Fiona Range Read online

  “No, I wasn’t. As a matter of fact, I never thought you were weird. Far from it.”

  “Yes you did. Admit it.” He laughed again.

  “No, I always thought you were a really nice guy. All right, maybe a little too nice,” she added, laughing.

  “Dull.”

  “No! Steady. Dependable.”

  “And that spells double dull.” He laughed. “You want to know what I thought of you?”

  She winced. “No.”

  “I thought you were the most exciting girl I knew. I remember once I told Elizabeth how sometimes I’d get short of breath just being around you, and she said she did too.”

  “Oh Jesus!”

  “No, that’s a compliment! And I meant it that way then too. I never knew what you were going to say or do. I mean, you weren’t afraid of anything or anyone.”

  She was silent for a moment. “Yes I was. I still am.”

  “Of who? Of what?” he scoffed. “Name one thing you’re afraid of.”

  “I don’t know, but I do, I get afraid.” She looked over, amazed to be having such a conversation with him. “I don’t like being by myself, but then when I’m with people I get, like, irritated and I just want them to leave me alone. Now that’s really strange, isn’t it?”

  “No, I know what you mean.”

  Looking out at the lit windows they were passing, she was aware of a rigidity so dull and cold, yet as central to her being that it felt as if a steel rod ran from her skull to her heels. Fatigue and her hangover might make her easy prey, but it was usually in these raw moments when she saw most clearly that the Hollises had never really had a place for her. They’d done their duty and that was all. She’d never felt as loved as their own children. But then, that was the luck of the draw. No one’s fault. It wasn’t, as Uncle Charles was fond of saying, that everyone was born flawed. No, some were just born more blessed than others.

  “You know what else I always thought?” George asked, as he slowed at the intersection. “I always thought we were an awful lot alike in some ways. I mean, we both didn’t have mothers.”

  “But we had Elizabeth!” she said quickly.

  “That we did,” he sighed, starting to turn.

  “I changed my mind! Let’s go check out your pipes.”

  Pacer’s was noisy and dark. A layer of smoke hung overhead like a sagging tent top. Racing silks, riding whips, and jockey caps covered the barn board walls.

  “Hey, George! Georgie!” came a chorus of voices, mostly male, as they made their way to an empty booth in back. She’d forgotten how popular George had always been. George and Elizabeth both.

  “Fiona Range!” said their waitress, a tall redhead in a jockey cap. Fiona only dimly recognized her. “I met you last night at the party!”

  “Kahlua and ice,” Fiona said. Oh God, yes. The party.

  “That was great, you and Larry Belleau dancing. I never saw him have such a good time,” the waitress told George now. “After, he kept saying, ‘I love Fiona. I love her so much!’ Poor Larry.”

  “Larry Belleau?” George looked confused.

  “Yah,” the waitress said. “Larry Belleau. It was so funny! Then the dog started barking so she starts dancing with the dog and then Larry’s standing there watching and he starts like this howling, so then—”

  “Look, we’re in kind of a hurry, if you don’t mind,” Fiona interrupted.

  “I know, but I just thought it was so—”

  “I don’t care what you thought!” Fiona stared at her. “Like I said, we’re in a hurry.

  Shrugging, the waitress rolled her eyes at George, who quickly ordered the same as Fiona. “Do I know her?” he asked when the waitress left.

  “Now how the hell would I know that?” she snapped.

  “What I meant was, did we go school with her?” He drew himself up stiffly on the bench.

  “I’m sorry. Some people just bring out the evil in me.” Seeing his mouth drop open, she tried to explain. “I mean her, the waitress.” She had to lean across the table to be heard. Beyond the swinging stable doors to her left there were pool tables, and for a moment the only sound was the crash of balls hitting one another. “You didn’t think I meant you, did you?”

  “Tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure.” He looked weary now, his eyes heavy and dark.

  The waitress returned with their drinks and gave them a check. Instead of running a tab, since they were in such a big rush, she added, with a cold look at Fiona before leaving.

  “Did you really dance with Larry Belleau and the dog?” George asked, trying not to smile.

  “No! Not together anyway. I mean, they each had their turn!” Just last night and she could barely remember past a blur of laughter and loud music. And suddenly now, Brad Glidden helping her onto the toilet. Oh God.

  George laughed and said he’d considered going to the party, but when he got home from work he was too tired. “Sounds like a good time. I should’ve gone!”

  “Yah! You should’ve.” She held her breath and tried to smile back.

  Suddenly a man’s voice rose angrily in the back room. Other voices followed in sharp rebuke. “Alright, alright! C’mon, just rack ’em up,” someone called. Once again the balls clicked against one another.

  It was quiet for a moment. George leaned forward. “So do you know this guy, Elizabeth’s fiancé?”

  She stared, then shook her head in bewilderment. Her cheeks stung with the invisible slap. “I didn’t even know she was engaged.” Tears blurred her eyes at this ultimate and undeniable proof of her estrangement. She may have been raised by the Hollises, but they were a family, and as a family had closed ranks against her. Even Elizabeth. Her dear, dearest Elizabeth.

  “Fiona!” George tried to take her hand, but she pulled away and sat rigidly, hands in her lap, head erect. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”

  She shook her head and took a deep breath. Why was she so stunned? They’d made themselves perfectly clear. They’d done their duty, fed her and clothed her, put a roof over her head, and now did not owe her a thing more. “Well!” She managed a bright, brief smile.

  “Fiona, can I have your hand, please?”

  She hesitated, then put her hand on the table.

  “There. Now you’ve got it,” he said, squeezing it.

  “Got what?”

  “Anything. Whatever you need, ally, friend, buddy.” He laughed. “Plumber!”

  “Anything else?” she teased with a low, wicked chuckle as she tickled his palm.

  “I don’t know. What else do you need?”

  “Let’s see, right now, I could use a good . . .” She enjoyed the rising color in his cheeks as she paused to drain the last of her drink. “A good decent man in my life,” she continued.

  “Then consider the job taken!” His raw-voiced, boyish exuberance made her skin crawl. Under the table her feet tapped a furious beat, and she was already despising the next man in hobbling barefoot flight across her parking lot. Last night had been a mistake, disgusting and inexcusable, and she saw with stunning clarity not just how easy but how ruinous this next one might be. Still grinning, George suggested another drink, but she was tired. She wanted to leave. She needed to get out of here, away from the garbled voices, the sly games and pretense. No one was honest, and she was the biggest liar of all—not in pretending to need someone, but in pretending to care, because that was the worst, the most unforgivable lie. She picked up her purse and said she’d better get home. He peered at the check in the dim candlelight and fumbled in his pocket for money.

  “I heard that! C’mere! C’mere, you little son of a bitch!” a man roared in the back room. There was a crash, then a jolt as something banged into the wall behind them. “C’mon, say it again. Say it to my face,” the man demanded.

  “Aw, c’mon, Patrick. He didn’t say nothin’.”

  “Leave him. He’s just an asshole kid.” There was nervous laughter. “He doesn’t know who the hell he’s talking to.”
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  “Yah, you don’t know who you’re talking to, creep.”

  “I’m talking to a fucking asshole, that’s who I’m talking to,” a younger voice panted. “Him, fucking scarface there.”

  “Son of a bitch!” a man bellowed, and then there was sudden scuffling and grunting. The wall thudded.

  “You’re talking to a war hero, you little asshole. He’s got a Silver Star. What the hell you got besides your big mouth?” a gray-haired man in a baseball cap said as he shoved a skinny younger man in black through the swinging door. As the two men came by the table, George’s arm shot out like a post to keep Fiona from harm. Just then the door swung open again and through it lunged Patrick Grady. Pushing the man in the cap aside, he hooked his arm around the younger man’s throat and with a blow to his side dropped him to his knees, then kicked him in the back.

  Four men rushed out from the back room. George stood up, but was blocked by the scuffle. The man in the cap cinched his arms around Grady’s waist. His face flattened against Grady’s back as he tried to keep him from kicking the slumped-over young man, who grunted with each sharp blow.

  “Stop it!” She was on her feet and halfway out of the booth before George could stop her. “Stop it! Don’t do that!” she cried, hitting Grady’s arm.

  He turned, looking as startled as she was. His gleaming eyes burned into hers. “What’re you doing? What do you want?” he growled.

  “I’m Fiona.” Her heart was pounding. “Fiona Range. You know who I am.” Every hair on her body rose, every nerve ending pulsated. Her breath came in shallow gasps.

  “C’mon, Patrick, it’s okay,” the man in the baseball cap said as Patrick’s eyes shot back to the young man crawling toward the door.

  “Yah, let him go,” one of the men said.

  “He won’t come mouthing off in here again,” another assured Grady.

  She watched him return to the back room surrounded by men whose uneasy pity had kept him safe but at bay all these years. “My God. What kind of animal is he?”

  “Fiona, I’m sorry you had to—”

  “He’s so mean, so vicious. If they hadn’t stopped him, my God, he would have killed that kid.”

  “It’s Vietnam. It’s that whole combat thing. He—”

  “The way he looked at me. His eyes, they were filled with so much hate.”

  “No, he was in such a rage he didn’t know what was going on.”

  “He knew. He knew who I was,” she said, bewildered by the pressure in her chest as she headed for the door.

  “Oh, that. Yah, well sure. I didn’t mean that,” George said, following her outside.

  “He didn’t even say anything.” She took a deep breath of the pure night air. The black sky glittered with yellow stars. Her heart was still pounding.

  “Yah, but don’t forget, I mean, think of it, after all this time what can he say?” He was just like Elizabeth, always trying to speak for the misunderstood, and in the process only seeming as dense himself. He opened the van door for her.

  “Hello,” she answered coldly. “That’s all he ever had to say. Just a goddamn, simple hello.”

  “Oh, Fiona. C’mere,” he said, reaching out as she climbed in, but she slid to the edge of the seat before he could touch her.

  Chapter 2

  In the middle of Monday’s breakfast rush, George Grimshaw slid into a booth then kept looking around nervously.

  “So these are plumber’s hours?” Fiona said when she got to his table.

  “Actually, I was halfway here and then I remembered my propane tanks back in the shop, so I had to turn around and go—”

  “I’m sorry about the other night,” she interrupted. It had bothered her all weekend. After leaving Pacer’s and not saying one word all the way back, she had jumped out of the van and hurried into her building. “I was such a bitch.”

  “No, you weren’t! You were upset.”

  “So? I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I didn’t even thank you for dinner.”

  “Fiona, I wasn’t expecting anything. You don’t have to thank me. Really,” he added, his meaningful gaze filling her with anxiety.

  “Well—anyway, I just did.” She flipped over a new order slip, then tapped her pen against the pad while he studied the menu.

  Let’s see, he mused, what did she think? Which should he have, English muffins or toast, scrambled eggs or fried, grapefruit juice or orange? “I know,” he said, returning the menu. “Surprise me!”

  “No. You tell me what you want.” She stared down at him.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a bother.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s just we’re so busy.” She gestured at the line by the register.

  “I know. I wasn’t even thinking of that.”

  “The thing is, people say that, then they won’t eat what I bring.”

  “Well I wouldn’t have done that, but that’s beside the point, really.” His forced smile made her feel terrible. “I’ll have coffee and a bran muffin, grilled, please.”

  Each time she passed his table she could feel him watching her over his newspaper. When she brought the muffin, he asked if she’d like to see a movie tonight.

  “No!” Seeing him stiffen, she explained that her class was tonight. Tomorrow night then, or any night, he added. Whatever was best for her. She had a paper to write, and before she could even start she had a ton of reading to do, she said, backing off toward the kitchen with the frantic ring of Chester’s bell.

  When she came out, George asked when the paper was due. Soon, she said. Well if she needed a break some night, maybe they could grab a quick bite somewhere, he suggested. She said she’d probably be at the library every night this week. The paper hadn’t even been assigned yet, but the last thing she needed right now was a man in her life, and especially not Elizabeth’s ex-boyfriend. With any other guy she’d have no problem getting the message across. But George’s earnest, hopeful smile was as troubling as it was confusing.

  Her next trip out of the kitchen found Larry Belleau squeezed into the booth next to George. Larry’s old faded blue-and-gold Dearborn High jacket was so tight now that the sleeves hiked up on his beefy arms. He wore his Red Sox cap backwards, the plastic tab compressing his brow into a fleshy protrusion. Thirty years old, he still dressed like the teenager he’d been when the diving accident at the quarry shattered his skull, leaving him frozen in emotional adolescence. He hunched forward on both elbows, his animated conversation driven by his need to say as much as he could before his listener escaped. Without pausing for breath or thought, he gulped one frantic sentence into the next, the connected syllables almost sounding like another language. His booming voice filled the dining room. George smiled patiently. Praying Larry wouldn’t say anything about the party or Brad Glidden, she gave him a glass of water and a menu.

  “Good morning!” she said with a quick smile.

  “Hi Fiona.” He grinned and kept nodding. “You’re pretty you’re so pretty I—”

  “Thanks, but what’ll it be, Larry? Juice? Coffee? Can I get you some coffee, Larry?”

  “No no gotta go to work already had my breakfast just wanted to come in to come in see you say hi I had a really good time—”

  “Whoops, Chester’s bell!” She glanced toward the kitchen. “My order’s up.”

  “Wait!” Larry seized her wrist. “Just wait wait please just wait!”

  “Larry,” George cautioned in a low voice. “Let go. Don’t hold on to her like that.”

  “Oh!” Larry said, pulling back. He sat on his hands. “It’s just my father’s really mad I’m not supposed to drink he said I act stupid and nobody wants me around because he said he said I offend people.” He grabbed her hand again. “Did I offend you did I did I offend you at the party did I Fiona?”

  “No, of course not, Larry.” She held her breath and slipped her hand away.

  Larry grinned. “It was fun it was so much fun huh?” He nodded eagerly.<
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  “Yah, it was.”

  “Yah will you go out with me Fiona yah will you will you please please please?” His voice grew louder. “We can go to McDonald’s we can go tonight I have money a lot of money see,” he said, stiffening back on the seat as he dug deeply into his pockets and tossed crumpled bills onto the table.

  “I can’t, Larry. I can’t, I’m just so busy.”

  “Please Fiona please please please!” he begged, hands clasped at his chin.

  Heads were turning. Maxine watched from the register.

  “Hey, come on, Larry, get up. It’s time to go,” George said.

  Larry got up and stood by the table. The minute George was out of the booth Larry slid back in. Easily given to tearful outbursts, his frustration was most always with himself. Though he couldn’t recall the actual dive, he remembered what he had been, what he had wanted to be, and in moments like this, despised the child he was.

  “Now, come on, Larry, come on, get up. I’ll give you a ride to work,” George said.

  “But I want to go out with Fiona I want to I do!” Larry insisted, hitting the table with his fist.

  “Well you can’t, so come on, let’s go,” George said with a firm grip on Larry’s arm.

  “Why why can’t I?” Larry cried, leaning back and trying to pull away. “Tell me why why because I changed because I’m different because you think I’m stupid now that’s why isn’t it?”

  “Because, she can’t, that’s all,” George said, bending close.

  “But you like me you do you do don’t you Fiona?” Larry called over George’s shoulder.

  She nodded. “Yes, I do.”

  Larry grinned. “I know you kissed me and I kissed you I kissed you back didn’t I?” His point made, Larry grinned at George. “See see I told you I did I kissed Fiona so why can’t we why can’t we go on a date?”

  “Because she goes with me, that’s why. So come on, let’s go!” George ordered in a quiet voice.

  Larry’s mouth dropped open. “Oh oh oh I’m sorry I’m sorry George I am I really am I really really am,” he said, almost tipping the table in his haste to stand. “I didn’t know that I would’ve never asked her swear to God George never I never would’ve,” he insisted, following George to the door.