What You See in the Dark Page 4

  The Actress leaned forward and there it was: the long green Valley flanked on the west by the low coastal hills, over on the east by the towering Sierra, the place she had been born in, had come from, maybe was destined to return to. “Majestic, isn’t it?” she said. “Gorgeous, really.”

  “Yes, ma’am. From the Lord’s point of view, everything looks beautiful.”

  The road was level, but she could feel the sedan picking up speed. The descent would start soon, and with it the curving roads. She felt her stomach drop heavy for a moment even before they began going down, the Valley beckoning below.

  Are you willing to wear only a brassiere for the opening scene? The Director had asked her. It’s important for the atmosphere.

  Fruit. Cotton. Oil. The land spread out as far as she could see. The story of the woman would take place in the Valley, but there was no landmark to let the audience know. No leaning tower, no red bridge, no streets of stark white monuments. It was a terrible story to tell.

  Ma’am, I know where I can have you fitted for some black brassieres, a wardrobe mistress assured her. Very elegant, very discreet.

  The script made no claim on morals, on shame, on right or wrong. But there were white brassieres and black ones, a black purse matched by a white one. What for, if only to signal the audience? Were things ever so clear in real life?

  In the story, there was a sister. She kept her clothes on. The Actress wondered about that role, if maybe it wasn’t the one she should be playing.

  The road started down, and just as she suspected, her stomach sank. She wanted to lean back into her seat and not look ahead, where the view of the majestic Valley dipped away from their sight, obscured by the hills as the road dove down their descent. The curves began making her feel nauseated and regretful of the orange juice and croissant she’d had for breakfast, but the Actress remained leaning forward, one hand on the bench seat, feeling a little proud of her bravery as the driver negotiated the turns.

  The girl will do anything. She steals the money and runs.

  She could not ask the Director. She only asked herself, silently. What is it like to love a man who left his wife, who is still angry at her? What is it like to steal money? What is it like to run? What is it like to know you’ve made an error, to know you’ve acted in complete haste? What is it like to have a police officer arrest you? What is it like to know there might not be a turning back?

  Would she do anything?

  In my opinion, the girl should bare her breasts in the opening scene. It would tell the audience everything about how tawdry and put-upon this girl is. But we’re behind the times. Oh, now, I can see by that look on your face that you wouldn’t have done a nude scene. Rest assured that I would never have asked you to do so. But in ten years’ time, I do believe it will be fairly common practice, don’t you agree? Don’t you think the European girls will show us their bare breasts before the Americans?

  The feeling in her stomach lightened. The road had only a few curves left, but already she could see that the hills were giving way, as if they were gates of some kind, and the Valley opened up before them, Bakersfield now a straight shot along the flat, dry road.

  “Thank you,” the Actress said, and she put her hand on the driver’s shoulder. She could feel his strength through her finger tips. “I appreciate getting here safely.”

  Three

  Around town, she was known as Mrs. Watson, even though the badge on her pink waitress uniform told everyone at the café that her name was Arlene. She was the woman with the brown hair in a tight bun and a mouth set in a hard straight line. “Mrs. Watson” had always sounded old to her, a school-marm name, even if people used it with respect. A school-marm, though not as old as one. But she had worked there so long that people assumed she was older than she was. She had first started back in 1946—thirteen years ago now—but even then, when she was only thirty-four years old, people called her Mrs. Watson.

  They called her that because they knew her husband, Frederick, one of the first proprietors of a business out by Highway 99, a motel built with his own hands, one wing at a time. He had been young when he put up the motel—only in his thirties—and yet people called him Mr. Watson out of respect. They admired his prescience when the roads toward Los Angeles were later improved by the state. More trucks, more produce, more barrels of oil, more chickens, more hogs. All of those drivers needed a place to sleep and they stopped at Watson’s Inn. What a sharp business mind—and for someone so young. All around town he was greeted as Mr. Watson, as sir. Only his close friends called him Frederick.

  It was as if he’d been two people, one before and one after, but she knew he was the same person all along, the same Frederick. She, too, was the same Arlene. Her maiden name had been Watson, so when she stood, all those years ago, in Bakers-field’s city hall with a rough bouquet of home-garden zinnias, hardly anything changed. She married Frederick Watson, no relation, his side of the family from Wisconsin and hers from Oklahoma, with no stray cousins in between. She had stood in front of the municipal judge for hardly ten minutes and then stepped away with the same name. Arlene Watson. Except now, as Frederick’s wife, she had no first name.

  That morning at the café had been like most, busy very early past dawn, then a second wave around eight thirty, then a short lull before lunch. Because it was October, the high school students who helped on occasion weren’t around to fill out shifts; Arlene and the rest of the waitresses had to hustle to turn over tables. By now, though, they’d all grown used to it, the students having settled back into school around Labor Day. Six weeks of this schedule, or maybe a little more, but things were changing. The light, for one. The harshness of the summer was over and the full plate-glass windows let in the softer hue of the Valley’s autumn sunlight, nothing to squint against, and no more need to draw down the shades. The farmers were relaxing a bit more, the last of the summer harvesting being shipped away, and they lingered around for extra cups of coffee.

  “Mrs. Watson …” One of her regulars, a young farmer’s son named Cal, spread the newspaper on the counter and pointed at an article. “Talk’s been going on for a while about this new highway to replace the old Ninety-nine. You worried about that?”

  She put down her pot of coffee and leaned her head over, as if to read the article for the very first time, as if she hadn’t scanned it at the crack of dawn in the office of Watson’s Inn, biting her lip.

  “Now why would I worry?” Arlene asked.

  “That highway goes up, you’d have to rebuild, won’t you? Who would stop at your motel?”

  “Those things take years,” she answered, wiping down the counter, busying herself as she had all morning with nervous tidying. Sometimes Cal forgot his manners and wore his hat indoors, as he was doing today. He was young. She reached up and removed the hat for him, as she had been wanting to do all morning long.

  He put his hand sheepishly on the hat but made no apology, keeping his finger on the newspaper. She had wanted the gesture to be playful, a suggestion that she was approachable and not just the one among the older waitresses with a hard line for a mouth, but Cal had offered no real reaction, as if she’d never done anything at all. He focused his attention back on the paper. “They say right here, though—”

  Vernon, one of the older farmers, hushed him. “Cal, just because she’s pouring coffee doesn’t mean she’s not a smart lady.”

  “I don’t mean it like that …”

  “All that highway talk is mixed up in a whole mess in federal funding and state regulations up in Sacramento that will take years to sort,” said Vernon. “She’s got time to figure something out.”

  “I’m not worried about it right now, Cal,” she said. She poured him some more coffee, though truth was, she wouldn’t mind if he picked up and went off to work for what remained of the morning. She certainly had seen the article; it hadn’t been the first time that mention of the highway had come across the pages.

  “Time moves fast,” sa
id Cal, grabbing sugar.

  “What do you know about time moving fast?” Vernon said. “What are you, twenty years old or thereabouts?”

  “I’m twenty-three.”

  When Vernon laughed, he looked over at Arlene as if for approval, and she smiled broadly at him, chagrined a little for Cal despite his meaning well. This is what she liked about Vernon. He was one of the few who seemed to understand that she was someone beyond her last name, someone beyond Frederick’s former wife. She knew how, behind her back, people talked about how Frederick had left her. She knew that. It was that kind of town.

  “You need anything else?” she asked Vernon.

  “Some pie,” he said. “Slow morning, so I may as well linger. Make it cherry.”

  “Cal?”

  “No, ma’am,” he answered, not raising his head.

  Back in the kitchen, some of the younger waitresses passed the morning lull leaning up against the counters and flipping through copies of Modern Screen, cigarettes held over the sink. Had it been summer, Arlene would’ve clapped her hands to rush them back to work: she wasn’t the manager, but she was the oldest on shift, and they treated her as such, hushing their back-and-forth chitchat whenever she entered the kitchen, blushing if she shook her head disapprovingly at someone’s pleasure in getting playfully grabbed by one of the farmers. When the summer crew was around, she felt a keen sense of their being only girls. She was forty-seven years old and their chatter made her feel every bit of it. She watched them gather around the magazine when one sighed approvingly at a photograph, but paid them no mind as she prepared Vernon’s cherry pie. Vernon might tease Cal for his naïveté, but he wasn’t limited like these girls. He wasn’t like them, incapable of pushing past lazy daydreaming. He was absolutely right about things changing. How someone so young could know such a thing. She wanted to show them how things change before you realize they have. The café’s plate-glass windows, which reached from ceiling to sidewalk, had survived the’52 earthquake, and over the years even the view from them had changed. Across the street, a beautiful flower shop called Holliday’s had opened one spring, complete with an arbor over the front door. Shady, so the flowers and the potted plants could benefit from the open air even as the Valley’s wilting summer heat arrived. The TG&Y expanded, taking over a local five-and-dime, the walls between the stores torn down and the buildings merged, so now you could pull drawers of Simplicity dress patterns and pick your own fabric from a rainbow of bolts lined all in a row. Things change. A wave of tract houses went up over on the east side, every one with a wide lawn. An RCA color TV sat in the window of Stewart’s Appliances for only three weeks, gleaming and expensive, and someone actually had the money to buy it. The farmhouse where she had grown up blew down in a bad storm years and years ago.

  “That’s a big hunk of pie,” said one of the girls. She puffed on her cigarette. “Is Farmer Jones staying through lunch?”

  “If it’s for Cal, I’ll serve it to him,” said another.

  “You girls hush before your voices carry,” Arlene admonished them. She walked out with the cherry pie and set it before Vernon Jones, who nodded his thanks. Cal remained concentrated on his newspaper, unaware of both Arlene and the sneaking glances of the younger waitresses peering through the round window of the swinging kitchen door. He wasn’t an unattractive young man—studious and hardworking, as most of the farmers’ sons tended to be—but it would take a few more years until he grew into the rugged assurance of someone like Vernon Jones. Cal was the same age as her own Dan, but her son’s demeanor and confidence were years past Cal’s—qualities she had seen her son grasp from a very young age, when as a little boy he had received the cooing attention from the other waitresses whenever she brought him along to pick up a paycheck. He’d been lanky as a teenager, but that hadn’t stopped the attention from becoming downright embarrassing, to the point that she’d asked Dan not to bring his dates to the café.

  These days, he’d been seen around town with the Mexican girl who worked over the shoe store. Some of the dimmer young waitresses made mention of Dan’s lunch with his young date, not noting the displeasure on Arlene’s face, but she made herself look busy and ignored the comments. She knew any of the waitresses would scramble to get to his table, even with her on watch, but Dan had been sensible enough to understand that he wasn’t to bring that girl around while she was working.

  Vernon ate his cherry pie with contentment, taking a side glance out to the sidewalk. He appeared in no hurry, but he also kept his head bent, and Arlene engaged him no further in conversation. Cal kept reading every last line of the local news and even flipped back to the front page to start the task all over again. Lunch was approaching, but for the time being, Arlene let the girls in the back hover around their Modern Screen while she prepped some of the tables for the lunch rush.

  When the man and the woman walked in, Arlene noticed first the woman’s brilliant yellow blouse. It was difficult not to think of the deep yellow tucked in the corner of a children’s drawing, an extraordinary sun, and she knew instantly that this woman was not from town. Even at a distance, she could tell the blouse was expensive.

  “A table?” the man said when Arlene stood looking at them, a cleaning rag in hand.

  “Yes,” she answered. “This way, please.” She pointed them to a booth she had just cleaned, holding the cleaning rag behind her back as she reached to the counter for two menus.

  “Is it too late for breakfast?” the man asked.

  “Not at all,” Arlene said. “I’ll get you both some coffee.”

  “Tea for me,” said the woman.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  When Arlene walked away, the woman’s voice lingered with her, its lilt and melody. The woman had looked up, just briefly, but it was only now, back in the kitchen, that Arlene set down two cups and realized the woman was not from the town at all. She looked over at the other waitresses, still not bored with their Modern Screen, and it was when she saw the magazine cover that she thought of that other world over the mountains, over in Los Angeles, and knew that the woman had come from there. She wondered if the girls would’ve recognized the woman the minute she opened the door.

  Her realization unspooled an unease. She had a habit of watching cups and glasses when they were filled to their tops, trying to walk as smoothly as possible so none of the liquid would spill over and make a mess. But this time, heading back to the table, the brightness of the woman’s yellow blouse brought Arlene to near distraction, and she had to set the cups down on the counter before the couple could see, and swipe the edges clean where some of the tea had spilled. The couple didn’t notice her and neither did Vernon or Cal, whose backs were turned to the booths. Vernon, in fact, was rising and reaching for his wallet to pay his familiar tab.

  “Bye, now,” Vernon said, and stepped out the door, just as Arlene was setting the cups down. She was too focused on setting them down and not spilling again that by the time she could raise her head to return his good-bye, the door had already closed.

  “What can I get you?” she asked. Without hesitation, the man ordered a full breakfast, but the woman took her time, her eyes down on the menu, and while she did so, Arlene looked closer at her yellow blouse. It was made of silk, right down to the round crafted buttons.

  “Just toast and tea,” the woman said.

  Arlene didn’t bother to write it down and took their menus. “Pardon me,” she said, “but does anyone ever tell you that you look like—”

  The woman interrupted her with a wave of her hand and a shy, almost nervous smile. “Oh, no! Not in the least.”

  “You mean no one tells you?”

  “No, I mean I don’t think I look like her at all.”

  Cal turned around in the commotion, and the woman gave him a glance but brought her eyes right back to Arlene. She held them there, smiling politely, but offered no response. She wouldn’t take her eyes off Arlene. Finally, she asked, “Is there something wrong?”


  “No, ma’am,” said Arlene. But as she walked away, she muttered, “The spitting image,” regretting it instantly. The words came out low, almost under her breath, maybe even with a note of unintended hostility—here was the perception about her all over again, the way she carried herself, but now with people who didn’t even live in the city. She wasn’t a mean, cheerless person at all, just exhausted, unable to summon the spirited smiles of the young waitresses, the way they pitched their voices high and loud and sunny, always enough to turn a whole table of men deep in conversation to answer back. It was difficult to balance her tone or the need to smile, like trying to remember to correct her posture, trying to stand straight as a dancer.

  She could hear Cal swivel the stool, back to his paper, as she made her way back to the kitchen to hand in their order. The girls had finished both the magazine and the cigarettes and had been busy standing around. When one of them saw Arlene, the girl pulled her hip away from the counter and slung her apron off her shoulder to get back to work. Arlene wished she wouldn’t—she’d see the couple out at the table—but in pretending to look rushed, she prompted the girl to hustle even more.

  “Hey,” the girl said, looking through the door’s round window, “that’s my station.”

  “I don’t mind, Priscilla,” said Arlene.

  “I didn’t go over my break or anything,” said Priscilla. “It’s not like I was late.”

  “I’ll throw you the tip,” said Arlene.

  “He’s handsome,” said Priscilla. “How come the men in town don’t dress like him?”

  The cook rang the bell and pushed over the man’s breakfast plate.

  “He’s a big eater,” said Priscilla, and before Arlene could stop her, she grabbed his plate and scurried toward the door, giggling at Arlene as she passed through.

  The woman’s toast came next, and Arlene cut two small squares of butter as quickly as she could, rushing out to the table. As she’d guessed, Priscilla must have recognized the woman’s face right away: she stood with her hand on her hip, her mouth open in a wide, disbelieving smile as the woman shook her head.