The Winchesters

by James Lincoln Collier

  She looked at me seriously. “Because you can't. There's going to be a strike and there are already hard feelings. In town they're going to say that if you're not with them, you're against them. Uncle Foster and Skipper and Ernest and the rest of the Winchesters are going to say the same. There isn't any way you can stay neutral, Chris. There isn't a chance of it.”

  “Maybe the strike won't last too long.”

  “It won't matter. There's going to be bitterness.”

  I didn't say anything. Then I said, “I'm getting tired of the Winchesters telling me what to do.”

  She shook her head. “Chris, you've got to understand that institutions run things. Large corporations, departments of government, big universities, publishing empires—these large institutions have the power, and they control the money. People who rise high in major institutions have the wealth and the power. The rest don't. If you're going to rise, you have to follow the rules of your institution, in your case the Winchester Mills.”

  “Suppose I don't want to do it? Suppose I want to do what Dad did?”

  “Chris, in the end you have to do what will make you happiest in your life,” she said. “I wouldn't want you to go into the company if it was going to make you miserable. No, if you're not comfortable with the idea, you shouldn't do it.” She looked at me seriously. “But how are you going to know if you like it or not if you don't try it?”

  CHAPTER 11

  Skipper and Uncle Foster were very busy with the negotiations, and I didn't see much of them. But a couple of days after I'd had my talk with Skipper, Durham drove down to the gatehouse in the pickup truck and left off a stack of books—Huckleberry Finn, Great Expectations, The Mill on the Floss, stuff like that. They were already taking it for granted that I was going to private school, and they were going to be pretty shocked if I told them I didn't want to do it.

  I hadn't talked to Marie for four or five days—not since Mr. Scalzo had told me not to come into the store anymore. That was a long time for us to go without talking to each other. I missed her. I missed talking to her, I missed seeing her, doing things together the way we did before. But I was nervous about calling her up, because of everything. Finally I decided to stop being nervous about it and I called her.

  Luckily she answered herself. “It's Chris,” I said.

  “I thought you were mad at me,” she said.

  “Did your dad tell you he said I couldn't come around to the store anymore?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He wants me to break up with you.”

  I didn't say anything but sort of held my breath. She didn't say anything, either. I said, “Are you going to?”

  She didn't say anything for another little bit, and then she said, “Chris, I can't talk,” in a low voice.

  “Mr. Melas won't let me go around there, either.”

  “He said that?”

  “It turns out he's a big friend of Benny Briggs's father. Mr. Briggs was over there, and he was getting ready to punch me.”

  “Mr. Briggs was over at the Melases'? What was he doing there?”

  Suddenly I remembered about the shovel and them digging behind the garage. I'd forgotten all about that, what with everything else I had on my mind. “I don't know. It was kind of funny. He and Mr. Melas were out in the rain, digging behind the garage.”

  “Maybe it had something to do with Mr. Melas's roses.”

  I decided I didn't want to think about that stuff anymore. “Probably. Listen, Marie, how about coming over tomorrow afternoon? There's something I want to talk to you about.”

  “Don't you have to work for Durham?”

  “Not anymore. That's part of what I want to talk about.”

  So she said she'd see if she could take some time off from the store and come, and she did. She came up on her bike about noon, with her bathing suit and a package of Genoa salami. She was wearing pink shorts and a white blouse, and she looked as cute as could be. I was glad to see her.

  “I brought some salami,” she said.

  “I told the twins we'd take them swimming.” We went into the house. I got out a loaf of bread and we made some sandwiches. Then we changed into our bathing suits, collected the twins, and went over to the pond. Marie and I had a swim, and then we sat on the needles under the pines and ate the sandwiches while the twins splashed around near the bank where the water was shallow.

  “So,” she said, “what did you want to talk about? How come you don't have to work for Durham anymore?”

  I was kind of nervous about how she would take it, but I had to tell her. “My grandfather wants me to go to a private school. He doesn't want me to go to Everidge High. That's why I don't have to work for Durham anymore. He wants me to concentrate on my studies, and he sent me a whole pile of books to read while I'm waiting to go to school.”

  She gave me a long look. “You mean you're going away to school, like your cousin?”

  I looked back at her. “I didn't say I was going to go. I only said they want me to.”

  She sat with her legs crossed, looking at me. “I suppose your mom is all for it,” she said.

  “She wants me to do it.” We looked at each other and I said, “I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I'm going to let you down, just like your dad said.”

  She looked down at the ground, picked up a handful of pine needles, and threw them down again. “Like goes to like, my dad said.”

  “My dad didn't go to like,” I said. “He married my mom, remember.”

  “But you're all Winchesters now,” she said. “It doesn't matter what your dad did—you all turned back into Winchesters.”

  “Marie, please don't get sore. I didn't say I was going to do it. Let's just have a good time.”

  She didn't say anything. Then she looked out across the ponds, across the lawn beyond, to the big house. “What's it really like to be rich, Chris?”

  I shook my head. “I don't know. We're not rich. We live in a little house, and Mom sleeps in the living room on a convertible. Your folks don't have to sleep in a living room on a convertible. Mom works and I work—at least I did—and we live like anybody else in town. We live like you and the Melases and the Briggses and everybody else.”

  “Yes, but you're part of it. You know what it's like.”

  I shook my head. “I don't think you ever really know what it's like to be rich just by watching it. I think you have to experience it yourself. I mean, you look at my cousin Ernest. He doesn't think about being rich very much. He just goes along like everybody else—you know, doing his homework and going out for teams and going to parties and so forth. But there's something about him that's different. The whole time he's been growing up he's known that he's supposed to be at the top. He's supposed to have command over other people. He doesn't think about it—he just knows it.”

  “What about you?” she said. “Aren't you supposed to be heading for the top, too, now? Aren't you supposed to be in command of other people? For instance me, and Teddy, and Benny Briggs. Someday you'll be able to take away our jobs, our homes, everything.”

  “Quit it, Marie,” I said. “Don't start that. I'm not supposed to be in command of anybody yet. Maybe I never will be. I haven't decided to go to private school yet.”

  She didn't say anything. Then she said, “I'm sorry, Chris. But it seems like they're going to take you away from me. They don't think I'm good enough for them, do they?”

  I didn't want to answer that. “Marie, even if I decided to go to private school, there's no guarantee that I would end up with a big job in the mills. You have to prove yourself first. You see what happened—the minute my grandfather decided to send me to private school, he gave me a huge stack of books to read. If I go to private school, I'll have to study hard and get good grades, and be on teams and all of that. If you're a Winchester, you're supposed to be good at things.”

  “What about your cousin's sister? What's her name? Does she have to prove herself?”

  “Sure. But it's different.
She's supposed to become cultivated.”

  “What's that?”

  “Art and the ballet and museums and stuff. Her mother is always taking her down to New York on vacations. They stay at some big hotel and go to Carnegie Hall and the ballet and the theater. They shop for clothes and things. When she grows up, Anne is supposed to be able to have conversations with senators and famous writers and the presidents of corporations. She's supposed to know what's fashionable, and be stylish and put on dinner parties and all that.”

  “But suppose she doesn't want to go to the ballet and museums. Suppose she hates ballet and likes baseball or fishing. Suppose she wants to be a lawyer or something.”

  I thought about that for a minute. “Well, I guess if she really wanted to be a lawyer, she could. But I think the way she sees it is that she's training for being rich, and knowing famous people. They're always having the governor or somebody to lunch. My aunt and uncle go to the White House sometimes. Skipper knows the President—he knew him a long time ago, when he was just a congressman. I guess Anne figures it's worth it to go to the ballet and museums. It's sort of her job.”

  She went on looking at the big house. “Boy, what a feeling it must be to know that you're going to be rich when you're grown up.”

  Uncle Foster's Porsche came around the corner of the house from the stable. Ernest was with him. They went down the driveway and disappeared onto the road. I wondered who else was home. Skipper was bound to be at the mills, worrying about the strike. “Well, I don't know what it feels like. I never expected to have any of their money, at least up until now, and there's still a good chance I won't get it.”

  She looked at me curiously. “You mean, you'd give all that up?”

  “My dad did.”

  She shook her head. “Not me,” she said. “No way. If it was me I'd study ballet and go to art museums or whatever they wanted me to do. I'd do anything for the chance to be rich.”

  “What about your folks?”

  “Oh, I'd buy them a big house in the suburbs and give them plenty of money so they wouldn't have to work anymore.”

  Was Mom right? Did Marie really hope that I'd be rich and marry her? Was that why she liked me? “Marie, what would you think if I told my grandfather I didn't want to go to private school? What would you think if I told him I just wanted to be an ordinary kid and grow up to be an ordinary person—you know, become a librarian or a scientist or get into social service of some kind?”

  “What would I think?”

  “Yes.”

  “I'd think you were crazy to do that. Why would you want to give up a chance to be rich? Who would want to do that?”

  I looked down at the ground and picked up a handful of pine needles. I was beginning to think that Mom was right. Marie had got this dream in her head that maybe someday, somehow, she would be living in that big house. Sitting there, letting the pine needles run through my fingers, I had a lot of trouble fitting the Scalzos and the Winchesters together in my mind. Mr. Scalzo didn't have any idea of how Uncle Foster lived and what he thought, any more than Uncle Foster understood Mr. Scalzo. Uncle Foster thought he understood the Scalzos, but he didn't. For example, he took it for granted that Marie would have sex with anybody who asked her, which was totally untrue. What would happen if I married Marie? Would they take her into the family? Or would they disown me? I was beginning to think something I'd never thought before: How would Marie fit in with the Winchesters? Could she learn to be part of a family like that? Now that we were talking about it, I could see that it wasn't just learning about the ballet and which kind of china to buy. The Winchesters had a whole way of thinking about things that Marie didn't understand. They didn't believe they were lucky to be rich and able to tell other people what to do—they thought that they had a right to it. In fact, now that I thought about it, I could see that the Winchesters believed that they and their friends were actually different from people like the Scalzos. They would never have admitted anything like that, but it was true.

  “Marie,” I said, “would you like to go up to the house and see what it's like in there?”

  She gasped. “You mean we could do that?” I was kind of nervous about the whole idea, because I didn't know what Uncle Foster or any of them would think of my bringing somebody up there. But it didn't seem likely that any of them were there. Besides, what could they say? If anybody caught us, I'd say that I wanted to show Marie the portraits of my ancestors, or something. They were my ancestors just as much as they were theirs, weren't they? “Sure,” I said. “Only we better change out of our bathing suits.”

  We took the twins back to the gatehouse and left them with Mom, and changed into our clothes. Mom said, “Where are you two off to now?”

  I gave her a look. “I'm going to take Marie up to the big house and show her around.”

  Mom nodded, but all she said was, “I see.”

  We walked up the driveway holding hands. I didn't say much, from being nervous, but Marie was excited and kept talking all the way about how funny it would feel to have servants and be able to tell them to do this and do that; be able to go to France whenever you wanted, just like that; and never to have to worry about money, ever.

  We got to where the driveway circled in front of the big door, and I started to lead Marie around to the side entrance. But then I stopped. I wanted her to get the feeling of going in through the front door. We went up the main steps. I swung the door open, but Marie had turned around and was looking back down the driveway. I could tell she was pretending she was greeting some guests coming up the driveway.

  We went into the entrance hall, with the big stairs and the painting by Winslow Homer. Marie stood there looking around. “Wow,” she said. “Does your aunt come sweeping down those stairs the way they do in the movies?”

  “I guess so,” I said. “If she feels like it.” We went into the living room. Marie stood there looking around at the huge old-fashioned sofas, the tables with magazines neatly lined up on them, the big marble fireplace with the birch logs in it.

  “Oh, boy,” she said. Then she sat down on one of the sofas. She sat there kind of stiff, her back straight and one arm lying on the arm of the chair. “Jeeves, bring me some more tea,” she said.

  I laughed. “His name is Edwards.”

  “All right,” she said. “Edwards, I think I'll have some ice cream and cake, too.”

  After that we went into the big dining room. She looked down the long table, ten chairs on each side. “Holy smoke,” she said. She counted the chairs. “Twenty. Do they ever have twenty people over at once?”

  “Sure,” I said. “More than that, sometimes. When they have all the cousins for Thanksgiving and Christmas, they have to set up another table. You should see the cars parked out front. Nothing but Lincolns, Cadillacs, Rolls-Royces.”

  “How can they pass the food with a table that long?”

  “They don't pass the food, Marie. Even if it's just them, the maids serve.”

  “You mean like in a restaurant?”

  “No,” I said. “They come around to each person with platters and dishes, and you help yourself. You're not supposed to start eating until the hostess is served, so she gets served first and puts her fork in her food as a sign she's started. That's so everybody can eat as soon as they get their food.”

  Suddenly Marie went to the end of the table, pulled out a chair, and sat. She looked up at the portraits on the walls. “Who are all those people?”

  “My ancestors,” I said. “That's my great-great-grandfather and my great-great-grandmother. That's my great-grandfather there.”

  “I don't even know who my great-grandfather was.”

  “Uncle Foster says that a gentleman knows the maiden names of his four great-grandmothers.”

  She went on looking. “Maybe someday your picture will be up there, too.”

  “Uncle Foster hasn't even got his picture up there yet.”

  “Oh,” she said. She looked up the line of empty c
hairs and nodded to one of them. “Senator, how about some more beets?” she said.

  I heard a noise. I looked up. Skipper was standing in the doorway, looking at us. I began to blush. Marie jumped up. “I was just showing her around,” I said.

  Skipper sort of flicked his cane a little. “Introduce me to your friend, Christopher.”

  I was still blushing. I knew that the gentleman should be presented to the lady, unless it was the President of the United States or something. I decided not to take a chance. “Skipper, this is Marie Scalzo.”

  Marie went up to my grandfather and shook hands. “Glad to meet you,” she said.

  “How do you do,” my grandfather said. He looked at Marie for a minute. “Christopher told me you were pretty. I can see that he was right.”

  She blushed. “I don't know if I'm so pretty.”

  “And do you live in town?” Skipper said.

  “You mean Everidge?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, we live there. Up on Mechanic Street. My dad has an Italian grocery store there.

  Maybe you've been there.”

  “I'm sorry, but I don't think I have. And do you have brothers and sisters?”

  “I have a little sister. And my big brother, Frankie. He wants to quit school and go into stock car racing, but my dad won't let him. My day says he's got to finish high school.”

  “Your father's right,” Skipper said. “You can't get anywhere without an education these days. It was easier in my day, but with the role computers are playing now, it's essential to have some training.”

  “Oh, I don't think Frankie would be any good at computers. If he just graduates, my dad will be happy.”

  “I see,” Skipper said. “And you, Marie? What are your plans for yourself?”

  Suddenly she frowned. “I'm going to go to college,” she said. She'd never talked about going to college before—Mr. Scalzo would have trouble affording it.

  “Oh?” Skipper said. He looked down at the floor for a moment and flicked the cane again. “And what do you plan to study, Marie?”

  She licked her lips and took a quick look around the room. Then she looked back at Skipper. “I'm going to study art. And ballet,” she said.