Zigzag

  I got out then, too, and convinced Dory to get in on the passenger side and let me drive. Once she was in the car she stopped crying, but her eyes looked out of focus, like she was seeing ghosts. The other woman backed carefully out of her space and disappeared.

  Neither of Dory’s normally outspoken children said a word to her about the accident. The car was abnormally quiet. I guess all of us were thinking about Allen Tewksbury and how quickly everything in your life can change.

  By late afternoon Dory seemed more like herself again, reading from the guidebook, determined to provide a good time for all. I’d driven south to the Garden of the Gods, a gorgeous park with huge red sandstone rock formations rising out of the earth. It was another of those places you couldn’t quite believe really existed. Some of the formations looked like a huge hand had balanced one rock on the other.

  We took a guided walking trail through the park and I brought my camera along. I could have just bought postcards, but something about this scenery made me want to capture it myself. Iris and Dory walked ahead, listening to the guide, while I took photos and Marsh made a few quick sketches.

  As we joined the tail end of the tour group, Marshall said, matter-of-factly, “What’s it like to be poor?”

  I was so surprised, I gave a sharp laugh. “Why are you asking me? I’m not poor.” But I knew what he was thinking of—the dingy swimming suit.

  “You’re not? You don’t have much stuff, though.”

  “Well, I’m not rich, like you guys. I don’t go to private school.” As soon as I said it, I realized that was a tactical error, since the Tewksbury siblings weren’t long for the private school world either. But Marsh didn’t know that yet.

  “You go to a regular school? Do you like it?”

  “Yeah, my school’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with public schools. I guess some of them aren’t that great, but mine is good.”

  “But you don’t get lots of clothes and toys and stuff, do you?” He gave me a look of such heartfelt pity I felt like strangling him.

  “I have plenty of stuff, Marshall. You don’t even know what poor means. Poor is when people don’t have jobs or can’t pay for a decent place to live or buy enough food. It’s not when your swimming suit is old.”

  He was offended that I wasn’t receiving his sympathy more generously. “You don’t have to get all mad at me. I’m just saying, it’s too bad you’re not as rich as we are.”

  I knew by his tone of voice he wasn’t trying to be mean or offensive—he thought he was being kind, wishing me the wealth that hadn’t done all that much good for his own family. It reminded me of the Melvilles in their big house with all the empty bedrooms. They never seemed all that happy either. If they weren’t working, they were busy buying things you weren’t supposed to get dirty. It seemed to me money must sometimes get in the way of happiness.

  I rested a hand on Marshall’s shoulder. “Sorry. I’m not mad at you. It’s just that being rich really isn’t all that important. It seems important to you because that’s how you’ve always lived. But, take my word for it, it’s not.”

  He looked up at me, confusion clouding his face. “I think it’s the most important thing. Well, not counting religion and stuff like that.”

  I looked around once more at the amazing scene. “How much did it cost us to walk through here?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “It was free, I think.”

  “There you go,” I told him. “A lot of good stuff is free.”

  He wasn’t sold. “What about Lazy River Ranch. That wasn’t free.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” I admitted.

  “So, it’s still a good thing to have money,” he concluded.

  I sighed. “But money isn’t the only good thing. And you don’t need piles of it to be happy. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Marshall shrugged. “Well, sure, I knew that.”

  I kept waiting for Dory to tell her kids about their new school; I was pretty sure she intended to do it over dinner that night, because she got me on to the subject of my school, and what I especially liked about it. Of course, my favorite thing about my high school is Chris, but I came up with a few ideas I thought were more suited to Dory’s purposes. I told them about how our basketball team went to the state championships this year, and about how the kids who took TV production ran the local cable channel right from the school building, and about how I’d had great English teachers the last three years. I didn’t mention that the yearbook usually didn’t get finished by the end of the school year because the staff hated the advising teacher so much they tended to quit. Or that the swim team and the drama club were both cut along with last year’s budget. Or that I hadn’t had a decent math teacher in years.

  I think Dory was just about to launch into her news when Iris, in a remarkably good mood, started telling us about her favorite teacher, Mr. Dobbins, who she’d had for biology this year and would have again next year for some other science course. He was so fabulous, there was no better teacher alive, etc. Dory’s smile froze, then cracked apart like an ice cube in warm water.

  She grabbed the bill and stood up. “Okay, let’s find a motel,” she said. “Another long drive tomorrow.”

  Groans.

  “I’m sick of cars and motels,” Marsh said.

  “Tomorrow night we’re staying someplace nice again. For two nights,” Dory promised.

  “Where?”

  “In Texas.”

  “Texas? We’re going to Texas?” Iris said.

  Dory put her hands on her hips. “How can you see the West if you skip over Texas? At least a corner of it anyway. Don’t worry. After Texas, we’re headed for New Mexico, Arizona, and then California.”

  “California!” Marshall said.

  “The trip that never ends,” Iris said.

  “It would be nice if it didn’t, if we could just keep zigzagging across the country, planning life day by day,” Dory said wistfully.

  Iris tossed her hair. “Well, that’s my nightmare.”

  I knew Dory wouldn’t appreciate my agreeing with Iris on this particular subject, so I kept my mouth shut.

  I guess Dory didn’t sleep too well that night. The next morning she looked groggy and annoyed as she herded us into a half-empty coffee shop. She’d barely had her first sip of caffeine before she launched into the announcement. I guess she didn’t want to get sidetracked again.

  “I have something to tell you. I’ve made a decision, and you may not like it, but that’s the way it’s going to be.” She took a deep breath, readying herself for the explosion.

  “We’re going home!” Iris screamed. “Yes!”

  “No. It has nothing to do with the trip,” Dory said. “Besides, I thought you were enjoying yourself now?”

  Iris shrugged. “Sometimes.”

  “I’m enjoying myself. Mostly,” Marshall said. “But maybe I won’t be after you tell us about the thing we aren’t going to like.”

  “Yeah, tell us,” Iris said.

  The waitress brought our eggs and corn muffins and slowly refilled Dory’s coffee cup as we all watched and waited. The minute she turned around, Dory said, “I’m taking you both out of the Forest Hill School.”

  “What?” Iris was so incredulous she was almost laughing.

  “I thought I was already out?” Marsh said.

  “Well, that’s just it. I had to find another school for you, anyway, and when I went to visit the Russell School it seemed like a wonderful place, and it’s so near our building you can walk there . . .”

  “Russell? That’s not a private school,” Iris said.

  “No, it isn’t, but it’s a fine school in spite of that.”

  “Do they have art classes?” Marshall said. “I’m not going if I can’t take art.”

  Dory leaned eagerly across the table. “They have a wonderful art program. That was one of the things I really liked about it.”

  Marsh shrugged. “Well, I don’t care then. I mean, I have to go someplac
e new anyway. Besides, Robin goes to public school.” He grinned at me as if he was happy we’d have something in common.

  “You don’t really mean that I’m going to the Russell School, too, do you?” Iris asked, a look of near hysteria forming on her face.

  Dory looked her daughter right in the eyes. “Yes, Iris, that’s exactly what I mean. Marsh will be in the Middle School and you’ll start Russell High. They’re right next to each other, so you can walk to school together.”

  Iris’s eyes grew enormous. “Well, I’m not. No way! You can’t make me go there. I won’t!”

  “Sweetheart, I’m not paying tuition at Forest Hill, so you can’t go there. I need you to try to be sensible about this. You know I’m starting back to work in the fall and I can’t drive you out to the suburbs every day for school.”

  “I’ll find another way to get there then. I’m not going to Russell!” Iris insisted through clenched teeth.

  “The truth is, Iris, we can’t afford the tuition for private school anymore. Not if I’m going to pay for your colleges, too.”

  “Let Marsh go, if he wants to. He’s the one who screwed up last year! I’m doing great at Forest Hill! That’s where all my friends are!” Her face was so red she looked like she was going to burst into flames.

  “I realize that, honey. But this is your first year of high school; a lot of other kids will be new, too. It won’t be hard to make new friends. I know you don’t want to leave Forest Hill, but we have to make some mature decisions now.” Dory put her hand on Iris’s arm, but Iris shrugged it off and jumped up.

  “Well, this is the dumbest decision I ever heard of, and I’m not doing it!” She stormed out of the restaurant and stood outside kicking the tires and belting the bumpers on the minivan while the rest of us picked at our breakfast.

  Marshall smeared jelly on his muffin and licked the knife. “I liked Forest Hill, too. It was a good school.”

  “I know,” Dory said.

  “Except for Mrs. Marvin. She was an asshole.”

  Dory was so shocked she choked on her coffee. Marsh smiled, and then Dory and I started to laugh and couldn’t stop.

  “Oh, God, she really was, wasn’t she?” Dory said.

  That cheered us up a little bit, but we all knew the ride down to Texas was going to be pretty joyless with Iris so angry. I guess she couldn’t believe the rest of us stayed in the air-conditioning, ate our breakfast, and came out smiling, when she’d been standing there starving in the hot sun for fifteen minutes in order to make her point. She slammed into the backseat and jammed on her headphones. When Marshall accidentally bumped her getting his pencils from a bag on the floor, she elbowed him in the side. Even Marsh knew better than to escalate that war—he curled into his own corner and we drove on.

  The landscape became a lot flatter, and a lot dustier, too. We had to drive back eastward a little bit into Lamar, Colorado, and then through a corner of the Oklahoma panhandle (the skinny part of the state that looks like a ruler) to get down to Amarillo, where we were headed. It was a little depressing to think we were going east again. I really wanted to be going west, getting closer to . . . what? My dad? California? The end of the trip? All of those things, I guess. And, of course, the end of the summer, too, which meant seeing Chris again.

  The thing that was starting to seem the strangest, though, was the idea that I’d be seeing Dad again in a week or so. That had been more my goal than California from the beginning. But what would it be like to step into his house? To sit at his dinner table with his wife? To meet my baby brother who didn’t even know me?

  When I thought about Dad opening the door, what I’d say to him, what he’d say to me, it made my knees weak. I almost wished we could skip Arizona so I could relax and stop worrying about it, but I also knew if Dory told me we weren’t stopping, I’d be disappointed and unhappy. In other words, I was as confused about my dad as ever.

  By mid-afternoon we pulled into the Big Steer Resort just outside Amarillo. It was an enormous place, a lot fancier than the Lazy River Ranch, but hokier, too. For instance, when you checked in, they handed everybody a “yellow rose of Texas.” The swimming pool was shaped like a big cow, and the restaurant had rattlesnake on the menu. That kind of thing.

  But they did have stables, and Iris disappeared into them as soon as possible while the rest of us enjoyed the cow-pool. By the next morning she was still speaking only when absolutely necessary, so Dory let her take a morning trail ride while the rest of us drove into Amarillo and wandered around the livestock auction and a snake museum.

  We were all in agreement on one thing: we wanted to see the Cadillac Ranch that afternoon. It’s not really a ranch—it’s just a place out in the middle of some wheat fields where, back in the seventies, a group of artists stuck ten old Cadillacs in the dirt, nose first, tail fins in the air. I’d seen pictures of it before and it seemed like such a weird thing to do, I wanted to see it for real. The desk clerk at Big Steer told us to buy some spray paint before we went because part of the idea is to put your own “art” on the cars, or at least your name. We stopped at a hardware store and got ourselves some primary colors and black, which Marshall insisted on, for outlining.

  Cadillac Ranch looks best from a distance, I think. Like a bunch of cars just flew in all together and made crash landings. If I’d done it, though, I would have buried the backs of the cars so it looked like they were all growing up from underground, like alien plants, or steel trees or something. For a while we just walked around the cars, reading all the graffiti messages and looking at the pictures people had painted. It was hard to know where to put your own message because you felt bad covering up somebody else’s. I finally just put my name on a back fender, low down. Dory wasn’t interested in painting; she just took pictures, but Iris and Marshall went a little nuts.

  Iris took the red paint first and sprayed Iris Tewksbury: goddess all across the roof of a car, then took the blue and yellow cans and decorated the words with shadows and curlicues.

  Dory took her picture standing next to it, and (in an obvious attempt to butter her up) said, “I had no idea you were so artistic, Iris.” The silent treatment must have been starting to get to Dory.

  “There’s lots you don’t know about me,” Iris spit back.

  Please. Whenever I started to think there might actually be a human being under all that hair, Iris turned back into a pod person. I walked down the row to see the car Marsh was decorating. Uh-oh. Dory wasn’t going to like this one. Along a tail fin he’d painted two cars crashing head-on, the occupants either falling out of windows or flying through the air. The color red had been lavishly applied.

  “What do you think?” he asked me.

  “I think you draw as well with a spray can as you do with a pencil.”

  “Mom won’t like it.”

  “Probably not.”

  “It’s just a drawing. It’s not like I want it to happen.”

  “I know.”

  “You can’t draw a dog or some flowers or something on a car!”

  I laughed. “You’re right.”

  Dory was approaching, camera at the ready. “What are you two laughing about?” she asked, obviously hoping to join in. She stopped and stared at Marshall’s drawing.

  “Well . . .” she said, smiling weakly. “I guess you just like drawing blood, don’t you?”

  “Yeah!” Marsh said, happy that at last his mother got it. “Especially when I have red paint like this. I wish I could spray paint our car.”

  Dory put a hand on his shoulder and smiled. “Dream on, my dear. Dream on.”

  “Let’s go!” Iris called. “I want to have some time at the mall.”

  Dory rolled her eyes. “Sorry, guys. I promised Iris we’d stop at that mall we saw on the way back to the Big Steer.”

  “A mall? Do they only have clothes stores?” Marshall made a face.

  “I think there was a toy store, too.”

  “All right! Let’s go!” He and Iris
raced back to the minivan.

  I was not a big fan of malls. I never had much money to spend, anyway, so why waste my time walking up and down inside a stuffy mall? But I could tell right away what this was all about. Dory was trying to buy back Iris’s good humor for the cost of a couple of new outfits. Of course she was perfectly willing to buy stuff for me, too, but I wouldn’t let her. The swimming suit was bad enough. It made me uncomfortable the way Dory just flashed credit cards around. It was so easy. Did these people really even want the things they bought, or was shopping just something they did to pass the time?

  Even Chris used to do it. He had closets full of clothes already, but he’d wander around some ridiculously overpriced mall store buying sweaters and shirts he didn’t need, just because he could. I never really understood that.

  I volunteered to go with Marshall to the toy store so I wouldn’t have to watch Iris take advantage of her mother. Marsh was disappointed that Dory gave him only twenty dollars, but he didn’t argue. The toy store had a model train set up and we played with it for half an hour instead of looking at the other toys. I don’t think Marsh really wanted anything, anyway, but then, when I said it was time to go meet Dory and Iris, he looked around quickly and grabbed a small telescope from a shelf.

  “Do you really want a telescope?” I asked.

  “Sure, why not? Look, it costs nineteen dollars so it’s just right.”

  “Will you even use it?”

  He gave me a funny look. “I don’t know. I might.”

  “I just think it’s silly to buy things you don’t really want.”

  “I have to buy something,” he said, shaking his head at me as though I didn’t understand his role in keeping the economy afloat.

  On the way back to the Big Steer, Dory asked Iris to show me what she’d bought. Iris sighed and reached down into the large bag she’d lugged to the car. She hauled out a lacy tank top, two pairs of pants and a tiny flowered dress.

  “And we got shoes, too!” Dory said proudly, as though there had been some difficulty involved in the getting of these things, as if they’d fished for them or something.