The Story of Beautiful Girl Read online

  Yesterday, though, the staff was abuzz with a rumor that Doreen’s parents were opening a show on Broadway. It seemed implausible that two celebrities so frequently in the papers—one of the most photographed film stars in Hollywood and a prolific and revered playwright—could have a child never mentioned in the press, so Kate had long assumed the talk about Doreen’s parents was only talk. But yesterday she felt pushed inside in ways she couldn’t explain. This was something that happened to her from time to time and which she laughed off to the staff as intuition. The truth was she believed it was the hand of God. So she asked a friend in the file room to slip her a key, and last night, in the darkness after her second shift, she let herself in.

  The cabinet with Doreen’s folder was near a window. Kate pulled the chart and held it up to the light of the tower clock. Sure enough, there were the names in the rumors. Poor Doreen. Here she had a family that owned four houses, two Oscars, and a Pulitzer. All Doreen owned was a broken telephone that she’d found in the trash and hidden under her bed.

  Kate thought, I need to learn if Lynnie’s daughter is all right. If she’s not, then I will do for her what someone should have done for Doreen: make sure no harm comes to her.

  Now, as she lit her fifth cigarette since crossing Old Creamery Bridge, she saw a road sign ahead. In one mile she’d hit the turnoff for Scheier Pike, a road she’d forgotten about when she’d embarked on this drive. Should she stay straight on Old Creamery Road or make the turn?

  She looked at the drawings beside her. The one with the bridge was followed by one with two figures—and the baby—running along a wooded road. But woods lay along the northern route as much as the western one. If only those pages hadn’t been removed from Lynnie’s file. If only Kate had the courage to confront Clarence. Not that Clarence would be forthcoming; he once laughed at Kate when he learned she’d been trying to teach a few of the more dexterous residents to use the weaving loom. “Like that’ll fix them,” he’d said. She’d wanted to say, That’s not why I’m doing it. It’s so they can do something interesting with their days. Instead, she’d said nothing, as she’d said nothing about this expedition. This time, though, her silence wasn’t from fear of being thought foolish or naive. It was from fear of revealing Lynnie’s secret.

  Crushing out her cigarette, Kate took a guess and stayed on Old Creamery Road.

  She shuffled the pages to the next picture. Apparently the old lady’s house had a mailbox with a strange decoration. Kate slowed her car, looking. What would she do once she found where she was going? Since last night, she had prayed about what she would say to the old lady. The answer had come: Sounding official, she would say she worked at the School and had come not to take the child back, but to find out whether assistance was necessary. That way, the old lady wouldn’t call Dr. Collins or the police. Though what if the old lady said she did need assistance? What if she handed the baby to Kate? The sudden presence of a baby in her house would surely set tongues wagging across Well’s Bottom. Kate should have asked Father Geoff what to do. Maybe he knew of a home far from town where the child would be welcomed, or a discreet adoption agency. But Lynnie wanted the baby with the old lady for some reason and did not want the baby traceable to her. Moving the baby to some couple or agency would require Kate’s involvement, and even if Father Geoff was careful, there would be a connection that could lead back to Lynnie. Maybe the baby was fine where she was. Kate hoped so.

  She rounded a bend, and there it was: the mailbox with the decoration. A lighthouse. Right, she saw, checking it against the drawing. The lighthouse was down, no longer waiting for a mail delivery, but aside from making it vertical, Lynnie had captured it so well, even drawing in the face, that Kate said out loud, “You really are something, sweet pea.”

  She turned in at the driveway and proceeded up the gravel drive.

  The site resembled the final drawing with great accuracy, too. Fields lay to either side of the drive. At the far end of the drive was a simple house with a porch and small windows.

  Then, as Kate pulled up to the front of the house, she saw something that wasn’t in Lynnie’s drawings. Planted in the ground before the porch, a wooden sign said, FOR SALE.

  Kate got out of her car. Though spring had arrived, the wind was blowing hard. She pulled her coat tight. Through the tiny window she saw furniture. She knocked, but the wind blew too hard for her to hear footsteps. So she kept knocking until she’d knocked enough.

  She cupped her hands and lit a cigarette. She stepped off the porch.

  There were the woods Number Forty-two had run into. She eyed them, knowing that wherever he was, he was long gone from here. She thought of how blank she felt when her husband first started staying late at the box factory. Blank, yet consumed with dread, realizing somehow that something other than work was keeping him out late. But she’d had months to get used to the idea of him being away from the house, until that one horrible night when the familiar force came up in her: It was time she knew. She’d left the kids with her neighbor and driven to the factory. The supervisor was surprised Kate’s husband had talked about overtime—they hadn’t done overtime for ages, he’d said—and with mounting clarity she’d driven down every road in Well’s Bottom, faster and faster, searching for his car. Finally she’d seen it outside Jeanette Dory’s apartment—and seen her husband walking a pregnant Jeanette down the steps.

  That was beyond terrible. Yet looking at these woods, Kate thought of how much worse it must be for Lynnie, who had lost her first and only love—and baby—in one night.

  Kate shook her head. Her breath came out in the air; snow had begun falling.

  She rounded the house. She could see a barn and chicken coop and gear shed. She looked up to the second floor of the house. No lights were on anywhere.

  You have no one but yourself to blame, she thought as she returned to her car. No, she could blame whomever altered the files. She could blame her bill collectors, Melinda’s crooked teeth, her fear of Jimmy getting drafted. She could blame herself for acquiescing with Lynnie that the baby would have a better life—no matter what—if no one at the School found out.

  She pulled back down the drive, praying. “Father,” she said, “please care for that child, wherever she is. Come into her heart so she can find You in the times ahead.”

  The snow was falling more thickly. She threw on her wipers and radio and was glad she was unlikely to see cars on her way back to Well’s Bottom. Then she thought of coming into her house, facing herself in the mirror—and facing Lynnie tomorrow. There would be no accusation in Lynnie’s eyes, though Kate’s conscience would always ache.

  She reached the road. She hadn’t yet turned on her headlights, but she did now, and that’s how she made him out: a young man at the mailbox. His hands were inside, and he seemed to be removing mail. His Buick was pulled onto the shoulder, still running with its driver’s door open. He looked into her headlights. A teenager, he wore a varsity jacket from Well’s Bottom High.

  She snapped off her radio, and then she heard his. This must be why he was now looking at her so startled: He hadn’t heard her coming.

  She rolled down her window.

  “Can I talk to you?” she asked.

  “You here to see the farm, ma’am?” His voice seemed to be manufacturing confidence.

  She glanced to the drawings, then back. “I’m trying to find the lady who lives here.”

  The boy got a cool look on his face. “I’m the caretaker. I don’t know anything except she wants to sell the farm.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “I told you. I just take care of the grounds.”

  “You must know something.”

  “I swear. I really don’t.”

  “Then where,” she asked, pointing, “are you bringing that mail?”

  He looked down to his hands. He looked back up.

  Kate said, “I have no interest in causing trouble. I just want to know about…” She pursed her lips and f
ingered the cross on her necklace. “I just want to know if she’s all right.”

  “All right enough to want to sell her farm.”

  Kate looked at the falling snow. She thought of what Lynnie wanted. But this was Kate’s only chance. If she didn’t speak up, she’d spend the rest of her life in the flames of guilt.

  “No,” Kate said. “I mean if she’s all right.”

  The boy looked at her as if he didn’t understand.

  She let out a breath. “The baby.”

  Oliver led Kate to Hansberry Pharmacy, and for the next three hours, as an unexpected spring snow piled high outside the back door, Kate and Eva talked. They drank through two pots of tea as afternoon turned to dusk. By the time Kate rose, they had made a decision. They would not tell Lynnie what happened to the baby, and they would not ask Martha to bring the baby back. They would be messengers who reported only to each other, and only with two messages—whether the baby was thriving in her life, and whether Lynnie had changed her mind. If the baby was doing poorly, or Lynnie altered her position, they would break their vows of hiding; but otherwise, they would be doing the right thing. They took each other’s hands, then fell into a hug. The snow was still falling when Kate stepped into the alley. She dabbed at her eyes, then squared her shoulders with resolve and hurried out into the night.

  PART II

  GOING

  Samaritan Finder

  HOMAN

  1969

  The back of police cars was getting mighty familiar.

  There it was, the odor that greeted Homan’s every entry: cigarettes, leather, sweat, coffee. How Beautiful Girl would hate this mix of smells. This being morning—a crisp morning in a flat land of shrubs and grass—there were doughnut smells, too, making his belly clench with hunger. He punched himself on the thigh as he sat, furious. Five times in police cars! Five times you not watchful or got hunger too bad for staying careful! Now here you go again.

  He folded his arms hard over his chest and stared at the chicken wire separating the back from the front, glimpsing his reflection in the rearview mirror. What a sight. Hair like an unsheared sheep, skin grimy, shirt mottled with food and dirt and worry, eyes wild. He shook his head in disgust. Maybe it was just as well Beautiful Girl was with him only in his mind.

  He tried calming himself as the car rolled forward. He’d done what he could, same as the other times. He’d raised his hands and even tried what he’d promised himself he’d never do again once he got to the Snare—he’d dared using his voice. As best as he remembered, he’d said, “I’m deaf!” The police had looked at each other while he said it again and again till they got some understanding—and then didn’t haul him off to a Snare or stick him behind bars or even ascertain if he was a wanted man. Hallelujah, he’d have thought, if he didn’t know better.

  He hadn’t, the first time. He remembered how it began now, as the police car cruised down this main street, passing people going about business he’d never known—holding a sweetheart’s hand where everyone could see, buying a paper, strolling into a grocer’s. It was from watching everyday life that he’d been put in that first police car. He’d thought he was hidden as he’d watched the baseball game from the ridge. But someone must have caught sight of him playing along and gotten a nasty notion. Like Wayne Sullivan, only in a pickup.

  Now, looking out the window, Homan wasn’t surprised to see the car he was in heading toward the police station. His heart thumped harder. If only they did with him what the other officers had done, he’d be safe. He held his breath.

  That first time, the boys who beat him in the cave brought him to the police station. When they pulled up, Homan had the presence of mind to peer over the rim of their pickup and see the boys talking with an officer. From the way one boy pointed to his face—bruised from Homan’s punch—Homan figured he was accused of jumping the kid. Ain’t this world just upside down? he imagined himself telling Beautiful Girl. The officer marched him into the station, and Homan wondered which was worse—his bruises from the fight, or his dread.

  They sat him on a bench and men came over, doing Yell Faces. One handed him paper and a pencil. Another set a picture before him. From the squiggles Homan knew it was a map, only it looked like a mitten, not a leaping deer. A lady brought him a sandwich and soda, and he ate but skipped the drink, thinking of Dot and Pudding. All the time, the dread wouldn’t quit. He still wore his boots, and in his boots was the money, and that gave him confidence. Somehow he’d tell this to Beautiful Girl in the flesh—and soon. Somehow. Finally, two men without uniforms took him to a car without a police light. They put him in the back and drove.

  It was yet one more not-understanding in a long chain of not-understandings. Night fell but they kept driving. He couldn’t see much except lakes and trees. They reached the edge of some city. Then they opened the door and hauled him out into the cold.

  They stood before a place with lit windows, and then walked him inside. It smelled like the laundry building at the Snare, and he smiled, thinking of Beautiful Girl. It was warm, too, and machines were churning wash. When he turned to the men, he saw they’d gone outside. He ran after them only to see their car already pulling onto the road.

  He was still free! But, watching their taillights disappear, he got the understanding. He’d been driven far, far away from their town, then tossed off like dirty laundry.

  That’s what happened again and again. He’d find new hiding places, get his hands on new clothes, and make it for weeks. Then someone would spot him, an unkempt deaf nuisance who looked crazy, and he’d get driven away again. Once they even put him on a bus, handing the driver a ticket. Beautiful Girl and Little One were counting on him. He still saw them in the morning in his mind—Beautiful Girl breathing on Chubby Redhead’s tiny makeup mirror and drawing his face with her finger; Little One splashing suds in a tub bobbing with toys—but Somehow seemed remoter every day.

  The cops were now passing the police station. He let out his breath. They continued right on out of town, into a brown land sliced up by fences. They just kept on driving. Cattle grazed in the distance. Machines on stilts that looked like birds pecked away at the ground.

  After a long time, the car came to a stop in front of a lone ranch house, and a white man and woman came out. They had silver hair, starched clothes, and faces not too cozy with smiles. The man opened Homan’s door. Homan felt scruffy and gamey beside the Silver Hairs, and he couldn’t imagine why they were ushering him into their house. Later, he would recall this moment as launching one of the most perplexing chapters in his life so far. Now, though, he was just grateful to be entering a house, never thinking what he’d be asked to give them in return.

  Immediately, he marveled at how well they treated him. For the first time he had a room of his own, with a desk and dresser and bed. The dresser was filled with nice trousers, white button-up shirts, dungarees, white undershirts, pajamas, socks, even drawers. The food was three squares a day, Silver Wife cooking it good and hot. They didn’t use Yell Faces. They treated him as just one of their three guests. They asked only that he tend to the pigs in the back.

  The Silvers required something of the two other guests, too. One had skin the color of clay, a black braid, and a stocky build. The other was scrawny, pimply, and blond. Their chores were to accompany Silver Husband when he drove to inspect the pecking machines out back, to sit watching TV preachers with both Silvers, and to spend their afternoons reading a book, the same one Homan found waiting inside a little brown suitcase on his bedspread when he arrived. It was a fat book with a leather cover and pages with golden edges, and it had pictures of an old man with a long beard holding a rod in the air while a river peeled back, a boat setting out in the rain stuffed to the brim with animals, a boy letting loose a slingshot. He guessed it was the Bible. The McClintock boys had told him stories from the Bible—the miracle of loaves and fishes, the Good Samaritan. Maybe these were other stories, but how could he know? He’d set the book in the suitcase a
nd the suitcase under his bed. So in the afternoons, when everyone sat at the dining room table with the book, he went to the garage, which was filled with treasures like broken TVs, old vending machines, and bookcases in need of repair. It was egg-frying hot in the sty and garage, yet with the pigs, a toolbox, and the dream faces of his girls, he was fine.

  He figured the two boys had been taken in like him, maybe at their own down-and-out time. But they could read and hear. When he was messing around in the garage, he’d look through the window and see the boys watching the preachers intently and talking to the Silvers, the book open before them. They even ran the praying at meals when everyone clasped hands. Homan kept wondering if the Silvers would expect him to join in, but they left him to his own devices. This arrangement, he thought, wasn’t half-bad.

  Just one thing gave him the willies. Sometimes when he’d come inside, he’d catch the Silvers making a look at each other. There was also talking at dinnertime, with eyes flickering in his direction. It seemed the price he was paying for this luxury life was letting himself be talked about. He could put up with that till he figured out how to leave.

  Leaving was the problem. He wasn’t in a place where he could hide behind buildings or jump freights. He was in a land with one long road and one lone house. Cars and trucks whizzed by now and then, but how could he grab a speeding vehicle? There was no traffic light or stop sign as far as he could see. He could just start walking out in the boiling sun, but the police had brought him here, and it seemed a fair bet they’d bring him back.