Ugly Money

I’m not being wise after the event; right there and then a small stinging shock jumped from this girl to me: nervousness, even fear, sparked around her like an electrical field. She was hiding it pretty well but it was unmistakable, and it set me tingling, ready for anything. Anything? Well, that’s what I thought. She had grown since I’d last seen her, hardly surprising at that age; she now had her mother’s height, and with it that negligent grace tall women have to cultivate if they’re not going to appear gawky. As yet she was too young to get the negligent grace quite right, so there was still a touch of gawkiness which was touching. I said, ‘What brings you to the Great Pacific Northwest?’

She shrugged. ‘I guess the Great Pacific Southwest finally got me down.’ Yes, she was all nervous tension, thrumming with it. I indicated the sofa, and sat in an armchair facing her. I was thinking that Labor Day had just passed; at any minute, if not right now, girls of this age should be going back to school for those all-important final semesters. After Labor Day the beaches and forests fall silent again; no sound but the sigh of plastic waste, indestructible tons of it, blown by the winds of autumn.

She was looking around my apartment. ‘Nice.’

It’s the top floor of one of those Victorian houses, expertly updated and pleasantly furnished with comfortable and not incongruous things; it has a wondrous view across the Columbia to the hills of Washington State on the far side: four miles away, it’s a big river. But when youngsters say ‘nice’ you can be pretty sure it’s not just politeness; she probably meant ‘big’ – it does have three bedrooms. So I was ready when she added, ‘We stopped over in Medford last night – why can’t I ever fall asleep in motels?’

Obviously this was my cue to say, ‘Do you want to stay here? Who’s we?’

‘He’s a darling, you’ll love him.’

‘I only have one spare bed, the other room’s strictly junk.’

‘We can share a bed.’

‘Not in my house, you can’t, your parents would kill me.’

She laughed. ‘Nick’s gay, we often share beds.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Parking the car.’ This was some kind of evasion – it doesn’t take that long to park in Astoria: an evasion and part of her nervousness.

‘He’s A-OK. Really. HIV negative, everything.’ And then, a schoolgirl: ‘Actually he’s my best friend.’ There are times when you can’t help loving them, even when they’re conning you. And I must say it was nice just looking at her; she wore her naturally fair hair in a longish bob, so that it fell over one eye and had to be removed from time to time; I also noticed that she’d taken the trouble to use a little cologne, a little lipstick and powder, before bearding uncle in his den.

It seemed high time I asked after her parents.

‘They’re OK, I guess. He’s going to direct that Revisions thing.’ She was talking about Revisions of Life, bestseller, bad like most of them, much admired, much touted as the movie of next year. I said, ‘Good for him. Probably get himself another Oscar.’

‘Rob Railton’s playing the lead. They went to this dinner party and it threw them ass-wise, everybody screaming about the Railtons and their adopted baby – hear about that?’

‘Kind of.’ Robert Railton was the current hunk actor, drooled over by women and teenagers. His wife couldn’t conceive, or so they said; others were of the opinion that he couldn’t sire, but you don’t air that kind of opinion about the current hunk.

‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘this dinner party went berserk because they’d been on some talk show, Robert and Grace, and the guy asked when were they going to tell the boy he was adopted. I mean, Jeeze! He’s only like eighteen months old.’

‘Talk-show hosts aren’t paid to think.’

‘They both said never, and that’s what started the big argument over dinner. People saying the kid had to be told some time, others saying of course not. And then a lot of crap about what age do you tell him – like sixteen with the driver’s license or is that too late?’ The deep blue eyes found mine. ‘Well, the fat was in the fire, know what I mean?’

I didn’t, but kept quiet.

‘They took me out next night. Vince’s. It’s my favorite place – they hate it, so I … kind of wondered.’ She put both elbows on her knees and both fists under her jaw, and the hair fell forward, hiding her face. ‘Did you know?’

‘Did I know what?’

‘He isn’t my father.’

‘Say that again.’

She sighed. ‘Your brother isn’t my father. They took me to Vince’s to tell me. I guess they thought it would be easier than just the three of us sitting around a table at home. It’s been worrying them for years.’ A woeful grimace. ‘Seventeen years, wouldn’t you know.’

I said, ‘Jesus Christ! Marisa, are you sure?’

‘Sure I’m sure, they told me right there over the eggs Benedict.’ She jumped up from the sofa and went to the window. ‘Why couldn’t they keep quiet? Why did they have to go to that stupid dinner party?’

Myself, I felt it made no difference whether she was my brother’s child or not: he loved her, he’d loved her all her life. But I wasn’t seventeen years old, and I wasn’t the child in question. Naturally I imagined that this revelation was the cause of her desperate uneasiness. I’m afraid I was being simplistic; we were in what you might call a multi-layered situation. She said, ‘It’s OK, I’m not going to bawl. I did all that.’

‘When did they tell you, Marisa?’

‘Thursday.’

Thursday, four days ago. ‘Have you been away from home five days?’

She was staring out at where the view would have been if it hadn’t been obscured by driving rain and an early cloud-sodden twilight. She shook her head. ‘No. I stuck around till yesterday morning; I guess I was in shock. And Dad … Jack was so sweet, like he always is. He tried … tried to explain how they felt, but who wants explanations?’ She swung around to face me again, and even if she’d already done the bawling, tears weren’t far away. ‘Oh God, I know he loves me, I know they both do, so why the hell couldn’t they both keep their mouths shut?’

I understood her anger and her emotion, but plain old adult practicality made me ask, ‘Marisa, do they know where you are?’

‘No. And you mustn’t tell them. Don’t look like that, Will – please, please don’t tell them I’m here.’

‘They’ll be worried sick.’

‘That makes three of us.’ A flash of rebellion. Obviously prevarication was called for: ‘OK, I won’t tell them right now – which is what I ought to do.’

‘Not ever.’ She sounded like herself at eleven. It’s a strange age, seventeen, balanced on the seesaw of growing up.

I said, ‘You know that’s not fair.’

‘Was telling me fair?’

‘I don’t know. It was honest.’

‘Oh, honest … shit! Anyone can be honest, it’s so damn easy, and it’s a killer.’

Back went the seesaw. Where did she get that kind of knowledge? Honesty as killer – and in my experience it often is.

She turned away from the window which the wind was trying to turn inside out. ‘When they told me … it was kind of weird. My mind stopped, I mean it actually wouldn’t go forward and it wouldn’t go back.’

‘Like a clogged drain.’

‘Exactly. And then … I guess somebody poured in the Drano, and I began to think again, I saw what I had to do. I must know, Will, I must find out.’

That was understandable. Knowing probably wouldn’t matter much in the end, could be dismissed; not knowing mattered like hell and could never be dismissed. So that was why she had appeared out of the storm on my doorstep, and in a jangling state of nerves.

‘Just … Oh, just meet him. Once. Kind of … feel his genes in me, know what I mean?’

Yes. Difficult enough when you’re young to discover who and what you are without a great mystery, a black hole, hanging over your head. ‘And you think you’ll find him up here?’

‘I know it. I haven’t just sat around since Thursday, I’ve been Sherlocking.’