My Lost and Found Life
Page 20
Then Malcolm jumped to his feet and strode over to him. “This has to stop, pal. We’re all tired of this routine. Go away!”
Mal tried to stare him down, but the bushy-haired guy wouldn’t make eye contact. He began waving the book in Mal’s face.
Pushing the book away, Malcolm said, “You know, I’ve always wondered what you listen to,” and he grabbed the guy’s earphones, put them on his own head, and listened intently.
The bushy-haired man went berserk, tearing the earphones off Malcolm and knocking him to the floor. Bella screamed as Malcolm fell. Tom and Patrick simultaneously surged up from the table to help him.
With his earphones in one hand and the book in the other, the man bellowed, “Satan! God will punish you for your crimes!” and stormed back outside.
“That wacko is dangerous,” I said, coming out from behind the counter. “You should call the police.”
“Never mind.” Mal sat back down at the table, assuming a nonchalance that I doubt he felt. “We can’t call the police every time some lost soul comes in armed with a book. Anyway, I imagine we’ve seen the last of him.”
“The Book Man is one inmate that the Madhouse can do without,” snickered Jerry.
“I should have ignored him. It was stupid to get him worked up like that,” said Malcolm, and then he added with a laugh, “This is one of those moments when I wish we served alcohol. Oh, well, let’s play Scrabble and forget all this. Sorry, Bella, if the children were frightened. Ashley, give young Stephanie a free cookie.”
Young Stephanie had been watching the whole thing in wide-eyed wonder.
“I just have one question, Mal,” said Patrick. “What on earth was the guy listening to?”
“Talk radio,” suggested William.
“Bible-thumpers,” said Tom.
“Al Green,” I said, tongue in cheek.
“You’re all wrong,” proclaimed Mal. “He wasn’t listening to anything. There was no sound of any kind coming out of his radio. Anything that guy was hearing came from his own head.”
• • •
Before Patrick left the coffeehouse, he managed to pull me aside and whisper, “I want to see you tonight.”
“Sure,” I said, relieved that he wanted the same thing I wanted.
“I’ll take you out to dinner when you finish work,” he said. “Meet me down the street at the Elite Café when you get off.”
We smiled at each other and he left.
I saw Mal’s eyes on me. The man must have the place wired or something, he was so tuned in to everything that was said or done around there.
“We’re going to miss that boy, aren’t we?” Mal murmured.
“Yes,” I said, avoiding discussion by turning away to busy myself clearing a table.
Before we went to Tahoe, I knew Patrick would be going back to Ireland soon, but I hadn’t focused on exactly how soon that would be. I was crazy about him and didn’t want him to go. Some girls would have tried to worm some sort of promise out of him. But that’s not my style. While I didn’t want him to leave, a girl has her pride. These days, that’s about all I had. All I could do was act as if my heart weren’t breaking. But it was.
Patrick was sitting at the bar staring into a glass of Guinness when I walked into the Elite. The café wasn’t serving dinner yet, so I sat down at the bar beside him.
“Would you like a drink?” he asked.
“Nothing right now,” I said.
He shook his head. “Our timing is definitely off.”
“I just had a coffee,” I said. “I’m not thirsty right now.”
“I wasn’t meaning the drink. I was talking about us.”
“Oh, us.”
“There’s no way I can stay.”
“I know that.”
“But you’ll miss me, won’t you?”
“Of course,” I said evenly.
“It’s probably for the best that I’m leaving. I’m really a selfish bastard, you know.” He grinned. “As many a lass has told me time and again.”
“It’s nothing to brag about.”
“I’m not bragging, but I’m not apologizing for it either. I’m just admitting the truth to you.”
“So, go, Mr. Selfish. Have a nice trip.” I kept my voice light.
“Mind you, I have plenty of other bad habits, too.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“I leave my belongings strewn about everywhere. I’m opinionated. I smoke too much. And I spend far too much time at the pubs with my pals, drinking beer and having a bit of craic.”
“Crack?” I said, startled.
“Not dope,” he said with a laugh. “Craic is having a good conversation with your mates. Talking is one of the things the Irish do best.”
“So why are you telling me this?”
“I don’t want you pining for me after I’ve gone.”
I gave him a scornful look. “Seems to me you should have included conceited as one of your faults. Don’t worry about me.”
“Good. That being said, I’d like to spend some time with you between now and when I leave on Thursday.”
Instead of answering him, I asked, “Don’t you like it here? People from all over the world fight to get here and become citizens. Why not you?”
“I’m Irish,” he said. “Ireland will always be home for me. I like America, and San Francisco is grand. But it’s not the only grand place in the world. I have been looking forward to Spain. And I’ve a yen to go to Australia too. I’m not ready to plant myself yet. What about you? Don’t you want to travel and see the world?”
“Of course. I have to straighten some things out first, and I want to go to school.”
“And then? What do you want to be when you grow up, my girl?”
“You’ll laugh,” I said.
“No, I won’t,” he said. “Not unless you’re going to say film star—” He broke off at the expression on my face and started laughing.
“See, I knew you would,” I said. “But not film star. Actress. Actor, I guess. That’s what Julia Roberts and all the rest call themselves. I suppose the word actress is sexist.”
“Well, you definitely are pretty enough to be an actor or film star or whatever it’s called,” he conceded.
“I can act, too,” I said indignantly, thinking that he had no idea how every day was a performance for me. “The high school drama teacher said I had talent and presence. I can sing and dance, even play the piano. But my mother hated the whole idea because my father, the act-tore, never got anywhere. I don’t think he was any good at it, or else he didn’t have the stamina for it. I have plenty of stamina. I want to major in liberal arts in college and then gradually ease into theater and drama.”
“So what’s stopping you?” he said.
“Lots of things,” I said. “Money being the main one. When my mother, uh, when she was gone, everything fell apart.”
“Isn’t it time you pulled it back together?” he said matter-of-factly.
“Yes,” I said slowly. “I guess it is.”
He grabbed my hand and began tracing the lines on it with the tip of his finger. “You’ll work your way through this and come out on top.”
“Thanks,” I said as tears prickled at the corners of my eyes. I shook my head to make them disappear. “I will. I’m a lot more grounded than I used to be. There’s nothing like learning the hard way.”
“Ah, experience is always the best teacher,” he said. “If you survive it.”
“I have so far. I’ve changed so much in the last few months that my own mother probably wouldn’t recognize me.”
“I admire you for it. So many people can’t change. I hear fellows say, ‘Oh, that’s just the way I am,’ as if they have no control over what they do or say. That’s bloody nonsense. Moving on to a new place isn’t all that easy, mind you, unless you’re willing to adapt. It’s been a struggle to keep going, keep moving, keep me eye on the goal.”
“What is the goal?” I asked.
I smiled. Patrick probably was a selfish skirt-chaser, but I couldn’t imagine having a conversation like this with any other boy I had ever known.
“You’ll do it. I know you will,” I told him.
He gave me one of his crooked smiles and lightly ran his finger down my cheek. I felt a shiver all the way down my spine.
After dinner Patrick persuaded me to go back to his place for the night. It wasn’t a hard sell. I spent the next three nights in Patrick’s bed.
Thursday morning we woke early and lay silently, holding each other as daylight gradually illuminated his room. After we dressed, I watched him stuff the last of his belongings into his pack.
“There’s a sock on the floor in the corner.” I pointed to it without moving to pick it up.
He glanced over at the orphaned sock and shrugged. “We’ll leave it for the mice.”
“Sure. Why not?” I said, struggling to keep from sighing or getting teary. My heart was in the pit of my stomach, and I felt a little light-headed. At moments like this, it takes a good actress to hold it together. I could have won an Academy Award.
Together we walked downstairs and stood on the sidewalk, waiting for his ride to appear. Both of us studied our shoes as if we had run out of words.
Finally, still looking down at his boots, Patrick said, “So you’re sure you have my e-mail address?”
“Yes, I have it.”
“I’ll be expecting to hear from you and to hear you’ve started school.” He looked up then and ran his fingertip lightly across my lips. “Who knows, one of these days you might be thinking of taking a holiday in Spain or even Ireland and decide to look up your old friend Patrick.”
“Who knows,” I echoed, unable to say more because of the large lump lodged in my throat.
The airport shuttle pulled up to the curb, and we moved toward it. Patrick hefted his baggage into the back and turned to me.
“This is it then,” he said, pulling me to him. Our last, deep kiss went on so long it made my knees weak. A final squeeze to my hand and he climbed into the front passenger seat. He gave me one of his crooked smiles, the shuttle pulled away, and he was gone.
I walked to where my car was parked and slid into the driver’s seat. Snap! Just like that, my big romance was over. Oddly enough I didn’t feel like crying or anything. You’d have thought his departure would have sent me right over the edge. I guess you can get used to bad things happening. Or maybe it was because I had a little microscopic atom of hope inside of me—a hope that it wasn’t completely over between us. Patrick could come back. I could go to Spain.
As I drove to work that morning, for the first time in weeks, my thoughts turned from Patrick to my mother. As I thought about her, the little atom of hope inside me seemed to shrink. My mother was the one thing in my life that seemed more elusive than ever. As each day passed, it seemed less and less possible that she would ever return.
• • •
The following Thursday I went to Gloria’s for Thanksgiving dinner. I appreciated that she included me, but to tell the truth, I ached for my mother. All I could think about was the way things used to be. While I forced down Gloria’s cornbread stuffing and pumpkin pie, I kept wondering if this was how holidays would go from now on.
Just that week there had been a story in the newspaper about an eighty-one-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s who has disappeared at the Dallas airport. The attendant escorting her took her eyes off the old lady for a few moments and she was gone, vanished, beamed up to a spaceship maybe. Neither the airport security nor the Dallas police had been able to find her. If the police couldn’t find a little old lady at an airport terminal, no wonder they couldn’t find my mother.
Diane had been gone seven months now. I had stopped expecting my mother to reappear at any moment, although I still hoped. I liked to imagine that she had amnesia and one morning she would snap out of it. I liked to daydream about that day. I would hear my cell phone ring and hear her voice on the other end. She’d tell me how she suddenly remembered everything and longed to see her beloved daughter. I would tell her how sorry I am about the fight and every mean thing I ever said or did. I would promise to be a better daughter from now on. I’d tell her, “I’m so sorry, Mom. I love you.”
I always ended my daydream there, without letting thoughts of the missing money or the police ruin it. All I cared about was having my mother back, hugging her, and feeling her arms around me again. All I wanted was to hear her say, “I love you, Ashley.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
During the four months I had been residing in the camper, I tried to avoid running into anyone I didn’t want to see. That included most of the residents of Burlingame and all of my old school friends. But one Saturday morning my luck finally ran out. I was filling my tank at Phil’s station when a silver BMW sedan pulled up to the pump ahead of me. I was dismayed to see Nicole’s mother in the driver’s seat.
As Cindy climbed out of her car, Reynaldo appeared and immediately began filling her tank. She didn’t say a word to him. Instead, she flounced over to me with the supremely self-assured air of an aristocrat ready to squash an inferior under the heel of her pointy-toed pump. I steeled myself for a barrage of rude questions.
“I trust you’re paying for that gas,” she said, brushing imaginary lint off what looked like a sealskin jacket. I could see a huge diamond-and-sapphire ring glittering on her third finger—an engagement ring?
“Do you know of another way?” I answered in tones dripping with sarcasm. “Hello to you, too, Cindy. I see you get service even in a self-service station.”
“I always get special service here,” she said. “So, Ashley”—she looked me up and down as if appraising me for a price markdown—“how’s our little camper queen doing these days?”
I stared at her, my mouth open in shock.
She smirked at me. “You know, I like to picture you using a gas station bathroom every day. Do you ever worry about all the germs that might be in there? After all, you never know who used it last.”
“How—,” I began, and then stopped.
“How do I know? Philip told me, of course.” She snickered. “In fact, he didn’t want to let you move in, but I convinced him it would be a valuable experience for you. You needed to be brought down off your high horse.”
Philip. Why would Phil tell Cindy? There could be only one reason—she was Phil’s new girlfriend—my mother’s replacement.
“Phil-lip,” I repeated. “And you. I might have known.”
“But you didn’t, did you?” She laughed again, clearly delighted with herself. “We’ve been seeing each other almost a year now. Philip coached Mark’s soccer team, and we would see each other at practices and games, share pizza with the boys afterward. It didn’t take him long to realize that I could give him what he wasn’t getting from your mother. Diane was too busy for him—busy stealing money as it turns out.”
I stared at her smug face and longed to slap it until I made her lip bleed.
“You’re seeing the owner of a gas station? Isn’t that quite a comedown for you?” I sneered. “Your ex-husband was a corporate executive, a big man on Montgomery Street.”
“Philip is an entrepreneur. He makes plenty of money with this station. He may be a little rough around the edges, but I’m taking care of that. All my friends think he’s very good-looking. I call him my Marlboro Man. Anyway, the boys are crazy about him, and he’s so much better with them than their father is. They hardly see Walter anymore.”
“Does Nicole know about this?”
“Not yet, but don’t you worry. She’ll get along with Philip just fine. I’m sure he’ll love dealing with my sweet Nicole after being around you. He told me once that you had only three facial expressions—pouty, sulky, and sullen.
That one stung, but I didn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing it.
“Maybe I wasn’t always as nice to Phil as I should have been, but at least my mother isn’t a bitch like you,” I spat back at her. “Poor Phil, he doesn’t know what he’s getting into. I pity him when he finds out what you’re really like.”
Pointing one of her bloodred nails at me, she retorted, “He knows very well what he’s getting, and he’s very happy with it, Little Miss Smartass. I’m not an embezzler. I’m not a freeloader living in a camper. You know, maybe you’ve sponged off him long enough. I’ll have to talk to Philip about that.”
She walked off, got into her car, and gave me a spiteful little smile as she pulled away. I raised my right hand and gave her the finger.
After she left, I started wondering if she’d told Nicole where I was living. Then I realized she couldn’t have. Two days ago Nicole had come home for the holidays and left several messages on my cell phone. I hadn’t called her back because I didn’t feel like pretending everything was just fine while she chattered about all the fun she was having in college. If Nicole knew where I was staying, she wouldn’t have called. She would have pounded on the camper door, looking for me.
• • •
After filling my tank, I drove to Gloria’s house. Gloria and her family had left Friday morning to spend the holidays in Denver with her husband’s relatives. She had suggested I might want to stay there and keep an eye on things while they were gone. I leaped at the chance. It seemed like a golden opportunity to stay in a warm house, sleep in a regular bed, watch television, and otherwise live normally for a few days.
I parked in the driveway and scooped up Stella, who was sunning herself on the front step. Together we went inside and curled up on the sofa to watch TV. After the program ended, I went into the garage where all our furniture and belongings were stored. I wanted to add another $100 to the secret stash I kept hidden in the oak armoire. Counting it reassured me that I was making progress toward an apartment of my own. At my last count I had about $3,400. I would need every penny if Cindy persuaded Phil to kick me out of the camper.