Broken for You (22 page)

"I'm really sorry," said Dermot, earnestly. "I guess I'm not being very helpful."

"That's okay," said Detective Lorenzini, her voice quavering. "Don't worry, Dermot. I'm going to find him." Dermot offered the detective a handkerchief; she used it to blot her lipstick.

She pulled a piece of paper out of her evening purse and smoothed it out on the counter.

"Wow!" Dermot said. "That's really good! Is that the guy you're looking for?"

"It's just a rough likeness," the detective explained, humbly. "Based on the suspect's description and so on. He's handsomer than that—probably—but you might find it helpful."

"I'm sure I will. A police artist did this?"

The detective then handed Dermot a business card with the Seattle Police Department logo. "Here's my card."

Dermot was still studying the suspect's portrait. "I see now what you mean about his nose. It's very distinctive."

"Listen closely now, Dermot," the detective said seriously. "The phone number on that card, it's
not
the regular police department number. It's the undercover unit. But the person who picks up the phone won't say 'Seattle undercover' or anything like that. They'll just say 'Hello.'"

"Just 'Hello.' Got it."

"And another thing: If you call that number, don't, under any circumstances, ask to talk to Detective Lorenzini. If you want to talk to me, you have to ask for 'Wanda.'"

"Wanda?"

"My code name. My alias. Are you clear on that?"

"Absolutely," Dermot said.

"The person on the line will put you through to me. If you have any information about my perpetrator. Got that, Dermot?"

He nodded obediently.

The detective returned Dermot's lipstick-tattooed handkerchief and sauntered toward the door. Several clients looked up from their album covers to watch her.

"Next time I'll buy something," Detective Lorenzini said, loudly enough so that the other customers could hear her. "And that's a promise." She winked at Dermot and disappeared into the night.

Fi
f
teen

Acting Lessons an
d
Interviews

M
argaret's next advertisement was not lengthy, but it was very specific. She requested that it appear in three different sections of the classifieds: "Wanted to Share," "Domestic Care & Services Wanted," and "Health Care."

After telephoning the newspapers, she fixed a cup of tea and sat down at the kitchen table. In front of her was a speech she had written. She was anxious about delivering it. She recalled a recent conversation in which Wanda had explained the concept of rehearsals and the thought process actors use when preparing a role:

"You don't just memorize your lines and do what you're told?" Margaret had asked.

"No. You have to think about what you want, your objective. You use the playwright's words in as many ways as you can to
get
your objective."

"Fascinating!"

"The different ways you try are called 'tactics.' A really good actor uses lots of tactics."

"I had no idea it was so involved
. Actors must feel terribly mis
understood."

"Say, for example, that you want to find someone. That's your objective."

"I want to find someone," Margaret emphasized.

"Onstage, everything has to be really important. You can't just want something a
little
bit, you can't just
sort
of want to find someone; that would be a lousy objective. You have to want to find them more than anything, so much that you feel it in the very core of your being."

Wanda's speech was accelerating, her manner gaining intensity, as if she were a master storyteller about to arrive at the narrative climax, the moment at which the forces of good and evil met and did battle. Margaret was rapt. She half-expected Wanda to break into galloping verse. "Go on, please."

"You would try anything, everything, whatever you could, right?" Wanda said, urgently. "So you might not always be entirely moral about it. You might deceive people, charm them into giving you information, sneak around, spy."

"That's probably true."

"And it doesn't matter if the person you want to find wants to be found or not. You've still got to do it."

Margaret considered these concepts for a moment. "What if you had something important to tell someone, something you've been keeping a secret, say?"

"Oh, that's good. Very theatrical. Secrets are great because they involve obstacles."

"Obstacles?"

"You really want to tell somebody something—that's your objective. But there's something standing in the way. The reason it's a secret, the reason you're afraid to risk telling them—that's your obstacle."

Margaret jumped in. "You're afraid they won't care about you anymore! But if you don't tell them, you risk them finding out from someone else, and then being angry with you, maybe even hating you, because you were deceitful. On the other hand, you risk not knowing what kind of person they are. Do they really love you? Or not? If you don't tell them, you'll never know."

"Ah!" Wanda breathed admiringly. "Inner conflict! Subtext!"

"But do you
want
them to know?" Margaret mused. "Maybe not. Maybe ignorance is bliss."

Wanda had begun to applaud. "Mrs. Hughes," she'd said, "you were born for the stage!"

But Margaret remained unconvinced.

She looked down at her speech and began to read. " 'I have a proposition, Gus," she said stiffly. " 'But before that, there's something you should know. I'll understand completely if you don't want to see me anymore after you hear what I have to say.'" Margaret licked her lips. Her mouth felt as if it were crammed with steel wool.

She folded up the speech and tucked it into her apron pocket. It would be all right. Today was her day to clean the dining room, foyer, parlor, Aviary Suite, and library. She would have plenty of time to rehearse.

Margaret started receiving inquiries about the advertisement right away. At first, she was delighted—there were far more responses than she'd expected. However, it soon became clear that few people had read the ad carefully. Several candidates expressed surprise when she reiterated the precise qualifications for prospective boarders, and what they could expect if they chose to accept the arrangement.

One of the first applicants to call was named Nat. "You mean, you're actually going to die?!" Nat shouted. The voice on the other end of the line—which was low-pitched, staccato,
and raspy as coarse-grade sand
paper—left Margaret mystified as to Nat's gender.

"Well, yes," Margaret replied. "But then, isn't everyone?"

"While I'm living there?"

"Probably. Yes."

"Christ almighty," Nat growled.

"There seems to be a misunderstanding," Margaret went on evenly. "Perhaps you weren't able to read the entire ad, or perhaps the job requisites weren't stated clearly enough. . . ."

"UN-FUCKING-BELIEVABLE!" Nat barked, and hung up.

"What kind of. . . tumor
...
is it, exactly?" another applicant had said. Her name was Stephanie. Margaret had to strain to hear her.

"It's a . . . Oh, wait a minute.
...
I want to make sure I get this right . . ." Margaret punctuated the air with her right index finger as she spoke, emphasizing the syllables of each important word carefully: It's an as-tro-cy-
t
o-ma of the left pa-
ri
-e-tal lobe. There! I did it!"

"Excuse me?"

"It's a Grade II."

"Oh." There was a long pause. Margaret could hear music from
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
playing in the background. Stephanie made a few attempts to hum along. Finally she said, "Is that serious?"

Another applicant was named Buffy. "I don't exactly have all the qualifications you asked for," she said.

"That might not matter," Margaret said. There was a chirpy, musical quality to Buffy's voice that Margar
et found appealing. "What quali
fications
do
you have?"

"Well, I worked for six months in an animal hospital in Enumclaw," Buffy said proudly.
I
see.

"We specialized in large mammals. You know: cows, sheep, horses, hogs. . . ."

"I'm sorry," Margaret said, "but I'm afraid that's not really the kind of medical experience I'm looking for."

"Oh, no. Really?" Buffy sounded disappointed. "Are you sure? I mean, I know how to do intravenous injections, I can squat two hundred and fifty pounds, and I'm told I have an extremely soothing and empathetic manner."

"I'm sure you do, dear."

"I mean, really, I'm not exaggerating: These were very big mammals."

A handful of other applicants found the requirements and expectations acceptable, and with these women Margaret made appointments. She scheduled them for the early evenings, when Wanda would be at work.

Margaret decided to leave the patio as it was, as a final test. She would take the interviewees for a tour of the house interior, get a general sense of her personality, and then if it seemed as though the applicant was a strong possibility, she'd take her outside. Her response would be an important factor in settling the issue of compatibility.

Wanda maintained her own unique relationship with the patio; it was a canvas on which an intractable and resented impermanence held sway. Each day Margaret would find some new arrangement there, sometimes representative, sometimes abstract. In one sense, these patio mosaics were like the sand mandalas made by Tibetan monks, painstakingly assembled and then ritualistically destroyed. For Wanda, though—and in contrast to the monks, who cultivate a joyful acceptance of both creation and death—neither joy nor detachment was evident. The transience of life, the fragility of connection might be endured, but it was never to be celebrated.

Margaret witnessed this late one night when she got up to take some medication. Hearing a noise, she went to an upstairs window and looked down. Wanda was on the patio, wearing her fancy black dress, constructing a portrait. As Margaret watched, she began slapping at the pieces violently. Then she lay down on the concrete and wept.

"I've scheduled a first set of interviews next week in the evenings," Margaret said. "I know you'll be at work, but I thought I could weed out a few people so you wouldn't have to meet all of them." She was dabbing disinfectant on the nicks and cuts that crisscrossed Wanda's hands. "I'll schedule the most promising candidates to come back for a second interview."

Wanda gave a small laugh. "In the theatre, that's known as a callback."

Margaret lifted Wanda's fingers in turn and scrutinized them from every angle. "I wish you'd wear gloves."

Wanda shrugged. "I like being able to feel the texture. Gloves would ruin it."

Margaret harrumphed. "Stubborn." She screwed the cap back on the bottle of peroxide and opened a tin of bandages.

Wanda began shuffling through a file on the kitchen table into which Margaret had placed applicants' references and credentials. "This is weird," she said. "Have you noticed that all of these people have backgrounds as registered nurses?"

Margaret frowned; she was engrossed in peeling the back off a Band-Aid. "Uncanny, isn't it?" she muttered.

"I suppose it couldn't hurt to have a nurse around," Wanda mused.

"Especially if you insist on not wearing gloves." Margaret gently applied the center of the Band-Aid to the web of skin between Wanda's thumb and index finger, and then smoothed the adhesive ends into place. "There," she announced. "All done."

Wanda looked down. The worst of her cuts was being protected by Winnie-the-Pooh.

Five women came to the house for interviews. Margaret explained once again what they could expect if they chose to accept the position; she was also very clear in explaining her desire to keep certain aspects of the arrangement confidential, for a while anyway.

It was immediately obvious to Margaret that one candidate met her dual set of requirements—those she'd stated overtly and precisely in the language of her ad, and those she harbored in her heart. Still, she did not want to make the decision without consulting Wanda. She selected one other acceptable applicant and scheduled their visits on a Monday.

The first candidate called at the last minute to apologize, explaining that she'd found a more suitable arrangement. The second candidate arrived promptly, ringing the bell at seven o'clock. Margaret was fixing a pot of tea. "Would you mind getting that?" she asked.