In Big Trouble

Chapter 2

Crow's photo from the newspaper stayed hidden in Tess's datebook for several days, slipped between two weeks in March. There was no significance to those dates, they just happened to be the place where his likeness remained, almost forgotten. Almost, but not quite. And because everywhere that Tess went, her datebook was sure to follow, Crow was always tucked into the crook of her arm, or riding papoose-style in her knapsack.

He was there when she found a man wanted for a paternity test in Baltimore. (She found him in paternity court in another county, giving a blood sample there. Everyone had his ruts and routines, it seemed, habits he just couldn't break.) He rested in her knapsack as she took photos of an intersection that figured in a complicated insurance claim. Crow went to her office, bounced on the backseat of her car, spent the nights on the old mission table where they had once eaten dinner together. Tess would wake in the mornings with a vague sense of anxiety and go to bed the same way, trying to isolate the thing that was bothering her. Then she would remember, and become angry all over again. It was unfair of him to try and manipulate her, to trick her into calling when he had left her. In Big Trouble. And so it went, around and around in her head, until Friday came and it was Girls Night Out.

The only "out" in Girls' Night Out was take-out. After all, Laylah was far from restaurant-ready and Kitty proved so distracting to waiters and bus boys. They hovered close, their service so constant that it was impossible to maintain a conversation. This, in turn, infuriated Laylah's mother, Jackie-not because her own drop-dead gorgeous looks were slighted, but because she liked to speak without others eavesdropping. So the girls stayed in, with Tess bringing pizza from Al Pacino's and Kitty relying on Chinese or Japanese carryout. Jackie was the experimental one, arriving with Styrofoam boxes from whatever Baltimore restaurant struck her fancy. Tonight it was Charleston's, which had meant cornbread, she-crab soup, oysters fried in cornmeal, a rare steak for fish-averse Tess, and pureed vegetables for Laylah. At least everyone could share the dessert, a pecan pie that Kitty was now slicing.

Tess watched the knife sinking into the sweet pie and suddenly thought of Crow. The connection was probably worth analyzing-was it the nuts that reminded her of Crow, or was she still on that pie-sex jag? She could think about that later. Or, better yet, not think about it ever again.

"I forgot to show you this," she said to Kitty, pulling the clip from her datebook.

"Crow! One of the best employees I've ever had here at Women and Children First," Kitty said, focusing on Crow and ignoring the headline. "For one thing, he actually liked to read, which seems to be less valued among bookstore clerks than the ability to make espresso. The haircut works. Don't you think he looks handsome, Tesser, now that he's gotten his face?"

"I suppose so," she said, leaning over her aunt's shoulder, which smelled of apricots. Kitty's scent was always changing, and her fragrances were often sweet, overbearing things that would have been cloying on another woman, yet they always worked on her. Tess wondered if that was the secret to her eternal appeal. Although in her forties Kitty had her pick of men barely half her age. With her red hair and perfect skin, she reminded Tess of a line from John Irving. Something about a woman who not only had taken care of herself, but looked as if she had good reason to do so.

"‘In Big Trouble.' Aren't you the least bit curious?"

"Not really. It's some cut-and-paste job. He probably did it with a computer."

"Then how did he get it on newsprint with a muffler ad on the back?" Kitty asked, holding it to the light, just as Tyner had.

"I don't know. I don't care."

"She's lying. I can always tell when she's lying," Jackie said from the kitchen floor, where she was crawling after Laylah, who was in dogged pursuit of Esskay around the big oak table. The baby squealed and grabbed her mid-section, as if to mount her for a quick race. Esskay galloped away, rolling her brown eyes at Tess. What have I done to deserve this?

"What does the dog say?" Jackie prompted. "What does the doggie say?"

"Mooooooo," Laylah replied, all dimples and eyes as she grabbed for Esskay's collar. Tess was sure that Laylah knew what the doggie said, but she was already carving out her own identity, preparing her perfect mother for life with someone determined not to be so careful and circumscribed.

"I get confused about your recent romantic history," Jackie drawled. It was as if she had caught Tess taking Laylah's side in her mind. "Is Crow the one who came after the one who was hit by the car but before the one who's now in prison?"

"Crow was a dream, the sort of good guy that women always claim they want," Kitty answered for her. "If Tess hadn't been so preoccupied with Jonathan, she might have seen that. But deep down, she was too busy mooning over him to see what a gem Crow was."

Mourning, not mooning. "How's life on Shakespeare Street?" Tess asked, hoping to change the subject. "I mean, other than the free babysitting that you get by living a half-block from here, how do you like city life after the 'burbs?"

"Lot of folks keep asking me if I'm lost," Jackie said, pulling Laylah into her lap. "What they mean is, they wish I was lost."

"Fells Point is still pretty white," Kitty said sympathetically. "But it could be worse. I heard a black woman over in Canton had her mailbox blown up the week she moved in."

Jackie tried to wipe Laylah's face clean. Since arriving less than an hour ago, the baby had managed to shuck the pink shoes that matched her jumper and lose one sock. She was a mess, she was gorgeous, her face so full of joy that it was contagious. It made Tess smile just to see her.

"At least my Lexus is the right color," Jackie muttered, but her features softened when Laylah patted her cheeks with baby hands, as if imitating her mother's futile motions with the washcloth.

"Who wants whipped cream on their pie?" Kitty asked. At last, something everyone could agree on.

"So what do you think?" Kitty asked Jackie as soon as Tess's mouth was full. "Is Tess really interested in Crow, and pretending not to be? Or do you think she's in love with him, and being stubborn out of some misplaced pride?"

"I don't know if she was ever in love with him. I wasn't around then. But she's definitely not finished with him, you know what I mean? Sometimes a man is like, well, like this piece of pie when you're supposed to be on a diet. You stick your fork in it, you break it up, you move it around on your plate, you put all this work into not eating it. You're still obsessed with it."

"Really?" Kitty was so taken by this analogy that she stopped in midbite. "I've never felt that way about a man. Or a pie, for that matter."

"Well, Aunt Kitty, you've never left so much as a crumb behind." Tess had tired of being discussed in the third person. "Although it's been what-almost an entire month since you've ‘dated' anyone?"

Kitty shrugged. "Just not interested, I guess. As long as we're using food analogies, you could say I've got a bad case of Jordan almonds."

"Huh?"

"I used to love Jordan almonds," she said matter-of-factly, as if Tess should know this. "I ate them every day. Then one day, I never wanted another one."

"Are you saying you never want to be with another man, or that you've finally gotten tired of the himbo parade that's been marching through your life?"

Kitty held out her plate to Esskay and let the dog lap up the traces of whipped cream. When she spoke again, her voice was slow and careful, as if she were making a confession.

"A new UPS man took over the route today. He came in with a shipment of books, wearing his shorts, although it's a bit late in the season for that. He had the nicest legs. You know how I like men's calves. Single, he made a point of letting me know, and very keen to see the Fritz Lang double bill at the Orpheum. I was two sentences away from having a date with him, if I wanted one. But I didn't, and I don't know why."

"I swore off men, even before I had Laylah to worry about," Jackie said. "When I was trying to build my business, I felt as if I were a battery and they drained all the energy out of me. Now I'm a single mother and all the energy is drained out of me. Even with help-and all the support I'm getting from you guys-I'm exhausted most of the time. What would I do with a man, even if I could find one? And what would a man do with me? Watch me fall asleep in front of the television at nine o'clock?"

Tess said nothing. Her recent abstinence from men-from love, from passion, from all entanglements, however wrongheaded-had felt like a twelve-step program. One day at a time, and she was always aware in her mind of just how many days that had been. She liked men. They used to like her.

"I don't seem to meet guys anymore," she said. "Is that because I turned thirty?"

"You're healthier," Kitty said. "Mentally, I mean. You don't give off that damaged vibe you used to have. There's a large class of men with a homing instinct for women who are vulnerable, and that's why there was always someone lurking, ready to take advantage of you."

"You're not damaged, and you've always had your pick of men," Tess pointed out.

"I'm at the other end of the spectrum-true indifference. They start off thinking I'm the perfect woman because I want them only for their bodies, then end up saying I'm heartless. If you only knew how many men had accused me of objectifying them, or using them for sex."

Kitty laughed, pleased with herself for being such a cadette. Laylah clapped her baby hands and laughed with her, while Jackie just shook her head and snorted: "White girl craziness."

It was one of Jackie's favorite expressions, but Tess thought it didn't apply here. Different pathologies for black and white women, but pathologies all the same. Valuing the men who didn't value you. Settling for vicarious power, instead of grabbing your own chunk of it. Worrying about the size of your butt. She had a sudden yearning to sweep Laylah up in her arms and tell her that they'd have it all worked out by the time she was a grown-up.

Jackie picked up the clipping that Kitty had left on the table. "He is kind of cute. I hope you're going to call him, make sure he's okay."

"I am not. Let him call me if he wants to talk. My home number hasn't changed, even if it's unlisted now."

"You know for a fact he sent this?" Jackie had switched to her professional persona, the steely-eyed Grand Inquisitor who had built her fund-raising business into such a hot property that clients ended up auditioning for her.

"Well, no, but he's the only person I know in Texas."

"The only person you know you know in Texas. Besides, what if he really is in a bind? I know you, girl, you'll never forgive yourself if something happens to that boy."

Kitty nudged the portable phone toward Tess with her elbow. Tess ignored it, pouring herself another glass of wine. "If I were to call-if-do you think I would do it here, within your hearing?"

Jackie and Kitty smiled smugly at each other, while Laylah made another pass at Esskay, squealing in delight when the dog ran away and slunk under the table, whimpering piteously.

"What does the doggie say, Laylah?" Jackie asked automatically.

"Meow," Laylah said. "Meeeee-ow."

Not even an hour later, Tess sat on her bed in the third-floor apartment above the store, Esskay nestled beside her, yet another glass of wine on her bedside table. Almost eleven o'clock. An hour earlier in Texas, and a Friday night. He'd be out, of course, performing with his band, lots of Texas girls staring at him hungrily. Texas women were reputed to be better-looking than women from elsewhere. She imagined a super-gender with hard bodies, harder hair, tanning-bed tans, and those taut neck cords that come from years of expert bulimia. Barfing sorority girls with credit cards, convertibles, and eager, grasping mouths. Girls who kept a man out late, assuming he got home at all.

So if she called now, she'd get his machine. A machine would be a nice compromise, actually. Ideal, even, the equivalent of a drive-by shooting in the gender wars. Tag, you're it.

"What city?" asked the mechanical voice attached to the 512 area code.

"Austin," she said into the alloted portion of silence.

"What listing?"

"Cr-Edgar Ransome." She had to grope for his real name. Crow had always been Crow to her.

The voice provided ten digits and she punched them in from memory, only to hear another mechanical voice: "I'm sorry the number you have called is not in service…"

She stared at the phone, puzzled. The phone must have been cut off pretty recently if he was still listed. Oh well, Crow wouldn't be the first musician to miss too many phone bills. Although his doting parents, the ones who had been so tolerant of his six-year plan at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, had always been good-natured about subsidizing him.

And if he were really in trouble, he'd go to them. Why hadn't she thought of this before? An only child like her, Crow had been brought up in a much more stereotypically worshipful home. In fact, his ego was so intact, his self-esteem so genuine, that it was as if it had been baked in his mother's kiln and coated with layers of shiny glaze. At least, she thought his mother had a kiln. She hadn't really paid close attention when he spoke of his parents, but she remembered something about his mother's ceramics, his father's economics classes, which had sounded vaguely Marxist to her. A pair of gentle, retrograde hippies, raising their son simply to be.

She flipped open her datebook. It still surprised her to see how busy her life had become. The fall was full of meetings and appointments. It wasn't just work and workouts, either, but dinners with old and new friends, even "dates" with her mom. It had been nice, being sought-after, but suddenly all those names and numbers and addresses just made her weary.

Under R, she found the information Crow had inked in long ago, when these pages were emptier. There was his number, in the little Bolton Hill studio apartment he had all but vacated while they were together. His birthday, 8-23 ("Two Virgos!" he had written in his ecstatic, spiky handwriting, and she liked him for not making a crude joke at their expense). His clothing sizes, his Social Security number, the number of his favorite Chinese takeout place, and just in case she ever needed him during his infrequent trips home, a number and address for his parents in Charlottesville.

"Much too late to call strangers," she told Esskay. "After eleven, all phone calls are bad news."

Esskay, still disgruntled at her undignified treatment at Laylah's baby hands, gave Tess a skeptical look, snorted, and rolled over, turning her bony spine toward her. Tess dialed the phone, rehearsing her opening lines. You don't know me but…We've never met but…Did your son ever mention we were sleeping together until I broke his heart, then came crawling back and he broke my heart, so now we're really even-steven, and I don't owe him a thing, right?

"Hello?" A woman's voice, low and husky. Not a Southern accent, for the Ransomes were New England transplants. But the clipped Bostonian edges seemed to have been smoothed down by the years in Virginia.

"Is this the Ransome residence?"

"Yes. Who's calling?" There was something tentative in the voice, something fearful. Tess realized that bad news must often begin this way: Is this so-and-so's residence?

"We've never met but I'm Tess Monaghan-"

"Oh, Tess!" Mrs. Ransome's relief was so intense it seemed to flow through the phone. "I feel as if I know you. How's your aunt, Kitty? And the greyhound, I want to say its name is Jimmy Dean, but that's not quite right, is it?"

"Right section of your supermarket. It's Esskay, as in the Schluderberg-Kurdle Company of Baltimore, finest pork products ever made."

"Of course, Esskay." She laughed, but shakily. "Tess Monaghan. I feel as if I conjured you up in a way. Because I've been sitting here, thinking I should call you."

Some organ-heart, stomach, intestines-lurched inside Tess. "Has something happened-I mean, do you have news of Crow? I tried to call him tonight-"

"But his phone is disconnected. I know, I know. It was turned off six weeks ago. A week later, our last check came back from Texas, marked return to sender. I was hoping you might have heard from him, or know something more."

"Not really." The clipping didn't count, for it only deepened the mystery. Besides, it surely would cause this kind woman more concern, and that couldn't have been Crow's intent. "So you haven't heard anything for more than a month?"

"Three weeks ago he called and left a message on our machine, at a time when he knew we'd be out. ‘Don't worry,' he said, and we've been out of minds with worry ever since. Are you sure he hasn't tried to get in touch with you?"

Tess studied the clipping. Less than a week in her possession and it already had a worn look, as if it had been handled many, many times. "I had something in the mail recently, a photo of him, nothing more…He's cut his hair." An idiotic segue, but it was all she could think of.

"I knew he would reach out to you. You were such a good influence."

"I was?" As Tess recalled, Crow had committed at least one felony under her tutelage. Then again, that was before they started dating, and it had not been her idea.

"He finished school at last. Even the breakup had its positive aspects. He went to Texas, decided to get serious about his music."

The conversation seemed increasingly surreal, and Tess found herself conscious of the wine she had been drinking all evening. But perhaps Mrs. Ransome had been sitting by her phone, dialing the same number that no longer rang in Texas, sipping her own drink?

"Well, it was nice to talk to you at last," she offered lamely. Mrs. Ransome seemed to know so much about her, while Tess couldn't remember anything more about Crow's parents other than a few scraps of details. Had she not been paying attention? Sometimes she had tuned out Crow's happy prattling. It hadn't seemed to require close attention.

"I'm sure you'll hear from him soon," she said. "Crow's always been responsible."

"That's my point," Mrs. Ransome said. "He's too responsible to do this to us, unless something is horribly wrong. We were thinking of hiring someone-"

"I'd be glad to help you," Tess interrupted. "Make some inquiries, hook you up with someone in Texas."

"-but your call seems providential, I realize now. Not to sound too Celestine Prophecy-ish, because I'm not that kind of person. Usually. But things do happen for a reason, don't you think? I need a private investigator and here's one calling me, one I know to be a fine, trustworthy person."

"I'm really not-" Tess stopped. It wasn't that she didn't consider herself fine and trustworthy, it was just that Mrs. Ransome's exalted opinion sounded suspiciously like one shoe dropping.

Mrs. Ransome wasn't listening. It was possible that she had never really listened. From the moment she heard Tess's voice on the line, she had been working toward just this, focusing on a single goal in her own gracious way, intent on throwing down this second shoe.

"Tess Monaghan, would you find my son?"