Early Warning (56 page)

But her father had pulled himself together, and now he was his usual self. He clasped his hands and said, “I want to tell a little story. Long, long ago, I was driving from Rapid City, South Dakota, to D.C., and when I got to a small town in Iowa, I walked into a bar. Now I say that I walked into a bar, but actually, as I remember, Iowa was dry then, so really, I walked into a drugstore with a soda fountain. And behind the counter there was a very pretty girl. In those days, I, like many of us at the end of the war, considered myself a Big Bad Wolf. Now, thanks to Farley Mowat, we know that the Big Bad Wolf is a wolf who has perhaps lost his female parent, been driven out of the pack at an early age, and may have seen his mate shot by hunters and his single cub die of starvation, but back then, a wolf was a wolf, and if you were a wolf, you had very bad intentions. I chatted
up the pretty girl, and I walked her to her car, of course telling her that it was others who had bad intentions, not me. I went to the nearest larger town, and I put myself up for the night.

“The next afternoon, I deployed my very extensive espionage skills to discover that that very same girl showed up to work behind the fountain at noon, and I was at my stool as soon as she put on her apron. I ordered twenty-six cherry Cokes, and have never partaken of a cherry Coke since. I gave her all of my very best Big Bad Wolf speeches, and, sure enough, by the end of the evening, I had her in my clutches. She agreed to accompany me to the wolf den, even though the wolf den was far, far away.

“You know, Little Red Riding Hood always saw herself as the prey of the wolf, but in fact the wolf cared nothing for Little Red—he was after the braised lamb shanks in her bag that she was carrying to her grandmother—and so it was that you should envision that pretty girl, not as Little Red Riding Hood, but as a lamb, frisky and playful, sitting in the front seat of my car. We drove along, and for an hour, the little lamb bleated pleasantly about her job and her family and her brother who had been in the war. I figured that if I drove far enough I could avoid the brother if I had to. I should say that the sun was rather low in the afternoon sky when we departed, and so we stopped for a bite to eat in Cedar Rapids, and then went on. Finally, we got to a town on a big river, and the lamb was getting sleepy, and so I said, ‘Would you like to stop for the night?' I was licking my wolfish lips, of course.”

Debbie looked around. Everyone was staring at her father, and Debbie thought it was a very good thing most of them knew him quite well. He went on. “Well, I went into the office of a little motel by the river, and I asked for a room, and the old granny there looked at me as if she was afraid she might be eaten, and gave me the key. Then I let the lamb out of the car, and she looked, I must say, just a trifle nervous, so I opened the door of the cottage, gave her the key, and went back to my car. I sat there for a long time, contemplating my wolfish nature. And then I fell asleep. It got very cold, what with the fog rising off the river, and I woke up. I looked around and I was sore afraid. I could not remember where I was, or how I got there, and even my car looked strange to me in the moonlight, because, of course, there was moonlight. And so I opened the door of the car and
staggered out. There was a light on in the cottage, and I went to look in the window.”

Now he stared around the room for effect, as he had so often stared around the dinner table when they were children, daring them not to believe that a bird had brought him Tim's report card and that, furthermore, the bird had been weeping at the sight of Tim's D's and F's. He said, “The blinds were closed, but just then, two fingers separated two of the slats, and right there, staring at me, was that pretty girl. We both laughed, and I knew right where I was and what I was supposed to be doing, and that, whatever sort of wolf I was, this lamb was on to me, I couldn't keep anything from her.” Everyone laughed, and Debbie thought, That's what a funeral is for—laughing. “The next morning, we found a judge, right there in Clinton, and he overlooked a few legal niceties because he was a wise man, and to this day I thank him from the bottom of my heart.”

There was silence. Debbie could see that people were, somehow, tempted to clap, but of course they didn't. Her father stared at the coffin, and stepped toward it. He put his hand on it and patted it gently. Debbie bit her lips. He looked at her and smiled. She sniffed. But he didn't sit down. Standing there, one hand on the coffin, he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, and stared at it for a moment. Debbie could see what it was—a leaf from her mother's kitchen pad—and maybe, Debbie thought, he was going to do a very Arthurish thing, read her final shopping list. He said, “Early in the summer, after Lillian got her diagnosis, we were talking about this day, and she said that there was something that I had to—well, we had to do—which was to include her aunt Eloise in the memorial service. Some of you may know that Eloise Silber, Lillian's mother's sister, died in San Francisco last spring.”

Aunt Eloise had been discovered dead in her bed by the police, who had had to break down the door. They estimated ten days or two weeks. Between Rosa's road's being washed out and the roof's collapsing with all the rain at the co-op where Aunt Eloise worked, no one had put two and two together, and then…Well, in Oakland, the cops said, it was not such a rare thing.

“Lillian was very upset by the circumstances of her aunt's death, and the fact that there was only a cremation and no memorial service, so she wrote the following, which I would like to read.”

There was some coughing, and Aunt Andy said, “Oh, dear.”

“ ‘Please join me in remembering and giving thanks for the life of Eloise Mary Vogel Silber, who may have been a communist, but never defended Stalin or even Lenin, much less Mao Tse-tung. If she had grown up in one of those countries instead of Iowa, they would have put her to death early on, because she never hesitated to tell the truth, no matter who was listening. She made a lot of people mad, including the California Un-American Activities Committee. When Eloise was asked to testify, she not only admitted holding certain beliefs, she kept saying, “Yes, I thought the German Communist Party was good. Didn't you?” She also was very honest when she said that, even if they threw her in jail, she was not going to talk about anyone except herself and her late husband, and when they asked her about him, she said, “He was shot by the Germans when that scum Mountbatten tested his invasion ideas at Dieppe.” I loved my aunt Eloise, and her life is proof that well-meaning people can hold many different ideas. She left the Party, and she saved my niece Janet, and she thought about good and evil for her entire life. Please join me in honoring her memory, whoever you are.' ” Her father kissed the piece of paper, folded it, and slipped it into his breast pocket.

And Debbie knew from that last line that her mother knew exactly who would be at her funeral, and did intend to have the last word. Aunt Andy dabbed her eyes, Uncle Frank grinned, and her father patted the coffin again. Then he thanked everyone for coming. The final service at the gravesite would commence in one hour, for those who wished to attend.

T
HE DAY AFTER
Claire's divorce was finalized, the temperature was thirty below zero, and her windows were rimed with frost flowers. The streets of downtown Des Moines were slick and nearly empty, and Younkers was opening an hour late to give the employees time to get in. Paul had agreed to the divorce when he met Veronica, who was twenty-seven and also a doctor. He had always laughed at the idea of women doctors, but Veronica confined herself to the appropriate field of gynecology. Also, she was petite, and she had maintained an A average at Grinnell and at the University of Iowa College of Medicine. In other words, Claire thought, it would take her thirteen to fifteen years to wake up and realize that she couldn't take it. She had considerable debt from college and medical school, and so it was fortunate for her that the family-law judge had decided that half of Claire's inheritance from the sale of the farm should go to Paul. Claire was therefore down to about $150,000. Others were angry on her behalf—most notably Lois and, less passionately, Minnie. But Paul was paying for Gray at Penn and Brad was headed for Haverford, which was, at least, on the East Coast. Brad's acceptance to Johns Hopkins had nearly caused Paul to ejaculate in ecstasy, according to Gray, but Brad adamantly refused to go there, and Paul had had to settle for the nearest thing.

Claire liked to think that he would also be spending a pretty penny of her money on the Valentine's Day wedding to Veronica, which was to take place at the ever-desirable Wakonda Country Club, and who would certainly be there but her former best friend, Ruth. According to Gray, Ruth was bosom buddies with Paul, and she had urged him to let her take Veronica in hand and give her advice on how to cook Paul's favorite dishes. Gray said this in an ironic tone, with his eyebrows raised in amusement. Claire thought that, whatever it was she had done to damage her son's psyche, he seemed to express it in a stream of jokes that were charming and rueful. He could not possibly have gotten his sense of humor from Paul, so she took credit for that. One day, he had said to her, “Do you hate my dad?” She had surprised herself by saying that she didn't—of course she didn't. When he responded, “I do, sometimes,” she had said, “He does his best.” And that was the tragedy, wasn't it? Just like Hamlet, just like Macbeth, just like Lear, he did his best (Claire thought it was funny that she had read all of those now, on her own, just sitting up in bed). And that was the point—not that they were kings or princes, and therefore grander than you or me, but that they made their own downfall by being who they were (something that, even more tragically, was not set in stone, according to the divorcees and therapists she knew). So she felt sorry for Paul now, and her hatred had left no tangible trace.

She finished her cup of coffee and set the cup in the sink, then started to get ready to go to work: fur-lined boots; her goose-down calf-length hooded and belted coat, which she had bought in Minneapolis; her sheepskin gloves. When she opened the street door of her apartment building, the wind nearly yanked it out of her hand, and she had to clutch her handbag tightly and turn her hooded head to one side. Even then, her eyes teared up. Was this nuclear winter? Three blocks, and because she lived downtown, she was expected to be there. Two cars passed her, going very slowly, and when she stepped outside of the shelter of the tall buildings and had to negotiate the streets, the buffeting crosswinds nearly knocked her down. The sky was clear, which was the reason for the winds, but at least there wouldn't be any more snow. She dipped her chin more deeply into her hood.

When she got to the store, Les, one of the maintenance staff, was waiting. He let her in, and he let in Bev Kinder, who worked in the shoe department. From inside her scarf, Bev said, “You should come over and see my spring styles. You can't believe how high my stilettos are going to be. Scares me to death.” Claire laughed, and Les said, “I've given up stilettos myself, ladies, 'cept for hammering stuff.” Bev said, “Oh, Les.”

Claire unsnapped her coat. “I can't believe there'll be many customers in this weather.”

Bev shrugged. “If they make it, they'll buy something, just because they feel so heroic. I love days like today.”

The $150,000 at 9 percent interest gave her $13,500 per year—not much. Her job at Younkers was in the housewares department, and most of the time she either made beds or demonstrated KitchenAid mixers. Though she would have given herself up to Nicaraguan revolutionaries before using a dough hook on her own time, the fact was, she looked just like a woman in a Betty Crocker ad, bright and slender, but too domestic to be a threat. At work, she wore a thin gold band that looked like a wedding ring. Her badge read “Claire,” though, so she was not actually lying about her postmarital status. Young brides and brides-to-be came up to her every day and asked for advice about what they would need in their new lives. She was a whiz with the bridal registry.

After hanging up her coat and changing into her store shoes—two-inch stacked heels, very matronly—she walked around the bedding displays. The whites and laces in which she had done up the display beds the week before now looked frigid, so she rustled up two livelier ensembles, a nice old-fashioned patchwork quilt in pink and green with four different pillow shams that was springlike and cheerful, and a red, white, and blue set that was always appropriate. She even changed the dust ruffles, because the one for the red, white, and blue set was pleated, which looked really elegant. Her “ensemble” at home was a beige down comforter from Lands' End, plain and thick. Two people could not sleep under it without going into a sweat, which was fine with Claire.

She had thought of moving away from Des Moines, but if she wanted to stay with Younkers, her only choices were Fort Dodge,
Waterloo, Burlington, and Dubuque. She had flirted with moving to Minneapolis and finding a job at Dayton's. She loved downtown Minneapolis, which had turned into a giant mall, with really good food and great shopping, but each of the three times she'd been there, it had been at least twenty degrees colder and 20 percent darker than Des Moines. Claire did not understand quite how a mere 250 miles could make such a difference, but it seemed to. In other words, she was stuck, and clearly the rest of her family thought so, too, because Andy kept inviting her to New York, Minnie said she could accompany her on her trip to Oaxaca or to Maui, the two places she would be going next, and Lois kept inviting her up to Denby to see Guthrie, who was nineteen months old, and Perky, short for “Franklin Perkins,” four months old. She had seen the babies. The babies were fine, and nothing more than babies, in Claire's view.

—

THIS LATEST CRISIS WAS
not seen by anyone but Janet herself as a crisis. What had happened was, the weather was terrible, her mother missed Emily, and so, during one of those meandering conversations she did not mind having with her mother these days, but which lulled her into relaxing her vigilance, she agreed that they would meet for a week at the Pinehurst Resort. Before they left, Janet had simply imagined herself wandering around in the humid warmth of North Carolina, maybe going over to Southern Pines for a day or so to watch a horse show. Even though Jared had said to her that he was on the verge of a breakthrough that was going to make them a lot of money, Janet had not sensed the danger.

She watched him on the putting green with her father. She went to one little Wednesday horse show and wondered if having a horse would be possible in Iowa. Emily looked at the horses with fear and distaste, standing at a distance, holding Andy's hand, but Janet got close, stroked equine noses with her fingertips, took in the mesmerizing scent, appreciated the snorts and head tossings, asked mildly intelligent questions of the owners. The closed-in piney warmth of the environment, the ease of the rocking chairs on the veranda, the casual beauty of the place were delightful, but then Jared said that they should buy property—you could buy a square-yard lot on the
grounds and get privileges at the club. And they could live in the Research Triangle. Even compared with Iowa City, houses in Raleigh were…

“The Research Triangle is more than an hour from Pinehurst—it would be like working in Iowa City and living in Davenport.”

Jared blinked, informing her that her voice was sharp, then said, “Your dad says Raleigh is a great place to invest, a real center of education and on the East Coast….”

Janet had been hired just the previous fall as an adjunct assistant professor of technical writing. She taught three sections per week, twenty geeks in each section, many of whom did not speak English as a first language, even though they may have grown up in America and had American parents. They all spoke computer as a first language, and as a computer in-law, it was Janet's job to show them how to reveal their thoughts and ideas to people whose last experience of math concerned the sides of a right triangle. She said, “I like my job.” She had to pretend that she understood almost nothing in order to motivate her students to be ever more clear and simple-minded. They thought she was a dope, but she brandished the weapon of grades. Her office mate in EPB, who taught beginning literature courses, had students who sat pensively outside the office door with their legs stuck out in front of them, waiting to discuss their revelations while reading
On the Road
and
1984.
Janet had noticed at parties that when she said she taught technical writing, whoever she was talking to tended to start looking around the room. She said again, “I really like my job.”

Jared gave her a flat look, a look that informed her that she was sounding enraged or crazy.

That evening, sitting in the much-bewindowed dining room at the Pinehurst Resort, watching her father and Jared's conversation drop from idle to intense, she understood that the self-protective little pod she had built—staying in Iowa City, avoiding family gatherings as much as possible, never taking money from or talking about her father, pretending Michael and Richie did not really exist—would crack apart. It would soon begin, flights in and out of Cedar Rapids, Jared alight with possibility, her father calling them. And what would she say—“I'll get him,” or “I'm fine. Emily is good. I'll get him”? That was the most she could imagine. Of course, Jared could
install his own line, just for these calls. All these thoughts came to her within three or four minutes—long enough for her mother to walk with Emily over to the buffet and back. Emily sat in her chair, and Janet saw her father look at the child with interest, maybe for the first time ever, and why was that? Because she was related to Jared, and Jared had a lucrative idea. Janet stood up, said that she had a headache, and went back to her room.

Once there, she thought of phoning Debbie. She had phoned Debbie repeatedly since Aunt Lillian's death. It was not that Debbie was especially sympathetic or even wise—Debbie was not quite three years older than she was, and about that much wiser. But Debbie had Aunt Lillian's voice. It was a warm, good-natured, alto voice, and it pronounced certain words just as Aunt Lillian had. Debbie had let her know that she could not give Janet advice, much less let her go on and on long-distance. She was busy. She had a job and a family and grief of her own. Have I always been like this, Janet thought, so unself-consciously needy and talkative?

The answer was yes.

So she didn't call Debbie.

Back in Iowa City, Jared didn't speak to her for almost a week, but then his friend Oz suggested they move to San Jose. Jared brought this idea home as if it were a revelation. Janet did not panic, but said, “I've never been to San Jose.” She thought, no rain, no Lucas, no Reverend Jones, no Cat. And her dad three thousand miles away. She said, “I hear San Jose is quite sunny.” Jared threw his arms around her. She said, “Horses year-round in San Jose.”

Jared kissed her.

—

JESSE HAD GONE
to the feed store in North Usherton to do some errands and stopped to buy Pampers. He didn't have much cash—what farmer these days carried much cash? When he went to write out a check for the supplies, thirty-two bucks, Pete at the market said, “I can't take that check, Joe,” and that was the first they heard about the Denby and Randolph Bank going under. For Jesse it was a shock and an inconvenience—Pete let him drive away, knowing someone would come in and pay the money—but for Joe himself it was something more. When Jesse found him and told him, Joe gazed into the
hot, sunlit dust floating in the barn and felt paralyzed. They had a loan with Denby and Randolph, and they also had accounts there—Lois's shop account, their joint checking account, the farm account, and a savings account. Joe jumped in the truck and drove to Denby, but he didn't have to tell Lois: she was standing in the doorway of the shop, her lips a thin line, staring across the square at the bank, where a couple of guys were already taking down the bank sign. When she saw him, she said, “Good thing I sold that love seat yesterday, and an even better thing that I haven't deposited this week's receipts.”