“Where’s Parker?” she said.
He shrugged. “Back at the train,” he said, guessing.
“Well, why is he there?” Marge Pendergast was sitting next to her, drinking something from a Styrofoam cup. Her hair was all tangled, and she wasn’t brushing it out of her eyes. They both had on tennis dresses.
“Get in,” Parker’s mother said. “I had a feeling you’d get this train.”
“Nah,” he said. “Thanks. I’ve got to go somewhere.”
“What are you talking about?” Parker’s mother said. “I’m giving you a ride home. Where’s Parker?”
“At the train,” John Joel said again. “You really don’t want a ride?” Parker’s mother said. “No, thanks.”
“Go on,” Marge Pendergast said. “I’m hot and I want a shower.”
“John Joel, while I’m here, why don’t you get in the car and we’ll find Parker and I can drop you where you’re going.”
“No,” he said, and turned and started to walk away from the car.
He listened for the car to pull away, and in a few seconds it did, with a screech of tires. He wondered if she’d find Parker, and he half hoped that he was gone — that there was no chance that she’d find him and that Parker would try to blame him, somehow, for the lost picture. He wondered if that woman in the picture ever suspected how she’d end up, the trouble her picture would cause. He regretted all the money he’d spent on Parker. He wished that he had another friend, because even if Parker called him, he wasn’t ever going to see him again.
A mile up the road, he went into the food store and bought Pepperidge Farm Mint Milanos. He started eating them as he stood in line waiting to buy them, two bites to a cookie. Outside the store, when he finished the first layer, he took the paper cup out and wadded it until he made it into a ball in his fist. Then he threw it, as if he meant to strike somebody out. The ball had no weight and only went a few feet before it hit the ground.
“Why don’t you pick that up?” a woman in the parking lot said, opening her car door.
He had only gone a few yards when he felt, for the first time, a painful sting: He had gotten a blister on his little toe in New York.
Eleven
“COME WITH ME,” Louise said. “It’ll be fun. It’ll be more fun than lying around the house all day.
“I don’t want to,” John Joel said.
“Come on,” Louise said. “Tiffy’s made lots of picnic food and we’ll go berry-picking. I’ll make a strawberry pie. But you have to come help me.”
“Mary doesn’t have to come.”
“Mary is at Angela’s. Come on. Why do I have to urge my children to move? It’s not going above eighty today. It’s a perfect day to pick berries.”
“Why can’t I stay here?” John Joel said.
“To tell you the truth, you can. But I wish you’d come with me. I know you’re depressed about something, and if you won’t tell me, at least let me try to cheer you up.”
“I don’t like Tiffy,” he said.
“How could you not like Tiffy? You’ll like her. You hardly know her. Your father badmouths every woman I know. Don’t pick up all your father’s prejudices.”
“I don’t even see him,” John Joel said.
“You see him on the weekends,” Louise said. “Come on. If we start talking about this, I’m going to get depressed, and I’m in a good mood today.”
“What am I supposed to say to people who want to know how come he’s never around?”
“Is that what’s bothering you?” Louise said. She sat on the sofa, across from the chair where he was sitting and reading a Zap comic.
He nodded yes. It was a lie, but he wanted to see what she’d say,
“Say we’re separated,” she said.
“He’s here on the weekends,” John Joel said. He hadn’t wanted her to say that. He hadn’t thought she would.
“Ask your father what you should say. As far as I’m concerned, it’s an adequate answer to nosy people to say we’re separated.”
“It’s going to be plenty hot getting berries today.”
“I think you can stand it. Last time: Are you coming?”
He put down the comic book and got out of the chair. “Mary doesn’t have to come,” he said again, but he didn’t want her to be coming, and he knew that his mother knew that. She didn’t say anything. She got up and stretched and went into the kitchen and began taking containers out of the cabinet.
“Wear an old shirt and shorts so it doesn’t matter if they get stained,” she said.
He went upstairs. It had been three days since he and Parker had been in New York, and Parker hadn’t called him to apologize. Even if he had, he wouldn’t have seen Parker again, but he wanted to be able to hang up on him. He hoped that Parker had gotten into trouble with his mother.
He tried to put on his madras shorts, but they wouldn’t zip up all the way. He put on a pair of cut-off denim shorts that didn’t button, but that zipped and that had a reliable zipper. He put on a white shirt with a rip down the back, from snagging himself when he was getting out of the tree. His mother never mended things that were ripped. She’d approve of his choosing this shirt to go berry-picking in.
“Why are you so blue today?” she said when he came downstairs.
“I’m not. Lay off.”
“I can’t even inquire about how my children are feeling without being told to lay off?”
“I thought we were going out,” he said.
“As soon as I find a bag to put these containers in.”
“What’s for lunch?” he said.
“I don’t know. Tiffy’s bringing a picnic.”
“Chicken,” he said. “I’ll bet you.”
“It probably is chicken. Will that be all right with you?”
He held the door open for her. She walked out, swinging the bag she was carrying, humming a song. The car was hot inside from sitting in the sun. She opened her door, then went around to his side and unlocked it and opened that door. Heat poured out of the car.
“You never told me what you did in New York,” she said, getting in her side, throwing the bag into the back seat. He got in and closed his door. His shorts were tight across his stomach.
“Nothing much,” he said.
“Nothing much. New York City. If you want some suggestions, I can offer a few the next time you go in.”
“I’m sick of New York,” he said. “It’s too hot in the summer.”
“Take the boat out to the Statue of Liberty. Remember when we all did that last summer? Or the summer before, I guess. I love that ride. It’s not too long, and it’s so cool. I was telling your father that we ought to go to Nantucket this summer and rent a boat for a week. Would you like that?”
“Sure. I guess.”
“Tell him,” she said. “If we gang up on him, he’ll take us.”
“Isn’t he taking a vacation?” John Joel said.
“Of course he’ll take a vacation. But we’re going to have to persuade him to take it in Nantucket.”
“Maybe he’s going on vacation alone,” John Joel said.
His mother was turning on the air conditioning, steering with one hand as she rolled up her window.
“Why do you say that?” she said.