Exhaustion engulfed her. "I need so much there's no point in starting to list it all."
J. B. shrugged, his skull-and-crossbones earring flickering in the passing streetlights. He and Susie lived on the southeast edge of town in an area where house fires were often fatal because people couldn't find the key in time to unlock their barred doors and windows. He pulled to a stop in front of the small turquoise-painted house he and Susie rented. The driveway was full of vehicles in various stages of decrepitude, with several more cars parked along the curb.
J. B. turned off the ignition, but made no move to get out. "Why don't you just tell me what you need."
"Okay." Claire took a deep breath and decided to take him at his word. "I need something to eat. And a car. And a little bit of money. Oh, and a place to sleep where no one will come looking for me. And ..." Claire's voice wavered on the edge of hysterical laughter, but she brought it into line. "I need to look like a completely different person. Think you can manage all that?"
EZ4U2SA
Chapter 26What she needed first, according to J.B., was an omelet. He paid no attention to her protests that she would be happy to eat something uncomplicated, like a bowl of cereal. Soon she was sitting at the Formica-topped table in their miniature dining room, marveling at the enticing smell of sizzling butter.
"Won't we wake up Susie and Eric?"
"Wouldn't kill either of them if we do. They both like to see you, and they neither one of them get the chance much."
That was true enough. Claire had only been to this house once before, when she helped them move in. And that had been before Eric was born. She watched as }. B. tilted the pan back and forth, then used a spatula to pick up the edge of the omelet and let uncooked egg run underneath. Giving the pan an occasional shake, he opened the refrigerator with his free hand and took out a Tupperware container. He shook something brown and glistening into the center of the omelet, folded it in half, and then let it brown on both sides before sliding it on a plate and placing it ceremoniously in front of Claire. Total elapsed time: five minutes.
With the first rich and woodsy forkful, her mouth filled with saliva.
"Mmm—what is this?"
"Chanterelles. We went out in the woods by Estacada to pick them today." He looked at the clock built into the oven. "I guess I mean yesterday. Then when we got home, I sauted them with butter and a little sherry and diced Walla Walla sweet onions. We had omelets for dinner, so that's just leftovers."
If so, they were the most delicious leftovers Claire had ever tasted. "How'd you know what mushrooms were safe to pick?"
"Oh, chanterelles aren't tricky. Even if you don't know much about mushrooms, you can't go wrong with chanterelles. Or morels. There's nothing bad that looks like either of them. My dad taught me lots of stuff you can eat that grows wild in the woods."
"What happened to him?"
"He got killed in a logging accident when I was thirteen, and my mom moved us here. From my mom, I learned how to grow pretty much anything."
Including, Claire thought, but tactfully refrained from saying, the basement full of marijuana that had put him in jail for eight months nearly ten years before. That had happened right after he met Susie. Claire had thought Susie was a fool for sticking with this man with his long hair, tattoos and what struck her as an affinity for trouble. But now that J. B. knew Claire had her own problems, he was revealing a new side to himself.
Her plate was clean except for a gloss of butter when a soft touch on her shoulder made her whirl around.
"Claire? What are you doing here?" Susie stood behind her, hugging herself in her purple terrycloth bathrobe.
J. B. answered for her. "She needed someone to help her."
Susie raised her eyebrows. "And you called here?"
Claire was embarrassed at her inability to find an answer. For a moment they simply looked at each other, each gazing into a nearly identical pair of blue eyes. Then Susie's question about calling sparked a memory in Claire. In her mind's eye, she saw Paul Roberts's carefully manicured hand as he wrote down all the numbers that circumscribed her life. Including her mother's phone number and address.
"Can I borrow your phone?"
Claire's panic grew as she listened to ring after ring. But on the sixth ring, Jean finally picked up, her voice drugged with sleep. Claire warned her not to answer the door to any strange men, especially good-looking men with silver-blue eyes. With or without a policeman's badge. In monosyllables, Jean agreed that she wouldn't. She seemed too tired to be annoyed by having been woken up, too tired to ask why Claire, always cast in the role of the good daughter, now seemed to be on the lam.
When she put down the phone, ). B. said, "Hey, Suze, Claire needs some different clothes. And some different hair. Do you think you could help her out?"
"I've got some of my fat clothes from after I had Eric she could have." Claire wanted to protest that she wasn't fat, and that besides, anyone would look fat next to Susie, who was whittled down to nothing by cigarettes, but she held her tongue as Susie continued. "I don't know about the hair, though." She picked up one of Claire's apricot-colored ringlets. "This is the kind of hair people pay good money for and you got it for free." Claire could hear an ancient edge of jealousy in her sister's voice. "Why do you want to change it?"
"My hair's too easy to spot. Anybody could scan a crowd and pick me out in a second. That's not what I need right now. Do you still cut hair?"
"Now and again. I'm not licensed or anything, so I only do it under the table for some of the neighbor ladies. But I like it. I could give you a cut and color if you want. You're lucky, 'cause I've still got some dye I bought for someone up the street but didn't end up using. You feel like being a brunette?" When they were kids, Susie had spent hours with her Kut 'N' Kurl Barbie. She had a talent for anything practical with a clear and immediate application. Whereas Claire had been good at calculus and English and sociology, subjects that hadn't taught her to do much except long to go to college, which they couldn't afford. Once she got of school and into real life, Claire found out no one cared if you could do three-dimensional calculus or name the periodic table. And the only thing her big vocabulary had been good for was in helping her understand some of the more obscure license plate references.
Susie disappeared and came back with a worn sheet to pin around Claire's shoulders. "How come you don't do this for a living?" Claire asked.
Susie sighed. "Oh, I'd have to go to school and get licensed, which costs money. And then you have to buy a station at an established salon, and that costs more money."
The sensation of the comb traveling across her scalp was unspeakably soothing. Even Susie taking her to the sink and spraying her hair with the vegetable sprayer failed to jolt her back into alertness. Claire kept her eyes closed and surrendered herself to the snip of scissors, followed by more combing, more parting, more snipping. As her sister began to massage dye into the remains of her hair with plastic-gloved fingers, Claire nearly fell asleep. She kept her eyes closed as Susie led her for a second time to the sink, opening them just long enough to see water the color of ink running down the drain.
Then there was the whir of the blow dryer, as calming as a white noise machine, and the touch of Susie's fingers as she scrunched Claire's hair with one hand and wielded the dryer with the other. Finally, everything ceased. When Claire opened her eyes, Susie handed her the mirror with a shy, satisfied smile.
Claire's mouth fell open. Her now-black hair sprang up in a little cap of curls, providing a dramatic contrast to the pallor of her skin and her large blue eyes.
"You look a little like Winona Ryder," J. B. said. It was the first time he had opened his mouth in over an hour.
"Only older," Susie added.
Claire reflexively pressed her hps together. Then Susie caught her eye and she realized her sister was teasing. All three of them began to laugh, the kind of laughter fueled by exhaustion.
"Suze, this is really great." Claire tried
and failed to remember the last time she had praised her sister.
"Thanks." Her sister met her eyes, then looked down at the floor.
"All I really need now is a shower. And maybe show me where you keep those extra clothes. I've been in these for the last twenty- four hours."
***
Suzie made up a bed for her on the couch while Claire took a shower. She stayed under the spray for a long time, trying to wash her mind blank, but it was too crowded with questions. Who had turned her hotel room upside down and then her house? Who were the good guys and who were the bad guys? Had Troy been lying to her when he insisted the painting was a fake? Was Dante coming to Portland because he wanted to help her or because he wanted another chance to get the painting? Were either of them working with Paul Roberts? And if he wasn't a police detective, then who was he?
When Claire pulled back the shower curtain, there was a split second when the sight of a dark-haired stranger caused her throat to close in unthinking terror. She pulled on the nightgown Susie had left on the counter, reaching back reflexively to lift the weight of her hair from the collar. Her hands met only air.
When she opened the bathroom door, the rest of the house was dark except for a small table lamp beside the worn maroon couch, now made up with a pillow and blanket. Claire turned off the lamp, then tried to arrange herself comfortably. The couch was just short enough that when she lay on her back she could not stretch out full length unless she bent her knees and rested her feet on the armrest. In vain, Claire tried to relax. She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. Concentrated on moving her belly button with each breath. Tensed various parts of her body and then released the tension. Nothing worked. She was too conscious of her various organs working to keep her alive, her heart pushing blood back and forth, her lungs sucking in air whether she thought about them or not. She bunched the pillow in half and rolled from her back to her side, pulling up her legs to get them to fit. The pillow smelled like dust. Something poked her in the back and she reached behind the cushions and pulled out a Matchbox car that shone silver in the moonlight. With a sigh, she sat up, turned on the light, and rummaged around in her backpack until she found Aunt Cady's diary.
***
August 2, 1945
I went to the doctor today. A German doctor, since an Army doctor would give me an honorable discharge and no assistance, the opposite of what I need. It was a woman doctor, eine Arztin, a word Al Patten taught me when he recommended her, and an even rarer sight here than at home. She practices in a semi-gutted room. The missing windowpanes have been replaced with X ray negatives of human chests. Lying on her chipped white-painted metal table, I focused on those cages of bones holding shadowed hearts and tried to think about anything else but what was happening.
I probably know less than two dozen words of German, but "baby" sounds much the same in both languages.
***
August 8,1945
An hour ago, I told Rudy I couldn't see him anymore. His face went as still as a stone. I was sobbing, but he said nothing. Then I saw his face begin to crack a little bit, a muscle flickering in the outside corner of his left eye. At first I thought he might cry, but then I realized how angry he was.
Later—we heard about the bomb tonight. This might well mean the end of the war. Maybe that would be the best for me, to go home, to forget about things.
There were no more entries, only blank pages filigreed with mold. Claire had read at random through the diary, but now when she paged back she could find nothing that revealed how her great- aunt had come to have what might be a 350-year-old beauty in a suitcase. It wasn't hard to guess, though. Rudy must have given her to Cady as a little token of his affection, a painting so small it could be taken from the hoard he guarded with no one the wiser. He wasn't the kind of man to worry about who might have owned it before. He had cushioned it with whatever wastepaper came to hand—and in Germany after the war, what was less valuable than Nazi literature? And he could have thrown in a few things he thought might be valuable again one day. That would explain the death's-head ring.
***
Claire turned off the light again and closed her eyes. When she finally slept, her dreams made little sense, just fragments of memories playing in her head. She saw her dead neighbor, Sonia, raise her hand in greeting as they drove past each other in their matching cars. Charlie's face, drained of color, while she talked about what her family had owned "before." Green-eyed Troy, his voice an intimate whisper just inches from her ear, as Manhattan glided by the limousine's window like an underwater dream. She saw Dante turn his heavy white mug to rest the warmth against his cheek. The flat- faced man who had nearly knocked her down as he ran from her hotel. And finally Claire dreamed of Paul Roberts, with his eyes the color of washed quarters.
Again she felt the gun bite into her temple. In her dream, just as she had in real life, she closed her eyes, but when she opened them again, she saw that the woman in the painting had joined them, only grown to life-size. In her cornflower-colored dress and jacket of pale lemon, she stood in the corner of Claire's living room the same way she did in the painting, a piece of paper held tightly in her hands. The woman watched Claire and Paul with the same eternally enigmatic gaze, her full lips parted. And Claire realized that to the painted woman the onlookers who had gaped at her for three centuries were not even as real as dreams, that only the letter she held had meaning. That even if Paul Roberts were to kill Claire right now in front of her watching eyes, she would then turn back to those words on paper, because only her world was the real one.
And then in Claire's dream Aunt Cady appeared behind Paul Roberts, not as an old woman but instead the age she had been when she wrote the diary. A khaki cap rested on her French-braided hair, and her shoulders were square in her uniform. She reached out to take Paul Roberts's chin in her hand. Reluctantly, he turned, releasing Claire, and the two looked into each other's eyes for a long time without moving. In her dream, Claire turned to run out of the room, past the painted woman, who still stood watching. Paul Roberts turned back, his eyes now two round silver mirrors. Claire was just on the verge of understanding it all when she woke up.
The rest of the house was already awake. Claire looked at her watch. Six a.m., which meant she had had a little over two hours of sleep. She swung her feet to the floor. From the couch, she had a clear view of the dining room and kitchen. Eric sat in his high chair, eyes half closed, sucking dreamily on a bottle. J. B. looked up from the paper and nodded at Claire. Susie stood at the sink, running water into a teakettle. When she saw that Claire was awake, she set down the kettle and walked into the living room.
Eric's eyes went wide when he saw his mother walk past in her heavy purple terrycloth bathrobe. He pulled the bottle from his mouth and crowed, "Barney! Barney!"
Susie flushed and sat down on the arm of the couch. "J. B. started calling me that as a joke, but now I think Eric thinks I really am Barney. He just loves that stupid show. And since Mom has cable, he watches it three times a day. Have you seen it?"
Claire shook her head without speaking, still trying to adjust to the real world as opposed to the dream one.
"Barney's this big purple thing that's supposed to look like a dinosaur. But he's shaped more like a really fat woman with saddlebags. And the kids on the show are just like a McDonald's commercial—one black, one white, one Hispanic. Even one handicapped one, only of course he's just as cute as a little bug. It's all so sweet it's really sickening. The only good thing is that I hear by the time they turn three, kids hate Barney." Susie picked up Claire's blanket and began to fold it. "How does an Eggo waffle sound?"
As she ate, Claire's thoughts came back again and again to her dream. One face kept returning to her. Not Charlie's nor even the painted woman's, but the flat, acne-scarred face. The face, she realized now, of Troy's chauffeur. What had his name been? John? Had he been the man who had run from her hotel as she returned from breakfast? She remembered how he had kep
t his eyes averted from her even as she fell to one knee. John could have heard Troy mention fantastic sums of money when he talked about the painting. But did Troy know that his driver indulged in a little freelance breaking and entering on the side? Or maybe he did more for Troy than drive him places? Could that be the reason Troy had taken her out to breakfast—so that John would have a chance to steal the painting?
Still not knowing what to think, Claire said her goodbyes twenty minutes later. She hugged her sister for the first time since they were kids. Eric was next, and it felt like something in her chest was tearing when she felt his little arms slip around her neck. Then J. B. gave her a hug that lifted her feet from the floor.
Afterward, he pressed the keys to a twenty-year-old yellow Datsun B-210 into her hand.
OWTAHR
Chapter 27The thing about the B-210 was that in addition to the holes in the floorboard and the exposed springs in the upholstery, it had a stick shift. Claire had driven a stick only once before, a quick turn in a friend's car around a shopping center parking lot, and that had been on a day when she wasn't exhausted. Now she couldn't seem to get her left foot and right hand to do the correct thing at the same time. The car popped and jerked down the street. At least at 6:25 in the morning, the roads were mostly empty.
After a dozen blocks, she dared to use her shifting hand to turn on the radio. It seemed to capture only one station, KXL, and that faintly. KXL divided its offerings between easily digested snippets of "drive-time" news sandwiched between conservative talk shows. It was hard to imagine J. B. listening to Rush Limbaugh rant on about liberal wackos, but then again, Claire would never have guessed that he could cook an omelet or prove to be just what she needed.
As the car climbed the overpass that led to 1-84, Claire felt a gust of wind slap the car. A minute later, KXL's traffic and weather report told her why.