I didn’t inherit my dad’s mechanical bent, but I liked working with my hands, and my first good job was odd-job man to a house builder. After that I got into the carpenter trade. Which went bust as soon as the crash hit, rendering me and most people I knew unemployed. What growing up didn’t cure of my former wild ways, the Depression did. I got by out of the kindness of a Mr. Abel C. Brooks, good friend to my mother’s sister’s husband. Mr. Brooks owned the ACB Hardware on what used to be Potomac Street in east Frederick. He gave me a job cleaning up and stocking, which turned into selling, then ordering, billing, and inventory, and eventually everything else, and in 1935 Mr. Brooks retired and offered me the business on terms so favorable I was just able to swing it. I stayed in the hardware game for forty-plus years, and retired in 1981 at age seventy-three.
Military-wise, I was 4-F because of my feet, so I volunteered in the civil defense and served as an air raid warden, 1942 to 1944, then chief air raid warden for Washington County, 1944 to VJ Day. I took a little ribbing, some people not considering that proper military service for an able-looking man, but I took pride in it and did as good a job as I could, and you notice the Germans never did bomb Frederick, Maryland.
I thought I’d end up a bachelor because until I was thirty-nine I never met a girl who could put up with me for long, or else me with her. I wasn’t that particular, I just wanted someone down to earth and kind of heart who thought a little better of me than I deserved. Good looks wouldn’t’ve hurt anything. Well, one day I’m helping the wire mill delivery man unload fasteners off his truck and the dang fool drops a keg of 16-penny nails on my foot. Broke it! I’m hollering like a baby, never been in such agony before or since, so he shoves me in the truck and drives me to the hospital. And there she was. I used to say it was the shot she gave me for the pain that disordered my brain and made me fall so hard, but that was a joke, I’d say it just to needle her. “Nurse Stanley,” it said on her collar, and I had to pretend I was dying in order to get her to tell me her first name. Sarah. She said it laughing. She was so pretty, with yellow hair and light brown eyes, but Sarah saying her name and laughing is what made me fall in love.
It took a good deal of persistence, but finally she consented to a date and I took her to the Maryland Hotel to hear the Lewis Tranes Orchestra. She wore a green dress with a white collar and a matching jacket. She told me I was a good dancer, that was her first compliment to me, and that’s when I knew for sure she wasn’t only pretty, she was a most sweet and tenderhearted liar. We got married five months later.
I don’t know what she saw in me, then or in all the forty-one years we had together. I can say in truth I never let a day go by without thanking the Lord for her, and although she’s gone now I still do. If I made anything of myself, if I did any good or served any purpose, it’s because of Sarah.
We had Daniel first, then William two years later with lots of complications, and after that we couldn’t have any more. They were wonderful boys, and that’s not just prejudice. They looked like Sarah, for one thing, brown-eyed blonds with her same soft nature and heart. Daniel died in Vietnam in 1969, age twenty. That’s all I got to say about that, because even though so many years have passed since I lost my boy, it hurts exactly the same. Sarah’s the only one I could talk to about it, and her not that much. She used to poke and prod me to open up, but even for her I couldn’t do it. I still can’t.
William’s a good boy and he lives in Spokane, Washington, don’t ask me why. He’s an engineer, works with airplane parts and such. Says he’s about to retire. He’s got kids and his kids have got kids, but I never see them, they’re too dang far away. We talk on the phone some.
So now I’m an old man, older than anybody I’ve personally known, and it’s the most peculiar thing you can imagine. Inside I’m myself, same as always, and outside I’m this crippled-up old shell of a guy. By nighttime I’m used to myself, but when I first wake up in the morning and see that wreck in the mirror, there’s a minute when I can’t recognize him. “Who the hell are you?” I say, as I try to shave around all the wrinkles without cutting my chin off. Seems like I was in a car race with Buster a couple of years ago, not almost eighty. Wake House is a fine place and everybody’s nice to me, and I’m a lucky man in that nothing much hurts except the usual, what you might expect, but I’ve got to say this is never how I pictured ending up. I only have one big regret, and it’s that Sarah went ahead of me. I wish I could’ve gone first, it would’ve been more in the natural order of things.
But here I am, and if God’s forgot about me, there’s nothing to do but make the best of it till he remembers. Here’s the part where I’m supposed to say something wise, I guess. I don’t have any advice for anybody. Love the ones you’ve got while you’ve got ’em, because you never know how long that’ll be. Stay on the level, try to treat everybody fair and square, because your name’s worth more than your money. That’s it. I wouldn’t do anything different, and that’s about as much as a man can hope for.
On Wednesday afternoons Claudette always led a game in the Blue Room, Pictionary or Trivial Pursuit, or sometimes a game she just made up. This day it was “Name That Friend”—Caddie vaguely remembered playing a version of it with girls in her dorm back in college days. You took turns being the guesser, and you had to figure out who the others were talking about when they answered questions like, If this person were a flower, what would he or she be? What color is this person? He/she is the sort of person who…fill in the blank. No doubt Claudette’s object was to bring the residents of Wake House closer by exploring in creative, free-form ways how they really thought of each other. The possibility of pitfalls must never have entered her mind.
Everybody was there except Susan, whose boyfriend had taken her out for a drive, and Mrs. Brill, who had an eye doctor appointment. Somehow Caddie got talked into joining the circle of players, she wasn’t sure how; one minute she was sitting with Nana on the sofa, thumbing through an old AARP magazine, and the next she was trying to decide what kind of vegetable Mr. Lorton was.
Thea came into the parlor after the game was in full swing. Everybody stopped what they were doing to greet her—“Hello, Thea,” “Hi, Thea, where’ve you been?” “Thea, come sit over here.” She was sorry to be late, sorry to interrupt the game, she’d just watch and not say anything—No, no, they wouldn’t have it, she had to play, she would be so good at this—Cornel and Bernie shot out of their chairs and insisted she sit, sit right here, come over and sit down. “Thank you, thanks, I believe I’ll just squeeze in here with Frances and Caddie.” Nana moved her leg in her cast a little further down on the coffee table, Caddie moved the other way, and Thea sat down between them.
She always wore a faint, citrusy perfume, very lively and distinct, not like the powdery, old-fashioned scent the other women wore. She didn’t dress like them, either. She wore jeans and a man’s white shirt tied in front, she wore capes, berets at cocky angles, tight black capri pants with a long, bulky sweater. When the weather was nice, she went barefooted. “What’s she think she is, a beatnik?” Caddie once heard Mrs. Doré Harris ask no one in particular after Thea had left the room. Nobody answered, nobody even nodded or said “Hmm.” They liked Thea. If Doré didn’t, Caddie was pretty sure it was because until Thea came, she was the youngest and prettiest of the ladies at Wake House.
Thea patted Nana on the knee. “You said you’d wake me up,” she whispered. “I was just going to close my eyes for a second, I told you.”
She made it sound conspiratorial, as if Nana had colluded with her in some fun but naughty adventure. Nana hadn’t quite made up her mind about Thea (“Too young, and there’s nothing the matter with her. What’s she doing here?”), but she couldn’t help smiling and shaking her head back at her. “Sorry,” she whispered, shrugging, drawn in in spite of herself.
“Look at you,” Thea said, turning to Caddie, “there’s something different about you today. What is it?”
Caddie widened innocent eyes
and opened her hands to show they were empty. I might be in love, she thought. Could Thea tell?
“What are we doing?” she asked in a murmur, leaning against Caddie’s shoulder. “I don’t understand the game.”
No wonder. People were going around the circle saying things like “Thornbush” and “A holly tree with prickly leaves” and “A dead one!” Caddie whispered in Thea’s ear, “Edgie has to guess who the mystery person is. It’s one of us. If they were a tree, she just asked, what would they be. You take turns and go around—”
“So it’s Cornel?”
Caddie covered a laugh with her hand. “How’d you get it so fast?”
They snickered together, looking over at Cornel, who was scowling around, not pleased with the picture of himself people were painting. He knew he was “it”—Claudette passed around a slip of paper with the name of the person each new guesser had to guess—so Cornel had to answer questions about himself, and either be honest and searching or pretend he was talking about somebody else to throw Edgie off. “Sturdy oak,” he answered to the tree question.
Next Edgie asked, “What kind of car is this person?” and Bernie, Cornel’s roommate, called out, “Hearse!” to general amusement. Somebody said “Model T,” somebody else guessed “Rusty old Studebaker.”
When Thea’s turn came, she paused thoughtfully, a finger on her lips. “One of those cars that’s been in a garage for the last forty years or so. Somebody finds it, and under all the dirt and grime there’s a perfect vintage…something or other. A classic Cadillac. A Rolls-Royce.”
Cornel blushed. Caddie wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it.
Edgie finally guessed him—Caddie thought she’d known for a long time but enjoyed dragging the questions out—and Claudette sent around the next slip of paper. “Magill,” it said, and Edgie’s sister, Bea, was the guesser. “Complete the sentence,” she said. “This is the kind of person who—”
“Shouldn’t be here,” Edgie answered promptly.
“You just want to hug,” said Maxine.
“You just want to belt one,” said Cornel.
Caddie thought for a second. “Makes me laugh.”
Magill’s turn. He had on baggy khakis and a gray T-shirt, and whoever had cut his hair last had taken too much off the sides. He looked like a POW. Pensively, rasping the whiskers on his unshaved chin, he said, “Bears an uncanny resemblance to Antonio Banderas.”
Bea guessed him after the first round.
The next piece of paper said “Doré Harris.” Uh-oh, Caddie thought. What kind of tree was this person, asked Bernie, the guesser. A tall, stately elm, someone said; somebody mentioned Japanese maple.
“Ginkgo,” Maxine Harris answered with relish. “One of those messy trees that drop their sticky leaves all over and make a nuisance.”
Everybody made a point of not looking at Doré.
What kind of car?
“An Edsel,” Maxine said.
What kind of jewelry?
“A choker.”
What kind of person?
“The kind you better not turn your back on.”
Doré got up and walked out of the room.
It almost ended the game. Awkward, embarrassed, fascinated silence fell; even Maxine looked a little shocked at herself. But pretty Claudette said, “Well! Plenty of names left, shall we keep going?” She pretended so well that nothing was amiss, people decided to believe her.
Another slip of paper went around, and Caddie read her name on it.
The article of clothing she most reminded people of was a long, flowered skirt.
Her tree was willow; three people said so, although two said sapling. Magill said a white dogwood tree—she liked that. Thea said, “Is mountain laurel a tree? I’m saying mountain laurel, because it’s shy and blooms in the dark. It cheers up the forest.”
Old Mr. Lorton was the guesser this time. Caddie thought he knew who it was already—they’d gotten pretty well acquainted when she’d written his “We Remember” piece—and he just wanted to keep the game going. “Fill in the blank,” he instructed in his gruff voice—he had to clear his throat constantly. “This is the kind of person who.”
“Wears flannel pajamas,” Maxine said. “I bet.”
“Catches bugs and lets ’em go outside.” Cornel pulled his mouth sideways to show he didn’t think that was much of a compliment.
“Tips too much,” said Bernie. “Never got a speeding ticket.”
“People can talk to,” said Edgie.
“People can ask a favor of,” said Bea.
Magill sat with his elbows on his knees, hands loose and drooping between his spidery legs. “Laughs at your jokes whether they’re funny or not. So you won’t feel bad.”
Caddie said, “Your turn, Nan.”
“Hm?” She looked again at the name on her slip of paper. “What’s the question?”
“This is the kind of person who.”
“This is the kind of person you clean your language up for when they’re around.”
All the men nodded.
Caddie was still smarting from flannel pajamas. “Loves to dance,” she blurted out. “And sing in the shower. Really loud.”
Thea went last. She looked down, smoothing the edge of the sofa with her hand. “Makes me wish for something I used to wish for all the time, before I got so old.” She looked up, smiling. “That’s all I’m saying, or you’ll guess.”
Mr. Lorton said he thought the person might be Caddie.
She sat still, trying to concentrate on the next person to guess but really replaying everybody’s impressions of herself. No surprise that people liked her and said what they considered—she wasn’t so sure—nice things about her; sometimes she felt like the house mascot, or as if she had eight or nine brand-new doting grandparents. It was nice to be clucked over—she never had been before. Thanks to Nana and Thea, they knew about Christopher, and now she couldn’t have a conversation, not even hi, how are you, without being asked, “How’s that new boyfriend? Taking good care of you, is he? When are you bringing him over so we can get a look at him?”
In a way, her life was perfect right now, because—it just occurred to her—really, she was living two lives: a child’s and an adult’s. The child had this big house she could come to any time she liked, full of kind, sympathetic parent figures who truly wanted the best for her, and meanwhile the adult had the most exciting lover she’d ever known, a wonderful, deepening relationship, and a sex life, a sex life that just…took her breath away. It was all so sweet. This was the best summer of her life. She wasn’t exactly happy—how could you be happy when you were in love? It was too nerve-racking—but she was on the right track. Definitely moving in the right direction.
“Okay, people.” Claudette stood up. “That’s it, we’ve done everybody. That was fun, wasn’t it? Okay, so for next week, I want you all to be thinking about your best memory from childhood. Everybody gets to tell their very best memory from when they were little—that’s the game. Okay? Okeydoke!” She started clapping, a signal the game was over, time for people to get up and go on to their next activity.
“I’m going up and lie down for a while,” Nana said.
“Need some help?”
“Nope.”
Cornel came over and plopped down on the sofa. He’d taken pains with his wild, platinum-colored hair today, slicked it down with water or maybe even hair cream; Caddie could see the fine comb tracks in the shiny surface. He had bad posture, always hunched over and in your face, as if he might attack you. He was almost six feet tall, but he had no flesh left, just stringy muscles clinging to his brittle bones. His disposition was terrible, she’d never known anybody so crabby and sour. “Best memory,” he growled, rubbing the shiny knees of his trousers. “Yeah, that’s what I wanna hear, everybody’s best memory. Can’t wait.”
Thea faced him, crossing her legs. She had on a pleated skirt, stockings, and loafers, and Caddie saw Cornel’s critical eyes tr
avel up and down her legs, which were still in excellent shape. She wrapped her hands around one knee and cocked her eyebrow at him. “What would you rather hear, everybody’s worst childhood memory?”
“Haw,” he went, his version of a laugh. “Hell, yes, that’d be all right, wouldn’t it? Going around the room telling our most miserable memories. Then you’d have something.”