Songs in Ordinary Time Page 59

  “No, thank you,” she’d said. “I think Perda would enjoy it a lot more than me.”

  Late in the afternoon Mr. Briscoe came into Marie’s office. He sat on the edge of Astrid’s desk, his legs outstretched and rigid, his arms folded. He seemed so ill at ease that for a moment Marie thought he’d come in to fire her. But of course he couldn’t very well do that now that Astrid had quit. This morning Marie had been a half hour late for work, and then in her haste to make up for it, she had messed up his biggest ski boot order, which was going to mean a six-week delay in delivery.

  Omar had shown up at ten-thirty last night, his trunk and back seat a jumble of boxes and bottles of detergent that he’d managed to talk the Presto shipping clerk into letting him take early. Thinking it was her shipment, she told Benjy to help him carry it into the kitchen so she could get a head start on attaching the promotional pamphlets. But then Omar said she could only take six of each. “A goodfaith delivery,” he called it, just enough to give her the feel of the product. The rest had to be parceled out among his other distributors. She couldn’t believe it. She had paid a thousand dollars for that? she asked, pointing. Six bottles and six boxes?

  “Your sarcasm is falling on deaf ears, Marie. I’m too tired,” Omar had sighed, fanning himself with one of the shiny brochures.

  Sarcasm! Sarcasm! Try shock, she’d shouted, as he hurried out to his car, then drove off.

  Mr. Briscoe was having a hard time getting to the point. His employees’ financial matters were their own affair and he never interfered. But he was so stunned by what Cleveland Hinds had just told him on the phone that he felt obligated to speak to her. The gray lightless space pulled closer around them. Was it true, Mr. Briscoe was asking, that she had borrowed a substantial amount of money from the Atkinson Savings Bank and had not only missed the first payment, but had made no attempt to discuss the situation with Cleveland Hinds? What could she say, that she thought someone had paid it for her, that Omar had assured her he would take care of it, had promised he would? Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. The kids were right. Every word out of his mouth was a lie.

  Renie was polishing stove tops with a special cream. It smelled of pine needles. He reached up and dabbed some across his throat, then rubbed it in. His clothes reeked of last night’s dinner, vinegary tripe. Bending over his reflection in the gleaming enamel, he wet his fingers and pressed his bushy eyebrows smooth. But nothing was working. Nothing made him feel any better.

  “Hello, my esteemed brother Elk,” boomed a voice over the bells on the opening door. He turned to see Cleveland Hinds. “With all the publicity you’ve been getting I figured you’d be in Hollywood or something by now.”

  “How are you doing, Mr. Hinds?” Renie said as Hinds pumped his hand heartily. Oh to be able to shake a man’s hand like that, he thought, to have such exuberance, such confidence.

  “Busier than hell, Renie. Busier than hell,” he sighed, removing his straw hat.

  “That’s good,” Renie said.

  Hinds ran his hand over the stove, streaking it. He turned a few buttons, opened the oven door and peered inside. Renie’s heart fluttered. It was the deluxe model. “Automatic timer and shutoff,” he said, growing short of breath. “Put in a roast, play eighteen holes, and it’s ready when you’re ready. And this plug here’s for the automatic coffee.” He plugged in the pot that came with the stove. He hoped he remembered all the features. He felt dizzy. “Put in your ground coffee, set it for a half hour before you want to wake up in the morning, and not only does it start itself and perk a wonderful pot of coffee, but it wakes you up to beautiful music.” He twirled a dial, then smiled up at Hinds as the William Tell Overture jumped from the console.

  Hinds took a monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow. “Listen, Renie, I hate to bother you. I don’t want to take up too much of your time,” he said.

  “No bother, Mr. Hinds. Actually this particular model sells itself,” Renie said, straightening up. “Once people get over the first shock of the cost.”

  “The thing is, Renie, there’s a matter that needs discussion. It’s…it’s rather delicate.”

  Renie took a deep breath and reached for his wallet. He’d just give him the money back for his wife’s toaster.

  “Toaster? What toaster?” Hinds said, looking around, and then Renie understood. The bank owned this building and they were probably mad about the paint job. He knew he should have asked them first. And now that it looked so good they were probably going to raise his rent. Maybe they’d found out about the cat. Well, he wasn’t going to get rid of Tom. No sir. He scrubbed Mr. Hinds’s fingermarks off the stove top. They’d have to kick him and Tom both out.

  Hinds held the handkerchief to his temple. He spoke slowly, wincing as if the words hurt. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, it’s of such a confidential nature, but it’s been bothering the hell out of me. It’s Marie Fermoyle, your sister-in-law—well, former sister-in-law. She came in awhile back for a loan. Now as you know, Renie, we’re a conservative institution, and with her situation being what it is, I had to say no.”

  He nodded, though he had no idea what Hinds was getting at.

  “But then because of you, Renie, because I wanted to do the right thing by a fellow brother Elk, I said okay.” His eyes shot into Renie’s. “Well, didn’t she get mad as hell and right up on her high horse, something about a washing machine and how every time it broke down you charged her for repairs.”

  “I gave her the machine at cost,” he said. “And I only ever charged for parts, what it cost me. I’d never try and make a dime off Marie and those kids! They’re family!”

  Hinds held up his hand. “I know that, Renie. You don’t have to tell me. I’m just trying to give you the whole story here so you’ll see what a mess we’ve got on our hands, you and me.”

  “Mess?”

  “You cosigned that note, Renie. You didn’t want Helen to know, remember?”

  Renie shook his head. At the time Helen and Bridget had told Marie the only way they would ever help her was if she took Sam back and stopped the divorce proceedings. Cosigning Marie’s note behind their backs had been the most daring deed of his life. Nothing before or since had ever made him feel so powerful and so good. But then he’d ruined it by acting like a fool the night with the turkey, and Marie had despised him ever since.

  “To make a long story short, if she can’t make the payments, then we have no choice but to sue and put an attachment on the house.” Cleveland Hinds wet his lips. “And of course now with your name on the new loan, and she hasn’t even made the first payment—well, that’s why I’m here, Renie. To see what you intend to do about this.”

  “Me? I never signed for any new loan.”

  “Well, it’s right here,” Hinds said, unfolding a thick document on the stove top.

  “That’s not my name,” Renie said.

  Hinds looked at it. “Of course it’s your name!”

  “I mean how I write my signature,” Renie cried. “Somebody else wrote my name on that. Not me!”

  “Wait a minute now. Just wait a minute,” Hinds puffed as he flipped back through the typewritten pages. “Oh my Lord,” he groaned, laying two forms side by side to compare signatures. “You’re right.” He looked up. “She forged your name! She falsified a bank document, a legal instrument of commerce. She could go to jail for this. She should go to jail, that little—”

  “But when she signed my name, how come you didn’t say anything?” Renie asked, puzzled.

  Hinds cleared his throat, explaining how he hadn’t actually seen the signing because he’d trusted Marie and given her the note to bring here to Renie. “Of course, now I know I never should have let her take the instrument from the bank, but to be honest, in a small town, things like this happen all the time in banking. You bend rules, you go around corners. You try to help people. In the long run it’s usually good business.” Hinds was pacing back and forth. “And damn it, I should ha
ve known, the way she was so nervous and shaky when she signed.” Hinds waved his hand in disgust. “I’m sorry, Renie. This is my fault. I’ll just let the Chief take over now and let the chips fall where they may.”

  “How much is the loan for?” Renie asked.

  “One thousand dollars.” Hinds choked out the words.

  “If you got a pen, I’ll sign the loan.”

  Hinds looked at him. “Are you serious, Renie?”

  “Yah, I don’t want Marie going to jail, do you?”

  “No! God, no!” Hinds had given him a pen.

  He bent over the stove, startled by the cold metal against his belly as he signed his name

  “Believe me, Renie, I won’t forget this,” Hinds said, folding the document. He sighed. “’Course, we’ve still got the problem of the late payment.”

  Renie stared at him. We? He didn’t know what to say.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Hinds said with a wave of dismissal. “I’ll call her. We’ll see what she says.” Hinds patted his shoulder. “I’m going way out on the limb here, but we’ll work this out.”

  “I appreciate it,” Renie said.

  “Well, I know you do,” Hinds said.

  “You’ve always been good to me, Mr. Hinds. Like the loan for all the fans last year.” He smiled, expecting praise for paying that loan off in half the time.

  “And the tax money,” Hinds reminded him.

  “Most of all, that,” Renie said, his stomach suddenly churning with the sense that it might all be connected. Cosigning the mortgage and the humiliating audit with the IRS had both happened the same year, the same year he won the turkey at the Elks’ Christmas raffle and brought it to Marie’s house. It was late and he’d been drinking. He remembered her standing in the doorway in her pajamas looking grateful and confused. She told him how her father had always brought the turkey home the night before Christmas. In the snowy darkness a wild joy had risen in him and he’d staggered closer, seizing her arms and pressing his mouth over hers. She had pushed him down the steps and sworn at him as he ran to his car. Could it have been her, he wondered, Marie Fermoyle, who had turned him in to the IRS? She’d probably collected some kind of a reward, blood money off the one person who cared for her.

  “You’re a good man, Renie,” Hinds said, with an even more vigorous shake of his hand. “A real solid citizen.”

  No, I’m not, he thought as he watched Hinds head down the sidewalk, tipping his hat to the ladies and stopping to shake eager hands all along the bright busy street.

  The next day, Marie stood at her kitchen counter, jaw clenched as she tenderized a chuck steak with a wooden mallet, the red fleshy whack whack whack grimly satisfying. Norm sat at the table telling her and Benjy about the trouble in the park today. It had started with a couple of kids leaning on Joey’s stand and Joey warning them to get away before it collapsed. When a few more kids came and began to taunt him by deliberately shaking the stand, Joey started hurling soda bottles and cans at them. Some of the bottles smashed on the sidewalk, and then when the kids tried to sneak up behind him, he’d turned and thrown more bottles at them as they fled across West Street. Some of the bottles smashed in the road and one even dented the hood of a woman’s car.

  “What a mess,” Norm said. “Greenie sent a crew up, and they had to stop traffic so we could broom all the broken glass. And then Chief Stoner came, and he was talking to Joey and trying to get him to go home in the cruiser, but Joey refused.”

  “That poor man,” she said, flipping over the steak to pound the other side. “That’s what happens. The minute you’re down, the slightest crack they see, they’re all over you.” She knew by their silence they were probably exchanging glances. Let them. Someday they’d know; when the dogs were nipping at their heels, then they’d understand all she’d been through for them. Once again she thought of that goddamn Cleveland Hinds calling Mr. Briscoe about her loan. And that goddamn Omar and goddamn Sam, all the no-good, goddamn bastards, beat the rhythm of the pounding mallet. There wasn’t any kindness in this life. None. None at all.

  “Joey said they’d have to arrest him to make him leave, that he was only trying to protect his property,” Norm said. “And then this lady that lives by the park starts screaming that it’s not his property, that he’s nothing but a charity case and she’s sick of having to see that shack out her front window twelve months a year, and maybe everyone else was afraid to speak up, but she wasn’t.”

  “Wow,” Benjy said. “Sounds like a show or something.”

  “Bastards!” she said, pounding the meat, pounding it, and pounding it.

  “Mom! Mom!” Norm said, tapping her shoulder. “Someone’s here.”

  She spun around, shocked to see Cleveland Hinds in the back doorway. She hadn’t heard him knocking.

  “Hello, Marie,” Hinds said with a smile.

  “What do you want?” She almost hadn’t gotten that out. The nerve of him, coming here after he’d called Mr. Briscoe.

  “Well, I was on my way home and I was going by here…”

  “It’s a dead-end street!” she said.

  “Well, in a manner of speaking, going by. In any event I thought I’d stop by and see how the repairs are coming along.” He glanced up at the stained ceiling, then down at the cracked floor tiles.

  “Norm,” she said, conscious of her sons’ rapt attention. “I need milk.” She pressed the money into his hand and told him to take Benjy with him. “Go,” she ordered, as he stood there staring at her. “Now!”

  They kept looking back as they headed out the door.

  “Nice-looking boys,” Hinds said, loosening his tie and undoing his collar button. He stood by the table, smiling at her. “I’m glad you sent them on an errand. This way we can talk,” he said, sitting down at the table.

  She remained standing. “How could you come here? How do you have the nerve after what you did?”

  “What I did?” he asked.

  “Calling my boss! Discussing my business with Mr. Briscoe! You had no right to do that! You could have called me!”

  He closed his eyes with a sigh, then told her he had taken the liberty of speaking to Mr. Briscoe because he cared about what happened here, and he hoped he might save her any future embarrassment. He took out a cigarette and lit it.

  “You care so much, then maybe I should take the liberty of speaking to Mrs. Hinds to save her any future embarrassment!” She banged the table, startled to see her hand and wrist speckled with bits of raw meat and blood.

  “I’m shocked,” he said, gulping on the smoke he’d just inhaled. His eyes watered. “Shocked that you’d say such a thing. Especially under the circumstances.” He kept clearing his throat. “You may not think so, but what you did is a crime.”

  “What?” She sagged back against the counter. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about signing Renie’s name on the note. That’s forgery, Marie,” he said.

  She opened her mouth, but for a moment couldn’t speak. This wasn’t happening. She hadn’t done such a thing. Had she? Had she? She had tried too hard for too long to be strong, and now she would pay. Merciless, they would swoop down, one by one, pecking, nicking her battered hide until she bled, until she could only crawl, until there was nothing left.

  “Marie? Marie, listen. I’m sure we can work this out.” He got up and stood close to her. “There are ways and ways of meeting one’s obligations. But the most important thing is that we don’t stop communicating. Listen, Marie,” he crooned as she stared up at him, “we’ve got to talk about this, so why don’t we meet sometime next week, oh in some quiet, nonbusiness setting where the two of us can move this thing back and forth a little. And that way, I know what’s going on in your life, and you’ll feel more comfortable dealing with me. What say?” He flashed a grin. “Tuesday? Wednesday? Let’s make it Thursday night! Sevenish. We can meet at the—”

  “What do you want?” she demanded. “Tell me what you want me to do.”<
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  “It’s what I don’t want, Marie. I don’t want to see you in trouble over this. Our connection goes too far back.”

  “What’re you talking about? We have no connection!”

  “Well, you know. Sam, Nora.” He grinned. “You know what I mean.”

  “Get out!” Her hand moved to the mallet. “Get out before my sons come back.”

  It was the next morning, and Omar Duvall lay in Bernadette’s bedroom. The thin plastic window shade sagged with heat. In the other room Bernadette and her daughters were singing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” as she dressed them in bathing suits. The paper sack by the front door contained sandwiches and Kool-Aid she’d made for their day at the lake. He didn’t want to go, but it was a promise he’d already broken twice. At the screech of the little girls’ laughter he shuddered. His legs ached, and his heart was sore, actually tender now as he touched his breast. Each time Roy Gold had promised delivery he’d come away not only believing but inflamed, inspired, convinced that it was only a matter of time before the soap came. It wasn’t enough just to impress Gold; he wanted to dazzle him, and so he had invested most of his distributors’ money and his own. He wanted to be the best franchise supervisor Gold had. He had sold thirty-four franchises, with just about every cent of it going to Gold, and now the man wouldn’t see him, wouldn’t take his calls. His last trip to Westport he had to sleep in his car and slip out on diner tabs, and all he’d come away with was a carful of battered bottles and dented soapboxes, which he had begged from a warehouse worker.

  “Is it because you’re so swamped with orders?” Omar had asked, blowing dust off a bottle.

  “Nah,” the worker had scoffed. “Just one of them cease-and-desist deals. They come shut everything down. A few weeks go by, and we start up again.”

  How had this happened? he wondered. A few weeks! Everywhere he went, people wanted their soap, none more desperate now than Marie. Last night when he tried to make her see how bad things were, when he needed to confide in someone, she’d thrown him out of her house. She was giving him twenty-four hours to either return her money or deliver her soap, or else she was going to go to the police.