4
Tuesday was a scattershot day. Cree felt like a dragonfly, darting and flitting as she prepared for the trip: getting airline tickets and hotel and rental car reservations, checking wardrobe, juggling appointments, and making phone calls to carve out the time away.
Aside from the routine travel preparations, there were those specific to her trade. She reviewed the psi literature to learn more about past cases in New Orleans. She asked Joyce to buy a few books on Louisiana history and culture. She selected some equipment from the metal shelves of Edgar's room, checked it, and packed it carefully in a big foam-padded aluminum case.
Even that was fairly routine.
Another dimension of preparation underlay all the bustle. For the empath there was always a quiet taking stock, a taking of one's own measure and readiness, and a grappling with the resulting ambiguities. Then there were the contacts made with loved ones and colleagues, all freighted with an unspoken burden – hellos with contingent good-byes hidden in them because the person who leaves for a ghost hunting expedition, the way Cree did it, might well not return. Not as the same person, anyway.
It was almost eight o'clock before she had time to stop in and see her mother. She was still undecided whether to bring up the handsome cardiologist thing, but it would be good to see Mom, especially at work. She drove to the little civic rec center Janet Black managed, parked, went up the broad steps and into the invigorating stink of sweat and floor varnish, the rubbery smell of basketballs and athletic shoes.
The racket in the entry hall told her that she'd guessed right: One of the teen league games was in full swing. The building echoed with the drub of balls, the squeak of shoes, the whistles of referees, the cheers of a small crowd. A girls' game, she saw as she paused at the gym door. The players milled for a moment and took positions for a foul shot, arms out, legs braced, eyes wildly alert. The shot hit the rim and bounced away, and then everyone was moving again, blue shirts and red shirts skirmishing, refs sidling and jogging. The numerals of the scoreboard clock counted down.
Mom sat at the scoring table. She looked joyful and suitably officious, very much in her element here: a woman in her early sixties, wearing the tan uniform shirt and slacks of the rec department, gray-shot hair tied back and out of the way. She lifted her reading glasses to make a notation, then let them fall against her chest on their red sports band. Her eyes went back to the game for a moment before she spotted Cree at the door. They exchanged smiles.
Cree made her way around the wall of the gym and slid into a folding chair next to her mother. This was Janet's preferred view of her domain: dead center in the big room with its high, trussed ceiling and glistening yellow floor. Fold-out bleachers lined one side, half full with the small but enthusiastic crowd; the teams hunched on low benches along the sidelines.
'Good game?'
Janet nodded. The crowd cheered for a scoring attempt, and she had to lean close to Cree's ear to be heard. 'For sheer drama, nothing beats a middle school girls' basketball game. Not the NBA, not the WBA, nothing. This is something of a grudge match. The reds lost last time, and they've been building this up – the big rematch, right? But then their star player got hurt a couple of days ago. Fell off the stage during a play rehearsal at school and broke her foot. That's her over there.'
At the red team bench, a tall girl slumped miserably, her foot in a cast, crutches against her shoulders.
'So now the poor reds are out there trying to 'win it for Jen,' Lord help us. And they're getting pounded.'
The clock showed two minutes to play, and the reds were getting desperate and frustrated, hustling too hard. Several looked as if they were biting back tears. They were behind 42 to 30.
The battle veered close to the scoring table. The ball bounded over the line but was swatted back by a lunging red, and the crowd screamed. The reds recovered, charged the basket, shot, missed. A blue grabbed the rebound. Cree could feel the collective burning of flushed cheeks, the swelling of knots in throats.
Blue scored twice in a row, red managed to pick up a basket, and then a foul stalled the inevitable. Janet had to attend to her record keeping. When the buzzer sounded, the careening players went slack suddenly like marionettes whose strings had been cut. The blues hugged each other in the middle of the court as the reds slumped toward their bench. The bleachers began to empty as people stood, stretched, massaged sore buttocks; mothers hustled younger sibs to the bathroom. Smokers hurried for the front steps.
Janet discussed something with one of the coaches, then fielded a question from a ref. When they left, several parents approached the table and needed to talk to Mom.
Cree leaned back and tried to let her shoulders down. The blue team went to the locker room. The reds had found the far corner, where they sat on the boards, consoling each other and drinking from plastic squeeze bottles as their coach gave them spiritual guidance – about coping in the face of great loss, presumably. Scattered around the edges of the gym, pairs and trios of high school kids flirted, girls flouncing their hair, boys posturing and punching each other in the arms. Toddlers ran aimlessly in the broad expanse of yellow floor, exhilarated by the space and noise. Slowly, the building began to empty.
Janet had done an exemplary job of 'getting on with her life' after Pop died. She had mourned hard and then called an end to it. Now she carried her lingering grief gracefully, honoring his memory but never permitting her daughters to pity her. It was no accident that she had chosen to work in a rec center, where the river of life ran quick and bright every day, cleansing the psychic space of shadows. To Cree, the building felt full of sparks: the residual hot, clear feelings of kids at play and the tempestuous but transient emotions of competition – the reds'defeat made a dull ache in her chest, but already it was ebbing. Mom was queen here, managing the program calendar, score-keeping when she could afford the time, refereeing whenever she had a chance, at least before her arteries clogged enough to make the exertion dangerous. She liked the epicenter of activity, here under the bright lights.
At last the big room began to quiet down. The teams left, Janet's assistant rounded up balls.
'God, I am beat,' Janet said. 'The excitement is too much for me. Oh Lordy.' She palmed her eyes for a moment, then turned to give Cree a kiss. 'Hello, Cree.'
'Can you leave soon?'
'Yeah. The cleaning crew will be in tomorrow morning. Let's give it another five minutes and I'll close up.'
Cree dug in her bag and pulled out a wax-paper-wrapped parcel. 'I brought you some salmon. From that fish guy you like.'
'God, I'm hungry enough to eat it raw!' Janet hefted the package appreciatively before leaning to put it into her own bag. 'I'm glad to see you. What prompts this unexpected visit?'
Nothing, she could say, just wanted to see you. Or I'm leaving town for a few days, just wanted to touch base. 'Dee says you're going to have an angioplasty.'
Mom's eyes changed just a little – guarded to hide concern over the procedure, Cree wondered, or the plot with the cardiologist? 'Well. All my friends are having them. I figured I had to keep up appearances.'
Cree smiled. 'But how do you feel?'
'Me? I feel great.' She paused and gave it a little disclaimer. 'Just get out of breath, and these little pinches in my chest. Same old stuff.'
'I'm flying out to New Orleans on Thursday. I'll be back before you have to go in.'
'What's doing in New Orleans?'
'A job. I'm not sure of the details, but it looks promising.' Janet nodded. 'Well, I'm jealous. Your father went once and had a blast. He and I were always going to go back, but we never quite managed it.'
'What was Pop doing in New Orleans?' Cree asked.
'Oh, his ship docked there when he was in the Navy. He never admitted it in so many words, but I believe he drank his way up one side of Bourbon Street and whored his way down the other. He was twenty. That was 1950, it's no doubt very different now.' 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
