The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [160]
I’d left the car behind Dream Master, where I knew I wouldn’t get towed. As I walked along the outlet, the building turned a dark, blank-eyed, and impassive face to the world, but when I cut around to the parking lot, a light was visible in Art’s window. He had left the party before I had a chance to say hello. I wondered if he was inside at his desk, or if he’d just left the light on. I wondered what, if anything, he knew about Iris, or the will, or Rose. So I went in.
I walked through those corridors where I had played as a child, running over the dusty linoleum, thrilled with the scents of metal and sawdust. This place had defined so many generations, and it looked caught in time. A row of safes for sale stood against the wall, made by some other company now, their little doors ajar. I walked up and down the aisles, studying the displays of locks and the bins of nails, the racks of paint chips and brushes.
When I finally made it to the door of Art’s office, I found him staring at a computer screen. An old-fashioned adding machine sat on the desk, cascading paper onto the dusty tile floor.
He didn’t hear me right away, and so there was a moment when I stood and watched him, concentrating hard, traces of my father in the shape of his hands and forearms, in the way his sideburns tapered into his graying hair. When he glanced up and saw me he was startled, and his face opened and went slightly slack with surprise; then he laughed, relaxing back into the chair.
“Lucy,” he said. “What a surprise.”
“Big leap?” I asked. “From hardware to software, I mean?”
He chuckled. “Sure is. You any good with spreadsheets?”
“I am, actually.”
“Ah. Want to have a look?”
“No, not really.”
He looked at me then, taking me in for the first time, and the uneasy expression that moved across his face echoed his look when he’d first seen me.
“No?” He folded his arms across his chest. “Then, what can I do for you?”
I felt sorry for him then, because he suddenly looked old and vulnerable behind that desk.
“I was just passing by and saw the light was on,” I said, gesturing to the window. “I parked here and went to the party. I saw you, but didn’t get to say hello.”
“I stopped in. It was fun. I always like the ring of fire, and the concert—I like that, too. Your father and I used to light flares as kids. It doesn’t seem that long ago.”
“I’ve been driving his car,” I said. “You know, the one he fixed up?”
“I know. I went out to look at it earlier. He sure loved that car.”
“Yes, he did. My mother hasn’t had the heart to touch it all these years, so it’s mostly just been sitting in the barn.”
He nodded and looked out the window at the gravel parking lot, where the Impala sat at the edge of light from the streetlamp, the silver arrows glinting.
“He’d be glad, I think.” Art said. “Glad to know you were enjoying it, Lucy.”
I leaned against the chair. “I am enjoying it. Though it drives like a boat. And the other day I had a flat tire, coming back from Elmira. I had to call the car service, you know, and the guy who came pulled everything out of the trunk. You’ll never guess what I found.”
“I can’t imagine—a tire iron?”
“Yes, actually. And my father’s tackle box.”
Art sat up straighter then, leaning a little forward. He folded his hands carefully on the desk.
“Yes? Are you sure? We looked and looked for that the night he died.”
“I know. He used to take me fishing. All the lures I remember were there.”
“I see.”
“Did you fish with him a lot when you were younger?” I asked, sliding into the chair, its leather smooth against the backs of my legs.
“Yes, as a matter of fact. We did. Summers, we were out on the water every morning. Me and Marty. We’d catch a whole string of fish sometimes. Other times we’d come back empty-handed.”
I nodded, thinking with nostalgia of all the mornings I’d spent with my father in just this same way.
“It’s funny, though,” I said. “The lures were in the tackle box, just like you’d expect, but none of his tools were in the bottom. No tools,