“Thank you.”
“Son, look. If it was a question of money, why didn’t you say so? I’ll tell you this where I wouldn’t just as to say tell most folks: I got more damn money than I know what to do with and if I don’t give it to you the government’s going to get it anyway.”
“Money,” said the engineer, screwing up an eye.
“Rita said she asked you to come with us and you refused.”
“No sir,” he said, remembering. “What she asked was whether I wanted to be employed by her or—”
“Naturally, when I didn’t hear from you to the contrary, I assumed you didn’t want the job.”
“No sir!”
“Son, you know what we really thought? We thought you didn’t want to come with either one of us but that you would be nice enough tocome if we asked you, just to help us, and I wasn’t going to do that. Look,” cried the old man joyfully.
“What?”
“It’s better this way!”
“How is that, sir?”
“Now we know where we stand. Now I believe you want to come with us.”
“Yes sir, that is true,” said the engineer dryly. “I desire now only to have the same assurance from you.”
“What! Oh! By George,” said the other, shooting his cuff and calling on the high heavens. “If you’re not your daddy all over again.”
“Yes sir,” said the engineer gloomily, wondering if the old man was slipping away again like the white rabbit. But this time Mr. Vaught took out his buckeye wallet arid counted out five $100 bills, like crisp suede, freshly pollinated from the mint, into the other’s hand. “One month’s salary in advance. Do we understand each other now?”
“Yes sir.”
“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do.”
“What’s that?”
“Rita will drive us in the Cadillac. You and Jamie take that thing.” He nodded toward the camper.
“All right, sir.”
“Now you and Jamie get on down the road. We’ll see you at home.” He counted out two more bills. “Expenses.”
“Do you mean you want us to leave now and—”
But before he could finish, the rest of the family came swarming out half a dozen doors and bore down upon him. His natural shyness was almost made up for by the pleasant sensation of reunion. Perhaps he belonged here after all!
“Look who’s here!”—“What in the woerrld—!”—“Well I’ll be damned—!” they cried.
The side of his face was also being looked at by a pair of roguish eyes.
“Look at him blush,” cried Mrs. Vaught
For some reason his being there, hands in pockets and eyes rolled up to the eyebrows, began to be funny. They were all laughing at him. All but Kitty. She came close and touched him but at the same time it was as if she couldn’t stand the sight of him. She turned him roughly by the shoulder as if she was another boy.
“What happened to your nose?” she asked angrily. It was somehow shameful to her that a misfortune should have befallen his nose.
He waved a hand vaguely toward the north. “A white lady up in New Jersey—” he began.
“What,” Kitty cried incredulously, curling her lip and calling the others to witness. “What happened?”
“A lady from Haddon Heights hit me on the nose.”
The others laughed and the engineer too. Only Kitty went on curling her lip in the most sensual and angry way. Rita laughed but her eyes were wary. She was handsome!
Jamie stood a little above them, on the motel walk, grinning and shaking his head. He looked brown and fit but a bit sooty-eyed.
“Wait a minute, Kitty,” said the engineer as the girl turned away.
“What now?”
“Hold on! Don’t leave.”
“All right, what?”
“It seems I have not been able to make myself understood,” he told them all, “or at least to prevent misunderstandings. I want to be very certain that everybody understands me now.”
“I told you he wanted to come with us,” said Mrs. Vaught to her husband, her pince-nez flashing.
“In any case,” said the engineer, “let me state my intentions once and for all, particularly with regard to Jamie and, ah, Kitty.” He almost said Miss Kitty.
“My God,” said Kitty, turning red as a beet. “What is the man talking about?” She besought Rita, who in turn was watching the engineer like a hawk, her eyes wary and fine.
“I want to make clear what apparently I failed to make clear in New York, that from the beginning I accepted Mr. Vaught’s offer with great pleasure and that I shall be happy to go to school with Jamie or anywhere else he wants to go.”
Kitty seemed both relieved and irritated. “That’s why he was fixing to take off for Colorado,” she said loudly to Rita, and hollowed out her cheek with her tongue.
“What’s that?” asked the engineer quickly.
“He wants to know whose idea Colorado was,” she said, still addressing Rita. She actually jerked a thumb at him, angry as an umpire. What had happened to his love?
Rita shrugged.
“Have you already forgotten what you told Rita?” asked the girl, meeting his eye.
“That’s possible,” said the engineer slowly. The worst of it was that he could have forgotten. “Since it was Rita I told, maybe she could refresh my memory.”
“Glad to, Lance Corporal,” she said, shrugging and smiling. “Though it is nothing we all don’t already know. What you told me, if you recall, was that what you really wanted to do was attend the Colorado School of Mines.”
“Without Kitty,” said Kitty.
“No,” said the engineer.
“Yes,” said Rita. “Don’t you remember the day I returned the telescope?”
“Why yes,” said the engineer, remembering something, “but I certainly did not mean that I wasn’t ready and anxious to join the Vaughts. Besides that, I had already committed myself to Mr. Vaught and I always honor my obligations.”
“So now we’re an obligation,” said Kitty, addressing all Virginia. Her eyes flashed. It crossed his mind that she was what used to be called a noble high-spirited girl.
“No no, Kitty,” said the poor engineer.
“You may recall, Lance Corporal,” said Rita dryly, “that I asked you straight out which of us you wanted to work for, me or Poppy. You were unable to give a clear answer and spoke instead of Colorado. Knowing that you were a gentleman and did not like wrangling with women (I don’t blame you), I did not press the issue. Perhaps I was wrong.”
The trouble was he could not be sure and she knew it. And as he gazed at her he fancied he caught a gleam in her eye. She was skirting with him the abyss within himself and not doing it ill-naturedly: I know, said the gleam, and you know that I know and that you are not quite sure and that I might even be right.
“Anyhow Poppy is right,” said Rita, rubbing her hands briskly. “We are all here and that is what counts. Why don’t we hit the road?”
They were all leaving that very day, it turned out. Another two hours and he’d have missed them.
Mrs. Vaught and Kitty had one more room in the Governor’s Palace to see, one more pewter candle-snuffer to buy. The engineer stayed at the motel to help Jamie pack. But Jamie was tired and went to lie down; the engineer packed for him. Rita found him sitting on the back step of the camper counting his money.
“You can keep that,” she said. He had come to her post-dated check.
“No, thanks,” he said and handed it over. Now it was he who eyed her warily, but not disagreeably.
“Believe it or not, I’m very happy things worked out as they have.”
“You are?”
“I’m afraid I was the cause of the misunderstanding.”
He shrugged.