Then
Sarah should be coming back to school soon.”
Though I never asked about her, Peter faithfully updated me on Sarah Kukla’s progress. We were strolling through downtown River City on an unseasonably warm and sunny December afternoon, shopping for the few people in our lives to whom we owed Christmas presents, people neither of us actually knew very well.
“She’ll be walking soon.”
I was glad for her recovery, but I didn’t want to talk about her. She was on Peter’s mind entirely too much. When he visited her, did he talk about me?
“What did you think of The Yellow Wallpaper?” I asked.
It took Peter a moment to switch gears. “I thought it was pretty good. Kind of creepy, in a good way.” He put a hand out to stop my forward motion. “Let’s go in here.”
We stepped through the fake snow–encrusted door of St. Macarius & Sons candy shop. The smell of roasting nuts filled the air. The shelves were lined with every kind of chocolate and candy known to man. If I found nothing else for her, I could at least get my grandmother some chocolate turtles and gourmet jelly beans. We drifted down the colorful rows of gummy fruit shapes, butterscotch, black licorice, and lemon drops. I thought of the mayhem The Professor could spread were he let loose in such a colorful, textural place.
Peter bent over and snagged a bag of burnt peanuts from a low shelf. “Why is it that there are so many crazy women in these books?” he asked. “Aren’t there normal, happy women in the world that don’t do completely irrational things?”
I was impressed that he had noticed that particular trend in the books we had been reading of late. His mother had obviously noticed it. In any book that included a woman who appeared depressed or insane, Emily Flynt had underlined, double underlined, and scribbled little notes that seemed to me to indicate some level of solidarity.
“The story tells you why,” I said.
He picked up a bag of gummy orange slices, then put it back down. “What, because she couldn’t write? That’s what drove her crazy?”
“No. Not just that. Isn’t it pretty obvious? Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Bluest Eye, The Color Purple, The Bell Jar—they all tell stories of women controlled by men or circumstance or society’s expectations. Everyone is telling them to act or look a certain way, and they don’t fit the mold. At some point everyone breaks, I guess. They want to be in control of their own lives. When things are out of your control, sometimes you do dumb things, just to show yourself you can do something.”
Peter shook his head. “I don’t buy that. I don’t know any women who are oppressed or controlled by men. That doesn’t happen anymore. Women can do everything a man can do.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I said under my breath. I didn’t really want to get into this. I’d already had some of these gender conversations in English class, and they always turned ugly. I thought of my own mother, of Grandma’s insistence that she had been tricked into helping my dad cover up his crimes and coerced into pleading guilty. I hadn’t wanted to talk about it before, but the more I read Emily Flynt’s books, the more I thought about it. What other options did my mother have, after all? Had she simply been boxed in by expectations? Had she snapped like the narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper? I wondered if maybe I wasn’t being fair to her by refusing to read her letters, which Grandma had kept in an ever-growing stack on the kitchen counter until I told her I didn’t want to look at them. Would it drive my mother mad if I never responded?
“Anyway,” Peter went on, “it happens to guys too.”
“What?”
“Being controlled.”
I picked up a big box of jelly beans and headed for the counter. “Can I get half a pound of chocolate turtles? The ones with the pecans? And a bag of unsalted peanuts in the shells.”
“Ew. Unsalted?” Peter said.
“For the bird.”
He plopped his candies down by the cash register. “Geez, it’s hot in here. Why do they have to turn the heat up so high? Everyone’s dressed for winter weather and then you come in here and sweat to death.”
“Will that be all?” droned a girl who obviously didn’t want to be at work.
Peter paid up, took his brown paper sack full of candy, and waited outside for me to finish up. A few minutes later I was out with my own paper bag, larger than his. A crisp breeze cooled the sweat that had begun to gather at my hairline.
“Where to now?” Peter said.
I looked out across the gray-brown river. “What’s on the other side?”
“Not much, I don’t think. Bars and boats, mostly. A few stores.”
“Let’s go over there. We’ve already been almost everywhere on this side.”
“Not the antique shop.” He pointed across the street to the sprawling antique mall that took up nearly half a city block.
I gave him a doubtful look. “You really think you’re going to find your dad something in there?”
“Maybe. They’ve got lots of cool stuff. And there’s always something my grandparents would like. They’ve got books there. Why don’t we do that first and then we’ll go to the west side.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“I’ll run our bags to my car and meet you in there.”
He trotted off down the sun-dried sidewalk. I crossed the street, entered the antique mall, and found myself hopelessly lost in its labyrinth of junk within moments. I spied a few things here and there that were likely worth something, but much of the inventory looked like it should be inserted into the deep recesses of a landfill, never to be seen again. Even a cursory scan of the books on offer revealed little of interest.
People got so sentimental about old things. The homes I had frequented when I lived in Amherst usually sported an impressive collection of high-end antiques and expensive paintings, some of which had been in the same families since before the founding of the nation. I grew up knowing that I was not to put a glass directly on wood, I was not to play with toys on the sideboard, and I was never to drink grape juice over the carpets. But of all the items I had seen thus far in the antique mall, none of them looked like they required any amount of special care beyond fumigation.
Peter finally caught up with me beside an endless row of porcelain sinks and toilets in the basement.
“So, are you thinking about getting your dad an antique john?” I quipped.
“Those are for restorations, smart aleck. Let’s go look at the records.”
I stood by as Peter thumbed through hundreds of LPs. “What are you looking for? I’ll help you find it.”
“I’m not really sure. I’ll know it when I see it.”
But he apparently didn’t see it, because ten minutes later we were back upstairs. I was getting antsy and hot and tremendously bored.
“What does your dad like?”
“Oh, you know, football, beer, fishing, hunting—stuff like that.”
I started to search for stuff like that. I wanted to get out of there. My grandma had enough old stuff. What she needed was some new stuff. Or less stuff.
Finally Peter found a lighted Miller Lite sign—an antique only in the very loosest sense of the word—and paid the cashier. We got into his car and headed for the Columbus Bridge. As we approached, the light on the bridge turned red. A bell began to ding as the red and white arms dropped down to block our path.
“Wanna see if we can make it to Cortez Bridge?” Peter asked with palpable excitement.
Racing bridges, I had learned, was one of the things the locals did for fun. It was safer than racing trains and it gave one a story to tell, albeit not a terribly unique one. Everyone raced bridges. When I first heard of it, it didn’t seem like it would be all that hard to beat a freighter laden with cargo in a race. But the bridges opened so early for these giant ships and there were so many traffic lights on the roads between them that it was actually a fair contest.
“Let’s do it.”
Peter made a sharp U-turn on Chippewa, bent on making it down the twenty-five-mile-per-hour street through six lights and over Cortez Bridge before it opened for the oncoming ship. But traffic was thick, and too many people were either pulling out of a parking spot along the road or waiting for one to open up.
“Stupid holiday crowds!” Peter said as he hit the steering wheel at a red light. “We’re never gonna make it. At this point it would take less time to turn around and go back.”
“It’s no big deal,” I said.
“My dad always beats these things. So does Alex.”
The light turned green and he gunned it, then braked hard at the next light.
“Who’s Alex?”
“My brother.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother.”
“Alex Flynt, class of 1997, star quarterback at Kennedy High. And now he’s a starting quarterback for Michigan State.”
“So football runs in the family. Is that what you plan to do as well?”
“We’ll see.” He made the turn onto Cortez Bridge, which was already beginning to rise, and let out a frustrated grunt. “I won’t be going to State, though.”
“Why not?”
“Dad thinks Alex is wasting his talent at MSU because he would get better offers from the pro teams if he was in a winning program like the University of Michigan—that’s where my dad went. But Alex wanted to go to MSU because that’s where his girlfriend was going.”
The bridge was straight up in the air now, an impenetrable wall of gray. The big freighter came creeping in from the north, heading upriver to drop its load on trains or trucks that would disperse it all over the country. Probably one of the last of such deliveries until spring. In not too long, the river would ice over.
“You seem like you really care a lot about what your dad thinks,” I observed.
“What does that mean?”
“Just what I said. You seem to really care about his opinion.”
“Yeah?” Peter prompted.
“I mean, do you want to go to the University of Michigan and play football?”
“I could do a lot worse.”
“Are you planning on being a pro football player then?”
Peter shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Maybe.”
“What?”
“It just seems like people who become pros in a sport have a lot more drive. Like they don’t have any maybes, you know? So maybe you were meant to do something else.”
Peter didn’t speak again until the ship had passed and the bridge had lowered enough that we could see the cars waiting on the other side. “What was your father like?” he asked.
I didn’t care for this turnaround. But if I was going to be critical of Peter’s relationship with his father, perhaps I ought to be more open about mine.
“Is.”
“Is?”
“What is my father like. He’s still alive.”
The red and white arms went up, the dinging bell fell silent, and the red lights switched to green.
“Okay, then what is your father like?”
“Ruthless.”
His head swiveled toward me. “What do you mean?”
Cars honked behind us.
“I think they want you to go,” I said.
Peter threw the car back in drive, and we crossed the bridge over the rolling wake the freighter had left lapping at the rivershore. On the other side he parked in a video store lot and turned to face me. “What do you mean, ‘ruthless’?”
“You know, cruel, brutal, merciless. That sort of thing.” I smiled. “I’m pretty sure that’s a vocab word you should be familiar with by your senior year of high school.”
“Did he hurt you? Is that why you’re living here with your cousin?”
“He never hurt me.”
“Your mom?”
“Not that I know of.”
I savored the bewildered expression on Peter’s face. It might be the last time he looked at me without pity or disgust. For all the wild stories I’d spread about myself, I’d noticed that there, hidden among the lies, the truth had already seeped out. Peter had included it in his list of rumors about me back in October. The only reason it didn’t get much attention was that there were so many other stories floating around that were just as outrageous. Of all of them, though, it really was the most plausible. Maybe Peter wouldn’t be all that surprised to find it was true. He was my best friend. He deserved to know. Anyway, secrets want to be told, otherwise they wouldn’t be so hard to keep.
“My father is Norman Windsor.”
He looked like he couldn’t place the name, so I helped him out.
“He’s a senator—was a senator. He killed three people to cover up embezzling money from arms sales. My mom was arrested as an accessory or something a few months after my dad. His trial is going on right now. She pleaded guilty, so she’s already in prison.”
I paused, waiting for him to react, but his face was a frozen mask of confusion.
“So, maybe your dad’s not so bad compared to some,” I quipped. “But it still seems like he’s pushing you to do something more for him than for you.”
It took another moment for Peter to find his voice. “Are you serious?”
I nodded.
“You’re criticizing my dad for wanting me to go to a particular college when your dad killed three people?”
“See, this is why I didn’t want to talk about it before. It’s not my fault my dad is a monster.”
Peter stared at me. “You’re making this up. Like all the other crap?”
I looked into his perfect blue eyes. He didn’t want to believe this. I could take it back easy as that, push the reset button. Everything would go back to what it was. Sweet anonymity.
I forced a breezy smirk across my face. “Yeah. I’m screwing with you.”
He rolled his eyes. “Geez, Robin. You’re insane.”
We drove in silence a few shabby blocks to a street that sloped toward the river. I felt as run-down as the houses we passed.
“This side of town is where people settled first,” Peter informed me, “before the lumber boom and all those mansions got built up over on Centerline Road on the east side. Now it’s mostly bars. This is the place to be if you want to get smashed.”
Despite its seedy reputation, Midway Street was beautiful. Brick and stone buildings with tall, skinny second-story windows lined the street. It resembled the streets on the other side of the river, but there was something different about the west side. Something older, earthier, a bit unfashionable. It felt like an undiscovered country. Like a juicy little secret you wanted to share with people.
We parked and walked until we found a storefront that wasn’t a bar. Mystic Rhythms Aromatherapy Shop.
“Let’s go in there,” I said. “I need something to cover up the smell of old cigarette smoke. I’m living in an ashtray.”
When the door shut behind us, we were immediately assaulted by the thick odor of sandalwood incense and something that reminded me of the stoners smoking out on the corner during lunch hour.
“Oy,” Peter said. “I think I’d rather smell like cigarette smoke than this.”
I walked over to a shelf lined with scented candles and essential oils. A heavyset woman with long curly hair streaked with gray and about thirty filmy scarves around her neck drifted out from behind the counter. She wore a long skirt in shades of turquoise and jade, a flowing white top, and chunky brown sandals despite it being December. Her toenails were far too long. She looked to be in her forties—or maybe her sixties. It was hard to say.
“Is there anything I can help you with?” Her voice was like feathers.
“I’m looking for a gift for an older lady. Something to make the house smell nice.”
She escorted me around the store, explaining the origin and properties of every product and making wild claims about how much each would change the recipient’s life. I wanted to ask her if she had anything that would change my life.
Peter excused himself to wait outside. “This place is giving me a headache.”
After twenty minutes I finally convinced the woman that I had made my choice. I assured her that I did not need Sensual Touch Massage Oil or healing crystals or a gold statue of Buddha, and walked out into the crisp air.
Peter was leaning against the wall, hands in his coat pockets, breath fogging. “I was wondering if I would have to send in a search party to extract you.”
We started down the road.
“She talked so slow.”
Peter laughed. “Do you have everything you need for Martha?”
“I have enough. I hardly know the woman.”
He gave me a sidelong glance. “So how did you really end up out here living with a woman you hardly know? For real.”
“Peter, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Whatever. I bet it’s so boring and vanilla that no one would care, and that’s why you won’t tell the truth.”
“Believe whatever you want.” I put my hand out to stop him. “Wait.”
“What?”
“Look at this place.”
The yellow-brick building at the corner of Midway and Chestnut was empty. It sported a large front display window, a heavy wooden framed door fitted with leaded glass panels, and a large black-and-yellow-striped awning, torn and faded and filthy.
“That is so cool.”
When I looked to Peter for confirmation of my assessment, he raised his eyebrows doubtfully. I ignored him and pressed my face against the window. Inside, the remains of some doomed business sat silently beneath a patina of dust. A chair lay on its side. Old candy machines stood waiting for small, sticky hands to insert quarters. A few tables and shelves sat empty. It was beautiful, abandoned, and full of possibility.
“What would you put there if you owned it?” Peter asked.
I didn’t even have to think about it. “A bookstore.”
He nodded and stuck out his bottom lip. “With a coffee shop?”
I screwed up my face. “Nah. All the walls would be floor-to-ceiling shelves, and a ton of shelves all throughout so you can hardly fit down each aisle. Like a rabbit warren.”
“Sounds dark and claustrophobic.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is cozy.”
“But Barnes & Noble is really open, you know? With lots of space and lots of light. And a coffee shop.”
“Then why would my bookstore need to be that way? There’s already a Barnes & Noble in Saginaw. My store wouldn’t be like that.”
“But that’s what people like.”
“Not me. My store would be more like an old library, I think. I would have lots of used books. Ones people had written in, like your mom’s.”
“No one wants to buy books with stuff written in them.”
“Why not? It gives them character. It gives them a life of their own. I like that all your mom’s books are written in. It’s like I can talk to her even though I never got a chance to get to know her.”
“I guess you could sell those books in your store then. Look at that. Already have a start on your new business venture.”
“Never. I’d never sell those books. They’re friends.”
Peter gave me a look. “You’re so odd.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Take it however you like.”
We walked on down the street toward the river. I wished Peter would put his arm around my shoulders, but he didn’t. Ever since our interrupted kiss on the night of the accident, he’d kept me at arm’s length, as though to get too close might have ill effects on the lives of others.
“Does your dad know you’re giving away all of your mom’s books?”
“I told you, he already got rid of most of her stuff anyway. Plus I’m not giving them away, am I? I’m selling them.”
“For bad poetry.”
“I think it’s good. They’re short, which is good for me. It’s kind of turned into a fun game.”
“A game?”
“It’s like a treasure map. If I read closely and put all the pieces together, it should lead me to the real you, right?”
We stepped out onto a wooden dock devoid of boats. They were all in storage. Ice gripped the pylons where they met the still water of the empty marina.
“I guess that all depends on you,” I said. “How well did your English teachers do teaching you to interpret poetry?”
“I don’t know. Mom was always trying to get me to take more of an interest in it.” He kicked a stone into the water. It broke through the thin layer of ice and sank to the bottom. “I think I must have disappointed her as much as my brother disappointed my dad.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I dunno. Just a feeling. She never smiled anymore. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the more I thought about it later . . . Anyway, your poems are good.”
I wasn’t really surprised to hear that Emily Flynt didn’t smile. If my poems were a map to the real me, the notes she’d made in her books told the story of someone who was in a far darker place than her former students might have assumed. Whenever her name came up at Kennedy High, students and teachers alike painted a picture of a bubbly woman with endless energy and creativity. But the passages she underlined in her books told another story altogether. It wasn’t hard to see that Mrs. Flynt might not have been the effervescent woman she so successfully projected.
I just wondered why I seemed to be the only one who could read between the lines.