Look Closely (5 page)

“I can, and I wil .”

“Don’t you realize that terminating him is exactly what the plaintiffs want? At trial, they can make a huge issue of how you knew Gary had messed up, and that’s why you sacked him. If you keep him on, though, you show confidence in your Web site and your belief that your employee did nothing wrong.”

McKnight spread his lips in an insincere smile. “Point taken. He stays until the case is over. Although I suppose we could have avoided this conversation if you’d prepared him correctly.”

I felt my jaw clench. The silence of the large room seemed to envelope us, although I could hear the murmurs outside the door; no doubt Lamey was spinning his tale of impending victory for the reporters.

“I worked with him for two days before his deposition, one day last week on the phone, and two nights this week,” I said, trying to keep my voice low. “Gary is a very nice person, but he’l never be a good witness. No amount of prep can change that.” I hefted my trial bag off the counsel’s table, wishing I could launch the thing at McKnight’s head. “The arbitrators wil cal me next week when they’ve reached a decision. I’l let you know immediately, and we’l come here together to hear it.”

He nodded, his face slightly less haughty. “You did a good job. Other than that.”

I didn’t know whether to take that swing with the trial bag or thank him, so I only nodded an acknowledgment.

“I mean that,” he said. “You’re obviously an excel ent lawyer.” He looked slightly embarrassed, and, for the first time since I met him, he seemed human.Itwasprobablymorethanhecouldbear,becauseheturnedandleftwithoutawordofgoodbye.

Don’t think about it,
I told myself now, and I turned up the car radio so that it blared an Al man Brothers song. I dug my hand in the bag of pretzels and popped a few in my mouth, washing them down with a swig of water. I found that it wasn’t hard to shift my thoughts as I made my way down the Skyway, a multilane raised road that hugged the lake and formed a bridge from Chicago into northern Indiana. Through the line of smokestacks and steel mil s, I began to catch glimpses of the lake, a flat, watery carpet of deep blue, the lake that was my playground until my mom died.

Once across the Indiana border and into southern Michigan, I exited and got on a smal highway that would take me even closer to the lake. The highway here was more scenic, lined with a couple of rural towns and then long patches of oak trees with nothing to interrupt them. It was odd how familiar it al seemed, how recent the memory. Final y, I reached a stop sign, so faded by the sun it was almost pink. Below it was another sign, black and rectangular with white lettering that read, Welcome To Woodland Dunes.

I didn’t hesitate. I stepped on the gas and crossed the threshold. I was back.

3

I passed Franklin Park, a wide plot of green land fil ed with benches and swing sets and a white gazebo. On the other side of the park lay the softly lapping waves of Lake Michigan. After the park, there were smal cottages on either side of the street.

Soon, the houses became larger and grander, the old section of Woodland Dunes. I pul ed over and checked the slip of paper where I’d written Del a’s address. I’d never been to her house before.

The street that Del a lived on turned east, away fromthelake,andcoursedthroughthewoods.This was where people built homes when they couldn’t afford to live near the water, and as a result, the homes became smal er and closer together again.

Del a’s house was a trim ranch with brown aluminum siding and a smal , unfinished wood porch with a lone rocker. An old blue station wagon was parked in the driveway. I pul ed in behind it.

I climbed out of the car, not even pausing to check my face in the mirror or grab my purse. I hadn’t seen Del a, the woman who’d been housekeeper and nanny to my family, in more than twenty years, but suddenly I couldn’t wait.

There was no bel , so I rapped on the screen door, which rattled back and forth in its casing.

An older Hispanic man dressed in jeans and a golf shirt opened it.

“Is Del a home?” I said.

He gave me a kind smile. “Are you Hailey?”

I nodded.

“Wel , hel o. I’m Martin, Del a’s husband. I met you years and years ago, but you probably don’t remember.”

“I’m sorry, I…”

“Don’t be sil y, you were a little girl. Del a wil be so happy to see you. She went out to the store. Wasn’t sure when you’d be here. Would you like to come in?”

I tried not to show my disappointment. Now that I was there, I was impatient to talk to Del a, to find out everything she knew and remembered, but I couldn’t bear the thought of making smal talk in the interim.

“Actual y,” I said, “I haven’t been to Woodland Dunes in a long time. Maybe I’l just drive around, go by our old house. Do you know who lives there now?”

Martin looked a little surprised. “Oh, no one lives there. Not for a while. They cal it the Marker Mansion, after the family that original y built the house at the turn of the century. It’s been converted into a cultural center for the town.”

“So I could go inside?”

“Sure. They’l even give you a tour.”

I thanked him, promised to return in an hour, and headed for my car.

After a five-minute drive, I turned the corner and came face-to-face with the house, the image of my early childhood—its gables, its sloping black roofs, its wide dormered windows on the second floor and the tal oaks and pines that surround the house like a cape. I parked in a large concrete lot that used to be part of the front lawn.

Turning off the ignition, I stared at the house, taking in the Victorian shape and the broad porch with its white wood railing. The house was dove-gray instead of the creamy yel ow that my parents always painted it, and there were tal bushes where my mother used to plant flowers. Otherwise, the outside looked much the same. It had resided in my memory for so long, a memory I didn’t often visit, that it was strange to see it in person.

I got out of the car, and as I approached the front steps, I saw a smal iron sign that read:

Woodland Dunes Cultural Center.

Formerly The Marker Mansion. Built 1905.

Tours Daily 10:00, 11:30, 1:00.

I glanced at my watch. I was just in time for the second tour.

When I stepped onto the porch, I had a sudden vision of a swing that used to hang in the corner. I could almost see my sister, Caroline, sitting there, her feet on the swing, her arms wrapped around her knees, her sandy, straight hair fal ing around her shoulders. She was always so quiet, so stil , and in the summers, she spent much of her time on that swing. She never read or even hummed to herself. She just sat. I remembered myself, years younger than my newly teenage sister, coming out of the house to peek at her, wondering what tragedies she was mul ing over. Although no one had given me that impression, I always imagined Caroline as a complicated and tragic figure.

“MayIhelpyou?”Avoicestartledmeawayfrom the memory. I turned to see a young woman in the doorway with dark hair twisted up in a loose knot.

“Hi. I’m here for the tour.”

“Great. C’mon in.” The woman stepped inside and held open the door. “We don’t get too many visitors until the summer real y starts, so I’m glad to have you.”

My first thought when I stepped into the front hal , a wide foyer with molded plaster ceilings, was that the house was much darker now. Maybe I was mistaken or simply remembering poorly, but I always thought the house had been sun-fil ed and airy, even in the winter. Now the house had a shuttered, impersonal feel, a museum feel, which I supposed wasn’t surprising, since it
was
a museum of sorts now.

“I’m Jan,” the guide said, extending her hand. She was probably no older than twenty-one. She wore little makeup and a simple outfit of khaki pants and a blue T-shirt.

“Hailey.” I shook her hand.

“Are you from around here?”

“No. New York.” I didn’t mention that I used to be from around here, that I used to
live
in this house. For now, I wanted to keep my memories to myself. It had been so long since I let them in.

“Let’sstartthetouroverhere.”Janledthewayto theright,pastopenpocketdoorsandintothelibrary.

The inlaid mahogany bookshelves were stil in place, as were the Tiffany lamps, permanently instal ed at the top of each shelf. At the end of the room was a huge pink marble fireplace that my dad used to cal the “bordel o fireplace.” It was so tal that I used to be able to walk directly into it without ducking. As I walked toward it now, I realized that I was a long way from that little girl. At five foot six, I could easily reach the mantel.

I took in the whole room, vaguely aware of Jan’s talkabouthowthehousehadbeencompletedforthe Marker family in 1905, how craftsmen had needed the previous six years to complete it.

Like the entryway, the library appeared much darker than I remembered, probably because it was now adorned withperiodfurnishingsfromtheearly1900stomake itlookasitdidbackthen—

heavyredvelvetdrapes, brass candelabras, uncomfortable-looking highbackchairs.ButIsawitasmymotherhaddecorated it—with soft, stuffed chairs and ottomans, vases of fresh flowers, and the corner that was saved just for me, complete with a smal child’s chair, the replica ofthelargerones,andmyownminiaturebookcases.

“How do you like it?” I heard Jan ask.

“Oh, it’s lovely. I was just imagining what it would have been like to live here.”

“Wel , when the Markers were here, they had a ful staff of servants to carry out their every whim, and they entertained often. The Markers were famous for their bal s and their travels.”

And what about the Sutter family? I wanted to ask. What were they famous for? Does anyone remember them?

Next, Jan led me to a large drawing room on the other side of the hal way. I listened to her speech about the oil paintings and the marble sculptures, because the room held few memories for me. I couldn’trecal myfamilyspendingmuchtimethere.

But no, that wasn’t quite right. A recol ection came to me of my brother, Dan, seventeen years old when I was only seven, hunched over a scarred octagonal table, his straight blond hair fal ing over his forehead, writing furiously in his notebook, fil ing it with his stories. He’d used the room as an escape from the rest of the family, his teenage years making him crave privacy.

“Let’s go upstairs now,” Jan said.

I fol owed her back through the lobby and up the wide, dark wood stairway that was covered with a wine-colored carpet runner.

“You’l noticethetapestryonthelandinghere,” Jan said, pausing, one hand resting on a carved woodglobethatformedthetopofthebanister.Her otherhandpointedtoasilkwal -hangingincolors of gray and salmon. She described how the tapestry had been hand-woven in Italy, how the artist had visited the Markers. But I had quit listening.

I had returned to a moment that had lain buried until now. I saw my mother standing at the bottom of those stairs, dressed in a powder-blue suit, her feet in high heels I’d never seen before. She moved to the front door and opened it. She spoke to someone, their voices hushed, one voice much deeper than the other. A hand was on her blue shoulder. A large man’s hand. A ring on his finger. The soft sounds of crying. Then my mother swayed, nearly fel .

I had watched this scene, I realized, from the landing where I now stood. I’d been dressed in my favorite pair of jeans and the shirt with the sunflower on the front, my face peering around the post at the top of the landing.

“Are you al right?”

I focused on Jan’s face, her eyes wary. “Sure, sure. I’m fine.” I looked back down the staircase again, but the vision was gone.

“Wel , come on up this way. I’l show you the bedrooms.”

I fol owed Jan again, surprised at the sudden, vividflashofmymother.IthadbeenagessinceI’d real y remembered her in any detail. There were the vague recol ections, like how she ran every night, even if it was raining, sometimes coming in thehousewithherlonghairdrippinginsheets,her chest heaving as if she’d been chased and not out for a leisurely jog, and later the feel of that hair sweepingmycheekassheleanedoverme,kissing me good-night, the smel of lavender on her skin.

“This bedroom belonged to Catherine, the Markers’ only daughter,” Jan said, leading me to the first bedroom at the top of the stairs.

I remembered it wel . It used to be mine.

The wal s were stil painted peach, the fireplace stil white, and a canopy bed stil stood in the corner. The bed, though, which was made of dark wood, its canopy designed with heavy velvet, was different from the one I loved so much. Mine was white with an eyelet covering. Seeing the bed and the room brought back another flood of memories: myself in the bed, quilt up to my neck, reading until my mother insisted that the lights be turned off; my friend, Patsy, and I playing in front of the fireplace that was never lit; Caroline helping me with my homework at the desk against the wal .

Howodd,Ithought,thatsofewofthosememories included my dad. But maybe it wasn’t so strange, since he’d spent most of his weekdays working in Chicagoandmostoftheweeknightsathisapartment there.Andyet,mymemoriesafterWoodlandDunes are exclusively of my father and me. No one else.

Jan showed me through three other bedrooms, two of which had been occupied twenty years ago by my siblings. She stopped in the hal way before the master bedroom and pointed out an intercom system that had been instal ed by the Markers in order to talk to their servants.

“The intercom hasn’t worked in a long time,” Jan said. “At least not since the cultural center moved in here.”

“And when was that?”

“The early eighties.”

“Real y?” The early eighties were when my family moved away from Woodland Dunes. “Why did the town want this specific house?”

“Wel , I don’t know that they actual y wanted this particular home, but from what I heard, they got it at a great price. The people who’d lived here before couldn’t sel it.”

“Why was that?”

Jan made a show of looking around, even though there was no one else near us. “We’re not supposed to talk about this,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper, “but a lady died here.”