"And I know what you both mean," Daniel offered, not understanding at all. "Adolescence is a difficult time of life for everyone."
Quincy looked at his granddaughter and sighed once again. "Harder for some people than for others."
"Stop it, Grandfather," Rachel sniffed. "Be of some help to me, will you? Try to make Malcolm behave himself."
"Yes, really," Daniel Rowland agreed, his irritatingly precise little mustache twitching with disapproval above his fat lips. "The boy's attitude is absolutely disgraceful. Now, I know that my own good fortune had an element of luck involved in it, but it was hard work and farsighted investments which made me what I am today." He patted his ample belly arrogantly, not taking the time to reflect that a man who marries a wealthy woman and then takes up residence in her grandfather's house is at best a dim reflection of Horatio Alger. "If that boy doesn't start planning for his future, he isn't likely to have one. Why, when I was his age …"
"You owned a fleet of ships and were happily ripping off most of Central America," Malcolm said as he ambled wearily into the dining room. "We've heard it all before, Danny." He walked over to his grandfather and smiled as he kissed him on the cheek. "Hiya, Gramps," he said cheerfully. "How's it going?"
Old Quincy smiled affectionately. "Afternoon, Malcolm. I'm glad you got up to join us."
Malcolm laughed as he sat down beside his grandfather. "Rachel didn't give me much choice."
"I certainly did not!" his sister remarked as she strode back into the room, carrying a large bowl filled with salad. "It's simply disgraceful, sleeping until this time of day."
"Sis, I work until three in the morning," he reminded her.
"Well, you shouldn't!" she snorted. "You should have a regular, decent job."
"I'm a bartender! That's regular!"
"Oh, Malcolm," she said with exasperation, "that's no kind of job for a college graduate! And even if it's regular, it certainly isn't decent!"
"She's got a point there, Malcolm," Daniel agreed. "Why, when I was your age—"
"You were selling impure baby formula in Nigeria. Yeah, I know."
Daniel grew red in the face. "Just a moment, here, young man! I don't think there's any call for that tone of voice!"
"Hey, listen," Malcolm said angrily, "why don't you two just stop this mother-father crap you're always laying on me! You're my sister and brother-in-law, that's all! If you want to play parent, have a kid, but get off my back!"
"Malcolm!" Rachel snapped. "You will not speak to Daniel in that manner!"
"Sis," Malcolm said. "why don't you go take a flying …" His imprecation was cut off by knocking on the front door.
"That will be Father Henley," Rachel said, smoothing back her hair and arranging her skirt. "Now, Malcolm, you behave yourself."
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered. The parish priest coming over for dinner, he thought glumly. That's just great.
Rachel opened the door and smiled cheerfully. "Hello, Father. So nice that you could join us!"
"Thank you, Rachel," Father Henley said as he removed his hat and handed it to her. "I'm grateful for the invitation." He looked past her into the dining room. "Is Malcolm here?" he asked quietly.
"Yes," she whispered. "He's just gotten up. Isn't that disgraceful?"
"Well, the boy works nights," he said casually as he walked into the dining room, and went directly over to old Quincy, his hand extended eagerly. "Hello, Mr. Harker. I'm so glad to see you looking well!"
"Father," Quincy nodded, shaking his hand. "Good to see you."
"You're looking quite a bit better than you were the last time I saw you … three weeks ago, wasn't it… ?"
"Yes, about that."
The priest gave Daniel's hand a perfunctory shake and then sat down beside the old man. "They seemed to be treating you quite well over at St. John's. It's quite a modern hospital."
"It is that," Quincy replied, already growing bored with the conversation. "Damned prostate!"
"Well, you pulled through with flying colors." Father Henley smiled. "Sorry I haven't come over to see you sooner, but …"
Quincy waved away the apology. "Father Langstone's been over almost every other day. He's a nice young fellow."
"Yes, he is," Father Henley agreed. As senior rector of Saint Thomas's Episcopal Church in Forest Hills Gardens, Henley had long ago delegated tedious home visitations to his subordinate. Except, of course, under a circumstance such as this, involving the soul of a young man who seemed on the verge of abandoning the faith. He glanced over at Malcolm, wondering how to begin, how to broach the topic of Malcolm's recent absenting of himself from services.
"I was sorry to hear about Mrs. Phipps," Rachel said, breaking into his thoughts as she fluttered about the table, checking and straightening the place settings. "I suppose we should have gone to her funeral, but we just couldn't get away."
"How old was the poor woman?" Daniel asked.
"Eighty-one," Henley replied, "and not sick a day in her life until her heart gave out."
Daniel nodded. "Eighty-one. Well, she had a long life, and a happy one."
Quincy harrumphed. "Long life," he muttered, winking at Malcolm. "She was a spring chicken."
Malcolm smiled.
"It was a lovely funeral," Henley added.
"No funeral is lovely, and every funeral is a waste of money," Quincy said. "Now, you listen to me, Father. I've told Rachel and Malcolm this a hundred times, but I just don't trust either of them to remember it, so you make sure they do. When I die, I don't want any money wasted on a fancy funeral. I don't want a viewing, I don't want one of those cement-lined steel coffins, and I don't want lines of people filing by me, telling each other how good I look. When I go, I want to go quickly and with no fuss. Just have me put in the cheapest coffin you can buy, and plant me as soon as possible."
"Now, Grandfather …" Rachel began.
"I'm serious, girl!" Quincy said sternly. "Money is something which should be spent on the living, not on the dead."
He wagged his finger at the priest. "You remember, you hear? When I die, just put me in a box and bury me. No viewing, no fuss." He laughed grimly. "I've outlived all my friends anyway. Why waste money on a funeral no one would attend?"
"Will I see you at mass on Sunday?" Henley asked, changing the subject.
Quincy shook his head. "I'm getting too old to get out much."
"Well, that's understandable. I can come over once a week to hear your confession and administer the sacrament." He turned to Malcolm and said, smiling under reprovingly raised eyebrows, "I haven't seen you at church lately either, Mal. Have you been ill?"
I really don't want to have this conversation, Malcolm thought, but he said, "No, Father. It's just that … well, I work late each night"—he ignored his sister's skeptical snort—"and it's awfully hard for me to get up on Sunday mornings. I'm sure you know what I mean."
"Of course I do." The priest smiled. "That's why we have mass in the afternoon as well." He continued smiling at Malcolm, which made the young man very uncomfortable.
"Yeah, well," he muttered, "I should go in the afternoon, I guess …"
"You certainly should!" Rachel said emphatically. "It's terrible, allowing yourself to become remiss in your religious obligations!"
"I agree," Daniel said, pouring a glass of wine for each of the people present. "Why, when I was your age, I went to church each and every Sunday of the year, and on all the holidays, too."
Quincy tapped his fork lightly against his glass and said softly, "The boy said he'll go in the afternoon. Leave him be."
"All I was trying to—" Rachel began.
"Leave him be," Quincy repeated. Rachel was too obedient to argue with him, and she began to serve the salad.
Henley's brow furrowed slightly as he continued to look at Malcolm. The young man's color was not good; he looked wan and ill. His eyes seemed tired and somewhat pained. As Malcolm reached up to scratch his scalp beneath his thick black hair, Henley noti
ced that his long, thin fingers were trembling. "Are you sure you've been feeling well lately, Malcolm?" Henley asked. "You look a little under the weather."
"Just the job and the hours," Malcolm muttered.
Henley nodded. "I imagine you get home rather late each night."
"Each morning, you mean," Rachel said disapprovingly.
"Yeah," Malcolm replied to the priest, ignoring his sister. "I start working at about eight and I get off at … well, whenever the place closes, usually about three."
"And you sleep until six in the evening?" the priest asked.
"Oh, he wouldn't have to, if he'd come right home," Rachel snapped knowingly. "But after work he goes off running around with his friend Jerry, looking for easy women!"
Malcolm rubbed his still-bleary eyes. "Rachel, will you shut the hell up?"
Daniel frowned at him. "Don't speak to your sister that way!"
Quincy coughed loudly, his standard means of getting attention. All eyes turned to him as he said quietly, "Rachel, get the meat. Daniel, go with her and carve it out in the kitchen."
"Now, Grandfather—" Rachel began.
"Rachel, get the meat!" he repeated sternly. "Daniel, go with her and carve it out in the kitchen!" After exchanging annoyed glances, his granddaughter and her husband rose from the table and left the room. As the door to the kitchen swung shut, the old man turned to the priest and said, "Thank the Lord I'm not Malcolm. I think I'd have shot both of them years ago."
Malcolm smiled, gratified at his grandfather's affectionate, if hyperbolical, defense. "Thanks, Gramps."
Quincy took a sip of his wine. "You will go to church, though, won't you?"
Malcolm patted the old man on the arm. "Sure I will, Gramps. This Sunday afternoon, for sure."
Quincy nodded and smiled. He turned to Father Henley and said, "Malcolm is keeping company with a charming young lady, by the way."
"Oh, isn't that nice!" Henley said, genuinely pleased.
"We're not … I mean, it isn't serious," Malcolm said quickly. "In fact, I don't even know if we're going to see each other again."
"It looked serious to me last week when you brought her home to meet us," Quincy said.
"Well, last week was last week."
Rachel and Daniel returned a few moments later with the roast, and the rest of the meal was spent pleasantly enough. Henley nodded and smiled as Rachel spoke critically about most of the people she knew and as Daniel reminded everyone how successful he was. The priest strove to repress his laughter whenever old Quincy would make some caustic remark to his granddaughter and her husband. Malcolm said nothing throughout the meal. He looked disinterestedly at his food, pushed it around his plate with his fork, and eventually rose from the table, leaving the food uneaten. "I gotta get ready for work."
"Okay, boy," Quincy said as he downed a glass of wine.
"Bye, Father. Good to see you."
"Good-bye, Mal. See you in church." The priest smiled.
"Malcolm!" Rachel snapped. "You haven't touched your food!"
"Not hungry," he said over his shoulder, and bounded up the stairs.
It's funny, he thought as he showered. I felt like shit when I woke up, didn't eat a thing, and now I feel a hundred percent better. Must be the screwy hours. I hate to admit it, but maybe Rachel's right. Maybe it does something to your system, staying up so late and then sleeping through the afternoon. Maybe I should try to get another job.
He stepped out of the shower and began to shave. Another job. Out of the question. His brief experience down on Wall Street had taught him that he was just not cut out for a nine-to-five job. He did not seem able to function properly that early in the morning. There are day people, and there are night people, and you cannot change what you are. Malcolm was wide-awake at three in the morning, and always dead tired at three in the afternoon.
He splashed on some aftershave and pulled on a gray turtleneck sweater. Maybe that's why Jerry and I get along so well, he reflected. Jerry's always ready to party all night. He never gets tired.
Well, I hope he's in a partying mood tonight. After last night, I need a little fun, a little something to lift my spirits.
Finished dressing and not wishing to have to make any further good-byes, he walked quietly down the stairs and left the house. Thank God! he thought with relief. Any more conversation with Henley and Rachel and Daniel, and he … well, he might very well have been tempted to shoot somebody. As he walked the short distance from Granville Place in the Gardens to Ascan Avenue, he felt just a bit guilty about his grandfather and the priest. Go to church! He had absolutely no intention of going to church, this coming Sunday or any other time. If nothing else, he had reached intellectual discretion. Superstitious nonsense, all of it. He knew it upset his grandfather, and he felt some affection for Father Henley, but one had to be true to one's beliefs.
As he rounded the corner and walked down Ascan Avenue toward Queens Boulevard, he tried to shake off any hint of depression or unease. Gonna be a, good night, he thought. Me'n Jerry'll spend six or seven easy hours mixing drinks and flirting with the women at the Strand, and then either we'll have some fun with a couple of them or we'll go someplace else and find some women there.
Everything will be okay tonight, he thought confidently. Last night was a fluke, nothing but a fluke. Happens to every guy once in a while, just as Holly said.
Holly … I guess I won't be seeing Holly anymore. She probably thinks I'm a fag or something now.
He turned left at the huge Roman Catholic church which stretched for an entire block along Queens Boulevard, and in a few minutes he was at the Strand, where he and his friend Jerry tended bar. The Strand had been named rather self-consciously after the famous street in London. It was a restaurant and after dark, a somewhat sedate but still acceptably funky disco and singles bar frequented by affluent young adults. This accounted for both the classy atmosphere and the inordinately high prices.
This was fine with Malcolm and Jerry. The higher the prices, the higher the tips.
Malcolm entered to find Jerry Herman already behind the long, horseshoe-shaped bar. "Hey, Mal," Jerry called out. "'Bout time you showed up!"
"Why, am I late?" he asked.
"Nah, it's only eight o'clock. But I was getting bored. This place is dead tonight."
"It's only Tuesday, Jerry," Malcolm reminded him. "It'll be nice and quiet."
"Who likes it nice and quiet?" Jerry asked. "The busier the better, I always say. Makes the time go faster and brings in a lot more good-looking women. And speaking of which, how did things go with Holly last night?"
Malcolm flushed slightly. "Great, Jerry, just great." Horrible, he thought. So damned embarrassing.
"Lucky son of a bitch," Jerry muttered in mock despondency. "I don't know what she sees in you. She'd be a lot better off with a stud like me."
Malcolm laughed in spite of himself. "Oh, yeah, really?"
"Sure," he said, nodding. "I can go nonstop for two hours with only a fifteen-minute bathroom, smoke, and bourbon break."
"Gee, you're my hero, Jer," Malcolm said, still laughing.
"Herman! Harker!" the voice of their boss boomed from the kitchen at the end of the room. "Get your asses in here and help me unload these kegs!"
"I'll do it, Mal," Jerry said, nodding toward the door. "You got company."
Malcolm turned around and swallowed hard, suddenly very nervous and ill at ease as Holly Larsen closed the door behind her.
The hours passed quickly for Jerry, no doubt. He scampered back and forth along his side of the bar with his usual speed and cheerful efficiency, living up to his self-proclaimed reputation as the only bartender in New York who could work, flirt, think, and make proper change simultaneously. Jerry's somewhat broad and acne-scarred face set above a body too skinny to be fashionably thin had never deterred him from his pursuit of the fair sex, nor had it impeded his lotharial success. He was funny enough, friendly enough, and eager enough to counterbalance any phys
ical shortcomings.
It had never been so with Malcolm. Strikingly handsome in an ascetic, almost aristocratic manner, he had never needed to develop the suave manner and false good cheer which might have made his night so much easier on him, and on Holly as well. She had seated herself squarely on the center stool on Malcolm's end of the bar, taking no offense at his cold and aloof attitude. She knew that his behavior was born of embarrassment, so she remained where she was as the hours passed, carefully nursing a few ginger ales as the night passed into the early morning, patiently waiting for him to stop acting like a child.
Malcolm had been able to avoid speaking to her during the busiest time of the night, but by two o'clock too few customers remained in the Strand for him to ignore her any longer. Steeling himself for an unpleasant conversation, he walked over to her and said, "Hi. Still here?"
"Hi, yourself," she replied. "Of course I am."
He nodded and tried to think of something to say. "You waiting for somebody?" Good grief! he thought. What a stupid thing to ask!
"Yup," she said, nodding. "I'm waiting for you to grow up."
He looked down at his feet before speaking again, thus making himself unconsciously, boyishly, innocently adorable, and she struggled to hide her affectionate amusement. "Look, Holly, about last night …"
"Honestly, Malcolm," she said laughing, not unkindly, "you are so stupid."
He blushed slightly and then smiled. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," she said. "You don't have to worry about some asinine 'superstud' image with me, Mal. What happened last night happens to every guy once in a while. It's not a big deal, and it certainly doesn't matter to me."
"Really?" he asked, liking her enormously.
"Of course," she replied. "I mean, I could just as easily interpret the whole thing as meaning that I'm not attractive or exciting, right? It could be a reflection on me, not you, right?"
He laughed. "Holly, that would be ridiculous!" Absurd, absolutely absurd, he thought as he looked at her. Her eyes were hazel, soft, warm, deep, inviting eyes. She had hair the color of burgundy wine, hair that cascaded down around her shoulders in curly ringlets, and flawless skin the color of ivory. Her figure was slender, her legs long. She combined pristine beauty with lusty earthiness, a dual heritage from her Norwegian and Irish ancestors. "You're gorgeous, Holly," he whispered.
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