Читать книгу Song of Silence - Cynthia Ruchti - Страница 11

Chapter 5

5

Good. You’re home.”

Ania sounded relieved. Lucy stared at her cell phone. Where else would she be on a jobless weekday morning in the summer?

Summer. Lucy used to call it summer break. Not a season, but a half-rest between school years. “Where are you calling from?”

“The library.”

“That would explain the clandestine whisper voice.” Lucy mimicked her friend’s tone.

“I think I may have discovered a way we can sue the school board.”

“Ania, we’re not suing the school board.” Lucy fingered the tiny copper hoop earrings she wore—another gift from Ania. She glanced out the laundry room window at the thermometer near a hanging basket of flowers. That warm already?

“We wouldn’t get very far suing for what they did. These RIFs are happening all over, sad to say. But we might be able to get them for how they went about it.”

Lucy closed the lid of the washing machine and punched the code that started it filling with water. Nothing happened. She bumped a spot to the right of the control panel with her fist. Success. “ ‘Get them?’ I don’t have any desire to exact revenge.” Not that she hadn’t prayed God would.

“Sure you do. Don’t let your sadness override your anger, Luce. We need to take action. Can you come over to the library while I’m still here?”

It took all of three seconds to rehearse her plans for the day. But poring over legalese wouldn’t improve on that schedule. “I’m stuck here until after eleven at the earliest. Charlie has my car. His is in the muffler shop.” Yes, it was only a mile or so on foot—each way—but . . .

“This is just preliminary anyway. I’ll e-mail you links to the information I found.”

“I don’t want to even think about taking legal action, Ania. Really.”

“You’ll change your mind when reality kicks in and you have to start waiting tables at Bernie’s.”

The idea lodged in her throat like a crosswise potato chip—not likely to kill her, but highly unpleasant, considering. She’d worked at Bernie’s during summer breaks from college. Had her career path come full circle?

Lucy returned to the task of taping around the windows, doors, and cupboards in her kitchen. She’d start painting when Charlie returned from his trip to the home improvement store. Picking out a color online changed the whole “send husband to the store for paint” challenge.

She hoped.

Ania had asked one more question before hanging up. Had Lucy picked her poison yet? Ania’s poison of choice? Cheetos. Crunched one at a time, in rabbit bites. A tension-easer, she claimed.

Lucy’s choice? She stopped pouring coffee into the white porcelain mug with an inset for a stack of Oreos. “Developing a new food addiction is going to help how?” she’d asked Ania, pulling a different mug from the shelf that held her collection. Something plain, with no handy compartments for Oreos, caramels, or Cheetos. Lucy dumped coffee from the first mug into the second. She would have been proud of herself, but she couldn’t get past mourning the missing cookies.

The bright blue painter’s tape clashed with the faded, nondescript blue on the kitchen walls. From a distance, it looked as if she’d trimmed her kitchen in Ugly. This stage—the ugly stage, the in-between—always lasted longer than she hoped. Befores and afters hold merit. A “was” full of memories and a “future” full of awe. But this middle? When nothing looked or functioned as it should? Lucy fought agitation with every strip of blue tape she positioned.

She could strip off the white crown molding at the ceiling and risk splintering one of the pieces, as Charlie had the last time they’d painted. Or she could climb the ladder and tape the entire perimeter of the room. She opted for the latter—and the ladder.

Fifteen minutes into the process, her neck and shoulders threatened mutiny. She allowed them a short break, during which she refilled her disturbingly plain coffee mug and clicked the remote to start her playlist of music.

Bad idea. Bad, bad idea.

Lucy didn’t hear professional musicians, auto-tuned and digitally mixed. Her mind heard children’s voices, children’s talent on the instruments. Children discovering the power of music to change things. Children finding expression, coming out of themselves to care about the community of sound, pushing themselves past what they thought unconquerable limits, discovering not only a safe but soul-enriching outlet for their emotions.

She abandoned the ladder and grabbed a stack of Oreos.

“Just a few,” she told the room trimmed in Ugly. She resealed the cookie bag and tucked it deeper into the pantry. As if that would prevent a return trip.

The hated stage—between before and after. Music swelled around her, a soundtrack for her mood. Ladder height made her dizzy. It had nothing to do with the sugar rush. She switched from coffee to iced tea and retreated to the deck to wait for Charlie to return with paint.

The sun hadn’t yet climbed over the roof and the maple—a formidable team that eliminated Lucy’s need to open the deck table umbrella. She’d left the music on in the house. Filtered through walls and windows, it seemed less threatening to her sanity.

The swivel-rocker patio chair welcomed her presence as if it had been waiting for someone to recognize what a beautiful day it was. Above the decibel level of the filtered music, she heard the thrum of hummingbird wings. The bird darted in and out of the fuchsia Million Bells’ tiny, petunia-like blossoms.

The hanging basket offered a bright spot in a still-getting-a-foothold garden. Winter stayed too long. Didn’t it always? The herbs and smattering of vegetables she’d managed to plant between end-of-the-school-year activities survived under a layer of old sheets on frost warning nights. The hanging plants filled her kitchen counters—a makeshift greenhouse that necessitated Chinese take-out for dinner.

Charlie didn’t complain. Except about the lady bugs that hitchhiked on the underside of leaves and stayed indoors after the plants were returned to their spots on and around the deck. With Charlie, even complaining took on an air of amusement.

Lucy’s blessed time alone hadn’t exhausted itself before Charlie joined her on the deck.

“Isn’t it great to have freedom to enjoy a morning like this?” He slapped a gallon of paint onto the patio table.

“On days when I didn’t schedule summer music lessons, I could have mornings like this every year.”

He removed his ball cap, swiped at his forehead with the back of his hand, and resettled the cap. “But it’s different this year. Endless summer, LucyMyLight. No need to spend June, July, and August getting ready for September. No school-related summer lessons. No interrupted plans so you can drive to the school for . . . whatever.”

She should have found some sort of comfort in his enthusiasm or in the truth of what he said. Instead, she focused on his use of the word interrupted. Whose plans? She hadn’t considered it an interruption. Charlie’s work at the paper mill kept him busier than ever during the summer, until he retired. Why wasn’t that considered an interruption?

“Trying to look on the bright side,” he said, picking up the paint can and heading for the kitchen door.

Your bright side is blinding me, Charlie. “Thanks for getting the paint.”

“If you ask me, it looks like what you already have on the walls.”

“It isn’t. A shade darker.”

Charlie turned to face her. “Darker? We need darker? I thought you liked all the light in there.”

“I do. But with the white ceiling, cupboards, and trim, there wasn’t enough contrast. You’ll see. It’ll be stunning. Ania thinks so too.”

Gravity pulled Charlie’s facial features south. “Ania the Angry Artist?”

“How many Anias do you know? Yes. The Angry Artist.”

His mouth twitched. “Do you think it’s wise to take advice from her?”

This is how daily conversations would go, living with a man with too much time on his hands and no clue how offensive his words could be? “You’re not telling me who I can have as a friend, are you?”

“And sign my own death certificate? No.” His chuckle showed obvious comedic intent. Then his facial expression changed. “Just saying that her anger is . . . toxic. And your emotional immune system is compromised.”

“Dr. Phil?”

“Great episode.” He stepped into the kitchen, then opened the door again to call to her, “Hey, you mind if I turn off the music? Or turn it down? My earlobes are bleeding.”

Eardrums, and no they aren’t. She followed him into the kitchen. “Go ahead. I was thinking of heading to the library for a while, now that the car’s back.”

The music crash-landed. “Okay.” He craned his neck, surveying the mess in the kitchen. “Will you be back in time for lunch?”

His question could have meant so many things. How long do you plan to leave it like this in here? How long will you be gone from me? What are you going to do, and can I come, too? Will you be back in time to make my lunch? Or, simply, when will you be back?

“I have some errands to run. Don’t know how long it will take me. Can you make yourself a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch?”

“Sure,” he said, his face less than certain. “Don’t you want to . . . ?” He let the thought dangle and drew concentric circles in the air while pointing at her chest.

No! I do not want to—

“. . . change first?”

She looked at the front of her grungy tee shirt. Paint spatters from a previous project. “I-I planned on it.” Lucy eased past him and headed for the bedroom to change into an outfit she could be seen in publicly. She settled on clean jeans, an unspotted tee, and a lightweight jean jacket. Errands. Which of those on the list interested her?

The kitchen could wait. Time was something she now had in abundance. She’d talked about taking the hiking path along the river. Maybe today was the day to cross that item off the list. She chose athletic shoes over sandals for that reason.

“What if the muffler gets done before you come home?” Charlie asked when she kissed him good-bye. “We have to pick up the car together. I’ll need a ride to the shop.”

Lucy wiggled her cell phone. “You can text me. Or call if it gets close to their closing time. Did you have anything else planned for the day?”

“I thought about seeing if the bluegills were biting. Martin said something about wanting to go fishing.”

“Great. Have fun.”

“I don’t have a car.”

“Can Martin pick you up?”

“I suppose so.”

“Perfect.” Lucy snatched her purse and exited through the front door before she thought too hard about inconveniencing Charlie.

She drove to the library, parked in the lot, but didn’t get out of the car. She kept the engine running for the sake of the air conditioning, surprisingly useful on a day when the temps were ideal. The sun. That sun beating down on everything. Baking the car’s interior. Lucy directed the top vents to blow directly on her face.

Library patrons strolled in and out of the building. Few people ran into or out of a library. Young moms, maybe. With toddlers in tow. In the rain. Libraries are destinations of discovery. A lot like musical pieces, Lucy thought. Those who rush to, through, or out of it miss the whole point.

She shook herself out of philosophy mode and made a decision. A bold decision. Discovering how to sue her former employer sounded even less appealing than it had when Ania told her about it over the phone. How would starting a war benefit her students in any way? Lucy longed for reason to prevail. Running into Ania wouldn’t help anything. What was she even doing downtown? Lucy put the car into reverse and backed out of her parking spot.

Into a tan SUV with the same idea.

The jolt sent her heart rate into staccato overdrive. She turned off the engine, unbuckled her seatbelt, and jumped out to assess the damage and meet her victim face-to-face.

“Mrs. Tuttle? Hey, I am so sorry. Are you okay?” The shorts-clad teen girl clutched her stomach.

Lucy put a hand on her former student’s shoulder. “I’m fine. Are you?”

Kiersten shook her hands at her sides. “Yeah. Fine. It’s how I handle stress.”

“You’re sure you’re okay?”

“Fine. Really. I am so sorry.”

“What makes you think it was your fault, Kiersten?” Careful, Lucy. Don’t take more than your share of the blame. She’d heard that from an insurance commercial once.

“Not directly. But—” She turned to indicate the bent woman approaching from the driver’s side. Bent with age, not accident damage, it appeared. Kiersten—summer blond wisps of hair stuck to the sides of her face—stepped between the two older women and spoke to Lucy in soft tones. “She insisted on driving us home. Insisted. I guess respecting your elders has its limits. I am so sorry.”

When she was in eighth grade, family responsibilities had forced Kiersten to drop band and chorus. It broke Lucy’s heart. And not just because they’d needed her on French horn. The accident now seemed a rude intrusion on Lucy’s longing to reconnect with the young woman these years later and find out how she was doing.

Kiersten stepped to the side. “Grandma, I’d like to introduce you to Mrs. Tuttle, my former music teacher.” The apology on her face couldn’t have been more pronounced.

The older woman toddled to the spot where the two bumpers seemed locked in a wild embrace. “Oh, this isn’t good.”

“It’s not so bad,” Lucy insisted, mentally calculating the cost of bodywork added to the new exhaust system Charlie’s Traverse was getting in a shop down the street. “A little crinkled.”

Kiersten’s grandmother pinched her eyes shut, then opened them wide. “Still here. It’s real, I guess. Well, if I had a license, it’d be gone now.”

“Grandma, you don’t have a driver’s license? You didn’t tell me that.” Kiersten’s face lost a decade in age with that revelation.

The woman touched an undamaged part of the SUV’s bumper. “Kind of a moot point now. This is as nasty as a cat in a lace factory.” She looked up into Kiersten’s face. “Don’t tell your father.”

“Grandma, I have to tell him.”

The woman’s shoulders heaved. “Then you’ll have to tell him the whole truth—that I overpowered you and took the wheel against your better judgment.”

Kiersten and Lucy laughed at the way Kiersten’s grandmother flexed her biceps as she spoke.

“I suppose we need to call the police so they can file a report. And exchange insurance information,” Lucy said. Her head throbbed. Her first fender bender, ever, and it had to be with one of her former students. Correction. A former student’s rambunctious grandmother.

“I already called it in,” Kiersten said, indicating her cell phone.

A small, sympathetic crowd gathered. A library assistant. A friend from church. Patrons who got more than they expected—a good book and a show. Finally, the law enforcement officer—also a former student but from a decade earlier—and Lucy’s insurance agent, whose office was across the street from the library. Handy, in incidents like this.

Statements taken, truth told, bumpers untangled, the women were freed to leave the scene. Plastic bumpers on both vehicles meant they were left with unsightly holes, but nothing dragging behind them. Drivable, but a little broken.

Lucy’s sigh expanded to fill the suffocating interior of her Malibu. “Me, too,” she said, patting the dashboard. “Drivable, but broken.”

Thank goodness for the accident. Thank God for it. She’d managed to divert every conversation that started with “So sorry about your job” to instead focus on the traffic jam in the library parking lot and the two wounded vehicles at the center of attention. That, and the crumpled grandmother who couldn’t stop crying. They made an interesting threesome—the ex-schoolteacher who’d gotten additional practice weathering embarrassment, the young woman whose only sin was giving in to her grandmother’s request, and the older woman whose keys had already been taken away but now faced the humiliation of other people’s keys being taken away from her, too.

Lucy hadn’t called Charlie. What could he do with his own car out of commission? She drove to the body shop for an outrageous estimate, then opted to drown her estimate sorrows in taco salad at Bernie’s. She’d call Charlie after that. Or go home. Or . . .

“Raspberry lemonade?” the waitress asked.

“Oh, sure.” The humor helped somehow. “Let’s make some lemonade out of all of this.”

“Pardon me?”

“Lemonade. Yes. Thank you.” And some to go.

Lucy’s two forkfuls of taco salad fought each other in her stomach when Evelyn Schindler walked into the restaurant on a path that would take her right past Lucy’s booth. Lucy dug into the salad as if looking for buried treasure under the lettuce.

“Lucy!”

Foiled again. “Mrs. Schindler.”

Evelyn Schindler sent her lunch companion to a table nearby with instructions to order her a lemonade. What right did she have to drink lemonade? Lucy swallowed the hooked barbs of wounded pride.

“I’d hoped to have a chance to talk to you about the budget cuts,” the woman said, leaning her Stella McCartney fragrance-of-the-month into Lucy’s personal space. “Nothing personal in all that. Purely a financial decision. We had no choice.”

Lucy’s three-point, fourteen-page rebuttal fell in line like iron shavings to a magnet. How could ripping music and art from the lives of young children ever be a wise decision, in light of the impact of those two disciplines on brain function, self-worth, and a sense of community through the arts, for one thing? What was “pure” about it? And how could it not be personal, especially for Lucy, who had carried on the tradition established by her father? Not personal?

Three bullet points. Extra emphasis on the third.

All three stayed buried under seasoned meat and shredded cheese. Lucy sipped her raspberry lemonade for courage. “I understand.” Wait? What? That’s not what she’d planned to say.

“Well,” Mrs. Schindler said, “best wishes in your future endeavors.” She paused a long moment before leaving Lucy to her salad and super-sized lemonade.

Future endeavors. I’m fifty-six. Almost. You chopped at least nine years off my future endeavors. Not that Lucy seriously entertained the idea of retirement at sixty-five. Ninety sounded more reasonable, providing she could stay a little more alert than Kiersten’s grandmother.

Her cell phone vibrated against the tabletop. She picked it up and checked caller ID. Charlie.

“Where are you, Lucy? Are you okay? Martin heard from Steve’s mother that you were in a horrible accident. Why didn’t you call?”

“Weren’t you fishing?”

His pause made her think they’d lost the connection. “I still am. Reception’s not great out here. Talk to me.”

“Charlie, I’m fine. A small fender bender. In a parking lot. I already got an estimate from the body shop.”

“You did?”

“It’s crazy how little damage it takes to push a repair bill past the deductible.”

“You sound okay.”

Lucy had kept her voice low but now turned to face the corner of the wooden booth. “I am okay. I can’t talk now, Charlie.”

“Me either. Martin’s got a bite, and it looks like he’s going to need the net.”

For a brief moment, she wondered if the two men were fishing with artificial lures or worms. “See you at home later.”

Broken, but drivable.