“That’s all right.”
“He’ll be out in a minute, I know.” Mrs. Terwillen had left Orrie’s gift on a table near the front door. It was a fountain pen of the type Paul himself used, which Orrie had noticed once, in their dorm room, and admired because of the way it filled.
“Go ahead, open it,” Paul told Ellie.
She untied the ribbon and peeled away the paper more carefully than he had ever seen anyone do. He admired all her ways.
“Oh, gosh,” she said, taking the little gold wrist-chain from its box. “Isn’t it nice.”
“Are you sure?” Paul asked. “I didn’t know how you might feel about it.”
“I’ve never had any real jewelry before.”
He would not have called it exactly jewelry, such a simple thing without even any precious gems, but would say nothing to diminish it now that she appeared so pleased.
She draped the chain over her left wrist.
“It’s not too big, is it? I could get a few links taken off.”
“No, it’s just right.” She kept smiling at the bracelet.
He did not know what to say to a girl like her when they were not discussing her brother, and was reluctant to break the current mood by bringing up the subject of Orrie, which no doubt she would return to soon enough.
“How about a refill?” asked Mrs. Terwillen, coming in with the pot. She stared into the cup she had brought earlier. “But you haven’t touched any of this.”
Ellie displayed the bracelet, and for an instant Paul was worried lest the woman misinterpret his motives, but Mrs. Terwillen beamed at him with her motherly plump face and said, “That’s the nicest thing I have ever seen!” He hastily drank most of the coffee, which was cool enough by now to chug-a-lug, and she replenished the cup. “I just wish you could stay and have Christmas dinner with us, but I’m sure you —”
“I’m free,” he said hastily, almost spilling the cream he was adding to his cup from the tiny pitcher. He forgot his pride and added, “I’d really love to stay.”
He was further rewarded by Ellie’s saying, “That’s just great.” But as it turned out, her enthusiasm for his remaining had mostly to do with her brother. When Mrs. Terwillen went away to tend the turkey she said, “Maybe you could talk to Orrie man-to-man. He won’t listen to me any more.”
Paul nobly agreed. “But what should I talk about? He hasn’t even come out the last few times I’ve dropped in.”
“I don’t know. What do boys talk about when they’re together?”
Paul said, “I’ve been thinking, there are these doctors that specialize in treating people who are in a depressed state of mind.”
“No.” Ellie shook her head. “I know he would think that would mean he’s crazy.”
“But it wouldn’t,” said Paul. “My mother’s not crazy and she goes to a doctor of that type and she’s not exactly even depressed but nervous and drinks and smokes too much.” He was amazed at himself, making these revelations to a high-school girl in a little town upstate.
But Ellie kept her narrow focus on her brother. “He just sleeps all the time. At meals he hardly eats a bite.”
Paul rose and got rid of his cup and saucer, which he had been holding in his lap all the while. “I’ll go see him.”
Ellie said, “It’s upstairs, third door on the right.” She shook her raised wrist with the chain. “I’ve got to help Mrs. Terwillen with the meal, so I’ll take this off and leave it here.”
Paul was touched by her concern that he might be offended if she was not wearing the bracelet next time he saw her.
He took Orrie’s gift from the table where it had been left by Mrs. Terwillen and climbed the stairs.
Orrie was sitting on the edge of his bed, tying his shoes. Paul said, “Ellie told me to come on up.”
Orrie lifted his head. “She’s always got ideas about what I should do.”
Paul did not like this, but said only, “She’s worried about you.”
Orrie glared at him. “I just want her to let me alone.”
“She’s your sister.”
“So was the other one. Gena got the hell out and stayed away. So did my dad—then made the stupid mistake of coming back.”
Paul still stood in the doorway. “You oughtn’t talk that way about your family. It’s Christmas.”
Suddenly Orrie’s look was beseeching. “You know, I never dream of it. Right after it happened I didn’t dare close my eyes at night for fear that’s all I would see, and then finally I would fall asleep against my will, just get so tired, and not once ever dream about it. It’s during waking hours I can’t think of anything else, but when I fall asleep it’s like nothing ever happened. That’s not right.”
“Whether it’s tight or not is beside the point,” Paul said. “It’s natural. It’s not something you decided to do. Furthermore, it’s something you can’t do anything about. So you just have to accept it.” He went into the room and gave Orrie the little package. “Now, come on downstairs. You’ve got to eat something. You’re all skin and bones.” Paul felt for his friend, but he could not wait to get back near Ellie, in whose presence he glowed. But he did not yet have the courage to reveal that about himself to anyone, including her.
9
Cassie was buried by her parents three days after Christmas. She had died early on the twenty-sixth, of sudden complications in a seemingly routine case of the flu that had been going along the assembly line at the plant. But her mother was convinced that the girl had died of a broken heart, after weeks had gone by without Augie’s return or so much as a word of explanation from him, not even for Christmas. Of course Cassie, the self-styled clairvoyant, had predicted the trip would have dire consequences, but as usual no one took her seriously. While she insisted that Augie must have met with some terrible though unspecified fate, both her parents, knowing more of life, were sure the man had simply run off after having enjoyed himself with her and getting a lot of free meals during the time he was in local residence before going back up North. From the first they had considered him much too old for her, but had said nothing, for she had no other suitors, all the eligible younger men being away at war. It had been her father’s considered opinion that Augie’s disappearance might work out for the best, for with the war over now, more appropriate men would soon come marching home.
Her parents’ only consolation, and their pastor told them it should be a profound one, was that their daughter died a virgin.
10
Ellie was always flattered to be consulted privately by Anthony Pollo. Fortunately there were glass doors between the solarium and the living room, because the Terwillens, though kind people, tended to be nosy. Mrs. Terwillen seemed to be none too pleased when she saw Ellie closing the doors, but the latter reminded her, as respectfully as could be, that the lawyer-client relationship was sacrosanct.
“I wanted to see you again apart from your brother,” the lawyer said, choosing the chair rather than the sofa. He put his stout briefcase on the floor. “It’s good news, but the way Orrie has talked, I don’t know how he’ll take it. Furie’s finally decided to try him for manslaughter. There was never the slightest grounds for a charge of murder: that was just his bid for the headlines—well, not quite: your brother himself keeps using that term. I’m worried about Orrie. I think he should see a doctor. But he doesn’t want to listen to me even when it comes to the law.”
“That’s Paul’s idea too,” Ellie said. “But I can’t get Orrie to do anything. As far as he’s concerned, he’s the big brother.”
“What about Paul?”
“He went back to college at the end of Christmas vacation. I insisted on that when I found out his main reason for being down here. He really helped us, but I don’t want him to jeopardize his education and fight with his father and all. I didn’t understand him for a long time. I thought he was just this rich kid who hadn’t anything better to do than hang around with people like us.” She smiled. “He had a little too much eggno
g at Christmas dinner, I guess—Mr. Terwillen gave him some of it with real rum in it—and told me a lot of things about himself I didn’t know. Do you realize he ran out of money and had to work at the post office, in the city, during the holiday rush?”
Pollo smiled paternally. “I know he’s Orrie’s devoted friend. Isn’t that why he was here?”
Ellie was not the boasting type, but the matter of Paul was too extraordinary to keep to herself as she had felt she had to do thus far: she did not dare upset Orrie, and it was not the Terwillens’ business. “This might be hard to believe, but Paul asked me to marry him.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry, everything was on the up and up. He wasn’t trying to make a fool of me, though at first I did think it was some kind of dumb practical joke. When I saw he was actually serious, I said, ‘Well, I like you too, but what I wish you’d do is go back to school and work hard and get good grades instead of just getting by or not even that, and then two years from now, when I’ll be eighteen and finish high school, we can talk about it—if you’re still interested, which frankly I doubt.’”
Pollo looked relieved. He said, “You’re a levelheaded young lady. I don’t think we have to worry about you.”
“He really is nice, but I think maybe it was because he felt so sorry for us. Anyway, J would be crazy to think about getting married right now. I haven’t ever even had a date!” Her face fell. “But what’s going to happen to Orrie?”
“He’s out of the house at the moment?”
“Mr. Terwillen took him to see my mother’s grave. That’s the only place he’ll go.”
Erie Mencken’s will had revealed a sentiment that Ellie considered sickening: he had some years earlier purchased a cemetery plot big enough for himself and his cousin’s entire family including the missing Gena. Ellie supposed she should be grateful to them for having cremated her father instead of putting him into that polluted ground. As to her father’s ashes, at last they had found a proper place of repose. She had exchanged Paul’s bracelet and added her savings to obtain the finest box Friedman’s offered, one with a top of etched silver.
“My biggest problem in defending your brother,” said Pollo, “is not Bernard J. Furie but Orrie himself. He’s left me with nothing but that preposterous story of mistaken identity. It’s obvious that Erie was giving a savage beating to your mother. I assure you no jury in this country would convict a boy who killed someone who was striking his mom. That in the course of his defending her she herself got killed was a tragic accident. Why in the world does he continue to deny what happened?”
“He’s got this idea that the only reason Erie would be hitting her was a lovers’ quarrel,” said Ellie, “and he could never admit that.”
“I just would hate to see his life ruined,” said Pollo. “Young as he is, first offender, the peculiar nature of the case, he might not be sent to prison if he’s found guilty, but he’d certainly have a record, with all the consequences that could come from that. Did you tell me he wanted to become a doctor? Can you see that happening unless he’s cleared of this?”
“I’ll say this about my brother,” Ellie said. “It’s always hard to tell what’s going on in his mind at any given time, but what he finally does can surprise you.”
Pollo moved his large head. “I don’t like surprises. Please keep trying to get him to reveal what really happened that evening. It could only help him.”
Ellie no longer tried to tell people that her mother and Erie had murdered her father. Nobody but Orrie (whatever he said) had ever believed her. But Orrie had been enough.
The mailman was coming up the walk as she let the lawyer out. Mrs. Terwillen was suddenly at hand, having probably never been far away.
Ellie sensed that for her to take the mail from the postman would have been considered as a gesture more forward than politely helpful. She was halfway up the stairs when Mrs. Terwillen said, “Oh, Ellie, here’s a letter for your family…. Maybe I should save it for Orrie?”
Ellie went down to her, taking two steps at a time. Mrs. Terwillen had got somewhat touchy throughout their weeks of residence, what with Orrie’s brooding in his room and Ellie’s mostly rejecting the kind of maternalism she offered. Ellie did what she could not to offend the kind woman needlessly, but this letter was unique. She snatched it and ran upstairs.
The envelope was addressed to “The Mencken Family” and had been sent to the house where her parents and Erie had died, but at least Orrie was sufficiently well known so that the post office had not even bothered to alter the street and number for delivery to the Terwillen home. The postmark said California though the city of origin was smudged.
She peeled away the flap with a thumbnail.
Dear Mom, Dad if he’s back, Orrie & Ellie
also Erie too —
Supprise! I guess you got tired waiting to here from me, maybe even thought I got too high & mighty to remember where I came from. I wont go intos the whys and wherfores of all I did since I last saw all of you. It hasnt all been beer & skittles believe you me—theres a big world out there which maybe you dont know about if youve never been there, but I did and lived to tell the tail!!!!
The movies dont amount to all that much. Fact is, I got somewhat dissilusioned by the kind of people associated with them. Phonier than you might think and I mean the most important folks in that game and Jews every one of them too. I had quite a few offers, so its anything but sour grapes but the pay isnt as good as you hear and for that matter—but why go on, you know I always try to look on the best side of any situation and keep smiling and I made a go of it didnt I, and never wired you for a cent. Well, why dwell on what never worked out. I look on the bright side so just let me tell you what I did. I guess you wouldnt ever have thought of me as a religious person in your wildest dreams, the way I always avoided Sunday school but maybe that was because of the kind of so-called religion there which was just hippocrictical—to show you what I mean, when I did go one time the “reverent” Mister Wilbert tried to get too friendly back in the cloakroom if you ask me, with his fat old wife right out in the other room serving cookies and punch.
Anyway, what Im talking about is the Temple of the Loving Spirit. I guess what I like most about it, its more than a religion—its a Way of Life, because affecting everything, like not eating any red meat which produces rage and every other kind of negative feeling—well that wasn’t hard for me to give up, I never liked greasy hambirgers or stakes anyhow, if you can still recall after all these years and I sure hope you can, because I think of you all a lot and just hope all of you or any can come out here sometime and see what Im talking about and maybe get some spiritual help for yourselves, because Im going to be frank maybe but thats what I do now, I’ve found my so-called vocation and am First Sister of Love at the Temple now dont laugh because its serious like a nun or priestess you might say, and give spiritual instruction to those who come to us in need of loving faith all races and colors and creeds, mexicans, colored, cathlics, all kinds, and we all live in the Temple and share and share alike including our Teacher, who we arent supposed to call by any other name, so I wont except to say that last week I was quite proud to present him with a new son 7 lbs 14 oz who we call Chrisanthemum. You can all figur what relation this makes yourself, granma, uncle or whatnot…
But what I was saying was, all or any are invited to come visit and maybe learn something that will change your life the way I did and put aside the corruptions of the flesh and vanity and anger and greed—and you can say which apply to your own case individually. Now I can just hear your screams but maybe after you calm down you will think about the matter and see maybe Ive got something. Meanwhile I miss each and every one of you, even though I might not have gottn in touch for quite a time but I did want you to know Ive had this kid who sends you all the love in the world and by the way could use some baby clothes. Not to mention it was just Chrismas and by the way he was born just two days later which must give him some connectio
n with Jesus, who we respect as one of the Great Love Givers along with Budda, Confewshus, Jehovah, and Islam. Ill be sending a Kodac of him when I take one—cute little tyke. And Erie, maybe you could send a donation to the Temple? Be good for your soul. We do a lot of good for the human race.
With fondest regards,
Gena Mencken
It was typical of Gena that she failed to include a return address on either letter or envelope. Ellie read the text a second, quick time and then tore the several sheets of paper into thin strips and flushed them down the bathroom toilet.
When nosy Mrs. Terwillen later on asked, “Not bad news, I hope?” Ellie said, with simulated exasperation, “Some charity, wanting money. I don’t know where they got our name.”
“Imagine,” said Mrs. Terwillen, “all the way from California for that.”
“I guess it was really for Erie. I don’t know why it was addressed to the family. It should have gone to his lawyer.”
Mrs. Terwillen groaned. “That crook.”
“Well, Mr. Pollo can handle him,” said Ellie. “He’s going to clear Orrie’s name and Orrie’s going to inherit Erie’s ownings and have enough money to go on and finish college and medical school.”
“I certainly hope you’re right, sweetheart.”
“I’ve been right so far,” Ellie said. She saw Mrs. Terwillen’s eyebrows rise, but did not elaborate. She had already decided that this trashy news about Gena and her illegitimate child would only make Orrie feel worse, and anyway there was no means by which to get in touch with their sister, so it made sense to pretend the letter had never arrived.
11
The trial opened, at the county courthouse, during a mid-January thaw, with ankle-high slush in the parking lot. Paul had come down from college but at Ellie’s urging had brought his books along so he could study at night for the exams at the end of the month. He was also gratified by the Terwillens’ insistence that he stay with them and sleep either on the solarium couch or on a cot in Orrie’s room, depending on Orrie’s reaction. Paul did not want the question put to his friend and took the sofa, which was anyway the better idea, the solarium providing the privacy he needed for the memorization of terms required to pass zoology. Every day he drove Orrie, Ellie, and Mrs. Terwillen to the courthouse, Mr. Terwillen not being able to get off work.