Lila Blue (32 page)

After Curtis parked the car in
their regular space behind the bookstore, Curtis said to Molly, "What now,
chief?"

"If we all go over to Kitty's
shop, she'll suspect something," she said.

"And she'd be correct," I
said.

Molly ignored me.

"So Cassandra and I will walk
Juliet over for a visit."

"Pretending Juliet is your new
dog?" I asked.

"That wouldn't work,"
Molly said, "because Kitty would be too kind to take my dog, even if she
loved it."

"You're right," I said.
"Why don't we tell her the truth?" I was thinking of Lila's
impeccably honest rule. It worked every time I'd tried it, even when it was
hard.

Molly frowned. I think she was
trying to come up with something better than the truth.

"Okay," she said finally.
"Cassandra, you’ll help, won’t you?"

"Sure," I said. "I
know you'll say exactly the right thing."

We decided to walk from the car around
the back of the building, across the crosswalk, and directly to the yarn shop
rather than going through the bookstore. Juliet stayed beside Molly and kept
looking up at her. She didn't pull on the ribbon leash or seem upset. She was
too busy adoring Molly.

There wasn't much traffic, and we
got across the highway just fine. By the time we got to the door of Kitty
Lynn's, which was open, Kitty had spotted us. She came around the counter as
Molly, Juliet, and I entered, and she said, "Who's
this
little
friend?"

"Her name is Juliet,"
Molly said. "I checked her out from the shelter to see if you like
her."

Kitty bent down to meet Juliet, who
licked her hand and looked up with those scared, sweet eyes and those perky big
ears. "Oh, what a charmer you are," Kitty said to the dog.

"She needs a home," Molly
said, "and I already have GrumpaLump, so I thought if you adopt her, I can
come every day and help you take care of her. I'll be her big sister."

"Molly, I know you mean well,
but I'm not ready for another dog."

Molly didn't answer, she just
sighed and sat on the floor and hugged Juliet, who climbed up in her lap and
leaned against her chest.

"I don't think it would be
wise to get one before I'm really ready," Kitty Lynn went on, but I could
tell she was getting more ready by the second, watching how cute and nice
Juliet was.

Molly wouldn't look at Kitty Lynn.
She kept petting Juliet and telling her what a sweet good dog she was.

I felt I should do my part, so I
said, "Molly found out Juliet got sick at her last home, because there
were five kids and two dogs and a parrot, and she couldn't take it anymore and
broke out in hives or something."

Kitty looked outraged. "The
poor baby!" she said. "How could anyone do such a thing to this sweet
little angel?"

"I don't know," I said.
"I can't understand why anyone would want a parrot, much less five
kids."

Kitty Lynn got down on the floor
then, which wasn't too easy for her to do, because she was a big lady, and
Juliet climbed into her lap and gave her the lovey dovey treatment she'd been
giving Molly.

I was pretty sure by this time how
it was going to go, so I got out my tissues from my backpack and started crying
before we even got to the happy ending.

Molly stood up and said,
"Cassandra, what's wrong?"

"It breaks my heart when
somebody really needs a good home."

"Well, you can stop
crying," Kitty Lynn said, "because Molly's plan worked this time. I
couldn't send this precious doll away, not after all she's been through. She's
home."

That really set me off and I cried
and cried, using up all the tissues I had in my backpack and scrounging around behind
Kitty's sales counter for some more. Molly stood back and looked at me as
though I'd lost my mind, which I guess I had, because apparently my brain was
flooded with maudlin hormones.

When I ran dry and pulled myself
back together, Molly shook her head at me and said, "Weird."

She was right about that.

We had to help Kitty Lynn get up
off the floor, and then we helped her make a place behind the counter for
Juliet to sleep near Kitty.

Then she sent us on a mission to
the hardware store for dog food, a pet bed, a nice leash, food and water
dishes, chew toys, and a doggy hairbrush. By the time we rounded up all the
stuff for Kitty Lynn and Juliet and recounted the whole story to Marge and
Curtis, it was five o'clock, only an hour from closing time.

 I hadn't thought at all about the
gun essay until I walked into Lila's shop. She and Herbert were both working on
clients, so I played with the building blocks and read the storybooks on the
kid table. One book was about a caterpillar who was a bully until all his
friends made him stop. Another was about an ogre who was kind but no one gave
him a chance to prove it, because they were prejudiced against ogres. I wished
real life were as clear and simple as children's picture books.

Lila was toward the end of her
customer's haircut. He was a man I'd seen before in the village, but I didn't
know anything about him. He said, "I liked your essay."

"Thanks," said Lila.

"My wife wondered if some
people would get upset, but I told her not to worry. The guys at the hardware
store would give it maybe fifteen minutes and the guys at the corner pub
couldn't keep a train of thought going if they had to."

"I don’t think anyone needs to
worry," Lila said. "Shining the light on something is never a bad
idea."

He laughed. "The last time I
shined a light on a can of worms, they crawled off in all directions."

"I'm sure there's a lesson in
that," Lila said, laughing. "But I'm not sure what it is."

He laughed. After he'd paid Lila
and was ready to leave the shop, he said, "See you Tuesday night."

Lila smiled and bowed Namaste to
him. After he left, she cleaned up her worktable while I swept up the hair from
around her chair and from Herbert's area, what I could reach without getting in
his way.

Herbert's clients always seemed to
talk nonstop, which worked out great, because he never had to say anything. The
guy in his chair was complaining about his wife's relatives coming to stay for
a vacation and then neglecting to move out.

"My wife said it would be two
weeks at the most, and it's been two months. Her sister has even registered
their kids in school here. Last week they pitched a tent in our backyard and
invited more relatives to come to live with us. I told my wife either they had
to leave or I would. She said as long as I kept up the mortgage payments, it
didn't matter that much to her either way.

"I decided to stay and drive
her relatives away. I found out her sister hates cigar smoke, so I took up
smoking cigars first thing in the morning at the breakfast table. I'd blow the
smoke right in her face. It was going okay until the cigars made me so sick I
couldn't eat for three days, so now I'm back to square one.”

"Some of the kids are okay,
though,” he said. “The youngest one wants to play chess with me day and night.
He's only nine, but I have to work to keep up with him. He beat me in three
minutes last night. I didn't even have a good strategy figured out. Next thing
I know, he says checkmate, and sure enough, he had me."

Herbert finished the man's cut and
took his money. He bowed thank you to him but didn't say a word. The man
probably thought Herbert was a good listener, but I was pretty sure Herbert
listening to clients was like him listening to birds or monkeys. He heard the
familiar chatter, but there was no curiosity about the nature or meaning of the
noises.

After I swept the whole floor, I
tidied up the waiting area while Lila washed combs and Herbert put a load of
towels in the washer in the back room. When he came back in, Lila said,
"If it's okay with you, I'll go on home with Cassandra now." Herbert
smiled and nodded, so we left through the front door, both of us touching the
base of the barber pole to bless the shop on the way out.

As soon as we got home and greeted
Chloe and Zoe, the phone rang. I took my backpack into my room to put my stuff
away, and when I came back out, Lila was saying, "Sure. Come on over. We
just got home. Hold on."

Lila said to me, "Marta is
bringing Chinese takeout. What do you like?"

I told her fried rice and ginger
chicken, so she relayed the message to Marta.

By the time Marta arrived, Lila had
showered and I'd set the table. I predicted a gorgeous sunset, because a thin
line of clouds floated way off on the horizon in an otherwise clear sky. That
cloud line on the horizon often made the sun huge and orange, and it would melt
all over the place, making pyramids and spaceships and diamonds before it
finally disappeared.

Marta was Lila's age, but she had
the energy of a kid, an overactive one at that. She bounced around getting
chopsticks and soy sauce from Lila's kitchen as if it were hers. I could tell
they'd shared lots of meals together.

"Hank is pleased with how it
all came together," she said. Marta and Hank, the client who'd asked Lila
to write about guns, were friends. Lila told me they had tried living together,
but that only lasted three weeks, so they went back to what worked. Hank was a
building contractor and the head of the community council, and Marta was
influential in local politics too. Lila preferred watching from the sidelines.

"Hank seems to have strong
feelings about this," Lila said, as we took turns scooping steamy food
from the white paper cartons onto Lila's good china.

"He thinks we can lead the
nation," Marta said. "He imagines our community going down in history
books, like Rosa Parks. One small victory that gets the ball rolling for
progress."

I thought about the
Emperor's
New Clothes
again. I didn't want to go down in any history books.

"All I heard at the barber
shop was positive," Lila said. "But then I guess the ones who were
not happy with us wouldn't want a haircut today, huh?"

"Probably not," I said,
laughing. "They're probably spending the weekend shaggy, and they'll all
be in on Monday."

"And Herbert will be busy,
which he loves, and I won't have to work with them, which is fine with
me."

She smiled and patted my hand.
"Maybe we can take a drive on my days off," she said. "To
Obsidian Springs or Haystack Rock. Or we might go spend the night at Crater
Lake."

I smiled and nodded, willing to go
anywhere with Lila.

Marta said, "Running off when
things get interesting, huh?"

We all laughed and helped ourselves
to more food.

After dinner, the three of us went
for a walk on the beach. It was glorious. The tide was low, so it was a long
walk from the bottom of the stairs to the surf line. The setting sun sparkled
just right on the clear stones exposed at the water’s edge, and we found nice
agates to admire and collect for the porch basket.

It seemed years instead of months
since I had destroyed Lila's collection basket. Now the new basket was half
full. Maybe that's how healing happens, one small stone at a time.

 I still hurt when I thought about
David, and I knew there was a deep well of anger and sadness I'd barely
glimpsed, but I was doing fine with having brothers now and learning to accept
a less than perfect mother and give her space to grow. My healing seemed
connected with this beach, this shoreline, and this sun setting beyond the horizon
every night. I felt as lucky and grateful as Juliet. I was home.

After our walk, Marta left and Lila
and I went right to bed. I was so happy and relaxed that I went to sleep smiling
and thinking life was perfect.

I was deep in a dream when I heard
the phone ringing. In the dream I was on a big sailboat, and the sound of the
real life phone changed into a foghorn in the dream, and I knew everyone had to
be careful. By the time I pulled myself awake, I could hear Lila talking on the
phone with someone, so I got up to see what was happening.

"I'll be right there,"
she said, and she hung up the phone.

"Who is it, Grandma," I
asked, my mind running through all the people I cared about.

"Everyone's fine," she
said, responding to the fear on my face. "It's only vandalism. The police
want to meet me at the shop. Get dressed and come with me."

While I was pulling on my jeans, I
saw it was two forty-five in the morning. It must have been more than a few
dirty words on the wall for the police to wake Lila up.

It was. When we got there, two
police cars were at the scene with their lights flashing, which made a strange
strobe effect on the shattered glass from the barbershop windows. Paul and
Donny from the bakery were talking to two police officers by one of the cars.
Their shop didn't seem damaged. All the lights were on in the bakery, and it
looked okay.

Lila parked across the highway from
the police cars. While we walked across the road to the scene, my mind was
split into a thinker and a watcher. Part of my mind was watching the other part
jump around trying to explain how the windows got broken. At the same time I
was acutely aware of the chill of the night air and other sensory details. The
red and blue flashing police lights turned ordinary things into extraordinary
fantasy objects that blinked in and out of existence. Mainly I was worried
about Lila, hoping that whoever did this was not planning to hurt her next.

The police chief, Randall, came
over and shook Lila's hand. "Sorry to wake you in the middle of the
night," he said to us.

Lila smiled and said, "As long
as you don't make it a habit."

"We've arrested a suspect,
Fred Wattles. Donny and Paul were working in the bakery kitchen when they heard
the shots. Donny saw Fred drive away and chased him to get the license number.
Paul called the station, and we picked Fred up five minutes later as he was
pulling into his driveway. He confessed, gave us the gun, and then threw up in
his front yard.”

"Apparently,” Randall
continued, “he'd been at the pub all night getting worked up about people
taking away his guns. It's good we got a confession, because I doubt he'll
remember anything when he wakes up."

"Fred," Lila said.
"Poor Veronica. She's had the patience of a saint, but this might be too
much."

Randall laughed. "When we woke
her up to say we had to take him in, she said don't bother bringing him
back."

"Let's see it then," Lila
said, and I realized Randall had been avoiding showing us the damage to the
shop.

"He used his old deer rifle,
that thirty ought six he carried in his pickup. Shot out both windows, a hole
in the door." He stepped out of her way to let her go ahead, pointing a
big flashlight to the ground. "Watch the glass."

When he shined the light on the
front door, Lila stopped. The barber pole was shattered. She stood very still,
the way she prayed on the beach some mornings, for several seconds. Then she
sighed and reached out to touch the pole's base before she opened the door with
her key, stepped inside, and turned on all the lights. I followed her inside,
and Randall came in behind me.

Another officer came in after us
and started listing the damage. They found a bullet hole through the back of
Lila's barber chair and another through the wall into the back room, which was
a combination laundry, restroom, and storage area. The bullet had just missed
the mirror over the sink. It was lodged into the wall next to it. The officer
took a few pictures of it then carefully pried out the bullet and let it fall
into an evidence bag, which he labeled and dated.

After we walked all around, and
they couldn't find anything else, Randall said, "We'll tape off the area
tonight and keep one of the cars here until the hardware store opens and you
can get some plywood to block off the windows. We've got enough pictures, so we
can help clean up glass, if you're ready."

"Thanks, Randall," Lila
said. "I think Cassandra and I can do that in the morning. I really
appreciate all you've done. Thank you."

"We'll keep Fred for
forty-eight hours, long enough for him to sober up and for Veronica to get over
homicidal tendencies. We've got him for drunk driving and reckless
endangerment. You can come down any time to press charges."

"Thank you," Lila said
again.

As he was leaving, Randall said,
"I'm sure sorry about your barber pole, Lila. They don't make 'em like
that anymore."

She nodded and gave him her sad
tired smile. I reached out to hold her hand, and she took my hand and held on.
"Everything's going to be okay," she said, and I believed her.

Lila and I went home, but we
couldn’t settle down to sleep much. We went back to the shop at first light
with old brooms from Lila's garage to clean all the glass from the sidewalk. We
barely got started on that when Paul, Donny, and Ronny came outside with a tray
of coffee and fresh Danish sweet rolls. Marta came with her camera and took
pictures and interviewed Lila and Donny.

Donny and Ronny volunteered to get
plywood to nail over the windows, and Lila gratefully accepted their help. By
the time we'd had our coffee, Marge and Molly joined us, so it looked like a block
party instead of a crime scene.

"I heard the shots,"
Molly said, "but Mom wouldn't let me come down last night." From
their living room window overlooking the highway, they had seen the police
lights flashing and Lila's car when we arrived in the night.

Marge said, "Lila, is there
anything we can do? You know you can count on us."

Lila shook her head. "We're
fine," she said. "I really appreciate knowing you are watching out
for us."

"Come on then, Molly,"
Marge said. "You can come back down after we get the guys up and
fed."

With both of us working, it didn't
take long for Lila and me to clean up. We avoided cutting ourselves by
carefully picking chunks of glass out of the window frames. Then we swept the
window frames, the shop floor, and the sidewalk. After that, we went over
everything with old damp towels to pick up any shards we'd missed.

Lila decided to leave what remained
of the barber pole. I don't know if she couldn't bear to take it down and throw
it away or if it was a statement of some kind, a reminder of how dangerous guns
are. By leaving it up she could make a point without having to use her mouth or
her pen.

The brass base was still beautiful,
but the glass cylinder had all shattered and fallen on the ground. The painted
heavy cardboard cylinder, the characteristic red, white, and blue barbershop spiral,
was ripped and hanging down, exposing the metal spool inside that rotated. At
least Lila left it turned off, so the poor thing didn't keep revolving. That
would have been pathetic.

Herbert showed up then, even though
it was barely seven and he normally didn't come in until eight. One of his
neighbors had told him about the shooting. He listened as Lila gave him the
short version of what had happened, and he examined the bullet holes in the
door, Lila's chair, and the wall.

The neon open sign in the small
window above the door still worked, so he turned it on and got his workstation
ready. Within five minutes, there was someone sitting in his chair. Apparently
Herbert had decided it was business as usual. He loved cutting hair.

It was strange standing inside the
shop and having no glass in the windows. The frames were so low you could step
in and out of the shop that way, and when Molly came back down, we made a game
of chasing each other in and out through the two window openings until Herbert
stopped working, loudly cleared his throat, and looked at us.

"Sorry," I said, and we
jumped outside the windows and went to find Lila.

She was talking with Paul in the
bakery.

"I was afraid Fred might do
something stupid one day," Paul said. "After he lost his job down at
the lumber mill, he's been spending more time at the pub. And now that
Veronica's working at that law office, instead of being happy about the money,
he's jealous."

"Too bad we can't all be happy
drunks," said Lila, and Paul laughed.

Lila continued, "Hearing the
shots must of have been pretty scary for you and Donny."

"I knew right away it was a
gun, and when I heard the glass fall, I thought it was our display case in the
front. Donny went running before I could stop him."

Molly said, "Donny could
probably run as fast as Fred's truck."

"He's fast," Paul said.
"He started running when he turned one and hasn't slowed down since."

"I'm so glad no one was
hurt," Lila said.

While we were chatting, Ronny and
Donny got thin plywood nailed over the windows so the shop would be secure at
night until the glass was replaced.

Molly went back home to help her
mom get ready to open their business, and Lila and I went home, too, since
there was nothing more to do. When we got home, Fred's wife Veronica called
Lila. They decided to go together to talk to Fred after he'd sat in jail for a
couple of days.

"What's going to happen to
him, Grandma?"

"Good comes out of everything,
Cassandra. I'm sure it'll be something good."

We were both tired from all the
excitement, so we took naps before Lila had to go in to work at two. I decided
to stay home with Chloe and Zoe. I went for a long walk on the beach, and I was
the only one there besides the seagulls. The wind was blowing so hard it picked
up the heavy damp sand and blasted it against me. I had to walk with my feet in
the water to get some protection from the sandblasting. Still sand struck my
ankles and spattered against my legs. Walking into the wind was work, and I
kept my eyes nearly shut even with my sunglasses on, in case a gust brought sand
up to my face.

Although it was work, it was really
fun to forge ahead into the cold, fierce wind. Part of the fun was knowing as
soon as I turned around, I would fly home.

Some of the seagulls loved the
wind, too. Half a dozen of them hovered over me, their eyes tight against the
wind like mine. They held their wings at exactly the correct angle to sail
upwind, like skilled sailors tacking ahead in a current. We were a team of
explorers, the birds and I, braving the elements, all for the fun and adventure
of it. Sometimes the gulls were slightly ahead of me, sometimes they dropped
behind, maybe testing the variations in wind currents caused by my body.
Finally I'd had enough, and I turned, yipped like a coyote, put out my arms,
and ran flying back home with the sand hitting the back of my legs and the
gulls soaring and dipping down in front of me, letting me know they could win
any race.

On the porch before going back
inside, I took some time to shake all the sand out of my clothes. The sun threw
thousands of brilliant diamonds off the white-capped ocean. I stood there,
somewhat protected from the wind by the neighbor's house, and watched drifts
being built all over the beach. Every log became a covered ridge, every clump
of seaweed a mounded dune.

When I went back indoors, Chloe and
Zoe climbed all over me and sniffed every part of my legs and feet they could
reach. They opened their mouths and wrinkled their noses, so I knew they were
tasting all the smells I'd brought them from far off places. It took them
several minutes to be satisfied, and then they jumped in the middle of the
couch and groomed themselves and each other for another nap.

The image of my mother came back,
of her kneeling on the broken glass, and I wanted to hear her voice, to know
she was okay. I called her number but there was no answer. There was no answer
at Grandma Betty's either. I tried the only other number I had, Janice's friend
Barb from work, and she answered on the second ring. I introduced myself as
Cassandra and then realized she didn't know that name, so I started over.

"This is Sandy, Janice's
daughter?" I said, hoping she'd remember me.

"Sandy," she said.
"You sound so grown up. Your mother's not here. I haven't seen her since
she, you know. We don't work together anymore."

"I've been trying to call her,
but I can't connect. Do you know anyone who might know how to reach her? I miss
her. I'm worried about her. Please, is there anyone I could try?"

"Oh, hon’, I don't know,"
she said, sounding as if she would help if she could.

"How about that man
Roger?" I asked. "The older guy she was friends with when I left in
June? Do you know how I could call him?"

"There may be someone at work
who knows his number. Let me check around. Call me back in fifteen minutes,
okay?"

"Thank you so much. Yes. I'll
call. I really appreciate it. Thank you."

"Listen, you take care of
yourself, okay hon’?"

"I will. Really. I'm doing
great. I'll call you in fifteen minutes."

I paced around the house until the
cats meowed at me to settle down, so I got out my trusty hardback dictionary
and settled on the couch with it to savor words. When I checked the time, it had
been exactly fifteen minutes.

"I found a couple of numbers
you can try," Barb said. "Here's a number where Janice and Roger went
to a meeting. She gave it to me in case I needed to call her in for work. And
there's another gal who used to work with us who dated Roger before he met your
mom. She might be able to help."