"That's right, you met him," Pat said. "What did he say?"
"It was what he didn't say. Oh, he was polite. Kathy introduced us and I said 'Howdy-do,' and practically genuflected. He said, 'Hello, young man; come in, Kathy, I need you.' And, man, that was it. Not exactly your warm neighborly greeting. I am beginning to get the impression," Mark concluded, "that he doesn't approve of people in general."
Pat served the vegetables. Now she understood Mark's reaction to the news that Friedrichs had been rude to her. He too had seen his friendly advances wither under Friedrichs' frigid stare. It was easier for Mark to accept rejection if he thought it was not directed at him personally. In fact, Pat was inclined to wonder whether her reception had not been affected by Friedrichs' obvious antagonism toward Mark. He had pounced on the two young people like a dragon, refusing to give them time to talk (although Mark had certainly managed to learn a great deal during that brief encounter)!
Pat smiled wryly to herself. She was reacting just as Mark had-trying to blame Friedrichs' hostility on some-thing other than herself. To hell with him, she thought. Who does he think he is, Paul Newman?
"I guess maybe we had better give up on the Friedrichs," she said.
"I would certainly advise you not to waste your well-known charm on that cold fish."
"But you are going to waste yours on Kathy?"
"It wouldn't be wasted." Mark grinned broadly and heaped his plate.
"I don't know, Mark. If Mr. Friedrichs doesn't want-"
"Oh, come on, Mom. It's up to me to make the overtures, isn't it? I mean, Women's Lib and all that, but she's new around here, and… Maybe you and I are over-reacting. Moving is hell, and he was probably tired." Mark took a large bite and was rendered temporarily speechless. He chewed with such energy that his mother deduced he had more to say, so she waited, and finally Mark went on, his eyes twinkling. "If he gives you any more grief, let me know, and I'll sic the ghost onto him."
"Ghost! What ghost?"
"Oh, they have a ghost," Mark said calmly. "Old Hiram used to see it. He told Dad about it. We were going to check it out…"
He stopped speaking and buttered a muffin with exaggerated concentration. Pat did not pursue the subject. She and Mark were still tiptoeing around one another's feelings, and, as people are wont to do in those circumstances, they kept tripping over their own grief. But this was the first time she had heard Mark display the same bitterness she felt about Jerry's unfinished plans and frustrated hopes.
They ate in silence. Mark's eyes were lowered, his face shuttered, and she knew better than to prod at his reserve. But beneath her remembered pain another green shoot of healthy curiosity thrust itself forth. Jerry had been a confirmed skeptic. He had also been one of the few people in the neighborhood old Hiram condescended to notice. What had the old man said to him? And why hadn't Jerry mentioned the conversation to her, so they could laugh together over poor crazy Hiram's imaginary ghost?
Two
I
Spring came early that year. An unseasonably warm spell brought crocuses and daffodils leaping out of the ground in sunny splendor and encouraged the cherry blossoms to bloom on schedule for the first time in ten years. When the women met in the supermarket they gloated over the lovely weather, and hoped frost wouldn't blight the blooms of peach and cherry and apple. Fruit prices were as high as Everest already.
Mark's fancy did not lightly turn with the season. It had focused on its goal even before the daffodils appeared. Actually, according to Nancy Groft, spring didn't make young men turn to thoughts of love. They thought about it all the time, winter, fall, and summer. If "love" was the right word…
Pat smiled dutifully at Nancy 's jokes, but she wasn't really amused. Although she would never have admitted it to Nancy, who had been rendered callous by the love affairs of four sons ("you have to get tough, honey, or you bleed to death,") she was worried about Mark. He wasn't eating. Even Nancy would have agreed that was a bad sign.
To say he wasn't eating was an exaggeration, of course. He ate what a normal human being would eat-about half of his usual capacity. Pat knew what was bothering him, and in her opinion, it was only about fifty percent love. If "love" was the right word…
The other fifty percent was outraged ego. Mark was a fast worker-as Pat's generation might have said-but in this case he didn't even get a chance to start working. Kathy's father drove her to school every day. It was a long drive, almost thirty miles, and they left before seven. After a week or so Mark became desperate enough to rise at six thirty-a hitherto unheard-of concession for a girl-but it did him no good. Kathy and Friedrichs emerged from the house together, got in the car, and drove off. Their garage was on the side of the house away from Pat's, so Kathy didn't even see Mark draped over the fence like a pensive gargoyle. Pat saw him, though, and she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Friedrichs also drove his daughter home. Usually they didn't arrive until six or seven p.m. Some nights it was even later. Presumably they ate out a good deal of the time. The Friedrichs' telephone number was unlisted, and Mark didn't have quite enough nerve to march up to the door and ask to speak to Kathy.
The weekend, for which Mark held high hopes, was equally unproductive. It rained both days and Kathy scarcely left the house. Mark shut himself up in his room, which just happened to overlook the house next door; he had virtuously announced his intention of catching up on schoolwork, but Pat knew he spent most of the time staring morosely out his window. One of Friedrichs' first acts upon moving in had been to hang curtains, so Mark was denied even a glimpse of his new flame.
It was typical of the perversity that pursues lovers that his mother should see more of Kathy than Mark did. Once, between showers on Saturday, she caught sight of the girl wandering in the wet garden. Mark was out, rendering emergency assistance to a friend whose car had run out of gas on the highway. Another day Pat actually met Kathy as she left for work. Mark had given up his early-morning vigils by then, and was still asleep. The girl had just time enough for a smile and a shy "good morning" before her father's peremptory voice called her to hurry.
She was a darling, Pat had to admit that. Petite and dainty as a Meissen shepherdess, even in the navy-blue skirt and tailored jacket Willowburn required of its students, she had charm as well as beauty. The shy smile and nod had been quite delightful. Obviously, Pat thought, she had not inherited her father's rotten disposition. Nor had she inherited his looks; her features were delicate, unlike Friedrichs' craggy bones and jutting nose, and her eyes were as blue as cornflowers. No wonder Mark was smitten (and how he would have jeered at that word and all it implied)! Pat rather suspected that Kathy was not indifferent. When she walked in the garden she kept glancing at the wall between the two houses, as if hoping to see someone there.
In the middle of the third week Mark's vigilance was finally rewarded. When Pat came home that Wednesday night she was tired. The flu season was upon them and the office had been full of coughing, sneezing victims. But one look at Mark's glowing face made her forget her fatigue. He had started dinner, and insisted that she sit down, put her feet up, and sip her sherry like a lady while he finished concocting his specialty-spaghetti. Pat did not argue. It was lovely to relax, with the cat's heavy warmth sprawled across her knees, listening to the cheerful noises from the kitchen-pans clattering, water boiling furiously, and Mark singing at the top of his lungs, stopping only to swear when he dropped or spilled something. He had a perfectly terrible voice. Jerry had been tone deaf, and his son had inherited this trait.