Francie's Got a Gun, page 19
It’s me! Marietta! I’m the one you’re looking for.
The feeling was novel—she saw herself as invisible, on the edges, slipping like a shadow through the fingers of other people. Almost always, she had a feeling she could disappear without a ripple.
The air was cool, heavy when she got off and walked to the babysitter’s front door. Sam was the last child there. His stroller folded and wet on the uncovered porch. “I’m so sorry.” Marietta fished out the folded ten-dollar bill. “I went to a yoga class at the library,” Marietta heard herself explaining. She was hearing an echo of someone she recognized but had not met for a very long time. The girl at the back of the class, declaring her wit. Smoking with the burnouts behind the gym. Running through the woods after him, lungs aching, trying to catch up. Making choices, doing things (brave, rash, selfish).
“Oh?” said the babysitter. She said, “You forgot to pack extra diapers, he’s kinda wet.”
It was really strange, actually, Marietta said, not like yoga at all. The teacher, or whatever she was, gave me her blanket, and we sat for so long my foot fell asleep, and at the end, at the end—I basically died, it felt like.
But she was telling this story not to the babysitter but to the top of Sam’s head, pushing him to the nearest bus stop.
At the end—I wanted more.
“Miss? Are you okay?”
A hand lightly touched Marietta’s shoulder, squeezed. Marietta opened her eyes. The volunteer in the hijab offered her hand to Marietta, helped her to standing.
“I have to walk out the way I walked in,” Marietta said. She was stuck in the centre of the hospital’s labyrinth, nothing but tiles on the floor, and she was terrified of being pulled through the wrong way, skipping any steps, not meeting her fate.
“Of course,” the volunteer said. “Can I get you something? A glass of water?”
“Coffee? On the house?” one of the women at the Tim’s counter offered, calling over.
Marietta’s hand went from her lips to her heart. She was afraid—she was afraid of all the paths, even the one most familiar, the one she’d followed all this way, chasing after him, catching him, throwing her body against his, a warm wall against which she beat herself, willingly.
The volunteer held her elbow, as if Marietta might topple over.
Was she about to fall? Or fly? Or float away like dust?
Just then, Marietta saw herself in the centre, rippling with energy, tense with nerves, half-starved. But it didn’t suck to be her. This is my body! This is what’s holding me up! Just then, Marietta tried to step back through the labyrinth, but just then, she wished it were a maze, a maze would make more sense. She couldn’t keep walking the same damn path.
Marietta said to the volunteer holding her arm, “It’s okay, thank you. I’m going to be fine.”
The young woman let go of Marietta’s arm, even if she didn’t believe her, and just then, without even thinking, Marietta moved across the tiles and broke out.
“Coffee would be fucking amazing,” Marietta said to the woman behind the counter.
“We’re making you a toasted raisin bagel with cream cheese, too, hon.”
* * *
What mattered?
Only that Irene had been invited back into the picture, invited to help her son. A long prayer answered, no matter the unforeseen consequences. God, give me back my son, give him back to me. And God answered: yes. It was very important not to ask what payment God might require in return.
Marietta’s voice, strangely steady: “Can you come stay here for a bit, Irene?”
Irene was just home from church, she would have driven directly to the little house, as soon as she’d hung up the phone. Her daughter-in-law hadn’t apologized, but what mattered? Irene expected neither grace nor gracefulness from Marietta. “I’ll come right away!”
“No! Please don’t.”
Oh! Well.
“You’ll need me tomorrow morning, then? To pick Luce up at the police station? Is that what they said?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind. But what time?”
“Like, I literally don’t know, Irene. I have no fucking idea.”
Oh dear. Okay.
“I’ll call the police station and find out what to do.”
“Thank you. Thanks, Irene. I really mean it. Thank you.”
Oh.
“You’re welcome, Marietta.”
The police station told Irene to call the hospital. The hospital transferred her to a nurse, the nurse said she didn’t know, a doctor would call back, and the long and short of it was that Irene could collect Luce at the hospital first thing tomorrow morning, and drive him to the station herself for the paperwork. “What paperwork, exactly?”
No one had an answer to that, it was like it was insignificant to them, a small administrative detail, a box to be ticked, not the end of the world, descent into shame, her son on the six o’clock news and ladies from church clogging the phone line with their unsolicited sympathy.
There he was, there he is! Coming out through the hospital’s revolving doors, limping, of course, and a cast on his arm.
“What are you being charged with?” Oh dear, that was not how she’d meant to begin.
“I don’t know, Mom. Where’s Marietta?”
“She couldn’t come, she had to work. But I’m here!”
Her son slid into the passenger seat of her sedan, and Irene couldn’t help but feel that something was off, and not what she’d expected. He looked okay, which was strange, she thought he’d look worse. He had an air about him of distraction, troubling intentions bubbling under the surface. They didn’t talk much on the drive to the police station; Irene asked about his arm—it was fractured, didn’t need surgery, he said. “What about your head? Marietta said you have a concussion.” And he just shrugged.
There was no right thing to say, Irene began to feel ever more strongly. Only a selection of wrong things, slightly wrong to altogether wrong, all bound to irritate and estrange him further.
Still, after she’d parked at the police station, she said: “Should I come in?”
“This won’t take long,” he said.
How on earth would he know? “But what’s the plan, Luce? What will you do after this?”
“Go home.”
Irene decided to accompany her son into the station. But she could see, as soon as she was inside the bland, air-conditioned foyer, that she didn’t belong and wasn’t prepared in the way that Luce was, he stood cool and detached while she dug through her purse, her mind racing and fluttering. She’d forgotten to tell him and suddenly had the urge to whisper that she’d burnt all those things in his bedroom—the evidence! She tugged on the sleeve of his shirt. But he didn’t even acknowledge her. He was already miles ahead.
The charge was driving while under the influence of an illegal substance. Luce signed the paperwork (shouldn’t he talk to a lawyer?) which stated that he promised to appear at his court date, some weeks from today, and the following conditions applied: no drug or alcohol use, no drug paraphernalia, no weapons, no driving (licence suspended), and he had to stay at his own residence, he could not move around.
“House arrest?” Irene wondered out loud.
“Not like that, ma’am. We just need to know where to find him.” Now the officer behind the desk, a nice, round young woman who looked healthy as a horse, turned and addressed Luce: “You’re advised to get counselling, get yourself into a treatment programme.”
“Already taken care of,” said Luce. Was he flirting with this young woman? His posture was amiable, persuasive.
“Okay, then, you are good to go.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
He was flirting alright. What was wrong with this man, her son? Did he have to be so forward and bright, did he have to snooker everyone, make everyone fall for him? What was his problem, and was it her fault?
“What about Marietta?” she asked him in the car. But he didn’t reply.
“You were flirting with that police officer back there! I saw it with my own eyes!”
He said, Ha! and rolled down the window. “You drive like an old lady, Ma.”
“Because I am.”
But she wasn’t that old—she was fifty-nine, only twenty-six years older than him.
“I’m glad you’re getting counselling,” she said.
“Group therapy bullshit.”
“Is that what they call it?”
Irene was surprised to get a real laugh out of him, some warmth. Maybe he was coming closer. He said, “I’m going to need you to drive me out to your house.”
She said, “But I burned everything, Luce. In the burn barrel.”
And she lost him again.
“You did what?”
“Luce, didn’t they give you something at the hospital? For pain?”
“Where’d you say Marietta is today? I want to say hello.”
But Irene didn’t know. The Haven? The Grave? The Heavenly Home? The name of a place where nobody wanted to end up.
“Luce, you’ll see her when she’s done work. We can surprise her, pick her up! We’ll go out for dinner, my treat. Anywhere special you’d like to go?”
“Let me out. I need some air. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
“But your concussion, your arm!” And that older injury, from before—his leg, which she stopped herself from mentioning, just barely.
“Ma! Stop the car.”
And she didn’t know how to keep him, so she pulled over and let him go.
* * *
Liane knew the guy as soon as he walked through the diner’s front door, the little bell tinkling its welcoming chime. The bell was the reason she’d wanted to work here, that and the big front windows on which it would be her job to write the daily specials. Liane liked the cheeriness of the windows, a blank slate just for her, and she liked the bell’s warning; she didn’t think Seth would come looking for her, particularly, but just in case. You could hear the bell chime through the whole diner. Depending on where she was, she could hustle to the back and peek out from the kitchen before showing herself.
Liane was in the kitchen, talking to the cook. Slow day. She moved to the order counter and looked to see who’d come in.
A family, including a baby, that would mean a mess to clean up—and the man, he looked familiar, the way he was swinging his leg.
Shit.
Not this guy. This asshole. But she wasn’t afraid of him. This guy had more reasons to avoid Seth than she did.
Of course, he had her gun. Or he’d had it, at one point, not so long ago. Right before she’d picked up and left Seth, after shit went down, it went down. She left while Seth was on the toilet. Never said goodbye, neither. The ladies behind the makeup counter at the mall got down to business when you turned up with a black eye, looking to cover it up: “It’s an art, honey, and someone needs to know how to do it right. It’s all about the blending.” Liane knew all about the blending, and the art, it was the kindness she came for—kind hands, hands that knew, that understood. Purposeful, direct.
The eye was healed, now.
Liane’d kept the makeup and added a wig, a form of disguise she’d refined, even if it looked a bit slapped together, even if she wasn’t completely committed to it. She figured if Seth wanted to find her, he’d find her. If he wanted to kill her, he’d kill her. But also, if he wanted to have her killed, he wouldn’t send this guy.
Liane picked up an armful of menus, adjusted the wig, and sailed out. The guy with the bum leg had brought the whole fam-damily: little girl, baby, wife, older woman—maybe his mother. Nothing looked particularly wrong about them, but nothing looked particularly right. The guy had a fresh cast on one arm, for example. The grandmother’s purse was unzipped, wide open, swinging from her wrist. The girl’s ponytail was a mess, hair picked loose, hiding half her face.
Liane showed them to a booth near the front. A bit early for supper. “Can I get anyone a drink?”
But these people weren’t ready to make decisions, Liane saw, so she carried out a pitcher of water and glasses for everyone. A plastic cup for the baby, which the wife appreciated. She was holding the baby on her lap. “Do you have a high chair we could use…Diane?” The wife squinted and read the name written in flowery script on the tag pinned to Liane’s bright-yellow shirt, yellow for sunshine, Liane assumed, like the name of this place, Sunshine Grill. The uniform’s shade clashed with the purples and reds of Liane’s wig and nails, but the fit was alright for earning tips, tight and low across the chest. Truth was, Liane didn’t much feel like dragging out that damn high chair from the back, a plastic monstrosity that weighed half a ton, but it was nice to be addressed by name, even if the name was not exactly your own.
“Let me tell you the specials, and I’ll be back with the high chair.”
Snarled with cobwebs, sticky from some other kid’s lunch, flecks of mouse dirt in the grooves of the seat. Liane flicked at the chair with the cloth she used to wipe down the tables.
“Good luck with it,” she said to the wife. The woman was wearing a uniform too, no name tag, just an iron-on patch that read Komfort Kare. Liane found herself looking a little too long at her, curious to know how much she knew about this man she’d shackled herself to. Dark circles under her eyes, no makeup, no adornments, but she kept herself skinny alright, and her hair was punk rock, Liane liked it. With a bit of mascara, some colour on her cheeks, a lipstick that popped—and Liane could take care of those nails—the woman would stop traffic.
The little girl was looking at her. Uh-oh. Liane recognized that look—I know you.
Liane hooded her eyes, she did not return the familiarity of the girl’s gaze, she knew how to make a person uncertain, shut them down. Do I know you from somewhere?
Do you?
But she met the man’s eyes, dead-on. Did he know who she was?
Where’s my gun, you prick, I want it back.
She watched the family from the order window, leaning on the counter in the kitchen. Her eyes were sharp as an eagle’s, she’d never needed glasses, and she could see them reflected in the long mirror hanging on the wall opposite the booths—the back of the wife’s head, the baby in the filthy chair, and the man; the girl and the older lady were hidden by the wooden divider that separated the booths along the wall. Liane felt a bad feeling rising, same one she used to get almost every damn day, from the time she was just a little kid.
She’d never outrun it.
Might as well invite it closer, welcome it in.
She sipped from a glass of Coke, no ice, and looked at the man. His face was as small as a baby’s fingernail, but she could see from the way he was moving, he was in need of something, and nothing was going to stop him from taking it.
“Platters up!”
Liane carried out the food, this was a dance she excelled at, plates piled up to her chin. It was a quiet table. Not a one of them said thank you. When she got back to the kitchen, Liane turned up the radio, all-day non-stop classic rock, whatever that meant—pasty-faced music for pasty-faced food. The cook was from Hong Kong, and at the end of their shifts he’d cook up a meal worth eating, fried rice spiced sweet and hot, with flecks of mushroom, or a soup with greens thickened with egg, or noodles with tiny, salty shrimp and eggplant. Nothing you’d find on the menu.
Here came trouble.
This guy, leaning his elbows on the counter, ducking his head to find her through the order window. “Problem with the food?” she asked him.
“Not a bit,” he said. “Kudos to the chef.”
The cook gave him a nod.
“Just looking for a little something extra.”
“Oh?”
“Thought you might be able to help…Diane.”
Liane debated. He didn’t know her name, that was for sure. But he knew who she was, he’d sniffed her out, sensed weakness. She chose not to look at the cook, and the cook chose not to look at her.
Liane came out the swinging door, and this guy followed her to the end of the little hall, where they stored crap like that high chair. There was a door here, under an unlit Exit sign, blocked by a stack of boxes and a footstool, but it was operable, when she pushed the bar the door opened, and she squeezed past the boxes, down one big step into the alley, blinking in the bright sunshine. The actual sunshine.
“What do you want?” Liane said. She lit a cigarette. The guy was struggling to get around the boxes. His leg was giving him pain, and he was wearing that cast on his arm, and she didn’t feel like helping him, not a bit. “Don’t let it close or we’ll be locked out,” she said. Not that she cared—she wanted to know if he did.
He stepped carefully into the alley and held on to the door, propping it open with his shoulder. Oh, he cared. He didn’t want his family to know what he was up to.
“Want one?” she offered.
“Not my drug of choice.” He smiled. Well. Fuck him and his fucking green eyes. Smiling at her like she’d give him whatever he asked for. “I think you know what I want.”
Liane shrugged, her mouth pulling itself against her will into a grin. She adjusted the wig without thinking, ash falling like fairy dust.
With some effort, he reached his left hand, the unbroken one, into his back pocket and showed her some cash. He checked his shoulder. “Help a man out, Diane?”
As it happened, Liane didn’t need what Seth sold, that stuff didn’t relieve the kind of pain she happened to feel, but she’d dumped a bottle of pills, loose, into the bottom of her purse on her way out the door. Insurance. “What’s that all about?” Liane gestured with her chin at the cast.
“Lost a bet,” he said.
I’ll bet you did. I’ll bet you’ve lost a few.
