Duplicity

by Peggy Webb

  She knew that part of the changes were in herself and in the time and distance that lent perspective to her viewing, but each year she made the journey. The return to her past enriched her present and lent meaning to her future, and she would no more have neglected it than she would have forgotten how to breathe.

  She eased the old Buick down the mountain road at a sedate pace, but after she had crossed the state line between North Carolina and Tennessee, she zoomed along at a hair-raising speed. In the backseat Gigi clapped her hands in delight and Dirk leaned forward with a bit of advice.

  "If this thing doesn't have wings," he said, "I think you should slow down."

  Ellen was too busy negotiating a curve to reply, so Ruth Ann furthered his education about traveling with a gorilla. "Gigi likes to go fast. We try to give her what she wants in matters like these."

  Gigi was now bouncing with glee and signing frantically to Dirk.

  He looked from the gorilla to the woman he had privately labeled an old sourpuss. "What did she say?"

  Ruth Ann looked at him over the tops of her glasses. "She said, Car fly. Gigi love.' " The look she gave Dirk made him wonder if he had something dirty on his feet. He made a bet with himself that he would make her smile at him just once before this trip was over.

  He turned to stare out the window at the blurred scenery and decided that traveling at the speed of light with a gorilla who loved him wasn't nearly as bad as being shot at by hired assassins. He smiled and sat back to enjoy the fireworks. They were sure to come. If he was correct, that blur behind the last bridge had been a patrol car. He winked at Gigi and she winked back. Knowing that primates are great imitators, he spent the next few minutes of grace playing Monkey See, Monkey Do with his hairy girlfriend.

  "Do I hear a siren?" Ruth Ann asked, leaning toward Ellen.

  "What?" Ellen yelled over the roar of the engine and the sucking of wind through the ill-fitting windows.

  "Never mind. You'll know soon enough." Ruth Ann's lips tightened as she waited for the inevitable.

  It happened every year. Ellen usually managed to talk her way out of a ticket and most of the startled patrolmen who stopped her ended up making friends with Gigi.

  "Is that a flashing red light?" Ellen asked.

  Dirk leaned forward and said into her ear, "It wouldn't surprise me. He's been trying to catch you for the last five minutes."

  "Well, why didn't you say so?" With a screeching of tires, Ellen pulled off the highway and rolled down her window, calmly awaiting her fate.

  "It happens every year," she said to Dirk.

  As the Tennessee state cop approached her car, she smiled charmingly. "Lovely morning, isn't it, Officer . . . Burke." She had scanned the name tag so quickly that her hesitation was barely noticeable.

  Officer Burke was not impressed. "Let's see your driver's license, lady."

  Since speaking to him on a name basis hadn't thawed the frozen hostility on his face, Ellen tried friendly admission of guilt. "I realize I was going fast. Officer Burke, but—"

  He didn't allow her to finish. "Excuses don't cut any mustard with me. Crime don't pay, lady." Officer Burke bent over his pad and began to write.

  Gigi chose that moment to enter the fray. Since Dirk was no longer playing with her, she decided that perhaps this new man would. Baring her teeth in a huge gorilla grin, she bounced on the seat and emitted her best come-play-with-me grunt.

  Officer Burke nearly snapped his pencil in two. He stuck his head in Ellen's open window and peered into the backseat.

  "Great jumping Jehosha- phat! " His face turned a sickly shade of green when he saw the huge animal. "It's King Kong!"

  "She's harmless, Officer Burke," Ellen said hastily. "I'm Dr. Ellen Stanford, and she's my student in animal-language research."

  "Never heard of no animal-language research. She looks like an escapee from the Knoxville Zoo. "

  Gigi decided that the man didn't want to play the game, but that was all right for she had spotted his funny hat. Gigi loved hats. Playfully she reached out a long arm and relieved Officer Burke of his patrolman's cap.

  His face changed from green to purple. "I'm going to have to write this up, lady."

  "Her name is Dr. Ellen Stanford." Dirk spoke quietly from the backseat, but there was an edge of steel in his voice.

  Officer Burke turned his attention to Dirk.

  "And who are you, the monkey's keeper?"

  "You might say that. Could I have a word with you, Officer Burke?"

  "Dirk." Ellen turned to protest that he need not become involved.

  He put a hand on her shoulder. "Sit tight, Ellen. This will only take a minute."

  Ellen and Ruth Ann watched from the car as Dirk took the patrolman aside and engaged him in earnest conversation. Gigi lost interest in both men as she busied herself with her new hat.

  "What do you suppose Dirk's telling him?" Ruth Ann asked.

  "Heaven only knows." Ellen saw the officer's face change from hostility to friendly interest. "That man seems to have a way with words."

  "You could have handled the situation." Ruth Ann's nostrils were pinched as she spoke.

  "I know," Ellen said, "but reinforcements are sometimes nice."

  Dirk returned to the car with Officer Burke. The highway patrolman stuck his head in the window.

  "If you ever need help on one of these missions. Doctor, just call ahead for Officer Burke." He gave Gigi a smart salute. "You can keep the hat, Kong."

  Ellen could hardly hold back her laughter as Officer Burke climbed into his car and drove away.

  "What did you say to him?" she asked Dirk.

  "The truth. I told him that we were on an undercover mission and that detection or detention would have tragic consequences." He didn't bat an eyelash at his outrageous story.

  Ellen laughed. "You have a funny notion of the truth. But it did effect a nice rescue."

  Ruth Ann rolled her eyes. "I'm beginning to think that you two deserve each other."

  Dirk leaned nonchalantly against his seat as Ellen pulled the car back onto the highway and roared off.

  "How do you like the job so far. Dirk?" she yelled over her shoulder.

  "I haven't had this much fun since I was cornered by a Bengal tiger," he said.

  Ellen thought he was kidding.

  Chapter Three

  The mountains changed to gentle rolling hills, and after a picnic on the banks of a river, Ruth Ann took the wheel. Although she set a more sedate pace than Ellen, conversation was still difficult over the whistle of the wind through windows that had long since come loose from their rubber gaskets.

  Gigi napped all the way from the river to Powder Mill Hill, six miles east of Lawrenceburg, and Ellen took the time to prepare Dirk for what lay ahead.

  "Ruth Ann and Gigi will be staying with Uncle Mac, one of my dad's brothers."

  "He's not the uncle you said we'd be staying with?" Dirk hung over the front seat so he wouldn't have to shout to be heard.

  "No. We'll be with my Aunt Lollie and Uncle Vester, another of Dad's brothers. Gigi needs this time away from me. We try to give her family-type experiences away from the compound so that she doesn't become too dependent on me. Uncle Mac is the only one of my relatives who has facilities for Gigi, and besides that, she adores his children."

  "Her brothers and sisters?"

  "Yes." Ellen laughed. "Uncle Mac looks upon Gigi and Ruth Ann as a part of the family. He teaches psychology at Vanderbilt—one of the few of my relatives who isn't a farmer—and he looks forward to this visit as much as Gigi does. I concentrate mainly on her speech, and he's interested in her behavior."

  "What's it like having such a large family?"

  The question startled Ellen. She had expected him to ask about the reunion dinner or Aunt Lollie and Uncle Vester.

  "I love it," she said. "They're the source of my strength. You might say this is a pilgrimage for me."

  "They say you can't go home again."

&n
bsp; There was a faraway look in his eyes that tugged at her heart.

  "'They' are crazy," she said. "It all depends on the route you take. Is there anything else you'd like to know about this reunion? We never did get around to a briefing."

  "No. Surprise me. I like adventure."

  It was true, Dirk thought as they both settled back in their seats. He had always liked adventure. He smiled as he remembered the childhood escapade of Miss Clampett's bloomers, her own name for the voluminous cotton garment she used for underwear. Miss Clampett had confined him to his room for "impertinence," her catch-all word for a variety of misdeeds.

  Like any normal ten-year-old orphan, he used the time creatively—to plot revenge. Unfortunately for him, his revenge coincided with the day of Superintendent Hanover's visit. When Superintendent Hanover saw Miss Clampett's bloomers flapping from the flagpole, all hell broke loose. Dirk had been expelled from the Lost Hope Orphanage in Boston and sent to the Good Shepherd Orphanage in West Haven.

  Two things had made parting with his friends bearable—the old black and white

  television set at the new orphanage and Mystic seaport. Jonathan O'Grady, the director of the Good Shepherd, was a kind-hearted soul who shared his passion for whales by taking the orphans on annual visits to Mystic, and who believed the best education about good and evil was provided by TV westerns.

  Now, remember, little men, Dirk could almost hear him shouting, the guys in the white hats always win. Good always triumphs over evil.

  Dirk's smile was tinged with sadness. He wondered what poor old Jonathan would say if he knew how wrong he had been. Sometimes evil won, but thank heaven the guys in the white hats were still out there fighting.

  Perhaps that was one of the reasons he loved his job: He was one of the men in the white hats. Sometimes, though, the hat became heavy and the evil seemed to be a cancer that was spreading out of control, eating away the foundations of society.

  He swung his gaze away from the green earth of Tennessee and back to Ellen. Her serene, beautiful profile was a balm to his weary soul. How he needed this quiet interlude, he thought. How he needed to touch base with family, the backbone of America, to give his work new meaning.

  He leaned back, letting Ellen's beauty seep into his soul, and by the time the car had come to a halt at Uncle Mac's farmhouse, he knew the exact structure of her bones and the precise tilt of her nose. He had cataloged the texture of her skin and the full pout of her lips. The sweep of her eyelashes and the bit of amber in her green eyes were forever a part of his memory, and he knew that nothing less than brainwashing could ever erase them.

  For the first time since he had embarked upon this deception, he wondered if Dr. Ellen Stanford didn't pose more danger than he could handle.

  o0o

  Ellen's Uncle Mac turned out to be a handsome silver-haired man who looked every inch the college professor. He kissed his niece on the cheek and shook hands warmly with Dirk. His three pre-teen daughters surrounded Gigi, and his teenage son gave Ruth Ann a bear hug. It was the first time Dirk had ever seen her smile.

  Uncle Mac escorted everybody into his kitchen and insisted they take time for tea and scones. Although he had been a widower for three years, his spotless home reflected tender loving care. The teatime was Dirk's first real experience with the leisurely pace of the South. Listening to the conversation between Ellen and her uncle, he almost believed that schedules were for folks without refinement and that clocks didn't exist. He sat back in his chair and enjoyed the experience.

  After Ruth Ann and Gigi were happily settled, Dirk and Ellen drove down the lane to Uncle Vester and Aunt Lollie’s house. Dirk stretched out luxuriously in the front seat.

  "Not that I'm glad to be rid of Gigi, you understand," he said, "but I'm beginning to know how a bug under a microscope feels."

  Ellen laughed appreciatively. "Gigi gave you a pretty thorough inspection, did she?"

  "She can now verify that nothing is dwelling in my hair or my ears and that I have all my teeth and fingers." He relaxed against the car seat. "I hope the rest of your family is not that curious."

  "They probably won't do anything except count your teeth."

  "A ritual of some kind?"

  "No. A farmer's technique for judging a good animal."

  Without cracking a smile. Dirk reached across the seat and ran his hand down the length of Ellen's thigh. His touch sent little prickles of heat through her light cotton sundress and silk slip. She ran straight through a four-way stop sign and narrowly missed a tractor hauling a load of hay.

  After a maddening eternity, he removed his hand and smiled.

  0"My technique for judging a good animal."

  "Touche."

  The word was almost a sigh. She didn't realize that she had been holding her breath until he took his hand away.

  Unconsciously she pressed down on the accelerator, speeding toward their destination, lessening the time she would have to spend alone with Dirk. As the gravel spewed up behind the ancient Buick, she had time to reflect that there were chinks in her armor and that Dirk had an uncanny knack for finding them.

  "So this is your childhood home," he said.

  He swung his head around to look out across the farmlands, tilled to a loamy richness and burgeoning with young green soybean plants.

  "Yes. Lawrence County, Tennessee. God's country."

  He studied her closely, noticing the sparkle of her eyes, the way her lips curved into a half smile.

  A wave of lonesomeness swept over him, and for the first time in many years he felt a vast emptiness in himself, a huge void that should have been filled with family and a place to call his home. His past was littered with a series of overcrowded, under-funded orphanages scattered across the country. Home was wherever he happened to be at the time.

  "I almost envy you," he said softly.

  She turned to look at him. For a moment she caught a glimpse of vulnerability in his face, a softening of the lines etched deeply around his mouth and a distant look in his eyes, as if he were gazing into his past. And then the look was gone. Once more he assumed a devil-may-care nonchalance.

  He made a sound that passed for laughter, but it was hollow, without mirth.

  "You'll learn not to take everything I say seriously," he said. "I'm just a deceiver along for the ride."

  He wondered how many more lies he would have to tell before this reunion was over. Letting himself feel was getting more and more dangerous, and it could well be a luxury that he couldn't afford. Lesson number one, he told himself. Feelings couldn't be controlled with weapons and karate.

  "That's exactly what I want you to be," Ellen said.

  This time she kept her eyes on the road. It was best not to notice that he was human. Instructing herself to think of him as a part of this experiment, this Ellen-is-a-good-Stanford deception, she concentrated on getting to Uncle Vester's farm as fast as she could. Fortunately for her, the gravel roads were free of tractors and pickers and plows. Otherwise she would have smashed half the farm vehicles in this part of Lawrence County.

  Several cows stopped chewing their cuds long enough to watch her perilous progress through the county, and a few farmers, familiar with the aging Buick, noted that the Stanford girl was back in town, the crazy one who'd gone off to take a highfalutin degree and ended up on a mountain somewhere in North Carolina talking to monkeys.

  o0o

  Uncle Vester and Aunt Lollie were sitting on their front porch, straining their eyes into the distance, when Ellen's car entered their lane. They watched it weave in and out among the hundred- year-old oak trees.

  Uncle Vester shoved his glasses to the top of his balding head.

  "She still drives just like her daddy, God rest his soul. Mark my words, Lollie: Someday she's gonna wrap herself around a tree just like Mike did."

  "Hush that foolish talk, Vester. She's the spittin' image of dear departed Evelyn, and now that she's finally giving up that monkey business and settling dow
n I don't want you to say a word about how she's lived on that mountain all those years, fiddling away her life when she should have been preserving the family name."

  Aunt Lollie adjusted her blue gingham apron around her vast bulk and hauled herself out of her rocking chair. The cane bottom creaked with relief and the old chair continued to rock long after Lollie had vacated it.

  They stood on the porch, their faces wreathed in smiles, as Ellen parked beside a 1955 Chevrolet pickup and ran up the steps to greet them. She hugged Aunt Lollie first, pressing her cheek against the sparse gray hair. The pungent scent of cinnamon tickled her nose. Some things never change, she thought. Aunt Lollie still smelled like gingerbread. As she gathered Uncle Vester to her heart she noticed that he fit loosely into his faded overalls, a bag of bones held together by stringy muscle and fierce pride.

  Dirk watched the greetings from the porch steps. A faint summer breeze stirred the humid air, and a mockingbird on a nearby mimosa tree scolded its mate. Around him the earth, still damp from an early morning shower, released its rich, black smell. Dirk had the sensation of being in the center of life itself, of feeling the pregnant pulse of the land and of witnessing the miracle of growth. He decided to blame his feelings on too much companionship with Gigi. Otherwise he might have headed down the lane and back toward freedom.

  "And is this the young man you wrote us about?" Aunt Lollie asked. As Dirk came up the porch steps she captured his hand in her fat ones. "My, my, you're a fine, sturdy-looking man." Her faded blue eyes perused him from top to bottom. "Good strong legs. fine breadth of chest. You'll make good babies."

  "I have all my teeth too." Dirk smiled good- naturedly to show that he was not in the least bothered by Aunt Lollie's remarks.

  Uncle Vester hooted with laughter and pinched Ellen's cheek. "You took your time about it, young 'un, but I think you picked a winner. What'd you say his name is?"

  "Dirk Smith." she said.

  "Dirk Caldwell," Dirk said at the same time.

  Ellen gave him a Be Quiet look. "His name is Dirk Smith Caldwell, Uncle Vester. The third."