«Well, kids,» said John, «guess where we're spending the night.»
Chapter Thirty-one
Erie was having a bad winter that year and Randy's heating was on the blink. Randy, wearing several layers of sweaters, was channel surfing around dinnertime, chili vapors drifting in from the kitchen, when he found CNN announcing that Marilyn had settled her airline lawsuit for
«She's got gum in her mouth, the old crone,» Susan said. «You can tell because of the slight lump behind her left ear. She doesn't think people can tell, but
Marilyn spoke into a copse of network mikes. She said that justice had prevailed, but dammit, she'd happily forfeit every penny of her settlement for the chance to speak to Susan again for even one minute.
«Oh, Randy, this is
Randy's eyes darted between the screen and Susan's face. The trial had cast a spell on the house in the three months since Susan had arrived. She pretended not to care, but she did. Even on the days she claimed not to have read the paper, she was invariably up-to-the-minute on the trial's progress, and never lost a chance to assassinate her mother's character. More importantly to Randy, Susan had let it be known over the past months that once Marilyn finalized her suit, she, Randy and the baby would move out to California and put into action «Operation Brady,» which Randy hoped would be the next phase of his life.
«Look, Randy, she's
Their plan was not complex. Randy, Eugene Junior, and the dogs were to drive to Los Angeles. Once there, Randy would rent a Brady Bunch house in which he and Dreama would raise the baby in a deftly twisted version of nuclear familyhood. Susan would have to live close by until what could only be an enormous amount of fuss died down. Susan wanted to minimize any public glare Eugene Junior might have to endure. But most of all, Susan wanted to keep Marilyn away from the child. «That greedy old battle-ax's claws are never going to
Randy said, «Sooner or later the kid's going to need a Social Security number, Susan. I mean, technically, in the eyes of the U.S. government, Junior doesn't even exist.»
«Randy, Eugene Junior is going to be a Stone Age baby. There's going to be no paper trail on him at all — not until things quiet down. It's going to be a tabloid shark frenzy. We can do paperwork then.»
They worked quickly. On the day of her reemergence into the world, she drove down to Pittsburgh with Randy and Eugene Junior, and waved them off in an unparalleled spasm of blubbering. A chapter of her life was over as neatly as if followed by a blank page in a book. Then, wearing an anonymous, untraceable Gap outfit — unpleated khakis with a navy polo-neck shirt — she sauntered into a suburban Pittsburgh police station. She'd styled her hair in the manner she was famous for in
«Hello, Officer Bryar,» Susan said thoughtfully, as though she were about to offer a sample of low-fat cheese ropes at the end of a Safeway aisle. «My name is Susan Colgate. I — »she paused for effect — «I'm kind of confused here, and maybe you can help me out.»
Officer Bryar nodded.
«We're in — I mean, right now we're in, let me get this straight, Pennsyl
«Pittsburgh.»
«And today's date — I read it on the
Officer Bryar confirmed this.
Susan looked around her and saw a generic police station like one on the studio lot: flag; presidential portrait; bulletproof windows and video cams. She made a point of looking directly and forlornly into all of the cameras, knowing that the police department might well earn enough to finance a new fleet of patrol cars from selling the footage she was generating for them. She turned back to Officer Bryar: «Well, then. Last thing I remember I was heading to JFK Airport in New York to catch a plane to the Coast and now it's — Forget it.»
A media zoo ensued, and Susan was grateful to be housed in a cell in an unused portion of the civic jail. Her life of privacy with only Eugene, and then Randy and Eugene Junior was over. Her holiday from the variety pack of Susan Colgate identities for which she was known had come to an end.
A deputy brought Susan a small tub of blueberry yogurt and a KFC lunch pack of chicken and fries. Susan said thanks, and the deputy said, «I thought you were really good in
«Thank you.»
«I rented
Susan ate a fry. «What was your backup video?»
«
The deputy walked away and Susan ate a clump of fries and then spoke to herself.
Susan's public story, planned long in advance by her and Randy, was that she remembered not a thing between arriving at JFK Airport and reading the
Susan let it be known that she chose not to speak with the press as she sat safely within the cool, echoey stillness of the jail cell. For the time being, they could snack on the security camera images she'd provided. She also declined to speak with Marilyn. She was in no hurry because, as her story line went, she didn't feel she'd been missing. She felt no pangs of homesickness. The airline offered to fly her to Cheyenne that night. She accepted. The flight arrived past midnight, and at her request, she was to reunite with Marilyn the next morning. She said she was tired and confused and needed to sort things out in her head.
She was put up at the local Days Inn, and she slept soundly. She woke up at six-thirty the next morning, showered, and put on a Donna Karan ensemble provided by the airline. She was driven in a minivan through Cheyenne, the city that hadn't really been her home. It had been an extraordinarily hot and dry summer, and the leaves on the trees looked exhausted and the roads were dusty. Already her bowels felt like lead and she missed Eugene Junior and Randy. In a dull, aching and carsick way, she missed Eugene Senior, too. He would have loved and applauded the performance-art side of the act Susan had planned for the morning.
The vehicle approached an expensive-enough-looking Spanishstyle house with a maroon BMW and a Mercedes in the driveway. So this was the House on the Hill up to which Marilyn had leveraged herself. Trailers with satellite feeds circled the yard. Neck-craning neighbors stood behind yellow police tapes and the cameras
