“I wonder,” said Duncan. “If we ran some experiments with goat’s milk chocolate—”
“The Chinese venerate age. If I were in China people would come to me and say, ‘You’re old and wise. What’s the meaning of it all?’ ”
“What is the meaning of it all?” Duncan asked.
“I don’t know,” his grandfather told him.
“Mr. Peck,” said Arthur, “I would like to marry your daughter.”
The grandfather said, “My daughter?”
But Duncan understood. He gave Arthur a long, clear, untroubled look, as if nothing such a man could say would bother him. Then he said, “She’s seventeen.”
“Eighteen,” said Meg.
“Eighteen? Oh yes.”
“And Arthur’s twenty-six.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous,” said Duncan. “When you’re seventy he’ll be seventy-eight.”
“So?”
“And you’re still in school.”
“We’re planning a June wedding,” said Arthur. “She’ll be graduated by then.”
“And Daddy, you know I’m not the college type.”
“Who is? Who cares about college? Did I ever say I wanted you to go to college? But I didn’t say I wanted you to get married right off the bat, either, and go live in Simper, Virginia, sitting in the front pew every Sunday nodding all the flowers off your hat. It’s a trap. Do you want to be trapped? I thought you would go off and do something, Meggie, travel somewhere. Leave old Caramel behind if you like, we’re not trying to keep you for ourselves. Hitch-hike to California. Take a freight train. Take a bus. Learn to surf. Marry somebody unpredictable. Join the Foreign Legion.”
“But I can’t be that way.”
“Try! Anything but this. Just settling for it doesn’t matter who, any pale fish in a suit—”
“Mr. Peck,” said Arthur, “I understand, of course, that in the heat of the moment—”
“How will you have babies, Reverend Mildew, osmosis?”
“Mama!” Meg called.
“Don’t trouble your mother, Meg, I’ll see him out myself.”
“Unfortunately I am not that easy to discourage,” Arthur said.
“That is unfortunate.” But Duncan was guiding him toward the door anyway, and Arthur was allowing it. “Now,” said Duncan, “if by any strange chance Meg still feels the same when she is of a decent age, Reverend, I admit there is nothing I can do about it. Meanwhile, goodbye.”
“But I am of age!” Meg said.
The front screen slammed.
Meg looked at her great-grandfather, who smiled a weary smile showing every one of his perfect teeth. She crossed to the kitchen door and opened it.
“Meg,” said Dorcas, “your mother’s a marvel. My cards say Ann-Campbell is with Joe Pete and I’m to enjoy the rest while she’s gone.”
“Mama, listen.”
Justine looked up. She was seated at the kitchen table, holding both hands rigid. Between each finger were long sprays of raw spaghetti. “Look, Meg!” she said. “I’m learning the I Ching!”
“Is that all you have to do?”
“Well, we should use yarrow stalks but we don’t know what they are.”
“I just want to tell you this,” Meg said. “I blame you as much as him.”
“What, Meggie dear?”
“The two of you are as closed as a unit can get, I don’t care what he says.”
“Closed? What?” said Justine, looking bewildered. She rose, holding out two spaghetti whiskbrooms. “Wait, Meggie darling, I don’t—”
But Meg was gone. She ran across the hall and out of the house. There was no sign of Arthur or Duncan in the yard. Only the Ford, melting into the twilight, with a magazine page flapping in the space where the door should have been:
WOULDN’T YOU REALLY RATHER HAVE A BUICK?
9
For the Polk Valley church’s April bazaar Justine wore her very best dress — an A-line shift that Duncan had bought her five years ago at a nearly-new sale. She pulled her hair into a sprout on top of her head, covered it over with her hat, and dabbed at her mouth with a pink Tangee lipstick from high school. On her feet she wore her black Mary Janes, on her arm a gypsy bracelet borrowed from the Blue Bottle. Generally speaking, she thought she looked very presentable.
Because the car was in the body shop, Justine had to ask for a lift in Dorcas’s baby-blue Cadillac. And Ann-Campbell had to come along, jouncing in the back seat, periodically nosing her sharp little freckled face between the two women to eavesdrop. Justine liked Ann-Campbell. She was certain she was going to lead a very interesting life.
On the way to Polk Valley Dorcas talked about her ex-husband, Joe Pete, whom she had married and divorced three times now. Every time she married him she had a large church wedding all over again, with Ann-Campbell as flower girl in a floor-length organdy dress to cover the scabs, scars, scrapes, bruises, and Band-Aids on her bony knees. Lately relatives had stopped attending, and the gifts had thinned out. “But,” said Dorcas, “he’s still my first husband, isn’t he? I’ve never been married to anybody else, and neither has he. Why can’t I have a wedding like I choose?”
Justine didn’t want to think about weddings. They reminded her of Meg. She was worried sick about Meg, who had become very quiet the last few weeks, and whenever she talked it over with Duncan he acted so cross and stubborn that he was no help at all. He said Meg could marry anyone she chose, a Congo chieftain if she cared to, but not a man whose only quality was harmlessness. “Maybe she loves him,” Justine said, but doubtfully. She tried to believe it. Whenever she saw Arthur she worked at being interested in him. She observed that he was kindhearted, steady, polite . . . and then her mind would trail off to some other subject and she forgot he was there. She watched Meg, who appeared as placid as ever. But then Meg didn’t show emotions, that was all. Of course she loved him or she wouldn’t say she wanted to marry him.
Oh, the things she had prepared herself for, when Meg was born! Merely the fact of having a new person in the world implied a stream of unforeseen events endlessly branching and dividing. As Meg grew into her teens Justine was braced for long-haired suitors, LSD, shoplifting, pregnancy, revolutionists, firearms in the closet — anything, for her daughter’s sake she could deal with anything! She just hadn’t expected Arthur Milsom, exactly.
“Thursday night Joe Pete calls up. ‘Will you be at home a while?’ Where would I go to? On no alimony at all and six months behind in child support. And Joe Pete’s a rich man, Britt Texaco. ‘Joe Pete,’ I told him, I said, ‘all in the world that’s left for me to do tonight is read my November seventy-two Modern Movies,’ and he says, ‘Fine, for I’m bringing back your daughter and you owe me forty-eight ninety-five for my new emerald rug which she dribble-bleached with a gallon of Clorox. I won’t charge for the Clorox,’ he says. ‘Well and good,’ I tell him, ‘you can take that up with the FBI when they haul you in for kidnap.’ I’m no fool.”