Joe swallowed, and coughed, and looked up into a nearby elm tree. “C-A-S-I-M-I-R,” he said, and coughed again.
Mr. Boulderwall took a sip of coffee without taking his eyes away from Joe’s face. “It’s a Polish name,” he said at last, putting down his cup. “Did you know that?”
“I guess not,” said Joe.
“Well, it is,” he said. “There were some kings in Poland with that name, a long time back. So your father’s people must have been Polish. What’s your aunt’s name? Or your cousin, or whatever. The woman you’re staying with?”
“She’s Myra Casimir.”
He squinted at Joe for a moment, and then: “How old are you, boy?” he asked.
Beatrice glanced at Joe and then gave the answer for him. “He’s twelve, just like me,” she said.
Mr. Boulderwall kept his eyes on Joe. “Twelve,” he repeated. He scratched idly behind one of Rover’s ears. “Your dog’s wet,” he said to Beatrice, without looking at her.
“I know,” she said. “He got into someone’s wading pool. We’d better take him home now, Mr. Boulderwall. Thank you for being so patient with him. I’ll make sure he doesn’t come in here again.”
“He’s welcome any time,” said the old man. “All three of you are welcome.” And then he turned back abruptly to his newspaper.
OUT ON THE SIDEWALK, Beatrice said, “Phew! I’m glad that’s over!”
“Me, too,” said Joe with feeling.
“Well, let’s take Rover back and go get lunch at the Gobble House.”
“Gobble House?” said Joe. “There’s a Gobble House here? We’ve got one of those at home.”
“They’re all over the place,” said Beatrice. Then, as they pedaled off, she added, “Mr. Boulderwall was nice about Rover, though. And the way he kept looking at you, I think he really liked you.”
While she was saying this, Anson Boulderwall, alone at the round metal table, pushed the Saturday papers aside and took from a pocket a small, leather-covered notebook. He slid its tiny pencil out of the loop attached, opened the notebook, and printed JOE CASIMIR. Then, underneath that, he added MYRA CASIMIR. When this was done, he tore the slip of paper out of the notebook and laid it on the table in front of him. And then, for a long time, he sat there thinking.
AT LUNCH IN THE BIG and beautiful house, Mrs. Boulderwall helped herself to a salad of cold shrimp from a platter being offered by a maid in a cap and apron. “Thank you, Delia,” she said to the maid, and waved her on to Mr. Boulderwall. And then: “Anson,” she asked, “didn’t I see a boy and girl out on the terrace with you? That dreadful animal was theirs, I suppose. What in the world did they want?”
“They didn’t want anything,” he told her. “They were just trying to get the dog back.” And then he said, “The boy’s name is Casimir.”
“What kind of a name is that?” she said. “I don’t know anyone with a name like that!”
“I didn’t either, not until now,” he said, looking off with a thoughtful frown. “Not still alive, anyway. There were three kings of Poland called Casimir. I think it was three. Way, way back. Hundreds of years ago. This boy is visiting an aunt here—or some relative or other. Her name is … uh … just a minute.” He took the slip of paper out from an inside pocket and glanced at it. “Oh yes. Myra Casimir. She lives on Glen Lane. And his name is Joe.” He paused, and then became his regular, brisk, decided self again. “Ruthetta, I want you to do me a favor. Invite them to come over here tomorrow, just the two of them. For tea or something. You’ll have to send a note right away. Fergus can take it and wait for an answer.” He handed the slip of paper across to her and added, thoughtfully, “I need to get to know that boy.”
Mrs. Boulderwall narrowed her eyes. “Anson, what’s this all about?”
“Maybe nothing. I don’t know yet,” he told her. “It’s just an idea.”
She frowned. “But what in the world could you possibly want with an ordinary boy like that? I mean, where does he come from? Who are his people? Are you telling me you want to invite him here, to the house? As a guest?”
“That’s what I’m telling you,” said Mr. Boulderwall.
“But, Anson, surely you don’t think, just because he’s got the same name as some dead Polish king …”
“If you mean do I think he’s got royal blood in him, of course I don’t!” said Mr. Boulderwall. “Didn’t I ever tell you about the welder, down at the factory, named Abe Lincoln? No relation at all. No, I just want to see that boy again, is all. So set it up, please, Ruthetta. Tomorrow. For tea. I’ll find the right address and tell Fergus to get out the car. And when you’ve got the note ready, give it to him and he’ll do the rest.” They finished their lunch in silence and then he stood up, stretched, came around the table to kiss her cheek, and left the dining room.
Mrs. Boulderwall rearranged a kiss-disturbed curl at the side of her carefully cut gray hair. All right: If getting to know that boy up close was what her husband wanted, she supposed she could manage it for him. It was certainly a little peculiar, but probably harmless. Still, she shook her head. In spite of her husband’s obvious success in matters of business, he did seem to have these notions sometimes. And there was never much use in her trying to guide him back to common sense. Oh, well. Tea, then. She went to her desk in the library and, while Delia cleared away the luncheon things, sat down to a sheet of her best stationery and wrote the necessary note.
V
JOE CAME BACK to Glen Lane with a good opinion of life. Hamburgers with Beatrice at the Gobble House had been perfect. So was the trip home. And Beatrice told him he could borrow her father’s bicycle whenever he wanted—that maybe next time they could go out into the country and look around. So who cared if his Willowick friends didn’t miss him? He didn’t miss them. Not now. He found himself humming under his breath and walked into Aunt Myra’s house as if he’d always lived there.
Aunt Myra was in the living room with a tall, bony man who was perched on the arm of a chair at one end of the sofa, a man with a thin, cheerful, wide-awake face who seemed watchful and ready, as if he was expecting something. “Joe!” said Aunt Myra. “Good—you’re back! Here’s someone I want you to meet. Vinnie, this is my cousin, Joe. Joe, this is Vinnie Fortunado. He’s the Number Two man down at Sope Electric.”
“Hey, kid,” said Vinnie. “Yeah, I was in the neighborhood, and I just come by for a minute. So—ya took the boss’s daughter out, that so? Where’d ya go?”
There was something about Vinnie that Joe liked right away, something that made it easy to talk. “We rode bicycles all over,” he said, sitting down beside Aunt Myra, “and then she took me up to that street with all those really big houses. And while we were up there, her dog, Rover, ran into the backyard of some people named Boulderwall. We had to go behind the house to get him. Rover, I mean. And he was out there. Mr. Boulderwall.”
“Well, well,” said Vinnie. “Big Bucks Boulderwall.”
Aunt Myra’s eyes were round. “You really met him, Joe? What was he like?”
“He was all right,” said Joe. “He was giving a cinnamon roll to Rover. But he asked me a lot of questions. I mean, he wanted to know how I spell my name, and—”
Then an interruption: somebody knocking at the door.
“Must be the mailman,” said Aunt Myra. “Will you get it, please, Joe? And hurry back! I want to hear more about your morning.”
But it wasn’t the mailman who had knocked—at least, not any kind of mailman Joe had ever seen. When he went down the hall and opened the door, he found a hunched little man in a trim dark suit and cap standing on the porch—a very polite little man who touched the bill of his cap in a kind of salute and said, “Good afternoon. My name is Fergus. I’m sorry to trouble you, but I have a letter here from Mrs. Anson Boulderwall for Miss Myra Casimir.” At the curb a long, dark blue car was waiting—a very shiny car looking as out of place on Glen Lane as a yacht in a duck pond.
“Aunt Myra,” Joe called over his
shoulder, “it’s for you.”
She came, curious, and stood at the open door.
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” said the little man, with a second salute. “I hope you’re well today. My name is Fergus, and I’m the driver for Mr. and Mrs. Anson Boulderwall. I have a message for you, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to take a reply back with me. If that would be convenient?”
This was clearly a question. “Well,” said Aunt Myra, “of course! Certainly! Won’t you come in?”
Fergus stepped back a little and shook his head. “Oh—no, thank you, ma’am. I’ll wait right here. And,” he added kindly, holding out an envelope, “there’s no need to hurry. Please take your time.”
The envelope was made of heavy, cream-colored paper. She opened it carefully and, sitting down on the sofa with Joe on one side and Vinnie on the other, she unfolded a single heavy, cream-colored sheet at the top of which were the initials RB engraved in blue. And then, below that, the handwritten message. She read it aloud:
Dear Miss Casimir,
It would give my husband and me the greatest pleasure if you and Joseph would join us for tea tomorrow, Sunday, at four o’clock in the afternoon. We’ll be outside if the weather stays so lovely. We’ve been lucky, haven’t we, with the springtime this year!
We are looking forward so much to meeting you.
Sincerely,
Ruthetta Boulderwall
Aunt Myra dropped the letter into her lap. “Joe! What on earth!” she exclaimed. “You must have made a really good impression on Mr. Boulderwall this morning!” She picked up the letter and read it again, to herself this time, and her face showed a mix of doubt and dismay. “I have to answer this right away,” she said, “so that poor man out there won’t have to stand around. What do you think, Joe? Seems to me we pretty much have to say yes. I mean, it’s the Boulderwalls! Would you mind?”
Joe frowned. “But I didn’t do anything up there! I hardly said a word! Do we really have to go?”
And Vinnie snorted. “If ya don’t wanna go, ya just say, no, thanks! Simple as that. Ya don’t hafta do what they tell ya. It’s not like they was royalty or somethin’.”
“Now, Vinnie,” said Myra, “I’m sure they don’t think they’re royalty! This is just an invitation to tea. You’ve never met them, you don’t have any idea what they’re really like.”
“I’ve sort of met ’em,” he declared. “I done alotta work up there on High Street. And anyway, you don’t know ’em, either!”
“No,” she said, “but it seems to me they’re being perfectly nice. What have you got against rich people? I thought you wanted to be rich! You keep talking about winning the lottery.”
“That’s right,” said Vinnie. “It’ll happen, too. Wait and see.”
“Would you get a whole lot of money if you won?” asked Joe, forgetting for the moment the question of tea with the Boulderwalls.
“Listen, kid,” said Vinnie, leaning forward and stabbing the coffee table with a skinny finger, “it’s not if I win, it’s when. And yeah, you bet it’ll be a whole lotta money! I haven’t made up my mind yet what I’m gonna do with it. Not exactly, anyway. But I know this much. When it happens, I’m gonna go through the rest of my life with a great big smile on my face.” And he sat back with a firm nod of satisfaction.
“How come you’re so sure you’ll win?” Joe asked him.
“When ya know somethin’, kid,” said Vinnie with finality, “ya know it. But listen. When it happens, it ain’t gonna turn me inta someone else. I’ll still be just plain Vinnie Fortunado, same as now. See, that’s the thing about High Street people. They act like they’re the only ones with a ticket t’the show. But march ’em around in their underwear, ya can see they ain’t no different from anybody else. People is people.”
“My grandmother says the same thing,” Joe told him. “I mean, that everyone’s the same underneath.”
Vinnie stood up. “Well, kid,” he said, “I ain’t no grandmother, but, in my experience, that’s about the size of it. So, see ya around, Myra. Have a good vacation.” And he went down the hall and out the door, closing it with a bang behind him.
“What did he mean about a vacation?” Joe asked her.
“Oh, just that school is closed for the summer,” she explained. “And I have some ideas of things we could do, you and I. But, Joe, before we talk about that, we have to decide about tomorrow.” She picked up Mrs. Boulderwall’s note from the coffee table and put it back into its envelope. “Don’t you think we’d better say yes to this invitation? I know you don’t want to, but—well, it would be fun to see that house.”
“I saw it,” he said. “It’s just a house.”
“It seems like a whole lot more than just a house!” she said. “And to tell you the truth, the idea of going up there scares me half to death. But if we went together—oh, Joe, let’s do it! It’s just this one time. People like us almost never get invited anywhere by people like the Boulderwalls. We won’t stay long.” She looked at him pleadingly, adding, “We’d have to go out and buy you a shirt and necktie, but you wouldn’t mind getting dressed up, would you? It’s sort of like a uniform for parties—you know? So, how about it? Shall I tell them we’re coming?”
“Oh … well,” said Joe, “okay. If you really want to.” He was able to say this, to put his own wishes aside and agree, because all at once he felt as if he were the grown-up, weary with experience of the world, and she were the eager child who needed him to show it to her.
THEY WENT downtown after supper, to the boys’ section of a large department store—Dapper’s by name—and came away into the twilight with a manly white shirt and a necktie that was dark blue with little yellow stars all over it. Aunt Myra had chosen it from all the dozens hanging on the rack, and as they headed for home and were pausing at a stop sign, she pointed up at the sky. “Look, Joe—it’s just like your necktie!”
And so it was: dark blue, and now, out here beyond the downtown competition, the little yellow stars were showing themselves, sprinkled wide across that blue like grains of salt. “Joe,” said Aunt Myra, pulling away from the stop sign, “would it be all right if we drove just a little ways out in the country? Before we go home? Maybe it sounds silly, but sometimes I like to look at the night sky.”
“Sure,” he said, trying not to show his surprise. “Go ahead.” And then he was about to add, “I like it, too,” but he stopped himself just in time. It was something he never talked about. He didn’t know why, exactly, except that it seemed too private, like something only he would understand, so that a door closed in his head when anyone came too near, a door with a sign that said to him: KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT.
Beyond the city limits they went, and out to where streetlights were few and far between, where in the dimness the little farms had settled quietly behind rail fences, where cowsheds and hay barns were turning into comfortable shapes resting in their own shadows. The animals had settled, too: not a cackle or a moo to be heard when Aunt Myra pulled her car to the roadside near one of the farms and turned off the engine. The moon had appeared from behind a cloud while they were on their way, and now its gentle face hung glowing nearly full, low in the sky. “It’s so fine!” said Aunt Myra. And then, after a pause: “There was a time once when I wanted to be—oh, an astronomer, I guess—you know, study the stars, if you can imagine a thing like that.”
He could. He could imagine it easily. But all he said was “I guess so.”
She sighed. “It would’ve taken a lot of time,” she said. “Learning all that science, I mean. And maybe it would’ve been too hard, anyway. I never much caught on to algebra in school. Things with formulas, things you have to prove with fractions and those funny little symbols. You know. You do a proof, but when you’re finished, you don’t know what you’ve proved, and you don’t know why. Oh, well, a person doesn’t have to get an A in math to come out and look at the stars!”
“No,” said Joe. Still, he kind of liked things with formulas—fancy
arithmetic, what little he’d had of it in classes so far—but maybe this wasn’t the time to say so. Not yet. Instead, he said, “You could go back to school. If you wanted to.”
“What a notion!” she said with a laugh. “No, I’m very happy doing what I’m doing, thank you.” They sat for a while after that, both of them quiet, gazing upward. Then, at last, she switched on the engine of the car. “Time to head home,” she said. “The sky will have to do without us for the rest of tonight.”
But the stars—and the moon—would still be there, Joe said to himself with satisfaction. They were always there whether anyone looked at them or not.
VI
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Joe looked at himself in the mirror. He’d hardly ever had a necktie on before. But at least this one was pre-tied—he hadn’t had to ask for help to make it look the way it was supposed to. And it wasn’t all that bad, he decided, turning this way and that. It just looked like a costume for a play, was all. That’s what it felt like, anyway, going to the Boulderwalls’ for tea: being in a play. He wondered what Gran would say if she could see him. And then he wondered what Beatrice would say. Well, never mind. He was glad neither one of them had to see him today because he’d probably do everything wrong. Spill his tea or something. But at least the costume looked all right.
He could hear Aunt Myra upstairs in her room, moving around, opening and shutting her bureau drawers and her closet again and again. He came into the living room and plunked himself down on the sofa to wait for her. And then—a distant grumbling from the edges of a sky gone moody, and the first tap-tap of raindrops. There’d be no sitting safely outside at the Boulderwalls’. They’d have to go inside the big and beautiful house.
AT EXACTLY four o’clock, with Aunt Myra carefully dressed in a dark brown skirt and jacket, they stood at the Boulderwalls’ big front door and she rang the bell. At once the door swung open and a maid in a crisp uniform was beckoning them to come inside to a wide central hall. It was a softly lit hall, with a tall vase of taller white roses standing on a narrow table. On the wall behind the table, an immense and heavy mirror framed in fussy gilt curlicues frowned out at them as if to say they should keep their reflections to themselves. At the farther end of the hall, a deeply carpeted staircase curved upward to more soft light. And down here where they stood, wide arches led to—what? Never mind. They were directed to the room on the left. A living room. Except, Joe thought to himself, you couldn’t really live in a room like this.