Sisters of the Road (21 page)

“I’ll call you in the morning.”

“We’ll have to see,” he said and hung up quickly. I had a feeling he was sorry he’d told me anything about his relationship with Trish. Now he was asserting his parental rights. But did he have any?

“Well, she’s not dead and not in the detention center,” Janis said pragmatically when I told her. “That’s the important thing.”

“No, she’s safe,” I said. “Now all we have to do is get her away from her father.”

T
HE NEXT MORNING
I called Art. “She’s still sleeping.”

At ten they were “eating breakfast.” And at ten thirty there was no answer. Shopping perhaps. But what if they were shopping all day? What if when they came home they were “eating dinner”? I was never going to get to talk with Trish, to ask her all the things I wanted to know.

I called Beth at home to ask for her help. If she came to Portland she could say she was Trish’s social worker, and Art would have to let us see her.

“I don’t have any real authority,” Beth demurred.

“But he doesn’t know that. We could even take her with us back to Seattle.”

“Let’s not get carried away… Remember, she may be safer there with him watching her every move than back in Seattle. Maybe she should just stay there until everything’s cleared up.”

I realized Beth didn’t know about the incest. “She’s not going to stay there. She’ll run.”

Beth thought about it a minute. “Maybe you’re right. Okay, I’ll come. I should get there about three or so.”

I thought about surprising Janis, but decided it wouldn’t be fair. It was bad enough that I found myself nourishing a few gentle desires in Beth’s direction. So I called Janis’ office and told her that Beth was coming and why.

Her crisp assurance took on a tone of uncertainty. “Don’t let her leave again before I get home,” she said. “I’ll try to be back by six at the latest. Don’t let her leave. I’ll make dinner… I’ll make a meat dish. And tell her,” Janis thought quickly, “tell her she can smoke in my house.”

Beth arrived at two-thirty, wearing a heavy, unfashionable coat and a soft pink angora hat that rode her strawberry hair like a dab of fruit mousse. There was something grand and commanding about her in motion, even though she seemed entirely unconscious of it. She held her car keys tightly in her fingers like a baby holding a rattle.

It felt good to see her, but it didn’t feel anything like love; it didn’t make me tense up and stop breathing as Janis had done on the phone. Even when Beth hugged me I didn’t feel much of anything but relief. It was a little disappointing.

“Did you manage to get a hold of them on the phone?” she asked, while looking around Janis’ living room in a thoughtful, remembering kind of way.

“Finally—just five minutes ago. I told him we were coming over. There wasn’t much he could say.”

Beth nodded, still absorbed in some private memory. I’m just glad she’s safe,” she said finally.

“I guess she’s safe…” I told her about Trish’s diary and Art’s confession.

“Christ!” she said. “I remember Julianne and all that incest stuff last summer in the group. A couple of other girls started talking about it too. But I never thought… Trish…” she sighed, a little grimly. “Well, what is it you want me to do?”

“Keep him occupied talking about whatever social workers talk about—custody and placement, whatever—while I ask Trish some questions.”

“Professional jargon, in other words.” She started to light a Carlton, then stopped.

“It’s all right. Janis told me you could smoke in the house.”

“Did she?” was all Beth said.

Art was waiting for us in the living room with Trish. Judy had taken the kids to the playground. He was obsequious and eager to please; he kept wetting his big, grayish-pink lips as he told us how he’d taken the day off from his job at the hospital (he was in payroll, been there for eight years) and how they’d gone shopping and had lunch at Burger King and tonight they were going to go to see a movie, the whole family.

Trish seemed younger than when I’d seen her last. She wore no makeup and her hair was washed and bouncy on her shoulders. Instead of her tight jeans and white leather jacket she had on a skirt and a blouse with a Peter Pan collar. She looked entirely defeated and didn’t seem to want to meet my eyes.

“Remember me?” I tried to joke.

“Yeah,” she said sullenly and stared at her shoes; they were new too—low pumps with bows. Judy’s idea of teen fashion.

For the first time it struck me that I knew Trish much better than she knew me. Ever since she’d left my apartment I’d done little but follow her. I’d met her parents, Wayne, Karl, her street friends, Beth. I’d read her diary and snooped into the hotel room she’d shared with Rosalie. I’d told the police about her and I’d told Art she was in Portland. And suddenly I wasn’t sure how I could justify any of this, much less use it now.

If you want them to trust you, be trustworthy, Joe at the drop-in center had told me. That wasn’t going to be easy.

Beth took control immediately. She hugged Trish and said matter-of-factly, “Glad to see you girl. Glad you’re all right.” Then she turned to Art, authoritative in her big coat. “Is there someplace we can speak privately?”

He hesitated and looked at Trish and me. “The kitchen, I guess.”

When they were gone I said quickly, “I did tell your father you were in Portland, Trish. I’m sorry. I’ve been looking for you for a week and I’ve been—so frightened that something had happened to you.”

“Nothing has happened to me,” she muttered.

“Why did you leave my apartment, did someone take you here?”

“I just felt like leaving, I just felt like getting out of Seattle.” For the first time she raised her head and her expression was challenging. “It’s a free country, isn’t it?”

“Look,” I said a little desperately. “I’ve met Wayne. I know about you and Wayne and Rosalie. I know about Karl. Was it one of them, Wayne or Karl, who brought you here?”

Something flickered in her eyes. Fear? Or anger?

“I don’t want to talk about Wayne with you. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I would!”

She was stubbornly silent. I heard voices in the kitchen: Art’s eager explanations, Beth’s noncommittal reassurances. I wondered what she was telling him.

“Why don’t you want to talk about Wayne?” I persisted, in what I hoped was a calmer tone. “Are you afraid of him, afraid hell hurt you if you say anything?”

Again that strange flicker in her eyes. But she said obstinately, “Wayne wouldn’t hurt me. He loves me.”

She wanted to believe it still. “If he loves you so much why didn’t he want you to stop being a prostitute? Rosalie got out of the life, didn’t she? And she wanted you to stop too. Is that what made Wayne mad?”

“Rosalie,” she said. She closed her eyes. “Just leave me alone, will you?”

“Why did Wayne have Rosalie’s fake ID? And why is Wayne afraid of Karl?” I heard the voices in the kitchen pause, as if they’d come to some agreement. “I’m only trying to help you, Trish.”

“Oh sure,” she said. “Big help, telling Art you thought I was in Portland. How do you think I felt when some guy stopped and I got in and saw it was my fucking father?” She stared at me with eyes full of hate and desperation. “Well, I’m not staying here, if that’s what any of you think. And you and Beth can go fuck yourselves. I’m not telling you anything. There’s nothing to tell anyway.”

I couldn’t let it go. “What about Rob? It couldn’t have been him, could it?”

“Rob?” She gritted her teeth like an animal at bay. “You’ve been talking to
him
too? Jesus Christ.”

Art and Beth came back into the living room in time for Art to hear her take his savior’s name in vain. He flinched and then said heartily, “Well, have you two been having a nice talk?”

Beth looked from Trish to me, saying gently, “I think it’s best if you stay here for a day or two longer, Trish. We’ll get things straightened out as soon as we can.”

Trish didn’t bother to look at her.

Art came over and patted his daughter clumsily on the shoulder. She stiffened but he ignored it. “I was thinking that before the movie maybe we should all go out to dinner tonight, Patti. You and me and Judy and the kids. You like fish and chips I seem to remember.”

“I want to go with Beth and Pam.” She suddenly panicked and lunged away from him, towards us.

I wanted to grab her and make a run for it, and afterwards I wished I had. “I’ll call you,” I said instead. “I’ll come visit you tomorrow.”

“Don’t bother,” she said.

B
ETH AND I RETURNED
to Janis’ to wait for her. It was good to be inside. The bright cold weather had snapped, and a windy rainstorm swirled over the city like an upside-down Jacuzzi.

“It’s strange to be here again,” said Beth, reclining on the couch with her pink bedroom slippers up. “I spent so many weekends here during the fall.” She pulled out her Carltons and lit one, sucking greedily. “This is the first time Janis ever let me smoke in her house.” But she didn’t look particularly pleased. I was beginning to realize that underneath Beth’s calm exterior she was just as tightly wound up as Janis, perhaps even more so, for Janis at least expelled her nervous energy in activity and Beth didn’t move a muscle she didn’t have to.

I told her that Trish hadn’t given me any answers, but that I still had hopes I might get something out of her tomorrow. “If I can just make her trust me.”

Beth shook her head. “I feel pretty shitty leaving her with her father, even though I can’t think quite what else to do at the moment. At some point I’m going to have to make a report or tell somebody and then it’s going to be the same old legal rigamarole. A group home may not want her with her history of running and I hate to turn her back to the foster care system. But I’ll have to do something. Her father doesn’t have a legal right to keep her. Her mother had custody and gave it up to the state. He wants to get her back, he says, but if she doesn’t want to stay with him, and obviously she doesn’t, he’ll probably lose. I wish to hell she was eighteen, I wish she knew what the fuck she was doing with her life… And I still can’t believe I never suspected she was an incest survivor. It makes me wonder why I’m in counseling at all, if I can be that blind.”

“Why are you? In counseling, I mean.”

“As opposed to what—in the legal profession?” Beth smiled tiredly, rubbing her freckled temples. “Don’t you know the counseling profession is full of people like me? People who’ve been there—as incest survivors, addicts, battered wives, you name it—and want to help. Plenty of times I’ve wondered if that’s healthy. I mean, look at me.” She pointed to her fluffy pink slippers. “Am I a good role model? But I was down and out myself and I understand what the street’s about. Though I’ve sometimes wondered if social work is just a way of staying in contact with what I know best and the crowd of people I know best.”

“Was that a problem, with you and Janis?”

Beth thought about it. “Of course that was part of it. But there were other things. For all her organization and decided opinions Janis is a pretty open person. She doesn’t dream of hiding herself from a person she’s close to. And I do. Sometimes I tell people I was an unwed mother, sometimes I say I’m a recovering alcoholic, but when I’ve said that I usually don’t say any more. I can open up once in a while to kids, strangely enough, but not really to lovers—not really to anyone at all.”

She lit another Carlton and didn’t meet my eyes. “It would take—I don’t know what it would take—to make me open up. And that’s what Janis wanted, that’s what she expected. Frankly, I was terrified.”

“But she still loves you.”

“She loves the person she thinks I am. Not the real Beth. Nobody could ever love the real Beth.” She heard herself and laughed, rather glumly. “See why I make such a good counselor? My issues are the same.”

I didn’t think Janis had made a mistake. I thought she was right in reaching out to the qualities Beth had in such abundance—strength, good humor, generosity, solidity—even if Beth couldn’t always see them herself. But I didn’t say anything more. I was opposed to matchmaking, especially the second time around. Besides, I was attracted to Beth myself.

“What about you?” she asked.

I told her about Hadley. How she’d loved and left me. “She said she was a rescuer and I didn’t need her help.”

“And you just let that go? You didn’t think that maybe she was finally doing something good for herself by choosing you?”

I was dumbfounded. It rarely occurred to me to challenge Hadley’s perception of herself or me. “I suppose,” I said slowly, “I can pursue someone a little bit in the beginning and I can say no to people who pursue me, but I never feel I can change someone’s mind about me. I guess I usually feel that they know what they want and I just have to accept it.”

“Sometimes that’s sensible, sometimes that’s too passive.” I could see Beth felt more comfortable in the role of advisor. She leaned forward with a therapeutic look in her eye. “What would happen if you went to Houston? You came to Portland, after all. What would happen if you said—like you as much said to Trish, ‘I can’t forget you, Hadley. I won’t let you go so easily.’?”

“I’d feel like I was in a bad movie.”

“But you could write her or call her, couldn’t you? Find out how she’s doing, keep in touch?”

“Yes…” I felt the conversation was going the wrong way and tried to steer it back. “Are you involved with anyone new?”

Beth didn’t pick up on my hint. “I’m giving myself a rest for awhile. Janis was plenty.”

In spite of her urging me to pursue Hadley and not take no for an answer, I didn’t think Beth would respond if I tried the same approach on her. Or it may have been that underneath I didn’t think she was really finished with Janis. I didn’t think they were finished with each other.

Janis rushed in at six, precisely as promised, with two big bags of groceries. Even knowing her as little as I did, I could tell she was in an anxious state of euphoria.

“I’m going to make Veal Florentine,” she announced. “And eggplant.”

“Do you need any help?” I asked.

“No, no.” She was all efficiency, brushing her hair behind her ears, mentally putting on an apron. She had hardly looked at Beth.