Big Machine (35 page)

“I can hold that on my lap,” she told him.

Mr. Washburn looked like a bear, but spoke softer than a child. His chubby face betrayed his age; he couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. Not the real Mr. Washburn. More like Mr. Washburn’s great-great-great grandson. There’s a tendency to think people who smile too much are dumb, but this boy wasn’t. His grin worked to balance out his small,
intense eyes. They were as black as polished onyx, and just as brilliant.

He smiled at her. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

“Me?” she asked. Confused by what he’d said, but also by the fact that she felt flattered.

Mr. Washburn winced, but recovered. “Well, yes,
both
of you.”

Solomon cut in. “We didn’t have time to let you know we were coming.”

“No,” Mr. Washburn said. “I guess you didn’t.”

Adele climbed in back, her last suitcase heavy in her lap. Solomon Clay moved into the passenger side of the car and pushed the seat as far back as it would go, then turned to the uncomfortable Adele Henry and said, “He doesn’t know we’re here to change his mind.”

“You don’t think he’s guessed?” she whispered.

“Why? He hasn’t told
anyone
he’s closing the Library yet.”

“Well, then, how’d the Dean find out?”

“Didn’t he tell you?”

“You mean that oracle bullshit?”

Solomon sneered. “Still think it’s bullshit?”

Mr. Washburn walked around the car, checking Solomon’s door, then the trunk, before getting inside. They needed to roll down the windows just so Mr. Washburn and Solomon Clay had room for their outer elbows. That car was packed tighter than a slave ship.

As they pulled onto San Pablo, Adele felt the close quarters of the car as a clutch around her body. She felt a breeze slinking up the space between her skin and her clothes. When it reached her collar, it came out as a fetid breath. A voice, whispering into the crook of her neck.

You’re my special flower, aren’t you?

How much does that flower cost?

The memory of that voice, its flirtatious venom, agitated Adele. She must’ve looked tense to Mr. Washburn as he watched her in the rearview mirror. His small eyes showed concern.

“I know you must be tired, Adele. That bus trip is long.”

“Yes,” she said, absently.

“I’ll drive as quick as I can. There’s a nice bed waiting for you.”

Adele looked back at him in the rearview mirror now.

“Thank you,” she said.

THEY DROVE
to the Washburn estate, but before Adele could register the grandeur of it, she’d been dropped off at her own cabin and told to rest until morning. It wasn’t her cabin for the night or the week, or even a month; it was
hers
. Mr. Washburn parked in her driveway, walked her
bags inside, and showed her the paperwork sitting on the dining table: Adele Henry’s rent was one dollar a month, with a lease good for ninety-nine years. Best land deal in Northern California.

“Why are you giving this to me?” she asked.

“We appreciate your work for us, and we believe in repaying those kinds of debts.”

She smiled. “Don’t you think you should ask your father about this first?” Adele waved the lease, but didn’t let it go.

“My pop died when I was eleven. After he was gone, Mr. Clay was there for me, like an uncle, but I’m the head of this family.”

Adele set the paper down and clasped her hands.

“I didn’t meant to insult you, Mr. Washburn. I guess I’m not too good with people.”

He said, “My first name is Snooky. And you’re doing just fine with me.”

They stood quietly in the warmth of the living room, close to each other.

“Snooky Washburn,” she said.

“Snooky Washburn the third, actually.”

“Is there a fourth?”

“No. Not yet.”

He really did have a lovely smile, Adele felt. She offered one of her own.

“But my wife and I are trying,” he added quickly.

Adele experienced a coughing fit just then, call it the soundtrack of her embarrassment.

“Well, shit!” she shouted once the coughing stopped.

He sensed the awkwardness between them and stooped lower. He’d learned that trick that big men do, of folding themselves in half so others might reach them.

Adele couldn’t even look at him. She touched her face. “I always say the wrong thing.”

Snooky Washburn laughed, and it was so loud she felt it echo in her chest.

“You haven’t said the first thing wrong, Ms. Henry. Some of the things you say can be
surprising
, but the best thing about life is the surprises. Like I didn’t expect to meet someone as nice as you today.”

Adele grinned again, but he didn’t see this because she wasn’t looking at him.

“Okay,” she said. “But if I call you Snooky, then you have to start calling me Adele.”

He agreed and left through the kitchen door. She watched and waved
as Snooky got into the car and backed out of the driveway. She didn’t laugh at herself, at her big old putty heart, until she was alone.

NO REST ALLOWED
, however. After one thing’s done, there’s another waiting. If she didn’t get to it, who would? Where was the Devil’s Well? And what was it, really?

Adele’s cabin was big, three bedrooms big, generous beyond all reason, so much so that Adele wondered if she’d be getting roommates soon. She knew she wasn’t, but still feared she could. One closet even had a pair of men’s suits hanging in it. The last tenant’s, maybe. This suspicion forced her to get up and check the driveway every few minutes. Even in the middle of taking off her makeup. With cold cream daubed across her face she crept into the kitchen, expecting to see a van full of Unlikely Scholars arriving to invade a space she already considered her home. Hers alone.

One canopy bed stood assembled in a room now officially “the bedroom,” though it didn’t have a vanity as she’d have liked. She had to remove her foundation at the bathroom mirror. Without makeup she looked at her wide face, cheeks as round as tennis balls. Hair so brown it almost looked black. It was her mother’s face.

On sick days, when Adele had stayed home from school, Maxine Henry had cooked up Spanish omelets as a special breakfast treat for her girl. Two eggs beaten and poured into a pan; minutes later a puffy yellow disc slid onto a plate. While the eggs cooked, Adele’s mother chopped onions and tomatoes, green peppers and mushrooms, then dropped them all into a second pan of crackling corn oil. Maxine would fry those vegetables until they’d browned and the onions took on a sugary taste. And finally, the magic ingredient, add teaspoons of ketchup to the nearly finished pan. The ketchup turned the corn oil into thick gravy. Pour that pan onto the cooled eggs and fold the omelet in half. As the thick oil soaked through the eggs and across the plate, Adele would dip a finger to taste. Perfection.

Then, while Adele ate, Maxine Henry would run around the house yelling, “Where are my keys? Where are my keys?” because preparing this breakfast always made Maxine late for work. The sight of her frantic mother made young Adele giggle, so her mom would shout even louder just to make her baby howl. Adele might try to mimic her mom, but the words all rushed together until they became another language. Wherearemykeys! ’Rarmykeys!

Eventually Maxine would find them and go to work. Adele was a little young to be left home alone, but there weren’t any other options.
Adele had memorized the number for her mother’s job and knew how to dial 911. Beyond that, Maxine simply had to have faith her daughter would be okay.

As Adele looked into the mirror now, at her naked face, her mother felt incredibly near.

Guess what? Do you know where I am?
Cal
ifornia. Can you beat that?

Maxine Henry. Only a few thousand miles away. As close as a phone call. Except Adele had been refused the new number. Accessible by mail if only Adele’s mother had been willing to give her the new address.

AFTER A BATH
Adele brought the suitcases into the bedroom and laid them flat in a corner, opened both, and hung all the clothes. She changed out of the box coat and skirt and put on a cotton crêpe kimono. Now she checked the kitchen, searching the cabinets. Yes! They’d stocked her cabin with the important provision. Liquor. Maybe the Washburns didn’t teetotal quite as vehemently as the Dean. She made a gin rickey, full of ice, and drank it reclining in the lounge.

Then she poured one more.

Adele walked through the house, her house, and touched all her walls and every window. By the time she’d made the circuit, she was ready for one more glass.

Eventually she took off her kimono, put on a khaki two-piece riding suit, and her most comfortable shoes, four-buckled gaiters. She stood on the edge of the tub in the bathroom so she could see the outfit in the mirror. She looked courageous. Strong. If you asked her to go into the bush and kill a rhino, she could do it. With her hands.

Time to work.

She found a bike in the garage behind her cabin. Leaning against one wall. This big silver monstrosity. Fifty soup cans molded to resemble a Pashley Roadster, but warped. The bike looked like it had just survived a collision with the fourth dimension. She pulled it out and checked the mildly rusted chain, bounced up and down in the lopsided seat, even dropped it on its side; she was flawed, but she was sturdy. Adele took the bike along the small path, back around to the front of the house, popped the kickstand, and went inside for a hat.

While she’d been rummaging in the garage someone had come along and flipped an envelope under her front door. Periwinkle paper with writing on the face. It read: “Per Diem—$50.” She opened it and found four hundred dollars inside.

She washed the glass she’d used (sipping at the last drops of gin
rickey first), then grabbed her green purse and a newsboy cap. She walked around the cabin to be sure the windows were shut. Looked to see if she’d left any lights on by mistake. She’d really developed the home owner’s mind-set right away.

Adele Henry quick study.

Adele Henry pedaling fast.

ADELE HENRY COASTED DOWN
MacArthur Boulevard in that two-piece riding suit, on that battered bike, but had no idea where to go. She had one phrase, but no sense of its value. She’d decided the Devil’s Well was a place, maybe a famous landmark. A location she could find. So she stopped her bike in front of a coffee shop, went inside, and asked to see a phone book.

The coffee shop felt like a grotto. Cozy and warm, the deep brown walls hugging close, and even the tabletops were made of stone. Since the smaller tables were already occupied, Adele sat at the one great table nearby, big enough for a dozen chairs. Six were already in use. She took a vacant corner and opened the phone book, leafed through the pages, and listened to them flap. She was waiting for the coffee she’d ordered. When they called her name, she took everything up there with her, her purse and coat, even the bulky phone book. She trusted no one.

In the seconds it took to walk up to the counter, a man had settled into the chair next to hers. Just appeared out of nowhere. Adele scanned the shop for another table, but no luck. She put her drink down, took off her coat, sat, set her purse between her feet, and started her research. She scooched her chair another inch away from the stranger.

“Yeah,” the guy muttered.

Adele didn’t respond. She only went into her purse for the brown paper towel.

The man beside her had a newspaper, a good sign (he could distract himself), and while he opened a section, she searched … for what? Was there going to be a business called the Devil’s Well? Maybe. So she checked, but that was a bust. Was it a park, a gully, a mountain? Nope.

“Personally, I think you’re right to wear those gaiters out. I’m pretty sure it’ll rain today.”

Adele ignored the man, even if he was complimenting her boots. She set the coffee cup on one end of the paper towel so it wouldn’t blow away as people opened the front door.

“When I get out to hunt, I like to wear something similar. I wear those rubbers, you know, the slip-ons? Sometimes you’re standing in six inches of mud. You don’t realize it, but that environment can really abbreviate the lifetime of your footwear.”

Well, what about a community group? A theater? The Devil’s Well. Adele’s ideas were crusty. A gang? Why the hell would a
gang
be listed in the phone book? Well I don’t know, she snapped at herself, but let’s just check anyway!

“Mushing around for an hour or two seems worth it if you get a few good hits on your detector, though. Most days I find nails and bottle tops, but I dug up a watch two weeks ago.”

Other people at the table huffed to try to shush the man’s patter, but he wouldn’t be deterred. He didn’t require responses. Probably held conversations with the shampoo bottle in the shower.

Adele slumped in her chair, but didn’t sit back. There had to be something she could do.

“Say. Are you a teacher or something?”

Adele sipped her coffee.

“A reporter?”

She picked at lint that had gathered on her pants.

“An archeologist?” he asked, but without hope of a reply. Now he sighed and snapped his newspaper, lifted it to his face.

Adele decided she’d at least finish the coffee before crawling back to her cabin.

He muttered. “Why else you bothering with the Devil’s Well?”

She turned to him quickly. “What did you just say?”

He lowered his newspaper.

“Well, hello! So nice of you to notice me.”

She pointed at the phone book. “I was so busy.”

“Oh, of course you were,” he agreed.

He gloated, but didn’t seem angry. His gray hair exploded from his head in all directions, wild and windswept even indoors. He looked like a dandelion. His body as thin as the stem.

“I thought you were ignoring me because I’m white,” he said as he folded his paper neatly. “Crazy old white man in the coffee shop!”

Adele looked at her hands. “That’s not true,” she said. “I would’ve ignored you no matter what color man you were.”

He nodded faintly. “I guess I can live with that.”