Читать книгу Shadows In The Mirror - Linda Hall - Страница 8

I had the mirrors dream again that night. I’ve dreamed the mirrors dream, or a variation thereof for as long as I can remember. Sometimes I’m in a fun house and strange mirror faces taunt me. Sometimes I see mirror after mirror, the same reflection of myself going on and on forever and ever into infinity. Sometimes there are broken pieces of mirror and every time I pick them up I cut my fingers and they bleed. Sometimes I stand in front of a mirror and instead of seeing my reflection I see nothing. When I was little, I used to awaken screaming until Aunt Rose came in and prayed with me.

In tonight’s dream, I was walking down a narrow hallway holding a piece of broken mirror. It belonged to one of the ladies in my evening class and I needed to catch up with her, tell her I had it. The edge of it had cut my hand and the blood left a trail behind me. I didn’t care. I needed to find her. In my haste, I walked into a mirror. I turned to go back and was met with another mirror. I was lost and frantic as I tried to find my way out of the maze of my own reflections going in all directions.

I woke up, hot and miserable in the middle of the night. I’d left my heat up and the place was as close as a sauna. I turned down the thermostat. Outside it was still raining and I stood by the front window for a while.

I live on Main Street in Burlington, a busy street of shops and old New England–style three-and four-story houses. Across the street from me is a mystery bookshop in the lower level of a four-story dwelling that once was someone’s grand residence, but was chopped into apartments and shops. Next to that is a consignment shop that features children’s clothing. Right beside me is a coffee shop, and on the other side is a high-end bicycle and ski shop, this area of the country being known for two things, teddy bears and snow.

I focused on the bookstore and the huge cat that always sits in the window. He was there now, a dark mound on the window seat. The cat stretched and I watched its shadow move across the glass. I looked at it. Had it been the cat I’d seen earlier? I sighed and was about to get back to my bedroom when a movement on the street below caught my attention. I went to my bedroom and retrieved my glasses from my nightstand. There was a bobbing pinpoint of orange down below. It took me a moment to realize that this was the end of a cigarette. And the cigarette was attached to a person who was leaning against the back of a bus shelter. I watched him for a few moments, wondering that someone would be outside in the rain in the middle of the night. It took me several minutes to realize that this person was looking up at me. I stood very still, then backed away from the window. I felt rattled, unsettled. Before I went back to bed, I went to the door and made sure it was locked, the security system fully armed. Once the latch was pulled across the French doors I’d be secure. And then, feeling much like my aunt, I made a cup of chamomile tea—her favorite—and drank it in the kitchen.

The photo was still on my kitchen table, propped against the sugar bowl. I thought about what Johanna had said. See Evan? I sighed and looked down at the woman’s face, that hint of a smile not for the photographer, but for the man—my father?—who I’ve always thought was just about the handsomest man I’d ever seen.

I slept again after that, and dreamed that Aunt Rose was my real mother and that I had no father, and she’d forged my birth certificate and made up the story about my parents being in an accident just because she didn’t want anyone to know that I was illegitimate. I got up, peeked around the side of the blind in the half light of early morning, but the cigarette smoker had gone. So had the cat.

Still tired, I went back to bed but tossed and turned until close to dawn, and when I finally did wake up, I had overslept. Since I’d forgotten to set the alarm, I ended up racing to get ready. I couldn’t get my contacts in, so had to opt for a pair of thick glasses with black frames. I had purchased them a few years ago when I’d been in an artsy period, but now in the mirror all I saw were glasses. But my eyes were puffy from lack of sleep and there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it.

By the time I ran to the café for my coffee, my winking coffee stranger had already been and gone. I had no idea where he worked. I assumed it was somewhere around here, maybe even the mystery bookshop, although I’d never seen him in there when I’d gone in for some reading material.

Where he came from and where he went each morning were a mystery. The only thing I knew about him was that he came in each morning at the same time for a dark roast coffee, which he took black. And, that he winked at me.

I was too late today, but with the way I looked this morning, it was just as well.

It was strange how I missed him, how disappointed I felt. If I believed in omens—which I didn’t—I would have thought that not seeing him meant that this already bad day was going to get a whole lot worse. I walked into my shop, and today for the first time it seemed a desolate place. The rows upon rows of needlecraft kits and yarn and scrapbook supplies and watercolor kits and mirror pieces and mosaic tiles just looked like organized rows of so much junk. I went to the back and looked at Beryl’s mirror tiles picture again. My parents. Or maybe not. But if they weren’t my parents, who were they and how were they connected to me? If they were?

Before she left last night I told Johanna not to tell anyone about this picture. I knew she would respect my wishes. I didn’t need to share the patheticness of my life with anyone else. Johanna had also carefully placed the photo between two sheets of cardboard and put it in a large envelope, still convinced that I would see Evan. I laid that next to my coat. When Barbara came in after lunch, I’d head over to the photography studio and force myself to deal with the infamous Evan Baxter.

I met the morning customers with cheery hellos. I helped two older women from my seniors’ class pick out ribbons for their scrapbooks. I helped a young pregnant woman with yarn and doll faces. She kept going on about her new baby and decorating the room, and that made me feel blue. If my ex-fiancé hadn’t jumped ship I would be married now. Quite possibly I’d even be pregnant. We’d talked about that. We’d wanted children right away. Mark, my ex-fiancé, worked as a computer programmer for a cable company. Everyone in church loved him where he was one of the leaders. He just couldn’t stick it out with me when the going got tough. I sold the young mother-to-be some yellow yarn, a doll form and a pattern, and wished the new family well with a cheerful smile.

A gentlemanly old man named Marty Smythe and his friend Dot, both from my seniors’ scrapbooking class came in and bought two children’s needlepoint sets for Dot’s grandchildren. When I first met Marty and Dot, I figured them for an old married couple. Then one afternoon in the shop when Dot was talking to Barbara about ribbons, Marty whispered to me that he was going to ask Dot to marry him, he was just waiting for the right moment. I thought it was sweet. Barbara told me later that both Marty and Dot had lost their spouses a long time ago.

He looked at me and his eyebrows came together. “You okay?”

I nodded. “I must look horrible. I think I’m coming down with something.” Coming down with something. Right, like a miserable life.

“Well, you take care, sweets,” he said as I rang up the order.

I promised him I would and I watched him leave, the back of him, white hair bunching out under his black woolen cap. Something about the back of his hair under his cap made me start for a moment. I looked, but couldn’t put a finger on it. I shook my head and went back to work.

Just after noon, Barbara came in cheerful and breezy the way she always does.

“How was the class?” she asked, unzipping her raincoat and hanging it in the back. “Oh, I can see how the class was. How lovely!” Barbara’s one of those wonderfully warm maternal types who talk nonstop. I knew she’d have lots of good advice for me if I told her about my parents and the picture questions. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not yet. She stopped her chattering and looked at me. “Are you okay, Marylee?”

I attempted a laugh. “Everyone keeps asking me that. I think it’s my glasses. I don’t usually wear them, so when I do, everyone looks at me strangely.”

“I think they’re very charming. They make you look quite studious.”

I told her that I hadn’t slept well, and that when I’d gotten up in the night someone had been standing down across the street smoking in the bus shelter. “It unnerved me,” I said. “I didn’t sleep much after that.”

“Well I don’t blame you!” Her eyes were wide. “Did you call the police?”

“Last I heard it wasn’t a crime to stand in a bus shelter and smoke in the middle of the night.”

“Still, it would be kind of spooky, I’d say, someone looking up at your window like that.”

I looked down at my hands. “It was just somebody smoking.” But it wasn’t, was it? I had seen a face upturned in my direction.

A little while later, I told her I had an errand to run and left her in charge of the store. I walked the three blocks through a gray drizzle to Evan Baxter Photography. I wasn’t sure this was the wisest thing I’d ever done. After what he had done to Johanna, not to mention to his fiancée, I knew I should probably just steer clear of him.

I was surprised that his store was so close to my own. I had done a bit of walking in the neighborhood, but never in this direction. Usually when I head out I go down Main Street, and then turn right at the ferry terminal and into the waterfront park. Most of the time, when I get to the coast guard building, I turn around and go home.

Evan Baxter Photography is located in an upscale brick building just up from the railroad yard. In the same building is a design studio and a law office. Inside it was quiet and no one seemed to be around. There was a ring-for-service bell on the counter, but I hate those things, even though I have one myself. They sound so impatient and demanding to me. After standing at the counter for a few moments and having no one appear, however, I pressed it tentatively and looked around.

The photos on the wall were arranged as if in a gallery. There were insects on branches, close-ups of flowers and faces. There were lots of faces; old people with expressive smiles, children on swings, wedding pictures, graduation pictures, photos of quilts that caught my attention for a while. I could name some of the patterns: log cabin, cross weave and tessellating flowers. Aunt Rose was also a master quilter and in my apartment I have a small quilting frame, a graduation gift from her. I’m attempting to finish the quilt she started before she got sick.

But the photo that drew me, the picture that caused me to stand there unmoving, was one of a small girl standing beside a campfire. She was young, maybe ten, and wore scuffy pink sneakers and a hooded zippered sweatshirt that was opened to reveal a pink T-shirt. She was pointing at the flames.

I marveled that Evan was able to capture the vivid hues of the fire and how they were reflected in the solemn face of the girl as she pointed.

Close behind, very close behind me was a sound.

“You didn’t get your medium nonfat latte today.” I jumped, turned and found myself face-to-face with my winking coffee stranger. I muffled a gasp, put a hand to my mouth.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s okay. I…uh…” I felt my face flush. “I didn’t hear you. I was looking at the picture.” I was conscious of the fact that I couldn’t look any worse if I tried; glasses, flat hair tied back, red eyes and any makeup I did have on, being long ago smeared off by my sniffles. I hoped desperately that I didn’t have mascara lines running down my cheeks. And then I wondered, what in the world was he doing here, anyway? Maybe he was here buying film on his lunch hour.

“Are you, uh, are you a photographer?” I asked him stupidly. I was backing away slightly, aware, so aware of him standing close to me. I caught a whiff of a kind of musky aftershave.

“Do you like that one?” He pointed at the picture of the girl.

I nodded. “It’s very, um, vivid. The colors. The girl. She sort of, um, reminds me of myself when I was a girl. She looks so sad, somehow.” My voice trailed off. Why for goodness’ sake was I going on about this to a complete stranger? And why did I think he would care?

He said, “That one is sort of special to me.”

It was special to him? How could it be special to him? Someone had started a blender in my stomach.

“You asked if I was a photographer. I try to be,” he said.

I nodded some more. I felt like a bobble-head doll. He was even better looking close-up than across the crowded coffee shop. And what was I thinking with these thoughts, anyway? I needed to find Evan Baxter and get out of here.

“Are you in the market for a camera? Digital, perhaps?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No, um…” I swallowed. “I’ll just wait here for the owner. I need to speak to Evan Baxter about something.”

He raised one eyebrow, and then did the wink thing again. “Well, you’re looking at him.”

It took me a moment to figure out what he said. “I’m looking at him?”

He nodded.

“You’re Evan Baxter?”

“In the flesh.” He was smiling broadly.

“You can’t be!”

“Was last time I looked at my driver’s license.”

“But, but…” I sputtered. “I didn’t know you were Evan Baxter.” My hand flew to my mouth. “You really are Evan Baxter?”

He grinned. “I really am.”

“Oh…Oh…”

“I’m glad you like the campfire photo,” he said.

I kept sniffing and feeling foolish. I felt around in my pocket for a Kleenex, but of course I didn’t have one when I needed one. I kept nodding. I still hadn’t managed to say anything. I could almost hear what he was thinking: Why won’t this stupid, simpering woman get to the point?

Time to do just that. I took a breath. “I came in because, well, I need some help identifying a photograph. I’ve been told you might be able to help me. I would pay you, of course. Whatever you think is fair.” I tried to keep my voice businesslike. “I would like to know where a photo was taken, and who took it. This photo I have complemented a short story in a women’s magazine.”

“Let’s see what you’ve got.” He led me back to the counter where I opened up the manila envelope and took the photo out from between the two sheets of taped cardboard. He glanced at it. “You want to know who these people are?”

“No…I…I already know who they are.” I put my hand to my mouth, forced myself to breathe, breathe, and get back to my all-business self. “Yes. Maybe I would like to know that. And I need to know, um, who took this picture and maybe what magazine it was in. This is the original. I want to know…I don’t know.” My voice broke. And at that point I realized that I really didn’t know what I wanted to know at all. Why was I here? What I wanted to know was if anyone in this entire city of Burlington could tell me about my parents, but I couldn’t tell him that. He was a stranger.

He picked up the photo and studied it, and his eyes lingered there a bit too long. I swear I could hear him softly gasp. Then just as quickly, he recovered. When he brushed his curly hair out of his eyes, I wondered if I’d only imagined that flinch.

He bent his head so all of his hair fell forward into his eyes. As he spread out the edges of the photo with his fingers, I unwillingly found myself looking at his hands. I always think hands tell a lot about a man. His were strong and articulate. I could imagine him fiddling with camera settings, adjusting a shot until he got it just right, not being happy until it was.

Stop that, Marylee, I told myself. This guy dropped Johanna without so much as a how do you do. He’s someone you definitely want to steer clear of. So, why was I here, trusting him with one of the most important things in my life?

From underneath the counter he got a magnifying glass.

“This picture looks old,” he said. “The styles. These two look like hippies. It’s artistically done, though. Nice. Romantic.” And he looked at me and winked.

“I think it’s around thirty years old.” I kept my demeanor as businesslike as I could. “I understand you do forensic work for the police department.”

He shifted his position. “Sometimes.” He put the photo down and looked at me. “Okay, here’s what we can do. We can compare it to data banks of stock photos,” he said. “Although if it was in a magazine thirty years ago that might pose a challenge.”

“You said ‘we’?”

“My assistant, Mose, is a whiz at dating old photos. He might be able to help. I’m sure he’ll have some ideas, in any case.”

“I would also like information about certain parts of the photo.” I pointed out some duskiness along one side. “I’d always assumed these shadow things to be trees or some sort of bushes or building, but I don’t know.”

“It’s quite faint,” he said. “It could be just something in the photo itself, or on the paper.”

I nodded.

“We could digitize this, maybe enlarge these shadows, see what we can come up with.”

“By all means.” I handed him one of my Crafts and More business cards. “I’m Marylee Simson.” I tried to sound as professional as possible despite my bleary eyes, bad hair and shaking knees.

“I already know your name.” And he winked at me. “And I already know your shop. It’s nice to finally meet you officially.”

And all the way back to Crafts and More all I thought about was I can’t believe it. I cannot believe it! What am I going to tell Johanna? What on earth am I going to tell Johanna?

That afternoon Johanna called me at the shop between her classes, as I knew she would. I was dreading this. How to tell her? What to say?

“So?” she said.

“So?” I answered.

“So, did you take the picture to Evan?”

“I took the picture to Evan.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“And what? Isn’t he absolutely irresistible?”

“He’s…” This was going to be harder than I thought. “He’s, uh, he’s got the photo. He’s looking at it…”

“Well, duh, I figured that much,” she said.

I heard the bells chime at my door signifying a customer. “I gotta go. A customer arriveth!”

“You will come to my house tonight and tell me everything that happened.”

It was an order, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll bring my homemade pizza.”

When I hung up the phone I saw that I’d left my apartment key in the door. I pulled it out and pocketed it before heading back out to the store.

There is a back door to this place with stairs leading up to my apartment. I keep that door locked during the day. When you come in either the front door to the shop or the back door, you first have to unlock it with a key, and all the keys are different. Then you have to punch in the six-digit security code. When you get up the stairs to my apartment, there’s another lock, another key and another security-code pad.

All thanks to my paranoid aunt.

For the rest of the afternoon I chided myself. What kind of a friend keeps something like this from a best friend? I should have blurted it right out. Your Evan is the one who winks at me every morning! That’s the kind of guy he is. He breaks off an engagement and then goes out and drops someone after two dates with no explanation and then winks at someone else. What is he doing, just going down the line of available females?

I’d tell her all of this tonight. I started practicing ways to tell her.

We close at five on Wednesdays, so I had ample time to do up my special pizza from scratch. I’d make enough dough for two pizzas and put one in the freezer. As I was working on measuring the yeast and kneading the dough, it felt to me as if I were making a peace offering, something to make Johanna feel better when I broke the news. I’d add sliced tomatoes to the top because I know she likes fresh sliced tomatoes on her pizza.

I was just setting the dough to rise for a few minutes when I looked over at my balcony door and noticed something odd. The pull-across latch was pushed back. Had I unlocked this door? I couldn’t remember. It seemed unlikely, though. I stepped back, stared at it, thought of my key left in my door. Two key-related oddities in one day; I was turning into my aunt.

I opened the French doors and stepped onto my balcony and looked over the railing. My aunt would approve of this balcony. There was no way anyone could climb up here. No fire escape led to it. There weren’t even any balconies close by where you could jump across, if a person was so inclined. Theoretically, I should be able to leave it unlocked and be fine. You’d have to be Spider-Man to get up here. My wicker rocker was undisturbed. I sat in it for a few minutes before the chill evening air drove me back inside to where my crust was happily rising.

At seven sharp I was standing on the doorstep of Johanna’s cute house. She lives just north of the city on a little island on Malletts Bay. It’s only a few minutes from the downtown core where I live, but driving up Coates Island Road is like driving into another country. I drove past the marina on Malletts Bay, with its huge yachts, many of which were already shrink-wrapped in white. Soon, I was told, Lake Champlain would freeze so solid you could drive a truck across it.

Coates Island, where Johanna lives, is a private island of mostly summer cottages. Johanna lives here year-round in the last house, she says, before they quit plowing the road. It’s a place she could never afford on her professor’s salary, but it’s been in her family for many generations. The only downside is that her big family of brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts descends on her all summer long.

Johanna’s place is just like her—funky and cottagey and filled with mismatched dishes and chairs, all bought at garage sales. But instead of looking tacky, it looks as if each piece has been carefully chosen from high-end antique stores. She has this way of assembling a bunch of disparate pieces into a charming whole, and that includes the clothes she wears.

As soon as I entered her house, she came right over and hugged me.

“Evan,” she said. “You have to tell me about Evan! You have to tell me everything!” She looked so cute this evening. Her thick hair was caught up in a scrunchie on the top of her head, like a cockeyed waterspout.

I dropped my jacket on the back of a wooden kitchen chair. “You could do a whole lot better than Evan Baxter,” I told her.

She stopped a moment in her table setting and raised her eyebrows. “What? What happened? What do you mean by that?”

“I just think you could do better than Evan Baxter. That’s all.” I was careful not to meet her eyes.

“Marylee, tell me what happened. Don’t leave anything out. Wasn’t he able to help you with your picture?”

“I need to talk to you about Evan.” I placed my pizza on the table. “This is really important. Evan? He’s the guy who winks at me in the coffee shop every morning. The very one.”

If I could have chosen all of the reactions on her part, I never would have chosen the one that she exhibited. Instead of looking horrified, her eyes opened wider and she leaned back against her counter and laughed. It was a gleeful, spontaneous laugh.

“Johanna?” I squinted at her over my glasses.

“Oh, Marylee!” She leaned forward and put her hand on my shoulder. “This is so funny, so totally funny. What a strange coincidence.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Now you know how cute he is.”

“Johanna, you’re not getting it. He’s irresponsible. He takes you out. Doesn’t call back. Winks at me, a total stranger.”

Her back was to me as she poured two Diet Cokes. “Let’s have the pizza,” she said.

She was hurt, I could tell. The laughter was just a cover-up, but I didn’t know what to do or say. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told her. But, of course I had to. Friends don’t keep stuff like this from their friends. We took our slices and Cokes into her front room overlooking the water.

She took a bite of the pizza, proclaimed it wonderful and then said, “Did you hear that Barbara’s son Jared is home from Guatemala?”

I knew she was changing the subject on purpose, but I had no desire to bring the subject back to Evan, so I said, “That’s all I’ve been hearing about.”

I took a long drink of Coke. Through the trees, the gray water of Malletts Bay looked as solid as iron.

Barbara’s eldest son had taken a six-month leave of absence from his police job to work on a mission project in Guatemala. Barbara and her husband, Harold, had invited some of the people his age from church to a supper where he’d be talking about the trip and showing pictures.

“I know Jared,” Johanna said. “You haven’t met him, but you’d like him. He’d be perfect for you.”

Clever ploy, I thought. Get me interested in Jared so she wouldn’t have to worry about Evan and me. I leaned forward and touched my friend’s arm. “Johanna, you don’t have to worry. I am not interested in Evan.” I’m not interested in that type of guy anymore—all charm and no substance, I wanted to add, but didn’t. “And I’m not interested in Jared either. I’ve had enough of men for a while. All men.”