Billy went inside for a while and looked at the Stellkamps’ Sears, Roebuck catalogue, skipping all the pages with ladies in their underwear because Eleanor was still there pulling off the tablecloths and polishing. The pictures made him feel very strange and sometimes a little dizzy and hot. He couldn’t figure out why a lady would let somebody take a picture of her in her underwear. Maybe they were hooers. The pictures fascinated him because he learned the names of all those things that ladies wear under their dresses. There were a lot of pretty ladies wearing corsets but they didn’t look like his grandmother’s. He put the Sears catalogue back and went out on the porch again. His grandfather was sitting next to Mrs. Schmidt, both of them rocking back and forth. He was smoking. He told Billy that he had been looking for him to tell him that he was going to take a walk and that he expected Billy to take a bath and get to bed at the usual time. “Nothing special about tonight, young man.” Then he went in and came out a few minutes later with a sweater, a flashlight, and a bottle of citronella, and he and Mrs. Schmidt left together. It was funny that while his grandfather was gone, Mrs. Schmidt told him what a wonderful man his grandfather was, that he was a lucky boy to have such a man to take care of him and his mother, and that they should always be grateful to such a prince. Billy said he was glad she liked his grandfather and she got red and said that that was not exactly what she meant.
He didn’t take a bath but just ran water in the tub to get it wet. He washed his hands and arms and face and skipped brushing his teeth. It was a strange but very good feeling that his mother wasn’t there to make sure he took a bath and everything else. Maybe if she got married to Tom she wouldn’t pay so much attention to him. When he turned the light out in the bathroom he looked out the window that faced the farm buildings and the fields beyond and saw that it was a clear night but that there was no moon that he could see. The dark was full of fireflies. He went into the room he shared with his grandfather, said his “Now I lay me,” and got into bed. Right now, he guessed, his mother and Tom were at the WigWam, probably having a fancy drink in one of those glasses with the long stems, a Horse’s Neck or a Manhattan. He knew a Manhattan was a really fancy kind of drink because when they first came up this summer they had to wait for Louis to pick them up at Netcong and they went into a little café to get out of the sun and cool off and his mother said she felt like a Manhattan. He remembered his grandfather said, “These hicks will give you a Brooklyn, damn all they know about it,” and his mother laughed and had a Tom Collins instead and gave him the cherry.
The WigWam must have white everything. He figured that’s probably why his mother wore white and Tom had on white pants and stuff. Sure. He was absolutely delighted thinking of them dancing and talking and Tom smiling as he lit his pipe. Maybe they’d do this again. Maybe Tom would come to see his mother in the city all the time and take her out to the movies and to night clubs over in New York, maybe even to Coney Island and they could go to Feltman’s. That would be great, the waiters sang songs and everything. He fell asleep thinking of his mother and Tom chatting over a little bite of something, little sandwiches cut like diamonds. They had that liquor you put in a pail.
His grandfather was shouting at him from the roof to come up! come up! and he woke up and saw his grandfather in the dark, leaning out the window, shining a flashlight down and across the road. He was yelling and really mad, and he kept yelling about the time! the time! and what did he think his daughter was, and telling somebody to come up, goddammit to hell! Billy suddenly felt sick when he understood that he was yelling at his mother. And at Tom, too. But really mostly his mother. He said “Gramp” and his grandfather turned his head and told him to go back to sleep. Then he just stood at the window without shouting anymore but he kept standing there, shining the flashlight. Billy lay still, stiff, with his eyes closed, then heard his grandfather pull the window down halfway and hook the screen. In about a half a minute he heard the porch door close and footsteps on the stairs. It was his mother, he could tell. He wondered where Tom was and why he didn’t come in with his mother. She passed by the door of their room and started up the stairs to where her room was. She was crying very low, like she had a handkerchief to her mouth. Billy lay rigid, wondering what had happened. He heard a scratch and opened his eyes a little to see his grandfather light a cigarette and sit down on his bed. His grandfather said, in a whisper to himself, “One-thirty in the morning. A spectacle. One-thirty.” Billy wished hard but he was afraid that everything was spoiled. As he was going back to sleep he heard a man’s footsteps pass the door and start up the stairs. That must be Tom. Everything was really spoiled. He wanted to yell out curses but started to cry.
~ ~ ~
The next morning he saw that his mother’s eyes were red and he knew that she had been crying. Things were very strange at the house when they all had breakfast, his grandfather seemed very loud and happy, and talked about how the weather was changing, fall was definitely in the air, almost time to get back to the old grind, but it would be a relief. He even spoke to Tom the same way, all smiles and jokes, but it gave Billy the creeps. His mother sat very quietly, picking at her breakfast and leaving her second cup of coffee half-drunk. For some reason, everybody else was as loud as his grandfather, but their voices were phony and reminded Billy of how the kids in school talked when they put on a pageant for Open School assembly. Mrs. Schmidt was even waving her arms around the way Wanita Whiteman did when she played Lady Freedom last term. Tom smiled and smiled but Billy didn’t remember him saying a word except to excuse himself to go out on the porch and smoke his pipe. When breakfast was over, Tom wasn’t on the porch. Billy wanted to go and look for him, not to ask him anything about his grandfather yelling, he just wanted to be with him, but then it was time for mass and they went to the white wooden church in Mr. Sapurty’s car. Mrs. Schmidt usually went in Mr. Copan’s car but she said that the weather was bothering her arthritis, and when they left she was sitting on the porch with his grandfather and Dave Warren, who wasn’t a Catholic, at least he never went to mass. At mass, his mother didn’t seem to be paying attention to anything and when they rang the bell she didn’t even beat her chest or bow her head, just stared right in front of her so that he was afraid the priest even might say something to her.