The Done Thing

by Tracy Manaster

  I told you I was smart. I’ve been telling you all along. But you are not so very smart, Lida. You forget I’ve got plenty of dead time to pick over our conversation. That and reread all those very friendly letters. You slipped up, Auntie Li. I’m not going to tell you how. I know you, Big Sis. Trying to work out your mistake should just about kill you.

  It was good talking you, Lida. Really, just great. Fantastic hearing your voice. I could tell just by listening you really don’t want to say a word against me at my clemency hearing. You’ve had such a long time to think things over. You’ve had a massive change of heart. You want to stand beside me. Say we’re all human here and forgiving’s the best part of being human. You could say it a lot better than that, of course. I had a penpal once. She had the prettiest way with words.

  You don’t know me very well at all, Lida Stearl. You don’t know how badly I want to keep all this from Pamela. Like you said on the phone, you’re the one she comes to when the shit hits. I can only imagine how learning something bad about you would gut her. I hope I don’t have to tell her. You don’t know me, but I bet you understand me.

  I thank you, truly, for the use of the enclosed. I got a lot of mileage out of it. Whoever that pink girl was, she is very, very pretty.

  38.

  The baby wreaked havoc on Pam’s nose. She couldn’t stand the scent of her own hair. One week she said it smelled of boiled cauliflower. Another, of envelope glue. Then came aerosol cheese. A really wet sweater. When a series of shampoos—including the hypoallergenic bottle I bought special—failed to fix it, Pamela had all her curls hacked off. You look so modern, I always made sure to coo. That, or: it must be a blessing in this heat. Never: Pammie, you look good, you look cute, absolutely darling. You might tell her about Maisie at any time. I couldn’t afford to tell Pam more lies. I panicked every Thursday, knowing you two would talk. My stomach only settled after I got her Friday-on-the-way-to-work call. It didn’t help that Pamela got steadily crankier. She even snapped at Kath. Pregnancy swallowed her face. She hardly looked like anyone I knew.

  She was in her twenty-sixth week when the Supreme Court—as we all fully expected it to—declined to hear your certiorari review and remanded you to Stemble Complex, Arizona State Prison for death by lethal injection. My lawyer phoned with the news. The State of Arizona gave you one week to prepare for your clemency hearing.

  I hung up the phone. I had to get to Riverview. I nearly forgot to lock my front door. What I would do was kneel. Right by your mother’s bed, as long as my poor knees could bear it. Kneel until words came. Marjorie, I won’t be visiting for this next bit. I’m going on a little trip. On my trip I might be seeing Clarence. Probably, definitely will be seeing Clarence. Your mother might let slip some way around your threat.

  Your mother might have some last thing she wanted you to hear. Call-Me-Art was on shift. He waved. His watch was a size or so too big. “We never see you Mondays!” He checked a master schedule. “Ms. Margie’s in PT. You want to wait?”

  “She’s where?” All of these Riverview people called her “Margie.”

  “Physical therapy. She can almost stand on her own.”

  “Do you know everything about everybody? Right off the top of your head?”

  “Just my favorites. She’ll be done in fifteen, twenty minutes.”

  “I’m in a rush. I’m planning a trip.”

  “How nice.”

  “What if we took Marjorie along?” A good idea. I should have thought it sooner; I’d had all these months to plan. You would have to be grateful, Clarence, seeing your mother one last time. You’d owe me. Big.

  “I’m not sure she’s—”

  “I know she’d want to come.” I wouldn’t have to be the one who told her. I wouldn’t have to find something in that room to look at instead of her face. Her pale slack dough face. They never let her out in the sun. In Arizona I would be vigilant about sunscreen.

  “You’d really need to talk to her doctors.”

  “It’s a family trip.”

  “Even so. Do you want some water or something while you wait?”

  “We’re going to see her son.”

  “That’s great.”

  I wanted to shake him.

  I wanted to thunder his brain about his skull.

  “It isn’t great. It isn’t. And you are lousy at this job.”

  “Sorry?” He blinked, confused.

  “You haven’t checked my ID in ages. What if I used a fake one? I could be anybody. I could be out to get her.”

  “Ma’am.” That ma’am again. That word for women who were impotent as ghosts. “You’re a regular. I always check out the new—”

  “We aren’t even family, Marjorie and I. We aren’t even friends. You should have stopped me coming.” I shouldn’t be the one to tell her. I shouldn’t even be someone who cared.

  “You’re here all the time. And the nurses say she’s so much better days after—”

  “Don’t tell her that I came here. Don’t tell her about my trip.” Nobody cared in the world. Nobody was even smart. Nobody but me, and I was nothing but a coward. “Don’t you say a word about her son.” Call-Me-Art just let me walk away. If I ever came back, no one would stop my seeing her. All the fuss and bother about my ID, about Kath’s. Nobody would have stopped me to begin with. No one would stop me, not now, not ever.

  The way people got away with things.

  I had to speak against you. My sister was dead. My baby sister.

  You reached a long claw out to Pam. There’d be no getting her back if you told.

  I couldn’t speak.

  I should.

  I drove back to my side of the river. I spent the day on the phone. I booked three plane tickets, double-checking the airline could accommodate Seshet. I reserved a rental car to take us to Judith, Arizona, and two rooms at the Great Western Touristay. Last-minute rates didn’t come cheap. The phone woman got a bit short with me when I tried to explain that Pammie was pregnant and would be so much more comfortable sitting on the bulkhead.

  I went to the bank. It’s generally best to travel with cash. But we’d be walking into a prison. Travelers cheques were a safer bet. I had the teller let me into our safety deposit box. Pamela and I might need our birth certificates to be admitted to the prison. I took Barbra’s birth and death certificates too, and every scrap of paper associated with my legal guardianship, in the event I was called upon for proof. I fingered the photograph of Hyun-Ay. I had remembered the dimensions wrong. It was a proper shot, three by five. In my mind I had shrunk it to wallet-sized. The safe also held a velvet jeweler’s case that for generations had housed the Haas pearls. My mother’s mother married in those pearls, my mother did, and I did, and Barbra. We buried her in them. I never wanted them on the neck of another bride. I opened the case. The velvet thud carried through the vault. Against the old black lining, Pamela’s baby teeth gleamed. I counted them. Each was still very white, with a brown poppy seed dot where the root had once dug in. I took the box away with me, Hyun-Ay tucked away amongst the teeth. I don’t know what I’d been thinking, leaving them so long in the dark.

  I packed underwear enough for ten days, toothbrush and floss, a sealed tube of paste. I transferred shampoo and conditioner into travel bottles. Estée Lauder had discontinued the lipstick—Plumflower—I’d worn at Barbra’s funeral, but I’d hoarded my last tube. I packed nine unopened pairs of stockings, six black, three taupe. Summer slacks in navy, khaki, and gray. Blouses that matched the pants and were conservative enough to meet Stemble’s specifications. A light jacket; the desert could be cool at night. Cotton pajamas and my thick robe. I needed a second suitcase. Deodorant. My three most comfortable pumps, my two favorite photographs of Barbra, the jewel case of Pam’s teeth. A first-aid kit, complete with Band-Aids and aspirin, though Pamela probably shouldn’t take one without a doctor’s say-so. Two knee-length slips. A raincoat because one never knows. A sewing kit. A blow dryer and bobby pins. Travel alarm clock an
d extra batteries. Good black gloves.

  My three execution suits, thoroughly pressed, got a garment bag all their own.

  Kath volunteered as airport chauffeur. She came for me at the townhouse first. I sat behind her, leaving the front for one of the kids. Her shirt tag was turned out. A brand with which I was unfamiliar. Blue and Pamela had over-packed too, three full suitcases between them. Kath called Pamela her poor sweetpea. She kissed Blue on both cheeks. She told me that I went with love and, though it sounded like the earnest salutation of a yoga teacher, I felt it and embraced her. Kath insisted on unloading all our bags herself. She waited until we were well inside the airport before driving away. All the airport people stared. A blind man, a pregnant lady, and an orthodontist get on a plane. We’d make the start of a terrific joke.

  Our stewardess had extraordinary silent film star eyebrows. Pamela claimed an aisle seat—the baby made her bladder ridiculous—and Blue insisted I take the window, saying it would be wasted on him. Seshet settled down at his feet. We were fifteen minutes waiting on the runway. Pamela studied the emergency instructions, rapt, like she expected her life would at some point hinge on them. She still read with a finger to guide her. It traced a line from one laminated disaster to the next.

  I have never been an easy flyer. My breakfast rose a little during takeoff. The captain announced our cruising altitude. It would be a sunny ninety-two in Arizona. Only a few broken clouds.

  “We had a swing set in Arizona,” Pam said, apropos of nothing and with great authority.

  “You barely had a yard.”

  “I remember swings. I remember him behind me, pushing me high. She was there too, in front of me, acting like she wanted to catch my feet and gobble them up. She was making faces. It’s the only time I can think of that I remember them both at once. She had these shiny red apples hanging from her ears.”

  “Earrings.” Silly things for back-to-school. A plastic worm wearing a mortarboard emerged from one of the pair. They’d gone straight to Goodwill. Of all the things for Pam to remember.

  She shifted, grinding her back deep into her seat. “I know they were earrings. I haven’t been going around all my life thinking my mother was a tree.” Pam leaned her seatback down, squirmed a little, then popped it back into place. She took a swig from the enormous bottle of water Kath had pressed on her. Her bra strap slid down her shoulder and she shrugged it back up. I ordered tomato juice and the little stewardess brought me a Bloody Mary mix. The salt in it had me thirstier than I’d been to begin with. Blue began a very long and very boring story about all his childhood vacations. Kath never booked all her children on the same flight, just in case the worst happened. One Florida trip involved five separate drives to the airport. I liked Kath but would never understand her. Families would be so much easier if they all could wink out at once.

  The stewardess handed out crackers and sweaty cheese.

  The pilot suggested we look to the right for a clear view of Albuquerque. We were on the left side, but I looked anyhow. “I can’t see the city, but the land is really brown. We’re getting close.” I said this more for Blue than Pam. We were all powerless, javelining through the sky. But Blue more than anyone had to sit strapped and trust that we were going where we were meant to.

  They sent a different stewardess to collect our wrappers.

  “I see the highway,” I said, “we’re nearly there. I see trucks.”

  Blue nodded.

  “We’re passing over something green. A park. Pammie, maybe your swings were there. No, it’s a golf course. There’s a sand trap. And there’s a track and some bleachers. A high school.” Maybe it was Folsom High, which had been in one of the northwest suburbs. Could be, if the plane had circled a little on its approach. That parking lot behind the bleachers. My sister and Lawrence Ring leaving separately for their clandestine lunch. How many times had they done that without a hitch? Barbra’s voice in one of those classrooms. What you do to one side of an equation you have to do to the other. Her hands at the end of the day, wiping chalk dust on her skirt. “Ooh. We’re flying over a rich neighborhood now. Everyone has pools. And that looks like a shopping center. The lot’s almost full. Wait. It’s airport parking. I see people with their suitcases, going back to their cars.” When we took Pam home from Arizona she had a window seat. I told her to keep an eye out for the arch. She squeaked and pointed when it appeared. She spoke for the first time that flight: I see the arch, I see the river, I see houses, the road, cars. I see somebody down there, I see a person.

  Then she stopped talking.

  Barbra was dead only sixteen days. This was the first time I let myself hope. Her daughter would come out right. Pam’s counting game ended with people. There was nothing worth tallying beyond that; people were her base unit.

  So I stopped speaking at people too, though I knew everyone down there had their purses and wallets, their house keys, their cares.

  We were flying the same airline as last time. And here I was, echoing Pam, like her words had waited here all along, ready to be spoken again. But life isn’t bookends, not unless you make them. And this couldn’t possibly be the same plane. With all those souls we trusted them to lift up, surely airplanes were retired at the barest hint of age.

  39.

  The Great Western Touristay was the better of the two motels in Judith, Arizona. Thirty-odd tourist cabins horseshoed around a swimming pool, its water so blue it seemed to steal whatever color had originally been allotted its surroundings. Every building stood squat and square, adobes, dust covered, or at least the color of dust. We parked. Pam had insisted we get a second rental car, in case we were needed in different places. She and Blue followed me the whole way to Judith. Only I had thought to plot a route in advance.

  The girl who checked us in had very blonde hair that fell past her shoulders from a very dark center part. She didn’t ask if we were having nice days. She knew better. Stemble was her town’s principal source of revenue. For an extra nineteen bucks a night she’d sign us out a microwave. For an extra twelve, a hot plate. When we declined, she recommended the Gecko Canteen. Her little sister waitressed there. We should say hi for her when we went.

  Pam asked if we had any messages. The strain of all this had rattled out her common sense. “He won’t know we’re here yet. And the Touristay’s not on his call list,” I reminded her as gently as I could.

  The polite dimensions of the desk clerk’s smile did not change in the least. But something uncomfortable had come to it. This bleached girl—who had a sister of her own—knew now why we’d come to Judith.

  She handed over actual room keys, not those new programmable passcards. I reminded Pam to check under her bed. To pat down the curtains and make sure there was no lurker in the closet or the tub. Standard precautions, but triply important in a prison town. I watched her room till I saw curtains rustle. She’d listened.

  My own room would be serviceable enough for the duration. A thorough inspection yielded nothing more threatening than soap. It smelled vaguely of dust, bright flecks of which were suspended in the light from the window. I tied back the curtain. I saw Pamela come out of her room. She went straight to the pool. I didn’t even know she owned a maternity swimsuit, let alone had the foresight to pack it.

  My AC unit was beneath the window. I turned it to blasting. We’d phoned in a reservation; they really should have cooled our rooms in advance. My suitcase zipper snagged. I’d overstuffed. My suits were already rumpled. A clever little ironing board hung over the bathroom door. For the life of me, I couldn’t find an iron.

  I walked out into the shimmering heat. Blue had joined Pamela at the pool. There were no patio chairs, so he sat right at the edge, pants rolled up, one foot in the water.

  “Pamela, did you find an iron in your room?”

  Blue answered. They hadn’t, but they hadn’t looked. Beside him, Seshet didn’t so much as try to drink the pool water. Even for her, the color was much too much.

  “We need
to look neat for tomorrow,” I said. “It’s a court of law. How would it look if we can’t manage to dress ourselves?”

  “Lida, will you please just be quiet? You’re throwing off my count.” Pam flipped over for backstroke. Her stomach bobbled with her like a buoy. It’s not a vacation, I wanted to say, what do you think you’re doing in this pool? I watched her swim a few more laps, then went in to the desk.

  The clerk was busy with another customer. He hulked over the desk, blocking her completely from view. The dark stripes of his suit might just as well be wallpaper, they covered such a vast expanse of back. Even with the air conditioning I was sweating in my cap sleeves. With that jacket he must be fairly drowning.

  The clerk peered around his arm.

  “Iron?” I asked.

  He turned. The thick stack of extra towels she had handed him seemed little more than washcloths. He bowed, slightly. The gesture was not in the least deferential. He wore all that weight like it was some new kind of armor.

  Well. I couldn’t rightly expect a paid attorney-at-law to bunk down at the Sleep Rite.

  “Six bucks,” the clerk said, “a day.”

  “I’ll need one for tomorrow.” I looked right at him. And, Clarence, I didn’t blush at all. Your lawyer moved toward the door, jangling his room key. I refused to step aside for him, though at his approach I felt puny as a doll. I asked the clerk her sister’s name. I asked her loud enough for him to hear.

  I watched him stop at the pool. Blind man and pregnant girl, how many pairs like that could there be in Judith? I stood at the glass door and watched him introduce himself. I stood silent. And I thought for a moment that maybe silence would be enough for you. You’d let me keep Pam. I just wouldn’t speak tomorrow. Not a word. All would be well, and it wouldn’t hurt Barbra, not much, Barbra who was far beyond my helping.

  I saw Pamela slosh out of the water at his introduction. He looked smaller at the pool with no furniture around to provide a sense of scale. He gave Pam a hand up. His grip turned to a proper shake. Pamela’s wet limbs glinted. And it wasn’t fair, him with the full heft of pinstripes and her in that Lycra bubble of a maternity suit. The swerve of her body, the shine on her skin, she looked blown from glass.