Bingo (20 page)

I glanced at Michelle. That was a new note or maybe I never heard it before. I hadn’t expected her to support someone like Representative Schroeder. I figured Michelle for a misplaced Yuppie languishing in the backwaters of Runnymede, where you watch the population progress from fetus to fossil.

“The reason so many men are running for president is they want to make sure they have a job,” Charles said.

I roused myself. “You say that every four years.”

“Every four years it’s true.” Charles went back into his office and Pewter came over to console me. She also took Lolly’s rawhide chew away from her.

“What are you going to do about the story?” A note of sympathy crept into Michelle’s voice.

“Make the rounds. I’ll go over to their law offices, I’ll talk to Bucky, and I’ll talk to David. Better get on it.” The phone rang. Foster Adams’s clear voice snapped me to attention. Could I come over to the bank?

I hung up the phone. “Michelle, I’m on the trail. Will you answer my phone?”

“Sure.”

Foster’s walnut paneling surrounded him. Somehow the office seemed more imposing than Foster. I listened carefully to him, imposing or not.

“… so you see, Nickel, that press is two years older than God.” He smiled with that turn of phrase. “To say nothing of the other equipment—hopelessly outdated, all of it. I can’t put a value
on it. Now the lot and the building, that’s different. Gone up handsomely. Same with your farm.”

“I certainly appreciate your thoroughness, Foster.”

“Thank you.” He swiveled in his chair, got up, and came over to the edge of the huge desk. He sat on it and beamed down at me. “The bottom line is, you’re short. I wanted to tell you before I took this down to Baltimore. Maybe you can come up with more assets, something you’ve overlooked, or maybe you can find a partner or investor. I want to present a strong application. I think you should get the
Clarion
.” He emphasized “should” which was sweet of him.

“I appreciate your support.” I swallowed hard. “How much am I shy?”

“Right about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.” He still beamed at me.

I guess to a banker $250,000 is chicken feed unless it’s owed to them and the creditor bellies-up.

I tried not to let my voice crack. “Let me see what I can do.”

“I’ll be going down to Baltimore April twenty-third. Talk to me before then.”

He ushered me out of his office. As I walked through the main part of the bank building with the huge brass swinging lamps overhead, the brass bars in front of the tellers, the polished marble floor over which my grandmother and my great-grandmother and great-great grandmother trod, the only sound inside my head was “two hundred and fifty thousand dollars!”

My feet headed across the Square toward the Curl ’n Twirl. I wasn’t conscious of my direction. I managed to come back to earth by the time I passed the Confederate statue. I also managed to see my mother rapidly light a cigarette and swoop into the Curl ’n Twirl. She hadn’t even grabbed a magazine when I came through the door. The cigarette looked stapled to her lip. She and Georgette Bonneville were rehashing the events of yesterday.

“Mother, I wish you’d stop smoking.”

“It’s my duty to support the great states of Virginia and
Maryland.” She twirled the cigarette between her fingers. “Now that you’ve been a dutiful daughter tell me what’s the matter.”

“Huh?”

“You can’t fool me. What’s cooking?”

“Oh, Foster Adams called me into his office. He couldn’t have been nicer but he told me I’m two hundred and fifty thousand dollars short. I’ve got until April twenty-third to find the money or an investor.”

Mr. Pierre yelled out from the back room. “Piece of cake.
Gâteau.
”

Georgette offered an idea. “Maybe you’ll win the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes. Then you could buy the town along with the paper.”

What struck me was that Georgette was serious. “I’ll look for the envelope in the mail.” I sat down on a chair.

Mr. Pierre strode out from the back and hovered over me. “Trim, trim, trim.”

“Go ahead.” What the hell. I could go over to Bill Falkenroth and Company after a haircut.

The snip, snip of scissors accented Mother’s comments. She sat in the next chair. As she talked I noticed with mounting alarm the number of silver hairs mixed in with black. They piled up in my lap. Was he trimming me or giving me a crew cut?

“This isn’t your day, honey. Louise won’t let you use her third Chrysler, the perfect one.” She hit on “perfect.” “She’s sorry your Jeep is wrecked. She knows it will take some time to get the insurance money for it but she doesn’t want one scratch on her car.”

“How much?” Simon Legree Hunsenmeir, I thought.

“One hundred dollars a week.” Mother’s reply was swift.

“That old bandit.” Mr. Pierre cut away.

“It’s still cheaper than a rent-a-car.” I sighed. “Tell her seventy-five a week is my absolute top offer. Take it or leave it.”

My entire life was boiling down to my net worth. Why was money in sight but never in hand?

“I’ll tell her. You can pick up the car after work.” Mother switched gears. “Where are you going to get two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?”

“Damned if I know.”

“Why can’t Charles hold a second? Like a second mortgage on a house,” Mr. Pierre suggested.

“He could but I don’t think he would. He and Ann want to take the money and run to Palm Springs. Can’t say that I blame them. Also, right now I wouldn’t ask him for a paper clip. He’s pissed at me because he knows I’m not telling the whole story about David Wheeler and the cannon.”

“Yeah, Mutzi rolled in today looking like death warmed over. Anyway, he wanted to make sure we’d keep our traps shut,” Georgette called out from behind the lilies on the counter.

“Poor Mutzi can’t afford the legal wrath of Bill, Kevin, and Tinker any more than David can.” Mr. Pierre critically appraised my face.

Bill, Kevin, and Tinker were Falkenroth, Spangler & Finster, respectively. There was also young George Spangler working in his father’s company.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Georgette said.

“How about some coral rouge? You need a pickup.” Without waiting for a reply Mr. Pierre was brushing my face.

“Reminds me of Nickel’s little paint box when she was a girl.” Mother played with Mr. Pierre’s tray of rouges and eye shadows.

Anger swirled up through me like lava. “You’re the last person I thought who would bring that up. You threw my paints away.”

A scarlet flash hit Mom’s cheeks. “They were used up.”

“The hell they were!” I was out of the chair.

Both Mr. Pierre and Georgette were astonished. Frankly, I was too.

“You’re soft as a grape.”

How typical of Mother to shrug this off.

“I am not. You threw the paint set out and you knew I loved to paint. More than anything I loved it. I wanted to grow up to be a painter.”

“You used colors wrong.”

“I was seven years old!”

“You’re too sensitive.” She emphatically shut Mr. Pierre’s makeup tray.

“One day I’m too sensitive and next day you tell me I’m too remote. Make up your mind. I know why you threw out my paints. Because my natural mother was a painter. Still is, for all I know!”

Mother’s voice became quiet, frighteningly quiet. “I didn’t want you to turn out like her.”

“Well, I didn’t!” I jumped out of the chair and stormed out of the Curl ’n Twirl. I was behaving like an adolescent and even though I knew it I couldn’t stop myself. I’d even forgotten to pay Mr. Pierre.

Kenny neighed when Lolly, Pewter, and I entered his stall. He was clean for a change, no rolling in the mud today, so grooming sped along. In the background I heard Harmony Yost command her mother to bring her a running martingale. Ursie said, “I’ll be right there, dear.” If a kid of mine ordered me about like that I’d smack her face into next week. Ursie puzzled me. The trivial nature of her ambition drove her constantly. She longed to be a social leader, and failing that, she would get around it by becoming a political leader. Her sublime lack of tact insured that she would singe nerve endings whenever she opened her mouth. She never understood this failing in herself. And how she loved to be in command, secure in the mantle of petty authority. She’d bark out orders like a D. I. on Parris Island, yet she’d let those status-conscious little horrors of hers push her around like a chambermaid. Mom used to say, “If you don’t discipline your children, someone else will do it for you.” Harmony and Tiffany Yost might
coast through college but once out in the real world those two girls were in for a nasty surprise: People did not exist to kiss their ass. The only person they listened to was Muffin Barnes, perhaps because Muffin had what they wanted: riding knowledge.

A further uproar engulfed me as Tiffany discovered her saddle pad was dirty and her hoof pick was missing. Ursie’s head appeared over the stall’s Dutch door.

“Nickel, may I borrow your hoof pick?”

“Sure.” I handed her the instrument.

“Elliwood Baxter’s coming back from Palm Beach today.”

“Great. I’ll be glad to see her.”

Elliwood wintered at the Palm Beach Polo Club west of West Palm, where she knocked the ball when she wasn’t knocking other people out of the saddle. The woman had nerves of ice.

“Hear the rest of the news?”

“No.”

Ursie glowed. “Her eldest daughter joined one of those Eastern religious sects. Guess she’ll shave her head.”

“That’s the men. The women walk around with little cymbals on their forefingers and thumbs, chanting to Krishna. The cult leader’s name is Raj Cohen.”

“How do you know that?” Ursie missed the joke.

“Uh, I made it up. Anyway, I’m sorry to hear that Catherine feels the need to make a flagrant display of her spiritual beliefs.”

“Mother,” Tiffany wailed in the background.

“Just a minute, precious.” Ursie turned back to me. “Notice anything about Regina lately?”

“No. Why?”

“Oh—nothing.”

“Ursie, don’t do that. If you’ve got something on your mind, out with it.”

“I don’t like to gossip.” Said by one who lives for it.

“Anything that concerns Regina concerns me. I have no idea what you’re talking about because she looks wonderful.”

“Always will, that one. I don’t know, I get a feeling. Maybe
something’s not quite right at home. You know how restless Jackson gets.”

“Sure. Every four years he wants to move, or buy a second home, or he goes over to the Porsche dealer in Baltimore and drives cars. It makes Gene crazy. They aren’t poor but they have only so much money. No Porsches for Jack.”

“Yes.” She dragged out the
yes
into four syllables. “His periodic restlessness manifests itself in a roving eye.”

I stood bolt upright and dropped my brush. “Jackson Frost? Come on, Ursie, you don’t know that, and I’ve never heard anything like that about him.”

“You wouldn’t,” she sniffed.

A trickle of sweat rolled down my armpits.” What?”

“You’re practically family. Nobody would tell you or Regina if he was up to something. But I have it on good authority that three years ago he indulged himself in a little fling over in York, Pennsylvania. Regina didn’t know a thing about it but a wife senses those things, don’t you think?”

What if her insinuation was true? I wasn’t the first. I’d kill him.

“Like I said, Gene seems fine to me and I can’t imagine Jack doing anything like that.”

Her voice rose, redolent with false warmth and humor. “Well, dear, of course you can’t imagine anything like that. You have no sense of what goes on between a man and a woman. Blue angels.” She made a motion over her head imitating the jets. “Goes right over your head.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or choke her.

T
he South is finally forgiving Lincoln and registering Republican. I, however, will remain staunchly Democratic. As for Abraham Lincoln, regardless of his sins committed against the South, I never wished him assassinated and today was the anniversary of that wretched day in 1865. Why that stupid joke kept running through my head I didn’t know. You know the one: “Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the show?” Also on April 14, fourteen years later, Alexander Solovieff tried to kill Czar Alexander the Second. April 14 must be the day for assassinations.

I was feeling a bit of an assassin myself because I knew I was going to end my relationship with Jackson tonight. I tried not to think about it as I drove Aunt Wheezie’s Chrysler to the Square. Cars skidded to a halt. Others pulled over on the side of the road and waited for me to pass. At first, this behavior alarmed me. Then it got funny. I’d come up behind someone, toot my horn, and watch them go ape-shit. Then I’d pass and wave and they’d realize it was me. Thacker BonBon just missed a telephone pole, but when he saw it was me he had the good grace to laugh at both of us. Lolly found this exciting. Pewter hid under the seat and ten minutes of coaxing finally convinced her to come out. For a fat cat she could move fast and she burnt the wind getting out of the car. When I reached the steps of the
Clarion
she was washing herself as though nothing had happened.