Tangled Webb (12 page)

Pete wandered by here this morning—well, more like lunchtime—and we walked over to the frozen yogurt place on Hill Road and bought two cones apiece and sat on the benches out in front to eat them. He said he went downtown to the Social Security place yesterday afternoon, and found out stuff.

“What'd they say?” I demanded.

“Well, it's real hard to get a Social Security number under an assumed name,” he told me. “You've got to have a birth certificate or a certified copy. And you can't just go digging around in courthouse records and find one of somebody already dead, because they've got everything on computers and they check that name out nationwide. Your birth certificate has got to be of somebody living. And this living somebody very likely already
has
a Social Security number. So how're you gonna explain why
you're
applying for one under that name?”

“Okay. So far it sounds impossible.”

“It is, if you do it that way. What you
can
do is apply for a replacement card. Tell 'em you lost the original—you've got to know there is one, issued to a live person, because they'll verify it. Then they need one piece of ID—driver's license is okay. This time they won't
accept
a birth certificate, don't ask me why.”

I thought about it while trying to stay even with the frozen yogurt melting from my two cones at the same time. Pete's had got ahead of him while he was talking, and he was having to take big snapping bites to control the dripping.

“So what you mean is: If that card Kelsey's got in her wallet
isn't truly her own, in her own real name, she's going around using somebody else's number? And the somebody whose card it
really
is, is using that number too?”

“Correct,” Pete said, slurping.

“But how could she possibly hope to get away with that? I mean, forever? It's bound to be discovered.”

“Just a matter of time,” agreed Pete.

“So probably she didn't do it. The card's probably really hers, and Kelsey Morgan Blockman is probably her real name.”

Pete shrugged while he chewed up the last of his second cone, and tried to wipe his big hands on the little bitty paper napkin they give you. “Might be, might not. She might have been willing to risk it. Depends how desperate she was to drop her own name.”

In other words, yes and no. So that didn't get us any further.
Nothing
does.

Later—about ten o‘clock, I guess

I got a shock tonight that I just can't get over. Not a shock, exactly. The creeps. I can't quit thinking about it and—if it's really so—I think I'm going to have to tell Daddy.

What happened was—well, nothing exactly
happened
. It was just what I
think
I saw—though I went in Preston's room just now and looked again and I couldn't really tell. Of course, I couldn't put the light on, because he's asleep. And the only flashlight I could find is dead. It'll be tomorrow before I can be sure.

Anyway. Early this evening after Daddy and Kelsey left, and I'd given Preston his dinner, I dug out the old costume box from the storeroom. It was still up there, all right—shoved underneath one of the lower back shelves so it was almost
invisible. I'll bet Daddy sort of hid it on purpose, so neither he nor I would keep coming across it accidentally and feeling as though we'd just bumped into Margo's ghost. It does bring her back, strong—you can practically see her standing there, bending over to open it, with her knees straight the way she always bent over, and her hair falling forward like shiny dark curtains on each side of her face. You can almost hear her—
Hey, Juniper, you want to be a big lady with a hat on, or a mean old witch, or King Lear with a long gray beard, or . . .

It did give me a bad time, for a few minutes there, just looking at it. A big square cardboard box with “Margo Webb” stenciled faintly on the side, plus a straggly crayon decoration and label: “costums” lettered by yours truly at about age six. As if we didn't know what was in it.

Well, I lugged it down to my room where it was still bright daylight—I guess it was about seven-thirty by then, and in summer around here it's not even dusk till after nine. My window's on the west, with low sun pouring in. So there was a really strong light.

I opened the box and began to take stuff out, watching to see what Preston might go for. He spotted a red velvet cape and began to tug on it, but it was so heavy he gave up. By then I'd come across the big-lady hat, and stuck it on his head, and of course he pulled it right off because he doesn't ever put up with hats very long. But I picked him up and went over to the mirror and put it on him again, and this time he got the idea and started grinning. That hat is the kind an old-time movie star might wear, black satin with a wispy sort of feather called an aigrette sticking right straight up from one side. He looked really funny in it.

After that he began to dig things out from under the red velvet cape and put them on
my
head—whether they were
hats or not—so we ended up having a pretty good, silly time. I couldn't resist dressing him up in the Mustardseed costume from
A Midsummer Night's Dream
. It was too big for Preston, though it's child-sized, but he looked great in it anyway. It's nothing but two big balls of golden-yellow fuzzy stuff, one surrounding a little pair of underpants, the other covering a knitted cap. When Mustardseed comes onstage with Pease-blossom and the other fairies—he's the littlest, of course—he just looks like a couple of oversized dandelion clocks, with bits of bare little kid showing between and below. That costume's so cute nobody listens to the lines for a while—so Margo always said.

Anyhow. I held Preston up to the mirror to admire himself, which he did in an underwhelmed sort of way, as if he were humoring me and it wasn't going to last long. I guess he was tired of the costume game. He was tugging off the cap before I even set him down, dragging it backward so that his hair was all skinned back from his forehead.

And that's when I saw it. About an eighth of an inch of rusty-gold roots to his dark brown hair.

I
think
I saw it. The sun was streaming in, low and yellow itself, and gilding everything. That cap was all golden-yellow fuzz. And I only had a glimpse. The next second he had the cap off and his dark, curly mop was all over the place as it always is, and covering his hairline. I thought I
must
be mistaken—it was so hard to believe.

Naturally, I grabbed him right away and shoved the hair back and squinted at it, trying to make sure. Well, he wasn't having any. He squirmed and fussed at me, and batted at my hand and twisted away before I could really focus, and trotted off toward the bathroom saying, “Wanna go potty” in tones that showed he meant it. Well, we're encouraging that pretty
hard around here lately, so I gave it priority—though I shoved his hair back again while he was sitting. No luck; I only annoyed him. The east light in the bathroom wasn't good enough and the electric one just cast shadows. By the time I took him back into my room the sun had dropped below the trees across the street and that yellow searchlight-effect was gone. I couldn't really be sure of any rusty-gold line—at least not in the two or three split-second chances I got before he fought me off, getting crankier all the time. I had to quit bugging him, and put him to bed.

So I still can't prove it. But I don't think it was the yellowish light, I don't think it was the yellow-fuzz cap, I don't think it was a mistake. And I
couldn't
make it up because I can hardly imagine it even now. In fact it gives me the
willies
to think of anybody actually doing that. But I'm ninety-nine percent sure Kelsey not only dyes her own hair, she dyes that baby's too.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 4

They were late getting home last night. I waited up. I just felt I
had
to talk to Daddy for a minute—which wasn't using my head, because naturally he said, “Talk? Hey, Juni, I'm half asleep. Tomorrow, okay?”

So then I figured they'd sleep late so I'd wake up real early, and get Preston up when he first peeped, and take a good look at that hairline in the morning sun. Well,
I
was the one who slept till eleven forty-five. When I came down, Kelsey was already fixing Preston's lunch, and after that comes his nap.

Daddy hadn't forgotten about the talk, though. He poked his head out of his little office room as I was wandering back upstairs, and asked if I wanted to drive to Salem with him.
“Old Bainbridge's main computer crashed just before quitting time yesterday and I told him I'd patch it up for him for Monday. Shouldn't take long.”

Of course I jumped at the chance.

It wasn't any good, though. I mean, it was great to be alone with Daddy, just the two of us again, if I hadn't felt so uptight. He tried to help, when Alison was leaving, and how our mystery book was going—which almost
tongue-tied
me. I'd forgotten I ever even told him about that. What with everything, I had an awful time getting started really
talking
. About Preston's hair. You can't just
begin
on something like that, it would sound so weird. I knew he wouldn't believe me, and in broad daylight, driving down 1-5 with everything looking perfectly normal and ordinary, I barely believed it myself. If I could've made
sure
before we started out it would've been so much better.

Well, anyway, I finally did just blurt it out.

Daddy gave me a quick, puzzled glance, turned the air-conditioning fan down a notch and in the sudden quiet said, “She
what?”

“Dyes Preston's hair. I think. I'm almost sure.”

Another bewildered glance, this time with a little laugh, almost embarrassed. “That's what I thought you said. Where'd you ever get such an idea, Juni?”

I told him. Exactly how it all happened.

“It was probably a trick of the light, all right,” he said gently—very careful not to make me feel stupid, or sound revolted, which I know was how he felt, because I did, too. “I can see how the light might have fooled you. But I'm sure you're wrong.”

I said, “I didn't think you'd believe me.”

“But Juni,” he said, still patient. “Come
on
. Can you see
Kelsey doing a thing like that? Taking a little two-year-old—taking
Preston
—and putting
gunk
on his hair? That fine, silky, beautiful . . . Let me put it this way. Can you see her putting lipstick on him? Or black mascara?”

“Of course not! But—”

“Well, it's the same thing, isn't it? Trying to improve on nature. Nobody in their right mind'd try to improve on a two-year-old's appearance. At that age they're still perfect.” He grinned at me, reached over, and squeezed my hand. “I think you had a nightmare.”

“But it isn't to improve his appearance, that's not her point at all. . . .” I swallowed, but I was in it now and there was no place to go but
on
. “She dyes her own, too.”

“Well, I know, honey, and I wish she wouldn't, but that's so
different
. She's going gray early, and—”

“That's what she told me, too,” I said. I got a sharp glance for that, and the temperature dropped in the car. I'd as good as called Kelsey a liar, and he was waiting for me to tell him why. “Daddy, she has to say that. She doesn't want us—or anybody—to know—something. A lot of things. Where she grew up. What she really looks like. I mean, it's a sort of
disguise
. The hair dye. For Preston too, maybe, because—”

“Juni
. What in God's name . . . Dyed hair wouldn't disguise anybody—except maybe in that mystery yarn of yours! Kelsey grew up in eastern Washington. What's got into you?” Daddy sounded totally alarmed. But not about Kelsey or Preston's hair. About
me
.

Well, we never really got any further, though we talked at each other off and on for the next two hours—on, while we drank a milkshake at the Salem FrostyFridge; off, while he was concentrating on old Mr. Bainbridge's computer; on again,
while we drove home. By that time I'd spilled the whole story—everything I'd been worrying about and snooping through Kelsey's things about and talking to Alison and Pete about. Well, nearly everything. I didn't tell him about tracking Blanche down—I didn't want another lecture about invasion of privacy.

Anyway, none of it did a bit of good. What it did was push a big fat block between me and Daddy. He saw no reason not to believe Kelsey's own accounts of her childhood, her first marriage, whatever. He didn't find it strange that all the labels had been taken out of her clothes. He sometimes cut
his
off, too—if they scratched his neck. In any case, he did
not
, repeat
not
, like my snooping through Kelsey's belongings. He was not at all thrilled to know I was discussing family matters—and fantasies—with my interested friends. I'm
glad
I didn't tell him about phoning Blanche.

By then he was sounding so stiff and—I don't know,
cold—
that I couldn't stand it, and couldn't keep the tears from coming up behind my eyes; and when that happens my eyes always get red and so does my
nose
, so I can't pretend I'm
not
crying, even though I
refuse
to really cry. I said, “My ‘interested friends' are interested
because
they're my friends! They care about me! They—they—” My voice always shakes, too. “And anyway I'm not just making up
fantasies
.”

“Juni. Honey. I think you are.” The frost was gone from his voice, though. He suddenly slowed the car—we were on our way home—and I saw he was pulling off the freeway into one of the rest areas. His profile looked so—I don't know, so tired and worried—that all at once everything I'd been saying seemed as dumb to me as it probably did to him, and as unbelievable, and all I could feel was guilty. Especially when
he stopped in the parking area and put his arms around me and just rubbed his beard against my hair awhile and let me cry.