Time and Trouble (19 page)

Unfortunately, in order to acquire Mason, Glenda had had to shed an inconvenient pre-existing husband who was delighted to talk to Emma and the world about Glenda. And to detail why he
’
d been granted sole custody of their child (that person being another omission on her curriculum vitae).

Emma had a sick sense that Mr. Walker knew nothing about either his predecessor or his wife
’
s first child, and that all this news was going to result in something much more than an aborted run for state office.

The damnedest part of it was that if Glenda Walker really believed what she preached, she
’
d have made a great candidate and nobody would have cared about a missing Phi Beta Kappa key. Nobody had to be as smart as she
’
d pretended to be.

But neither did anybody
—
not even a senator
—
have to be that stupid. California didn
’
t need another double-talking, truth-twisting dummy lawmaker.

In any case, while Emma had lost a candidate, she
’
d gained a loyal client for a job well done.

She reached the span, paid, and waited to see if this toll-taker would break the San Rafael
–
Richmond Bridge
’
s code by uttering a civility. Not that she was hoping for the Golden Gate
’
s toll-taker effervescence. After all, in the waterbound, bridge-rich Bay Area, this was the stepbridge, the unremarked joining of two outposts of The City. No postcards showing refineries on one side, San Quentin on the other. No songs about this bridge. The desperate were never so overwrought as to commit suicide off it, make it the last thing they saw and touched. No wonder the toll-takers took a vow of silence.

As had this one, who took the bills as if they were tainted. Emma wondered whether these workers were recruited for their sourness, indifference, and lack of curiosity. Or maybe they were all burned-out former PIs who
’
d examined and questioned too much. Matter of fact, the more she thought about it, the more appealing the taciturn toll-taker
’
s life seemed. No office to maintain, no overhead. No bumbling hires. On a clear day, they even had a view across the Bay to the soft contours of Marin.

She, on the other hand, felt dizzy with problems. Wherever she pointed on her personal horizon, she saw something askew and worrisome.

Like Billie. Bright and eager, but, bottom line, she
’
d totally botched her first job. Beginner
’
s luck was supposed to be good, so what did that presage except even worse performances?

That job was over, but tonight she
’
d give it one last shot, write the company, find an excuse for her office
’
s incompetence, try to hang on awhile longer. Maybe she could say the video camera jammed, the investigator got sick, or
…

Toll-taking looked better and better.

She reached the end of the span and approached San Quentin, the biggest waste of real estate in the universe. Why reward hardcore prisoners with a view across the Bay to San Francisco
’
s lights and towers? They could relocate the inmates, put ranges and hot tubs in the cells and sell them for millions.

Who had Saint Quentin been, anyway, and what had he done wrong to have his name used this way?

And then the saint was forgotten as she approached the futuristic ferry landing under its canopy of struts and skylights awaiting the return of waterbound commuters. A better way to get places than the road, for certain, as witness the bottleneck directly ahead.

When she crept forward a hundred feet or so, she saw the reason. A dead deer halfway across the freeway entrance, its neck twisted out of all its living elegance. Poor stupid beast. Nearly a century to grasp the concept of motor vehicles, but the lesson wasn
’
t taking.

George, her companion, her lover, her whatever, thought cars and deer represented the new Darwinism.
“
What else kills them, anymore?
”
George asked.
“
The mountain lions
’
comeback is too little, too late.
”
It was illegal to harm a deer, except in the brief hunting season
—
although hunting wasn
’
t allowed anywhere locally she knew of. Deer were reviled and protected. In fact, Meatloaf, a neighbor
’
s Golden Retriever, had bitten a deer that later died, and although any idiot could see that Meatloaf had not brought down the animal
—
that it must have been ill and near death before encountering the old, bandanna-wearing dog
—
despite that, Meatloaf was on probation as a deerkiller. One more injured or maimed animal near his mouth, its owners were told
—
one more set of matching tooth prints
—
and Meatloaf would be history.

Meanwhile, the deer, the PLO of Marin, insisted that they
’
d never relinquished their ancestral lands. Which didn
’
t make the sight of the startled, stiff and still-beautiful carcasses less upsetting.

She finally made her way around the dead deer and onto the freeway, and once again returned to eager anticipation of home and ease. Her chair, her beer
…

Which was when she clearly remembered drinking the last beer in the house the night before. She was too tired even to feel as annoyed as she wanted to. Just get thee to a market. The nearest one. United. Right off the freeway. Ah, yes. Sophia Redmond
’
s daily stop for veggies. That woman was a tedious pain in the butt.

She backed into a parking slot and tried to remember what else her pantry lacked. Bacon, she decided. For the hell of it. Her cholesterol was low, her weight satisfactory, but George s wasn
’
t. Even at this age, level of mutual tolerance, and nonexistent legal bonds, even with all that going for them, coexistence with the opposite sex remained complicated. While she pondered the ethical ramifications of George
’
s blood chemistry versus her taste buds, the door of the car in the handicapped space against the curb opened and a cane emerged, followed slowly and heavily by none other than Sophia Redmond, grimacing and moving with a stiff-backed, glacial pace. A martyr to the need for fresh vegetables.

Her performance deserved an Oscar. Emma
’
s pulse accelerated. She waited until Sophia stiffly inched her way into the store before she herself bolted out of her car, opened its trunk and retrieved the always-present video camera. Then she rummaged through her briefcase until she found an unused piece of yellow lined paper and her pen.
SORRY ABOUT THE DENT!
she wrote in block letters.
GOOD THING
IT DOESN
’
T LOOK TOO HARD TO FIX. OR TOO EXPENSIVE. I DON
’
T THINK THE THING HANGING DOWN IS AN IMPORTANT PART, AND I
’
M SURE THEY CAN MATCH THE PAINT. IF I HAD A JOB I WOULD PAY YOU, I SWEAR, BUT TIMES ARE TOUGH. GOD WILL PROVIDE AND BLESS YOU AND FORGIVE ME. End of message.

She smiled at her prose as she walked to Sophia
’
s car and put the note under a windshield wiper. Then she postponed buying the beer and lolled in her car, hands folded across her chest, fighting the urge to doze in the late-afternoon sunshine. She imagined Sophia slogging through the aisles, asking everyone for help.
I
’
m hurt and deserted by my daughter. Could you get that can of soda off the top shelf for me?

Finally, there she was again, using the shopping cart as a walker, her cane protruding from between two paper bags. Emma sighed with gratification, slid lower in her seat so that the video-cam rested on the dashboard and was barely visible, and watched.

Sophia wheeled her cart to the car, then, seeing the note under the wiper, stopped, took the cane out of the cart and slowly made her way to where she could retrieve the paper. She read it, frowned, glanced at the driver
’
s-side door, near where she stood, then looked left and right. Then she read the note again, her expression darkening. Once more, she looked around, this time, not at her car, but at the parking lot, searching for the dent-maker.

Emma started the videotape as Sophia examined her front bumper, bending low to one side, and then the other. She made her way around to the back of the car where, standing tall, she looked down at the trunk and twisted to see the bumper. After another quick look at the parking lot, she was miraculously and totally healed so that she was able to do a deep knee bend, straighten up, bend from the waist, then lean over and crane her body left and right. She could have led a yoga class. Having thoroughly searched for the dent and found none, she stood up, brushed off the knees of her slacks, and briskly repeated the drill on the other side.

Emma controlled the urge to laugh out loud. She didn
’
t want to contaminate her tape with the same childish behavior Billie had shown. Sophia was demonstrating enough flexibility and balance for a career in ballet.

Finally, confused and enraged, Sophia ignored her cane altogether and without so much as a grimace, hoisted the two bags of food. Holding one in each arm, she walked to the trunk, put one bag on the ground, unlocked the trunk, bent over it when it was opened, and put her groceries away.

People were indeed incurably weird. All you had to do was figure out who they were versus what they wanted, and you had it made. Glenda Walker and Sophia Redmond. Two in one day, and, still better, she could bill both clients.

Emma had saved herself a client. Plus she
’
d saved Billie
’
s ass.

This one time. She didn
’
t intend to make a habit of it.

Or ever to tell her.

Twelve

Penny sat quietly on the back steps in the early-morning stillness and watched Mr. Oliver next door examine a plant. He half stooped, a coffee cup in one hand, the puzzling leaf in the other, engrossed and completely unaware of her. His posture, his caring, reminded her of long ago when she was little and feeling sick. Something about the unsaid words that filled the space between her mother and herself then, Mr. Oliver and his plants now.

But that was then. Her mother
—
that mother
—
had disappeared. Arthur had put a spell on her eyes and ears while he hit and shouted at her.

Mr. Oliver sighed so loudly she heard it on her side of the fence.
“
Time to go to work, good friends,
”
he said. Once she would have laughed at a man talking to leaves. Now she didn
’
t think it was so funny. He loved them. They were his first concern in the morning and his last at night.

Maybe everybody had things that filled their heads as soon as their dreams were over. She surely did. Mr. Oliver
’
s were nice, and the worry and care made them grow. Hers were not nice, not to be fed and let to flower. But even as she thought this, another part of her brain replayed the pictures she didn
’
t want to see, replayed the day the ice-thin image of her family had shattered once and for all.

Almost two months ago, she
’
d been out on her bike on a Thursday given over to teacher
’
s meetings at her school, but not at Wesley
’
s. She
’
d had no responsibilities, no guilt, and she set out with no known destination or purpose except to work herself and move. She headed south, toward the Golden Gate and Sausalito, where she wanted to sit in the little park and watch the City across the Bay.

It had been a good plan, except that as she pedaled down Bridgeway toward the park, she felt hungry and decided to buy a bagel at Molly Stone
’
s. And parked in front of the market, she saw a dark blue, waxed and shining Lexus with the license plate JUS KIDN. Arthur
’
s true love, pampered and adored, always garaged and even dusted, for God
’
s sake. He said he kept it in perfect shape and Penny couldn
’
t borrow it because it was a mobile ad for Just Kidding, the children
’
s-wear
“
outlet
”
store, final resting place of the samples and stock of the lines Arthur represented.

But the store was in Novato, the other end of the county, as was their house in San Rafael and Arthur
’
s office in Terra Linda for his repping. He literally had no business in southern Marin. Besides, this morning, after criticizing everybody else, he
’
d said he was
“
off to the salt mines.
”
He said that every day, as if it were witty or ever had been. Then he added that he
’
d be in Novato, getting a special sale ready.

She stared at the license plate, as if it might rearrange itself into something less familiar and troubling. And then at the supermarket.

Her stepfather
never
did the food-shopping. Never even helped. She
’
d had to drive her mother every single day to her big adventure
—
food-buying. Arthur wouldn
’
t pick up a loaf of bread on his way home. Even if he
’
d had an impulse to suddenly buy a treat for himself, why detour to Sausalito for it? Besides, he was so miserly, he
’
d never enter an upscale market like this. Arthur had told Penny she
’
d better find a way to put herself through college because she and her mother spent so much money, he couldn
’
t afford one more expense. Something smoky and caustic filled the pit of her stomach.