Consequently, I met silence with silence. Cindy didn't say anything and neither did I.
I didn't expect that to last long, and it didn't.
"Aren't you going to say anything?" she asked.
"I already said it," I said. "I really have to see this man about the gun. It's a $20,000 gun. I can't get him on the phone, either. He's on his way here from Pennsylvania."
It was not bad, for a spur-of-the-moment lie. After all, I did have a fine gun in the car. The right collector might pay me $20,000 for it. It meant I had something to show when I finally went back to face the music.
"I can't believe you're doing this," Cindy said. "I told Lilah we'd come to the party."
"Yeah, but you didn't know I had a previous engagement," I said. "And I didn't know about the party. Things don't always mesh."
"They do in my life," she said.
"Look," I said. "Just go on to the party. I'll get there when I can."
"No way," Cindy said. "I can't show up without you."
"Why not?"
"People are getting interested in you," she said. "You're being talked about. Lilah just asked me to get you. She's not gonna want me showing up by myself."
"That's pretty insulting," I said. "I don't think we should go at all, in that case. Why go to a party where you're not wanted?"
"But I am wanted, if I bring you," she said.
"Well," I said, "I think you're subtracting yourself. If you're not wanted unless you're with me, then you're not wanted."
"I hate you," she said suddenly. "You just got here last week and you don't understand anything. Just shut up and come on back. You don't have to buy a gun.
"I don't appreciate this," she went on, with a quiver in her voice. "I've done a lot for you. If it wasn't for me people wouldn't even be interested in you."
"I don't think they're very interested," I said. "I think I'm just a new face."
There was another silence. During my life with Coffee I had become something of a connoisseur of silences. During the latter, Coffee was simply more or less absent. In fact, her genius was for the absent silence. Hers could go on for days.
Cindy's present silence seemed to have elided from angry to hurt. It might have been strategy. Women can usually figure out when tears will get them more than blows.
"I didn't think you'd do this to me," she said, with a kind of dying fall in her voice. "I thought you were nice," she added.
"I guess I'm not," I said. It was all I could think of to say.
"I'm not going without you," she said. "I'm going home. You just better come."
Then she hung up.
I immediately called back, but the line was busy.
This was an unfortunate turn of events. Cindy had adopted, instinctively, the smart tactic of making me feel guilty. I had no doubt that she would do exactly what she said. She would go home and wait, expecting that guilt would bring me back in plenty of time for the party.
However, after sitting for a while, I found that I wasn't feeling guilty. The parking lot of a Safeway in Greenbelt, Maryland, is in some ways a remote place. It was not literally a desert, but sitting in it I felt some of the remoteness that I might have felt had I been in a desert. Greenbelt seemed to be a kind of enclave for people who were not quite right. None of the people who were moping around in the parking lot were monsters in any way—in fact, they seemed rather pleasant—but on the other hand they weren't quite like people in other places, either. A great many of them were stooped, whether with the weight of cares or because of arthritic conditions I don't know. Many were smiling, and yet they didn't look like the sort of people who had much to smile about. They didn't seem to be smiling at anyone, or for any reason, unless they were secretly delighted to be carrying home shopping bags filled with Spam or Spaghetti-Os or other treats. I don't think that was the case, though. I think they were just smiling out into the universe, in a rather childlike fashion.
In fact, the longer I watched them shuffle out of the Safeway and push their grocery carts slowly off to their nondescript little cars, the more it seemed that the parking lot in Greenbelt had developed its own indigenous life forms. You wouldn't have seen a single person who looked like them in the parking lot of a Safeway in southwest Houston—to give only one example.
The effect of watching them for an hour or so was to make me feel extremely remote from Georgetown, Cindy, and all social obligations of a normal type. The people moving around my car all seemed to be slightly bent, slightly handicapped, slightly gaga, or just depressing to look at. As dusk fell I began to feel that I had wandered into a garden of grotesques. They were not aggressive grotesques—they all looked rather soft, rather helpless. I saw four men get off a bus and start across the parking lot and all four of them walked oddly. Instead of pointing forward their legs pointed at angles to one another.
Also, unfortunately, I notice clothes. All the hideous synthetics worn by the people in the Department of Transportation had depressed me that morning, and now the clothes of the people in the parking lot in Greenbelt were depressing me just as much. They looked like remnants that had been handed down through generations of bottom-grade civil servants. Overall, they reminded me of what people wear who v/ork in the charity stores I used to work in: Goodwill, Salvation Army, St. Vincent de Paul, Disabled Vets.
The longer I sat the more convinced I became that there must be some connection between the customers of this particular Safeway and the thrift stores of the D.C. area. Perhaps Greenbelt was a service town for all the thrifts, thoughtfully established by someone for just that purpose.
It was a snobbish thought, as I was well aware. But no one can be a successful scout without being a visual snob. The ability to spot beauty even in bad light is the first essential— perhaps the only essential. When I had first come to the parking lot the people had sort of matched my mood. I felt I must be slightly off center, for living the life I did—being surrounded by people who were slightly off center had been a kind of comfort. But the comfort was only temporary. I might be off center, but the people in the parking lot now were way off on the edge somewhere, in a time zone of their own. I might be adrift, but I didn't want to drift any farther in their direction.
Besides, I had come out of my depression sufficiently to feel that I might be capable of dealing with a live current again. I picked up the phone and dialed Jean, and a live current answered.
"Hi," I said. "I'm the one with the soft car."
"I know," Belinda said, impatiently. "You jist come on. We're havin' peas."
Chapter XII
Jean Arber and her daughters lived in a small two-story frame house in a somewhat run-down neighborhood in Wheaton. Actually, the neighborhood was not unlike my neighborhood in Houston, which attracts a lot of more or less educated hippies, most of whom start out with grand ambitions in regard'to their houses. The ambitions involve restoring the houses to their original purity and simplicity, which means that paint has to be scraped off and walls knocked out. But the hippies generally turn out to have more purity and simplicity than the houses—or else they just lose interest, or stop being hippies. The houses may pass from owner to owner, half-restored and sort of damaged looking.
It was that way with the houses of Jean's neighbors, and in fact her own house had a pile of lumber beside it that had clearly been there for some time.
Jean came out to greet me, a daughter on either hand. The girls had on new red dresses and looked dressed up, whereas Jean just had on a simple gray sweater and a.blue skirt. They all looked fresh, friendly, and cheerful. Just looking at them made me feel better.
"We got new dresses," Beverly reported.
"They're nice," I said.
"I know," Belinda said.
Jean was simply watching me. Perhaps traces of my recent mood still lingered, detectable to her instincts.
"If you're scared of girls you've come to the wrong place," she said.
Both girls were watching their mother, who was not looki
ng at me, particularly. She was just standing on the front steps of her house, smiling. Following the girls' lead, I watched her for a moment, too, marveling as I often have at the capacities of women. One of their most amazing capacities is that of looking different from one day to the next, or even one hour to the next. My memories of Jean Arber were that she mostly looked wan. She had certainly looked wan the day she had the argument with her husband—wan and a little beaten.
But she looked anything but beaten standing on her steps in the gray sweater. She had undergone some internal transformation, and the external sign of it was that she looked beautiful. The girls were as alert to this fact as I was. Beverly was watching her appraisingly, as if her mother's sudden loveliness was a little more than she had bargained for.
"Penny for your thoughts, Mom," she said, tugging at one of Jean's fingers.
"Cheapskate," Jean said. "My thoughts are worth more than a penny, and anyway you don't have a penny."
"I don't," Belinda said cheerfully.
"Jack might like refreshments," Beverly pointed out.
"He might at that," Jean said. "I'm glad one of us has some social graces."
They led me into the house, which was filled with trunks, just as I had expected. A number of nice, flat-topped trunks, covered with cushions, took the place of chairs. I was hoping to see the dower chest Jean claimed was better than the one I had bought, but it wasn't in sight. There was a low couch covered with a dark nineteenth-century lap robe, and lots of small things to look at. A few miniatures hung on the walls, plus a couple of small primitives that looked Haitian.
The refreshments consisted of some excellent nachos, which Beverly served and Belinda helped me eat. The nachos had jalapenos, except for five or six for the girls which did not.
"I ate one and I cried," Belinda said, pointing at a pepper.
The nachos, which were unexpected, tasted so good that I ate about fifteen. The girls sat beside me on the brown couch, their feet sticking straight out. None of the major women in my life had been able to cook a bite, and I was faintly unnerved to have encountered a woman whose domestic skills included not only two lively daughters but also Mexican food.
"Where's the other dower chest?" I asked, since I was really curious about it.
"In my bedroom, which is where it's going to stay,'* Jean said.
"What do you do, jist buy things?" Belinda asked, patting my leg.
"That's what I do," I said.
"You could buy us things," she pointed out.
"And you could offer him one of your nachos, "Jean said. "He's eaten all of his."
"Who's your wife?" Belinda asked.
"I don't have one," I said.
"Jist a soft car, I guess," Belinda said.
"Have you ever had a wife?" Beverly asked.
"Two," I said.
Jean was watching her daughters interrogate me, amused.
"Can you read stories?" Belinda inquired.
"I guess so," I said. "I can read."
Belinda was off the couch in a flash. We all watched her disappear up the stairs.
"Come on, Beverly," Jean said. "Let's go make dinner. I don't want to hear any of these stories."
Belinda soon returned with six or seven books and I read her a story about a buzzard named Hugo. Far from listening passively, Belinda kept up a running commentary, elaborating on both the pictures and the text. We were in the middle of a story about a frog when Jean interrupted.
"We're reading," Belinda pointed out.
"That man's read you enough stories," Jean said. "Let's eat."
The dinner consisted of carne asada, guacamole, and cheese enchiladas.
The dinner was delicious. Jean and I ate heartily, while the girls ate English peas and picked at a cheese enchilada Jean had divided between them.
"Sometimes I think I should take these girls and raise them in Mexico," Jean said.
"You must have lived there," I said.
"I lived there," she said, but didn't say when or with whom.
Evidence of Mexico was everywhere, in the kitchen. The blue tablecloth we were eating on looked Mexican and there was a huge colorful Mexican basket in one comer.
"He could take us to Disney World in the soft car," Belinda suggested, to our surprise.
"She's always looking for action," Jean said.
"You said we could go to Disney World someday," Beverly said, throwing her weight behind her sister suddenly.
"This man is a virtual stranger," Jean said. "We can't just demand that he take us to Florida."
Both girls ignored the remark. They had stopped regarding me as a stranger, obviously, and were looking at me as if they expected I might be able to make this glorious possibility come to pass.
Jean was looking at me thoughtfully.
"Two marriages but no kids, huh?" she said.
"No kids," I admitted.
"I have a feeling this is a man who keeps on the move," Jean said, to her daughters.
"So?" Belinda said.
The kitchen was a wonderful room, actually. Besides the Mexican basket it had a huge cheeseboard that looked Greek, a butcher's block made from the knot of a gum tree, a hanging bronze scale that was probably Italian, and a row of wonderfully rough wooden apothecary's bowls, not to mention a French towel rack and a gaudy ceramic teapot. The girls' crayon drawings adorned the front of the refrigerator. Jean and I drank tea out of big glazed mugs that had come from Finland.
"We just about live in this room," Jean said, blowing on her tea. "We don't really need the rest of the house."
"We need my room," Belinda reminded her. "It's got the toys in it."
"Who says we need you?" Jean said.
Belinda giggled at the absurdity of the thought that life could go on without her. Beverly was drawing small ducks on a napkin, holding it up frequently for her mother's inspection.
"I think you're going to be my talented daughter," Jean said.
It was very pleasant to sit in the nice kitchen with Jean and her two daughters. When Jean let her eyes dwell on her girls, I let my eyes dwell on her. Seeing her in her own domain was different from seeing her in the outside world. In the outside world she didn't seem very happy—perhaps because she was small, she didn't seem quite equal to the outside world.
But in her own kitchen she seemed more than equal, both to the world and to me. Listening to the flow of chatter between her and the girls I began to experience absurd but intense guilts. If I had only had the nerve to give Coffee a couple of daughters she might not be drifting around Austin, being beat up by a tiny dope dealer. A daughter might have relieved Kate of her obsession with real estate, or might have made Tanya Todd a little less angry. And if Cindy had a couple of kids she'd at least have to keep something in the refrigerator besides salami and Brie.
For a few minutes, sipping tea, I tried to imagine how the various women I knew would be if they had children, a difficult act of the imagination. The children kept disappearing from the picture, leaving Coffee or Kate or Cindy relatively unaffected.
"Why don't you offer Jack a penny for his thoughts?" Jean suggested, to Beverly.
Beverly shook her head. “I don't know him well enough," she said.
Jean and I sat in the kitchen, drinking more tea, while the girls went up and got ready for bed. In nor time they were back, in red bathrobes, looking delightful but not very sleepy. Beverly climbed up in her mother's lap, Belinda in mine.
"What's this?" Jean asked. "How come you're in his lap?"
Belinda shrugged. "Jist am," she said.
"Let's read some more stories," she suggested, looking up at me.
"Let's put you to bed," Jean said. "I'm never going to find out anything about this man with you two around."
"I’ll find out," Belinda volunteered, looking straight up at me.
"What about you?" she asked.
"Nothing to say," I said.
"He don't got nothing to say," Belinda reported.
"He know
s better than to talk to a blabbermouth like you," Jean said. "Are you coming over here or not?"
"Did you want to read the stories. Mom?" Belinda inquired.
"Come over here and maybe I’ll tell you," Jean said.
Belinda gambled, one of her rare mistakes. All Jean did, once Belinda was in her lap, was steal kisses from the vicinity of her neck. Belinda burst into gales of laughter, subsided into giggles, and then stopped and yawned heartily.
"Are you getting sleepy?" Jean asked.
"No," Belinda said.
In fact, despite herself, Belinda was fading. Once her energy began to go, it drained out of her like water out of a bathtub. When she saw Jean had no intention of reading a story she squirmed out of her lap and struggled back to me, only to lie lifelessly in my lap.
"Jist one story," she said.
"Let's go," Jean said, nodding at me.
I carried Belinda upstairs, following Jean and Beverly. Belinda was as helpless as a windup toy that had just run down. "Jist one story," she repeated faintly. Her eyes were still open, but the force was gone.
She and her sister had tiny adjoining rooms in the small upstairs. Beverly's was blue, Belinda's yellow. Both were full of dolls and stuffed animals, the stuffed animals mostly being of ancient vintage. Belinda slept with a raggedy beaver that looked to belong to the forties.
Jean bent over and went about getting her out of her robe, a process Belinda didn't assist in any way. When Jean picked her up her head lolled back as if her neck were broken.
"God, you're made of rubber, Belinda," Jean said. "Not very good rubber, either."
"You didn't brush my hair," Belinda protested, faintly.
"Well, you sat in the wrong lap," Jean said. "Live and learn, kid."
"I wanted you to brush my hair," Belinda insisted.
"Nope, your hair's too sleepy," Jean said. "I'll brush it in the morning."
Jean gave her a kiss.
“He didn't give me one," Belinda said, sitting up suddenly. Lack of fair play had briefly restored her.
I gave her a kiss, receiving a hug in return.