Raked Over

“It’s not adding up, Betty,” I said as I drove into her driveway in Colorado Springs. Betty Huckleston always liked to give a double blast of the horn when we pulled in to let the family know she was home, and in response her husband Richard stepped out the front door to wave at us from the porch.

  “Look—what we know, based on what Andrea said, is that Barry lied about how and where he met Shannon, and discounted her immigrant integration work; lied about how Shannon had gotten her job at Binder Enterprises; lied about their time in Santa Fe,” Betty said. “The guy’s a liar! Well, we knew that. But why? What is he hiding about Shannon? Or is Andrea Brubaker lying? She’s lying, maybe! Somebody’s lying! Who? That’s what I want to know!”

  “Yeah, me, too.” I said. Gad, we’ve been rehashing this for hours on the drive back from Santa Fe. Although I was more than happy to have Betty’s feedback, we just weren’t getting anywhere.

  “And speaking of Andrea,” she said, “You know what I can’t believe? That she didn’t recognize you! Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad she didn’t! Would have been a bit sticky, eh? But still! How many times did she see you at Stedmans? Didn’t you get stuck filling all of her orders because your boss, the malevolent Chloë, was her rep?”

  “I told you we were invisible ‘in the back’. Now you see. We were the rabble to use, but avoid. I think they really felt themselves superior to us. This time, I guess—” I stopped in thought. “Well, this time maybe I believed and presented myself as an equal and, I guess she accepted it. So I didn’t seem like the same person to her.”

  “You’re just more of the person you are now, you know what I mean?” Betty smiled.

  Yeah, I did, sometimes. “Hey, I gotta get on the road. If you come up with anything, call me! At any rate, great to be with you, glad you could come, thanks again for your help!” Richard finished unloading Betty’s numerous bags and parcels as we gave each other hugs. I was anxious to get on the road home, so I started north on I-25, hoping to miss the Denver rush hour traffic.

  Once I was north of the E-470 exchange, and out of the worst of the urban congestion, I decided to finally return a days-old call from Liz Burzachiello, but got her answering machine instead, “Yo! You talkin’ to me? Leave it in a message! Ciao!” I left the message that I’d be home soon and to call there, so I wouldn’t have to fumble for the phone while I was driving. I wanted to think about the information I’d gathered in New Mexico, and what I was going to do with it.

  But very soon my life in Colorado took precedence in my brain, and I began doing my business Vines work scheduling, email composing, and order calculations all in my head, reminding me of Hafiz, the Sufi poet: “The mind is ever a tourist/Wanting to touch and buy new things/Then toss them into an/Already filled closet.”

  Nothing else would fit in my quickly filled closet of a brain.