South of Superior (27 page)

Y
ou think you're smart, don't you?” Terry Benson hissed at Madeline as she stepped out into the aisle. “Well I know what you really are.” Tracy York, who worked in the senior apartment's housing office—she and Madeline had not hit it off when Madeline went in with Emil to get an application—pushed through the crowd to stand next to Terry. Madeline didn't answer, just aimed toward the door.

“Madeline, wait for me,” Arbutus said from behind her, a little breathless. Madeline closed her eyes for an instant, and waited.

“I hope you know what you're doing, buying that building,” Terry said. “Alex and I wouldn't buy it now if you put a gun to our heads, so Gladys Hansen better not ever come asking.”

“I'm surprised they'll have anything to do with you anyway. Your mother was putting out for a quick buck whenever she needed one, everybody knew it,” Tracy said. Everyone around them turned to look. “I guess that's how you showed Up, a little surprise at the end of the deal. Do you think anybody really wants you here?”

Arbutus gasped. The people near them were murmuring and staring, or else trying hard not to. Madeline gave Tracy York just one brief look. “At least my mother isn't turning in her grave over how low I've sunk.”

It was the best she could do. She checked that Arbutus was right behind her and made her way out of the courtroom. “I can't believe that just happened,” she said when they got outdoors. “Those women—”

Arbutus shook her head, watching her feet as she pushed the walker across the Uneven sidewalk.

“Is that how people really are? My God. How dare they?”

Arbutus grimaced, looking sorry but resigned. “It's a very small town, dear.”

Gladys was at the car ahead of them, flushed with victory. Madeline stayed silent in the backseat all the way home, wishing she could go see Walter. Just sit with him and listen to a baseball game. She'd always loved baseball, had been a Cubs fan as long as she could talk, and she'd discovered that Walter was the same way. His team was the Detroit Tigers. He'd get such a happy look on his face when the games came on. He'd look at Madeline, eyes glowing, and she'd return his joyful look with one of her own and they'd settle in to listen. He had a nice radio in his room. Lately they'd been visiting there instead of the sunroom. More comfortable, more like—family.

She yearned to go see Walter, really, to soothe her wounded feelings with his company, but it wasn't going to happen. Arbutus was shifting in the front seat, sore after spending so long in the car and then in the courtroom, and Gladys was afire with her victory. She couldn't wait to get home and start reliving it with her friends. Madeline didn't blame her. She had done a beautiful thing, a wondrous, Unparalleled thing. Madeline didn't begrudge her the sweetness of that triumph.

“Madeline, dear,” Arbutus began later that night when they were alone. Gladys had walked over to Mabel's to continue gloating. “I wanted to say, don't pay too much mind to Tracy York. She lets her mouth run away from her, but she's not a bad person, truly she isn't. Smaller in her mind than she ought to be. But not bad.”

“
Why
do you always have to defend everyone?”

Arbutus bit her lip. After a moment she said, “She's jealous, dear.”

“Jealous.”

“Your mother was a firecracker. Oh, how the boys liked her.”

“I'll bet,” Madeline said, thinking,
This does not help.

“Tracy was always so plain. I'm afraid there was a rivalry there. Well—not a rivalry, because your mother never paid Tracy any mind at all.”

“Wow. What a great reason. Now I get it.”

Arbutus sighed. “She's had a lot of disappointments. She was a smart girl, you know. She had a scholarship for college, but her mother took ill. Tracy stayed back to look after her, and then one thing led to another and she never did leave.”

“Yeah, well. I know how that goes, and it's not an excuse. Turning into this nasty, hateful person—that's her own choice. Some people are just plain rotten, you know. You don't have to find the good in everyone.” Madeline kept washing dishes, hating how irritated she was getting with Arbutus. She wanted to destroy something. Something of Tracy's and Terry's, specifically. She'd waited on some shady people at Spinelli's over the years, even got passing friendly with some of them. People who could probably arrange—oh, arson, for example. A nice, Untraceable fire. That would be beautiful.

“But, Madeline, truly, Tracy is just so
angry
about the way her life turned out. She can't help herself. She never left and your mother did—”

“She died on the streets!”

“I know that, dear. So to Tracy, your mother wasted her opportunities, an opportunity she herself would
not
have thrown away. And now here you are.”

“Here I am,” said Madeline flatly.

“And you're your own person, making your own way, well liked here already, successful despite everything. So Jackie
still
wins, don't you see?”

Madeline could not find it in herself to answer.

“You're very upset.”

“Yeah.” Madeline shot a grimace of a smile over her shoulder.

“Everyone knows she's just a terrible gossip, no one will pay two cents' attention.”

“Yeah.”

“I don't know what gets into her.” Arbutus sounded vexed and troubled, and this only irritated Madeline more.
Bitchiness!
she wanted to yell.
That's what gets into her. It's not rocket science.
Arbutus sighed again. “You never can believe a thing she says anymore.”

Madeline turned full around. “The thing is, it sounded way too much like the truth.”

Arbutus's expression was tellingly unsurprised. “Oh dear.”

“Yes, oh dear.” Madeline spun around to lean back over the sink, hide her face, the tears that were brimming. Damn it. Of course it made sense, and of course she wasn't a child any longer, but somewhere deep inside she had still harbored a faint dream that her mother had loved her father. That they'd been foolish kids in love. That maybe—tiny, far-fetched maybe—he was around here still, and that someone—Gladys, Arbutus, Mary, Mabel, all of them—knew who he was. Maybe one day they'd even see fit to tell her.

“Jackie was a difficult girl,” Arbutus said tentatively, and Madeline slammed a fistful of silverware into the sink.

“I don't want to hear it, okay? I'm sorry. I don't. I don't want to hear that she wasn't bad, or that she was just young, or any of that. I don't want any more half-stories or evasions or—or—or—
omissions
. If somebody can't just tell me the truth, flat out, I don't want to hear any of it.”

“All right,” Arbutus said.

Madeline bit her lips, tears leaking from her eyes. Oh God, she had yelled at dear Arbutus. But she couldn't take it back. It was the truth, she did not want to hear the filtered, censored, rewritten bits and pieces. She took a scouring pad to the bottom of a kettle and scrubbed. Oh, she missed Emmy. She was just
herself
, to Emmy. Her little scaredy-cat who needed a night-light and a story at bedtime. Her artist. Her Cubs fan, her champion spaghetti eater, her best Monopoly opponent, her dear girl. Things here would never, ever be that simple.

Madeline felt a touch on her shoulder. “I'm sorry,” she said to Arbutus without looking Up. “I shouldn't yell at you, none of this is your fault.”

“I can take it. Talk to Gladys. I think it's time.” Arbutus rolled away to her room, and Madeline followed to help her into bed.

 

 

Gladys did not come
and she did not come and Madeline was more and more restless and angry. The little model world she'd built in her head, her vision of how everything would be, seemed shoddy and Unreal, exposed for what it was, a silly fantasy. What was she thinking, selling the apartment to buy an old relic of a building in the middle of nowhere? She was a city girl, a waitress, an orphan, the accidental progeny of a teenaged—
hooker
. She had no place here.

After Arbutus went to bed, Madeline paced around the house. The scene in the courtroom replayed in her head. Impatient with that, impatient with being cooped Up, she headed outdoors. She'd walk down to the water.

It didn't help. She tromped away from the shore after a while, back to Main Street. She stopped for a moment outside the craft shop window, thinking sourly of her too-romantic ideas about life. A decent job with benefits, that's what she needed. Sighing, she went on. There were a dozen cars and trucks outside the Tip Top, and the windows were open, letting the noise spill out into the street. The clamor sounded friendly, lively. People were having fun in there. Eating burgers, drinking beers, listening to music. She pulled open the heavy door. All this time and she'd never been inside. With any luck, Randi Hopkins wouldn't be working tonight.

The bar's high ceilings were covered in pressed tin painted dark green. High-backed wooden booths painted the same color lined the walls. Tables were wedged in close to one another, and at the far end was a pool table with a game in progress. A few people turned to look when Madeline arrived, but most went on with their dinners and drinks and conversations. She slid onto a stool and ordered a beer. The bartender was a middle-aged man in a T-shirt and jeans who served it with an automatic, Uninterested smile. Thank God, a lack of curiosity. “That all?” he asked.

“For now.”

He came around again half an hour later—the beer was only half gone, but he offered her another.

“How about a shot of brandy?”

He pulled down a glass and poured the shot.

Madeline swallowed it in one gulp and a wave of relaxation washed over her. “Give me another one of those,” she said, and he pulled another glass down. As easily as that, she was feeling just a tiny bit better.

She didn't hurry through the second shot. She'd just sit and enjoy the novelty of it. How exciting to see Unfamiliar faces that might just
stay
Unfamiliar. (And wasn't
that
ridiculous? But true.) When this drink was gone, she'd go. Simple.

“Hey,” a familiar voice said in her ear a few minutes later. She swiveled and slipped and found herself almost in Paul Garceau's arms. He grabbed her shoulders to steady her and then instantly let go. “Careful. What're you doing here?”

“What're you?”

“I came to see how the Tigers are doing.” He lifted his chin Up at the TV that hung in one corner. “My set's on the fritz.”

“So you're a fan.”

He said yes, he was. He wasn't overly friendly but he wasn't Unfriendly either, so that was progress. She'd more than half-cleaned out her savings account to give him some of what she owed him (she didn't have any idea how was she going to keep paying her bills if the apartment didn't sell, but this was not the time to think about that), and she
would
get the rest. When the apartment sold, she would.

“Me, I'm a Cubs fan. Loyal, that's how we are. Uncle Walter is a Tigers fan like you. I respect that, I do. They're terrible. Worse than the Cubs.”

Paul ordered a beer and when he asked if she wanted anything—he was so polite, even though he hated her—she ordered another brandy. It was going down so easily.

Madeline ordered a fourth brandy while Paul was still sipping his first beer. She felt nervous, sitting with him, but she wanted to sit with him. Now that she was just slightly tipsy she could admit to feeling a burn of attraction for him.
That
was inconvenient. But he was very appealing, with that little goatee and that limp. What had caused that? She wanted to ask, but she wasn't that drunk.

“So how've you been?” he asked, and without really planning to she told him about the hearing. She grew very earnest and somber and shared with him a great deal of her sorry little story; her fears and hopes and dreams, the scene in the courtroom, all sorts of things. Toward the end of the last shot of brandy she began having a little trouble getting her words to cooperate.

“How about we take a little walk?” Paul said, pushing her shot glass away and shaking his head at the bartender when she made motions to order another.

“I'm a grown-up! I can order my own drinks.”

“Let's just take a walk anyway.”

“I'm tired of walking around this stupid town,” Madeline said Under her breath—she thought it was Under her breath—but she let herself be steered out the door.

“I didn't take you for much of a drinker,” Paul said as they navigated down the sidewalk.

“I drink alone!” This seemed witty and also quite sexy.

“Mmm. Not very often, I think.”

“Hey! I'm not a nun or anything, you know.” She tangled her feet and stumbled.

“I'm thinking maybe this walk idea isn't working. How about I fix you something to eat?”

“Oh, no way. You're
always
working. You gotta get up in a few hours, go down to that prison. Besides, why would you want me in the place? Nope, don't think that's a good idea.”

“I don't mind,” he said, his voice gruff. Angry, probably. Always and forever angry at her. Well, so be it.

“Not hungry,” Madeline declared. “Hey. We're at the hotel. Want to come in? I want to show you something.”

“Ah—”

Madeline fumbled in her pocket and brought out Gladys's key and dangled it before him, then headed around the side to the back door.

 

 

Madeline lit some
candles, put some Billie Holiday on the boom box she'd smuggled Upstairs, showed him the paintings she'd been working on during her secret visits. Later she knew she'd blathered on and on about Art and Life, maybe even cried a little. Revolting. And then—then it didn't bear thinking about.