”Is he the kind of kid that would go off without making any provisions for anything? His room doesn’t look like the room of that kind of person.“
”That’s right. He’s just like his damned father. So careful, so neat. Everything has to be the same. Not like me at all; I’m spontaneous. ’Spontaneous Me.“ Ever read that poem?
By Whittier?”
“Whitman,” I said.
“Yes, excuse me, Whitman, of course. Anyway, I’m spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment, zip-zap, go anywhere, do anything. Most creative people are like that, I guess, but not Kevin; a stick-in-the-mud just like old Roger Stick- in-the-mud.
Supper’s got to be at six, plain food, roast beef, baked beans. I’d cook if they’d eat something creative, Julia Child, that kind of thing, but it’s got to be the same old stew, steak, hamburg. The hell with them; let them cook it themselves. Now if they would eat veal steak in wine with cherries…”
“My ass,” Bartlett said.“You’re not creative, you’re lazy. You haven’t cooked a goddamned meal around here in five years. Veal with my ass.”
“Hey, Rog,” Trask said. “Now there’s no way to talk.
Marge has put out a wonderful feed at parties and stuff.”
“Yeah, catered from the goddamned deli for half my freaking profits for the month.”
“Oh, you sonova bitch,” Marge said. “That’s all you think about is your money. If you think I can take acting lessons and modern dance and sculpting all day long and try to keep myself young and interesting for you and the children and then come home and prepare a party that you’ll be proud of…”
“Balls,” Bartlett said, his face very red now. “You don’t give a rat’s ass about me or anybody else.”
“Hold on now,” Trask said. “Goddamn it, just hold on.”
I got off my barstool and took another can of beer out of the refrigerator. You don’t see red refrigerators much. I went to the back door and opened it and went out. The retriever still lay there on the back steps with his tongue out, and I sat down beside him and opened the beer. The door behind me was on a pneumatic closer, and as it shut I heard Marge Bartlett say “shit” in a very loud voice.
I drank a small swallow of the beer and scratched the dog’s ear. His tail thumped on the porch. The sound of the lawn mower stopped, and a minute later a young girl came out of the barn and walked toward the house. She didn’t look at me sitting on the back steps but detoured toward the front of the house, and a minute later I heard the front door open and close.
I drank some more beer. In the middle of the front lawn, past the hydrangea, was a huge flowering crab. It was too late for blossoms, but the leaves were still reddish fading into green, and there were small green crab apples beginning to form. Some robins and some sparrows and a Baltimore oriole swarmed in and out of the branches with considerable chatter. After the green fruit, I supposed. I hadn’t seen a Baltimore oriole since I was a kid.
I heard the front door open and close again, and the girl came around the corner of the house wearing a bikini bathing suit and carrying a towel. She must have been thirteen or fourteen and was just beginning to get a figure. I was very careful not to lech at her. There has to be a line you won’t cross, and my lower limit is arbitrarily set at sixteen.
As she walked by she looked at the ground and said nothing. I watched her as she went around the corner of the house toward the pool. The retriever got up as she passed and followed her. They were out of sight, and then I heard two splashes in the pool. And the sound of swimming. My beer was gone. I looked at my watch; nearly four thirty. I put the beer can on the railing of the porch, walked across the driveway, got in my car and drove back to Boston.
Chapter 3
At eight the next morning I was out jogging along the Charles. From the concert shell on the Esplanade to the BU Bridge was two miles, and I always tried to make the round trip in about forty minutes. It was never fun, but this morning was tougher than usual because it was raining like hell. Usually there were other joggers, but this morning I was alone. I had on sweat pants and a hooded nylon shell, but the rain soaked my sneakers and needled at my face as I ran. Walking back up Arlington Street to my apartment on Marlborough, I could feel the sweat collect in the small of my back, trapped there by the waterproof parka.
Before I’d left I’d put the coffee on, and it was ready when I came back. But I didn’t drink it-yet. First a shower.
A long time under the shower, a lot of soap, a lot of shampoo. I shaved very carefully, standing in the shower —I’d put a mirror in the stall just so I could do that—and rinsed off thoroughly. I put on a pair of light gray slacks and black over-the-ankle boots and went to the kitchen.
I sliced two green tomatoes, sprinkled them with black pepper and rosemary, shook them in flour, and put them in about a half-inch of olive oil to fry. I put a small porterhouse steak under the broiler and got a loaf of unleavened Syrian bread out of the refrigerator While the steak and tomatoes cooked, I drank my first cup of coffee, cream, two sugars and ate a bowl of blackberries I’d bought at a farm stand coming back from the Cape with a girl I knew. When it was ready, I ate my breakfast, put the dishes in the washer, washed my hands and face, clipped my gun on over my right hip pocket, put on a washed blue denim shirt with short sleeves, and let it hang outside to cover the gun. I was ready, exercised, washed, fed, and armed—alert for the slightest sign of a dragon. I had a white trench coat given me once by a friend. She said it made me look taller. I put it on now and headed for my car.
The rain was hard as I pulled out onto Storrow Drive and headed for Smithfield. The wipers were only barely able to stay ahead of it, and some of the storm culverts were flooded and backing up in the underpasses.
I stopped at a white colonial liquor store in Smithfield Center and got directions to the high school. It was a little out from the center of town in a neighborhood of expensive homes with a football field behind it and some tennis courts beyond that. A sign said Visitors’ Parking, and I slid in between an orange Volvo and a blue Pinto station wagon. I turned the collar up on my trench coat, got out of the car, and sprinted for the front doorway.
Inside was an open lobby with display cases on the walls containing graphics done by students. To the left was
