The Art of Crash Landing (25 page)

I
t's one of those dreams where I know that I'm dreaming, but I will myself to remain asleep. I'm back at Two Pines, sitting next to Queeg on the steps of a trailer. We're watching my mother feed the seagulls.

She's standing in the gravel courtyard, the pockets of her blue housecoat bulging with bread crusts and cut-up hot dogs. In one hand she holds a drink, with the other she reaches in her pocket, grabs a scrap, and, rising to her toes, tosses the food straight up. Around and around the gulls circle, banking hard, rising and diving, plucking the food out of the hot August air.

Finally, her pockets are empty, but rather than quit, she begins to throw cigarette butts, and gravel, and limes from her gin and tonic. As the birds grab and then drop the trash, their screaming intensifies but still they circle and swoop, circle and swoop, again and again, their mouths open and trusting, never understanding that my mother has nothing left to give.

T
he phone rings early in the morning. I don't need to look at the screen to know who it is.

“Good morning, Queeg.”

“Did I wake you?”

“Of course you woke me.”

“Sorry.”

He doesn't sound sorry.

“So how did it go yesterday?” I ask.

There's a pause. I can picture him taking a sip of his coffee. I can hear some soft chirping in the background, so I imagine him sitting on the folding lawn chair outside his trailer.

“Bad, but not as bad as I was expecting.”

“I called last night, but you were already asleep. I should have called earlier.”

“It's okay, sweetheart,” he says, letting me off the hook, just like he always does. I hear a faint scratch on his end that tells me he's lit a cigarette.

“Hey, Queeg . . .”

“Hmmmm?”

“When you were married to Mom, did she tell you about any of this? Growing up here, her family, her mother . . .”

“Not much.”

“Did she ever mention somebody named Trip?”

“No.”

“Did she ever tell you why she left home?”

He sighs. “She talked around her past, Matt, not about it.”

I nod even though he can't see me. I understand talking around things. “But after Mom died, you called Tilda . . .”

“I didn't know much, but I knew the name of the town where your mom grew up, so I called around until somebody gave me your grandmother's phone number. It wasn't a big deal. It just required a little effort.”

I understand what he's saying. He called. He made the effort.

“Last night I dreamt we were back at the beach,” I tell him. “We were watching Mom feed the gulls.”

“Sounds like a good dream.”

“It was good because you were in it, Queeg.” My throat squeezes painfully, and I stop and swallow. “You saved us,” I tell him, and it's almost true. He tried hard but failed to save my mother, and I guess he's still trying with me. That's not looking so good either.

There's a pause in which I can hear his measured breathing. “Honey,” he finally says, “are you okay?”

“You bet.” We both know I'm lying.

“Why don't you just come home?”

I consider telling him how the Malibu is being held hostage; it would be an explanation for my absence that he would understand. But then he'd offer to send money, and it would all get weird because he doesn't have any money to spare. Not to mention the fact that me being here isn't about the money anymore, if it ever really was.

“I've been wondering . . . why did you buy Mom the Malibu?”

“It's a classic.”

“I know, but why that car? If she loved classic cars, why not an old Camaro or a T-Bird?”

“We saw one once. On the highway, we passed an old red Malibu. She put a hand against her window and stared at that car like it was a double cheeseburger. She twisted all around to watch from the rear window until we were well past.”

“So you—”

“I asked her, and she said that she liked it, that a 1978 Malibu was her favorite car. So I got her one.” He pauses, to take a drag from a cigarette I'm guessing, before he adds, “It was probably a mistake.”

“Why would you say that?”

“We put more into that car than it was worth.”

“But she loved it.”

“Yeah well . . . maybe.”

“No maybe about it. The very last words she said to me were about the Malibu.”

I can hear the smile in his voice when he says, “You're kidding me!”

“I was carrying her equipment out to the car and the last thing she said to me was to be careful not to poke a hole in the seat with the tripod.”

“That damn upholstery . . . all those seams. For some reason it had to be tuck-and-roll.” His laugh turns into a cough. He pulls the phone away from his face, but I can still hear him struggle. Finally it's over. “Sorry about that,” he tells me.

“You need to quit smoking.”

“We sure got that car looking good,” he says, ignoring me. “All it took was hard work. That's all it ever takes, Matt.”

Queeg loves to claim that effort is the cure for every ill, but I don't think he really believes all fixer-uppers can be fixed. He was married to my mother, after all.

“I'm serious about the cigarettes,” I tell him. “They're killing you, Cap.”

“No point shutting the barn door after the horse is gone.”

“You don't know where the horse is,” I say, which sounds stupid but we both know what I'm talking about.

“If I get good news from the doctor next week, I'll quit.”

“And if it's bad news?”

Another pause and this time I'm sure I can hear him taking a drag off his cigarette and exhaling. “Did you ever find those dogs?”

“They'll come back home,” I say, hoping it's true.

“I wish you'd do the same, sweetheart.”

“I know,” I reply even though I understand that the words he's wanting are,
I will
.

“Is it money? Let me wire you some money—”

“Stop worrying about me and take care of yourself, Queeg. I'm fine.” I sit up and pause, waiting for the now familiar nausea to arrive. “I gotta go,” I say, hanging up as my mouth fills with saliva. I climb out of bed and head for the bathroom. The simple fact is, I can lie to my stepfather, but it's harder to lie to myself. I'm not fine at all.

W
ith the negatives in my purse, and Nick's strap and my mother's camera bag hidden in the old washing machine in the garage, I feel reasonably safe leaving the house. I don't really think Tawny is going to try again tonight while I'm at Luke's, but better safe than sorry. I grab the borrowed-without-permission yearbooks and a thick American history textbook from the bookshelf in my mother's room, and take them with me out on the porch to wait for Tawny.

I'm heartened to see that most of the dog food I left out last night is gone. Of course it's probably some stray eating it, but I tell myself it's the Winstons. The day continues to improve when Tawny's truck rattles up right on time. Halle-fuckin-lujah. I'm not exactly the skipping type, but there is a definite bounce in my walk as I approach the truck, carrying my purse, the books, and a manila envelope holding the 8” x 10” prints from last night.

Since I forgot to switch my laundry before I went to bed, and therefore my jeans are only now in the dryer, I am wearing another of Tilda's tweed skirts. This one is a trace too woolen for June, and between it and the vinyl truck seat, my thighs are damp and itchy by the time we get downtown. I have Tawny drop me off at the church, explaining that I'll walk over to the library in a few
minutes. Amazingly she complies without comment. Apparently we've gone from breaking and entering all the way to reasonably friendly in just one night. I should have had her over for a darkroom lesson earlier.

When we pull up in front of the church, I say, “Did you bring it?”

She nods and pulls a plastic baggie out of her backpack. Inside is a very neatly rolled joint.

I take the baggie and then hand Tawny my mother's history textbook. “Use this as your booster seat and put K through L back in the library.”

“Why?”

“If you just stick it on a shelf in Fiction or Biography, Fritter will come across it and think it was misshelved.”

She rolls her eyes to let me know she'd like to tell me where to stick it. “You didn't answer my question.”

The truth is, even with everything Fritter has done, I hate watching her search for that damn book. But I'm not telling Tawny that. It would be a mistake to show this girl my soft underbelly.

“Because eventually Fritter is going to look in this truck and see that book, and then she's going to be pissed at you, and she'll fire me for not ratting you out earlier.”

Tawny bares her teeth in a smile. I'm pretty sure I have just described the exact scenario she's been hoping for.

“I'm serious, Tawny. When I get to the library I'm going to look in this truck, and if that encyclopedia is still in here, I'm going to tell Fritter.” I hand her the borrowed yearbooks. “While you're at it, put these back, too.”

Tawny narrows her eyes and studies my expression, trying to decide if this is a bluff. Then she scowls and leans forward on the seat to swap the encyclopedia under her skinny ass for my mother's old textbook. I barely get the door shut before she peals out with a smoky roar.

That girl can put on her I-don't-give-a-shit act all she wants, but I know better. Always on the lookout for a new way to antagonize people, to test their affection and find it wanting—the terms used by my high school counselor were Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Low Impulse Control. My face may be less likely to set off a metal detector, but I'm afraid that if I were in her little size six combat boots I'd be pulling the exact same kind of shit she's pulling.

With a sigh I walk to the back door of the church. It's not even nine in the morning and I'm already tired. It's more than a little disheartening at thirty years old to look at a seventeen-year-old and see yourself.

S
ince Karleen's car is here, I know she's in the church somewhere, so I wander around until I locate her. She's carrying a broom and pushing a housekeeping cart down a long hallway lined with closed doors. I'm not trying to be sneaky, but since I'm rocking my grandmother's skirt with my Chuck Taylors, she doesn't hear me coming up behind her.

“Karleen,” I say as softly as possible. Still, she jumps and spins around swinging the broom hard enough that I'm glad I left more than a handle's length between us.

“Steeerike!” I call out as she struggles to control her follow through.

“Shit! You scared me.”

“Sorry.”

“I think I peed my pants a little.”

“Sorry.”

She looks me up and down before she speaks. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to say I'm sorry.”

“Well congratulations. You've said it three times now.”

“I mean about being a no-show yesterday. I lost track of time. I apologize.”

She nods slowly. “You're pretty good at this apologizing stuff. I bet you get a lot of practice.”

I have to bite my lip not to say “I'm sorry” again. Instead, I hold out my arm. Karleen's brows rise as she looks at the contents of the bag I'm tick-tocking in front of her face.

She plucks the baggie from my fingertips. “Luckily I'm good at forgiving.”

She unlocks the nearest classroom, then leads me past the tiny tables and chairs to the bank of windows, one of which she cranks open. She sparks up the joint, takes a hit, and then holds it out to me. I hesitate long enough that she puts it back to her mouth.

“I smoked pot when I was pregnant, and my son turned out just fine.”

“Why do you keep talking about pregnancy?” I hold out my hand and she passes the joint to me. I take a small pull, just a little to test my gag reflex. I shudder but stop short of retching. I hand it back and shake my head.

She smiles and points at the manila envelope in my hand. “What's that?”

I open it and pass her the first photo. “This is a picture my mom took, and I was wondering about it.”

“It's Trip's Malibu.”

“Was it red?”

She nods and hands the picture back. “Is that it?”

I draw out the next photograph and pass it over.

She takes a glance and then quickly lowers it, laughing. “Oh my dear sweet Jesus!” She takes a longer look, trombones it a little, and then lowers it to her side again, still laughing. “Where on earth did you find that?”

“You found it. It was on one of the negatives hidden in the box springs. Is that Trip?”

“In the flesh,” she replies.

Our laughter echoes in the empty room. She relights the joint and takes another drag. “That must have been on one of their camping trips,” she explains.

“My mother liked to camp?” I'm trying to align that reality to the woman I remember freaking out if she saw a spider.

“No, but your grandmother wouldn't let her date Trip, remember? They had to get creative. They'd go spend the night out at Cypress Point.”

She takes one more look at the photo, still chuckling, then hands it back. “Got any more?”

I hand her the picture of my mother.

Karleen's grin softens to a tender smile. “That's how I still think of her. She was almost always smiling. Did she stay that way?”

I take Karleen's memory of my mother and compare it with mine.

I shake my head. “Sorry.”

Karleen frowns and hands back the photo. “Well, at least she got out of here.”

“What makes you think where she ended up was any better?”

“Do you know how often my kids had to see me with one of these?” Karleen is pointing at her swollen, purple eye.

“I don't know. Maybe about as often as I had to clean up my mother after she'd gotten pass-out drunk and peed all over herself.”

The second the words are out of my mouth, I wish I could have them back. The expression of tenderness and pity on Karleen's face is unbearable.

“I'm sorry,” she says. “I didn't—”

“Don't. Please,” I tell her. I'm dangerously close to tears. “I just want you to know that you can stop feeling jealous of my mother's life. There were no glass slippers for her, or for me. No magic fairy dust. No happily ever after.”

She nods and gives me a minute, turning her attention to the joint in her hands, taking her time to pinch it out and test the end until it's cool enough to slip in her pocket. When she finally looks up at me again, all she says is, “I need to get back to work.”

“What was it you started to tell me Wednesday night?” I ask.

She turns away. In profile Karleen looks older, tired. It's easy to see where her cheeks and neck are losing their fight with gravity. I try to remember if my mother's face was softening in a similar way, but I can't.

“You said you knew my mother wasn't pregnant,” I remind her. “How did you know?”

She brushes at a few flakes of ash clinging to her shirt. She's still not looking at me. “Did you sleep with Father Barnes?”

“No.”

Now she turns to face me, her expression asking if I'm telling the truth.

“I didn't,” I say. “I could have. I was going to. But I didn't.”

“Why?”

I think about my hand on his leg, the warmth of his lips on mine, how easy it would have been to bulldoze into that man's life. She's asking a good question, one I've asked myself. I wish I knew the answer.

I shrug. “I just lost a taste for it.”

Karleen nods slowly, as if I'd actually told her something meaningful. Then she says, “I know your mother wasn't pregnant because she got an abortion the day she left.”

Her revelation catches me off guard. Before I can think of how to respond, she continues.

“Your mother and I were on the outs that summer because of Trip, but the two of us had been best friends since third grade. When she called and asked for my help, I was still mad at her, but we had a history. I couldn't refuse.” Karleen cranks open another window. The breeze catches a stack of papers at a nearby table. I grab them before they hit the floor and tuck them under a nearby box of crayons.

“When she called she didn't give me any idea what she needed. It wasn't until I picked her up that she told me where we were going. I was surprised—no,
surprised
is too mild a word—I was shocked. We knew girls who'd gotten their problems solved at the same clinic, and your mother had always been very vocal in her disapproval. Hell, who could blame her? Tilda wasn't married when she had Genie, so the idea of choosing an abortion over being a single parent hit a little too close to home for your mom. And yet there we were, on our way to the clinic.”

I feel a little sick to my stomach. I wonder if it's the same clinic Dr. McDonald would send me to.

“Did she tell you why?”

Karleen shakes her head. “She wouldn't say a word, not one single word all the way to Tulsa. She wouldn't even look at me.”

Karleen goes on, describing the drive, the clinic, sitting in the waiting room while my mother had the procedure. “When it was over, I helped her to the car, and then we drove to a pharmacy about a block away. She waited in the car while I went in to get her pain pills. When I came back out, she was gone.”

“Gone? Where would she go? Why would she do that?”

Karleen doesn't want to answer the question. She looks around the classroom, out the window, at her hands. “I said some things . . . things I wish I hadn't.”

She glances at me and I nod. I know what that feels like.

“I was angry that she wouldn't talk, angry about Trip, angry
about what she'd just done. So I gave her a piece of my mind. Several pieces. And then I said I was going to tell her mother about the abortion.” At this, Karleen focuses her attention back on me. “And do you know what your mother did then?”

I shake my head.

“She laughed.”

Karleen watches my face for a reaction and she gets one, but I'm not sure what. Confusion? Surprise? Whatever it is, it keeps her talking.

“She acted like I'd just told her the funniest joke in the world. I didn't know what to say, so I just left her there and went inside to get her prescription filled. When I came back out, she was gone. She'd left a note on her seat saying she'd gotten a ride with a friend. I was a little surprised, but mostly relieved, if you want to know the truth. It would have been an awkward ride back to town. Honestly, I didn't think too much of it at the time; people around here are always going to Tulsa for one reason or another. It seemed entirely possible that one of our friends had noticed her waiting and given her a lift home. I mean, where else would she go?”

Karleen sighs and shakes her head. “When I got back to town that day, I should have stopped by her house to drop off her medicine, but I didn't. I went home. I wanted her to start hurting and have to call me and beg me to bring her the pills. She never called and I didn't call her. It wasn't until a week later, when Trip came to see me, that I found out Genie was gone.”

Karleen straightens and closes the windows, not realizing—or not caring—that it still reeks in here. I suspect there are going to be some awkward questions come Sunday morning. Once we're back out in the hallway, she relocks the classroom door, and then turns to me.

“Your dogs show up yet?”

“No. Your husband?”

She shakes her head. “He'll turn up pretty soon.”

“Might be a good time to change the locks.”

She takes the oversize metal dustpan from the cart and clanks it to the floor. “You know, every once in a while your mother would send me a postcard.” Karleen bends over, holding the dustpan with one hand, her broom with the other. “Not in a long time, though. Probably twenty years since I got one.” She stands and dumps the pan. “I wish I'd written back.”

“Do you still have them?”

She shakes her head. “Sorry.” Gesturing at the picture in my hand—the one of my mom—Karleen says, “Do you suppose I could have that?”

“Sure.” I pass her the photo, remembering something I'd been meaning to ask. “Did my mom bleach her hair?”

The question surprises Karleen. “Yeah. Did she stop?”

I nod.

“She always wore her hair blond.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. It was the seventies, straight blond hair was the rage. I don't even know what her real color was, but I do remember that Tilda was fine with her bleaching it—practically insisted that she keep it blond. Hell, my mom wouldn't even let me pierce my ears.”

Karleen carefully tucks the photograph into a side pocket of the cart.

“Did you ever tell my grandmother about the abortion?” I ask.

“No.”

“Did you tell Trip?”

She doesn't answer that question, but she doesn't have to. Her regret is palpable. She fiddles with her broom instead, picking some cobwebby dust from the bristles.

“You know,” she says, “I read a quote once that really stuck with me. It said, ‘We are all more than the worst thing we've done.'”

“That's a good one.”

She gives me a wry look. “Do you think it's true?”

I weigh my choices—answering honestly versus telling her a comforting lie. Or maybe that's not what I'm weighing. Maybe it's my worst fear against my only hope.

“I don't know,” I say and it's true enough.

She surprises me with a quick hug, her sturdy arms strong on my back. “You'd better get to work,” she says, but she doesn't let go right away.

When I turn and walk back down the hall, I can feel her watching my retreat. I'm not surprised when her voice echoes behind me.

“It was red,” she says.

I turn. “What?”

“Genie's hair. Her natural color was red. I just remembered.”

I nod.

“When you find out what made her do what she did, will you let me know?”

Her voice is even, but her eyes are just a little too shiny. I can't decide if she's about to cry or if it's just from the weed.

“What if there wasn't a good reason?” I say.

“What if there was?” she replies.