Rear-View Mirrors

by Paul Fleischman

  I crossed the room to dodge a fresh bank of smoke.

  “Or perhaps,” he went on, “she was attempting to single-handedly overload the postal system, hoping it would collapse and bring the government crashing down along with it.”

  “Better than single-handedly propping up the tobacco companies, as you’re doing.”

  My father snorted and stared out at the fireflies. “If you haven’t decided on a course of study in college, maybe you ought to consider a major in withering sarcasm.”

  Actually, I’d grown tired of such sniping. Searching for another change of topic, I picked up from his desk a piece of paper with “Bordeaux Bombers: 109-71” typed at the top. Below that was “Toulouse Guillotines: 104-76.” I held the sheet out toward him. “What’s this?’’

  He turned. “Final standings.”

  “Final standings of what?”

  “This year’s French baseball.”

  I considered his answer. “I didn’t know that they played baseball in France.”

  He gazed back out the window. “You’re right—they don’t. It’s my own private, winter league. Imaginary.”

  I looked down at the other teams on the list: the Aries Impressionists, Marseilles Escargots, Perpignan Red Sox, Avignon Popes . . .

  “All the towns are in the south of France, where baseball could be played all year. I set up a schedule, then flip a ten-franc coin to decide who wins each day’s games. Helps pass the time between October and April.”

  I puzzled over this odd amusement.

  “My parents took Leo and me with them to France one summer,” my father volunteered. He returned to the organ, fiddled with the stops, and began playing a light-hearted piece that sounded like it was coming from an accordion. He smiled. “Jesus, what a beautiful countryside! And what a terrific time we had. Eating a lifetime’s worth of pastries. Gawking at the rabbits in the butcher shops. Amazing the locals with our baseball gloves. Have you ever been?”

  “Not yet,” I replied.

  “We ought to think about going sometime.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “We had a farmhouse that year. Just outside of Aries. Maybe that’s why I root for the Impressionists every winter.”

  “The Impressionists.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the notion. “At first base—Vincent van Gogh, I suppose.”

  “The team’s leadoff hitter. Scrappy. Hot-tempered. Occasionally taunted by fans cutting off their ears and throwing them onto the field. Followed in the batting order by Pissarro.”

  “Then Gauguin.”

  “Right. Just brought up from the minor league club in Tahiti,” my father declared above the music.

  “And Renoir.”

  “Not much speed on the basepaths. But a good long ball hitter.”

  I tried to think of another French painter, wanting to prolong the game. “Monet?”

  “Center field. Apt to study the grass out there and lose track of the score. Batting ahead of Toulouse-Lautrec.”

  “Known for drinking too much,” I offered. “And for regularly missing the team bus.”

  He finished the piece he’d been playing and turned around on his stool toward me. “And for having the smallest strike zone in the league.”

  I winced. It was a terrible joke. But it was wonderful to find myself enjoying being with my father, for a change. “Would part of my job be to keep this league running?”

  “It’s really not much trouble,” he replied.

  “I suppose I’d need to start smoking too,” I said in jest. “And playing the pump organ.”

  “Smoking is optional,” he answered, apparently in all seriousness. “Though Virgil smokes a pipe, and it would be best that whoever continues the series knows a bit about pipes and tobacco. As it happens, he also plays the pump organ. A great fan of Duke Ellington’s music, Virgil is. And extremely attached to the Mozart Requiem—a piece you’d need to know quite well.”

  He opened up his record cabinet. Knowing what was coming next, I said good night, climbed the stairs, and heard beneath me the sort of classical music I loathed and that Virgil no doubt loved. And knew that if I ever took over the series, I’d have to broaden his tastes.

  7 / Girl With Goat

  First, I’m aware of the breeze picking up. Aspen leaves, which register the faintest movement of air, are trembling, causing the trees to shimmer like mirages.

  Next, I notice the sky clouding over. The sun weakens. My shadow disappears, leaving me to ride on alone.

  A few miles later I hear thunder far off. Shortly after that I glimpse lightning to my left. Pedaling past a lumber mill, I feel the first of the drops on my back.

  No problem, I calmly inform myself. The paper called only for scattered showers. My shoulders can use a break from the sun. Some cool rain would feel great. And I’m riding on rubber, so there’s no need to worry about electrocution. By the time I’ve finished delivering this glowing State of the Ride report, the wind is nearly blowing me backward, the rain is coming down like crazy, and I’m ready to consider selling my soul to the Devil for a room at a Motel 6.

  Soaked, I reach a junction and stop. As if nothing could be more ordinary, I get off my bike, open my map, and, with sheets of rain sweeping over me, slowly figure out where I am. I turn onto Highway 520, headed south, pass a cow standing out in the downpour, and feel a sense of kinship with it. I consider holing up somewhere, but there’s nothing but pasture on both sides of the road. Reminding myself of my sunset deadline, and feeling my father’s eyes upon me, I decide to try to ride out the storm. I lower my cap, work my way up a monstrous hill, and find that I can’t coast down it—as justice demands that I should—thanks to the wind blasting in my face. Indignantly, I press on the pedals, feeling like I’m riding through peanut butter, cursing out loud while knowing full well that it wouldn’t have been safe to zip downhill, since my brakes aren’t working in the blasted rain.

  I push on, straining to see through the deluge, my wheels spraying me with water from below to add to that drumming on my back from above. A car passes, drenching me from the side, and I now feel a kinship with fish as well as cows. In movies, people begin laughing at this point, but I’m not Gene Kelly and this isn’t Singin’ in the Rain. Wondering what idiot wrote that film, I crest another hill and spot a steeple ahead. “Thank God!” I shout at the top of my voice. I’ve had it, and can’t believe my father wouldn’t have done what I intend to do: find someplace dry and wait out the storm.

  I enter the town of New Glastonbury, and park in front of a cafe called The Nook. A sign reads “No shoes, No shirt, No service.” Fortunately it doesn’t say “No dripping.” I shake my cap, wring out my braid, and glimpse my reflection just before I step in. I look as if I’ve swum ashore from a shipwreck, though no one inside comments on this fact. Grateful for Yankee reticence, I sit by the window, order a cup of tea, and watch the rain come down.

  Two full hours and three tea bags later, I’m still watching—not only the rain, but the clock. It’s now 5:10. I’ve lost precious time, and still have twenty-some miles to go. I’m dry now. The weather, however, is not. Showers are supposed to be short, but this seems more like the start of the forty days and nights. I hear my father’s words in my head: “Our weather here in New England, Olivia, tends toward the apocalyptic. You’ll find that forecasts often seem to have been lifted straight from Revelation.” I peer through the window, thankful not to see fire and blood falling from the sky. Raindrops are proving trouble enough.

  At the counter I buy a postcard of Mt. Washington, New Hampshire’s highest point. Suspecting New Glastonbury is its wettest, I sit down and write to Ben in Paris.

  “We can sure use the rain,” I overhear a man say. I look up, annoyed, and feel like debating the point.

  “Our alfalfa was about burnt up,” replies the waitress. I watch her stop and refill the man’s coffee cup, and for some reason—perhaps it’s revenge—find myself imagining excavating the scene before me a thousand years in the future: the two o
f them represented only by a scattering of bones, a belt buckle, earrings; the wooden counter long rotted away; the plastic flowers in the vase still in bloom; the coffee maker uncovered intact, presumed to have been used in a religious rite involving the teaspoons and cups found nearby.

  “Bad news, of course,” the man declares, “for that Republican Party picnic in Millbrook.”

  I feel a little better about the storm.

  “Seems to be letting up,” says the waitress.

  I look out the window and find that she’s right. By the time I’ve finished writing to Ben, the surfaces of the puddles are still.

  I pay my bill, mail the card at the post office up the street, and ride on. I recall that the tale of the tortoise and the hare crossed my mind several hours ago, at which time I’d no notion I’d later be playing the part of the latter, struggling to catch up. Why, I accuse myself, did I squander time on a nap—and on all those other breaks?

  Pedaling at a faster pace than before, I’m soon out of town and surrounded by trees. The air is heavy. Leaves are dripping. A thrush’s song carries through the woods. Except for the road I’m riding on, there’s no sign of human occupation. In contrast, I picture bustling Berkeley, finding it difficult to believe that I left it only yesterday. I wonder what my mother is doing right now, if the house feels empty to her—which I hope it doesn’t, given I’ll be going away to college in the fall. I miss her suddenly, and wish I’d chosen to go to school at home in Berkeley instead of moving down to Los Angeles. Coasting downhill through evergreens, my mind moves ahead, improvising imaginary scenes of college life. Then the trees recede, I pass a house in front of which a little girl is feeding some grass to a tethered goat—and at once I’m back at the county fair with Owen.

  ***

  “Thirsty?”

  I shook my head.

  “What do you want to do next?”

  “Just walk around, I guess.” We’d already seen most of the sights: hundreds of pies, thousands of jars of preserves, the wood-splitting competition, rides, a country-western singer. During which I’d had time to consider my suspicion that my father was behind Owen’s asking me—as well as his sporadic visits to the house. For although he’d stopped doing yardwork after that one occasion, he’d continued dropping by to pick up a few eggs, to exchange garden harvests, to study the phoebes nesting in our barn. He’d smile at me but not say too much, and seemed never to notice or take offense to my saying even less in return.

  He bought a lemonade. “Livestock exhibit’s just up ahead.”

  “Might as well have a look.” It was late August and I’d grown used to being around him. And I had to admit I’d been curious to see what a county fair was all about. My father, I knew, wouldn’t have brought me. He hated noise and crowds. And besides, when I’d come down for breakfast he was already gone, having left a note saying only “Back late.”

  We entered a barn and strolled past what seemed like every known variety of chicken.

  “Always have liked these Sebright bantams,” Owen spoke up.

  We stopped at their cage. I failed to find anything special about them.

  “Graceful shape,” he said. “Upturned tail.”

  The attraction of these features escaped me. “I’m obviously walking with a poultry connoisseur.”

  He shrugged and smiled. “I just like drawing birds.” He flicked his dark hair out of his eyes. “I carve ’em sometimes. The most beautiful ones.” He paused, seeming slightly embarrassed. “And other things that hit me that way.”

  Surprised by this news, I followed him down the aisle. We graduated to geese, then moved on to ducks, guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, and stopped in front of the goats.

  “Same kind you’ve got,” Owen said, pointing.

  I studied the animal, then found my attention drawn to the girl who appeared to have raised it. She looked about twelve, had a brown pony-tail, and was busily sweeping out the pen. There but for the grace of divorce go I, I mused, watching her at work. I might have grown up a country girl and raised a goat each year for the fair, might even have been assigned to that pen. I gazed at her jeans and her gingham blouse, wondering if I would have dressed the same. She changed the water, then began brushing her animal. She seemed to know just what she was doing, and no doubt knew the arcane terms for all the parts of a goat. I hoped she’d win.

  We walked on, turning up an aisle of sheep.

  “Olivia!”

  I spun around, wondering whether some other Olivia was being called.

  “Right here, dear.”

  I turned toward the voice, and saw among the crowd of people strolling along my father’s nemesis, Flora Gill.

  She reached us. “And Owen. Enjoying the fair?”

  Her shortness made me feel taller than ever. And her plumpness made me think of an overweight elf, carrying a folded parasol in place of a magic wand.

  She grasped my arm. “Tell Bull that he’s broken all records for canceling appointments to come and sit for his portrait.”

  “I’ll do that,” I said.

  “And that I’ve made up my mind to paint it from memory. Seeing as I already know by heart every wrinkle and mole on that noble face.”

  She beamed at us. I wondered if she knew that she’d brought on some of those wrinkles herself.

  “The eyes of the artist are always open,” she declared. “The world always sitting for its portrait.”

  I noticed Owen smile faintly. And noticed myself distinctly relieved when, after a lecture in praise of the many anonymous early American portrait painters, little-known in their day but now regarded with the greatest esteem, we parted with Flora, then finished the tour of the barn and headed home in Owen’s car.

  We reached North Hooton, then Hatfield Road.

  “How long until you go back to California?” he asked.

  “I leave in three days.”

  He contemplated this answer.

  “First I’ll go to Boston for a week, to visit my uncle,” I volunteered.

  We rattled along, then swung up our driveway and stopped.

  “Thanks a lot,” I said.

  Owen didn’t answer, but opened the glove compartment instead, pulled out a small box, and handed it to me.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  He blushed. “It’s for you.”

  I stared at it and blushed in return.

  “Open it later.”

  I got out of the car and looked back at him. “Thanks—in advance. For whatever’s inside.”

  I closed the door, watched him back down the driveway, then sat on the bottom porch step, inspecting the cardboard box in my hands. Had my father put him up to this as well? Figuring “later” meant anytime after he’d left, I undid the yellow ribbon, lifted off the box’s lid, glimpsed something brown wrapped in tissue paper—then closed up the box.

  I’d seen enough. It was something that Owen had carved from wood. What did it matter what it was if my father had prompted him to give it?

  I wouldn’t have put it past him, with his sole hope for a doting heir about to leave. He didn’t want me to go without a memento he hoped would lure me back.

  I took note of his car, still parked by the barn as it had been all day, then tried the front door. Locked, as I’d left it. I looked at my watch. 3:20. He must be taking a long walk. I’d put the matter to him when he returned.

  I unlocked the door, put the gift in my room, then walked back out to the barn. I was no country girl, like the one at the fair, but I’d slowly befriended our goat, Josephine, and had taken over milking her, a chore I proceeded to tend to. After that, I harvested from the garden the makings of a giant salad—often all we ate in the evenings—and assembled it in the kitchen, for later. Then I poured some iced tea, picked up the book on the Iroquois I’d been reading over breakfast, moved out to the porch, and sat down in the rocker. Swallows were skimming the lawn, chattering. A phoebe was calling its name from a fencepost. Sounds that now seemed familiar, pleasant. And
it struck me that I’d be leaving just as I was starting to feel more comfortable here. My sample month of Life with Father had passed, without comment, several weeks ago. Shortly before which, the energy that I’d formerly put into politics had finally found an outlet—in reading up on the Incas, Roanoke, Egypt: anything on vanished cultures I could find in my father’s or North Hooton’s library. Opening my book, and thankful that the mosquito population had dwindled, I read for the rest of the afternoon, until I was roused by a clicking sound.

  I glanced to my left, closed my book, and stood up. He was shirtless. His face was flushed. Looking exhausted, with grease on one leg, my father pushed his bicycle up the dirt driveway and stopped before me.

  “Plenty of time,” he said, breathing heavily. He propped the bike up against the porch and sighted the sun. “Two hours at least!”

  I leaned on the railing, watching him wipe the sweat from his head with a red bandana.

  “Finished with time to spare!” he proclaimed.

  “Finished what?”

  He stretched himself out on the grass. “I’ll tell you later.”

  Whatever the deed, I was glad to see that it plainly wasn’t performed by a man afraid for his heart.

  “Actually,” I spoke up, “there’s something I’d appreciate your telling me now.” I came down the porch steps and stared at him. “Did you mention to Owen you’d be gone all day and that I might want to check out the county fair?”

  My father sat up and eyed me in wonder.

  “Was his giving me something your work as well? And his habit of dropping by the house?”

  “What did he do to offend you now—open a barn door for you?”

  “Just answer the question, please.”

  “The answer is no!” he bellowed, standing up. “The only thing I told him was not to come and do yardwork—as you insisted! Was I supposed to tell him to keep off my land too?”

  We faced each other in silence, both startled: he by my accusations, I by the sudden conviction that he was telling the truth.