I felt thoroughly awkward. My visit could not have been more ill-timed. For half a day I had been building interesting fantasies around Jean Arber, but none of my fantasies had located her in the midst of such a charming family. The little girls were absolute darlings, and even Jimmy was something of a darling. A man who wore bib overalls, drove an incunabular Volvo, had straw in his hair, and wanted to buy his ex-wife a cheeseburger couldn't be all bad, or even half bad.
It is hard to sustain adulterous fantasies when faced with such a scene.
For a moment my impulse was to slip away. I had come at the wrong time. Probably I should just go to New Mexico with Cindy. Now that I knew where Jean's antique shop was I could always return.
But it's hard just to slip away when you drive up in a car like mine, and before I could reach any decision the little girls turned their attention back to me. They rapped on their window to get my attention.
I smiled again.
Encouraged, they began to roll down their window. This was not easy, but they persisted. The one who was doing most of the rolling gritted her teeth, and made a face, to indicate how hard it was.
As soon as the window was down they both popped their elbows out. Giggling at their own daring, they leaned way out and looked at the ground. The window was full of red parkas and reddish-blond curls. It seemed for a moment that they might both topple out into the crater that separated the two cars, but of course they were relying on the marvelous balance of children. They didn't topple out. When they'd seen enough of the ground they easily righted themselves, looked at me, and settled down for some frank conversation.
“I'm the oldest," the older said.
The younger girl ignored this flagrant claim.
"What's your name?" she asked.
Chapter XV
"I’m Jack," I said.
The girls giggled, exchanging glances again.
At this point Jean got out of her side of the van. Then she and Jimmy walked right in front of the van and my car and on down the sidewalk, past the pet store. They didn't notice that their daughters were leaning out the window of the van having a conversation with me. In fact, they didn't notice me, my car, the sluggish hamsters, or anything. They were deeply awash in their marriage, intent on desires and resentments known only to them, and apparently too swollen with difficult feelings to be able to say a word. They just walked off, in a silent dialogue, down the sidewalk through the seedy shopping center.
The girls and I watched them go with dispassion. If anything, the girls’ dispassion was greater than my own.
"Where are they going?" I asked, feeling some reference should be made to this somber departure.
The little girls were not in the least concerned about the matter. They were more interested in me than in the fact that their parents were slowly receding down a cracked sidewalk.
"Oh, just talking," the older girl said, with a dismissive flip of her hand.
"Tell me your names," I demanded.
They were delighted to be asked.
"Beverly Arber," the older one said crisply.
"B'linda Arber," the younger one said, not quite so crisply.
"Belinda," Beverly corrected, shouting it into her sister's ear.
Belinda was undaunted. She looked at me closely, to see if I was willing to accept her at face value.
"Don't you know what a vowel is?" Beverly asked, trying to squeeze her little sister out of the window.
Belinda fought silently but grimly to hold her position, clinging with one tiny hand to the little knob that locks the door.
"She doesn't know what a vowel is," Beverly said, using that slim pretext to try and push her sister out of the van and into the crater.
I got a little worried. I could imagine decades of guilt for Jean and Jimmy if they came back and found their youngest daughter with a concussion.
"Hey," I said. "Would you girls like to get in my car?"
The struggle stopped at once. Two little faces looked at me solemnly; four blue eyes tried to gauge my intentions.
"What did you say your name was?" Beverly asked.
"Jack," I said.
"I want to," Belinda concluded, proceeding at once to try and climb out the window. Her decision caught her sister off guard. Before she could react Belinda somehow managed to turn around and pop her ass out the window. In a trice she was dangling by her hands and attempting to look over her shoulder to judge the drop.
Unfortunately her puffy red coat was in the way. She couldn't see over her shoulder. Besides the coat she had on blue corduroys and little red sneakers.
Beverly was outraged at such a breach of authority.
"Who told you you could?" she yelled, right into her sister's face.
Belinda didn't answer. Belinda simply hung. All I could see was her parka and her curls.
Then she dropped, landing right in the crater, which fortunately was only about two inches deep. In a trice she was up and scrambling into my arms, running from her sister, who had managed to open the door of the van and was scrambling out, ready to mete out punishment.
Unfortunately, she was the one who fell, misjudging the steps and thumping down harder than her sister. Thanks to the parka she wasn't really hurt, but she got a harder lick than her sister, and when she looked up and saw Belinda smiling and unscathed, in my arms, the injustice of it overcame her and she burst into tears.
Sometimes it's not fun being the oldest.
I scooped her up in my other arm.
Belinda offered no sympathy—her coolness was too much for Beverly.
"Your fault!" she said, attempting to strike her sister.
Belinda ducked, grinning a big grin. "I jumpt," she said happily, infuriating Beverly even more.
"How would you girls like a duck?" I asked, to change the subject.
"I would," the uncritical Belinda said. "Where is it?"
Beverly stopped crying but continued to gulp. I sat them both on the hood of my car for a moment.
"Is it alive?" Beverly asked.
"What color is it?" Belinda inquired.
"One duck," Beverly said. "Or two ducks?"
"Oh, two ducks," I said. "One for you and one for her."
"They're mostly blue," I said to Belinda. "Brown and blue."
That was not good enough.
"Jist the feathers part is blue?" Belinda asked, trying to get a workable picture of the duck.
"Don’t you know anything?" Beverly said, punching her. "A duck is all feathers."
"Jist the feathers part?" Belinda asked again, ignoring her sister.
I caught them by the hands and swung them down. Compared to me, kids are astonishingly short, a fact I always forget until I come up against some. Two very short people in red sneakers and red parkas followed me around to the rear of my car, in the luggage compartment of which was a bag full of blue pottery ducks I had bought in McAllen, Texas, nearly a year ago.
Now and again a scout will buy something he has no earthly business with, and such was the case with the ducks. I had been in the mood to buy something and the ducks, though just cheap pottery, were innocent and bright, so I bought them.
Probably I just bought them out of an impulse to pass money, that being the basic act around which my life is organized. I had stuck the ducks behind my spare tire and had forgotten about them, but the minute I found myself with two little girls on my hands they popped into my mind like a long-forgotten name.
Of course my luggage compartment contained everything but luggage. It was filled with such things as brass candlesticks, Hopi baskets, a big abacus that was possibly Turkish, and various other goods.
It also contained Valentino's hubcaps, four silver cobras with ruby eyes.
I swung the girls up and sat them on a Navaho blanket, next to the hubcaps.
"You've got snakes in here," Beverly said.
"Not real snakes," Belinda said, and then immediately repeated the remark. Except for her tongue, she might have been paralyzed.
r />
"Not real snakes," she insisted, looking at me rather than the hubcaps, in case the snakes were more real than she thought.
"Not real snakes," I assured her.
Reassured, the girls looked at the hubcaps solemnly, so impressed they could scarcely breathe.
"The eyes parts are red," Belinda said, reaching out a finger to touch an eye part. With her other hand she retained a hold on my thumb, just in case.
When I gave them each a blue duck they took them without comment, not quite able to focus on such modest objects with the silver cobras only a foot away.
Once I got them safely ensconced in the front seat they regained their critical faculties and gave the ducks an intense scrutiny for about ten seconds, before turning their attention to the wonders of my car.
"Will these ducks float in the bathtub?" Beverly asked.
Belinda clutched her duck by the throat while rubbing her hand over the soft velour of my seats.
"Why is your car soft?" she asked.
"You girls ask a lot of questions," I said. "You must work in a question factory."
Beverly looked at Belinda and they both shrugged little nonchalant shrugs.
"We do," Beverly said.
A nonsensical question was not going to fool them.
Then the car telephone rang. Belinda grabbed it as if she were used to answering telephones in cars every day.
"I’ll get it," she said, dropping her duck and grabbing it with both hands.
"Hello," she said, into the ear of the startled mobile operator, who promptly broke the connection.
"Hello, hello," Belinda said, annoyed at the silence on the line.
Then, with another shrug, she put the receiver back on its cradle.
"Nobody there," she said.
"You should have said whose residence it is," Beverly reminded her.
Belinda popped her hand over her mouth, as if suddenly remembering that that was standard practice.
Then the phone rang again. I reached to get it, as did Beverly, but Belinda was still the closest and she was in no way daunted by her first setback.
"I got it," she said, grabbing it again.
"Jist a minute, please," she said into the receiver. Then she looked at me, politely trying to cover the receiver with her small hand.
"Whose residence is this?" she asked, looking around the car.
"Mobile operator seven calling Mr. McGriff," a dry voice said.
Beverly, annoyed at being out-positioned, made a grab for the receiver, missed, and had to content herself with toppling Belinda over backwards.
As she toppled, Belinda coolly handed me the receiver. Anything to defeat a sibling.
"Mr. McGriff speaking," I said, watching Beverly pummel Belinda for her treachery. Fortunately the girls' coats were the equivalents of 16-ounce boxing gloves. As long as they had the coats on they could do one another little harm.
Naturally it was Coffee.
"Where have you been?" she said, in the proprietary tone that comes naturally to anyone I’ve been married to.
"I'm in Washington," I said. It wasn't what she wanted to know, but it was all I felt prepared to offer her. Once or twice I had mentioned other women to Coffee, only to be met with a silence suggestive of ice. I certainly wasn't about to mention Cindy, or Jean either.
Nonetheless, Coffee went into one of her silences. She was extremely passive, on the telephone, as in life, and was quite comfortable being silent. She would sit holding the phone for several minutes, waiting for me to entertain her with stories or trap myself with admissions.
This particular silence was not icy. I could hear her breathing into the phone, which did not occur when she was feeling icy. I could also picture her clearly, sitting there in an empty real estate office, a cup of coffee at her elbow, staring out the window at the sunny streets of Austin and waiting for me to tell her the latest about Boog and Boss, or else describe purchases she wouldn't approve of.
Before I could do that, Beverly got tired of pummeling Belinda and thought of a better tactic. She held Belinda down with one knee, unzipped the coat, plunged in both hands and began to tickle her sister mercilessly.
Immediately Belinda emitted a shriek of giggles, a shriek not lost upon my listener.
"What’s that?" Coffee asked. "Where are you?"
There was real shock in her voice. She had never happened to call me before when there was anyone else in my car. I believe, in her sluggish vision. Coffee saw me as always alone, driving around America buying things, still essentially in love with her. In her imaginings the spell she cast had never really been broken.
"Oh, that's two little girls," I said. "I'm keeping them a few minutes while their parents run an errand. Their parents own an antique store in Wheaton."
"Where?" Coffee asked.
"Wheaton, Maryland," I said.
"Never heard of it," Coffee said, a silly remark—she had never heard of places no farther away than Waco.
At that moment I happened to glance around and saw Jean and Jimmy walking toward us on the sidewalk to my left. This was startling, since they had departed to my right. It was as if they had walked around the world, though probably they had only walked around the shopping center. Certainly they were unlikely Magellans. Both had their hands in their pockets and were plodding along silently, not looking at one another.
"Well?" Coffee said.
"Can I call you later?" I said. I felt awkward. Jean and Jimmy were converging on my left, and Belinda was shrieking just to my right. I was in no position to tell my former wife any of the things she might want to hear.
"You better," Coffee said, an unusually stem remark for her. She never took much note of me when we were married, but since then I had never done anything to violate her vision of our relationship—such as having a personal life that she could imagine. The presence of two little girls in my car amounted to just such a violation.
"You don't need to sound like that," I said. "It's just two little girls."
"Yeah, but I bet they've got a mother," Coffee said, perceptively, just as their mother—and father—passed directly in front of my car. Coffee hung up. Jean and Jimmy walked on a few paces and stopped. Beverly stopped tickling Belinda, but kept her in place with her knee—she herself was watching her parents. Belinda had stopped shrieking and was catching her breath. I quietly hung up, too, aware that I was in deep trouble in Austin—the kind of trouble that occurs when you keep talking to a lazy woman you have divorced, thus encouraging her not to bother building a new life.
Jean and Jimmy seemed in much deeper trouble than I was. They almost started on a second circumlocution of the shopping center, but lost their momentum and just stood on the sidewalk, not looking at one another. Jean had a steely look in her eye, and she was directing it at Jimmy. It was a look I was very familiar with—the look of a woman who is not going to be conned even one more time by a beautiful boyishness.
Jimmy, of course, had the dejected look of a man whose beautiful boyishness has just failed him, leaving him uncertain as to what to try next. Probably a good part of his dejection stemmed from the suspicion that he had nothing else to try.
Then, fortunately, he spotted Beverly. It revived him in a second. His wife might be immune to boyish appeal, but his daughters weren't, and he knew it. He came over, opened the door of the car, and kind of dove into them, giving them many kisses and tickling them into ecstasy with his bushy beard.
"Hi," he said. "Thanks for keeping them." He raised his eyes briefly but looked at the steering wheel rather than at me.
"My pleasure,'* I said, concluding the formalities. It was obvious from the way Jimmy looked at the steering wheel that he assumed I was already fucking his wife.
Despite her pleasure at being tickled by her father's beard, Belinda was still hip to the main chance.
"Are we going to Baskin-Roberts now?" she asked.
"No," he said, looking embarrassed.
Both girls looked exasperated.
br /> "Oh, Daddy," Beverly said.
"You said so!" Belinda reminded him, doubling up a tiny fist and squinting at him fiercely.
All this time, Jean was standing in front of the car, looking not at me, not at him, not at anything.
"I know I said so," Jimmy said. "But I can't do it today. We'll do it Friday."
Belinda stuck out her jaw. "Do you want a fat lip?" she asked, holding up a tiny fist.
The absurdity of the threat almost unnerved her father.
Beverly gave him no time to regain his composure. "When's Friday?" she asked. "How many days?"
"Four," he said. "Four days. We'll get double-dip cones to make up for it, okay?"
Belinda opened her fist and carefully counted out four of her own fingers, weighing them in the mind's eye against a double-dip cone. Beverly made the same judgment without resorting to fingers.
"Okay," they said in unison, flinging themselves back into his arms.
They should have hung tough. Their forgiveness was too much. Jimmy's eyes overflowed. I wanted to hide behind my Stetson. When he shut the door the little girls' faces were wet from his tears—not theirs. They themselves were serene.
He hopped in the tiny old Volvo and left, his cheerful daughters waving at him from my window, which I had obligingly lowered.
Jean stood where she was until the Volvo went through a traffic light and over a hill, making her safe from its rearview mirror.
Then she got in and sat down, without a word to me. In a second she had a pile of daughters in her lap. She didn't say a word to them, either. She looked not so much calm as blank: emptied by the effort of rejection she had just made. Probably she didn't have a word left in her, just then. Rejecting a beautifully boyish, bushy-bearded father had clearly taken a lot out of her, a fact even her daughters respected.
For a moment we all just sat. I didn't even say hi.
I don't know how long we would have sat had it not been for the restive Belinda, who after a time scooted out of her mother's lap and began to point out some of the noteworthy features of my car.