The Master's Chair (The Chronicles of Terah) (11 page)

“Well, have you explained how you feel to him?”

“Only half a dozen times. At first I tried to talk to my parents in a mature manner, as one adult to another. When that didn’t work, I tried everything I could think of. I’ve argued, I’ve screamed and cried, I’ve begged and pleaded, I’ve stormed and raged … nothing has done any good. I even tried to get our parish priest to intervene, but he’s on their side. He thinks it’s a perfect match.”

“What about your brothers and sisters? Surely they’re on your side.”

“I’m an only child,” Theresa said with a sigh. “Actually, I think that’s part of the problem. My parents have always been completely focused on me, and I haven’t helped matters by never fighting them. I’ve always done what they wanted. Now all they can think of is getting me married off. I feel so trapped. I wish I could just disappear, vanish, and wake up in a brand new life.” There was as much frustration in her voice as in her words, and when she finished speaking, Pallor saw the tears well up in her eyes again.

“You know what they say, be careful what you wish for,” Pallor said with a laugh to break the tension.

Theresa managed a small, tight grin. “I should be so lucky.”

“What about school? Are you going to graduate this year?”

“No, I’m only a sophomore. My parents don’t consider school very important for a woman, and neither does Mr. Lopez. It’s like my plans, things I want, just don’t matter.”

“Do you have any idea how all of this came about?”

Theresa nodded. “Mr. Lopez mentioned to my father that he was ready to have children, so he guessed he’d have to find a wife. My father told him to look no farther, that he could marry me. And that was it. A done deal!” Theresa’s eyes sparked with anger. “That was on a Sunday evening, right after church. Then, on Monday morning, at breakfast, my father told me to order a wedding gown, that I was getting married near the end of May.”

“You know, maybe you’re going about this the wrong way,” Pallor said a little more quietly.

“Huh?” Theresa asked.

“Maybe you should find a way to make Mr. Lopez call the whole thing off.”

Theresa tilted her head to the side, looked at Pallor, and asked, “And how would I do that?”

“I don’t know yet. Let me think about it.” Pallor leaned back in his chair and drank a few swallows of his coffee. Then he leaned forward and said, “I’ve got an idea. I’m an author, and I’m here to conduct a creative writing seminar for graduate students. Let me throw this out as a plot line and see if one of my students comes up with something.”

Theresa looked panicked and shook her head no.

Pallor held up his hand for her to stop. “I won’t use your name, and I’ll disguise the whole thing. Maybe a first generation family from somewhere in Asia. This is what we do in the seminar. I give them a situation and they build a plot around it.”

Theresa thought about it for a minute. “Okay. I don’t guess it could hurt. Who knows? One day I may read about this in a book,” she said with a nervous laugh.

 “You never know. I may even write it myself,” Pallor said with a grin. “My class meets tonight. Why don’t I meet you here tomorrow morning about 10:00?”

Theresa shook her head. “I can’t tomorrow. Friday?”

Pallor nodded. “Friday it is.” Then he stood up and picked up his coffee cup. “See you then.”

~ ~ ~ ~

 That afternoon, Pallor called his mechanic. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee after work today in exchange for some information?”

“No, but you can buy me a beer,” the mechanic answered with a chuckle. “You looking for a new car?”

“No, it’s research for one of my books. What time should I meet you?”

“I should be done around six,” the mechanic answered.

“Okay. See you then,” Pallor said.

Pallor walked into the garage bay about ten minutes before six. His mechanic slid out from under a car, said, “I’ll be done in fifteen minutes,” and slid back under the car. Pallor wandered around the garage, looking at the different tools, trying to figure out each one’s function. He turned around when he heard a car door open.

“Let me move this one around back and I’ll be ready to lock up,” the mechanic said as he climbed into the car and started the engine.

A few minutes later, they walked into a small bar near the garage. Pallor ordered a beer for his mechanic and coffee for himself.

When they were settled in a booth, he said, “I’m working on a story and I need a little help. One of my characters needs to disable someone’s car, nothing serious, just something to keep it from starting. Any ideas?”

“Sure, that’s easy to do, but it’s also easy to undo. I take it that the person who owns the car wouldn’t know a whole lot about engines,” the mechanic said.

“About as much as I do,” Pallor said with a grin.

The mechanic nodded. “He can’t pop the hood without help.”

“I’m not quite that bad. Close, but not quite.”

“Well, it’s not too hard then. A loose wire would probably be the easiest way.”

“Just any wire?”

The mechanic rolled his eyes. “No, not just any wire.” He took a long draft of his beer. “What do you want? Put the key in, turn the ignition, and nothing? Or do you want it to grind away, just never catch? Or maybe a clinking sound?”

“I think I’d like nothing. The car will be in a crowded area and I don’t want it to be the type of thing that would attract attention. It needs to be quiet.”

The mechanic nodded. “When we get back to the shop, we’ll pop the hood on your car and I’ll show you exactly what your character would need to do. Will that help?”

“That would be perfect,” Pallor agreed. “Here, let me buy you a refill.”

Pallor signaled the waitress but his mechanic put his hand over his glass and shook his head. “I’ve got to drive home. One’s the limit until I get my car parked, but I’ll be happy to let you buy me a six-pack for later tonight.”

Pallor smiled and said, “Done. Ready to go?”

When Pallor got back to his house that night, he pulled his car into the garage and shut the door. He practiced disabling his car and then fixing it back until he felt sure he could do it in the dark. Then he turned out the lights and proved to himself that he could.

~ ~ ~ ~

Thursday evening, Pallor showed up at Chris’s door at 6:30 with a pizza and a bottle of wine. “My girlfriend just got called back to work. I was wondering if you’d like to help me dispose of this pizza. I thought we might as well drink the wine I bought to go with it, too,” Pallor said when Chris opened the door. “That is, if you don’t have plans.”

“No, no plans. Come on in,” Chris said. “Sorry, but I haven’t gotten any furniture yet. I’ve been eating on the card table.” Chris nodded towards a rather battered card table and a couple of folding chairs that were set up in the middle of the living room. The only other furniture was an entertainment center with a television, a DVD player, and a big boom box. Boxes of books, CDs, and DVDs lined the wall. A small lamp was perched on top of one of the boxes.

“Fine with me,” Pallor said as he set the wine and pizza box on the card table while Chris disappeared into the kitchen.

“Paper plates and mugs okay? I haven’t unpacked anything else yet,” Chris called from the kitchen.

“Perfect,” Pallor called back.

Chris brought two mugs, paper plates, and a roll of paper towels into the living room and laid them out on the table. “Let’s eat before it gets cold,” he said, pulling out a chair and clicking on the TV at the same time. “Mind watching the basketball game?”

“Not at all,” Pallor said as he picked up a piece of pizza.

After they finished eating, Chris folded up the card table and they stretched out on the floor to watch the rest of the game. At halftime, Pallor asked Chris about his new job.

Chris told him all about the company, the people he’d met, and the general atmosphere in the office. Then he frowned. “It’s a good company, I guess, but it’s not exactly what I was expecting. They hired me to head up the marketing department for their new line of children’s clothes. Monday I found out that I’m the whole department. I have no staff, not even a secretary. I’ve got a desk in what I swear looks like an old storage closet.”

“Not a good sign,” Pallor agreed.

“They think school uniforms are going to become really popular over the next few years, so they’ve come up with a few designs, but everything’s still in the talking stage. They want me to outline a campaign strategy and present it to the board in a month. To be honest, I know next to nothing about the market, the competition, or what’s already out there, and without a staff, I’m not only going to have to do all of the research, I’m going to have to do all of the grunt work as well.” Chris sighed. “It’s not exactly what I was expecting. I’m beginning to think coming here might have been a big mistake.”

“Well, if you decide you want out, you can always have a job with my firm as a model. I bet the pay’s better, and I know it would be a lot more fun.”

“Me? A model? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“No, you have that classic All-American look that we watch for in models. I could put you in casual or dress clothes and you’d look the part. You’d make a great model,” Pallor insisted, but Chris still looked doubtful. “Seriously, you’d do fine.”

“I don’t know about that, but if things don’t improve at work, I may end up giving it a try. We’ll see.”

They watched the second half of the game and then Pallor got ready to leave. “You’ve got my card, right? It’s got both my home and office numbers on it. Give me a call sometime and we’ll go out for a few beers.”

“Thanks, I will,” Chris said as he shut the door.

~ ~ ~ ~

Friday morning, Pallor dropped by the diner for breakfast after the 7:00 rush was over. Joan looked tired, but she also looked depressed. When she came over with his coffee, he said, “You look a little upset this morning. Is everything all right?”

“It will be,” Joan said with a half-smile. “I bet I’ve looked at twenty apartments in the last two weeks, but I can’t find what I want. It gets a little discouraging after a while.”

“What’s wrong with where you’re staying now?”

“Oh, it’s horrible,” Joan said, frowning.

“Why did you rent it then?”

‘Because we didn’t see it before we rented it,” Joan answered. “I know, not the smartest thing, but when Karl decided to take this job, we had less than a week to move. So we called a real estate agent up here and told him we needed an apartment and that we didn’t have time to look around. We told him that we would have to trust his judgment.” Joan looked at the ceiling and shook her head. “He described it as a spacious four room garden apartment with a modern kitchen and bath.”

“I take it you don’t agree?” Pallor asked with a grin.

Joan laughed. “Not hardly!”

“Tell me about it. Seriously. I’m an author. I’m always looking for good settings.”

“Okay, but let me get their order first, “Joan said with a nod towards a family that had just come in.

A few minutes later, she returned with a pot of coffee, a cup for herself, and a pastry for Pallor. She refilled his cup, poured hers, and sat down in the chair opposite him. “Are you sure you want to hear about that place?”

Pallor nodded.

“Okay. There are four rooms, but that’s where any similarity to the agent’s description ends. The rooms are all in a row, one behind the other, like train cars. You walk in the front door and you’re in a living room so small that two chairs and a TV make it feel crowded. There’s no hall. To get to the kitchen from the living room, you have to walk straight through both of the bedrooms. The first bedroom is the master bedroom because it’s the only room in the apartment large enough for a double bed. After the master bedroom, there’s a child’s bedroom, but you better have only one child or else you’re going to need bunk beds. There aren’t any closets, so for right now I’m using the second bedroom as storage.”

Pallor chuckled. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“It takes up half of the second bedroom, which is why there’s only enough room for a single bed. It has two doors, one from each bedroom, but you can’t have them both open at the same time. The sink is opposite the toilet, but it’s so close that if you sit on the toilet, your knees are under the sink. And the shower stall is so small that Karl’s elbows stay bruised. You really do need to be a contortionist to live there. And I don’t know where all of the hot water goes, but neither of us has had a hot shower since we came to Omaha.”

“Didn’t your agent say it was modern? I thought modern baths were roomy.”

Joan grinned. “Yeah, so did I. The kitchen’s just as modern as the bath. It has one of those little half refrigerators, like the ones college kids have in their dorm rooms. The stove is a hot plate that’s been bolted to the counter top. The sink is maybe half a foot deep and at full force, the water dribbles out of the faucet. There’s one small cabinet above the counter with just enough room for a few dishes and utensils. I have to keep any groceries I buy stored in boxes stacked against the wall, and we’re eating on TV trays because neither of my tables will fit in there.”

“I lived in an apartment once, but it was no where near as bad as that one. One of the things that bothered me was that every time my neighbors argued, I could hear every word. I felt like an eavesdropper.”

Joan nodded and said, “I know what you mean. Our walls are so thin that we don’t even bother to turn on our television. We just listen to the neighbor’s. And I’ll just let you imagine what else we hear.”

Pallor laughed. “I hope you didn’t sign a year’s lease.”

“No. The only good thing about this place is that we rent it by the week. As soon as I can find another place, we’re out of there, but in the meantime …” Joan shook her head. “Oh well, things will be better soon.” Then she stood up and took out her order pad. “Now, what else can I get you for breakfast?”

Joan waited on a few other customers while Pallor ate his breakfast. As he was finishing, she stopped by his table to fill up his coffee cup again.

“I’ve got an idea,” he said. “I own a rental house about five miles on the other side of Council Bluffs. It’s the last house on a dead-end road and it’s becoming vacant this weekend. It would probably add twenty or thirty minutes to your commute, but would you and your husband like to see it? I was going to run an ad in the newspaper this weekend, but if you want to see it, I’ll hold off on the ad.”