The Underside of Joy

‘And that, ladies and gentleman, is where your mighty tax dollars are going.’
    ‘I wonder what happened to her.’
    ‘Absolutely nothing. That’s the point, El. We found her enjoying the moonlight out past Edwards’ Mill, just after midnight. In la-la land.’ He shook his head, took a swig of coffee.
    I had meant that I wondered what happened to her before then, long ago, but I didn’t feel like explaining that to Frank, explaining that I’d recently concluded that everyone had their reasons, whether they knew it or not. That even Paige had her reasons, and I intended to find them out.
    ‘More coffee?’
    He nodded. ‘I’ll get it. This one is to go. Gotta go save a meth addict or two, civil servant that I am.’
    ‘Frank?’
    ‘Yeah?’
    I didn’t want to tell him about the letters in case he had some sort of civic duty to report me.
    ‘Do you think Lizzie would talk to me? About Paige?’
    ‘Lizzie won’t talk to me about Paige.’ He stared at me, waiting, as if to say, Why can’t you talk to me ? Frank missed Joe too. I could always see it in his eyes; they didn’t match up with his cocky stance. He shrugged. ‘But what the hell? What have you got to lose?’
    I knew Lizzie was home even before I opened the white picket gate. It was a sharp blue day, and wafts of spearmint, rosemary, lavender, lemon, and cocoa butter fragranced the air. She worked in their converted barn out back, after Molly left for school each morning. The old me would have been nervous to approach Lizzie, to walk around to the barn and lean my head through the Dutch door. But I was pretty sure nothing she could say to me would make things any worse. All I was after now was the truth so I could decide what to do about the letters. I stood there for almost a minute, blind, until my eyes adjusted and I saw Lizzie, long tables with pots, and walls of supplies.
    Her blonde curly hair was clipped up away from her forehead, and she was humming while she poured olive oil into one of five huge saucepans. Two Mexican women weighed cups of palm and coconut oil. Lizzie looked up. ‘Oh! Frank’s not here.’
    ‘I’d like to talk to you. If you have a minute. Actually, more than a minute.’
    ‘Oh? Well, okay . . . I just . . . I can’t really leave right now. Can we talk here?’
    I looked over at the two women, who were both watching us.
    ‘Very limited English, mostly having to do with soap. If you’d like to discuss another topic, your privacy is pretty much guaranteed.’ She said something to them in Spanish, they both smiled and nodded as she introduced us, and then she said to me, ‘Anyway, while this is melting, I do need to add the lye to the pots outside. Come on.’
    We walked out to a table where three more pots were cooling. ‘You need to step way back,’ she explained. ‘Lye is nasty stuff. You don’t want to breathe it in.’ She turned her head while she poured it into a measuring cup, instructing me to move back even farther. ‘Now, this will bring the temperature way up, and then we need to let it cool to a hundred and ten degrees.’ She pointed to yet another table. ‘Those should be ready for us to start stirring. Grab a seat and a spoon. We need to stir those babies until they thicken. Think fondue.’ I recognized her demonstration voice from the Elbow Christmas Bazaar – friendly, efficient, in charge.
    We both took seats and spoons and began stirring. I said, ‘Lizzie, I know you and Paige are friends . . .’
    She looked at me for a long minute before she said, ‘ Are is a strong word. Were isn’t quite accurate, though, either. We don’t talk anymore, but I still think of her as my friend. And I miss her. I miss the old Paige. I don’t really know the new Paige.’
    ‘No one in Joe’s family has anything nice to say about either Paige – old or new . . .’
    Lizzie directed her eyes to my pot of liquid. ‘Keep stirring. You want to feel it starting to thicken.’
    ‘But I have a strong feeling . . . there’s more to the story.’
    ‘Look, Ella. If you’re trying to dig up dirt on Paige in order to build your custody case, you can take your shovel somewhere else.’
    I knew I was one sentence away from being led out the front gate. ‘I know it seems that way. But at this point, I want to understand Paige. To understand Joe. I’m beginning to believe . . . that Joe . . . he may not have treated her fairly.’
    Lizzie’s head jerked up. Her face reddened, her