“Come on, we gotta get something,” I said.
She came after me, dragging the heels of her new boots. While I went looking for a clerk, she stood in the store’s main aisle, staring through a display of car wax.
When I came back, she was still doing that. I had the feeling again like I’d come up on a wild animal. Only instead of a fawn, she was like a fox kit I saw once, hit by the side of the road. On its feet, but dying.
The key in my palm was hot off the grinder, smelled like graphite.
“This is for you. So you can go to my place any time you want, whether I’m there or not. Only other person got a key to my house is Old Man Cutcheon, but that’s so, you know, if something ever happened to me. “
I held the key out to Wavy, but she just looked at it. If she wouldn’t take it, I figured that would mean she was done with me. I wasn’t ready to reach that point, so I kept talking.
“I bought that house three years ago. Mr. Cutcheon co-signed for me on the loan. If I can do a few more deals like with the Barracuda, and with the extra money coming from Liam, I figure it’ll be paid off in two years. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s my house. Where I don’t gotta put up with nobody’s bullshit. That’s why I’m giving you this. So it can be your house, too. So you can have a place to go. Even if you can’t live with me, that other bedroom’s for you. I’m gonna clean it out, so it’ll be your place.”
Finally she reached for the key, squeezed it tight in her fist, and then dropped it down in her boot.
Leaving the hardware store, I asked her where she wanted to go.
“Home,” she said. I wished that wasn’t the farmhouse, but it was.
When we got there, a strange car was parked in the drive. A ’72 Buick wagon. The nurse. I turned off the engine, but before I could open my door, Wavy pulled the keys out of my hand and stuck them back in the ignition.
“You don’t want me to come in?” I said.
She shook her head.
“I know you’re mad, but will you at least give me a kiss?” I said.
She opened the door, got out, and walked up the porch steps without looking back. Sitting there, trying to decide what to do, I saw her answer. She’d written LIAR in the dust on the Willys dashboard.
I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. Not like she’d kicked me, but like life had. Kicked her, too, while it was at it.
PART THREE
1
PATTY
September 1982
There had been several home nursing assignments where Patty felt she was a member of the family, but the Quinns was the first assignment that made her feel like a patient in the asylum. When she got to the house, the only person there besides the patient was Casey, the day nurse.
“Nobody’s been here. When the ambulance and I got here with Mrs. Quinn, the back door was unlocked,” Casey said. She was one of those perky, up-and-at-’em people who harangued injured patients out of bed and into their physical therapy.
The house was cleaner than Patty had expected. The outside hadn’t been painted in years, but the floors had been mopped and the bathroom smelled of bleach. There were fresh sheets on the bed and clean dishes in the cupboard.
She knew there were children—a little boy who had been injured in the wreck and an older girl—but there was no sign of them. Mrs. Quinn’s bedroom was in the front, off the parlor. The other bedroom was off the dining room. There was a full-sized bed in there. No toys or children’s clothes, just some crayon marks on the wall behind the bed.
After she gave Mrs. Quinn her next dose of pain medication, Patty ventured up the narrow attic stairs. There, she found a bed with a handmade quilt on it. Only the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling suggested it was a child’s room.
It was dark when a vehicle pulled up outside. After a few minutes the back door opened, and Patty got to the kitchen just as a blond girl came in and slammed the door.
“Hi. I’m Patty. I’m the night nurse who’s here to take care of your mommy. What’s your name?”
The girl took two cautious steps into the kitchen.
“It’s okay, honey. Did your daddy tell you that a nurse was coming? I’m here to make sure she takes her medication and gets better.”
The girl moved around the other side of the table, and it dawned on Patty that she was planning to dash past her. The back door opened again and a large man with greasy black hair came in. He looked at Patty for an instant before his gaze went to the girl, who turned and ran up the stairs.
“Wavy. Goddamnit, Wavy!” The man started after her, yelling, “You can’t just say something like that. What did I lie to you about?”
He thundered up the stairs, and Patty heard his footsteps and his voice overhead, but nothing from the girl. They were up there for nearly two hours, long past what should have been the girl’s bedtime. Several times, Patty considered going up to check on them, but each time, she convinced herself it was better to wait.
Eventually, the man stomped down the stairs slowly. He seemed startled to find Patty sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of her. She didn’t let it bother her. Sometimes she had to fend for herself. Standing up, she held out her hand.
“Hello. I’m Patty Bruce, the night nurse that Mr. Quinn hired to take care of his wife.”
“Sorry about the ruckus. I hope we didn’t wake her up.” He shook her hand. “I’m Jesse Joe Kellen. I’m a friend of the family.”
“Is that Mrs. Quinn’s daughter?”
“Yeah, that’s Wavy. She’s a little upset.”
“It’s not unusual. Having a parent badly injured can be very troubling for children. They’re not used to seeing their parents helpless.”
He nodded and absently brought a hand to his hair to smooth down a rooster tail that stuck up on his crown.
“I’m real sorry for barging in here. Is there anything you need? I’ll be back in the morning to get Wavy, so I can bring you whatever groceries you need. And Wavy did the laundry, so there’s clean towels.”
“Do you know when Mr. Quinn is coming?”
“Well, he—he don’t actually live here. He lives down the hill. You know where you pass that other road, where there’s a couple trailers?”
“Am I to understand that Wavy will be here alone tonight?”
“Not if you’re here,” he said.
“I don’t say this to be rude, but my duties don’t include childcare.”
Mr. Kellen laughed. “Wavy don’t need a babysitter. She’ll get herself to bed, get her own breakfast. It’d be best if you didn’t bother her.”
“Bother her?”
“Just pretend she’s not here. If you hear her get up in the middle of the night, don’t come checking on her. She likes to be left alone.”
Patty was so confused, she couldn’t think of anything to say. She pushed her glasses up on her head and rubbed her eyes, feeling a headache coming on. While she was doing that, Mr. Kellen walked out the kitchen door. She thought of going after him, but it seemed pointless.
After she checked on Mrs. Quinn at midnight, Patty went into the living room and lay down on what looked like a new sofa. She must have dozed, because she woke to the sound of someone in the kitchen. Looking into Mrs. Quinn’s room, Patty found her still asleep, or as close to sleep as the pain medication brought her.
For a moment, a light flashed in the kitchen, the fridge being opened and closed, but otherwise it was all darkness. Then a cupboard opened and a dish clinked softly on the countertop. Was the girl eating? At that hour? In the dark? Or was she sleepwalking?
Standing on the other side of the swing door, Patty was about to say the girl’s name, when she remembered Mr. Kellen’s cryptic warning: if you hear her get up in the middle of the night, don’t come checking on her. Wasn’t there a fairy tale with a warning like that? Beauty and the Beast? Blackbeard? After a few minutes the girl went back up the stairs and solved Patty’s dilemma.
In the morning, as Casey was arrivi
ng, the girl came downstairs already dressed. Casey said, “So, this must be Wavy. Did you two meet last night?”
“After a fashion we did,” Patty said.
From outside came the sound of a car horn. Again, Wavy slipped around the table, maneuvering her escape, and Casey and Patty followed her to the kitchen door. An old truck sat in the drive. Mr. Kellen rolled down the window and called, “I’m sorry! The bike’s gonna take a while, okay?”
Wavy stomped down the stairs and got into the truck.
“Odd little girl,” Casey said.
“You have no idea.” Patty told her everything, even though it put her an hour over her shift.
She needed to compare notes with someone, and talking with Casey every day at least convinced her that she wasn’t the only one who thought the family was strange.
According to Casey, there wasn’t much to know about the day shift. Mrs. Quinn slept most of the first two weeks, and never said anything, except to complain about the pain she was in. And to ask where her husband and her children were.
“What am I supposed to tell her? I haven’t seen her husband since he hired me, I’ve never seen her son, and her daughter comes home late every night with some big biker.”
“And she doesn’t spend the whole night here, either,” Patty offered.
“Are you serious?”
“I’m sure she sneaks out at night.”
“What is she? Thirteen? And she sneaks out at night?” Casey said.
“A few times she hasn’t come home at all.”
“Have you told anyone?”
“Well, I told Mrs. Quinn. She said, ‘She’s probably with Kellen.’ I suppose that’s good enough for her.”
“Good grief. Have you thought about talking to Marjory?”
Marjory was their supervisor, and the suggestion irked Patty. Casey was eager for Patty to go to Marjory with it, but Casey wouldn’t. That way if the Quinns said, “How dare you accuse our dear family friend,” Patty would be the one who had made the accusation. If Patty didn’t report it, and something improper was going on, Casey could always say, “Why didn’t you tell someone?”
“So, what else have you noticed?” Casey said.
“Wavy sneaks into the kitchen at night and eats, but honestly, I’ve been known to do that.”
Casey laughed, and Patty was glad she hadn’t said the other thing she couldn’t stop thinking about. The night Kellen had gone up to Wavy’s room and argued with her, there was one phrase she’d overheard. “I do love you,” he’d said, his voice rumbling through the floor. “I love you all the way.” Not the sort of thing a family friend says to a thirteen-year-old girl. Now it was too late to tell Casey, who would want to know why Patty hadn’t mentioned it right away.
2
WAVY
The motorcycle was beautiful, the stars sprawling over the fenders and spinning out around the gas cap on a field of deep shimmery blue, like August when the moon was dark. No matter how much he teased me, Kellen put the stars on the way they were supposed to be. Cassiopeia and Cepheus in the center and the rest of them tumbling away on the sides. Squeezed under Kellen’s thigh while he rode was Orion, the three stars of his belt glinting. Every star was a tiny scrap of silver foil sealed to the gas tank under clear enamel.
Looking at it, my heart hurt so much I almost couldn’t breathe. Not because the motorcycle was beautiful, but hoping it was for me and knowing it might not be. Nothing belonged to me, but the rule didn’t keep me from wanting Kellen to be for me only. I put my hand on the tank and tried to smile, but there were too many hot things trapped in my mouth.
Kellen smelled like the shop, so I knew he had just finished the bike. He had come straight to school to show it to me as soon as it was ready, and waited in the parking lot until I came out.
“Do you like it?” he said.
I nodded once, to say, “Yes, it’s beautiful.”
From the way he shifted on his feet, wanting to touch my hair but not doing it, I knew he thought my answer was small.
“I used that book you gave me to make sure I put them on right. Are they right?”
I nodded again.
“So, you like it, but you’re still mad at me?”
Resting his hand on the seat, he leaned over and breathed on me. I loved that. His breath was warm and wintergreen-smelling. He needed me to speak, because his heart hurt, too. I didn’t want to be mean, but sometimes, it was dangerous to open my mouth and let words out. Other times, my throat closed up so tight the words couldn’t come out. Looking at the Panhead, at all the work he did, the words trapped in my throat weren’t nice ones. They were words to say, I don’t like it, if you’re going to let girls with snake tattoos ride on it.
I knew I was breaking the rule, but I laid my hand on the seat next to his. It was a new seat, tall in back for a passenger.
“Me,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s your spot, Wavy. I love it when you ride with me. I’m sorry it took so long to paint, but that’s … I don’t even know how many coats of clear enamel. And I wanted it to be a surprise, but getting all those little stars right was a bitch without you to tell me where they go.”
“Only me.” I didn’t care if it was against the rules.
“Only you?” He straightened up and sunlight fell on my hair where he had shaded me. “Oh. Oh. Come on, put your helmet on and let’s ride this thing.”
That was another thing I loved, the way he swung his leg over the bike, started it with one solid kick, and settled his weight on it. But the bike wasn’t for me. There would be other girls. Snake tattoo girls. Perfume-wearing girls he loaned his jacket to. I wished the bike weren’t so beautiful. I wished it were still primer gray, or green-and-yellow flames like the day he wrecked it. I wished it didn’t feel so good to ride behind him with my arms around him. I didn’t want to enjoy the way the wind spun around me and pulled at my dress. It soothed me and I didn’t want to be soothed.
3
MISS HUMPHRIES
It had happened often enough in the last forty years that Miss Humphries had a well-rehearsed response. Because of the store’s proximity to the County Courthouse, once or twice a month, a scruffy-looking man stepped in off the street and said, “I need to buy a wedding ring.”
This one followed pattern: a big man in grease-stained jeans and engineer’s boots, ham-sized forearms covered in tattoos. He looked nervous, not quite making eye contact. Sometimes, as in this instance, the man had a child with him. Perhaps a soon-to-be stepdaughter. She was too old and too blond to be his natural child.
Before they could get more than a few steps into the store, Miss Humphries offered her warmest smile, one intended to reassure. Then she said, “You know, there’s a nice little drug store on Fourteenth and Mohawk. They sell plain gold bands at a very reasonable price.” She was never rude, but she considered it a kindness to dissuade people from embarrassing themselves.
“Not a band,” the man said. “A real ring. A diamond ring.”
“Well, we have a variety of engagement rings. In this case, I have some simple and elegant rings, starting at a quarter-carat weight.”
“Come and look, sweetheart. I want you to pick it out.”
The girl stepped up to the display and in the bright lights meant to make the stones sparkle, she was not what Miss Humphries had expected. Not a grubby girl, of the type who usually accompanied the scruffy-looking men. Her cheeks were scrubbed pink and her hair clung to her scalp not because it needed washing, but because it was so fine. She wore a pale blue dress with pin tucks down the front. Velazquez’ Infanta Margarita in motorcycle boots.
Miss Humphries hated cleaning fingerprints off the glass cases, but the girl didn’t touch the display cabinet. She stood with her hands at her sides and peered in.
“Or if you’re looking for something unusual, my brother occasionally purchases estate jewelry. We have some lovely antique rings in this case.”
Stepping down the counter, the girl looked
into that display. Her stepfather followed, watching her, but not interfering. The scruffy men usually got uncomfortable by then, having glimpsed the occasional price tag, but he seemed more at ease now.
Miss Humphries took her cue from him and didn’t say anything, but she recognized the moment the girl found something she liked. Her gaze sharpened and she leaned forward. Perhaps all women were born with that attraction to diamond rings. A magpie instinct.
“Which one do you like?” Miss Humphries said. There were a few lower priced rings in the estate case. Diamond chips in delicately scrolled ten karat Victorian settings. More than a twenty-dollar gold band from the drug store, but under two hundred dollars. The girl’s father leaned over her head to look in the case.
“I see which one. What are those called, those ones that look like stars?” he said.
“Star sapphires.” She knew the ring and it broke her heart that the girl had picked such a lovely ring for her mother. Something her future father wouldn’t be able to afford. Normally at that point, Miss Humphries indicated the price before opening the case. That got rid of the persistent ones, who said, “That’s a little more than I was looking to spend.” The girl had been respectful and the afternoon was quiet, so Miss Humphries took the keys off her wrist and unlocked the display.
“It’s Victorian, late nineteenth century. The diamond is natural, slightly more than one carat, E in color with no inclusions visible to the naked eye, surrounded by five natural star sapphires, each a tenth of a carat.” She said it all for the pleasure of saying it, aware that neither of them understood what it meant. When she placed the ring on the velvet mat, she was careful to flip the price tag with her pinky, so that it lay exposed. The girl rose on her toes to look down at the ring. After a moment, she glanced up at the man.
“That one?” he said.
She nodded.
“That’s the one we want then. You can make it fit, right?”