sweet on her. So was his older brother Philip. A year ago they had taken turns proposing to her. No, she had said— no. But it hadn't seemed to stick, and they were both still working on it. Mary had begun to feel like a sort of giant prize panda in a ring-the-bottle game. Charley and Philip took her out alternately. She was an official friend of the family. Part of the official position seemed to be that it was all right to maul her a bit, and Mary, apologetic for being hard-to-get, went along in a friendly spirit, but wished they wouldn't. Sometimes she wondered how long she could hold out.
'How are Emily and Margaret and Henry today? Still frustrated?' said Charley, getting a rise.
Mary always took the bait. 'Don't forget, they lived before Freud and so they didn't know they were, if they were.'
'Well, I sometimes wonder if they didn't have their fun after all. Did it ever strike you as kind of funny that Henry Thoreau kept the home fires burning for Lidian Emerson while Waldo was away? And what about old Waldo and little Margie Fuller?'
'I don't suppose you'll believe it, but there was a time when men and women could be friends with each other.'
'Listen, girly, men and women have only one kind of relation to each other, and that's all they've ever had or ever will have. Don't kid yourself.'
'Any luck in finding a job yet?' (Change the subject.)
'Why, certainly, certainly. Lots of them. Did you hear about my spin with the Acme Cement Company? I was supposed to straighten out their accounts. Perfectly simple, nothing to it, I was going great. But then they got a big contract with the highway department and all of a sudden they didn't want their accounts straightened out any more. Well, that was all right with me because I walked right into a jim-dandy job at Madame LaZarga's Superfluous Hair Removal Salon. And I was doing fine there, too, getting in on the ground floor with all kinds of opportunities for advancement and a glorious future, and Madame LaZarga had turned out to be a really great woman, truly noble. But then my father got wind of it and that was the end of that. He just couldn't see the dignity in the removal of superfluous hair. The whole world panting for it, too. Think of it—millions of hairy people with whiskers sprouting out all over, and idealistic Madame LaZarga devoting her life to them. I don't understand why, but my father couldn't see it at all.'
'Well, I'll bet the right thing will turn up yet.' Mary looked at Charley and wondered for the thousandth time why her heart refused to leap over the stile for him, or for his brother Philip either. They were attractive, surely, with their red heads? And tall enough to look her in the eye? What was wrong? Charley's forehead, perhaps, was against him—that empty expanse of bland pinkish skin, crowning his cherubic face. And of course his feet were clay—Charley was the black sheep, the ne'er-do-well. But there was nothing wrong with Philip Goss at all. His brow was high and thoughtful like some furrowed promontory, and his feet were anything but clay. Some noble material, rather, and set on rising ground.
Of course the difference between them was their father's fault, the old blowhard. Ernest Goss showed an outrageous favoritism for his successful son. No wonder Philip was a promising lawyer, going places, doing well at everything he tried, while Charley just went from failure to failure. Poor Charley. Philip's success was like a kind of standard and plumb line for him, demonstrating what he might have been, a sort of perpetual I.O.U.
Mary looked out the car window. They were crossing the Red Bridge over the Concord River. The river had risen with the spring thaw and it was spread out for hundreds of yards in its broad bed. There had been a girl Henry Thoreau had loved, and he had taken her out rowing on the river. She had turned him down soon after she had turned down his brother John. That was what Mary herself had done—she had refused two brothers, too. Mary imagined herself sitting in Henry's boat, gliding under the shadow of the bridge, with Henry's great burning eyes on her. Suppose Henry had asked
Charley pulled up in front of Mary's house. It was her brother-in-law's house, really, and her sister Gwen's. There were signs all over it. On the post of the mailbox on a shirtboard Mary's niece Annie was advertising KITTENS FREE FREE. Across Barrett's Mill Road on the produce-stand was a big sign that said SWEET CIDER, HONK YOUR HORN. And attached to the house itself was an engraved bronze plaque—
HOUSE AND FARM OF
COLONEL JAMES BARRETT
COMMANDING OFFICER OF THE MIDDLESEX MILITIA
ON THE MORNING OF APRIL 19TH, 1775, THE BRITISH MARCH
FROM BOSTON WHICH RESULTED IN THE OUTBREAK OF
THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR ENDED HERE WITH A SEARCH
FOR MILITARY STORES. GUN CARRIAGES FOUND BY THE
LIGHT INFANTRY WERE BURNED IN FRONT OF THE HOUSE.
OTHER WEAPONS AND SUPPLIES WERE SUCCESSFULLY
CONCEALED IN THE ATTIC OF THE HOUSE, IN FURROWS
PLOWED NEAR THE FARMYARD AND IN SPRUCE
HOLLOW BEHIND THE HOUSE.
'Come on in,' said Mary.
There were bicycles tangled beside the door. It was Gwen's Girl Scout day. Three of the Girl Scouts were skipping rope on the dry ground beside the house. Two of them turned the two ends of the rope, and Annie stood leaning in, her thin body throbbing with the rhythm, getting ready to jump. Ready— ready—almost—almost—
Mary stopped to watch, fascinated. That was lovely—the 'way Annie had looked when she was leaning in, getting ready. Then when she jumped, she had to keep jumping and jumping. Jump, Annie, jump.
