Into Thin Air (35 page)

“To Lee's?” Karen said.

“No, not to Lee's,” Valerie said crossly. “We don't always have to go to Lee's. There are lots of other things in this life than Lee's.” Karen sank onto her seat.

Karen perked up when she saw the green-and-yellow neon in front of the roller rink. “What is it, what is it?” she said, and Valerie smiled. “You'll see,” she said. She parked in front of the neon sign and helped Karen out.

Inside, Karen was even more dazzled. She cocked her head at the sound of the skates, She loved the flashing lighted board that announced
LADIES CHOICE
or
MEXICAN HAT DANCE
. Amazed, she held on to the wood banister and watched the skaters. Valerie paid for two pairs of skates, but Karen was so excited holding the small white leather skates that at first she didn't want to let go of them for Valerie to slip them on her feet. She clung to Valerie's hand while they skated. “This is fun!” she shouted over the tinny piped-in music.

They stayed for three hours. “More,” Karen cried, even though she could hardly keep her balance any longer. She lagged at the banister, As soon as the roller skates were off her feet she wobbled, taking Valerie's hand. “We'll do this lots more,” Valerie said, squeezing Karen's fingers.

Valerie thought she had won her over, at least a little. The rest of the evening Karen played quietly, and when Roy came home she raced to meet him. “I roller-skated!” she shouted. “Well,
we
skated,” Valerie said, kissing Roy. “And how did we do?” Roy said, beaming. “I didn't fall down once!” said Karen. She skated for him, in her bare socks, pale yellow anklets with blue violets on the cuffs. Her hair looked shiny and clean, and for once it wasn't in her eyes. When Valerie touched her she didn't pull back.

Valerie couldn't stop Lee from dropping by the house, undoing all her good work. She told her it wasn't a good time, but Lee ignored her. She told her to call first, but Lee never did. Sometimes she brought Andy, whose face was always a strange mixture of delight at being with her and annoyance at having to be at his sister's. “Come on,” he said, tugging at Lee, But Lee was hard to remove. She took Karen into the backyard and crouched down with her and pointed out constellations in the sky.

“It's too light. She can't see them,” Andy said.

“Yes, I can,” Karen said. “There's the Big Dipper.” She scribbled fingers in the blue sky.

“You've got a good imagination,” Andy said.

“The stars are there,” Lee said. “Whether you see them or not, they're there.” She looked at Karen. “Wish on a star.”

“Yeah, well, we gotta get going,” Andy said.

Lee bounded up. “Okay, toots,” she said, kissing him, taking Karen by the hand.

Valerie saw how irritated Andy was with Lee when she insisted on staying longer than he wanted. He was a little irritated with Valerie, too, though. He came over some nights and sat in the kitchen with Roy and Valerie, all three of them sipping on glasses of table wine. He noticed how Roy never complained about Karen, how instead he'd just get silent. He'd look out the window into the distance as if there were something there of interest. Valerie, though, never stopped complaining. One night after Lee had refused to see a movie with him because she wanted to bake a surprise cake for Karen, he hinted that maybe Valerie shouldn't go out. “A kid needs her mother,” he said.

Valerie's gaze sharpened, “It's not my fault those two are in love with each other. So don't stick around here so much, Go someplace alone with Lee.”

“She talks about Karen all the time,” Andy said. “It's like Karen's with us even when she's not.”

“Lee,” Valerie snorted. More and more she was angry with Lee. She somehow blamed her. She was determined to get other sitters, to change them so Karen wouldn't have time to form an allegiance, but the first new one she tried, a junior high school girl who showed up with curlers in her hair, was nearly in tears when they came home, and behind her Karen was crying, too, standing in the midst of a pool of milk.

She vented her anger the best she could. She sniped at Lee for coming to work ten minutes late or for leaving early. At work, on a day so hot no one had the energy to set the red-checkered cloths on the tables, never mind cook, she made Lee make soup. “You've been here long enough to know how to make something,” she said. She hadn't really cared one way or another whether there was soup or not, but she left Lee alone in the kitchen, afraid her soft heart would ruin everything. “Valerie?” Lee, face flushed, called her in. “Taste this,” she commanded. Valerie peered into a pot. “It's cold,” Lee said. “Blueberry soup.” Valerie dipped in a spoon. The soup was cool and light and delicious. “You know,” Lee said, “I wouldn't mind doing some cooking here.”

“I bet you wouldn't,” said Valerie.

Andy knew Lee loved Karen, and sometimes he thought she loved him, too. She was always telling him so in his daydreams, always agreeing to marriage and a house, and kids, and a life that was going to start any minute. Awake, though, she got upset when he mentioned marriage, and the only thing she'd say about it was that she needed more time. All right. But he would use that time to his advantage. He would expose her to weddings so happy they would make her heart shatter with longing. He would be so funny and kind and loving that she couldn't help but melt, All he had to do was wait for Lee to catch up with his plans. All he had to do was catch her at every wrong turn and bring her back to him, When she snapped at him, he told her jokes, When she was silent, he let her be.

And he did more than daydream. He began saving money in a special bank account. He began taking the long way to work, stopping in the suburban neighborhoods to look at the houses, and every time he spotted one with a “For Sale” sign on it, he imagined Lee inside it.

He knew how dependent on her Karen was, but he hadn't realized it might be the other way around until one day, when Valerie and Roy whisked Karen off to the ocean. “We all need a vacation,” Valerie said. “My folks have a place on the Cape. It'll be great,” she insisted.

Lee didn't know what to do with herself. She missed Karen. Restless, unanchored, wired with resentment, she waitressed at the restaurant, slamming down wrong orders, adding up the tallies wrong, sometimes in the restaurant's favor, sometimes in the customer's. By midafternoon she was in the kitchen, badgering one of the cooks to let her help. Cutting carrots into thin curls, making flowers out of radishes, or simply stirring a silky sauce, made her relax. She cooked soups so cool and beautiful, she sometimes saw the customers studying their plates before they put a spoon into it. At home, unable to sleep, she stood in front of her stove and made lemon pies, dark meaty soups, and custards she never had the appetite to eat.

At night she walked alone. Exhausted, lonely, she settled into Jim's old jacket and walked. Just like old times, she thought ruefully, digging her hands into the pockets. She thought about Jim for a minute, and then, without intending to, she suddenly thought about her own daughter. Joanna, the newspaper had printed her name. If she had thought she had a right to name her, she wouldn't have named her that. Her daughter wouldn't remember her the way Karen remembered her mother; her daughter had Jim, She wouldn't need her. She was surprised at how much worse a thought like that made her feel, She turned back home.

Everything seemed suddenly to fray her nerves. She was now grateful for Andy's calls, for the way he would whisk her off to a movie or out to dinner at a moment's notice. One weekend he took her to the state fair. She had a good time. She held his hand, she kissed him, and if she bought fifty dollars' worth of soft plastic souvenirs and plush toys, if she bought a T-shirt sized for a five-year-old, he said nothing. For Lee he bought a small globe with sparkles inside it. “I give you the world,” he told her.

Valerie and Roy and Karen were back within the week, but Lee didn't feel less restless until Valerie walked into the restaurant, sunburned under a white piqué dress, her hair shored back with a white headband decorated with shells.

“Well, was it wonderful?” Lee demanded.

“Sure it was,” Valerie said. She examined one of the fruit mousses Lee was preparing. She didn't want to tell Lee that Karen had stormed and sulked and refused to go near the ocean, that her own mother had never stopped criticizing the way she and Roy were with Karen. “If a child's bad, the parents make it that way,” she pronounced. Roy and she baked on a beach littered with soda pop bottles and college kids on the make. The vacation hadn't done one thing to bring anyone any closer. There was no air-conditioning in the cottage, and no one slept at night under the blanketing whine of the mosquitoes and Karen's nightmares, which rang out in the still beachy air. As soon as Valerie saw home, all she wanted to do was be alone to walk through her restaurant and supervise things and not have to think about a cranky husband and a recalcitrant child. If Lee wanted to watch Karen nights, if Karen wanted Lee, Valerie was suddenly too tired to protest.

Karen had a plastic bag full of sand and shells that Valerie had collected for her. She had a soft rubber shark that squeaked when you pressed it, which Roy had bought for her. She had accepted the gifts but had shown no interest in either the shells or the shark, not until Valerie took her over to Lee's. Karen excitedly packed her toys. “Well, better late than never,” Roy said, but Valerie just sighed. Why didn't people belong to the ones who tried to love them?

After Roy and Valerie had driven away, Lee and Karen jiggled the bag full of shells and put the rubber shark in a bathtub full of water. For a moment she imagined Roy's car hurtling down a dark road, Valerie pressed against a loosening door. But, no, she didn't want them killed. Maybe they would run off to a second honeymoon and both get amnesia, and she could take Karen. There was a sudden, fleeting image of her own daughter, a faceless girl she could have passed on the street and not known as her own. She bent down to kiss Karen, and she was flooded with so much longing that she abruptly started to cry.

She shifted Karen off her lap and almost immediately felt empty. Alarmed, Karen stood up, faintly shivering. Lee swiped one hand across her running nose. “It's all right,” Lee said. “I'll be right back, darlin',” she said. She left Karen trailing fingers into the soapy bathwater, and she went to the telephone in the kitchen. She pulled out the receiver, stretching the tangle of cord so she could still see Karen. Five years old, she thought. Five years. She dialed Information for Maryland, “Jim Archer,” she said.

“Archer,” the operator said. “Here it is: 555-8914.”

Lee stiffened. “That's 555-8914,” the operator repeated.

For a moment she was crashing into time. How could he still be at the same number, at the same house? In a kind of hypnosis she dialed the number, and then a small voice answered. “Hello?” Lee, stunned, gripped the phone. Another voice, older, more resonant, wove in the background, a woman's. “Honey, say ‘Hold on, please,' remember, honey—”

“I have a red truck,” the voice said matter-of-factly to Lee. “I have two whole dolls. And I want a gerbil.”

“Hello?” a woman said. “Sugar, don't touch that.” Her voice took on an adult tone again. “Hello, I'm sorry.” She was polite and cheerful. Lee slumped against the counter.

“Is Jim Archer there?” Lee said. Her voice sounded as if it were punched full of holes.

“He sure is,” she said. “Who's calling, please?”

Lee crashed down the phone. Sick, she felt sick. She turned toward the sink. She could fill it with water. She could douse her head into it. She was about to twist the spigot when she saw Karen, silhouetted in the door, dangling the dripping shark from her hand, her eyes luminous with tears. “I thought you left!” she cried.

Lee moved toward Karen, crouching down, drawing Karen against her. “I'm right here,” she said. Karen wound her two hands so tightly around Lee's neck that for a moment she felt completely lost, and it was only when she felt a tremor moving inside her heart that she knew it must be breaking.

“I thought I was alone!” Karen said, crying a little harder. Lee stroked her hair, a headful of dark strands, not blond, not fair like her own—like her daughter's.

“Would I do that?” Lee said, and tilted Karen's chin so she could see her. Then she tickled Karen behind her ears, waiting until her face bloomed into a smile, until she could study her and study her and never for one single moment ever believe she had been crying.

They were driving to the aquarium, and already Valerie and Karen were fighting. Karen kept trying to undo her seat belt. “You and Daddy don't have yours on,” she accused.

“We're adults. We're ready to die. You're not,” Roy said, turning the wheel. Valerie flashed him a look.

“I hate this seat belt,” Karen said, pouting.

“What do you think we'll see at the aquarium?” Valerie coaxed, brightening her voice. “Monkeys? Rocket ships?”

“They have tiger fish,” Roy said. “Imagine that. Do you think they roar?”

Karen, in the back seat, unclipped her belt. She slid over to the window. The houses blurred past her.

“Andy tells me he's thinking of going out to California for a vacation. He wants to take Lee with him.”

“I don't know why she doesn't just marry him,” Valerie said. “My brother's a doll. I'd even marry him.”

Karen looked up. “I want to visit Lee,” she said.

Valerie shut her eyes. “Not today, peaches,” she said.

“Today,” Karen said.

“But, baby, we're going to the aquarium!” Roy said, twisting around. “Look what you did,” he said, and briskly clipped her back into her belt, tightening it so she couldn't move.

They left the aquarium a little over an hour after they had arrived. Karen had started kicking another little boy near her, until Valerie had yanked her by her arm. “That's it,” she said furiously. “We're going home.” She half dragged Karen out the door. “No more tiger fish, no clown fish,” she said. “You understand what that means, no clown fish?” Karen slapped one hand along the wall.