Name Games

by Michael Craft

  Neil leaned forward, elbows on the table, to continue the story. “Thad knew exactly what we were driving at—disease and pregnancy—and he addressed our concerns head-on. He actually told us not to worry, explaining that he wasn’t really ‘dating’ yet. But I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.”

  With good-natured skepticism, Barb asked, “What about Miss Kwynn? She’s been around the house quite a bit lately.”

  And again, that questioning look from Pierce. “Who?”

  “I think Kwynn Wyman is just a theater pal,” I answered. “She’s a nice girl too. You should have seen the way she stuck up for Thad last night. When the dating bug does bite, I hope Kwynn’s nearby.”

  “My my,” clucked Barb, rising from the table, “so look who’s playing matchmaker.” Removing a few dishes and her glass, she rinsed them at the sink.

  I had no snappy answer to her comment, realizing that it contained a grain of truth.

  “Leave your dishes,” Barb told us, moving toward the hall. “I’ll clean up after I’ve tapped Mark’s checkbook.” And she left the kitchen to pay some bills, going to my den at the front of the house.

  “Whoa,” said Neil, glancing over his shoulder at the clock, “it’s nearly eight. I’d better head upstairs and get my act together—I’ve got a busy day ahead.”

  Before he could stand, I asked vacantly, “What are you working on?” The reason I asked (I already knew the answer) was simply to keep him sitting there for a few minutes, or even a few more seconds. The mere sight of him was food to me, a source of energy and sustenance. Though I could never get enough, I didn’t deserve him at all. During our four years together, I’d had slips of fidelity—in my dreams and in my fantasies and, once, in a cabin in Door County—but the man in my life stayed in my life. He was a successful architect who had first moved his practice from Phoenix to Chicago to be with me. Then, when my professional wanderlust had brought me north to Wisconsin to run my own paper, he had agreed, with only mild complaint, to an arduous “arrangement” of alternating weekends while pursuing his career in the city. I couldn’t possibly expect him to chuck the prestige and dazzle of his Chicago firm—to uproot himself again just to be with me—but last autumn he had decided to do exactly that, setting up his own practice right here in Dumont, in a converted storefront on First Avenue little more than a block away from the Register’s offices. There in the kitchen, in front of Sheriff Pierce, I reached across the table and took his hands in mine. “What was that project?” A goofy smile betrayed my clumsiness at keeping him in the room.

  He smiled back at me, not the least bit goofy. He made no move to draw his hands from mine and, in fact, leaned an inch or so nearer. “The home office, remember? Cynthia Dunne-Gelden?”

  “Hey,” said Pierce, entering the conversation, “that’s a nice place—out there on county highway B, right?” He swirled the last inch of coffee in the glass pot, considered whether he wanted it, then poured it into his cup. No steam rose from the dark, tepid liquid.

  Neil let his hands slip from mine, answering Pierce, “That’s the one. It is a nice place, but it’ll soon be even better.”

  I explained to Pierce, “The wife is some sort of executive who travels a lot and wants to build a freestanding home office near the house.” Turning to Neil, I asked, “What does she do?”

  “Just…business.” He shrugged. “She’s a vice president for some cell-phone firm based in Green Bay. Lately she’s been spending quite a bit of time at the main offices, but mostly she courts and curries bigger clients out this way. Her territory includes Dumont, which is why she decided to settle here. That was eight years ago, when she married Frank.”

  I asked, “Frank was already here then?”

  “Right,” said Pierce, having spent most of his life in Dumont. “Frank Gelden was born here. He’s about forty, a good five or six years younger than me, so I didn’t know him in school, but the family has been around forever. Frank teaches, right?”

  Having learned this information only twelve hours earlier, I answered, “He’s a molecular-biology prof out at Woodlands. Smart, productive—sounds as if he and Cynthia are a perfect match, though I’ve never met her.”

  “You will on Saturday,” Neil told me, getting up, carrying his cup and a few dishes to the sink. He paused to stretch a runner’s kink from between his shoulders. When it popped, he finished his thought: “She’ll be here at the house, at the cast-and-crew party with Frank.”

  “Great.”

  “Anybody home?” called a younger voice, Thad’s, as he bounded downstairs from his bedroom, shot through the center hall, and appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. “Oh”—he stopped, seeing us—“hi, everybody.”

  “Well, good morning,” I told him, turning in my chair for a good look. He was fully dressed (T-shirt, shorts, hiking shoes), carrying a knapsack and a flat-bottomed wicker basket, looking ready to leave the house. I’d rarely seen him up and at’m before noon when there was no school. I laughed. “Trouble sleeping?”

  “It rained last night,” he announced, beaming.

  Neil folded his arms. “We noticed. So what?”

  “Good for the corn,” Pierce offered lamely—as if any of us cared.

  “Good for the mushrooms,” Thad explained. “Ought to be some great hunting today, so I wanted to get an early start.”

  I smiled through a cringe. Had he been a half hour earlier, he’d have gotten a real eyeload—Neil and me doing our improvised towel dance there in the middle of the kitchen.

  “Morning, hot stuff!” said Barb, returning from the den. Giving Thad a shoulder hug, she asked, “Heading out for fresh fungi? I spotted a few beauties in the park when I was there earlier.”

  He nodded eagerly, ready to bolt for the door.

  She wagged a finger. “Eat first.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, then spotted the platter on the table. “Bagels!” he chimed, then reached in front of me to grab one.

  Barb eyed me with a tight smile, a smug air of conquest. Bending to speak in my ear, she said, “Hook a kid early enough, and he’ll eat anything.”

  I could well recall Thad’s first encounter with a bagel, shortly after Barb’s arrival. He’d looked at the dense, oily roll with an inquisitive, apprehensive expression, poking at the thing with a fork, as if it had hurtled to the table in flames from Mars. “They’re just like doughnuts,” Barb had lied to him, “but better.” To my surprise, he bought that, and before long, he’d acquired a taste for the things. His maturing palate, though, did not sufficiently expand to include cream cheese, which he still couldn’t stomach, so this morning he slathered a half bagel with peanut butter. (In this ongoing rumpus regarding bagels, it goes without saying that lox had yet to be broached.)

  Preferring any topic to the one that wouldn’t die, I said, “Mushrooms in August? I thought they were sort of an autumn thing, like—what are they?—morels.”

  Thad nearly choked (on his you-know-what). He and Barb looked at each other, bug-eyed, then broke into rude peals of laughter.

  I was stunned. Pierce was confused. Neil explained, “I believe the morel is a spring mushroom.”

  “Mark,” said Thad when he had regained sufficient composure to speak, “morels grow in May. You know, ‘May madness’? It’s the morel hunt. They’re the most prized of edible mushrooms, and everyone’s after them.”

  Barb lectured, “But there are delicious species thriving all year long—well, not in winter, of course. But now, for instance, in deep summer, chanterelles and porcini are bustin’ out all over.” She turned to Thad, “Hey, hot stuff, keep your eyes peeled for black trumpets.”

  “The mini-chanterelles?” he asked, taking his field guide from the knapsack.

  “Right. I could use maybe a pound for one of my party recipes, a favorite—”

  “Now wait a minute,” I interrupted, alarmed. “You mean to tell me you’re going to go digging for this stuff in the park, then feed it to a houseful of guests?”<
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  “Mark,” Neil shushed me, “Barb’s a hell of a cook, and Thad’s a studious young mycologist—”

  “But—”

  Thad assured me, “Mr. Gelden’s the best. He’s an expert. He made sure that everyone in Fungus Amongus passed their identification-training sessions. I scored a ninety-four!”

  Good God, I thought, what about the other six percent?

  Neil told me, “Frank is an intelligent, committed teacher. I’m sure his first priority has been to help the kids distinguish between edible and—”

  “Hey,” said Barb, as if something had clicked. “Are we talking about Frank Gelden—forty years old, kinda geeky?”

  We all turned to her. “Well,” I stammered, “he’s a…biologist.”

  “I’ll be damned,” she said, thumping a palm to her forehead. “Frank and I went to school together, in the same class. God, I haven’t seen him in over twenty years. Still the same old nerdy type, huh?”

  Neil, Pierce, and I shared a quick, amused glance. Pierce told her, “No, actually, he’s, uh… he’s a rather attractive man.”

  “Sociable too,” I added. “Very pleasant.”

  “Frank? This I gotta see. We all used to think he was—”

  “You’ll see him Saturday,” Neil told her. “He’ll be at the party. He’s the play’s technical director.”

  Pierce told Thad, “Speaking of the play, I hear you’ve got a hit on your hands.”

  “I sure hope so, Sheriff. We’ve worked real hard on it.”

  Pierce got up from the table. “One last rehearsal tonight?”

  “Nope.” Thad stuffed the field guide back into his knapsack, smiling with satisfaction. “Mr. Diggins says we’re ready. He gave us tonight off, to rest up for the opening weekend. It’ll be nice to stay home for a change—but it’ll sure seem strange not being at the theater.”

  Pierce joked, “Well, at least Jason Thrush will be out of your hair.”

  Thad’s expression visibly soured at the mention of his costar.

  Barb told him, “You can help me clean those chanterelles tonight.”

  “Yeah,” he said, brightening, hoisting his knapsack. “I’m off to the park.”

  “Uh-uh-uh,” Neil reminded him. “You’ve just eaten. What’s next?”

  “I know, I know,” said Thad, sounding put-upon but fully accepting the drill. Stepping to the hall that would lead him upstairs to his bathroom, he quoted Neil, “ ‘One must respect one’s instrument.’ ”

  Pierce looked at me obliquely. Under his breath, he asked, “Huh?”

  I explained, “Theater talk for ‘brush and gargle.’ ”

  “Ahhh.”

  Neil said, “It may sound silly, but it’s a sensible ounce of prevention. The kids have worked so hard—a sore throat could really screw up the show at this point.”

  Thad paused in the hall, considering this. Turning back to us with a cheery grin, he noted, “Jason has had that bad cold for quite a few days now. If it gets any worse, he may not be able to play the lead in tomorrow night’s premiere. How cool would that be?”

  And he blasted upstairs for the ritual cleansing of his instrument.

  Friday, August 3

  BECAUSE NEIL’S ARCHITECTURE OFFICE is located midway between the Register and our favorite local restaurant, the First Avenue Grill, I frequently take a noontime stroll along Dumont’s main street, stopping to meet him so we can enjoy lunch together. On Friday, though, he was booked for a long midday meeting out at Quatro Press, the town’s largest industry, which was founded by my late uncle, Thad’s grandfather, Edwin Quatrain. Because I now sit on Quatro’s board of directors, and because the thriving printing plant seems in continual need of expansion, I had no trouble securing for Neil a contract to assist in these matters on a retainer. Though the work has no glamour, Neil takes satisfaction in doing it well. What’s more, the money is good—a “bread-and-butter account,” he calls it—and the retainer has added considerable security to the iffy period of establishing his practice here.

  That Friday, I walked alone to the Grill in my shirtsleeves; it was too hot for a jacket, so I had left my sport coat at the office. I tugged the knot of my tie and unbuttoned my collar, allowing an extra quarter inch of breathing room. Folded under one arm were that day’s front sections of both the Chicago Journal and the New York Times—since I’d be alone at table, I’d use the time to catch up on the Register’s “competition.”

  Ducking into the shade of the Grill’s storefront awning and opening the door, I felt a rush of air-conditioning welcome me like a hug. Stepping inside the simple but handsome dining room, I paused to button my collar and adjust my tie.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Manning,” said the hostess. “So nice to see you, as always. Your table’s ready, of course.”

  “Thank you, Nancy.” Though I’d eaten here nearly every day (some evenings too) since arriving in Dumont, and though the same woman had always greeted me and seated me, I realized that I knew little about her. I knew, for instance, that her name was Nancy Sanderson, that she owned the Grill, and that she had a special love for food, concocting the daily specials, which were always worth trying. Despite this culinary passion, she had a lean build that made her seem tall, but in fact her always perfect hairdo topped out no higher than my eyes. She was older than I, perhaps in her later fifties. Unlike the rest of the staff (most of them buxom Wisconsin women, all uniformed in crisp whites, like nurses of yore), Nancy dressed smartly, but with little pretense of high fashion; that day, she wore a sensible, summery knee-length green skirt with a matching jacket. I had no idea whether she was a Mrs. or a Miss, as the ring on her finger was of ambiguous design. This lack of basic information was due, no doubt, to her reserved manner. Not that she was stiff or cold—in fact she was highly cordial—but the correctness of her bearing and the formality of her inflections kept personal matters at a distance.

  Walking me to my usual corner table between the fireplace and the front window overlooking First Avenue, she said, “You might enjoy today’s special, a mock chicken Caesar, nice and crisp, perfect for such a hot day.”

  Sitting, I set my newspapers on the far side of the table and draped the large linen napkin over my lap. “Sounds promising. What’s ‘mock’ about it?”

  “I made it with succulent strips of chicken mushrooms, lightly sautéed with wine and shallots, which are then added to the traditional Caesar salad, prepared with freshly coddled egg.” With a gentle smile and a slight bow of her head, she added, “If you’ll forgive my immodesty, it’s quite delicious.”

  Timidly, I returned her smile. “Chicken mushrooms?”

  “I forgot”—she paused for a quiet laugh (which carried a hint of condescension, I felt)—“you’re not from here, are you, Mr. Manning? You weren’t brought up with the traditions of mushrooming that are part of our local heritage. The wooded countryside does indeed seem to yield a special bounty here, and generations of Dumonters have delighted in the hunt’s pleasant roving.”

  Since she’d gotten off track, I asked again, “Chicken mushrooms?”

  “That’s their common name, of course. They’re also known as sulphur shelf, or more correctly, Laetiporus sulphureus. Strikingly beautiful, orange-tinted, they grow in overlapping clusters, or ‘shelves,’ along logs or tree trunks. They fruit most abundantly right now, in the deep of summer. I harvested these myself, just this morning. The texture and flavor are remarkably similar to chicken.”

  I’d heard the same thing said of rattlesnake, but I assumed Nancy would not appreciate this observation, so I refrained from sharing it. “That sounds wonderful, but I think I’ll take a look at the menu first.”

  “Certainly. I’ll send Berta over to take your order in a few minutes. Shall I bring some Lillet while you consider your choice?” She was referring to a pleasant French aperitif stocked at the request of the Register’s retired publisher, Barret Logan, also a Grill regular. Since I’d bought his newspaper and taken over his standing lunch
reservation, it seemed appropriate to adopt his “usual” as well.

  But the hot weather made me wary of alcohol, so I answered, “Thank you, Nancy, not today. Just iced tea, please.”

  As she bobbed her head and slipped away, I made a show of opening my menu for careful perusal, but I knew the offerings so well that I didn’t need to read them—I’d have the steak salad and, depending on what was fresh that day, perhaps some berries for dessert.

  Setting the menu aside, I reached for the Chicago Journal, pushed my chair back a few inches, and began reading the folded paper, resting it against the table’s edge. Skimming the headline story—another Cook County ghost-payroll scandal—I was momentarily drawn into the world of big-city politics that had once consumed my interests but now seemed so remote. With a silent chuckle of surprise, I turned the page, realizing that I didn’t miss my old reporting career at all, not even its high profile or busy pace. There were other rewards to enjoy—right here in Dumont—such as the day-to-day pleasures of an ordinary life with Neil, such as the wonders of watching Thad mature into early manhood.

  “It was Thad Quatrain,” said a nearby voice, breathy and secretive.

  My head jerked up from the paper. Had I really heard Thad’s name, or had I merely imagined the name popping from my thoughts?

  “My God,” said another lowered voice, another woman, barely able to quell her excitement. “You mean they fought? They actually fought?”

  “They were rolling on the floor together,” the other assured her, “knocking over furniture. Thad threatened Jason. The whole rehearsal came to a standstill. Denny Diggins could barely maintain order.”

  Unfolding the paper and raising it, I turned, peeking around the edge of my makeshift camouflage. At an adjacent table, two middle-aged ladies lunched, their noses inches apart, each of them pinching icy shrimp tails, gnawed to the husk, plucked from a shared shrimp cocktail. I recognized neither woman, neither the source nor the listener, and from the confused and faulty account of Wednesday’s rehearsal, it was apparent that neither of them had been there. This was mere gossip, secondhand at best, embellished and mutated in the retelling.