A House by the Side of the Road

by Jan Gleiter

  “I don’t remember ever having worksheets for that,” said Mike. He, too, seemed determined to ignore the disagreement. “Spelling, math, grammar, yeah. Vocabulary? I don’t think so.”

  “That’s because kids used to read,” said Meg, putting down her hamburger and leaning across the table. “Then maybe they’d talk about the story. Now they read, too, of course, but not a whole heck of a lot.”

  “Is this heading toward a diatribe about TV?” asked Mike. “You can save your breath; I’m in agreement.”

  “Actually, no,” said Meg. “Though there may be a connection. Even in school, kids don’t read. They don’t have time. Let’s say the selection is ‘The Three Little Pigs.’ First they do a prereading exercise on sibling relationships. Then they read the story. Then they write a diary entry for each of the swine brothers, make a diorama out of popsicle sticks showing the inside of the oldest brother’s house, do a vocabulary worksheet, draw their favorite character, perform a role-playing exercise in which they explore methods of resolving conflict without using a pot of boiling water, do a cross-cultural activity comparing houses around the world, choose music for the soundtrack of a movie made from the story, and take a two-page test.” She sat back in the booth. “And now they’re done. They could read another story, but, unfortunately, the semester’s over.”

  “Why?” he asked, impaling a cherry tomato. He seemed genuinely curious. “Why do they do all that?”

  Meg sighed. “I wish I knew. What I do know is that, in 1927, a typical vocabulary test for grade-school children included depredation, avarice, artless, and sportive. High schoolers got sudorific and casuistry. Now they need a worksheet in order to deal with ambition. Maybe Johnny can’t read because he hardly ever does.”

  “You’re being sportive,” he said.

  Meg grinned. “I wish.”

  She ate for a few moments in silence, took a swallow of iced tea, and asked, “You still without a secretary?”

  “Unfortunately,” he said. “But I’m interviewing next week. Why? You decided you want the job?”

  “Work for you?” said Meg. “In a pig’s eye. Why didn’t you start looking as soon as Angie said she was leaving?”

  “Laziness,” he said. “It was hard for me to believe that somebody who did as little work as Angie would make much of a difference.”

  “Not a workaholic, huh?” asked Meg.

  “No, she missed that label with plenty of room to spare. She was smart. The girl was no dummy. But she was totally bored by law.”

  Then why, wondered Meg, did she keep the job as long as she did?

  “Where did she go?” she asked, sliding casually into the question uppermost in her mind. “When she left for her more exciting life?”

  Mike lifted his shoulders. “I don’t know. She didn’t say. It was a ‘So long; it’s been good to know ya’ kind of thing. We weren’t close.”

  “But didn’t you have to get an address, like to send her 1099 or whatever?”

  He frowned slightly. “She was planning a long vacation. A little-deserved one, I’d say, if I were the harsh sort. She said she’d let me know where she settled. Why?”

  Meg, ignoring his question, picked up the menu and looked again at the dessert choices. “Where do her parents live?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea where her parents live. One of the few things I know about her is that she isn’t on speaking terms with her parents.”

  He caught the waitress’s eye and raised a hand. “I made her fill out one of those ‘who to call in the event of an emergency’ things. You know who she put down? Me! Like that’s going to be a big help if I walk in from lunch and she’s in a diabetic coma.”

  “She has diabetes?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Mike. “Just an example.”

  He looked up at the waitress as she approached the table. “Coffee, please.” He glanced at Meg. “Do you drink coffee?”

  She nodded, then realized what he was doing and rolled her eyes. “Very funny,” she said.

  “Two,” he told the waitress. “Thanks.”

  He relaxed against the back of the booth and placed his hands flat on the table. “What’s this all about, anyway? Do you need to get in touch with Angie? Did she steal the bathroom sink or something?”

  “No. Not that there was anything left in the house that was worth stealing. She left a bracelet at the back of a drawer, and I would think she’d want it.”

  “Believe me,” he said, “she has plenty.”

  * * *

  At eight-thirty, the phone rang and Meg reached over from the couch to the end table to reach the receiver. It was Christine.

  “So?” she asked. “How was supper? And don’t you consider that fraternizing with the enemy?”

  “It’s undercover work,” said Meg. “I’m very good at it.”

  “Can you come over? Dan’s out and the kids are in bed. There’s nothing on TV, and I finished my book, and I want to talk to you anyway.”

  Meg didn’t want to talk; she wanted to think. “I’ve been gone absolutely all afternoon and evening. I just got home twenty minutes ago. I hate to leave the dog.”

  “Bring her along. What’s one more?”

  “And I’m sleepy.”

  “At eight-thirty? Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll see you in ten minutes.” She was starting, thought Meg, to sound like Jack.

  Harding came charging down the driveway, nearly getting himself run over as Meg pulled up.

  “Did you know I brought your pal?” she asked, as he stood on his hind legs and stuck his massive head through the open window. His tail waved so frantically that his whole body moved.

  “Get off, you moose,” she said, pushing the door open.

  Christine was scrubbing the sink and singing “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.” She motioned to the table. “Sit, girl, and describe your evening,” she said, pouring coffee.

  “Do you think I drink too much coffee?” asked Meg.

  “Of course not. You don’t drink any more than I do, the exact right amount. Now, tell me!”

  Meg rolled her eyes. “He’s nice; he’s a good coach; I paid for my own dinner.”

  “And how are things with Jack?”

  “He’s nice; he’s a good painter; he made me chicken salad.”

  “Please,” said Christine. “Don’t bore me with so many details.”

  “It’s funny,” said Meg. “Jack is incredibly interesting. Everything about him is interesting. So why is Mike the one I feel comfortable with?”

  “Because Jack’s so interesting.”

  “Maybe,” said Meg. She took a small, chewy cookie from a plate Christine pushed toward her and bit into it. “Can I have milk? These need milk, not coffee.”

  “Heathen,” said Christine, gesturing toward the refrigerator. “Help yourself.”

  Meg found a glass and poured milk. When she sat back down, Christine was watching her, her lower lip caught in her teeth and a look of amused curiosity on her face. “And what is it that’s so interesting about Jack? His talent? The way his blue jeans fit? His ability to find beauty in the world and create it where it isn’t usually found? His sober dependability?”

  “Say ‘Knock, knock,’” said Meg.

  “Oh, no,” said Christine, shaking her head firmly. “Teddy got me with that last week. I asked you a question.”

  “I know. I was trying to answer it, but you wouldn’t cooperate. His sober dependability? He’s dependable, yes. But sober? The man tells the silliest jokes.”

  Christine swallowed slowly and set down her cup. “You,” she said, “have made an impact.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Jack has been the premier sobersides for as long as I’ve known him,” said Christine. “Smart, capable, helpful, but … silly?” She shook her head. “You’re bringing out another side of him, his joie de vivre. I salute you.”

  Meg laughed. “Oh, right,” she said. “I always bring out the best in the men I know.”
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br />   “Don’t sell yourself short,” said her friend. “People are different when they’re happy. You make him happy. So, with all these intriguing traits of Jack’s, why are you having a social life with Mike?”

  “Social life?” asked Meg. “A few dinners at the Main Street Cafe is a social life? Be that as it may, maybe it’s because I like him.” And, she thought, he can dance.

  “Or maybe,” said Christine, “you’re really the type who’s bowled over by success. You like envisioning yourself at cocktail parties with lots of lawyers and their well-dressed spouses.”

  “Definitely,” said Meg. “That’s always been a fantasy of mine.” She took another cookie. “How did he get so successful? How many big cases can a mainly rural county have? Do you do nothing all day but bake?”

  “No,” said Christine. “I also make all my own soap from leftover bits of fat and occasionally slaughter a pig.”

  “A true Renaissance woman,” said Meg.

  Christine nodded. “Except for spinning. I make a point of not spinning.”

  “Whereas I,” said Meg, “toil not, neither do I spin.”

  “Yes, Lily, we’ve noticed. However, Mike does. Toil, that is. I don’t really know how he got so successful. He’d been in some large firm in Philadelphia, but when he arrived here last spring, he started pretty much from scratch. Nobody was too impressed; he was young and unknown and devoid of the trappings. His secretary drove a better car than he did.”

  “His car is expensive,” said Meg.

  “Now,” said Christine. “Sedate, classy, American-made, new. The perfect, successful lawyer’s car for a conservative, rural environment.”

  She lifted her hair from her neck and twisted it on top of her head, sticking a pencil through to hold it in a knot. “If a contractor drives an expensive car, everybody assumes he’s a rip-off artist. If a lawyer doesn’t, everybody assumes he’s incompetent. I guess Mike figured that out. By the end of the summer he had acquired the all-important trappings, and everybody who’d dismissed him started thinking he was some real hotshot after all. See, you’re just like everyone else.”

  “But of course,” said Meg. “I’ve secretly pined for a hotshot lawyer most of my life. Any hotshot lawyer.”

  “Don’t be too hasty,” said Christine. “There’s more to life than cocktail parties. Which one’s the better kisser?”

  “Christine! How old are you? Fourteen? Look, if I have anything interesting to tell, I’ll tell it.”

  Christine set down her cup, looking embarrassed. “I … that’s what I wanted to talk with you about,” she said. “You haven’t told anybody about the money-order receipt I showed you, have you?”

  “Of course not,” said Meg.

  “I knew you wouldn’t; that’s why I hesitated to mention it. I just … well, you know, I shouldn’t have said anything about it to anybody besides Dan himself. It was indiscreet of me, and I was feeling guilty about—”

  “About telling tales out of school,” said Meg. “Don’t. Really. I’m just glad it’s cleared up.”

  Come on, Christine, she thought. The subject has been broached. Tell me how it got cleared up. Oh, please, I need to know!

  “Thanks, Meg,” said Christine.

  Something tightened in Meg’s chest. She pushed back from the table enough to cross her legs. “So,” she said, making her voice casual. “What was all that about?”

  Christine stood up and carried her cup to the coffeepot. Her cup, Meg had noticed, had been half-full. “Oh, nothing important,” she said. “And, like you said, it’s cleared up now. You ready for coffee?”

  “No, thanks,” said Meg. Come on, she said to herself. Just tell her. Tell her about the tape. Tell her it scares you. Yeah. And then what? What if the old, desperately unhappy look comes back and she asks you to destroy it? What are you going to do?

  She pretended not to have noticed Christine’s tacit refusal to answer her question. “So,” she said lightly. “Who’s Leslie McAlester?”

  Christine finished pouring coffee. “A woman Dan had some dealings with.” She walked back to the table, turned her chair and straddled it, resting her arms on the back. Her eyes met Meg’s. “Please drop it,” they said.

  Meg crossed her arms. “That’s it?”

  Christine’s mouth tightened and she nodded. “That’s it,” she said.

  * * *

  “Why aren’t you asleep?” asked Sara, yawning. “I’m nearly asleep and it’s an hour earlier here.”

  “Don’t say that,” said Meg. She was lying on her bed with the telephone balanced on her stomach. “It makes me think you’re getting old. And if you are, I am, and I’m not ready. I just wanted to talk to somebody I know really well.”

  “Lonely? Coming face-to-face with the truth of the ‘old friends are the best’ maxim?”

  “I guess,” said Meg. “I’d miss you no matter what, but things have just gotten sort of … strange here. It makes me homesick.”

  “Not for Jim, I hope.”

  Meg laughed. “No, not for Jim. Even the fantasies are fading—you know, the ones where he drives up, bleary-eyed from twelve straight hours on the road, to tell me how he had to lose me to realize the depth of his adoration. They’ve been replaced by ones in which he drives up, bleary-eyed, to find me entertaining a handsome gent on the front porch. I’m sympathetic but dismissive. As he drives away, I can see his shoulders shaking with sobs.”

  “How are the handsome gents?”

  “Okay, I guess. But even that’s strange.”

  Meg hesitated. Sara was, perhaps, too loyal to admit there was any cause for Meg’s feelings. “But,” she continued, “I think it’s weird to have two extremely eligible men fluttering around my flame, which tends to be the flickering kind.”

  Sara was staunch. “You are insane,” she said. “You’re smart and funny and competent and cute. Why wouldn’t two men be interested? Why wouldn’t sixty? You just wrapped yourself up with Old Wandering Eye too long and you’ve forgotten.”

  “I like your opinions,” said Meg. “They’re so sound.” She was right; Sara was too loyal—unable or unwilling to admit what Meg knew—that she wasn’t someone men sought after. “I do miss you.”

  “Hey! Let’s meet in New York! I’m going this weekend for my cousin’s wedding, so I’ve already got a hotel room. Drive up!”

  This sounded wonderful. “Aren’t you going to be all tied up doing stuff?”

  “Some. The rehearsal dinner’s on Friday night and you know it’ll drag on, but if you got there at eleven or so, we’d have until three or our eyes closed of their own accord and the whole next day until the ceremony at six. You could come to that or not.”

  “Your cousin Deedee?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not.”

  Sara laughed. “My plane leaves kind of early on Sunday. I wish I’d thought of having you come up. I’d have taken the last flight out. But it’s not that far, is it? It’s worth it. Oh, come!”

  Sara was right; it wasn’t that far. It was definitely worth it. Sara! New York! A chance really to talk to somebody about everything that was worrying her. A hotel with a decent shower. She could get a full day’s work in on Friday, have Christine keep the dog, get back Saturday night … “Okay. Yes, it sounds wonderful. Tell me what hotel and where it is.”

  They worked out the details. Meg turned on her side and propped herself on an elbow. “Listen, when you get to O’Hare, do me a favor.”

  “Sure. What?”

  “Pay attention to the sax player near the garage elevators at the airport and hum the tune for me when I see you.”

  “You are homesick,” said Sara. “Do not dream about Jim.”

  Meg did not dream about Jim. She dreamed about trying to listen to a saxophone solo that was drowned out by the loud barking of a dog.

  “Tell your dog to be quiet,” said the saxophone player.

  “Is that my dog?” asked Meg.

  She sat up in bed. “Be quiet!”
she said.

  Sixteen

  The weather held for several days, but Meg’s mood deteriorated. She was immensely glad she’d made plans to see Sara, for her loneliness, which had begun to fade as she progressed in making a niche for herself, had returned redoubled. It was difficult to worry alone. What she wanted, she could not have; what she wanted was for Christine to help her stop worrying about what was going on, and Christine had refused to do that.

  She saved the file she had just created of a group of words, similar enough in length to support a crossword puzzle, and sighed, feeling itchy and depressed. She’d reached for the phone more times than she could count but, except for one call, asking Christine to take care of the dog while she was in New York, which Christine readily agreed to do, she couldn’t make herself dial all seven digits. When Christine called, as she did, Meg invented excuses. Deadlines. Cracked plaster. More deadlines. She felt guilty, despite the factual truth of what she said. She was busy, but that wasn’t the reason her routine had changed. She wanted to explain, but how would that conversation go? “So you won’t tell me who Leslie McAlester is. Just tell me this. Is her voice deep and husky?” She could follow up with, “And were Dan’s dealings with her legal?” Maybe they were. But if they were, why couldn’t Christine tell her about them?

  “Why do I care?” she asked the dog. “Maybe Dan stole a lot of stuff from Mrs. Ehrlich and gave all his ill-gotten gains to a woman he was having an affair with. Is this any of my business? I mean, no one’s been in my house lately.”

  The dog regarded her silently.

  “You’re darn right, it isn’t. Christine knows what’s going on; Dan told her. And she’s happy, which means that, if he’s the man on the tape, he’s obviously decided to dump Ms. Sultry. Christine doesn’t care, so why should I?”

  She had to get out, out into the cool, bright morning. She picked up the phone. Mike himself answered.

  “I see you still have no secretary,” she said. “I need advice of the botanical rather than jurisprudential sort. Is the weather going to stay wonderful? What’s the last frost date around here? And what’s the nursery on the far side of town like? Any good?”