City of Masks by Daniel Hecht Read Free Book Online Page A

Janet shrugged."C'mon. Help me close this barn down."
    They gathered their things. Cree tagged along as her mother returned the score sheets and clock controls to her office, then checked the bathrooms, the locker rooms, the basement. They turned off lights as they went.
    "Oh, I meant to ask you. I was hoping you could come with me to the cardiologist. Talk through the procedure with my doctor and me, the recovery and so on. Help me get the medications straight - you know how I am, I - "
    "I'll go with you if you want me to. But I can't make promises about the cardiologist. Even if he is good-looking."
    Janet smiled as they came back into the gym, dazzlingly bright after the back hall. "Damn Dee anyway."
    "You want to go out for something to eat? Or we could go to your house and I'll fix that salmon - "
    "You know I just want you to . . ." Janet petered out. At a loss, she gestured at the big bright space, the purity and simplicity of it, all the good ghosts. Embrace life, she probably wanted to say. Find something like this. But she just came up with, ". . . be happy."
    "I know."
    They got to the front hall. Janet unlocked the switch cover and cut the gym lights and then the hall lights. The building was dark now and somehow much bigger. They went out onto the front steps, where Janet shoved the doors shut and checked them with a hard yank.
    The sky was deep purple velvet, the street a harder dark pierced with blue streetlights and the metallic reflections of parked cars. Halfway down the block an SUV with a dead black windshield crouched, motor idling, just its parking lights on. The city made an encompassing whisper, a vast vacuum of white noise.
    "Mom," Cree began.
    "Mm-hm?"
    "I love it in the gym. With all the people there. All the noise and distraction."
    "It's not 'distraction,' Cree - "
    "But let me ask you something. Can I?"
    "Cree, it's not 'distraction.' It's called 'life'. If I push at you sometimes, it's because I want you to enjoy it. I'm sorry i f - "
    "Mom, how do you feel right now? With the lights off, the gym all dark. If I wasn't here right now, and you were going to go out into the dark and go home alone as you usually do. As strong?"
    "Well, this is not the safest neighborhood in Seattle . . . an older woman, alone, naturally I - "
    "Not that part."
    They were still standing in the pool of light at the top of the stairs. Janet looked up at Cree. "You mean, am I like the older waiter in that Hemingway story? 'Nada y nada y pues nadd? A little, probably. Sure. So what? 'It is only insomnia, many must have it.' Or however it goes." She snorted.
    "I'mjust saying, see, this is what /need to look at, this side. This set of feelings, you know? That's what I need to figure out. I don't want to fear it. I don't want to ignore it, or pretend it's less important than . . . back in there. That's all." Hearing herself, Cree realized she was too serious, too urgent. She'd turned this visit into one of those cloaked good-byes.
    Janet didn't answer for a moment, just stood looking up at her, concerned. After a while, she grinned a tight, small grin, to show she accepted the point, she got it. Mom always got it. She sighed. "What I don't understand is why you come to me as some kind of. . . oracle if you're not going to listen to what I tell you. And I'm no good at being a damned oracle anyway."
    "I don't come to you as my oracle, Mom."
    "What then?"
    "Hmm. More of a good luck charm. My lucky talisman. Gotta rub up against you once in a while." Cree took her arm and hugged it against her side.
    That seemed to please her. She shook her head, confounded. "What is it with mothers and daughters?"
    Cree shrugged. "Beats me."
    Janet tugged her toward the steps. "Okay. So I'm full of shit for the cardiologist caper. So take me home and let's eat something. If you promise to be a good girl, I'll tell you some other scandalous tales about your father. Deal?"
    Cree wondered what it cost her to treat of him so easily, so cheerfully.