The Summer We Lost Alice (14 page)

ONCE CARTOONS were over for the day, Matt Marini turned off the television and opened up the remote control and pulled out the batteries. He inserted them in the radio-controlled car his father had sent him the day he shipped out to Iraq. The nine-volt battery in the controller was nearly shot so Matt switched it with one from a smoke detector. With luck, the smoke detector wouldn't start sending out warning beeps until he was well out the door.

Cat pulled up in her old Volvo, returning from a trip to the warehouse store. The store had been a nightmare of bargain hunters, as usual, but whatever else happened this month, at least they wouldn't run out of toilet paper.

She paused in the driveway to let the radio car pass and execute a perfect ninety-degree turn onto the sidewalk.

Too late it occurred to her that Brittany had a birthday party scheduled for the next weekend—Marianne Mackie's, whose parents had promised her a bounce house. Cat should have picked up a present. On second thought, whatever she selected would have been wrong. In Brittany's world, Marianne Mackie's birthday party was the social event of the season. Showing up with a second-rate gift might scar
her daughter for life. A trip to Walmart with Brittany seemed inevitable, though Cat would almost rather pull out her own toenails.

With luck, Brittany wouldn't say anything about it and Marianne Mackie would get hit by a truck before—

Don't even go there!

She popped the Volvo's trunk. The gin bottle in the trunk seemed huge, like a movie prop from
The Incredible Shrinking Alcoholic
. She hid it among the groceries so the neighbors wouldn't see her carrying it in. Matt was already trotting away, following the radio car.

"Honey, could you help with the groceries, please?" she called to his back. Matt continued on as if deaf. "Matt!" she called after him. He ran after the buzzing car without a backward glance.

Flo watched with folded arms from the front porch. She clucked her tongue and headed Cat's way to lend a hand.

"Do just as well to ask the cat to bring '
em in," Flo said as Cat passed her on the driveway.

"We don't have a cat,
Mother," Cat said, "except me."

"There's one blessing for you," Flo replied. "Hard enough to keep a house decent without opening it up to wildlife."

Flo marched out to the car. She pulled a bag containing a pot roast and several boxes of macaroni and cheese from the trunk and settled it in her arms. She glanced down the sidewalk and watched Matt chasing his radio car. She knew the batteries had died the day before. She wondered where he'd stolen good batteries from.

If I had a pacemaker,
she thought,
he would steal the battery to run that car.

Clearly the child was out of control. Catherine was weak. A good paddling would do the boy a world of good.

Then again—

Who was she to tell anyone how to raise a child? If it weren't for her harsh ways, she might have two daughters to worry over now instead of only one. If it weren't for her, Alice might still be alive today.

The pot roast came sealed in a plastic bag that you heated, bag and all, in the oven. That seemed wrong, too, but who was she to say what was wrong? What did she know about anything anymore?

* * *

The car bounced and buzzed down the sidewalk, leaped into the air where tree roots had pushed the concrete into ramps, landed nose down and flipped onto its back, righted itself and whirled about and scooted off wildly until Matt regained control. It was a thing of pure enthusiasm, devoid of intellect, bounding and rebounding in an electrical celebration of purposeless being. If brains had wheels, the car would be the brain of a ten-year-old boy. It would be Matt's brain.

Matt maneuvered the car around a patch of bad pavement and aimed it down a smooth stretch of sidewalk that would have him running to keep the car in rang
e. The car pulled away from him. Matt gave chase.

The car was a good six houses ahead of him when the dog attacked. It appeared from out of nowhere
to swoop down on the car like a bird of prey. It snatched the car between its jaws and stood there, staring at him defiantly with the car's wheels whining in its teeth.

Matt approached the dog as you must always approach a dog you don't know, slowly and cautiously. He spoke to it and tried to keep the quaver of fear out of his voice. He pointed to the ground, a sign any half-trained dog would understand meant "drop it."

"Drop," he said. "Drop the car, dog. Drop."

The dog looked at him and wagged its tail.

"I'm not playing, you stupid mutt. Drop. Drop!"

He closed the distance between himself and the dog taking slow, steady steps. When he was a few feet away, he reached out his hand.

"Give me the car, dog," he said.

The dog's legs stiffened
. It bolted. Matt cried out and ran after it, but there was no chance he would catch up if the dog didn't stop for some reason. It ran around houses, through yards and rose beds, as if born to the course. Its powerful haunches propelled it easily over hedges and fences. It ran as the car had run, heedlessly, exuberantly. After a minute, Matt began to wonder if the dog had any sense of being chased at all, it had so outdistanced him. Finally, he lost sight of it completely and did not even know which direction it had decided to go.

He drew in ragged breaths. His car was gone and he didn't know if he was more ticked off or heartbroken. He didn't want to cry, not here in front of the whole world, so he sat and stared at the brown grass. He stripped a maple leaf down to the veins and wondered
, as he pulled the leaf apart, why everything bad had to happen to
him
.

From somewhere down the block somebody called his name.

"Matt! Matt Marini!"

But it was only his mother.

* * *

It was a beautiful service.

The deceased looked radiant in her pink prom dress. The funeral beautician, faced with the challenge of eyes that wouldn't close, solved the problem by drawing X's over them with a felt-tipped pen. Barbie rested comfortably on a layer of cotton balls. She smiled brightly, as if delighted to be dead. The coffin was handcrafted from construction paper, an intense red that complemented the deceased's painted lips and flush cheeks.

Ken and Skipper were in attendance, inwardly mournful despite their molded smiles, along with the Three Wise Men and the Baby Jesus from the Christmas nativity set, Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion and the
Tin Man, Darth Vader, My Little Pony, and an assortment of barnyard animals.

Brittany's eulogy was brief but eloquent, delivered with the cadence of a television newsreader.

"Why did Barbie drink bad milk?" Brittany said. "We may never know the answer to this baffling question. She was always blowing things out of proportion. Anyway, she's dead."

Cat looked over at her mother. Flo looked back as if to say, "You see? What did I say about little pitchers having big ears—
"

Little tape recorders,
that's what kids are,
Cat thought.
If you want to find out what your husband is saying behind your back, play Barbie with your daughter.

Brittany placed a tiny telephone in Barbie's coffin.

"What's that for, sweetie?" Cat said.

"In case of premature burial," Brittany said, articulating "premature burial" as if reciting a word she had to spell.

Brittany placed a school photo of herself and three dog biscuits she got from the Clements into the construction paper coffin.

"Why the biscuits?"
Cat asked. "For when Barbie gets hungry?"

Brittany screwed up her face and shook her head.

"No! They're for Cerberus, the dog that guards the gates of Hell. He has three heads so he needs three biscuits."

Where does she
get
this stuff?
Cat wondered.
What does it mean? Is she precocious? Or just weird?

"Barbie's not going to Hell, Brit. I'm sure she's going to Heaven."

"No, she's damned. She killed herself. That's a sin. It's in the Bible."

Cat's mind reeled. She thought about shooting the television set and burning every comic book in the house.
And the video games. And maybe throw the Bible on the fire for good measure.

Brittany closed the lid and lowered the box into the earth among the roots of dying plants that had outlasted their season. A cross of Popsicle sticks marked the grave.

The cemetery was growing larger by the week. Already it housed Mr. Bubbles the goldfish, two hamsters, several fallen birds, and other dolls and plastic figures who had passed away of various ailments.

Flo rose with effort, her knees cracking.

"I just hope no more dolls die before spring," she said. "I need room for the dahlias."

Cat waited while Brittany paid her silent respects. After a minute Brittany looked up at her.

"Can we go to Walmart now?" she said. "I need a present for Marianne."

* * *

Cat was entering the hallway from the kitchen as Matt banged through the front door and ran upstairs. She called to him but, as usual, he ignored her.

A few minutes later she found herself in the kids' bedroom. Matt had his face buried in the pillow, having sobbed out the story of his lost car and the dog that stole it. Cat tried to find the right word
s to say that would console him. Everything she thought of rang hollowly inside her head.

"Brittany and I are going to
Walmart," she said. "I'm sure they have a lot of radio-controlled cars—"

"I don't want a new car!" he said.

"Oh, that was the one your dad gave you, wasn't it? I'm so sorry, honey."

"I want it back!"

"I don't think that's going to be possible. Sometimes you just have to let go of things. Sometimes bad things happen and—"

"Go away!"

"Honey—"

"You can't help! You can't do anything! Will you please just go
away!"

Cat lingered for a moment,
then she sighed and did as she was told. The gin beckoned.

* * *

"You'll have to speak up, ma'am."

The man's voice on the other end of the line was smooth and professional.
Hollywood perfect. Flo took a breath. She'd spoken quietly because she didn't want Cat, upstairs, to know she was making the call. Cat would have thought it stupid at best and, at worst, reckless. She did not believe in psychics, particularly this one.

"I'm sorry," Flo said. "I was wondering about that boy who's missing in Kansas, Willy
Proost. Is he alive, or has he passed through the veil?"

"Where are you calling from?"

"Meddersville," Flo said. "Meddersville, Kansas."

"Flo—" the voice said. Then there was a moan and the line went dead.

THE BURBANK STUDIO was packed, as usual, with people eager to speak to the dead.

Many of them were tourists lured in by free tickets. Many others were regulars returning for their second, third, or seventh visit hoping that this time would be different. This time they would be chosen.

The young woman in the fourth row of section B said, "What?" when she realized that the man seated next to her had asked her a question.

"Who are you here to see?" the man said.

"Ethan Opos."

The man chuckled. He angled a thumb to the backdrop behind them. With every long camera shot it reminded viewers that they were watching
Parting the Veil with Ethan Opos
. Each of them was there to see the famous television medium. The young woman smiled, embarrassed.

"I mean, my husband Tristan," she said.

"Did he pass over recently?"

"Almost two years ago.
Automobile accident. And you?"

"My mother.
Twelve years ago. She died of bone cancer."

The young woman introduced herself as Heather. The man's name was George. They chatted for fifteen minutes about their deceased family members and their mutual hope for a personal reading. Many came to
Parting the Veil
, but the spirits spoke to only a few.

Every word of their conversation traveled straight up to the microphone hidden in the lights over their heads and was relayed to the control booth fifty feet away. There, a busy young woman named Suzette scribbled down "
husb," "2 yrs," and "A" for auto beside Heather's seat number. Beside George's seat number she wrote "mo," "12 yrs" and "C" for cancer. She could have learned much more, secret details that "no one could possibly know"—no one except everyone the bereaved spoke with, including complete strangers sitting beside them in a television studio full of cameras and microphones—but Ethan wanted only the basics.

The truth was
, Ethan rarely needed Suzette's covert intelligence any longer. He was thinking about renegotiating her contract to an even lower pay scale, if such a thing existed above California's minimum wage. Human experience had turned out to be as predictable as professional wrestling, and gullibility was a deep and endless well.