His soul, too, had taken a beating. No more flickering laser-beam light to it. It was flattened, battered, wasting away inside. Tough. He and it were wounded, beyond belief.
One night he and Patrick decided to go out to the Mall. It was Friday and his mother was out for dinner with some friends. Patrick’s father would’ve been glad to drive them there, but that smacked too much of childhood. They hitched a ride with a big, beefy blond guy reeking of some exotic, long-lasting after-shave.
“You kids on the prowl, huh?” the beefy guy asked, grinning ear to ear. “When I was your age, boy, you couldn’t tie me down on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays either. Two beauties like yourselves must have the girls crawling all over, huh?” They knew that the beefy guy knew they didn’t have girls all over them but they nodded, grinning back in what they hoped was a lascivious manner. The guy told them some dirty jokes, and they nudged each other and chortled, and by the time they got where they were going, their faces were stiff and stretched from all the grinning they’d had to do in return for the free ride.
“Good hunting!” shouted the beefy blond guy as they got out. A bunch of girls, standing huddled around a window display of bathing suits, turned languidly in their direction. He saw her at once. She stood at the far right, her friend Barbara beside her. She didn’t look at him. He suspected she couldn’t bring herself to look directly at him. Her eyes shifted rapidly from one spot to another, avoiding his. Her face was less lovely, less appealing than he’d remembered. It seemed she’d tricked him into thinking she was someone she was not. Or perhaps he’d fooled himself. It didn’t matter. His heart stopped very briefly; then, to his astonishment, he was flooded with such a rush of overwhelming dislike he was stunned. Barbara giggled and shoved Sophie to make sure she wouldn’t miss him. He made himself walk slowly to where the girls stood.
“Sophie,” he said, and was surprised his voice sounded so normal, “you didn’t have to do that. You didn’t have to make a scene, let everybody in on it. I didn’t mean any harm. It was just something I thought was a good idea. To copy the letters. They were written by famous people. They weren’t mine. I wish they had been. I wanted you to know how I felt about you. It seemed a good way. I’m sorry. It was dumb. I should’ve known better.”
Startled, Sophie didn’t answer, though her mouth dropped open. He looked at Barbara. Her eyes were like hatpins—small, sharp, and cold. Shiny eyes with no light shining from them.
“It’s all right, Sophie. I won’t write to you again. I don’t feel anything for you anymore. You don’t have to worry.”
He turned and walked away. Out of sight of them, he leaned against a wall, breathing hard.
Patrick appeared. “I’m proud of you, Tim,” Patrick said. “That took a lot of guts. You deserve a medal. That was really fine. You finished her off but good.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I did, didn’t I?”
But, as he spoke, there were tears in his eyes.
Chapter 21
The next couple of weeks were plenty gloomy. To cheer himself up, he took to wearing an old rubber Richard Nixon mask around the house. The first time he wore the mask, his mother screamed and backed into a corner. His father had worn the mask to a New Year’s Eve party at the height of Watergate. Now his father, once choleric at the mention of Nixon’s name, no longer cared. The fun, he said, had gone out of politics.
He considered wearing the mask when he rode out to the Collinses’ to mow their lawn. His mother said it was too dangerous—someone might take a potshot at him. He said how about wearing his headphones instead? Too dangerous, his mother said. He wouldn’t be able to hear someone honking at him, telling him to get out of the way.
Mr. Collins had a ride-’em mower, a second hand job that looked as if it might be the first ride-’em ever invented. Mrs. Collins fed him lemonade and brownies made from a mix, before and after the mowing. Mr. Collins paid him the same amount he would’ve if he’d had a push mower. The Collinses’ daughter Marilou, fifteen and nubile, had a slight squint and enormous feet and read poetry and played chess when she wasn’t making goo-goo eyes at him. Which should’ve restored his confidence and didn’t.
Summer, which had always been his favorite time, dragged. Patrick went to Florida to visit his grandfather. “The temperature’s hit over a hundred every day for a week,” Patrick said gloomily. “Disney World, here I come. I’m too old for it, but maybe I’ll get to shake hands with Donald Duck.”
He ran into Tony Montaldo in the supermarket.
“My mother might have to take me to an orthodontist,” Tony said. “My teeth are killing me. If I need surgery, it’s gonna cost you big bucks, King Kong. Know what? My father said he never would’ve taken you for a violent guy. He was amazed when I told him it was you who did it to me. Absolutely amazed.”
“Me, too,” he said. “Ordinarily, I’m a peace lover. But you asked for it, and I’d do it again. You tried my soul once too often, kid.”
He dreamed he was dancing to wild music, totally out of control. His partner’s hair kept getting in his eyes, so he couldn’t see who she was. Melissa stood on the sidelines, mouthing words, trying to tell him something.
If there’d been another way of handling Tony, he’d have taken it. But sometimes, he reflected, a good punch in the nose is worth a hundred soft words.
He did not, would not, allow himself to think of Sophie.
That night he and his mother went out for dinner to celebrate. She’d made her first real money, sold a lot of old linens to a collector who’d paid her three times what the linens had cost her.
She was jubilant. “I think I’ve finally made the big breakthrough, Tim,” she said, eyes sparkling, “I feel it in my bones. And I have you to thank for part of it. If you hadn’t been such a big help this summer, I don’t think I could’ve done it.”
“Anytime, Ma. You could’ve done it on your own, though.” He took pride in the knowledge that he had been of some help to her. It made him feel good, and not many things did lately. “What looks good for dessert?”
The restaurant was famous for its wide choice of excellent desserts. He had about narrowed it down to either the apple pie à la mode or the profiterole with hot chocolate sauce when his mother said, “Who is that girl over there, Tim? She keeps looking over here as if she knows you.”
It was Sophie. Who, when she saw him looking at her, had the grace to duck down behind her menu, where she stayed until he turned away.
“Yeah, it’s a girl who used to sit for the monsters. A girl I knew in school. I think I’ll have the profiterole. How about you?” and that was that. He’d never told his mother about Sophie. It was still too hurtful to talk about. The time had never seemed ripe. Someday he would be able to talk about it with ease. But that day was far away. Until then, Sophie was someone he’d once known, and not well, at that.
Inside him, a small spot ached dully, like a tooth that was giving trouble and probably would give more. Only he couldn’t bite down on his aching spot, to ease, even momentarily, the pain. It would have to heal itself. He stole another glance at Sophie on his way out of the restaurant and felt only a curious detachment, a sense of wonder that he had spent so much time and effort trying to win her heart as well as her attention. Just as well he hadn’t succeeded. If he’d gotten to know her better, he probably wouldn’t have liked her nearly as well as he imagined. That was life. He’d know better next time.
Chapter 22
The shoemaker’s children go barefoot. And the lawn mower’s lawn grows long and thick and studded with weeds because the lawn mower is out mowing other people’s lawns.
His mother said she’d pay him for mowing their lawn, but he said nix. That would be chintzy, to take money for mowing his own lawn.
The mower wouldn’t start. He pulled at it repeatedly, and it refused to fire. He wondered if he could talk his mother into buying a ride-’em number, and grinned, thinking of his father’s face if he caught him mowing the lawn sitting down. It wen
t against the old work ethic. Honest toil demanded honest sweat and nothing else would do.
“Benjy!” cried a new and different voice. So the monsters’ mother had found herself a sitter after all. God bless her. The sitter and the mother. They both deserved medals. He peered out from behind his phony glasses and his bangs, which had been let go, much like the lawn, and were badly in need of trimming. He saw the monsters milling around the screen door, which was still pockmarked with holes large enough to admit a whole fleet of mosquitoes. The sitter must’ve lured them there with some irresistible bait. Maybe half a steer, done rare, or a bulging bag of M&M’s. Whatever, he wished her well. The monsters, from a distance, seemed to have grown like the proverbial weeds. He wished the new sitter would be big and strong and wily. And fast on her feet.
The mower started up at last. His father would’ve been proud. Sweat poured down his face. He took off his glasses, as they only made things worse. He found an oily rag in the garage, which he tore into strips to make a proper sweatband for himself. Perfect. He caught a glimpse of himself in the garage window, bringing to mind John McEnroe at Wimbledon or, better still, Rambo returning from the wars. Either way, the sweatband lent him an air of dissolution, which he found rather sexy and hoped others might find sexy, too.
No matter how hard he worked, he made only a slight dent in the lawn’s raggle-taggle appearance. Pausing to rest, he saw a tall woman over at the monsters’ house. She wore a white hat and seemed to be telling them something. And they seemed to be listening. A first. Perhaps she was a witch. A witch in a white hat would be a switch. Maybe her rates were higher than your average, everyday baby-sitter, but she was worth every penny. More power to her. Cast that spell, baby, he told her. I salute you. If he hadn’t been so eager to finish the job, he might’ve crossed over to monster territory and introduced himself.
When at last he’d finished and the lawn resembled a greensward, he admired his work. And hoped his father might come over tonight, maybe for dinner, and see the good job he’d done. He had tried not to let his father’s approval mean so much, but it did.
He’d just stepped out of the shower when he heard the telephone. Patrick said, “Where you been, fool? I’ve been ringing and ringing. I was about to call the cops.”
“Hey, you’re back. I was mowing the lawn. How was it?”
“Mickey and Minnie sent their best. Want to come over and shoot the breeze and some pool?”
“Sure. I’ll be over as soon as I cut my hair.”
“Hey, if things are that tough,” Patrick said, “I’ll lend you barber money.”
“It’s just in the front. My bangs are overrunning my forehead. Hang in. I’ll be there in a trice.”
He rode his bike over to Patrick’s, hunched over the handlebars in a true racer’s crouch, anxious to make time. He’d missed Patrick.
“I hope you did a better job on your lawn than you did on your hair,” Patrick said when he opened the door. “Come on down. We have the joint to ourselves.”
He hadn’t improved his technique at pool, but then, neither had Patrick. They fooled around some, making like hustlers. Outside, the sun shone. Inside, all was cool depravity as they squinted out from under their green eyeshades, and pushed up their sleeves, and considered the possibilities of each shot.
“Did you run into any girls out there?” he asked Patrick.
“Only one worth talking about. Only trouble was”—Patrick went for the side pocket—“she couldn’t shake these seven little nerds who followed her everywhere. ‘Name’s Snow White,’ she said. ‘What’s yours?’ So you know what I told her?”
Patrick missed his shot.
“I said, ‘Call me Ishmael.’ What’s with you?” Patrick asked. “You had any romantic adventures since I’ve been gone?”
Tim took a long time setting up his next shot. “Nope,” he said. “I saw Sophie at a restaurant one night. She was looking at me, and when I looked back, she ducked behind her menu.” His cue slipped and he wound up behind the eight ball. A place he was not unused to.
“She’s embarrassed, that’s why she hid,” Patrick told him. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she called you up one of these days to apologize for the way she acted.”
He snorted. “If she did, I’d tell her I was out of town.”
A tall woman came halfway down the stairs and bent over, looking at them. He started to say, “Hi, Mrs. Scanlon,” but it wasn’t Mrs. Scanlon. Maybe it was her sister.
“Hello,” the woman said. Patrick never even looked at her, never acknowledged her presence. Maybe Patrick’s mother had had a face-lift. It sure looked like her. He smiled at her tentatively.
“I’m Tim Owen,” he said.
“Hello, Tim,” she said, staying put.
“Get lost,” said Patrick.
He was astonished at Patrick’s bad manners. If Patrick’s mother had been around, she would’ve let him have it.
“Why don’t you just go bury your head in the sand, Melissa,” Patrick said.
Melissa? Melissa!
Melissa came down several steps and stood there, smiling at him. “I saw you this afternoon, Tim,” she said. “When you were mowing the lawn.”
He was tongue-tied and web-footed, trying to piece things together. “That was you?” he said at last, in his usual brilliant manner. “Baby-sitting next door with the monsters?”
“They didn’t give me a speck of trouble. All I did was read them a couple of Grimm’s fairy tales. It was like waving a wand over them. They loved “Hansel and Gretel.” You know that part where the witch fattens Hansel up so she can eat him? They thought that was really cool. Next thing I knew, they were trying to fit Benjy in the oven, which they’d turned on high, to roast him. I got to them just in time. Benjy wasn’t even singed.” Melissa’s merry laugh rang out. “I’d heard those kids were a problem, but they were pussycats for me.”
“Did they lock you in the bathroom?” he asked, curious. “They almost always lock their sitters in the bathroom.”
“Well, they would’ve but I found the key under the rug and put it in my pocket for safekeeping. We got along fine,” Melissa said.
“Tim, your shot.” Patrick nudged him.
He bent over the table, brandishing his cue, pretending great interest in his next move. His head buzzed. What had happened to Melissa? He couldn’t very well ask, “Hey, Melissa, what gives? Only a couple of months ago, you were fat and ugly. What happened?” She might take offense. Still, it was a valid question.
Upstairs the telephone rang, and Melissa thundered to answer.
“All of a sudden,” Patrick said gloomily, “she’s got ’em stacked up on the runway. Everywhere you turn, these dudes who wouldn’t have looked at her crosseyed are standing in line waiting for a turn to nuzzle Melissa. It’s indecent. My mother and father are practically having a heart attack.”
“Yeah.” He took his chance. “I noticed she’s changed some. What did happen to her?”
“For one thing, she turned fourteen,” Patrick said, as if that explained the miracle. “For another, she dropped twenty-two pounds at the fat camp she went to. What with one thing and another, it’s a puzzlement. I think my parents wish they’d left her the way she was. That way, nobody would look twice at her. But now the fat’s in the fire, both literally and figuratively. Last night I heard my father tell my mother he thought sex was rearing its ugly head around here. And I don’t think he meant me. Pretty racy talk from the old man, huh?”
Well put, Mr. Scanlon, he thought. Very well put. He hung around so long, hoping Melissa would return, that Mrs. Scanlon came down to announce dinner and asked him if he’d like to stay.
“Thanks,” he said reluctantly, “but I can’t. My father’s coming over. I’ll take a rain check, if it’s all right with you.”
Chapter 23
“So, the way it looks now,” his father said, watching as his mother dished up the steak-and-kidney pie, “I’ll be going out to the coast next week to try
to line up an apartment. They want me there by the first of October.”
“I think that’s wonderful, Andrew. I’m very happy for you.” His mother came around the table and kissed his father’s cheek. “I’m thrilled at your getting such a wonderful promotion. I’ll bet you’ll love living in California, too.”
“Well”—his father looked down at his plate hungrily—“my contract’s good for two years. That’s not long. If, at the end of that time, things haven’t worked out for any reason, I can always come back. They’re keeping a place open for me here, they told me.”
“They must think very highly of you, Andrew. Here’s to your great success.” They raised their glasses and drank to his father, whose company, he had just told them, was sending him out to take over the management of a new plant they were building outside San Francisco.
“I hope you’ll come visit me, Tim,” his father said. “That’s the only bad part about this—leaving you. And, of course, I’ll miss you, too, Maddy. I’ll miss you both.”
“What about Joy? Is she going along?” One thing about his mother, if she wanted to know something, she asked the direct question. She never minced words.
“Joy’s got herself a new beau.” His father made small noises of pleasure at his mother’s cooking, a habit that had endeared him to her early on.
The Love Letters of J. Timothy Owen Page 11