The Town Read online

  But something had happened to her since they’d moved to McGuane. She was even bitchier—if that was possible—but there’d also been a deeper, more fundamental change. A change in the things she liked, the way she acted, the people she hung around with—her entire outlook on life. It was as if she was purposely trying to be exactly the kind of person their parents did not want her to be, as if all of her upbringing had suddenly been tossed out the window.

  He was ashamed to say that he liked the new Sasha better.

  Adam thought of that quick glimpse up her skirt.

  I like ’em long.

  He kept his books pressed hard in front of him as he walked.

  He got home well before his sister did and explained to his mom why he was late. He’d been expecting a big lecture—she usually freaked out about stuff like this—but apparently she’d lost track of time, too, and she hadn’t really noticed he was not on time until he told her. He took advantage of this rare occurrence, apologized and said it wouldn’t happen again, and quickly ran upstairs.

  Sasha’s door was closed, as usual, but he decided to take a chance and tried the knob. Locked. It was what he’d expected, but he was disappointed nonetheless, and he was turning back toward his own bedroom when he saw, on the hall floor next to the hamper that stood beside the bathroom door, what looked like a pair of panties.

  Red panties.

  Sasha’s panties.

  He hurried over and, sure enough, his sister’s underwear had spilled out from the overflowing hamper and was lying wadded up next to the plastic container on the uncarpeted hardwood floor.

  He didn’t even think about it but looked quickly around, bent over, scooped the panties up and retreated into his bedroom.

  2

  The tyranny of a small town.

  If he had been a writer, he could have used it as the title of a book. As it was, it would go the way of most ideas and observations, becoming nothing, not even a memory, forgotten after a few moments of consideration.

  But it was a valid concept, Gregory thought as he watched a trio of almost identically clad men emerge from the cab of a pickup. All of the men were wearing Wrangler jeans, with a telltale white circle on the right rear pocket, indicating where they kept their cans of chewing tobacco. All had on western shirts. Cowboys. They even walked with a similar swagger, and he watched as they entered the bar, laughing together at some private joke.

  He remembered, all during his childhood, wanting to be like everyone else, feeling the pressure to fit in, wishing his parents talked with a Texas twang rather than a Russian accent. There had been a lot of Molokans in town then, and almost as many Mormons, but while there had not been a lot of overt prejudice, he had still felt the desire to blend in, to not be different, to assimilate into Arizona culture.

  And things seemed to have gotten worse since then.

  He supposed it was because McGuane was becoming more homogeneous, the diversity of its past fading into history as younger Molokans moved away in search of better jobs and better lives. The residents here now seemed somehow less tolerant, even though examples of overt bigotry were much rarer than before.

  But conformity was all-important. Yesterday, he’d seen a young woman picking out baby clothes at the store. She’d intended to buy a red jumpsuit with the flags of different nations printed on both the front and the back, but when two of her acquaintances had stopped by and ridiculed her choice, she had instantly put the jumpsuit away and picked one that they liked.

  And it was not only such superficial aspects of life as fashion. The tendency toward conformity ran far deeper than that. For example, the bumper stickers that were so ubiquitous in California, trumpeting a driver’s support for a political candidate or cause, were nowhere to be found on McGuane vehicles because no one wanted to call attention to the fact that they might hold views and opinions different from those of their neighbors.

  Was that going to happen to his kids? Had he uprooted them for nothing, merely exchanging the pressures of being hip and trendy for the pressures of conforming to the dictates of small-minded small-town rednecks?

  The thought depressed him.

  He sighed, staring at the door of the bar where the cowboys had walked in. He wondered what was wrong with him. He’d felt out of sorts lately, vaguely dissatisfied, though there was nothing he could put his finger on.

  He’d spent the better part of the afternoon wandering around, doing nothing. He could have gone home and asked Julia to come with him, but he wanted to be alone, and he passed from shop to shop, stopping in at the mining museum, walking over to the chamber of commerce, peering down at the pit, sitting for a spell on a bench in the park. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but whatever it was, he didn’t find it.

  He walked back up the street to the café. Or the coffeehouse, as it had been unofficially rechristened. The sign outside, the menus inside, and all of the ads still read “Mocha Joe’s Café,” but their new patrons had attempted to bestow big-city sophistication upon themselves, and nearly all of them now referred to the place as “the coffeehouse.”

  Wynona, the teenager working behind the counter, nodded at him as he walked in. “Hey, Gregory.”

  “Hey,” he said.

  It must be later than he thought. Wynona didn’t get off school until three, didn’t start her shift until three-thirty. He looked up at the clock above the counter.

  Four-ten.

  He’d been out wandering, wasting the day, since just after noon.

  But was he really “wasting” his day? Would anything else he might have done been any more worthwhile?

  No.

  He looked toward the small stage, saw Tad Pearson, a local would-be folksinger, pulling the cover off one of the microphones and starting to set up for tonight’s performance.

  Was he glad they’d moved? Was he happy here? Gregory was not sure. He was glad he’d quit his old job, and he certainly had plenty of things to keep him busy, plenty with which to occupy his time, but if he were to be totally honest with himself, the life of unending joy that he’d always thought would be his if he ever came into a large amount of money had not really materialized.

  The shine on his Bill Graham Jr. dream had also faded. He had indeed contacted some nationally known touring acts, but McGuane was so far away from any major center of population, that unless Mocha Joe’s was willing to fork over big bucks, it would be too cost-prohibitive for any of the acts to play here.

  So he was stuck with local bands and local musicians, and since he’d seen just about all of them now, even a few from as far away as Wilcox and Safford, he thought he could safely say that he wasn’t going to be discovering the next Beatles or even the next Hootie and the Blow-fish. There was still his plan to feature poetry, to try and find some legitimate cowboy poets to read their work, but even his hopes for success there had been considerably muted.

  Odd emerged from Paul’s office, carrying a section of sawed-off board and a toolbox so heavy it weighted him to the right. Odd always cheered him up, and he smiled as the old man twisted his body and walked sideways, grunting his complaints, in order to make it past the counter.

  “You could’ve just taken it out the back,” Gregory said. “It’d be a lot easier.”

  Odd looked up at him. “I’ve had about enough suggestions for one day. My truck’s out front, and that’s where I’m going.”

  Gregory met Wynona’s eyes, and she shrugged, moving to the opposite end of the counter.

  Gregory laughed. “You’re a bitter old buzzard, aren’t you?”

  The old man sighed, put down his toolbox. He put the wood on top of it and wiped the sweat from his face with both hands. “I suppose I am,” he admitted. “But you try working in that unair-conditioned little office for three hours and see if it don’t make you crabby as hell.”

  “Where’s Paul?”

  “Took off early today. Said he had some personal business to take care of. I think he’s coming back tonight, though. W
hy?”

  “Nothing. I was just wondering.” He walked over, picked up the wood from the top of the toolbox. “What kind of ‘personal business’?”

  Odd shrugged. “Not my place to wonder.”

  Gregory nodded, and the two of them walked through the café and outside to Odd’s dented old pickup.

  “You hangin’ around for the show?” Odd asked.

  Gregory shook his head. “I just thought I’d stop by for a second, see what’s happening before heading home.”

  The old man looked back toward the open door of the cafe then leaned in closer. “Between you and me, I don’t think that Pearson boy’s got much of a future in show biz.”

  “I’d have to go along with you there.”

  “What do people like him do it for? Get up there and humiliate themselves like that? You know his buddies at the title company are bound to be talking.”

  “Some people just feel the need to express themselves, I guess.”

  “Well, I express myself in the shower. And it’s not gonna go any further’n that.”

  Gregory laughed.

  Odd walked around to the driver’s side of the pickup. “I guess I’m off,” he said.

  “I’m heading home, too. Want to give me a lift?”

  “Sure. Hop in.”

  “Just a sec.” Gregory hurried back into the café, told Wynona he was going home and told her to ask Paul to call him if he came in.

  The teenager nodded. “Will do.”

  He went back outside, got in the truck, and had barely closed the door before Odd was speeding up the road.

  “You’re supposed to take me home,” Gregory pointed out.

  The old man grinned. “I know a shortcut.”

  Sure enough, it was a shortcut, and not nearly as hair-raising a route as Gregory had feared. Odd drove down the drive, swung the pickup around, and left him off right in front of his door.

  “You want to come in?” Gregory asked.

  Odd shook his head. “Lurlene’ll have supper made already. She gets pretty riled if I’m even half a second late. I’ll take a rain check on that.”

  “Why don’t you two both come by sometime?”

  Odd nodded. “I’d like that. You never did have no housewarming party or nothing. We could get a few people together, see if we can’t get ’em to bring gifts.” He paused. “Only, I doubt they’d be too expensive. You’re the lottery winner after all.”

  “Maybe I’ll buy the gifts. Bribe people to come.”

  Odd grinned. “There you go. You can count me and Lurlene in.”

  Gregory slammed the cab door. “Later.”

  He could not tell if Odd bade him any form of good-bye; the pickup took off so fast that he instinctively jumped back so his feet wouldn’t get run over by the right rear tire. He saw a hand poke out of the driver’s window and wave, a silhouette in the dust.

  In the kitchen, Julia and his mother were talking about planting flowers. In Russian. They’d all been speaking a lot more Russian since they’d arrived here, and he was not really sure why. Regression on his part, he assumed. A combination of living with his mother again and being back in the town where he’d grown up. But he wasn’t sure about Julia. Was she doing it for his mother’s sake, merely to be polite, or was she trying to keep in practice in order to . . . what? Maintain her heritage? It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense, and he decided to let it slide and not worry about it.

  He gave Julia a quick, perfunctory kiss, got a glass of water, and, ascertaining that the conversation was not yet over and that neither of them wanted him involved in it, retreated into the living room.

  He sat down, turned on the television and flipped through channels until he found a tabloid news show. Setting the remote down on the coffee table, he kicked off his shoes and settled in on the couch to watch. The features were ostensibly human interest stories and were delivered in upbeat cheerleader tones by the pert female anchor, but they all involved murder, betrayal, and the worst sorts of human activity. A man tracked his ex-wife across country to a small town, where he attempted to run her down with a car: she leaped out of the way to safety while he crashed into a tree and was killed. A woman went from being a high-priced lawyer to being a high-priced call girl and was killed by a john on the same day she had written to her mother that she was quitting the prostitution business. A ten-year-old girl who had her arms chopped off by the father who’d molested her since she was three had learned to paint pictures with her feet.

  Halfway through the show, his mother came into the living room, sat down in her recliner and watched the rest of the program with him. In the kitchen, he heard the rattle of pots and pans as Julia started dinner.

  The tabloid show ended, and a promo for the upcoming news came on: a Phoenix youngster was missing and police had found a body buried in the desert that might be his.

  Gregory turned toward his mother, speaking in Russian. “Makes you wonder sometimes about the goodness of man, doesn’t it?”

  “People,” she reminded him, “are a combination of the dust of the earth and the breath of God. God created man from the dust, but He breathed life into him. That’s why people may be base and animalistic in many ways, but they still desire and keep reaching for the spiritual and godly.” She smiled at him. “I liked the girl painting with her toes.”

  Gregory smiled back. Sometimes his mother surprised him.

  He underestimated her, he thought. Her ideas were nowhere near as simple, knee-jerk, and one-dimensional as he sometimes believed them to be, and he should know by now that despite the strict doctrine and rigid culture, most Molokans were at heart good, decent, moral people. They were also intelligent spiritually minded individuals who gave a hell of a lot more thought to metaphysical and philosophical matters than he ever did. Despite his college education.

  He might not believe the same things as the churchgoers, but it was wrong of him to dismiss their beliefs as somehow intellectually inferior to his own.

  His mother looked around the room, as if to make sure Julia and the kids were not nearby, then got out of her chair and came over to the couch, sitting next to him. “I’ve been having dreams,” she said.

  Gregory said nothing. He knew where this was leading. Throughout his childhood, his mother had foisted her supposedly prophetic dreams upon them, always insisting on the inevitability of their outcomes. She wasn’t revered like Vera Afonin, but her dreams were still accorded respect in the church, and that had given her far too much confidence at home. His father, he knew, had invented scenarios similar to her dreams in order to get her off his back, and Gregory had long since learned to do the same. There was no statute of limitation on prophecy—it was what kept fortune-tellers and psychics in business—and he knew that if his mother predicted some sort of disaster for him, she would be on pins and needles until something bad actually occurred. It could be a year later and completely dissimilar to the event in her dream, but if something happened to him, she would claim credit for it. She could dream about him cracking his head open, and if he injured his toe playing football six months later, she would pull an I-told-you-so and rest secure in the knowledge that she had successfully predicted it.

  This time, she told of dreaming about the Molokan cemetery and seeing him crawling up the ridge from the mine below, dreaming about him being trapped in the banya and unable to escape, dreaming about him being attacked by the shadow of a dwarf.

  It was slightly unnerving, the sheer number of nightmares she’d had recently that involved him, but he still didn’t put any stock in their veracity, and he tried to think of some way to put her mind at ease.

  “I don’t think any of those things are going to happen,” he said in Russian.

  “No,” she admitted. “But they mean that something bad will happen to you. I worry.”

  He looked into her eyes. She’d grown so old, he thought. She had not regained her former sprightliness after the minister’s death, and she looked weak to him, frail. He fo
und himself wondering how much time she had left.

  He tried to push the thought out of his mind.

  She met his gaze. “Just be careful,” she told him.

  He smiled, patted her hand. “Don’t worry, Mother. I will.”

  3

  Saturday morning, they let Gregory’s mother take care of the kids and met Paul and Deanna at the Country Kitchen for breakfast. They could have gone to the café, but both Gregory and Paul said they’d been spending far too much time in that place and were getting sick of it, so they took a break and went out for a real meal instead of Mocha Joe’s bagels and coffee.

  Paul and Deanna were already at the restaurant, and they waved the two of them over as soon as she and Gregory stepped through the door. The Country Kitchen smelled richly of bacon and sausage and buttermilk waffles, and to Julia there seemed something good and wholesome about that. Eateries in California were so trendy and health-conscious these days that far too many of them had the bland scent of a refrigerator filled with fresh fruit. It was heartening somehow to smell these old-fashioned breakfasts, and in a weird way she suddenly understood why Gregory had wanted to move back here.

  They greeted their friends, sat down, ordered.

  Gregory and Deanna were still a little wary of each other, both of them acting more polite than either of them did normally, and Julia had to smile at that. All these years later, those teenage dynamics were still in place, and the patterns of behavior that had been laid down in childhood had not changed one whit.

  Julia wondered if she would act the same way if she encountered some old acquaintance from her high school days. She had not attended her ten-year reunion, but her twentieth was coming up and she was halfway considering going to it. There weren’t a whole lot of people she was interested in seeing, but there were a few, and she figured she was successful enough and had kept herself up well enough that she could lord it over a few former rivals.