I decide instead to pick up his favorite sweet-and-sour shrimp from the Chinese Palace. Maybe that will cheer him up.
When I return with the cardboard containers of food, the only culinary flourish Bernard suggests is that we use his ceramic chop-sticks so as not to get splinters from the cheap wooden ones that come with the meal.
“Do you mind changing the music?” I politely ask. Judy Garland has been singing “The Man That Got Away” so much over the past two days that the first stanza stuck in my head the entire time I was working in the garden. Not even putting on my Discman with a Dido CD could delete it. All the melodies just started to sound like Judy singing: The wind blows colder, And suddenly you’re older, And all because of the man that got away.
Bernard goes to the stereo and switches to “Stormy Weather,” only it’s still Judy.
“I meant something without Judy Garland,” I clarify. “You know, just for a change.”
“But I thought you liked Judy singing ‘Melancholy Baby,’ ” complains Bernard.
“I do. I do. But we’ve heard it ten times in the past forty-eight hours,” I argue. Not only that, but I’ve watched Judy Garland in the movie A Star Is Born with Bernard and happen to know that it ends with James Mason committing suicide by walking into the ocean.
“Then you go and pick something,” says Bernard. “It’s too depressing for me to see the gaps where Gil’s albums and CDs used to be.”
If I wanted to be mischievous I could put on the Ethel Merman disco album that Gil and I had given Bernard as a joke for his last birthday. It was recorded in 1979, five years before Merman’s death, and it’s, well, rather vibrato-laden. Bernard says that Ethel’s “disco debacle” will stand up through the ages as the second-best example of why one should always exit while on top and leave your public wanting more. First prize, according to Bernard, goes to the final footage of aging film actress Mary Pickford, where she appears to have turned into a marionette.
Bernard seems neither pleased nor dissatisfied with his sweet-and-sour shrimp and side order of spring rolls. It certainly isn’t like the old days when he made a big fuss about food. I playfully toss him a fortune cookie that he opens and silently reads the piece of paper inside.
“Come on, read it out loud,” I say.
“Try something new and you will be surprised,” he reads.
“You have to add in bed at the end,” I say.
“What?” he asks.
“That’s how we do it at school.” I open my fortune cookie and read it aloud. “Others will benefit from your creativity,” and then I add, “in bed.”
Bernard laughs for the first time since I’ve been back. “I—I want to . . . well, to . . . ,” he begins haltingly, “to apologize for being insensitive to your personal life the other night. I was distracted and just . . . out of sorts.”
I take this to mean drunk and miserable. “Forget it.”
“College guys really put the pressure on, huh?” he says.
“Sure, but it’s not really that so much as I wonder how important it is to be in love with the first one, and how, you know . . .”
“What’s the rush?” he asks. “Why be bothered with entanglements and the inevitable heartbreak? You’re young, you should be having fun.”
“Yeah, well some people consider having a boyfriend to be fun.”
“For a while. They love you and then they leave you, if they ever loved you at all. It’s like embracing the perfect antique Coalport vase—hold it either too loose or too tight and it breaks.”
Bernard doesn’t seem to be in exactly the right frame of mind for discussing romance tonight. Though I’m impressed by how he’s managed to draw a parallel between a shattered love affair and collectibles.
Reaching across the pile of duck sauce and plastic utensils I pull out the last fortune cookie. I pretend to read the little piece of paper but instead make it up. “If Bernard and Hallie leave right now they can get to the poker game on time.” Looking up hopefully at Bernard I ask, “In or out?”
“You’ve gotta be in it to win it,” he perks up slightly, parroting one of my old poker expressions. We stuff the empty food cartons in the garbage and head out the door.
“You drive,” I say. “My arms are too tired to hold a steering wheel.” And it’s true. It feels as if they dropped off two days ago and no one bothered to tell me.
“But you hate it when I drive,” he says.
“That’s only in broad daylight, because you brake in front of every pile of trash, as if there could be a three-thousand-dollar lamp buried inside of it,” I say. My only other complaint is that after the garbage has been collected and there’s no longer anything roadside to capture his interest, Bernard tends to be an avid consumer of red lights.
Tonight is no exception. Every time we approach a light that’s been yellow as long as we’ve been able to see it, Bernard hits the accelerator, throws his right arm across my chest so I don’t crash through the windshield, and shouts, “Pink light ahead!”
Covering my face with my hands and peering out between my fingers I say, “I don’t think this is what Kay Thompson had in mind when she sang the song ‘Think Pink’ in the movie Funny Face.”
Chapter Twenty-two
AS WE DRIVE OVER TO THE CHURCH WITH THE CAR WINDOWS down it’s possible to hear the almost continuous gasping of sprinklers that make the lawns glitter as if they’re encrusted with tiny diamonds. The air is sweet with the breath of blossoming apple trees and in the distance a large tract of farmland slopes away from us into a horizon misted in pink and purple.
A clutch of tall, thin poplar trees stands near the front entrance to the church, their branches just grazing the slate-shingled roof. As we pull into the back parking lot I see three men in suits talking to each other while heading toward their cars. About twenty feet behind them, walking by himself, is a lean man with a long stride. He’s tall to begin with, but made even taller by an Elvis-like pompadour of thick silver hair.
“Drive around the back,” I instruct Bernard. “It’s Edwin Carbuncle the Turd. I can’t stand him.”
“I believe you mean Edwin Kunckle the Third.”
“I know that,” I say.
“So what’s wrong with him?” asks Bernard. “Why are you constantly casting nasturtiums on this pillar of our community?”
“He’s a hairdo.”
“Despite an affinity for extra lift in his already full-bodied coiffure, I’ll have you know that Edwin Kunckle is filthy rich. And his wife, Patricia, happens to have a lovely collection of hand-painted Royal Copenhagen china and Lalique crystal that she’s constantly adding to.” Bernard says this dreamily, as if just envisioning a beautifully set table raises his spirits. “Patricia is one of my best customers and she also has marvelous taste in silver platters. When I was fourteen and Father still worked downtown he took me to an open house at their place one New Year’s Day. I’d never seen such stunning interiors! And an expensive art collection, I might add. Though I think Mrs. Kunckle found it slightly unusual that I inquired about her sunflower clock from the Gold Anchor period and remarked that it was a masterpiece of British Rococo design.”
“Please. You should see him at church,” I say. “He wears a powder blue silk hanky around his neck.”
“That happens to be an ascot, silly. He’s very stylish. Look, that’s a Burberry raincoat and a calfskin briefcase.”
“Yeah, and what about the cane? Is that by blueberry, too? Do you use it to hit the bushes so the berries drop into your fancy briefcase?” I point to where Edwin the Turd is about to climb into his navy Lincoln Continental, which is so highly polished you can probably bake a blueberry tart directly on the hood in the summertime. “Or is the cane in case he suddenly has to perform a soft-shoe number like Gene Kelly in Singin’ In the Rain ?”
“It’s a walking stick. And I’m not sure that you should be critiquing anyone’s personal style.” Bernard widens his eyes in mock horror at my aqua bowling shirt with
REGGIE stitched in black thread above the front pocket and CARMODY CAR WASH stenciled on the back.
Bernard stops the car and before I can ask what in the heck he’s doing, he rolls down the window and shouts hello at the Turd. However, I know exactly what he’s up to. Bernard is never one to miss a selling opportunity, not even a drive-by.
“Mr. Kunckle, it’s so lovely to see you,” Bernard calls out the window.
The other men, who’d been walking slightly ahead of Kunckle, quicken their pace and climb into their cars. And who can blame them for not wanting to be seen with the guy? My dad says that if you want to get in on the ground floor of anything that happens in this town, then Kunckle is the one you have to cozy up to. When Dad was on the board at church, Kunckle offered him a chance to own stock in some real estate consortium that bought up local farmland and resold it to developers from Cleveland. And even though Mom wanted to do it, probably with thoughts of a big new clothes dryer spinning in her head, Dad turned him down, saying the price was too high, only he wasn’t talking about the cost of the stock. I took it to mean that Dad didn’t want to be forced to run for Town Council or get on the zoning board in order to act as another one of Kunckle’s flunkies.
With his path-clearing gait, the Turd approaches the car and greets Bernard in a friendly but reserved manner. At least until he spies me in the passenger’s seat and scowls. Kunckle was on the school board when I dropped out of high school, and he happened to be the only member against allowing me to have a tutor and graduate early. Not only that, I’m positive he was the one who wrote that anonymous editorial published in the newspaper last year about wasting taxpayer money on social problems. The “social problem” in that case just so happened to be me.
“Mr. Kunckle, I believe it’s your anniversary at the end of the month. There’s a silver-gilt tea urn in the eighteenth-century Regency style down at the shop that Patricia has her ever-so-tasteful eye on.” Bernard is at his most charming and using what sounds to me like a British accent. “It would be splendid for entertaining, which we all know Patricia does so brilliantly.”
As phony as all this comes across to me, Bernard’s amiability is quickly rewarded. Kunckle taps his sorcerer’s stick twice on the ground and says, “Excellent! Call my secretary and have her take care of it.” Then he nods his big poufy head, raises his pointy chin imperiously, and turns away—or rather, dismisses us.
“That’s disgusting!” I say as soon as the window is rolled up.
“That’s five hundred dollars!” crows Bernard.
“Would it be worth another five hundred dollars to talk in that fake accent at the poker game?” I tease him. “Since when did you become a subject of the British Crown?”
“Since I drank English breakfast tea this morning,” says Bernard. “It has that effect on me. Just like watching the Queen open a new session of Parliament every fall puts me in the mood for Welsh rarebit.”
We park the car in back and hurry inside the church and down to the basement. Bernard rubs his hands together as if he’s about to rake in another easy five hundred dollars.
Chapter Twenty-three
AT THE BOTTOM OF THE DIMLY LIT STAIRCASE THE USUAL SUSPECTS are gathering around two card tables pushed together. The room is already filled with the aroma of potato chips and will soon reek of cigarette smoke from Al’s Marlboros. His wife won’t let him smoke at home and since they’ve banned it from government buildings, including the water authority where he works, Al makes up for lost puffs during the game. Pastor Costello is busy handing out runny deli sandwiches while Herb Rowland, the owner of the local pharmacy, is high-speed-shuffling the cards, anxious to get started.
“Well, look who’s here—Hallie Capone!” says Herb. “Did you get an early release for good behavior?”
“Nah,” I quickly retort. “Spending the evening with you counts toward my community service.”
Bernard and I carefully thread our way around boxes and rolled-up carpets stacked atop old wooden pews. There’d been a flood in the sanctuary right before Easter.
“Welcome home, Hallie,” says the mild-mannered Pastor Costello. “And good evening, Bernard. We haven’t had the pleasure of your company in a few weeks. I was going to stop by and make sure that everything is all right.” Leave it to Pastor Costello to consider a pastoral visit for missing the poker game. Perhaps he smells a convert.
“Everything’s fine and dandy,” Bernard assures him, attempting a jaunty air.
I’m relieved, because if he’s going to break down again this would be the moment, right when the father is doing his direct eye-contact greeting with the overly long handshake. That’s when people are genetically programmed to lose it.
“It’s been very busy down at the shop,” explains Bernard. “A chain of old-fashioned diners has opened in the southeast and they’re purchasing a large variety of décor items. Heaven knows you can’t depend on street traffic in this town anymore.”
“Tell me about it,” grumbles Herb. “My drugstore is out of business if Valueland doesn’t put their prices up. There’s no way they can continue to sell below cost like this.”
“They’re probably only planning to take a loss until they drive you under,” theorizes Bernard. “That’s what the new supermarket did to the mom-and-pop video store. The supermarket rented new releases for ninety-nine cents. But as soon as Couch Potato closed, they suddenly wanted two ninety-nine—a dollar more than the video store had been charging.”
When Officer Rich’s earthquake footsteps are heard coming down the stairs, Bernard tenses, apparently embarrassed by the other night’s drama. However, Officer Rich acts as if it’s the first time he’s seen us in months. You can always count on him not to mix business and a breakdown. And to keep people’s private lives as exactly that, private. Officer Rich rarely comments on anything that happens while he’s on duty, and when he does, he never mentions names.
Al Santora is the last to arrive and doesn’t waste any time in lining up his ashtray, cigarette pack, and lighter. He also doesn’t waste any time getting his digs in. “Look who’s back from the big city! And were you gamefully employed all year? Have your professors taken out second mortgages?”
“I wish. I haven’t sat in on a game of poker in months. All that I can find anyone playing at college is dumb old hearts.”
“And Lord knows you don’t have one of those,” quips Herb. “Sorry, Father,” he automatically apologizes for the out-of-context Lord reference. It isn’t really a bad one, but we’re all just in the habit, especially on church grounds.
Even though the stakes aren’t high, the poker game is notoriously competitive. Herb gives the deck another shuffle, sets it in front of Al for him to cut, and then begins to deal. When I raise on the opening hand Al says, “Trying to clean us out the first fifteen minutes with a Broadway, huh?”
He is referring to the fact that with an ace and a king showing, I’m probably angling for an ace-high straight. And with the jack and ten in my hand, he’s exactly right. “You have no idea how much tuition costs,” I complain.
“Oh yes I do,” Al shoots right back.
I’d forgotten that Al’s son just finished his freshman year at Marquette University in Wisconsin.
Bernard has a queen and a four showing and Herb deals him another queen faceup. So much for my straight, since that’s the exact card I’m missing.
“Another queen,” says Herb. But then he apparently remembers that Bernard is gay. “I mean, a pair of ladies.”
However, we all burst out laughing, including Bernard. Everyone looks to make sure that Bernard isn’t just being polite, but it seems he’s truly amused.
“It’s okay to be straight, Herb,” Bernard tells him with a twinkle in his eyes. “Just so long as you act gay in public.” This cracks everyone up even more and I’m starting to believe that coming to the game was a good idea after all. Finally Bernard seems to be concentrating on something other than the breakup.
When Herb dea
ls Pastor Costello an ace of spades it reminds me of playing hearts at school. It hadn’t taken me long to determine that it was best to try and shoot the moon if you had more than a fifty-five percent probability of succeeding. The only exception is if you’re playing with someone who’s a shoot-the-moon addict. There are people in life who will always swing for the fence, no matter what the odds are. So when it comes to winning at hearts, it’s necessary to hold something back in case you need to gum up your opponents’ plans later on. And this is best done by insuring your hand with a high heart. In other words, if you decide to pass a couple hearts at the beginning, or play one early, make sure to keep a higher one in reserve, in case you need to cover a heart later on.
Holding back. It’s the same strategy I’ve been using in my love life. Only I’m beginning to wonder if just because it’s smart in cards means it’s also the best strategy in life, when it’s your real heart on the line. And your heart’s desire may actually be an as-yetundealt card. Though the way my luck is going right now, instead of the king of hearts, my next card will probably turn out to be a joker.
“C’mon, Hallie, pay attention!” urges the ever-jittery Al. “It’s your bet.”
He yanks me out of daydreamland. “Sorry.” I toss in a blue chip worth ten bucks.
“Overbidding another low pair,” Herb correctly guesses my strategy.
“Up the slope with the antelope,” Al raises with one of his poker expressions that makes us all groan.
This raise scares off everyone except Pastor Costello, who stays in the game and manages to beat Al’s three tens with an ace-low straight.
“Nice going, Father!” says Herb, who would rather see Pastor Costello win than the rest of us.
“Way to clean up!” adds Officer Rich, even though it’s a relatively modest pot, but Pastor Costello never does anything but break even, so we all tend to cheer him on.
“Jolly good show!” says Bernard, and I briefly fear that surrounded by all these kings and queens he’s going to slip back into British.
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