Looking for Cassandra Jane (The Second Chances Novels) Page 9

  I know Mrs. Johnson kept a constant chatter going as she drove to Brookdale, but for the life of me I can’t remember a single word she said. Finally, she pulled to a stop, on the good side of town, and I looked out my window to see a rather nice-looking, stucco split-level before me, fully fenced and landscaped—respectable. “Is this it?” I asked weakly.

  Mrs. Johnson smiled with satisfaction. “Yes. And if I’m not mistaken that’s Mrs. Glenn coming right now.” Just then a white, shiny, late-model Cadillac pulled into the immaculate driveway and a small, neatly dressed woman climbed out.

  “Hello, there,” called Mrs. Johnson.

  Mrs. Glenn turned, as if caught by surprise. “Oh yes. I forgot the time. Come on in. I’ve just been at the store.”

  We entered the house, and at once I could tell that it was air-conditioned, although I’d never lived anywhere that was air-conditioned before. I looked around the corner of the entry to spy a sunken living room. It looked like something right out of a movie set, with big potted plants and art on the walls, and a long, low, pale three-pieced sofa, connected by blond end tables in the corners, each with a large pottery lamp in its center. Everything looked expensive and new, and matched perfectly. It was beautiful! Almost too beautiful to use, I thought.

  Apparently Mrs. Glenn thought so too, since she led us right past this showroom and into a smaller, less formal, but nicely furnished room (what they called a family room, although they never had family over). It was situated near the kitchen with what looked like a real bar toward the back. From the big floor-to-ceiling windows in this room, I could see directly into the Glenn’s backyard, and there, shining like a giant blue gemstone, was a sparkling swimming pool with a wide terra cotta patio all around, and padded lounge chairs clustered here and there!

  About then, I thought maybe I’d done died and gone to heaven. I’m sure my jaw was hanging clear down to my chest. Suddenly and unexpectedly cheered, I wondered if this was God’s way of rewarding me for how hard I’d tried to be a good girl while living with the Crowleys. Well, okay, then, I thought, let’s bring it on!

  I’m afraid I didn’t listen very well as Mrs. Glenn and Mrs. Johnson conversed over iced tea, or I might’ve started to figure things out a little sooner. But as soon as Mrs. Johnson departed, I was shown to my room (or my “quarters,” as she called it). She took me downstairs to the basement and showed me a small windowless “bedroom” with its own tiny bath and what appeared to be a kitchenette (a card table, chair, old refrigerator, and hot plate). It wasn’t really all that bad, but slightly disappointing after what I’d allowed myself to briefly imagine to be a dream come true. “Naturally, we’ll provide you with groceries,” she was saying, “but I’ll expect you to take care of your own meals as well as the cleaning and laundry and such.”

  I nodded dumbly, unsure if she meant my own cleaning and laundry and such, or that of the entire household. I soon figured out it was the latter. As it turned out I had been taken into their home to be something of a live-in maid (only I wasn’t to expect to be paid). Of course I’d get to attend school and have my basic needs provided for, but in exchange I would be expected to do “chores.”

  After recovering from my initial disappointment, I listened as Mrs. Glenn went over the house rules, droning on about how I wasn’t to use the pool except during specified times, or to have friends over (which I knew wasn’t a problem) and a whole list of other tawdry details. Trying to stay positive, I convinced myself this situation wasn’t so bad after all. Oh, sure, it wasn’t my fairy-tale dream—that had only lasted a few minutes. But maybe this was a way for me to live in a safe place and still have my independence.

  It was clear this couple (with grown children who rarely visited) had no desire to be involved in my life on a personal level. I was simply there to “help out.” But I started thinking, maybe I could get my old job back (or a better one) and if I had enough money in my savings account, perhaps I could get a car, too. Then I’d just come and go as I pleased. I’d already noticed that my “quarters” had a separate exit, which Mrs. Glenn expected me to “use primarily, especially when we’re entertaining.”

  She handed me a couple of very specific lists, then although she didn’t say it in exactly these words, I understood that she expected me to become her “invisible maid” who helped her immaculate household to continue functioning perfectly with a whole lot less effort from her.

  “You see, my husband is an important man in town,” she said somewhat apologetically, “and he often brings home clients, and all the cocktail parties and whatnot can be pretty wearing on me. As I already said, our children are grown and, goodness knows, I have no desire to be a mother again. But we’re happy to provide for a good girl, as long as she can help out and live up to our expectations.” She looked me up and down carefully as if assessing both my character and physical strength. “Does that sound agreeable to you, Cassandra?”

  I looked around my dismal quarters and smiled weakly. “I think so.”

  “Well, time will tell.” She headed for the stairs. “Oh yes, the groceries in the car are for you. Please go and get them directly.”

  Keeping a nice house like the Glenn’s in top-notch working order took more effort than I’d imagined, but in the next few days I began to get the hang of it, and Mrs. Glenn seemed fairly pleased with my progress (although she never hesitated to point out my many flaws and shortcomings—she did so with little notes slipped under my door at night). Still, I wasn’t sure how it would go once school started up the following week. Would I be able to maintain my grades (still important to me at that point) while keeping house, as well as hold a part-time job? It seemed, for the moment, the job might have to wait.

  On the Friday before Labor Day, I finished my chores earlier than usual (it was just past noon) and decided to walk into town. It was the first time I’d been in Brookdale proper since that night my daddy had beat me up. Surprisingly, the town seemed bigger and livelier than I recollected, but I quickly figured this must be due to my last five months spent in and around the tiny town of Snider.

  I felt just slightly conspicuous as I walked down Main Street, but then wondered if anyone even recognized me in my rather normal-looking Wrangler blue jeans (no beads, fraying, or embroidery) and ordinary-looking blouse—and as usual, of late, my hair was pulled back into a long tail, hanging neatly down my back. But I began spotting kids I’d known from my old school, and they looked different, too. To my amazement, many now wore clothing that looked strangely similar to my old “hippy rags” as they used to call them back when they liked to tease me. Why, I even spotted Sally Roberts and Shelly Sinclair in front of the post office—both wearing, of all things, bib overalls! Here it was, 1970, and it seemed that Brookdale had finally been hit with the trends of the sixties.

  I know I should’ve seen the humor and irony here, but the truth is I felt personally affronted by this turning of the tables. As usual, it seemed that poor ol’ Cassandra Maxwell was on the outside looking in! Now you’d think with all the troubles and conflicts I’d experienced of late (death, displacement, and the like) clothing would be the very least of my concerns. After all, I’d almost convinced myself while living with the Crowleys that how a person dressed was rather superficial and insignificant. But somehow this whole weird experience of seeing Sally Roberts in bib overalls just really freaked me out. I still remember how I turned around (did a one-eighty right there on Main Street) and headed straight back to the Glenn’s house (a twenty-minute walk) and dug out my old canvas suitcase.

  I unzipped the bag and noticed my new Bible sitting right on top and was immediately assuaged with a mixture of confusing feelings. Guilt mixed with hope, faith with doubt, sorrow with sweetness, and finally I just had to set the leather-covered book aside.

  I quickly changed into a wrinkled summer smock top and a pair of faded bell-bottoms trimmed with ribbons of tapestry tape at the hemline. I grabbed my old beaded shoulder bag and slipped out my exit again, this ti
me being careful not to be heard or noticed (I sensed that Mrs. Glenn would definitely not approve of my appearance) and then hurried back toward town. And it was weird, but as soon as I was a block away from the Glenn’s house, I suddenly felt like myself again—free and alive and young! But it was strange, because at the same time I felt just slightly guilty, too. I figured it might have to do with church and God, but to be honest, I wasn’t even sure why.

  My destination, I suddenly realized as my steps quickened, was the stationery store. For some unexplainable but deeply compelling reason, I felt I must see Joey. I just knew that if I explained everything to him—what had happened at the Crowleys, how I was feeling right now—he, of all people, would understand, I knew that Joey would be able to straighten me out. But when I reached Saunders Stationery store, Joey was nowhere in sight. Finally, a young woman asked if she could help me, and I inquired about Joey.

  “Oh, Joey went off to college over a week ago,” she said, as if I should’ve known this important and obvious information already.

  “Oh…” was all I could think to say as I stood stupidly before her. I wanted to ask exactly where it was he’d gone off to college at, but didn’t sense she wanted to continue her conversation with me. Besides, a man who looked to be a real customer had walked in by then, and I figured I could always go to Mrs. Divers to ask for an address. If I wanted to, that is.

  Feeling fairly dismayed and just slightly lost, I continued to walk through town in something of a daze, not really seeing anything or anyone specifically. Joey is gone, I kept telling myself. Joey is gone, I suddenly felt like that “ship without a rudder” that Pastor Henry back in Snider had preached about not too many Sundays ago.

  Finally I stopped at the Dairy Maid—slightly comforted by the familiarity of the old place. Then I asked for Clint, thinking I’d say hi and maybe even see about getting my old job back. The girl at the counter just laughed at me. “Clint Campbell? Why, he sold this place months ago and went down to Mexico to live.”

  I blinked, then ordered a soft-serve cone. I continued walking through town as I slowly licked the soothing, cool ice cream. I felt like a completely displaced person—like some of those sad-eyed Vietnam refugees you saw on the news. Or maybe I’d just stepped into some sort of twilight zone—maybe this wasn’t really Brookdale at all, or maybe I wasn’t really Cassandra Jane Maxwell. At one point, I honestly considered stopping by to see if my Aunt Myrtle still lived in town, but I figured with my luck, she probably did.

  Ten

  I was standing on a corner next to the five-and-dime trying to decide whether or not to cross the street when I noticed something that finally made me feel like I had a real connection in Brookdale. It was a lime green poster stapled to the telephone pole announcing that Pete Jackson’s band would be playing at the annual Labor Day dance on Saturday night in the park.

  Pete was the guy who’d given me guitar lessons a couple years earlier. I knew that he’d graduated ages ago, and I was somewhat surprised that he was still around. Not that he was the kind of guy to be college-bound, but then who would choose to stick around a podunk town like this after high school? Not me.

  I pondered whether or not I had the nerve to show up at a dance all by myself, then thought, what did I have to lose anyway? And yet at the same time I wondered how I would’ve felt about all this a few weeks earlier—back when I was committed to being a good, straight-laced church girl. But that was before God had let me down by disrupting the quiet little life I’d worked so hard to create. What did it matter what I did or where I went now? Who really cared about me anyway? Who even knew I was alive? I stopped by the Citizen’s Bank, where I still had my savings account, to withdraw a little pocket money before I headed back to the Glenn’s.

  Within minutes Mrs. Glenn was knocking on my door telling me I needed to come upstairs and help her get things ready. Ready for what? I wondered as I quickly changed my clothes. Turned out they were throwing a “little party” that night and I was stuck in the kitchen slicing cheese and cold cuts and making dips out of dried soup mixes and sour cream for the next couple of hours. I finished just as the guests began to arrive and was finally dismissed for the evening.

  Trying to suppress my feelings of being left out (left out of what? I asked myself with ire—a stupid grown-up party?) I went downstairs to my little underground home and sat on my bed. In an attempt to block out what was going on upstairs I tried to work on a pencil drawing that I’d started back at the Crowley’s. It was a picture of the horse in the corral next to the barn, But for some reason I just couldn’t focus. I couldn’t even remember what the roof of the barn looked like.

  And besides there were too many thoughts tumbling through my head, just going round and round like clothes in the dryer. I had doubts about God and myself and even the world I lived in.

  Finally I picked up my Bible and ran my hands over its smooth, supple leather surface. I lifted the book to my nose and inhaled its fragrance—it reminded me of the saddle that had hung out in the Crowley barn. Roy had promised to give me riding lessons on Old Mary in the fall when the weather finally cooled down a bit. I would’ve liked to have felt the power of a horse beneath me. I really think I could’ve learned to ride and maybe even been good at it. If I’d just had the chance.

  “Why, God?” I asked suddenly. I could feel big tears gathering in my eyes—the first ones since that day I’d found Roy under the tractor. But no answers came to my short prayer (was it really a prayer?) and so I set the Bible aside and picked up my guitar and played loudly and badly until my fingers became sore and tender—I’d have to work to get those calloused fingertips back. I felt no concern about making too much noise that night since it was clear the Glenn’s party and music were much louder than anything I could produce.

  Finally, bored with my stuffy and windowless quarters, I slipped outside and looked into the backyard from behind a rhododendron. I watched, at first with voyeuristic fascination and then later disgust, as a group of adults (some of the respected leaders of our fair city) acted just like a bunch of drunken, crazy kids around the pool.

  One lady wearing a hot pink halter dress kept pushing fully dressed men into the pool, then laughing loudly as they sputtered to the surface. Finally a couple of guys sneaked up behind her, jovially picked her up, and tossed her into the pool. She emerged with an angry face, makeup running and drippy hair, but it quieted her down some.

  The laughter and pranks continued, and from where I stood in the darkened protection of the shrubbery I suddenly felt jealous of their lighthearted fun. It seemed so unfair and upside down from what I thought life should be. And then I realized that tomorrow I’d be the one responsible to clean up all their messes in the yard and house, and so, feeling disturbingly like Cinderella, I turned away and slunk off to bed.

  Before I fell asleep I thought of my daddy and his drinking escapades, which I felt certain had never included parties anything like the Glenns liked to throw. Then I wondered what he’d think of me, living as a servant girl, here with these strange people? But as quickly as the thought came, I dismissed it. What did I care what he would think?

  Knowing I most likely had a full day of cleaning before me, I got up early and slipped into my bikini and cutoffs. I suspected the Glenns would sleep in, and probably be seriously hungover after their late-night partying, and I planned to catch some sun as I picked up the backyard, then possibly take a quick dip in the pool (during my official “pool time,” which was limited to the mornings on Saturdays). I put my little transistor radio in my pocket, with the earplug stuck in my ear, and bebopped to the music as I toted a garbage bag around the yard, picking up empty beer cans and drink containers and other various bits of garbage littered all about and even in the pool.

  At first I felt somewhat stunned to discover signs that pot had been smoked, along with some even more disturbing items related to other “recreational” drug usage. Could it really be that these “responsible adults” actually used th
e same kind of crud that Bryn and her boyfriends had been into? I shook my head in disgust. What was life coming to, anyway?

  “How’s it going?” called a man’s voice from behind me.

  I jumped, dropping a beer can loudly on the terra cotta tile as I turned to see Mr. Glenn standing in the doorway, wearing a navy blue bathrobe. I’d only met him a couple of times before and then only briefly. But my first impression was that he might be a little nicer than his no-nonsense wife. “Oh, hi,” I said, suddenly feeling self-conscious and even somewhat intrusive—although I was doing exactly what I’d been told to do.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. “Man.” He whistled out a stream of smoke as he looked around the garbage-strewn yard. “Looks like we really trashed the joint last night. You need any help out here?”

  I mutely shook my head, embarrassed to realize that I still held the twisted butt of a smoked joint in my hand. I dropped it into the garbage bag and swallowed. “No, I’m fine,” I finally said. “I just thought I’d better get an early start on this.”

  He chuckled. “And to think I thought Kelly was crazy when she said we were getting paid to keep a maid, but as usual it looks like she was right.”

  I frowned over at him, suddenly realizing how he must think it was some sort of great joke to take advantage of me like this. And who knew what other advantages he wanted to take? That’s when it hit me—a plan that might get me some real bargaining power. Or perhaps it was just plain blackmail.

  I opened the garbage bag, pulled out the partially smoked joint, and held it up. Then, using an innocent voice mixed just slightly with cynicism, I said, “You know, Mr. Glenn, I don’t think CSD would be too happy to find out they’ve placed a poor homeless kid in a foster home where illegal drugs are being used.”

  He squinted into the sun, reaching up to rub his chin, as if pondering my words. Then he looked back at me, and I felt his eyes traveling uncomfortably up and down, not so much as if he was checking out my body (although I’m sure he probably was) but more like he was checking me out, adding me up. I suddenly wished I had thrown a T-shirt over my tangerine string-bikini top, or that my faded and frayed cutoffs were not quite so short. It wasn’t exactly an outfit I’d planned to wear in the presence of my new “foster parents.” But keeping my cool, I held my ground, not even flinching.