The Qualities of Wood (8 page)

As they ate, Vivian and Beverly couldn't help being influenced by their good humor. Nowell told a story about the skinny kid who broke Lonnie's collarbone when he was twelve. The crux of the story was amazement that such a small boy could have done injury to the mighty Lonnie, who was stocky and tall even then. Nowell described the boy to them as mere skin and bones, a wiry nine-year-old who collided with Lonnie during a game of street baseball. ‘He rounded second and ran smack into him at shortstop.' He turned to Lonnie. ‘He got a home run off your team, didn't he?'

‘How would I know?'

‘You know, you just don't want to remember.'

They laughed for some time at Lonnie's unease, expecting a reciprocal story from him, an attempt to embarrass Nowell. But he just grinned. It wasn't until Nowell fell asleep early and Beverly turned in as well that Lonnie's mood began to darken. He said he was going to visit an old friend. Vivian suspected that he returned to the bar. When he got back, she was watching television in the darkened living room. Nowell and his mother had gone to bed.

Lonnie sat on the couch and kicked his shoes onto the floor. ‘What are you watching?'

‘Some old movie. How was your friend?'

‘Fine, everything's fine.' His eyes were watery in the greenish light of the television, his face blurred in the dimness.

‘That's good.'

‘Nowell's a good guy,' Lonnie said.

‘What?' She glanced at him, noticed his intent look.

‘He's smart and talented, Dad always said.'

‘Hey, Lonnie, I was going to make some coffee. Do you want some?' She got up from her armchair and started to walk past him, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her onto the couch.

‘You know that, don't you Vivian? He's got everything, always has.' His face was close to hers, his breath heavy with liquor.

‘Lonnie, let go.' She tried to pull her arm away and stand up, but he grabbed her around the waist with his other hand.

‘You know what he doesn't have? Honesty. He's dishonest to himself. He doesn't see things that are right in front of his eyes. I'm not like that, and I don't think you are either.'

‘Let me go,' she said again, and her voice was menacing enough that he released her.

‘You've dealt with guys like me before, right Vivian? Look, I didn't mean to scare you. I'm just trying to tell you, he needs help.'

‘Nowell needs help?' She stepped away from him. It was such a waste, she thought, his continual running and running and never getting anywhere. Her legs shook but before she left the room, she managed to say in a steady voice: ‘Take another look, Lonnie.'

In that way, maybe the brothers were alike. Mood shifts, inexplicable moments of barely constrained
something
. It was something she had to live with, but she didn't have to acknowledge it. She picked up the letter from Nowell's agent and stepped down into his study.

Nowell was quiet as he read the letter from his agent.

‘What does Dani have to say?' Vivian asked.

‘Nothing much. She sent me a copy of the magazine ad.' He dropped a paper onto the kitchen table.

‘For your book? Let me see.' Vivian looked at the advertisement, which was less than two inches square and printed along the side of a page. The title,
Random Victim
, arched across the top in vivid, wavering letters, like a scream.

Nowell hadn't been allowed much input on the cover. Dani had chosen an impressionistic drawing of a dark, menacing figure with large, shadowed eyes. Swirling black clouds hovered over his head. The image was made up of thousands of tiny dots, like the photo of her mother in the writing workshop brochure.

Vivian sat on Nowell's lap. ‘It's a great ad,' she said. ‘I'm glad she got them to put some more effort into marketing it.'

‘I'm not sure it'll matter,' Nowell said. ‘It's been out for quite a while.'

‘Did you get any work done today?' Vivian asked.

‘Some. The phone kept ringing while you were out. I have to tell you something and I don't think you're going to like it.'

She leaned back to see him more clearly. ‘What?'

‘I have to drive over to my mom's. I'm meeting with her lawyer the day after tomorrow.'

‘Okay.'

He raised his eyebrows. ‘That's it?'

She shrugged. ‘I know you have to go.'

‘I'll leave tomorrow,' he said. ‘I should be back the day after by seven or eight o'clock.'

‘At night?'

He nodded. ‘Are you sure you don't want to go with me?'

Vivian stood up. ‘No, I've got plenty to do around here. How about sandwiches for dinner tonight?'

‘Sounds good to me.'

In the refrigerator she found a loaf of the deli bread and a package of sliced ham. They also had some leftover potato salad and peach pie for dessert.

Nowell came into the kitchen. ‘Are you sure you don't mind staying out here alone? I hadn't thought about the fact that you won't have a car. It's a long drive, but I don't think we should spend money on airfare.'

‘I'll be fine. I can call Katherine if I need anything.'

‘My mom's not going to be around much while I'm there. She's gotten herself involved with another function at the church, a summer barbecue or something. My dad used to say she lets people bully her into doing all the work. I think he was right. Don't you remember that situation with that woman, what was her name?'

‘Nona.'

‘Yes, Nona. My mom met her at some card club and the next thing you know, she's moving into Lonnie's old room with her kid.'

‘Your mother likes to help people.'

‘Helping and being taken advantage of are two different things.'

The woman, Nona, told Beverly that she needed a place to stay for a month while she got back on her feet. She had a little boy, three years old, who was completely undisciplined, almost wild. Nona was slovenly, lacked motivation to do anything but watch soap operas, and late at night, her estranged boyfriend would climb through her window.

Nowell grabbed a slice of ham from the counter and chewed it loudly. ‘One time my mom gave away my dad's golf clubs for a charity auction. I don't think he talked to her for a week. I never saw him golf, not once. My mom called him selfish.'

Vivian brought the food to the table. ‘Your dad had a strong personality, didn't he?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I don't know, controlling?'

‘No,' Nowell said. ‘He was opinionated. I remember eating out at restaurants and being embarrassed sometimes by the way he talked to people. That's all. He was strong and he worked hard. He always encouraged me, told me I could do anything I wanted.'

They were quiet for a few moments as they ate. Outside, the sound of the asphalt truck droned. Remembering what Katherine had said, Vivian asked, ‘Did your dad come out here much to visit your grandmother?'

‘No. My mom and grandma didn't exactly get along, and Dad was always so busy. After he entered into partnership with Mr Ward, he started doing some traveling for the company. He kept himself pretty busy.'

‘How often do you think he visited her?'

Nowell set down his sandwich. ‘Why?'

‘Katherine thought he came out pretty often, a couple of times a year.'

He shook his head. ‘He hardly ever took a vacation or a sick day.'

‘But you said he always took care of your grandma.'

‘My grandfather died when he was only fifteen – the hunting accident – and he became the man of the family. My aunts were older, one in college already. For a while it was just my dad and grandma out here. He stayed until he was almost twenty-two.'

‘Why didn't he go to college?'

‘Felt like he had to work, I guess. My mom says that my grandma had a strong hold on him. She says that when he finally left, he moved four hours away to put some distance between them.'

Vivian thought it sounded similar to Nowell's relationship with his mother. She said, ‘It's strange that he wouldn't visit more, after they had been so close.'

‘He still took care of her,' Nowell said, a bit of an edge creeping into his voice. ‘He called her and helped her with things.'

‘Didn't you ever come out here when you were little?'

‘A few times. Lonnie loved it. He'd spend hours in the woods. He had a Davey Crockett hat back then, raccoon skin with a tail. One time, he got lost back there and when he came in, he wouldn't admit to it. I thought my dad was going to beat the hell out of him. I think he was scared, my dad. I never realized that until later.'

Vivian thought about the family photograph that Beverly still kept on the mantle of her fireplace. The two brothers, Nowell and Lonnie, were tall and gangly teenagers, with large Adam's apples and protruding collarbones. Lonnie looked robust in a plaid shirt with silver snaps and embroidered pockets, while the deep blue of Nowell's velour sweater made his complexion seem sallow. They stood on either side of their father, surrounding their mother, who sat with her legs primly crossed on a high-backed, ornate chair. Sherman looked into the camera lens with an intense expression. He had broad shoulders and thick gray eyebrows that almost met in the center. Both of his large hands gripped the back of his wife's chair, and each of the brothers had one hand on the chair, on the engraved mahogany finials with their bulbous ends. Lonnie grinned affably, but Nowell's expression was forced, his close-mouthed smile threatening to turn into a
frown. Beverly's grin was the brightest and most genuine, her lips curving up to tiny red points that dug into her heavily rouged cheeks, her gums showing pink above her teeth. But Sherman was the centerpiece of the photo. He was a striking man.

Nowell packed a few things for his trip and telephoned his mother to let her know he was coming. Vivian decided to work in the attic. When she had safely climbed the narrow stairs, she stood and surveyed her previous work, a feeble effort to form three large stacks: things to discard, things to keep, things to ask Nowell about. These stacks spilled and crowded into each other and she had to concentrate for a moment to remember which was which.

She found a box of board games, many of which she recognized from her own childhood:
Life, Risk, Sorry
. She put the box in the pile with the other things to ask Nowell about. In the top drawer of a short dresser, she was surprised to find folded clothing, a man's white undershirts. She held one up, noticing its size, extra-extra large. Behind the shirts was a stack of boxer shorts. She opened a garbage bag and scooped the underclothes from the drawer. The second drawer held stale-smelling linens – Grandma Gardiner never threw away a cloth napkin, Vivian thought – and she threw those in as well. The third drawer was empty. The bottom drawer held a few scarves and a variety of boxes. One was a series of boxes, one nested into another. She thought of her mother, who also saved any jewelry box she was ever given. One leather-covered box held a tarnished watch, another a set of cuff links. She set those aside to show Nowell. And when she had cleared out the boxes and slammed the drawer, she heard something clatter and had to go back through, opening and closing drawers until she found what was making the noise: a gun. Carefully, she picked it up. Like the other items, it was old.
Probably doesn't even work, Vivian thought. Nevertheless, she was careful to keep it pointed away from her body. She set it on top of the dresser. She wondered if it had been Grandpa Gardiner's. Lonnie would probably want it, she thought. She'd have to ask Nowell what to do with it. Hanging from the back of the bureau was a bag, which held the blue suit she had seen before, two pairs of blue jeans, a pair of olive green dress slacks, all men's, and three shirts that were similar to each other, short-sleeved with collars. Everything was pressed nicely, hanging in thin plastic bags.

The clothing was too modern to have belonged to Nowell's grandfather. Were they Sherman's? Vivian wondered. And why are these clothes here? If, as Katherine had claimed, Sherman visited often enough to warrant use of a dresser, why didn't Nowell know about these visits? Was the gun his?

She decided to take a board game downstairs and finish the attic later. Maybe Nowell would play
Life
with her. Diane, her best friend in grammar school, had a
Life
game and whenever Vivian stayed for a sleepover, they played. Vivian seldom had anyone to play games with; her parents usually suggested that she read a book instead.

In
Life,
she always hoped to land on the square that awarded graduation from medical school, because being the doctor paid the most money. After obtaining a profession, she and Diane moved the plastic cars around the board, filling them with little pegs when they landed on the squares for children. This was the most elaborate part of the game, because they would name their pretend children with first, middle, and last names, and keep them all in order, often going around an extra time and filling a second car with progeny.

Vivian thought about Nowell's desire to have a child. He hadn't brought up the subject again since her first night at the house and she was glad. She didn't comprehend her position enough to defend it. She imagined having a family in the future, in an abstract manner much like putting little blue and pink pegs into the plastic
Life
cars. She didn't think she was ready, but she couldn't really understand or explain why. Nowell, on the other hand, presented having a child as the next logical step in the order of their lives, and she couldn't compete with him, couldn't argue her way out of it. At best she could stall him while she figured out what it was, exactly, she wanted to say.

She decided to take
Sorry
downstairs instead. Nowell was sitting in the living room, watching television. ‘All packed?' she asked.

‘Yeah. What do you have there?'

‘
Sorry
. Wanna play?'

‘Maybe later.'

She put the game on the coffee table and sat next to him on the couch.

Nowell said, ‘I want to give you a couple of chapters from the new book to read while I'm gone. The first two chapters. I'm trying something a little different this time, and I want to see what you think of it.'

‘It's another mystery, right?'

He nodded. ‘Mostly, I'm experimenting with point of view. I mean, with who tells the story, whose insights and thoughts you get.'

‘I think I know what point of view is. First person, third person, right?'

‘Exactly. I don't want to tell you too much about what I'm doing because the readers will have to make certain discoveries as they go along. For instance, you may not know who is speaking at first, but I want to make sure it's not too evasive or confusing.'

‘The last novel was from the detective's point of view?'

‘Pretty much. It was third person, but the emphasis was on the detective. You got mostly his thoughts, but some insight into others. I thought it would be interesting to limit perspective even more, to really get a look inside what's going on with one person. Anyway, read it and let me know what you think.'

‘Okay,' she said. It seemed to her that all you could ever truly get was one person's perspective, your own. But she'd read it and hopefully, see what Nowell meant.

He asked her to wait until he was gone, but after he went to bed that evening, Vivian read the first chapter in the yellow glare of the kitchen. The writing had the same doomed tone as the piece she'd found on the printer, the short paragraphs describing a young girl walking with purpose, beckoning, and the restless man who watched her. These pages told a similar story, but the circumstances had been altered.

Each day as she walked over the hill toward the house, she hoped that the man would be waiting. Some days he was there, pacing through the empty rooms and others, he wasn't. But she could feel him on the days she couldn't see him, watching her as she moved her hips from side to side and swished her hair over her back, bare under the thin straps of her blouse, concave between the shoulder blades.

Each day she grew bolder, coming closer and closer to the picture windows until finally one day she was peering through them, her hands pressed against the cool glass
and her slim nose leaving the slightest smudge mark. She wondered what she would do if he came out, if he answered the unspoken challenge of the past few weeks.

She started to think about going in. It wouldn't take much, just a screwdriver applied to a rusty lock or pressed into the crack of a window. It infuriated her that he watched her as she watched him. After several days of thinking along these lines, she knew it had to end.

The chapter included fragments of the girl's troubled childhood, the mistreatment by her parents and her virtual abandonment at the age of fourteen. As Nowell had feared, Vivian was confused by the perspective. The girl's voice was unsettled and seemed to have too much insight. She was glad she'd have some time to decide what to tell him. She hid the pages in a kitchen cupboard and went to bed.