Bag of Bones Part 8

She cried harder. It was the exhausted sound of a child who needed a nap before any more adventures, to the beach or anywhere else.

'Kia bad, Kia bad,' she sobbed against her mother's neck.

'No, honey, only three,' Mattie said, and if I had harbored any further thoughts about her being a bad mother, they melted away then. Or perhaps they'd already gone - after all, the kid was round, comely, well-kept, and unbruised.

On one level, those things registered. On another I was trying to cope with the strange thing that had just happened, and the equally strange thing I thought I was hearing - that the little girl I had carried off the white line had the name we had planned to give our child, if our child turned out to be a girl.

'Kia,' I said. Marvelled, really. As if my touch might break her, I tentatively stroked the back of her head. Her hair was sun-warm and fine.

'No,' Mattie said. 'That's the best she can say it now. Kyra, not Kia. It's from the Greek. It means ladylike.' She s.h.i.+fted, a little self-conscious. 'I picked it out of a baby-name book. While I was pregnant, I kind of went Oprah. Better than going postal, I guess.'

'It's a lovely name,' I said. 'And I don't think you're a bad mom.'

What went through my mind right then was a story Frank Arlen had told over a meal at Christmas - it had been about Petie, the youngest brother, and Frank had had the whole table in st.i.tches. Even Petie, who claimed not to remember a bit of the incident, laughed until tears streamed down his cheeks.

One Easter, Frank said, when Petie was about five, their folks had gotten them up for an Easter-egg hunt. The two parents had hidden over a hundred colored hard-boiled eggs around the house the evening before, after getting the kids over to their grandparents'. A high old Easter morning was had by all, at least until Johanna looked up from the patio, where she was counting her share of the spoils, and shrieked. There was Petie, crawling gaily around on the second-floor overhang at the back of the house, not six feet from the drop to the concrete patio.

Mr. Arlen had rescued Petie while the rest of the family stood below, holding hands, frozen with horror and fascination. Mrs. Arlen had repeated the Hail Mary over and over ('so fast she sounded like one of the Chipmunks on that old 'Witch Doctor' record,' Frank had said, laughing harder than ever) until her husband had disappeared back into the open bedroom window with Petie in his arms. Then she had swooned to the pavement, breaking her nose. When asked for an explanation, Petie had told them he'd wanted to check the rain-gutter for eggs.

I suppose every family has at least one story like that; the survival of the world's Peties and Kyras is a convincing argument - in the minds of parents, anyway for the existence of G.o.d.

'I was so scared,' Mattie said, now looking fourteen again. Fifteen at most.

'But it's over,' I said. 'And Kyra's not going to go walking in the road anymore. Are you, Kyra?'

She shook her head against her mother's shoulder without raising it. I had an idea she'd probably be asleep before Mattie got her back to the good old doublewide.

'You don't know how bizarre this is for me,' Mattie said. 'One of my favorite writers comes out of nowhere and saves my kid. I knew you had a place on the TR, that big old log house everyone calls Sara Laughs, but folks say you don't come here anymore since your wife died.'

'For a long time I didn't,' I said. 'If Sara was a marriage instead of a house, you'd call this a trial reconciliation.'

She smiled fleetingly, then looked grave again. 'I want to ask you for something. A favor.'

'Ask away.'

'Don't talk about this. It's not a good time for Ki and me.'

'Why not?'

She bit her lip and seemed to consider answering the question - -one I might not have asked, given an extra moment to consider - and then shook her head. 'It's just not. And I'd be so grateful if you didn't talk about what just happened in town. More grateful than you'll ever know.'

'No problem.'

'You mean it?'

'Sure. I'm basically a summer person who hasn't been around for awhile . . . which means I don't have many folks to talk to, anyway.' There was Bill Dean, of course, but I could keep quiet around him. Not that he wouldn't know. If this little lady thought the locals weren't going to find out about her daughter's attempt to get to the beach by shank's mare, she was fooling herself. 'I think we've been noticed already, though. Take a look up at Brooksie's Garage. Peek, don't stare.'

She did, and sighed. Two old men were standing on the tarmac where there had been gas pumps once upon a time. One was very likely Brooksie himself; I thought I could see the remnants of the flyaway red hair which had always made him look like a downeast version of Bozo the Clown. The other, old enough to make Brooksie look like a wee slip of a lad, was leaning on a gold-headed cane in a way that was queerly vulpine.

'I can't do anything about them,' she said, sounding depressed. 'n.o.body can do anything about them. I guess I should count myself lucky it's a holiday and there's only two of them.' can do anything about them. I guess I should count myself lucky it's a holiday and there's only two of them.'

'Besides,' I added, 'they probably didn't see much.' Which ignored two things: first, that half a dozen cars and pick-em-ups had gone by while we had been standing here, and second, that whatever Brooksie and his elderly friend hadn't seen, they would be more than happy to make up.

On Mattie's shoulder, Kyra gave a ladylike snore. Mattie glanced at her and gave her a smile full of rue and love. 'I'm sorry we had to meet under circ.u.mstances that make me look like such a dope, because I really am a big fan. They say at the bookstore in Castle Rock that you've got a new one coming out this summer.'

I nodded. 'It's called Helen's Promise Helen's Promise.'

She grinned. 'Good t.i.tle.'

'Thanks. You better get your buddy back home before she breaks your arm.'

'Yeah.'

There are people in this world who have a knack for asking embarra.s.sing, awkward questions without meaning to - it's like a talent for walking into doors. I am one of that tribe, and as I walked with her toward the pa.s.senger side of the Scout, I found a good one. And yet it was hard to blame myself too enthusiastically. I had seen the wedding ring on her hand, after all.

'Will you tell your husband?'

Her smile stayed on, but it paled somehow. And tightened. If it were possible to delete a spoken question the way you can delete a line of type when you're writing a story, I would have done it.

'He died last August.'

'Mattie, I'm sorry. Open mouth, insert foot.'

'You couldn't know. A girl my age isn't even supposed to be married, is she? And if she is, her husband's supposed to be in the army, or something.'

There was a pink baby-seat - also Kmart, I guessed - on the pa.s.senger side of the Scout. Mattie tried to boost Kyra in, but I could see she was struggling. I stepped forward to help her, and for just a moment, as I reached past her to grab a plump leg, the back of my hand brushed her breast. She couldn't step back unless she wanted to risk Kyra's slithering out of the seat and onto the floor, but I could feel her recording the touch. My husband's dead, not a threat, so the big-deal writer thinks it's okay to cop a little feel on a hot summer morning. And what can I say? Mr. Big Deal came along and hauled my kid out of the road, maybe saved her life.

No, Mattie, I may be forty going on a hundred, but I was not copping a feel No, Mattie, I may be forty going on a hundred, but I was not copping a feel. Except I couldn't say that; it would only make things worse. I felt my cheeks flush a little.

'How old are are you?' I asked, when we had the baby squared away and were back at a safe distance. you?' I asked, when we had the baby squared away and were back at a safe distance.

She gave me a look. Tired or not, she had it together again. 'Old enough to know the situation I'm in.' She held out her hand. 'Thanks again, Mr. Noonan. G.o.d sent you along at the right time.'

'Nah, G.o.d just told me I needed a hamburger at the Village Cafe,' I said. 'Or maybe it was His opposite number. Please say Buddy's still doing business at the same old stand.'

She smiled. It warmed her face back up again, and I was happy to see it. 'He'll still be there when Ki's kids are old enough to try buying beer with fake IDS. Unless someone wanders in off the road and asks for something like shrimp tetrazzini. If that happened he'd probably drop dead of a heart attack.'

'Yeah. Well, when I get copies of the new book, I'll drop one off.'

The smile continued to hang in there, but now it shaded toward caution. 'You don't need to do that, Mr. Noonan.'

'No, but I will. My agent gets me fifty comps. I find that as I get older, they go further.'

Perhaps she heard more in my voice than I had meant to put there - people do sometimes, I guess.

'All right. I'll look forward to it.'

I took another look at the baby, sleeping in that queerly casual way they have - her head tilted over on her shoulder, her lovely little lips pursed and blowing a bubble. Their skin is what kills me - so fine and perfect there seem to be no pores at all. Her Sox hat was askew. Mattie watched me reach in and readjust it so the visor's shade fell across her closed eyes.

'Kyra,' I said.

Mattie nodded. 'Ladylike.'

'Kia is an African name,' I said. 'It means 'season's beginning.'' I left her then, giving her a little wave as I headed back to the driver's side of the Chevy. I could feel her curious eyes on me, and I had the oddest feeling that I was going to cry.

That feeling stayed with me long after the two of them were out of sight; was still with me when I got to the Village Cafe. I pulled into the dirt parking lot to the left of the off-brand gas pumps and just sat there for a little while, thinking about Jo and about a home pregnancy-testing kit which had cost twenty-two-fifty. A little secret she'd wanted to keep until she was absolutely sure. That must have been it; what else could it have been?

'Kia,' I said. 'Season's beginning.' But that made me feel like crying again, so I got out of the car and slammed the door hard behind me, as if I could keep the sadness inside that way.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Buddy Jellison was just the same, all right - same dirty cooks' whites and splotchy white ap.r.o.n, same flyaway gray hair under a paper cap stained with either beef-blood or strawberry juice. Even, from the look, the same oatmeal-cookie crumbs caught in his ragged mustache. He was maybe fifty-five and maybe seventy, which in some genetically favored men seems to be still within the farthest borders of middle age. He was huge and shambly - probably six-four, three hundred pounds - and just as full of grace, wit, and joie de vivre joie de vivre as he had been four years before. as he had been four years before.

'You want a menu or do you remember?' he grunted, as if I'd last been in yesterday.

'You still make the Villageburger Deluxe?'

'Does a crow still s.h.i.+t in the pine tops?' Pale eyes regarding me. No condolences, which was fine by me.

'Most likely. I'll have one with everything - a Villageburger, not a crow - plus a chocolate frappe. Good to see you again.'

I offered my hand. He looked surprised but touched it with his own. Unlike the whites, the ap.r.o.n, and the hat, the hand was clean. Even the nails were clean. 'Yuh,' he said, then turned to the sallow woman chopping onions beside the grill. 'Villageburger, Audrey,' he said. 'Drag it through the garden.'

I'm ordinarily a sit-at-the-counter kind of guy, but that day I took a booth near the cooler and waited for Buddy to yell that it was ready - Audrey short-orders, but she doesn't waitress. I wanted to think, and Buddy's was a good place to do it. There were a couple of locals eating sandwiches and drinking sodas straight from the can, but that was about it; people with summer cottages would have to be starving to eat at the Village Cafe, and even then you'd likely have to haul them through the door kicking and screaming. The floor was faded green linoleum with a rolling topography of hills and valleys. Like Buddy's uniform, it was none too clean (the summer people who came in probably failed to notice his hands). The woodwork was greasy and dark. Above it, where the plaster started, there were a number of b.u.mper-stickers - Buddy's idea of decoration.

HORN BROKEN - WATCH FOR FINGER.

WIFE AND DOG MISSING. REWARD FOR DOG.

THERE'S NO TOWN DRUNK HERE, WE ALL TAKE TURNS.

Humor is almost always anger with its makeup on, I think, but in little towns the makeup tends to be thin. Three overhead fans paddled apathetically at the hot air, and to the left of the soft-drink cooler were two dangling strips of flypaper, both liberally stippled with wildlife, some of it still struggling feebly. If you could look at those and still eat, your digestion was probably doing okay.

I thought about a similarity of names which was surely, had had to be, a coincidence. I thought about a young, pretty girl who had become a mother at sixteen or seventeen and a widow at nineteen or twenty. I thought about inadvertently touching her breast, and how the world judged men in their forties who suddenly discovered the fascinating world of young women and their accessories. Most of all I thought of the queer thing that had happened to me when Mattie had told me the kid's name - that sense that my mouth and throat were suddenly flooded with cold, mineral-tangy water. That to be, a coincidence. I thought about a young, pretty girl who had become a mother at sixteen or seventeen and a widow at nineteen or twenty. I thought about inadvertently touching her breast, and how the world judged men in their forties who suddenly discovered the fascinating world of young women and their accessories. Most of all I thought of the queer thing that had happened to me when Mattie had told me the kid's name - that sense that my mouth and throat were suddenly flooded with cold, mineral-tangy water. That rush rush.

When my burger was ready, Buddy had to call twice. When I went over to get it, he said: 'You back to stay or to clear out?'

'Why?' I asked. 'Did you miss me, Buddy?'

'Nup,' he said, 'but at least you're from in-state. Did you know that 'Ma.s.sachusetts' is Piscataqua for 'a.s.shole'?'

'You're as funny as ever,' I said.

'Yuh. I'm going on f.u.c.kin Letterman. Explain to him why G.o.d gave seagulls wings.'

'Why was that, Buddy?'

'So they could beat the f.u.c.kin Frenchmen to the dump.'

I got a newspaper from the rack and a straw for my frappe. Then I detoured to the pay phone and, tucking my paper under my arm, opened the phone book. You could actually walk around with it if you wanted; it wasn't tethered to the phone. Who, after all, would want to steal a Castle County telephone directory?

There were over twenty Devores, which didn't surprise me very much - it's one of those names, like Pelkey or Bowie or Toothaker, that you kept coming across if you lived down here. I imagine it's the same everywhere - some families breed more and travel less, that's all.

There was a Devore listing for 'RD Wsp HI1 Rd,' but it wasn't for a Mattie, Mathilda, Martha, or M. It was for Lance. I looked at the front of the phone book and saw it was a 1997 model, printed and mailed while Mattie's husband was still in the land of the living. Okay . . . but there was something else about that name. Devore, Devore, let us now praise famous Devores; wherefore art thou Devore? But it wouldn't come, whatever it was.

I ate my burger, drank my liquefied ice cream, and tried not to look at what was caught on the flypaper.

While I was waiting for the sallow, silent Audrey to give me my change (you could still eat all week in the Village Cafe for fifty dollars . . . if your blood-vessels could stand it, that was), I read the sticker pasted to the cash register. It was another Buddy Jellison special: CYBERs.p.a.cE SCARED ME SO BAD I DOWNLOADED IN MY PANTS. This didn't exactly convulse me with mirth, but it did did provide the key for solving one of the day's mysteries: why the name Devore had seemed not just familiar but evocative. provide the key for solving one of the day's mysteries: why the name Devore had seemed not just familiar but evocative.

I was financially well off, rich by the standards of many. There was at least one person with ties to the TR, however, who was rich by the standards of everybody, and filthy rich by the standards of most year-round residents of the lakes region. If, that was, he was still eating, breathing, and walking around.

'Audrey, is Max Devore still alive?'

She gave me a little smile. 'Oh, ayuh. But we don't see him in here too often.'

That got the laugh out of me that all of Buddy's joke stickers hadn't been able to elicit. Audrey, who had always been yellowish and who now looked like a candidate for a liver transplant, snickered herself. Buddy gave us a librarian's prim glare from the far end of the counter, where he was reading a flyer about the holiday NASCAR race at Oxford Plains.

I drove back the way I had come. A big hamburger is a bad meal to eat in the middle of a hot day; it leaves you feeling sleepy and heavy-witted. All I wanted was to go home (I'd been there less than twenty-four hours and was already thinking of it as home), flop on the bed in the north bedroom under the revolving fan, and sleep for a couple of hours.

When I pa.s.sed Wasp Hill Road, I slowed down. The laundry was hanging listlessly on the lines, and there was a scatter of toys in the front yard, but the Scout was gone. Mattie and Kyra had donned their suities, I imagined, and headed on down to the public beachie. I'd liked them both, and quite a lot. Mattie's short-lived marriage had probably hooked her somehow to Max Devore . . . but looking at the rusty doublewide trailer with its dirt driveway and balding front yard, remembering Mattie's baggy shorts and Kmart smock top, I had to doubt that the hook was a strong one.

Before retiring to Palm Springs in the late eighties, Maxwell William Devore had been a driving force in the computer revolution. It's primarily a young people's revolution, but Devore did okay for a golden oldie - knew the playing-field and understood the rules. He started when memory was stored on magnetic tape instead of in computer chips and a warehouse-sized cruncher called UNIVAC was state-of-the-art. He was fluent in COBOL and spoke FORTRAN like a native. As the field expanded beyond his ability to keep up, expanded to the point where it began to define the world, he bought the talent he needed to keep growing.

His company, Visions, had created scanning programs which could upload hard copy onto floppy disks almost instantaneously; it created graphic-imaging programs which had become the industry standard; it created Pixel Easel, which allowed laptop users to mouse-paint . . . to actually fingerpaint, if their gadget came equipped with what Jo had called 'the c.l.i.toral cursor.' Devore had invented none of this later stuff, but he'd understood that it could could be invented and had hired people to do it. He held dozens of patents and co-held hundreds more. He was supposedly worth something like six hundred million dollars, depending on how technology stocks were doing on any given day. be invented and had hired people to do it. He held dozens of patents and co-held hundreds more. He was supposedly worth something like six hundred million dollars, depending on how technology stocks were doing on any given day.

On the TR he was reputed to be crusty and unpleasant. No surprise there; to a Nazarene, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? And folks said he was eccentric, of course. Listen to the old-timers who remember the rich and successful in their salad days (and all the old-timers claim they do), and you'll hear that they ate the wallpaper, f.u.c.ked the dog, and showed up at church suppers wearing nothing but their pee-stained BVDS. Even if all that was true in Devore's case, and even if he was Scrooge McDuck in the bargain, I doubted that he'd allow two of his closer relatives to live in a doublewide trailer.

I drove up the lane above the lake, then paused at the head of my driveway, looking at the sign there: SARA LAUGHS burned into a length of varnished board nailed to a handy tree. It's the way they do things down here. Looking at it brought back the last dream of the Manderley series. In that dream someone had slapped a radio-station sticker on the sign, the way you're always seeing stickers slapped on turnpike toll-collection baskets in the exact-change lanes.

I got out of my car, went to the sign, and studied it. No sticker. The sunflowers had been down there, growing out of the stoop - I had a photo in my suitcase that proved it - but there was no radio-station sticker on the house sign. Proving exactly what? Come on, Noonan, get a grip.