by Wick Downing
“Mike!” I said angrily. “That isn’t even nice.” What had gotten into him? “Let’s just play volleyball and have fun, you guys, okay?”
But the game deteriorated into a duel between Kenny and Mike. Even though Kenny was on my team, I secretly rooted for Mike. So did Sally, who made no secret of it. She’d grab Mike and hug him when he made a good shot. Kenny expected me to get physical with him too, but he’s definitely not my type. I kept my praises verbal, even when he tried wrapping me up in his big, strong arms, as though he were his brother, the football star. I’d twist out of his grip.
But Mike was no match for Kenny, even though he’s just as big. It’s like he doesn’t trust himself, and makes too many mistakes. Still, he wouldn’t give up. Kenny drilled him with the ball on a high leaping spike, and it was like Mike had to watch the ball hit him. He didn’t even turn his head and take the shot on his cheek. His nose bled all over the place and I thought he should quit. “No way,” he said, mopping the blood off his face with a towel. “Have you guys had enough?” he asked, staring right at Kenny.
My side beat Sally’s team, 15–7.
After the game, Kenny tried cornering me, and Sally made a beeline for Mike. But I didn’t want her getting her claws into my investigator, so I got between them. “Let’s go for a hike,” I said to the three of them. “Three Sisters?”
The others stayed behind to play horseshoes, but Sally and I wrapped up some snacks from the hors d’oeuvre tray and loaded them into backpacks with pop and water. “So what’s going on with the case?” Kenny asked me as we hiked an old jeep trail Mike knew about that would lead us to our destination. Kenny had all the innocence of a spy. “Think you’ll win it?”
“I hope so,” I said, trying a ploy of my own. “The dog belongs to this poor woman who will die if we lose.”
The view from on top of the tallest of the Sisters is what people come to Colorado to see, with purple and white mountains silhouetted against a turquoise sky. Above the horizon, the sky fades into deep, luminous blue that white clouds drift through. I can stare at the clouds for hours, watching the faces from my past and being a witness to my future. Along the way, it seemed like Mike and Kenny were becoming friends, which was nice, I thought—until I realized it wasn’t necessarily true that they liked each other. They’d snuck beer into their packs, and offered a bottle apiece to Sally and me. I quietly fed mine to the ants, then led the way back.
Toward evening, as the sun dropped behind the mountains, Mrs. Doyle served a buffet dinner of barbecued steaks, chicken, hamburgers, and slices of lean roast beef. I wished I could give the leftovers to clients and the steak bones to Herman, even though most of our clients—because of their pride—would have been offended if I’d offered to feed them. Not Herman who wouldn’t have been offended. Pride isn’t an obstacle to a dog.
Mrs. Doyle became tipsy and talkative, which was to be expected. I put a few things on my plate and wanted to go sit with the Hill crowd, but she guided me to a circle of over-thirties, just knowing I’d rather eat with grownups. She served me a glass of punch and sat me next to Mr. Roberts, who was a lawyer. She seemed to expect the two of us to trade war stories about our courtroom victories, for the entertainment of the others. I nibbled at my food and stayed where the hostess had put me, even though I’d rather be with my friends and protect Mike from Sally.
As Mr. Roberts talked on, I drank the punch, which was very tasty. Mrs. Doyle kept filling my glass.
Mr. Roberts represented landlords, I soon discovered. He made his living tossing tenants out of their apartments. “You cannot believe the way those people treat what isn’t theirs,” he said. “Some apartments are trashed with a vengeance. I have seen places the rats have moved out of, they are so bad.” That got a laugh. “The filthy habits and destructive practices of these people—welfare recipients, for the most part—is beyond belief. They have absolutely no regard for anyone’s property. Yet they are convinced that the government owes them a living.”
The veranda in the soft evening light began to heave slowly and pleasantly, like the deck of an ocean liner, but instead of making me seasick, it gave me some kind of confidence that I don’t often feel around adults. “Your welfare recipients aren’t like my welfare recipients, Mr. Roberts,” I said. “Why don’t I send you some of mine, so you won’t hate all of them?”
Mom, sitting across from me, looked startled. But Mr. Oleander smiled at me through a haze. “Ah,” Mr. Roberts said as he cut through a juicy piece of meat. “Are you one of the young radical lawyers that society owes so much to these days?” His mouth smiled, but his eyes glared at me as he chewed the expensive food. “Lawyers who simply can’t do enough for the downtrodden and the poor?”
“If I’m a radical, sir, don’t tell Mom,” I said, feeling lighthearted and glowy. “She’d send me to bed without my dinner. But the apartments I’ve seen are clean, even though some of my clients have halitosis that you wouldn’t believe.”
He wasn’t having any fun. “Am I to take that as a rebuke?”
Had I made him mad at me? “Oh, no, don’t do that. It’s just that my welfare recipients don’t all speak English, but they’re very nice and I just know you’d like them.”
“That isn’t the point, Kate,” he said. “Do they work? Do they pay their fair share of the tax burden? Or are they supported in their laziness by those of us in this room?”
“They aren’t lazy, Mr. Roberts,” I said. It occurred to me that he was not a nice man and I didn’t like him. “Some of them can’t work because they’re too dumb to learn, or aren’t strong enough to carry bricks and dig ditches and stuff, things like that.” He didn’t like me, either. “But I still think they’re nice people.”
Mr. Roberts quit glaring at me and looked around the circle with a knowing smile, even though no one smiled back at him. “What you don’t seem to realize, my young defender of the underdog, is that those very people you wish to champion and defend are destroying our economy. Why should the taxpayer, those of us here who actually work for a living, support those who don’t?”
“Oh,” I said. “My mistake, Mr. Roberts. I didn’t think we were talking about the economy at all. I thought we were talking about people, you know, welfare recipients. If you want to talk about the economy you’ll have to find someone else because I really don’t know anything about it.”
“Don’t you think it’s time you learned?” he snarled. “As a responsible lawyer, you should know it’s the economy that drives this nation and keeps us free, something we will lose if we adopt some idiotic Robin Hood philosophy.”
“Doesn’t the way we pass laws have something to do with our freedom?” I asked him. “And the way our courts are run, you know, for the sake of justice? I really didn’t know everything is about the economy.”
Mom stood up quickly as the room continued its slow spin. “Kate, it’s time for us to leave, honey,” she said. “You have work to do tomorrow, remember? You and Mike?”
“Where is he?” I asked, kind of lurching to my feet. My balance wasn’t great. “Nice meeting you, sir,” I said, almost falling on him.
“Yes. Perhaps one day we’ll meet in court.”
Mom didn’t exactly say goodbye to Mrs. Doyle, I noticed, and she didn’t bless her with her patented smile—although everyone else got it. Even Mr. Roberts.
The two Jimmys, Linda, and Janet had left earlier with their parents. Mrs. Doyle was supposed to take Kenny, Sally, and Mike back to Denver with her, but for some reason I couldn’t comprehend, Mom insisted on taking them back with us. We found them in the living room with the television set on. They weren’t watching television, though. They were asleep.
They were more than that, I realized suddenly. They were drunk, and so was I. Mom managed to wake them up and get all of us in the car. Mike and Kenny sprawled all over the back seat and crashed immediately. Sally sat between Mom and me, put her head on my shoulder, and was asleep. “That woman should be executed,” I heard Mom
say as my eyes drooped shut.
Did she mean Mrs. Doyle? I wondered, falling asleep.
Chapter Fourteen
“WAKE UP. SLEEPYHEAD. It’s after eleven.” Mom’s voice broke like mysterious background music into a strange dream. I was defending Law, my brother, who’d been charged with the crime of running away from home and leaving me to fend for myself, only in the dream, he looked exactly like my dad. “You and Mike are having a picnic with Miss Willow at noon, aren’t you?” Mom asked.
“You’re right!” I sat up so quickly that the sheet clung to me like skin. But something was wrong with me. My tongue felt thick and my head started to float. I held on to it with both hands, to keep it from drifting away. “Mom, I feel terrible about last night. You were so great about it, taking us home and tucking us in, and not blaming me for what happened. What did happen?”
“It was not a friendly little neighborhood gathering at all,” Mom said. “Invitations went out a month ago. We were an afterthought.”
“We were?”
“Mike’s dad was called out of town suddenly, and Mona needed someone to take Mike up.”
I felt woozy and my mouth tasted awful, and I felt guilty without knowing what I’d done wrong, and sad, and grateful too without knowing who to thank, except my mom. The only escape for me from all these bewildering feelings was to burst into tears. “Mom, I love you so much, and I miss Zozo and Law with all my heart!”
Mom got a little weepy too. She sat on the edge of the bed and hugged me. But later, she asked me if I’d known what was in the punch Mona Doyle had given me. “Honest, no,” I said. “It just tasted really good.” She frowned as though she wanted to believe me but wasn’t sure.
Getting Mike up in time to get to City Park by noon proved to be too much of a problem. I stuck a note on his door and went without him, wobbling at first on my bike, then feeling better. It was so beautiful out that I wished someone was with me to share it. Blue sky so absolutely clear and clean that the golden rays from the sun clung to the trees like morning dew. A few high clouds drifting around in the heavens like Casper the Friendly Ghost.
Miss Willow had spread her blanket near the lake and smiled at me when I rolled up. “Hello, dear,” she said, sitting next to a picnic basket made of reeds. She looked like a sunflower in her pretty yellow dress with a blue bonnet covering her head. Was it the only dress she had? I wondered. “Where is your nice young man?”
“He couldn’t make it,” I said, dismounting carefully.
“You aren’t catching a cold, are you? Your eyes . . .”
I couldn’t tell her I had a hangover. “No, I just didn’t sleep very well.”
She told me she was exactly where she’d been when it happened two weeks before, and pointed to a little brown spot in the grass where the spike that tethered Herman had been planted. Mike and I had found the right general location but the wrong tree. “I wish Herman were here,” she said, opening the lid to the basket. “He enjoyed picnics as much as I do. But I’d be in contempt of court or something dreadful, wouldn’t I, dear?”
I nodded, and blinked. Strange things were happening in my head, as though some membrane in my brain that walled off memories had been dissolved. I could see Zozo, who grinned at me as he led me up the trail above the campground at Mesa Verde. It was steep and he couldn’t carry me because the war had left him with a limp and only one arm, but he held my hand with his good one and we finally got to the top of the mesa that looked out over the Four Corners. The smells were sharp and wild, and I loved them. Piñón and cedar trees, Zozo was telling me—when all at once, two deer bolted across the trail in front of them. We’d scared them. They crashed into brush so thick we couldn’t walk through it, but it swallowed them up.
I was back with Miss Willow. “I wish he was here too,” I said.
She’d made sandwiches and handed me one, wrapped in waxed paper. “Peanut butter and jelly?” she asked. “It’s what the young people in my day always had for lunch.”
It looked gooey. The sight of it knotted my stomach into a golf ball. “No, thanks,” I said. She looked wounded. “Not right now.”
An old bum, tall and skinny, wandered toward us in clothes that were rags. He looked as if he hadn’t washed in ages. His face was grimy, his hands and arms were dirty, and his hair was an explosion that shot out in all directions. As he stood over Miss Willow and stared at her with large, sad eyes, I hoped he wouldn’t cause trouble. “Good morning, Wilma,” he said. “Isn’t the big dog with you today?”
Miss Willow wouldn’t look at him. “Go away, Spence,” she said, then tested the air with her nose. “Haven’t you heard of soap and water?”
The comment didn’t faze the old guy. “Who is the young lady?” he asked, pointing his head at me and sitting down on the grass at a respectful distance. “You don’t have grandchildren, do you?”
“She’s my lawyer. We were having a conference until you arrived.”
“You don’t say!” He gazed at me with interest. “Must I introduce myself, Wilma?”
Her nose was still in the air. “Miss Kate Hope, since this man won’t leave, please say hello to Spencer Phipps, the valedictorian of the East High School graduating class of 1929. He was voted the Boy Most Likely to Succeed.”
“Hi, Mr. Phipps,” I said. He extended a grimy hand for me to shake, so we shook hands.
“Are you related to Lawrence Hope,” he asked, “who has the unusual reputation of being an honest lawyer?”
“He’s my grandfather.” I kind of warmed up to him, even though thoughts of holding a sandwich in my right hand totally evaporated.
“You were in the newspapers recently, were you not?” he asked. “A girl prodigy who passed the bar examination at the tender age of fourteen?”
“I hated that story,” I told him. “People expect me to quote Shakespeare and fill up silences with legal maxims in Latin.”
“Think of your future, young woman. When you are twenty and rich and successful, you’ll be ready to enter politics.” His eyes drifted toward the picnic basket.
“I guess you and Miss Willow have been friends for a long time?” I asked him.
“Since childhood,” he said. “We were sweethearts.”
“We were not!” she exclaimed.
“Yes we were, old girl, in spite of the fact your father never approved of me. And what is painfully obvious to me is that you have recovered from the promises and dreams that nourish the soul of those who are young and in love—even though I did not.”
“You certainly fooled everyone. You were married three times!”
“Always searching for a woman with your sweet nature, but never fortunate enough to find her. You wouldn’t have a spare morsel or two in that basket?”
“No!”
“Miss Willow, he can eat my sandwich,” I said, patting my stomach. “I’m really a little sick today.”
“Perhaps this is unkind of me to suggest, Miss Hope, but you aren’t experiencing a hangover, are you?”
“Oh no, sir,” I said, doing my best to keep the truth from showing on my face.
“I thought not, even though your eyes are a bit watery and your face is quite flushed. You are undoubtedly experiencing an allergic reaction of some kind. The symptoms are indistinguishable.” He took the sandwich that Miss Willow held out to him. “Thank you, Wilma,” he said, gazing at it with love. “Might I suggest a less formal speaking arrangement?” he added, turning to me. “You may call me Spence rather than ‘sir,’ and I might address you by your first name if you’ll allow it.” He took a huge bite.
He wasn’t a bit like most old men, who expect kids to call them “sir” for no reason other than that they are old. It would be easy for me to call him by his first name. “I like the idea,” I told him. “Call me Kate. Do you come here a lot?”
“Once or twice a month. I enjoy visiting with Wilma and reminiscing about the old days, even though she pretends she can’t stand me.”
“You
were such a handsome boy,” Miss Willow said to him, then turned to me. “His parents were wealthy and he had all the advantages. They sent him to Dartmouth, and he was charming and witty even before getting a degree in anthropology—which made him even wittier, although rather strange.” Her head rocked with a sad memory or something. “Then he went to the war, and look at him now. A disgrace.”
“My problem is not unique,” Spence said. “My experiences in the war compelled me to face a most unpleasant truth. The world we live in is quite insane. Most people can blind themselves to those insanities, but many of us cannot. I drink to excess, Kate, in order to avoid the madness that surrounds me.”
Was that really why he drank too much? I wondered. Grandfather had been gassed in World War I, and in World War II, Daddy had picked up the huge scar on his face and lost his arm. Both of them thought war was crazy too, but it hadn’t turned them into drunken bums. “Wouldn’t it be better to do something about it?” I asked.
“Would that I could,” he said, peering at me with grave seriousness. “But the truth is, I would stay drunk all the time if my body would allow it. However, it compels me to surface now and again.”
He was like a little boy with cuts on his knees from falling off his tricycle. Part of me wanted to dress his wounds, but another part knew he was full of germs and shouldn’t be touched. “So when was the last time you were here, Spence?”
“Two or three weeks ago, which prompted my inquiry regarding Herman. I saw the noble beast that day, but not Wilma.”
“Really!” I found my spiral notebook and a pen. “He’s on trial for his life for attacking a baby.”
“Who is on trial?” Spence asked.
“Herman. Miss Willow’s dog.”
The old fellow was perplexed. “They say he attacked the infant?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
He looked saddened but not surprised. “That isn’t what happened at all,” he said. “Herman is a hero. I saw the whole thing.”
“But he had the baby in his jaws,” I said. “I’ve seen the tooth marks.”
