An idea occurred to her. After driving a few blocks away, she parked in another cul-de-sac. She scrabbled through the contents of her trunk, all gifts from her previous boyfriend. Evan was an insurance adjuster who believed in being prepared for any type of calamity. Her trunk held flares, a tire pressure gauge, a fire extinguisher, a gray scratchy wool blanket, a tube of something called adhesive bond, extra fan belts, a red tool-chest full of Sears Craftsmen tools that she had no idea how to use, and a yellow banner that read “Call Police” in foot-high letters. Evan’s last Valentine’s Day gift had been a roll of quarters in case she ever broke down by the side of the road conveniently within walking distance of a pay phone. It hadn’t escaped Claire’s notice that his gift had cost just ten dollars. Finally Claire found what she half-remembered from Christmas three years ago, a brown fiberboard clipboard with attached pen. On top was an accident report form dense with type.
Slipping in behind the wheel, she drove back to the Sanchez house and parked in front. Not giving herself time to think, Claire picked up her clipboard and walked to the door. The fake brass knocker gave a hollow clunk when she let it fall. Narrow plates of yellow smoked glass were set on either side of the door, and for a long minute she watched the empty hall. In a hidden recess she spotted a doorbell. She pressed that, too, but the chimes died away without anyone appearing.
Claire was about to leave when a woman opened the door. Her dark straight hair was feathered against her cheeks, and she was wiping her hands on a white apron worn over navy blue leggings and a tunic. Cindy Sanchez, with an olive complexion that belied her white-bread first name.
“Hello,” Claire began speaking rapidly, trying to get some forward momentum going. “I’m from Alliance Survey and I’m asking homeowners in the neighborhood if they would be interested in supporting a bond measure to add a neighborhood playground for children. Could you tell me, ma’am, if you would vote for or against such a measure if it would add” - she pulled a figure from the air -”fifty-nine cents for every thousand dollars of your home’s assessed value?”
“Pardon?” Her hands still twisted in the apron, the woman looked at Claire with wide eyes. “My English is not so good.”
“Could I come in and explain it to you further, Mrs. Sanchez?”
The woman raised her hand to hide her smile. “‘Mrs. Sanchez?’ Mrs. Sanchez, she working. I am Josefina.”
“Oh, well, perhaps you could help me,” Claire said and put her foot in the door.
Dropping her eyes, Josefina took a step back. With her toe, Claire nudged the door open wider.
“Can I come in for a moment? I really, really, really need to use,” she lowered her voice, “the ladies’ room. The b[rp1] ano?” she repeated, thankful to remember the word from her Let’s Learn Spanish tape, detritus from just one of a thousand self-improvement schemes she had undertaken and then abandoned.
Not waiting for the woman to assent, Claire walked into the Sanchez home. It was decorated in pinks and blues. In front of an unused fireplace, a pair of three-foot-tall blue-painted wooden geese sat facing each other, each wearing a white ribbon around its neck. But Claire wasn’t looking at the decor, with its emphasis on knickknacks and manufactured cuteness. Instead she was hunting for family portraits. There wasn’t one in the living room, which flowed into a dining area on the right. She began to walk down the hall on the left.
“Is it down here?” she asked Josefina, who was scurrying behind her, looking as if she wished she could find a way to retake control of the situation. There was a single photo in the hall, but it was an eighty-year old hand-colored print of a woman holding an impossibly red-cheeked baby. Claire could see the bathroom at the end of the hall, but instead she opened one of the other doors.
“Is it in here?” she asked as she quickly the surveyed the room. A girl’s room, for sure, a girl who wanted to be both a child and an adult. Claire sympathized. Sometimes she had the same problem. Above the bed, strewn with stuffed animals, was a poster of a boy-actor Claire barely recognized. But no photographs, not on the narrow study desk, not on the walls. Was this Zach’s sister’s room?
A hand touched her elbow. “Excuse me - this way?” Josefina said, and pointed toward the bathroom. She looked frightened but firm.
Sitting on the toilet, Claire let her head droop until her forehead touched the clipboard resting across her knees. Josefina hadn’t stirred from the other side of the door, and she had the feeling the woman was listening to make sure Claire didn’t steal anything. Chances that Josefina would let her wander anyplace else were slim. Plan A and Plan B hadn’t worked - but what was Claire going to do for an encore?
As she flushed the toilet and washed her hands, she realized that the clipboard still might help her. She came out of the bathroom, walked right past Josefina and settled herself on the couch. “Now, I just have a few questions I need to ask,” she said, looking down at the words “Other Driver’s Ins. No.” “How many children are in the home?”
“Just one little girl. Alexa.”
Claire made a checkmark in the middle of the space for “Date of Accident.”
“And she is how old?”
“Ten years.” Claire wrote this answer down under “Other Driver’s Name.”
“And would she be interested in having a playground nearby?”
Looking uncomfortable, Josefina shrugged. Claire couldn’t tell if it was because she didn’t have the answer or didn’t understand the question.
“What does she do in her free time?”
There was a long silence, then finally Josefina put her index fingers in her ears. Claire thought the woman was saying the questions were overwhelming her, until she realized that she was miming something, the words coming haltingly. “Alexa, she all the time listens to the headphones.”
Claire was trying to think of a way to find out what the girl looked like when the front door opened and a tall blonde woman rushed in, followed more slowly by a short, plump freckled girl. Her hair was a brilliant orange. With a sinking heart, Claire knew that this child must be Alexa. The blonde woman looked Claire up and down with a frown.
“Who is this, Josefina? Haven’t I told you not to let anyone in when I’m not here?”
“Oh, ma’am, oh, it is, it is...” Josefina stuttered.
Tapping the pointed toe of her black leather pump, the other woman drew herself up to her full height, her red-manicured hands on her hips.
“Cindy Weaver!” Claire cut in.
Cindy wheeled. “Do I know you?”
Minor had served as a feeder school for all the rural areas around it, so there had been about four hundred in Claire’s graduating class. Including Cindy Weaver, head cheerleader, party girl and general bitch.
Claire put out her hand. “Claire Montrose. We both went to Minor High.”
Cindy cocked her head to one side, her frosty blue eyes regarding Claire. “I’m afraid I really don’t remember you.”
Claire had a hundred memories of Cindy. Cindy sauntering down the hall wearing a short black dress and black pumps with lace-edged white ankle socks, a half-dozen boys vying to talk to her. Cindy leading a routine, her large breasts seemingly without benefit of a bra. Cindy pulling Claire’s hair when she sat behind her in social studies, for no reason that Claire had ever figured out. Cindy showing up late for graduation rehearsal, her face pale and her eyes red. Later, Claire had heard that Cindy had spent the morning aborting the fullback’s baby. All Claire said was, “We went to Minor High together. I remember you from the games.”
Cindy flushed and her face relaxed. “I do cheerleading consulting now for college sororities,” she said, straightening her shoulders with pride.
“I’m going to my room,” Alexa announced, and Cindy gave an absent nod, her eyes still on Claire.
Josefina was easing her way back to the kitchen. Claire nodded in her direction. “When she answered the door, I thought she was Cindy Sanchez.”
“What?” Cindy jerked her head back
, affronted. “We’re not Mexican. Kevin’s family came over from Spain in the seventeen hundreds.” She lowered her voice. “Although sometimes it comes in handy to let people think your looks match your name. I think Josefina was surprised that we didn’t speak any Spanish. I have to explain everything to her in the simplest terms. Although I shouldn’t complain. You can get these people for two dollars an hour, and they think you’re paying them a fortune. They’re happy, you’re happy, and they never heard of Social Security or withholding.” She cocked her head to one side. “Maybe I do remember you. Weren’t you the one who used to walk down the hall reading a book?” Claire nodded, swamped with a sudden memory of how a foot had come out of nowhere to trip her once. Cindy had been one of the people on the sidelines, laughing. “What are you doing these days, anyway?”
Claire walked to the front door, wagging her clipboard. “IRS, at your service,” she said, and then closed the door on Cindy’s round lipsticked O of a mouth.
TAXMAN
Chapter Nineteen
“Everybody ready?” Claire whispered, her hand ready to knock on Jean’s door. From inside the apartment came the muffled sound of applause.
Claire seldom saw her mother in anything other than the soft light of the TV, so when Jean answered the door the sight of her face in the porch light was something of a shock. Only fifty-two, Jean looked at least ten years older. Foundation was caked in the wrinkles of her cheeks, and her eyes were outlined with black stripes a quarter-inch wide. The calls of the QualProd pitchman streamed past them into the air.
Jean took in their presence. “What are you guys doing here?”
Claire took a deep breath. “Mom, we are here to talk to you about a serious problem.”
Jean looked from one face to the next, seeking reassurance. “Is somebody sick? Does - does somebody have cancer or AIDS or something?” She noted who was missing and put her hand over her heart. “Where’s Eric? Ohmigod, is something wrong with Eric?” On the screen behind her, a woman was using what appeared to be a vacuum attachment to style a man’s hair.
Like the mother she was, Susie made a shushing sound. Claire said, “Nobody’s sick. Nothing’s wrong. With us, I mean,” she hastily amended. “But there is something wrong, Mom. And I think you know what it is.” She marched past her mother and picked up the remote. She pointed it at the TV, now topped with a collection of dolls from around the world, and pressed the off button. Jean gasped as the picture shrank down into a pinpoint of light that flickered and disappeared.
“I need you to listen to a letter we all wrote to you.” Claire cleared her throat and began to read, “Dear Mom” -.
“What is this all about?” From the way Jean was shaking her head from side to side, Claire was sure she knew the answer.
Claire tried to find her place in the letter she, Susie and J.B. had written, following the instructions J.B. had downloaded from the Internet about how to confront an addict. Claire had always thought the Internet was where kids got information about how to build pipe bombs or where men met chat room virtual vixens who talked - or typed - dirty until the credit card ran dry. In the past week, she had realized the Internet had more uses than she had ever dreamed of.
“Mom, you can ask questions after I’m done, but for now I need you to listen.” Claire began again. “Dear Mom, we are here tonight to tell you that you have a problem. You are addicted to the QualProd shopping channel. You” -.
“What!” her mother shrieked. “I can’t believe I am hearing this!”
Claire soldiered on. “Your addiction has caused you to cut yourself off from your family. For example, Susie and J.B. invited you to their house for a New Year’s Eve party, but you told them you were busy.”
“I was!”
“Busy?” With hooked fingers, Susie made quotes around the word. “I found out later that you were sitting her in front of the television set the whole time, watching some silly ‘party’ with Lawrence Silver bouncing around shilling exercise videos and motivational tapes.”
“Those were good tapes!” Jean interjected, stung. “You should borrow them sometime, maybe learn about how to quit smoking. I don’t know how you can lecture me when both you and J.B. still smoke. Shopping never killed anyone!” There was a long pause, and when she spoke again her voice had dropped to a near-whisper. “Besides, I didn’t want to be the only single person at your party.”
In a gentle voice, J.B. said, “Jean, you’re not going to meet anyone sitting here in front of the TV.”
Jean gestured at the now dark screen. “But these people are like my friends.”
“Like is the operative word, mom,” Claire said. “They’re sitting in a studio a thousand miles from here, not in your living room. And after they’re off the air, they go home to their mansion that you helped them buy. You don’t ever talk with them. All you do is listen to their sales pitch. What kind of friendship is that?”
“But they talk about their lives. I know all about their boyfriends and their children. Half of my clothes now are the same ones they wear. We laugh together, we cry together” -.
“And you buy alone,” Susie cut in. “Do you honestly think they have this crap in their own homes?” From the cluttered coffee table she picked up a wicker basket filled with fake flowers, knocking over a candle shaped like a kitten in the process.
Claire said, “The whole set-up is designed to make you buy, Mom. They tell you that there are only a few left, so you’d better act fast. They tell you they will never offer it again. They tell you that you’re getting a numbered, limited edition - and then when it comes, you find out you have number three-thousand, nine-hundred and seventy-eight.”
“Are you saying I’m not worth it? That I don’t deserve a treat?” In her mother’s voice, Claire could hear the echoes of the QualProd mantra.
They had anticipated this response. Claire made the planned rebuttal. “Mom, let’s face it. You’re buying clothes you don’t wear, fitness equipment you don’t use, cookware you never cook in, and porcelain dolls that just sit in a box on the floor of the closet.”
Susie waved her hands to indicate the envelopes spilling across the coffee table, the boxes heaped in the corner. “You used to hide the boxes and bills, but now you’re so sucked in you don’t even bother.”
“Quit lecturing me! Remember, I am your mother, young lady!”
Claire realized things were getting off track. She found her place again in the letter and read on. “We are acting out of love and concern. This is an illness, Mom. You’re sick. We’re not saying you’re bad. But we have to point out the consequences of your behavior. Your addiction to QualProd has caused an ethical deterioration in your behavior. For example, you have broken Susie’s trust by trying to steal from her.”
“I was borrowing,” Jean interjected. “Borrowing, not stealing!”
Susie parried her objection. “If I hadn’t caught you with your hand around my Visa card, you never would have told me what you were planning on doing.”
Jean’s face fell. Sensing her vulnerability, Susie thrust home with the point they had all agreed was the strongest. “I can no longer trust you with Eric. I am no longer going to bring him here. Not when you’re like this.”
“Like this?” Jean echoed. A flush was building underneath the layers of makeup. “Like what? You talk like I’m some alcoholic. I’m not off in the corner tipping a bottle into my mouth. All I’m doing is having a little fun - and getting a bunch of great bargains. At QualProd, you can buy things you can’t get anywhere else. Look at this!” She shook her hand in their faces. On one finger was a gold-colored ring with a faceted stone as big a dime. “This Dymand ring cost me less than a hundred dollars, and it’s modeled directly on a ring Lady Di used to wear. Now you show me a store where I could get a deal like that.”
“But you are buying stuff you don’t need, and in the process you are neglecting your other financial needs,” Claire interjected. “Mom, this morning I checked with the electric peo
ple and the cable people and your landlord.”
Jean’s head snapped back as if she had been slapped. “You had no right to do that!”
Claire had to look away. “Maybe not, but they told me that your bills were at least three months behind. And the electric people told me that when they threatened to cut you off, you sent them a check you “forgot” to sign. God knows what your credit card bill is like.”
Jean began to sob, putting her hands over her face. “I haven’t opened it for a while. It’s over five thousand, I know that.”
Claire saw the shock register on Susie and J.B.’s faces. Jean got by on a small monthly disability check from a local grocery store chain, the result of a fall years ago on a squashed Thompson grape. It would take years of those checks to pay back the credit card - and that was if Jean stopped buying anything at all.
Claire held out the phone. “You have to take the first step, Mom. Call the cable company and tell them you don’t want the QualProd channel any more.”
“I can’t do that. I won’t! This is stupid. I can stop shopping at any time.”
“Mom, listen to yourself. It’s bigger than you. You have to give yourself up to a higher power. If you don’t take this step, then I won’t be able to bring Eric here any more.”
Jean’s head dropped so that her coarse blond hair hung in her eyes. She held out her empty hand for the phone.
CHK PLZ
Chapter Twenty
With only her elongated shadow for company, Claire made her way up Forty-fifth Avenue, past parked cars and still sleeping houses. She was trying a new tack that she had read someone - was it the Australian Boyscouts? - used to cover a lot of ground without growing fatigued: alternately walking fifty paces and then running fifty. In her case, the running portion was more like a slow jog, but still, it felt like progress. Claire welcomed the feeling of accomplishment, as slight as it was. If only she felt she were getting closer to finding Lori’s daughter. The only avenue that remained unexplored was the Price’s child. But if their daughter turned out to be a dead-end, too, then that meant the Lieblings’ dead child was also Zach’s sister.