by Joanna Rose
Mrs. Taskey shook out a pink and yellow towel.
“These will look nice,” she said.
The towel was decorated with ducks, or maybe teapots, and she set a folded stack of them on the counter.
Lakshmi said, “Cute,” without looking up. She was actually looking closely at a single strand of her hair.
“And I brought a little hook,” Mrs. Taskey said―a small, white cup hook. “How about right here, in the side by the sink, see, so handy.”
Barbie moved to the edge of the bed, half sitting, half leaning. She pulled at her lower lip and didn’t even look at Bullfrog, who seemed to find the wet cuff of her pants very interesting. Pattianne found Barbie’s lip interesting. It seemed over-large, and it hung open, and she kept tugging at it, like maybe her lip had grown that way through years of her tugging at it like that. Bullfrog kept sniffing at her cuff, and he worked his way around her feet like he was going to lift a leg and have a shot at her.
“Now, Lakshmi, dear, do you remember how we make sour milk?”
Lakshmi was looking at her fingernail polish. Bright pink today.
“Vinegar!” Mrs. Taskey said. “Pattianne, I bet you knew that, didn’t you? Barbie, don’t do that, dear. Do you need a tissue? Why don’t you go wash your hands?”
Lakshmi worked at her fingernail polish, chipping it off.
Mrs. Taskey said, “Let’s preheat!”
Lakshmi said, “Pattianne has to do the stove,” the little tick-tick of nail polish chipping off.
“We’re going to make buttermilk biscuits,” Mrs. Taskey said. “And we’ll make sour milk with vinegar instead of buying a whole quart of buttermilk, since all we need is a half cup.”
Yet another knock at the door, and Mrs. Taskey called out, “Come in.”
Mr. Bleakman pushed open the door and held up two envelopes. One was long and pale-peach colored. The other was blue.
“You got to pick ’em up,” he said. “No delivery, you know.”
Bullfrog stopped sniffing at Barbie.
“Oh, Pattianne, you got letters, how nice. Thank you, Mr. Bleakman. Barbie, don’t do that.”
The envelopes were small in his big, inky fingers, and Pattianne took them out of his hand. He smelled like onions.
“While you’re here, I bet you could put this nice hook into this cabinet for us, couldn’t you? It’s a little screw hook, but I just bet you can get it started for us, eh, girls? Please, come in. How about some tea? Should we make a pot of tea, girls?”
Lakshmi said, “Who are your letters from?”
Mr. Bleakman said, “Just work it into that hole already there.”
Barbie said, “I have to go,” her voice coming out low and rough.
Lakshmi said, “What kind of tea?”
Pattianne said, “I don’t have a teapot.”
“Here,” Mrs. Taskey said, and she held the hook out to Mr. Bleakman, who was still standing with the door open. Beyond him was beautiful rain and dusk. He stepped in and pushed the door shut with one heavy, wet boot. Bullfrog went under the bed.
Barbie said, “Is that the bathroom?” pointing her finger at the open bathroom door, where the light shone on the toilet, like the toilet was just kept in there for fun and the bathroom was behind some other door that was invisible.
“You might look at the pilot light on the stove while you’re here,” Mrs. Taskey said. “Seems you have to light those burners with a match. Shouldn’t they light when you turn on that gas?”
“Old stove,” he said.
“It’s number two,” Barbie said.
“Is there coffee instead?” Lakshmi said. “Let’s make coffee.”
“You shouldn’t be drinking coffee at your age, dear. How about some nice peppermint tea? Pattianne, do you have some peppermint tea?”
Lakshmi said, “Boring,” and Mr. Bleakman took the hook from Mrs. Taskey and worked it into the hole in the side of the cabinet, where it dangled.
“See, that won’t do at all, will it? Let’s fix it right for Pattianne as long as you’re here.”
Barbie said, “I have to go.”
Pattianne said, “So go.”
She said it a little loud maybe. Bullfrog woofed from under the bed, and the wind picked up outside.
Mrs. Taskey took Barbie by the arm and steered her into the bathroom.
“There you go,” she said in a big whisper, and she came back out and closed the bathroom door very gently.
Mr. Bleakman poked his inky finger at a couple other holes in the side of the cabinet, and Pattianne slid the envelopes into her back pocket. Lakshmi unbuttoned the second button on her blouse and looked down at herself and buttoned it back up, looked at herself again. Mrs. Taskey picked up a folded pink-and-yellow duck-teapot dishtowel and fanned herself. Number two noises came from the bathroom.
“I don’t have any tea,” Pattianne said.
“See this nail?” Mr. Bleakman said, “Just hang what you need from this nail.”
Barbie yelled, “I don’t know where the flush thing is.”
Lakshmi looked at Pattianne and mouthed the word retarded. Pattianne was shocked.
Mr. Bleakman turned to the door.
“No delivery,” he said. “You got to pick it up.”
He went out into the rain and dusk, and Pattianne caught the door before it shut all the way and watched him as he disappeared behind the big rock. The toilet flushed behind her.
“See here,” Mrs. Taskey said. “It’s a pull chain—isn’t that funny. Now, let’s wash our hands.”
Finally, they were all gone, and it was just Pattianne and enough buttermilk biscuits to feed half the town. And they were neither ducks nor teapots, but hearts.
And the letters were not letters but cards. Another one from Mrs. Bryn. A folded note fell to the floor. She picked it up and didn’t want to unfold it, but when she did, it was from Mr. Bryn.
Just come back home. Things can work out. You are united with us in the Lord Jesus Christ, who doesn’t want to judge, only forgive.
The other one was from Mom and Dad. Happy birthday, with gilt and dancing parrots that seemed to be wearing top hats. Love, Mother and Daddy, in her mother’s perfect handwriting. And below that, to my birthday girl, in her father’s writing, thick, strong. She tried to remember ever even seeing his handwriting before. She tried not to cry. She didn’t know why it should all be so sad. She didn’t know why it was such a surprise.
She had never been allowed in the kitchen when her mother was cooking. Her job was cleaning up after. Her mother baked cookies every Saturday for their school lunches. She made spice cakes and angel food cakes, and she cooked dinner every night. Stuffed peppers every Thursday. Fish sticks or broiled cod on Fridays. Spaghetti sometimes, or boiled ham with green beans and potatoes, and then split pea soup with ham the next night. If Pattianne wandered into the kitchen, her mother would shake her hands and say, I’m busy. Set the table. Or, You have homework to do, Pattianne. She never liked having them in there.
Dear Mom and Dad, I’m baking biscuits with this strange Italian-looking girl who is not Italian, in a small kitchen, out here on the edge of nowhere. All is well.
The woman behind the desk in the post office took the envelope and smiled. Her two front teeth were capped and bright white in there with all her other yellowish teeth, and she smiled big, like she liked those shiny white teeth.
“Your dog out there?” she said. “He can come in here when I’m here, you know. Says ‘No Dogs Allowed’ and all, but I like dogs.”
She dropped the envelope into a bin behind the desk.
“All the way to New Jersey, eh?”
Suddenly Pattianne wanted it back.
“Well, here,” the woman said, and handed her another envelope. “He said you wouldn’t be in to pick this up, but here you are, eh?” It was a long white envelope with a typed address. “So, see you at the potluck, eh? You bringing biscuits? I’m making sweet potatoes in Coke—well, RC is what she’s got at the st
ore. Sweet potatoes and yams, are they completely different? You know, I always did wonder.”
Office of the Archdiocese in script in the corner.
Another woman came in then, and the woman with the teeth said, “Hey, your package is here, I was going to dial you up—well, push-button you up, I guess you should say, eh?”
Pattianne backed toward the door, ready to say goodbye in case she had to, which she didn’t.
A warm, steady breeze blew in from the beach, the waves a long way out. The proprietress stood at the window of Ruby’s Roadhouse, and Pattianne waved and she nodded. The sun on the water hurt her eyes, but it was just sun on the water. There was no reason to think she’d have another headache. Then again, there was no reason why she’d had the last one. She had quit taking birth control pills. The headaches should just go away.
When Jen was on the debate team, she used to go around quoting the legal definition of the word should whenever anyone used it: “Ought to, but not necessarily will.” Great. She will not necessarily get a migraine ever again. She was just walking in the sun at the beach. The waves broke in shallow reaches on the smooth sand, and the wind smelled different somehow, like spring. Black sea grass, tangled and flat, marked high tide, and the driftwood along the back of the beach was broken and storm-beaten, bright red cedar hearts split open among the silvered logs. A half-moon, thinly white, looked like it was made of the same stuff as the high clouds. She held the blue glass vial in her hand in her pocket. Walking the beach along Wickaninnish Bay was time out of time. She never knew how long she was out here. She decided she would never check the time before and after.
Out past the foam were nets of black kelp, and around the edges of the kelp were small birds, not seagulls, smaller, and she couldn’t quite see them, but she saw red and white and black stripes. Her eyes watered and everything glittered, but it was just her eyes watering. She said this to herself, to Bullfrog. “It is just my eyes watering, sun and wind,” and he agreed. He thought everything was just fine and told her not to worry. Bright water, salt wind, blinking, sometimes you have to try so hard just to see. There were birds in afterimage. Dozens of birds, maybe hundreds, poking in and out of the water, with long, pointed black beaks. Here and there a single bird spinning in small circles. Yams and sweet potatoes. Turnips and rutabagas. Bird cries came over the waves, like the striking of the high keys of a piano over and over, sounding and then silenced in the wind over the water, and then she heard them again, and then Bullfrog’s tags jingling. She could walk with her eyes closed.
She had come this far, the edge of the continent. She could go farther, to Alaska maybe, but this was the edge of something, and it felt safe. Nobody knew her, and she could stay here until she had just enough money left to get back to St. Cloud.
She could stay here and be quietly sorry and keep her mouth shut. She came this far to think about it all, and now she found she could be here and just not think, and just not do anything, not do anything wrong. She had run away from home. She wondered how long her money would last. She wondered if she could still get that full-time library job in St. Cloud. She wondered what it would take to change her name back.
She carried these ashes, and she would throw them into the silver tide, the first night she saw such a thing.
It was possible to run away from home. The world was a big enough place to be alone. She didn’t want adventure and travel and escape. She just wanted this. An old dog, a small house. A bathtub would be nice.
Bullfrog found the path through the woods to the convenience store. She followed. The woods were still, except for two of the big crows making their strange knocking noise. Bullfrog bounced on his front feet, sniffed the air for the big dog chained up at the trailer. The air off the beach was quiet and still. The big dog wasn’t there.
The air in the convenience store was dry with a cardboard smell, and something like cherry, some vague, convenience-store smell. The Chinese man sat behind the counter. His face was wet with tears, not even maybe rain this time, definitely tears. His eyes were all red. He sat behind the counter staring upward. Then he looked at her and shook his head.
“Silly Laura,” he said. “She thinks Jake will never learn of her affair with William. And how is she to explain the dark skin of her child?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Jake’s mother Anna will tell him, of course, she is hard-hearted and shrewd. And then Jake will have an excuse to fire William. But what is to become of William’s young sister Deborah, who is, after all, Jake’s half-sister? Anna does not know this. We shall see how it comes to light.”
Loud, symphonic music filled the air, and the Chinese man aimed the remote at a television behind the counter, muting it.
“Next is Young and the Restless,” he said. “Not to my liking.” He wiped his face with his sleeve.
“Oh,” she said. “Well, coffee? I was just out walking.”
She gave him two quarters. He held them up and said, “Very good.”
The coffee in the Styrofoam cup was worth two quarters just to warm her fingers.
“Cold,” she said.
“And did you get to enjoy the snow?”
“No.”
Her arm trembled, a small shake from shoulder to hand. She set the coffee on the counter and picked it back up.
“Crazy weather. Here,” he said, pointing to another stool at the end of the counter. “Please,” he said.
She sat. Her leg muscles pulsed from walking in the sand. A nice place to be. Bullfrog sat outside, looking around, his ears blowing, his nose bobbing, reading the wind. The Chinese man changed the channel and turned the sound back up. He moved the wire rabbit ears and turned the small screen so she could see it. The picture was black and white, an empty courtroom, dramatic music coming out in small, tinny tones and names appeared. Perry Mason. She remembered watching it when she was little, home sick from school, her mother giving her crackers and ginger ale.
“Ah,” he said. “Today we get Hamilton Burger. That other DA bugs me.”
Della Street walked briskly into Perry Mason’s elegant office, her skirt pencil-slim, her hair sleek and bouffant.
“Ham Burger,” Pattianne said. “I get it.”
The Chinese man nodded and watched the screen. She scooted her stool a little closer, right next to him. He had dried shaving cream behind his ear. A large car drove up a dark mountain road, the lights of LA in the distance. The car pulled up outside a fancy house, no lights on in the house, and the music stopped when a tall man in a hat and suit got quickly out of the car. The front door of the convenience store opened, and a young man in a striped shirt pushed in a hand truck, loaded with cases of beer.
“Hmm.” The Chinese man got up, still watching the screen. “Please, stay right here. Watch carefully.” He followed the beer-truck driver to the back of the store. The man with the suit and hat had gone inside the house, but he didn’t turn on any lights, and another car was driving slowly up the road toward the house. A gunshot rang out as the Chinese man hurried up the cookie aisle.
“I think that guy in the hat shot someone. But he hasn’t come out yet.”
“Not him.” He looked at the Doritos clock on the wall over the door. “Too soon for the murderer to appear.”
A door in the back of an office opened, and Paul Drake walked in and sat across from Perry, crossed his leg, lit a cigarette.
The Chinese man said, “Ten minutes at least before we see the face of the murderer.”
She wanted to know his name. She didn’t know how to ask him. She told him hers.
“I’m Pete.”
He turned his face to her. He had black eyes, tired eyelids, old eyes. The whites were dim.
“Li,” he said. He smiled, and his eyes disappeared for a moment, looked older. “Glad for the company.” Paul Drake and Perry looked concerned.
The beer-truck driver came up the cookie aisle and looked over the counter. “Jake find out about Laura and William yet?”
&nbs
p; Mr. Li shook his head as Della approached Perry’s huge, orderly desk. Paul said, “Hello Beautiful,” and Della rolled her eyes at him and announced an important phone call. The beer guy put a bill on the counter. Li looked up at the Doritos clock.
“This will be the wrongfully accused on the phone. Did you see who was in that other car?”
“No. Sorry.”
He raised his hand, dismissing her apology.
The beer guy said, “I’ve seen this one before.”
Li raised his hand, dismissing the beer-truck driver.
And there she was, in this place at the far edge of the continent, doing this ordinary thing that felt like being home from school sick when she was little. At the end of the show, all was well, and Della was perched on Perry’s desk, admiring his performance in court.
Pattianne was invited back.
“Every weekday,” Li said. “Two o’clock.”
She and Bullfrog walked back along the highway, walking slower than on the beach. There was no wind, just easy, tired walking home, just walking, courtroom music in her head, the wonder of Della Street. The wonder of that dried bit of shaving cream behind that small ear like a shell. She came to the church. The sign by the road was grown over with sapling alders. A deserted bird nest hung in the thin branches. She walked quietly on.
When they got to the farmers’ market, Bullfrog made his move, trotting right up to the wooden steps. There was an open trash can there. Bullfrog never seemed to forget an open trash can. He circled it and gave it a couple squirts. Inside, two women near the apples watched the man behind the counter, and another woman with a little kid in her arms watched him too. They all looked at Pattianne, as if they had been expecting her and she had finally arrived. She filled a paper bag with purple plums. The two women were still choosing apples when she left. Bullfrog sat on the steps, his nose working the air around the trash can.
The plum skin made her teeth shiver. She spit out a pit, and Bullfrog chased it down and carried it in his mouth for a way along the road.
Back home, she propped the birthday card with the dancing parrots in their top hats on the windowsill. Then she opened the envelope with the name there, typed, Pattianne Anthony Bryn. Her parents’ names, Michael’s name. None of those names was hers.
