“I don’t think Carl will even show up, Freed.”
“I’ve got to hang up,” Freed said. “My phone bill was a hundred and forty dollars last month.”
He said goodbye to Freed and sat down opposite Borka. “T.W.’s temper always cools off,” he said to her.
“No, I think he really dislikes me. And I keep making mistakes like this, and that makes him dislike me more.”
“You like him?”
She nodded.
“I don’t think he knows that,” he said.
“He isn’t interested in knowing it. All he cares about is music. Anyway — he told me if I fucked up again, he was throwing me out of the band.”
“I think what you ought to do is drive to the place in New York State and go on stage with them. You’ll do okay without practicing, and they’ll be relieved to see you, even if they’re pissed off.”
She hung her head. Perry could see the dark hair down her center part; it became golden again about an inch from the scalp.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“For the Coke,” she said and hit the edge of the empty can on the table.
When she left he picked up the things the band had thrown around, and emptied the ashtrays and sat at the kitchen table again, listening to the birds and to the sound of a dog barking far away. It was too much for him when the house was full of people, but when everybody was gone he felt a little depressed. He was grating cheese and sprinkling it over a can of pinto beans for an early supper when the phone rang.
“You wouldn’t know where Delores is, would you?” Francie said.
“Yeah. Carl left and Delores went to Freed’s.”
“Freed’s?”
“Freed’s. What the hell.”
“Where’s Carl?”
“He was supposed to go there too. I heard from Freed that Carl called and threatened to kill him.”
“This is wearing me down. I’m going to call Maine. Meagan is coming down with a cold and she wants her mother.”
“Did you get your paintings crated?” he asked.
“Some of them. I’m going to fix Meagan and me some supper and go back to it.”
“I put your painting—” He cut himself off from what he was going to say: that the painting was hanging in his bedroom. “I put it up, and it looks wonderful, Francie.”
“Thanks,” she said. “When I become famous, don’t sell it.”
He wandered around the house. He wondered if this was what someone who was going crazy would be like. Then he berated himself for thinking about that again, and for still believing in the back of his mind that the most honorable activity was working from nine to five. He put on a John Coltrane record and sat in his favorite Morris chair to calm down. After he had sat there quietly for a while, he started to get his perspective back: the house was a wreck, after all, not because he didn’t care enough to live decently, but because his friends had taken it over and wrecked it. When Dickie sat in a chair, it seemed to come unglued. Pieces of paper on which T.W. had scrawled words and chord symbols were scattered everywhere, amid tangles of broken strings. Cigarette butts were floating in half-empty glasses of bourbon. He knew that it was Francie again when the phone rang.
“I can’t reach Delores,” she said. “If you hear from her, tell her to call me.” Francie hesitated. “Is it because I’m a Capricorn? What is it about me that makes people drop their kids with me and come stay with me, and why is everything always so confused?”
“People take advantage of you.”
“It’s such a nice night out,” Francie sighed. “Meagan has a cold and I’m going to get it. I don’t think that’s fair. I was going to go for a walk, but I can’t drag her along when she’s so droopy, and I don’t feel right about leaving her.” Francie lowered her voice to a whisper. “I don’t think much of Delores walking out on Meagan to take a vacation. I only took Meagan because I felt sorry for her.”
“Call her at Freed’s and tell her to come back.”
“I have to cut aspirin in half and give her a half aspirin,” Francie whispered. “I called my doctor.”
“Would you like me to come there to be with you?”
Francie waited a minute before answering. “I’d like it, but that would be silly.”
“I’m coming. It’s only an hour’s drive.”
Another hesitation. “Are you sure you want to?”
“I want to. I don’t have anything I have to do here.”
Going down the driveway, Perry felt elated. It was the right time, and he knew what he was going to say to Francie. The realization of it, the weight of it, came as inevitably as pressure builds around a diver.
Francie was talking on the phone to Delores’ mother. She was assuring her that Meagan’s voice was odd only because she was coming down with a cold, and lied that Delores was out but would be back soon.
Francie hung up and greeted him with “Wait’ll you hear this: Freed and Delores have decided to go away and live together. Carl went to the house and threw firecrackers at the windows, apparently, and scared them to death. Then Carl drove off and they got some things into suitcases. He’s just left his job a week before the term ends and he’s going south, he says, to live with Delores. I hinted that I didn’t want them to come here just now, but they’re coming anyway. I think Delores is cracking up. She was crying and laughing on the phone.”
“Let’s lock the door and turn out all the lights,” he said.
“No, I’m just going to tell them that they can spend the night, but that I’m not going to put up with any shit. And if Carl follows them down here and makes a scene, I’m going to call the police.”
She was too preoccupied for him to ask her to go to bed. He looked at her and looked away. There was a smudge of yellow paint on her cheek she did not know was there.
“Why don’t we take Meagan and get out of here?” he said.
“Delores would arrest us for kidnapping.”
“If she could remember where she left her,” he said.
She followed him to the living room. It was June, and too warm for a fire, but Francie loved the wood burning, and when the evenings were a little cold, she lit a fire. The fire was dying in the fireplace. He sat on the sofa and patted the cushion for her to sit beside him. There was a big box on the sofa, addressed to T.W. c/o Francie.
“What’s that?” he said.
“Worms. Honest to God. He’s going to start raising worms for profit.”
“What are you doing with the worms?”
“He had them delivered here because I’m usually home in the day and he’s out of town so often.”
He put the box of worms on the floor. In this context, how could he talk about going to bed with her?
“You shouldn’t put up with it,” he said.
“You know what T.W. said that time about my other set of friends? It was just a joking remark, but he was right: I don’t have any other friends. I know a few other people, but I don’t care anything about them. Sometimes when all of us are together we have good times. I don’t want to make them all go away.”
“What if you were just with me? What if we did what Freed and Delores are doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if we went away?”
“Where would we go?”
He had not thought about where they would go. “You could come live in my house in Vermont.”
“What would I do with my house?” she said.
He sat by the fire, staring into the peaks of flames, and looked at her. He saw that she did not want to live with him. She shifted on the sofa and looked somewhere else, embarrassed.