Fiona Range Page 17

  “No! What’re you doing? You in here complaining about me again?” She bounded down after him and picked up one of the rolls. “Look, if you have a problem with me, you tell me yourself. You tell me to my face!”

  “I did that.” Grady turned and looked at her. “I told you.”

  “Fiona!” Uncle Charles called from the landing. “Fiona, would you come back up here, please. I’d like to talk to you.”

  “No. I think you already said everything.” She saw Grady’s gleaming eyes shift between her and her uncle. “But he’s obviously got some more complaints he wants to make about me,” she said with a flip of the paper towels at Grady.

  Two women came up the stairs carrying cups of coffee. They immediately stopped talking.

  “Please, Fiona. It’ll only take a minute,” Uncle Charles said, red-faced and clearing his throat as he tried to smile. He nodded at the passing women.

  “I said no.” She turned and continued down the stairs.

  “Good morning, Judge!” she heard Grady call.

  “Oh, yes, fine, Patrick. Just fine,” Uncle Charles said, answering some unasked question.

  She was working in the coffee shop again. Chester had taken her back, but was barely speaking to her. She had apologized to Sandy, who made a great point of looking away whenever she came near. Only Maxine would talk to her. She hadn’t heard a word from George or Elizabeth. She could understand George not calling after her now regrettable scene, but it hurt terribly that Elizabeth continued to avoid her. Last night Rudy had left a terse, almost angry-sounding message on her machine that said he was trying to catch up with Elizabeth, and if she should stop by Fiona’s would she please call him? With her hand on the receiver she had almost picked up the phone while he was recording. As much as she wanted to talk to someone, the last thing she needed was a conversation about Elizabeth.

  Thanksgiving would be here soon, and she had made up her mind to spend it alone. The Hollises could believe whatever they wanted, whatever rumor they wanted to harvest from the already overladen vine. The breach would be complete. The other day she had torn an ad out of the paper for young people interested in working on a cruise ship. The minute she dialed the number she remembered Elizabeth’s wedding and hung up. She couldn’t leave now, not when she’d promised to be her cousin’s maid of honor. No matter how upset Elizabeth might still be with her, she would be needing Fiona more and more as the day drew near. She had saved the ad though as a reminder. After the wedding there’d be nothing keeping her here. She could go anywhere she wanted.

  The rush hour was over. When she came out of the kitchen a man was slouched in a booth, reading the newspaper.

  “Good morning,” she said, setting down a glass of ice water and the menu.

  “Morning,” Patrick Grady said, with a curt nod. His hands shook as he folded the paper. He sat with his scarred side to the wall. He wore his baseball cap so low on his brow that little of his face was visible.

  “What do you want?” she asked coldly.

  “Orange juice, muffin, coffee,” he said without looking up.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I want some breakfast, that’s all I want.”

  She leaned over the table so no one would hear. “Look, all I did was try and be friendly, but you had to go running to my uncle, so fine. Fine! But don’t come in here now trying to play head games with me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “Orange juice, muffin—whatever kind you got, and coffee. Black.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all,” he said, unable to meet her gaze.

  “No, it’s not. I can tell just by looking at you.”

  “You can?” His mouth twitched, whether with amusement or anger, she couldn’t be sure. “Well then tell me why I’m here.”

  “Because my uncle sent you.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he’s probably sick of you bothering him at work about me.” Or maybe he’d finally told Grady to do the right thing after all these years and acknowledge his daughter.

  “The only reason you saw me at the courthouse is because I work there now.”

  Stunned, she asked how long he’d been there. A week, he said, watching her.

  “Judge Hollis,” he said with a slow, sour smile when she asked how he’d gotten the job.

  Her uncle had helped Patrick Grady get a job, but he wouldn’t help her.

  “Can I have my breakfast now?”

  She chose the biggest blueberry muffin and poured his coffee from the freshly made pot. She accepted his grunts as thank-yous. When he finished his juice, she brought him another.

  He held up his hand before she could set it down. “I didn’t ask for that.”

  “That’s okay,” she said in a low voice so Maxine wouldn’t hear. “It’s free.”

  “Oh.” His taut lips parted, again in that odd twitch. “Then it’ll taste even better then.” He glanced at Maxine, who was still tallying register slips in a great show of industry.

  He ate with the newspaper spread over the table. Fiona observed him from different parts of the dining room. She enjoyed being able to look up from the service hutch or the alcove outside the restrooms or the table she was setting and find him still here. She was so nervous she felt short of breath.

  The door opened with a burst of female laughter and three middle-aged women entered. One of them said hello to Patrick as they followed Maxine to the last booth. He nodded. As soon as they were seated they all glanced back, then leaned forward in a buzz of conversation.

  “What’s the holdup?” Maxine whispered on her way back. “See if he wants his check.” She meant Patrick Grady.

  “He’s still eating.” Fiona was annoyed.

  “No, he’s not. He’s done,” Maxine hissed. “Give him his check and get him out of here.”

  Instead, Fiona refilled his cup. He looked up and she realized that his eyes were brown like hers. They had the same thick black hair, though his was straight and starting to gray. She wondered if he noticed that hers was wavy like her mother’s. He drank his coffee quickly, then asked for his check. He stood up and fumbled in his pocket for change. She was about to say he didn’t have to tip her, but was afraid he might take it the wrong way.

  “You were in a rush yesterday,” he said, stacking four quarters on the table.

  “Yah, I guess I was.”

  “The Judge didn’t seem too happy.” He looked at her and again his mouth twitched. “You made him nervous.”

  “I didn’t mean to.” She followed him to the register.

  “Well you did. You made him real nervous,” he said, and now his twitch caught in a smile. “I’ll tell him I saw you.” He handed his check and money to Maxine, who picked apart the folded bills with as much disgust as if they were crawling with maggots. “Course he’s such a busy man,” he said, his hand open for his change. Maxine put the coins on the counter. He counted them before putting them into his pocket. “I don’t like to bother him. Usually I don’t.” He turned now to look at Fiona, his head tilted, the odd twitch coy, almost playful now. “Unless it’s really important.” He looked at her so intently that she could only stare back. “Thanks,” he said, taking a penny from Maxine’s Good Neighbor cup and slipping it into his pocket.

  “That’s not what they’re there for,” Maxine snapped, but he ignored her and pushed open the door.

  From the window Fiona watched him cross the street to his station wagon. He drove away, the black smoke from the tailpipe still in the air when he was gone.

  “He’s got a hell of a lot of nerve coming in here,” Maxine said.

  “All he did was have breakfast,” Fiona said, adding, “I think he wanted to see me. To set things straight.”

  “That’s not why,” Maxine said in a low voice. “He’s a psycho.”

  “He’s my father.” She couldn’t help grinning.

  “There’s somet
hing wrong with him, Fiona. I mean really wrong.”

  “He just has a bad temper, that’s all.”

  “No,” Maxine said. “He likes to hurt people. He needs to. He looks for ways to do it. Believe me, I know.”

  When she went to clear his table she saw his quilted plaid jacket on the seat. She picked it up and folded it carefully. He hadn’t forgotten it. No. He had left it behind for a reason.

  Chapter 8

  Come on, come on,” she muttered, only slowing for the STOP sign ahead. She had just left work and the car had already stalled twice. Folded neatly on the seat beside her was Patrick Grady’s jacket.

  She drove down the curving road, relieved to see his faded station wagon in the driveway. Not wanting to alarm him, she came quietly up the warped front steps and raised her hand to knock.

  The door swung open.

  “Oh!” she gasped. “You surprised me!”

  “I just got in,” he said, regarding her through the torn screen with an odd petulance.

  “You forgot your jacket.” She held it up and tried to smile.

  “I would’ve gotten it tomorrow.” He still didn’t open the screen door. “Or maybe you were afraid I would, is that why?”

  “I just thought you’d need it, that’s all. Here.” She held it up again, but he made no move to take it. “I’ll just leave it here then,” she said, trying to hang it on the pitted door handle, finally stuffing the collar through instead. She said goodbye and started toward the steps.

  “You can come in if you want!” he called. He opened the door and looked out with a terror almost juvenile in its hope and dread.

  The chill she felt entering the dark house seemed as natural and deep an emanation as the damp, gritty cold of dirt floors, and field-stone walls, and caves. She kept rubbing her nose against the acrid smell of woodsmoke and wet ashes. She followed him into the small living room, where the rickety brass floor lamp continued wobbling after he had turned it on. Instead of a couch there was a sagging daybed covered by a torn brown quilt. Next to it was an enormous square upholstered chair, its flattened gray cushions dotted with crumbs and coins. The coffee table was littered with magazines and newspapers, and on top of these, beer cans, soda cans, and half-filled coffee mugs, which he picked up, two in each hand.

  “Who’s that?” she asked of the framed picture on the television.

  “My mother,” he said.

  She leaned close to the black-and-white photograph of a stern-faced young woman. “You don’t look like her.”

  “You think I always looked like this?” he said, with such uncoiling harshness that she jerked back from the picture.

  “I meant the features,” she said in a small voice. “Her eyes. She has curly hair, and yours is straight.”

  “I look more like my father,” he said. “I used to, anyway.”

  She hugged herself, shivering. “What was your mother’s name?” She followed him into the kitchen.

  “Mary.” He put the mugs in the sink, then grabbed a stack of envelopes from the table and stuffed them into a shoebox on the shelf above the stove.

  “Mary,” she repeated. Mary. Her grandmother. “When did she die?”

  “Why? What does it matter?”

  Because everything mattered, all the pieces of a heritage she had been denied. “I don’t know,” she said with as offhanded a shrug as could be managed with such hungry, darting eyes. “I just wondered.” Wondered if Mary had known about Natalie and the baby, wondered how long he’d been alone in this dismal place, wondered what it would take to make him trust her. “You’ve got a message.” She pointed to the red flashing light.

  His answering machine was on the table alongside the remnants of a recent meal—a ketchupy plate, coffee mug, and empty bread bag. The gas stove was beside a small refrigerator, which was half obscured by the open door of a tall white metal cupboard, its sagging shelves jammed with dishes, glasses, cans, and boxes of food. There were no other cupboards, no countertops, no pictures on the walls. Not even a calendar. She tried to take it all in—the stiff, dingy bath towel on the chairback, the Mobil gas magnet on the refrigerator door, the envelope-filled gray shoebox over the stove. It wasn’t right, she thought, touching the corrugated porcelain drainboard. He had been just a boy, brave and handsome, when they sent him off to fight a war. It was almost incomprehensible that he had given so much, and now had only this. This starkness. The chipped sink, with its exposed pipes plunging through warped green linoleum, seemed the embodiment of all that had gone wrong and been lost.

  He leaned over the table listening, and she knew by the hitch of his shoulder as the machine clicked on that he did that every night, did not even turn on a light, but came straight in here with the mail to see if Natalie had written or called. It was painful to think her lie might have gouged old wounds or raised false hopes. Behind him the one narrow window was a tangled smear of hedges gone wild and gnarled vines.

  The message was from Mrs. Latterly, complaining that she’d called three times and he still hadn’t called her back. “Please call at once, Patrick,” she ordered in a shrill voice. “Or I will have to get someone else to do the windows.”

  “You do that,” he muttered.

  “And you know I think very highly of your work,” she continued to wheedle.

  “Of my price,” he muttered.

  “So please call me just as soon as you get this message!”

  “Yah, right!” He jabbed the rewind button and started out of the kitchen.

  “Go ahead.” She gestured to the still-whirring machine. “I mean, if you have to call her now.”

  “I don’t.” He stood in the doorway, scowling.

  “That’s Mrs. Latterly over on Sunset Rock Road, right?” She didn’t want to leave yet. “I’ve been in that house. It’s enormous. That must be a big job, all those windows and doors. What about doors? Do they count?”

  “Count? What do you mean, count?” He stepped back into the kitchen.

  “The same as windows. I mean the glass, you know, on a door. That is, if the door has glass, of course.”

  “What do you care?” he said, his scowl gnarling his scarred cheek into a fleshy, purple knot. She noticed how the scar pulled part of his lip up over his tooth the same way whether he scowled or smiled.

  “Actually, I don’t. I’m just trying to make conversation.”

  “About windows?”

  “About anything. The point is just to talk,” she said, her voice wavering as her eye strayed to the shoebox again. It might be filled with old letters her mother had written him in Vietnam. Maybe he kept them there to read at the table.

  He folded his arms. “Okay, so then talk.”

  “Well, okay, let’s see now,” she mused, her mind racing, and for no good reason she began to tell him about her first bicycle. She and Elizabeth had both gotten them on their seventh birthdays. He leaned against the wall looking faintly amused as she described her great joy and Elizabeth’s great disappointment with the bikes. She had been a daredevil and Elizabeth had been timid, hesitant to take chances, afraid to try new things.

  “You still a daredevil?” he asked.

  “Yes. But now it’s mostly people I take chances on. I’m not the judgmental type. I figure everybody’s got reasons to do whatever they do.” She was relieved to see him smile.

  “The judgmental type,” he said. “Like good Judge Hollis, you mean?”

  “Well that’s his job.”

  “His fucking mission, you mean,” he muttered, eyes roiling and bright.

  She looked away, as uneasy with his contempt of her uncle as flattered by it.

  “So what was that all about the other day? You have an argument with him or something? He was mad, wasn’t he?” His crooked, ropy smile quivered.

  She shrugged. “I guess you could say we don’t usually see eye to eye on things.”

  “Oh yah? What kinda things?”

  “Just about everything, really. I’m just different from t
he rest of them, you know, and it bugs the hell out of him.”

  “What do you mean, different?” He came closer and leaned against the sink.

  “I don’t know. Different! Like I said, I take people as I find them, but the Hollises, they all have to have rules, you know, for everything. But life’s not that simple. It’s not that easy. You can’t just—”

  His hand shot up for silence. “It was me, wasn’t it? That’s what happened, huh?” He stared at her with gleeful anticipation.

  “Well, I . . . you see, he . . .” she stammered. “Well, yes, that’s part of it. A big part of it,” she added, warming to his obvious pleasure.

  “And I told him,” he said, snickering. “‘What am I supposed to do?’ I said.” His eyes widened. “I warned you, didn’t I? I did, right?”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “I told you there was nothing between us, right? No connection, nothing. Right?”

  “I know, but it just doesn’t make sense anymore. I mean, I’m a grown woman now. Whatever happened, I can handle it.”

  “You think so, huh? Well make sure you tell the good Judge that then,” he leaned close and whispered.

  “Why? Does he say things? Does he give you a hard time?”

  He shook his head and laughed. “Oh no, he’d never do that, not the Judge. Uh-uh. You see, we have a very delicate relationship,” he said, so suddenly somber that she understood: the relationship included her.

  “I know, but the thing is, I don’t want to cause you any trouble! Really, I don’t. I’d just like to . . . to know you, to be able to talk to you.” She took a deep breath and met his piercing stare. “Couldn’t we just do that?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I like you. And I want you to be my friend.”

  “Well I can’t. Because I’m not your father, no matter what the good Judge says.”

  “Oh no! He never said you were! He never did!”

  He burst out laughing. “But he never said I wasn’t, right?”

  “Actually, it’s never talked about. It’s like the whole thing never happened. Like suddenly there I was and nobody knows anything. But you do. And that’s the thing. I just want to be able to talk to you, that’s all. Really!”