Light from a Distant Star (14 page)

One day her mother rushed home from the salon with exciting news. She had this great lead on a job, she told him on his way out to light the grill. It was a wonderful opportunity, selling cars. Not just cars, but Cadillacs. The brother of one of her clients managed the dealership on Route 82, and she said she’d be more than glad to call him about Benjamin. Her brother was always on the lookout for good salesmen. Benjamin seemed confused. Selling cars, he repeated. All he knew about cars was how to drive one, he added.

“Plus, the really good salesmen are always getting bonuses,” her mother continued, in her hopeful breeze around the kitchen, grabbing dinner ingredients from cupboards and the refrigerator. She chopped the stems off the green beans before dropping them into boiling water. She poured olive oil and lemon juice into a dab of mustard and whisked up a quick French dressing. “Cash, gift certificates, even trips,” she said, seasoning the pork chops for the grill.

It had been a long time since Nellie’d heard such lift in her mother’s voice.

“Nancy said last year her brother went to Hawaii. Free! His wife, too, all expenses paid. For the most sales or something like that. You’d be so good at it, Ben. I know you would.” Pausing, she held out the platter of chops, an offering that with the urgency of her words might change everything. “People trust you, Ben. And that’s key.”

“To what? Being a good liar?”

“Being a good salesman,” she said with a narrow stare.

“Sandy, I never once in my whole life sold anyone anything they didn’t already want or need.”

“Everyone needs a car.”

“But not a Cadillac.”

“Well, then, for the ones that do,” she said in such a cold, mocking tone that even Nellie knew he should just be quiet.

But he couldn’t. Couldn’t contain himself. “How would I do my research? When would I write?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice quavered. “And you want to know something? I really don’t care. I don’t.” She set the platter down just hard enough that it rattled a moment on the counter. Her gauntlet, from a woman who’d spent a lifetime avoiding such moments. And now there was no turning back.

For the rest of the night her father was very subdued. But come morning he seemed his old, chipper self again. Whistling on his way into the bathroom. Whistling as he came down the stairs to breakfast. Whistling “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” in spite of the monsoon outside. Sheets of blurry rain ran down the windows. Brooding thunder rumbled in the heavy dawn sky. He poured a cup of coffee. Instead of sitting at the table where her mother was reading the paper, he stood by the sink, sipping coffee while he looked out at the mock orange branches lashing the window with spiteful fury.

“Once in the ’38 floods,” he said, “the streams and river rose so fast through the night, my mother said, that when they came down in the morning water was already coming in under the front door.”

“Where? Here?” Henry asked, peering down as if for seepage through the floorboards.

“This very house. So they started moving everything up to the second floor, she and my father, as much and as fast as they could. But then a call came and my father had to leave. The store was flooding and he had to get there while he still could. So there my mother stood, looking around, not sure what to do next, and she realized the one thing she really wanted to save more than anything was her mother’s spinet piano that she and my father had already tried to move but couldn’t get past the first step. So, there she was, ankle-deep in water, but she got on the other side and managed to pull it up the one step. Then she came down around, and with her shoulder braced hard to it, she pushed, not just with all her might, she said, but with all her anger and determination, and the strength she needed just came. It poured out of her, little woman that she was, just enough to get the piano up one more step. Then one more. Then on up onto the landing. When the flooding was over, the water’d stopped one inch shy of the landing.”

“What happened to it? The piano?” Nellie asked.

“They ended up having to sell it. The Depression. Times were tough then.”

“Still are,” came her mother’s low voice from behind the paper.

“That reminds me. I’ve got a call in to Andy Cooper, asking him to come by the store sometime today,” her father said.

Her mother’s hands fell and with them the newspaper pages. “Thank you, Ben. It’ll be for the best. You’ll see.” She tried to smile, but her mouth was way too trembly.

T
HREE DAYS OF
rain had turned Nellie and her brother into caged animals. They’d played crazy eights, Monopoly, checkers, and chess and practiced practically every hold in Nellie’s
Get Tough!
book, the nonlethal ones, that is, until they were as sick of each other as they were of being stuck inside. Ruth, their supposed babysitter, was either asleep or on the phone up in her room. The most they knew of her authority was the heavy metal music thudding through the house. Without parents home she amped it up full volume. Even Dolly had complained. In a nice way, though. She came over in her silky bathrobe to say that she wasn’t feeling too good and needed to sleep, so could they please
not play the music so loud. Hungry for information, Nellie asked if she was sick. All she said was that her stomach was upset.

“Hey!” Nellie called before she could turn away. “The other day, I didn’t get to say thanks.”
Because of what happened. That guy?
the real message in her widened eyes.

“When? For what?” Dolly seemed confused. She kept blinking.

“For all the … the makeup. And my hair. Everyone really liked it.”

For a moment Dolly only nodded as if assuring herself of something or maybe working up the courage to finally speak the truth. “I wasn’t cross-eyed, but I used to wear glasses, too, you know.” She cupped her hand under Nellie’s chin and drew it close. “And no matter what anyone said, four-eyes and all that crap, I never let it bother me.”

Gee, thanks, I really needed to hear that
, Nellie thought, watching her lift her robe as she tiptoed across the wet lawn. And yet she knew Dolly meant well. She was just the first of many adults who would be, one way or another, just enough off the mark to make Nellie feel bad for them.

She couldn’t wait to deliver Dolly’s complaint. Ruth didn’t believe her, but when Nellie threatened to call their mother, she finally lowered the volume. Lucky for her because her mother called right then. She had a very important errand for them to run. Charlie needed his medicine. He was sick again, some kind of “plumbing” problem. Obviously just something to keep them busy, Nellie figured, but it was better than being stuck in the house. So when his prescriptions were ready at three-thirty, they picked them up and made their slow way through the soft drizzle. Nellie could feel the warmth of blistery wet sun swelling through the gray sky. There was a funky smell in the steamy air. They kept sniffing as they splashed through puddles.

“Worms!” Henry declared of the fishiness, and he was right. The sidewalks were alive with them. Long, fat, wet crawlers, many already squashed under passing feet. Outside the coffee shop Henry pawed through the trash bin until he found a tall cup with ice still in it. Now as they walked, they picked up the liveliest worms and dropped them into the cup. They were for Charlie. Maybe he’d be so grateful they’d take them fishing, Charlie and Max. Probably today. Everyone knew the best fishing was right after a rainstorm. Soon the cup was full to
the top, a mass of writhing bait they hoped would entice Charlie. Or more likely, Max.

The minute they turned the corner they were surprised to see the junkyard gate wide open. Max’s truck was gone.

“Must’ve left in a hurry,” Henry said, sniffing the cup, for signs of death.

“Damn!” she said. They’d probably just missed them. Soon as the rain stopped they’d probably headed to the river. Just in case, they looked in the barn, but when Boone didn’t come charging out barking, they pretty much knew for sure.

They climbed up into the hayloft, not that they expected to find anyone there, but because Charlie had forbidden it since the time Henry fell through the opening and miraculously wasn’t killed. Just banged up. It was hot in the loft, but a lot neater than before. Still, there was the two-hundred-year-old whetstone Charlie used to get mad at them for spinning because it was worth a fortune, he said. There were the same rusting milk cans, but now, in the far corner, a sagging cot and crate. Henry pointed and she nodded: Max’s bunk. They continued their silent investigation through boxes of old pitted bottles, some with plugs of dirt in their necks, stacks of brittle newspapers and magazines bundled in twine, a wooden box of rusted handsaws, another of lug wrenches, and a large musty trunk. Henry lifted the domed lid. Shirts, socks, underwear, a metal box were all they saw because the creaking hinge had triggered a flutter of small brown wings through the rafters, which sent them running down the stairs. Just then, there was a high
beep beep beep beep
outside. A large black-and-white truck was backing down the wide weedy driveway. It continued onto the narrow dirt road past the barn then stopped close by the first scrap metal pile. The driver jumped out. He was a big-bellied guy with a yellow baseball hat on backward, a look she and Henry both scorned. The driver let down the tailgate, then hoisted himself up onto the back of the truck and, fast as he could, began tossing insulated pipes onto the rusted heap. Nellie could tell by his furtive glances that something, as her father would say, wasn’t quite kosher.

“Memorize his plate number,” she whispered behind the bag of medicine.

“He’s not stealing anything,” Henry whispered over the worm cup clutched to his chest.

They watched for a moment.

“Hey, mister!” She stepped out from the doorway.

His head whipped around, but seeing two kids, he just smiled. Relieved. “Hey! How’s it going?” he said.

“What’re you doing?” she called back.

“What’s it look like? Working!” he grunted, reaching down for more pipes.

“My grandfather’s not here,” she said, and he glanced back.

“That’s okay. He said just dump it here.”

“Hey! Hey, Becker!” From the distance came Charlie’s thin voice. Barefoot and holding up the waist of his baggy pants, he limped out of the house. His white hair was stiff and unruly. It had been less than two weeks since she’d last seen him on his way fishing, but he looked years older. And frail. With a shaky stream of curses, he told the man “to put it all back in his truck and get the hell out of here!” Becker jumped down and clanged up his tailgate. He said he was just leaving, that he’d only been checking for any galvanized he could buy. By the time he’d reached the side of his truck Charlie was jabbing him in the chest and yelling, best he could in his weak state, for him to get all his shit out of there. No way was he getting stuck with asbestos pipe.

“Don’t know whatcher talking about, old man. Sorry,” Becker said. He swiped away the old man’s hand and opened the door, but Charlie grabbed the back of his shirt. Becker gave him a quick shove that sent the old man reeling.

“Leave him alone!” Nellie shouted as she helped steady her grandfather, who charged right back at the man. She couldn’t believe it, half the man’s size, but Charlie kept trying to pull him down. She picked up a thick stick, holding it over her shoulder like a bat, determined to use it if she had to, while Henry pleaded with her to stop.

A red truck rumbled through the gates. It was Max, with Boone in back and grocery bags on the front seat.

“Some guy’s fighting Charlie!” she yelled over the commotion of the two engines. Max was already out of his truck and running with Boone barking at his heels. Becker had scrambled into his truck, and
was trying to turn it around. Max threw open his door and told him to get out.

“No!” Becker yelled back. “I’m just leaving! I got no problem with you.”

“That asbestos’s his. Idiot’s tryna dump it on me!” Charlie shouted. His voice seemed stronger now with Max here.

Again Max ordered Becker down from the truck, but he refused, and who could blame him with the muscular dog snarling and baring his stained fangs? Max grabbed Becker’s arm and yanked him out. Becker was taller, and younger, but Max wasn’t fazed. He wanted all that asbestos pipe put back in the truck, and he wanted it done now. Becker stood his ground—the pipe wasn’t his and that was that. Enraged, Charlie flew at him, but Max held him back. It was the same as that there, what was already in the truck, Charlie yelled over Max’s restraining arm. Yeah, Becker said, because he was just starting to load up and then he realized what it was.

“That’s a lie!” Henry erupted, gesturing with his cup of worms. “Nellie and me, we saw him put it there.”

She was shocked by her brother’s intrusion into the fray. His eyes gleamed like Charlie’s. Cagey and eager. For the men it wasn’t as much about the asbestos now as wanting the fight. Which they were getting. The man was trying to climb into the truck, but Max kept pulling him back. This time he got one leg behind Becker and yanked him down so hard he fell to the ground. She and Henry looked at each other. The Hip Throw, the exact same, number 18 in the major’s holds. In all the times they’d tried it, never had it gone so smoothly as what they’d just witnessed. Becker was flat on his back, Boone straddling him. The dog’s muzzle quivered inches from his face.

“Get him off me!” he pleaded.

“Back!” With just that one word and Max’s raised hand, Boone sank onto his haunches and crept away. There was something loathsome in the dog’s cowering retreat, yet impressive.

Becker scrambled to his feet and raised his fists. “Okay, come on! Come on! You want it so bad, so come on. Come on, asshole!” he growled, and Max lunged, fists flying so fast all the man could do was try to cover his head. Blood spewed from his crooked nose. He sank to
his knees, but Max continued pummeling him. Nellie’d never before seen two grown men fight, their groaning, grunting struggle sickening to watch. Finally, Charlie stepped forward. He’d been yelling at Max to let the bastard go, but there was no stopping his frenzy. Just as Charlie touched his shoulder, Max’s arm swung back, knocking him onto his rump. He sat for a moment, looking almost amused to find himself in a scuffle again. Shocked that he’d knocked the old man down, Max’s fight was over. He lifted Charlie to his feet, then stood there with the strangest expression, as if flash frozen in death. Only Boone seemed to understand. Gazing up, he whimpered.