“What for? Everything changed.”
“Don’t you get curious about it?”
“Not much.”
“Any relatives alive?”
“Sure, my brother and his kids and they got kids.”
“I’d think you’d want to see them.”
He looked at me, I guess, as I’d looked at Margie, saw me for the first time.
“What you got on your mind, kid?”
“Hurts me to see your arthritis. I thought how it’s warm in Sicily. Might knock the pain out.”
He looked at me suspiciously. “What’s with you?”
“How do you mean?”
“You look different.”
“Oh! I got a little bit of good news.”
“Not going to quit?”
“Not right away. If you wanted to make a trip to Italy, I could promise I’d be here.”
“What’s good news?”
“Can’t tell you yet. It’s like this....” I balanced my palm back and forth.
“Money?”
“Could be. Look, you’re rich enough. Why don’t you go back to Sicily and show ’em what a rich American looks like? Soak up some sun. I can take care of the store. You know that.”
“You ain’t quitting?”
“Hell, no. You know me well enough to know I wouldn’t run out on you.”
“You changed, kid. Why?”
“I told you. Go bounce the bambinos.”
“I don’t belong there,” he said, but I knew I’d planted something—really something. And I knew he’d come in late that night and go over the books. He’s a suspicious bastard.
He’d hardly left when—well, it was like yesterday—the B. B. D. and D. drummer came in.
“Not on business,” he said. “I’m staying the weekend out at Montauk. Thought I’d drop in.”
“I’m glad you did,” I said. “I want to give you this.” I held out the billfold with the twenty sticking out.
“Hell, that’s good will. I told you I’m not on business.”
“Take it!”
“What you getting at?”
“It constitutes a contract where I come from.”
“What’s the matter, you sore?”
“Certainly not.”
“Then why?”
“Take it! The bids aren’t all in.”
“Jesus—did Waylands make a better offer?”
“No.”
“Who, then—them damn discount houses?”
I pushed the twenty-dollar bill into his breast pocket behind his peaked handkerchief. “I’ll keep the billfold,” I said. “It’s nice.”
“Look I can’t make an offer without I talk to the head office. Don’t close till maybe Tuesday. I’ll telephone you. If I say it’s Hugh, you’ll know who it is.”
“It’s your money in the pay phone.”
“Well, hold it open, will you?”
“It’s open,” I said. “Doing any fishing?”
“Only for dames. I tried to take that dish Margie out there. She wouldn’t go. Damn near snapped my head off. I don’t get dames.”
“They’re curiouser and curiouser.”[19]
“You can say that again,” he said, and I haven’t heard that expression in fifteen years. He looked worried. “Don’t do anything till you hear from me,” he said. “Jesus, I thought I was conning a country boy.”
“I will not sell my master short.”
“Nuts. You just raised the ante.”
“I just refused a bribe if you feel the urge to talk about it.”
I guess that proves I was different. The guy began to look at me with respect and I liked it. I loved it. The bugger thought I was like him, only better at it.
Just before I was ready to close up Mary telephoned. “Ethan,” she said, “now don’t get mad—”
“At what, flower feet?”
“Well, she’s so lonely and I thought—well, I asked Margie to dinner.”
“Why not?”
“You’re not mad?”
“Hell, no.”
“Don’t swear. Tomorrow’s Easter.”
“That reminds me, press your prettiest. We’re going to Baker’s at four o’clock.”
“At their house?”
“Yes, for tea.”
“I’ll have to wear my Easter church outfit.”
“Good stuff, fern tip.”
“You’re not mad about Margie?”
“I love you,” I said. And I do. I really do. And I remember thinking what a hell of a man a man could become.
Chapter five
When I walked up Elm Street and turned in at the walk of buried ballast stones, I stopped and looked at the old place. It felt different. It felt mine. Not Mary’s, not Father’s, not old Cap’n’s, but mine. I could sell it or burn it or keep it.
I’d taken only two of the back steps when the screen door whapped open and Allen boiled out yelling, “Where’s the Peeks? Didn’t you bring me the Peeks?”
“No,” I said. And, wonder layered with wonders, he didn’t scream his pain and loss. He didn’t appeal to his mother to agree that I had promised.
He said, “Oh!” and went quietly away.
“Good evening,” I said to his retreating back and he stopped and said, “Good evening,” as though it were a foreign word he’d just learned.
Mary came into the kitchen. “You’ve had a haircut,” she said. She identifies any strangeness in me as a fever or a haircut.
“No, pin curl, I have not.”
“Well, I’ve been going like spit to get the house ready.”
“Ready?”
“I told you, Margie’s coming for dinner.”
“I know, but why all the festive hurly-burly?”
“We haven’t had a dinner guest in ages.”
“That’s true. That’s really true.”
“Are you going to put on your dark suit?”
“No, Old Dobbin,[20] my decent gray.”
“Why not the dark?”
“Don’t want to spoil the press for church tomorrow.”
“I can press it tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll wear Old Dobbin, as sweet a suit as you’ll find in the county.”
“Children,” she called, “don’t you touch anything! I’ve put out the nut dishes. You don’t want to wear the dark?”
“No.”
“Margie will be dressed to the nines.”
“Margie likes Old Dobbin.”
“How do you know?”
“She told me.”
“She did not.”
“Wrote a letter to the paper about it.”
“Be serious. You are going to be nice to her?”
“I’m going to make love to her.”
“I’d think you’d like to wear the dark—with her coming.”
“Look, flower girl, when I came in, I didn’t give a damn what I wore or nothing. In two short moments you have made it impossible for me to wear anything but Old Dobbin.”
“Just to be mean?”
“Sure.”
“Oh!” she said in the same tone Allen had used.
“What’s for dinner? I want to wear a tie to match the meat.”
“Roast chicken. Can’t you smell it?”
“Guess I can. Mary—I—” But I didn’t go on. Why do it? You can’t buck a national instinct. She’d been to the Chicken Bargain Day at the Safe Rite Store. Cheaper than Marullo’s. Of course I got them wholesale and I have explained to Mary the come-on bargains at the chain stores. The bargain draws you in and you pick up a dozen other things that aren’t bargains just because they’re under your hand. Everyone knows it and everyone does it.
My lecture to Mary Manyflowers died afoaling. The New Ethan Allen Hawley goes along with the national follies and uses them when he can.
Mary said, “I hope you don’t think I was disloyal.”
“My darling, what can be virtuous or sinful about a chicken?”
“It was awful cheap.”
19
They’re curiouser and curiouser:
20
Old Dobbin: Steinbeck also named his clothes: suits were “Burying Black,” “Old Blue,” “New Blue,” and “Dorian Gray.”