“I’ll keep two eyes on her,” Junior offered generously.
“Okay,” said Marvin. “But you gotta promise me one thing.”
“What, sir?”
“About Miss Tessier.”
“Yes, sir?”
“I wanna see dust coming from that whore’s heels at all times.”
“I’ll keep her walking,” Junior had promised.
Junior reached out a hand to touch Thelma, but no one was in the bed with him. He sat up and looked about the small room.
“Thelma?”
He found his pants and slipped into them. He pulled on a bulky sweater and slid his feet into slippers. Goddamn cheap-ass Pinkham could at least install a telephone in the room. What if there were an emergency and Junior needed a phone desperately, only to discover Albert not at home? And even if Albert were home, Junior mistrusted that German shepherd. He looked as if he might have been Hitler’s own personal guard dog. And he seemed just as two-faced as Albert Pinkham.
Outside on the cement walkway, Junior found Thelma. She was lounging behind the wheel of the big Cadillac, sunglasses on, staring straight ahead at the Albert Pinkham Motel. When Junior opened the door, the smell of gin wafted out. It was barely morning and she was already plastered.
“Thel?”
“Wha’?’ asked Thelma.
“Come on back inside, sweetheart,” Junior said. “It’s nippy out here and you’ll catch a cold. Come on now.” Thelma squinted her eyes. Come on now. Come on down, Thelma Parsons Ivy of Portland, Maine!
“Come on, Thel, feel your arms. Aren’t you cold?”
“Cold?” Thelma asked quizzically. They were supposed to ask her how much a can of pinto beans cost compared to a bottle of Windex. They were supposed to ask her how much cars, and skillets, and vacuum cleaners cost. What was this “cold” business?
“Come on,” Junior urged, and tugged on her thin arm. Come on down! Then she remembered. This wasn’t Bob Barker, the host. This was Junior Ivy, the cheat.
“No!” Thelma shouted. “Can’t you see that I’m very, very busy?”
“Let’s go in, hon,” Junior tried again.
“No!” screamed Thelma. “No! No!”
“Damn her,” Junior thought. If it wasn’t his mistress, it was his goddamn wife.
“Thelma, get to hell out of my car,” he said as quietly as possible. But it was loud enough that Bruce soon got into the action. Suspicious, he trotted around Junior’s creamy Cadillac. After depositing a half pint of dark yellow urine on Junior’s expensive and beloved hubcaps, Bruce began to bark.
“Will you shut up!” Junior shouted.
“I will not,” said Thelma, and began to weep.
“I was talking to the dog,” Junior said, and tried to calm his wife. If Thelma caused him to lose his funeral business, so help him, Junior would kill her. He’d have no place to lay her out, granted, but he would kill her.
“I said I was talking to the dog,” Junior said again. “Quiet down now.”
“See?” Thelma cried. “I can’t even tell when you’re talking to me or to a dog!”
When Albert Pinkham came outside to check on the commotion, Thelma was weeping loudly.
“What’s going on?” Albert asked as he calmed Bruce’s barks with a few loving pats.
“Nothing,” Junior said, and yanked Thelma out of the Cadillac by her bony arm. If he had known what was going to eventually develop, he’d have pulled her back into number 1 before she had the opportunity to become hysterical.
“My wife jammed her finger in the car door is all,” Junior explained. He dragged Thelma by the arms over to the cement sidewalk and waited to catch his breath.
“Therefore, she can’t walk?” asked Albert, as he and Bruce watched the citified goings-on. If he lived to be a hundred and ten, Albert Pinkham would never figure metropolitan folks out. Nor would he want to.
“I want my television set!” Thelma screamed. “Give it back! Give it back!”
“What?” asked Junior, startled.
Albert Pinkham had seen fussy tourists in his day, as had Bruce, but here was a grown woman weeping and kicking her feet on his cement walkway because he, the proprietor, had seen fit to keep the modern nuisance of television out of his establishment.
“I live to learn,” Albert muttered as he watched the fracas.
“I want my TV!” screamed Thelma. She knew very well why Junior had dragged her to the northern hinterlands and stuck her in a primitive motel room. He was jealous of Bob Barker. And Thelma would have driven back downstate, would have driven with the incoming dawn all the way to Portland, to Bob, had it not been the keys to her little yellow Corvair she had been trying since 7:00 a.m. to insert into the Cadillac’s ignition.
“I can rent you a radio,” offered Albert in what he thought was a burst of generosity. He didn’t want to kick these nitwits out again, at least not during the dry times he was experiencing. “Same price as a hot plate,” Albert said. “Buck fifty a day.”
Junior ignored the offer and instead concentrated on pulling Thelma across the walkway. He’d left the door to number 1 ajar, and now he kicked it wide open.
“I’d watch what I kicked,” Albert said, as sternly as he could risk.
Junior backed into the room, his arms firmly locked around Thelma, his eyes on her flailing feet.
“By the way,” Albert said to Junior, “there’s the matter of Miss Tessier’s bill.”
As the color left Junior’s face, Thelma burst into laughter.
“You mean she charges him?” she cried.
Junior thought he had dropped Thelma, but when he emerged from his three-second blackout, she was still in his arms.
“I’ll be right back,” he said to Albert. Then he kicked the door shut in the owner’s face.
“I’d watch what I kicked,” Albert warned again as Bruce growled. Then they went back into the house, where Bruce could chew on the ham bone from last night’s boiled dinner and Albert could read the Bangor Daily News.
Junior got Thelma undressed. He fumbled through his shaving kit and came up with the little bottle of sleeping pills Dr. Phillips had given him for emergencies such as this.
“Keep her off the Valiums, whatever you do,” he had told Junior. “But see she gets some rest. Give her a couple of these only if necessary.”
By the time Junior came back with a glass of water, Thelma had already passed out and was snoring.
“What the hell do you mean?” Junior spit the words into Albert Pinkham’s astonished face. “Where did you get that name? Who put you up to this?”
Albert stepped out on his front steps, closed the door behind him, and surveyed Pearl McKinnon Ivy’s son with a steady eye.
“I’d calm down if I were you,” Albert suggested, a bit of April’s ice in his words. “Now just what is it you want to know?”
“Who told you my secretary’s name?” Junior hadn’t calmed down.
“She did,” said Albert. “Who else? She also said that since this was a business trip, you’d be paying her motel bill.”
“I don’t believe you,” Junior said.
“Then why don’t you ask her yourself?” said Albert, and pointed to the car that had just roared off the main road and pulled to a squeaking halt in front of the motel. Junior felt his breath catch up fast in his chest, as though a heavy punch had been thrown there. It was the blasted Buick, with Monique behind its wheel. Junior saw Cushman’s Funeral Home disappearing on an ice floe, far down the thunderous Mattagash River.
“Jesus H. Christ,” he muttered, as Marvin Randall Ivy III, his own son, Randy, popped out from the passenger side with a bottle of Coke in his hand.
“Hey, Dad!” Randy shouted, his eyes bristling red from his own drug of choice. He scratched his crotch, rearranging a few of the living burrs he’d broug
ht from Portland. “Like, you’re not gonna fuckin’ believe who I ran into, man.”
SICILY AND PEARL RATTLE THE GHOSTS IN THEIR CLOSETS: BOY MEETS GIRL
“In Mattagash, A.A. means Avon Anonymous. You ever seen how addicted some women is to that stuff?”
—Bob Mullins, Edna-Bob’s husband
“Have you noticed anything strange around the old homestead?” Pearl asked Sicily. They sat together in Sicily’s kitchen, catching up on the happenings in their lives. It had been years.
“Strange?” asked Sicily. “Not that I know of. But, Pearl, there’s been so much strange stuff happening right under my own roof that I doubt I’d be able to recognize strange elsewhere.”
“I see,” said Pearl.
“What do you mean by strange?”
“Just strange.”
“Pearl, I’m glad you’re here,” Sicily said. “I’m about to go straight through the roof. What am I going to do?”
“I don’t know if there’s anything you can do,” said Pearl. “I remember how I felt when Junior married Thelma.”
“How is Thelma?” Sicily inquired.
“Don’t ask,” said Pearl.
“It’s impossible to talk to Amy Joy,” Sicily said, and stared at her hands. “The past few days she’s been getting things ready at the church, picking this up, dropping that off at the gym for the reception. So help me, Pearl, I’ve thought of everything from giving him poison to offering him money. But the truth is that I don’t have enough of either one.”
“Poor Sissy,” soothed Pearl. “What heartache our children can bring upon us. But you don’t know the half of it yet. Believe me,” she said. “Thelma’s added twenty years to my life. You’ll see.”
“And she’s not even, you know,” said Sicily, “in the family way or anything. I checked the wastebasket in the bathroom and I know this for a fact.” Pearl made a face. Sometimes it was better to be the mother of a son.
“I tell you,” Sicily vowed, “I’m at my wits’ end.”
“Well,” said Pearl. “What’s his family like?”
“Who knows?” Sicily shrugged. “From what I understand they’re no happier than me about it, although I can’t imagine why. But Amy Joy told me that Jean’s mother is all bent out of shape.” Sicily paused. Bent out of shape. What would she pick up next from Amy Joy besides high blood pressure?
“This has actually caused me some physical illnesses,” said Sicily sadly. “I don’t know how much longer my bladder can hold out, or if it’ll ever be right again. All night long I’m going to the bathroom and that’s just for a few drops.”
“What was it you came down with when Marge wouldn’t let you marry Ed?” Pearl asked, her brows knitted in question. Sicily paused, then took a deep breath. After all these years, Pearl McKinnon still had a bone to pick, and worse yet, she was turning into the spitting image of Marge.
“I didn’t come down with anything, Pearl,” said Sicily sternly. “Good heavens. You’ll make me sound like a hypochondriac.”
“Well, what was it, then?” Pearl pushed. “I remember it was some stunt. Well, no, I didn’t mean stunt, what I meant to say was, oh, what was it?”
“I bought a bag of rat poison,” Sicily said at last.
“Rat poison!” Pearl laughed and squeezed Sicily’s hand as though they were sharing the joke. “That’s it! And you stayed in your room, not eating a bite of food. And every time Marge checked the bag, she noticed more poison gone! What did you do with it, Sissy? Did you throw it out the window at night? Did you hide it in your chamber pot? Marge and I never could figure it out.”
Sicily’s eyes turned hard. “How old were you when you imagined you saw that woman-ghost?”
“Imagined?” Pearl asked, and thought for a moment. “You mean to tell me, after all these years, that you never believed me?”
“Well,” said Sicily. “I mean, for heaven’s sake, Pearl. What was it you claimed she asked? ‘What time is it?’ That’s pretty farfetched. Ghosts don’t care about time.”
“Claimed?” asked Pearl.
“Did I say claimed?” Sicily looked surprised.
“‘Are you my child?’” Pearl bit off each word. “Now what in hell is wrong with asking that?”
“Oh, nothing,” said Sicily. “Except that you weren’t her child and it would seem like any self-respecting ghost would know that.” At Pearl’s sharp intake of breath, Sicily made herself busy at the sink.
“Speaking of children,” Pearl said, “how many do you suppose Amy Joy will have? Them Catholics, remember, end up with families as big as baseball teams. And the kids all look like little dachshunds.”
Sicily leaned against the sink. Perhaps she should ask Pearl how Junior’s oldest daughter was, the one with the crotch problem, even in public. Or maybe she could let it slip now, instead of after the wedding as she’d planned, that Winnie Craft had turned up on Sicily’s sofa one day not so long ago with a clipping from the Portland Telegram. Surely the Marvin Randall Ivy III of Portland who was arrested on marijuana charges must be someone else. Surely, Sicily would tell Pearl, Portland must be chock full of boys named Marvin Randall Ivy III. But before any more bickering could be done, Amy Joy strolled through the kitchen with Lola Craft at her heels.
“Hi, Aunt Pearl,” she said.
“Hello, Amy Joy,” said Pearl. “Boy, don’t you look like the blushing bride.” Pearl glanced quickly at Sicily, who frowned.
“This is Lola,” said Amy Joy. “My maid of honor.”
“Speaking of such,” Sicily said, “I told Amy Joy she should ask Junior’s daughter, the oldest one, to be a bridesmaid. But then we realized the dress probably wouldn’t fit her right, what with the way she’s built. What do they call that malady, anyway?”
Pearl searched her purse for a tissue and pretended not to hear this. Amy Joy went on through the living room and up the stairs with Lola Craft.
“That’s a complete lie,” she told Lola when they were out of hearing distance. “I’ve no idea why Mama said that.”
***
Pearl and Sicily were back on better terms by the time the Ivys officially gathered at Sicily’s house for a visit. It was to be a joyous time, a lull before the hectic wedding, when the bride and groom could spend a few hours with their own families before they bade them adieu. It was Saturday afternoon. Jean Claude would be off enjoying the stag party given by his brothers. As female stag parties were still light-years from Mattagash, Amy Joy had planned her own merriment at home.
“We got pizza now in this part of the world,” Sicily bragged to Pearl’s family. Marvin, Junior, and Thelma sat on the sofa where Jean Claude had so cleverly danced just the evening before. Pearl filled the recliner and Randy thumped down on the bottom step of the stairs, now free from vomit. At each opportunity, his fingers found their way up to his crotch and he relieved some of the itch, which was constant now. Junior appeared to be more pale and tense than Thelma, who had awakened from a well-needed sleep only an hour earlier, remembering nothing about secretaries at the Albert Pinkham Motel. Lola Craft appeared again, having promised Amy Joy she would.
“I have to,” Amy Joy said when asked why she was spending her last Saturday night on earth as a free woman with her mother and those Portland relatives.
“They’re icky,” protested Lola. “Let’s stay up here in your room and drink this.” She pulled a bottle of already mixed screwdrivers out of her overnight bag.
“I know they are, but Mama is upset enough as it is,” Amy Joy said, and examined her silver streaks in the mirror. “I don’t want her to go off the deep end at the last minute. And this get-together is her idea. Do you like this lipstick shade?”
What Lola really liked she discovered as soon as she and Amy Joy descended the stairs into Sicily’s living room.
“Hey,” said Randy, as Lola sat a step above him. “H
ow’s it goin’?”
“Okay, I guess,” Lola laughed. How did she get this lucky? A city man!
“Amy Joy,” said Sicily. “What do you think of sending out for pizza? Pearl can hardly believe we got pizza up here in Mattagash.”
“You gotta order at least five big ones or they won’t deliver,” said Amy Joy. “And you gotta buy your Pepsi at Betty’s Grocery here in Mattagash.”
“On holidays,” said Lola Craft, “you have to place your order a day early or you don’t get nothin’ delivered.”
“Sometimes it’s cold ’cause it comes all the way from Watertown,” said Amy Joy. “You gotta put it in the oven all over again.”
“On New Year’s Eve you can forget it,” said Lola. “Petit Pierre’s Pizza will only deliver around Watertown ’cause they get so many calls they can’t handle them all.” She looked at Randy and blushed.
Junior had listened to all of this. It was obvious the territory was crying out for a little pizza competition. It was true that his mother had once wanted to combine the funeral home with a beauty salon and everyone had laughed. But a pizza joint, well, that was a hearse of a different color.
“Well, we’ll order five large ones, then,” said Sicily. No matter how hard she tried, she always came off looking like a country mouse in front of the citified Pearl. “Get them with the works, Amy Joy, and whoever doesn’t like whatever can pick it off. Yes, Pearl, we get pizza delivered right to our front door.”
“You ever get stoned?” Randy whispered to Lola Craft.
Not much further was said among the gathered. There had been more laughter when they had gathered that rainy September day in 1959 to plan Marge’s burial. Now spring found them back at Sicily’s, thawed out from a long winter, ill at ease with themselves, and without much merriment for the occasion. Sicily was numb with pain over the nuptials. The Ivys didn’t care if Amy Joy married an Arab. Junior was numb with disbelief at seeing Monique Tessier in Mattagash. Thelma was numb from the Valium. Pearl was between fear over seeing ghosts the night before and anger that Sicily disbelieved her. Amy Joy was full of a bride’s tension, and the warning voice of logic, which rarely spoke to her. Marvin watched Pearl and Junior and Thelma and wondered what would happen to his family if anything should happen to him. Randy and Lola eyed each other. It was one of those rare things that could only happen in movies or in Mattagash, Maine. It was a case of love at first sight. Lola finally looked away, and when she did, Randy took the opportunity to rake his fingers quickly across his genitals.
A Wedding on the Banks Page 21
