Galilee. Part 17

"You know you're very dear to me, don't you?"

"Yes I know," Rachel said, hugging her hard.

"So you be careful," Margie said. "No picking up hitchhikers because they've got pretty a.s.ses.

And don't stay in any sleazy motels. There's a lot of strange folks out there."

So she began the homeward journey. It took her four days and three nights, stopping off, despite Margie's warnings, at a couple of less than salubrious motels along the way. Though she'd thought the journey would give her plenty of time to think, her mind didn't want to be bothered with problems. Instead it idled, concerning itself only with the practical problems of finding places to eat, and choosing between routes. Whenever there was a choice between a bland highway and something more picturesque (but inevitably longer), she picked the latter. It was nice to be in the driving seat again, after two years of being chauffeured around; turning up the radio and singing along with old favorites.

But once she crossed into Ohio, with Dansky only a couple of hours away, her high spirits faded.

She had some difficult times ahead. What would she say when people asked her how her life in the lap of luxury was going? What would she tell them when they enquired about Mitch.e.l.l, her handsome husband, who had given up his eligible bachelorhood to be with her? Oh Lord, what would she say? That it had all gone to h.e.l.l, and she was running home to escape? That she didn't love him after all? That he was a sham, he and his whole d.a.m.n world, a hollow spectacle that wasn't worth a d.a.m.n. They wouldn't believe her. How could she complain, they'd say, when she had so much? When she was rolling in wealth, and they were still living in their one-bedroom tract homes worrying about the mortgage and the cost of a new pair of sneakers for the kids?

Well, it was too late to turn back now. She was crossing the railroad tracks that had always been in her childhood the limits of the town; the place where the world she knew ended and the greater world began. She was back in streets that she still dreamed about some nights; wandered the way she'd wandered in the troubled years before p.u.b.erty, when she didn't know what to make of herself (doubted, indeed, that she would ever amount to anything). There was the drugstore, owned by Albert McNealy, and now by his son Lance, with whom Rachel had had a brief but innocent affair in her fifteenth year. There was the school where she'd learned something ofeverything and nothing in particular, its yard still fenced with the same chain-link, like a shabby prison. There was the little park (or so the city fathers dubbed it; in fact the term was pure flattery). There was the birds.h.i.t-bespattered statue of Irwin Heckler, called the founding father of the town, who had in 1903 started a little business manufacturing hard, tartly flavored candies which had proved uncommonly popular. There was the town hall and the church (the only building that still possessed some of its remembered grandeur) and the little mall that contained the hairdresser's and the offices of the town lawyer, Marion Klaus, and the dog groomer's, and half a dozen other establishments that served the community.

All of them were closed at this hour; it was well past nine o'clock in the evening. The only place that would still be open would be the bar on McCloskey Road, close to the funeral home. She was tempted to drive over there and get herself a gla.s.s of whiskey before she called on her mother, but she knew the chances of getting in and out of the bar without meeting somebody who knew her were exactly zero, so she drove straight to the house on Sullivan Street. She wasn't arriving unannounced; she'd called her mother from somewhere outside Youngstown and told her she was on her way. The porch light was on and the front door stood an inch or two ajar.

There was a sublime little moment on the front step, when-after she'd called out to Sherrie and before the answering call came-she stood there and listened to the sounds of the night around her.

There was no traffic: just the gentle hiss of the leaves of the holly tree that had grown unchecked to the side of the house, and the rattle of a piece of loose guttering, and the tinkle of the wind chime that hung from the eaves. All familiar sounds; all rea.s.suring. She took a deep breath.

Everything was going to be fine. She was loved here; loved and understood. Maybe there'd be some people in town who'd look at her askance and spread rumors about what had happened, but here she was safe. Here was home, where things were as they had always been.

And now here was Sherrie looking a little fretful, but smiling to see her daughter on the step.

"Well this is a surprise," she said.

XIV.

i The night after Rachel started her drive to Ohio, "Garrison invited Mitch.e.l.l out for dinner. It was a long time since they'd had a heart-to-heart, he said, and there was no better time than the present.

When Ralph brought him to the restaurant Garrison had chosen, Mitch.e.l.l was certain there'd been a mix-up. It was a dingy little Chinese place on Ca.n.a.l Street and Mott; not the most welcoming of neighborhoods. But Ralph hadn't made an error. Garrison was there, sitting toward the back of the narrow room at a table that could have seated six but was set for two. He had a bottle of white wine in front of him, and was drawing on a havana. He offered Mitch.e.l.l a gla.s.s of wine, and a cigar, but all Mitch.e.l.l wanted was a gla.s.s of milk, to settle his stomach.

"Does that really work for you?" Garrison said. "Milk just gives me gas.""Everything gives you gas."

"That's true," Garrison said.

"Remember that kid Mario, used to call you Stinky Geary?"

"Mario Giovannini."

"That's right, Giovannini. I wonder what the f.u.c.k happened to him?"

"Who cares?" Garrison said, sitting back in his chair. "Hey, Mr. Ko?" The manager, a rather dapper fellow with his hair plastered to his pate so carefully it looked as though it had been painted on strand by strand, appeared. "Can we get some milk over here for my brother? And some menus."

"I'm not hungry," Mitch.e.l.l said.

"You will be. We've got to get your energies up. We've got a long night ahead of us."

"I can't do that, Gar. I've got two breakfast meetings tomorrow."

"I took the liberty of canceling them."

"What for?"

"Because we need to talk." He took out a box of matches and carefully rekindled his cigar.

"Chiefly about the women in our lives." He drew on the cigar. "So... tell me about Rachel."

"There isn't a lot to tell. She was up at the farmhouse-"

"-with Margie."

"Right. Then she decided to take a road trip. n.o.body knows where."

"Margie knows," Garrison said. "The b.i.t.c.h probably suggested it."

"I don't know why she'd do that."

"To cause trouble. That's her favorite thing. You know what she's like."

"Will you see if you can get some answers out of her?"

"You'd be better off trying instead of me," Garrison replied. "If I ask for something we're guaranteed not to get it."

"Where's Margie tonight?"Garrison shrugged. "I don't ask 'cause I don't care. She's probably out drinking somewhere.

There's three or four of them just go out and get plastered together. That b.i.t.c.h who was married to Lenny Bryant-"

"Marilyn."

"Yeah. She's one of them. And the woman who ran the restaurants."

"I don't know who you mean."

"Thin woman. Big teeth, no t.i.ts."

"Lucy Cheever."

"You see you've got a good memory for these women."

"I had an affair with Lucy Cheever, that's why."

"You're kidding. You did Lucy Cheever?"

"I took her down to New Orleans and f.u.c.ked her brains out for a week."

"Big teeth. Small t.i.ts."

"She's got nice t.i.ts!"

"They're f.u.c.king minuscule. And she's never sober."

"She was sober in New Orleans. At least some of the time."

Garrison shook his head. "I don't get it with you. I mean, she's got to be fifty."

"This was five or six years ago."

"Even so. You could have any piece of a.s.s you want and you go spend a week with a woman who's ten, fifteen years older than you are? What the f.u.c.k for?"

"I liked her."

"You liked her." Mr. Ko had returned with the menus and the milk. "Get me a brandy will you?"

Garrison said to him, "We'll order later." Ko withdrew, and Garrison returned to the mystery of his brother's liaison with Lucy Cheever. "Was she good?"

"Will you just let it alone? I've got more important things to think about than Lucy f.u.c.king Cheever." He drank half of his gla.s.s of milk. "I want to know where Rachel is.""She'll come back. Don't worry."

"What if she doesn't?"

"She will. She's got no choice."

"Of course she's got a f.u.c.king choice. She could decide she wants a separation."

"She could, I suppose. She'd be stupid, but she could." He drew on his cigar. "Does she know anything she shouldn't?"

"Not from me she doesn't."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning she talks with Margie. Who knows what the h.e.l.l they've discussed."

"Margie knows better."

"Maybe when she's sober."

"You've had Rachel sign some kind of prenuptial agreement, right?"

"No."

"Why the f.u.c.k not?"

"Don't raise your voice."

"I told Cecil to have her sign it."

"I convinced him it wasn't necessary," Mitch.e.l.l said. Garrison snorted at the absurdity of this. "I didn't want her thinking she was entering a business arrangement. I was in love with her, for f.u.c.k's sake. I still am."

"Then you'd better make sure she keeps her mouth shut."

"I know," Mitch said.

"Well if you know why the f.u.c.k didn't you have her sign the prenuptial?" He leaned across the table, catching hold of Mitch.e.l.l's arm. "Let me put this really simply. If she tries to say anything about our business, family business, to anyone, I'm going to slap a gag order on her."

"There's no need for that."

"How do you know? You don't even know where she is right now. She could be sitting downtalking to some d.i.c.khead journalist." Mitch.e.l.l shook his head. "I mean what I say about the gag order," Garrison reiterated. "I don't mind being the heavy if you think you've got a chance of patching things up."

"It's not a question of patching things up. We've had a bad time, but it's nothing permanent."

"Sure, sure..." Garrison said, his tone wearied, as though he'd heard this kind of self-deception countless times before. "You tell yourself whatever the f.u.c.k you need to hear."

"I married her because I feel something for her. That feeling hasn't gone away."

"It will," Garrison replied, waving Mr. Ko over, "Trust me, it will." ii Mitch.e.l.l discovered he had a better appet.i.te than he'd expected. The food was good, though Garrison was able to tolerate far spicier versions of the dishes than Mitch.e.l.l. Twice during the meal he exhorted Mitch.e.l.l to try a forkful of something he was eating, and Mitch.e.l.l was left gasping, much to Garrison's amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I'm going to have to start educating your palate," he said.

"It's a little late for that." Garrison glanced up from his plate, his spectacles slightly fogged.

"It's never too late," he said.

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"You've always had a more delicate stomach than me. But that's got to change. For all our sakes."

Garrison set down his fork and picked up his gla.s.s of wine. "Did you know Loretta goes to an astrologer?"

"Yes, Cadmus let it drop one day. What's that got to do with anything?"

"Last Sunday I got a call from Loretta. She wanted me to come over to the house. Urgently. She'd just been to see this astrologer, and he was full of bad news."

"About what, for G.o.d's sake?"

"About us. The family."

"What did he say?"

"That our lives were going to change, and we weren't going to like it very much." Garrison was cradling his wine gla.s.s in his hands, staring out past his brother with middle distance. "In fact, we're not going to like it at all."

Mitch.e.l.l rolled his eyes. "Why the h.e.l.l does Loretta waste money on this bulls.h.i.t-""Wait. There's more. The first sign of this..." Garrison paused, searching for the word "... big change, is that one of us is going to lose our wife." His gaze finally came back to Mitch.e.l.l.

"Which you have."

"She'll be back."

"So you keep insisting. But whether she comes back or she doesn't, the point is she left."