Tell Me

by Mary Robison

  The car’s windshield wiper on my side suddenly locked taut on a diagonal. A film formed immediately on the glass. I tried the squirters, but all I got was blue fluid congealing with the ice at the base of the windshield. I maneuvered down Willow, on Old Hadham’s steepest hill—a plunger, which had been only cursorily sanded. There was a car not far ahead, and a truck on my tail, no shoulder. I had to tip my head out the driver’s window to see. Meanwhile, Rennie was smiling, half asleep. The baby said a noise very much like “Why?” I had something close to nausea suddenly: suddenly missing Kit.

  •

  The baby woke me. It was an April morning, predawn. I was groggy, but I had a sweet dream still playing in my head—some of the dream’s color and its melody—as I heated water for the formula and started coffee. “Here we come!” Rennie said, and drove the baby’s castered crib into the kitchen. Rennie was oddly cheerful, giddy. Her taffeta robe was on inside out. She sat down and swayed the crib and sang some ballad about whaling boats and messmates, with a line about the lowland sea.

  To distract the baby, Rennie had dropped a fat nest of pink excelsior into the crib—a leftover from Easter baskets. I was a little afraid the baby would eat the pink cellophane, so I intended to snatch it away. But for now the excelsior ball rolled back and forth with the crib’s movement, and with Rennie’s song and what rhythms there were of my lingering dream.

  When the baby was asleep, we two sipped coffee. I figured Rennie would be stepping out onto the porch for sunrise, as she sometimes did, but instead she said she wanted to talk about her son, about Kit. I told her what I knew was true—that his character faults included overconfidence and impulsiveness. I said that he had taken all his lessons and received his license. But whatever the license signified, he hadn’t been ready, not competent, to solo pilot a plane.

  •

  A lot of Old Hadham showed up at Chicwategue Park for Memorial Day. Some people brought picnic dinners and thermoses or coolers of drinks. The high school’s brass-and-drum corps was there. There were two burros roped to a post for the little kids to ride around a guided circle.

  Chicwategue Park had ducks on a pond, and a pair of swans—the town favorites—who’d made it through the winter, and bronze statues of Revolutionary War generals, and, in the center, a white-painted, lacy-looking gazebo. On the soccer fields beyond the woods, there would be footraces and other competitions throughout the day. Rennie had given Ben a two-year-old boxer she’d purchased through a newspaper ad, and Ben had entered himself and Reebok in the Frisbee contest.

  I set up camp with the baby on a faded quilt. Rennie took Bibi to gamble away some of her waitress tips from the Nutmeg at the bingo tables. Watching them go, I noticed Andrea Dennis over by the penny-toss place—sporty and pretty in spotless sky-blue sweats, with a balloon on a ribbon looped at her wrist. She and Bibi greeted each other like classmates, with a hug.

  Bibi’s appearance looked to me like a screaming-out-loud reaction to Andrea Dennis. Bibi had whacked her fake-blonde hair into bristles and points, and her face was dusted with chalky makeup. Her lips looked almost black, and the tank top and jeans she wore were black. Still, Andrea was giving Bibi approving looks and nods.

  But if Bibi’s getups scared people, at least her manner had improved. That morning at breakfast, I’d overheard her saying to Ben, “Relax and sit still. I’ll fix you a fresh glass of orange juice.”

  Now Ben’s name was called over the PA system. I carried the baby and trailed Ben and Reebok to the starting stripe on the Frisbee competition field. Ben had the dog’s collar in one hand and his yellow Frisbee in the other. Ben was down on one knee and the dog was trembling with excitement as they waited for the judge’s signal to begin their routine.

  At the whistle, the dog bolted away down the field. Ben stood up and let fly. His first couple of tries were long, too-fast throws, and the Frisbee sailed yards over Reebok’s head. The dog wasn’t paying attention anyhow. On their third and last turn, Reebok watched as he ran, then leaped, fishtailed, and chomped the disk, but only after it had ricocheted twice off the dirt. At the gazebo, the Frisbee judge held up a card, giving Ben and Reebok a “4” rating.

  Andrea Dennis strolled over to us. She introduced herself to the baby and sort of shook hands with him. Ben and the dog came over. Ben’s young face was bright, but I couldn’t tell if it was from excitement or embarrassment.

  Andrea said, “Man, you got robbed! Your dog flew six feet straight up. What do they want? They should’ve given you guys a special award.”

  Ben absorbed this. I knew that on the car ride home he would relive Reebok’s last effort for Bibi and Rennie. He’d say he got robbed.

  I asked him to watch the baby a minute—to make sure the kid didn’t crawl away, go swimming after the swans, or filch anyone’s barbecued spareribs.

  I clapped a hand on the smooth blue sweatshirt material on Andrea’s shoulder.

  “What did I do?” Andrea said, and I said, “A lot.”

  We walked along together by the rows of blankets and the outdoor furniture that bordered the competition fields. We said hello to people—fellow teachers of Andrea’s, the families of some of her students, old friends of mine.

  I was thinking how to tell her that she had been an important distraction for me. She’d been someone safe to focus on while the reality of having no Kit was so fierce. I realized I couldn’t make my interest in her into anything polite. I said, “Generally, thanks, Andrea,” and I told her how great she looked in her blue.

  7

  Daughters

  “NOW WE CAN TALK,” Dell said to her daughter, Charlotte. “If you’ve still got your bus fare. You didn’t lose it, did you?”

  They had just run out of the rain and into a concrete bus shelter, which had a long wooden bench. Dell sat down on the bench and pulled Charlotte down beside her. Charlotte was eight—too old to be held on a lap. The rain was falling and blowing in overlapping sheets, and Dell and Charlotte were both soaked.

  “Be still,” Dell said. She jerked her head back to avoid the spokes of a toy umbrella that Charlotte was twirling. They were in downtown Erie, in Perry Square, and the sky over the office buildings across the park from them was low and bruise-colored. Charlotte got down from the bench and went to the street curb, with the umbrella trailing behind her.

  “Come back here and talk to me,” Dell said. “I won’t ask you again. Get out of the rain.”

  “I’ve still got it,” Charlotte said. She stepped back under the roof of the shelter and uncurled her fingers to show a wet quarter. Her damp hair fell onto her shoulders, and her ears were exposed.

  “I found a snake,” she said, pointing at the gutter.

  Dell got up and went to the curb with Charlotte and held her umbrella above them. They were bending over, watching an earthworm coiled next to the river of water in the gutter, when a new Mercury station wagon pulled into the near lane. Dell straightened up and squinted at the car’s headlights. A Buick swerved to get around the station wagon, and its horn blew.

  A man in a black raincoat got out of the passenger side of the station wagon. “We know,” he said to the Buick. He opened a newspaper over his head, and ran over to where Dell and Charlotte were standing. “We thought it was you,” he said, and tried to catch both of them under the spread of his newspaper. He was about forty, with dark hair.

  “You remember Pierce, don’t you?” Dell said to her daughter. Charlotte nodded at the man in the raincoat.

  “We’re in a bit of a hurry,” the man said.

  Dell said, “You two should just go on, Pierce. Nicholas is going to get rammed from behind, the way he’s blocking traffic.”

  Nicholas was behind the wheel of the station wagon. His hand came up, and he pressed his palm on the windshield in greeting. He was wearing an old wide-brimmed felt hat.

  “Pierce, you really should go on,” Dell said. “The bus will be along any second.”

  “I meant for you to hurry up and get in
the car,” Pierce said. “Come on. We’ll take you wherever you’re going.”

  “We’re going to my father’s house. We couldn’t think of riding in your car. We’re wet to the skin.” Dell turned to Charlotte, who had the earthworm draped over her index finger. “Put that worm back,” she said.

  More horns blew.

  “Come on, Charlotta,” Pierce said. He threw his newspaper into the street and grabbed the back of the little girl’s neck. Nicholas leaned over and opened the back door for her. Dell collapsed the toy umbrella and followed her daughter inside. The doors slammed, diminishing the sounds of the rain.

  “Hello, Nicholas, and how are you?” Dell said.

  “I’m fine,” Nicholas said, looking at Dell in the rearview mirror. He was white-haired, and about ten years older than Pierce. The two men were owners of a greenhouse and garden center, and they lived together in a town house on the south side of the city. Dell and Charlotte had rented their third floor for a few months after Dell divorced her husband. Charlotte was small then, and just learning to stand.

  “We’re both fine,” Pierce said, shouting a little over the whack of the windshield wipers. “We’re moving books. Hey, look at you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dell said. She tried to fluff up the scalloped wet curls around her face. “This is a new car, isn’t it? I can smell the upholstery, and we’re wringing wet.”

  “And now you’ve ruined it,” Pierce said. “We’ll have to get an even newer one. Won’t we, Charlotte?”

  “So much room!” Dell said.

  “It’s a barge and a headache,” Nicholas said, steering the station wagon into the heavy afternoon traffic that ran around the square. A truck horn sounded behind them.

  “Pay no attention,” Pierce said.

  Dell wiped beads of rain from her handbag. She said, “Could I possibly get a dry cigarette from someone?”

  “Lean up, Nicholas,” Pierce said. Nicholas turned sideways behind the wheel, and Pierce fished a pack of cigarettes from his raincoat pocket. “There,” he said. He flipped the cigarettes over the seat to Dell. “That thing by your arm is an ashtray if you pull it out.”

  “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 Y.W., 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 signal 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, Charlotta?” 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 ticked a fingernail on 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 racetrack 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 babysit 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.”