Crossing the Tracks (9781416997054)

by Stuber, Barbara

  “No. She’s at Olive’s house.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yep. Pansy at this moment is lodging with Olive’s invisible renters and their equally invisible dog.”

  “Did you see her? Talk?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure? I mean… of course, but what… what have you got there?” Mrs. Nesbitt eyes the casserole.

  “Proof.”

  He puts the pan on the table and lifts the towel. On top is a ratty nightgown and under it a brown knit shawl. “All Pansy’s stuff, just what you asked for, Iris,” he says with a flourish. He lifts out a knotted hankie. Taps it on his palm. “Full of silver dollars.”

  “Why did she give you silver dollars?” Mrs. Nesbitt asks.

  “Olive thought you’d figure a use for them. Dot’s a crow when it comes to something shiny.”

  Mrs. Nesbitt pats her stomach. “So Pansy knows about Dot and all?”

  “I believe Olive has been quite blunt with Pansy regarding Dot.”

  “How’d Pansy get here?”

  Dr. Nesbitt shakes his head. “Olive’s lips are sealed.” He does a pinched-voiced, bent-over Olive imitation. “I’ll carry the burden. No one need know the details but me. I love intrigue of this persuasion.”

  Mrs. Nesbitt and I exchange a look. We asked for Pansy, we got Pansy. There’s no turning back. We are meddlers, to be sure, but only apprentices compared to Madam Nish.

  “Your job, according to Olive, is to lure Dot to the Nish residence,” Dr. Nesbitt says. “And Olive’s magic trick is to make Dot and Pansy disappear.”

  CHAPTER 26

  The ace poker players have stacked the deck—actually the laundry basket. We’re about to “play cards” with Dot.

  The basket—or as Dr. Nesbitt calls it, “the bait”—is on the back porch waiting for her arrival.

  Marie plays possum beside it. Dr. Nesbitt is at work and Mrs. Nesbitt and I are positioned behind the blinds in her bedroom. I’m on my knees and Mrs. Nesbitt sits in her old wheelchair rolled to the window. I have just cleaned her glasses so we both have a perfect view of the washing machine. My stomach is a double knot. Mrs. Nesbitt swears she swallowed her tea bag at breakfast.

  Dot plods up the driveway in a flimsy checked dress, mopping her forehead on this Indian summer morning. Her expression is sour as usual. She does not have one clue that she is about to make the biggest choice of her life. She can free herself from Cecil’s grip, take her fate and her baby’s future into her very own hands.

  But will she?

  Dot peers through the back door with a “where is everybody” look. She scowls, no doubt disappointed I am not handy to spit on. She stretches her back. Scratches her big belly.

  Inside we strain at the window to detect one tiny bit of softness in her touch, a gentle pat, a reflective sigh.

  Nothing.

  Dot yanks one, two, three towels off the pile in the basket. She inspects and sniffs each one and stuffs them in the tub. I know she’s figuring out which towel each of us used during the week.

  Mrs. Nesbitt takes my hand as we watch Dot peer deep in the basket. Her eyes shift. She stops, scratches her behind, looks again. She slowly pulls out her mother’s dingy lavender-gray nightgown, the way someone would remove a person’s bloody bandage.

  She shakes it out and just stares and stares. I swear I see Marie open one snake eye. Dot crushes the gown in her fists, then raises it to her nose.

  C’mon, Dot. Keep going. We shift to try and see her expression, but all we get is that pug profile.

  Dot claws through the next level of clothes. Stops short at Pansy’s shawl.

  Mrs. Nesbitt holds her hands in prayer point. “Put it on, Dot. Wrap up in it.”

  Instead Dot drops it on the floor and bangs a fist on our back door.

  We stay silent and absolutely motionless.

  She bangs again. “Shit!”

  Dot turns and marches off the porch. Her face is fiery, like her father’s. She scans the yard, yanks open the shed, then the coop. She struts and stirs the chicken yard into a meringue of feathers.

  She’s after me. Next she’ll stomp right in the house, waving the gown and screaming, “What’re you doing, you bitch?”

  Instead Dot plops down on the porch step, her back to us. We want desperately for her to sob. We want her to smell her mama in the shawl, stroke her own cheek with it. “Dust the shawl,” Mrs. Nesbitt and I coach softly. We ache for her to put two and two together, to realize this answers her cry for help.

  More than anything we want her to not run home.

  Marie rouses, pads across the porch, and places her paws on the laundry basket. She whines as though it’s her empty supper bowl. Dot stands, turns, still holding her mother’s clothes, and shoos Marie off. She eyes the basket with a suspicious sneer that is pure Cecil.

  “Okay, Dorothy, find the money,” Mrs. Nesbitt barely whispers from the bedroom.

  Dot claws down through the basket, her eyes darting this way and that. I think she senses it’s a trap, and she’s right. She’s used to being hunted.

  Find the money.

  Find the money.

  Dot lifts the hankie full of silver dollars and pulls open the knot. She sits cross-legged on the floor and lines up the coins, which we have polished to an irresistible shine, across her lap.

  She examines each coin, even tries to bite one. Dot unfolds the little paper we put inside that reads: For more $ go to Olive’s.

  The dollar sign jolts Dot like smelling salts. She hurriedly pockets the silver, then wraps the nightgown and shawl into one of our towels and ties it. She looks this way and that, clutching her Mama’s belongings, and hurries down the driveway.

  Don’t go left. Don’t go home. Go right. Go to Olive’s. Please… turn right to Olive’s.

  Mrs. Nesbitt elbows me. Smiles. Dot has stopped long enough to wad the note, pop it in her mouth, and swallow it.

  Brilliant!

  Dot takes off running toward Olive’s without so much as a backward glance, her heavy pocket clanking against her stomach.

  I let out the breath I have been holding for at least an hour. Mrs. Nesbitt shakes her head and says, “Pansy knows her girl. Money talks.”

  “Where do you think the two, uh, three of them will go?”

  “Anywhere without a forwarding address. That excludes Pansy’s sister, and they obviously can’t stay at Olive’s. What we don’t know can only help us. Especially if we get the third degree from You Know Who.”

  “All we did was fill the laundry basket, same as every other Monday,” I say. “But what’ll Dot and Pansy use for money? Ten dollars isn’t enough for expenses and train fare for two.”

  Mrs. Nesbitt raises her eyebrows. “I have an inkling Olive’s pocketbook is deeper than it looks. That’s probably the reason she never lets it go!”

  All day we imagine Dot and Pansy on the train, on the road, on the run—two hobos with the sheer force and funding of Olive Nish behind them.

  Despite my permanent case of nerves, and the fear that Cecil’s going to spring out of the closet at me, there is also a new and true feeling.

  I am a part of something important.

  “Haven’t you noticed,” I say to Marie later in my room, “that when you truly belong somewhere, there’s more to do?”

  She nudges me with her nose.

  I scratch her back. “I wish I had known your mother. She must have been quite a gal to have a daughter like you!”

  “The stamp is upside down. Better not open it.” The postman winks when he hands me the mail. “Bad omen.”

  Of course I can already see that. It’s a letter from Celeste.

  September 9, 1926

  Dear Iris,

  I have no one to tell but you.

  I’m blue.

  I try every which way to cover it up, to not smear my face. I keep my stiff upper lip painted red. But my apartment feels as big as Union Station.

  What are you doing for your
birthday? I’d tell you what I am not going to do on your birthday, but I’m sure you’ve not forgotten that was to be my wedding day.

  I see your father everywhere—that jaunty smile and his knack for sweet-talking even shaggy old four-legged goats into a new pair of pumps. Such flair he had. I don’t know—if I saw your face at this moment, I’d drown in tears, the way you resemble him.

  Without your father’s tutelage… well, suffice it to say, I owe him everything. What a one-of-a-kind human being. I miss him with all my heart, as I am sure you do.

  My mother and sister promise and repromise a visit, but it’s just window dressing, a tactic to cut our conversations short. Not that I’m opposed to stylish window displays, mind you, but only if they’re sincere!

  Could you consider a visit to Kansas City? Please? Pretty please?

  I’d get you a birthday present and you’d get to see all the hard work I’ve done on the Bootery. Why, everyone, no matter how bereaved, cannot help but be buoyed by a new pair of shoes. I have a pair, just arrived, with your name on them. They’re not gaudy. Nothing I’d wear. But I perceive your quiet style better than you think I do.

  Dinner out. A new pair (or two) of fall shoes. The big city. ME!!!

  Say you’ll come. I promise I’ll not snivel and sniff.

  Most sincerely,

  Celeste Simmons, Proprietor

  P.S. Thank you again for the store.

  P.P.S. I’ve finally mastered the cash register.

  P.P.$ $ $ Ching-ching!!!!!!!!

  I lower the letter to my lap, shake my head.

  Celeste.

  Her letter was terrible and also okay—even the tiniest bit sincere, in a Celeste kind of way. My face feels brushed by a magician’s wand.

  I smile.

  Birds chatter on our telephone line. I wonder how our spindly phone pole can support all that gossip. I picture Celeste chattering to her customers, projecting herself, trying so hard to make that store a home.

  Why wouldn’t I go visit her? I can’t help it if my feet are over-dressed. It’s my fate!

  I slap the letter off my palm, thinking for the second time today that the more you belong with people, the more there is to do.

  CHAPTER 27

  “Julia?” Olive squawks through the phone loudly enough for all three of us to hear.

  “Why, yes, Olive… ,” Mrs. Nesbitt replies.

  “Tell Avery that my two big pains—you know, in my quadrant? They disappeared in the night.”

  Dr. Nesbitt looks up from his oatmeal, grins.

  “I have a thank-you for him, if you and Iris could stop by for it right away.”

  “Of course. We’ll come this morning after we take Avery to work.”

  Mrs. Nesbitt hangs up and claps. “Ha! Pansy and Dot made off.”

  We raise our coffee cups.

  Mrs. Nesbitt’s eyes darken. “But the worst is yet to come: Olive’s thank-you gift. Find the Digestive Support Powder, Iris. We are going to need a dose.”

  “What does Olive mean by a ‘thank-you’?” I ask Mrs. Nesbitt in the car. “Thank you for what? Is it telephone code-talk for something else?”

  Mrs. Nesbitt gives me a wary look. I keep my eye on the rearview mirror, imagining Cecil on our tail. By the time we reach Olive’s my stomach and her hankie are in knots.

  But no stomach elixir could curb the bitter mix of ingredients Olive delivers when we arrive. A note for us from Pansy.

  Cecil is crazy

  he will come lookin for Dot

  never ever let him in

  don’t turn your back either

  Olive stares straight ahead without blinking. Mrs. Nesbitt is absolutely pale. My hands tingle. Should I eat the evidence like Dot did? It’s already boring a hole in my stomach.

  Olive squares her shoulders, pours us coffee that smells like burnt mud, and marches to the renter’s wall with a tumbler. She puts the glass to the wallpaper and her ear to the glass. Her eyes shift. She frowns, motions to me. “Iris, come here. Fine-tune your ears.”

  I hold my breath and listen with full concentration.

  Mrs. Nesbitt keeps a champion poker face, which is a tremendous support, but I am desperate to know if I am, or am not, supposed to hear something invisible.

  “You see?” Olive says with a smug expression that means we both have solved the mystery. “Just as I suspected.”

  “I… uh…” I pretend to prick my ears. Knit my forehead.

  Olive nods. “They took that water-maker.”

  “Who?” Mrs. Nesbitt says.

  “Pansy and Dot.”

  “Took the dog?” I ask.

  Olive rubs her palms together. “Yep!”

  Mrs. Nesbitt chimes in. “Why, that must surely be a relief, Olive. Three pains gone.”

  “That leaves the fourth: Cecil. That stinkard isn’t fit to sit at the Devil’s dinner table.”

  I nod solemnly, determined not to say another word.

  Olive stares down her spectacles. “I ask you: Who would be a worse dining companion than Lucifer?”

  We sit speechless. Mrs. Nesbitt shoots me a look, then we both say together: “Cecil!”

  Olive shakes a finger. “The stories Pansy’s sister told me about him. That polecat… hellhound.”

  “Savage,” Mrs. Nesbitt adds.

  But underneath we know that no amount of name-calling can stop Pansy’s prediction.

  “He knows I was acquainted with Pansy’s sister. He’s already on the prowl. Drove by earlier this morning and again just now.”

  “What?” I walk to the window. “How could you see through the curtain?”

  Olive says smugly, “I know the timbre of his automobile engine.”

  We stand to leave. Olive shoves a jar the color of pond scum in my hand. “Okra,” she says. “Stewed. For Avery.”

  Hawks circle above, their high-pitched cries echoing off the high bluffs behind the house. We drive off, the okra sloshing between us, slimy as slugs. Mrs. Nesbitt grips Henry. I grip the wheel, check the mirror a dozen times down the narrow bluff road from Olive’s. Against our better judgment, we go the long way, by Cecil’s.

  The volcano looks dormant. There is not the usual laundry on the line, just the ratty outhouse door hung open and his lopsided farm cart. The car is gone. I imagine him scouring the rutted back roads of Wellsford, a bottle in one hand, his head hung out the car window, sniffing for Dot.

  I shudder, adjust the throttle, and steer us home.

  My eyes don’t look the way I want.

  I stare into the buffet mirror and then try to draw them onto stationery. But they aren’t even. They look like they belong to two different people. Daddy’s right. I am no artist. I’ve just chewed a perfectly good pencil and wasted paper. At least it has taken my mind off Cecil for a few hours.

  I need help that I can’t possibly ask for. I can’t tell Mrs. Nesbitt I want to send Leroy a picture of my eyes. Just that. My eyes. It would sound stupid.

  And Dr. Nesbitt—he has elegant handwriting, but I could never explain my plan to him. It’s too personal, too private and… romantic. He’d be mortified. That side of him seems locked up tight. He must have had his heart broken long ago, or he loves somebody who is married, or… I don’t know.

  What I do know from Mrs. Nesbitt, the one time I barely hinted at the subject, is that he is a confirmed bachelor.

  Oh, Dr. Nesbitt, could you help me? Leroy sent me his hands and I want to send him a drawing of my eyes he can look into… Oh, God. Forget that.

  But Mrs. Nesbitt, standing in my bedroom doorway, comes right out and asks, “What are you drawing, Iris? Can I see?”

  My mouth feels full of ashes. “My eyes,” I croak. “I’m just practicing my eyes.” I hand her a pile of rejects.

  She shuffles through the pictures, smiles. “You have beautiful golden eyes, Iris. Your heart is in them, and there’s intelligence and humor and ache. I understand why you can’t capture it all.”

  “I want to send them
to Leroy,” I say. Tears well up, the way they always do when I say outright what I want. “I can’t ask anyone to draw them, it’s so…”

  Mrs. Nesbitt gets that far-off, crossword-solving expression. “I see.”

  Later at supper, after Dr. Nesbitt has announced he will work out of home for a few days in case Cecil “comes to call,” Mrs. Nesbitt clears her throat and says, “Avery, Iris has in mind to have a drawing of her eyes done.”

  A swallow of ham stops dead in my throat. Dr. Nesbitt blinks at me, then nods. Amazingly he does not ask why I want such a thing.

  “Is that something maybe Marsden could do for her?” she asks softly.

  Dr. Nesbitt stops his napkin in midair. I feel the air tighten around us. He and Mrs. Nesbitt exchange a look that speaks deeply about something—a subject far beyond Leroy and me.

  Dr. Nesbitt drags his spoon back and forth through a sauce dish of okra. “When do you need this, Iris?”

  Mrs. Nesbitt gives me an encouraging “just go ahead and tell him” look. “It’s… uh, for Leroy. It’s not a rush. Just… well, when I tried to draw them myself using the mirror, they turned out awful.”

  He lays both palms faceup on the table, then turns them over. His eyes are shadows. He sniffs and walks his plate to the sink. With his back to me he asks, “Do you have a photograph of yourself, a picture that captures…”

  “Not a recent one. I’d need to have one taken.”

  “That’s easy enough,” Mrs. Nesbitt says. “We can do that in town tomorrow.”

  The curve of Dr. Nesbitt’s back, his hands gripping the sink, and the tilt of his head are like his mother’s in the oil painting above the piano. He looks to be at a crossroads—stuck by the seriousness of what to do or say.

  I remember how I used to worry that the air between Daddy and me wasn’t strong enough to hold us together. But this room is thick with feeling and mystery. The subject we’re speaking about is my eyes, but the focus is really something else, something I don’t understand.

  “I think I know the kind of expression you want, Iris. I have an artist friend in New York… Marsden.” Dr. Nesbitt’s voice is husky, almost a whisper. “The man who painted Mother can draw your eyes. We just need to send a photograph.”