Mission to America (18 page)

My partner sucked his Fudgsicle and eyed me. I gathered he was in on this. He'd already assured Little Eff that I'd cooperate.

“I'll call and ask her.”

“I'm paying, of course. You realize that. My treat.”

“Thank you. I'll ask her. When next week?”

“Next Friday. We can drive down to Aspen, if she'd like. Whatever tickles her.”

“I'll ask,” I said.

Little Eff picked up his handkerchief, shook out the crumbs, and tucked it in his shirt pocket, flaring out one of the corners for effect. He looked restored, revived. My partner did, too. We collected the Fudgsicle sticks, the cans, the sandwich bags, and dumped them into the cooler and put the lid on. When I saw that no one else was going to do it, I lifted the cooler into the truck bed, and Little Eff thanked me with a wink. He insisted I ride up front with him this time, and as we pulled out he patted my left knee and tilted his head toward the bison, which were resting now. I apologized to him for failing to see the wolves and he forgave me with a shrug. We were buddies suddenly, it seemed. I gave myself license to ask a question that had been welling up in me all morning.

“I realize Edward needs his privacy, but has he written any other books? I'd like to read one. I'm curious,” I said.

My partner reached over the seat and squeezed my shoulder as Little Eff said, “I thought we made this clear. Edward's project is no concern of yours. As a matter of fact, it's no concern of mine. It's purely my father's affair.”

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“There are boundaries here. Respect them.”

I said that I would.

“Good enough. Just arrange things with your girl,” he said. A few minutes later he used the rearview mirror to address my partner in the back. “I'm sorry about insulting your Indian. We actually revere the red man on the Rocking F—my father especially. I was making a point about language, not intelligence. I'm really sincerely apologetic. Cool? Are we cool or not on this?”

“We're cool.”

My partner nudged me from behind and I said it, too, though not as smoothly and naturally. I practiced the phrase in my head all afternoon, and when I used it at breakfast the next day to answer Eff Sr. when he asked me if I found the guesthouse satisfactory, he didn't correct me or give me a strange look, which meant I must have learned to use it right.

Little Eff's black Suburban,
driven by a ranch hand and looking like a cross between a hearse and one of the armored military vehicles that I'd been seeing on the news, arrived at Betsy's mother's house at six, an hour earlier than we'd expected and before either one of us was ready to go. Betsy was still in her bedroom in the basement altering a tiny pink children's T-shirt she'd bought at a Red Cross thrift shop for fifty cents. The shirt showed an elephant standing on its back feet, balancing a beach ball on its trunk. Though it barely covered her stomach, she wanted it shorter. She also wanted to trim the sleeves. When she'd told me she planned to wear it on our night out, I'd held my tongue. The beach ball, drawn with sequins, was positioned precisely over Betsy's right breast and stretched by the fullness there into an oval.

I was upstairs with Betsy's mother, Helen, whom I'd met for the first time that afternoon and had taken an instant liking to because her strong voice, quick opinions, and springy manner reminded me of the ladies back in Bluff. For an hour we'd been discussing Helen's massage work—a vocation she said she'd taken up twelve years ago after her divorce from Betsy's father, whom she referred to as “the Huckster.” She said she refused to speak ill of the poor man, and then went on to tell me that since their breakup he hadn't managed to keep a steady girlfriend and often resorted to prostitutes for company. She'd heard he'd caught a disease from one of them and been blackmailed by another, citing as her source the senior salesman at his Audi and Jaguar dealership, which, she said, he'd embezzled from to the point of bankruptcy. She sounded boastful telling me these things, as though her ex-husband's ill fortune was the result of a successful curse she'd placed on him, but something told me she still loved the man and awaited the day when he'd come to her for help. I asked her if Betsy still saw him and she said no, not that she knew of, but that she couldn't be sure because her daughter was so private. Did I know, for example, that she cuddled with stuffed bears? I admitted I didn't. “In her sleep,” said Helen. “I creep down and watch her sometimes. She looks so cozy. Once in a while I snuggle in next to her and lie there for a while, to feel the heat. I miss her baby years. I miss the odors. Even the bad ones. The diapers. The sour-milk breath.”

“Most mothers miss those,” I ventured.

“She may have nursed too long. Four years is too long. I made a great mistake there. I'd like to see her settled soon, with children, but here she still is, no plans, no life, no structure. Maybe that will be your job.”

“What?”

“The structure.”

We returned to the subject of reflexology. Helen believed that the feet control the body and tried to convince me of her theory by instructing me to remove my shoes and socks, pressing her thumbtips into my big toes, and asking me to monitor my heart rate, which she claimed to be able to influence through touch. It did slow down some after a few minutes, but I attributed this change to the valerian tea she'd made me drink after I'd confessed to feeling anxious about the coming evening. Little Eff's plans seemed needlessly elaborate: a two-hour drive to Aspen, dinner, dancing, and—he'd sworn me to silence about this part, explaining that his date, a woman named Hadley, had accused him once of lacking spontaneity and therefore deserved to be taken by surprise—a wee-hours ride back to Snowshoe in a helicopter, which would deposit us atop a glacier for a sunrise catered champagne breakfast.

“If the fellow's a friend of the Huckster,” Helen said, responding to my description of the big night, “he overdoes things out of insecurity. They're little boys, that crowd. Big toys, small minds, and—let's be blunt here; anatomy is destiny—even smaller ding-a-lings.” She formed a caliper with a thumb and index finger, holding them a couple of inches apart and then closing the gap by half, to maybe one inch. “I'm speaking literally,” Helen said. “I've had these men on my table many a time.”

I didn't like this line of talk. I never had. It was the utmost in False Comparison.

“Fortunately,” Helen said, “that's not a complex you'll ever suffer from personally. According to my daughter. Well, good for both of you.”

Private. What a very private girl. As far as snuggling teddy bears, not people.

“What was the Huckster's friend's name again?” asked Helen.

“Errol Effingham Jr.”

“The buffalo family?”

“They have a wolf pack, too.”

“A colleague of mine—she does Swedish and deep tissue—worked on his father a few years back, I think. Pockmarked buttocks. Suffers from colitis. My friend said he fancied himself a sage, a thinker. He gave her a pamphlet he'd written. On wizards, was it?”

“The Keepers?”

“I don't remember—some made-up silliness. My friend said the thing was unreadable, illiterate, but I've heard that about your Book of Mormon, too.”

“I'm not a Mormon. I'm an AFA. An Aboriginal Fulfilled Apostle.”

“Well, there's good in all of it,” she said.

“I'd like to think so. I don't know.”

“I don't know, either; it's something you're meant to say these days. Whatever you are, though, my daughter seems to like it, so I like it, too. She's my cuddly angel pie. Wounded inside, I suppose, but aren't we all? My grandfather used to take me for naked swims and check between my legs for chiggers afterward, but I still achieved healthy intimacy in marriage, so, honestly, what great harm could it have done? I think we exaggerate these matters now. Still, this obsession of Betsy's with dress, with clothing—it's a reaction to
something
, obviously.”

“Or it could be an anticipation.”

“Interesting.”

“People react to the future, not just the past,” I said.

“This is why she likes you, isn't it? A man of ideas. In a clean white shirt.”

I thanked her for what I gathered was a compliment and delved into the Matic and the Thonic, Preexistence, Perfection, and the rest of it, aware as I spoke of a glimmer in the air that usually preceded a bad cold or an incapacitating headache.
Helen opened the teapot and held the teabag by the paper tag clipped to its string, dunking it a few times to strengthen the brew. She emptied the pot into our mugs, which advertised Hair We Go!, a local beauty shop. I could tell I'd lost her interest. I abandoned my lecture and looked around for something that might inspire a fresh topic, but the large, undivided room held little more than Helen's massage table, a stained blue sofa, and an oddly shaped structure about five feet tall made up of carpet-covered arms and platforms, on the highest of which an orange cat was sleeping. There were three or four paintings, but of scenes so neutral—a moonlit sailing ship and so on—that the moment I took my eyes from them I completely forgot what they depicted.

“When Betsy moved home after college,” Helen said, as though resuming an interrupted thought, “she worked as a model for a year or two. Locally, regionally, not nationally. I'm afraid there were racy undergarments involved, at least in a few of the jobs. I found one once. Plastic, it felt like, black, with straps and buckles. I bring this up in case you've heard it elsewhere.” She fixed me with a flat, appraising look while blowing across her mug with tight, pursed lips.

“No. Not exactly,” I said after a pause.

“Just in case you do, though,” Helen said, “I hope you won't think she's ruined or unfit. As a potential mate, I mean. Because that's why you're here, I assume. May I assume that?”

“Yes.”

“Because if not, I'll toss you out of here. I'm very protective. I'm fierce. A momma grizzly.”

“I'm starting to see that.”

“I've told her: ‘Snugglebug, you make poor choices. Your longing for a father blinds you, Cuddles. It's time for a husband, and I'm the one who picks. No more artists. No more tricky trash. I'm not going to pay another ten thousand dollars next time you need your lovely young bare fanny erased from the computers of the world.'”

I'd finished my tea but pretended to sip it anyway. I needed time, though I didn't know for what, and I wished for some reason that my feet weren't bare, that I'd never exposed my toes to Helen's fingers. It had brought us too close too early and we were stuck now. Helen carried the teapot to the sink, rinsed it, dried it, placed it on a shelf, and turned back around to face me with crossed arms and a look that seemed both angry and beseeching. That's when I heard rumbling in the driveway and saw the glow of headlights in the curtains. I reached down for my shoes.

“At two and a half,” said Helen, “she started biting me. She wanted off the breast. She'd had her fill. It didn't work, though, because it didn't hurt. Even when she drew blood, it didn't hurt. Love is a powerful painkiller, I guess.”

I unrolled one of my socks and pulled it on. My feet smelled of sweat and lavender massage oil.

“Take her,” said Helen. “Get her out of here.”

         

The Suburban's rear seats were arranged to face each other across a low table equipped with sunken cup holders and a central well that held an ice bucket. Soft music streamed down from speakers in the ceiling as Little Eff uncorked a bottle of wine and held it steady, wrapped in a white towel, while the Suburban rounded another curve. The tilt of the floor and the pressure on my eardrums indicated to me that we were climbing, but the vehicle's purplish dark windows blocked my view and prevented me from estimating our speed. A tinted-glass screen concealed the driver, too, increasing my sense of detachment and dependence as well as my nervousness about a crash that I wouldn't see coming and wouldn't have time to brace for.

Little Eff filled our wineglasses once we'd reached a straightaway and toasted “the freedom of the American road,” clinking his glass against Betsy's and then Hadley's but merely raising it when my turn came, which I felt was a slight and, possibly, bad luck. The women sat hip to hip and smiled and chatted, their legs crossed at the knees, their shoulders squared, their spines held taut and competitively erect. I suspected that before they could make friends, as Little Eff seemed so confident they would, they'd have to resolve the fundamental matter of who was prettier, and by just how much. Little Eff and I would have no say here; their contest would be private, its rules obscure, and its outcome final.

I asked Hadley what she did, then wished I hadn't. Like Little Eff, she clearly did nothing. Nothing I'd regard as work, at least.

He answered for her. “She designs.”

I sensed a request to change subjects and honored it by asking Hadley where she grew up, a question that interested me far more than my first one because, after watching her for the last few minutes, I doubted that she'd be truthful about her origins, just as I doubted that Hadley was her real name or her face was the face that she'd been born with. Everything about her seemed invented: her prolonged pronunciations of words from books that are rarely heard out loud (she'd said of the wine “It's fetching but somewhat nebulous”); the annoyed way she kept flicking hair out of her eyes that she'd put there on purpose by tossing her head; the draftsmanlike neatness of her too-straight nose, identically dimpled cheeks, and her plump, bowed lips; and even the punctual little breaths she took between her measured swallows of wine. With Hadley, nothing was casual or careless; she timed every blink, considered every sigh.

“My family traveled,” she answered. I detected a challenge to probe further and a warning that I might not get far if I did.

I went ahead. “From where?”

“You mean our base? D.C. My father worked out of D.C.”

“For the government?”

“One would assume. We didn't ask him.”

“A spook,” Little Eff said. “Her father was a spy.”

Hadley said, “He lived a life of service.”

“Of all the places you traveled to,” I asked, “which was your favorite? Which did you like best?” I glanced at Betsy, convinced she knew the game now and shared my skepticism about Hadley. I expected a wink but got a scowl.

“Rome,” Hadley said.

“Why Rome?”

“Because it's Rome.”

“I love your jeans,” said Betsy. “I love the stitching, especially on the inseams. Vintage? New?”

“Reconstructed vintage,” Hadley said. “There's a shop in La Jolla. I have their Web address. The owner used to costume Sharon Stone. Nina Karloff, a magical old Jewish lady. Very serene, very centered. She does tai chi. That shirt of yours, by the way—adorable.”

Betsy thanked her. “I also love your boots.”

It was no use now; I gave up needling Hadley. The beauty contest had ended in a draw, it seemed, and the women had formed the tight, exclusive partnership of the uncommonly tasteful and attractive. For the moment, there was no opposing team, but later on this evening, chances were, one would emerge and unity might prove crucial. Growing up in a faith ruled by women had taught me something: they face the world in pairs whenever possible. The only exception is the queen.