For everything there is a reason, and all fruit comes ripe in its right season. If left forgotten, the fruit goes rotten. Food finally worth eating. –Jackson Killian
Chapter Fifteen
I tried to make heart shaped pancakes for Quinn on Valentine's Day. They looked more like regular pancakes with irregular pancake tumors growing on them.
"But they taste good," Bettie said as she ate one dry.
"Good, 'cause I can't eat a fucking thing." I took a deep breath and huffed it out. I checked my watch for the millionth time. I had court at 9 a.m. I hadn't slept a wink.
Bettie leaned against the door frame and talked around her pancake. "Jeez, Kibbs. Chill out."
I shot her a death-glare. She just kept chewing and talking. "What's the worst that could happen? Really?"
I slammed dishes into the sink of soapy water. "The worst thing that could happen would be... would be if the judge decided... I can't even say it. I can't even say it."
My heart actually hurt, a panicky sore throb right under my ribcage. It felt swollen, like it pressed into my lungs and kept them from bringing in enough air.
"Good. Don't waste your breath. Because he's not going to do anything like the horror show in your head right now. Worst-case scenario is that custody gets split. Quinn is still alive; you're still alive. Everyone will be okay."
I put my hand over my heart. "Yeah. Just. Just."
"Bey-eee. Go romper. Smudge." Quinn joined the conversation with his perspective, which was that I should leave, and he and Bettie should go visit the horses.
I grabbed my purse and tried to gather his warm little body into my arms. He did not want to be held. He pushed his palm into my face and scrambled away.
The expression on my face must've been one of complete desolation because Bettie actually came down to her knees in order to wrap me in her hug. "It's going to be okay, Kibbs. Really it is."
She even patted my back. In a comical way with a flat sturdy palm. "There. There," she said in a robotic voice.
"Yeah," I said.
I kept saying it. Out of the house and into the over-warm February morning. The sun sparkled down on everything white and green, and I slid my sunglasses down from my forehead as I climbed into the Bronco.
"Yeah," I said to my steering wheel and sat there staring at it.
I found myself analyzing the dread that gripped me. Really, it was the same feeling I'd had riding in that blasted Caesar's elevator up to meet Jack the night Quinn was conceived. An inevitability permeated the next few hours of my life. There was no running from what was coming.
Either I'd get an unfavorable ruling from the judge and would lose Quinn immediately for half the time, or I would get the decision I really wanted—the one I thought was best—and Jack would melt down. Likely, not in the courtroom, but potentially immediately after.
I could already see it. Either me sobbing in the parking lot or ferocious Jack as my firing squad right out the door.
Something caught my eye and I shifted my gaze to see Bettie and Quinn standing on the stoop, waving. I turned to look at them fully and realized Bettie's wave was of the get out of here already variety. Quinn's was disinterested.
This knight rides out to slay the dragon, baby, and that dragon is your dad.
I turned the engine over and wiggled the stick into reverse. The motor whined as I eased back down the long driveway and out onto the road.
I drove in a daze, still checking my mirrors and right of ways—but not really seeing anything other than possibilities playing out in my head. I parked in the already crowded lot and paid for four hours as the sign advised me to.
The building was huge, formidable, but looked more like a corporate headquarters in a suburban business park than a courthouse. That impression changed as soon as I pushed through the green tinted glass doors into a small receiving area clustered with armed guards and a security checkpoint to rival the TSA.
I stacked my purse on top of my paperwork on the conveyer belt, and at the unsmiling request of one of the guards, added my jacket as well. A middle aged woman with a bosom so large it stretched the fabric of her blue uniform shirt where it buttoned in the middle encouraged me through the metal detector by waving a wand at me. I stepped through, nothing beeped, and she said thank you.
I collected my things, all the while watching the entrance for Jack and not seeing him.
The halls had the live buzz of a library, everything hushed but active, and I navigated my way to Department 126 and found a seat in the back.
The room was arranged like a one-sided fighting rink with the judge's bench in a valley facing two rises of fat, short steps leading up and back out of the room. A bearded bailiff sat at his post, flanked by a United States flag and a California one bearing the brown bear. They hung still over empty seats.
In front of the bench were two tables with two chairs each. I'd be sitting at one of those soon and my heart skipped a couple of beats. I took a deep breath to clear the lightheaded feeling.
Strict signs all over the room ordered for cell phones to be turned off all the way so I fished mine from my bag and powered it down. My hands trembled. A horrible cold grip had my guts squeezed, and it felt like my protective layers of skin and muscle had been pried back to allow a breeze to blow right through me.
It was a sick feeling. Worse than nerves.
People came in and found seats. Their noise seemed like a jarring cacophony in my cavernous head. The jingle of keys and obstinacy of coarse voices clanged against my insides. They scattered about the room, some actively glaring; others seemingly so entrenched in their paperwork as to avoid eye contact with anyone. The room was filling with more than bodies, it was also brimming with muted aggression and anxiety.
My papers, where I held them, were beginning to curl and go limp from my moist fingers. I dropped the stack to the floor and ran my palms over my slacks then sandwiched them together between my thighs. I looked at the cords of tendon stretched under my bent wrists and the veins pushing down into my hands, faintly green through the thin layers of skin.
I imagined the blood moving through my body. Moving faster than usual. I saw it in my head like I was inside the vein, and big red squishy platelets rushed and collided around me. I imagined blue blood being the thing that made me sallow, imagined it flowing that color in and out of my veins like blue raspberry syrup. I could see it running through me and out of me and freezing to hard candy in a flat oblong puddle shape. From there, my mind went to a spastic, neurotic, crazy place where nothing made sense, all the imagery nonsensical and unreal.
I felt like so many complex organic machines made me work, and what kept all those machines going? I thought of platelets being delayed in my liver by other platelets wearing little police caps and saying things like... you okay to drive this artery? I think you need to get clean first, and this is the spot.
The seat next to me shifted and sank. My head whipped up to find the stark yet familiar—always familiar—face of Jack. He didn't smile, but something in his eyes was reassuring nonetheless. They held warmth and understanding; they weren't the unyielding unreasoning eyes I'd been confronted by in mediation.
It reminded me of my last session with Dr. Bloom. I'd described Jack's struggle with depression, how I could just look at him and know he was in its grip. Dr. Bloom had asked me what else described Jack's low moods. I came up with about a hundred D words. Distant, dissatisfied, detached, drained. And one A word. Angry.
"And when he's not low?"
"The opposite. Loving, attentive, goofy. Creative. Passionate. Alive."
"The highs make the valleys pretty rough, don't they?"
They did.
He dropped his notebook and stack of papers on the ground between his booted feet and leaned back.
"You look nervous," he whispered.
"I'm not nervous," I whispered back. "I'm stone-cold scared out of my mind."
A faint twinge of surprise crossed over his clean shaven face and I realized that no—he didn't yet understand all the complex emotion of being a parent. Scratch that, he understood it... cerebrally. But he didn't feel it.
I hoped he would, one day.
That will only make it harder.
Yes, true enough, but better that than not.
I was going to ask him why he was sitting next to me, but just then, the bearded bailiff cleared his throat. "All rise."
We stood.
"The Honorable Judge Ashwell presiding." The atmosphere in the room surged and went silent as the door behind the bench opened, and a jowled man in judicial robes stepped spryly through and ascended to his seat.
He was followed by a court reporter who came down into what I was starting to think of as the pit. She adjusted herself into her chair, positioned her sturdy Starbucks water glass and corresponding white and green paper cup, crossed her legs, and rested her fingers on the keys of the shorthand machine—the name of which I didn't know.
We sat and Jack leaned into me. His skin smelled of warmed eucalyptus, and his breath was slightly tainted by coffee, but not in a bad way. "I didn't realize there'd be so many people here."
"I didn't either."
And there were. The courtroom was as close to full as it could probably get with people keeping a seat between themselves and their neighbor—the polite little bumper of space most people want for themselves and give in silence to others.
The judge shuffled some paper on his desk while an unsmiling assistant in a wrinkled beige dress suit and sturdy horn-rimmed glasses took attendance. The process seemed endless, and as he droned through names and punched data into his computer, I became aware of the warmth in my right arm. The arm that was almost touching Jack.
My cognizance of it only made it more extreme. Like I'd been sitting next to an electric fence that suddenly went live. My whole right side buzzed with his proximity.
I shifted in my seat and moved my weight left in a lean away from him. I tried to be casual about it, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jack turn his head just a fraction, chin pointing down towards his shoulder as in acknowledgement of my need for more space. I flicked a quick glance directly at him, saw him watching me, and let my eyes focus back on horn-rims at the front of the room.
Having finished attendance, horn-rims embarked on a litany of guidelines in a bored voice. "You will address the judge as 'Your Honor,' or 'sir.' Your phone should be off and in your pocket or purse and should not ring during the proceedings. You will not speak out of turn, to His Honor or to each other. You will not address any witnesses you may have brought with you. Do not approach the bench unless asked to do so. Do not interrupt the judge. Do not use profane language. Any one of these infractions could result in your being removed from the courtroom and possibly held in contempt."
"Wow." Jack's single word was little more than breath.
The amazing thing turned out to be that all of these rules were broken in the two hours Jack and I sat there waiting for our turn before His Honor.
It was exactly like Devin said. People accused, cried, swore, fought, and even tried to incite the wrath of the others who sat waiting. Only one person was removed from the courtroom—a woman who looked like a Jerry Springer contestant and sounded like one too.
Even the quiet, well-behaved people were full of petty grievances and trumped-up accusations.
It was a circus. A disgusting, sad, pathetic circus—especially when you realized most of the people currently trying to claw each other's hearts out used to love each other. I wasn't the only one who thought so either, because during a particularly hostile run-down of faults spewed by the petitioner of Jimenez vs Jimenez, Jack reached out, pen in hand, and scrawled on my open notebook:
I can't believe we're sitting here.
I just nodded.
He wrote again.
I can't believe we are this.
I clicked my pen open and wrote underneath his tidy black script:
We don't have to be like them.
I looked up at him, trying to give him a promise with my eyes. His mouth was a grim line in his fine face, his brows slightly furrowed over weed-green eyes. His lips parted; I could see the crooked edge of his teeth.
"Killian-Garen. Please approach."
Our gaze broke, and we stood. He let me pass and walk ahead of him down the stairs into the pit. Having watched the other combatants before us, I knew I was headed left, to the respondent's table, and Jack split from me and went right.
"Raise your right hand," the bailiff said. "You, and each of you, do solemnly state that the testimony you may give in the cause now pending before this court shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"
"I do," Jack and I said together.
Our chairs scraped the floor as we pulled them out simultaneously. I looked over at Jack. He seemed a mile away, and the rigid set of his body made me think he was at his table reluctantly—like he wanted to buck trend and take the empty chair next to mine.
I might just have imagined it. The way he looked at my face and then at the chair beside me. The way he ran a hand through his short crop of hair and sat down stiff and solemn. I had the sharp urge to go to him, to braid my fingers up with his and squeeze. To pull his head to my breast and just hold him close, regardless of our fights and our anger and our disillusion and our dissolution. Despite all those things. I wanted him to know how I still loved him, even if it was the most pointless, unwanted love ever to exist between two people. I wanted him to know that, if he ever needed me, for anything, I would always be here.
It was unconditional, and I had no control over it. I couldn't get over it. I didn't want to get over it. I wanted to love him forever. Even if it would be unrequited.
That was the adjustment I needed to make, I realized. Not to not love Jack. But to accept that I always would and just find a way to keep it, keep it as treasure, while forging a meaningful life with that love squirreled away and safe.
I needed to share this realization with Dr. Bloom. See what she thought about that.
The judge adjusted his specs and reviewed the paperwork in front of him. He spoke slowly, and I knew from watching him this morning he had zero patience for any of us. He probably spent his mornings slowly spooning cereal into his mouth and wondering why he'd worked so hard, gone to law school and all that, paid all that money, just to watch people squabble over their kids three days a week.
"Jackson Killian." He looked over his glasses at my ex-husband. "It says here that you requested split legal and split physical, but that you also agreed to accept the mediator's recommendations. Is that correct?"
"Yes, Your Honor." I was amazed and baffled to hear Jack's voice actually shake.
Judge Ashwell put down his papers and looked at Jack. "What's that I hear in your voice?"
I thought he meant the fear. For a brief moment, I really thought Judge Ashwell was calling Jack out on the tremor I'd picked up in his words.
"That a British accent you have?"
"Irish, Your Honor."
"You a citizen, Mr. Killian?"
"Dual citizen."
"I see." The judge made some hasty notes on the margin, and I wormed my hands back into my lap. He shifted to face me. "Kaitlyn Garen?"
"Yes. Ah. Yes, Your Honor?"
"You've also agreed to abide the mediator's recommendation, is that correct?"
"Yes, sir. Your Honor."
My voice shook too.
He shuffled papers. Apparently in no hurry, apparently unconcerned about the discomfort I was in.
"Are either of you aware of the mediator's primary recommendations? Mr. Killian?"
"No, Your Honor. I have an idea about what they are, but. No, sir."
"Okay," said Judge Ashwell. "Let's review those first to make sure we are all on the same page. Your mediator was Mrs. Shane, and you met with her on two occasions. Her primary recommendation was full legal custody to Ms. Garen."
Jack seemed to deflate a little, his shoulders slumped and his chin dropped a couple of inches. But then it lifted, transformed into an accepting nod.
"She is recommending split physical custody in stages, beginning with a three month introductory period for you to get acclimated to parenthood—during which you will be granted visitation only—followed by a six month period of two consecutive days a week. After the nine month period the fifty-fifty shared custody order can be granted. Week on, week off."
A week without Quinn. A whole week. I didn't mean to drop my face into my hands, but that was where I found myself. The judge's voice came to me as if through a brick wall, weak and far away.
"Abby Shane also orders twice monthly counseling for the two of you for the period of one year. She's requested a court appointed advocate to touch base with the two of you in six months at which time custody orders may be altered. Is all this understood, Mr. Killian?"
"It is, Your Honor."
"Ms. Garen?"
I looked up. The room was bright and dark at the same time. "Yes, sir."
"Are these terms acceptable to the two of you?"
We both answered in the affirmative, though my voice was faint, and I had to say it a second time, louder and clearer for the judge who was looking at me with no pity and no patience.
"I'm adding an additional stipulation that should be obvious to both of you. And that is that the child"—he shuffled some papers—"Quinlan Elijah Killian, will not be removed from the country without written authorization from Ms. Garen. He will not be relocated out of California without authorization from this court."
He looked at Jack. "I'm sure you have family and friends outside this country, Mr. Killian. They will come here to visit your child unless Ms. Garen approves an out of country trip in writing. Is that understood?"
Jack nodded.
"I also see your profession is a nomadic one, Mr. Killian. Written permission will be required should you intend to remove your child from California for any period greater than a day trip to Lake Tahoe. Is this also understood?"
"Yes, Your Honor."
"Ms. Garen. You lived in Nevada for many years; I see your child was born there. I say the same thing to you. Any plans to relocate your child out of state for any period greater than a day must be approved by the child's father in writing."
"Yes, Your honor."
He looked at us, a bemused expression on his face. I wondered if he was wondering when we'd start arguing.
"There's a final request to be addressed before we file these custody orders. Paternity. Now, a paternity test is not required to assign paternity if you both agree that this man is the child's father. Normally, we test for paternity only in situations where one party asserts parentage and the other denies it. You know, for child support. In this case, I see no child support has been requested by either side. We can produce the DissoMaster to determine support amounts, and Ms. Garen, I would advise you to make that request should a paternity test be insisted upon."
Jack and I looked at each other, and then Jack tentatively raised his hand like a boy in school.
"Mr. Killian?"
"I've heard the term DissoMaster a few times this morning but don't know exactly what it is?"
The judge looked even further bemused. "Mr. Killian, the DissoMaster is the tool we rely upon to indicate what portion of monies earned is due and owed towards the care and upbringing of the child. It evaluates both incomes, the ages of the children involved, and provides us with a number."
We were quiet and the judge looked at each of us in turn.
"Ms. Garen, do you agree that Mr. Killian the father of your child?"
"Yes, Your Honor."
"Mr. Killian, do you agree that the child is yours?"
Jack was quiet. He cut a quick glance at me before answering. "I do."
"Paternity is therefore confirmed. No DNA test is required. If you still desire one, Mr. Killian, you will do it privately and pay for it outside of this action. Should the results ever be needed in future disputes between you and Ms. Garen, the results may be subpoenaed into the case."
"I understand."
"Regarding support. In cases where no support is requested, I am required to clarify to both of you the real expenses of raising a child. And that the responsibility of paying for things like medical care, dental care, clothes, food, diapers, childcare and other needs sundry can create only an additional detail for already unhappy people to fight over. The promise of the DissoMaster is simplification. It reduces the ambiguous to one easy number that can be agreed upon by all parties. If you elect not to consult this tool, be advised that disputes regarding who pays for what could land you right back in this courtroom. As part of this stipulation, I will be requiring a payment responsibility plan from both of you agreeing to costs and contributions towards the health and happiness of the child."
He said this with so little enthusiasm I had to wonder how often he'd spewed these instructions over the life of his career.
"That is to be filed with a motion of paternity by April 28th. Do either of you have any questions?"
It was my turn to raise my hand.
"Ms. Garen?"
"So we have more paperwork to file?"
He looked at me over his glasses like I was stupid and I felt stupid.
"You do. Consult your attorney or our free family law clinic in the building where you had mediation if you need assistance. Is that all?"
I nodded; expecting him to say something dramatic like, so let it be written, so let it be done. But he didn't say anything, just handed a fat folder to his assistant and called the next parties names.
I don't really remember the walk from that room out into the bright sunshine outside, but when we did reach the fresh noon air, I had a moment to think the heat waves bouncing off the cars sure were intense before Jack pushed me down on a bench and said, "Put your head between your knees."
"I'm okay," I protested. But I did what he said. I stared at the hem of his jeans and his boots, taking slow breaths.
"You were turning positively green."
"Luck o' the Irish," I said, my voice muffled by my cramped abdomen.
"Ha. You don't really have any Irish, anymore." Maybe he was trying to make a joke, maybe like the days when we could joke with each other. Stupid drunken jokes—usually cracked by our friends—about how much Irish I had in me, which was absolutely zero. Unless Jack was inside me.
But I couldn't laugh. It just wasn't funny.
"I've still got Irish. Even if it's just the bad luck of having to deal with it. Your mom called me the other day by the way."
Jack sighed. "What'd she want?"
"What do you think?" I said to the underside of the bench.
Jack didn't answer and I straightened. "Feel better?"
I could feel all the blood in my face, felt it leaving, clearing my head and my thoughts. "I think so."
"That didn't go so bad. I thought."
I shook my head.
"You got what you wanted, anyway."
I looked up at him out of the corners of my eyes. "Really, Jack? How about if we maintain a little peace?"
The noon sun was harsh on his face; he squinted down on me with an unreadable expression. "I didn't mean it, as in, you got what you wanted and I didn't. I was trying to be positive."
Then, he offered me his hand.
I took it. I felt it. Felt the calloused meat of it, his confident grip and the strength in his arm, watched the curve of the muscle under his shirt as pulled me to my feet.
It happened in a heartbeat and then his touch was gone. But the hair on the back of my neck was spiked; my shoulders cold and crawling with it while warm heat ran down the inside of my skin.
I pretended to hear my phone ring, forgetting it was off in my purse. As I looked down, I caught Jack turning away. Just slightly, just enough to try to obscure the view of him shoving his fist into his pocket.
The fine golden hairs of his arm were erect.
...
I made waves as Bettie drove, my hand catching the oncoming wind and bending to it, under it, then over it. My head rested against my shoulder and I could see my hair—also caught to the wind—blown back against the white paint of her Golf. We climbed green hills, studded with some amazing, ancient-looking oaks with branches reaching like craggy arms—bent and stretched by time and weather and endurance.
Bettie was singing along to ABBA surging loud from her speakers, and I found myself realizing a new appreciation for the happy, up-tempo music I'd long overlooked. Quinn was conked out in his car seat.
We passed a sign that read South Lake Tahoe 72 Miles, and I turned to her, snatching my hand back inside the car.
"Not Tahoe, though. Right, Bettie?"
"Oh my god, Kibbs, chill. Not Tahoe."
"I just don't want some well-meant surprise to turn bad."
She checked her mirror and merged, talking around the unlit cigarette in her mouth. "You made it pretty clear the Lake was off-limits. Besides, I'm not super familiar with that place."
I tucked my hair behind my ears, the act even more futile than usual because the wind immediately blew it over my face again. "I am. All it is is crowded."
"Not on a Tuesday, though. In February."
"It's Valentine's Day... I'm sure people are lined up at the drive-through wedding chapel."
"Do those really exist?"
"They do."
"Huh."
"Most people at least manage to park and go inside though."
We must've been close to our destination because of the cigarette. Bettie's mindless fondling of an unlit cigarette was compulsive, going much deeper than just a habit. I'd even caught her once or twice looking at the unlit cigarette in her hand as if she had no memory of taking it from the pack.
My suspicion was confirmed when Bettie again merged, turning off the highway in front of a big sign reading "Welcome to Placerville." Then under that, "Old Hangtown."
"Old Hangtown, huh?"
"Yeah. So when I was younger, I came through this town on a field trip to Coloma. It's where John Marshall discovered gold back in... well... I guess 1849 because it started the gold rush. This town boasts the oldest consistently running newspaper in California."
"Oooooh." I said sarcastically, as she parked the car in a small little parking lot next to a brick facade.
"Don't be an asshole."
"I wouldn't dream of it."
She gave me a look as she popped her seatbelt. "Let's continue this conversation after I ease the clawing need for nicotine tearing my nerves to shreds, shall we?"
I bent my head in an acquiescent gesture and she sprang from the car and fired up her cigarette. She sucked comically at it, giving me big round eyes as she did. I leaned over the parking brake and asked, "Is this a good time to ask you when you're planning to quit that shit?"
"What are you, my mothers?"
"That sounds like a no."
She gave me the finger.
"I'll wait until it's at least half gone before I try to talk to you again."
"Good idea." She blew smoke at the sky overhead, late afternoon blue with wisps of clouds like chalkboard smears after the eraser's been over it. She ashed the cigarette carefully and said, "I'd like to remind you of how fucking cranky you are before you've had coffee."
"I'm not talking to you right now," I said, as I leaned in to wake Quinn and pull him from his car seat.
"You don't have to talk, just listen."
"Find me a Starbucks and then I'll listen."
Bettie made an indistinguishable grumbling sound and gave me her back.
"Hey, Quinn. Time to wake up." Quinn's eyes opened, going from completely unconscious to alert and ready in three seconds.
A week without him.
My heart giddyupped in my chest.
Don't think about it.
"Where are we?" He asked.
"Some hick town Bettie thinks might have collectibles."
He stretched, kicking his feet forward and arching his back against the seat. His mouth gaped in a big yawn. "I feel the same way," I told him.
"You're going to eat your words later, sassy pants." Bettie was looking at me over her shoulder. Her hair was swept sideways in a soft blond ripple over her forehead and I tried to imagine it long—shoulder length, like mine—and couldn't. The idea of her with long hair was so foreign my brain couldn't even handle the idea and just showed me the platinum image of Gwen Stefani. Maybe because the shape of the face was similar.
"I look forward to it."
Bettie collected German figurines called Rauchermann—though Bettie just called them smoker men. They looked like nutcrackers, and she kept them in an old glass-doored hutch in her kitchen. This wasn't our first trip to a rural little town where we perused antique fairs and vintage shops for the small carved wooden dolls she liked.
I strapped Quinn into his stroller—the light one with no bells, whistles, or cup holders—and we set out up the old main street which boasted more than shops, it had full-on Antique malls. Bettie passed them all by, though.
"Don't you want to look in any of these?" I peered in the display window of one such mall, looking at a 1950's living room set in off gold and baby pink.
Bettie came to stand next to me. "That thing looks tiny. And no... I was here last week. I looked in all these shops already."
I raised a brow at her. "Why are we here, then?"
She threaded her arm through mine. "Just come with me, Miss Crabby-patty."
We strolled quietly up the sidewalk. I shielded my eyes with my hand and looked up at a small bell tower in the middle of the street bearing a sign that read:
Wagon Rides
Saturday 10am to 4pm
"Did you ride the wagon when you came up here?"
"Is this another talk about me quitting smoking?"
"Ha. No... I'm genuinely curious."
"I didn't. It was pretty cool though; the wagon master is all decked out in vintage wear and so is his lassie. Here... you go in here. Look around. I'll take Quinn back to Candy Strike Emporium and load him up on sugar."
"Grrrrreat," I said as she commandeered the umbrella handles of the stroller and spun it 180 degrees. Quinn squealed.
The shop was called Hangtown Antiques, and it had a bunch of decrepit musical instruments hanging in the window. A dusty, rusting accordion sat atop a tarnished drum kit, in front of which was a scattering of Star Wars Laser Discs and Spawn action figures.
Bettie wheeled around me, leaning in to whisper, "Just go in."
I did. I meandered past old moldering furniture and sagging pinball machines. Fur coats and leather chaps gave the place the smell of an old grandpa's closet. Framed signed photos and old wilted posters fit every inch of wall space. Mounted animal heads surveyed the shop in unblinking bored speculation. I passed a case of antique knives and tarnished silver jewelry, then one of broken toys and battered electronics.
I lingered next to a workbench littered with jagged, ragged, rusting farm equipment. Horror movie scythes and gnarled pitchforks and chipping spades. Saw blades, winches, clamps, traps. I moved on, into an alcove crammed full of vinyl in no discernible order. Old VCRs and videogame machines were stacked haphazardly on undusted shelves.
And then I saw it. Backlit in the corner. A floor to ceiling case full of old cameras, movie projectors, flash-bulbs, and leather camera bags. There was a Kodak Dualflex, a chrome Vivitar, Argus, and an old Petri. None of them looked like they'd ever work again, even if you could get film for them.
I tried the door of the case thinking it would be locked. It wasn't. It slid open and I had access to all the attachments, lenses, cases, covers. I squatted down and almost gasped when I found an old Speed Graphic and an Instamatic still in the box with film.
I started pulling out cameras and setting them on the counter behind me. The Instamatic in the box... I had to have that. The Speed Graphic was eighty dollars, but I didn't care. And the Dualflex was a very solid maybe. Behind it was the flash component it came with, a big silver bowl with a bulb fitted to the center. This one was broken, the bulb stuck out jagged.
"I'm dealing today," came a male voice behind me.
"Really?" I looked over my shoulder at a thickset, nice-looking man with chin length, wavy hair and a mustache-goatee combo like my dad used to wear.
"Every day," he said, smiling. "You like old cameras? I think you're the first person to open that case in months. None of that stuff is tested... so priced as is."
"I figured that—oh. Maybe I should've used that as a haggling point?"
"You definitely should have. I opened the door for you, and you shut it in my face. But you know, some people like to pay full price for things. Maybe you're one of them."
He said it like it was the worst thing you could be. I shifted my weight, biting my lip at the Dualflex still in my hand. "I'm not good at haggling."
"I noticed."
"I am, though." Bettie appeared behind him, Quinn in his stroller holding a bag from the candy store. Something red was smeared over his mouth. "I just bought you a pound of fudge. It's Amaretto. You're welcome."
Quinn held the bag up to me with both hands. I took it.
"Okay. Thank you. I think."
"Taste it... then you'll thank me all day. So. I see you found the surprise. Were you surprised?"
"Oh, yes. Totally surprised."
"Are you eating your words now?"
"Tasty tasty words. No room for fudge."
"Just fattening you up for swimsuit season. So. My friend is obviously interested in this rubbish heap you have here."
He wasn't insulted. He just smiled, his good humor unshakable. "Obviously."
"But it's my credit card, so... why don't we mosey over to the register and do a little negotiating."
"Bettie, don't you dare."
"Shh. Kibbs." She reached and picked up the Speed Graphic and the Instamatic Id already set on the counter. "I'll take these," she said, arms full. "Whatever else you excavate you can pay for."
"I don't think– "
"Quinn, now!"
Quinn shrieked and scrambled out of his stroller. He took off for the front door, looking like an oversized Chucky doll in his jean overalls. I set the Dualflex on the counter, gave Bettie a look and chased him.
The kid was fast. He rounded the open door and trotted up the sidewalk back towards the candy store. I caught him, swept him up, tucked him under my arm, and huffed back into the shop. Bettie was signing a credit card slip at the counter. She had her hand over the amount.
"Bettie, you fight dirty."
"Fight dirty. I think that's a Boy Scout motto, or something."
"I think it's... always be prepared."
"That too. We worked on that maneuver all morning."
Quinn was laughing under my arm, his hair falling sideways. His weight was tiring, but I didn't want to put him down. He was ready though, so I stood him on the grubby carpet and flattened his hair with the palm of my hand.
A week without him.
Don't think about it.
Bettie smirked and handed me an old crate full of camera junk. "I'm easing some guilt. Also, don't think I don't know what you spent on Spiffy. We're even now. Oh, after you buy dinner, we'll be even. Because of the pound of fudge."
Spiffy was what she called the Rauchermann I'd had shipped to her from Germany for Christmas. It hadn't been cheap, but it hadn't broken the bank either.
"What's for dinner, lobster?"
"Maybe. If it wasn't a giant oversized scorpion. I don't eat ocean arachnids."
"It's a crustacean."
"Not more appetizing when you call it that. I'll settle for Thai. I know a place."