Bingo (13 page)

“Peepbean will pass out blackout sheets so you can study them at home and get the idea. We’ll have a dry run in a couple of weeks and see how we do.” Mutzi cranked up the Ping-Pong ball machine again.

“Do you get it?” Mr. Pierre inquired of me.

“Kind of.”

Louise was turning puce-faced as Mother wove her web around Ed. Bingo couldn’t end soon enough for me. I wanted no part of a fight tonight. I was exhausted. The
Clarion
sale preyed on my mind more than I realized. When Mutzi banged the cowbell
to close the evening I could feel the tension ebb out between my shoulder blades. We’d made it. Mr. Pierre seemed relieved too.

Mother invited me in for a late-night snack. That meant a hot fudge sundae with pretzels. I can’t eat late at night or I have nightmares, but I came in anyway and watched her devour a monstrous sundae. I had a cup of Sleepytime tea while an ecstatic Goodyear played with Lolly. Pewter ignored the dogs.

“He’ll call me before Wednesday. Want to bet on it?”

“I’m not betting with you, Mom.”

“Where’s your sporting blood?”

“Any woman who’s trying to buy a newspaper and makes twenty-four thousand dollars a year has sporting blood.”

“Mmm.” She licked the last heaping mound of fudge off her spoon. “Whenever I have religious doubts I remember the hot fudge sundae.” She leaned back in her chair. “There’s something I want to get off my chest.” She reached in her bra, pulled out her falsies, and threw them on the floor. She whooped with laughter. So did I.

“I thought you looked packed.”

“I want Ed Tutweiler Walters to ask me out. Better a girl has tits than brains, because boys see better than they think.”

B
right but cool, the morning invigorated me. I was awake at six-thirty, fed the animals, and endured a fit of home improvement. I painted the kickboards on my stairwell white. Sometime during World War I the stairs themselves had been painted sky-blue by Cora. I kept them sky-blue. Then I really lost my head and painted the baseboards and quarter-rounds in the kitchen. By now it was nine
A. M
. and I figured I’d buzz by the
Clarion
before going to the stable. Roger Davis had weekend duty this week and I thought I’d pop in and see if he needed any help.

It turned out he didn’t but I did. When I got to the
Clarion
office Roger was embroiled in a huge discussion about the Homearama ad placed by one of our odious local developers. This commercial worthy paid for an Easter insert. The layout, color, and copy were terrific. What Nils Nordness wanted now were little Easter bunnies on the corners of the pages. I winked at Roger and he winked back.

Bucky Nordness, Nils’s brother, sauntered through the door. Bucky, North Runnymede’s chief of police, painted little cars on his fender—like notches on a gun. This was Bucky’s idea of humor. His other peculiarity was that he was much given to conspiracy theories.

“Just the woman I wanted to see.”

“Hello, Bucky. What can we do for you?”

“I’m investigating a weapons incident of March twenty-seventh. That’s Friday a week ago at Saint Rose of Lima’s.”

“Someone steal the collection plate?” I hadn’t heard about it.

“I have it from a reliable source that Mutzi Elliott threatened your mother and aunt with a thirty-eight.”

“Oh, that.” I’d completely forgotten. “Bucky, he didn’t really brandish the gun. He only displayed it.”

“I’ve warned him before about that thing.”

“Mutzi has a permit. He’s very responsible. Besides that, he was a marksman in the Korean War, so he knows what he’s doing.”

“He shouldn’t oughta have it.” Bucky shifted his weight. “I know he’s got a permit but the way you all carry on over there, someone’s liable to get hurt.”

“Have you talked to Mutzi?”

“Yes, I have. He was not cooperative.”

“Sorry to hear that.” Actually, I was thrilled to hear it. Mutzi probably wanted to wrap a string tie around Bucky’s neck and slide the clasp up until his eyes bugged out.

“The pots are getting larger and we’re going to have a giant one for blackout bingo. It’s not such a bad idea for Mutzi to be armed.”

This didn’t go down well with Bucky. After giving me a lecture on the use of firearms and what might happen if they fell into the wrong hands, he wanted to know about blackout bingo. I told him what I could. He allowed as how he’d better be there for that game and I, lying, said that was a wonderful idea. Why, he might even win. Then I tactfully suggested that he drop his inquiry lest Saint Rose of Lima’s suffer undue embarrassment. He grunted and went over to Nils. I left for the stables. Regina wasn’t there, so I drove over to the club.

The club’s proper name is South Runnymede Tennis and Racquet Club. There aren’t enough people here with money to pay for a golf course but we have a lively group of tennis, squash, and platform-tennis players. The real country club, Willow Bend, is north of town. They’ve got a beautiful eighteen-hole golf course, an Olympic-size pool, and composition tennis courts.
However, we’ve got true red clay courts—twelve—and two grass courts, so people who care for the old game come to South Runnymede Tennis and Racquet. We’ve also got two outdoor and four indoor squash courts. Indoor squash and fox-hunting keep us sane in the winters, which seem to be getting worse or else I’m minding them more.

Each clay court is divided from every other court by lovely boxwoods. Every court is also fenced, and great tubs of geraniums and petunias blossom during the summer. The little clubhouse, a cottage really, contains bathrooms, a Coke machine, and a pro shop. Adirondack chairs with cushions dot the outside of the court areas and the grass courts have bleachers surrounding them. Court one, of the clay courts, also has bleachers. Because of the grass courts, fine players from Maryland and Pennsylvania make their way to South Runnymede T & R. During the peak of the season, competition can be fierce, with Jackson usually triumphant, especially on grass.

South Runnymede High practices at T & R. I was captain of the team my junior and senior years in high school, and occasionally when a coach cannot be found within the school, I am pressed into service. North Runnymede High, called The Other Runnymede High by us, practices at Willow Bend, which means they can’t do jack shit on clay. We contrive to play them at T & R but last year the heads of the athletic department put their empty heads together and decided to rotate the matches. Since The Other Runnymede High, colors blue and white, is in another state, these matches are off the books. We do it with football, baseball, basketball, every sport. It’s important to win state in your division but victory means we beat North Runnymede. When I was captain we not only beat them, we annihilated them. How could we lose? Regina and I were number one doubles, I was one singles, she was two. Ursie was three singles and she would have played one at any other school. So it went. Regina and I will occasionally wear our black letter sweaters with our orange “R” in the center to matches against Lodi Spangler and Frances Finster,
the reigning queens over at Willow Bend and before that at North Runnymede.

Many times I would find myself lingering at the club or driving by at sunrise. Perhaps that was because it never changed, while we changed constantly even if we didn’t know it. Or maybe some of us changed and others stayed the same. I was never quite sure, because a person can change inside and if there is no external manifestation, how would I know? Perhaps it was enough that I was changing. I was beginning to measure my life, because now I knew there was an end point to it and I didn’t want to waste my time. As Charles Falkenroth was ready to retire (even though I still didn’t believe it), I was getting ready for more responsibility, for more power in my community. I liked the feeling.

Regina and I finished three sets. We were both terrible, as it was the first time we’d hit since November. As we walked back to the clubhouse I heard a familiar screech. Aunt Wheeze shot up the hill, caromed into the parking lot, and nearly sideswiped Diz Rife’s Aston-Martin Volante. He must have driven in while Regina and I were playing. Normally discreet when it came to his millions, Diz lost his restraint with cars. Louise slammed the door of her Chrysler and inspected the Volante.

“Aunt Wheeze, what are you doing here?”

Regina whispered in my ear: “I’m going in for a Coke. See you later.”

Louise continued to examine the car. “I like this. I could drive this and be happy.”

“For one hundred and forty thousand dollars you should be very happy.”

Her curiosity changed to reverence. “That’s worth more than my house!”

“Mine too.”

“I want to talk to you.”

We sat on a bench on one side of a clay court. Behind me I could hear hitting, grunting, and the familiar sound of tennis shoes sliding on clay.

Aunt Louise wasted no time. “I don’t want you saying anything to Ed Tutweiler Walters about your carryings-on with women.”

If only I had someone to carry on with. If only I had done everything I was accused of doing!

“I’m not going to bring up the subject, Aunt Wheeze. But I’m sure one of the multitudinous BonBons has told him.”

“Verna wouldn’t talk about something like that.”

“Someone will.”

“Well, I don’t want it to be you.” Her voice rose. “This was a respectable family until you came into it.”

“You, of course, walk on water.” I knew she was an old lady but sometimes Wheezie could get my goat.

“That’s another thing. I overheard you making fun of the Pope’s bull about Mary. I’ll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself. You aren’t Catholic and you don’t know what Mary means.”

“I do know what Mary means. I read the encyclical when it came over the wire. John Paul referred to her as the ‘common mother,’ he reinforced the concept of the immaculate conception and the virgin birth, and he stated that when Mary died she was taken up into heaven so her body wouldn’t be committed to earth. I also know it was another way to keep women from being ordained.”

Louise cast a cold stare. “You’re sacrilegious.”

“Why? Just because I happen to think Jews invented guilt and Christians refined it?”

“Are you telling me you don’t believe in Jesus?” Her lips compressed.

“No. I never said that.”

“Good. These are craven times.”

“ Yeah, well, Americans want a Jesus who doesn’t suffer, much less die. He should have bright white teeth, smile a lot, and say, ‘Go for it.’ Also, he shouldn’t look Jewish.”

This stopped her for a moment. “You are sacrilegious.” She
took a new tack. “And I don’t appreciate you talking my impressionable sister into that ridiculous hairdo. Purple hair!”

“Magenta.”

“Never heard of that color.”

“Like a deep, hot purple-pink.”

“Oh.” Wheeze crossed her legs. She was wearing support hose today. “I don’t care what you call it. You stop putting her up to things. She’s too old for that stuff.”

“She’s not too old for anything. And you know as well as I do that no one on this earth can talk Julia Ellen Hunsenmeir into anything.”

“You always take her part!”

“She’s my mother. What do you expect?”

“She raised you. She’s not your mother.”

“She’s the only mother I’ve ever known.”

“Well, sometimes I wish we could find the real one so she could take you back! Now I don’t want you ruining my romance, you hear me?”

“I’m not saying anything about anything.”

She stood up to leave. “Don’t forget my column either. If you get the paper.”

“What did you want to call it?”

“Golden Memories. Silver Thoughts.”

“I thought you were going to write a column of social embarrassments called ‘Was My Face Red.’ ”

“I want to do something with class,” she replied.

“You?”

“You’re such a smartypants. Since you were tiny.” With that parting shot she walked over to her car, got in, and once again endangered the citizens of our fair town. Even mad she was a lady. She wouldn’t call me a smartass.

I sat there feeling as if my psychological carburetor needed repair. I didn’t notice Diz until he sat down on the bench next to me. He was wearing a Fila warm-up suit. In cold weather I played in gray sweatpants and sweatshirt. Those fancy suits like Fila and
Ellesse cost two hundred to three hundred dollars. I can eat for a month on that.

Diz twirled his racquet.

“Nice warm-up,” I said.

“Thanks. Bought it in New York. Nice sweatsuit.” Diz smiled. “I think it’s the same one you wore in high school.”

“A descendant.” I laughed.

“Don’t you ever get tired of it?” His voice lowered.

“Of my sweatsuit?”

“Of Louise, of Juts, of everyone reminding you—”

“Oh, that. Goes in one ear and out the other. Anyway, I remind myself that Moses was found in the bullrushes. I think I was just found in the bull.”

Diz laughed. “Don’t go on any mountaintops.”

“I promise. How’s your game?”

“Getting better. Yours?”

“Rusty.”

“I couldn’t help overhearing. I was in the next court. I hope you don’t think I’m rude,” he apologized, returning to our former subject.