by Nevada Barr
“Then you just stopped calling or coming over. You didn’t answer your phone or your doorbell.”
“I don’t remember any of that,” Rose admits.
“Then you tanked. The cops called. They’d got Dad’s cell number from your phone. They’d found you in your car, just sitting stopped in the middle of an intersection, traffic honking and whizzing all around. You didn’t know where you were.”
Rose bites back a sob. She sits at the edge of a midnight sea; the receding wave drags sand from beneath her.
“You quit talking. You just stared. It was totally creepy. That’s when Dad and the doctors decided you should be put someplace they could take care of you. He wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t have to. We wanted you here, but I’m a kid, and Uncle Daniel isn’t all that grown up, and running trade shows keeps Dad on the road a lot.”
It warms Rose that they had wanted her.
“Longwood was close, and Dad knew about it from an advertisement they sent out. He checked it out, and that was that.” Melanie returns to an upright position. Her eyes leave Rose’s face after a moment and return to studying the candle flame.
That was that, Rose thinks. She’d been acting oddly, she was found confused in an intersection, did not speak, and was totally creepy.
“Should I go get Uncle Daniel?” Mel asks.
Rose does not want to put her fate in the hands of Uncle Daniel. Rose has been declared, and proved, incapable of taking care of herself. Should she be delivered back into the hands of the authorities, she will lose the fragile autonomy she’s fought so hard to win.
The fact that she was cognitively impaired prior to being put in Longwood doesn’t change the fact that the drugs they’d fed her felled the large cola-loving nurse.
Rose clings to that.
“Grasshopper,” she says wearily, “this isn’t fair to you, I know that, and if it is too hard, don’t do it—I’ll understand—but I’d like some time to get myself together while I can still find the pieces. Could this be our secret, at least for a day or two?”
Melanie thinks for a moment before answering. Rose loves that she considers her words before speaking.
“Would you stay in the playhouse?” Mel asks dubiously.
“Your granddad and I have a house, don’t we?”
“You don’t remember?” Worry tucks down the corners of Melanie’s mouth.
Into Rose’s mind comes a snapshot: Harley, the moving van, and Flynn in front of a white house. “I do,” she says firmly. “It’s white-painted brick with a dogwood in the yard. I just don’t recall the address.”
“I guess I could call Uber and they’d take you to your house.”
Melanie, Rose recalls, has been Ubering on her own since she was eleven.
“Would you do that?” Rose asks.
“Probably we should wait until morning,” Mel says.
“How about the secret part?” Rose asks. “Are you okay with that? The Longwood people, and maybe even the police, will be looking for me as soon as they realize I’m gone. You might have to lie.”
“Oh, I won’t mind lying to the police,” Mel says.
Rose groans. She is such a horrible grandmother.
“I probably won’t have to,” Melanie says kindly. “I just won’t be available. Nobody much cares what a thirteen-year-old thinks anyway. Ageism, hello!”
“Tell me about it.” Rose sighs. “Thank you.”
“You’ll owe me big-time,” Melanie says, and grins impishly.
“You know I love you madly,” Rose tells her.
“Everybody does,” Melanie replies, with a toss of her head any diva would envy.
CHAPTER 8
An hour before dawn, Melanie goes back to the big house to finish her night on the living room sofa. When Daniel gets up, he’ll be sure to see her and not go looking for her in the playhouse.
Rose more passes out than falls asleep.
When she wakes, groggy and disoriented, sunlight is streaming through the child-sized windows, making bright streaks on the cushions and blankets. In daylight Rose notices the walls are a riot of flowers, monkeys, birds, and foliage.
Images of her tracing the shapes, helping Mel to paint the colors in, the both of them splotched with paint, both intent on their work, return to her. Good memories. Mel was ten, Rose sixty-five; Izzy and Harley alive.
The foggy oblivion of drugs—or something—continues to obscure the time between Harley’s death and waking up on the greenway in a hospital gown. Now she is in a playhouse, in a mangled pink nightie. This is what progress looks like, she decides, and begins neatly folding the blankets and stacking them in a corner.
“Gigi, it’s me.” Mel ducks in through the little door, her arms full. “Breakfast,” she says, and drops a package of iced cinnamon rolls and a bottle of water on the folded blankets.
While Rose eats—ravenously, as it happens—Mel talks. “Uncle Dan’s gone to work. He’s assistant manager at a Starbucks at the moment. Stella’s gone. I don’t care where, as long as she stays there.”
Stella, if Rose remembers correctly, does favors for rich friends. In recompense they give her “gifts.” The favors cover everything from picking up dry cleaning to driving drunken clowns home from botched children’s parties.
“I got you these.” Melanie unwads a pair of tattered jeans and an equally disreputable T-shirt and drapes them on the pillows. “They should fit okay, though I think I outgrew you this year.”
“I shrank,” Rose manages around a hunk of sugary dough.
“Flip-flops and, absolutely necessary when traveling incognito, a ball cap.”
“Go Panthers,” Rose says.
“This way, if any of the neighbors see you leaving, they’ll think you’re nobody, one of my friends.”
“I’m impressed. You really thought things through. You have the makings of a fine criminal mind,” Rose says.
“Crime doesn’t pay,” Melanie says unctuously.
“Not as well as it used to,” Rose agrees.
Rose licks her fingers clean. Pinching up the ball cap by its brim, she dumps out the contents. “Underpants!” she exclaims in delight. “You wonderful child. I cannot tell you how much I have been craving a pair of good old cotton underpants.”
“And just when I was beginning to think you weren’t demented,” Mel says. “They’re—they were—Mom’s.”
“I am deeply honored,” Rose says sincerely and, still chewing, wriggles into the panties.
“Mom’s bras would be too big for you,” Mel adds.
“Not to worry. I’ve haven’t worn one of the wretched things since I burned mine in 1969.”
“Did women really burn their bras?” Mel asks.
“Yup.”
“I thought it was an urban legend, like Freddy and Elm Street,” Mel says.
The jeans are a little loose in the seat, but otherwise they fit. The T-shirt is a T-shirt. Dressed, Rose is amazed at how much more substantial she feels, almost capable, almost brave.
“The fashion cure,” she says as she pulls on the ball cap.
“Whatever.” Mel taps thumbs against the face of her cell phone. “Car in four minutes,” she says, looking out the little window. “I think you should go now. You never know how long Stella’s going to be gone. Mostly it’s like days or weeks, but I think she pops back unexpectedly, hoping to catch me and Uncle Daniel out, so she can snoop. I’m pretty sure she copied Uncle Daniel’s house key.”
“I’m packed,” Rose says.
“I’ll come by your house later and bring you food and stuff for a couple days,” Mel promises.
“Don’t you have school?” Rose asks as she follows Mel out the stunted door.
“It’s Sunday.”
“I knew that.”
In six minutes Rose is in the passenger seat of a black late-model SUV headed to 87 Applegarth Street. Mel had the address in the contacts list on her phone. To save face, Rose acted like it was familiar. It wasn’t. Applegarth
rang not even one tiny bell.
Rose intends to really pay attention, to learn the way from Melanie’s house to hers, to remember street names and landmarks. Soon she gives up and stares out the window at an endless upscale sameness of bedroom community stitched together by trees, lawns, and spent azaleas. The city of Charlotte must have an ordinance requiring homeowners to plant twenty percent of their land in azaleas, Rose thinks.
“Here we go,” says the driver, a nice-looking man named Andre. Andre stays silent for the fifteen-minute drive, so Rose is rather fond of him. The car turns off Laurel Street onto Applegarth. A block and a half down, on the right, is a lot twice as deep as its neighbors. Rose remembers they chose it for the illusion of seclusion. At the end of a gravel drive is a small two-story house, faintly Victorian in the sharpness of its roof and the wraparound porch.
Halfway up the long drive a police car is parked on the gravel. An officer stands talking to two women.
The scene is so like that of the orange juice fiasco that Rose’s mental gears grind to a halt. Is this now or is this then? A flashback? Creaking, the gears again start to turn. Of course Longwood is searching for her. Of course they enlisted the police to bring her back. Of course they know where she lives. Of course. That’s their job. Rose is a fool not to have thought of this. She toys with the idea of turning herself in, throwing her sanity on the mercy of the medical court. Not yet, she decides. Once in the machine, she will be helpless. She needs time to figure things out.
“Quite a welcoming committee,” says Andre.
The driver sees them, too. Rose relaxes. Not a flashback, just history repeating itself. The tall woman is Nancy, Harley’s ex. The other woman—of medium height, stocky but not fat, maybe Hispanic—is Wanda, the manager of the Memory Care Unit. Today she wears a teal power suit and matching heels. Longwood is a full-service facility.
“Stop here!” Rose demands.
Andre stops the SUV.
“You want to avoid the cops?” He sounds as if that is the most rational choice a person can make.
“Please,” Rose whispers.
“I could just drive by, you know, take you somewhere else,” Andre offers.
Rose considers it, then shakes her head. “We’ve stopped. If we go again it might…” She runs out of words.
“Look hinky,” Andre finishes for her. “When you get out, wave a big goodbye to me. Don’t stand around like you’re lost. Look like you know where you’re going, and have got a right to be there,” he advises.
“Thank you,” Rose says. “I can’t tip you. I don’t have any money.”
“Not a problem. You have a good day,” Andre says.
Rose tugs the ball cap down more firmly and climbs out of the passenger door. Smiling, she waves a cheery farewell to Andre, then walks purposefully toward the nearest house, an enormous newly built home with a wide half circle of concrete drive. Crossing it, Rose feels as conspicuous as a cockroach on a wedding cake.
Three shallow steps lead up to a landing the size of a handball court. There is a green-painted door with a brass knocker in the shape of a hand. Hoping nobody is home, Rose pretends to be digging her house key out of her pants pocket. She peeks down the drive of 87 Applegarth. No one is looking her way.
Careful not to make a sound, she scuttles off the front stoop, around the corner, and out of sight. Butterfly bushes, rich with purple plumes, edge the house. Rose forces herself deep into their embrace, tucks her knees under her chin, and tips her head down so the ball cap covers her face.
Mentally, she reviews her performance at the door. Nonchalant? Yes. Looking like she belongs? Ditto. Digging for a key … She hasn’t got a key. Rose clenches her jaw. Mel forgot to give her a key to 87 Applegarth, and Rose forgot to ask. What an idiot! Me, not Mel, Rose thinks loyally. A problem for later, she tells herself. Evil sufficient unto the day and all that.
Five minutes, maybe ten, tick by on clocks all over the world while hours plod by in Rose’s mind. The heat of a southern morning, against a sun-drenched wall, sucks moisture from her body. Rivulets of sweat tickle like insects on her back. Or maybe there are insects on her back.
Finally, a car door slams. A police car passes her hideout. A second car door whumps shut, no engine sound, no car passing. Like a snake made of concrete segments, Rose uncoils and squirms from under the bushes. Lifting just her head and shoulders, she peers over the flat expanse of steps. Nancy is in her white Toyota. Through the open car window, the manager of Longwood’s Memory Care Unit is speaking to her earnestly. About what, Rose can’t hear. Her, she guesses.
Nancy drives away, turning left where the cop car turned right. Wanda gets into a silver Corvette convertible and sedately follows the white sedan. Probably an automatic, Rose thinks with disdain.
No people are out mowing, or walking dogs or baby carriages. No curtains flutter. Hoping the street is as deserted as it looks, and no good citizen will dial 911 to report a disreputable individual, speckled with twigs and dirt, hanging around the fancy houses, Rose finds her feet and slinks up the drive of 87 Applegarth.
Within minutes she is behind the white-painted brick house, safe from prying eyes. The backyard is overgrown, a path worn through the grass to a single-car garage of the same brick as the house. Lacking the picturesque appeal of the front, the rear of the residence is flat with two glass sliding doors opening onto a bare wooden platform, a “patio” in Realtor-speak. Behind the glass is a great room. To the left are the dining area, a granite lunch counter, and a large kitchen. To the right is the living area, complete with a standard-issue fireplace with fake logs and a knob to turn on the gas. A couch and a big-screen TV are the only things unpacked.
Crates and boxes fill the dining area and encroach into the kitchen. No pictures grace the walls; no plants soften the line of the mantel. Rose and Harley haven’t lived here long enough to settle in. They haven’t lived here long enough to attend to such niceties as a hidden key for when one locks oneself out.
The upside is, they have not lived here long enough to get an alarm system installed.
Rose noses around the scraggly yard. Hatred boils up inside her. She hates the house and the city. She hates Longwood and pink nightgowns. She hates Harley for dumping her in an alien suburb, then waltzing off to celebrate his eightieth birthday and never coming back. She hates that she’ll never see him again, that his remains—or what remained of his remains—were cremated and mailed to her in a box with a plain brown paper wrapper. She hates that she cannot feel the loss of him, cannot measure the hole that yawns in her heart waiting for her to tumble in.
Under a leggy azalea bush, she finds a broken brick. It will serve.
Brick in hand, she stalks back to the side of the house. Over the kitchen sink is a paned window. Viciously, she hurls the brick through the glass. Vandalism—even on property she owns—feels good. She finds another piece of brick and, none too gently, smashes out the shards of glass embedded in the window frame. Were she not a mere shadow of herself, she would rip the frame from the brick.
Using fury to a practical end, Rose scrambles through the window over the sink, then drags her feet and legs inside. Sitting on the counter, she draws a shaky breath. Running from cops and breaking and entering take it out of a person. She sits and breathes until she is fairly sure that when she slides off the counter, she won’t fall in a heap on the tile floor.
And break a hip.
Isn’t that how this scene plays out?
Negative thoughts, she admonishes herself.
Though quivering like an electric wire in a gale, she manages to stand. Her body wants to rest, but her mind is restless. Wandering into the dining area, then the living room, she touches boxes, leaving finger marks in the accumulated dust. A few half-formed memories surface of the day they moved in: Harley lifting crates, the weight of which made her cringe. Flynn panicking when she climbed up onto the roof to clean out the gutters. Melanie coming over after school. Nancy bringing her son and ex-husband san
dwiches.
Mostly Rose remembers that queasy feeling you get when you realize you’ve made a huge mistake. She remembers wondering if Harley would be too upset if she called their New Orleans Realtor and asked her to take their house off the market.
Has it sold yet?
Probably.
Using the rail more than she would have before Longwood, the flu, drugs, and possibly a mental breakdown, Rose climbs the stairs. Off a landing that takes up more square footage than it should are three small bedrooms and two baths. Two of the bedrooms are filled with boxes. The New Orleans house was considerably larger. Neither she nor Harley downsized as much as they needed to.
The master bedroom is slightly larger than the other two and has a connecting bath. This room has been made habitable. The bed is made. Rose’s old duvet and shams, with the Tree of Life motif, look out of place in the square dun-colored room. They should have repainted before the furniture arrived. Uncharacteristically, Harley rushed the move.
Harley Dennis was a most considerate individual, yet he had rushed the move. Rose stops and thinks about that. He wanted to be moved in before school started. He wanted to be in Charlotte so when Flynn was working trade shows out of town, he and Rose could take Mel. Rose wonders if Harley had a premonition of his impending death. She believes in premonitions and at the same time suspects people purporting to have them of being deluded or dishonest.
Upstairs, as was the case downstairs, the blinds are lowered, and the nearly new dun-colored drapes, left behind by the previous owners, are closed. The resulting claustrophobic twilight adds to Rose’s sense of dream-walking through a mausoleum. She has her hand on a drape before she realizes that, for now, this is her world. No light, no movement that might alert neighbors or police to the fact that there is a life-form dwelling within, can be allowed to escape.
Rose loves light. A darkened house is purgatory. Purgatory or Longwood, Rose tells herself, pick one.
She sits on the edge of the bed. She is free. She can walk, talk, see, smell, and feel. She has Melanie. This is a good moment. For a while she waits for that revelation to travel from her mind to her heart. It makes it about halfway, catching in her throat.
