by Marlene Lee
No, thank you, Rebecca meant to answer. But she followed Madame Bradley to the small trailer two spaces beyond her own sleek motor home.
Inside the Airstream, Madame Bradley leaned back against a velvet cushion, popped a roasted almond in her mouth, and chewed lustily. She washed it down with a swig of red wine. Two poodles that smelled like corned beef hash pressed close and licked the salt off her hands. Cautiously, Rebecca held a glass of wine—not a cup of coffee at all—and looked about the trailer. In one corner, above a small sink, strings of herbs and garlic swayed each time Madame Bradley shifted her weight. At the front of the trailer, on top of a heater, framed photographs showed people doing interesting things. The people looked European. They were singing in a bar. Holding hands in front of a flower stall.
Mother would not have liked Rebecca to be drinking wine with a gypsy here in a trailer that smelled of dogs, with photographs of Europeans. Rebecca herself doubted the wisdom of it. She accepted an almond.
“Madame Bradley? You have an . . . interesting name,” she said in an effort to be sociable. “How did you acquire it?”
Madame Bradley leaned forward, breasts and earrings swaying. “I was married to a Frenchman,” she said. “From France.”
Rebecca stopped chewing. She had never been married, much less to a Frenchman. She sometimes thought about men. But aside from two casual boyfriends, one of whom she’d slept with in an attempt to find out what all the fuss was about, she had never felt them to be necessary.
“Is ‘Bradley’ French?”
“It can be,” Madame Bradley said airily, “under certain circumstances.” She changed the subject. “I saw you pull in yesterday.” Rebecca had not thought of herself as pulling in. “Is that your husband with you?”
“Tom is my brother,” said Rebecca. “He is seeing me off on my trip across America.” She swirled her wine. “He connected the utility lines to my motor home, and now he’s gone to find a motel.”
Madame Bradley yawned. “Men are so useful,” she said. Rebecca had a vision: hundreds of on-ramps, off-ramps, filling stations, propane tanks, water and electricity and sewer hook-ups stretching eastward before her across the continent—not to mention the horrible possibility that she might have to back up. She reached out to the poodles for support, but they snapped at her hand. Madame Bradley gave them each a sharp rap behind the topknot.
“I don’t pay attention to men anymore,” she continued. “I had enough of that sort of thing with my husband to last the rest of my life.”
Rebecca allowed the wine to loosen her tongue. She dropped her voice. “I’ve never been married,” she admitted. “I haven’t done one interesting thing in my entire life.”
Madame Bradley looked sympathetic. “I was married in Paris,” she volunteered. “Paris is interesting. I had to learn a thing or two, let me tell you.”
“World War II?”
“Post-World War II,” said Madame Bradley, bristling slightly.
Rebecca swirled her glass of wine. It was not as light as the wine at home. This wine tasted strong and rough. She took another sip. “And this Frenchman, your husband . . .” She hesitated, not wishing to be impolite.
Madame Bradley rearranged her skirts about her surprisingly skinny calves. “Monsieur Bradley, mon mari, has moved on to the next phase,” she said placidly. “He is well and happy.”
“Do you hear from him?” she asked.
“Oh, yes.”
The poodles looked from one woman to the other with small, anxious eyes.
“Where is he?”
Madame Bradley maintained a profound silence.
Rebecca drew in a breath. “Oh, dear. He’s not dead, is he?”
“Some people might say so.” Madame Bradley fingered her pendant, a heavy, engraved disk hanging from a great chain around her neck. “I, myself, don’t believe in death.”
Rebecca sat up straight. The poodles began to bark. Madame Bradley kissed each poodle on the nose and asked off-handedly, “And how long will you be staying with us?”
Rebecca re-crossed her legs and tried to keep her large feet from brushing against Madame Bradley’s skirts. “I plan to be here for a short while and then pursue my travel plans.”
“Oh,” said Madame Bradley. “Where will you be going?”
“I have a collection of maps and brochures, every state, every town, arranged alphabetically,” Rebecca said with a touch of smugness. “They belonged to my mother. I have only to consult her files.”
“And Mother?”
Rebecca’s eyes filled with tears. “She’s. . .”
“I see,” said Madame Bradley. “The next phase.” She leaned forward sympathetically and the dogs quieted. “But how clever of you to have such a file,” she added, sitting back again and casting a shrewd eye on Rebecca. “And have you traveled widely?”
“No,” Rebecca admitted.
“Is your brother accompanying you?”
“Only here to the trailer park.”
“Motor home resort.” Madame Bradley lifted one edge of her lace curtain and looked across toward Rebecca’s vehicle. “And where is this brother?”
“He left to find a motel,” Rebecca explained again. She held her glass of wine, which trembled slightly, up to the light. “I’m the adventurous one.”
“I see,” said Madame Bradley. She heaved a poodle off her lap. “Is your brother on vacation?”
“He runs the peach orchard. This is the slow season.” Madame Bradley looked interested. “The fruit is picked in late summer, delivered to the canneries where it is—”
“And what does your brother do in the slow season?”
“Oh, there’s always plenty to do on an orchard,” said Rebecca. “Prune. Plant. Irrigate. Fertilize. Mow.”
“Does he do the work himself?”
“Oh, no. He supervises the workers.”
“It’s a large orchard, then?”
“We’re the largest orchard in Butte, Yuba, Yolo, and Sutter Counties,” said Rebecca, and was instantly overcome with homesickness. She slowly worked her fingers, nearly as stiff and sharp-knuckled as Mother’s, then laid her hands back in her lap.
“Your French husband,” she said after a silence in which she was studied by Madame Bradley, “you say you hear from him?”
“We talk every day.”
“How do you do it?”
Madame Bradley leaned forward. “One must wish to with all one’s heart.”
“Oh,” whispered Rebecca, also leaning forward, “I wish to. With all my heart I wish to speak to Mother.”
“I’ve helped many people,” Madame Bradley said briskly. “Your brother—is he interested in speaking with Mother?”
“I don’t believe so. Although he writes poetry and that sort of thing, I don’t think he misses Mother as much as I do.”
“Ah. A poet. In my experience, poets are very sensitive to—the other side.”
Rebecca looked puzzled.
“The unseen world,” murmured Madame Bradley. “I can work out a discount. Two for the price of one. Mother would like to hear from both of you.”
It had not occurred to Rebecca that Mother might miss them. How selfish she’d been, thinking only of her own loneliness. She began to cry softly. Mother had been on the other side for five months now, no one to talk to, no peach orchard, no bright dawns with birds singing in the cool moments before the pickers arrive.
Madame Bradley ripped a Kleenex out of its box and handed it to Rebecca. “We’ll do a short course in sensitization and the basic laws of unseen reality. We’ll start with Astrology. Tarot. From there we’ll move out into the universe.”
Rebecca blew her nose. “I have so many questions, Madame Bradley. I’ve spent my whole life on the same orchard.”
“I, unfortunately, am well-acquainted with the world,” said Madame Bradley. “I know a thing or two. I’ve knocked about for a great number of years. I’ve had a variety of experience, some good, some bad.” She arched her plucke
d eyebrows. “A good deal of it, more than I wish, has been bad. For a while it seemed as if I had nothing but malheureusement on every hand.” She was just beginning to elaborate on some of her past unhappiness when they heard quick footsteps outside the Airstream. Madame Bradley lifted the curtain again.
“Who is it?” said Rebecca.
“Jennifer, from the fifth-wheeler.” Rebecca craned her thin neck for a glance over Madame Bradley’s shoulder. A small girl, haughty and unwashed, looked back.
“She needs a bath,” said Rebecca. “Doesn’t she have a mother?”
“Oh, Jennifer has a mother, all right,” said Madame Bradley irritably, and dropped the curtain. “I’ve offered to locate her but her father rejects my help.” She stroked one of the dogs, then turned to Rebecca with a frank and disarming smile. “Not everyone is as—susceptible to the other side as you and your brother.”
“My brother is not susceptible,” said Rebecca, her eyes on the screened door of the trailer.
“Mother would like to hear from both of you as soon as possible.”
Rebecca rose and removed the dog hair from her slacks. “This would not be a good time,” she said, beginning to feel ambivalent. She wadded and unwadded the Kleenex. “Mother takes afternoon naps.”
“Oh, goodness,” said Madame Bradley, half-lifting herself off the cushions with one elbow. “You can’t make contact as easily as that,” and she snapped her strong, chubby fingers. “There’s work to be done before we reach the other side. Exercises. Sensitization.” The poodles jumped to their feet and stood on the sofa, stiff-legged and yapping. “There is a well established process. We meditate. We chant. We open the chakras.”
“Mother is very particular about her afternoon nap.”
The woman was not right for Mother. Mother wouldn’t like her.
Out in the park, starter fluid, charcoal, and seared meat smells wafted between trailers. It was the time of day when Mother and the Mexican cook always started dinner. Daddy and Tom would be coming in from the fragrant orchard, the air hot and still at the dinner hour. How chilly it was here. Underneath the friendly barbecue sauce she could smell the foreignness of fish and salt. She walked slowly toward the ocean, toward the path where children ran and chased and bumped into the chain-link fence that held them in from the edge of the bluff, from the breakers and the rocks below.
As she stood there, directionless, another rogue wind rushed in from the ocean and whirled bits of dirt and sand about the parking lot. Rebecca removed a cinder from her eye, and Jennifer ran past, as wild as the wind. Nothing stopped her until she reached the chain link fence at the edge of the cliff, bounced off, hurled herself toward it once more, and finally came to rest. She stood looking out to sea, her fingers curled around the links. Beyond her, the sun held steady, a few hours away from its plunge into the sea. Rebecca, holding a handkerchief to a corner of her stinging eye, approached the girl.
“My daddy’s down there,” said Jennifer. Clinging to the fence with one hand, she pointed to a man in hip boots a few feet out into the water. “He’s fishing for striped bass.”
“Where is your mother?”
The girl inserted one bare foot into the chain link. Holding on with fingers and toes, she lifted herself off the ground, arched backward, pulled up again, and said, “Not here.”
A wave broke against the rocks.
“The ocean’s noisier than I expected,” said Rebecca.
The girl moved one link nearer. “You can hear it all night,” she said. She stared at Rebecca. “What’s your name?”
“Rebecca.”
“I’m Jennifer. I’m seven.” She tossed back her long, mousy hair. “I’m doing first grade over.”
“I’m fifty,” said Rebecca. Jennifer found new hand- and footholds.
“You were visiting Madame Bradley.” She swung out again. The child’s eyes were hazel, almost colorless, in a small, plain face.
“Do you know Madame Bradley?”
“Daddy does. She’s a con.”
Rebecca crouched down until the two of them were at eye level. “What’s a con?” she asked.
“You don’t know what a con is?”
Rebecca shook her head slowly.
“Well, it’s something—not so good.” Jennifer grasped the chain link with small, leathery hands. The bitten fingernails were touched with remnants of red polish. “Maybe a liar. That’s a con.” She studied her bare feet lodged in the fencing. The toenails, too, were flecked with red.
“Why does your father think she’s a con?”
Jennifer jumped down off the fence. She rotated her arm, twisted her neck to the extreme right, and studied a scab on her elbow. “She said she could find my mom.”
“And did she?”
Jennifer shook her head. On the beach below, her father started up the path with his fishing pole over one shoulder.
“Madame Bradley wants to talk to my mother, too.”
“She always says that. She tries to talk to moms all the time.” She looked at Rebecca dubiously. “Where’s your mother, anyway?”
“Yoo-hoo!” cried Madame Bradley, coming toward them across the asphalt. Jennifer climbed higher, braced herself against the top of the fence, stiff-armed, and leaned out toward the edge of the bluff.
“Careful!” said Rebecca.
“She’s agile as a cat,” said Madame Bradley, joining them on the path. Jennifer, teetering back and forth, pretended not to hear. Madame Bradley adjusted the flowered scarf over her dark hair. The creamy white skin of her face, untouched by wrinkles, spots, or any sign of weather, glowed with other-worldly illumination, like the surf at night. Her shining black eyes were fixed on Rebecca. “I’ve located your mother.” The child stopped teetering. Her feet, dirty and still, clung to the fence.
“Mother is worried about you,” Madame Bradley stated with relish. “She wishes you would take some short, side trips in your motor home before you set out across America alone.”
Rebecca was stunned. That is exactly what Mother would say. She buried her face in her hands. How good to be cared for. How wonderful to have Mother worry about her again. She would give up this dangerous, self-inflicted trip across America. She wanted nothing more than to remain at home and keep Mother’s memory alive.
“Did she have any specific advice?” Rebecca asked, wiping her eyes. Jennifer tossed her thin hair with contempt.
Madame Bradley studied the horizon. “No,” she finally said. “She didn’t.”
“That’s not like her,” said Rebecca, but Madame Bradley didn’t hear because she was turning toward Jennifer.
“As for your mother, she is not far away. I can make contact, but only when you and your father believe I can.” With that, she pivoted grandly and set off across the pavement, her broad behind ballast for occult and high-soaring gifts.
Rebecca stared after her, still a little surprised that Mother would respond to such a woman. Jennifer descended the fence and leaned into the links. Her weight ground a criss-cross pattern into one side of her face. When she pulled away Rebecca brushed the marks with the back of her hand.
“I wish she’d found your mother, too.”
Jennifer rubbed one eye with a dirty fist. The fist came away wet. Rebecca took a Kleenex from her pocket and leaned down to wipe the child’s face. She smelled metallic, slightly sweet, unwashed.
“You’re luckier than I am,” Rebecca said, dabbing at the tears.
“Why?” whispered Jennifer.
“Because your mother’s alive. At least she’s somewhere where you can see her again,”
“Where’s your mother?” Jennifer asked again. She blew her nose for Rebecca.
“I thought she was dead. Now I’m not so sure.”
Jennifer sniffed. “Daddy says she’s not really French, with a last name like Bradley.”
“Her husband was French,” Rebecca said. “From France.”
“Daddy says Bradley isn’t French.”
“Maybe her husband
’s mother was French, and married an Englishman.”
“At least my mother’s alive,” Jennifer said, taking Rebecca’s idea as her own. “She gave me this.” She hauled a locket up from inside her shirt. “Did your mother give you anything?”
“Money,” said Rebecca. She pointed to the motor home. “I bought that.”
Jennifer held the chain away from her grimy neck and rolled her eyes downward. Nearly cross-eyed, she studied the heart-shaped locket.
Admiring the little heart with hinges, Rebecca had a disloyal thought. “I don’t know if I want Madame Bradley to contact my mother or not.” Knowing that Mother was available but not actually present gave her freedom to speculate. “Frankly, I’m surprised Madame Bradley was able to wake her up from her nap. She’s a very sound sleeper.”
“My mother wouldn’t wake up for her!” Jennifer said proudly, dropping the locket back inside her shirt. She scratched behind one knee. “Look,” she said, pointing. “Your husband’s over at Madame Bradley’s.” Rebecca turned sharply. Tom and Madame Bradley stood on the pavement beside the small, rusting trailer. The poodles strained at their leashes.
“He’s not my husband, he’s my brother. What’s he doing at Madame Bradley’s?”
“Another man, another dollar.”
Rebecca eyed her severely. “Really, Jennifer, I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. Tom is a very conservative man. And where did you get that expression?” She looked back at Madame Bradley’s trailer. “They don’t look like they’re talking about Mother.”
She walked towards the Airstream and stopped just short of the dogs. Jennifer hung back.
“Couldn’t you find a motel room, Tom?” Rebecca asked.
“He’s been telling me all about raising peaches.”
“Yes,” Tom said mildly. His pale eyes settled on Jennifer. “Who have we here?”
“The nicest little girl,” said Rebecca. “I want you to meet Jennifer. Jennifer, this is my brother, Tom.”
“How do you do,” said Tom in a courtly tone. The poodles began to yap and Madame Bradley jerked on their leashes.
