Everybody's Daughter

by Marsha Qualey

“Just a draft.” Andy sat next to her on the windowsill. “Did all those people watch the birth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your poor mother.”

  Beamer shrugged. “It was what she wanted. That’s how they did things—together. They even took a vote on my name.”

  Andy smoothed the hair back from Beamer’s face. “Hippie worm merchants.”

  Beamer pulled away. “Don’t joke.”

  “I wasn’t making a joke.”

  “This is hard for me, Andy.”

  “What is?”

  “Coming here with you.”

  “Why? Afraid I’ll rape you in this secluded spot?”

  “Afraid you’ll laugh, afraid you’ll make jokes about it in letters to your old friends.”

  “I’d never—”

  “Andy, I’ve listened to you laugh and make jokes about the people up here. And I’m the first to admit some of it’s pretty strange. But please, just don’t make me one of your targets.”

  “Of course you’re not a target,” he snapped. “I don’t treat people that way. Especially not someone I care for.”

  Beamer slid off the windowsill, turned, and leaned her shoulders against the wall. She looked at Andy and noticed again, for at least the hundredth time, that he had eyes the color of dark chocolate. Never calm, they saw so much. Her anger drained away. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re right. I get so defensive about it all that sometimes I forget to laugh. Hippie worm merchants is exactly what they are.” She smiled. “And, city boy, that explains why I’m so strange.”

  Andy cupped his hand on her shoulder and lightly massaged it. He was staring at her in a way that made Beamer uncomfortable. She’d seen that same expression once before, when she had visited him in the school art studio and observed him studying an unfinished drawing. “No,” he finally said, “that explains why you’re so special.”

  *

  Beamer locked the door and replaced the key. She stared at the dingy building and shook her head. “Tear it down, Daniel,” she said. “It’s silly to keep it.” She knew he came here often—to replace broken glass, to pick up the litter from picnickers, and to think about his family and the years gone by.

  This dorm had been distant from the commune’s other buildings, and now a strip of tall pines separated it from the townhouses that had gone up on the lake-front. Beamer scooped up a handful of snow, patted it into a ball, and threw it toward a column of smoke rising from a chimney hidden behind those trees. The snowball soared and disappeared.

  Chapter 2

  The renegade cop emptied the chambers of his handguns and the movie screen was suddenly filled with dead and bloody bodies. Beamer closed her eyes briefly, then opened them and looked at Andy. He was frowning.

  “This is awful,” she whispered. “Let’s go.” He nodded, and they rose and left the theater.

  A cold wind met them outside and they paused to pull on hats and gloves and knot their scarves. A bank’s temperature sign flashed numbers and Beamer stared at the red digits. “Fifteen below,” she said. “Now aren’t you glad you came to Minnesota?” Andy grinned, then grabbed her padded hand with his own, and they ran the two blocks to his car.

  Beamer sat low in the passenger seat, clapped her hands, and chanted, “Go, go, go,” while Andy started the car. It took three tries before the balking engine turned over and started.

  “What next?” he said. “The party at Wendy’s?”

  “No, it’s probably been raided by now. Let’s do something else.”

  “In this town? Everything closes down at nine. Not that there is anything worth doing anyway.”

  “Complaining again? I warned you months ago that things could get boring.”

  “Bloody boring.”

  “Considering you spend most of your free time with me, I guess I should be insulted.”

  Andy smiled and kissed her. Beamer removed a glove and traced the line of his jaw with her fingertip. “Apology accepted,” she said.

  “Back to the original question. What do we do?”

  “What are our options?”

  “The usual—sex or food.”

  Beamer laughed. “Andy, someday I’m going to call your bluff.”

  “Your mother was frosting a carrot cake when I picked you up. Do you suppose there’s any left?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Well, then, let’s go eat carrot cake.”

  Andy liked to drive fast. The truck shot down the highway, pulled along by its beam of light, which sliced a narrow path through the endless black night.

  *

  Beamer had met Andy the previous summer, just before school resumed. One morning, while taking her daily jog around the lake, she had nearly stumbled over him as he lay on his back across the narrow path. She stopped and stared. He rolled his head toward her, opened his eyes, and smiled.

  “Hello,” he said. “I fell off the rock.” He pointed. “That rock. I was standing on it taking a picture of the bald eagle’s nest. I stepped back to frame my shot and just fell off.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Not really. My leg hurts.”

  “Can you move?”

  “I’d rather not. I think it’s broken.”

  “I’ll get help.”

  He tapped her calf. “Your name is Beamer, right?” Beamer nodded. “I’m Andy Reynolds. My family just moved to Grand River.”

  “How did you know my name?”

  “I saw you at the fair last week with your friends. I was compelled by some strange desire, so I asked somebody.”

  Beamer smiled. “I’m flattered.”

  “What vanity. How do you know it was admiration that sparked my interest?”

  Beamer resisted the impulse to kick his injured leg. “I’ll get help now,” she said, then turned and ran home.

  While Beamer’s father and Daniel carried Andy out and delivered him safely to the hospital, she stayed at the store. She supposed she would see him again.

  Two days later she was changing the message on the store’s roadside sign when he drove up. He got out of the car slowly.

  “Would you look at this cast?” he said. “A simple little bone crack and they stick at least fifty pounds of plaster on my leg.” He reached back into the car, pulled out a small wrapped box, and handed it to Beamer. “For you.”

  Beamer walked over to him. “For me?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Why?”

  “For saving my life.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “I’m not so sure; I had been lying there a long time. Aren’t you going to open it?”

  She unwrapped the box. Chocolates.

  “Pretty corny, huh?” he said. “But what else does a guy give a girl on their first date?”

  Beamer leaned against the car. “First date?”

  “This is it.”

  “You’re pretty damn sure of yourself, aren’t you?” she said.

  Andy shook his head slowly. “Not at all,” he said softly. “Look, I’m going to the summer crafts show in Cass Lake. I’m a potter—well, I try—and I wanted to check out the local artists’ work. I thought some company would be nice. So?”

  She quickly reviewed her options: selling worms on a slow fishing day; taking a walk with her mother; going on a trip to Cass Lake with this strange boy. “Okay,” she said, turning toward the store. “I’ll clear it with my parents.”

  “Hey, bring the candy,” he called after her. “We can eat it in the car.”

  The crafts fair was a pleasant diversion, and Andy proved to be comfortable company. They spent several hours browsing among the displays, sampling the foods and chatting with the various artists. When Andy brought Beamer home, two minutes before her promised suppertime deadline, she agreed happily to see him again on the weekend.

  The following Saturday evening Andy arrived early for their date. Beamer ran downstairs and discovered him sitting in the circle of Woodies around the wood stove. Jenny was knee
ling by his leg, carefully embellishing his cast with her signature.

  “Just a minute, Beamo, then you can have him.”

  “No,” said Sue, “it’s my turn to sign.”

  “I haven’t done it yet,” said Peter.

  Daniel wagged a finger at Andy. “Have her back by midnight.”

  Beamer closed her eyes and quickly pictured a scene of mass murder.

  “Since when does Beamo stay out until midnight?” asked Maud.

  “Last year, I think,” said Daniel.

  “Last March,” said Mrs. Flynn. “Don’t you remember—she was going to the spring dance with, with…” She turned to her daughter. “Who was it, dear?”

  Beamer didn’t answer.

  Mrs. Flynn turned to her husband. “Do you remember?”

  “I do, but I don’t think it’s worth mentioning.”

  “Who?” several voices demanded.

  “Andy, let’s go,” Beamer said firmly. He nodded, rose, and carefully maneuvered his way through the crowd. He was smiling.

  Just as they pushed open the store door to the hot August air, Mrs. Flynn tapped her daughter’s shoulder. “Do you need money, Beamo?”

  “Mom—”

  “My treat, Mrs. Flynn,” said Andy. “I was raised properly.”

  Mrs. Flynn wrinkled her brow. “I’m sure, Andy. However, Beamer was raised to contribute her share. Just because you are the boy—”

  “Mom, it’s fine. Goodnight.” Beamer turned to the crowd in the store. “Don’t anybody wait up for me,” she shouted. The friends laughed and turned back to the stove. Beamer and Andy walked to his car. “Does this go on often?”

  “I’m afraid so. You were very patient.”

  “Who are they?”

  “I’ll tell you sometime. It’s a long story. They’re here most every Saturday night.”

  Andy rested his crutches against the car while he unlocked the door. “It was kind of fun in a weird way. But I wasn’t sure I’d get out alive.”

  “Next time—” She caught herself. Please, she thought, please let there be a next time.

  “Yes?” he prompted.

  “The next time you don’t have to come in.”

  “That sounds safe. Or better yet, why don’t you just wait by the road? I’ll slow the car down and open the door. You can jump in.”

  Beamer nodded and smiled. “I’m willing.”

  He grinned, positioned his crutches to walk around the car, then stopped. “So who was he?”

  “Who?”

  “The guy who took you to the dance.”

  “A classmate. Nobody special.”

  “Good.” He kissed her then, the first time. Beamer looked up after the kiss, a sweet, slow one, and saw her mother and Jenny waving in the doorway.

  *

  Andy’s father had been transferred to Grand River by the large company that owned the paper mill which dominated the town and emptied its treated waste into the river. “He’s the vice president in charge of judicious pollution,” Andy often joked. Beamer observed with detachment his parents’ and sisters’ joyful discovery of rural North Woods life—the lakes, the fishing, the skiing, the slow pace. She had seen it often—the newcomer’s initial delight, which slowly and surely gave way to boredom and frustration. Soon enough, she wagered to herself, they’ll be complaining about the cold, the summer bugs, the high food prices, the long, lonely winters. In two years they’ll be begging to go back to Boston.

  Andy didn’t share his family’s enthusiasm. Uprooted from his lifelong home just a few weeks before the start of his senior year, he had developed a hard, angry resistance to the new environment. A philosophy of “I’ll do it, but I don’t have to like it” guided his involvement in the new life.

  Beamer discovered three things that softened his unhappiness: his art, in which he often submerged himself, missing dates and other commitments; his family, especially the two younger sisters, who adored their only brother; and herself.

  She was at first enormously flattered that this good-looking, intelligent, funny, transplanted easterner was attracted to her. And when school resumed she quietly relished the attention and hints of envy their relationship generated. She had dated, but never one boy steadily, and she quickly warmed to his nightly phone calls, the weekly dates, and the amusing, affectionate notes he often left in her school locker. A few weeks after they started dating, however, his youngest sister had let it slip that Andy had a girlfriend back home, a college freshman who wrote faithfully. “Her name’s Allison,” the other sister supplied, before digging into her half of a hot fudge sundae that Beamer had bought them after a chance meeting on the library steps.

  Beamer wasn’t surprised. It explained in part his great distress at moving. She never raised the subject, told very few of her friends, and only once or twice grilled Kim and Julie, his sisters, for information about the distant Allison.

  Andy had once overheard one of these conversations. After the girls had been chased away by his scowl, he had turned to Beamer. He had never mentioned Allison, but he knew Beamer knew about her.

  “Don’t you mind?” he said.

  “Mind what? That we skipped the party to babysit your sisters? Not too much.”

  “That’s not what I mean. About Allison.”

  Beamer held his hand and traced his fingers with her thumb. He had spent the afternoon working in the school studio, and specks of clay and glaze were rubbed into his hands. She looked at him and smiled. “No.”

  Andy frowned. “Why not?”

  “She’s a thousand miles away. I’m here.”

  *

  Andy parked the car alongside the store van. “I’m such a good boy,” he said. “Here it is, only nine-thirty and I’ve got you home safely.”

  “That’s odd.”

  “Nothing odd about it at all. You always want to leave the movie early and go home.”

  “No, I mean that car. That’s Daryl and Sandra’s car. The orange Volvo.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Long-lost Woodies. Well, not really lost, none of them is, unfortunately. Even the wayward ones show up from time to time. Even though Daryl and Sandra live just a few miles on the other side of Grand River, they aren’t really close to the other Woodies anymore. But they belong just the same.”

  Beamer and Andy got out of the car and walked around the building to the back door. They stepped into the entry and removed boots and wraps.

  “Your family has the strangest friends,” said Andy.

  “Let’s not get started on my parents’ friends again.”

  “I was just—”

  “You’re free to stay away from them, Andy. So don’t complain.”

  “If I stay away from them, I stay away from you. Do you want that?”

  Beamer kicked her boots into the pile by the sofa. She sat, crossed her legs, and warmed her toes in her hands, then looked at Andy.

  “Of course not. Then I’d never get out of here.”

  He frowned. “Is that all I am to you? A ride out of here on Saturday night?”

  “Andy.” She picked up his hands in her own. “I was joking.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  She kissed the back of his hands. “I was joking,” she repeated softly.

  Andy moved closer on the sofa, but paused when the background murmur of Woodie voices heightened.

  Beamer closed her eyes. “They don’t sound like they’re having fun tonight. Daryl must have them stirred up about something. He was always good at that.”

  “What did Daryl do? Write the commune manifesto?”

  “He was the administrator. Handled the business and all that. He and Sandra weren’t the first to leave the commune, but their going really hurt. Woodlands didn’t survive long without him. Everyone was pretty competent at growing things and making peanut butter, but nobody could understand the accounting. It sounds like they’re all in the store. With a little luck we can sneak upstairs and have the kitchen to ourselves.” S
he rose and pulled him up from the sofa. She laid a finger on his lips. “You can finish what you were about to do when we get upstairs.”

  Beamer had just pushed open the door at the top of the stairway when her mother appeared at the bottom.

  “Hello, Andy, Beamer. I suspected you two would leave that movie early. Didn’t I warn you that there were just a few too many dead bodies? Beamo, could I speak with you? Downstairs.”

  Beamer looked at Andy and shrugged, then ran down the stairs.

  Her mother had gone into the back room, where she was sitting motionless in the rocking chair, her hands clasped and resting on her knees. Beamer waited for her to look up from the floor.

  “There’s some cake left. Your father and Jenny were somehow persuaded to leave a little for the two of you.”

  “You called me down to talk about cake?”

  “No. It would be better if Andy didn’t stay too late tonight.”

  “No big deal. What’s up? Something to do with Daryl and Sandra? I saw their car.”

  Her mother nodded. “Their daughters are sleeping in your room. You’ll need to use a sleeping bag for a few days, I’m afraid. Maybe in Johnny’s room. They’ll be staying here.”

  “Why?”

  Her mother rose and embraced Beamer. “Sandra’s in trouble. Someone’s been killed, and Sandra’s in trouble.”

  Chapter 3

  On Saturday morning Sandra had told Daryl that she was spending the night with her sister in St. Cloud. She had said goodbye to the children, put a small suitcase in the car, and driven away shortly before noon. Daryl hid behind the draperies and watched her leave, standing motionless and unresponsive to the squalling children until long after the car was out of sight. She hadn’t said why she was going.

  The Monticello nuclear energy facility was a half-hour’s drive from Sandra’s sister’s home. Until recently, radioactive waste from the plant had been shipped out of state for storage. Now, however, there was a new waste containment tank at the plant. Because the facility was located in farm country near the Mississippi River, the unproven containment system was controversial. For months the plant had been the site of frequent demonstrations.

  Sandra drove for three hours to her sister’s house without stopping, and that afternoon she and her sister met with another woman. The three left St. Cloud in the late afternoon and arrived at the plant just as the eastern sky began to darken. They parked directly in front of the main gate, got out of the car, removed their supplies from the trunk, and under the watchful eye of the single guard, who was already phoning a report of their presence, began a protest.