“Take your shower. I’ll uncork some wine,” Henry said.
Ten minutes later Deirdre was in her bathroom. When the water was hot enough, she peeled off her shirt and pants and underwear and stepped into the shower, holding on to the grab bar that her parents had had installed after her accident. Smoke-scented steam filled the air as she shampooed her hair and soaped her body, then closed her eyes, letting the water pulse against her back. She couldn’t help thinking about what she’d find when she went up to her father’s office in the light of day and took in the destruction.
She stepped out of the shower, dried off, and put on clean underpants—her last pair—and one of her father’s soft chambray shirts, the tail of which grazed the backs of her knees. Then she scooped her clothing from the floor and carried it out to the little back room off the kitchen. She was about to stuff her pants into the washing machine when she noticed a piece of paper sticking out of the pocket. She eased it out. Staring back at her from the faded snapshot was the ghost image of Joelen Nichol, on her knees in front of the window in Deirdre’s father’s office. The other Polaroid snapshots of young aspiring actresses had probably gone up in smoke.
Henry was right. Joelen did not look unhappy. Far from it. The corners of her mouth were curled in a bemused Mona Lisa smile, as if she were taking the photographer’s measure every bit as much as he was taking hers.
MONDAY,
May 26, 1985
Chapter 22
Before dawn, the heat broke with a crash of thunder. Deirdre had fallen asleep nearly the instant her head hit the pillow, leaving the glass of wine Henry poured for her untouched on the bedside table.
She lay awake, the quilt pulled up to her chin, listening to the steady thrum of rain. Her stomach turned queasy as she imagined water pouring into her father’s office through the damaged roof and windows. Hope grew fainter by the minute that any of her father’s papers could be salvaged.
When the rain let up and the sky lightened to gunmetal gray, she got out of bed. It was barely six. She pulled on her extra pair of dark leggings. In the closet she found a pair of once soft, now stiff fringed suede boots that she’d worn in college. She put them on and looked in the mirror. With her father’s long work shirt, now wrinkled; her wild hair; and those boots, all she needed was a flower painted on her cheek and love beads.
In the living room, she found the flashlight that she’d used the night before and let herself out through the sliding glass door. The tip of her crutch left the lawn punctuated with a trail of tiny puddles of standing water.
The door to the garage was open, and the base of the staircase up to her father’s office was dark. Even though Deirdre knew the electricity wasn’t working, she tried the switch. When nothing happened, she turned on the flashlight and climbed the steps, pushing off with her crutch from each riser and taking shallow breaths of rank, smoky air.
She couldn’t remember whether she’d locked the door to her father’s office when she’d stormed off yesterday, her anger boiling over at the pictures her father had taken. It was ajar when she reached the top of the stairs. Swelled with moisture, the door creaked when she pushed it open. At least the firefighters hadn’t had to break it down.
Her father’s office was a monochromatic, ash-coated gray as daylight seeped in through empty window frames that would soon have to be boarded over. A section of ceiling had collapsed, and the floor was blackened where the fire had burned through from beneath. Several file cabinet drawers hung open, their contents strewn across the floor in a sodden mess.
But not everything had been damaged. The cover on the electric typewriter was barely singed, and the pullout couch was soaked but not burned at all. For the next hour, Deirdre worked her way around the room, sticking to the edges for safety’s sake, taking a mental inventory of what had survived and what had not, prioritizing what she’d deal with after the insurance adjuster had assessed the damage. Everything on the bookshelves on one wall had been burned, and the shelves themselves had come down. But the shelves on the opposite wall were still in place. The first book she pulled down from one of those shelves was wet but probably salvageable.
Anything left in the middle of the floor had been reduced to cinders. Deirdre poked her crutch into the floorboards, carefully testing, before she shifted her weight and moved closer. The spines of the Players Directories had survived, but the pages were curled into ashes, oddly beautiful, like petals of a fragile, slate gray rose. One of the cigar boxes had survived, as had Arthur’s Chasen’s ashtray.
Deirdre crouched and reached across with her crutch to nudge the ashtray closer. Several marbles, disturbed by the crutch, rolled over as well. She examined them closely: they weren’t marbles at all, but equal-sized turquoise beads, all of them blackened on one side. Poking around, she found more. Eight in all. She dropped them into her pocket.
Finally, Deirdre circled around to the closet door. It hung open a few inches, and Deirdre suspected that the firefighters had looked in the closet for a victim. The wood had swelled so much that she could barely wrench it the rest of the way open. Moisture and smoky stink seemed to have settled in the interior. There was the plastic bag, sitting where she’d left it.
She took out the bag, shaking off the moisture that had pooled on top. Opening it, she shined the light inside. The dress that was bundled around the knife was unscathed.
It was only later, when she’d left her father’s office and was feeling her way down the dark stairway, carrying away with her the plastic bag, that she started to wonder: Why would firefighters have taken it upon themselves to open and empty out file drawers? Because, as far as she knew, she’d been the last person to set foot in her father’s office before the fire, and she was certain that she’d left every one of the file drawers closed with its files intact.
Chapter 23
Baby and Bear greeted Deirdre as she crossed the yard. Henry opened the sliding glass door for her. It was just eight o’clock.
“What are you doing up?” Deirdre asked. She smelled coffee.
Henry held his finger to his lips and whispered, “What were you doing up in Dad’s office?”
“Why are we whispering?” she whispered back.
“Mom’s here.”
“Mom?” Deirdre followed his gaze toward the kitchen. So she’d finally shown up.
“What were you doing up there?” Henry grabbed her arm. “You couldn’t wait until after the insurance adjuster—”
She wrenched free. “Henry, I needed to see. Turns out Dad’s file cabinets are open and papers are all over the floor. Someone’s been up there.”
“The firefighters were up there.”
“Throwing around his files? How likely is that?”
“And what’s that?” He was looking at the plastic bag that held the yellow dress and the knife.
Deirdre ignored the question and headed for her bedroom. She dumped the bag in the back of her closet, then closed herself in the bathroom and washed her hands and face, trying to erase the smell of smoke that clung to her like a second skin.
When she emerged, she recognized a new smell. Bacon? That seemed impossible; her mother had long ago given up eating meat. Deirdre’s stomach rumbled anyway. She was starving. She headed for the kitchen.
From the back Deirdre recognized the slender figure standing at the stove, wearing a saffron-colored turban, loose-fitting cotton pants, and a linen top. “Hi, Mom.”
Her mother turned around, fork in her hand. The turban framed her pale, shiny face, the skin stretched taut. She tilted her head and gave a sympathetic smile. “Hello, darling.” Crow’s-feet fanned at the corners of her eyes.
Deirdre said, “I’m glad you came.”
“Of course I came. I’m sorry it took so long. I had car trouble. And then . . .” Her mother put down the fork and turned off the burner. She approached Deirdre and placed a warm hand on the side of her face. “Well, never mind my woes. It’s nothing compared to what’s been going on around here.” She fingered the collar of the chambray shirt that had been Arthur’s and her eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry about Daddy. I know you must be very sad, too.”