by Mary Robison
“Thank you,” Dell said. She snapped a paper match and looked at it cross-eyed as she lit her cigarette. “We’ve been swimming all afternoon at the YW, is why we’re downtown. I’m taking a lifesaving course, and Charlotte’s in Polliwogs.”
“You’re lucky to have your days free,” Pierce said. “We’re moving these books from the office at the plant store to the house, and we had more than we knew. Mostly gardening stuff. This is our third trip, and we’re about out of boxes.”
Dell said, “Would it be all right if Charlotte sits in one of the boxes? Because she already is.”
“Be our guest,” Pierce said.
Charlotte had found an empty carton in the well behind the back seat. She was sitting in the box, with only her head showing. “Pierce,” she said, “do you still have Django?”
“In fact, Charlotte, we don’t,” Pierce said. “Django ran away.”
“Did he really?” Dell said.
Pierce shook his head. “Hit by a car,” he mouthed.
“I’m so sorry,” Dell said in a low voice.
“Where’d he go?” Charlotte said. She was using her finger to draw in the steam on the back window.
“College,” Pierce said. “He went to get his bachelor’s.”
Charlotte ducked her head and shoulders into the box.
“Your daughter’s turning shy,” Pierce said to Dell.
“She’s turning into a petty thief,” Dell said.
Nicholas took a quick look at Dell in the mirror. “Really?” he said. “Is she any good?”
“I guess so. I hadn’t thought of it in those terms,” Dell said. She unbuttoned the side pouch of her handbag and brought out a packet of dollar bills.
“It’s grand larceny, not petty theft, if she took that,” Pierce said.
“This is just one thing she took,” Dell said, riffling the bills like playing cards. “Seventy-four dollars. It was in the pocket of her jumper. She says she found it on the golf course. You know the golf course next to my father’s place? Did I tell you we’re living with my father right now?”
“She probably did find it, then,” Pierce said. “Golfers are wealthy.”
Dell said, “The trouble with this much money is I can’t spend it and I don’t know who to give it back to.”
Nicholas stopped the car for a red light. Pierce reached over and twisted a knob, halting the windshield wipers. “I think we’re out of the rain,” he said.
The car started with a jolt, and Dell said, “Nicholas, I don’t believe I’ve ever ridden with you. Pierce was always the driver.”
“He only just got his license,” Pierce said. “It’s tricky, driving in the wet.”
“Do I turn here?” Nicholas said. A diesel truck blew its air horn behind them. “I guess I don’t.”
“He’s a little embarrassed,” Pierce said, “just starting to drive at his age. He’s never liked being told how to do anything.”
“Yes, you do want to turn here, to get to my father’s place,” Dell said.
“I had my signaler on,” Nicholas said.
Pierce said, “We’ll let you alone, Nicholas. We know we’re in safe hands. But you do have to merge if you want to get onto the parkway.”
“We are merging,” Nicholas said.
DELL DIRECTED NICHOLAS DOWN SEVERAL suburban streets, then past a new shopping mall and onto a road that went uphill parallel to a golf course. “There we are,” she said. “The fourth house. The drive starts behind those hedges.”
The rainstorm hadn’t reached South Shore Drive, but some of its clouds still streaked the late-afternoon sun that was streaming over the broad lawns and slate roofs of the houses. In a neighbor’s yard, a man in yellow coveralls rolled a silent mower toward a three-door garage. Nicholas drove the Mercury up the driveway.
“This is very, very nice,” Pierce said. “Is this where you live, Charlotte?” He pointed to a thicket of plum trees and then to a trim line of dogwood saplings. “Good planting there,” he said.
Nicholas stopped the car on the concrete turnaround in front of the low red-brick house.
“There’s my father,” Dell said. She touched a fingernail to the car window. “He must have just got home from the office.”
Dell’s father, Gene, was smiling at them from under one of the linen shades at a window in the living room. One of his hands came up by his ear and he wiggled his fingers.
“Let me kiss you,” Dell said to Pierce and Nicholas. “I might not see you again for a while.”
“Hold off on that,” Pierce said.
Gene came out of the front door of the house. He was wearing gray flannels and a red cardigan sweater and a pair of slippers, which slapped against the driveway. He opened the tailgate for Charlotte, who jumped out and landed on the concrete drive on all fours. Gene picked her up and twirled her over his head, turning her small trunk in his hands. “You’re a bad Charlotte,” Gene said. “Say it.”
“I am bad!” Charlotte said, gasping and laughing.
Gene brought her down and released her. “What’s up, Nicholas?” he said. “Come on inside. I’ve got gin gimlets.”
“We hadn’t seen your gardening,” Pierce said. “We are impressed.”
“That’s thanks to the soil,” Gene said. “Use a little lime and you could even grow tobacco here. Nicholas, now I know you want a drink, don’t you?”
“You have no idea,” Pierce said, getting out of the station wagon. “He’s just been through a trial.”
“Oh, yeah?” Gene said.
“People were driving like crazy idiots,” Dell said.
“Let’s do have a drink,” Pierce said to Nicholas.
Nicholas stayed behind the wheel. “First of all, Pierce, I’m in no mood for a drink,” he said. “You shouldn’t be either, at five o’clock. We were going to the race track tonight, remember? Plus I’d like to get the books finished, if nobody minds.” He looked straight ahead as he spoke.
“Will you calm down?” Pierce said. “We have time for one drink.” He came around to help Dell out of the car.
“Well, I’m going to take the boxes home,” Nicholas said. “I’ll unpack them myself and then I’m going to the track. Do you have the money, Pierce?”
“You have money,” Pierce said. “Drive carefully.”
Dell said, “Stay in touch, Nicholas. Give us a call in the very near future.”
Nicholas nodded and backed the car out of the drive.
Charlotte had run into the open garage at the end of the driveway, and was throwing old toys out of a box there. The three adults walked up the lawn to a flagstone patio, which was set about with wrought-iron furniture.
“I refuse to baby-sit for Charlotte tonight,” Gene said to Dell, “so you can’t go anywhere. For once, I want to be in my bed and sleeping by ten o’clock.”
“You will be,” Dell said. “I’ll get Charlotte to bed on time myself, if I have to force her.”
“I mean it,” Gene said. He led Pierce and Dell into the foyer, and hung Pierce’s raincoat behind a louvered door. They entered the wide, deep living room. The table lamps were already lit, and their silk and parchment shades were glowing orange. A brass light with an emerald shade stood on top of the piano. There was a full ice bucket on a side table behind the couch, and Gene mixed gimlets and shook them up in a tall silver shaker.
“I’m interested in you and Nicholas,” he said to Pierce. “I want some trees for inside here. For this room. I was thinking of little laurels.” He filled a glass and handed it to Pierce. “You two have a nursery someplace, don’t you?”
“We can get you a tree at cost,” Pierce said. “But we’re generally wary about putting hearty trees indoors. They get restless.”
“I’ve seen them thriving,” Gene said. He swallowed half of his drink and refilled the glass from the shaker. “Dell,” he said, “get your daughter in here. Everybody come over here and sit down around the coffee table. This is a meeting. Charlotte!”
D
ell went out and reappeared with Charlotte, who was holding a plastic doll with blond hair. They found seats around the low mahogany table. Gene had the cocktail shaker in front of him.
“This is about you,” Gene said to Charlotte. He took an old-fashioned jeweler’s watchcase out of his sweater pocket and tipped back the hinged lid with his thumb.
“Oh,” Charlotte said. She got down from her seat beside her mother and sat on the floor.
“You know what’s in this box, don’t you, Charlotte?” Gene said.
“I broke his watch,” Charlotte said.
“First she stole it, then she broke it,” Gene said. He held up a gold wristwatch with a shattered crystal. The hands of the watch were smashed against the watch face. “This was my anniversary present,” Gene said. “Your mother gave it to me, Dell, on our twenty-fifth.”
“Charlotte, this is terrible,” Dell said. “Look at that watch. I feel so sorry for Grandpa.”
“I feel sorry for him,” Charlotte said. She tugged with her fingers at the carpet.
Dell said, “It was an important, special thing of his.”
“It was irreplaceable,” Gene said.
“All right, we’re sorry, Father,” Dell said. “But I don’t think this is the time for a reprimand.”
“Reprimand?” Gene said. “Hell, I just want to know why she did it.”
“You’re on the hot seat,” Pierce said to Charlotte.
Charlotte looked at him out of the corner of her eye. She rocked forward and planted her spread hands on the carpet. She tried to do a headstand.
“Getting upside down won’t help,” Pierce said.
Dell picked a cigarette from a lacquered box on the table. She said, “Charlotte, go get Mommy’s lighter from the bedroom.”
“You send a kid for a cigarette lighter?” Gene said. He gestured to Charlotte to stay where she was.
“Probably unwise,” Pierce said.
“I do it all the time,” Dell said. “It never occurred to me.”
“Well, when you come home and your home is a charred black hole, it will occur to you,” Gene said.
“I just wanted to shoo her off, Father,” Dell said, putting down the cigarette. “I’ve wanted to discuss this stealing thing with her, but not now. She’s embarrassed and on the spot. Aren’t you, Charlotte?” She leaned over and looked at her daughter. “Are you crying? Do I see tears?”
“No,” Charlotte said. She was lying on her hip.
“Neither do I,” Gene said. “Frankly, Charlotte, I could wring your neck.”
Dell said, “Thank you very much, Father. Now I think it’s time for Charlotte and me to take a bath.”
“I wouldn’t know what time it is,” Gene said. “I don’t have a watch.”
Dell refilled her glass and tasted her drink. “My, these are strong,” she said. “Excuse me, Pierce.” She took the cocktail and Charlotte and left the room.
DELL BALANCED HER DRINK ON the side of the tub in Charlotte’s bathroom and turned on the tub faucets. Charlotte came into the room on tiptoes.
“A bath, and then I’m tucking you in,” Dell said.
“Now?” Charlotte said. “It’s so early. I don’t even see the moon.”
“What I see is you,” Dell said. “And unless I’m mistaken, you have completely disrobed. Hop in.”
“I’m so hungry,” Charlotte said.
“Didn’t I offer you dinner downtown? Would you eat it? No, you wouldn’t.”
Dell left Charlotte in the bathroom. A few minutes later, she came back carrying a tray with a dish of sliced fruit and cheese and a glass of pink soda on it. She put the tray down on the closed toilet seat. Charlotte was in the tub, surrounded by a flotilla of bath toys. Dell undressed, dropping her clothes on the bathroom floor. She retrieved her gimlet and stepped into the tub behind her daughter.
Charlotte twisted around and sniffed. “God,” she said, “why are you drinking that?”
“Don’t say ‘God’ to me, Charlotte,” Dell said. “You are in enough trouble. Your grandfather’s had it with you, in case you don’t know. You walked off with Dr. Hanley’s paperweight. Then you brought home Trish Bydecker’s doll buggy. You stole seventy-four dollars from somebody. Now you’ve crushed Grandpa’s poor watch. Think about it.”
“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said.
Dell finished her drink and submerged her glass in the bathwater. “You’ve got one last chance, Charlotte,” she said. “I think you’ll agree it’s better for us if you stay out of sight and under the blankets tonight. Do I hear a ‘yes’?”
Charlotte heaved a sigh and nodded.
Dell’s face was flushed. She said, “So you see, if you go to sleep in a while, or even pretend to go to sleep, I’ll buy you a car tomorrow.”
“What kind of car?” Charlotte said.
“Like Pierce and Nicholas’s. You can drive around town and get some new friends.”
“What will you really buy me?” Charlotte said.
“It depends,” Dell said. “Stretch Armstrong?”
Charlotte made a little shiver of pleasure. “Would you really?”
“Really,” Dell said. “Sleep tonight, and Stretch Armstrong when you wake up.” She soaped Charlotte’s back and drew numerals on it with her fingernail.
WHEN DELL CAME BACK TO the living room, she was wearing a silk blouse, pleated trousers, and patent leather slip-ons. She found her father pacing up and down with a library book open in his hand. He had his reading glasses on. Pierce was sitting on the couch, holding a golf putter. He looked a little stunned. Some of his dark hair had come forward on his forehead.
Gene said, “Sit down, Dell. I want you to hear this. ‘It seemed as though I had left my body and was about ten yards above myself, floating in the air,’” he read. “‘I could see myself down below, crushed beneath the car’s tires, but I felt no pain. I was strangely detached. I wasn’t even interested.’”
“Don’t let Father read to you,” Dell said to Pierce. “You poor thing.”
“I’m all right,” Pierce said. “I’m about ten yards above myself, feeling no pain or even interest.”
“This proves life after death, I think,” Gene said.
“What about dinner?” Dell said. “Have you offered Pierce dinner, or were you going to put him in a coma first?”
“I’m hungry, too,” Gene said, “but let me finish. I was reading about this guy who was hit by a car.” He closed the book. “I’ll just tell you, all right? The guy is legally dead. Heart stopped. No brain waves. You know what he hears?”
“How can he hear anything?” Pierce said.
“Angels,” Gene said. “A choir thing starts up for him.”
Pierce had poked the golf club into his shirt sleeve and worked it up to his shoulder, so that his left arm stuck straight out. “I wouldn’t hear choirs,” he said. “I hate choirs.”
“It’s different at my age,” Gene said.
“I think I have to leave now,” Pierce said. “Gene’s liquor has punched me between the antlers.”
“Gets you, doesn’t it?” Gene said.
“Come on in the kitchen with me, Pierce,” Dell said. “I’ll phone for a cab, and you can watch me fix dinner.”
“There are some strip steaks thawing in the icebox,” Gene said.
Pierce shook his arm, and the golf putter fell down his sleeve and onto the carpet.
“Everyone must have a clear conception of his or her relationship with God,” Gene said. He spoke with great precision, pronouncing each syllable.
“I don’t,” Pierce said. He followed Dell into the kitchen.
She called a cab on a wall phone in the breakfast nook, and then she walked back and forth under the cabinets, gathering plates and shaking out napkins. She took a head of lettuce from the refrigerator and began washing the leaves under cold water at the sink.
Pierce had found a bone-handled carving knife and sharpener, and he drew the blade back and forth against the rod. “We haven’
t taken in another boarder since you,” he said. “You left quite a hole in our lives, Delilah, which I could manage to live with if you’d phone once in a while.”
“I haven’t called because of guilt,” Dell said. “I know I still owe you that rent money. You’ve been very nice not to mention it.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Pierce said.
“No, I do owe it, and I’m working on paying you. You’ll get a pleasant surprise in the mail someday.”
“Don’t embarrass me,” Pierce said. He put the knife down and picked up his gimlet glass from the top of the dishwasher. “Don’t put a strain on our friendship.”
“I know how angry I made Nicholas,” Dell said.
“Nicholas is an old lady,” Pierce said. “Anyway, he and I are thinking of getting a divorce. We’ve been at each other’s throat twenty-four hours a day lately. You hang on to your money. You got a rough break from your husband, and you need all the money you have. Nicholas and I don’t need it, and you know I’m telling the truth, because I’m generally such a bitch about finances.”
Dell twisted a knob on the stove and then looked out the bay window in the breakfast nook. A pair of headlights was moving down the drive. “I see your cab, Pierce,” she said.
Pierce went out of the kitchen, and when he came back he was stuffing his arms into his raincoat sleeves. “Gene conked out,” he said. “He’s using the afterlife book for a pillow.” Pierce stooped a little and squinted out the bay window. “Why, that’s Nicholas. What do you know? He came back for me.”
“Will he come in?” Dell said.
“He’s too ashamed,” Pierce said. “He’ll sit out there in the car until I go to him.” He leaned forward and kissed Dell on the mouth.
Charlotte came into the kitchen wearing a clean nightgown. She had a sheet of red construction paper with a crayon drawing of a dog on it.
“Is that Django?” Pierce said. “For me?”
“Yes, I drew it for you,” Charlotte said. She looked at her mother.
“Instead of being asleep,” Dell said.
There was a quick, loud horn blast from the driveway. Pierce shrugged and worked the collar of his raincoat into place. “I’m being called,” he said.
