Operation Bonnet

by Kimberly Stuart

  Pop groaned. “Nellie, how about giving the guy a break? Must you punish him for the rest of his life just because of who he was in junior high?”

  “Probably,” I said, preoccupied with arranging a line of asparagus on a cookie sheet. I drizzled olive oil over the spears and tried switching the subject. “How was your trip? You look good, Pop.” It was a sneaky diversion but true nonetheless. My parents spent a lot of time touring the world’s endless offering of golf courses, most of them prohibitively expensive to people who couldn’t list a yacht as a deductible business expense. Mother’s money was nearly as old as the town of Casper. Great-grandfather Seamus, the railroad man, built the original footprint of the home we inhabited. Unfortunately, Seamus thought generosity was a character flaw and took great pride in keeping every dime to himself. I heard once that he required his wife to keep a ledger of what she ate so that he could withhold it from her monthly allowance. Sounds dreamy, doesn’t he? And my parents wondered why I wasn’t jumping at the chance to marry Myles Olafson. I’d keep my own ledgers, thank you.

  “Great trip, great trip.” Pop had opened a ginger ale and sat on one of the bar stools at the center island. He wore, as he had every day since the one on which he’d sold his real-estate firm, a collared and pressed golf shirt, khakis, and breathtakingly expensive shoes. There were variations on this theme. That day, for example, he’d chosen green and white stripes for the shirt and some sort of canvas boat shoe with leather accents. The shoes were really quite horrible, a cross of tastes between Edward Scissorhands and Arnold Palmer. Worse, they had likely cost the price of a round-trip ticket to Borneo. He wiped at the beads of water sweating off a bottle and onto the marble. “Perfect weather again in North Carolina, nice new course in South Carolina, fun stop in Charleston to see some of your mother’s old sorority chums.” He paused. “Wish you’d been there, pumpkin. Why don’t you come along next time?”

  I finished wrapping thick slices of hickory-smoked bacon around the pink fillets. “Thanks, Pop, but I have my job. Plus, Nona needs me.”

  The lines around his mouth deepened. “How is she?”

  My eyes stung a bit, but it might have been because I was slicing shallots. “She’s all right,” I said, willing my voice to be cheerier than I felt. My pop didn’t do well with crises, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he had. There wasn’t anything left for anyone to do.

  “Well,” he said, pushing back on the bar stool, “we sure appreciate you keeping her company when we’re away.” He swallowed and cleared his throat. The noise was abrupt, echoing off the tile walls. “I’d better tell your mother that dinner’s in the works. Thanks for cooking, sweetheart.” He came to kiss me on the cheek. “You make it good to be home.”

  I smiled, eyes still stinging. Shallots were typically milder than onions, but I might have bought a bitter batch.

  5

  Thicker Than Water

  “Mmmm,” Nona murmured at dinner that night, tucking a corner of her linen napkin into the crease of her smile. “Such a lovely thing, beef.”

  “You know,” Pop said around a bite of asparagus, “you’re an awfully good chef, Nellie. Must have gotten that from my side of the family.” He winked at me and turned a playful glance on my mother.

  “Hmph,” she muttered, slouching a bit in her chair but mopping up every part of the red wine–shallot sauce that her slice of artisan bread would allow. I watched her. My mother was fifty-six years old, and she was smokin’. That was just the truth, one that I’d learned to accept long ago, most painfully in junior high. My male classmates would stare when she dropped me off before school, gangly arms and legs stopped midstride in games of pick-up basketball or Frisbee. Annette’s lips were full and often painted in colors that would make me look like I worked in a saloon. Her body was lithe and sculpted, some from the hand of a capable surgeon in Cleveland, but mostly from her religious commitment to working out. My body, though technically slim, had benefited from little or no attention in the way of Pilates classes or aerobic exercise. And though eventually I learned to pluck my unibrow, I never did catch Mother’s giddy excitement in her approach to the Lancôme counter.

  Annette-Nellie joint appearances, then, built within me a quirky emotional fortitude. I spent many hours wondering aloud with Nona how it was, exactly, that the woman who could give Sophia Loren a run for her lira had spawned me, the girl who broke an ankle the one time in junior high she wore pumps instead of Chuck Taylors. With enough repetition, I became adept at hearing Nona’s soundtrack in my head, the one that told me I was more than a girl with scary hair, more than a person who thought tweezers and razors were overrated. People still stopped and stared when Mother and I would shop together, her in knee-high Italian leather boots and me in Rockports. But with time, I tolerated others’ shock that Annette and I were mother and daughter, and even felt less impact from the shock waves myself.

  “How are things around here?” Annette said and took a delicate sip of water. “Did you miss us?” Her hair fell in soft and deceptively simple layering around her face, slightly shorter in back to fall in a frame around her jaw line. She fingered a sapphire pendant hanging around her neck. The jewel was held in place by a swirl of platinum, and her garnet nail polish reflected the light from the chandelier.

  “We certainly did,” Nona said. Her exuberance sounded too eager. “Nellie takes such good care of me.” She waited and then kicked me under the table.

  “Ow-ie-yesss. Nona and I did just fine. Nona in particular did fine. Probably finer than most people in her age bracket.”

  My parents stared at me, and I could see Nona bite her lip. It was my responsibility to keep Mother and Pop placated and happy so that they wouldn’t bring up putting Nona away at Fair Meadows. Nona knew she wasn’t herself, but she and I had decided a trip to the Meadows would be only one small notch up from shoving her off the dock down by the river. Nona was great, I was great, everything was peaches.

  After a beat, Pop cleared his throat. “Good. That’s good to hear. How are things at work? How is Tank these days?”

  I put down my fork, plate cleared of everything edible, and suppressed a burp into my mouth. Mother frowned. I reported, “With the help of an ex-Amish kid, Tank is constructing a mini-golf course.”

  “Good grief,” Pop muttered.

  Mother shook her head. “Certainly you aren’t surprised, Clive. Remember where you are.” Returning was always rough on Mother. After weeks in five-star hotels, lunch dates at art museums, leisurely rounds of golf, socializing with people who shunned commercial air travel—the return to itty-bitty Casper, Ohio, wore on her. She’d grown up here against the force of her will and a fierce wanderlust. Mini-golf was just one more punishing metaphor.

  “Nellie, honey, you know you’re welcome to quit that job whenever you’d like,” Pop said as he buttered the last slice of bread. “Don’t wait until you’re old like me to enjoy life.” He shook his head. “When I think of all the years I spent working until I fell into bed at night.…” Pop wouldn’t have had to work a day after he married Mother, so deep were the reserves. It always made me stand up straighter when I could tell people he owned his own business and was very good at it. He’d missed every single Saturday and Sunday through most of my childhood, showing houses and negotiating offers. I had made him pay with my fair share of teenage whining and general snottiness. But the way I now saw it, all that time away had nudged me toward a great friendship with Tank, and I knew Pop loved me.

  Can you believe how well-adjusted I was, and without a single visit to the therapist? I should write a book.

  Pop picked up his knife, pointing it in my direction. “Why don’t you tell Tank you’re off to see the world? Take a few months in Europe. Or Africa.”

  “Greece,” Mother said, her eyes lighting. “Greece is sublime. And the style there is very casual, Nellie. You’d be just fine.” />
  I know what you’re thinking. Here’s a girl who was young, single, almost college-educated, brilliant, and reasonably attractive. Add to this a nice inheritance and the perpetual encouragement of her father to quit her low-paying job and kick back on a cruise ship or a tour bus or a safari Jeep before facing the perils of adulthood—if you think I was loony, you won’t be the first or the last. I watched Nona’s face cloud over. She ducked her chin, suddenly absorbed with her fork.

  “I’m not really into feta and kalamata olives. Or falafel.” I saw Nona smile at her plate. “Plus, I’ve finished my third online course in PI licensure. I can’t leave now, when I’ll probably be signing up lots of clients.”

  “Here we go,” Pop said under his breath.

  “Nellie, you cannot still be thinking of doing that,” Mother said, pouring the last of the Shiraz into her glass. “I thought you’d given up by now.” She clenched her jaw.

  I clenched right back. I may not have gotten the lips, but I did get her spine. “I’ll be really good at it. I just need to get my name out.”

  Pop cleared his throat. “Pumpkin, what’s the salary for something like that? What does a PI make? An hourly? And what about benefits?”

  “And what about that it’s”—Mother hesitated, but the wine allowed her to plow right ahead—“it’s trashy? Trashy work following around trashy people and learning about their trashy lives. It’s unbecoming to a Byrne. Or a Monroe.”

  At this point, my hair and face were the same spot on the color wheel. I tried breathing deeply, and when that didn’t work, I kicked the heavy upholstered chair behind me as I stood. I walked to the wall and vaulted into a headstand.

  “What—Nellie, what on earth?” Poor Pop. He had never known what to do around so much estrogen.

  “This helps me clear my head and relax. I need to think, and I’m not finished with this conversation.” I closed my eyes.

  “I will never understand you,” Mother said, pushing back from the table and teetering just slightly on her four-inch heels. “You could have such a lovely life, even if you chose to work. National Merit Scholar, summa cum laude, swooning teachers all through school. And yet you are content to work at a golf course and take computer classes about private investigation.” She shook her head. “I don’t get it, Nellie. And frankly, it can be embarrassing when it comes up at dinner parties.”

  I could feel my feet falling asleep, high above me, but I stayed upside down. Even from my compromised vantage point, I could see Nona’s frown.

  “And,” Mother continued, “people here don’t even need a private investigator. You’re wasting your life.” Her last words sounded desperate. I was shocked to see her eyes shining with tears. Annette was known for lots of things, but public displays of sadness were not one of them. I remembered her shedding a total of 2.75 tears at the funeral of her great-aunt, but that was it for my entire childhood. I head-stood motionless, waiting to see if any tears would make the full leap over her lashes and onto the cheeks.

  “Put your feet down,” she said sharply. “Your soles are scuffing the walls.” With that, she turned on one stiletto and walked out of the room.

  “She almost cried,” Nona said, awe filling her voice.

  I let my legs fall forward and felt the blood rush back to its regular circulatory pattern. Pop sighed and said something about playing Tank’s course before nightfall. Nona and I were left alone. She shrugged, smiled at me, and cut a ladylike incision into her cold steak.

  6

  Hired Hand

  My first job found me that night. It was dark, 2300 hours, a fog descending on the city.… I self-narrated all of this many times over the days that followed, and I must say, it was hugely satisfying. The fog part was the most delicious of the details, if something of a stretch. After the headstand conversation, I’d stepped outside for a walk. The air felt like a bully, humid and thick, even in the first part of June. When I passed under streetlights, I could almost see the air underneath, a summertime fog of sorts.

  Honestly, I still might pursue fiction writing. Sometimes the words just flow.

  The conversation at dinner had riled me. It wasn’t really the things Mother had said. In fact, the topic was tired. I didn’t expect anyone to understand why I was lured to a life of espionage, adventure, and danger. Misty Warren-Pitz would never understand a luminary, Mother couldn’t understand a girl who wouldn’t use an eyelash curler, and Pop couldn’t understand the pull of twenty-four-hour surveillance. I was destined to live the life of an outsider, a nomad, a renegade. Pariah would be another great choice and was one of my favorite AP English words (Indian derivative, for one who is hated, distrusted), but that seemed a tad strong for Casper.

  It wasn’t being misunderstood that had rankled me. It was the feeling I needed to do something, fast. I needed to put all those Internet courses to the test, Cleveland be darned. There my mother sat, uncharacteristically emotional, almost crying, for glory’s sake. She sat in her gigantic house, surrounded by horrible crystal figurines and fake eggs that cost more than the gross national product of Uruguay, and still she was unhappy. If Mother, in her perfect life, wasn’t so perfect, there had to be more people like her right there in Casper. With enough years of imperfect living came desperation, and with desperation, money laundering, tax evasion, and eventually the Mafia. Maybe Casper wasn’t the wasteland barren of indecent behavior I thought it was. Maybe I merely needed to look harder.

  At the corner of Sycamore and Taylor, I paused, filling my lungs with the impossible air of a midwestern summer. I turned on Sycamore, heading to the elementary school playground for a swing, and heard the sound of footsteps not far behind me.

  I froze, my heart racing. This was it. This was the moment I could finally justify all the hours of training, all the articles read, all the Bond movies committed to memory. I was formulating a very complicated yet effective plan when I felt someone’s breath on my neck.

  “WAAAAAAAAEEEE!” I screamed, sounding every bit the girl I was. It was a defeating picture, to be sure. But breath on the neck was not something covered in the online tutorial.

  “It is I again!”

  “Amos! You stealthy Amish freak!” I began hitting him with both fists, full bore and nothing like a weak-wristed girl. The adrenaline he’d spiked in me coursed through my body, making my arms and legs quiver like Jell-O. I kept punching until I heard a whimper. Arms at my sides, I finally stood still in the middle of the sidewalk, panting.

  “You,” he gasped, “are not hitting like a regular female. Or maybe this is regular for English girls?” He blotted a bloody lip on the hem of his shirt. Even in the semidarkness, I could see it was DayGlo tangerine.

  I sighed. “Sorry. Again. But you really have to learn to announce your presence. I mean, sheesh, Amos.” I was still shaken and took the opportunity to wag a finger in his face. “You try that anywhere else, like Dayton or Cleveland, and you’ll get yourself shot.”

  His eyes grew big. “With a firearm.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Like a Derringer or a forty-five.” A breeze lifted the leaves in the trees above us, and I shuddered, my skin receptive and eager after fear-induced sweat.

  “I am the most sorry,” Amos said, his voice grave. “I would never want to scare any woman or be the cause of urban violence.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. I turned, and he rushed to join me. “As for the way I fight, you’re right that most girls don’t punch like I do. Most girls haven’t undergone the training I have.”

  “I see.” As we moved, his strides lengthened until I was nearly jogging to keep up. Still bruised from my sissy scream, I matched his pace and vowed to do so at the expense of aching quads. He walked, and I adhered to him like a terrier for three blocks before Amos spoke.

  “I am looking to hire a Magnum PI.”

  I stopped
and turned. It took him a few more strides to realize I wasn’t beside him anymore.

  Clearing my throat, I looked up, then down the street. “You have need for my services?” I raised one eyebrow and crossed my arms across my chest. No need to act overeager.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I understand if you are not in agreement with me. But please, first listen to my story.”

  I paused, appearing to mentally sift through my packed schedule, all the cheating husbands needing to be caught, the identity thieves needing a trip up the river, the long-lost war buddies hoping to be reunited. After a moment of contemplation, I relented. “All right,” I said. “Let’s talk.”

  I led him to the playground, each of us taking one of the wide black swings newly relieved to summer vacation. A pair of crickets sang an off-key duet to each other somewhere near the spiral slide.

  I slipped the Elite from my jeans pocket and looked up. “You don’t mind, do you?” I asked, gesturing to the recorder.

  “No, of course I do not,” he said. A lone lightning bug dipped lazily near Amos’s crop of blond hair.

  Ohyesohyesohyesohyes, I thought, my fingers shaking as I pushed the power button. I’m using my Elite! For official business! The thought of Matt’s guaranteed awe flickered through my mind, but I got a grip and sobered myself for the work.

  I cleared my throat and started the recorder. “Tenth of June, 2320 hours. Recreational equipment at undisclosed learning facility, air temperature approximately eighty degrees Fahrenheit, ninety percent humidity.”

  I could feel Amos’s eyes on me. I gathered my hair and bunched it over one shoulder, grateful for the breeze that cooled my neck. “Client A will tell his story.”

  I nodded at Amos, but he sat, staring at the flashing red light on the Elite. After a few seconds of this, I pushed pause. “Are you ready?”

  He dragged his eyes away from my hands. “Yes, I am ready. But”—he hesitated, shutting his eyes—“is it fine to put off the machine? I do not want to talk about her with a machine.”