered her voice. “Have you been smoking or anything?” she asked, certain she could smell the sweet musk of pot.
“Patrick says come out to the car now I’m supposed to tell you that,” he said with a nervous chortle that exploded like a volley of hiccups. “He just wants to talk he said to tell you that he just wants to talk that’s all that’s all he wants. See?” he said, nudging her to the front door. “He’s right there that’s his car right there.”
“I thought you didn’t like Patrick.”
“Well I don’t not when he’s mean I don’t not when he’s mad, but he’s not mad now see? See?” Larry waved, but Patrick didn’t wave back.
“Now we’re friends we’re friends now me and Patrick.” He leaned against the window and waved again. Patrick’s hand lifted in a reluctant salute. “See I told you I told you we’re friends,” he cried, close on her heels as she hurried outside.
Grinning, Patrick rolled down his window. The car reeked of pot.
“Get in! Get in!” he called. “You’ll catch cold.”
She couldn’t, she said, shivering and hugging her arms. She had to help Maxine close up.
“Screw Maxine. I just need to tell you something, that’s all. Just a coupla minutes of your time, that’s all I want.”
“I can’t now, Patrick. I have to finish,” she said, gesturing behind her.
Larry opened the passenger door and Patrick’s head spun around. “You wait out there! I said wait!” he ordered with a slash of his hand.
“But I’m cold I’m really cold,” Larry said, his head and one foot still inside the car. “I’m freezing cold Patrick.”
“Look, I’ll call . . . ,” she started to say.
“I said wait! You wait!” Patrick roared, backhanding the side of Larry’s head. “This’ll only take a minute!” he implored Fiona. “You can give me that much, can’t you? A minute?”
“Hey!” Larry hollered, both hands poulticed against his head. “What’d you do that for I didn’t do anything you said you wanted to be friends!”
“You didn’t have to hit him,” Fiona said. “He’s just cold, that’s all.”
“I know! I know! I’m not thinking straight.” Patrick raked his hands through his unruly hair. “I just need to talk to you, that’s all. And then I’ll be all right. I need to explain. You see it’s not the way you think.”
Larry stood on the sidewalk shouting that if Patrick wouldn’t let him in the car, then he was leaving. “And you can go find out stuff yourself so go ahead just go find out and don’t ask me anymore!”
The coffee shop door opened and Chester rushed out, wiping his hands on his stained white apron. Maxine watched wide-eyed through the window.
“What the hell’s going on? What’s all the yelling for?” Chester glanced between Fiona and Larry, who rushed forward to tell his side of the story. He begged Chester not to call his parents and get him in trouble the way everyone else did. “Don’t please don’t I didn’t do anything honest Chester I didn’t I really really didn’t,” Larry insisted at his elbow. “Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy,” he began to chant as Chester shouted at Fiona.
“What’re you tryna to do to me?” Chester demanded. “I told you. I don’t want that son of a—”
“Go inside. Please, just go inside,” she said.
“No, you go inside!” Chester howled.
Patrick’s door flew open. “Hey Chester!” he called over the top of the car. “You got a problem, you talk to me not her. She didn’t do anything. She’s got nothing to do with this.”
Chester stepped closer. “Why don’t you just get the hell outta here!”
“Hey, I’m not bothering anybody, least of all you, Adenio!” Patrick called, jaw clenched, his eyes narrow and hard.
“Yes you did you bothered me!” Larry howled. “He did he hit me he did!”
“You hit Larry?” Chester shook his head in disgust.
“Look, just go in, Chester, please,” she said. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Take care of it?” Chester scoffed, throwing up his hands. “Jesus Christ! You can’t even take care of yourself!”
Patrick charged onto the sidewalk. Unshaven, he wore the same buttonless plaid shirt and soiled pants as the last time she’d seen him. “Here’s your chance. C’mon, you’ve been wanting this for a long time, so here! Here you go. C’mon!” He put his hand on Chester’s shoulder and pushed him. Chester teetered backwards a few steps.
“Oh my God, I don’t believe this!” She grabbed Patrick’s arm.
With the phone at her ear, Maxine banged frantically on the plate glass window.
“She’s calling the police! Patrick! See! She’s calling the police!” Fiona had to shout before he seemed t
o comprehend.
He stared at her for a moment, his eyes dull and roiling like the sky before a storm.
“Just go!” she said. “Get in the car and go! I’ll call you. I promise. I will. Just go!” she called as she backed toward the coffee shop.
He drove off, tires screeching, his exhaust fumes like cold, oily metal in her mouth.
Maxine still held the phone, though she hadn’t actually called anyone. A police car out front would have been too mortifying.
“It’s the only thing that ever seemed to scare him,” Maxine said when they came inside.
Larry begged Chester not to call his father. “Please don’t please don’t please don’t,” he wheezed, hounding Chester’s every step.
“All right, look, how’s this?” Chester spun around and pointed. “If you don’t shut up, I will call him. You got that?”
Larry looked confused. His face bloated with tears.
“He’s not going to call your dad, Larry, but you have to be quiet,” Fiona explained. “Just don’t talk, okay?”
Nodding, Larry chewed his lip to hold his silence.
She told him to go sit down a minute and then she’d give him a ride home. He scurried into the shadows of the last booth, as far away as he could get from Chester’s tirade.
“That’s it!” Chester cried, flinging a napkin dispenser the length of the room. He threw a stack of menus, and now the place mats Maxine had just folded. He was sick and tired of this place, sick and tired of having to put up with everyone’s troubles all the time. “And what do I get?” he bellowed, pounding his chest. “I ask you, what do I get?”
Maxine locked the front door and turned the Closed sign. “I’m so sick and tired of that long sad face of yours always trying to make me feel guilty,” she said as she advanced on him. “You think you’re the only one that gets tired? You think you’re the only one that works hard? Well guess what. I do too. But I’m sick of your attitude, Chester. I’m damn sick of you acting like you’re doing me some kind of a favor by keeping this place open. So if you want to sell it, you just go right ahead. You just go do what you want, because I don’t care anymore.” She swung on her fur cape and stormed into the kitchen. The back door slammed.
“Oh boy oh boy oh boy,” Larry moaned, biting his lip.
“Shit!” Chester said.
“She’s just upset, that’s all,” Fiona called as he stalked grimly into the kitchen. He was wiping off the workbench when she came in a few minutes later to tell him the front was closed down and all the prep work was finished.
“And I helped too I did,” Larry said, following her in. “I helped clean so don’t be mad please don’t be mad at me please Chester.” He had wiped down the booths and swept the floor.
“Just get the hell out of my kitchen, that’s all I want,” Chester said.
She tossed Larry her keys and told him to wait in her car, she’d be right out.
Chester looked smaller. His pants sagged in folds from his belt. She realized his hair was completely white. The veins in his arms bulged in thick blue knots as he scrubbed the grill. “Aw c’mon, Chester. Don’t be mad, please.” She tried to hug him, but he stiffened and drew back.
“Tell me something. What is it with you? How come you can’t listen to anybody? You think you were born with some kind of special knowledge or something nobody else has? People tell you something out of the goodness of their heart because they care about you, but you don’t listen!” He shook his head in amazement. “You don’t ever listen! What are you trying to prove with him anyway?”
“I’m not going to talk about this with you,” she said.
“Good, then maybe you’ll listen for once, because I’m going to tell you something. Stay away from Patrick Grady! He’s going to hurt you!”
“Come on, Chester!” She rolled her eyes. “It’s the not same as Maxine. He’s my father, for godsakes!”
“It doesn’t matter who you say he is, or who he says he is. What matters is what he is. And that’s evil.”
“He’s not evil,” she scoffed. “He’s just all messed up. It’s from the war. He can’t help it.”
“I was in a war! I was in the fucking Korean War, in a Chinese prison camp! Jesus Christ! I mean there’s still times I wake up and I’m so scared, my heart’s pounding. I just lay there looking around all confused because I don’t know what the hell’s going on or where I am. All I can think is, maybe I’m still there, how do I know? But Christ, I always get a fucking grip on myself! I mean, who the hell’s he?”
“But they were two different wars. It’s not the same.”
“No, it’s the same! I don’t buy that whiny, weak-kneed crap!”
“But there’s certain things in Patrick’s life he just can’t get over no matter how hard he tries.”
“Yah, like beating on women.” He stared at her for a moment. “Tell me something, did you ever think maybe the reason your mother took off was because of something he did to her? And that’s why she stayed away all this time. You ever think of that?”
“What? What do you mean, something he did?” She had to keep wetting her lips.
“Like maybe he hurt her or something.” The blackened steel wool dripped grease each time he dunked it into his pail of ammonia water.
“What do you mean, hurt her? Hurt her how?”
There was only the steady grate of metal scraping metal as he kept scrubbing.
“I don’t know,” he finally answered. “I don’t know what I mean. All I know is one day Natalie Range was here and then she wasn’t.” He turned. “I’ve never seen anybody so scared as Maxine is of him. She told me once, that time he beat her so bad, she knew he was trying to kill her. He started choking her and he whispered how easy it would be, how all it would take was just a little more pressure and then it’d all be over. I keep thinking of that.”
“Yah, but you’re forgetting one thing.” She wagged her finger and forced a smile. “I talked to my mother. She called me. I told you that. Last summer.”
Chester took a deep breath, his heavy eyes probing hers; they seemed to know, to ask, but did she? Did she really, Fiona?
“So you can just forget about that sick idea.” She sighed and pulled her coat off the hook, believing the lie now herself, because she had to, because for everything to work and all the parts to fit, it couldn’t be any other way.
“I wish I could.” He resumed his gritty scrubbing.
The Belleaus had moved from Dearborn to Middleton a few years ago. Larry didn’t like it there because of the way people treated him, like he was retarded or something, so whenever he wanted to see his friends he always had to hitch rides into Dearborn, he was telling Fiona now as he bent close to her radio and fiddled with the dial. He was trying to get WBZN because the Rude Dog Boys were supposed to be on at five-fifteen. “You like them?” he asked, his ear pressed to the speaker. He’d almost had the station.
“I don’t know,” she said absently. Chester’s words swirled in her head. She kept thinking of Patrick’s hands on her neck, but he’d been trying to kiss her, not hurt her. Donna Drouin said he had chopped off her mother’s hair, so brutally hacking it there had been cuts on her scalp. But if that were true, why hadn’t anyone ever told her before?
“There! There! Can you hear them? Listen!” Larry sat back, grinning as hoarse wails filled the car with indecipherable lyrics and pounding music. High school music, she thought, as his hand kept time on his beefy thigh. After the first song she turned it down.
“Hey!” he protested. “This is my favorite one.” He began to sing. ‘Doomsday’s the good way. Doomsday’s my one way . . .’” He turned and pointed. “‘To die for you!’” he sang so loudly he was shouting. “‘Die! Die! Die, you foolish fool!’”
“Nice!” she called over to him. “Nice creepy song, Larry.”
He gave her a sullen look. “They’re good,” he muttered. “Just ’cause you don’t like ’em doesn’t mean they’re not good you know.”
“That’s true,” she said. She patted his hand and smiled.
He grinned. “I like you, Fiona.”
“Thanks, Larry. I like you too.”
“I know you never act like I’m a jerk or anything.”
“Well, you’re not!”
He laughed. “Yah well I am,” he said, nodding in time to the music. “I didn’t used to be but I am I am now!”
“No, you’re not. But sometimes you just try too hard, that’s all. You don’t have to make people like you, Larry. They either do or they don’t.”
“Listen!” He leaned forward as the next song began. “This is the best one the one I love this one’s my favorite favorite one.”
In high school Larry had been one of the sharpest guys in the class. When a lot of other people distanced themselves from Fiona and Todd, pronouncing them druggies on a downward slide, Larry had stayed a good friend, straight as he was. There had been more than a few nights when they were both so stoned or smashed that Larry had to drive them home.
“There that’s the one!” he cried, pointing to the sign ahead. “That’s my street.”
“Larry,” she said, slowing before the turn. “You still haven’t told me. What were you doing with Patrick?”
“Nothing!” he said quickly. “Just riding around that’s all and Patrick likes the Rude Dog Boys he does he likes them now I told him all about them and now he likes them too.”
“So what were you two talking about?” she called over the music.
“You.” He slapped his thigh with both hands now and rocked back and forth.
“Me? What about me?”
“He asked me about the party that time at Tim and Terry’s.” He looked away.
“What? What did he want to know?”
“You know.” He stared down at his lap.
“No. No, I don’t. Tell me.”
“He asked me if you were in the pool without any clothes and I said ‘I don’t know I think so.’” He glanced at her. “‘Maybe,’ I said so then he said ‘Well what about you, Larry, did you have any clothes on?’ And I told him I said ‘I think so.’” He winced and his jowls quivered as he shook his head. “But we didn’t did we?”
Fiona Range Page 31
