The Books of Fell

by M. E. Kerr

  “I changed my mind,” I said. “I’m not going where I was going.”

  He laughed as though I’d said something funny and told me he didn’t think he was going where he was going, either.

  “So follow me up to the house,” he said. “We might as well be comfortable while we’re writing down all the information.”

  I got back behind the wheel and waited for him to go up the driveway first. I had a melon-sized dent in my right front fender, but I figured I was ahead because he didn’t seem at all angry about his back fender. At least this would help take my mind off Keats, who was probably a total wreck because she had to miss her Senior Prom. Things like that were important to Keats. She made a big deal over everything from Easter to Valentine’s Day. She loved ceremonies, traditions, rituals … and the Senior Prom was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. It’d kill Keats not to show up there.

  Fernwood Manor didn’t look like much of a manor, not like Beauregard or Adieu. There were only two stories. It was built of stone and shingle, with only one chimney. There was a hedge out front, and some trees in tubs. There was a metal jockey holding out a steel ring.

  Woodrow Pingree was smoking, no hands, as he got out of the Mitsubishi in the circular driveway. He took another look at the damage I’d done, then gave me as much of a smile as he could and still hold the Viceroy between his lips.

  We started walking toward the front door.

  “What’s your name?” he asked me.

  I told him. I told him that I knew his. I’d seen him go swimming one cold day in May.

  “Was that you up there in the dunes? Were you with the Pennington girl or the Keating girl?”

  “Helen Keating,” I said.

  “I tell my boy it’s a shame. Two beautiful girls within walking distance and he won’t even bother to go over and introduce himself.”

  He held the door open for me, and we walked down this black-and-white tile floor, with a living room to the right, and a dining room the other way.

  “Woody?” Mrs. Pingree was sitting on a white wicker chair in the center of the living room. She was an audience of one, facing this kid in a black top hat, who was standing behind a card table with a cloth covering it. He had on a black turtleneck sweater and black pants, and there was a black cape with a red lining over his shoulders. He had a wand in one hand. His glasses were about a half inch thick.

  “It’s all right, sweetheart! This young man ran into my car down at the bottom of the hill. Don’t let me stop the show! We’ll have a talk in my study.”

  He was sort of leaning into the room, without inviting me to go that way.

  Mrs. Pingree had her white-framed dark glasses pushed back on her head. She was a tiny woman. I thought she looked a little like Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s widow, without the oriental eyes. I guessed she was in her thirties.

  “Then you’re not going out, Woody?” she said.

  “No, I’ll be here.”

  He led me through the dining room toward another room.

  “My son’s going off to a summer camp for budding magicians in a few weeks,” he said. “When he gets there, he has to put on a show. So he’s practicing. Do you like magic?”

  “Only sort of.” I really didn’t like it at all. I thought only real yo-yos did.

  “I think my wife only sort of likes it, too, but she tries to humor Ping. He’s a nice boy, but he’s like America was in 1491. No one discovered it yet.” He chuckled at his own joke and led me into his study.

  There were a lot of framed photographs lining the walls. There was a large desk, with French doors behind it leading out to a terrace.

  He pointed to a leather armchair beside his desk and said to make myself comfortable. He said he was going to call “the Institute” and let them know he wasn’t going to be there after all.

  He punched out a number, then said to me, “I work at Brutt Institute in Bellhaven. Do you know the place?”

  I shook my head no. I only knew that Bell-haven was down in Nassau County.

  “No reason why you should,” he said. “I’m a physicist. Do you like science?”

  “It’s my worst subject.”

  “Are you flunking it?”

  “No, not flunking. But anything to do with science and I go down into the B’s.”

  “So. You’re mostly an A student,” he said. And when I nodded, he added, “Like my son.”

  Someone answered the phone at that point. Pingree said, “Something’s come up. I won’t be by. No, nothing to worry about.”

  He put down the receiver. “I didn’t have anything important scheduled. I’ve seen every one of my son’s tricks again and again, so …” He let his voice trail off. “Did you bring in your insurance card?”

  I got it out of the pocket of my white dinner jacket.

  “After telling you to bring yours in I forgot to bring in mine,” he said. “I’d better get it, so we can write down all the information. You want a Tab?”

  “Do you have Coke?”

  “Just Tab. My wife’s always on a diet.”

  “Okay. Tab. Thanks.”

  He stood up. “You look like you were on your way to a dance. Are you sure you don’t want to go?”

  I told him my date got sick.

  He stubbed out the cigarette he’d just lit and said he’d be right back.

  I sat there for a while, glancing through a yearbook that was on the end of his desk. It was from The Valley Academy. The motto of The Valley Academy was Ne Pas Subir. Don’t submit.

  There were things written across photographs of boys in uniform.

  Ping,

  Next time you make something disappear,

  make sure it’s you. Steve.

  And,

  I just told Brown he was the most

  obnoxious boy in roll call, but I’d forgotten

  about you, Pingree! George.

  And,

  Don’t let me catch you in the dark,

  if you come back next year, Nerdo! Al.

  It was more of the same all through Woodrow Pingree, Jr.’s, yearbook. I wondered why any kid would bring it home to let his folks see. I wouldn’t have.

  I got up and walked to the French doors. I could see the lights of Adieu across the way. It seemed as though every light in the place was on. I wondered if Eaton was throwing a party over there while the Keatings were in New York City.

  I opened the door to get more of a view just as Mr. Pingree returned with two Tabs on a tray, carrying his insurance card between his teeth.

  I took the tray from his hands.

  “That’s a good idea,” he said, nodding toward the terrace. “Let’s sit out there.”

  After we went outside, he sat there writing out names and numbers he copied from our insurance cards. I stood, fascinated by the clear view of Adieu. Even the driveway lights were on. You could hear the ocean over the dunes.

  Finally, Mr. Pingree tore a sheet of paper in half, handed me a piece of it, and said all the information I needed was there.

  “I know now isn’t a good time,” he said, “but I’d like you to meet my boy sometime. He needs a buddy.”

  “I saw his yearbook in there,” I said.

  “He’s through at Valley now. Are you a sophomore?”

  “I’m going to be a senior.”

  “At Seaville High?”

  “Probably not. My mother wants to move back to Brooklyn.”

  “So you’re not from here?” “No. Brooklyn.”

  “How long have you been out here?”

  I told him, all the while staring over at Adieu. For someone who didn’t even wave at his neighbors, he seemed really interested in a complete stranger. He asked a lot of questions. I found myself rattling on about my father’s heart attack, my kid sister, my mother’s job at Dressed to Kill — I even told him about the Born to Shop decal I’d stuck on the back of my mother’s Volkswagen that morning.

  He laughed hard at that.

  I said, “I guess all women could use o
ne of those decals for their bumpers.”

  “My first wife would have clobbered you for that remark,” he said. “She was a feminist. She hated it when you tried to say females were this way or they were that way. She’d say that was sexist, and I’d say well, when the day comes when we don’t know who’s going to have the baby, the male or the female, we can stop talking about the differences between us.”

  I kind of liked him. But I couldn’t give him my full attention, sit down and sip my Tab and shoot the bull with him, as he seemed to want me to do. I couldn’t get Keats off my mind. I kept thinking of her on her way into New York City while her whole class was pouring out of cars right that minute, heading into the Seaville High gym, the band playing, all the girls wearing flowers.

  “This dance you were going to, was it over at the high school?”

  “The Senior Prom,” I said.

  He winced and said, “Ouch!”

  “It’s not so bad for me. It wasn’t my prom. It was hers.”

  “The Keating girl’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Still …” he said. “You wouldn’t go stag?” “I don’t really hang out with any senior but her.” “Who do you hang out with? You have your own crowd?”

  “I don’t hang out that much.”

  “Oh. A loner. Like my son.”

  I said, “Well …” with a noncommittal shrug. I wasn’t a loner, but the crowd I’d hung out with my last year in Brooklyn was filled with fast trackers. They were the kind my father’d take in off the streets and book, days he used to still walk a beat.

  Pingree was a chain-smoker. He’d light one Viceroy after the other. He’d drop the spent butts into a seashell ashtray on the wrought-iron table in front of him.

  He had very light sea-colored eyes. Around his neck he wore a scarf the same color, tucked into a white shirt.

  I thought of the purple silk bow tie Keats had bought to match my eyes. I watched Adieu.

  “I didn’t go to a high school,” Pingree said. “I went to Gardner School. Did you ever hear of it?”

  “No, sir.” I was watching a car go up the driveway over at Adieu.

  “It’s a fine old school. My father went there and his father before him. Now, Ping will enter there as a junior.”

  I knew the car. It was Quint Blade’s silver Porsche.

  “Pingrees have always gone to Gardner,” said Woodrow Pingree.

  Then I saw Keats.

  I saw her walk out the front door of Adieu with Mr. Keating.

  I watched Quint Blade get out of the Porsche and go around and open the passenger door for Keats. He had on a light-blue dinner jacket, with black tuxedo pants and a white ruffled shirt. Keats was in a long white gown, with gold slippers. She had a white cape over her shoulders. She had my white orchid.

  “Those Gardner years were my happiest years,” Mr. Pingree was saying.

  I murmured, “Ummm hmmm.”

  “I still know all four verses to the school song,” he said.

  I had the feeling he was almost ready to sing them.

  I watched Keats’s father wave from the front steps as the silver Porsche pulled away.

  I had to sit down or sink to my knees.

  “Someday,” said Pingree, “maybe I’ll tell you about that school.”

  I figured he was this lonely man, with a young wife and a ditsy kid — a man who’d planned to drive down into another county to check in at his office just for something to do.

  Then I came along. Someone to talk to — never mind what I’d done to his Mitsubishi, this fellow needed someone to talk to.

  When I visited my grandfather at his nursing home, he’d always try to get me to stay another hour. He’d say things like, “Someday I’ll tell you what happened the first day your father ever walked a beat.” William the Conqueror might not be in my background, but there were a lot of cops.

  I’d ask my grandfather to tell me about it, and his eyes would light up. He’d say, “You want to hear about it now?”

  But this man across from me was no relation. I couldn’t rise to the occasion and do him any favors.

  I kept thinking she’d called Quint Blade and he’d come running.

  I swallowed my Tab, chug-a-lug.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  “So soon?” Pingree said.

  “So soon?” my grandfather would always say. “When is your father coming, Johnny?”

  He’s not, Granddad. He had a heart attack, remember?

  Pingree got up when I did.

  “I’ll walk you out,” he said.

  chapter 4

  The TV was on and my five-year-old sister was asleep on the rug in front of it, her paper doll and a bag of Chips Ahoy! beside her.

  “Wake up, Jazzy,” I said.

  “Is it tomorrow?”

  “No. It’s still tonight.”

  “What are you doing home?”

  “I got jilted.”

  “What’s jilted?”

  “Stood up. Keats went to the dance with someone else.”

  Jazzy sat up and rubbed her eyes. She checked to be sure the paper doll was there. She never made a move without the paper doll. She called the doll Georgette.

  “Is Mommy home?” she said.

  “No, Mommy doesn’t seem to be home,” I said. That teed me off, too. Our mother was supposed to be home by eight-thirty on Saturday nights. The store where she worked on Main Street closed at eight in the summer.

  I’d felt bad enough leaving Jazzy alone at seven-thirty, when I’d left to go to Adieu. Mom said she’d be all right by herself for forty-five minutes. Mrs. Fiedler was right next door.

  “I bet you didn’t have any dinner,” I said.

  “Georgette had fwogs’ legs,” she said, caressing the doll.

  “Say frogs,” I said. “You’re old enough now to say frog, not fwog.” Then I leaned down and patted her blond curls, to make up for snapping at her. “I’ll make you an omelet,” I said.

  “I don’t want an omelet. I want your beef Borgan.”

  “My beef Bourguignon takes five hours to cook,” I said. “I’ll make you a cheese-and-tomato omelet.”

  “With bacon,” Jazzy said.

  “All right, with bacon. But it’ll take longer.”

  I took off my white coat and undid my black silk tie.

  “Can Georgette have your red rose, Johnny?” Jazzy asked.

  “Tell her to help herself. I can’t use it.”

  “Did you have a fight with Keats?”

  “No, we didn’t fight. Her father doesn’t like me.”

  “I like you, Johnny.”

  “I know. I like you, too.”

  I went into the kitchen and started getting stuff out of the refrigerator.

  Jazzy came in after me in a few minutes, carrying Georgette and the two shoeboxes that contained Georgette’s wardrobe. Jazzy made all Georgette’s clothes. In one shoebox the clothes were shabby: torn dresses, sweaters with holes in them, and tattered shorts and slacks. In the other shoebox there were short dresses, long dresses, hats, and fancy high-heeled shoes. Those clothes in that shoebox were trimmed with lace, decorated with real, tiny buttons, and colored with the brightest shades in Jazzy’s crayon collection.

  Jazzy’s game was to have Georgette discover that her real parents were millionaires. She would dress Georgette in her poor clothes and serve her macaroni, or shredded wheat, or a few raisins. Then Georgette’s real family would come by to claim her, and she’d be dressed in her other clothes and sit down to “fwogs”‘ legs or champagne and caviar.

  When we lived in Brooklyn, my mother had a part-time job at The Gleeful Gourmet. She’d bring home some new delicacy for us to sample nearly every night: guacamole, cold lobster mousse, artichoke hearts with mushroom sauce — things we’d never tasted before. Sometimes my mother’d make salads for the place, or hors d’oeuvres or desserts, and I’d help her. That was when I discovered that I liked to cook, and that I was good at it.

 
My father’d retired from the force by then. He was doing private investigating. I’d fix him the food he’d take on stakeouts, surprise him with things like deviled meatballs, Chinese chicken wings, or stuffed grape leaves.

  When we moved out to Seaville, after his first heart attack, we were talking seriously about opening a place like Plain and Fancy, where I’d gotten my part-time job.

  What we hadn’t counted on was the high rents for stores in a resort area. The stores in Seaville cost from a thousand to two thousand a month.

  Since my father’s death, all Mom talked about was getting back to Brooklyn and opening something there.

  I was just flipping the omelet over when my mother’s Volkswagen pulled into the driveway, with the Born to Shop decal still fixed to the back fender. I figured she hadn’t noticed it yet.

  I told her that I’d been stood up, leaving out the encounter with Pingree because I didn’t want to get her on my back about the dent in the Dodge just yet.

  “Would you mind making one of those for me, too?” she asked. “I’m really beat! We had three customers come in at five minutes to eight. I said, ‘We’re closing at eight,’ and one of them said, ‘We won’t be long.’ What time is it now?”

  “Quarter to ten,” I said. “That’s too long to leave Jazzy alone.”

  “Mrs. Fiedler was coming over every twenty minutes, Johnny.”

  “Mommy? Georgette had fwogs’, frrr-ogs’ legs for dinner!”

  “That’s nice, honey. I know it’s too long to leave her, but I couldn’t walk out on a thousand-dollar sale, and I called Mrs. Fiedler to be sure she was home and could check on Jazzy. A thousand dollars in an hour and a half, and only two of them were buying! I don’t know where people get their money! Do they rob banks?”

  “They put it all on credit cards,” I said. “You know how that goes, Mom.”

  “Don’t start on me tonight, Johnny!” she said. “Just because your fancy girlfriend stood you up, don’t take it out on me!”

  “Keats’s father doesn’t like Johnny,” Jazzy said.

  “Johnny should stick with his own kind if he doesn’t want to be treated like a doormat,” Mom said.

  I passed Jazzy her omelet. “What’s my own kind? Dad always said it was the wrong kind.”