by John Searles
“Can you take a message?” she said.
“But it’s someone from the Radnor Police Department. And she says it’s an emergency.”
As those old headlines speed by on the smudged and fingerprinted screen of the viewing machine, Charlene has the vague impression of looking out a car window, only instead of trees and houses whipping past, she glimpses headlines from stories that were big news on the Main Line at the time. “Fare Increase Has Commuters in a Funk”… “Fellman Drops Charges Against Radnor Police Officer” … “Developer to Demolish Farm and Build Home Depot”… And then, finally, Charlene sees the headline she has been looking for: “Radnor H.S. Student Dies in Limo Accident.” Beneath those words is a black-and-white photo of the limousine crushed into a tree. All these years had gone by and never once has Charlene allowed herself to look at this article. But for whatever reason—maybe it is being back in this place where she first got the news of what happened that horrible night—Charlene takes a breath and reads:
Four students from Radnor High School were being driven home in a limousine from the prom at Fairbanks Inn on Friday, June 18, when the driver of the vehicle, Albert Chang, 38, of Philadelphia, lost control and struck a tree on Blatts Farm Hill. The driver and all four passengers were taken by ambulance to Bryn Mawr Hospital. Both Mr. Chang and Ronald Charles Chase, 18, were pronounced dead on arrival. The three remaining passengers, Stacy Moody, 17, Melissa Moody, 17, and Charles Gimble, 18, suffered a multitude of injuries but remain in stable condition at the hospital. A preliminary blood test on Mr. Chang’s body showed high levels of blood alcohol. Complete results will be released from the coroner’s office by midweek. Principal Randolph Hulp of Radnor High School said, “We deeply mourn the loss of Ronnie Chase. He was truly one of the finest students ever to pass through these halls. He touched our lives in ways none of us will soon forget.” Ronald is survived by two parents, Dr. Richard and Charlene Chase of Turnber Lane, and a brother, Philip, 22. Services will be held at the Miner Funeral Home on South Wayne Avenue, Tuesday, June 22, 4–7 and Wednesday, June 23, 4–7. Burial Services: Thursday, June 24, 1 P.M. at Meadow Rest Cemetery, 22 Feldoma Road, following a noon mass at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church on Glen Mary Road.
When Charlene is finished reading, the plain facts of the article—of her life—have her breathing fast and hard. She rewinds the tape so she can put it back in the canister, then back in the drawer, then get the hell out of here. Returning to this library had been a mistake, she realizes. It brought her no closer to believing what Melissa said was true; all it had done was churn up too many bad memories. And now she wants out. But the damn microfiche gets caught in the machine. Charlene cranks the knob to the Stop position. Her fingers are shaking when she reaches in to fix it, but the film won’t go where it is supposed to go. Finally, in a fit of frustration, she rips the tape from the reel with such force that it flings out around her, then comes to rest on her shoulders. Charlene leaves it there, picks up the Robert Frost book, which dropped to the floor during the commotion, then marches right through the emergency exit without bothering to hide it in her cloak.
Outside, in the cold winter air, she realizes she is crying because the tears feel hot against her face. She opens her purse and takes out a piece of bread to dab her cheeks as she walks toward her car.
“Charlene?”
The alarm did not sound but someone just called her name. Without even turning around, she knows who that someone is. She would know that voice anywhere. Charlene does her best to stop crying, then turns to see Pilia leaning against the brick wall of the building, wearing an unzipped, baby blue ski parka and expensive-looking black pants, smoking a cigarette. Charlene studies her face and sees that somehow the woman has managed to defy aging. She still has smooth, uncreased skin, those two dramatic blond curls rising up from the top of her forehead, long thin legs. Just about everything at the library has changed except Pilia.
The woman probably bathes in formaldehyde every night, Charlene thinks, so I shouldn’t be surprised. “Hello,” she says.
“IthoughtthatwasyouintheInternetroom.”
“It’s me, all right.” Charlene stares down at the piece of bread in her hand, which is the slightest bit damp from her tears. She waits for Pilia to ask why she is using the emergency exit, why she is helping herself to a volume of poetry, why she is wearing a strip of microfiche around her neck like a boa, and why she is holding that piece of bread.
All she says is, “It’sbeenhowlong? Sixyears? SinceI’veseenyou.”
“Five,” Charlene corrects her, neglecting to add the Since you stole my job part.
“Howhaveyoubeen?”
“Just dandy,” Charlene tells her. “Every day is another blessing. Life just gets better and better. How about you?”
Pilia takes a drag of her cigarette. “OkayIguess.”
It’s then, as Charlene watches her blow smoke from her nose, that she realizes there is something different about Pilia. It takes her a moment to pinpoint exactly what that something is, but once she does, Charlene drops the bread to the pavement and finds herself stepping forward. Her hand, seemingly on its own, reaches out and lifts away the front of Pilia’s baby-blue parka to get a glimpse beneath. Oddly, Pilia remains unfazed by this. She stays perfectly still, staring down at her chest, as though she expected Charlene to look there all along. When she confirms her suspicions, Charlene says, “My God, Pilia. What happened?”
Pilia shrugs. She stubs her cigarette against the brick wall. “Breastcancer. Ihadtohave. Adoublemastectomy.”
Charlene lets go of Pilia’s jacket and puts her hand to her open mouth. Any sense of schadenfreude she might have imagined feeling at Pilia’s misfortune does not come to her. Instead, she finds herself free-falling into a bottomless feeling of guilt for all the time she spent wishing Pilia ill over the years. “I’m so, so sorry, Pilia.”
“Metoo,” she says, putting half of her unsmoked cigarette back in her small leather purse. “Iwas. Goingtowear. Artificialones. ButthenIjust. Gaveup.”
Charlene doesn’t say anything for a long moment, then she asks, “Isn’t that dangerous? The cigarette, I mean. What if it sparks something inside?”
Pilia looks at her purse and shakes her head. “Idoitallthetime. IfIknow. Ihaveahalfofone. Inside. Itkeepsmefromsmokingmore. Crazyrationale-butitworks. It’sfunnythetricks. Youcanplayonyourmind.”
“Funny,” Charlene says.
A silence falls in the chilly air between them then, and Charlene’s breath clouds before her when she says, “Well, I better go.”
“Niceseeingyou, Charlene,” Pilia says and smiles.
“You too,” she tells her and turns toward her car.
As she walks across the lot, Charlene still feels herself dropping into that bottomless well of guilt. At the same time, there is something else happening inside of her. For the last five years, she has spent so much of her time hating people and wishing terrible things upon them, but after seeing Pilia just now, she doesn’t think she can do it anymore. And with this realization comes a strange sense of loss, because she is unsure of what her life will be like without all that hatred churning inside of her day in and day out.
When Charlene reaches her car, she puts her hand into her open purse for the keys and pulls out the remaining slices of bread. Then she opens the door and bends to gather all those discarded crusts on the floor before turning and throwing them on the lawn. After she gets inside and starts the engine, Charlene backs up and catches one last glimpse of Pilia’s baby blue parka as she steps inside the library and the emergency exit door closes behind her. She thinks of what Pilia just said about the tricks people play on their minds, and this leads her to thinking of Melissa again, as Charlene shifts into drive and moves forward. She wonders if in the midst of her grief all these years, Melissa had tricked herself too. That thought brings even more guilt to Charlene, because of the way she treated her last night. Even if she can’t bring herself to believe the girl just yet, the
least she can do is reach out to her and try to help somehow. She decides to start by going to her house and apologizing, giving her a chance to speak.
At the end of the parking lot, Charlene stops the car and takes out her cell phone to call Information. Since she had interrupted Melissa last night before she could say where she lived, Charlene needs to get her address. First, though, she calls home to tell Philip what she is about to do. It takes her a moment to figure out which button to press in order to turn on the phone, since she only got the thing for emergencies and has rarely ever used it. Once she punches in the number, the phone rings and rings until the answering machine picks up and the mechanical, recorded voice tells her to leave a message after the beep. Charlene doesn’t know where he could possibly be, but she begins speaking anyway.
“Philip. It’s me. Are you there? Pick up.” She waits for his voice to come on the line, but it doesn’t. “Okay, well, I just want you to know that I’m on my way to Melissa’s house. I plan to settle this whole thing once and for all.” Again, she stops and waits for him to pick up. During the pause between her words, she even considers blurting out an apology for that hideous thing she said to him so many years ago. But it doesn’t seem like the right time, so she waits, promising herself that she will do it as soon as she sees him again. Charlene ends the call by telling him, “By the way, I got you a book from the library. I think you might like it. Well, okay. Bye now. See you when I get home.”
Charlene presses the Off button then pulls out onto West Wayne Avenue, forgetting to dial Information. Behind her, a few stray birds have gathered on the lawn of the library to feed on those crusts of bread scattered there. Not far away, the sign draped over that wreck from a tollbooth accident outside of Pittsburgh rustles in the wind, warning everyone who sees it that THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DRINK AND DRIVE.
chapter 9
FOR GAIL ERWIN, IT BEGINS AND ENDS WITH A SOCK.
Late on the afternoon of February 3, 2004, exactly thirteen hours before she writes the letter evicting Melissa Moody without warning, Gail can be found downstairs in the dim, low-ceilinged basement of her cozy, well-kept home, folding a week’s worth of laundry. First, she tackles the flannel sheets and pillowcases, next she deals with the towels, then two pairs of crisp, unfaded Wrangler jeans, a worn-out sweatshirt with a frayed Police Athletic League patch over the heart, numerous pit-stained Fruit of the Loom T-shirts, her size eight flowery nightgown, and Bill’s extra-large pajama bottoms and boxer shorts covered with miniature trout, swordfish, whales, and sharks. Finally, Gail begins balling socks as her thoughts wander the way most people’s do when they are balling socks.
Today, she is thinking of how different her life turned out than she had expected. She is happy, most days anyway, but if someone had shown her a picture years before, say it was a snapshot of herself at this very moment, standing in a spiderwebbed basement folding laundry in the small town of Radnor, Pennsylvania, Gail would have said, No, that couldn’t possibly be me. But three husbands, two divorces, five states, and a dozen jobs later, here she is nonetheless. At least now, at the age of fifty-seven—with her hair gone white and her skin papery and creased with soft wrinkles—she has the benefit of the world treating her more kindly than when she was younger. She supposes that’s because people look at her and see the beginnings of a little old lady rather than the troubled drifter she used to be. Sometimes when Gail looks in the mirror and that old woman’s face stares back, even she can be fooled into momentarily forgetting the person she once was.
When the socks are lined up in a neat row on top of the plastic laundry basket, Gail is left holding one of Bill’s size 10–12, black Gold Toes. It’s not the first time this has happened. In fact, their socks go missing so often that Gail is convinced there is an unmarked Swallow cycle on the dial, right between Rinse and Spin. This time around, it irks her more than usual, because she just bought these socks for Bill last Christmas. She lifts the wicker laundry basket and searches beneath. She opens the dryer and bends to stick her head inside, giving it a little spin. The same with the washer. Finally, she leans as far over the machines as possible to look behind them. The only thing back there is a dusty Bounce sheet and a mousetrap loaded with peanut butter, ready to snap.
Common sense tells her to give up. It’s only a lousy sock, after all. Gail can buy a whole pack at Target for less than ten bucks. But if there’s one thing she hates, it’s wasting money. That’s become especially true in the five years since Bill was forced to retire from the police department and she left her job as a dispatcher right along with him. Money is tight, and with Melissa Moody defaulting on her rent ever since last summer, it’s even tighter. For that reason, Gail gets down on her hands and knees on the cold gray cement floor of the basement and peers beneath the washer and dryer in search of that damn sock. But it’s too dark down there to see anything.
What she needs, Gail realizes, is a flashlight. There’s one upstairs in the junk drawer by the kitchen sink, but Lord only knows if it has working batteries in it. No matter how many times Gail picks up a new pack at Genuardi’s and replaces them, they’re dead whenever the lights go out and she needs a flashlight. There’s only one way to find out, though, so Gail puts her hand on the nearest of the many wooden support columns Bill installed down here when the floor upstairs felt dangerously close to collapsing. She uses it to help her stand, careful not to prick her hand on the numerous nails that jut out from the sides, then walks toward the stairs. As she’s about to put her slippered foot on the bottom step, Gail glances through that forest of columns at Bill’s work area over by the cellar’s lone window. Since the flashlight upstairs is probably not going to work, Gail decides she might have better luck finding one down here.
She walks to the far corner of the basement and yanks the fishing wire tied to the light above Bill’s workbench, which is really just a sheet of plywood laid across two sawhorses. On the surface, there is a wide-open, gunmetal gray toolbox exploding with screwdrivers, cement nails, wrenches of all different sizes, and dozens of other odds and ends. When she pushes those aside and lifts the tray beneath, Gail sees a spool of metal wire, a spool of twine, a chisel, more screwdrivers, a greasy adjustable wrench, garden shears, a hammer handle with no head, another box of cement nails, three shiny green fishing lures…
Everything but a flashlight.
She thinks of Bill at this moment, walking up and down the canyon-like aisles of Home Depot, hands plunged deep in the pockets of his navy blue Dickies, whistling that same old Johnny Cash or Merle Haggard tune. An inch of snow fell earlier today, and he left the house to buy a new shovel since the old one was bent to hell. No doubt he’ll return with a bag of assorted junk the way he always does, Gail thinks, despite the fact that he’s got plenty down here already. Even though Bill will be home any minute, and even though this area of the house is supposed to be off-limits to her cleaning, she can’t help but organize things for him a bit. Gail gathers up the nails and puts them in their box. She collects the screwdrivers, separating the funny round tips from the flat wedgelike ones, then tucks them in separate compartments in the toolbox. She tosses that useless hammer handle into the trash can and winds up the loose spool of twine that Bill uses for his tomato plants in the summer.
It is exactly this sort of compulsive need to organize the world (a need that came late in life to Gail) that served her so well at the police station. Her job description only called for her to answer the switchboard and direct officers over the CB. But the place was so disorganized that she used her downtime to steadily work through the files of fingerprints and criminal records, putting things in proper order. It was a small town police station, after all, so it wasn’t like there was a tragedy a minute. Gail had time on her hands and then some. Time enough to flirt with Bill, who she can still remember standing by her desk the very first time she saw him, wearing his dark uniform and holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee in one of his large hands.
A flashlight.
> Gail spots one, the same cheery grass green color as the fishing lures, buried beneath a pile of unidentifiable metal parts. When she reaches her small hand out for it, her eye catches sight of something glinting at the very back of the pile. She leaves the flashlight where it is for the time being, pushes aside a rusted triangle, and plucks out that glinting object, which turns out to be a square glass ashtray with a pack of American Spirit cigarettes resting inside, along with a Bic lighter. So Bill hasn’t quit smoking after all, Gail thinks. She shakes her head and makes a tsk sound, remembering all the pity she paid him this last year while he carried on about how hard it had been to kick the habit and how sick he was of wearing the patch during those early months. Little did she know that between those Oscar-worthy performances, he was sneaking off down here to puff away.
As annoying and hypocritical as it is, Gail tells herself that there’s no use getting on him about it, considering all the other worries in their life. Instead, she tucks the cigarettes, lighter, and ashtray back beneath the metal triangle, then picks up the flashlight. It is so weightless that there are obviously no batteries inside. When she puts it down, Gail hears something shifting around in the tube. Again, she picks it up, this time giving it a little shake. Again, there is that sound. Something loose, scratching against the interior as it slides from top to bottom to top again.
Maybe it’s the discovery of those cigarettes that has her curious; whatever the reason, Gail wraps her hand around the head of the flashlight and twists. The top is fastened so tightly that it won’t budge. She tries and tries and tries, until finally she uses her irritation about that damn missing sock to fuel her strength and twists as hard as she can. Her face grimaces. A labored grunt escapes her mouth. Then off it comes. When she tilts the plastic tube of the flashlight upside down, this is what falls into the palm of her hand: a curled foil pack of twelve white, circular pills, all but four of them popped out.
