The Books of Fell

by M. E. Kerr

  “Keats,” I said, “tell Mummy I do fantastic things with shrimp. When I worked at Plain and Fancy, shrimp was on the menu of most of our buffet dinners.”

  “That’s right! You cook! That’s right!”

  “Tell her that if she doesn’t mind having the cook spend the night in the room with the waterbed, the ocean view, and the private bath with the sauna, I’d be happy to do her party.”

  “Can you do it all by yourself, Fell?”

  “No, not all by myself. You’ll put on an apron and assist me.”

  Keats giggled.

  THE MOUTH

  Christmas 1962.

  Over Sheep’s Meadow and through the park to Grandmother’s house we go.

  “Do you really live here?” Lenny’s question was answered for him by the doorman.

  “Good evening, Mr. Nels. Miss Annette said to tell you she and Celeste went out for dinner.”

  The Fifth Avenue apartment that had once been Nels’s grandparents’ place was one full floor, the front windows facing the Central Park Zoo.

  It was all dark wood and thick rugs, embroidered pillows on silk sofas, leather-bound books, and paintings in rich, gilded frames.

  A butler named Lark had let them in and repeated the doorman’s message. He’d been smirking as he did.

  Nels said, “They’re usually not even here for the holidays, but the Seastar decided to bring in outside entertainers this Christmas…. Lark hates it when they’re home.”

  “Then you both live here?”

  “The three of us live here: Annette, Celeste, and me.”

  “Wow, Nels! A whole floor to yourselves! What a way to live!”

  “It would be if Celeste wasn’t around. We even have room for more, but Celeste won’t allow anyone else to live here. She doesn’t care a fig for Father’s wishes.”

  The hall they were walking down had walls adorned with old masters, each with its own light.

  Nels continued. “My father’d tell Annette never to thank him for adopting her, but to remember it by adopting her own child one day. Do you think Celeste would ever let that happen?” He gave a snort.

  He stopped in front of a door at the end of the hall. “Wait ‘til you see this, Tra La.”

  It was a girl’s room with everything in miniature. The canopied bed, dresser, desk, chair, and velvet-covered chaise longue. Tiny closets all the way around the room were open, exposing frilly little dresses on hangers, and elaborate shoe trees all filled with minuscule high heels.

  There were several red wigs on stands.

  The room was a mess, clothes strewn about, makeup left open atop a small vanity in the corner, various coats on the backs of chairs, and one white fur thrown to the floor.

  “As you can see,” said Nels, “Celeste isn’t very neat.”

  Lenny was used to that kind of talk by then. He just let remarks about Celeste’s personality and habits go by.

  “A dressmaker does her wardrobe,” said Nels. “If my sister’s been invited someplace formal tonight, Celeste will be in a gown, complete with evening slippers, evening bag, real pearls, real diamonds, and probably the mink, since there’s the ermine on the floor.”

  “I’m dying to meet her,” Lenny said. “And your sister, too, of course.”

  “One of these days you will.”

  “Not this vacation? … I was counting on it.”

  “Not yet, Lenny. It isn’t time yet.”

  Then he changed the subject. “You should see all the jewelry Celeste has! Laura would turn green with envy.”

  “You’ve got Laura all wrong. She doesn’t care that much about all that.”

  “She cares, though. She does care about it, Lenny. You should have let me pay for that Seven of Diamonds for her Christmas present.”

  Lenny couldn’t get it through Nels’s head that he and Laura weren’t even engaged yet, and that when the time came for something that expensive, Lenny’d want to pay for it himself. For Christmas, Lenny had barely been able to afford the gold 7 to go with the gold chain Nels had given her. In the winter there were fewer rentals of the white Cadillac.

  “You have too much false pride, Tra La.”

  “Pride, maybe. But not false pride.”

  “I’d loan you the money, if that’d make you feel better.”

  “Laura would know where I got it.”

  “So what! The time to get her something beautiful is when she’s young and beautiful. She’ll be old and wrinkled when you can afford it, if you ever can.” Nels laughed. “An actor spends a lot of time in the unemployment line.”

  “I’ll take care of Laura.”

  “Someone like Laura ought to find trinkets from Cartier under her pillow at night and baubles from Tiffany in her coat pockets.”

  “I think I know her better, Nels.”

  “You haven’t got any romance in you, Tra La. How sad for Laura.”

  Then suddenly he said, “Let’s get out of here!”

  “We just got here,” Lenny said.

  Lenny kept mumbling protests all the while they went back down the hall, got their coats from Lark, and found themselves in the polished wood and brass of the little elevator, descending.

  Hailing a cab, Lenny said he’d have liked to see the rest of the apartment, at least, and Nels snarled, “I feel like getting plastered!”

  Then he pounded Lenny’s back good-naturedly and flashed him a smile.

  “Let’s go, Lenny. I know a place they don’t check ID’s.”

  They headed downtown in a taxi. Soon they were standing at the bar in Joe’s Rathskeller, holding schooners of suds, singing “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” and “Roll Me Over.”

  After Nels spotted a redhead who was not many inches over five foot, he told Lenny he was going to concentrate on her. “Toodle-oo, Tra La. Leave if you want.”

  “I probably will.” He was starting to feel his drinks.

  “Give my love to Laura when you call her later.”

  “Okay.”

  “We must make a plan, Tra La. It’s time to start making a plan.”

  He was standing on tiptoe, cupping his mouth with his hand, funneling what he had to say into Lenny’s ear.

  “A plan for what?” Lenny could tell Nels’s beers had hit him hard. He only said “Toodle-oo” when he was bombed. It was part of Celeste’s sign-off, and his sister ended her letters that way.

  Lenny had trained himself not to get angry when Nels tried to tell him how to treat Laura, as he had back at his apartment.

  He knew it wasn’t easy for Nels, suspected Nels was half in love with Laura.

  “We have to plan the kidnapping,” Nels said. “Start thinking about where we’ll dump our victim, what ransom we’ll demand, that sort of thing.”

  “Oh, are we kidnapping somebody?”

  “Shhhh. Don’t talk too loud.”

  “Who are we kidnapping?” Lenny was amused at the idea that Nels was so plastered. Nels never lost control, never rambled. But here he was back on the old kidnapping theme.

  “We’re not kidnapping anyone right away,” he said.

  “When are we going to do it?”

  “A little under a year from now. We’ll be on a trip.”

  “I think you’re traveling in outer space right now.”

  “No, I’m not. But I am planning our trip.”

  “And we’re going to kidnap someone on it?”

  “Yes, Tra La.”

  “Who’s the lucky fella?”

  “It’s not a fella,” said Nels. “It’s Celeste.”

  chapter 9

  A dieu was on Dune Road, at the top of a hill overlooking Seaville and the Atlantic Ocean.

  I expected Eaton, their butler, to answer the door, but he wasn’t on duty.

  Keats’s father did the honors instead.

  “Hello, John.” He was in a dark suit, always.

  “How do you do, sir?”

  Gras, the two-ton dachshund, was growling at my pants cuffs, while Lawrence Kea
ting eyed the suitcase I was carrying, his mouth turned down.

  “So!” he said. “I’m told you’re here to rescue the supper party.”

  “I think I can,” I said modestly. I knew I could.

  “We want to pay you too, John.”

  “Oh, no, sir. I’m doing this as a favor to Keats.”

  “She tells me you do this sort of thing professionally,” said Himself, sticking a hand down his pocket and rattling his change. “I never designed a house for anyone free of charge.”

  I felt like saying, Try it, you’ll like it.

  But he wasn’t the type.

  I said, “I like to cook.”

  “I liked what I did too, John, but I expected recompense.”

  Mrs. Keating came rushing out then like a little bird running down a lawn. She was thin and tiny, always very tan and quick to smile. She had on a long, red dress.

  “Hello, dear. My my, you didn’t waste any time getting here.”

  I was still carrying my suitcase, but I stuck out my left hand and we shook.

  “Speaking of time,” Mr. Keating said, “if we’re going to the Stewarts’ before theater, we’d best get started.”

  “Sweetheart, I have to show John the kitchen and see what he can make of all that shrimp.”

  “Do you have bread and salad greens?” I asked her as we went down the hall.

  “Yes, plenty of both. And luscious tomatoes!”

  “Then don’t worry … Dessert?”

  “We have cookies. We have peaches.”

  “Peaches, good! I’ll do peaches with bourbon. You have bourbon?”

  “Of course…. The help have the afternoon off, but they’ll be on duty again at seven. This is awfully nice of you, John.”

  “Everyone calls me Fell.”

  “I know, but I can’t call someone by his last name,” she said. “And at ten o’clock, for entertainment, we’re having one of those ventriloquists from the convention.”

  “Was that Keats’s idea?”

  “No, we didn’t even think our daughter would be here this weekend. Someone from the club told me about this young Vietnamese. He’s performed at The White House!”

  “Fen,” I said. Fen trying out Plumsie!

  “Yes, that’s his name, dear. I wish there was someone to put your suitcase up in the guest room.”

  “I’ll do that, Mother,” said Keats, rounding a corner wearing an apron and a maid’s cap.

  “Darling, what have you got on? I thought you were cooking the shrimp.”

  “It’s cooked,” she said. “All Fell has to do is shell it.” She took my bag and blew me a kiss.

  “Did Mr. Keating speak to you about payment, John?”

  “He did, ma’am. And I told him I didn’t want any.”

  “Oh, dear, dear, dear. He’d be more impressed if you took something, you know.”

  “I’m not trying to impress him,” I said.

  “Anymore,” she said.

  • • •

  After I shelled the shrimp, I made layers of shrimp, onion, lemon, and parsley in a casserole.

  Keats was assisting me by sitting on a stool waiting to show me something she said was a surprise.

  I’d asked her to let me get things under control first.

  “Shall I preheat the oven, Fell?”

  “This isn’t going in the oven,” I said. I added more lemon and parsley, also tabasco. Dripped some olive oil over that, and topped it with bay leaves. “This will marinate for four hours, then it’s ready to serve.”

  “Men are sexy when they cook.”

  “So are women,” I said.

  “I think I’ve lost it, Fell.”

  “Lost what?”

  “My sexual feelings and my sex appeal.”

  I was cutting little red new potatoes in half, dunking them in olive oil, ready to pop into the oven in a few hours.

  “You’re still sexy,” I said.

  “Don’t be flippant. I’m discussing something sincerely with you, or trying to.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m trying to get dinner ready for sixteen people.”

  “Eighteen counting Daddy and Mummy…. I really mean it, Fell. I’m bored with sex. The whole idea of it bores me. It even repels me.”

  I sighed.

  “You don’t want to hear about it, is that it?” she said.

  “No, that isn’t it…. I feel the same way sometimes.”

  “You do?”

  “I just can’t get interested in anyone.”

  “Ever again?”

  “I hope it isn’t permanent.”

  “I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll never again be really interested that way in anyone. I’ll probably marry someone I like but I hate going to bed with. It’ll be awful, too, because you don’t like to turn down someone you really like, and yet there’s no way you can stand sex night after night when you’re not horny yourself.”

  I recognized a true Keats tirade gaining momentum. Her theme hadn’t changed much. It always centered on her own worthlessness, how she would never amount to anything, blah blah, blah blah. It was the kind of anxiety rich girls suffered from before they jumped into their sports cars and broke the speed limit hurrying somewhere wonderful to shop.

  My own mother, who wasn’t rich, got on the subway and headed to Macy’s when she was upset over anything, too.

  Keats and my mother just didn’t get upset over the same kind of thing.

  “Where is the corn?” I asked.

  “Are you listening to me? … It’s right by your feet, under the table.”

  “Keats, let’s not worry about ourselves tonight. We’re doing good things here. We’re saving your folks’ supper party. Later we’ll see Fen and the famous Plumsie!”

  There were about fifty ears of corn in a box.

  “I’ve had this feeling for a year,” Keats continued. “I haven’t been horny for a year! I don’t even have good dreams anymore. I dream in clichés. I’m flying or I’m falling or I’m shopping in my underwear.”

  Thank God for the now-and-then nights that brought me dreams of Delia.

  Keats said, “Corn is a terrible idea for old people at a party! It gets caught up in their crowns.”

  “Your mom and dad are only in their forties.”

  “Only? Who wants to be almost fifty, Fell?”

  “At least when you’re fifty, this man you’ve married who you like but can’t stand in bed won’t be after you night after night.”

  “There’s that,” she said.

  “Help me husk the corn,” I said.

  “No, I’ve got a surprise, remember?”

  “It’s going to keep you from husking corn?”

  “From doing anything but reading to you.”

  “I thought you were going to assist me?”

  “I put the maid’s apron and cap on. I was all set to. Then I thought I’d better lie down and put my feet up for a few minutes, just to rest … and I opened something to read. It’s a journal I found in the suitcase with the dummy’s things. It was under a shelf in his makeup kit.”

  “I wonder if Little Jack knows about it.”

  “I bet he doesn’t. The Horners didn’t mention it.”

  “It must have been Lenny Last’s.”

  “It’s more like a story, Fell.”

  “It’s more like an excuse not to husk corn.”

  “A story about Lenny Last and Nels Plummer.”

  I made a grab for it. “Let me see that thing!”

  “No. I want to read it to you.”

  “Who wrote it? Is there a name inside?”

  “No name. It sounds like some third party telling about Lenny Last meeting Nels Plummer. It starts at Gardner school, or on the bus going there. I’ve been skipping around a lot. The handwriting’s horrible.”

  “Read it,” I said.

  “Please. “

  “Please.”

  Outside on a chaise, Gras was sleeping on his back, all four paws and long dachsh
und nose sticking straight up.

  Beyond him were a dazzling emerald-green pool, rosebushes, a croquet game waiting on the lawn for someone to play it, and, just over the dunes, the Atlantic Ocean lapping at the beach.

  I promised myself before the summer was over I’d get Mom and Jazzy out to Coney Island or Riis Park for a picnic.

  Keats began to read.

  “‘Ruby is my birthstone,’ Laura said. ‘“Someday I want a real ruby. … Do they cost …”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Who’s Laura?”

  I remembered Mrs. Violet saying how Lenny Last had carried on about her name being Laura, that he’d told her he’d known someone named that, and she was a shrink now.

  “Just listen,” Keats said. “They’re at one of the Sevens’ Sunday tea dances: Lenny, this Laura, and Nelson Plummer himself! I’ll start at the beginning of the entry.

  “It took Sevens to turn the worst part of any weekend into-the best.”

  THE MOUTH

  It took Sevens to turn the worst part of any weekend into the best.

  The Sevens’ Sunday tea dance got under way around four in the afternoon. It went until nine or ten, when the boarding-school girls had to catch the last trains and buses out of Cottersville.

  The basement of Sevens House was transformed into a grotto. The girls were given blue caps with 3+4 in white letters on the peaks, or 6+1, or 2+5.

  Stevie Wonder and The Beach Boys came through the speakers, Bobby Vinton and The Four Seasons, and a new group called The Beatles, singing “Love Me Do.”

  It was at the last Sevens’ Sunday tea, the day before graduation, when Nels got Lenny and Laura to go out back, to the white Cadillac, for a surprise.

  Lenny had worked hard to keep it running well and looking even better. He rented it out for proms and Saturday-night trips to Philadelphia. In winter it had been protected by a shed Lenny’d made for it in the Sevens parking lot.

  After they piled into it, Nels said, “Guess what Celeste gave me for graduation…. Psychoanalysis!”

  “That’ll costa fortune!” Laura said.

  “She’s the moneymaker of the family,” said Nels.

  The late-afternoon sun was starting down in a pink sky. The campus smelled of honeysuckle and roses.