He was unnoticed by both of them, this being one of the rare times he didn’t succeed in monopolizing the opening moments of one of their conversations. “What’ve you been doing, crying?” Moran accused her. “Sure you have, I can tell by your eyes. There’s no sense acting that way about it.”
A torrent of maternal advice began pouring from her. “Now, Frank, you’ll find the food for his supper all ready on the kitchen table, all you’ll have to do is heat it. And, Frank, don’t feed him too late, it isn’t good for him. Oh, and another thing, you’d better let him do without his bath tonight. You don’t know enough about giving it to him, and I’m afraid something might happen to him in the tub.”
“One night without it won’t kill him,” Moran grunted contemptuously.
“And, Frank, do you think you’ll know how to undress him?”
“Sure. Just unbutton, and there you are. What’s the difference between his things and my own? Just smaller, that’s all.”
But the torrent spilled forth unabated. “And, Frank, if you should want to go out yourself later on, I wouldn’t leave him alone in the house if I were you. Maybe you can get one of the neighbors to come in and give him an eye—”
A voice was megaphoning sepulchrally somewhere in the vaulted depths below the waiting room. “—Hobbs Landing, Allenville, Greendale—”
“That’s yours, y’better get on.”
They moved slowly down the ramp to departure level. The torrent was at last slackening; it came only in desultory little spurts now, afterthoughts concerned with his own personal well-being. “Now, Frank, you know where I keep your clean shirts and things—”
“Ba-awd,” the bus starter was keening.
She wound her arms about his neck with unexpected tightness, as though she were still not one hundred percent maternal. “Good-by, Frank, I’ll be back the minute I can.”
“Phone me when you get up there, so I’ll know you arrived O.K.”
“I do hope she’ll be all right.”
“Sure she will, she’ll be up and around again before the week is out—”
She crouched down by Cookie, adjusted his cap, his jacket collar, the hem of one of his little knee pants, kissed him on the three sides of the head. “Now, Cookie, you be a good boy, listen to whatever daddy tells you.”
The last thing she said, from inside the bus steps, was, “Frank, he’s forming a habit of telling little fibs lately, I’ve been trying to break him of it; don’t encourage him—”
She finally had to turn away because others were trying to get in after her and she was blocking the entrance. The bus driver turned his head and followed her morosely with his eyes down the aisle toward her seat. He muttered: “For Pete’s sake, I only run a couple of hours upstate, not all the way to the Mexican border.”
Moran and offspring shifted over on the platform opposite her seat. She couldn’t get the window up, or she would probably have gone on indefinitely in the same vein as before. She had to content herself with blowing kisses and making instructive signs to the two of them through the pane. Moran couldn’t tell what most of them meant but pretended he understood by nodding docilely in order to make her feel better about it.
The bus started to wheel out along the concrete with a gritty, hissing sound. Moran bent down to the diminutive self beside him, raised one of its toothpick arms. “Wave goodbye to your mother,” he instructed. He worked the little appendage awkwardly back and forth, like something on a toy pump.
He was thinking of Margaret for the tenth time, with a newborn respect, almost with awe, for being able to whip any kind of results out of chaos like this — and not just once, but day after day — when the doorbell rang.
He groaned aloud. “I haven’t got enough on my hands, I gotta have company yet, to hang around and laugh at me!”
He had his coat and tie off, shirt sleeves rolled up out of harm’s way, and one of Margaret’s aprons tucked into his belt. He’d managed to get Cookie’s food warmed up — after all, the way Margaret had left it waiting, all you did was strike a match and put it on the gas stove — and he’d managed to bring Cookie and the food together at the table, after a lot of running around. But accomplishment ended there. What did you do to keep a kid from walloping it backhand with the flat of his spoon, making mud pies with it so to speak, so that it flew up all over? With Margaret around. Cookie just seemed to eat. With him, he laid down barrages on it, and flecks of it were even hitting the wall opposite.
Moran kept shifting around behind him from one side to the other, trying to nab the niblick shots that were doing all the damage. Persuasion was worse than useless; Cookie had him out on a limb and knew it.
The doorbell peeped a second time. Moran meanwhile being so busy he had already forgotten about the first ring. He raked despairing fingers through his hair, looked from Cookie out toward the door and from the door back to Cookie. Finally, as though deciding nothing could be any worse than this, he started out to answer it, wiping off a dab of spinach from just above one eyebrow.
It was a woman, and he didn’t know her. She was a lady, anyway; she carefully refrained from seeming to see the apron with blue forget-me-nots in one corner, acted as though he looked perfectly normal.
She was young and rather pretty but was dressed in a way that seemed deliberately to seek to ignore the latter attribute; in a neat but plain blue serge jacket and skirt. Her hair was reddish gold and kept in severe confinement by pins or some other means. Her face was innocent of anything but soap and water. She had a little rosette of freckles on each cheek, high up on it; none anywhere else. She had an almost boyish air of friendliness and naturalness.
“Is this Cookie Moran’s house?” she asked with a friendly little smile.
“Yes — but my wife’s away right now—” Moran answered helplessly, wondering what she wanted.
“I know, Mr. Moran.” There was something understanding, almost commiserating, about the way she said it. There was also a betraying little twitch at the corner of her mouth, quickly restrained, “She said something about that when she came by for Cookie. That’s why I’m here. I’m Cookie’s kindergarten teacher. Miss Baker.”
“Oh, yes!” he said quickly, recognizing the name. “I’ve heard my wife speak of you a lot.” They shook hands; she had the firm, cordial sort of a grip you would have expected her to have.
“Mrs. Moran didn’t actually ask me to come over, but I could tell by the way she spoke she was worried about how you two would make out, so I took it upon myself to do it anyway. I know she’s had to leave on fairly short notice, so if there’s anything I can do—”
He didn’t make any bones about showing his relief and gratitude. “Say, that’s swell of you!” he said fervently. “Are you a lifesaver. Miss Baker! Come in—”
He became belatedly aware of the forget-me-notted apron, snatched it off and hid it behind him bunched in one hand.
“How do you get them to eat, anyway?” he asked confidentially, closing the door and following her down the hall. “I’m afraid to ram it in his mouth, he might choke—”
“I know just how it is, Mr. Moran, I know just how it is,” she said consolingly. She took one all-comprehensive look around her when she got to the dining-room doorway and gave a deep-throated little chuckle. “I can see I got here just in the nick of time.” He’d thought it was in pretty good shape until now, compared to the kitchen. That was where the hurricane had really struck.
“How’s the young man?” she asked.
“Cookie, look who’s here,” Moran said, still overjoyed at this unexpected succor that was like manna from heaven. “Miss Baker, your kindergarten teacher. Aren’t you going to say hello to her?”