Taking It (14 page)

Ted sat down next to me, patient. But not really patient, I thought, acting patient, because he thought that was what I needed. Maybe he just wanted to get out of here.

Ted didn't say anything, just looked at me and took my hand. It was this gesture that made me look away and close my eyes. He held one of
those
, one of the hands that lied to me.

It's amazing how my voice can sound sometimes, calm, smooth, and other times I can hardly get a word out. This time I sounded okay—not great, but pretty good. “Your money's in my purse,” I said.

He nodded wearily. It took what seemed like an hour, but at last he said, “The money doesn't matter.”

“Of course it matters,” I said. “What if I said I threw it all away, flung it into the wind as I drove along the freeway? What if I said the car burned up, and all the money?”

“I'd say we should look in your purse, see if it's there.”

I gave him a look: Okay, maybe you're right.

“Where's the dog?” he asked.

“He couldn't stay in the food service area,” I said, “because of the health laws.”

“So what did they do, shoot him?”

It was a terrible thing to say, but I couldn't help laughing, just sitting there for a moment with my brother.

It was hot out. Lincoln was in the shade behind a building, tied up with bright nylon rope. Someone had given him a big clean ashtray full of water, and a box of dried cat food. There was nothing left of the cat food but chewed-up cardboard.

I waited for Ted to unlock the pickup. The top of the Highway Patrol building was a collection of antennas and satellite dishes. It was amazing that so many words could be coursing through the sunlight, but I couldn't feel any of them.

Ted said, “We'll pick up Dad at the airport about noon.”

34

We picked up Dad, the airport parking lot crowded, Dad standing outside Arriving Flights with one of his expressions, his face calm so you don't know what he's thinking.

There was so much smog we couldn't see the mountains in the distance. We were all three in the cab of the truck, and that kept us quiet, talking about safe subjects, traffic, sports—magic talk—making troubles go away for a few minutes.

As we swung into Ted's neighborhood, Dad said, “The insurance company will take care of everything.”

I almost felt sorry for him. He thought maybe that was all he had to say, explain how a procedure would take care of everything, the legal mind.
Everything'll be okay
—
all we have to do is fill out this form
. I tried to picture myself six months, a year from then, and my mind was a blank.

In the shower you can forget there is a life out there, streets and houses. There is nothing but the hot water, and the steamy air.

I took a long time drying myself, and I could hear them. They were talking, the two of them—contractors' licenses, night classes in accounting. I wiped the mirror and looked at myself.

I made my entrance, drying my hair. Dad was sitting on the couch, his hands in his lap. He was looking at me, his gaze steady. He met my eyes and did not look away. The three of us made the living room seem crowded.

I sat there in one of Ted's V-neck T-shirts and a pair of his jeans, the legs rolled up. When I moved a leg the denim hung baggy and loose, like I had lost thirty pounds overnight.

I got up and went outside, Lincoln slobbering on my fingers. Dad followed me, as I had wanted him to, and I stood outside on the concrete slab. The hibiscus had lost all of its blossoms, little yellow scraps on the concrete, fragments of popped balloons.

It's the kind of neighborhood that isn't very peaceful, babies crying, distant laughter, a helicopter clopping along over the freeway far away. A swing set creaked, and somewhere children were having fun, splashing in a backyard pool or running through a sprinkler.

I could hear Dad right behind me, his shadow beside mine. “I'm in love with Adler,” I said.

Okay, I had said it. I could go back in the house now, I thought. The main thing was to keep moving.

But I wasn't shutting up. I was talking. I told him everything, worked quickly, nailing in all the facts, how I couldn't possibly live with Mom and Adler, feeling the way I did. I didn't tell them about my hands, how they lied to me, how they almost got me killed. I couldn't talk about that.

I didn't look at him when I was talking, so when he put his hands on my shoulders and turned me around I was a little surprised. He put his arms around me. He didn't even say anything for a long time, just held me there, his cheek against my wet hair, swaying a little like someone who didn't know how to slow-dance.

After a long time, he said, “Stay with me.”

I thought I had misunderstood him. He sounded so different.

My voice sounded weak. “Mom won't understand.”

He made a gesture with his hand,
maybe, maybe not
. “She will,” he said. “Anna—what matters is you.”

I shook my head and looked away. It wasn't that simple.

I wanted to tell him it wouldn't work, that he was wrong, that I was more troubled than he knew.

I looked at him, and I could tell what he was thinking—that he wanted me to be safe, he wanted me to have a future, and so I cried.

Then, when I could, I smiled and lied a little, and told him maybe things would work out, pretending I believed it.

35

The most interesting moment of all is when I walk into a store and the security stiffens. One moment it's a placid department store, wristwatches 30 percent off, and the next you can hear them think: She's here.

I was nervous, but not about the house detectives.

In the six months since my return, I had kept away from places like this. I had nearly forgotten what it was like, the tables of sportswear, the mannequins. I stood by a table of cashmere-and-kidskin gloves,
reduced to clear
, waiting for the Capwell's Emporium floorwalkers to close in. Security people had spotted me. They weren't very good at it, overreacting, watching me too carefully.

I made it to the escalator and rode it to the second floor, enjoying that emotional lift I always get from automatic stairs, getting somewhere without moving.

I thought, how thrilling. Now I can steal a pillow or a huge, ugly lamp.

Kitchen tables. Microwaves. Gleaming Farberware pots, enough to hold eight cabbages, eight human heads, all that capacity, and with a nonstick surface.

I couldn't believe Maureen was bargain hunting. Maybe it was amusing for her:
Why spend more for a butcher-block table than we have to. They have one on sale in El Cerrito
.

But I knew the real reason for our shopping trip. Maureen and I had slowly rebuilt our friendship, but Mr. Dean had avoided me, not speaking to me as he passed me on his bike.

I must have said something about this to Maureen. “Meet me there,” she had said. “I'll bring him along.”

And maybe Maureen was challenging me a little, letting me find out what it would be like to be in a kingdom of merchandise again.

The man in the camel's-hair jacket had restless eyes. He had that look of the teacher monitoring the IQ tests, watching for people to whisper the answer,
egg is to bird as fire is to what
.

The clerk in Kitchens for Today didn't know the rules. She was my age, maybe a little older. Her Capwell's Emporium name tag said her name was Denise. Not only new, but there was a little word under her name. Trainee.

I asked, “Are these the ones on sale?”

“I think they might be.…”

She wasn't just a trainee clerk. She was a trainee human being, her first day.

“Fifty percent off,” I read from a sign in red-and-black letters. “Do they come assembled?”

“They come knocked down,” said Denise, reading from the same sign.

“In a box, instructions, one-two-three,” I said.

Denise gave a little laugh. She had heard all about customers. They say stupid things, and all the retail pro can do is show good manners.

I ran one finger along the cute little Krups coffee grinder, its white cord plugged into an electric outlet in the floor. The camel's-hair man was on the other side of the display. “Is there anything special we can do for you today?”

“Don't you have any larger butcher-block tables?” I said. “I like the little wheels. I can wheel my chopped meat from the laundry room to the garage; I can see the convenience. But the ad in the paper made the table look so much more substantial.”

“Let me give you one of our catalogs on the way out,” he said.

Security men so often have no names, just jackets, faces. They ship people like this in cartons, snap them together and watch the shoplifters flee.

“I think we have a case of false advertising,” I said.

Joe Camel didn't even try to smile. “We'll ask the manager,” he said.

“The ad right here taped to this table said it's eighteen inches across,” I said.

“Why don't we step this way,” said a man behind me, a stealth walker. He came from the mattress section, surprising me. He was one I recognized from my old days here. “See if the manager can answer your questions.”

“This is the table?” said a voice.

The two men turned and adopted casual postures, adjusting a tie, fiddling with a sleeve.

Maureen was dressed in a camouflage outfit, desert camouflage, ready for dune warfare. I had never seen her quite like this. She was wearing purple-and-black basketball shoes.

Her father was with her, wearing his gray suit, but without his tie today.

Mr. Dean did not smile. “Hello, Anna,” he said.

I said something,
hello
, or I asked how he was. I heard myself uttering some sort of response. All I could think was: I'm talking to both of them at last.

“Maureen was telling me you think—heh—I've been avoiding you.” His little laugh came out joyless.

“I wouldn't blame you,” I said.

I could see conflict of feelings in his eyes. He might never forgive me for taking Lincoln, but he could not bear to be totally impolite, even to someone he didn't like.

“I've always envied your family,” I said. “For being so happy.”

I offered my hand, and he took it. We shook hands before the two security men like two diplomats.

“I don't think that table's big enough,” said Mr. Dean.

He was pretending he was forgiving me, and it worked. His eyes were warmer now, sincere. Sometimes it starts that way, you just decide to go along and see what happens.

“What do you think?” said Maureen, looking at the table as though she could destroy it with one blow.

“I think your father deserves something better than a little table like this,” I said.

36

“You ought to do a show about where men buy those one-size-too-big camel's-hair jackets,” I said. “Show all the bald camels in the desert, shivering.”

Mother and I were having lunch on Solano Avenue. It was the day after my shopping trip with Maureen and her father.

Mother and I were both eating salad, lettuce and bean sprouts all over the place. This was a new place, where Maxi's used to be. It had silver salt and pepper shakers, tall and tapered, heavy in the hand. There was a silver holder for the packets of sugar. It was not sterling, but it was good.

“How is Adler?” I asked.

“His indigestion acts up all the time,” she said. “He eats antacids like candy. Otherwise …”

It was time for a napkin to my lips, a sip of ice water. I didn't think about Adler as often, but his name still set off currents in me, tides of color, like the surface of Jupiter.

It looked like two heads of lettuce had exploded. The bowls were small and the salad was huge. A ring of red onion slid from my salad onto the white tablecloth.

“You and Maureen get along these days,” she said. It was a suggestion, not a question. I wondered if she was relieved that I wasn't moving in with her.

This was one of my easy moments, enjoying Mom's company. That was when I started to worry most, when my emotional weather was sunny.

As we were ready to leave, I found myself carrying the silverware to the plastic tub. The guy in the white apron busing dishes smiled, a tall guy, black hair. He was folding a new white tablecloth over a table. He thought I was being helpful.

I checked when I was out on the sidewalk.

“Did you forget something?” Mother asked, putting on her sunglasses, ready to go back to Channel Two and have them tear up a parking lot.

It was windy outside, bright sun and chilly air. We stood at the corner of Solano and Colusa. I fumbled through my purse. There was a new wallet, gleaming house key, no car keys to worry about anymore. Compact, brush, Dentyne, matches I picked up somewhere thinking I still smoked.

“Anna, are you all right?” Mom asked.

It wasn't a simple question, and she knew it. “How many people do you think walk off with one of their forks?” I said. “Or one of those salt and pepper shakers?”

My mother looked strained and slipped off her sunglasses to study me. “I couldn't begin to guess,” she said.

I turned to tell her not to worry, but the sun was so bright I had to close my eyes for a second, thinking what an idiot I was to forget my glasses. Maybe I would buy a pair of sunglasses, cheap ones, just for today. The sound of the traffic was loud, something you realized only when you stopped looking. And there was the tree in Andronico's across the street, the redwood full of birds. Even without looking I could tell so much about the street, the traffic, someone laughing, all of it okay. Or maybe not okay, something terrible about to happen.

When I opened my eyes I stopped really listening, waiting for the traffic light to change.

About the Author

Michael Cadnum is the author of 35 books for adults and young adults. His work—which includes thrillers, suspense novels, historical fiction, and books about myths and legends—has been nominated for the National Book Award (
The Book of the Lion
), the Edgar Award (
Calling Home
and
Breaking the Fall
), and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (
In a Dark Wood
). A former National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, he is also the author of award-winning poetry.
Seize the Storm
(2012) is his most recent novel.