Songs in Ordinary Time Page 49

  Next she called the Wilburs, who were always complaining about Marie’s unraked leaves blowing into their yard. Without a second’s hesitation, Sandy Wilbur said she and Jim would be there.

  Judy Fossi said she’d plan all the food. And beer, they laughed. Plenty of beer to keep the hubbies happy. Dick Fossi, with braces on his legs from polio, would be clerk of the works. It was up to Jessie now to pick a day when Marie would be away. It would have to be a surprise.

  Something like this was bound to make a difference. Not just for poor Marie, but for everyone. The screaming that went on over there was so depressing. It was toughest on Harvey, who’d grown up in a house like that, the trauma of which had kept him single until he was forty.

  Jessie thought it symbolic that she’d met Harvey in a waiting room. She’d been waiting for her mother to come out of the doctor’s office and Harvey’d been waiting to go in. After years of painful joints his knuckles had begun to swell so much there were some days he couldn’t close his hand around his butcher knife or pull the trigger on his rifle.

  Before they met, Harvey’s whole life had been long days at the Meatarama, with just about every weekend spent up at his camp. Now, with a wife and child, he only got to the camp a few times a year. Last spring he’d taken Louis, but they had to come home a day early. Everything had frightened him, snakes and spiders, moonlight shadows, and raccoons prowling on the tin roof. “Skittish,” Harvey had said, lip curled, disappointed, as if his son had somehow failed him, when the poor little boy just wasn’t used to sleeping out in the woods like that. It was the closest she’d ever come to disliking her husband.

  Their worst arguments had been in June, when Louis began crawling into their bed every night, convinced that bad men with knives were trying to climb through his windows. Harvey wouldn’t let Louis go over to the Fermoyles’ after that. Not only was Benjy too old for Louis, but something about the boy had always made Harvey uneasy. He said sometimes when he was working outside he’d look up and find Benjy watching him, which Jessie understood completely. Benjy was a lonely child without any men in his life, and he enjoyed watching Harvey work; it was probably some kind of novelty for him. But Harvey had been adamant; whatever the kid’s problems, he wasn’t going to have his son traumatized by them.

  She had to admit Louis was happier now that he was playing around the block with children his own age, but she felt terrible seeing Benjy alone so much. The poor kid had lost Louis’s companionship and then the dog’s. Well, at least she and Harvey were getting along better now.

  Lately their most sensitive topic was deciding how to invest the money Jessie’s mother had left her when she died last year. In the last six months Harvey’s worsening arthritis had engendered a score of panicky schemes: They’d move to Arizona and buy land. They’d stay here and breed cocker spaniels. He’d build a greenhouse onto the back of the house and they’d raise orchids for florists. She knew their wisest investment would be to buy the Meatarama from Mr. Guilder and hire a butcher to do the work Harvey had done for the last thirty years. But each mention of it only mired him in days of gloom. She hadn’t brought it up since the morning he discovered the dog’s crushed body in the lilac bushes. They’d heard doors slamming across the way and Marie Fermoyle yelling and then Norm’s pitiful bellow, a wounded howl, as outraged as it was contrite.

  Harvey had been at the table with his face in his hands.

  “This isn’t right! Someone has to do something,” she’d said, heading for the door. “Things can’t go on like this! It’s just not right! It’s not fair to anyone!”

  “No,” he’d pleaded, gesturing her back inside. “Don’t! Don’t,” he’d whispered as if he feared being heard. “Because that’s the worst thing. That’s the worst thing of all!”

  Later, when Harvey was filling the grave, Omar Duvall had hurried across the driveways offering to help. But by then there was little left to do. When Duvall had first come, she used to feel a little thrill seeing him go in and out of the Fermoyles’. She liked to think of Marie falling in love, softening, relenting. In the scenarios she played out, Marie wore clingy nylon dresses and bright red high heels. Jessie would do her dishes, gazing at the neglected little house, her knees trembling as she felt the intensity, the passion of Marie’s submission after so many years of loneliness.

  Jessie had done her best to make Duvall feel welcome in a neighborhood where he was so clearly out of place. People were always asking her about the stranger at the Fermoyles’; “the riverboat gambler,” Cyrus Branch called him. At first she’d been intrigued by the white suit, the dark shirt, and the slicked-back hair. Now he gave her the creeps. In conversation he always stood with the close, unblinking scrutiny of someone examining a painting for the flaw only he knew existed.

  That morning Harvey had leaned on the shovel talking to Duvall for a long time over the gouged lawn. Watching through the door glass, she had the strangest feeling that if she looked away something might happen. When Harvey finally came inside, he couldn’t stop talking about the brilliance of Duvall’s new merchandising operation. It just made so much sense, one of those ideas that’s so simple, so obvious, people don’t think of it. She kept washing the same countertop while he told her this was it, the opportunity he’d been looking for, but they had to be careful. Duvall said they weren’t to breathe a word of it to another living soul. She felt a tightening in her chest. Harvey said he could finally be his own boss and set his own pace. What about buying the Meatarama? she asked. He’d be his own boss there.

  He shook his head. Didn’t she get it? Didn’t she understand? He needed more out of life than a little butcher shop. All his life he’d been afraid, afraid of the unknown, afraid to take a chance, afraid what people would say, what they might think. Didn’t she remember asking him once why he couldn’t go out of his way a little to help Benjy Fermoyle? The truth was, he could barely look at that kid, because it was like seeing himself, not just then but now. Scared, always scared. Well, he was forty years old, damn it, and he was sick and tired of being scared.

  The phone was beginning to ring inside the house now. She wiped her hands on her apron. She got up slowly, taking her time, for if she rushed, if she appeared too eager, then she’d be disgusted with herself. She closed the door and took off her apron. She looked at the phone as it continued to ring. If she got it, she got it, whoever he was.

  “Hello?”

  “I been thinking about you.” His husky whisper gave her goose bumps.

  “What do you mean?” She looked around uneasily, even though she knew Louis was still down the street.

  “I been thinking of kissing you. All day long I been thinking of that.”

  “Oh.” She had to clear her throat. Her eyes closed. “I guess you haven’t had a very busy day, then.”

  “I keep thinking of putting my mouth all these different places on you.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, first I start with your feet.”

  “My feet?”

  “Yah. Your toes. I put my…”

  Each part that he named tingled. His breathing was heavy in her ear. Through the window now came another man’s voice: “Attaboy! Attaboy! Eye on the ball now, here it comes, nice and easy.”

  She sighed. It was the strangest feeling, this low voice churning waves of heat through her body while, blurred beyond the window screen, a priest kept throwing a ball to Benjy Fermoyle, who could not catch it. Finally the priest called out that this time the ball was going to hit him, so he’d better not miss. Benjy caught it. “That was great!” The priest whooped and clapped his hands. “That was really great!”

  “And then,” gasped the voice, “I carry you up the stairs and I put you down on the nice white sheets…”

  It was almost closing time when a tap came at the office door. Marie Fermoyle looked up from her typewriter to see Cleveland Hinds peering in at her. He had just dropped Ferdinand Briscoe off after a Chamber executive meeting, and since he w
as passing by, he thought he’d just pop in and say hello.

  She nodded. Omar had made her first loan payment, so that couldn’t be why Hinds was here. Her throat went dry. Renie’s signature. Oh God, that must be it.

  “So how’re things?”

  “Fine,” she gulped. “Things’re fine.”

  “And the family?” He cleared his throat uneasily.

  “They’re fine, too.” This was so humiliating. Oh God, she wanted to die.

  He stepped all the way in now and closed the door. His silver hair shone above his deep tan.

  “Where’s your compadre?” he asked, gesturing at the empty desk.

  “Astrid’s part-time. She only comes in three days a week.”

  He smiled. “Well, that’s nice. Makes things a little more private.” He laughed. “She’s certainly a tinselly kind of gal, isn’t she? Not my type.” She tensed as he picked up her stapler and clicked it a few times, catching the staples in his palm as they fell. “I’ve always admired you, Marie. I mean, really admired you. I hope you know that.”

  She held her breath, preparing for the accusation. Once an admirable woman, she was now a fraud.

  He put his hand on her shoulder. “Do you know what I’m saying?”

  “No,” she lied into his elegant blue gaze. She would not blink or look away. His hand seemed to sink into her flesh, its weight deep inside her bones. I will never do it again, she wanted to say, but was afraid she would start crying.

  “Tell me something, do you like to dance?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Would you ever consider having a drink, then, just the two of us?”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “Oh, you’re much too virtuous, Marie.” He laughed and slipped his hand away in a fragrant breeze past her face.

  “I’m just busy, Mr. Hinds, that’s all,” she said, attempting to roll a fresh sheet of stationery into her typewriter. Her hands were shaking.

  “Not so busy that you’ve forsaken all of life’s pleasures, I hope.” He smiled.

  “Just the ones I don’t need,” she said, then began to type: date, address, salutation. She felt trapped.

  “Well!” he said. “I’d best be on my way.” He opened the door, then turned back. “By the way, how’s the rumpus room coming? I saw Renie the other day, but I forgot to ask him. Are you pleased with it?”

  She stared up at him, her fingers still striking the keys. At the mention of Renie’s name, all color had drained from her flesh.

  “Maybe I’ll stop by and see it one of these days. Make sure you and the bank’re getting our money’s worth. Take care now,” he said with a wink, then closed the door.

  Rumpus room rumpus room rumpus room rumpus room rumpus room, she had typed across the line.

  Robert Haddad turned over the envelope; another warning from the home office on all the unpaid premiums. If they didn’t receive payment in ten days, the policies would be canceled. And he would be ruined. He dropped the envelope into the wastebasket, then stared out the window at the bar, rankled by the unfairness of all that cash just rotting away in Hammie’s cellar. If he could only get back down there, his troubles would be over, but immediately after the break-in, Hammie had had thick iron bars welded across the cellar window.

  Everything had gotten so complicated. Might as well just go home and tell Astrid the truth. Soon everyone would know the terrible mess he was in. At the sound of a car pulling up out front, he backed his chair into the shadow of the file cabinet. He could see the dented front end of Sherman Bloom’s new Pontiac Bonneville. He’d promised Sherm his insurance check for the accident two weeks ago, but then he had to use the money for Astrid’s new furniture, her red-and-silver dinette set and her Hollywood bedroom suite of blond ash.

  “Goddamn you,” Bloom called as he kicked the locked office door. “You no-good bastard! You lying son of a bitch!” Finally Bloom got into his car and drove off in a rattle of loose parts.

  There had to be a way, he thought, watching the barroom door flash open and close across the street. First shift from the wire plant was getting out, and the men were stopping at Hammie’s for a quick one before heading home with their empty lunchpails and grease-stained shirts. Not one of their wives had a glass-topped dressing table and a heart-shaped mirror framed with lights. Why couldn’t Astrid be content with her life? She was going out with her girlfriends practically every night now, and it was tearing him apart. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, nothing he wouldn’t give her.

  The phone began to ring. He stared at it for a long time, then picked it up, answering in a high feminine voice. “Haddad RIFCO! How may I help you?”

  “Is Bob Haddad there? This is Sam Fermoyle calling.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Mr. Haddad is out right at the moment. Sorry.”

  “Okay, look, when he comes, you tell him I don’t want any insurance. I just want the money back I paid him,” Fermoyle said.

  “That would require a notice of cancellation, sir,” he said sweetly. The last thing he needed was Fermoyle barging in here.

  “Well, then, that’s what I want, a notice of cancellation, then.”

  “No sooner said than done,” he piped, holding the phone close as he scrawled his pen across a sheet of dusty paper. “There! All I need now is, uh, let’s see, fifty dollars for the notice of cancellation.” He couldn’t believe his own resourcefulness.

  “Fifty dollars!” Fermoyle cried. “Look, miss, you don’t understand. I just got out of the hospital and I don’t even have fifty cents. That’s why I want the money back I gave Haddad! I’m trying to get a job and I need money, you know, for decent clothes and things, so I can look presentable.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but that’s our normal procedure.”

  “Can’t you take the fifty out of the money I’d be getting back?” Fermoyle pressed.

  “Absolutely not, sir.”

  “So in other words I’m stuck with an insurance policy I don’t even need.”

  “Not something you need, sir; something your children need,” he said in his sweetest voice.

  “What they need right now is money. Look, you tell Haddad, I’m coming—”

  “I told you, sir, Mr. Haddad’s not here!” he interrupted, lips pursed. “I’ll certainly tell him you called, but as I said, unless you bring in fifty dollars for the notice of cancellation, your policy is absolutely ongoing and irreversible.”

  “Christ,” Fermoyle sighed. “I can’t get a break anywhere.”

  “Some days are like that, Mr. Fermoyle. Believe me, I know,” he said softly.

  “Well, thanks, anyway. You’ve been very helpful, and I appreciate that, miss. I really do.”

  “Well, thank you, sir. I’m just doing my job best I can,” Haddad said, staring out at Hammie’s with what, he realized, must be the same desperate longing this poor bastard felt for booze.

  When Alice got up at noon, Benjy was eating a peanut-butter sandwich and drinking Kool-Aid in front of the television. “Father Gannon called,” he said without looking away from the screen. “He said to tell you the time’ll be the same.” He glanced at her. “He’s not coming over here again, is he?”

  “No, it’s about this what-do-you-call-it, this thing he’s doing, this campaign, I think he said. He’s working on it.” She kept clearing her throat. Her face felt hot. Joe had popped in on her yesterday. When he saw how much that upset her, he tried to act as if he’d come to see how Benjy was doing, to throw the ball around in the backyard. Joe had to shoot down every one of Benjy’s excuses before he had finally gone outside with him, and then Benjy had been miserable the whole time. He’d been embarrassed that he couldn’t catch the ball. Joe had found Norm’s glove hanging in the garage, but Benjy refused to put it on. It had been painful to watch. Last night after work she told Joe he was never to come here like that again.

  A commercial came on, and Benjy hurried into the kitchen to put his dish and glass in the sink. Black ants were runni
ng over the countertop, their quarry a bowl of bloated cornflakes. He grabbed the insecticide and sprayed, then watched them curl up, dying in the glistening oily slick.

  “That was bright,” she said. “Now everything’s covered with spray.”

  “I had to kill the ants! Mom said they’re in the walls, they’re all over the place.”

  “They probably are,” she said with a bitter laugh.

  “They were in the tub this morning and she started to cry.”

  “That’s not why she was crying, not over ants. It’s Duvall, that’s what it is. God, I wish he’d just go. It almost seems like he’s got some power over her or something.” She shuddered. “I don’t know, sometimes he scares me.”

  He was staring at her. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know, it’s like he’s just waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?” he whispered, his face white.

  She tried to change the subject, but he persisted. What did she mean, waiting—waiting for what? She explained that it was just an expression, waiting, like trouble waiting to happen. She turned on the water and rinsed the dirty dishes. She was starting to feel that way about Joe, as if there were some pressure building in him, some imminent eruption.

  “Alice?”

  “What?” she asked, surprised to see him still there, biting his thumbnail. He kept opening his mouth, then sighing. “What is it? You can tell me. Come on, Benjy, tell me.”

  “Nothing,” he said so miserably that she turned back to the sink. She was afraid it was about Joe, who was calling daily now. Sometimes it almost seemed as if he wanted people to find out about them. Last week with her in the car he’d dropped off a saw at Saint Dominick’s for Father Krystecki, who walked Joe out to the car. “You remember Alice Fermoyle,” he’d said, touching her arm, causing Father Krystecki to blush as much as she was.