Michael’s Wife (2 page)

On the quiet main street in early morning, the sidewalks sat at least a foot above the street; overhangs jutted from storefronts over the sidewalks forming an arcade and a shield against the summer sun.

“Can I drop you someplace?” Harley waved back at an old man in cowboy boots who leaned against a storefront picking his teeth.

Florence was small and they reached the end of the main street all too soon, pulling into a paved area in front of a tiny park where palm trees shaded picnic tables, sprinklers splashed carefully groomed grass and narrow sidewalks. A man in a tan shirt and trousers clipped casually at a bushy hedge. If Florence wasn't exactly an oasis in the desert, this lovely park certainly was. Still she hesitated.

“Look, lady, you must be going someplace.”

She opened the door but couldn't quite get up the courage to step out and had to wipe off her cheeks with the back of her hand. She didn't even have a handkerchief.

“Something tells me this is where I should ride off into the sunset, but.…” Harley sighed and reached across her to close her door. “You don't know anybody in Florence, right?”

“Just you.”

“Uh-huh. And you weren't going here, were you?”

“I … wasn't going anywhere.”

“Yeah, well.…” He rubbed his chin and considered her for a long moment over his hand. “I got an errand to do here and then I'm going into Phoenix. I don't suppose you know anybody there?”

“No … but I'd like to go with you.” Time. Safe time to think, to plan. A reprieve.

“But can you give me one reason why I should take you?” Harley did his best to look serious, but the grin lurked in the corners of his eyes. He was enjoying this in spite of himself. “I mean, look at it from where I'm sittin'. It's plain you got trouble. You won't tell me your name, where you come from. I find you on a road in the middle of a desert without a car, not even a purse. And you ain't going no place. Now.…”

“Please?”

Her appeal caught him in midsentence counting off his reasons on his fingertips. Another long look and then he shrugged. “Oh, hell! Okay. You wait here and I'll be back for you. There's a head over there; you could clean up a little while you wait.” He pointed to a small concrete building at the back of the park and handed her his comb.

“You will come back for me?”

“Sure.”

She had to avoid glistening water from the sprinklers overspraying onto the sidewalks. The park seemed a lush green after the desert. She felt shaky, no headache now, just a frightening lightness.

The windowless building was clean and whitewashed. The hot water spigot was gone from a disappointingly tiny sink. Avoiding the mirror, she wrestled with long hair and did what she could to her hands and face with soap that would not lather in cold water.

The stool sat behind a partition without a door, giving off the prickly odor of disinfectant. It was there she found it, tucked into the tight waistband of her slacks. A slip of paper—“Captain Michael Devereaux, Luke A.F.B.” handwritten across it.

Captain Michael Devereaux. She waited for something to happen, to click into place. Nothing did. She knew she should be relieved, but the nagging fear was still there as she faced the mirror over the sink. Oval face. Large eyes. Brown hair. Long neck. The face didn't reflect the confusion inside her, its expression stony, indifferent.

Sitting on the cold concrete floor, holding her head in her hands, staring at the slip of paper on her knee, she felt more lost than before because the name Michael Devereaux meant nothing to her.

When she finally stepped out of the concrete building, Harley McBride was waiting for her, arms folded, slouching against the truck.

“Harley, where is Luke Air Force Base?”

“Glendale, just outside Phoenix. That where you're going?” He looked relieved.

“Yes.”

“Well, get in.” Once in the truck he handed her a paper bag and a thermos. “Thought maybe you hadn't any breakfast.” It was steamy coffee and a ham sandwich and tasted like a banquet after a fast.

They rode with the windows open, the air warming now, more heavily scented with the mingled fragrances of wild flowers. Patches of blue, red, yellow, and reddish purple waved in the ditches in rich shades that even a desert sun could not wash out.

“Do you live around here, Harley?”

“I grew up here. Got a sister in Florence—that's where the sandwich came from. And a brother in Phoenix. I sort of drift between the two.” He drove with one elbow crooked out the window, squinting in the sun. A big man, with curly hair bleached by sunlight and long bristly sideburns.

“Do you know a Michael Devereaux?” A casual question, as if her whole world didn't hang on his answer.

It came after a hesitation and a curious glance in her direction. “I know a Devereaux family. Don't know if there's a Michael. Why?”

“I want to contact this Michael.”

“At Luke?”

“Yes, he's a captain.”

“Well, the Devereaux I know live in Tucson. They lease some land around Florence. In fact they used to lease right where you say you got lost.” There was something of the carefree high pitch of adolescence in his voice, but he appeared to be in his middle thirties.

“That ranch house up the road where you picked me up. Who lives there?”

“Nobody.”

“Are you sure?”

“I was born there. You're sure long on questions and short on answers. What's your problem anyway?”

“I don't have any answers. I don't have … anything. Harley, please tell me about the Devereaux'.”

“I don't think we're talking about the same ones. I can't see a Devereaux making a career of the service, too busy living off other people's sweat. I should know—my old man ran a ranch for them for thirty years. And anybody getting stationed that close to his family has got to be related to the President. I've been in the Navy twice myself.”

The sprawl of city soon displaced desert and the truck was immersed in heavy traffic. MESA, TACOS, LIQUOR, MESA NEW AND USED CARS, HAMBURGERS, DESERT PEACE MOTEL—the signs and buildings were somehow garish after the flowering desert.

“That ranch house where you were born was a Devereaux ranch?”

“A Devereaux house on Devereaux land where I lived with two parents, four brothers, and one sister. Between dying and growing up and leaving, the help was gone and my dad was working it alone. It stopped paying and the Devereaux' closed it down, and it broke my old man so he hung himself in that house he didn't even own.” His grin tightened to a grimace, his voice muffled by barely parted lips. “The name Devereaux ain't my favorite topic. I'm nice enough to give you a ride, so leave it alone, will ya?”

It was no good alienating the only person she knew. She felt a strained, floating security riding with him, as though the panic followed somewhere behind the truck, as if it would catch up with her when they stopped, when he left her alone in Phoenix.

Her thoughts kept skirting reality and the impossibility of her situation, the growing dread of reaching Phoenix and Michael Devereaux. She knew she was deluding herself, that she would have to face things, and soon.

“Where are we now?”

“Tempe. Next stop, Phoenix. It's all grown together into one big mess. I have to stop at my brother's. Then I'll take you on to Luke. I don't know why. It's out of my way, but you don't look long on cash.”

“I don't have anything.”

“You said that. And that's about all you've said.”

A sign read WELCOME TO PHOENIX AND THE VALLEY OF THE SUN. The street was lined with pickup trucks and trailer home lots, with swanky motels where palms hovered over swimming pools and where lavish restaurants waited for the dressed-up evening trade.

The truck pulled into the SUNNY REST MOTEL, AIR-CONDITIONED, TV, PHONES, CAFÉ, VACANCY. It squatted in shabby pink stucco between two magnificent glass and brick motels that sported two stories, balconies, pools, and palms. The Sunny Rest sat like an embarrassed poor relation in unaccustomed surroundings.

“Does your brother live here?”

“He owns it. Be back in a minute.” Harley got out of the truck and went into the door marked CAFE, OFFICE.

The Sunny Rest was U-shaped, one story. The café sat at one end of the U, Venetian blinds drawn against the sun and a small handwritten sign, WAITRESS WANTED, stuck in the window. She sat looking at the sign seconds before she really listened to her thoughts. What she needed was a little more time to face her problem before she faced Michael Devereaux. She knew Phoenix was in Arizona, and she was almost sure she was seeing it for the first time. She hadn't really forced her mind to cope with reality, and given a little time, she might be able to solve her problem herself. She still could remember nothing. Was it because she didn't want to or really couldn't?

Following Harley into the café, she was relieved to find there were no customers, only Harley and the heavy sweating man in a smeared apron behind the counter.

“What can I do for you, ma'am?”

“She's with me, Ray.” Harley perched on a stool at one end of the counter.

“Look, Harley, you ain't shackin' up with none of your dames in this place. I told you before.”

“Raymond! Ray
mond
! Now this gal got lost picking flowers in the desert and I just gave her a ride into town. Right, Doe Eyes? This is my nasty big brother. Sit down, might as well get a hamburger out of old Ray before we go to Luke.”

“Not unless you're paying, you don't.”

“Come on, Ray. Two hamburgers and two cups of coffee ain't going to break you. Looks like you could use the practice.”

Raymond McBride started to answer but then shrugged and disappeared into the kitchen. When he returned with the hamburgers, a small fleet of flies came with him. Quickly, before she lost her nerve, she asked if she might have the waitress job for a room instead of wages for a day or two until he could find someone.

Raymond looked from his brother to her, his eyes interested but suspicious. “Harley, if this is one of your schemes to get bedded in town tonight.…”

“This is her idea, Ray. I'm leaving, honest. Thought she wanted to go to Luke.”

“Well, I could use someone. What's your name?”

“Her name's Maggie, Maggie Freehope.” Harley supplied this with a grin he tried to hide behind a napkin. “Now that's a good waitress name if I ever heard one.”

“I got somebody coming in for dinner, but you can have a room tonight and start in the morning. We'll see how you work out tomorrow … but no men, understand?” Tiny red veins stood out on the bulb at the end of his nose.

“Men?”

“He means you shouldn't share your room with one. You see, Ray? She's all innocence. You don't have any worries.”

“She's with you, ain't she? And you better mean what you say about leaving.”

“I'm going now. What room does she get? I'll put her bag in.”

“Number Fourteen, right across from here.” He handed Harley a key from the board behind the cash register. “And, Maggie, bring your Social Security card with you in the morning.”

Harley walked her to the truck and slammed the door on the far side. Keeping the truck between them and the café, they walked to Number 14, and he unlocked the door for her. “You wouldn't have got in without a bag. What made you change your mind anyway?”

“I wanted some time to think. Maybe I can call this Michael from here. Thanks for everything, Harley. Now if I only had a social security card.”

“Can't help you there.”

“At least I have a room for tonight. I don't know what I'd have done if you hadn't come along when you did,” she said, wishing he'd leave, afraid that he might.

They stood in the open doorway, Harley leaning against the frame, looking down at her. “You'd have latched onto the first male in sight with that helpless look and had him feedin' you steak instead of hamburger. Women like you manage to get along real well in this world.” And he leaned closer.

His closeness made her shiver. “Harley, I'm sorry if I took advantage of you. I didn't have any choice.”

“Harley!” Raymond McBride yelled from the steps of the café.

“I'm leavin', I'm leavin'. Well, so long, Doe Eyes. Hope you get away from whatever you're running from.”

She watched the truck pull into traffic and wanted to run after it. The panic that had been following closed in …
whatever you're running from
. She had the clothes on her back and a slip of paper with a man's name on it. Was she looking for him or running from him? But you didn't write down someone's name and address if you didn't want to find him.

The room had a bare floor of dark green tile with some of the tiles chipped at the corners. Bedspread, walls, and curtains were a grim beige and there was hardly enough room to walk between the bed and a desk.

I'm alone. I'm safe. Now what do I do? I could call the police
. Instead she turned on the TV that sat on the desk. There was a picture, but the volume dial brought no sound. A newscaster mouthed words from some notes in his hand, the clock behind him reading 12:05. And then a grisly picture of wounded soldiers on stretchers … the men, their clothes, the ground they lay on, everything in varying shades of dreary. She switched it off and lay back on the bed.

Her mind was very clear. It didn't seem empty but full of images. Images of Harley's stubby blond hair and teasing eyes in a tanned face, of Raymond and his dirty apron, the truck with a dent running along its side, a vast desert with mountains in the distance. She would have looked but a speck from an airplane. She could see the pleasant park in Florence; even the deer Harley had spoken of seemed clear and real. But her own face was not clear, and anything that had happened before that morning was not there at all.