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Rose was back at her own kitchen table by Saturday afternoon, paging Joseph Corbin. She hadn't returned any of her own messages. The answering machine kept blinking: she counted eight blinks, but figured the calls were mainly from Stannie, and she didn't want to think about Stannie yet. His card lay on the top of the toaster oven, exactly where she'd put it last week after deciding there was no way she was ever going to Florida to meet his crazy mother.

"So, Rose," said Corbin. He'd called her back on a cell phone. His voice sounded like a whisper in a cave. "You got anything?"

"I've just spent a couple of days with the Fetal Rights people in Maryland."

"And?"

"You were right that I'd like some of them."

"Do they like you?"

"I think so. I had to lie to Jenny Lemke. I told her I'd had an abortion, myself."

"Great, so you're the victim now. She can't reject you."

Rose closed her eyes and shook her head.

"I hate myself for doing it."

Corbin snickered.

"You sound like you're in a mine shaft," she said.

"Actually, I'm at work."

Actually, he was stretched out in a hot tub in another part of town, hoping the phone wouldn't electrocute him.

"OK, and what else?"

"I also had a couple of long talks with their lawyer," she said.

"Name?"

"Westford. His sister Sibyl works with Jenny."

"Oh, I've interviewed Sibyl Westford. She's a picnic. What's the brother up to?"

"He represents people injured at birth because of failed abortions."

"What the hell kind of law is that?"

"Right now he's preparing a case against the federal government on behalf a nun."

"You're kidding!"

"I'd have asked him more about it, but he left. He invited me to their big meeting this morning but Jenny told him there was trouble in Florida and he took off in a hurry."

"Trouble where in Florida?"

"I don't know. Maybe Pensacola. That's where the nun lives."

"Or Miami?"

"I don't know." She heard squeaking sounds in the background.

"Find out if they went to Miami," said Corbin, who had stood up from the tub and was reaching for a plush, white towel. "I'll see what else I can dig up about his cases."

"Why Miami? Because of the clinic bombing there last September?"

"Yeah. Maybe he's not just representing aborted babies. Maybe he's representing a terrorist."

"Should I go down there myself?"

"Possibly. Let's find out more about Westford. What's his first name again?"

"Jim. And I like him."

"Yeah, yeah. And speaking of your love life—" Corbin's voice suddenly lowered. "Have you talked to your boyfriend lately?"

"Not yet." She paused. "I just got back. I was going to call him."

"You know I don't like Stan but I hate what McLeesh did to him, too. I think the guy's a jerk. You did hear about that?"

"No."

"You must have heard."

"I've had my mind on this story."

"An old woman showed up in Washington saying she was Stannie's birth mother. And McLeesh actually flew her down to Florida and left her there at Stannie's house, this homeless woman, and he flew back to Washington."

Rose looked over at her answering maching, blink blink blinking away.

"Huh?"

"The woman," said Corbin. "You know her."

"What are you talking about?"

"Somebody from your book."

"Joseph—"

"I don't remember her name. It was funny, like Duck or Goose something. Call McLeesh and ask him. Or call Stan. He's probably back in town by now, buying a gun to shoot McLeesh with. McLeesh stinks all the way down the hall to my office."

"You know, Joseph, for a bunch of liberals, you guys sure do hate each other."

Corbin made a growling noise. He'd wrapped his towel around his waist and was headed for the masseuse.

"I've got a lot of paperwork here. Call me back in a few days, let me know how it's going."

She put the phone down and stood up nervously. On the kitchen table lay a copy of her book: she'd signed it for Stannie, but he'd forgotten to take it home, of course. She picked it up and flipped through it distractedly, then tossed it back on the table and pushed the playback button on the answering machine. Scattered among messages from her mother, her sister, AT&T and the pest control man was Stannie's voice.

"So I get the answering machine again, huh?" "Rose. Call. Soon. Here. Or better yet, come." "Rose! Rosie! Rose, damn it, Rose! At least call me back!" "What is your problem, woman? What, are you having an affair with Joseph Corbin, now? Are you so starved for me, sexually, that you would turn to a man who buys grey neckties in bulk?" "This is where I stand, Rose. This is where we stand. My father's a terrorist, and my mother's a … well, I don't have any word for what my mother is. I'm driving her back to Alabama tomorrow and that's the last of her I want to see. Like, ever. I think I'll have just a little more whiskey and then I'm going to drown in my own vomit. If you want to save my life, call me here at my motel. But I might go out to find a hooker, so try back if you can't get me the first time. OK, that's all. Well, it's not—not really all. This is depressing me. So call."

Rose stood with her hand over her chest.

* * *

On Sunday morning, Stannie's younger sister wasn't thinking of anything in particular, just sorting socks and underwear by color and putting everything in various bags within bags in her three suitcases. Bags within bags within bags. Mary Beth was excited, and the excitement gave her extra energy, and her very favorite thing in the entire world was to organize clothing in small bags, even if she wasn't going anywhere. She would have made a real asset at a large suburban store—a Super Target or a Wal-Mart—if she'd had any need to work.

As it was, she spent about half her time buying clothes and the other half sorting them and taking care of them. She had 220 pairs of jeans, 75 pairs of khakis, 96 dresses, 51 jumpers, 82 blouses, 36 sweaters, and exactly 500 pairs of shoes—just to list a few major articles of clothing. (Somewhere she had an inventory of everything, including vests, scarves, and dickies.) Right now she stood in a blue-and-pink checked sundress in the middle of her bright bedroom with her blonde hair clipped back over her moist neck and her plump hands rifling through piles of shorts. The ceiling fan turned slowly over her head, floating shadows across her face like movie frames.

Ed Flynt knocked on her door. He'd been standing out in the hall for a long time now, waiting and thinking, wondering whether she knew where her adopted brother had taken off to. The woman on the third floor had been sleeping all morning and wasn't a bit of use for answers. He'd tried to wake her up—even waved ammonia under her nose, but she kept on in a dead sleep and then Ida came tripping down the hall, and he had to pretend he was screwing off a radiator vent.

"Yes?" Mary Beth called. "Is that you, Linda Kate?"

He answered in his muffled voice.

"It's just Ed, Miss Mary Beth."

"Ed?" She thought maybe she hadn't heard right. Ed never came to her room, never spoke to her, in fact, which was fine with her.

"Can I come in?"

"Yes," she said, after a moment's hesitation. She was curious.

He opened the door quietly and shuffled a foot or so forward.

"You and your sister fixing to leave on a trip, ain't you?"

"That's right." She paused, and then giggled nervously. "You want to come, Ed?"

He didn't say anything, just kept his head down. Then he came a few feet further in.

"Well, where are you going?"

She giggled again.

"We're going out to LA to crash the Oscars. I mean, not really to crash the Oscars, but maybe Stannie'll invite us to one of the parties, know what I mean? I would die to go to one of those parties."

"Why don't he take the two of you with him to the whole deal? I mean the program and all."

"Limited seating, I guess. We're not invited."

Ed was suddenly disappointed. "Stupid bitch," he thought, but he kept his manner polite, with his hooks behind his back. The shadow of the fan moved across his hat.

"I'd come if you want me to. You might need some protection in California. It's full of the blacks and the Mexicans."

She stopped for a second and then turned and really laughed.

"How sweet!" She flashed her white teeth at him. "I don't mean to laugh. Really, that is so sweet. But my dad would never let you leave here, Ed. He needs you too much."

"I knowed it," he said. He kept the bitterness out of his voice. "And I'm getting tired, too. Might be I can't keep it up too much longer."

"I'll tell him to give you a raise." She smiled. "No kidding. He will if I ask."

"I always liked working here." He started walking backwards. "It ain't just for the money. You people's good people. You girls is good girls. I don't see the men coming round here all the time, like with some."

"You can say that again." She frowned. "But maybe in Hollywood we'll meet some nice guys. You can never tell."

"Tell you what," he said. "I want to give you a little present to take with you."

"Now what are you talking about?"

"I got something fixed up for you."

"What in the world are you talking about."

"Wait and see."

He left the room, went down the hall, and came back a few minutes later with a small video camera.

"Is that mine?" she said. "Stannie gave it to me for Christmas. The one I broke?"

"I fixed it."

"You're kidding."

"No, I had it down there for a while in my shop, I just finally got around to it."

"I didn't know you could do things like this."

"You take me some good movies with this, that's all the thanks I need. Take me some movies of your brother out there and show me later. I want to see him."

"That is so sweet."

"Well, I'm proud of him. I been here since he was a little guy, you know. He used to be my buddy."

"Really?" She frowned just a little. She couldn't quite imagine it.

"Yeah, he was my buddy all right."

"Well." Mary Beth took a deep breath and looked toward the door. "Well, Ed, I thank you so much."

He turned to go, still thinking, "Stupid bitch."

"I promise you I'll get good some good film of the whole thing," she said, suddenly feeling sorry for him. Maybe it was the sight of him from the back, with his old shirt tight around his waist, his artificial arms hanging from loose sleeves. "Rose might take this in with her."

He stopped and seemed to be thinking for a moment and then he said, "That the girl he goes with? The one he been calling and she don't call back?"

"I guess so. He doesn't tell me."

"Then you give it to her. That's what I want you to do. You put it right in her hands and tell her that he was better than all of them there put together. Do that."

Mary Beth closed the door behind him. A few moments later, Linda Kate came to her room and looked at the camera.

"Our family's so weird," said Linda. She sounded angry: her mouth looked dry and small. "Even the help here is weird."

Mary Beth frowned.

"I don't know why you get so … whatever. What's the big deal, anyway?"

"I didn't say it was a big deal. Are you packed? Can we leave in the morning?"

Mary Beth nodded over at the giant pile of shorts.

"I have a little ways to go."

Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture Magazine.
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