The Atheist's Daughter (11 page)

If he’d kept any of his money, it wasn’t apparent on first inspection. His worn camel hair sport coat was folded sloppily over the top of the empty chair at his table. He wore a nondescript cream-colored shirt with plastic buttons; the shirt’s tail was tucked into a pair of unfashionable brown slacks. If she was a betting woman – and she, most definitely, was not – Mrs. Norton would have wagered on Zhou’s choice of footwear. Beneath the table’s white cloth, she was certain she’d find him wearing a pair of cotton-nylon socks tucked into scuffed department store shoes.

Still and all. He was retired but not enfeebled. He lacked a dining companion and didn’t wear a wedding ring. He had possibilities.

Dabbing at his mouth with a napkin, Zhou said, “Are you the diner’s owner?”

“My family and I.”

“You work as a waitress, then?”

“I’m the manager.”

“Yet you wait tables.”

“Alice Poe is our waitress,” she said. “When business demands, we all step in to help.”

“Wise, very wise,” Zhou responded. “Piotrowski killed his business, you know, paying for staff. Two waitresses, a cook’s assistant, and God knows who else. Anyone who asked for an application, he gave them a job. And to what end? Out of business in less than three years time.”

“At least his name lives on.”

“He made good food, I’ll give him that much. “ Zhou dropped his napkin to the table. “Your chef isn’t as talented. The pasta was overcooked, the sauce tasted bland. I’m surprised I was able to finish my lunch.” He picked up his bill and toyed with it.

She’d seen Zhou’s kind before. They’d finish their meal, leave not a crumb uneaten, and then utter some vague complaint in the hope their bill would be discounted. Thinking they were clever when all they really were was annoying.

“Perhaps I can offer a dessert in way of apology,” she told the round-bellied man.

Retreating through the rear door, she went into the kitchen.  Opening the large commercial refrigerator at the back of the building, she stepped inside.

The remains of the afternoon’s two-crust apple pie waited for her. Miss Sweet believed her particular combination of fresh sliced apples, ground cinnamon, and white sugar was a panacea for every mortal complaint. It was almost too good. If demand grew for the treat, it would be removed from the menu.

For now, the colonoscope salesman could enjoy its pleasures. Transferring a thick wedge of the pie onto a dessert plate, she closed the door behind her.

Without saying a word, Zhou pushed his fork through the pie’s flaky crust. His expression changed as his mouth closed over the treat. “This is fresh. Not commercial.”

“Naturally.”

He offered no further conversation, his fork clicking against the plate as it swept away the rest of the pie.

Mrs. Norton pulled the empty chair back from the table. Avoiding her customer’s sport coat, she sat on edge of the seat. “Zhou is a Chinese name, isn’t it?”

He nodded, removing the fork from his mouth. A flake of golden crust dangled from his lower lip.

“I knew a Zhou family once. Pig farmers, from the Sichuan Province.”

“You’ve been to China?”

“Hundreds of years ago. Or so it feels at times.” She rested her hand upon his forearm. “I hope you don’t have to run off.”

The fork in Zhou’s hand wobbled. Incredibly, he blushed.

She said, “All those years ago, back when China and I were both so much younger, I found a most interesting curio in the Hualong Valley. Do you know of the area?”

“It’s in the Songpan mountains.”

“Exactly,” Mrs. Norton said. “You really should see what I found. It’s interesting, so very special. I think you’ll be amazed.”

“Amazed?” The thought pleased him. “For something amazing, I might spare a moment.”

“Wonderful.” She rose from the chair. “It’s upstairs.”

Belatedly, Zhou climbed to his feet. Mrs. Norton went ahead of him, confident he’d follow after her.

By the time he reached the stairway, she was already on the second floor’s upper landing. His gaze traveled up the stairway to find her.

“Join me, Mr. Zhou,” she said.”Come and see our little piece of magic.”

Chapter Nineteen

Propped up by an oversized pillow and loosely covered by a lavender sheet, Susannah Guitierrez rested on the living room sofa. Her warm brown eyes were slightly unfocused as a pleasantly empty expression played about her features.

What a waste of time
, Becky thought, the bristles of her paint brush skating over the rectangle of hardwood.
This painting will never, ever sell.

I’m not just wasting my time, I’m wasting Susannah’s time. I’m wasting my supplies.

Once she finished the piece, she’d be lucky to give it away. Susannah wouldn’t want it. Her townhouse walls were crowded with photographs. Should she decide, one fine day, to hang a painting in her home, it wouldn’t be
this
painting. This painting wouldn’t appeal to her at all.

Will it appeal to anyone?
Lowering her paintbrush, Becky rested its handle against her hip.

Trying to consider the painting objectively, she admitted it wasn’t remotely realistic. With so many bursts of different colors on the board, an outside observer might question if her subject was even human. Instead of calling it, “Portrait of S. Guitierrez”, she should have named it, “Explosion at the Paint Factory”.

She pressed her brush to her pallet into a circle of Cremnitz white.
So why do I feel so happy?

Because...well, because.

No, “because” isn’t an answer. Try a little harder.

Because I’m not doing this for the money,
she decided.
No one commissioned it. I’m not expecting anyone to buy it. It’s not important if anyone else likes it.

This one is for me. No reason to even send it to the gallery.

A mental stab struck at her with the last thought. If Larry at the Centerville Gallery saw the painting, he’d have a heart attack. In Lincoln City’s Centerville Square, abstract art didn’t sell.

“Abstract art is worthless,” Larry declared, not five months ago. “Who wants it? It doesn’t mean anything.”

We’ll have to agree to disagree, Larry.

These monstrous splashes of color symbolized more than a portrait of her friend. The slashes of her brush were an emotional response to Becky’s own feelings about age and loss. Susannah was far removed from the young woman she’d first met all those years ago and Becky herself hated to discover new wrinkles reflected in her mirror. Someone, somewhere, needed to shout out against the injustice of life’s losses. To cry out at the lurking presence of death.

Do not go gentle into that good night
.
Not if I have any choice, anyway.

She peeked over the top of her painting. “Getting tired?”

“Tired of what? Lying here?”

Gathering the sheet around her breasts, Susannah leaned forward. “Have you been to the new café?”

“It’s not so new from what I’ve heard.”

“You’ve heard right,” Susannah said. “Step inside and you’d swear Martin was still running the place. Same tables, same decorations. You’d think someone would have had the good taste to replace that God-awful flocked wallpaper. I almost expected to see Chandra Piotrowski at the cash register.”

“Poor Chandra.”

“Poor Chandra, my ass,” Susannah said. “She probably ran off with the lifeguard from the Y.”

“Chandra, hooking up with twenty-three year old Mike ‘Muscles’ Morley? You can’t be serious.”

“If only it were true. There might be hope for the rest of us.” Pointing her painted toenails, she pushed her feet into the bejeweled sandals sitting at the base of the sofa. Having posed for almost ninety minutes, this was her gentle reminder that she’d grown bored with it.

Becky knew better than to ask for more time. Once she made up her mind, Susannah grew restless. A fidgety model was of no use at all. “You were talking about the restaurant.”

“There’s a man in the kitchen, you can tell. The meat in my casserole had been chopped to death. Pieces so small, it could have been anything.”

“Cow, horse, llama....” Becky wiped at the brush, cleaning the paint from it.

The sheet wrapped around her, Susannah hobbled over to the side chair where she’d dropped her clothing. “Martin was there. He told me a little secret.”

“About Chandra?”

She waved her hand dismissively. “About the family that leased the café.” Dropping the sheet, she wiggled into a pair of capris. “They live upstairs of the dining area, you know. All five of them.” She pulled a knitted sweater over her head. “In the smallest room, the one without windows, they’ve removed all of the electrical outlets.”

“Because – ?” Becky dropped her Berkeley Number Seven brush into a pot of turpentine.

“They have to use candles in the room. They can’t use artificial light. Artificial light might affect the prophecies of their seer stone.”

Becky’s voice went cold. “Psychics.”

“You don’t like fortune-tellers?” Uncertainty crept into Susannah’s voice. “It’s not what you think. They don’t charge anything. They wouldn’t even take my tip.”

“Do
not
tell me you went up those stairs.”

“It’s only a game.”

“It’s a wicked game,” Becky told her. “Let me finish cleaning up. I’ll put the tea kettle on to heat and we can talk.”

* * *

Seated at the kitchen table, she stirred a packet of artificial sweetener into her cup of green tea. “It was years and years ago,” Becky said. “Rick and I were fairly new to this area. We’d emptied our bank account to buy our first place together. This house.”

“I’ve always liked your house.” Holding the tea cup in front of her mouth, Susannah surveyed the cream-colored walls around her. “It’s so homey.”

“We wanted a place to raise our baby, our little Kristin. We had so many plans. There was just so much... so much we planned to do.”

Funny how the memory of it still hurts,
she thought.
Nearly two decades later and talking about what-should-have-been still carries the ache of a fresh wound.

People say the loss of a loved one becomes easier over time. That’s partly true but only partly.

The loss never fully goes away.

“It was the middle of the week, for some reason we were both home, and I wanted to get out,” she said. “There was no real reason for it. The house needed all kinds of repairs, the yard was a mess. There were a hundred chores waiting to be done.”

“There are always a hundred chores to be done,” Susannah said, blowing a cooling breath over the edge of her teacup.

“I’ll never forget it. It was such a beautiful spring day. Rick would have been happy to putter around the place but I wanted to get out. So out we went.”

* * *

The stroller’s wheels clicked as they rolled over the divisions in the sidewalk. Ahead of them, the Downtown District was almost empty of pedestrians.

Becky was surprised at how quickly she’d grown to accept Winterhaven’s vacant parking spaces and open sidewalks. She was enjoying life away from the big city. With her baby asleep in the stroller and her husband beside her, she felt content.

“Have you been watching?” Rick asked.

“Watching what?”

“How many people we’ve passed,” he said. “We’re in the heart of downtown and we’ve passed three other people. Three. Not one of them carrying a shopping bag. The store lights are on, the doors are open, and the streets are practically empty. Why isn’t the Mayor doing something about this?”

“There’s the Pumpkin Festival in October.”

“So, for those two weeks, we get a few tourists in in town. Two weeks! If it wasn’t for Christmas and the Pumpkin Festival, every merchant in town would go bankrupt. It’s not enough.”

“The city’s building a new mall. That might help.”

“Could be.”

“You wouldn’t like all those tourists, anyway. Filling the stores, crowding the driving lanes. It drives you nuts.”

“Don’t go using logic on me,” Rick told her. “I’ll gripe and complain all I want, logic be damned. A good wife understands this. A good wife encourages her husband to spout the nonsense of his choice. A good wife simply nods her head and says, ‘Yes, dear’.”

“Yes, dear.”

Rick leaned over and kissed her. Breaking off the kiss, his eyes widened. “Would you look at that?”

The front door of the Antiques Hut had a
We’re Open
sign suctioned to the glass above its door handle. Below the faded letters of the store’s name, a white placard was mounted: UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT.

“I thought they were out of business.”

“It’s been closed since we moved here.” Rick rocked the stroller on its front wheels and backed into the doorway. “Let’s go inside.”