On the second floor of this environment, at the end of a long, dim corridor, lived Amy Harper. The floor creaked with every step and the walls were thin. I could hear people talking—in one room shouting— as I walked past the doors and stopped at 218.
Be there, I thought, and I knocked.
She was: I could hear her move inside. Soft footsteps came at me and a soft voice asked who I was. I said I was a friend of Eleanor’s.
She opened the door and looked at me through a narrow crack. I could see a chain looped across the crack, a little piece of false security she had probably bought and installed herself. A man like me could break it with one kick, long before she had time to get the door closed.
“I’m sorry, who are you?”
“My name’s Janeway, I’m a friend of Eleanor’s.”
For a moment she didn’t know what to do. I got the feeling she’d have opened the door if she’d been there alone. But I could hear a baby crying and I knew she was thinking about her children.
“Crystal gave me your address,” I said, and at that she decided to let me in.
It was just what I’d expected—a one-room crib with a battered couch that pulled out and became a bed; a table so scarred by old wars and sweating bottles that you couldn’t tell what color it had been; two pallets for the children; a kitchenette with a gas stove and an old refrigerator; a bathroom the size of a telephone booth. There was one good chair: she had been sitting in it, reading a paperback. Stephen King, the grand entertainer of his time. God bless Stephen King when you couldn’t afford a TV.
She had been nursing the baby: she still held it in the crook of her arm. Her left breast had soaked through the faded blouse she wore. She covered it, draping a towel over her shoulder, excusing herself to put the child in the pallet next to the other one. “So, hi,” she said with a cheery smile as she stood and brushed back a wisp of red hair. Crystal had called her a sweet kid and the adjective seemed just right. Amy Harper had.the sweetest face I’d ever seen on a girl. You looked at her and saw a young woman who wanted to love you.
She couldn’t offer much—a cup of instant decaf or a diet Coke maybe—but her manners were alive and well. I let her fix me some coffee, mainly because she seemed to want to. She went into the kitchenette, stand-up room for only one, and turned on the gas. “So how is Eleanor?” she called back across the room. Apparently they had not been in touch.
“Actually she’s not so good,” I said, sitting on the chair where she had been. “She seems to’ve disappeared on us.”
She looked out of the kitchen, her face drawn and suddenly pale.
“I’m trying to find her.”
“What’re you, some kind of detective?”
“Some kind of one. Crystal hoped you could help us.”
“If I could, God, you know I would. I haven’t got a clue where she might be. Just a minute, this water’s boiling.”
I heard the sounds of water pouring and the tinkle of a spoon stirring in the coffee crystals. She came out with two steaming cups, insisting that I stay in the chair. She sat on the floor against the wall and looked at me through the steam rising from her cup.
“I haven’t got a clue,” she said again.
“When was the last time you saw her, or heard from her?”
“Haven’t seen her in…must be more than a month ago.”
“Any mail from her…cards, letters…anything?”
“No, nothing.”
“I’m looking for one letter in particular. I’m not sure if it’s had time to be delivered yet. She may’ve mailed it Friday night.”
“To me, you mean?”
“We don’t know. Crystal thinks that’s a possibility.”
“Probably come tomorrow then.”
“If it does, would you let me see it?”
“Yeah, sure, if it’ll help; I’ll do anything I can.”
We sipped our coffee: I could see her running it all through her mind.
“If she mailed something to me, it probably wouldn’t come here. I haven’t seen her since I moved into town. She’d send it out to my mamma’s place in Snoqualmie.”
“Could we ride out there and see?”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll have to take off from work…my boss is a little touchy about that…I’ll just tell him I’m taking off. If he fires me, he fires me.”
“I don’t want you to get fired. Maybe I could go check the mail for you.”
She shook her head. “No, I want to go too. You’ve got me worried. Jesus, I hope she didn’t hurt herself again.”
“Crystal said you were special friends.”
I saw a tremor of feeling ripple through her. “Oh, yeah. She’s like my soul mate. I don’t mean…”
I knew what she didn’t mean. She said, “We were just great together, all through grade school, then high school. We were inseparable. If I wasn’t sleeping over there, she was over with my mamma and me. We’d sit in our rooms and talk about boys, and the drudgery of life at Mount Success.”
She gave a sad little laugh. “That’s what we used to call Mt. Si High—Mount Success—because so many of the people who went there seemed to go nowhere afterward. They just stayed in that little town forever. I never understood that, but now I do. Here I am in the big city and all I want is to get back home.”
“Why don’t you? It’s only twenty-five miles.”
“It’s a lot farther than that.” She shrugged. “I had to get out of there. My ex lives there and he’s bad news. If I went back, he’d just hassle me.”
“Crystal said you and Eleanor had drifted apart, then got together again.”
“The drifting was my fault. I married a guy who was a jerk. Want some more coffee?”
“Sure.”
She got up, poured, came back, sat. “That’s the first time I ever said that. My husband was a jerk. There, maybe now I can get rid of it. He was a grade-A heel.” She laughed. “Hey, it feels better all the time. Maybe if I call him what he really was, I’ll be good as new. Wouldn’t be very ladylike, though.”
I let her talk.
“Ellie tried to tell me what he was like, that’s why we almost lost it. I didn’t want to hear that. But the whole time I was married to this fella, and carrying his children, he was trying to make it with my best friend. What do you do with a guy like that?”
“You leave him.”
“Yeah. And here I am, bringing up my children in this palace. Working in a bar and giving most of my money to the day-care people. Wonderful, huh? But I’ll get through it.”
I leaned forward, the coffee cup clasped between my hands, warming them. “Amy, I don’t have any doubt of that at all.”
She smiled that sweet smile. I thought of Rosie Drimeld, the lighthearted heroine of Cakes and Ale . Maugham would’ve loved this one.
“The great thing about Ellie, though,” she said, “is, she never let it bother her. The hard feelings were all on my side.”
“But you got over it.”
“Yes, thank God. Even an ignoramus sees the light if it’s shined right in her face.”
“And Crystal said you two got together again and patched it up.”
“My mamma died. Ellie came to the funeral and we cried and hugged and it was all over, just like that. Then I found that stuff of hers…”
She looked away, as if she’d touched on something she shouldn’t be talking about.
“What stuff?”
“Just some things my mamma had.”
“Things…of Eleanor’s?”
“Not exactly. Just…stuff. Papers in Mamma’s stuff…it really isn’t anything.”
I felt a tingle along my backbone. “Tell me about it.”
“I can’t. I promised.”
I looked straight into her eyes. “Amy, whatever you tell me, I’ll try not to let it out. That’s all I can promise you, but this may be important.”
Her eyes were green: her face radiated hope, her eyes searched for trust. But she was also a child of this planet who had begun to learn that you can’t trust everyone.