'Owen, it's me,' I said; I felt Hester gasp behind me. It had suddenly occurred to her-Whom Owen thought he was speaking to.
'It's me, and Hester,' I added, because it occurred to me that the figure of Hester standing behind me, and appearing to loom over me, might also be misunderstood by Owen Meany, who was ever-watchful for that angel he had frightened from my mother's room.
'OH, IT'S YOU,' Owen said; he sounded disappointed. 'HELLO, HESTER. I DIDN'T RECOGNIZE YOU-YOU LOOK SO GROWN-UP IN A DRESS. I'M SORRY,' Owen said.
'It's okay, Owen,' I said.
'HOW'S DAN?' he asked. I told him that Dan was okay, but that he'd gone to his dormitory, alone, for the night; this news made Owen very businesslike.
'I SUPPOSE THE DUMMY'S STILL THERE? IN THE DINING ROOM?' he asked.
'Of course,' I said.
'WELL, THAT'S VERY BAD,' Owen said. 'DAN SHOULDN'T BE ALONE WITH THAT DUMMY. WHAT IF HE JUST SITS AROUND AND STARES AT IT? WHAT IF HE WAKES UP IN THE NIGHT AND HE SEES IT STANDING THERE ON HIS WAY TO THE REFRIGERATOR? WE SHOULD GO GET IT-RIGHT NOW.'
He arranged his flashlight in the flowers, so that the shiny body of the light was completely blanketed by the flowers and the light itself shone upon the mound. Then he stood up and brushed the dirt off the knees of his pants. He closed his prayer book and looked at how the light fell over my mother's grave; he seemed pleased. I was not the only one who knew how my mother had hated the darkness. We couldn't all fit in the cab of the granite truck, so Owen sat with Hester and me on the dusty floor of the flatbed trailer while Mr. Meany drove us to Dan's dorm. The senior students were up; we passed them on the stairwell and in the hall-some of them were in their pajamas, and all of them ogled Hester. I could hear the ice cubes rattling in Dan's glass before he opened the door.
'WE'VE COME FOR THE DUMMY, DAN,' Owen said, immediately taking charge.
'The dummy?' Dan said.
'YOU'RE NOT GOING TO SIT AROUND AND STARE AT FT,' Owen told him. He marched into the dining room where the dressmaker's dummy maintained its sentinel position over my mother's sewing machine; a few dressmaking materials were still spread out on the dining-room table; a drawing of a new pattern was pinned down flat on the table by a pair of shears. The dummy, however, was not newly attired. The dummy wore my mother's hated red dress. Owen had been the last person to dress the dummy; this time, he had tried a wide, black belt-one of Mother's favorites-to try to make the dress more tempting. He took the belt off and put it on the table-as if Dan might have use for the belt!-and he picked the dummy up by her hips. When they were standing side by side, Owen came up only to the dummy's breasts; when he lifted her, her breasts were above his head-pointing the way.
'YOU DO WHAT YOU WANT, DAN,' Owen told him, 'BUT YOU'RE NOT GOING TO STARE AT THIS DUMMY AND MAKE YOURSELF MORE UNHAPPY '
'Okay,' Dan said; he took another drink of his whiskey. 'Thank you, Owen,' he added, but Owen was already marching out.
'COME ON,' he said to Hester and me, and we followed him. We drove out Court Street, and the entire length of Pine Street, with the trees blowing overhead and the granite dust stinging our faces on the flatbed. Owen whacked the truck cab once. 'FASTER!' he shouted to his father, and Mr. Meany drove faster. On Front Street, just as Mr. Meany was slowing down, Hester said, 'I could drive like this all night. I could drive to the beach and back. It feels so good. It's the only way to feel cool.'
Owen whacked the truck cab again. 'DRIVE TO THE BEACH!' he said. 'DRIVE TO LITTLE BOAR'S HEAD AND BACK!'
We were off. 'FASTER!' Owen shouted once, out on the empty road to Rye. It was a fast eight or ten miles; soon the granite dust was gone from the floor of the flatbed, and the only thing to sting our faces was an occasional insect, pelting by. Hester's hair was wild. The wind rushed around us too forcefully for us to talk. Sweat instantly dried; tears, too. The red dress on my mother's dummy clung and flapped in the wind; Owen sat with his back against the cab of the truck, the dummy outstretched in his lap-as if the two of them were engaged in a half-successful levitation experiment. At the beach, at Little Boar's Head, we took off our shoes and walked in the surf, while Mr. Meany dutifully waited-the engine still idling. Owen carried the dummy the whole time, careful not to go very far into the waves; the red dress never got wet.
'I'LL KEEP THE DUMMY WITH ME,' he said. 'YOUR GRANDMOTHER SHOULDN'T HAVE THIS AROUND TO LOOK AT, EITHER-NOT TO MENTION, YOU,' he added.
'Not to mention, you,' Hester said, but Owen ignored this, high-stepping through the surf. When Mr. Meany dropped Hester and me at Front Street, the downstairs lights in the houses along the street were off-except for the lights in Grandmother's house-but a few people were still upstairs, in their beds, reading. On very hot nights, Mr. Fish slept in the hammock on his screened-in
