He looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind and shrugs his shoulders, body language for, You think of something!
“Okay,” I say to Auggie, “he wants the number one horse in the first race at Belmont tomorrow.” I figure I’ll keep the numbers low and simple for him. “Thirty dollars to place.”
“Place it on the one horse,” confirms Auggie.
“Yes. I mean, no. Place is how you say to finish second. You know—win, place, and show are the names for first place, second place, and third place.” Oh boy, Cappy would have had a stroke if he’d overheard this goof. And the local racetrack opens tomorrow!
Auggie reads it back and I say, “Right—thirty on the first horse to come in second.”
“Who’s on first?” chimes in Bernard, implying that we’re on the brink of reviving Abbott and Costello’s famous routine.
Finally Auggie asks for my address so he can pick me up and I promise to give him the money to cover Bernard’s bet when he arrives.
When I hang up the phone Bernard looks pleased with himself and in his martyr voice says, “I seem to be one of those rare individuals destined to assist others in finding romance, but unable to help myself.”
“Wow, I can’t believe I have an actual date for tonight!”
“Now,” says Bernard, “I’ve changed my mind about not accompanying you to the nursery. It’s time to get these gardens going. And the birdfeeders haven’t been filled since the Ashcan School painters organized their first group exhibition.”
Before we head over to the nursery Bernard and I spend an hour deciding on the number of flowers and plants we need for the yard.
“I’m thinking Chu Hing-wah,” says Bernard.
“I’m thinking Bless you,” I say as if he just sneezed.
“Very funny,” comments Bernard. “Chu Hing-wah is a Chinese watercolorist who mixes modern and traditional techniques. He illustrates the Chinese preference for displaying plants in pots, instead of mixing them in a flower bed. So in addition to the regular gardens, I thought we could place long lines of planters of varying heights down the walkways.”
“Lots of pots,” I say, and make a note on my growing list of things to purchase at the nursery.
“For the plants I’m envisioning Odilon Redon, godfather of the surrealists.” Bernard gestures toward the mesh rack that holds the kitchen implements as if it’s been transformed into a painting. “A phantasmagoria of color, shape, size, and texture—flowers burning with an inner fire that makes them seem like an emanation of the life force itself.”
“An inner fire like the emanation of the life force itself.” I pretend to add this to our list.
Bernard sails onward like Auntie Mame planning one of her outrageous parties, heading out to the car while still calling out names for me to jot down. “Dinner Plate dahlias, tiny tot gladiolus mix, Japanese toad lily, and lots of vine, vine, vine—particularly Serotina honeysuckle and blue wisteria.”
The workers at the nursery always jockey with one another to assist Bernard, not just because he’s so knowledgeable, but he’s always funny and enthusiastic. Joanne, the manager, insists that he must be in show business.
Bernard gives her his “Who me? Oh, don’t be ridiculous.” And then he proceeds to imitate Bea Lillie trilling her signature song: “There are fairies at the bottom of our garden, not, not so very very far away. You pass the garden shed and you just keep straight ahead. Oh, I do so hope they’ve really come to stay!”
As usual, this impromptu performance sends everyone, including innocent bystanders, into fits of laughter. All except for the greenhouse bulldog, Wilbur, who starts whining and trots out the door as fast as his slow-moving legs can carry him.
Bernard also receives plenty of attention because he pays in cash and doesn’t skimp on anything. By the time we’ve finished our shopping the order is so big that it has to be delivered. As the flats of plants, pots, and bags of soil are being loaded onto a large dolly, Bernard says with an air of satisfaction, “Yes, I believe this will turn their heads.”
Their? It’s at this instant I realize Bernard has a dual agenda with regard to his sudden interest in the garden. While we’re waiting to pay he confesses that an employee from the adoption agency in Cleveland could show up at the house at any moment for a spot inspection. Apparently they don’t make appointments because they’re afraid people will spruce things up, hide undesirable relations, and create a false picture of how the home operates on a “normal day.” I can’t help but wonder how long it will take the agency to discover that normal is one of the few words that will never be used in association with the Stockton household.
After finishing at the nursery we decide to head over to Sears for a new hedge trimmer and a patio umbrella.
“Olivia seems pretty open-minded about the adoption,” I say as I climb behind the wheel.
“Mother is so open-minded that it’s a miracle all of her brains haven’t fallen out,” says Bernard.
Chapter Twenty-eight
AUGGIE ARRIVES AT EXACTLY EIGHT O’CLOCK AND, RATHER THAN allow him to be inspected by the troops, I hurry outside the minute I hear a car churning up the gravel driveway. Only Bernard, ever the opportunist, comes flying out the front door before we can escape, and claims that he just wants to make sure that I have the thirty dollars for his bet. He knows darn well I have the money in my back pocket, because he gave it to me not even five minutes ago.
Bernard goes around the driver’s side of the beat-up tan Chevy Cavalier so he can get a good look at my “gentleman caller.” Auggie is dressed pretty much the same as he was that day at Cappy’s, with his beaded necklace and worn black leather sandals, only now he has on a pair of black jeans with lots of bleach marks on them and a bright purple T-shirt with a green palm tree on the front pocket. His shoulder-length hair is tied back in a neat ponytail. It’s a little strange to go out with a guy wearing a ponytail, since I have one, too. Maybe we should have called each other first so that one of us could have done a braid.
Once we escape Bernard and the polite chitchat is out of the way, Auggie hands me a thin book with a red cardboard cover that has HARBINGER printed on it in black script. “One of my stories won a prize,” he says, and then looks away as if he’s suddenly embarrassed.
“That’s great!” I say. And I mean it, since he’s the only published author I know aside from Olivia.
As I open the book to find Auggie’s entry, he says, “You don’t have to read it.”
“Of course I want to read it.”
“Okay, then, but don’t read it now. You can keep that copy.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, they sent me some extras.”
In the table of contents I find an entry for “Thanatopsis Spoken Here” next to Auggie’s name. “This is really cool. What is thanatopsis?” I ask. “Is that like a made-up language?”
“Thantos is Greek for death, so it’s a sort of meditation on death.”
“Oh. I guess death is really big in literature. I mean, Olivia knows lots of poems about death.” Could I have said anything dumber? It’s just that my nerves get all jangled up around Auggie, and as a result everything that comes out of my mouth seems to arrive with a side order of stupidity. Wanting to change the subject quickly I ask about the aluminum band on Auggie’s wrist, which upon closer inspection appears to be stamped with a long series of numbers. “Is that so you don’t forget your Social Security number?” I joke, and nod toward the bracelet. Though as soon as this gem escapes from my lips I’m suddenly worried he’s going to think I’m making fun of him for having trouble with numbers at the office the other day.
“It’s to protest the fact that our government is holding political prisoners without access to legal counsel and no set trial dates,” explains Auggie while holding up his wrist so I can get a better view. “That’s a prisoner’s ID number, see?”
Actually, what I see looks more like an identification band that the National Park Service tagged him with. “Yeah, that’s
really cool. I get it now.” I try to sound enthusiastic, though what I’m actually thinking is that this certainly solves the problem of what to get Olivia for her next birthday.
We can’t find a parking spot in front of the café and so Auggie drives around the side streets until we finally locate a space. I had no idea that poetry was sweeping the nation. The inside is filled mostly with people our age, but some are in their forties and fifties, and a few appear to be really old, with white hair and a distinct lack of cosmetic surgery. There’s so much body jewelry in the place, particularly nose, navel, and eyebrow rings, that you could easily clear out the room with a gigantic magnet. From strictly an investment standpoint, I would say that it’s a good time to start loading up on scrap metal.
The walls are painted dark red and the ceiling isn’t finished, so big silver pipes run overhead with lots of little black stars painted onto them. Otherwise the design motif is decidedly Spencer Gifts— lava lamps on the small tables, fuzzy neon black-light posters taped along the perimeter, and long strings of beads dividing the rest-rooms and the juice bar from the “performance space.”
Auggie pays our cover charge and orders some kind of herbal nectar from a woman with short pinkish-blond hair who is wearing a T-shirt that says: BOMBING FOR PEACE IS LIKE FUCKING FOR VIRGINITY.
An overweight man in a Sesame Street sweatshirt and black beret takes the stage and begins shouting out a poem called “Stop the Jargon,” with the title repeated after every line. Fortunately Auggie has judged a few of these competitions and is able to explain to me the system of Olympic-style scoring for each three-minute performance. He describes the first four pieces as neo-Waste Land thrilling, Hallmark drivel, anti-imperialistic, and drug-induced, which is apparently a shade different from drug-inspired. And I can’t help but wonder what Olivia would make of the woman resembling a tall stalklike bird of the wading variety who finished her poem entitled “Self-Rape” by ripping her shirt open and exposing her breasts, which just happen to have a vulture with an undetermined wing-span tattooed across them.
After the winner is announced we stay on and have a cup of chai, talk with a few of the poets, and listen to a trio that combines zither, xylophone, and chimes. The resulting sound is soothing but also slightly eerie, like it would be good for background music in a biology lab if you were dissecting a fetal pig.
As we head back to Cosgrove around midnight Auggie asks me, “So what did you think?”
“It was different.” I’d seen signs for these kinds of things around my own college campus but was always too busy to check them out. “It’s nice that the people stayed fairly quiet and sober. I’m a little tired of everyone getting drunk at parties in dorm rooms and frat houses, with the stereo ramped up so that it blows out your eardrums.”
Auggie pulls off the main road and drives down a dirt strip for a mile or so until we’re overlooking an old rock quarry. There’s a chain-link fence surrounding the drop-off, and at least twenty signs threatening to prosecute anyone who climbs over it, but the view is nice. The navy sky is embroidered with stars and moonlight spills through the windows and across our laps, turning everything silver and blue. Auggie slides a CD of Macy Gray’s The Id into the stereo and places his hand on my hand. His smooth face, half-covered in shadow, looks as if it belongs on the statue of an ancient hero, and I surreptitiously tuck my lips inside my mouth so I can lightly wet them with my tongue in preparation for a kiss. My heart beats too fast for a moment, and then suddenly downshifts so that it’s too slow.
I turn slightly in my seat to face him but Auggie continues to stare straight ahead as if listening to something far away.
“This is a pretty spot,” I say in an effort to bring him back.
“Hmmm,” he agrees. “It reminds me of Russia. If you come here at dusk you can watch the moon rise above the forest like a glorious memory. See, in Russia everything is much more about the past. It’s not like America, where people are constantly looking to make money off the future, so that’s all anyone cares about.”
Whether one favors the past or the future, I decide that I’d really like to kiss Auggie in the present. However, just as I’m contemplating whether we’ll end up at second or third base and Macy Gray starts singing Hold me close cause I’m the most and make a toast to you and me, see that’s the way love’s supposed to be . . . Auggie turns the key in the ignition.
“It’s getting late,” he says. “Grandpa has me starting early tomorrow. It’s opening day at the racetrack.”
So much for even making it to first. Total strikeout. On the other hand, it’s a pleasant change to be with a guy who doesn’t try to rip your clothes off on a first date.
“Listen, Auggie,” I say, “it’s none of my business really, but you shouldn’t be in the bookmaking business. You love writing, and you’re obviously good at it. So why don’t you do something with that.”
He concentrates on navigating the dirt road while I worry that I’ve made him angry. Finally he says, “Yeah, I know, I thought it’d be sort of fun to try it for a while. I imagined meeting interesting characters, the kind you read about in stories by Damon Runyon and O. Henry. Only it turns out that Cappy’s customers are all just a bunch of bankers, doctors, and lawyers who can’t go to the games or the track because they have to work or else attend their kids’ baseball games and birthday parties on weekends. Plus I really suck at math.”
“But you know lots of cool words,” I say. “Like thanatopsis. And how you described the moon was really pretty.”
Auggie nods as if to say that I’m right but . . . and I wonder if there may be a little more to the story than he’s telling me. Is it possible he landed in some sort of trouble and Cappy is making him work it off? It’s obvious from his car and clothes that he doesn’t have much money.
“So what about you?” he asks.
“What about me?” I say. “The only way it would really make sense for me to work for Cappy is if I’m going to do it full-time. But after visiting you over in that cramped cave the other day I think I’ve decided to stick with yard work, at least for this summer. I guess it’s no secret that Cappy isn’t exactly known for his comfortable working conditions. Plus there’s this contest where design students can win a scholarship by—”
“That’s not what I meant,” says Auggie. “Are you in love with anybody?”
“Oh! Not that I know of.” Love? Who talks about love on a first date? However, my heart suddenly skips a beat at the prospect of the fabled “love at first sight.” I don’t count the time we met years ago at the racetrack since we both had braces. Yet I do think back to how I kept losing my train of thought in Cappy’s office while I was with Auggie and the way I felt warm all over when it wasn’t even that hot. “What about you?” While waiting for his reply I experience a strange combination of trepidation and hopefulness that makes me catch my breath.
“I don’t know,” he mutters more to himself than to me. But as he turns onto the main road he quietly adds, “Maybe.”
Inside my head I suddenly start to hear Shirley Jones and Robert Preston singing the love duet “Till There Was You” from The Music Man. Though whether it’s the tingle of excitement upon finally finding “him,” or else a direct result of having lived with Bernard for too long, is impossible to tell.
Chapter Twenty-nine
PARTIES OUT IN THE BARN AT GWEN’S PLACE ARE ALWAYS TONS OF fun in an intramural sports sort of way, and this one is no exception. In fact, attendees have brought along their own soccer balls, baseball mitts, and especially kneepads for volleyball. It’s common knowledge that a social gathering at the Thompsons’ will not involve lying around a dimly lit basement and ingesting large quantities of vampire punch, which consists of whatever kids can steal out of their parents’ liquor cabinets and serves as quite an eye-opener. Oftentimes a leg-opener as well.
Practically the entire senior class has turned out, dressed in shorts and class T-shirts with everyone’s name printed on the back in tiny blo
ck letters. And all the players on the boys’ lacrosse team have dyed their hair half red and half black to celebrate winning the state championship for the first time in the school’s history. A few kids who formed a garage band back when we were freshmen crank out some rock songs at the far end, next to big rusty rain barrels and bags of oats. I have to admit that they’ve gotten pretty good since that first homecoming appearance, when the amplifier kept screeching and the bass player had to be home by eleven.
Seeing the old gang takes my mind off this latest series of romantic crises. And not having attended any graduation celebrations last spring, I feel as if it’s my party, too.
At the center of the indoor ring Gwen’s parents barbecue chicken and shrimp on their enormous grill while her aunt Sharon serves up the punch with mountains of red and blue sherbet floating in it. There’s really no reason to have a server other than to make sure the punch doesn’t get spiked. Gwen’s folks obviously kept careful notes back in high school. Every twenty minutes her uncle Vernon heads out to the section of the lawn where the cars are parked to make sure that no one is drinking or becoming too intimate in a backseat. The rest of the time he’s serving up the nutty buddy ice creams, and to get one you have to try to answer an incredibly stupid riddle.
Today my incredibly stupid riddle is: What’s the only ship that doesn’t sink? We all know enough not to give up right away, because Vernon is an elementary school gym teacher and if you quit he’ll mark you for life as a person who “doesn’t try.” And more important, you will not get your ice cream.
“Oh, that’s a good one,” I say. “How about a submarine?” Usually two guesses makes you into a “tryer” in his eyes and then you can escape.
“Nice try!” he chortles. “Guess again.”
“Yeah, c’mon, guess again,” says Seth, who is waiting behind me for his ice cream and bad riddle.
“A hydroplane.” It’s the only thing that comes to mind.
“A friendship!” Uncle Vernon passes me the ice cream as if I’ve just won a hundred-dollar bill.
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