The man turned towards Iris, cocked his head to one side, and looked her up and down. It was a strange look—not the look of a poor man who’d just learned that his property was worth thousands of dollars. More the look of a fox that had approached the henhouse, and found it locked. But then he gave her a wistful smile and said, “I thank you, ma’am.” His lips twitched as he turned to the waitress. “As kind as your offer was, I think I shall have to refuse it.” He glanced down at the pie. “Since it seems I am about to come into some money, ma’am, let me thank you by paying for your meal.” He counted out the money for sandwich, soup, coffee, and pie, and even included a generous tip. “Good night to both of you.”
Iris ate her pie quickly; the waitress’s stony glare made her nervous. She braced herself for the wind and rain and stepped out.
To her relief, the rain had stopped while she was eating, replaced with a thick fog. She crossed the street to wait for her bus, thinking over the evening, and stepped forward when she saw headlights coming towards her in the fog. But instead of a bus, a black Lincoln town car pulled up. The window rolled down, and Leo looked out at her from the passenger-side window. “Can I offer you a ride, ma’am?”
“Oh!” She stepped backwards, startled to see him. He said he was catching a train—why is he in a car? “I gave the man your card . . . The waitress wasn’t going to tell him, can you believe it? She was going to buy it for a hundred dollars and sell it to you herself!”
“Let me show you something,” Leo said, and climbed out of the car. He opened the trunk and Iris looked in to see a dozen identical violin cases. “We paid $25 each for them. The man you saw inside is an associate of mine—he’s driving the car, in fact. We, ahem, test the honesty of waitresses, bartenders and restaurant owners all over this great country of ours.” He closed the trunk.
Iris stared at him, speechless.
“They say you can’t cheat an honest man. That’s not true. It’s easy to cheat an honest man, if he assumes that others are as honest as he is. But as a matter of principle, I won’t cheat an honest man.” He doffed his hat, held it to his chest, and bowed to Iris. “Would you like a souvenir, ma’am? A violin, perhaps? I hear there’s a man in New York City who’ll pay two hundred thousand dollars for violins.”
“I don’t need anything from you,” she said.
“No, but I have a small gift for you, regardless.” His hat still in his hand, he covered his face with it momentarily, then set it back on his head and said, “Your soldier will come home safe. You should marry him, because he will make an excellent husband to you. You will have many, many happy years together, and two children, a girl and a boy.”
Iris shook her head. “You could say that to any girl in Washington and she’d think you had the second sight.”
“You’re right, of course. But your soldier is named Ben—Bennie, really, but he prefers Ben. And you will be very happy together.” A final bow, and Leo got back into the car, and disappeared in the night.
*
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell anybody.”
The Virginia farmhouse, two months later, was dark around them, their father long asleep; the lamp on the kitchen table guttered a little, and Iris’s sister Reva adjusted the glow.
“Why?” Iris asked.
“Well, he was a con man. He as much told you so, he had a trunk full of violins! You could’ve called the police. Or just told your boss the next day, you work for the FBI.”
“But if the waitress had given him the money, she would have deserved it, don’t you think? She was trying to cheat him.”
“For all you know, she has family at home who need that money to live on. What did they do to deserve being cheated?”
“Well, but she didn’t buy that violin.”
“Only because you stopped her!”
“I should go back there and tell her. Might make her more appreciative. Right now she’s probably cursing my name every night.”
“Probably . . .”
“How do you think he knew that my soldier’s name is Ben?”
“You probably mentioned it and just forgot.”
“No. I didn’t. Besides, if I did, how did he know that Ben’s given name is Bennie?”
“Maybe you had a letter, and dropped it . . .”
“I thought of that, but I checked. I keep all of Ben’s letters in a box at home, and they’re all there.”
“Well, maybe he does have the second sight. It would be useful for a con man, don’t you think?” Reva shook her head again. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell anyone . . .”
Ben will understand, Iris thought. She had already told him the story; she’d written to him about it the same night it happened, and sent the letter off to the base in England where he was stationed. It took months for his reply to reach her, but when it did, she could almost hear the chuckle in his Yankee voice as she read:
I’m glad to hear that your con man at least bought you some good peach pie. As for that waitress, if she had been cheated, it would’ve served her right for trying to cheat a man out of his violin. As for him knowing my name—well, my mother has the second sight, or so I was always told. I’ve never seen as it does her much use. Maybe she should go into violin sales. At any rate, I’m glad to hear the con man thinks I’ll be coming home to you, because I’d like to introduce you to my mother one of these days. And I can hardly wait to see your beautiful smile again.
*
Fortune Teller
June 17th, 1952
Campbell County, Virginia
Nights were dark in the country. People kept saying that there’d be electricity at all the farms within three years, but no matter how many years passed, electricity to Iris and Ben’s farm always seemed to be about two years away. Ben was in town, working the night shift at his new job at the gas company. Upstairs, Iris could hear her father coughing, and cringed a little inside, listening.
They said just a few months. Months, not years. It’s not like the electricity: there will be a spot in the Catawba sanatorium once he gets to the top of the list. We’ll just keep all our windows open and hope for the best. I wouldn’t worry so much if it weren’t for Mitzi . . .
No child should be exposed to tuberculosis, but Mitzi was already so small and weak. Born a little too early and a little too small, the doctor had told Iris she couldn’t risk breastfeeding her; then the formula had made her sick, and for months she hadn’t gained weight. Now at five she weighed less than thirty pounds. Eric, the baby, was almost twenty pounds already, grown fat and cheerful on his mother’s milk. Iris did her best to keep her children away from her father, and boiled every sheet and pillowcase in the house daily, drawing the water up from the well on the porch and heating it on the stove.
Daddy has nowhere else to go. Nowhere. He went into debt for the first time in his life to send me to business school. It’s not his fault he got sick . . .
I have to trust in God. God wouldn’t punish me for doing the right thing by my Daddy, would He?
Then again, Daddy never did anything to deserve tuberculosis, either . . .
She heard the crunch of someone’s footstep outside. “Ben?” she said, hopefully, though it was hours until he would usually get home.
“Ma’am?”
She opened the door and looked out onto the porch. A ragged-looking man stood on the porch, a bundle of something tucked under his arm. She felt a brief prickle of fear, but the bundle was just a ragged knapsack, and he didn’t look dangerous, just poor. He did a slight double-take when he saw her, and she thought he must have expected her husband. “My husband is working in town, but my father is upstairs, if you need a man for something,” she said. “It’s a strange time for a visit. Do you need help?”
He was silent for a moment, then said, “I’m hungry, ma’am. I was just wondering if I could have some food in exchange for doing a few chores.” He had a jumpy, rangy look, and his eyes were hollow.
“I’m not going to set a hung
ry man to working. Come on into the kitchen if you want something to eat. We can talk about chores once you’re fed.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, and followed her into the house.
Despite his hollow eyes, he was clean; inside, she saw that his clothes were mended, though he had holes in his shoes. There were fresh eggs, and bread, so she made him eggs on toast. There was plenty of bread left—Mitzi had picked at her supper, as usual. Iris made herself an egg as well, and then sat down at the kitchen table. Upstairs, she heard her father coughing again.
“What’s your name?” she asked the stranger after he’d eaten half his eggs.
“Joe Truman. Joe like the ballplayer, Truman like the President of the United States of America.”
“I am Mrs. Greene.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am. And your eggs are very fine. Thank you. I’d like to repay your kindness, now, if you’ve got any chores that need doing.”
“I’d just love it if you’d sit here while I cut some wood for the stove, and come get me if my baby wakes up and cries, or if my father needs anything.”
“Ma’am, please let me cut some wood for you.”
“All right, then. Wood’s out back. I’ll get you a lantern to take with you.”
Iris washed the dishes. She went upstairs, to check on her father—his eyes were closed, and if he wasn’t asleep, he pretended to be. Downstairs again, she washed her hands, and then checked on Mitzi and Eric. Eric sometimes woke this time of night to nurse, but now he was asleep, sprawled dimpled and content on his sheets. Mitzi had kicked her sheet and blanket off; it was a warm night, but Iris smoothed the sheet back over her daughter anyway. Truman, like the President of the United States of America.
Iris stepped out the back door and watched as the man split a log into sticks of kindling. The kerosene lantern rested on top of the wood pile, casting a circle of yellow light. His sleeves were rolled up, and he’d already chopped a fair amount of wood. Iris watched him for several minutes, until he looked up and saw her. “What happened to the car?” she asked.
“Ma’am?”
“The big car with all the violins in the trunk. And your friend the violinist, what happened to him?”
“My partner decided to run off with my share of the money. That’s the danger of working with a con man—sometimes you get conned. So I decided I didn’t need a partner anymore, and I traded in for a different gig.”
“Offering to work for food?”
“If you knock on a stranger’s door and ask to come in for a friendly chat, sometimes they set the dog on you.”
“Wash up and come back on in the house. I don’t want to be gone for too long.” And I don’t trust you out here without someone to keep an eye on you.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Back in the house, all was quiet and still. The man’s knapsack was under the kitchen table; Iris wondered what she’d find in it if she looked. More violins? Patent snake oil guaranteed to cure baldness, madness, tuberculosis? Stock certificates for a silver mine?
“A crystal ball, actually,” the stranger—Leo, she thought, that’s what he called himself before—said from the doorway. “I tell fortunes these days.” He settled himself back at the kitchen table, uninvited. “I did well by yours, didn’t I? Ben came home. He’s a good husband, not like your sister’s truck driver, whose trips keep getting longer and longer. You have a daughter and a son, just like I said.”
“You’re an awful good guesser,” Iris said.
“Do you want me to tell your fortune again?”
Tell me if we’ll be safe from TB. Tell me if my daughter will grow up healthy. Tell me if we’ll be able to stay in Virginia or if we’ll lose our farm like Ben’s family lost his when he was a young man . . . Iris bit her lip and turned her back on him. “No,” she said. Trust in God, not in charming violin salesmen who know things that are none of their business.
Behind her, she heard the man sigh. “You’re my worst nightmare and my fondest recollection, Miss At-least-they-didn’t-name-me-Petunia,” he said.
“I should get my Daddy and have him throw you out.” Or get that shotgun that Ben taught me how to use.
“Let your Daddy sleep. I’ll leave if you ask. Though it would warm my heart if you’d give me a cup of tea first.”
The room was already too warm, but Iris added some wood to the stove and put the kettle on. “You can have your cup of tea, and then I think I’ll need to say good night to you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The water was hot: she made him a cup of tea and set it down in front of him, not sitting down herself. He downed it meekly, in silence. The minutes ticked by.
“Just tell me if my daughter will grow up healthy,” Iris said. “That’s all I want to know. Eric’s a big, strong boy, I don’t worry about him, even with my father upstairs, but Mitzi . . .”
The stranger let out his breath in a sigh, and for a moment her blood went cold. But then he said, “Your daughter will grow up healthy. She’ll have three children of her own someday.” He straightened up in his chair, turning his cup around and around in his hands as if he were reading the leaves, even though she’d used a tea bag. “She’s going to become a college professor. In fact, both of your children are going to become college professors.”
Iris laughed out loud at that. Ben had tried to go to college before the war, but his family hadn’t been able to afford it after the first year.
“You think that’s funny? Your Ben’s going to go back to college, and when he graduates he’ll become a teacher. You, great lady, will have to settle for working at a college. You’re going to have to move to Ohio, because after the Browns win their lawsuit, no Virginia school district is going to be willing to hire a Yankee schoolteacher . . . but you’ll like Ohio.”
I can’t believe a word this man is saying, she thought.
The man set his empty cup down and picked up his bag. He put his hat on and turned to go. “When a con man tells fortunes, he doesn’t usually tell the good parts. He tells the bad, and hints of dire fates that can be averted only by copious payment to the piper. But I do not cheat honest men, and I remember you, ma’am, even if that waitress has long since forgotten about the night she almost bought a Stradivarius violin. Let me tell you one more thing about Mitzi,” he added, and her heart leapt to her throat. “I’ll tell you that she won’t much care for that nickname when she gets older. Amelia is going to want people to call her Amy.” And with that, he stepped down off the porch and strode away into the night, leaving the house quiet and still.
Iris washed and dried the teacup and put it away. I never told him Mitzi’s real name, she thought. I really hope that means the rest of what he said was true. College for Ben and for both my children! But I’m not sure how we’d manage that for Ben, even with the government money . . . we’d need money to live on, we barely scrape by as it is.
Well, maybe after my father goes to the sanatorium, we can move into Lynchburg and I can open a nursery school. Take care of some of the children in the neighborhood. Maybe Ben can keep working nights, go to classes during the day. Maybe . . .
If it’s meant to be, then of course we’ll be able to find a way.
*
Petunia Lucky
Springfield, Ohio
October 25th, 1999
The house was far too quiet with Ben gone. It was strange: he’d been in a nursing home for a few months before he died, not living at home, yet the house was far quieter now than it was then. There was the TV for noise, and Blossom, the old Airedale terrier, would pad around the house after Iris, but it didn’t help much. If only people lived closer . . . but Amy lived in Wisconsin, Eric lived in Canada, even the grandchildren were scattered around the country.
Iris couldn’t hear the mail arrive, but Blossom could; she pricked up her ears even half-asleep, and Iris got up to bring it in. Bills, charitable requests, sales pitches, and more bills. It was strange how expensive it was just to die. Ben
had died in August, and it seemed like she was still getting bills related to his death. PAST DUE, one of them said in accusing red letters, though Iris was quite certain she’d paid every bill she’d seen. She sat down with a sigh and opened the envelope. ENVIRONMENTAL PERMIT FEES / INTERMENT, the bill said. It had the seal of the State of Ohio on it and some other gobbledygook, and the amount at the bottom was $824, plus a 10% fee for being late, so $906.40 in all. She groaned and reached for the checkbook again.
Something made her stop, though, and take a closer look. It looked like something from the state, but it was a plain post office box address on the self-addressed envelope inside. Was this even a real bill, or was it someone trying to take advantage of a grieving older woman by sending bills knowing she might not know how to tell a real bill from a fake?
A horrible suspicion struck her, and she went upstairs to her filing cabinet. She recognized the bills from the funeral home, the bills from the doctor and the nursing home, but there were six more bills that, on close examination, she realized had been sent from similarly suspicious post office boxes, though each had a different number. And she’d paid them. One for $64, one for $135, one for $214, one for $265, one for $412, and one for $524.13. One thousand six hundred and fourteen dollars. And thirteen cents. She felt sick. How could I have been so gullible? Why didn’t I look more closely at these? If only Ben were here . . . And that made her cry again, alone in her little sewing room, until Blossom dragged her creaking self upstairs to lick her hand and wag her tail and ask for a walk, even though as old as Blossom was, she was happier staying home. She knows I need a walk, though. She’s a good dog.
Out in the fresh air, Iris felt a little calmer. It was a beautiful October day: the sky was blue, the air was crisp, the leaves were changing colors. Her neighbors had pumpkins out on their front steps—it would be time to go buy candy soon, for the Trick-Or-Treaters. She’d get to see all the neighborhood kids dressed up in costumes; that was always so much fun. After she’d thought for a while about pleasant things, she felt a bit better.
Cat Pictures Please and Other Stories Page 25
