“Lisa!” he called.
His grandmother was on the landing, polishing the stair rail and singing only slightly more softly than usual, because she was intent upon her polishing:“When I was si-ingle,
I wandered at my e-ease.
Now that I am ma-arried,
Got a flat-heeled man to please …”
“Gram,” Ben Joe said, “has Lisa gone downtown yet?”
She refolded her cloth and smiled at it, still singing, because she was at the loudest part and no one could stop her at a loud part:“And it’s oh, Lo-o-ord,
I wish I was but one lone girl again …”
“Oh, hell,” Ben Joe said. He galloped on down the stairs, two at a time, with his sneakers still in his hands. “Lisa!”
“What do you want, Ben Joe?”
He stepped over Carol, who was sticking toothpicks upright into the nap in the hall rug. Lisa was in the living room arguing with Jenny and Joanne over the grocery list.
“If she wants all those outlandish things,” Jenny was saying, “she can darn well go get them herself, that’s what I think.”
Joanne took the list from her and ran her finger down it. “Well,” she said finally, “I don’t reckon it would hurt us any to start drinking burgundy with our meals—”
“But I’m the one Ben Joe left in charge of the money. What’s the matter with Gram lately? Ben Joe, I want you to look at this.”
Ben Joe sat down on the couch and began putting his sneakers on. “I’ve decided to hitch a ride downtown with you,” he said.
“Look, will you, Ben Joe? Now Gram’s making me go out and buy all her silly notions. Burgundy my foot. And her upstairs singing loud on purpose, been singing all morning without taking breath so that no one can interrupt and ask her what she wants with burgundy and oyster crackers and kippered herrings—”
“Oh, she’s just tired of the same old things,” Ben Joe said. “You going right away? Because if not, I’ll just walk instead of—”
“No, we’re coming. Come on, Joanne.”
Jenny led the way, looking sensible and businesslike in her open trenchcoat. At the front door she took the car keys off a hook on the wall and stuck them in her pocket. “Where’s Tessie?” she asked Lisa.
“In the car. Says you and she are going shoe shopping and she’s in a hurry to get started.”
“Okay. Close the door behind you, Ben Joe.”
They crossed through the weedy grass to the driveway beside the house where the car was parked. Inside, on the front seat, Tessie bounced up and down in a short-sleeved plaid dress.
“Where’s your jacket?” Jenny asked as she opened the door.
“In the house.”
“Well, better go get it.”
“Aw, Jenny—”
“Jenny, for Pete’s sake,” Ben Joe said. “I’m in a hurry.”
“Well, I can’t help that. Run on and get it, Tessie.”
Tessie slammed out of the car, and Jenny turned the motor on to let it warm up. She seemed resigned to all these hindrances; she sat patiently waiting, while Ben Joe, squeezed between Joanne and Lisa, drummed his fingers on his knees and squirmed about irritably. When Tessie came out of the house, dragging her feet slowly as she worked her way into an old corduroy jacket, Ben Joe leaned forward and shouted, “Come on, Tessie!”
“What’s the matter with you?” Jenny asked. She leaned across to open the door for Tessie. “What you suddenly in such an all-fired hurry for?”
“I’ve got a lot to get done.”
“Ten minutes ago you were going to stay home all day,” said Lisa.
“Well, not any more.”
“Where you going?”
“Just around.” He leaned back with his hands between his knees and stared out the window as the car slipped down the driveway into the street. “Got a couple of things I want to attend to,” he said. “And Jeremy’s postcard reminded me I don’t have all year to do them in.”
“Better go see your old music teacher,” Lisa said. “And Miss Potter, the one that taught you third grade. She asks about you every time she sees me.”
“Okay.”
“She wants to know if you’re a famous poet yet. Says you wrote your first poem in her class.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Well, she does. Says it went, ‘My fish, my cat, my little world,’ and she’s keeping it still for when you get famous.”
“My land,” Ben Joe said. “Jenny, how far downtown are you going?”
“Just to the A & P.”
“And the shoe store,” Tessie reminded her.
“And the shoe store. Why you want to know?”
“Not past that?” asked Ben Joe.
“Well, no. What is past that?”
“Where is it you’re going, anyway?” Joanne asked him.
He scowled at her and remained silent, and Joanne turned back to the window. They were still among lawns and houses; Jenny drove so slowly that a man walking at a brisk pace could keep up with her. At one point Joanne said, “Was that the Edmonds’ house?”
Ben Joe leaned forward to see where she was pointing. Between two houses was a charred space with only a set of cement steps and a yellow brick fireplace left intact.
“It was,” he said. “Burned down the year you left.”
“Nobody told me about it.”
“You used to date their son, I think.” He had come upon them kissing in the den one night; Bobby was hugging her and kissing the hollow in her neck, and Ben Joe had left the room again without a sound.
“I’d forgotten that,” Joanne said.
Sometimes he thought his sisters had been born senile.
When they reached the A & P on Main Street, Jenny parked the car. “We’ll be in here awhile and then to Barton’s for Tessie’s shoes,” she said. “If you’re back in the car by then I’ll drive you home. Otherwise you can just walk back whenever you’re ready. Hurry, Ben Joe, you’re holding Lisa up.”
Ben Joe was sitting forward but not getting out. Lisa nudged him impatiently. “Come on, Ben Joe. I thought you were the one in such a rush.”
“Okay, okay.”
He climbed slowly out of the car and then just stood on the sidewalk beside Joanne with his hands in his pockets.
“Well,” he said.
Joanne looked at him curiously. Jenny and Tessie were already heading toward the A & P, and Lisa was staring at a sweater in the window next door.
“Maybe I’ll go wherever you’re going,” said Joanne.
“No.”
“Well, where is it you’re going?”
“Um. To call on Miss Potter, for one thing. You go on and do your shopping. Maybe I’ll meet you in Stacy’s for a cup of coffee later.”
“All right.”
She stood there still looking at him with that little half-smile. He wished she weren’t so nosy. The others didn’t know the meaning of privacy, they were continually bursting into his room unannounced or reading his postcards, but at least they didn’t go ferreting around to see what he was thinking about, the way Joanne did. Sometimes he thought she had even succeeded in her ferreting — like today, when she remained absolutely motionless and smiled her knowing smile. He scowled back at her.