Glynnis convinced him to allow her to continue selling the vials, which she did, and once their former stocks were exhausted, she got him to contact his old partners and other colleagues to replenish their supplies. It wasn’t long before the linens service turned into a special-delivery scheme, Quig himself at the wheel of the van with Glynnis and a former veterinary assistant named Ricky bringing the “linens” to many of the most exclusive residential lanes of their village. For Charters, we all know, relish their wine and spirits, frankly in many cases to the point of dependence, and it followed that the prevailing thin trade in illicit pills and powders and herbs had much room for expansion. They’re so busy, so focused as a lot, seeing everything they tackle in work or leisure as an opportunity for personal “leveraging,” that their tightly compacted psyches require regular and deep unwinding. The vial business boomed, the level akin to when an enterprising fellow in B-Mor marketed a scientifically formulated “synaptic-booster” cookie for our school kids to eat before the annual Exams (which turned out to be simply full of caffeine), the money piling up so fast, in fact, that they were planning to repurchase their old condo, though they couldn’t quite figure out how to pay for it aside from using hard cash, which is all they had.
If this brief period was not exactly a golden time for their family, it was certainly a heady stretch, when Glynnis and Quig (and even Trish, who didn’t know really anything of what was going on, save that her parents and especially her mother seemed much happier) could imagine themselves to be making the climb back into their life, reinstating their tennis club membership, renting a proper non-service-people’s condo, and traveling for the regional finals of the beauty pageant to a major Charter village on Lake Erie, where they stayed in a double suite at the best hotel with views of the water and a king-sized bed for Trish as well as for them, their splurging a way to spend the hard cash for sure but also to suppress the gaining feeling of impermanence that must have been marking their days, each sweet moment tinged dire.
It happened this way: Glynnis was making up Trish’s face and hair, and Quig was on a call with Ricky back home going over the heavy weekend orders when the line seemed to buzz. The suite door burst open, an angry platoon of midnight-blue-clad Charter security rushing in with their powered batons. Quig instinctively resisted and they shocked him nearly senseless, and they jolted Glynnis, too, when she tried to pull them off him. All the while Trish was screaming in horror and confusion in her lustrous dress that would get badly torn in the melee. They were flown back to their village and on Ricky’s testimony, Quig and Glynnis were tried and convicted. Within a week, the family was forever banished from the Charter, allowed only what they could fit into their wagon (less the confiscated cash) as their worldly estate.
Here was the point at which Fan’s knowledge of his past life ended, Penelope having gone no further in her postmeal tellings, and as they drove on, she found herself filling in possible details and events that had followed, glancing at Quig’s faraway glare and imagining what he must have been compelled to see, and possibly do, to arrive at this place in time. Had he witnessed the last moments of his wife and daughter? Had he killed a person, or two? Fan, being raised in our fashion, was not given to probing into others’ lives, at least not face-to-face, and so it was startling that she asked him right there, straight out, whether he could let her see a picture of his family on his handscreen.
He didn’t acknowledge her, or maybe he did; all the color had rushed out of his face. The muscles of his jaw were clenching, and now he worked the slow turns of a curvy descent with two hands instead of one. Of course, he knew people at the compound speculated about his past but gave no quarter.
If you don’t want to it’s okay, Fan said.
What’s it to you? he asked her, his voice, to her surprise, full of echo and ache.
I was just wondering, she said, which we must believe was the case. He must have, too, and not just because like everyone else he thought she was younger than she was. Fan was not one to say things for her advantage, even out there in the counties. Often she remained silent, but when she did speak, it seemed only forthright and sincere, which is why people responded to her in the way they did.
There was a long silence when only Loreen’s faint snoring could be heard.
But then he said: Yesterday was her birthday.
Your daughter’s?
He nodded.
How old would she be?
He gave a sighing half chuckle, like he wasn’t quite accepting the turn of this conversation, or maybe that it was happening at all.
And yet he offered: Twenty-five. Maybe just about to be married.
From the side of his sunglasses Fan could see his eyes, searching the empty road, blinking steadily.
Penelope told us she was a very pretty girl. With many talents, too.
That’s right, he said, the idea of this seeming to crumple him inside, the points of his shoulders collapsing just that bit. That’s right. After a while, he touched his handscreen in the compartment of the middle console and some classical music came on. It was a viola concerto by Bach, he told her, a piece his daughter was beginning to play quite well.
Was she going to perform it for the pageant?
He asked if Penelope had told her about all that and she nodded.
She was, he said. She wasn’t a prodigy like some of the girls but she was very good. She had a fine ear. And she played with real enthusiasm, like she was enjoying it. The judges always appreciated that.
There are no pageants in B-Mor.
I suppose not, he said. Can you do anything special?
I can swim.
That’s what I hear. You were a tank diver.
Yes. I can hold my breath for a long time.
Really?
Yes.
How long?
A while.
Show me.
She took a round of slow, deep breaths to prime her lungs and then she took a last one in and closed her mouth. She pinched her nose so he could see she wasn’t cheating. At first he kept his eye on the road like he wasn’t paying attention but soon enough he had unconsciously slowed down, waiting for the moment she would crack. But she just sat there, totally composed, the coloring in her face unchanging; in fact, it looked like she was about to fall asleep. He ordered her to stop. She couldn’t quite hear him, or at least immediately react, as she had entered that state whenever she was in the tanks a long time and aligned with the underwater rhythms, that quelled, half-alive feeling that was neither frightening nor fraught but rather strangely liberating, for the wanting of nothing, not even air.
Stop it now, she heard him say from an outer orbit, that’s enough, yet she was fine, not even close to done, and she was notching herself down another rung when he slapped her face.
I said that’s enough, he barked. Loreen momentarily roused but nothing else was spoken and she fell back to her dreams. He was pushing the car faster now. He was breathing fast himself, like he was running and running. Fan touched her cheekbone, more startled than scared. He hadn’t hit her hard but he had scraped her eye slightly and it was tearing and she dabbed it with her T-shirt sleeve.
You all right? he said after a pause, though not looking at her.
Yes, I’m fine.
You’re a good girl, he said, if sorrowfully.
Thank you.
Listen, do you want to drive again?