Читать книгу Freeing the Magician - Dawn Leger - Страница 8

I made some noise coming up the stairs, which disturbed Louie but didn’t stop Peggy from the flurry of sorting she was doing in the corner. I handed a beer to Michael, an eyebrow raised in a silent question as I mouthed, “Okay?”

He shrugged and took a long swig of beer.

“Don’t plan on getting drunk, you two,” Peggy said. “Remember you promised to join me for the family visitation later on, and being intoxicated is not an option.”

I grinned at Michael and we answered in harmony: “Yes, Mother.”

She turned around scowling. “Get over here, you scalawag,” she said, pointing at me. “You, finish trying on those jackets and decide what you want. No more dilly-dallying.”

“Mom, really. Scalawags? Dilly-dallying? Did you hit your head on the rafters?” Michael asked.

“Stop being a smart ass,” she said. “Now, Cassie, come here and try this on. Come on, don’t be shy, he doesn’t care about your breasts, take off your top and try on this dress.”

“Yeah, go on. I don’t want to see any of your girlie parts,” Michael said, wagging his tongue behind Peggy’s back.

“Are you sure you want to give these things away?” I asked. The dress was another designer creation, chiffon with a beaded overlay that fit like a dream.

“Yes, I am sure. I don’t have the time or the interest in selling this stuff, and it’s just perfect for you. Why don’t you just take this trunk back to the city and you can decide which of the pieces you want to keep or sell. I don’t want to know—they’re yours.”

“Really, Peggy, let me pay you,” I said.

“No, they’ve been moldering up here for thirty years, you’ll be doing me a favor to get rid of them for me,” she said. I started to protest and she held up a hand. “That’s it, it’s settled. No more arguing, or I’ll be insulted that you don’t like my clothes.”

She took the dress I’d just removed and folded it back into the trunk, then placed a layer of tissue paper over it and closed the top. “You and I can get this thing down the ladder by sliding it, I think,” she said. “I’ll go first, then you slide it over to the edge and I’ll grab it.”

I followed her, signaling Michael but he shrugged his shoulders. “You can’t win—just take them and say thank you,” he whispered.

“That’s excellent advice Michael,” she yelled. “You should listen to him, Cassie.”

I rolled my eyes at him and then said, “Thank you for the clothes, Peggy.”

“You’re very welcome,” she said, grabbing the end of the locker and backing down the ladder. I tried to hang onto the handle and slowly follow her down, but it was awkward and she ended up holding most of the weight. “Are you all right under there?” I asked.

“Oooph,” she replied. “Hold on a sec. Okay, one more step. What the—no!”

Peggy’s head disappeared and I heard her thump onto the floor. I was hanging onto the heavy box by its leather handle when I heard the screech of a cat. Michael shouted “Mom!” into my ear as he pressed against the floor peering down into the opening. Neither of us could see what had happened to her. I was hanging onto the trunk, barely, with both hands now, afraid to let it but certain that at any moment I was going to have to let go of it—and Michael was no help, even if he could have wedged himself somehow alongside me on the ladder, his leg was still too fragile to risk such a maneuver.

“Peggy? Are you okay?” I asked. “Answer me if you can.”

“Goddam it, I hate cats,” she said. I still could not see her.

“Can you move?” I said. “I can’t see you, but I’m going to need to put this trunk down soon, and I don’t want to put it on top of you. So if you can possibly roll yourself to the side? That would be a good thing.”

“Son of a bitch,” she said, teeth clenched.

“Michael, can you see anything?” I asked.

“Not really,” he said. He was still on the floor. “Is there any way you can move the trunk to one side?”

“You’re kidding, right?” I said. “Do you see any rope up there or anything else that we could loop around it, to maybe take some of the weight off?”

He got up and looked around, then I felt him coming down the ladder.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“I can’t just stay up there and watch,” he said. “I’ll put my weight on my good leg. If I can hold the trunk, maybe you can go down and help her. What do you think?”

“If we can make the transfer without dropping it, that’s a good idea. You’ve got more upper body strength than I do, you can hold it longer. Okay, slide over, but don’t put any weight on that leg, all right?” We struggled for several tense moments, during which Louie appeared from the other side and climbed my leg. “This isn’t going to work,” I said. “Take off your belt. You can loop it in the handle and hold onto it with both hands. That’ll work better than handing it off, I think. Dammit, Louie, you are a bad boy.”

We could hear Peggy struggling. “My back is out,” she said. “I’m not going to be able to get up by myself.”

Michael had the belt in position and I felt him take over the weight of the trunk. “Okay,” I said. “I’m going to slip out the side here. You got a good grip?” He nodded. “I’m out.”

I was on the landing and I could see Peggy, sprawled half under the ladder. She looked contorted. I squatted near her shoulders. “Okay, I’m going to gently pull you backwards, away from the ladder. Are you clear?”

“My foot is twisted,” she said.

I reached down and straightened it. “Do you think it’s broken?” I asked. She scowled. “We’ll check that in a minute. Let’s get you safely away from the trunk first,” I said. I reached under her shoulders, put my arms into her pits, and pulled her towards me. Inch by inch, I slowly got her clear of the trunk. When there was enough clearance, I got up and went over to help Michael lower the trunk safely to the floor.

He rushed to Peggy. “Should we call an ambulance?” he said.

She shook her head. “I might be okay—and I’ll never live it down if I get carted into the ER because I fell out of the attic.”

“That’s not exactly what happened,” he said. Louie chose that moment to reappear, walking up to Peggy and licking her face.

“No, but saying I stepped on a kitten doesn’t improve the story, does it?”

“Let’s take a look at that ankle,” I said. I pushed her corduroy pant leg up a bit and removed her shoe and sock. “It’s swelling up. How does it feel when you move it?”

She grimaced as she moved the foot back and forth. “Not great—but it’s probably just sprained.”

“That may be true, but I think it’s a good idea to get an X-ray. And maybe have someone take a look at your back as well,” I said.

“One thing at a time,” she said. “Let me sit up first, and see how that goes.”

It took us an hour to convince Peggy to go to the ER, where several additional hours were spent in waiting rooms and examination rooms and radiology suites until the verdict was delivered that she’d sprained both her ankle and her back. Armed with a prescription for a muscle relaxant and the determination to complete the day on a high note, Peggy made us drive to downtown Boston where we looked at festive lights and found a decent parking spot for an outrageously expensive meal.

Michael drank too much, Peggy took her meds and became groggy, and I drove the pair of them back to the house where I had to make two separate trips to escort the invalids to their beds. When Michael came in, he paused at his mother’s bedroom door.

“Mom, tell me this, where in the world did you get all those fancy clothes anyway?” he asked.

“You know, it may come as a surprise to you,” she said. “But I had a life before you were born that had nothing to do with you or your father. And that was my life, and it’s still none of your business. Now, go to bed, Michael.”

Louie climbed into bed with me and purred softly against my chest. “I know, you’re sorry,” I said. “And I never checked to see if you got hurt, did I?” I felt the little kitten body from head to toe, his little teeth biting my hands as I completed my search. “I think you’re okay,” I said. “But you have to learn to stay out of the way, or you could really get hurt—or cause someone else to get hurt badly. You know?”

I heard a soft tapping on my door. “Who is it?”

“It’s me,” Michael said. “Okay if I come in for a minute?”

“Sure,” I said.

He lay on the covers next to me, resting his head on one arm. “Were you on the phone or something? I heard you talking,” he said. “Or are you talking to yourself? That happens a lot in this house.”

I lifted the blanket to reveal Louie’s presence. “He’s not a very good conversationalist. I was mostly giving him a lecture about staying out of people’s way. I’m not sure it made much of an impression,” I said.

“Like my mother’s foot on his tail,” he said.

I nodded. “He’s lucky that he didn’t get hurt, and she’s lucky that nothing was broken. Although she’s going to be very sore tomorrow, I bet.”

“I bet you she doesn’t admit to that,” he said. “You know, she is acting really weird about those clothes. Where do you think they come from?”

“Hmm, if I had to guess, I’d say that she probably did some modeling back before you were born, either that or she attended a lot of society events. Where did she go to college? Is she from a wealthy family, one of those that did the social register stuff? Because that’s the kind of clothes these are. They aren’t the wardrobe of a grammar school teacher.”

“I had the feeling… Oh well. I guess we’ll see what happens tomorrow, right?”

“We’re definitely not bringing that desk down that ladder,” I said. “She’s going to have to pay someone to do that. Are you going to get it delivered to your apartment in New York? It’s a fabulous piece, along with those wooden file cabinets.”

He yawned. “Yes, it was my father’s so she doesn’t want it. I’ve been talking about it for years, and now’s the time. I have to take it,” he said. He yawned again. “I’d better go, or I’ll fall asleep right here. And that would not do! Good night, Louie. Good night, Cassie. Sleep tight!”

I leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Good night, Michael. See you in the morning.”

I watched Michael sleep for a while, and then got up and went down the hall to get some water. I passed the trunk, pulled to the side of the hall at the top of the stairs. I wonder, I said to myself.

I padded down the stairs and returned with a glass of water, and looked at the trunk again. I went over and sat on it. “What secrets are you keeping?” I thought. There’s more inside here than just clothes—and even those are layered in mystery. I closed my eyes and asked my mind to open to the messages contained within the heavy wooden container.

Suddenly I felt a chill, and when I opened my eyes I saw the figure of a woman leaning against the wall. “Peggy?” I asked. “Is that you? Are you all right?”

The figure shimmied a bit and turned to face me so that I realized it was not Peggy, but a much younger woman, and it was not real. “I must be dreaming,” I said. “Are you here to give me a message?”

She reached her hands out to me. Cradled within them was a letter. I stood up and walked closer, and as I did, she became more transparent but also luminous and lovely. Her long brown hair flowed around her head as if it was being moved by a gentle breeze, and her brown eyes sparked in the same way that Michael’s did when he was laughing. That must be it, I thought. “Are you Kristen?” I asked as I took the last step to reach her hand.

When I said the name, she disappeared. I realized that it was suddenly very dark in the hallway. Near the spot where she’d been standing, I saw something. An envelope was wedged between the wall and the baseboard, and I reached down and picked it up.

I recognized the stationery from somewhere. I held it up to the dim light coming from the window, rubbed the paper between my fingers. Oh, yes, this matched the packet of the letters I’d discovered in the roll-top desk and hidden in the bag under the bed. Had I dropped this letter earlier when I was carrying the bag down the stairs? And if so, why hadn’t I seen it during the many trips back and forth since then?

“Was that you, Kristen?” I asked softly. “Are you still living in this house, waiting for Michael to come and get you?” I smiled, feeling a wash of peacefulness come over me that was instantly replaced with that chill, and I got nervous again. Snap out of it, Cassie, I thought. You don’t dabble with the spirits, remember? I took the letter and returned to the bedroom where I tucked it into my suitcase. Michael was snoring heartily and I lay next to him in the sincere hope of catching the same path to sleep.