Actually, it’s not that he couldn’t
do it…Billy’s a good guy, but this needs more of a…delicate touch.”
I imagined myself as Nancy Drew,
finding a beribboned cache of love letters or proof that Tommy’s grandfather
from Galway had owned Frederick Douglass. I needed to stop fantasizing and
think about real life. More out of a desire to kick my mind into working gear
rather than fears about accuracy, I pulled out a pad and pen. I probably
undercut the professional atmosphere by doodling, but drawing always had helped
me think things through. I drew a crooked little house that a bird wouldn’t
stay in. “You know that I work for
Arizona Mutual sometimes, right?”
“Sure. Checking
on claims.” I decided my ugly house needed a lawn and drew some grass blades in
while waiting for Tommy to get to the point.
“Yeah, well, your neighbor, this Corinne
Mathis? Has one of those lift vans and needed some body work on it. Only it’s
weird—the company has hardly talked to Corrine, but her companion has all kinds
of attitude and is acting funny.”
“Funny how? I asked. “Maybe Corrine doesn’t
speak clearly. It doesn’t have to be suspicious…probably just trying to be a
good advocate.” Good job or not, I was in no mood to hear about disabled people
faking. I had to concede that it probably happened sometimes but not as much as
able-bodied people wanted to talk about it.
“Well, it’s not
like they’re reporting a lost fur on their way back from Aruba, but they’re
just not forthcoming. I mean, it’s just a claim on her van. Lot of cosmetic
damage, but not enough for this amount of attitude from this guy, the driver… I
thought maybe you could get something I didn’t.”
“Haven’t kissed a girl since
college. Hope you’re not disappointed.”
“Oh, God, don’t start. I didn’t
mean anything like that, for Christ’s sake.”
“Just joking to hear you squirm.” I
wasn’t, but Morrigan didn’t need to know everything. A woman needed to keep
some distance between her adult self and the little girl he’d consoled when the
neighborhood kids took off on their bikes without her. “I’m sure it’s not
you…people take mobility and independence seriously. After all, people like us can’t just bum
rides, so this van is more than Corrine’s car.
It’s almost as though it’s her life.”
He groaned. “Just, you know,
befriend her. Keep an eye out. Oh, and when I said that other stuff…I wasn’t
thinking.”
“It’s okay.” We’d
known each other so long we didn’t have to talk much. “It was sure easier to make friends with people when I
was ten and could split my fruit roll-up, but I do know her a little. She seems
nice.”
“You know that
doesn’t mean she didn’t lie, right?”
Not as much as I
wanted Tommy to think I was a professional, but I said “Of course, I
understand.”
The next afternoon, as we were both at the communal mailbox in the bright blue light that passed for desert winter ,and she was a little ahead with a young man that might have been a relative and graciously helped me scoop up my mail after I somewhat dramatically dropped it into the drying grass. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” she joked. I really wished I had some fruit jerky in my pocket, but we weren’t ten anyway. I made a little quip about stalking, and wished it didn’t feel quite so true, but she smiled and didn’t seem to register my discomfort.
The next afternoon, as we were both at the communal mailbox in the bright blue light that passed for desert winter ,and she was a little ahead with a young man that might have been a relative and graciously helped me scoop up my mail after I somewhat dramatically dropped it into the drying grass. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” she joked. I really wished I had some fruit jerky in my pocket, but we weren’t ten anyway. I made a little quip about stalking, and wished it didn’t feel quite so true, but she smiled and didn’t seem to register my discomfort.
“I’m Neil,” he said. He extended a
well-kept hand for me to shake. “I’m
Corinne’s attendant.”
“Allyson.” We shook hands and I
waited. He did not disappoint, delivering both a half-hummed rendition of the
Elvis Costello classic and some snark about my “aim being true” Sometimes I
wondered what my parents had been thinking, but maybe my mother just wanted to
pass on the pop-song curse, since her name was Sherry and at least once a year
some grocery-store wiseass would try his falsetto out on her. I felt relieved that it seemed like
disability had been demystified for Neil enough that at least I wouldn’t have
to go through the whole saga about my premature birth and all the rest of it.
Obviously, I wasn’t a disability evaluator, but years of sizing people up in a
flash made me think we had that in common.
“Don’t sell yourself short.” Corinne had a voice
that you’d want to camp in
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