“Are you sure?” Duncan said, standing in the hallway. “If you need it to clean up—”
“It gives me the perfect excuse not to vacuum,” Jody said. “Take it. Keep it as long as you want.”
“Well,” Duncan said, reaching into the deep pocket of his sheepskin coat and bringing out a little rectangle wrapped in foil. He thrust it toward her, the same way Will gave her something he was shy about handing over.
“Brandy walnut cake,” Duncan said. “It’s an improvement on the cake I made with hazelnut flour that you liked so much.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said. “It isn’t necessary to give me something just because you’re borrowing the vacuum, though.”
“Not because it’s necessary. Because you’re one of my best testers.”
“Thank you,” she said again. She opened the door of the hall closet. He rushed forward and took out the vacuum. Previously, he had borrowed books, blankets, vases, and her slide projector. Since he was a caterer, he could hardly borrow a cup of sugar. When he returned the things, he always brought her something in return for the favor: beeswax candles, tulip bulbs, a brass stirring spoon.
“Babette’s Feast is playing at the movies this week,” he said. “Have you seen it? I was wondering if—”
“Thanks,” she said. “Actually, I have seen it.”
“Who’s baby-sitting on Halloween?” he said.
“Will’s going to a party.”
He nodded. “I was supposed to cater that Halloween party you’re photographing, but the guy canceled.”
“He canceled the party?”
“No. The food. He must be using somebody cheaper. I got the feeling he didn’t like my prices.”
She shrugged. “Then he’s a creep,” she said. “Your prices are fair. Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m catering quite a few things on Halloween,” he said. “He invited me to come to the party anyway, but I don’t think I’m going to go.” He looked at the vacuum. “Well,” he said, “I ought to be going.”
“Thanks for the cake,” she said. Didn’t he realize that she was anxious for him to leave? “Maybe I’ll see you if you decide to go to the party.”
He nodded. “You might want to put the cake in the refrigerator if you’re not going to eat it right away,” he said.
“I will,” she said. “Thanks again.”
“Let me know if it’s not sweet enough. I like to get by with as little sugar as possible.”
“I’m sure it’s perfect.”
“But let me know if it isn’t,” he said.
She looked at him. He looked at the vacuum. “Find out who’s catering it if you can,” he said.
“I could call the next day and ask if anybody else got sick,” she said.
“No, don’t do that,” he said, alarmed.
“Kidding,” she said, smiling.
He clicked his fingers. “I forgot to bring Mel’s book back.”
“I’m sure he’s in no hurry for it,” she said.
“Well,” he said, “maybe I’ll see you at the party.”
She opened the door and smiled. Duncan lifted the vacuum and waved goodbye as he went down the walk. Like a child, he looked over his shoulder at the end of the walkway to see if she was still standing there. She was, but not because she was seeing him safely on his way. Mary Vickers’s car had just pulled up to the curb. They were going to the playground to sit and talk while Will and Wagoner played, as they did two or three times a week.
Will was involved in G.I. Joe’s taking over a new kingdom (a cordoned-off area of the bedroom rug, laid out by Mel during his visit the week before: a swarm of plastic cowboys and Indians, with the addition of free-standing castles that Mel had laboriously cut out of a book and glued together), but when the old Ford coasted to the curb, he began to run down the stairs. He and Wag were still too young to have inhibitions about throwing themselves in each other’s arms and instantly resuming their important talk that had been heartlessly interrupted by Mary or Jody when they last insisted upon parting them. They did make a slight parody of their quick embraces, though perhaps it only seemed that way to Jody and they were not even aware of it. The slightly bumped foreheads and the fingers that tickled as they grabbed each other’s waist might have been true awkwardness, the quickly locked eyes a conditioned response from infancy. In any case, they formed a unit of their own that always made Mary and Jody instant outsiders, so that they moved awkwardly toward each other, conscious of the lack of passion they themselves displayed.
Mary Vickers was Jody’s best friend, but when intimacies were exchanged, they tended to be said with dropped eyes, and certain topics, such as Mary’s marriage to Wagoner (her son was — and Jody never stopped marveling at this — Wagoner Fisk Vickers III), were never alluded to unless Mary initiated the conversation. Jody was better at not asking Mary why she didn’t divorce her husband than Mary was about not prying into the reasons why Jody didn’t marry Mel and move to New York. Then again, although she would hesitate to say it aloud, Jody considered herself more in control than Mary Vickers. More of a survivor, if truth be told.
Duncan had been caught in the maelstrom of the arrival. Holding the vacuum aloft, waving to Jody, and exchanging a quick greeting with Mary Vickers, he bowed out, heading toward his car. Of course Mary Vickers and Jody agreed that Duncan was a sweet, harmless soul — someone whose positive attitude they could only be in awe of.
“Don’t go upstairs,” Jody called, seeing the boys’ feet disappear up the stairs. “If we’re going to the playground, we’re going to the playground. G.I. Joe can win the war when you come home.”
Will looked over the banister. “I just wanted to show him,” he said.
Will had a way of always seeming moderate. He also had a way of making her remarks seem too cute. Of appearing adult, while she called out shrilly like a child.
“Show him for two minutes. Then we’re leaving,” she said.
Will hesitated. “We can look later,” he said.
Clever. This meant that after the playground they would return to the house. Jody looked at Mary Vickers.
“Let’s go,” Mary Vickers said. “We want to get there while it’s still light.”
Will began to walk down the stairs.
“Wag!” Mary Vickers called.
He stomped down, overtaking Will.
“So is Duncan coming to the park with us?” Will said.
Wagoner stood at his mother’s side, sulking.
“Duncan just came to borrow the vacuum. You didn’t express any interest in Duncan when he was here.”
“I didn’t know he was leaving,” Will said.
Was Will really hurt that Duncan wasn’t going to the play-ground with them? Will’s acting the part of the perfect host, a little late, was making her feel less than the perfect hostess. She searched his child’s face: guileless. He thought whatever he thought.
“Duncan’s gone,” she said. “And we’re gone, too, the minute you put on your coat.”
The bench Mary Vickers and Jody sat on was across from the Episcopal church, whose bells rang early every Sunday morning and on numerous other occasions — so often, in fact, that the bells might have heralded the first fallen leaf of autumn and the first star of twilight. The bells were one of the things Jody always listened for, along with the daily screech of sirens, which began early in the morning, reached a hiatus around four o’clock, then sounded sporadically throughout the night. There was nothing in the newspaper to explain why the rescue squad, fire department, and ambulance constantly raced through the streets. It was Mel’s belief that the sirens were turned on every time the men went to grab a burger at McDonald’s. When you were driving, ambulances and rescue-squad wagons inevitably shot past, barely braking to go through the lights, weaving into oncoming traffic, stabilizing just as they seemed about to turn over in their wild trajectory toward one of the hospitals.