Bingo (23 page)

I interrupted. “You know what I wish? I wish you had started out like me. I wish I knew how far you could get on your own. You and I would be better off.”

He came close to me. “You don’t think I’ve never wished the
same thing? No matter what I do in this world no one will ever give me credit for it. Not even you.”

I moved a half step closer to him. I was maybe three inches from his face. “You’re right. It’s hard to separate the man from the money but I can try. What I can’t do is give up the
Clarion
. She may be inefficient, as you have pointed out. She may be overstaffed. But she’s ours. She’s the voice of our little, unimportant town and I don’t want her any other way. Maybe individuality is a luxury but I’m willing to fight for it.”

I walked out of the room, and to my surprise, Diz followed me. “Nickel, think about it.”

“No.”

He opened the door for me and lightly touched my forearm. It had the effect of holding me. “Why do we always wind up on the opposite sides of the fence?”

I placed my hand over his hand. “I don’t know.”

Driving back to Runnymede, I forced myself to concentrate on the road. My mind scattered like buckshot. I thought of Diz’s intense eyes. I thought of Jackson. I thought of my stomach, which the last few days had been throwing a nervous hissy every time I ate. I thought of Aunt Louise’s Chrysler, which felt solid under my hands like my own past. I soon thought of Aunt Wheezie’s own car, because a mile out of town she zoomed at me from the opposite direction. What I remember is she had huge light-pink plastic bags in the back and Ed Tutweiler Walters in the front. She swerved away from me at the last minute and went off the road onto the shoulder. I slammed on my brakes, and as I did, I heard a popping sound. I rushed out of the car to see Aunt Wheezie fighting her way out of her car, which had mysteriously filled with popcorn. As there was a lot of static electricity in the air, my illustrious aunt had popcorn stuck over her body. So did Ed T. Walters. I know I shouldn’t have but I laughed. I bent over, I was laughing so hard.

“I coulda been killed!” Aunt Louise shrieked at me—this
coming from a woman who braved two car thieves in Emmitsburg and didn’t bat an eye.

I hastened over to the car and the be-popcorned Ed. “Does that thing still run?” I indicated the car.

“No, but I do.” To my shock, Ed began running down the road away from us. This only made me laugh harder.

Aunt Wheeze took her purse, also white, from the car. She had to dig for it and she hit me hard over the head. Then she started hitting me everywhere. Well, by now Ed came back. That was his idea of a joke and my idea as well. Louise saw things in a different light. “Don’t you laugh at me.”

“Stop hitting me!”

“When you stop laughing, you ungrateful brat.”

“Look at Ed.”

She got her first hard look at Ed. The purse went slack in her hands. She glared at me. She glanced back at Ed. It was a valiant fight but Aunt Wheezie lost to her own sense of humor. She began to laugh. We laughed so hard we had to sit down by the side of the road.

I caught my breath. “What were you doing with a car full of popcorn?”

“Taking it out to Sonny and Sister Bonneville. They’re having a church party for Grandma and Grandpa Bonneville. I cooked up a mess of it and I put it in those thin big plastic bags, the see-through garbage kind. When I went off the road they ripped and went all over the place.”

Ed picked popcorn off him. “Do you know I haven’t had this much fun since I was a kid? I’m sure glad I came up here to visit my family.”

Aunt Louise melted and appeared suddenly grateful for the accident.

“How come you swerved when you saw me?” I knew her driving was atrocious but there wasn’t another car on the road.

“I didn’t know if I was coming or going. I saw the Chrysler
bearing down on me, you see, but I forgot I gave it to you—just for an instant. Well, it blocked my bowels.” She blushed. “Excuse me, Ed. A turn of phrase.”

“It may have blocked your bowels, Louise, but it damn near scared the shit out of me.”

If I’d said that, she would have swatted me again. Instead she started to laugh and then he laughed and I laughed and for a few moments I forgot about the paper and remembered to be glad I was alive on this spring day with my loony old aunt and her boyfriend—well, kind of boyfriend.

M
aundy Thursday has been one of my favorite days since I read
The Divine Comedy
. I was fifteen at the time. Dante, writing at age thirty-five, feels he has reached the halfway point of his life and this happens on Maundy Thursday. Also, I know that Easter is only three days away, and I’m one of those people who likes Easter far more than I like Christmas. Surely the Devil invented the Christmas card.

This Maundy Thursday, I rose at six-thirty, fed Pewter and Lolly, worked out, and prepared my approach to Charles Falkenroth, who was still displeased with me. By the time I returned to the office yesterday Charles had left and although my concern was of dire importance to me it might not be of dire importance to him. I am a great respecter of other people’s priorities and schedules.

Mother is not, and at seven-thirty she called. “Work out yet?”

“Just finished.”

“Steer clear of my sister today. She’s been so mean that she’ll break a stick just because it has two ends.”

This Southern expression seems to make no sense except to other Southerners.

“Thanks for the warning—and what did you do to her?”

“I like that! I did nothing. You know how irrational she can get. I think she’s still addled from her episode in the car yesterday.”

“Maybe she’s trying to be good but having one of her bad days.”

“I don’t care if she can fart popcorn! Wheeze is childish and I don’t want to be bothered with her. I’m not even sure I want to be bothered with you.” Mother hung up.

In her mind I had taken Louise’s part against her by suggesting Louise was not the lowest wormfucker that ever lived. So now Mother was mad at me and my aunt was lurking out there in Runnymede with her own grudge. It wasn’t even seven forty-five yet, and I prayed this beginning was not an indication of things to come.

Fortunately the morning picked up steam. I caught Charles the minute he strolled into his office. I told him everything that happened between Diz and me concerning the
Clarion
. Then I flat-out asked him to carry a note for $250,000. I explained that he’d be walking away with a great deal of cash, and holding a note was not such a bad investment at eleven percent interest for ten years with a balloon at the end. After I exhausted what I thought were good reasons, Charles stood up and put on his hat and coat.

“Let’s go.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Foster Adams. I don’t know what your chances are but I’m willing to take a shot at it, even if you did fudge on a story to save a friend.”

Foster accepted our idea and promised to make a strong presentation in Baltimore on April 23. The day appeared to be leveling off into a solid, productive one. When we got back to the office my phone rang and I picked it up. It was Louise, burning. I flatly told her I could not talk to her and I would call her after work.

We were in our daily editorial meeting. John was ripping up Roger’s idea about an article on taxing church property. Most people don’t know why church property is exempt from the rolls and Roger thought it might be interesting to explain, again, what our founding fathers had in mind. I didn’t think John’s criticism was fair but I tempered my desire to get even with him when he
outlined his proposed series on real estate developers and alleged kickbacks to zoning board members. Charles, as usual, leaned back in his chair, his bow tie untied, and offered suggestions or politely batted down ideas. Michelle had become fascinated by bingo and wanted to expand her piece.

In the middle of this, Aunt Louise charged through the front door. “Nickel Smith, get out here!” She startled us.

I stuck my head out of Charles’s door. “I’m in an editorial meeting. You’ll have to wait.”

“Family is more important than work.” The veins in her neck bulged.

Lolly barked and Pewter scampered out of sight. My aunt was on the verge of a rampage. I turned around and Charles made a shooing motion with his hands. I was excused from the meeting and Aunt Louise was all mine.

I closed the door behind me and walked over to her. “Now, Aunt Wheezie, you can’t do this to me.”

“I can do anything I want.” She swung at me with her purse, her favorite lethal weapon. “Ed’s taking Julia out tonight by herself and it’s your fault.”

“Put that purse down. I am not talking to you about anything until you put it
down
!”

The purse, bald in spots from wear, was placed on my desk but, I might add, within easy reach should she want to whack at me again. “Now tell me what this is about.”

“Ed doesn’t want to go out with me. Not since I ran off the road yesterday and that was your fault.”

“There wasn’t another car on the road.” “I don’t care.” She pouted. “I saw myself coming and going. I told you that. It scared me. I thought I was in the twilight zone.” “Hey, I’ll take you over to Mojo’s for an early lunch. You’ll feel better.”

“No. Half the BonBons are there and they know Ed’s going out with Juts. I’ll be humiliated.”

“Aunt Wheezie, he’s being courtly to both you and Mom. You’re making too much of it and you certainly aren’t being humiliated.”

“Ha! You weren’t the one with popcorn covering you head to foot. I tell you the lights were on in the kitchens of Runnymede over that story.”

“Come on, it’s not that bad. He laughed.”

“At me!”

“At the situation.” I scribbled a note and put it on Michelle’s desk telling her that I was at the drugstore with Wheezie. “We’ll get a fountain Coke.”

“I’d like a strawberry ice cream soda.” She was weakening.

“Okay.” I handed her her purse.

She said in a small voice, “It’s because she’s younger and prettier. Julia’s the pretty one.”

“That’s nonsense.” I suspected that Mother
was
a bit prettier than Louise. “Besides which you told Ed you were younger than Mom.”

As I escorted her to the drugstore I wondered about Ed Tutweiler Walters. Both Mother and Louise worried me. I liked Ed. He sure was handsome, and in his youth he must have been devastating. They were nuts about this guy who showered them with politeness, but I didn’t take his attentions seriously. They did. I don’t know what it’s like to be old. I hope I get to find out but I think being an old heterosexual woman can be very painful. This volcano of emotion over Ed showed me how lonesome the Hunsenmeir girls were. After a certain age—maybe the middle forties or fifties, I don’t really know—men turn to younger women, and their own generation of women is left out in the cold. It’s cruel but it’s a fact. I never thought of Mom or Wheezie as old or unattractive but I saw them nearly every day of my life and I had learned to love—and occasionally hate—them for what they were, for the unique individuals they were. An outsider, a man, saw a package, not the person. How many years had they felt
snubbed or pushed aside? Mother generated more male attention than Louise, but in Runnymede people went two by two like the animals toward Noah’s ark. There weren’t any men available to either of them, except Mr. Pierre, and I was grateful he was gay. Had he been straight I think they would have killed each other over him. What were they going to do to each other over Ed? Half of me wanted to laugh at Louise for displacing her fury on me and half of me wanted to cry, it was all so desperate.

After lunch I went back to work, calling for quotes on zoning variances on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. I’d wanted to write a time-frame breakdown of the alleged Iran-Contra deals but gave it to Michelle instead. She deserved the plum and I can’t say that I wasn’t interested in zoning.

Ursie, wearing a chocolate-brown suede skirt, high suede boots, and a suede jacket to match her skirt, swept through the front door. I was afflicted by her presence as she towered over me.

“Give me a second here, I’ve got Tinker Finster on the line for a zoning quote.”

She dumped papers on my desk as Tinker, a true lawyer, hedged his bets by saying that we had to maintain our town’s integrity while fostering growth.

The receiver was not in the cradle before she started. “I forgot to give you these.”

“What are they? ”

“The scores, division by division, of the Hanover ‘A’ show.” An A-rated show was more important than a B-rated show, and riders wanting to move up in the world of hunter-jumpers needed points from “A” shows to do so. Many of our hunt club members or their children rode in these shows.

“Ursie, why’d you wait until now to give this to me? The newsletter gets printed tomorrow.”

“Because Harmony’s music recital was Monday and then
Tiffany’s horse threw a shoe and I had to spend hours on the phone with the caterer for our alumnae meeting. I forgot. It won’t happen again.”

“It can’t happen again, because I’m the person now collecting the information. Dammit, I did the layout last night too.”