“I've heard him. It's a version of the Chinese water torture. Bang on the wall, bill on the ground, smack in the hand. Bang, bill, smack, bang, bill-”
“He's a nice boy, quiet and well-behaved. I wish Tommie would make friends with him. He's the right age, too, just about ten, I should say.”
“I didn't know Tommie was backward about making friends.”
“Well, it's hard with the Sakkaros, They keep so to themselves. I don't even know what Mr. Sakkaro does.”
“Why should you? It's not really anyone's business what he does.”
“It's odd that I never see him go to work.”
“No one ever sees me go to work.”
“You stay home and write. What does he do.”
“I dare say Mrs. Sakkaro knows what Mr. Sakkaro does and is all upset because she doesn't know' what I do,”
“Oh, George.” Lillian retreated from the window and glanced with distaste at the television. (Schoendienst was at bat.) “I think we should make an effort; the neighborhood should.”
“What kind of an effort?” George was comfortable on the couch now, with a king-size Coke in his hand, freshly opened and frosted with moisture.
“To get to know them.”
“Well, didn't you, when she first moved in? You said you called.”
“I said hello but, well, she'd just moved in and the house was still upset, so that's all it could be, just hello. It's been two months now and it's still nothing more than hello, sometimes. -She's so odd.”
“Is she?”
“She's always looking at the sky; I've seen her do it a hundred times and she's never been out when it's the least bit cloudy. Once, when the boy was out playing, she called to him to come in, shouting that it was going to rain. I happened to hear her and I thought, Good Lord, wouldn't you know and me with a wash on the line, so I hurried out and, you know, it was broad sunlight. Oh, there were some clouds, but nothing, really.”
“Did it rain, eventually?”
“Of course not. I just had to run out in the yard for nothing.”
George was lost amid a couple of base hits and a most embarrassing bobble that meant a run. When the excitement was over and the pitcher was trying to regain his composure, George called out after Lillian, who was vanishing into the kitchen, “Well, since they're from Arizona, I dare say they don't know rainclouds from any other kind.”
Lillian came back into the living room with a patter of high heels. “From where?”
“From Arizona, according to Tommie.”
“How did Tommie know?”
“He talked to their boy, in between ball chucks, I guess, and he told Tommie they came from Arizona and then the boy was called in. At least, Tommie says it might have been Arizona, or maybe Alabama or some place like that. You know Tommie and his nontotal recall. But if they're that nervous about the weather, I guess it's Arizona and they don't know what to make of a good rainy climate like ours.”
“But why didn't you ever tell me?”
“Because Tommie only told me this morning and because I thought he must have told you already and, to tell the absolute truth, because I thought you could just manage to drag out a normal existence even if you never found out. Wow-”
The ball went sailing into the right field stands and that was that for the pitcher.
Lillian went back to the venetian blinds and said, “I'll simply just have to make her acquaintance. She looks very nice. -Oh, Lord, look at that, George.”
George was looking at nothing but the TV.
Lillian said, “I know she's staring at that cloud. And now she'll be going in. Honestly.”
George was out two days later on a reference search in the library and came home with a load of books. Lillian greeted him jubilantly.
She said, “Now, you're not doing anything tomorrow.”
“That sounds like a statement, not a question.”
“It is a statement. We're going out With the Sakkaros to Murphy's Park.
“With-”
“With the next-door neighbors, George. Haw can you never remember the name?”
“I'm gifted. How did it happen?”
“I just went up to their house this morning and rang the bell.”
“That easy?”
“It wasn't easy. It was hard. I stood there, jittering, with my finger on the doorbell, till I thought that ringing the bell would be easier than having the door open and being caught standing there like a fool.”
“And she didn't kick you out?”
“No. She was sweet as she could be. Invited me in, knew who I was, said she was so glad I had come to visit. Yau know.”
“And you suggested we go to Murphy's Park.”
“Yes. I thought if I suggested something that would let the children have fun, it would be easier for her to goalong with it. She wouldn't want to spoil a chance for her boy.”
“A mother's psychology.”
“But you should see her home.”
“Ah. You had a reason for all this. It comes out. You wanted the Cook's tour. But, please, spare me the color scheme details. I'm not interested in the bedspreads, and the size of the closets is a topic with which I can dispense.”
It was the secret of their happy marriage that Lillian paid no attention to George. She went into the color scheme details, was most meticulous about the bedspreads, and gave him an inch-by-inch description of closet-size.
“And clean? I have never seen any place so spotless.”
“If you get to know her, then, she'll be setting you impossible standards and you'll have to drop her in self-defense.”
“Her kitchen,” said Lillian, ignoring him, “was so spanking clean you just couldn't believe she ever used it. I asked for a drink of water and she held the glass underneath the tap and poured slowly so that not one drop fell in the sink itself. It wasn't affectation. She did it so casually that I just knew she always did it that way. And when she gave me the glass she held it with a clean napkin. Just hospital-sanitary.”
“She must be a lot of trouble to herself. Did she agree to come with us right off?”
“Well-not right off. She called to her husband about what the weather forecast was, and he said that the newspapers all said it would be fair tomorrow but that he was waiting for the latest report on the radio.”
“All the newspapers said so, eh?”
“Of course, they all just print the official weather forecast, so they would all agree. But I think they do subscribe to all the newspapers. At least I’ve watched the bundle the newsboy leaves-”
“There isn't much you miss, is there?”
“Anyway,” said Lillian severely, “she called up the weather bureau and had them tell her the latest and she called it out to her husband and they said they'd go, except they said they'd phone us if there were any unexpected changes in the weather.”
“All right. Then we'll go.”
The Sakkaros were young and pleasant, dark and handsome. In fact, as they came down the long walk from their home to where the Wright automobile was parked, George leaned toward his wife and breathed into her ear, “So he's the reason.”
“I wish he were,” said Lillian. “Is that a handbag he's carrying?”
“Pocket-radio. To listen to weather forecasts, I bet.” The Sakkaro boy came running after them, waving, something which turned out to be an aneroid barometer, and all three got into the back seat. Conversation was turned on and lasted, with neat give-and-take on impersonal subjects, to Murphy's Park.
The Sakkaro boy was so polite and reasonable that even Tommie Wright, wedged between his parents in the front seat, was subdued by example into a semblance of civilization. Lillian couldn't recall when she had spent so serenely pleasant a drive.
She was not the least disturbed by the fact that, barely to be heard under the flow of the conversation, Mr. Sakkaro's small radio was on, and she never actually saw him put it occasionally to his ear.