The Fortunes of Indigo Skye

by Deb Caletti

  But then I start to listen to him. This once alive, real man talking. His rhythms are soothing and draw me in; he is almost religious without all the God part. And if I cut out all the curlicue words, ignore the thou’s and thee’s, I see that the man had stuff to say. About how we should trust ourselves. About how nature and the good and right stuff inside is our real fortune. We are swayed too much, he said, by the wrong things, by what each other has, not what each other is. We must be nonconformists, he wrote. We must think for ourselves, because the only sacred thing is the integrity of our own minds. Insist on yourself, he said.

  “Insist on yourself,” I say.

  “You read it,” Dad says.

  “Yeah.”

  “I can’t believe you read it.”

  “Honestly? Me either. I actually liked it.”

  “I knew you could never be a conformist for long, In. You promised you’d call if you needed anything last night, so I’m assuming all went well,” Dad says.

  “I just went north, like you said. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I don’t want you to worry. It’s what I need. The truth isn’t the problem, In, just what you have to do to face it. Where are you?”

  “I’m here in a Josie’s Pancake House, pouring blueberry syrup over the biggest stack of pancakes you’ve ever seen in your life.” I hold the phone in the crick of my shoulder, cut a triangle of pancakes.

  “Yum,” Dad says.

  “Bacon, too,” I say.

  “What next?” Dad says.

  “I-5 north. Stay straight until I get home.”

  “Grandpa Sam?” Dad says. That was Dad’s own father. He died before I was born. “He told me to see the world. ‘Home is not the center of the world,’ he said. It wasn’t bad advice, not entirely. I mean, how do you get a sense of something without its comparison? But we forget—anyplace can be the center, depending on how you turn the globe. Who’s there, who’s not there, that’s what makes a place worth staying in. That’s what makes it ours.”

  I chew away. Swallow. “So, there’s no place like home, click my heels three times?” I say.

  “Not necessarily. But sometimes, yes. Often.”

  I think about this. I swirl the tines of my fork in the thickness of the syrup. “I’ve got some making up to do to the people there,” I say. “To all the people I love.”

  “Indigo?”

  “Yeah?”

  “So do I,” Dad says.

  I drive, and drive and drive. I have a lot of time to think. About what I really want, about the things that mean something to me. That sounds so simple, and yet it isn’t simple. Sometimes, stopping to think is hard work. The sun is out the whole way. It is the kind of day where dogs’ heads stick out from car windows. All types of heads—Doberman heads and cocker spaniel heads and mixed-up-dog-family heads. But they are all out, ears flapping, noses up, filled with the joy of the journey.

  I have two milk shakes and one cheeseburger on the way, eating with one hand and driving with the other, because I’m in too much of a hurry to stop. I speed through southern Oregon, its farmland middle, then arrive in Portland. My heart lifts when I make it over the state line into Washington. Stay straight on I-5 into Seattle, my Dad said, and that’s what I do, ignoring my numb ass and legs that feel permanently crunched into their new L shape.

  I am starving again when I arrive in Seattle; I want to go straight home, but my stomach aches with hunger and so I stop for something before I cross the floating bridge to go back home to Nine Mile Falls. I stop at the Frankfurter right on Pier 54 on the waterfront, and have a huge hot dog with sauerkraut, just the way I like it. Then I get back into the Porsche and head through Pioneer Square.

  It stuns me to think how easily I could have missed it. My eyes are humming with fatigue, and the city traffic and one-way streets are distracting, as is the effort required in trying to find the signs for the freeway entrance. But I don’t miss it. I don’t miss him. I am sitting at a red light and look over and there he is. I swear to God, this is what I see—a homeless man, sitting on one of the benches under the glass pergola of Pioneer Square. His head is down, his hair a dirty tangle. This is not an uncommon sight, not at all, because a lot of homeless people hang out here on these benches, under this awning of glass squares. But what is unusual, what shocks me, what stops me so thoroughly that the car behind me honks when the light turns green, is what he is wearing. A T-shirt, but over that, a vest. A vest with Mr. Moore’s face on it, a vest from the party, HAPPY 55, CHIEF! written underneath his image.

  I think I am perhaps hallucinating. I think the sun and wind and endless miles are messing with my head. I drive around the block again, to be sure. My heart is beating very fast, with the urgency of importance. They had said, hadn’t they, that they give the vests to the needy? I drive past slowly, and if I am hallucinating, I am hallucinating still, because yes, there it is. There is Mr. Moore’s face, smiling from the right breast pocket of the homeless man’s new vest.

  I want to laugh, or I want to cry, I don’t know which. But this is some sort of sign, isn’t it? Okay, I don’t have a fucking clue what the sign means, but I have no doubt that it is one. I don’t know what to do. My hands are shaking. I feel a bit crazy. I know I have to pull over, get my thoughts together. I might be dangerous, driving like this. I make a few turns, too many random turns. I stop on a street in the shadow of the Greek church, with its golden soft-serve-ice-cream top. The Qwik Stop grocery store–gas station is on the corner. I find my cell phone.

  “Dad?”

  “Is everything all right?” He’s beginning to sound like Mom in the way he answers the phone lately.

  “I want to spend it,” I say. “All of it.”

  “Indigo, you know, I don’t think that’s the best idea…”

  “No. I don’t mean just go spend it…. I mean, I want to put it places. I was thinking, you know, that maybe what’s ugly, maybe it’s the imbalances. Like money, power, is about imbalances, but all the good things are about balance.”

  “The good things…”

  “Love is about balance, and even doing the right thing is about balance, right? And nature…”

  “Yes.”

  “And we fuck things up when we let them get out of balance.”

  “I think that’s very true,” Dad says.

  I sit by the mini-mart and I make a plan. I make a plan with Dad, until my phone battery starts to run out. I write the plan on a pink slip of paper that was in the glove compartment, with a pen from my bag.

  “And what about you?” I ask. “What can I give you?”

  He doesn’t even stop to think about this. “More time with you guys. Another chance,” he says.

  “Done,” I say.

  That Emerson—he was pretty funny, too. What is a weed? he said. A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered. I think about this as I approach our house. There is our lawn, turning yellow from summer, splotched with the thick scratchy leaves of dandelions, bursts of bright yellow. Sometimes, what is beautiful is ugly, and what is supposed to be ugly is beautiful.

  Mom’s car is in the driveway, still looking odd and off kilter with its three large tires and one small, round spare. Ron the Buddha smiles serenely at me as I come up the walk. “Peace, Ron,” I say. Needlessly—he is always peaceful. I open the front door, causing Freud to leap off the sofa and jet outside. Right away I notice that the television is missing. There are two gaping holes where the bolts had been.

  “Severin?” Mom calls from the kitchen. “Are you home? Can you help me? I’m stuck! I got my watch stuck…”

  “It’s me,” I call.

  “Indigo! Indigo? Is that you? Oh my God.”

  “It’s me.”

  “Oh my God, come here! You’re home!”

  I go into the kitchen. Mom is leaning over the kitchen sink, her hand thrust down the garbage disposal. “It is you! I’m going to cry. Oh, In. You’re home!” Mom’s face scrunches up, and her eyes fill. “You h
ave no idea…”

  “I missed you, Mom.”

  “Oh, In. I was so worried.”

  “Let me help you,” I say. “What happened to you?”

  She wipes the tears with her free hand. “I have never been so glad to see someone in my entire life. Oh, my girl. The house key…It slid down the garbage disposal, and then when I went to get it, my watchband got stuck around one of these blades, and…Who cares!” she cries. “You’re home!”

  “Just a sec,” I say. I wiggle my own hand down with hers, work at the band. “Can you just—”

  “Ow, ow, ow,” she says.

  “Ow, ow, ow,” Chico says.

  “Okay, wait, now just—”

  “There, it’s coming loose. It’s coming off!” Mom says. The band releases. I retrieve my arm, and then Mom removes hers.

  “Man, that was mildly disgusting,” I say. I flip on the water to wash my arm, but Mom practically knocks me over.

  “Oh, you’re home.” She flings both arms around me. She starts to cry again.

  “I thought you’d be pretty mad,” I say.

  “Oh I am mad, I am. You have no idea how mad at you I am. But, Indigo, don’t you understand? I’m your mother. No matter what you do…You children are everything to me,” she says.

  I hug her hard. “It’s the hormones talking,” I say.

  “Indigo, if you ever do anything like that again, I swear…I love you more than life itself.”

  “I love you, too. I’m so sorry.” This time, I mean it.

  She holds me away from her, looks at me seriously. “Oh, In. All right. All right. But things can’t go on the way they were. You know?”

  “I know,” I say. “I do. Where is everybody? Where’s the TV?”

  “Severin’s getting a pizza. He’s given up on all that protein drink junk. And Bex is playing at An Ling’s. After you left, she sold the TV to the Navinskys for fifteen hundred dollars. I told her she could have the money for tsunami relief,” Mom says. She wipes her teary face with the back of her hand.

  “I only paid a thousand,” I say.

  “Yeah,” Mom says. “Bex knew that.” Mom points to the receipt, stuck to the fridge with a magnet shaped like a watermelon. “She told me she had an epiphany. She used that word! I can’t believe I was ever worried about her,” Mom says.

  My world is not large, but it is deep.

  I go straight to bed. I am exhausted, and it feels so good to lie my head right here, on my own pillow. In the morning, I make peace with Severin and Bex. The red Porsche in the driveway helps.

  “I leased it,” I say. “For the summer.”

  “That’s a fine-looking car,” Severin says.

  “Fast,” Bex says. “Real fast, I bet.”

  “Oh yeah. You’re right about that. I forgot to mention,” I say to Mom. I reach around in the glove compartment, hold up two pink slips. “My foot got happy.”

  “Speeding tickets?” Mom says. “Two?”

  “And the first guy let me go with a warning,” I say.

  “I’m glad someone stopped you,” Mom says.

  “Brian should have stopped her,” Bex says. She nudges Mom with her elbow.

  “Brian?” The name is familiar. Brian…Brian…“Officer Brian?” I say.

  “He’s called Mom three times,” Bex says.

  “He wants to go out. I didn’t really feel like it with you gone,” Mom says.

  “But now that she’s ba-ack,” Severin says. He says it like that—ba-ack.

  “Enough,” Mom says.

  “Let’s tell him she likes to watch Mr. Rogers reruns,” I say. She does, too.

  “Just because he’s peaceful!” Mom says.

  “Briii-aan,” Bex sings.

  “Well, I was going to turn the car in early to the leasing company, but there’d be some penalty…,” I say.

  “Yeah,” Severin says. He is running his fingertips along the door ledge.

  “So I thought maybe you could drive it until then,” I say to him.

  “You’re kidding,” he says. His eyes are wide.

  “Indigo,” Mom says. “What about what we talked about? How things needed to be different? I don’t want all this crazy spending—”

  “This is just for the summer,” I say. “I told you, I’ve got a plan.” I fold up that very plan, written on the back of one of the speeding tickets, and put it in the pocket of my shorts. “This is just one small, temporary indulgence. Trust me, all right?” I say.

  “All right,” she says.

  And then I put the keys into Severin’s palm.

  Trevor, it’s me. Please, I say. Please pick up. I’m back. And then, Trevor! I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I don’t know what happened. I just got stupid. But he doesn’t call back. Trevor, please, oh please, oh please. Just talk to me.

  I go to Trevor’s house, but no one is there, and the van his Mom uses to transport the kids is not in the driveway. I drive to his work. I see Bob Weaver in the parking lot, and my heart thuds with nerves. But Trevor is out on a job, Larry Jakes tells me. They’ve been especially busy, end-to-end deliveries.

  I leave two more messages. I want to see him so bad that I just drive around in my VW, in stupid hope that I might see the delivery truck somewhere. I do this for an aimless, desperate hour, until I get sick of myself, and decide to clean up my other mess. It’s much easier to take apart your life than it is to put it together again.

  The bells on the door jangle when I walk in, and Jack jumps up, his tail wagging like a grandfather clock on high speed; black Lab tick-tock tick-tock happiness.

  “Oh, you good old boy. Yes, you are a fine boy,” I croon as I scruffle him under the neck and look around for Jane. “Look at that wag, huh? You got the finest wag,” I say. It’s the lunch shift, and none of the Irregulars are here. Nikki is working, and she tells me Jane is in the back.

  “Jane?” I call.

  “One of the fucking coffee machines broke,” Jane says to me. She is standing in front of one of the two large refrigerators, turns to face me with a carton of cream in her hand. “Is this the return of the prodigal daughter?”

  “I’m looking for a job,” I say. “I’m an excellent waitress with great experience and a newfound sense of humility. And a huge appreciation for my old boss.”

  “Oh, Indigo. I’m so sorry.” She shakes her head at herself, little why? and how? shakes. She sets the cream on the counter. “I was such a bitch. I’ve been under such stress with this place. Financially? I didn’t want to say it. To everyone. To anyone, except my mother, and Nick, who’s polite enough to keep his mouth shut. I’ve been struggling to keep the doors open. And I love this place. More than anything. This place, the people in it. And then you got that money, and it just felt somehow unfair, you know? God, I’m sorry.”

  I remember Jane and Nick, at the curb long ago. The things she didn’t want to tell me. “Jane, I’m sorry. I was acting like a brat. You didn’t deserve that.”

  Jane holds her hands together, prayerlike, under her chin. “Can you start tomorrow morning? You haven’t been replaced, of course, and everyone is cranky and complaining. Nick only has tea, bobs that damn bag up and down, up and down. Oh! Trina got her car back—”

  “No way! That’s great!”

  “Not so great. The engine died and her cousin wanted her to refund his money. She told him she spent most of it and gave him a few thousand bucks, but it’s dead and has a new bash on the front fender. We’ve missed you, Indigo. I’ve missed you.”

  “I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you, too.”

  Jane holds her arms out, hugs me hard. I hug her back. A lump starts in my throat. I blink away tears. “The weird thing is, this place isn’t the same without you,” Jane says.

  “I’m not the same without it,” I say.

  Trevor? Please don’t hate me. I can’t tell you how stupid I was. You were right—I never gave us the chance to handle it. I’m so, so sorry. Another message. Please—hate me, but don�
�t ignore me. Please just answer.

  My insides are starting to curl with panic, like a newspaper lit with a match. I just want to see him again. I know if I see Trevor and he sees me, I might stop being this person he hates and be just me to him again. I drive past his work, stalker-style, but he hasn’t come back for another pickup yet.

  I head home, wind back up by the freeway, and then I see something that gives me a surge of happy. It isn’t Trevor, no, but it is a large yellow foam rectangle walking along the gravel road, a blotch of orange cheese oozing from the top; he’s making slow progress, and he’s maybe two miles from Old Country Buffet. Could burritos get lost? Could they meander from their post, become disoriented in a sea of foam with only a slit mesh window to see from? Might they go astray in overcooked confusion, like the poor old people who wander from the nursing home?

  I slow. Roll down my window. “Hey! Breakfast burrito! Going my way?”

  “Indigo! Is that you? Thank God. This asshole kid who’s a pickle spear during the lunch shift swiped my clothes. I’ve got to walk home like this.”

  “Can I give you a ride? Do you think you can fit?”

  “Hey, it’s worth a try. God, I’m hot as hell in this thing.”

  “Well, if you were cold, I’d have to send you back to the kitchen.”

  “Ha, ha. Hey, it’s great to see you. You better get yourself back to Carrera’s and fast, because the place is tanking without you. Can you—If you just give some of this egg a shove…”

  I get out, push and shove all of Leroy into the passenger seat. He has to sit straight, his head way up by the dome light. But we get him in.