by Tom McNeal
Slowly, Jeremy said, “Wilhelm. To Dorothea Wild. ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ ”
The two women turned to each other in surprise, then looked again at their monitors. The first woman said, “What was Dorothea Wild’s father’s chosen profession?”
“Apotheker,” Jeremy said, and when the women looked confused, I guided Jeremy to revise his answer: “What we would today call a pharmacist.”
“That is correct,” the second woman said, and it was clear that the mood in the room had brightened. These women were now rooting for us.
This was fun, I had to admit, and Jeremy and I answered several more questions without difficulty. Finally, after the women had conferred for some time in front of one of the television sets, the first woman said, “Explain what might be meant by the term the Göttingen Seven.”
So! These women thought they had us, but it was we who had them! Slowly, deliberately, Jeremy gave our answer: “When Wilhelm and Jacob were teaching at the University of Göttingen, King Augustus abolished the constitution. The Grimm Brothers publicly protested, along with five other professors, and they became known as the Göttingen Seven. They all were dismissed from the university, and several of them, including Jacob, were deported.”
For a moment, it was very quiet in the room. Then the women rose as one from behind their table. Their faces were radiant. “That’s right!” one of them said. “That’s absolutely right!”
They nearly lifted Jeremy from his chair as they escorted him into an adjoining room. “Get everything on this young man,” the second woman said to a man sitting at a desk. “Get his Social, complete bio, release forms, everything.” She grinned at Jeremy. “We might well need it.”
A half hour later, when Jeremy finally made his way out to the foyer, Ginger looked up expectantly. Conk, too, looked up from the sporting page in his hands.
“Well?” Ginger said.
“I don’t know. It wasn’t too bad.”
“Are you going to go on the show?”
Jeremy shrugged.
“But how did you do?”
“Okay, I think,” he said, but from behind him a woman’s voice said, “Okay? I think you did a little better than okay.” It was one of the two questioners hurrying up, smiling. “So, Jeremy, are these your people? Agents and handlers and so forth?”
She was joking in some manner, but only Ginger realized it. She grinned and said, “Actually, Conk here is Jeremy’s driver, and I’m his agent.”
The woman laughed, and hands were shaken and names exchanged. At the exit, the woman said, “You made my day, Jeremy Johnson Johnson, you really did. No promises, but chances are, you’ll be hearing from us.” She turned to Ginger and Conk. “Jeremy is a regular demon on the Brothers Grimm and all their fairy tales.”
Everyone was grinning, and it must be admitted that I, too, felt a bit giddy. Conk’s grin, however, seemed oddly lopsided, as if there was some source of humor here that the others did not yet see.
“When will Jeremy find out?” Ginger asked the woman. “I mean, how soon will he hear if he’s going to be on the show?”
The woman seemed amused by Ginger. “Maybe you should be his agent,” she said. “But if he’s accepted, he’ll hear soon, because we’re doing the show in this region in just a few weeks.”
“How will he hear?”
“Bad news by mail, good news by phone—that’s the general rule. And if Milo Castle himself calls, you’re golden. Milo likes to be the bearer of good news.”
Before they parted, the woman said, “Oh, and, Jeremy, one little thing. If you are on the show, you might think about a different shirt. Something a little less … distracting.”
Jeremy smiled and said he’d see what he could do.
Good spirits prevailed among the young people as they walked through the late-afternoon light to the truck and when they stopped at a small restaurant for sandwiches. But on the long drive home, an odd discord arose. When Ginger said, “I still can’t believe it—I think you’re going to be on the show!” several seconds passed, and then Conk said, “You’re not actually going to do it, are you?”
“What do you mean?” Ginger said. “Why wouldn’t he?”
“C’mon, Ginger. Fairy tales? He hears voices, he’s the only kid in town who can’t throw a football, and now he’s going to go on TV as an expert on fairy tales?”
Jeremy stiffened and swung his head away.
Ginger, seeing this, said, “You are such a complete idiot, Conk.”
“Truth hurts,” Conk said, and kept driving down the highway for a few minutes before he broke the silence by saying, “Well, why are you doing it, anyway?”
Jeremy, staring stiffly off, did not answer. I was not even sure he had heard.
“Because he needs the money, Conky,” Ginger said. “And do you know why he needs the money?”
“No, I don’t. So why don’t you tell me?”
“Because the bank is going to take back his store. Which is where he lives.”
Conk seemed actually surprised. “Okay. I didn’t know that.” Then he said, “Couldn’t the bank cut you some slack or something?”
Ginger stared at him. “What do you think?”
They all fell silent. As the radio played softly and the passing wheat fields turned golden in the dusky light, Ginger grew sleepy and dozed for a while against Jeremy’s arm, and then, half waking, she shifted and nestled her head onto Conk’s shoulder.
It was dusk by the time they reached Never Better. As Conk wheeled the truck onto Main Street, Jeremy leaned forward and said, “Could you just let me out here?”
“Hey, c’mon,” Ginger said, awake now and restored. “I thought we could go see if the baker saved us any Prince Cake.”
“Naw,” Jeremy said. “I’m kind of tired.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
Conk pulled up to the curb, and Jeremy slid from the cab. “Thanks,” he said, looking past Ginger to Conk. “That was pretty nice of you to drive me all that way.”
Conk shrugged. “No problem.” He looked forward. “And you know that bank-loan thing? I’ll talk to my dad about it. Maybe he can do something.”
This was doubtless a surprise to Jeremy, and it seemed to impress Ginger, too. Her eyes lingered on Conk for a moment before she turned back to Jeremy. “Sure you don’t want to come along? A piece of Prince Cake could perk you right up.”
“No, but thanks, anyhow,” Jeremy said, and stepped away from the truck. He stood watching until it disappeared from view, and then he turned for home.
I could not help but remember a night from long, long ago. Wilhelm and Dortchen had made plans to attend the opera. I was opposed—Wilhelm and I had work to do. He and I had been upstairs at our desks working late and ignoring Dortchen’s entreaties that Wilhelm cease work and dress for the evening. “Ich tue es auf der Stelle,” Wilhelm kept saying—I’ll do it this minute, but under my severe gaze he did not leave. Finally, Dortchen came into the room holding Wilhelm’s evening clothes. She was already dressed in a black gown, looking—I remember it perfectly—absolutely enchanting. “If you don’t put these clothes on this very instant,” she said, “I am going to stuff them with hay and go to the opera with Herr Strawman.” Wilhelm laughed with delight and, ignoring my gaze, was soon himself within the clothes. I walked out to the lane as they were stepping into their carriage. It was a cold, starry night, and they snuggled close together under their lap robes. They waved back at me and called out merrily. As the clatter of the horse and carriage fell away, I felt as cold and dark as the night’s sky, and then, of course, I returned alone to my study, just as Jeremy, now, returned alone to his bookstore.
But the day’s surprises were not over. As Jeremy stepped into the bookstore, he was met with another.
Floating through the store from the direction of his father’s room was a delectable aroma and something else, something even more unexpected.
The sound of singing.
A man’s and a woman’s.
Jeremy crept across the room, put his ear to the closed door to his father’s room, and listened to a woman’s voice singing alone now, high and light:
The keeper did a-hunting go;
And under his cloak he carried a bow;
All for to shoot a merry little doe,
Among the leaves so green, O.
I knew this lilting voice to be Jenny Applegarth’s. But then there were two voices, weaving one with the other in a dance of questions.
Jacky boy? Jenny Applegarth sang, and a surprisingly resonant tenor answered:
Master.
Sing you well?
Very well.
Hey, down.
Ho, down.
Derry, derry down.
On the last line—Among the leaves so green, O—they joined their voices, and then continued on with this cheerful melody shadowed by dark lyrics:
The sixth doe she ran over the plain;
But he with his hounds did turn her again,
And it’s there he did hunt in a merry, merry vein,
Among the leaves so green, O.
After they were finished, Jenny Applegarth laughed and said, “Well, listen to us! Aren’t we something!”
Jeremy pushed the door open and found his father sitting up in bed grinning. Jenny Applegarth sat in a chair pulled close by. Their faces were radiant.
Jeremy’s surprise at the scene caused his skin to burn, and all he could think to say was, “How’d you get in?”
“Well, that’s a fine way to say hello,” Jenny Applegarth said with a laugh. “Through the front door is how. What did you think, down the chimney?”
Jeremy, flustered, shook his head. It was quite a surprise, this sight before him: Jenny Applegarth in her summery yellow dress, with her apricot-brown arms, and his father’s eyes bright in spite of his tangled hair and beard. The tantalizing aroma of baked goods was even keener here—it emanated from the kitchen.
“What’s cooking?” Jeremy asked.
“Chicken pot pie,” Jenny Applegarth said. “In fact, could you just peek at it and see if the top’s brown?”
No sooner had Jeremy opened the oven door and peered in than Jenny Applegarth slipped into the kitchen behind him. “You can’t just stand back and look at it,” she said. “You need to lean in a little bit.”
Jeremy instead used a heavy cloth to pull the rack toward him.
Jenny Applegarth glanced at the pie and said, “Let’s give it three more minutes.”
She closed the oven door and gazed out the kitchen window for some little while before she turned her eyes to Jeremy. “Guess you’re kind of surprised to find me here.”
“No,” Jeremy said, his face blazing again. “I mean, yes, I was, but I’m not now. I mean, it’s fine. It’s really good, in fact.”
Jenny Applegarth smiled. “It was kind of spur-of-the-moment. And I knew if I tried to arrange it all, he’d just say he didn’t want company.”
“No,” Jeremy said, trying to recover himself. “I’m glad you came. It’s the first time I’ve seen him smiling in I don’t know how long. How’d you do it, anyway?”
Jenny Applegarth shrugged, but there was a shine to her eyes I had not seen before. “Okay,” she said, again. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
The chicken pot pie she pulled from the oven was wondrous to behold.
“Yum,” Jenny said, and she served portions onto three plates, laid forks across each edge, and then, with the ease of a practiced waitress, carried all three into the next room.
“Think you’re going to like this, Harold,” she said, and Mr. Johnson (who, I noticed, had now run a wide-toothed comb through his hair) said, “Yes, indeed.”
While they ate, his father said, “So what did you do with your day?”
Jeremy did not look up from his plate. “Nothing much.”
His father snorted. “Well, for nothing much, you sure got up early and came home late.”
“I went to Bank’s Bluff with Ginger and Conk.”
“With Ginger and Conk?” His father was looking up now. “What for?”
“No good reason. We just got something to eat and came back.”
This answer did not satisfy his father. Jenny Applegarth, too, was looking at him with curiosity. His father said, “Well, you must’ve had a reason. You don’t just drive a hundred something miles to get a hamburger and come back.”
Jeremy kept eating.
His father took another bite, and said carefully, “I’ve been to Bank’s Bluff. It’s not a place people drive to for the fun of it. So there must’ve been—”
Jeremy suddenly jumped up. “Look,” he said, “I didn’t do anything wrong. But I don’t want to talk about it. Is that okay with you?”
And before either of the adults could answer, he had bolted from the room, through the Two-Book Bookstore, and out into the street.
Jeremy turned toward the park. Even in the pale evening’s light I could see that his face carried a dark gloom.
Are you well, Jeremy? Are you feeling well?
If he heard me, he did not respond.
What is the matter?
Still he did not speak.
I waited until he had seated himself on his favored picnic table. He looked for another note from Ginger squeezed into the table planks, but there was none.
And then I again said, Are you well, Jeremy?
He turned toward my voice. “Am I well?” His mocking tone was unmistakable. “Am I well? Why can’t you just talk like everyone else? Why can’t you just say, ‘How you doin’? You doin’ good?’ ”
Very well, then, I said. I look forward to the day when every schoolchild will read Shakespeare’s great comedic play All’s Good That Ends Good.
We both fell silent for a long while, listening to the chorus of crickets and frogs. From a distant corner of the park a child shouted, “Olly olly oxen free!”
Finally, I said, Jeremy, what is the matter?
“Everything’s the matter!” he blurted. “Every single freaking thing!”
Ah. And may we consider them particularly, one by one?
“Okay, sure. For starters, there’s the foreclosure problem. And there’s the Ginger problem, and then there’s the Ginger plus Conk problem. Then there’s the everybody and his brother thinking I’m a slimeball problem. And then you have the Conk and possibly everyone else wondering why I know so much about fairy tales problem. Oh. But wait! I forgot maybe the most important problem of all—which would be you!”
Me?
“You. Definitely you. Maybe mostly you. You’re the one, for just one example, who got me into this whole fairy-tale mess with the TV show.”
I was trying to help, if you will recall.
“But look where it’s gotten me! If I go on that show as a fairy-tale expert, not only will I look like some dweebish weirdo, but I’m going to feel like a fraud.”
I did not understand this. A fraud? Why a fraud?
“Because it’s not my uncommon knowledge! It’s yours! And that makes me a fraud!”
I collected my thoughts and said, Jeremy, it may be true that it is not your knowledge, but it is your talent. Your talent to hear me.
“Yeah, well, in case you missed it, this isn’t a talent show. It’s not called Uncommon Talents.”
There is little difference, Jeremy. Some have a talent for memorization; you have a talent for listening.
He breathed deeply in and out. “Yeah, that sounds good, but then, throwing a few Pop Rocks into the baker’s cereal sounded good at the time, too.”
And here I made the mistake of pointing out to Jeremy that going into the baker’s house had never sounded good to me, and I had said so at the time.
“Okay, that’s it!” Jeremy said. “Just leave me alone. Leave me absolutely alone.”
I was quiet. I knew that I must be. Time passed. Somewhere in the park a child shouted, “Hello, hello, hello,” and waited for the dim respond
ent echo: oh, oh, oh. The town clock struck nine, and parents began calling their children home. Jeremy stretched out on the table and stared up at the starry sky. A coal train strained its way up the grade and out of town. Finally, Jeremy sat up and said in a low voice, “You still there?”
Yes.
“I’m sorry if I was rude.”
Do not worry, Jeremy. I know you are caught in a gloom.
He was quiet for a few seconds. Then he said, “I don’t know. It’s just that after my mother left and then after my grandfather died, it was pretty bad. But you came, and I got used to just doing my studies and my odd jobs and taking care of my father and having you nearby and everybody else just leaving me be. It wasn’t great, but it was okay. Now all of a sudden, it’s like I’m under everybody’s microscope.”
Yes, I said. I understand. But we must work together, I am here to help you—
But I did not finish.
We heard footsteps behind us, then a girl’s voice softly calling, “Jeremy?”
Ginger stepped from the darkness, holding a small paper bag from the Green Oven Bakery. “So where’ve you been?” she asked.
“Since when?”
“Since fleeing Conk’s truck like it was on fire.”
“Home. Then here.”
“For, like, four hours?”
“I guess. I kind of lost track.”
She sat on the table beside him and pulled from the paper bag a single slice of Prince Cake, which she handed to him.
“The bakery was closed,” she said, crumpling the bag into a ball, “but it turns out that Conk’s dad has a standing order for the first Prince Cake anytime Sten bakes them.” She paused. “Guess being the mayor has its fringe benefits.”
Jeremy broke the cake in two and handed her the bigger piece. As they were eating, Ginger said, “Conk talked to his dad about the bank loan, and his father thought maybe he could do something. Maybe not a lot, but something.”
“Yeah?” Jeremy said quietly. “That seems good.”
It was silent except for the frogs and crickets, and then Ginger said, “Conk is such a moron. He wants to go to Brazil and start a cattle ranch.”