Presently he rose from his desk and opened the closed door, saying, “Stuffy,” to which there was no response, and returned to his desk.
Presently from his desk: “Like to see you about something, Father.”
When the curate came in, Joe had his head down and averted, in the confessorial position (though he was the penitent), and was fingering the typewritten note. “Father, when you got this… information… what’d you… say?”
“I said thanks.”
Joe looked at the curate — no, he wasn’t being funny (no, that wouldn’t be like him). “Didn’t say who you were?”
“No.”
“He say who he was?”
“No. Who was he?”
Joe, for something to do in the ensuing lull, turned his hat (left upside down on his desk to cool) right side up, over the typewritten note. “Afraid I can’t tell you that,” he said, hearing the doorbell chime and:
“You order a bed?”
Joe and the curate went upstairs, and Joe, in view of his experience with Earl and the store, was glad that the bed — the right one, the double with pineapples — had come when promised, and the mattress and box spring too.
Joe and the curate and the two men from the store (who offered to help) assembled the bed, Joe supervising and otherwise doing more than his share, calling the men from the store by their first names (stitched on their shirts) and also, as he never had before, the curate by his. “Easy, Bill.” Sam and George extricated the mattress and box spring from their cartons — these they offered to take with them, a load off Joe’s mind. It was then, though, that Joe noticed — evidently the only one who had — that the mattress and box spring didn’t match.
“Hold it,” he said, and got on the phone.
“Oh, oh,” Earl said. “Too bad you didn’t catch it in time, Father.”
“Too bad I didn’t?”
“If you’d told the boys on the truck…”
“Earl.”
“Yes, Father.”
“They’re still here.”
“In that case, put one of ’em on, Father.”
Joe gave the phone to Sam, who said, “Yup,” “Nup,” “Yup,” and gave the phone to Joe.
“What’s the deal, Earl?”
“All you have to do, Father, is specify the color of your choice. Choice of three — blue, pink, or silver gray. That’s what I would’ve recommended in your case, Father. Silver gray.”
“I don’t care what color I get. Just so the mattress and box spring match.”
“In that case, let’s forget silver gray, Father. Blue or pink?”
“I don’t care. All right. Blue.”
“Blue. Now the mattress, or the box spring, is pink?”
“The mattress.”
“That means the boys’ll bring you a blue mattress on Monday.”
“Wait a minute. Does that mean they’ll take back the pink one today?”
“That’s right.”
“No good, Earl. I disposed of my old bed this morning.”
“Oh, oh. M and B too?”
“What?”
“Mattress and box spring too, Father?”
“Yes, but they were for a single, Earl. My old bed was a single, remember?”
“Now I do. Father, how about using the new bed — the cannonballs — in the guest room? Just till Monday?”
“No good. I’ve got the monk coming on Saturday.”
“Oh, oh. Forgot about him. Hey, how about the cot — or did you dispose of that?”
“No, it’s still here somewhere.”
“You couldn’t use it — just till Monday?”
“You couldn’t leave the pink mattress here till then?”
“Not very well, Father. No.”
“Because of what it says on the label?”
“That’s right. Public health measure. If you slept on it, we couldn’t take it back and sell it. That’s the law.”
“You know what, Earl?”
“What, Father?”
“You can take ’em both back — the pink M and the blue B.”
“And send out the silver gray?”
“And not send out the silver gray. I’ve had it with you people. I don’t see how you stay in business.”
“Father, just because somebody goofed…”
“‘Somebody,’ huh?”
“Have her call me back. I’m talking to Father now. Sorry, Father. How’s that again?”
“I have nothing to say.”
“I don’t care if she’s the Queen of Siam. I’m talking to Father now. Sorry, Father. Now here’s the way I look at it. Who’s to know these units don’t match? If you were a woman, it’d be different.”
“What would?”
“Father, you don’t care. You’re a man.”
“Yes, but what if I want to dispose of these units some-day — to a woman?” (Joe was only thinking of what Mrs P. would say.)
“Father, you won’t. These units’ll last you a lifetime — and then some. All right, Foxie! I’ll talk to her personally! Look, Father, you don’t have to decide now, on the phone. Just let the boys know your decision.”
Joe hung up. He let the boys know his decision, after which they left (with the cartons). Joe and Bill then made the bed. What was true of the bed pad was true, perhaps truer, of the sheets from the linen closet — all rather narrow, being singles, as Bill pointed out. Joe, who knew this but had been hoping that some sheets would be wider than they should be, said, “O.K., we’ll buy some doubles, and also a pad”—so he wouldn’t have to sleep right in the middle of the bed—“when we go out to eat.”
“’Lo, Ed,” Joe murmured, waving back at Ed Smiley, pastor of St Peter’s, Silverstream, who was at a table across the room with his curate and who, Joe had hoped, wouldn’t see him.
“He was out at the seminary once, on a panel,” Bill said.
“Ed was everywhere once, on a panel,” Joe said. “Smiley, of Smiley’s Shell, is Ed’s brother, you know. Smiley runs a good, clean station. He has to. You can’t mess around with Shell. Ed would be all right, or anyway better, if he didn’t think of himself as a charismatic leader in this our time. Hence the black leather jacket and the overalls he wears around the rectory [“Overalls?”—“You know what I mean”], the scooter he rides, the driv he talks [“Driv?”—“Drivel”]. Advised me to sprinkle grass seed in the snow and let nature do the rest. I believed him too, because I wanted to. That’s the trouble in the Church today. Too many clergy like Ed and too many people who want to believe ’em.” Joe watched the waitress bring the check to Ed’s table and give it to the curate. “The curate’s running the parish, Bill. Ed’s financially non compos.” Joe watched Ed follow the curate out of the room. “That’s the story on Ed, Bill. But his parishioners don’t know. So keep it under your hat.”
“Father, what’s the story on that phone call?”
Since the matter hadn’t come up when it might have — when they were making the bed, or when they returned to their offices, or in the car on the way to the restaurant, or during the meal until now — Joe had believed, because he’d wanted to, that Bill had decided not to pursue the matter, wisely and kindly, having perhaps seen the distress it had caused Joe earlier, that distress perhaps to be seen now. “It’s a long story, Bill.”
“You were hoping I wouldn’t ask you again?”
“Yes. Sometimes we don’t know what we’re asking, Bill.”
“I’d still like to know, Father.”