On the second Saturday in September — a mild, muggy morning, overcast, the kind of day when it’s hard to work up any enthusiasm — I drove to Len’s garden apartment. Martine followed behind with the truck, so that I would have a ride back. Our whole transaction took place out front at the curb — Len circling the car several times, stopping to stroke a fender in this possessive, presumptuous way that got on my nerves. He was wearing his weekend outfit of polo shirt, khakis, and yachting shoes minus the socks. I couldn’t abide how he combed his hair in an arrogant upward direction. And when he got in and started the engine, it seemed to me that he did it all wrong. That first little gnarly sound was missing; he wasn’t gradual enough. I called out, “Careful, there—”
But Martine, lounging nearby with her hands jammed in her rear pockets, said, “Let it go, Barnaby,” and so I did.
When we left she asked if I wanted to drive, but I lacked the heart for it. I sat slumped in the shotgun seat of the truck—our truck, for what that was worth, with its greasy vinyl upholstery and the graying white fur dice swinging from the mirror — and told Martine everything I disliked about Len Parrish. “It isn’t that I blame him for letting me take the rap alone,” I said. “He’d have done me no good coming forward; I understand that. But then to act so above it all! Tut-tutting with my mom about me; mentioning the Paul Pry business to Sophia. When he was in on it! When he was just as involved!”
“Let it go,” Martine said again, switching her turn signal on.
“You saw how he acted this morning. So Mr. Cool, so … like, uncaring. I introduce you and he says, ‘Uh-huh,’ and doesn’t even look at you; too busy gloating over the car. Doesn’t even glance in your direction.”
Sneakily, I glanced at her myself. She was sitting on the cushion she used for driving, one finger tapping the wheel as she waited for the light to change. Her profile was poked forward, beaky and persistent, intent on the signal overhead.
Martine and I had developed a new style of dealing with each other lately. We were careful not to touch, not even by accident, and we never quite let our eyes meet. Our tone of voice was casual and sporty. Like now: “So?” Martine said. “He’s a jerk. Give it a rest, Gaitlin.” And she slammed into gear and hooked a quick left turn in front of the oncoming traffic.
Maybe I should have said something. Brought things out in the open. But how would I put it, exactly? Hey, okay; so we did something stupid. You’re not going to let it change things, are you? Could we just hit the Erase button, here, and go back to the same as before?
But I didn’t say any of that, and she went on facing straight forward. She seemed to be driving with her nose. Both hands gripped the wheel; her house key dangled from the brown leather band that was looped around one wrist. I thought of something. I said, “The key.”
“What key?”
“The key to the Corvette. I left it on the ring. I turned over my whole key ring, with that Chevy emblem my Pop-Pop gave me when he put the car in my name.”
“So what? You’ll be driving a Ford now. What do you want with a Chevrolet key ring?”
She was right. I couldn’t argue with her logic. But that emblem had been with me a very long time. The plastic surface was so yellowed and dulled, you could barely make out the two crossed flags encased beneath it. At tense moments I would run my thumb across it, the way I used to stroke the satin binding of my crib blanket. I thought of Len doing that, and it killed me.
I must be more of a car man than I’d realized.
On Monday evening, I dropped by my parents’ house, choosing an hour when I figured they would both be home. Sophia offered to come with me, but I had this picture in mind: me facing Mom and Dad in the entrance hall, slipping the money from Opal’s clip and saying, “Here. I just stopped by to drop this off.” And then I’d lay it on the flat of Mom’s palm and leave. Sophia wasn’t part of this picture; no offense to her. I needed to do it alone.
But these things never work out the way you imagine. First of all, it emerged that eighty-seven one-hundred-dollar bills made a stack too thick for a money clip. I had to ask the teller to fasten one of those paper bands around the middle. And then when I got to the house, my parents did not obligingly show up together at the door. (When did they ever, in fact?) Just my mother came, carrying a cordless phone and continuing with her conversation even as she let me in. “It’s only Barnaby,” she told the phone. “Wicky,” she mouthed at me before she turned away So I couldn’t stay in the hall. I had to follow her into the living room, and settle on the couch, and wait for her to finish talking.
“Honestly,” she told me as she punched the hang-up button. “I know I swore I would always get along with my daughters-in-law, but sometimes it’s an effort.” She turned toward the stairs and called, “Jeffrey?”
“What?” came back dimly, moments later.
“Your son is here.”
“Which son?”
“The bad one,” I called, just to save her the trouble.
Mom rolled her eyes at me and then came to sit in the chair to my left. She was wearing slacks and the man’s white shirt she gardened in. (I had envisioned her more dressed up, somehow. Mom in her Guilford Matron outfit, Dad in his suit. Like a dollhouse couple, hand in hand in the doorway) “How’s Sophia?” she asked.
“She’s fine.”
“Why didn’t you bring her with you?”
“Oh, well …”
“Sophia would never act the way Wicky does,” she said. “Sophia’s so considerate.” And then she sailed into this tale about the birthday party Wicky was planning for Dad. “I said, ‘We don’t want you going to any bother, Wicky,’ and she said, ‘It won’t be the least bit of bother,’ and now I know why. Because first she told me all I had to do was show up, and then she told me, well, maybe I could make my artichoke dip, and then—”
“Whose truck is that in the driveway?” my father wanted to know. He walked into the room with a magazine suspended from one hand, his index finger marking a page. He did have his suit on still, but his tie was missing and he wore his velvet mules instead of shoes. “Red pickup,” he told me. “Did you drive that here?”
“Yes; um …”
“You left your lights on.”
“Well, I’ll be going pretty soon,” I said.
“Oh, don’t hurry off!” my mother cried. “Stay for dinner! We’re having shrimp salad. There’s lots.”
“Thanks, but I already ate,” I said. “I just stopped by to—”
“Already ate? Ate dinner?” she asked. She checked her watch. “It’s barely seven-thirty.”
“Right.”
“Goodness, Barnaby. You’re so uncivilized!”
I looked at her. I said, “How do you figure that?”
“We always eat at eight,” she said.
“Dine,” I told her.
“Pardon?”
“You always dine at eight. Isn’t that what you meant to say?”
She drew up taller in her seat. She said, “I don’t see—”
“Gram and Pop-Pop dine at five-thirty, however,” I said, “and what’s good enough for them is good enough for me.”
“Of course it is!” Dad told me. He bent to set his magazine on the coffee table, as if he’d decided the situation required his full attention. “But you could join us for cocktails,” he said. “Scotch, maybe? Glass of wine?” He rubbed his hands together.
“Really I just stopped by to give you this,” I said, and I picked up the denim jacket that was lying across my knees. The weather wasn’t cool enough for jackets yet, but I’d needed something with roomy pockets. “Here,” I said. I pulled out the brick of money and leaned forward to place it in my mother’s lap.