Crusader (46 page)

When I got off the bus, I walked up to the Channel 57 Studios like always. But this time I kept walking, past the modern white building to the sand-colored renovated church behind it, the Eternal Word Studios.

I went in and found myself facing a wall made of Sheetrock, covered with a thin coat of gray paint. The wall was about twelve feet high. The old church ceiling, however, was about forty feet high, so the wall stretched across the wide church entrance like a baby gate. An agile person could hop up on a desk and vault right over it.

I saw no one, and I heard no one, but I knew this was the place. Behind the desk was a poster of Stephen Cross under a banner that read,
JOIN OUR CRUSADE.

I waited for a moment and listened. I heard water running somewhere, so I projected my voice over the wall of Sheetrock as best I could. "Hello? Is anybody in there?"

Footsteps started behind the wall. Then a lady in a blue dress, with heavy makeup, came around one end of the wall. She smiled at me. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, ma'am. I want to deliver this video to Stephen Cross." I reached into my backpack, pulled out the tape, and handed it to her.

She said, "Well, bless your heart," and took it from me. "Now, what is this exactly?"

"Do you see what it says on the label?"

The lady turned it around and read aloud, "
Stephen Cross as a teenager.
Well, I bet that will be fun for the Reverend Cross to see. I'll show this to him when he arrives today." She stopped smiling, thought for a moment, and asked, "Now, how did you get it?"

"It belongs to me. It has belonged to my family for seven years."

"I see." She walked over to the desk and picked up a pack of big yellow Post-it notes. "Can I get your name and address?"

"Yes, ma'am. I am Roberta Ritter. My mother's name was Mary Ann Ritter. I can be reached at Arcane at the West End Mall."

She looked confused. "A mall?"

"Yes, ma'am. Out on Route Twenty-seven."

She wrote all of that down. "Okay. I will see that he gets it."

"Thank you." I walked back outside and stood at a hot-as-hell bus stop on Everglades Boulevard. I watched every car that
drove by, hoping Stephen Cross might arrive before the bus. But that didn't happen.

As the bus pulled up to the mall entrance, I caught sight of Betty making her way through the parking lot. I waited for her and asked, "Are you out of school already?"

She squinted in the glare, then recognized me. "Yeah. We had Archie again for Journalism, so I split."

"You got past the cops?"

"Oh, they're all gone. The alert is over."

"That's good."

"Yeah. It was stupid."

I slowed down, and Betty did, too. I asked her, "Did you get a new job yet?"

"No, I'm still at Devin's."

"Are you still looking?"

"No." She added, "I'll be sixteen in another month. Then I can work wherever I want. Legally, even."

"I'm sixteen now."

"Yeah? It's weird. My mom was sixteen when she had me." Betty squinted at me and explained. "My mom's parents used to drive to Florida every year. They'd come here from Quebec for three months—January, February, and March. They'd drive down in a big Buick Roadmaster. I have a picture of my mom standing in front of it. Humongous car. They'd stay at one of the French-speaking hotels on the Strip, then they'd drive back up on April first."

"To Canada?"

"Yeah. Quebec City. That's where I was born."

"Really?"

"Uh-huh. She had me up there, like, nine months after she met my dad down here. My grandparents didn't even know she
was pregnant until they got home to Canada. The next year they drove me down, in the big Roadmaster, and they gave me to my dad. I've been with him ever since."

I hadn't expected to hear that. I asked her, "Then ... then, did your mom start to visit you?"

"Nope. I never saw her again. They stopped coming to Florida."

"So ... do you hate her for that?"

Betty looked disappointed in me. "No. No way. I understand her. I have for a long time now. And now here I am, sixteen years old, just like she was. I'm glad I don't have two nasty parents, in a big Roadmaster, taking my baby away from me. I feel for her. I really do." Betty started toward the mall entrance. "I'd better get to Candlewycke."

When I got to Arcane, things appeared to be more depressing than usual. I went behind the counter and joined Kristin and Karl. Karl had obviously been crying. I looked at Kristin as if to say,
What's going on?

She told me, "Karl's very upset about what's happening to our dad."

Kristin put an arm around Karl's shoulder. "Dad's always been so straight. You know? So responsible. And now this."

"And now what?"

"Bankruptcy. He filed for bankruptcy. We'll get to keep the house. But we'll lose our savings. All of it."

We stood for a while. Then I realized that they might not know my news. I said, "Has anyone told you about Mrs. Weiss?"

Kristin nodded sympathetically. "Yeah. The lady who talks all the time stopped over."

"Mrs. Roman?"

"Yeah. She told us about it. I'm really sorry, Roberta. I know she was your friend."

I nodded. "She was a lot more than that."

We all stood glumly in the dead mall. Finally Kristin lightened the mood a little. "Hey, guess who called last night? Our mom."

"Oh? That's great."

"Yeah. She just got a new job. She was working for a small car company. Now she got a job with DaimlerChrysler. They make the Mercedes-Benz."

"Great."

"That's not even the great part. She took the job because they have a big sales office in Miami, and they need German-speaking people over here."

I said, "That sounds good, right, Karl?" But Karl couldn't even look at me. I tried, "That sounds good for all of us."

At my break I walked over to Isabel's Hallmark. Mrs. Roman had written
CLOSED
on an envelope and taped it to the door. I leaned my face against the glass and thought about Mrs. Weiss.

I haven't been able to focus on the fact that she's gone. Even this morning, when I woke up in her empty condo, I couldn't understand the concept of her death. I guess it will hit me soon. I hope so.

I decided to go back to school today.

In the guidance office Mrs. Biddulph pulled me aside and said, "I have a little job for you to do, Roberta. I'd like you to wheel the video camera into the principal's office."

"Yes, ma'am."

Mrs. Biddulph waited while I got the equipment and squeaked my way to the closed door. Then she opened it and pointed me inside.

Mr. Archer was in there, seated at his old desk. He looked pretty good, considering all the stuff that he was going through. He looked calm.

He said, "Good morning, Roberta. How are you today?"

"Fine, sir."

"Thank you for taking care of this for me."

"Sir?"

He smiled. "I'm sorry. Didn't Mrs. Biddulph explain?"

"No, sir."

"I see. Well, you're to tape a brief statement by me to the students. You can show it before the Pledge and Banner video, provided it's approved by Mrs. Biddulph."

I just stared at him.

He asked, "You ready?"

"Yes, sir." I removed the lens cap, aimed the camera at him, and said, "Rolling."

Mr. Archer looked into the camera. "Good morning, students. First I want to thank the county, and Mrs. Biddulph, the acting principal, for giving me a few minutes to say my piece. Thank you.

"I just want to say how sorry I am if I offended anyone on Monday. Let me tell you what happened. I got so busy that day that I forgot to take my blood-pressure medicine. I'm afraid I blew my stack at those reporters. But make no mistake about it, the things I said that day were wrong. They were not true.

"I have spent thirty years teaching young people, and in that time I have seen great progress between all the races. I hope my ... unfortunate remarks did not set back that progress to any degree. Now I am retiring from my duties as of immediately. I wish you all the very best, and I thank you again for giving me a final moment with you. God bless you all."

Mr. Archer smiled into the lens. Then he nodded at me, indicating that he was through.

I turned off the camera and pressed the Rewind button as Mr. Archer got to his feet. I felt really bad for him. I wanted to thank him for standing up for Hawg. And for going to the police station with him. And for calling him a fine young man. But I couldn't think of the right words, so I didn't.

I wheeled the camera back out, ejected the tape, and put it in the console. I was going to ask Mrs. Biddulph to preview it, but she wasn't around. So I played Mr. Archer's farewell, just as he had said it, before the Pledge and Banner tape.

I still felt really bad when I got to the mall today, bad about many things. I felt weighted down. I walked up to the card store, expecting to read the
CLOSED
envelope again. But instead I saw Mrs. Roman at the front, dusting a display.

I searched the store for customers. There weren't any. Mrs. Roman knocked off dusting to talk to me, but I started talking first. I told her what had been on my mind for the past two days. "I caused Mrs. Weiss to die. She went out into that storm to save me."

I expected Mrs. Roman to be shocked. Instead she practically laughed. "You know what Isabel would say to that? Baloney!"

"You don't know what happened."

"She told me the whole thing. She had to. Her car looked like it was in the demolition derby. What am I going to do, ignore that?"

I shook my head in agreement. "No."

"No. Isabel accepted responsibility for everything that she did. I've been thinking about it too, sweetie. I think Isabel sent me to that drugstore so she could die in peace. I was talking too much, you know, trying to keep her spirits up? When all she really wanted to do was let go. Old people get that way, Roberta. They've had enough, and they want to go. They want to see their husbands, or wives, or parents."

I had a hard time with that concept. I said, "Do you really think she's with her husband?"

"Yes. I do. Her spirit is with his now. We have to get the rest of her there."

"What do you mean?"

Mrs. Roman suddenly got upset with herself. "Oh, Roberta. I'm so sorry. You, of all people, you should be the first to know these things." She stopped to collect her thoughts. "I'm sorry. I've never been in charge of so much important stuff. Okay. First of all, she's being buried in New York."

"Not next to her husband?"

"Yes, next to her husband. He's up in New York."

I corrected her. "No. He's not. He's in the Jewish section at Eternal Rest."

Mrs. Roman waved my words away. "Harry isn't buried at Eternal Rest. He hated Florida. He's up in Long Island, at Forest Lawn."

I insisted, "No. He was buried here. In the Jewish section. Mrs. Weiss would visit his grave when I visited my mom's."

"Did you ever see his grave? Did you ever read his headstone?"

I thought about those questions. I admitted, "No."

"She drove you out there so you could visit with your mother. I guess she figured you needed a reason to be alone, so she pretended she had something to do. That was a little silly, but Isabel could be silly."

I shook my head in disbelief. Mrs. Roman continued, "Do you know, that daughter of hers is not even having a ceremony down here? Listen to this, Roberta, and tell me what you think. She's having the undertaker drive Isabel to the airport tomorrow, and she's meeting 'the coffin,' as she puts it, up in Islip, Long Island.

"I said, 'I'll tell you what, miss. I'll go with Isabel to the airport, so she won't be alone. So they don't treat my friend like some package that's getting shipped Federal Express. She means too much to me to let anybody do that.' And do you know what she said?"

"What?"

'"You can do that if you like, but it won't be necessary.'" Mrs. Roman clenched her jaw in anger, reliving the conversation.

I asked her, "Can I go with you tomorrow, Mrs. Roman? I need to say good-bye, too."

"Of course you can. I expected that you would want to. I've already told the undertaker about you. He's a very nice man. He wears a nice suit.

"The flight is early, at nine
A.M.
I'll be here at the card shop at seven-thirty. The undertaker is going to pick me up here. He'll have Isabel's body with him." Mrs. Roman raised up her eyebrows. "At first I thought that sounded disrespectful, but then I thought,
Isabel wouldn't mind.
What do you think, Roberta?"

"No, I don't think she would mind. This was her home."

"Can you be here that early?"

"Most definitely. I'll meet you right here."

Uncle Frank returned today, but Karl drove him home at seven, "to sleep." And Will left after the late run to the trash trailer. By 9:01 Arcane was closed and locked up for the night. Only Kristin and I remained, which was the way I had planned it. I said, "I want to talk to you about something."

"What?"

"Surviving. Do you want to survive?"

She looked at me curiously. "Of course I do."

"Are you willing to fight to survive?"

Kristin gave me her most serious look. "I'm listening."

"Notice it's just you and me tonight. All the men are gone. Do you know why?"

"Why?"

"They've given up. Hawg, Will, Uncle Frank, Dad, even Sam—the men have all given up. They all think that Ray Lyons has won, and we have lost."

"Well, hasn't he won? Isn't the mall bankrupt?"

I pointed toward the rotunda. "He doesn't care about the mall! He never has. There's only one thing Ray Lyons cares about, and there's only one thing he wants to win. That's the election. He'll say or do anything to win the election."

Kristin shook her head back and forth quickly. "Help me out here, cuz."

"I have this crazy idea. I don't even know how it can work, and I can only tell you your part of it. That goes for anybody else who helps us. You only know your parts. The responsibility part, the blame part, is mine alone."

I knew Kristin was in. Definitely in. Her eyes lit up like they had the night she brought Will back from the dead. She said simply, "Where do we start?"