Tangled Webb (10 page)

“So—okay,” I said, trying to get my voice to sounding normal, only it didn't. “We proceed with caution. Or do we even—proceed? You think we ought to drop it?”

“Oh, hey, that's up to you. I didn't mean to butt in. You're not doing any harm, are you?” Pete acted real embarrassed. “I only meant—it might be serious, so watch out.”

Well, I've always
felt
it might be serious. I know that's why I've tried so hard to laugh it off, inventing all that junk about Sarah-Juanita, mall patroling, trying to turn it into a sort of detective game. But until Pete said
did he drown or did she kill him
, I never thought how serious
serious
might be.

Neither Alison nor I were saying anything, and I guess it made Pete nervous, because he said, “It doesn't have to be
that
. It might not be anything your stepmom did at all. She might just've got caught in the middle of something she can't handle. Like maybe somebody's blackmailing her—for something
her dad did, or her sister or somebody, that she can't tell about. Maybe she saw a crime committed and she's scared to testify. Maybe there's a big drug dealer in her family, and she wants to get shut of him, name and all.”

It seemed to me everything he said got wilder and scarier. Blackmail? A drug czar in the family? Well, how do I know? Or maybe Pete just sees more TV movies than I do. I didn't say anything, though, and neither did Alison; we were just watching him like we'd forgotten we had tongues. So he said, “You could check on the drug thing, more or less. It would make you feel you were doing something.”

I located my voice and said, “How?”

“Oh—just bring the subject up. Find a story in the paper about drug stuff. Front page is full of them. Read it aloud, say something about it. See how she reacts.”

I told him that judging by her reaction to my escalator-woman story, a drug story would probably give her heart failure. He just said, “Not if drugs aren't the problem.”

Well, I hope they aren't. Because I'm going to try that—if only to get it off my mind.

THURSDAY, JULY 25

As soon as I got home from the park yesterday I hunted up the morning paper and found three drug-related stories without half trying. I boned up on one, and at dinner I dragged it into the conversation and repeated it almost word for word. It was about one of those late-night robberies of some little twenty-four-hour grocery—smash and run—only this time the owner, who'd been clubbed to the floor, stuck out his leg in time to trip the last robber out, and the guy crashed down all tangled up with the newspaper rack, and broke his arm. He was a high school kid—fifteen. The cops got the other two within half an hour. All stupid kids, all stoned on something.

Of course I was watching Kelsey, and she tensed up, all right, but I got the idea it was
me
she was reacting to—not the story but the fact that I'd told it. She gave me this odd, level look as if she knew I was aiming it at her.

It was Daddy who commented. “A happy ending,” he said dryly.

“Happy?”
I repeated. “One of those kids has got a broken arm and they'll all have
police
records now!”

“And with luck, a brand-new suspicion that there might be
better ways to get money. This way's going to cost them a packet in damages—worked out at minimum wage, not paid by their folks.”

“It won't teach them anything,” Kelsey almost snapped. “Not if they're on drugs. It won't stop them. They might as well go downtown and jump off the Fremont Bridge right now. Their lives'll just get worse. And worse. And worse.”

“Honey!” said Daddy, staring at her. I was startled, too. I mean, I'd been waiting for one of her turning-white-or-red reactions, for something nervous and uneasy, not for this flat, hard voice. It hardly sounded like Kelsey's voice at all.

She said, “Well, it's true.”

Daddy said, “There are plenty of recoveries. People turn themselves around all the time, and stay clean for years.”

“Good luck to them,” Kelsey said. “Everybody want ice cream? I've got vanilla and butterscotch ripple.”

End of conversation.

I'm not sure what to make of it. I don't think anybody could sound so bitter—even about the drug problem—if they didn't know more about it than what you can read in the paper. On the other hand, it didn't make her nervous to talk about it, or scared, as it would have if a drug king were after her. She just made us a present of her opinion and slammed the door on the subject.

On me too. I guess she's begun to notice how often I bring up subjects that bother her. In one way it makes me feel guilty and sort of—I don't know—ashamed of myself. But why? I haven't done anything, have I? I mean, it's the very
first time
I ever did it on purpose. And I wouldn't
have
to if she didn't hide things. So in another way, it makes
me
stiffen up, too.

I wish we wouldn't—either one of us. I wish none of this
was happening. We liked each other at first. At least, I thought so. I think she'd be real nice—really neat—when you got to know her. I'd like to talk to her about the baby. But she doesn't even want me to know about that—she just won't let me in. I mean, here we've lived in the same house for nearly three months and I know just how she laughs and how her front hair flips around when she turns her head quick, and the little delicate moves she makes putting her contacts in, and what she likes for breakfast, and the way she carries Preston with one hip stuck out—and yet I don't know a thing about her underneath.

Well, I suppose I do now. One thing. She's antidrugs, and hard as nails about it. Okay.

But I wish we could go back to the wedding and start all different.

Later—after lunch

I'm going to phone Alison and go back to the mall. It's dawned on me—late, as usual—that when that woman headed for the elevator she might've just come out of the beauty shop. We ought to check there—to see if they know who she is.

FRIDAY, JULY 26

Alison and I didn't get far yesterday. When we got to the beauty shop I sort of backed off going in because I didn't know what to say. But Alison said, “Just tell them you thought you saw a friend of your mother's yesterday and ask if they remember a woman in a red jacket.” I said, “If she was a friend of my mother's, wouldn't I know her name?” But that didn't
stop Alison—nothing does. She just said, “An
old
friend. From long ago. You don't
remember
her name.” She gave me a shove and I went in.

I mumbled all that to the first beauty operator I came to, and she stopped combing somebody out and frowned and said, “Red jacket? Lemme see. I don't think
I
worked on her.”

Then the one at the next little dressing table said, “She might mean that sales rep,” and the first one said, “Oh, did
she
have on a red jacket? I didn't notice,” and the second one said, “Kind of orangy-red. She was talking to Edna.” And the first one said, “Oh, yeah,” and started combing again, and I asked, “Which one is Edna?” and the first operator said, “Edna's the boss. She's off till Monday. You come in Monday and ask her about it, okay?”

That was the best I could do, so I went out and reported to Alison.

“Sales rep?” she repeated, wrinkling her forehead at me.

I wrinkled mine back at her. “Somebody who sells supplies to the beauty shop, maybe? Shampoo and rollers and all that.”

“Doesn't sound like our woman.”

“No.”

It was a letdown. We decided it
might
have been the general offices she came out of instead of the beauty shop—those offices are right next door.

“Come on, let's look,” Alison said hopefully. “Because if it was, she'll be in there today—working.”

She wasn't in there working. We went home.

FRIDAY, JULY 26, EVENING

Only two weeks till Alison leaves for Minneapolis and her
dad. We spent most of today together because she's going to be busy all tomorrow—orthodontist appointment and so on. I can't believe it's nearly August.

I'm going to be really stuck without her. Who'll I talk to about Kelsey? What if I discover all sorts of things and Alison's not here to get ideas and everything?

“You'll have Pete,” she reminded me today when I was complaining about it on the way to the pool. “He gets ideas.”

“Scary ones. Anyway, I might not run into him again. Now that he knows I'm who he thought I was, he won't be following me around to find out.”

Alison looked as if she wanted to argue but couldn't think of anything convincing to say. “He seemed real interested yesterday,” she said uncertainly. “In the mystery and all.”

“This is today,” I pointed out. “And where is he?” I knew that was unreasonable. But I wasn't in the mood to be talked out of being gloomy. I just said, “Pete's not you. It wouldn't be the same.”

Alison knows better than to try to cheer me up when I want to be grouchy. She just said, “We've still got two weeks. Anyway, we'll write letters. And sometimes phone.”

I thought of predicting that every time she phoned me from Minneapolis Kelsey would be sure to be right there in the room so we couldn't talk, but I decided I'd been cranky enough, so I told her we'd just have to solve our mystery in the next two weeks.

If we ever solve it at all.

SATURDAY, JULY 27, EVENING

I woke up this morning expecting a long, frustrating day with
nothing to do and nobody to do it with. I was wrong. Pete turned up at our front door at 9:00
A.M
. I'd only been up about five minutes and had on my oldest jeans and a wild-looking T-shirt that started out white but got washed with some red socks once. I was barefoot and hadn't combed my hair yet.

He took all this in in a split second and said, “I'll come back after breakfast.”

I had to laugh, but I pulled him in and said he could have a piece of toast if he wouldn't hog all the marmalade. I guess he didn't actually duck as he stepped in the door but he sort of gave that impression—the way Daddy always does. Ceilings always seem lower when Daddy comes into a house.

Well, he met the whole family—I mean, Saturday mornings everybody's there, slopping around in old clothes. Daddy remembered him, and managed not to call him Peter Cottontail. Kelsey, in her robe, was frying bacon. She took him right in stride, just gave him that nice warm smile she has when she thinks this person isn't anybody to worry about, and asked how he likes his bacon. (He likes it crisp, like me.) I could tell she was a surprise to him, though he was careful not to stare. Maybe he was expecting some kind of witch or something.

We were eating toast when Daddy came in again with Preston riding on his shoulders, saying, “Here's another member of the family.”

Pete stood up kind of self-consciously as if he was going to meet a celebrity—I don't think he's used to little kids. Preston just stared at him—at his ears, mostly. They still stick out, and they were turning bright red. Finally Pete reached up one big, bony hand, and after a minute Preston let go Daddy's hair with one of his, and let Pete shake it. Pete grinned as if he'd just got the Nobel Prize.

I left him watching Preston playing mud pies with his cereal,
and ran upstairs to put on my good shorts and my sandals, and comb my hair. I changed my shirt too, but then changed back into the wild-looking one. I mean, I didn't want him to get the idea I was dressing
up
. When I came down he asked if I wanted to walk over to the park, so I said okay and we started out.

It was funny, we didn't know what to say for a while. I don't know why—it was real easy the other day, when we were bounding up and down Grover Brothers' escalators. He finally said, “I'm sure glad we moved back here,” and I said, “Yeah, me too.” Then I thought that sounded kind of—I don't know—so I said, “I mean, since you like it so much better and everything.” And he said, “Yeah.”

I was trying to think of a way to upgrade the conversation to at least average-bright, when he said, “I wanted to come over yesterday. My dad kept me too busy in the yard.”

Well, that made me feel better, and then he asked where Alison was—and I told him—and if anything else had happened about the mystery—and I told him about the drug-story test and Kelsey's reaction, and about Alison and me going back to the beauty shop and how our escalator woman might be a sales rep.

“D'you suppose that means she lives somewhere around here after all?” I asked him.

“Might, if she works for a local outfit. Or she might travel for a supplier based somewhere else.”

“And the somewhere else might be where Kelsey came from!” I suddenly felt more hopeful. “If we could just find
that
out—”

“What makes you think that's so important?” Pete asked suddenly. “So you get the name of a town. Then what?”

Good question. For a minute I didn't have an answer at all, though the feeling stayed strong that if we knew where she
came from we'd be halfway home. “I don't know,” I admitted finally. “It's just—well—she's taken such pains to
hide
it. That made-up story about Grand Coulee—the driver's license and Social Security card in a name that's probably just made-up too, and not even a
hint
of a background more than a year old. She never gets letters, she never mentions old friends. . . .”

“Yeah,” Pete said. “I see what you mean. There's something there, wherever the place is. Something waiting to get her.”

He did have the scariest way of putting things.

All at once Pete said, “I could probably find one thing out for you—how she could get a Social Security number to go with a phony name.”