Huh? I say. Is that the plan? That don’t sound promising.
No, he says. That’s not it. But I want you to see how this works from the inside out. We’ve got good news. The husband has been eyeing early retirement. Says he and his wife may sell the house and move out of state.
Thinking or doing? I say.
Buying and selling is one big narrative and you have to realize if you’re at the start, rising in the action, have reached the climax, or are falling towards a denouement. That’s what I told them, and the good thing is, they’re listening. The trick will be convincing them that this is the perfect time in their story to sell.
How are we supposed to do that? I say.
Here’s another helpful bit of intrigue, Jude says. As it turns out he has family from the town over from my hometown. You’d think that stuff wouldn’t make a difference, but, bud, it all makes a difference.
My pager goes off. It’s a number I don’t know. A number I won’t answer. A number I won’t be calling back.
I’d love it if you could spell it out in plain English, I say.
There’s a true opportunity, Jude says. But I have to tell you. It’s hard as heck to be convincing without talking concrete figures. My question to you is, are you ready to talk numbers?
He quotes me what he thinks I’ll need to make as an offer they’ll accept, and shit, if my pressure was stroke-high a second ago, it’s got to have shot up near cardiac arrest. The number would be beyond my means if the hustle gods blessed me with a string of solid gold licks, but figure in what I lost and what I owe and believemewhenitellyou it may as well be the payoff for the fucking national debt. I tell Jude what I think I can raise, though in truth it’s about double what I believe within reach. I ask if we can make the down payment in cash.
Cash! he says. So you’re a cash guy? I love cash. Cash rules. But, bud, I’m afraid we can’t very well hand the owners a bundle of hundreds and fifties. We’d have to find another way to transact, money orders or a cashier’s check or some such. Let me think on it a bit. Jude don’t bother to ask where the money might come from — and let’s all call this benevolence.
Do we have a shot? I say. A real shot?
Of course. Of course. Don’t worry, with what you quoted we should be good, and if they ask for more, it shouldn’t be by much..
What about how much you want to do the deal? I say.
We can figure my fee later, he says. We’ll get a deal with them in place first.
Jude says sometime soon we should check out at least a few other properties, that he’d love to show me his neighborhood, his new place. He lives in Beaverton, and why oh why am I not surprised? There can’t be a swath of my fair city even a scintilla more befitting of a homogenous middle-aged white man.
You got it, I say.
We shake and he shows me out. I totter across the street with a math problem for a brain. Right, so oddsmakers there’s a forever source of ways this deal could fail, but as I said for my family, for all of us, I can’t let this dream defer, won’t let it fall apart. I glance back at Jude, and his chubby mug is lit with mirth.
Chapter 43
Do you understand?
We meet outside of Andrew’s.
Champ shows with his brothers, my babies, who I haven’t seen since I went out to Kenny’s place, and I don’t know what they’ve been told. They sit and I sit and for a moment it’s a schism that can’t be breached. I get out of the Honda first — this is what mothers do — and gaze at my babies through the back window of Champ’s car, see them from the neck up, dark caps cocked sideways and bright tops. Canaan climbs out first and then KJ. They haste over and crush me in a double hug. Meanwhile, Andrew strolls out of the house onto his porch. His potbelly presses against his shirt; gray stubble speckles his bald head. He looks like a father, that he should’ve been my father, that he will be if he isn’t now. He slinks off the porch and over to us. Well what a surprise, he says. So I guess you were all itchin to visit old granddad, he says. Or is something else?
Something else, I say. A family outing. We’re going out to Multnomah Falls. Where we haven’t been since God knows.
Now, there’s a great day in the works, he says. He straightens the boys’ hats and asks what’s new, if they’ve been misbehaving, and the boys answer in voices too low to be believed, the pitch of my speech when the truth isn’t holding it up. Champ pops out and says hello to Andrew over the roof. Andrew mentions something to me about court, says we need to talk later.
Guess I should let you all get going, he says. If memory serves me correct, it’s crowded up there this time of year. You guys have a blast and be safe up there near the water, he says, and backs onto the lawn.
We load up. I give KJ the front seat so I can sit in the back with my baby. Andrew stands in the grass and waves good-bye.
Champ takes the busy streets to the eastbound on-ramp. We pass 33rd, 42nd, 82nd, 102nd, 122nd … farther, he lowers the music to white noise and tells the boys that when we get where we’re going, they best act like they got some sense. For a time after that, there either isn’t enough to say or is too much to say, as we ride with the wind no more than a hum through the sunroof’s angled slit.
This feels as if we could ride to the next morning, ride right on until we reach the next coming. We cruise easy along 84 East. We get out to where for stretches and stretches they raise the posted speed limit. Out where semis think they own the road, where a camper hogs two lanes. We wheel by a four-by-four tugging a winched boat, blow past a long trailer hauling a manufactured home, past roadkill and a fat tire blown to shreds, past a car stranded on the side of the road with a man kneeling near a fender. We go farther, through the Gorge, highway flanked by the river on one side, woods on the other. I reach over the seat and touch KJ to see if he’s asleep. I snug next to my youngest, see a car float past with a bumper sticker that says BLESSED TO BE ALIVE. There’s a tiny stretch on this trip that’s a place between places. Canaan, mouth hung, nods on my shoulder and catches himself and rights. You gonna be there, right? he says.
Be where, baby? I say.
There, he says. In court.
KJ twists around. Yeah, dummy, he says.
No one in this car is a dummy, I say.
Mom, do you know what will happen? Canaan says. What they gone have us do?
Nothing you don’t want to, I say. I promise you that.
The car goes quiet and I close my eyes and drift. When I open them, there’s a sign ahead that says the falls is next exit.
Out front there’s a welcome sign and a paved lot and today must be the day. Trucks and buses and cars and vans and SUVs — all colors. License plates from Oregon and across the bridge, California tags, states farther east. We hunt lanes and luck upon a van pulling out to leave. My boys, awakening, slink behind me through the maze of cars to where you can first see the lodge. There’s a crowd gathered, and we huddle a good distance away while a guide trumpets instructions. The space clears, and I make the boys read the sign that list facts about the falls. That it’s the second tallest year-round falls in the country, that it’s fed by underground springs, that this time of year it flows its highest, that millions visit each year, that it’s such and such feet to the falls’ peak.
Before we start, I announce the rules: No horseplay, no hiking off alone. If one makes it up, we all do. And your mama’s making it, I say. So we all will. Champ takes the lead when we get on the trail, complains within steps of scuffing his new tan boots. My youngest boys fight the incline in matching black tenny shoes, while I caboose it in the flattest flats I own. In flats I hope are flat enough. Farther up my knees and back are signing pay back, and this mist is turning my hair to shriveled knots. My boys and me among a trickle climbing as singles and couples, the smart ones trekking wary of the slick spots hard to see until it’s too late.