Part 15 (1/2)
”You ever been in jail? I mean, I can see you've been arrested, but have you ever actually spent a night somewhere other than a lockup?”
”You mean like jail jail?”
”Yeah, 'jail jail,' Miss Smartypants. You ever actually spend any time there? Your so-called record says three arrests but no actual jail time, is there something I'm missing here?”
”No.”
”Okay, then stop acting like it's an option.”
”You want me to call Lucy?”
”I'm not going to tell you what to do.” I couldn't tell if he was bothered by my lack of self-regard or disgusted with the lot of us. He finished wiping his fingers and set down the crumpled napkin, then checked his nails, as if it had just occurred to him that they might be filthy, which in fact they were not. He leaned back into the vinyl of the booth and seemed to be thinking about what I had just said, but at the same time I could see that his eyes were scanning for where the waitress was, so he could ask her for more bad coffee or the check. I decided he must be a pretty good detective, because even though I kept mouthing off and acting like I was running the show, he had found out everything he wanted to know, and I hadn't found out anything at all.
”Did you ever meet my dad?” he finally asked. Over my head he caught the waitress's eye and tipped his chin a little bit. He reached for a toothpick, even though he hadn't eaten anything other than sugar, pie, coffee, and salt while I pigged out. Good-looking, mean, and he doesn't eat; maybe he's a vampire, I thought.
”Hey, are you with us?” he asked.
”What was the question-did I ever meet your dad? No, I never did. Did you ever meet my mom?”
”A couple times.”
”You did? You met her?” This seemed like really great news, that he had seen my mother after she went away from me and into that other world up in the beautiful strange apartment with that crazy old drunk. ”What was, what-wow. I didn't know you met her.”
”Before they got married, when she was cleaning house for him, I met her a few times.”
”She was cleaning house for him?”
”You didn't know that?”
Why was the news that my mother had been cleaning houses the worst news I could get, when in fact it was exactly what I had been doing? I had let her go so far away for so long that I thought the guilt of such distance had burned itself out. But she had still lived in the world, and she found herself cleaning houses. And this sad-eyed detective had seen her with buckets and rags, on her hands and knees, and I had not.
He wasn't volunteering any more information. I hated the way I had to pry facts out of this bonehead. ”Did you see her often?” I asked.
”Just a couple times.”
”How did she look?”
”I didn't pay much attention until he married her.”
”Were you at the wedding?”
”No, I was not invited. My brother and I were not consulted about the marriage, we were told about it after the fact.”
”So what happened then?”
”You know as much as I do about that part.”
”I don't know as much as you; I don't know anything, I think that's pretty obvious. Which is why I'm asking. I only saw her the one time, which you already know about from Mrs. What's-Her-Name who I wasn't spying on, she was spying on them, and we weren't allowed, your dad-we didn't-oh f.u.c.k it.” I moved almost instantaneously through losing my cool to picking up a phony version of it as it occurred to me that I had to keep my mouth closed about how Bill was shutting us out of their life. Lucy had warned me not to let the Drinans know that Bill didn't want us around, that it would hurt our chances of getting the apartment. I remembered the rules and managed to stop myself from giving up any more information. But I still wanted to know what he knew. ”Did they, did they have a wedding dinner?” I asked.
”No,” he said, laughing a little at the very idea.
”Well, when did he tell you? That they got married?”
”A couple days later.”
”Did you see them?”
”Yeah, we did. We were over at the apartment, and we saw them and they told us.”
”And they were happy?”
”You know, it's hard to tell about people and happiness, Tina. That's one thing you learn in police school.” He looked down, and I could see that he had pulled a small wad of neatly folded bills out of his pocket and was rifling through them swiftly, counting to himself like a little kid.
”What does that mean?” I asked, trying not to get mad. He wasn't objecting to my asking questions, so I didn't want to p.i.s.s him off with my famously bad att.i.tude, but my nerves were running on fumes by this point. ”I mean, did you see them, what did they-wow. Okay, okay,” I stumbled. ”When was the last time you saw them?”
He looked up from his counting, caught by the question, like he couldn't immediately remember the answer. ”A long time,” he admitted with some shade of sorrow or reluctance. ”I don't know. A couple years maybe.”
”A couple years, like two years?” I asked.
”Yeah, like two years.”
”Like when they got married, that's when you stopped seeing him?”
”Yes, that's when I stopped seeing him.”
”So he married my mom, and he told you, and you guys had a fight and that was the end of it for you, like how could he have married my mom, and so then you just-stopped even talking to him. Was it that horrible for you and your brother? You just cut yourself off from him because he married her? Is that what happened?”
”Something like that.”
He looked down, still trying to count those bills, a task that was mysteriously beyond his ability all of a sudden. ”Look, she was cleaning his house,” he said, and he sounded truly pained that he was the one who had to tell me this. ”And then he married her? What were we supposed to think?”
”Just whatever you thought, I guess. How do I know?”
”Exactly.”
”Look,” I said. ”She was a really nice person.” Somehow I thought this would make a difference. It didn't. Detective Bonehead raised an eyebrow as if he was pondering my loyal burst of sentimentality. Then he went back to asking questions.
”So how come you abandoned her?” he said.
”I didn't,” I said. ”I didn't. I didn't.”
My a.s.sertion that my mother was a nice person did not get through to this guy, but the idiotic desperation behind those three denials apparently did. He shrugged. There was a mournful pause as we both considered how pathetic I sounded. ”Well,” he said, with a truly hopeless edge to his voice, ”I didn't abandon them either.”
”No, I get it,” I said. ”I do. Here, let me count out the money, you're like r.e.t.a.r.ded all of a sudden.” Before he could argue, I reached over and took the ones out of his hand and started counting. ”How much is it?”
”I don't know,” he admitted, looking around helplessly. We had been abandoned by the waitress.