The Life You've Imagined (13 page)

“She’ll be fine,” Anna says, not turning around.

“I was sorry to hear she was ill.”

Anna slams the cigarette packs in place, denting some of them in the process.

“I’m really sorry about what’s happening to the store,” Amy says, cringing as if those words cost her much effort.

Anna pauses at this and turns to Amy, her face a still mask.

Amy continues, “Paul does have his reasons. He’s really not a monster, honest, but it is really awful, and I just wanted to say I’m sorry for being so defensive before.”

Anna relaxes one degree from her ramrod posture. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. It’s not your fault.”

“You’ve had a rough few weeks, I guess.”

Anna nods slightly but doesn’t elaborate or allow her mask-face to betray her thoughts.

“I do have a question, Amy,” she says. “Has this project been approved by the city council yet?”

“Um,” Amy looks up toward the ceiling. “I don’t really know, because the other day was the first I’d heard of it. He doesn’t really tell me much about his work, not specifics.”

“Well, I can find that out easily enough.” Anna resumes her stocking, with less force.

“Why do you ask?” Amy says, and she’s clutching her purse, I notice, as if someone’s trying to rip it out of her hand.

“I might want to attend the meeting, is all.”

“Oh. Well, I’m glad your mom is okay.”

As Amy leaves, I notice a tiny wrinkle puckering her pert little forehead.

“Anna, how long are you planning to stay in town?” I ask her. “The meeting couldn’t be any sooner than next week at the earliest. How much time off did they give you?”

She shrugs. “I was not specific about how much time I needed to help my mother.”

“Aren’t you . . . Your bosses might be a little mad, yeah?”

“They’ll get over it. I can’t abandon her right now. She’s been abandoned quite enough, I’d say.” Anna dusts off her hands. “Hand me that phone book. I’m going to call city hall.”

I
walk home after a time, not wanting to interrupt the running of the store or disturb Maeve to get a ride. It’s not all that far. Nothing is far away, here. I have to thread through the tourists and the kids on summer break slopping ice cream around, and seeing the messy, sticky kids reminds me of my job waiting for me in the fall and how much I’ve grown to loathe kids. Okay, not all kids, I guess. Just about nine out of every ten kids I’ve tutored.

At least it’s a job, and even though I’m not making much money now, I’m also not spending it on rent and not gambling it away, so it’s something I can offer to Steve, some money and a mea culpa and a
Look at me, I was so good all summer.

I glance back at the Nee Nance when I turn the corner. It looks older than its neighbor stores, like the weary grown-up standing watch over the shiny young kids. So Anna is fixing to save the store somehow, bringing her law degree to bear at the city council meeting, which she discovered on the phone is in two weeks, just before the Fourth of July. I then heard her lie to her bosses on the phone about her mother’s delicate state of health, and from what I could hear of her end of the conversation, things were a little testy.

I see no signs of my dad’s truck, but that’s no indication of whether Sherry will be there. She stumbles home from here on foot, I think, though I don’t know exactly where she lives.

I hear breathing inside, a deep, rattling snore. As I creep down the hall in my bare feet, I see his door ajar. He’s in his bed, alone. Sherry must have driven the truck somewhere.

I never go in his room. As kids, Trent and I knew there was “hell to pay” if we crossed that threshold, and he reminded me of that when I first got back. So that’s why I’ve never noticed this particular pile of stuff in the closet, which is diagonal from his door. The closet door is one of those folding shutter-style doors and is dented, off the track, and open. Looks like photo albums in there.

Dad’s no shutterbug, so these must be family pictures, from when we were still a family, before Mom’s cancer ate her up.

I’m still outside his door, just a few feet from his head, but not inside. I have broken no rule. I strain to see how many albums there are . . .three? . . . and try to guess their age based on how yellowed they look.

He’s sleeping really hard. Passed out from a good lunchtime drunk is my guess.

The door squeaks when I swing it open, but his snoring doesn’t even change pitch.

I pick my way across his floor, over landmines of smelly laundry and glass bottles. I slip the top album off the pile, resisting my desire to open it right then. I slip it under my shirt.

The snoring stops.

I snatch some crumpled clothing off the bottom of the closet and hold it over the rectangular bulge in my shirt. I freeze there, waiting.

“You little bitch,” he slurs.

I turn, still in my crouch. “Just doing some laundry, thought I’d grab some of yours.”

I straighten up slowly, balancing the album in my shirt, making sure to keep the clothes in front of it.

“I told you . . .” he says. His tone is menacing, but he’s not gotten off the bed. He’s only up on one elbow; his finger pointing at me is weaving in the air. “. . . to stay outta here.”

“I’m going.”

I skirt the bed as far as I can without looking like I’m doing so, because
What, are you afraid of me?
is another thing I really don’t want to hear.

I almost drop the bundle when he hollers at me, just as I make it to the hallway, “And close the fucking door!”

I do close the door and force myself to carry out the ruse by walking down to the basement laundry, though I want nothing more than to shut myself in my room and study this piece of my past.

Chapter 19

Amy

E
very time I walk into the Becker house, I have to remind myself to stop gawking at it like some kind of hick.

But honestly, I can’t help but look up in the two-story foyer at the winding staircase and the “light fixture,” as Mrs. Becker dismissively called it the first time I gasped about the chandelier.

Mrs. Becker escorts me to the kitchen while the men prepare for the city council in Mr. Becker’s upstairs office.

“Want some wine, Amy?”

“No, thanks, but I’d love a sparkling water, if you have some.”

She gives me her hostess smile and takes a glass from the cupboard. She’s wearing only flannel pants and a T-shirt, but she still looks regal to me. “Big night for Paul, isn’t it?” she says. “You’ll get used to the nerves. I used to chew my fingernails to bits wondering how the projects were going. You get so tied up in it sometimes, their work, and the business. When it’s a family business, it’s not just punching a clock. Everything can seem like it has such high stakes.”

I take her water and glance away. I am nervous, but not for the reason she thinks.

“Paul doesn’t really tell me that many details, actually.”

Mrs. Becker waves her hand through the air, looking briefly like she’s conducting an orchestra. “Oh, well, it’s not very interesting anyway. Easements and zoning variances and drainage. Don’t get your brother-in-law started on drainage! In the old days he was always going at us about green spaces and the danger of run-off and using up farmland.”

I sip my water and remember Paul one night telling me how his big brother sank one of his family’s projects when Will was still a high school kid by hanging out with this group called Youth for Earth. The newspapers loved it, Paul said, his face thunderous with old anger. The developer’s kid fighting his own family’s project. At the time I pictured Paul at the dining room table, just a kid, watching his brother and his dad fight, and I wanted to hug him. So I did. He’d kissed me on the forehead and said, “Thank God you understand me.”

Paul comes down the stairs behind his father and I feel a rising pride. He’s so handsome in his suit, so professional and accomplished with his briefcase in hand and those rolled-up plans under his arm.

“Ready?” he asks. “You sure you want to sit through this?”

“Of course!” I hop down from the kitchen barstool. “I can’t wait to see my man in action.”

The meeting room is surprisingly full, and for a moment I start to panic that everyone will start waving signs and protesting, but the room nearly empties out after a proclamation for the Boy Scouts. They were just a crowd of proud parents.

That’s when I spot Anna, dressed in a suit with these really tall heels on. Her hair is up in a bun. As the room empties out, she looks around and notices me sitting next to Paul. I give her a wan smile and she looks away. It doesn’t seem rude; rather, like she didn’t really register me. Her face looks very still and calm, like it did that day in the store when I apologized.

I squeeze Paul’s hand. He glances at her, then looks at me and rolls his eyes. That’s unbecoming to him, the professional man, pulling a face like a surly teen.

The city council goes through a bunch of boring stuff, and finally they invite Paul up front to discuss the site plan for the redevelopment project.

I’m probably beaming like a First Lady gazing at her president. He sounds polished; the project looks wonderful; the councilmen are nodding, sitting forward and engaged. When he wraps up his presentation, he gives me a little wink.

The council asks for public comment, and there’s a rustling as Anna rises.

“Gentlemen,” she begins. “I have some concerns about this project I’d like to raise.”

I swallow hard and steal a look at Paul, who’s got that same dark, angry face that he wore that day he told me about Will fighting his family.

Anna is impressive, too, I must admit.

“I notice that Becker Development has requested and received from the zoning board a variance for the height of the building, and I maintain that . . .”

The councilmen at first seem bored, then they sit forward with deepening frowns as she continues. Paul scribbles notes on his legal pad, pressing so hard the pen comes through the paper in spots.

“And so, I submit to you that the building codes and ordinances must not be applied capriciously, and that the applicant can surely alter his project to suit the law instead of asking for special exception. And further, we should consider whether displacing a longtime business that has a loyal customer base for an unproven business model whose prices are likely out of reach for this community is truly a wise decision for maintaining the character of our downtown business district.”

The councilmen are tapping their pens and staring hard at Paul, who is rising and returning to the podium.

Paul rests his notebook on the podium and frowns down at it for a moment.

“In that impassioned speech, what the speaker failed to inform you is that her name is Anna Geneva, and her mother is the operator of that store, so her motive here tonight is hardly altruistic; rather, it’s a self-interested desperation move in the eleventh hour.”

I keep my eyes trained on the back of Paul’s head, the only view of him I can see from my seat. He grips the sides of the lectern hard.

He goes on, “I don’t dispute the longevity of the Nee Nance Store, but I submit that its ‘character’ no longer suits the neighborhood. Other businesses up and down Washington Avenue have maintained and improved their facades, while this liquor store has let its sign fall into disrepair in recent months, and Mrs. Geneva has been cited by the building department for having beer signs in her window that are too large. Haven is changing, gentlemen, and if we want to keep moving forward and increasing our tax base, so we can continue to provide the services on which our citizens depend, we need to be on the leading edge, not playing catch-up, and to do that we need to make tough decisions.”

Paul stands up straight and sweeps his gaze over the councilmen as he sums up: “Don’t let one woman’s attempt to sabotage this project for the sake of a family member hold up the forward progress of our community.”

When Paul turns around, I try to smile at him. He seems a little breathless, and he fumbles his notebook when he picks it up off the lectern.

I risk a look at Anna. She rises to her feet again as the mayor says, “I’ll now entertain a motion.”

“Mr. Mayor,” interrupts Anna, walking to the front. “I have a response.”

“Miss Geneva,” the mayor says wearily. “You’ve had your say. It’s time to start deliberating.”

“Sir, with all due respect, he made several accusations in that speech of his and I believe I should be allowed to respond.”

“You get one turn at the podium,” the mayor says, holding up his finger like a parent talking to a stubborn child. “And you had yours.”

From my vantage point, I can see Anna’s right hand ball up into a fist. She says, “Mr. Becker was given two chances to speak.”

“He first presented the information on his project and then he gave public comment, two different things. Now please sit down or we will ask you to leave.”

Anna pivots on her heel and walks out slowly, her head erect, the picture of grace.