Tova has never cared much for rock music, at least not the modern kind. As a girl, of course, she liked Chuck Berry and Little Richard. And Elvis Presley, the King himself. When they were newlyweds, Will used to take her dancing at the hall downtown on Saturday nights, where they’d jitterbug until their feet were swollen. But the music teenage Erik used to blast from the boom box in his bedroom? That was noise, pure and simple.
The blend of guitar and drumbeats drifting out of the speaker on Janice Kim’s laptop computer is somewhere in between. Tova can’t understand much of what the lead singer is saying, but his voice is pleasant. The music sounds like it’s wandering, meandering. It isn’t unenjoyable.
“Hang on, let me turn down the volume,” Janice says, jabbing at the keyboard. “Don’t you hate it when websites have script embedded to play music automatically?”
“Oh yes,” Tova says, though she’s not sure what that means. Across the room, on his plush pouf, Rolo lifts his head. The tiny dog yawns, stands, and gives his whole body a good shake before trotting over. Janice scoops him up to her lap, and Tova reaches over and strokes his silky head.
“Ah, here we go. This is the one you’re looking for, right?” Janice zooms in on a photo of a scrawny man holding up a faded white T-shirt, the very same one Tova ruined last night at Ethan’s house. By the time she arrived home, Ethan had already left a message on her answering machine, insisting she not worry about the shirt. This morning, he sent a text message to her cell phone, too, apologizing for the sour note the evening took, and begging her to call him back. She thought about calling back, but she didn’t know how to reply to the message, and in any event, getting in touch with Janice to ask for her help seemed more important.
The shirt was beloved. Tova needs to make it right.
“Yes, that’s it.” She watches as Janice clicks through several other photos of the shirt, front and back, laid out on a wooden dining table.
“I’m not familiar with this particular auction site,” Janice says, squinting at the screen. “But it’s securely encrypted, so I guess it’s probably legit?”
“Right.” Tova nods. Mercifully, Janice has asked few questions of Tova about why she’s trying to acquire a souvenir T-shirt from a Grateful Dead concert in 1995. It seems like the remaining Knit-Wits have been walking on eggshells around her ever since she announced her intention to move to Charter Village.
“Okay, so here’s where you put in your credit card number.” Janice clicks over to another screen. Her brows furrow as the new page loads. “No, this can’t be right.”
“What is it?”
“It says this shirt costs two thousand dollars.”
Rolo yips, apparently sharing Janice’s shock.
“I see.” Tova swallows a gasp before continuing matter-of-factly, “Yes, well. It’s a rare specimen.”
Janice’s eyes narrow. “Since when do you collect concert memorabilia? What are you up to, Tova?”
“It’s nothing.” Tova waves her off. “I’m just making something right.” She reaches into her pocketbook and flips through her wallet until she finds her lone credit card, which she uses only when paying cash isn’t an option.
“For the fellow selling this, you’re about to make his day right, that’s for sure,” Janice mutters, taking Tova’s card and punching the numbers in. Before she hits the green BUY NOW button, she casts one last skeptical look at Tova. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Do it.” Tova isn’t sure why her heart is beating so quickly. It’s only a replacement for an item she ruined, and two thousand dollars is hardly a dent in her bank account.
A little circle on the center of the laptop’s screen spins for a few seconds, and then Janice says, “Okay, there we go,” as a thank-you screen appears. “I’ll print the receipt when it hits my email. Looks like it’ll ship within two to three weeks.”
“Three weeks!” Tova shakes her head. “No, I can’t wait three weeks.”
“You can’t wait three weeks? For this dirty old shirt?”
“No.” Tova sets her jaw. Yet another reason why this internet shopping craze is foolish. Who wants to wait three weeks for something they’ve purchased?
“Well, it says you can pick it up.” Words and graphics whiz up the screen as Janice scrolls. She peers at Tova doubtfully. “Their warehouse is in Tukwila.”
Tukwila is south of Seattle, near the airport. It will take three hours to drive down there from Sowell Bay, at least. Maybe more with downtown Seattle traffic.
“I’d rather do that. Can you change it?”
Janice’s mouth drops open. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Tova parrots.
“Okey-dokey.” Looking skeptical, Janice clicks a few more buttons. Moments later, her printer whirs to life, and a page emerges. She deposits Rolo on the floor before going to fetch the page and handing it to Tova. It’s a small, grainy map with an address in Tukwila.
“Very good. Thank you for your help,” says Tova with a firm nod, folding the page and tucking it into her pocketbook.
“You’re going to drive all the way down there?”
“I suppose I am.”
“When was the last time you drove through Seattle? And on the freeway, Tova?”
Tova doesn’t answer, but it was when Will was going through one of his last rounds of treatment. He saw a specialist at the University of Washington. The experimental drug didn’t help Will much, unfortunately, but of course they had to try.
“I’ll go with you,” Janice says. “I’ll get Peter to come, too. He can drive. Let me look at my calendar, we’ll pick a day, and—”
“No thank you,” Tova cuts in. “I can go on my own. I’d like to get it done today.”
Janice crosses her arms. “Well, I’m sure you know what you’re doing. Be careful. Take your cell phone.”
STOPPED CARS ARE packed on the interstate like herring in a tin. Brake lights glitter red and pink through the wet windshield as the wipers clear away the drizzle, somewhat unusual for summer, when it’s typically hot and dry. Naturally, it would start raining during Tova’s first drive on the freeway in two years.
The hatchback inches forward. Everyone in Tova’s middle lane seems to be switching over to the right lane. Perhaps there’s something blocking the lane on the left. She’s about to switch on the blinker when the cell phone rings from its spot in her cup holder.
Tova jabs the screen. “Hello?” Nothing happens. Janice showed her how to make the cell phone work like a speaker, but now she can’t remember which of the little round icons does this. She tries another one and says again, louder, “Hello?”
“Mrs. Sullivan?” A male voice bleats from the device.
“Yes,” Tova says. “This is she.”
“Hi, this is Patrick. I’m with admissions at Charter Village. How are you today?”
“Fine, thank you.” Tova gives one last sidelong look at her rearview mirror and holds her breath as she guides the car into the right lane. She exhales, wondering if Patrick can hear it on the other end of the line.
“Good. I’m calling to make sure it’s okay to process your final deposit.”
“I see,” Tova says.
“We haven’t received your authorization form yet. Perhaps it got lost in the mail?”
“Oh, well, you know the postal service these days.”
Now all of the cars that merged right are fighting to make their way left. Why can’t anyone make up their mind? The cars remind Tova of a school of feckless fish dodging a predator’s attack, moving in unison, not realizing they’re fleeing the shark on one side only to be devoured by the seal on the other.
Patrick clears his throat. “So I’m calling because we need that final deposit in order to secure your move-in date, which is—hang on, let me check—oh, it’s next month.”
Tova hits the brake pedal a bit harder than intended. “Yes, I believe that’s correct.”
“No wonder my supervisor flagged this. Well, given the circumstances, I can take your verbal authorization to make the draft. Is that okay?”
Tova swings around a semitruck, back into the other lane, which is now zooming along at a good clip while the other lane stands still. How odd such things can be. Each little decision about which lane to choose determines exactly how you get where you’re going, and when. When Will was alive, he used to accompany Tova to do the grocery shopping sometimes, and he would always pick the slower checkout line. They used to joke about how he had a knack for it.
She and Will had gone to the grocery store the afternoon of the day Erik died. Tova remembers buying a box of those junky cream-filled snack cakes Erik always liked. Had Will chosen the slow checkout lane that day? If he’d picked the faster one, would they have arrived home in time to see Erik before he left for his job at the ferry dock? Would they have caught him sneaking beer from the fridge? Would he have mentioned that he was seeing a girl now? Would he have told Tova her name was Daphne and he couldn’t wait to bring her over for supper?
Would any of this have changed anything?
“Hello? Mrs. Sullivan? Are you there?”
“Yes.” Tova blinks at the phone in the cup holder. “I’m here.”
“Are you all right?” There’s a note of concern in Patrick’s voice. Tova pictures him hovering over a telephone at one of the desks inside the glass-walled office she walked by on her Charter Village tour.
“Go ahead,” she says. “Process it.”