“I almost bowled a three hundred,” she told me. “Well, more like two seventy, but that’s closer than two hundred.”
“It would take me about forty games to get that,” I said.
“Most likely, but you got other talents. How’s things with Andy?”
“Okay,” I said. “No. Not okay.”
“Okay. Not okay. Which is it?”
I told her about the supper and about Andy being stoned, and how he’d been dragging his feet as far as meeting Daddy went. “He told me that Mr. Barrington hit him a lot and that he’s a drinker,” I said to Dottie. “Every time he talks about him, it’s like a black cloud sets down over his head.”
“Well, he was like some general on that day we had to tell him we was sorry,” Dottie said. “He passed down the line of us like we was fresh recruits. I was waiting for him to bring out a whip and beat us all foolish.”
Thinking of Mr. Barrington trying to beat Daddy, Sam, and Bert made me smile.
Dottie said, “Madeline’s made me apply to a couple of colleges. She thinks I need a Plan B in case bowling doesn’t work out.”
“Why does she care if you go to college?” I said, thinking about how that would take Dottie far away from me. “She didn’t go and she’s fine.”
“I know,” Dottie said. “But she pulled a funny one at the supper table a while back. She suckered us up with a homemade Boston cream pie and while we was eating it, she went on about how no one on either side of the Butts family ever went past high school. And then she got to crying about it and Bert said, ‘There, there,’ and Evie and I just looked at each other. I says, ‘Well, maybe I’d give it a shot if I wasn’t so damn dumb.’ She says maybe I can get some kind of scholarship and why don’t I just give it a try? Bert says, ‘Your mother never asks for much, for chrissake, Dottie. You’ve had an easy road. Do something for her, for a change.’ So I got some applications and she’s writing them for me. So, yours truly might be heading off to school in the fall.”
“Wow” was all I could think of to say.
“But I made sure that wherever I go has a bowling alley in town, or close by.”
“Good thinking.”
“I might as well do it to shut her up.”
“I guess so. What are you going to study?”
“Gym teacher, I think. They don’t look like they need to know too much. I’d get to wear shorts all day and yell at people to move here and go there. I could do that.”
“You’d be good at it.”
“When’s Andy going back to school?” Dottie asked.
I decided to keep his secret. I said to Dottie, “Tell the truth, I don’t know. We aren’t much past the staying in bed part of things. He’s just told me he loved me.”
“You tell him back?”
“Yesterday,” I said. “Now I’m wondering if it was the right thing to do.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He was stoned. I was mixed up. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Some guy told Evie he loved her,” Dottie said. “Well, he paid for that because she chased him all over school. He finally got another girlfriend just to fend her off. Evie was all upset. Madeline told her to let them come for her. I say the hell with the whole thing. Someone shows up for me, he’s gotta have money to support my bowling career.”
We drained our cocoa and felt like having more, so I got up to heat some water for it.
Dottie said, “Bud doesn’t like Andy.”
“Bud can just stick it where the sun don’t shine.”
“I’ll tell him you said that.”
“You do that. I’ve never said anything bad about Susan.”
“Bud says Andy gets his dope from Kevin. You remember Kevin Jewell? Dope dealer. Pusher man. Bud says Andy’s Kevin’s best customer.”
“How’s Bud know all this stuff?”
“Gets it from Susan, I guess. She gets around more.”
“Well, good for Susan.”
When Andy said a soft “Hello” behind us, we both jumped out of our rocking chairs.
He looked better today, eyes clear, hair combed, and beard trimmed. I wondered if he’d heard a lot of what we’d said but before I could ask, Dottie stood up, stuck out her hand, and said, “I’m Dottie Butts. Not sure you remember me.”
Andy shook her hand. “Of course I remember you. You’d be hard to forget.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Dottie said.
“I meant it as a compliment,” Andy said. “I’ve heard so much about you from Florine. I was hoping I’d get to see the famous Dottie again.”
Andy let go of her hand and they took each other in for about five seconds. Then Dottie did something I’d never seen her do or would ever see her do again. She blushed. Then she said, “Well, I got stuff to do. Nice to see you.” And off she went.
Andy and I looked at each other, then Andy said, “I let you down. I’m sorry.”
“Told them you had a cold. We pretended it was true.”
“I made a mistake and I’m sorry.”
“You did,” I said.
“What can I do to make it up to you?” I was surprised to see tears on his cheeks.
“I mess up a lot, Florine,” he said. “I don’t know why, but I do.”
Then he ran shaking hands down the sides of my face. He said, “Please don’t leave me. Please, please give me another chance.”
Because I knew what it felt like to be left, I said. “I’ll give you another chance.”
He nodded and we held each other for a minute.
“Are they home right now?” he asked, wiping tears from his cheeks.
When I nodded, he said, “Let’s go over.”
We walked across the road, hand-in-hand, and he knocked on the door.
“I’m Andy Barrington,” he told Daddy when he answered the door and let us in. “I’m sorry I missed supper.”
“You don’t sound like you got a cold,” Stella said.
“I heard I missed a fabulous feast,” he said with a smile.
Stella put on a pot of coffee and we sat around the table. Like I’d told him, Daddy didn’t do much talking, but Stella made up for it, asking him about his folks, where he’d grown up, and his school. We finished our coffee and stood to go. Andy shook Daddy’s hand and looked him in the eye. He thanked Stella for the coffee, and we walked toward Grand’s house.
“Was it as bad as you thought?” I asked.
“No, Angel,” Andy said, and squeezed my hand.
Ray’s truck was parked in front of Grand’s house. Hoppy the Beagle sat in the truck bed, tongue lolling, eyes half closed in the winter sun. Ray came around to the driver’s side and spied us. “I was just knocking for you,” he said to me. “Need some bread. Special—four loaves for a dinner. You got time to make it up by five? Hi,” he said to Andy. Andy nodded and scratched Hoppy behind an ear.
I said “Yes” to Ray and he reversed the truck up the hill and disappeared out of sight.
“I’ll go clean the cottage,” Andy said. “Fix dinner. Make us a loaf and bring it up.”
“Thanks for coming down,” I said.
“You’re my baby,” he murmured, cupping my chin. “I got to take care of my baby.”
I felt as warm and flexible as the dough I kneaded and shaped that day. The smell filled my head and heart and I understood what it was Andy found so special about it. Once, when he’d been only a little stoned, he’d cut off the end of a loaf of fresh-made bread. He’d held it up and breathed in, deep. “I could live in there,” he said. “It’s warm, and soft, and I could just crawl inside of it. It smells like home should feel.”
I’d laughed but as I sat at the kitchen table, watching the dough rise beneath the damp dishtowels I’d put
over the tops of the bread pans, I had to agree. I lazed around the house while the bread baked. At about four thirty, I bagged it up and headed for Ray’s.
A strange car with Massachusetts license plates was parked in front of the store. It shone white in the late January twilight and I wondered if these were the people who had ordered the bread. It was a Mercedes or a BMW. I could never remember which symbol stood for which car. I peeked inside at butter-colored leather seats. I wanted to climb inside and sit down just to see if I would melt into them.
Inside the store, Stella was talking to a man who stood with his back to me. I put the bread down for Ray, and Stella caught my eye, stood up straight and looked afraid. Then the man turned around.
“You’re lovely,” I heard him say inside my head, clear as day. Then I heard Dottie’s voice just as clear. “I was waiting for him to take out a whip and beat us all foolish.” And Andy’s voice. “He hit me, you know.”
When Mr. Barrington spotted me his eyes went snake black, flat. But his smile was beautiful, just like his son’s smile. I didn’t know whether to run or stay. I scowled at Stella to give me somewhere else to look.
Stella’s face was red as she said, a little too brightly, “Mr. Barrington’s come up to bring Andy back to school. He’s got to get back this weekend.”
“Hello, Florine,” Mr. Barrington said, softly. “Stella has been telling me all about you two.”
I shrugged. “Not much to tell.”
“My boy has good taste,” he said, and smiled.
I turned away, my heart hammering hard, my head saying run. I wanted to get to Andy before he did, to warn him he was coming. But I tried to be calm as I waited for Ray to pay me. He looked hard at me as he gave me my fifteen dollars. I said, “Thank you,” and left the store. The minute the door shut behind me I ran as fast as I could through the woods, toward the cottage and Andy.
I burst into the lantern-lit kitchen to the smells of roasting chicken and pot. Andy was setting wine goblets down on the rug in front of the fireplace. He looked at me with a smile as raw as a child’s. It was the last smile I ever saw him give me, because when I said, “Your father is here. He’s come to get you,” it was replaced by a look much as a wild thing might wear when caught in a trap.
“Shit,” he said. “Shit. I’m so dead.”
A chuckle came from the hallway. “Don’t be so dramatic, Andrew,” Mr. Barrington said. He leaned against the living room doorway and said to me, “You’re a fast runner.”
When I didn’t say anything, he said, “It’s a compliment. Please don’t look at me as if I’m the big bad wolf. I’m here to take Andy home, that’s all.” He looked at Andy. “How are you doing, son?” Andy shrugged, eyes unfocused, darting, cornered, confused.
Mr. Barrington sniffed the air. “Hmmm. Is that chicken I smell?”
When Andy didn’t answer, I said, “Yes.”
“I thought so,” Mr. Barrington said. “I’m starved.”
I looked at Andy. His arms hung by his sides, and the fingers on the hand that wasn’t holding the wine bottle twitched. What on earth was wrong with him, I wondered? Although I didn’t trust him, Mr. Barrington wasn’t being unpleasant, and he didn’t seem drunk. Maybe we could get through this over supper. Maybe we could figure out a plan.
“Would you like to have some supper with us?” I asked him. Andy looked at me, eyes wide, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.
Mr. Barrington said, “I would love to. And I see you have some wine.”
Andy looked down at the bottle as if he wondered how it had gotten into his hand.
“What can I do to help?” Mr. Barrington asked me.
“Andy, what can he do to help?” I asked Andy.
“Nothing,” Andy said in a dead voice. “It’s all ready.”
“Great,” Mr. Barrington said. “Now, the rug is a fine thing,” he said, “but how about we take the sheets off the coffee table and move it in front of the fire. Give me a hand?”
Andy walked over to the table and put the bottle of wine down on the floor. The two moved the heavy oak table so that it covered the same rug I’d been deflowered on and where we’d eaten, talked, slept, and made love many times.
“There,” Mr. Barrington said. “Now, shall I help bring in the food? Florine, why don’t you sit on the divan and Andy and I will wait on you.”
“It’s okay,” I said, “I’ll help, too.”
Andy had cooked up carrots, potatoes, and the chicken. He served them up as I sliced up the bread. Mr. Barrington hovered between us, talking about the drive up. Half a joint sat in an ashtray on the top of the stove. Mr. Barrington must have seen it, but he made no comment, even when Andy slipped it out of sight behind the dirty potato pan.
We sat down in front of the fire at the table, Andy and me on the divan, Mr. Barrington in a creaky rocking chair beside me. He picked up the bottle of white wine and looked at the label. He said, “Not bad,” and said, “Give me the corkscrew, son, and I’ll open it.”
Andy looked around for it. He finally spotted it on top of the hearth and fetched it, brushed it off, and gave it to his father.
“So,” Mr. Barrington said. “Where did you get this wine?”
“Long Reach,” Andy said.
“How did you get this wine?” Mr. Barrington said.
“I bought it.”
“How?”
“They sold it to me.”
“Who is they?”
“Market in Long Reach.”
“They didn’t ask for identification?”
“No.”
“Oh. Well, give me your glass,” Mr. Barrington said. “You won’t be driving home, anyway. And you, Florine?”
“No, thanks,” I said.
“Oh, come on. It’s very French to have a glass of wine with dinner.” He poured me some and waited until I took a sip.
“I’m taking the truck home,” Andy said.
“You are?” Mr. Barrington said.
“I was planning to stay another week or two, anyway,” Andy said. He took a big gulp of wine. “Then head back.”
“Oh?” Mr. Barrington said. “Head back to what?”
“Not sure yet,” Andy said.
“Not to school, I guess,” Mr. Barrington said.
“No,” Andy said.
Mr. Barrington leaned over to me and said as if he and I shared a secret, “Andrew was tossed out in November. Did he tell you that he’s been kicked out of four schools?”
“Stop messing with her,” Andy said. He didn’t look at his father, but studied his chicken as he moved it from one side of his plate to the other. He herded orange carrot coins into a small corral he’d made out of his mashed potatoes.
Mr. Barrington said, “I’m not messing with her. I wondered if you’d told her.”
“It doesn’t matter to me,” I said.
“Oh. Then that makes it all okay, doesn’t it?” Mr. Barrington said. “Yes, that makes it fine.” He sniffed the air. “I smell something else in the air. What is it? It’s not chicken. It’s not potatoes or carrots. No, it’s sweetish. Dessert, perhaps?”
“You know what it is,” Andy said.
Mr. Barrington winked at me. “Just teasing you, Andrew. Of course I know what it is.” He leaned toward me again and whispered, “Andrew’s pot smoking has cost me thousands of dollars—what with changing schools and fines and bail and such.”
“I don’t care,” I said again.
“Well, of course you don’t, Florine. Then again, you weren’t saddled with the fines,” Mr. Barrington said. “Would you like a ride home when we leave for Boston?”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Andy said.
“Yes, you will,” Mr. Barrington said in a cheery tone. “I’ve call
ed the sheriff to come by, in case you needed persuasion. He knows you’re living high—excuse the pun—on the hog up here. I gave him permission to search the cottage, if it comes to that. You can be his guest for a while, if you like. Or, we can finish our meal, clean up, and go home. The truck will be all right here.”
“How’d you find me, anyway?” Andy said.
“Stella—is that her name, Florine?—gave me a call. Told me you were up here and said she was worried about you being in this cold house. I said to her—Stella, Della?” He looked at me.
“Stella,” I said.
“Thank you. I said to Stella, you must be mistaken. He’s being tutored in New York and he’s living with his mother. But then I called your mother and it turns out that she is in the Bahamas. So I called her there and she told me she thought you needed a break. You told her you wanted to come up here and she gave her permission as well as some of the money I pay her each month for your sorry keep.” Mr. Barrington stood up and walked over to the fireplace, glass of wine in his hand. He looked into the flames. “You lay a nice fire, son,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “Logs stacked just so. Fine job. Fine job.” Andy sat very still. He looked at me and his face went white.
“What’s wrong?” I mouthed, but he shook his head.
Mr. Barrington said, his voice low, “Andrew, I don’t give you permission to be here,” and he threw his glass of wine against the side of the fireplace. The glass shattered and he aimed a kick at the heart of the flames. Logs and sparks snapped and hissed and I jumped and spilled my glass of wine into my lap. Andy didn’t move, just shut his eyes.
Mr. Barrington turned to us and said, through gritted teeth, “You have cost me too much money and embarrassment for you to be able to just waltz up here, buy dope and booze, and screw the fisherman’s daughter. Now finish up your meal and let’s go.”
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