In the morning she got up first, and I peeped at her while she dressed. Then I got up and got dressed, went down and had breakfast, which she served me in the dining room. As I was finishing the doorbell rang, and when I opened it there was Mother, looking fairly frazzled.
When I asked what brought her at this ungodly hour, she said: “I wanted to catch you before you left for your office,” but instead of saying why, she got off about my hand, which by now showed scabby cuts through the bandage. I told her it got caught in the car door, “so I raked the skin off getting it loose.” She didn’t go further with it, but let me take her into the living room.
There Sonya joined us, chiming in about my hand: “It’s really a mess, but I did what I could with what we had in the medicine chest.”
That seemed to be that.
Then: “What did you do to Jane?” Mother asked me.
“I didn’t do anything to her.”
“She was over last night, in a perfectly terrible state.”
I told about the phone call, and she said: “She had a complete crack-up, so I had to drive her home and take a taxi back. I tried to get her to stay, but she said she had to be alone, ‘to face herself, and what’s left of her life.’”
“Mrs. Stu,” asked Sonya, “what’s it going to mean? That she’ll cut Gramie out of her will?”
“I’m afraid so. She’s the best friend I have on this earth, but she’s rocked to the heels, and I can’t quite picture her leaving things as they are.”
“You mean on account of me?”
“You said it, Sonya. But since you ask me, yes.”
“I can’t quite picture it either.”
“I can’t quite picture her starving for love.”
I got it off pretty sour, as it seemed to me that Sonya, last night, and now Mother today, had jumped to hasty conclusions, by taking stuff for granted that might or might not happen. “Cracked up or down or sidewise, she still has to eat, and she won’t eat without cashing my check. Likewise, until now, she’s been the best friend I have on earth—just the same she’s going to get hungry. So I’m going to hold everything, wait with my fingers crossed, till my check goes out next week, and see what she does with it. If she cashes it as I expect, then we take it from there, and I rather imagine she’ll find there’s quite a lot left of her life—once she quits being silly. If not, then we can talk things over.”
Neither of them seemed to hear me. Sonya asked: “Mrs. Stu, would you like some coffee?”
“Sonya, I’d love it.”
So Sonya made her coffee the way she likes it, with milk—café au lait, from freeze-dry coffee, with sugar lumps, in a glass, with a silver coaster she’d bought. Mother stirred it, touched her tongue to the clots of coffee, and asked: “Sonya, was that your arrangement of ‘Chopsticks’ you played at the school that day?”
Sonya stared, then went over, knelt, put her head on Mother’s shoulder, and whispered: “Oh, Mrs. Stu, just to think you noticed, that you remember it now, what I played!”
“I loved it,” said Mother. “Play it.”
So she went to the piano, while Mother moved to the bench beside her, still holding the coffee, and played some crazy arrangement of “Chopsticks.” “I just boogie-woogied the left hand,” she explained. “But of course, as boogie-woogie’s four-four and Chopsticks is six eights, there was kind of an accent problem, till I fudged them together a bit.”
“It’s most effective,” said Mother.
“Will you kindly tell me,” I asked, “what ‘Chopsticks’ or boogie-woogie has to do with the price of fish, or Jane Sibert, or her farm, or anything we’ve been talking about?”
“It has plenty to do with it!” screamed Sonya, jumping up. “It means it’s not my fault! It means she’s not blaming me.”
“Well I’m certainly not blaming you,” said Mother.
“Thanks, Mrs. Stu. Thanks, thanks.”
She plumped down on the bench again and started to cry. “Mrs. Stu,” she blubbered, “would you do something for me? I know I have to go, I said I would, I promised, that I wouldn’t be inny pest, and I won’t be. I offered to go before, right here in this very room, the morning we got married, but he said do as he said, or he’d give me a boot in the tail; when he boots me in the tail is when I love him so. So I did. But now everything’s changed.
“Mrs. Stu, would you kid her along a little? Tell her hold everything, that things are going to get better, so wait for the silver lining, so I have a few days to think. To face what’s left of my life. To figure out what I’m going to do?”
“Put it that way, Sonya, I have to.”
“I do put it that way.”
“Then I’ll do what I can.”
At last this queer conversation ended, and Mother left. I left, and carried on business as usual, I don’t recall the details. When I got back that night, Goodwill had come for the beds, and Sonya seemed feverishly pleased they were gone, giving the subject no peace.
Late that night Mother called, and when she made sure Sonya was there, on the kitchen extension I mean, she gave her first report: “She was over tonight, and I started in on Sonya’s campaign, to kid her along, as she said, and try to persuade her to wait, to keep a stiff upper lip, to look on the bright side, ‘until things have a chance to change.’ She seemed to feel better, sensing something, under sly hints, and was able to drive home herself.”
Sonya seemed pleased, when she joined me in the living room, and I can’t quite say that I was, but of course I was playing a different ballgame, one that wouldn’t start until my check went out, the first of the following week. If it got cashed, it seemed to me the kidding along would stop, and we could make a fresh start, so life would go on from there. If not, I doubted if kidding along would help, or that anything would.
The next day, the next night, were practically a retake, but the night after that was different, I’m here to tell you it was. Mother called late, as usual, around midnight I would say, and from the very first word she spoke, acted all wrung up and excited. She wouldn’t begin until she made sure that Sonya was on the extension and could hear what she would say.
“Chiliens, hold your breath and hold on to your hats... it worked, Sonya’s idea did, beyond our wildest dreams, her dreams, my dreams, and Gramie’s dreams, all of our dreams, put together. Feature this if you can: She’s resigned to losing Gramie—she loves him, that she betrays with every word she says, but knows she can’t get him back. But, she’s leaving the farm to me! To me—or in other words, the dream is left as it was, because on this, of course, Gramie and I are one! She’s leaving it all to me, and all because Sonya made me kid her along. Made me act with compassion, made me do the decent thing by a stricken soul, because she was willing to do the decent thing! I’m so happy I could sing.”
“Mrs. Stu,” yelped Sonya, “how wonderful!”
“Sonya, you don’t have to go!”
“Well not that I ever wanted to!”
It went on for at least twenty minutes, with Mother giving details of how Jane “had thought it over all day, and then was ready, when she came, to say what she would do”; and also giving credit to Sonya, for thinking the idea up of smoothing Jane down and stringing it out, and heading the explosion off. And then at last when she hung up, came the sound of running feet, and the clutch of arms flung around me. I carried her up to our cloud, and we stayed on it all night, all next day, which was Sunday, and all Sunday night.
Or part of Sunday night.
Sunday evening, being exact.
The phone rang around twelve, and we both went piling downstairs, but I didn’t lift the receiver, there on the hall phone, until she gave me a shout from the kitchen. Then I answered, but all I could hear at the other end was what sounded like somebody crying. I said: “Hello? Hello? Hello?” but still nothing was said.
Then Sonya asked: “Mrs. Stu, is that you?”
“Yes, Sonya. ... I’m sorry.”
“Where are you? Home?”
“Yes. In bed.”
“But what happened?”
“Sonya, everything happened. She came over again, and was friendlier than ever—she’d called Mort Leonard, her lawyer, and made arrangements to see him tomorrow. And so on and so on. And then he had to come!”
“He? Who’s he?”
“Well who do you think?”
“Burl?”
“He walked from that dump he has to bring back a corkscrew he took, by mistake, thinking I might need it. That’s all it took.”
“You mean, he told how Gramie beat him up? Or what?”
“He told about your pregnancy!”
“Well that was nice of him!”
“I hadn’t mentioned it to her; well why should I? It was no business of hers! But she turned on me like a viper for ‘concealing the truth from her!’ ...don’t ask me to tell you the rest. He treated her like his child, patting her, kissing her, calming her. Perhaps women are his specialty, and perhaps I don’t respect it, but don’t think he’s not good at it, that he doesn’t know how to handle them. They left together—as soon as she could talk, she offered to drive him home. That was a half hour ago—I called as soon as I could. Now I’ve been like something demented.”
“Mrs. Stu, don’t take it so hard.”
She came, when Mother hung up, but not on running feet, and we went upstairs very slow, taking separate beds once more. I turned out the light, and after a long time she turned it on.
“Her check goes out tomorrow? Is that what you said, Gramie?”
“It’s due out tomorrow, yes.”
“If I were you, I’d take it in person.”
“And have it out with her? Why?”
“At least you’ll know where you stand.”
Chapter 18
SO I WENT OVER there, around 9:30 the next morning, first stopping by the office, where Helen Musick drew the check, and when I’d signed it, put it in an envelope for me, marked “Mrs. Sibert.” I parked out front, went up on the porch, and rang.
Almost at once came her voice: “Who is it?”
Thinking fast I decided to stall, because if I said my name, she might decide not to come to the door, and just leave me standing there. So, raising my voice to change it, I called: “Special Delivery!”
She answered: “Just a moment, please,” and I heard movement inside. Then the chain bolt rattled and she opened the door, but when she saw who it was, tried to close it. But I was ready for that, and shoved my foot inside the jamb, so she couldn’t. She tried to kick my shin, but had on tennis shoes, and hurt herself, so she winced. But it took long enough for me to take note of her changed appearance.
She had on a blue gingham dress I’d seen a hundred times, white socks, and the white sneakers. Her top two buttons were open, to show quite a bit of cleavage, and her hair had a ribbon on it, a new frill for her. And if it was the ribbon, the buttons, or what, I can’t rightly say, but there was something gamy about her that wasn’t like her at all.
After a moment she snapped: “What are you doing here at this hour? Pretending to be the postman?”
I told her, “I said ‘Special Delivery’ and very special it is—I brought you your check.”
“Then, I’ll take it.”
“You will when you’ve asked me in.”
“Very well. But give me a moment, please.”
She disappeared, and I heard her going upstairs. Then she was back, holding the door wide, and I went into a place I knew like the palm of my hand, and yet never got used to. I mean, it was more like a gag, a museum someone thought up, a stage set to play a comedy in, than a sure-enough, actual house.
In the hall was a cozy-corner, in under the turn of the stairs, consisting of built-in seat, with Navajo blanket on it, and leather cushions with Indian heads burned on. Over the seat were pipe racks, and over the pipes, college pennants, mostly M.A.C., for Maryland Agricultural College, which was what the university was called before they bigged it up. Facing the stairs was a hat rack, and on the floor was a hooked rug. There wasn’t any living room, of the kind a modern house had, but instead there was a “parlor,” and beyond that a “library.” In the parlor were horsehair sofas, marbletop tables, wax flowers under glass, vases of gilded cattails, a bookcase with a ship model on it, and steel engravings of the Three Graces, Paolo and Francesca, and Grover Cleveland. On the floor was an Axminster rug, and in a corner a square piano. Everything was just as it had been, except for the smell of bacon frying, which had a meaning, as I realized later, though when I first went in I paid no attention to it.
She led me into the parlor, drew herself up, and said: “You may sit down if you wish.”
“Well I damn well wish.”
“Don’t you dare swear at me!”
“Hey, hey, hey, come off it, this is me—and anything short of poking you one in the jaw comes under the head of gentle, considerate kindness. What was the big idea, hanging up on me?”
“What was the big idea, playing that trick on me?”
“And what trick did I play on you?”
She had left me an opening, I thought, and I was ready to let her have it at one word about my marriage. But she crossed me up. Pointing to a chair and waiting until I took it, she came over, looked down at me, and whispered: “Leading me on as you did! Play acting at being a man, and all the time not being one. Being nothing but a vegetable in human form!”
“You mean, like a potato?”
“More like an onion, slippery inside.”
“How does an onion lead a girl on?”
“With all those flowers and music and wine.”
“Thought you liked flowers and music and wine.”
“Oh I do, any woman does. But for what they pledge, not for what they are. And in your case, they were just a false front, a way of imitating masculinity while lacking the thing itself.”
“You sure?”
“Well I certainly am now!”
“Now? What’s now?”
“Since the truth was revealed unto me.”
“Yeah? By whom?”
Of course, by now I knew by whom, but wanted to make her name him. However, once more she crossed me up.
“By you!” she quavered, almost in tears. “Oh you made it plain, that I have to say—with no beating around the bush, in any way, shape or form. ‘Jane, I got married’—if that didn’t say it, it can’t be said in words.”
“That I’m an onion.”
“If not, why did you marry this girl?”
“I wanted to—that’s why.”
“You had to! She’s pregnant by your brother!”
“Was pregnant by my brother.”
“She still is! What kind of cock-and-bull story was that? You take her to the beach, and—lo and behold—she aborts. Could anyone, any grown-up, adult person, actually believe that?”
“God could—He did it.”
“Ah, God. God!” And then: “You should be asking for God’s forgiveness, that you would pretend He’s responsible. Of course, I find it in me, even so, to pity this poor girl, the life you’ve invited her to—having all a woman’s desires, and none of her satisfactions.”
“She gets satisfied every night.”
“I never got satisfied!”
“You know why?”
“Tell me why!”
My mouth was primed to let her have it, to tell her she was too old for such satisfactions, at least as supplied by me, but somehow the words didn’t come. I heard myself say, in a moment, “You’re so beautiful I didn’t have the heart.”
Her answer to that was to sneer, and then, sitting primly on the edge of a chair, she proceeded to tell me off, speaking slow and going into details—how my whole life had been a pretense of being something which I was not, of desperate playacting, with my athletic career at Yale, my jumping my arm muscles up, when we’d go swimming at Chesapeake Beach, my picking brawls with people, “though sometimes you meet your match.” She pointed to my hand, which was still scabbed up
, and went on and on and on. It was all part of the same old record I’d heard a few times before, so it was no trouble to know where it came from, or why it appealed to her: It put a totally different light on those years of not being passed-at by me.
So sometimes my attention wandered, and I had a chance to think. One of those times I woke up to the bacon smell in the air, and the thing of it was what I hadn’t remembered before: She didn’t like bacon, so who’d she been cooking it for? Why did she duck upstairs before bringing me in?
“Okay,” I said, “if that’s how I prove masculinity, what are we waiting for? Why not prove it here and now, by beating you up, Mrs. Sibert? You have a pretty cute backside—come on, I’ll blister it for you!” With that I grabbed her hand and yanked her out of her chair. “No!” she screamed. “No! No! No!”
Vloomp, vloomp, vloomp!
When I looked he was on the stairs, piling down fast, a hammer in his hand, one she kept on her dressing table, don’t ask me why. “Why!” I said. “Burl! I thought that would smoke you out!”
“Gramie, leave her alone.”
“Hand me the hammer or I’m taking it off you.”
He was still in the hall, and I marched myself out there, slow. Now there’s something about a big guy, walking toward you step by step, that somewhat dampens courage, and that’s how it was with him. I held out my hand and he gave me the hammer, handle first, though giving the head a flip to indicate his contempt. I motioned him into the parlor. “Sit down,” I said. “The both of you, sit down.”
They sat, and I asked him: “You spent the night in this house?”
“What’s it to you where I spent the night?”
“Answer me!”
“Yes!” she whined. “With me! In my bed!”
“Having intimacies with you?”
“Oh! And how! More than you ever did!”
“It would appear I’ve been missing something.”
“It certainly would, Mr. Graham!”
“Okay, let’s get on.”
“Let’s not! You may give me my check and go!”
“Honey, you’re not taking his check.”
He went over, knelt by her chair, put his arms around her, and kissed her. She inhaled him, and it crossed my mind, he may have smelled like feet to Sonya, but apparently smelled different to her.