Ghost Story

room much like the Barnes's own-looking for a lost pet, a turtle or a kitten (or perhaps, since those Brady kids were cute little rascals, a rodent).

'His mother's worried sick,' his father said, and popped a handful of macadamia nuts into his mouth. When those had gone down his throat, he said, 'Eleanor's a nice woman. But she never understood that boy. You have any idea where he might have gone?'

'No,' Peter said, looking to the rodent hunt as if for clues to the conduct of family life.

'Just took off in his car.'

Peter nodded. He had walked over toward Montgomery Street on his way to school the day after his escape from the house and from halfway down the block had seen that the car was gone.

'Rollie Draeger's a bit relieved, is my guess,' said his father. 'Probably just good luck his daughter's not pregnant.'

'Um hum.'

'You wouldn't have any idea where Jim went?' His father glanced at him.

'No,' Peter said, and risked a look in return.

'He didn't confide in you during one of your beer-drinking sessions?'

'No,' Peter said unhappily.

'You must miss him,' his father said. 'Maybe you're even worried about him. Are you?'

'Yeah,' Peter said, by now as close to tears as he sometimes thought his mother was.

'Well, don't be. A kid like that will always cause more trouble than he'll ever be in himself. And I'll tell you something-I know where he is.'

Peter looked up at his father.

'He's in New York. Sure he is. He's on the run for some reason or other. And I wonder if he might not have had something to do with what happened to old Rea Dedham after all. Looks funny that he ran out, don't you think?'

'He didn't,' Peter said. 'He just didn't. He couldn't.'

'Still, you're better off with a couple of old farts like us than with him, don't you think?' When Peter did not give him the agreement he expected, Walter Barnes reached out toward his son and touched his arm. 'One thing you have to learn in this world, Pete. The troublemakers might look glamorous as hell, but you're better off steering clear of them. You stay with people like our friends, like the ones you'll be talking to at our party, and you'll be on your way. This is a hard enough world to get through without asking for trouble.' He released Peter's arm. 'Say, why don't you pull up a chair and watch TV a little while with me? Let's spend a little time together.'

Peter sat down and pretended to watch the television. From time to time he heard the grinding of the snowplow, gradually working past their house and then continuing on in the direction of the square.

13

By the next day both atmospheres-internal and external-had changed. His mother was in neither of her moods, but moved happily through the house, vacuuming and dusting, talking on the telephone, listening to the radio. Peter, up in his room, listened to music interspersed with snow reports. The roads were so bad that school had been called off. His father had walked to the bank: from his bedroom window, Peter had seen his father setting off in hat, topcoat and rubber boots, looking small and Russian. Several other Russians, their neighbors, had joined him by the time he reached the end of the block. The snow reports repeated a monotonous theme: break out the snowmobiles, kids, eight inches last night and more predicted for the weekend, accident on Route 17 has stalled traffic between Damascus and Windsor… accident on Route 79 has stopped traffic between Oughuoga and Center Village… overturned camper van on Route 11 four miles north of Castle Creek… Omar Norris came by on the snowplow just before noon, burying two cars under an immense drift. After lunch his mother made him beat egg whites to a stiff froth. The day was a long bolt of gray cloth; endless.

Alone again in his room he looked up Robinson, F, in the directory and dialed the number, his heart trying to bump the roof of his mouth. After two rings, someone picked up the receiver and immediately replaced it.

The radio brought disasters. A fifty-two-year-old man in Lester died of a heart attack while shoveling out his driveway; two children were killed when their mother's car struck a bridge abutment near Hillcrest. An old man in Stamford died of hypothermia-no money for the heating.

At six the snowplow again rattled past the house. By then Peter was in the television room, waiting for the news. His mother looked in, a blond head in a swirl of cooking orders: 'Remember to change for dinner, Pete. Why don't you go all out and wear a tie?'

'Is anybody coming in this weather?' He pointed to the screen-a blur of falling snow, blocked traffic. Men with a stretcher carried the body of the hypothermia victim, seventy-six-year-old Elmore Vesey, out of a rotting snowbound shack.

'Sure. They don't live far away.' Inexplicably happy, she sailed off.

His father came home gray-faced half an hour later, looked in and said, 'Hiya, Pete. Okay?' and went upstairs to roll into a hot tub.

At seven his father joined him in the television room, martini in hand, cashews in the bowl. 'Your mother says she'd like to see you in a tie. Since she's in a good mood, why not oblige her this once?'

'Okay,' he said.

'Still no word from Jim Hardie?'

'No.'

'Eleanor must be losing her mind with worry.'

'I guess.'

He went back up to his room and lay on his bed. Being in attendance at a party, answering all the familiar questions ('Looking forward to Cornell?'), walking around with a tray and pitchers of drinks, were what he felt least in the world like doing. He felt most like curling up in a blanket and staying in bed for as long as they'd let him. Then nothing could happen to him. The snow would build up around the house, the thermostats would click on and off, he would fall into great arcs of sleep…

At seven-thirty the bell rang, and he got up from bed. He heard his father opening the door, voices, drinks being offered: the arrivals were the Hawthornes and another man whose voice he did not recognize. Peter slid his shirt up over his head and replaced it with a clean one. Then he pulled a tie under the collar, knotted it, combed his hair with his fingers and left the bedroom.

When he reached the landing and was able to see the door, his father was hanging up coats in the guest closet. The stranger was a tall man in his thirties-thick blond hair, squarish friendly face, tweed jacket and blue shirt without a tie. No lawyer, Peter thought, 'A writer,' his mother said at that instant, her voice way up out of its normal register. 'How interesting,' and Peter winced.

'Here's our boy Pete,' his father said, and all three guests looked up at him, the Hawthornes with smiles, the stranger merely with an appraising glance of interest. He shook their hands and wondered, taking Stella Hawthorne's hand, as he always did seeing her, how a woman that old managed to be as good-looking as anyone you saw in the movies. 'Nice to see you, Peter,' Ricky Hawthorne said, and gave him a brisk dry handshake. 'You look a little beat.'

'I'm okay,' he said.

'And this is Don Wanderley, he's a writer, and he was the nephew of Mr. Wanderley,' his mother said. The writer's handshake was firm and warm. 'Oh, we must talk about your books. Peter, would you please go in the kitchen and get the ice ready?'

'You look sort of like your uncle,' Peter said.

'Thank you.'

'Pete, the ice.'

Stella Hawthorne said, 'On a night like this I think I want my drinks steamed, like clams.'

His mother cut off his laugh-'Pete, the ice, please' -and then turned to Stella Hawthorne with a fast nervous grin. 'No, the streets seem all right for the moment,' he heard Ricky Hawthorne say to his father; he went down the hall into the kitchen and began cracking ice into a bowl. His mother's voice, too loud, carried all the way.

A moment later she was beside him, taking things from under the grill and peering into the oven. 'Are the olives and rice crackers out?' He nodded. 'Then get these on a tray and hand them around, please, Peter.' They