One Lane Bridge: A Novel (8 page)
Read One Lane Bridge: A Novel Online
Authors: Don Reid
Angela didn’t mind the atmosphere of Maple Manor as much as others her age did. She never dreaded visiting her grandmother the way her parents thought she would. Truth be known, she minded it a lot less than her dad did. She found a certain sense of comfort in the safety it provided and the available medical attention her grandmother never had when she was living in that big, old house of hers all alone. Going through the glass front doors and seeing the residents roaming the lobby in various stages of health was never a deterrent for her coming to see Grandma. The thought crossed her mind that maybe she should consider the nursing field. And maybe she would. There was time for that, too.
Angela walked through the lobby and twenty feet down the hall to the right and pushed the button for the smallest elevator she had ever been on. When the doors opened, she hoped it would empty all riders and that no one else would gather behind her while she waited for its descent. More than two on this shaky ride was a crowd. The doors parted almost immediately, and the car was mercifully empty. She stepped in and pushed the button marked “2,” and after what seemed like at least a minute, the doors opened again and she was on her grandmother’s floor. The second door on her right was marked “Beatrice M. Wickman.” It was open, and the sounds of
General Hospital
were drifting into the hallway. As Angela entered the room, her grandmother reached for the remote control, switched off the set, reached out her arms, and said, “Baby.”
After they hugged and cried a little, Angela sat on the side of her bed, held her hand, and said, “Well, aren’t you going to ask me?”
“Ask you what, sweetheart? Why you cut your hair? I figured you just got tired of those pesky little bangs and just chopped ’em off!”
“No, Grandma,” Angela said, nearly laughing. “Not my bangs. Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m doing home?”
“But you’re not at home. You’re here visiting me. But if you want, I’ll ask. What are you doing home, Angela?”
After nineteen years Angela still couldn’t tell when Miss Beatrice, as she affectionately referred to her to other members of the family, was putting her on. She couldn’t tell if her grandmother knew exactly what she was talking about and playing dumb, or if she just always saw the simple side of everything—or if she was still talking down to her as she did when she was a little girl. And Angela wasn’t sure her dad knew either. Everyone, her aunts and cousins and her dad included, would just shake their heads at Beatrice’s slightly askew take on life and say, “That’s your grandma.”
“I’ve quit school.”
“Really?” Her grandmother looked genuinely puzzled and then added, “To do what?”
“What?” Now it was Angela’s turn to be puzzled.
“You’ve quit school to do what? You must have had a plan.”
“Yeah. I guess.” Angela should have known better. She was expecting her to ask
why
she had quit school. But, “That’s your grandma.”
“I just want to get a job. Maybe work in one of the restaurants and then go back to school next semester. I’m just not ready to be in school again. I’ve been there all my life.” She squeezed Beatrice’s hand and looked her directly in the eye. “Are you going to tell me how silly I am too?”
“Is that what your father and mother told you?”
“In so many words, yes. They got pretty hot. Mamma more so than Dad, but both of them were pretty upset.”
“They wanted a reason, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, they did. And that’s the hardest part. It’s hard to explain. It’s like … did you ever ride a bicycle, Grandma?”
“Yes, dearie. Believe it or not, they had bicycles back in the ice age when I was growing up.”
“Then you know that feeling the first time you take off the training wheels? You’re not scared. You’re not frightened. Not really, anyway. But you’ve got this uneasy feeling in your stomach because you know you’re going to eventually fall, and it’s going to hurt. And you’re just real shaky. It’s that feeling in your stomach. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes, I think I do. It’s like walking into a room of people who all have been there and socializing before you. For a moment or two you’re an outsider. It’s like the first time you pray out loud in public. Or like what I felt that first night here at the Manor.”
“You get it, Grandma. You always get it. That’s what I’m feeling, and in three weeks it hasn’t gone away and I don’t think it is going to, because I just don’t think the timing is right. I need the next couple of months to clear my head and get my mind ready. All I’m asking for is to just put it off till January.”
“And your father and your mother are concerned about the money already spent that’s not recoupable.” This was more of a statement than a question, as if she already knew it to be true.
“You’re exactly right! The money. That’s what’s bothering them.” Angela’s confidence was growing as she felt the family matriarch’s support. But her grandmother’s next response surprised her.
“And shouldn’t it?”
“Huh?”
“Shouldn’t it, sweetheart? It’s not the first thing that’s bothering them, I’m sure, but do you have any idea how much they have laid out for your first semester that they may never get back?”
“I have some idea.”
“Do you really?”
“No. Not really.”
“I didn’t think so.”
Angela’s eyes scanned nervously around the room while Beatrice watched her. After a moment or two, her grandmother spoke again. “Your parents were here yesterday morning. You dad is terribly worried about something.”
“About what?”
“I’m not sure. But he has something weighing on his mind. I can always tell with him. When he’s worried, his eyes droop. Whenever he gets tired or concerned, you can see it in his eyes. Have you ever noticed that?”
“I don’t think so,” Angela admitted.
“It’s probably just a mother’s instinct. ‘Just a mother thing.’ Isn’t that what you all say?”
“Do you think he’s sick?” Now her grandmother had her worried.
“No, he’s not sick. Maybe heartsick in some way. Certainly worried and fretting over something. I’m not sure what, but I am sure it’s something. I wish so often your daddy was a little more spiritual.”
There was a pang in Angela’s stomach that almost made her retch. What if it was she who was causing him to worry so much? Was she being selfish in not having thought about how this might bear on his mind? Just the thought that her actions might cause her father distress was more than she could bear. Was her grandmother seeing something she herself should have seen? Beatrice’s voice brought her out of her reverie and back to Maple Manor.
“Don’t be too hard on them, sweetie, until you’ve got all the facts. And while we’re talking about all the facts, there are other things you don’t know. Do you know that your father came home on his first Thanksgiving break from college and announced the very same thing to his father and me that you announced to him today?”
“You’re kidding.”
“Said he wanted to quit school and start all over the next year. He wasn’t even considering the next semester. He wanted to quit until the next September.”
“Why?” Angela was suddenly intrigued with this piece of family history she had never heard before.
“I’m not sure you’re ready to hear why.”
“Come on, Grandma. Quit teasing. Either tell me or not. And I prefer that you tell me because this is all news to me.”
“Your daddy wanted to quit school and come home for a year so that.… No. I think I’d better not.”
“Grandma, quit playing games. Please. Tell me.”
“If I tell you, will you promise …?”
“Not to tell anyone?” Angela interrupted. “I promise not to tell a soul.”
“No, that’s not what I was going to say. If I tell you, will you promise to let those bangs grow out when you go back to school next week?”
Angela looked at her sweet face for a long moment before she realized how she was being manipulated.
But how can you lie to a grandma this cute?
“I’ll consider it,” she promised. “Now tell me, please.”
“Your father came home that first Thanksgiving and announced to the entire household, your aunts included, that he was not going back. When we pressed him for an answer, he fessed up pretty quickly with the truth. Your mother was, at the time, a senior in high school, and he was in love with her and wanted to wait on her so they could start college together.”
“I never knew that. Why hasn’t someone told me that story before? What happened? Did you make him go back, or did he quit?”
“That’s not the point, honey. You want to know how it turned out so you can use the answer to your advantage. I’m telling you about this so that you will realize that someone, your father in particular, is aware of what you’re feeling. Oh, you may not be in love with some young man you want to wait on, but your father understands that queasy feeling in your stomach. He had it too. So did I. Mine went away in a few days, and I stayed and endured it. So did your grandfather and your aunt Alice and your aunt Becky. Your daddy knows what you’re feeling. We all do. Now, what you’re going to do about it shouldn’t be based on what he did about it. If I told you he waited, that doesn’t mean you should do the same, and if I told you he went back to school after Thanksgiving, that doesn’t mean you have to. All it says is that you’re not the first to want to quit. You live with that much for a day or two, and then let’s talk again.”
The room was warm and cozy with the afternoon sun streaming in through the curtained window by the rolltop desk she used to color on in her grandfather’s study. She was four or five in her earliest memory of her grandmother standing behind her and teaching her how to stay inside the lines with her crayons. There was a soft, familiar smell in the air—the signature sachet that Miss Beatrice still used. The hand Angela was holding was holding hers even tighter now.
Their eyes met and held for more than a second, and Beatrice Wickman looked lovingly at her granddaughter and said, “Do you ever watch any of the soaps in the afternoon at college?”
Angela had to laugh. “Yeah, actually I do. Just about every afternoon between classes.”
“Let’s watch one together,” Grandma said. “We haven’t done that for years.”
“Do we wait dinner on her?”
“Not necessarily. She’s with your mother. That’ll be good for her. I say we let things be until tomorrow. Don’t push it. She’ll be home after while.”
“I could call her on her cell.”
“J. D., I just said I think we should let things take their course.”
“Okay. You’re probably right. It’s nearly four thirty. I think I’ll go back to the restaurant and see what the temperature is like there, and then I’ll lock up tonight. Don’t look for me till late.”
J. D. went out the back door and thought how strange it was that neither of them said good-bye.
J. D. knew he would need to spend only about forty minutes at each restaurant. He hoped Karlie would expect him to take much longer because he had found no good time today to tell her that he and Jack were going out to Route 814 tonight. “Route 814” had become the euphemism in his conscience for going to the Clem house. It sounded saner inside his head. He could live with that. “Route 814” kept him from actually admitting to himself that he was visiting a family that was living sixty-five years ago. He knew he was only fooling himself to say he had not found a good time to tell Karlie what he and Jack were up to. He examined his rationalization for not telling her: It
had
been a full and eventful day beginning with the morning confession to Jack; then confronting Katherine and Lottie and Crystal this afternoon; and then being surprised by Angela’s return and her announcement that she was quitting school. Still, he knew he should have told Karlie. The nerve ends in his stomach were jumping, and he was beginning to feel sick as he backed out of his driveway.
And then there was Lavern Justice. What did she want? What did she have to offer? He knew there would be no time to meet with her before he had to pick Jack up at six forty-five, but he could call her and make an appointment for tomorrow. No matter what they found tonight on Route 814, he still wanted all the information he could gather on the history of the Justice property.
All the employees at the downtown Dining Club were quiet and seemed to keep their distance as he asked normal questions about the day’s business. They answered, but no one lingered to talk. It was all business, and he could feel the tension and discomfort in the air. He used the phone in the office to return Lavern Justice’s call and got her answering machine. He told her tomorrow morning at ten would be a good time for him and if that didn’t suit for her to let him know.
The crew at the west-end restaurant seemed less distracted, but he thought he could detect a little bit of distance in them also. Or maybe it was just his feelings of discomfort and not theirs. But all in all, things were moving along as expected in both restaurants and it was rapidly nearing six forty-five. He needed to check on Angela before he left, and he had two ways of doing that. He could call Angela directly and listen to all her one-sided gripes about life and how it was treating her and how unfair her mother was, or he could call Karlie and see if she had heard from Angela and risk having Karlie ask him if he was going to be at one of the restaurants the rest of the evening. It took him a moment to decide which corner he wanted to be caught in.
“Hello?”
“Angela? Where did I catch you?”
“I’m at home.”
“Is your mother there?”
“Yeah, she’s in the kitchen. Do you want her?”
“No, silly. I called you. If I had wanted her, I’d have called the house. Did you go see Grandma?”
“Yeah, I did. We had a good time. She said to tell you hi.”
“Well, good. What are you going to do tonight?”
“Just stay at home, I guess. That is, if Mom is talking to me.”
“I’m sure she’s talking to you. Has she ever let you down when you really needed her?”
“No.”
And it wasn’t until this one simple word that J. D. could detect tears in her voice. It broke his heart every time she cried, but he was glad she was showing the right emotion toward her mother. He decided to do the talking so she wouldn’t feel embarrassed.
“Angela, you don’t have to say another word. Just hang up and go in the kitchen and talk to your mother. Everything is going to be all right. I’ll be home a little later, but if you two talk, I know things will work out.”
“Daddy.”
“Yes, honey.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Ask me anything you want. You know you can.”
“Is something wrong? Grandma says there is.”
“Wrong with who?”
“Wrong with you. She says she can tell when something’s bothering you. She can see it in your eyes, and she knows you’re worried sick about something.”
There was silence on J. D.’s end of the line this time. His little girl had taken him by surprise—thanks to his mother and that old thing she always told everybody about his eyes drooping. He knew what was coming. He had to decide how to play it with her. He certainly wasn’t going to tell
her
about Route 814. Now he was wishing he had taken his chances and called Karlie.
“Nothing for you to worry about, honey. Your mother and I have had some problems at the downtown restaurant we had to take care of today. You can ask her about it if you want to. Other than that, everything’s fine.”
“You sure, Daddy? You’re not sick or anything, are you?”
“No, I’m not sick. Why don’t you go talk to your mother and fix something to eat? I promise everything will be okay, and I’ll see you later tonight.”
“Okay, if you promise and say so.”
“I promise and say so. And I love you.”
“Love you, too, Daddy. Bye.”
J. D. held the phone a long time before he placed it on the cradle. A lot of things were racing through his mind. But they were all mixed up. Angela and Lizzie and Crystal. Karlie and his mother and Jack. Paul and Ada Clem and Katherine Kimball and Lottie Arello. He wasn’t sure what was real and what was a dream anymore. And what if all of it was real? Had the world changed from what he had always known it to be? And if some of it was a dream, then he just might be as crazy as Karlie and Jack thought.
He looked at his watch. He had five minutes to get to Jack’s house.
Jack’s house was a small two-story brick home in the middle of a block of similar houses. He had owned other large, sprawling houses through the years—two others, to be exact—but this one was the final product of two marriages, two divorces, and too many alimony payments. He lived alone. There were no kids involved in any of the marriages—only money—and Jack always seemed to end up on the short end. He left his first wife for what the courts called “incompatibility,” and that was a pretty accurate description. They had met at a Christmas party shortly after he went to work at Alden’s drugstore. She, Alma Lee, was an X-ray technician, and they shared all the right interests. They loved to ski in the winter, sail in the summer, and catch all the latest movies at the Cineplex or little art theaters. But sometimes where that sameness can strengthen a relationship, it can also bore one or both of the parties to death. The latter prevailed, and in less than ten years, she got the house, and he got the sailboat.
Next came Florence, a virtual look-alike to Alma Lee. They both had auburn hair and long necks, and they could have been body doubles for one another. Jack and Flo shared none of the same interests, and this seemed to intrigue him to no end. He loved all the newness she brought to the relationship. He liked the fact that she knew more about football than he did, that she played the violin even though he couldn’t stand the sound of it, and that she taught a yoga class he couldn’t get the knack of. Their differences made the coupling interesting to him, but contentious for her. Again, in less than ten years, she got the house, and he got to sleep in the back of Alden’s for nearly three months before he found the little house he now stood in front of, waiting for J. D. to pull up to the curb.
Jack got in the car, and neither of them spoke until they were well out of the city limits.
“Did you bring the penicillin?”
“I have it in my pocket.”
Three more miles passed before either of them said another word. Jack couldn’t stand it any longer.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here. I feel like a complete idiot after that story you told me this morning. I mean, we have done some crazy things in our time, but this one borders on serious mental illness.”
“Well, thank you. I appreciate those words of encouragement,” J. D. shot back as sarcastically as possible.
“Come on, J. D. What do you expect? You’ve found the time machine? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? And who are we going to see? A sixteen year-old girl in bed with septicemia?”
“If that means blood poisoning, yes.”
“And who made you a doctor? What if there really is a kid out here who ran a nail through her foot? How do you know it’s blood poisoning?”
“How do you know it’s not until you look at her?”
“And that’s something else. I told you I could lose my license giving you pills under the counter. Well, I could lose it just as easily prescribing medicine, you know. I can fill prescriptions, but I can’t write ’em. And here you’ve got me going to hell and back with the intention of giving some girl illegal pills for her foot. How did I get into this anyway?”
“You can get out anytime you want. Just say the word, and I’ll stop. But you leave the pills.”
“What?”
“You heard me. You leave the pills.”
“J. D., I do believe you’re ready to fight me over this little matter. And I haven’t seen you fightin’ mad since our senior year in high school, at the homecoming football game when Gary Snead tried to kiss Karlie while everybody was cheering that final touchdown. You took him apart behind the bleachers and then”—Jack started to laugh—“and then he said”—laughing more—“he said, ‘Don’t hit me, and I’ll give you ten dollars.’ And you said, ‘I already got ten dollars,’ and you pulled back on him, and he ran like a monkey eatin’ tacos.”
They both laughed.
“And he was a head taller than you, and I know he outweighed you by thirty pounds. He was on the wrestling team, wasn’t he?”
Their laughter turned into reminiscing, and it seemed like the old J. D. and Jack for the next fifteen minutes—until J. D. suddenly said, “It’s less than a mile. What time you got?”
“Oh, seven fifteen. Seven seventeen to be exact.”
“I’m going to slow down. If I’ve got this thing figured right, we need to hit the corner at precisely seven twenty. I know how that sounds, but I think it’s important.”
The car was quiet. J. D. kept a watch in his rearview mirror to make sure no car was coming up behind him. If it did, he was prepared to pull over and let it pass. He wanted to be the only vehicle on the road when they rounded the bend just before the one lane bridge.
“We’re almost there, buddy,” J. D. said, looking at his watch and seeing it hit 7:20 p.m. “It’s just around this curve.”
Jack was on the edge of his seat. J. D.’s jaw tightened, and beads of sweat formed on his brow. As they came out of the curve, the already slow-moving sports car came to a complete stop in the center of the road. Jack looked ahead and then to J. D.
“Is that it? Is that the bridge?”
J. D. was silent. After a long moment, he finally turned and looked his friend in the eyes. “That’s a bridge, yes. But it’s the
two
lane bridge. And that’s Stan’s One Stop on the other side of it.”
Jack simply said, “What do we do now?”
“We go home.”
“No,” Jack protested. “Show me where the house was.”
“It was right over there beyond that store.”
“Let’s go talk to the store owner.”
“I already have. He doesn’t know anything.”
“Drive over there anyway. I want to see something.”
J. D. drove slowly across the low-sided bridge and pulled into Stan’s parking lot. Jack got out and walked around the car. J. D. got out and stood with him and rubbed his forehead with both hands.
“Is this the exact spot where the house was?”
J. D. looked behind him and said, “The lane came right up through there and the house was back where those cars are parked, and the front yard was here where the store is.”
“Didn’t you tell me when you broke down out here at their house that you didn’t have any signal on your cell phone?”
“It was completely dead.”
They pulled out their cell phones simultaneously, looked at them, and then looked at each other.
“Four bars,” Jack said.
“Me too. I checked it before. I’ve checked everything you can possibly think of, and I can’t figure out why I can come out here one time and that bridge is there and then come back and it’s gone.”
“Now don’t take offense to this, J. D., but have you considered you might have suffered some kind of psychological lapse, or maybe you were in a dream state or a self-imposed trance or something of that sort?”
J. D. looked at his friend as if he had smacked him upside the head with a piece of wood. “Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?”
“Well, no,” Jack admitted, “but it makes as much sense as what you’re spouting off at the mouth about. Look, I want to believe every word you’re saying, but you have to give me something here. You have to give Karlie something too.”
“Has she called you? Have you two talked about this?”
“No, but every time the phone rang today I was expecting it to be her. And it will be, I know for sure. And when she calls, I honestly don’t know what I’m going to say. I’ll cover for you in any way you want. You know that. But I don’t know what I’m going to say.”
“I know what she’s going to say to you. She’s going to ask you to talk me into seeing a doctor. I’ll save you the call. I’m not going.”
An old man in a sweatshirt and straw hat came out of Stan’s One Stop and got in his truck. As he was about to pull off, he leaned out his window and said, “That a TR3?”
“Sure is,” J. D. answered absently.
“What year? ’62?”
“’61,” J. D. said, this time with a friendlier smile.
“I used to have one almost exactly like that back when I was a young man. I lived down in Charlotte then. I had some good times in it. I ripped the roads and run through those gears slick as water through a funnel.”
“It’s a pretty good car,” J. D. agreed.
“Brings back a lot of memories,” the old man said, looking lovingly at the little machine from end to end. “Yesterdays are what keeps me alive. But you boys are too young to know what I’m talkin’ about. You get to be my age, and you just live one day at a time. Yesterdays are sweet. Tomorrow—well, I figure I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.”
The two friends got back in the car and rode into Hanson in silence.