by Molly Giles
It wasn’t in the piano bench or in the Tupperware container or the window seat or in the sewing basket with the other jewels. It wasn’t in any of her drawers; it wasn’t in any of her pockets. Still, it had to be somewhere. She could see it so clearly, sparkling as Francis slipped it on her finger that night. It could not be lost.
Thirteen
It was a big world, without Ida. Big and flat and not all that interesting. There was beauty—you could not look up without seeing beauty, all those black and white clouds colliding across that fierce blue Colorado sky—and there was history and art and culture, of sorts, but Francis had never cared much for sightseeing; what Francis liked to do was drive. He drove fast and expertly, with an open bottle of Scotch between his legs, a cigarette in his mouth, and the cheap pair of sunglasses he’d bought in Vegas propped over his bifocals. He only stopped twice: once in Grand Junction to see his brother Harry, and once in Aspen to see the town his great-grandfather had sold for $20.
The visit with Harry was predictable. He found the hardware store on the strip mall and saw Harry, now hairless, grinding keys for a customer. “Hullo, Fancy,” Harry said. “What’s it been? Forty years?” Still fat with a fool’s wet mouth, still a toucher, his hand so heavy on Francis’s jacket it felt as if he wanted to tug it down, take it, tear it to shreds. For the rest of the afternoon, Francis sat in a darkened bar and listened to the Tale of Woe—the ex-wife with MS, the present wife with kidney failure, the grandkid in the cult, the stepkid in detox. At the end of the Tale, Francis peeled off five $500 bills and gave them to Harry with the wrong address, a made-up telephone number. “You know what happened to Mick?” Harry took the money as he took everything, without protest. “I can guess,” Francis said, and what he guessed was close: dead, thirty years ago, shot robbing a gas station in Phoenix. “And Kip?” Dead eleven years ago, no one knew how, alone in a motel room, might have been drugs, might have been heart failure. Arlene?—still in the mental hospital. Joanie, God, last seen, she lived in a trailer park with another woman, weighed three hundred pounds. “So what about you,” Harry asked. “Did you make it with the music?” Francis wiped his lips, pushed back his chair. “Your singing,” Harry persisted. “You ever make an album?” Francis rose. Harry followed him out to the vast brilliant street. “I remember those solos at mass, Ma crying, Pa trying to get you auditioned on the radio …” he trailed off. As they parted, he moved to embrace him but Francis stepped back. “Some things don’t change,” Harry said, his eyes flickering, and that was true, Francis thought, and that was why families, seeing families, being with families, having families, was not such a good idea. You might, if you weren’t careful, end up not changing.
He drove off worried Harry might have written his license number down.
By the time he reached Aspen, it was almost midnight, pitch black and freezing, but he got out anyway and walked around. Great-grandfather McLeod had owned this place back in the 1800s. They’d all have grown up differently, he, Harry, Mick, Joanie, Arlene, and Kip, if the old mining engineer had kept it. Or maybe not. “Nothing up there but snow.” Francis could hear his own father’s voice, the astonished drawl of one bad businessman miming the words of another. He looked down a block still bright with bars and restaurants, still lined with the expensive new cars of skiers and tourists, turned a corner, felt the wind burn his face, and turned back. His ancestor idiot, first in a long line that included him too. That had to be faced. Included him too.
For he’d made his share of dumb deals. Been tricked, been trapped, had tricked and trapped others. His marriage probably the worst deal of all, but who could have predicted that Ida would get so sick, so soon, and stay there. It wasn’t money, with him, he was smart with money, it was people. He didn’t understand people. How could Ida have changed from the light-stepping dancer with the laughing eyes to the old lurcher in the wheelchair? And why was it the lurcher he missed? All the next day, driving blind through white snowfields, green canyons, and high red plateaus, he thought about it. No one to work for anymore. No one to please. For the last twenty years he had waited on Ida hand and foot, and the secret was—he had liked it. Without Ida to serve he felt lost. Unanchored. Unreal. He descended into high desert, watched a tumbleweed blow across the highway, fought the urge to follow it, tightened his grip on the wheel.
By the time he got to Santa Fe he was lonelier than he had ever been in his life. His head was full of dead voices, none of them saying a damn thing worth hearing, and his body was breaking down on him too: his back hurt, his right leg spasmed from the strain of accelerating all day, his left eye had developed a twitch like Popeye’s, his cough was gooey and his breath came hard. He was an ill, idle old man with nothing to do. It didn’t matter if he went forward or back, kept going or stopped where he was. So he stopped where he was. The little painted adobe church at Chimayo, the church Ida had always wanted to go to, the one, she said, that “was better than Lourdes” for miracles, stood before him. He parked the hot and spitting Porsche under the shade of a pepper tree, walked past the tables of souvenirs and artifacts, and paused in the entry, appalled by the crutches and crucifixes hung on the walls by the pious. Then he ducked into the tiny alcove with a few other tourists. The dirt below the altar was supposed to be holy. He poked it with his finger. Didn’t look holy. Looked like dirt. A dab of this, and then what? No need to pray for Ida: she was gone. Victor and Kay were grown, on their own. So—for himself? What did he want? Little Fancy Francis McLeod, the altar boy who sang like an angel, the scholarship kid who hid behind boxes, the architect with the false address … ? He didn’t want anything. Make me a miracle, he said to the dirt. Make me want something.
He dusted his hands off, stepped into the sunlight, and saw a tall brunette in new turquoise cowboy boots slide out of a Ford pickup and walk toward him, her shadow angling into an uncertain arrow. He felt a delirious leap of relief, suppressed it, frowned and tipped an imaginary hat. “Howdy, podner,” he said. “What are you doing out here?”
“Stalking you.” Glo Sinclair stopped in front of him and swallowed. Nervous as a debutante. “Do you mind?”
“Don’t know yet. It’s flattering. But it’s probably a waste of your time. And,” his voice softened, “no offense, my dear, but it’s crazy.”
“I am crazy,” Glo Sinclair said. She picked up his hand, kissed it, pressed it shakily to her side. He felt her craziness, recognized it as part of her quick, hot, generous sexuality, smelled her money, a palpable stink of silver and leather, and saw, reflected in her deep-set, dark, boldly terrified eyes, a zigzag chink of light, a startling staircase to an airy haven that had been reserved, he realized, for years, for him. “I can make you happy,” Glo said. Her tuneless voice was oddly restful, her touch was cool and strong. Her large lips, dabbed with miracle dirt, parted over large white tomboy teeth. Her tongue flicked through, bright red.
Francis smiled and shook his head.
“I know you’re a cynic,” Glo said, “but I believe in happy. I believe it can be done. I’ve been happy. You never have. All your life you’ve served other people.”
Francis considered this. It sounded true—but it wasn’t true. It was like Ida saying, You’re too good for me. Like Kay saying, We killed her.
“I want to serve you,” Glo said. Her eyes on his face didn’t budge and again he saw it, that sudden opening to safety, that lightning slash exposing sun behind storm clouds. She’ll never understand me, he realized. And that will be fine. I will have privacy with her and freedom and space. I might even get some real work done. “Come see the ranch I just bought.” She led him toward her truck. He shrugged, followed. He didn’t have anything better to do.
Kay didn’t see Francis again for weeks. She called his office, his answering machine, drove up to the house, let herself in, paced around the vast glassy rooms frowning, looking for signs of life, finding, now that all traces of Ida had been removed, none. His chair, his table, his desk—one bare polished surface after an
other. Where was he? Why did he leave so few clues? What was he thinking? He appeared in her dreams, an old man in a snowfield, alone in the Arctic, breath faint and frosty, but surely he would not have gone to the North Pole. Francis took good care of himself. Still—was he all right? Mrs. Holland told her about a widower who refused to eat and willed his heart to stop. Was Francis barricaded in some lonely hotel room, face to the wall? Zabeth told her about an ex-lover who took cyanide after his wife died. “It wasn’t until after she died that he even felt guilty about cheating on her,” Zabeth said brightly. Maybe Francis was feeling guilty now too, maybe he was feeling the weight of ugly confusion that Kay herself was staggering under, alone and unaided. What had happened that night? What had they done? Help, she thought. Help.
She was in the mall, shopping for Valentine cards, when she heard Nicky say “Hi, Grampa.” She looked up to see her father, slight, straight, hands in pockets, whistling to himself as he strolled by. He was dressed for work in a grey suit, bow tie, polished shoes. He looked as dapper and self-satisfied as ever. She didn’t know whether to hit him or hug him, realized neither would be possible, ever, and froze, feeling as she always had around him: on tiptoe with pleasure and at the same time scared to death.
“Dad,” she blurted, “what are you doing here?”
“Same as you.” Francis Dutch-rubbed Nicky’s head. “Spending money I don’t have.”
“We have lots of money,” Nicky said.
“We do.” Kay, forgetting, took a half-step toward Francis; Francis took a half-step back. “We have ten thousand dollars. I can’t thank you enough. It’s made all the difference in Neal’s mood, outlook, everything.”
“Neal?” Francis raised his eyebrows. “That check was for you.”
“What would I do with ten thousand dollars?”
“I don’t know. Get a haircut. Go back to school. Aren’t they offering geriatric studies these days?”
Kay stood her ground. “No, but they should be. I’ve been having a lot of problems with my memory,” she added. She looked at him. “Have you?”
“Can’t remember if I have or haven’t,” Francis said. “So it must not be important. Don’t you want to ask me how my trip was?”
No. I want to ask you what happened the night after Mother’s memorial, Kay thought, but Francis was already talking. “I had a very nice trip,” he said. “Thank you. Saw a lot of the country. Especially liked New Mexico.” He made a pincher with his finger, caught Nicky’s nose and shook it lightly back and forth. “You ought to go there.”
“I’ll put it on the list,” Kay said. “So when shall we bring your dog back?”
“Coco? That miserable beast? I don’t want her back.”
“Dad.”
“Isn’t she happy at your house? Big yard to dig up? Dark corners to throw up in? Little boy to terrorize?”
“I like her,” Nicky said, the first time he’d said it. “She doesn’t try to bite me anymore.”
“I like her too,” Kay admitted. “But she’s not happy with us.”
“She’s not happy anywhere. Look, Kay, the thing is, I’m probably going back to New Mexico a couple of times this spring, so tell me the truth: is Cuckoo too much for you to keep for a while? Because if she is, I can put her in a kennel until I know what my plans are.”
“No. Not really. I can keep her until you know.”
“So we’ve settled that. That’s good. Toodleoo.”
“Tood—Dad? Would you like to come to dinner next Sunday?”
“I would,” Francis said. “Except I’m not free next Sunday.”
“The Sunday after?”
“I’ll have to check my extensive social calendar and get back to you on that one, Kay. Oh. What’s the name of that restaurant you and Neal used to like so much?”
“Le Petit Jardin. In Rancho Valdez.”
“Right.” He pulled his gold pen and a notebook out of his pocket and wrote the name down. “Thanks. And thanks for taking on the damn dog too. I ’preciate it. Happy shopping.”
Kay watched him walk away, whistling, his head bobbing as he gazed at the windows lining both sides of the mall. He paused outside a candy store, studying the display of chocolate hearts, then he held the door open for a stooped old lady, said something that made her smile, and stepped inside. Kay turned away. It’s not fair, she thought. It’s not fair I have to figure this out all on my own. Why doesn’t he help me? Why doesn’t he just say, Look, this happened forty years ago and then that happened thirty-five years ago and then that happened six weeks ago and that’s why I don’t love you?
“So how was Valentine’s for you? Get anything from a secret admirer?” Zabeth tied a long chiffon scarf around her head and stretched first one tiger-striped leg then another against the trunk of a flowering plum tree. Kay, bending over her baggy sweat pants in a rag doll bounce, watched petals fall onto the jogging path. Ithad rained last night and the rich smell of the wet earth startled her—the smell of an open grave, she thought. She straightened, already winded, refused the thermos of hot coffee and brandy Zabeth held out, and said, “Neal gave me a single ticket to the ballet. Romeo and Juliet, if you can believe it. How about you?”
Zabeth held out her hand. A heart-shaped diamond in a heart-shaped setting sparkled on a finger darkened with a henna tattoo.
“Garret asked you to marry him?”
“He went down on his knees. You can be my matron of honor if you want.”
Kay glanced up to see if Zabeth was being serious. By the soft gentle look Zabeth threw her, she saw that she was. “I’m honored,” Kay said honestly. “I’d love to. But—what about the bar? Aren’t you going to finish law school?”
“Sure. I want it all. You don’t have to give up one thing to have another.”
“You don’t? Are you sure?” Kay fell into step beside her and started to jog.
“Ha-ha,” Zabeth said. That was all. A short soft ha-ha that sounded happy. Kay glanced at her in wonder. Zabeth’s style hadn’t changed, but Zabeth had. Once again Kay was glad she’d never told her about whatever shameful thing it was that had happened to her with Francis that night. She’d opened her mouth to try a dozen times but had always pulled back, afraid Zabeth would not only assume the worst—that she and Francis had had actual sex—but would enthusiastically endorse it. Fucked your father? Ha-ha-ha. I always fucked mine when I lived back East. But now, Kay suspected, any confession about that dark lost night would only shock her. “I wish you every joy,” Kay said. “I do.”
They ran in silence for a while. A woman with a short cap of blond hair ran past them on the trail but Kay’s heart stayed steady; she was almost used to it now, Ida’s emissaries popping up to remind her. As if she needed reminding. As if she didn’t miss and mourn her mother constantly. Perhaps if we’d said a proper goodbye, Kay thought. Perhaps if we’d ended it right. If I’d told her out loud, and clear, that I loved her. But as it was, unfinished, inconclusive, she could neither step forward nor back. Loss had affected her body like a chronic hangover, and even after weeks of not drinking or smoking, her legs didn’t work right, her lungs didn’t expand; she could barely keep up. She fixed her eyes on the silver pom-poms bobbing on the back of Zabeth’s socks, pushed wet hair off her already hot face, and concentrated on making it to the edge of the madrone grove. Suddenly she heard “Watch out,” and looked up to see Charles Lichtman bent over his handlebars racing straight toward her down the path. His cheeks were flushed, his dark hair blew in curls around his face, his eyes were happy slits against the cold. She lost her footing at once, slipped on a root, and sat down hard in the mud by the side of the trail. Charles Lichtman flew past, braked, and stopped a few yards beyond her.
“Honey lamb,” he called, “are you okay?”
“I’m so sorry! Yes! I just. I don’t know. Fell.”
“Let me see.” He swung off his bike and walked toward her. Why wasn’t he wearing a shirt? It was February! This was like having Tarzan come toward her, male
muscles pumping under bare brown skin. She struggled up to her feet before he could extend a hand. Her ankle throbbed and she was shaking with lust and horror and misery. Zabeth’s eyes, when she met them, were wide, staring as if she’d never seen her before in her life.
“I’m all right,” Kay chattered. “I just fell.”
“No. Turn around.”
Kay, trembling, turned while Charles Lichtman examined the seat of her sweats.
“You think she broke her butt?” Zabeth marveled.
“She hit hard.” Charles Lichtman touched the small of Kay’s back, turned her toward him. “You all right?”
“Yes. Thank you. Fine. Just embarrassed. I should have looked where I was going.”
“No, I should have.”
“There’s only one solution. You,” Zabeth said, pointing to Charles Lichtman, “have to ask her,” pointing to Kay, “out for a drink.”
“Why?” said Kay.
“When?” said Charles Lichtman.
“Tomorrow,” said Zabeth.
“Can’t tomorrow,” Kay and Charles Lichtman said together. “But I can the Monday after,” he added.
“Good.” Zabeth tapped her watch. “The White Oak at five-thirty a week from tomorrow.”
“You sure have a bossy friend,” said Charles Lichtman.
“She’s a recovering dominatrix,” Kay explained.
He gave her his beautiful smile, got on his bike, and rode off into the morning.
“That was great,” said Zabeth. “You did that like a pro.”
“Did he really call me ‘honey lamb’?” Kay crouched down and clutched her swelling ankle.
