“And such a blessing that Ben and his father are together,” someone else said. “Together when it happened, and together now. Up there waiting, the two of them.”
And that stuck with me because if there was anywhere in the world Ben hated, it was waiting rooms. This was because usually scary or painful or stressful things happened to him after he’d been in a waiting room. Someone would do a blood test to make sure his medication wasn’t giving him diabetes. Or he would be going to another new doctor who might be able to tell if he had something wrong with his digestive system. Or another one to see if there was something wrong with his skin.
Ben wasn’t bad in the waiting room. It’s not like he threw tantrums or anything. He was just anxious. Walking, jumping, talking loudly. Looking around, wondering where the danger was and what people were going to do to him.
So that was how I started picturing Dad and Ben. In a waiting room with beige chairs and a TV on the wall that showed a Disney movie and carpet that looked like it had bits of crayons in it but it was really colored dots they’d put in the pattern for some reason. Maybe for it to look fun. It did not look fun. Old magazines. Ben walking around worried. My dad talking to him in a low voice to try to keep him calm.
Both of them waiting for the rest of their family to die or for God to come in and say something, whichever came first.
The wind stopped blowing. My mother stopped sanding. When I put my hand under the pillow, the screwdriver was still there.
And I wondered.
Who’d given it to me?
15.
I couldn’t tell if our first tour customers were crazy or not.
There were three of them, all old ladies. And they had on pink shirts with Lisette Chamberlain’s face silk-screened on the front.
“I like that we’re doing this at dawn,” one was saying to the others as Leo and I came up to them. “It feels more sacred.”
“Hello,” Leo said, and they jumped as they turned around.
“We’re your tour guides,” he said. “Are you ready to begin?”
“You’re both kids,” one lady said. She had gray curly hair. Another one had white curly hair and the third had a sleek red bob. The redhead looked sassier than the other two or maybe it was just the hair. I’ve always wanted red hair.
“Yes,” Leo said, “we are. But I know everything there is to know about Lisette Chamberlain.”
The ladies looked at one another. You could tell they were thinking they’d been ripped off.
“Really,” said the red-haired lady. “You know, for example, what Lisette’s favorite color was?”
“Purple,” Leo said smoothly. “She always joked in interviews and said it was gold to match the Oscar she’d someday win, but it was actually purple.”
“And the date of her wedding?” another lady asked.
“Which one?” Leo asked. “The one that hardly anyone knows about that was annulled, or the one to Roger Marin? Or do you mean Halloween? When she was a kid, she always planned to get married on Halloween and have her wedding colors be orange and black.”
The redheaded lady burst into laughter, and the one with white hair joined in. The Lisette printed on their shirts went up and down with their boobs. But the gray-haired lady still looked sour.
“All right,” she said. “You know your stuff. And you do only charge five dollars a ticket. Let’s see what you can tell us.”
Leo pointed at the insurance building. “Lisette’s story begins here,” he said.
“Wait,” said one of the women. “Aren’t we going to go inside?”
“No,” Leo said.
“Let me guess,” the gray-haired woman said. “You don’t have permission to go inside, and this is private property.”
“You are correct,” Leo said.
“So this isn’t an official tour. It’s not sanctioned by the festival at all,” she said, and now she had a grumpy look around her mouth.
“It’s better that way,” I said. Everyone turned to look at me. Leo raised his eyebrows in surprise. I’d told him I wanted to listen the first few times on the tour so I could learn the material. “The festival’s tour would be boring.”
Leo nodded. “That’s right.”
The grumpy woman still didn’t look entirely convinced, so I added, “And there’s nothing to see in there anyway. It’s an insurance building now. Cubicles and office furniture and that’s it. It’s easier to imagine the scene if we stay out here. The outside of the building is much like Lisette’s mother would have seen it as she came inside, ready to have her baby. Did she have any idea that her daughter would turn out to be one of the greatest actors of our time?” I glanced over at Leo. I was out of material, since I didn’t actually know very much about Lisette other than the basics.