Tessa thought she might choke. “Do you have some water?”
Madame Marguerite hurried over to the sink and brought her back a glass. “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine,” she said.
“OK, tell me, what is it about your health that concerns you?”
“I’m not able to eat, if that’s what you mean. I’m not sleeping very well, either.”
“There is someone in your life you are having trouble communicating with?”
“I think I get it,” said Tessa. “You could ask these questions of anyone.”
“I am asking them of you. Only you.”
“Where are you from?” asked Tessa.
“Colorado,” she said. “Southern part. This here”—she ran a finger across Tessa’s palm—“this is the head line. Very important. Yours is broken, right here.”
“I have a broken head line?”
“Exactly.” She leaned back in her chair. “There was your life before today, and then there is your life after today. Think hard. There is no future. But from today, every choice you make can shape the next present. Does this make sense?”
“And that’s not the future?”
“I told you, there is no future. If you want, I can get out a crystal ball. I have a crystal ball. Children like to see it.”
Tessa bit at her lip. Madame Marguerite came around to comfort her, putting an arm around her shoulder. “Your problem is to do with your child. I see that. She is sick, isn’t she?”
“I don’t know why I came,” said Tessa. “I’m sorry.” She got up to go.
“The reading isn’t over,” said Madame Marguerite.
But Tessa was already hurrying out the door.
Emily, she thought, bypassing God entirely. I know you can hear me. Everything is going to be OK.
A dark cloud had settled over the peak. In front of the Antlers Hotel, a clown was making balloon animals. She wandered toward her car, picking up her pace when she saw a woman in a uniform getting ready to write her up for an expired meter. “No!” she shouted. “I’m here!”
At the airport, she put her car in long-term parking and rode the shuttle bus to the terminal. It was raining on the mountain, but to the east it was a hot, sunny day, two realities coexisting, as in a dream. She had an hour to kill, so she bought a paper, ordered a coffee at the snack bar, sat down, and pretended to read. The terminal air smelled like something sprayed out of a can. A man with a string tie and a cowboy hat asked if she were alone, said maybe he could join her.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “I’m married.”
“Didn’t mean it that way,” he said. “Only how you looked like you could use a doughnut, go with that coffee. Bartender.” He raised a hand. “Couple of your finest doughnuts.”
“What do you do?” she said, after the doughnuts had arrived.
“Manufacture tubing,” he said.
“Like for the inside of tires?”
“Nope. More like custom tubing—aluminum. You heard of a Blackhawk helicopter? Well, they couldn’t fly one of those things without our tubing. We got tubing that’s on space shuttles. Discovery and Columbia. What happened to Columbia, that was foam breaking off and hitting the ship. I guarantee you, the tubing, which is internal, by the way, was fine straight on through.”
“Not something I ever gave much thought to.”
“Well, you wouldn’t. Most people don’t.” He moved his chair a little closer to hers. “Say, it wouldn’t be too forward of me to ask if I might have a little dunk, would it?” He held out a broken-off piece of his cruller. “You mind?”
Against her better judgment, she let him. He dipped the pastry into her cup, held it there for a moment, then extracted it and slipped it quickly into his mouth. She figured him for about forty, and his smoky blue eyes weren’t unappealing. He dipped again.
“Nothing like a good dunk,” he said.
“You can have the rest,” she said, pushing the cup toward him. “I didn’t want it in the first place.”
He smiled at her. “Then I guess a blow job would be out of the question?”
She jumped up, grabbed her bag and newspaper, and walked quickly to the gate area, where she seated herself beside an elderly woman in a pink pantsuit who was talking loudly on a cell phone.
She had a broken head line. Perhaps people could sense this about her.
Tessa got out her own cell phone and began to dial David’s number, but then stopped. Supposedly he’d gone hiking. She didn’t know what was right anymore. When she was with him, she thought one way, by herself, another. He was a cheating bastard—she understood this. But he was her bastard. She’d promised God, she’d promised Jesus, she’d promised her parents, she’d promised herself. Her marriage wasn’t just some part of her life, her marriage was her life. If she lost Emily and then lost David, what would she have left? And yet, if she spoke to him, she might never get on the plane. Instead, she called the house and left a message on the machine. She’d be back in two days. There were frozen pizzas in the freezer, or he might even want to pick up something from Szechuan Dragon. She’d try to call again soon.
Inside the BWI terminal, it was noisy, people seemed to speak another language entirely, and every other face was dark. She felt completely out of her element, and it made her worry even more about Emily and what had happened, how she might have already changed into someone unfamiliar. What did she know about people like this? Her life so far had been clean and tidy and American, and yet it had somehow led her here, to this chaos.
When they’d come back from Bear Mountain, it had been in silence. At the house, he’d gone off alone, slept downstairs. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking—she never had been able to, only now it scared her. She hadn’t seen him at all yesterday—he’d worked, and then his band had had a gig up in Littleton. Robin called in the afternoon and told her that Landis was in Baltimore, and after hanging up Tessa made herself an omelet and some bacon, poured herself a glass of milk. She sat at their kitchen table and ate as slowly and deliberately as she could, forcing it down. She needed her strength. Her body was starting to consume itself, she was convinced. When she was done, she cleaned up the dishes and called Baltimore information to inquire about people named Click. Bernice, who had been living in Atlanta before coming to stay with them, had always been mysterious about her past. There were two listings, so she just chose one. She got Bernice’s father on the first try. “Of course,” he said, after she’d explained who she was. “I understand completely.” Then he gave her another number.
It took Tessa a while to get up the courage to make the call. For much of the afternoon, she stared at the number. And then finally, she dialed it. “Bernice?” she said. “Bernice? Is that you?” For just that moment, she felt the two of them connected not just by a stream of electrons passing through phone lines but also by a mutual cord of love, anger, and regret. Finally, Bernice hung up. When Tessa tried back, the phone just rang and rang.
And then, at last, she’d gotten to speak to her.
She got on line for a cab and had the driver take her to a cheap hotel a few blocks up from the inner harbor. Her driver was Pakistani or Indian or something, intent on being a cheery tour guide, and she barely heard a thing he said, other than that the brother of the new president of Afghanistan owned a restaurant in town. There were strange characters hanging around in the shadows around the hotel entrance, but the doorway itself was bright and the glass and chrome polished and inviting, the entrance floor a pink marble. She announced her presence to the receptionist, presented a credit card, and was given a room on the sixth floor. Once inside, she called Bernice’s number, but the phone just rang. After counting to twenty, she hung up and sank into the desk chair, which smelled of old cigarette smoke and Lysol. Then she found Donald Click’s number and dialed it.
In the huge, dark apartment, she sat on the sofa. She was surprised at how old Donald Click was, given Bernice’s age.
He’d poured her a gin
ger ale, though he was drinking scotch, and there was jazz music playing. She thought she could hear the sound of a television coming from the other room, too. This seemed a strange way to live.
“I’m very sorry,” he said. “You’re obviously in distress. At least you can feel better knowing that Pearl is just fine—I’ve seen her and I can attest to it.”
“Emily,” said Tessa. “Her name is Emily. After my grandmother.”
“Well, the kid I met goes by Pearl,” he said.
Her eyes wandered to a painting on the wall—it looked like someone had lobbed paint at the canvas from a distance, then scratched it off with a rake.
“That’s mine,” he said.
“It’s nice.”
He sipped his drink. “My wife—Bernice’s mother—had what she called her purple days. A purple day could come along just about any time, and there was no real predictor. And on those days, well, let’s just say she was unreasonable. It was very hard on me, and on Bernice. Eve—that was her name—left us. In the long run, I think it was better for everyone.”
“I’m not sure I understand what you are saying.”
“Bernice has it, too, whatever it is. Purple days. It’s in her eyes, that distant look she’ll sometimes get. This isn’t supposed to be an excuse. I’m just telling you.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Emily.” She thought about how the child talked to herself, how she sometimes got up in the middle of the night and wandered the house. But these things were all normal enough—she’d asked their pediatrician. She’d checked the books, like a responsible mother. And not just the ones David had bought her, Raising an Angel and The Godly Child, but Dr. Spock, too.
“I’m sure you’re right.” Loud voices suddenly started up outside the window, and he pointed. “Look,” he said. “You can see their legs.”
She watched. Just visible through the partially closed slats of the blinds, two pairs of legs, one male, one female, had paused on the sidewalk outside. The man was angrily berating the woman about something.
“I’m the troll under the bridge. It’s better than reality TV. Last night, a man drank two whole pints of vodka out there—I found the empties this morning. Talked to himself the entire time, too. Kept saying, ‘I told you it wasn’t like that, but you wouldn’t listen. Why wouldn’t you listen?’”
“That’s—I don’t think I could live like that.”
“I’ve decided it’s a privilege. Everything is perspective, you know.”
“Who do you think he was talking to?”
“His wife? The president? Who knows? Just someone who wouldn’t listen. I sympathize with him. I feel like I’ve been talking to myself my whole life.” He gave her a sort of half smile.
Tessa thought he was attractive. She also saw that his age difference must have made it almost impossible for him to relate to Bernice after his marriage broke up. Her own parents were older, too—her father retired air force, her mother a silent homemaker who’d had Tessa when she was forty. Tessa hadn’t mentioned anything to them yet about Emily’s disappearance because she knew what they’d think, which was that she’d somehow misplaced her, like the bicycle they’d bought her for her twelfth birthday, which she’d left outside school the next day, walking home instead, because that was what she always did. When she’d remembered a few hours later and hurried back, it was gone, its chain lock cut, and nothing around but a few gum wrappers in the dirt.
“I’d like to know where they are,” she said.
He tore a yellow sheet of paper off a small pad and wrote something on it. “Here’s the address. I’m selling the house. That’s what I say, anyway. I haven’t contacted a broker. You get attached to things, you know? But it’s my retirement, so I’ll probably have to cash in soon enough. I said she could stay there for a while, just until she gets herself sorted out. I suppose you’ve got papers, or whatever, on the child?”
“We don’t want to have to go through with all of that. Or I don’t, anyway. I’m just hoping she’ll listen to reason.”
“Oh, sure,” he said. “That sounds like Bernice.”
After she used his phone to call again, and there was still no answer, he called her a cab. This driver was foreign looking, dark, and didn’t talk at all. His radio was tuned to a station in what she guessed was some African language. On the ride north, she passed handsome old stone row homes, a lively area of bars and restaurants, a man playing the ukulele at a bus stop. There was a grand train station, and then the neighborhood grew quickly more dilapidated, some of the buildings still massive, but clearly no longer in use. She saw signs for fried chicken and something called lake trout, and there were other signs in what she thought might be Korean. They passed houses with boards in their windows and concrete where the doors had been, an ancient pharmacy advertising patent medicines, the Anointed Hands of Perfection Beauty Parlor, and a vertical yellow sign that read, simply, “Afro-American.” Then they were in a more residential section again, with three-story houses and porches. The driver made a turn and then another. Finally, they pulled up in front of the address and she found some money in her purse.
Excited to be so close, in spite of her exhaustion, she waved to the driver that she was fine, and the cab pulled back out into traffic and disappeared up the block. She mounted the steps to the front porch, noting the peeling paint and sagging wood. As she stood staring at the door, trying to get up the nerve to press the bell, she heard voices behind her.
They all froze for a moment, a tableau of uncertainty: Bernice a bright-eyed, hard-bodied, punk-looking girl in jeans and a green top that left a suggestive few inches of stomach exposed; Landis, earnest and bearlike in jeans and a work shirt; Emily a tiny exclamation mark of attention, her thin legs emerging from oversized blue shorts, her T-shirt decorated with the cartoon image of a one-eyed man with an enormous moustache. Emily came rushing toward her, arms outstretched, and Bernice turned and ran away up the street.
“Hey!” Landis shouted after her.
“Sweetheart,” said Tessa, hugging Emily. She held her out to look at her, then hugged her again. Her face was dirty and her nose needed a wipe, but otherwise, she seemed just fine. “Oh,” she said. “Oh.”
“We had chocolate ice cream,” said Emily.
“Go after her,” said Tessa to Landis, wrapping the child even tighter in her arms, happy at the familiar way Emily’s head locked into the space between her head and shoulder. “It’s all right.”
Landis was still standing at the gate. “I should probably stay here.”
“I won’t do anything,” said Tessa. “You go on. Where do you think she went?”
“I don’t know.” He kicked at the sidewalk. “How do I know you don’t have a cab coming?”
“The cab left. It’s just me. Emily and I will stay here, I promise. Can you let us in?”
He shook his head. “Bernice has the key. Unless she’s got one. Emily?”
“Bernice has the key,” Emily said, pulling away.
“OK, then,” said Landis, uneasily. “I’ll be right back.” He took off jogging in the direction that Bernice had gone.
“We can sit on the steps,” said Emily, the proud owner of all of this, ready to show it off. Tessa sat down next to her, taking her hand.
“I’ve been so worried. Are you sure you’re all right?” She found a Kleenex in her pocket and wiped at the chocolate on Emily’s cheek. Then she held it to her nose for her to blow, which she did.
“I had an inspection in my ear. But I took drops.”
“Let me see?” She peered in. “Nope. No inspection that I can make out.”
“It’s gone, now. It wasn’t a demon.”
“I hope not.” Tessa hugged her again, her eyes filling with tears. She kissed her neck, her ears. Finally, she let her go. “You’re coming home with me. Back home.” She sniffed and peered up the block, but there was still no sign of Bernice and Landis. She could, of course, grab Emily and find another cab, just make a run for it right
now, in spite of her promise, and whether or not Emily wanted to come. They’d had battles of will before. Last spring, Emily had gone through a period with her Veggie Tales videos when she simply wouldn’t stop watching, and David had finally had to lift her and carry her into her bedroom, screaming. For a while, she’d wanted a dog—one of the neighbors had recently purchased a puppy—and when they told her no, she’d refused to eat for an entire day. “You want to, right? You want to come home with me?”
“Of course,” she said.
“I promise that sometimes in the future you can come and visit Bernice. OK?”
Before she could answer, they were rejoined by Landis, who was out of breath and sweating.
“She’s heading to the coffee shop. She says she won’t come back until you’re gone.” Tessa was pretty sure this was the same person she’d seen back in the Springs. There was something off kilter about his face, as if the two sides hadn’t been aligned quite right. He looked strong. “Just you, I mean.” He nodded at Emily. “She’s supposed to stay.”
“Supposed to?”
He looked somewhat embarrassed. “Yeah.”
“I need to talk to her,” Tessa said. “Where’s this coffee shop?”
“Around the corner.” He dug the key out his pocket. “At least I can let us in now. We’ll call you a cab.”
“I can find it myself if you won’t tell me.”
“You’ll see it. I don’t know what it’s called—Lucky’s, Louie’s, Lovers. Something.”
Tessa kissed Emily on the forehead. “Do you want to come?”
“Yes,” said Emily.
It was Lucille’s. She found Bernice seated at a table in the very back, staring at a brownie. “Hello,” she said. She helped Emily into a seat.
“Hello, yourself,” said Bernice, clearly sulking. “She likes me more.”
“This isn’t a contest. And anyway, that’s not true.”
“Is. Ask her. I’m teaching her devil worship. We read Harry Potter together, and next week we’re getting matching tattoos that say Darwin, with little feet.”
Hot Springs Page 18
