by Billie Letts
“I’ve always felt like a misfit, but I never knew why until I came here.”
“Mark—”
“I think this is ready. Let’s eat.”
Mark closed the book and switched off the lamp beside the Hide-A-Bed a few minutes past three. But he didn’t feel sleepy. Not now. Not after the hours he’d spent listening to the voice of his mother speak to him from the pages of her diary.
She’d told him so much about her life, a life very different from his own.
While she was in high school, she’d worked as a waitress, baby-sitter, secretary and motel maid. She’d driven her father’s ten-year-old Ford pickup, when she could get it, and for her senior trip, her class had gone to Six Flags over Texas.
He’d graduated from a private academy, and though he’d never worked a day while he was in school, he’d had his own Platinum MasterCard, the monthly charges paid by his mother. He received a new BMW convertible the day he got his driver’s license, and his class had gone on a Caribbean cruise to celebrate the end of their senior year.
For her graduation, her parents gave her a portable record player; he’d gotten a five-thousand-dollar Bang & Olufsen sound system. She’d lived in a four-room house with her parents and two brothers. He, an only child, had lived in a seven-thousand-square-foot house in Beverly Hills with a swimming pool and tennis court. She had fished with her daddy in an old johnboat; he’d fished for marlin on his father’s yacht, but only with a hired crew, never with his father.
A few days after his nineteenth birthday, he went to Paris on his spring break from college. She never went to Paris, never went to college. And she never turned nineteen.
Mark tried to clear his mind, tried to concentrate on sleep, but he had too much going on in his head. He tried some of the relaxation techniques suggested by his therapist—deep breathing, visualization and recollection—but nothing worked.
It didn’t help either that each time he moved, the bed groaned under his weight and a metal bar beneath the thin mattress pressed into his back just below his shoulder blades.
When he finally found a position he thought he could tolerate, he developed a restless leg—a prickling sensation that was only temporarily relieved by movement, which caused the bed to complain.
He’d never been a great sleeper, but for the past few weeks, his bouts of insomnia had ratcheted up a few notches. And tonight, after spending time visiting his mother’s past, he wished desperately for the bottle of sleeping pills back in his room at the motel.
He didn’t know if he was being kept awake by what he’d read in the diary or what he hadn’t read.
She’d described in great detail basketball games in which she played, the plot of her favorite movie, a boy she had a crush on, a night spent at Rowena’s house, a painting just finished.
He knew, when he closed the diary, that her favorite color was green, she didn’t drink milk, she was allergic to pecans and she loved the names Shannon and Nicky, names she planned to give her children if she decided to have children.
He was struck from time to time to read an entry in which he discovered some similarity he shared with her. For instance, they were both crazy about the music of Dusty Springfield and Sam Cooke, popular in the sixties, “oldies but goodies” in the nineties; they both hated the smells of vinegar and mustard, the taste of sweet potatoes, liver and Brussels sprouts.
Both had played the flute in their high school bands; loved the poetry of Richard Wilbur and James Dickey; liked rainy nights and lightning storms.
But even though Mark now had a clearer picture of what his mother’s short life had been, he was no closer to knowing what he most wanted to know: the identity of his father and the killer of his mother.
She’d stopped writing in the diary on June 28, 1970, just about the time she would have gotten pregnant with him. Yet there was no mention of a secret rendezvous with a classmate or an affair with a married man or a night of drinking that had led to a reckless encounter.
No new name appeared that would arouse suspicion, nothing that made him think she was hiding a guilty secret. No inkling of a backseat tumble at a drive-in, no clandestine meeting in an out-of-town spot. Nothing. Not even an innocent date for a hamburger and a movie.
And in one entry written in March of that year, she had confessed to still being a virgin. And that was the last conscious thought Mark had before sleep.
He didn’t know when he had cried out, didn’t know when he began to sob. And he didn’t know when Ivy had slipped in beside him or when he first felt her warmth at his back as she held him and whispered, “It’s okay, Nicky Jack, it’s okay. Just a bad dream.”
Chapter Seventeen
Mark awoke to the smell of coffee and the sound of Ivy humming along with a radio in the kitchen.
He hadn’t slept well but didn’t know why until he moved. As he sat up, a muscle spasm gripped his back where the metal bar beneath the mattress had punished him throughout the night.
He made several false starts before he managed to stand, and when he crept across the floor, he moved like a spider missing a few legs.
After a torturous journey to the recliner, where he’d tossed his clothes the night before, he found they’d been replaced by a pink terry-cloth bathrobe at least three sizes too small for him.
“Morning,” he said as he shuffled into the kitchen.
“Hey, I was right. Pink’s your color.”
“Thanks.” His body tilted at an unnatural angle as he hobbled in the direction of the nearest chair.
“Are you all right?”
“Now why would you ask a silly question like that?” he said, wincing with each painful step.
“Because you’re walking like a wounded goose.”
“Well, I just got up. I’m a little stiff.”
“It’s that damn Hide-A-Bed, isn’t it. That bar that digs into your back.”
“That’s the one.”
“Sorry. Guess I should have warned you.”
“About what? That I’d be crippled for life?”
Ivy laughed. “Here, let me work on you.”
As she moved in behind him, Mark said, “Hey, what are you going to do?”
“Make it better.”
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. Why don’t I—”
“Tell me where it hurts. Here?”
“Couple of inches higher.”
Ivy slid her arm around his chest. “Give me your right hand.”
When he did, she pulled his hand under his left arm.
“What are you doing?” he asked, sounding more fearful than inquisitive.
“Moving your shoulder blade so I can get to that muscle. Now relax.” She began massaging the knot of muscle, first with her fingers, then with her elbow, burrowing into the deep tissue. “Does that hurt?”
“Yes, but don’t stop.”
As Ivy pulled Mark’s arm tighter, her belly pressed against his back, a dream from the night before tried to surface. He seemed to remember a woman trying to comfort him, cradling him in her arms as he wept.
The image was fuzzy, a dream with no beginning, no end, the edges ragged and incomplete.
“Better?” Ivy asked.
“I think so.” He rolled his head slowly, testing for pain. “Thanks.”
“Sit down, I’ll get you some coffee. We have bacon and eggs if you want breakfast.”
“Doesn’t bacon have a face?”
“It does.”
“So if I want some . . .”
“You have to cook it.”
“I think I’ll just settle for coffee.”
“You got it.”
“How’s Teeve feeling this morning?”
“Good enough to go to the pool hall.”
“You’re kidding. She went to work with that cold?”
“She’s not going to open the café, but she said if she didn’t crank up the pool hall, the domino boys would cause her more grief than a bad
cold.” Ivy brought two cups of coffee to the table, then sat across from Mark. “I’m going down pretty soon, make her come home.”
“You didn’t stay here because of me, did you?”
Ivy shook her head. “Mom thinks she’s the only one who can open up the place. I can’t see much more to it than unlocking the door and turning on the lights, but she has her own way of doing things.”
“I guess we all do.”
“So, what’ve you got planned for the day?”
“I’m hoping to talk to Rowena Whitekiller. Her name came up again and again in the diary. With any luck, she’s still in town.”
“You want me to see if I can find out?”
“Would you?”
“Sure. I’ll make some phone calls.”
“Thanks. And while you do that, I’d like to take a shower. You have any idea where my clothes are?”
“Oh, Mom took them to the cleaners on her way to the pool hall.”
“Then I guess I’m going to have to ask you to go to my room at the motel and grab me a shirt and pair of slacks. Unless you think I can get by wearing this?”
“I think we ought to steer clear of the motel for a couple of days. Someone there is sure to recognize me, and by now, they’ll assume I know where you are.”
“Then I suppose I’ll have to borrow an outfit from you. You wouldn’t happen to have something in linen, would you? Maybe a two-piece suit with a—”
“I went to Wal-Mart this morning, smart-ass. Bought you a few things.”
“That’s awfully nice of you.”
“Didn’t know if you were a brief or boxer man, but I see I guessed right.”
When he glanced down, Mark discovered that his little pink robe was untied. “You’re a naughty girl, Ivy,” he said as he pulled his robe closed.
“Mark, the stuff I bought you, it’s not exactly your style. I mean, I didn’t have much choice in shirts and—”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure whatever you got will be fine.”
“That’s great,” Ivy said into the receiver. “Yes, I’ll tell him. Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
After she cradled the phone, Ivy looked up to see Mark standing in the doorway. He was wearing the clothes she’d bought him at Wal-Mart: stiff Levi’s, a western-cut plaid shirt, cowboy boots, a belt with a brass buckle in the shape of a horse’s head.
“I look like Howdy Doody,” he said, his voice registering resignation.
“No, you don’t.” Ivy tried to sound reassuring but couldn’t quite manage it without grinning. “You look . . . well, like you belong here.”
“Okay. I look like Howdy Doody in Oklahoma.”
She gave it up then and fell back on the couch, hooting with laughter.
“You did this on purpose, didn’t you,” he said.
“I didn’t. I swear.”
“Listen, if you think I’m going out of this house in this getup, you’re—”
“Not even to meet Rowena Whitekiller?”
“She’s still here? You talked to her?”
“Just hung up.”
“Did you tell her about me?”
“She’d already heard that you’d come back from the dead, but she didn’t sound too anxious to meet you.”
“What did she say?”
“Tried her best to get out of it. Her first excuse was a migraine, so I tried to set up something for later in the day. Then she said she had to go to the hospital, but when I suggested that you meet her there, she backed off real fast.”
“What do you suppose is going on?”
“I don’t have a clue, but she’s sure as hell jumpy about something.”
“So, am I going to see her?”
“Yeah, at her dad’s place, but you’d better hurry before she changes her mind.”
“Can I borrow your van?”
“I’m afraid it’s not going to be that simple. Look.”
Ivy parted the curtains to give Mark a view of the street. A TV van was parked in front of the house, a police cruiser just behind it. Two boys on bikes were riding circles in the driveway and half a dozen people had gathered three doors away on the corner.
“Mom called when she got to town. Said a TV crew followed her from here, then parked across the street from the pool hall.”
“Then how in the hell am I going to get out of here? Try to outrun them?”
“I have a plan.”
“Now I know why I’m disguised as Howdy Doody.”
“Trust me, Mark. Just trust me.”
Twenty minutes later, Mark was behind the wheel of a white paneled truck with multicolored logos on the sides advertising Noah’s Ark Plumbing Service.
True to her word, Ivy had devised a plan. And so far it seemed to be working.
First, she’d backed her van out of Teeve’s garage with Mark in the floorboard covered with a quilt. Then, closely followed, she’d driven five miles outside town to a prefab metal building, home of Noah’s Ark Plumbing.
After she parked inside the shop garage, Noah Harjo, her cousin, closed the overhead door, exchanged shirts with Mark and gave him a Noah’s Ark cap. A few minutes after Ivy and Noah took off in her van, leading a procession of vehicles back to town, Mark drove Noah’s plumbing truck to a farmhouse where Rowena Whitekiller was waiting.
The woman who answered the door was nearly three times older and more than three times as large as the girl in the photo Mark had seen.
“Oh, my Lord. You look just like her.” Then, glancing at the drive, she said, “Why are you driving that truck?”
“I’m hoping to avoid a crowd.”
“What?”
“Too many people want to talk to me right now.”
“Look, I don’t want to get mixed up in this again.”
“Don’t worry. I wasn’t followed.”
Rowena hesitated as she checked out the road in both directions. Finally she opened the door, then led Mark down a narrow hallway into a living room furnished with large antique pieces. Because of her size, she moved slowly, with the gait of one suffering from bad hips and ruined knees.
“Your cousin told me you wanted to ask me some questions about Gaylene.”
“If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t want anything I say to you to end up in the newspaper.”
“I can promise you that won’t happen.”
Rowena was quiet then, taking her time to study Mark. “You’re like her, you know. In so many ways.” She removed her glasses, then with the back of her hand wiped away the tears spilling down her cheeks. “Sorry. I thought I was ready for this. I mean, after the shock of hearing you were alive, I kind of adjusted to the idea. But now, well, it’s a little spooky.”
“I understand. This whole thing’s pretty spooky for me, too.”
“We started in kindergarten on the same day. Two scared little Indian girls and eighteen other kids, all white. They singled me out early, first recess. Girls singing ‘Whitekiller, Whitekiller, cut your throat and drink your blood.’
“I cried, wanted to run off home, but Gaylene wouldn’t go. She said if we ran once, we’d run forever. And when the biggest bully in the class pulled my hair, said he was gonna scalp me, Gaylene whipped him.
“From then on, she looked out for me. And it was like that all the way through school. She played forward on the basketball team; I played guard. We wore each other’s clothes, skipped school together, double-dated, told each other all our secrets.”
“I’m hoping you’ll share one of those secrets with me.”
The change in Rowena’s demeanor was immediate and obvious. Her skin paled, and a tic began to pulse beneath one eye; her fingers, trembling now, worried at a ragged nail.
“I don’t know who your father is,” she said, her voice taking on a defiant tone. “She never told me.”
“But you were best friends. Why wouldn’t she?”
“It wasn’t my business. Not then, no
t now.”
“What is it you’re afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid.”
“I think you are.”
“Listen. I’m going to tell you what I told the sheriff almost thirty years ago. I don’t know who got Gaylene pregnant. And I don’t know who killed her.”
“But you must have some suspicions.”
“Suspicion gets people in trouble. And I don’t need more trouble than what I’ve already got. I thought the world of Gay, she was the most important person in my life growing up. And I can’t believe I’m sitting here talking to her son. In some ways, it’s a bit like talking to her.”
March 2, 1968
Dear Diary,
I didn’t write last night because we didn’t get back from Oklahoma City until three this morning. It was a terrible night.
First, we lost our last game in the regional tournament. Okemah beat us 63 to 61. Then, on the way home, our school bus had a flat and we had to stand outside while Mr. Peters, our bus driver fixed it. We almost froze.
But the worst thing that happened was that one of the Okemah girls got mad at Keann Robinson who plays guard on our team and called her a nigger.
Sometimes I hate white girls.
Spider Woman
Chapter Eighteen
When Mark backed out of the driveway, he got a glimpse of Rowena Whitekiller watching him from a front window of the house. She’d clearly been relieved when she said a hurried good-bye and wasted no time in locking the door behind him. He supposed she’d wanted to see him drive away to be certain he didn’t hang around, waiting for her to step outside so he could hammer her with more questions.
He was sure she knew more than she’d told him, but he couldn’t figure out why, after all these years, she was holding back. The only explanation he could come up with was fear. She was afraid of someone. The trick would be to figure out who it was.
As he neared Main Street, Mark realized he’d been driving aimlessly, no thought given to where he was headed. But finding himself close to town, he decided to delay meeting Ivy as they’d planned and instead make a quick stop at the Riverfront.
Since he was outfitted in the Noah’s Ark shirt and cap, and driving the plumber’s truck, he felt he had a decent chance of getting in and out of the motel without being recognized.
