“Well, Jack Mahoney, my name’s Tom, Tom Behrens.” Tom reached over and scratched the back of Dog’s neck. “Yes sir, you got a mighty fine animal there. You two ain’t from around here, huh?”
Ethan nervously shook his head.
“I’d know if you was,” Tom said, “…because I’d remember such a fine animal. Where you headed?”
“Wyattsville,” Ethan answered. No one was looking for a Jack Mahoney and a truthful answer might help him learn which way to be travelling.
“Wyattsville? Why, that’s way past Richmond!”
“Could be. My mama gave me a note saying how I was to get there, but I done lost it. Can you point me in the right direction?”
“Well, it’s over on the mainland, but that’s a mighty far distance for a boy your age to be travelling alone. Your mama ought to be taking you!”
“Oh, she would Mister Behrens, but she’s flat on her back, at death’s door the doctor said. She likely won’t make it through the week, that’s why she sent me to fetch my Grandpa.” Ethan sniffled as though he was fighting back a tear.
“Good grief,” Tom Behrens said, shaking his head side to side. “That’s a lot of worry for a little fella like you to be carting around.” Tom stood and walked into the garage, minutes later he was back with a map of Virginia. “Okay, now,” he said unfolding fold after fold, “…let’s find out exactly where Wyattsville is.” It took almost ten minutes but he finally plopped his finger down on a tiny speck and said, “Here!”
Ethan stretched his neck and looked, but not having any map-reading experience, he wasn’t all that sure of what he was actually looking at.
“It’s about fifty miles northwest of Richmond,” Tom said, “and Richmond’s one hundred and fifty miles from here, give or take.”
“Whew! Further than I figured.”
“Was you planning on walking the whole way?”
Ethan lowered his eyes and nodded solemnly.
“You’d be an old man by time you got there. You got to catch a ride.” Tom started fingering his chin, “Let’s see,” he hummed, “with it being Sunday, there’s less folks likely to be headed over to Richmond. So, we got to figure who’d have cause…” He sat there for what seemed to Ethan an awfully long time; then he said, “Kenny Wilkes! Kenny harvested a slew of soy beans last week and he’s probably going to market today.”
When Tom went to call Kenny, Ethan picked up the map and started studying it, tracing his finger from town to town, wondering if he would ever make it to Wyattsville. And what if he did? Maybe this grandpa he’d never even seen would simply slam the door in his face and tell him to go on back home. What then? He wondered. By the time Tom returned, there were tears rimming Ethan’s eyes.
“What’s this?” Tom asked and offered out a greasy handkerchief.
Ethan set his mouth in a perfectly straight line and said, “Nothing. A cinder might’ve blew in my eye.”
Tom shrugged. He knew damn good and well the boy was lying, but sometimes it was a kinder thing to believe a lie than probe for the truth. “Kenny took the beans over last week,” Tom said, “but he fixed it for you to ride with a friend of his, name of Butch Wheeler. Thing is, Butch’s working on a tight schedule, so you got to meet him at the truck stop over on Route thirteen—one o’clock, on the button.”
Ethan glanced at the clock outside the garage. “I’ll never make it,” he said with the corners of his mouth turned down, “it’s twelve-thirty now.”
Tom smiled, “You will if I drive you.” As they climbed into the truck, he handed the boy a pack of Twinkies and a stick of beef jerky. “On the house,” he said, “but, don’t you go giving the dog any of the cup cake.”
Tom whirled into the Lucky 13 Truck Depot with almost two full minutes to spare. Butch Wheeler was already there; he was standing outside the cab of a flatbed loaded with crates of squawking chickens. The sight of him, back turned, caused Ethan to shudder; for if ever Scooter Cobb had a twin, it was surely Butch Wheeler. He had the same massive build, taller even than Scooter, certainly wider. As it turned out, there were two differences—Butch Wheeler was blacker than a night sky and he had a robust laugh such as Ethan had never heard. “Well boy, I sure hope you ain’t allergic to Chickens,” he growled, then laughed so loud it sounded like thunder.
“No sir,” Ethan, still taking measure of the man’s size, mumbled. “I ain’t afraid of nothing, leastwise chickens.”
Butch Wheeler laughed louder than ever, so loud in fact, Dog’s tail drooped to the ground. Tom, not given to the same level of joviality as Butch, cracked a bit of a smile then told Ethan allergic was when a thing caused you to itch or sneeze. One minute later, on the dot of one o’clock, the flatbed pulled out carrying a very large man, a boy, a dog and seventeen crates of live chickens.
Just before Ethan climbed up into the truck, Tom had pressed a dollar bill into his palm and whispered, “Take care of yourself Jack and get to Wyattsville safely. I’ll be praying for you and that sick mama of yours.” After that he’d given Ethan a real friendly hug and sent him on his way, expecting nothing in return.
Several miles later as Ethan sat watching the road signs whiz by, he thought back to the incident and started hoping this grandpa he was going to see had the goodness of Tom Behrens. Maybe, he thought, Grandpa will feel real bad about me losing my mama and buy me a new bicycle. After that, Ethan started wondering whether it would be better to ask for the bicycle right off or start with a third baseman’s mitt.
“Whatcha thinking about, Jack?” Butch asked. “Jack? Jack?”
Olivia
I know the people here at the Wyattsville Arms apartment building mean well. At first they were real standoffish, but now they treat me as kindly as they would one of their own. Someone is always telephoning to ask if I’ve an interest in going shopping, or joining up for some social event; and I make an effort to be sociable right back. But still there isn’t a day that passes when I don’t wake up and wonder how I can possibly struggle through another twenty-four hours. I look at that chair and instead of seeing a plumped up pillow, I see a hole where Charlie ought to be sitting. A single day hangs onto me like a week, and a week, why that seems longer than a lifetime.
Sometimes I wish I could stop thinking about Charlie for just a few minutes of the day, but I can’t. I suppose it’s only fair I suffer this way, because sure as the sun rises, I’m the one who caused his death. I was so caught up in the way he was doting on me, I let him hang that opal pendant around my neck without giving thought to what the consequences might be. I might just as well have poured a cup of arsenic into his soup.
Most every night, I kneel down alongside the bed and pray for God to come and take me too. What good is a life like this? I ask him. What earthly good?
Way of a Widow
Olivia thought of Charlie every day. Sometimes he’d seem real as life, so real that she could believe he’d come walking through the door at any minute. Other days, try as she might, she’d be unable to picture his smile or the tilt of his head—such a thing usually happened when the wind howled and sheets of rain cascaded down the windowpane, or when a fog thick as oatmeal rolled in from the river. On days like that, she’d turn against herself and swear he’d been a figment of her imagination, a fantasy lover who never truly existed. Moments later, she’d open a closet door and see his jacket, or reach for a salt shaker and slide her hand across his eyeglasses; then it would slowly come back. Bits and pieces at first, the crook of his nose, a single dimple on the left side of his face, a callous on his index finger—until eventually she’d see the whole of him. When she recalled the way he held her hand, whispered in her ear or cupped her breast, a heavy wedge of sorrow would press against her heart and she would wonder whether such a brief interlude of happiness was worth the heartache that followed.
Olivia’s marriage had come and gone with the quickness of a tornado. She had everything for a moment—then there was nothing but loneliness. “What have I done?” she w
ould sigh, picturing the brass nameplate that for thirty years sat atop her desk at the Southern Atlantic Telephone Company District Office. For over five decades she’d been Olivia Ann Westerly, and regardless of the circumstances, couldn’t settle into the wearing of any other name. Once, when the Parcel Post deliveryman asked for Missus Doyle, Olivia said, “Are you sure you don’t mean Boyle? There’s an Althea Boyle downstairs on the third floor.” The puzzled driver indicated the nameplate on her door read Doyle, but she simply sighed and said, “Ah, that Doyle. That was dear, sweet Charlie.”
Olivia could not get used to living in the Wyattsville apartment. She was plagued with the feeling of a person passing through, a visitor with no right to clear away Charlie’s clothes or discard the yellowing toothbrush. Even after she’d been there for months, she’d crawl into bed, her clothes on and shoes within reach, always ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Most nights she’d lie awake for hours, counting stars, watching as the moon rose and then faded into nothingness. Not until daylight threaded a ribbon of pink across the sky, would she drift off to sleep and then she’d dream of being back in her own apartment. She’d see the pink wallpaper and the polka dot towels in the bathroom, the geranium on the kitchen window sill, the blue silk bedspread. When she woke up, she’d wonder how she came to be in an altogether different place—a bedroom where there was a large brown ashtray on the night table and a pair of men’s slippers poking out from beneath the bed. Once she remembered, she’d cover her head and slide back under the blanket, hoping another hour or two of sleep would remedy the sorry state of affairs.
Charlie’s apartment was nothing more than a temporary stopover, Olivia told herself, a place to stay until she could move back to Richmond, where she had friends to visit and things to do. Of course, she no longer had her wonderful job, which was of considerable concern, but surely she could come up with something else. With that as a plan, her suitcase remained packed and sitting alongside the front door, week after week. She bought only enough groceries to last a day, two at the most. She passed right by the four-roll packages of toilet paper and tomatoes that would have to sit on the windowsill for a day to ripen. “Who knows where I’ll be by then,” she’d sigh and opt for an overripe avocado instead.
When Clara Bowman brought a dish garden for the kitchen windowsill, Olivia refused to accept it. “I honestly don’t think I’ll be staying,” she said.
Clara, forgetting the urn on the living room mantle, replied, “Why, Charlie Doyle would turn over in his grave, if he heard such a thing!”
Still Olivia felt she belonged somewhere else. Richmond, she reasoned, it had to be Richmond. Twice she went to visit the building where she’d lived—where, if she’d had any sense, she’d still be living. The first time she’d gone as far as the front walk and then stood there for almost an hour remembering how it felt to reach into her handbag, take out the key, unlock the door and walk in. Two days later, she came back again, this time venturing into the vestibule. It was all wrong—the walls, which for as long as she could remember had been a glossy white, were now painted flamingo pink. Gone was the serviceable gray carpet; in its place a flowered thing already marked with scuffs of dirt. Olivia sighed and flopped down on the lobby chair, which had been covered over in a hideous shade of rose.
Unfortunately, Helene Kapuski, a woman with a tongue rumored to be so loose it flapped at both ends, happened along at that very moment. “I certainly hope you’re not thinking of moving back,” Helene said, “because your apartment’s been rented to a charming young couple from Atlanta. He’s a stockbroker. Charlene, his wife, she’s a decorator.” The words stung Olivia like a swarm of angry hornets. “Charlene was the one who did the lobby,” Helene beamed. “And, your old apartment—why you wouldn’t even recognize it!” When she started telling how they’d painted the walls apple green, Olivia walked off, so despondent, she cried the entire way home.
Afterwards she abandoned all hope of returning to her old apartment and started to think that perhaps Richmond was no longer the place for her. Two days later she dug the road maps from the trunk of her car and began to consider the alternatives. For days on end she traced her finger along the various highways—North, South, East, West—until finally she colored bright yellow stars on top of Norfolk, Virginia and Charleston, South Carolina. A seaport town, Olivia thought, now that’s the sort of place for a woman starting over! She promised herself that once the weather turned a bit warmer, she’d drive over to Norfolk and look around.
But in February, everything changed. It started when Clara announced, “I’m going to need a new dress for the Valentine’s Day party.” She then suggested Olivia ought to have one also.
“Me?” Olivia answered. “Why, I’ve no need of a new dress.”
“Oh no?” Clara took hold of Olivia’s arm and tugged her over to the full length mirror. “Look at that!”
Olivia was taken aback by the reflection of a sorrowful looking woman dressed head to toe in black. “This isn’t me,” she said.
“It is you!” Clara snapped. “You’re a woman who’s forgotten how to live.”
“I’ve done no such thing,” Olivia answered indignantly.
“Oh? What then? You choose to look like a lump of sackcloth and ashes?”
“Well, no,” Olivia sighed, “but with my being here so temporary…”
The next thing Olivia knew, she’d been bundled out the door and was on her way to Baumhauser’s, which was supposedly the finest department store in downtown Wyattsville. “We’ll have lunch at the Cocky Rooster,” Clara said, tugging Olivia along, “then we’ll spend the afternoon shopping.”
“All afternoon?” Olivia moaned.
Were it not for the two glasses of burgundy Clara foisted upon her, Olivia would not have given the red tulle dress a second glance. She certainly would not have lugged it into the dressing room and slid it over her head. She was a woman of practical tastes, a woman who appreciated the reserved sophistication of black shantung, yet somehow she allowed herself to be talked into buying a flouncy-skirted thing that teetered on the brink of making her appear promiscuous.
“Whatever was I thinking?” Olivia sighed as she hung the dress on the inside of her closet door. “Me, a woman in mourning,” she shook her head in what appeared to be disbelief, “how could I?” For three days, she avoided looking at the dress. “I’ll not allow myself to be coerced into attending some silly party,” she’d grumble then quickly snap shut the closet door. And, when Clara brought over a pair of heart-shaped earrings, Olivia begrudgingly tossed them onto her dressing table.
Now, if the morning of February fourteenth had been drizzling rain, or blustery cold, things might have happened differently; but when the dawn broke with such an unseasonable burst of sunshine the residents of Wyattsville woke up believing spring had arrived. Windows were suddenly flung open and radios turned up so loud that merchants downtown figured it had to be some sort of a parade. Maggie Cooper forgot about the arthritis plaguing her knee and began tangoing across her living room. Walter Krause, a man who had not danced in twenty-seven years, pulled his tuxedo from the closet and shook the dust from it. Olivia, although she had not for one second considered going to the Valentine’s Day party, took a look at the dress hanging on her closet door and gasped, “What shoes am I going to wear?” She hurriedly dressed and headed downtown, where she was fortunate enough to find a pair of red satin pumps a scant half-size smaller than she preferred.
That evening when Olivia slipped into the red dress, she immediately felt ten years younger; and after she’d clipped the rhinestone hearts to her ears, a rainbow of sparkles began dancing across her skin. She painted her mouth the exact same shade of red as her dress, then twice checked her reflection, as if she feared the glow that had settled upon her might up and disappear the way Charlie had.
She had no sooner situated herself in a chair, when Fred McGinty strolled over and asked if Olivia would come and sit at his table; moments later Frank Caspe
r did the same, and after him it was Wayne Dolby. Although she thanked them all, she remained in the seat alongside Clara. “I came with Clara,” she told Fred, giving him the most flirtatious of smiles, “so I’m sure you understand.”
Fred gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You’re forgiven,” he said, “but only if you promise to let me take you to the Saint Patrick’s Corned Beef Dinner.”
By the end of the evening, Olivia also had agreed to partner with Wayne for the Tuesday Bridge Club, accompany Harry Hornsby to Bingo and co-chair the spring dance along with Barbara Jean Conklin; who, she now realized, was far less snooty than originally thought. She’d danced seventeen waltzes, a dozen fox trots and a tango, without once remembering the soreness of her bunion. That night, realizing the red tulle dress was unfit for any sort of sleeping, Olivia opened her suitcase and took out a pair of cotton plisse pajamas. She then folded back the coverlet and curled up beneath the blanket where, by the oddest circumstance, she found a spot in the mattress which molded itself to precisely the same size and shape of her body.
The following morning Olivia, rationalizing the damp air of a seaport town would more than likely aggravate a person’s sinuses, went to Piggly Wiggly and shopped until her grocery cart was filled to the brim. In addition to the dozens of other things, she bought a super-sized box of laundry detergent, four green as grass bananas, and a fifteen pound sack of Idaho potatoes. The grocery order was so large that it overflowed the trunk of her car and left a canned ham and twelve bottles of ginger ale to ride in the back seat. “Oh dear,” she sighed, momentarily considering the possibility she’d gone a bit overboard. Of course such a thought flew by quickly enough, for on the way home she stopped at the florist and bought six potted plants, one of which was a hyacinth without so much as a single bud. “That won’t flower until April,” the florist warned, but Olivia plopped it into the basket anyway.
Once home, Olivia set about filling what strangely enough had become her kitchen cupboards with the store of foodstuffs. She placed three different kinds of cereal and a row of spices on the first shelf, then stacked cans of mushrooms, corn and peas on the second. She lined up row after row of Campbell’s Soup atop the next shelf, then wedged in packages of macaroni and cheese. After she’d squeezed the final box of beans into place, Olivia threw open the cupboard doors and admired the look of what she saw—the cabinets which for months had been empty as a broken heart, were now chock full; and by some odd coincidence there was not a vacant spot on a single one of the shelves. “Providence,” Olivia sighed happily; then she began to wonder why she hadn’t realized from the start—this was where she was destined to be. It’s so obvious, she thought, why even a blind person would have seen it right off.
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