“Do you think he could actually win?” I asked.
“Honey, if I could tell the future, do you think I’d still be flat broke?”
All conversations with my mother eventually funneled into the topic of her lack of money. Not to make light of it—older and poor is a terrible combination. And I didn’t believe Chip had meant to con her all those years back with his talk of a better life in Nevada. He was retired military and had intended to start up some business making specialized parts for military aircraft. He had ideas and, supposedly, connections. He just couldn’t do it. The right place at the right time ended up being the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the right place at the wrong time. Or maybe the timing never mattered at all, given his appetite for the casinos.
My mother asked where I was driving to.
“The supermarket,” I said, and I asked her if she was exercising the way she was supposed to. She’d recently been diagnosed with diabetes. “Yeah,” she said, “sure.” And then like any good evader of the truth, she changed the topic. “Any good bookings lined up?”
I told her about this morning’s invitation to perform at the World of Magic convention.
“What does it pay?” she asked.
“It doesn’t,” I said, the defensiveness already creeping into my voice.
“Oh. That doesn’t sound very savvy.”
“It is, Mom. It’s potentially very good for my career.”
Why? Why had I gone and told my mother the truth, when a lie was always better for our relationship?
“Hmm,” she said. “Well, I’m sure you know best.”
“I do, Mom.” I clenched my teeth. “I do know best.”
I hung up the phone feeling angry and hurt—and guilty, as well, for feeling hurt and angry, because I was way too old for teenage histrionics. On the radio a listener was asking Victor Flowers the vital political question of whether he’d seen Jersey Boys. I changed the station to music and continued westward under a ceiling of low clouds, the taped trash bag flapping in the wind like a sad flag. Over the next hour, the ubiquitous Union County traffic lessened. I began to pass large farms of hard, brown earth where someday something would grow.
Flemington had only one kindergarten, and at 1:45 p.m. my car was parked across the street (the “bitch” side facing away from the school), engine on, heater running. My stomach was reminding me about the one lesson I should have learned from watching TV cops on a stakeout. I should have packed a sandwich.
Around 2:15, yellow buses started to line up outside the front of the school. At a little past 2:30 the school doors opened, and kids—so many kids—poured out of the building, along with some teachers who guided the kids toward the right buses. The teacher I’d hoped to see was not among them, because Ellen, if that was even her name, was not a kindergarten teacher. And if by chance she was, then she didn’t work here. Still, I waited, because it’s easy to follow Plan A when Plan B doesn’t exist. When all the buses had groaned away, I waited while more teachers emerged from the building over the next half hour.
This was a flat, wide street, where across from the school a row of humble wooden houses stood with leafless trees out front and Christmas lights strung over shrubs and on rooftops. I imagined what it would be like to live here, to work a regular job and come home again at the end of the day to a family. We would eat together and do homework and maybe watch a show. Light a fire in the fireplace, listen to its snap and pop. I knew I should call my mother again and apologize for being short with her on the phone. For always being short with her. For failing to think of ways to bring her a little happiness. I knew she didn’t have it easy. She’d never had it easy. I wished I could do more for her, whatever the hell more was.
The holidays were an undertow of guilt, and I found myself being pulled into the deeper waters and forgetting where I was—which was why I almost missed the petite blond woman leaving the school.
She was dressed more like an administrator than a kindergarten teacher: stylish gray coat over a black dress, stockings, pumps. Her gait, though. The briskness of it. The erect posture. It was how she’d hurried away from me on the quiet Atlantic City street the night before.
My car was an eyesore, but she hadn’t seen it the prior night and didn’t pay it any mind now. I got out of the car, quietly shut the door, and followed her to the parking lot.
She approached her car, a Toyota Prius. Either she was environmentally conscious or she liked being able to drive in silence.
When I had closed the gap between us to maybe ten yards, I called out, “Ellen?”
Not only had her hair lightened a few shades since last night; it had grown longer, past her shoulders. Eyeliner, mascara, blush, lipstick, all were applied expertly. Her green eyes were large and inquisitive and wide awake. Quite possibly, the circles under them last night had themselves been the product of makeup, not the absence of it. She looked as out of place now in the primary school parking lot as she had last night, the fatigued mom-slash-teacher at the poker table.
“Natalie?” She squinted and looked around as if perhaps she, and not I, were in the wrong place. “What are you …”
“The Last Call Tavern?” I said. “Where you asked me to meet you? It must have shut down since the last time you were there.” I glanced around. “I can’t believe you’re really a kindergarten teacher.”
She unlocked her door.
“Is that the wig?” I asked. “Or did you wear the wig last night?”
She faced me full-on. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“Is your name really Ellen?”
“Is yours really Natalie?”
“My
