Searching for Caleb (41 page)

   All in all, Duncan thought the letter sounded disconcerted. As if secretly the family had enjoyed having the two of them ricocheting around somewhere. He had not expected that. Nor had he expected to feel so offended, once he found it out.

   But the wheels were set in motion, anyway, and now they gave notice to the landlord and made arrangements with the movers. ("I'm not hiring a U-Haul," Duncan said. "I don't have Grandfather." But really he was just indulging in his new policy of floating to places. He pictured the Mayflower men hauling out the living room rug by its corners while he remained seated on it, steadily playing forty thieves.) They notified the electric company and the water department, breaking off ties, unplugging all their cords to Caro Mill and reeling them in. They wrote a letter to Meg giving their new address. ("Although," Justine said, "there is no way we can ever let Caleb know . . .") Nowadays when Duncan passed the Blue Bottle he saw an unfamiliar young man established behind the counter, picking his fingernails and gazing idly out the reglazed window with its display of gilded china teacups.

   At Thanksgiving they stayed home, since they would be going to Baltimore anyway in another few days. They ate dinner on the living room floor: a combination pizza that Duncan had bought from a takeout place. "Really you shouldn't have," Justine said. She meant because of the cost; their money was nearly gone. They were living on Bank-Americard. "But it wasn't expensive," said Duncan, "and I thought you liked combination pizzas. I told them to put extra anchovies on. Why aren't you eating?"

   She took a bite. She didn't seem to be tasting it.

   "Isn't it good?"

   "If Caleb were here we'd be taking him to the family today," she said.

   "If he were here, yes."

   "And they wouldn't have liked him."

   He leaned forward and tapped her plate. "Eat," he told her.

   The morning after Thanksgiving Dorcas came to have her cards read. She was considering marrying a movie house owner named Willis Ralph McGee.

   "How do you like the name Dorcas McGee?" she asked Duncan.

   Behind her, Ann-Campbell said, "It stinks."

   "Who asked you?"

   Now that it was cold Dorcas wore a car coat heaped with blond fake fur, but her feet were still in spike-heeled sandals. Blood-red toenails glinted beneath nylon, overrun the next moment by the last of Duncan's forty cards. She moved her toes a fraction of an inch away. "You said I would meet somebody soon, Justine, and so I did," she said. "Now I want to know what kind of husband he would make."

   "Lousy," said Ann-Campbell.

   "Will you hush that?"

   "My daddy, Joe Pete Britt, is not ever going to stand for this," said Ann-Campbell. "Here, Justine, I brung in your mail. There's a bill from Howard pharmacy, a Korvette ad-"

   "Just give it to her, Ann-Campbell."

   Justine set down a roll of binder's twine and took the letters. "Well, here is something from Mayflower," she said. "I just hope they're not putting off the moving date."

   "I hope they do!" said Dorcas. "Just years and years."

   "Here's something from-who do we know in Wyoming?"

   Justine tore the envelope open. Duncan laid down a nine of clubs, which Dorcas immediately stepped on. "Now I don't want to hurry you or anything," Dorcas said, "but me and Ann-Campbell are going out to Woolworth's for a hot fudge sundae and we were just stopping by briefly to get my fortune told."

   "You prick a balloon," Ann-Campbell told Duncan, "and see what number is wrote on it. That's the price of your hot fudge sundae. Could be a nickel. Could be a penny."

   "Is that so," said Duncan. "Would you move your foot a little, Dorcas?"

   "Could be forty-nine cents," said Dorcas. "It always has been."

   "Well!" said Justine.

   They all looked up at her, but it seemed she was reading a letter. She would read for a moment and then look up, then start reading it all over again. "What is it?" Duncan asked her.

   "Well, it's a-"

   He waited, but she went back to the letter.

   "Reason I'm in a hurry is that tonight we have this special date," Dorcas said. "I have a feeling he's going to propose. Now I don't want to answer without knowing what the cards say, do I?"

   "Certainly not," said Duncan.

   "Justine? If you don't want to do it all you have to do is tell me."

   "Look at this, Duncan," Justine said.

   He took the letter, a cream-colored sheet crumpled and gray around the edges.

   November 20, 1973 Dear Justine, I want to apologize for taking so long to write, but circumstances prevented me up until now.

   It was very kind of you to invite me to stay with you. The frankfurters you cooked were delicious, and I shall remember my visit with a great deal of pleasure for a long time to come.

   Love, Caleb Peck

   Duncan laughed-a single, sharp sound. He handed the letter back.

   "It's a thank you note," said Justine.

   "That's right."

   "A bread-and-butter note."

   "That's what they call them."

   "I just want to ask you one thing," Dorcas said. "And I want an honest answer. Hear? Now Justine, you have been putting me off all morning and it's not the first time. Other people have noticed too. Nowadays you just drift the cards down like your heart's not in it. Anything anybody asks you definite, should they do it or should they not, you don't want to reply. You just shuck it off, like. Well, what I want to know is, do you not really care to read the future any more? Are you trying to phase it out? Because all you got to do is say the word, Justine. Not to keep on going with your mind on something else the way you have been lately."

   "What?" said Justine.

   Dorcas looked over at Duncan.

   "Oh, your fortune," Justine said.

   "That's right."

   "Well, let me find my . . ."

   She fetched the straw carry-all, unwrapped the cards from their square of silk.

   "My great-uncle Caleb wrote a thank you note," she told Dorcas.

   "Now isn't that nice."

   "Thanking us for his visit."

   "You can always tell good upbringing, is what I say," said Dorcas, but her eyes were on the cards, which Justine was gently shuffling over and over again. "Aren't you going to want a table to lay those out on? Or you're just going to go on shuffling evermore."

   "Oh yes," said Justine. And they went off to the kitchen, leaving Ann-Campbell behind. Ann-Campbell squatted next to Duncan. "Will Justine let Mama say yes to Mr. McGee?" she asked him.

   "I don't know."

   "Will she tell her to marry daddy again, Joe Pete Britt?"

   "Tune in next week and find out," said Duncan.

   "Huh?"

   "Nothing." He tipped back his head for a swallow of bourbon.

   "Who is this great-uncle Caleb man?"

   "That old guy we had around for a while," Duncan said. "Who is either very dumb or very very smart, it's hard to tell which."

   "If she marries Mr. McGee I might just come along to Baltimore with you all," said Ann-Campbell, edging closer. "I think that might be what's going to happen. Justine will tell her to go ahead."

   "Justine won't tell her anything, don't worry," Duncan said. "She hardly opens her mouth any more."

   But just then he heard her laugh, a clear light sound that startled him, and he looked up from his cards and met Ann-Campbell's speckled green eyes fixed thoughtfully upon him.

   After lunch Justine worked in the yard a while, pulling up yellowed cornstalks. She returned with her face pink. Starchy-smelling air trailed behind her. "Feel," she said, and laid her stinging hands on Duncan's cheek. He drew back. "Doesn't it make you want to get outdoors?" she asked him.

   "Not exactly."

   "Aren't you tired of sitting here?"

   She spun away from him and went off toward the kitchen. A minute later he heard her running water in the sink, clattering dishes, but she must have grown tired of that, because very soon she was back in the living room.

   She stood at the window a moment, and then took a second pack of cards from the sill and settled down on the floor with them, not far from where Duncan sat playing forty thieves. He could hear her murmuring to herself as she laid them out. ". . . the queen of change, beside the king. The wish card, the journey card . . . why so many journeys? Look how far the loved ones are! This is the card for journeys beyond other journeys, I've never had that one before. The card for, what was it?"

   She fell silent. Duncan looked up to find her chewing a thumbnail and staring into space.

   Shortly afterward she left, sliding into an old lumberjacket that used to be Duncan's. She didn't say where she was going. Duncan heard the Ford start up, a burry sound in the frozen air. First he was pleased, but then he wondered if she would keep her mind sufficiently on her driving. He noticed how empty the house felt. There was a strong wind blowing up from the north, whistling through all the cracks. The sky was white, and the room seemed lit by a bleak cold glare that hurt Duncan's eyes. Everywhere he looked there was something dismal to see: packing cases, dry dead plants on the windowsill, a sprawl of tomato-stained pizza wrappings from the day before. He rose and went to the bedroom. He was only planning to rest; he lay on the unmade bed with one arm across his eyes and thought about the turn his life was taking. But then he fell asleep and dreamed about antiques- jewelry that came in clusters and jungles of carved chair legs. Even in his sleep it was impossible to find any space that was pure and simple and clean of line.

   When he woke it was dark. Justine was still not back. He got up and felt his way to the kitchen, where he turned on the light and made himself a peanut butter sandwich. The cat watched him from the stovetop. "So this is what it's like to be grown up!" Duncan told her. She blinked and looked away, offended. He took his sandwich into the living room and settled down again beside his unfinished game. It was clear he was not going to win. Still, he shifted cards doggedly and pondered a choice of moves, munching meanwhile on his sandwich. There was nothing else to do.

   Then the Ford drove up, and a minute later Justine's quick footsteps crossed the porch. When she opened the door he kept his eyes on the cards; she would never guess how glad he was to see her. "We're out of peanut butter," was all he said.

   "Oh, are we?"

   He moved a deuce.

   "I think I'm losing," he said.

   "Never mind." She came to kneel in front of him, a flash of red plaid, and scooped his cards up. Some were left on the rug and some flew out of her hands. "Well, wait a minute," Duncan said.

   "Shall I tell your fortune?"

   She had never told his fortune in all his life. He stared at her. But Justine only smiled-bright-eyed, out of breath, her hat a little crooked-and began laying cards in a disorderly row that she didn't even glance at. "You are about to alter your entire way of life," she said, smacking down some jack or king. She was watching Duncan's face.

   "Yes, well," said Duncan, reaching for his bottle.

   "You are going to become a fix-it man for a carnival."

   He set the bottle down.

   "Your wife will be their fortune teller. You'll have a purple trailer in Parvis, Maryland, and live happily ever after. How do you like me so far?"

   "You're crazy," he said, but he was smiling, and he didn't even protest when Justine spilled all the rest of his bourbon while leaning over the cards to give him a kiss.

   21

   On moving day they got a late start, which was fine because there wasn't that much to move. They were taking only their books and clothes, plus Duncan's spare parts and inventions, packed in a little orange U-Haul van. They were leaving everything else behind. Furniture would be supplied in the trailer. Built in. Justine liked the idea of having everything built in. She enjoyed telling people they were traveling light, and would have thrown away even some things they needed if Duncan hadn't stopped her.

   It was a clear, frosty morning in December, with a sky as blue as opals and a pale sun. Some of the neighbors had come to see them off. Dorcas Britt and her husband Joe Pete, and Ann-Campbell with Justine's cat struggling in her arms. Red Emma, Black Emma, old Mrs.

   Hewitt and her poodle, Maureen Worth from across the street, still in her bathrobe, and Mrs. Tucker Dawcett, who stood a little apart and looked sad and wistful, as if she expected even now to be handed news of her husband's unfaithfulness like a parting gift. Justine went from one to another, setting her face against theirs and giving them little pats and making promises. "Of course we'll be back. You know we will." Duncan was rearranging boxes in the U-Haul, and from time to time he cursed and stopped to rub his hands together. Red Emma threw him a dark, sullen look that he failed to see. "You tell him to bring you on weekends, hear?" she said. "Don't you let him just keep carting you off every which way." She kissed Justine's cheek. Mrs. Hewitt hugged her. "Oh, it just seems like people are always going, leaving, moving on ..."

   "But it's not far," said Justine. "And you can all come visit."

   "In a trailer? In a cow pasture?" Dorcas said.

   "You're going to love it," Justine told her. "We're going to love it. Oh, I can feel good luck in my bones, I know when we're doing something right. Besides, next month it will be nineteen seventy-four. Add all the digits and you get twenty-one, add those and you come up with three. Our lucky number. Did you ever see a clearer sign?"

   Someone pushed a pot of ivy into her arms. Then a rubber plant. She was carrying so much they had to open the car door for her and help her settle things in. "Just put them anywhere," she said. "The front seat is fine." The front seat was already full of food for the trip- Fritos, Cheez Doodles, salt herring and coffee beans and a box of Luden's. This year she was the only person in the car. Though next year, who could tell? She took the cat from Ann-Campbell, and then once the cat was in she had to get in herself and slam the door, fast, and roll down the window no more than a slit. "Ask Duncan if he's ready to start," she said. The clanging of the tailgate was her answer. "Well, I guess I'll be saying goodbye then." For the first time her voice was sad, and appeared to drift out too slowly on the mist of her breath. "We don't want to hit the rush hour." She stuck a cold silver key in the ignition and kneaded her fingers. Hanging from the gearshift knob was a National Safety Council ad torn out of a magazine: cupids with black straps slanted across their chests, I LOVE YOU, WEAR YOUR SEAT BELT. She turned and looked at the cat, who glared at her from behind a begonia plant. "Well, then," she said, and roared the engine up and left, waving her hand out the slit in the window.