“You said there was something you wanted to tell Tony,” Oliver said.
Lucy glanced from his face to Patterson’s, distrustfully.
“Yes,” Patterson said. Now that the moment had come he was sorry he had given into Oliver’s demand. “Still,” he said, conscious that he was being cowardly, “don’t you think it could wait for another time?”
“I think this is the very best time, Sam,” Oliver said evenly. “You’re not going to see Tony for another month, at least, and Tony after all is the one who’s finally responsible for taking care of himself and I think it’d be better if he knew just what he has to expect and why …”
“Oliver …” Lucy began.
“Sam and I have talked all this out already, Lucy,” Oliver said, touching her hand.
“What do I have to do now?” Tony asked, eyeing Patterson distrustfully.
“You don’t have to do anything, Tony,” Patterson said. “I just want to tell you how things are with you.”
“I feel fine.” Tony sounded sullen as he said this and he looked unhappily at the ground.
“Of course,” Patterson said. “And you’re going to feel a lot better.”
“I feel good enough,” Tony said stubbornly. “Why do I have to feel better?”
Patterson and Oliver laughed at this, and, after a moment, Bunner joined in.
“Well enough,” Lucy said. “Not good enough.”
“Well enough,” Tony said obediently.
“Of course you do,” Patterson began.
“I don’t want to stop anything,” Tony said warningly. “I stopped enough things already in my life.”
“Tony,” said Oliver, “let Dr. Patterson finish what he has to say.”
“Yes, Sir,” said Tony.
“All I want to tell you,” Patterson said, “is that you mustn’t try to read for a while yet, but aside from that, you can do almost anything you want—in moderation. Do you know what moderation means?”
“It means not asking for a second ice-cream soda,” Tony said promptly.
They all laughed at that and Tony looked around him, shrewdly, because he had known it was going to make them laugh.
“Exactly,” Patterson said. “You can play tennis and you can swim and …”
“I want to learn to play second base,” said Tony. “I want to learn to hit curves.”
“We can try,” Bunner said, “but I don’t guarantee anything. I haven’t hit a curve yet and I’m a lot older than you. You’re either born hitting curves or you’re not.”
“You can do all that, Tony,” Patterson went on, noting somewhere at the back of his mind that Bunner was a pessimist, “on one condition. And the condition is that as soon as you feel yourself getting the least bit tired, you quit. The least bit …”
“And if I don’t quit?” the boy said sharply. “What happens then?”
Patterson looked inquiringly at Oliver.
“Go ahead and tell him,” Oliver said.
Patterson shrugged and turned back to Tony. “Then you might have to go back to bed and stay there again for a long time. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“You mean I might die,” Tony said, ignoring the question.
“Tony!” Lucy said. “Dr. Patterson didn’t say that.”
Tony looked around him with hostility and Patterson had the impression, for a moment, that the boy was regarding the people who surrounded him not as his parents and friends, but as the instigators and the representatives of his illness.
“Don’t worry,” Tony said. He smiled and the hostility vanished. “I won’t die.”
“Of course not,” said Patterson, resenting Oliver for having put him through a scene like that. He took a step forward to the boy and leaned over him a little, coming closer to his level.
“Tony,” he said, “I want to congratulate you.”
“Why?” Tony asked, a little guardedly, suspecting teasing.
“You’re a model patient,” Patterson said. “You recovered. Thank you.”
“When can I throw away these?” Tony asked. He put his hand up with a quick movement and took off his glasses. His voice suddenly seemed mature and bitter. Without has glasses his eyes looked deepset, peering, full of melancholy and judgment, alarming in the thin, boyish face.
“Maybe in a year or two,” Patterson said. “If you do the exercises every day. One hour each morning, one hour each night. Will you remember that?”
“Yes, Sir,” Tony said. He put on the glasses and they made him seem boyish again.
“Your mother knows all the exercises,” Patterson said, “and she’s promised she won’t skip a minute …”
“You can show them to me, Doctor,” said Bunner, “and we can spare Mrs. Crown.”
“There’s no need of that,” Lucy said quickly. “I’ll do it.”
“Of course,” Jeff said. “Whatever you say.”
Tony went over to Oliver. “Daddy,” he said, “do you have to go home?”
“I’m afraid so,” Oliver said. “But I’ll try to come up on a week-end later in the month.”
“Your father has to go back to the city and work,” Patterson said, “so that he can afford to pay me, Tony.”
Oliver smiled. “I think you should have allowed me to make that joke, Sam.”
“Sorry.” Patterson went over and kissed Lucy on the cheek. “Bloom,” he said, “bloom like the wild rose.”
“I’m walking past the hotel,” Bunner said. “Do you mind if I tag along with you, Doctor?”
“My pleasure,” Patterson said. “You can tell me what it’s like to be twenty.”
“So long, Tony,” said Bunner. “What time should I arrive tomorrow? Nine o’clock?”
“Ten-thirty,” Lucy said quickly. “That’s early enough.”
Bunner glanced at Oliver. “Ten-thirty it is,” he said.
He and Patterson started up the path toward the hotel, a big, gravely moving, bulky man and an agile, slender, dark boy in grass-stained canvas shoes. Lucy and Oliver watched them for a moment in silence.
That boy is too sure of himself, Lucy thought, watching the graceful, retreating figure. Imagine coming asking for a job wearing a sweatshirt. For a moment she thought of turning on Oliver and complaining about Bunner. At least, she thought, he might have let me be here when he interviewed him. Then she decided not to complain. It was done, and she knew Oliver too well to believe that she could change his mind. She would have to try to handle the young man by herself, her own way.
She hunched her shoulders and rubbed her bare thighs. “I’m cold,” she said. “I’m going to put on some clothes. Are you all packed, Oliver?”
“Just about,” he said. “There’re a couple of things I have to collect. I’ll go in with you.”
“Tony,” Lucy said. “You’d better put some pants on, too, and some shoes.”
“Oh, Mother.”
“Tony,” she said, thinking, He never talks back to Oliver.
“Oh, all right,” Tony said, and he led the way, shuffling his feet luxuriously in the cool thick grass of the lawn, into the house.
3
ALONE IN THE BEDROOM with Lucy, Oliver finished packing his bags. He was not a fussy man and he never took long, but when he finished with a bag it was always rigidly neat, almost as though it had been done by a machine. To Lucy, who had to pack and repack bags in bursts of inefficient energy, it seemed that Oliver had some brisk, inborn sense of order in his hands. While Oliver was packing she took off her sweater and bathing suit and looked at her naked body in the long glass. I’m getting old, she thought, staring at herself. There are the little secret marks of time on the flesh of my thighs. I must walk more. I must sleep more. I must not think about it. Thirty-five.
She brushed her hair. She wore it down a little past her shoulders, because Oliver liked it that way. She would have preferred it shorter, especially in the summer.