South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [87]
Gladys felt shaky at the thought of it. It was August, hot and dry, the whole town might have caught fire. “But I don’t Understand,” she kept saying. “How did it start? The place is empty. I haven’t been in there in weeks.”
“Ah, well. Someone has, though, you see. Someone had candles burning.”
“That’s impossible!”
“Kids broke in, maybe,” John said. “Or maybe not kids. Not with the front door wide open. No booze bottles lying around, either.”
“It doesn’t make any sense.”
John looked very troubled. “There’s pictures propped against the walls. Canvases, like. Paintings. Those anything of yours?”
Gladys couldn’t answer. She felt as if all the air she’d ever breathed had just been sucked out of her. Madeline couldn’t have done this, she couldn’t, she wouldn’t. But in her heart Gladys knew that she had.
“Gladys?”
“I want to see for myself what the damage is.”
“No. You are not going in there right now and that’s final.”
“But I am. It’s my place.”
“No one’s going Up those stairs Until we know full well the fire is one hundred percent out and there’s not going to be any problems with the propane or anything else. Don’t argue with me about this.”
“Fine. I’ll wait.”
“I’ll take you back home,” John said, gently then. “I’ll come by later and let you know what the situation is.”
“I’ll wait here.” Gladys crossed her arms over her bosom and stared Up at the attic windows, and John let her be.
20
I want to go home,” Madeline told Mary. They were sitting in the yard, snapping the ends off a bushel of green beans Mary’d bought from Albert, getting them ready to freeze. “Lately I just—I miss Chicago.” She laughed nervously.
Mary glanced over at her. “I thought you were going to buy the hotel.”
“I was. But now maybe not. The fire, you know.”
“I thought it didn’t do much damage.”
“It didn’t. Except for between Gladys and me.”
“Mmm,” Mary said, because she knew that was true.
“I just—I want to go to a movie.”
As if that was what was really on the girl’s mind. But Mary went along. “So drive over to the Soo, they got lots of movies.”
“That’s exactly it. I don’t want to drive a hundred miles one way to see a movie. I just want to go. I want it to be easy. I want to go to a jazz club, maybe. And shopping! Wouldn’t that be something? I want some bustle, some traffic. And I miss—anonymity. You know? I miss that more than anything. I would love for no one to know who I am for just, like, a day.”
“Mmm,” Mary said again.
And again Madeline skittered away from anything resembling what her real trouble was. “And bagels. God, I would kill for a real bagel with real deli cream cheese. With chives! And Ethiopian food. And Thai. I want to take a class, maybe. I could learn to tango. I want to go to a baseball game, and the museums, and the zoo. I want to listen to the radio, for God’s sake, that’s all.”
Mary kept snapping the ends off beans.
“Is that so much to ask?”
“It’s quite a lot.”
Madeline’s laugh was wavery and Unconvincing. Maybe the place had just gotten to be too much for her. It was for most people. Too lonely, too remote. Not for Mary. But people got to feeling trapped, she knew. Even with all the modern things people had here nowadays—phones and computers and televisions and cars (and Mary could still remember when a lot of people traveled in wagons, it wasn’t that long ago)—McAllaster was not quite in the modern world.
Madeline was rambling on again. “I just want—I don’t know what. I feel like I’m in prison. My car barely runs, I’m broke, everyone hates me, I’ve read all the books in the library, I haven’t shopped anywhere but a grocery store or a hardware or even had a haircut since I left Chicago. I look like an