by Martha Carr
The shoes were a perfect reflection of Wallis, high-end, but a bargain.
She loved competing and looked for ways to win, no matter what she was doing, keeping a mental tally throughout the day of wins and losses. There were always more victories, but sometimes it was because Wallis was willing to make quick, small compromises to get to her real goal, whatever it was. She understood the practicality of making some small deal while holding the truth of her real desire hidden.
People don’t often give you what you really want, baby girl, her mother said, especially if it seems like they’ll end up with less. Wallis was sure it was some sort of southern woman’s creed.
Smile, don’t mention any flaws no matter how obvious, and make sure you always walk away with more than the other fellow.
Maybe it wasn’t such a surprise then, that Wallis became a lawyer. A family court lawyer, which gave her more than the usual number of opportunities to parse out small victories. It was only when they were added up months later that the other side saw how much they’d actually given away. Compromise for Wallis was another way to win.
She felt under the edge of the tall dresser with her foot but didn’t feel anything.
A dog barked out front, short loud barks that Wallis knew were meant as a warning. She took a quick step to look out her bedroom window, saw nothing but a black SUV pulling away and went back to trying to find her shoe.
Must be another stray, she thought, looking behind the closet door. There had been a problem lately with dogs emerging in the early morning darkness from the nearby park to forage for food.
Please don’t let them be in my garbage, thought Wallis.
Wallis was an only child who was named after Wallis Simpson, the peculiar concubine and eventual wife of the abdicated King Edward of England. Wallis’ mother, Harriet, was enamored of the small woman’s stiff demeanor, severe red lips and perfect boxy suits that never wrinkled. Edward’s abdication in favor of his bride was a nice touch. Harriet had heard all of the adulterous stories about Wallis over the years but refused to believe any of it.
“People always try to pull down those better than themselves,” she’d say, checking a pin curl at the back of her teased and captured hair. “Sometimes the vociferousness of the crowd is only an indication of how well you’re doing.”
To show her continuing devotion even after the original Wallis had passed away, Harriet kept collecting any trinket that was somehow connected to the woman and always managed to tuck a tea towel with the exiled couple’s faces or a set of coasters with their entwined initials into the box of Christmas presents she gave to Wallis every year. Most of the memorabilia was put away under the large antique four-poster bed Wallis shared with her husband, Norman.
The bed was so high off the ground it had come with wooden steps for either side. It made it easier to stuff things underneath and then hide them with an extra-long bed skirt. Norman liked the height because it kept their dog, Joe, out of the bed. Joe was a middling-sized mutt who looked like he was mostly Bichon Frise, but nobody really knew. Norman and their only child, Ned had picked him out at the pound.
Wallis felt around under the four-poster bed with her stockinged foot, nudging against the lost shoe.
“There it is,” she said, accidentally pushing it further away. “Damn.”
She knelt down and slid her arm underneath the bed, pulling out the errant shoe with a clump of dust clinging to the heel.
“Not my department,” she said, briskly pulling off the dust and stepping into the shoe. Housecleaning of any kind and cooking were Norman’s jobs. They’d been married twelve years, all of them happy because it was hard to ever complain about a man who never said much and was willing to vacuum.
Mostly, Norman was a blank pool waiting for others to momentarily reflect something onto him. It unnerved people all the time that he never laughed at anyone’s jokes or added a comment to some aside about the outcome of a case.
He had only one ‘tell’ that had taken Wallis years to pick up on and she had never mentioned it to anyone, including Norman. If he was concerned he’d gently pat-a-pat the growing bald spot at the back of his head, before trying to smooth the remaining dark brown waves of hair. That was it, and even that didn’t happen very often.
Norman was a lawyer as well, a corporate lawyer, and was always getting desperate phone calls from more clients than he had time for who needed calm measured advice to get out of a problem they had created, sometimes knowingly. Norman knew all that and would say to Wallis from time to time without a flicker of emotion, “what would I do for a living if there weren’t so many people who thought they knew everything?”
“You’d find something, Norman. You’re too practical to sit still.”
“That’s true,” he’d answer and return to the brief he was writing.
Together, along with a young attorney, William Bremmer, they formed the law firm of Weiskopf, Jones, and Bremmer. Norman was the Weiskopf and his parents were German Jews who had escaped Nazi Germany when there was still time eventually settling in Richmond along the promenade, Monument Avenue.
Once the Weiskopfs were in America, they decided to think of themselves as American and left their past behind them, heartily celebrating every American holiday. Norman came from a long line of practical people.
His best friend was a popular local Episcopal priest, the Reverend Donald Peakes, who was always called Father Donald by most everyone as an affectionate nickname as much as an official title. Norman told Wallis their friendship gave him balance.
The area surrounding the newest statue on Monument Avenue of the native-born tennis ace, Arthur Ashe, was the furthest west and became the Jewish suburbs of Richmond in the 1920’s and ‘30’s. The refugees who would come later, the survivors, would settle further downtown in the older business district, starting over with small businesses on the first floor and a home right above. The two groups rarely mingled even now.
The Weiskopfs settled in, opening a drugstore that eventually became a local chain of four and raised three sons. Norman was the youngest. The oldest, Harry, was a lawyer in Florida helping retirees set up their estates. The middle child, Tom, was an aging hippie in Wisconsin doling out legal advice to indigents from a storefront.
“I didn’t know there were real hippies in Wisconsin,” said Wallis.
“Tom is their official representative,” said Norman, never forming even a small smile.
Wallis was a lapsed Baptist who would boogie if given enough wine as motivation.
“Ned? Ned?” Wallis yelled, trying to wake her nine-year-old son from a floor away. There was no sound of movement but Wallis knew he could be lying still in his bed wide awake listening to her yell and waiting her out.
“You know, for such a smart kid it amazes me how reluctant you are to go to school,” she said, taking each step with determination.
Ned lived on the top floor, which consisted of his room, a bathroom, a small balcony and a crawl space for storage.
Ned was a late-in-life baby who had come along after Wallis had turned thirty-five. Wallis had been in no hurry to get married. Norman changed all of that with his way of accepting whatever came along and his love for Wallis.
She had gotten pregnant easily and was feeling fine till she leaned over to get a glimpse of her file at twenty-eight weeks along and saw the doctor’s notation. A geriatric pregnancy of a well-nourished woman.
“They’re calling me a fat old broad!” she had told Norman when she got home. He smiled for a moment and kept stir-frying the chicken in his wok.
Wallis never touched anything in the kitchen but the refrigerator door. Norman was particular about his things and moving any of them around, particularly in front of him, would usually evoke a small, quick worrisome head pat.
Ned was born right on time with no complications but quickly developed several. Sitting in the NICU unit of St. Mary’s Hospital rocking her eight day old son Wallis wondered if she was at long last in over her h
ead.
He had trouble breathing which made the doctors wonder about asthma, which cleared up on its own, and then there was a mention of a possible kidney problem, but that disappeared as well. A rash that crept from his belly to his chest made them wonder what it meant but it slowly faded and the skin returned to a perfect alabaster that reminded Wallis of Norman.
The doctors had said as an afterthought that there might be a possibility of learning disabilities down the road because of the complications. Wallis made a mental note not to worry about it and took her son home, grateful to be out of the hospital and away from everyone else’s decisions about what was best for Ned.
Ned did turn out to be a special child, but in the opposite direction. He was reading in preschool and quickly took to asking complicated questions, particularly when Wallis was driving in heavy traffic. By first grade he was taking apart anything he could pry open, laying out the pieces in an orderly fashion and then putting them back together, sometimes improving the appliance.
By third grade Wallis was even letting him fix the occasional small appliance for a neighbor, giving out her usual warning that he was just a kid and if it still didn’t work, or didn’t work in a new way, there were to be no complaints or even comments. So far, though Ned’s record was perfect.
His room was a study in mindful chaos. K’nex wheels and joints were laid out on the floor next to Star Wars models Ned had built and added onto from generic kits he bought at the local hobby shop he hung out at on West Cary Street.
Next to Ned’s bed was an old TV stand he had fixed and added onto with wheels and an extra shelf. The bottom shelf had his collection of baseball cards Norman had passed down to him plus the ones Ned had added, and a large notebook filled with Magic game cards of elaborately drawn figures that were ordered according to their usefulness in a battle. The middle shelf was devoted to science fiction paperbacks, magazines on the latest computer updates and an army of War Hammer 40K figurines that Ned had carefully painted in an army green and blue with an occasional dab of red for a bloody wound. Piled in a corner of the shelf was a large assortment of dice. Ned usually spent Wednesday evenings in friendly games of Magic or War Hammer at the hobby shop, played out on long tables set up by the owner with mostly high school kids and middle-aged men in variations of striped polo shirts and Cargo pants.
The top shelf had the guts of the latest appliance he was working on with a small notebook next to it where Ned kept notes on what he discovered and ideas he had for improvements. Wallis had asked Ned if she could look through the notebook and he had shrugged and said okay in a way that made Wallis think Ned was pretty sure most of it would go right over her head. He was right and Wallis knew that before she even picked it up. She was really looking for a glimpse into the way Ned figured things out and came away with something close to awe.
“You realize the rest of us can’t do this sort of thing,” she had told him, as she flipped over another page.
“I’ve noticed,” he answered, in the same sort of way Norman might have, making Wallis smile at the similarities in father and son.
Ned even had the same kind of tell as Norman, running his fingers through the back of his thick brown hair when he was puzzling over a problem or on the threshold of a new idea.
The two Weiskopf men also liked to cook together and Ned was the only person allowed to use Norman’s pots, under Norman’s supervision, which meant while he was in the room. Norman wasn’t worried about Ned dropping a pot. They were both too calculated in their moves for that kind of accident. He was more concerned with Ned using one in an experiment just to find out how durable a Teflon coating really was or attempting to slowly melt a Space Marine down so it would look more horrible and disfigured in battle than it already did. Ned had already tried that with the microwave when he was younger sending out a shower of sparks from the small metal figurine. Wallis had heard the ‘ssspppft’ sound from the living room and came running to find Ned calmly watching the small beast spin inside the dying microwave. Ned later rewired the appliance and calmly explained to Wallis that he had known what he was doing all along. Wallis looked down at her then-seven year old’s placid face and wondered if that was possibly true.
“I’d prefer you don’t do anything that causes fire or electrical sparks until further notice,” she told him.
“Okay,” he had shrugged, with an arched eyebrow he reserved for when he thought adults were overreacting.
Wallis stopped for a moment on the stairs to pull herself back into the present. “Have to focus,” she mumbled, “Busy day.” She gave her watch a glance and took the last two steps to his room in a run and called out.
“Ned?” she yelled, as she turned the corner into his room. He was sitting in front of his computer, dressed in his favorite khaki Cargo pants and ‘check your fly’ t-shirt with a fishing lure under the suggestive heading. So far, no one at school had objected.
“You could have at least answered me. What are you doing?” asked Wallis.
“Chasing worms,” Ned said calmly, his eyes focused on the screen as he made sudden rapid movements with the mouse followed by a click, click and fevered typing. “And if I had answered you, you would have yelled at me to come downstairs awhile ago.”
“We have worms?” asked Wallis. Her stomach quickly tightened at the thought of a complicated computer issue that she wouldn’t understand.
“Yeah, I put one in there.”
“Why?” Wallis stretched the word out to let Ned know she was annoyed.
“So I could hunt it down and kill it.” Ned was saying everything slowly, only annoying Wallis more. Wallis took in a deep breath and slowly let it out.
“Mom, why do you worry so much? Do I look worried?” he said, still looking at the glowing screen.
“I have no idea. What does worried look like on you?”
“Very funny.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“Only a hundred times. It’s getting boring. I’m waiting for something better to hit my honey pot.”
“Honey pot?” asked Wallis, moving directly behind her son.
“Unprotected computer,” said Ned, pointing backward without turning his head at an old lap top he had put together from spare parts that had been headed for a landfill. “No firewalls. Eventually some worm or virus hits it and then I can play.”
“You know, Ned, I expected you to surpass me, I just didn’t think it would be before you were ten.”
“It’s okay, Mom, I’m on your side.”
“And a grateful household thanks you, although I probably wouldn’t know the difference for quite some time.”
“Or ever.”
“Yeah, that’s one way to make me feel better, Ned. Socks and shoes?”
“Five more minutes. I can’t stop before I purge the wailer.”
“I have no way of knowing if you’re telling me the truth or not.”
“So, you’ll have to trust me.”
“It’s like you’re already a teenager and have driven off with the car.”
“I could explain what I’m doing in more detail.”
“Good maneuver, son. Kill me off with details. No, no, I’ll take the high road and trust you because we have the five minutes to spare, but only five minutes.”
“So, you’re not really trusting me, then.”
“It’s against the mother rules. I’m only conceding ignorance and hoping you never hack into any secret government web sites.”
Ned smiled and let out a small sinister laugh, looking up at his mother’s reaction.
“At least when the suits show up at the door, I won’t be completely caught off-guard,” said Wallis. “Try to give me some warning so my underwear is clean.”
“Gross, Mom. Okay, done!” said Ned, lifting his hands high off of the keyboard and standing up to face his mother. “Take off your heels. Stand up straight. Look, I’m already a little taller than you are,” he said letting his hand float from the top of his head over t
o Wallis’s. “I’m going to start calling you Yoda, small wise one.”
“Thanks, that’s very nice, Ned. Already humoring me.”
It was true, though. Ned at nine years old was already surpassing Wallis at five feet four inches and seemed to be headed for Norman’s nice average height of five foot nine.
“I’m hoping for six feet,” said Ned.
“Then you need to hope for some mutant genes.”
“Grandma said she had a very tall uncle.”
“My mother? Did you ask her what tall meant to her? She’s shorter than I am and she likes to make you happy even if she has to ignore what you were really asking and make up a new question in her head. Watch her eyes when she’s answering, Ned. If she’s looking over your shoulder and won’t make eye contact she’s selling you a happy-land bill of goods. I had a childhood of them,” she said, stepping back into her shoes.
“Bitter, Queen Wallis?”
“Wallis never got to be queen, Ned-lee,” said Wallis, giving Ned a friendly tap on the shoulder. “Got you last,” she said, smiling. Ned quickly tapped her back.
“You’re it,” he said. They had been playing this game for years, just the two of them. Norman found it pointless. Wallis couldn’t remember how it had started and it never really had an ending. Ned was as competitive as his mother and would wait hours if he had to, to catch Wallis off guard and swipe her in the arm as he ran off, never saying a word. Wallis usually tried to swat him back before he was out of range. Ned loved to quietly tap his mother in public firmly enough so she’d know the game was in progress, even if it really wasn’t his turn. He knew she was too conscious of what it would look like if she were to go out of her way to get him back, especially when no one had seen him do anything. Sometimes, to even the score, Wallis would claim she had tapped Ned while he was asleep and Ned would protest it couldn’t possibly count.
“Why not?” Wallis would ask, raising an eyebrow, “You were there.”
“Not all of me,” Ned would answer. He was known to hit extra hard after bouts of logic he didn’t feel he was winning.
