by Tom McNeal
There was another line for his father’s signature. “My dad’s gone right now,” Jeremy said. “I’ll have him sign when he gets back.”
“And that won’t be a problem?” the mayor asked.
“No,” Jeremy said. He was looking down at the floor. “It won’t be a problem.”
“I hope you’re satisfied,” Jeremy said the moment the mayor stepped from the shop.
Wie bitte? I said, and repeated it in English: Pardon me?
“Now I have to hope the game show calls me. And if they do, I have to go on.”
But think of it, Jeremy. This is a chance to be free of debt. To restore quietude to your life. To return to our summer classics and prepare for university.
For a long while, Jeremy stared out onto Main Street, and then finally he sighed and said, “I think I need to be alone for a while, Jacob.”
Well! At least the Boultinghouse girl and I agreed on this much: we would not stay where we were not wanted. And so I ventured out, enshrouded in my own dour mood, a wanderer without intentions. For a time, I caught a breeze from the south, and then I allowed a gliding trio of starlings to draw me along. Presently, I heard waves of clamorous cheering, and I followed it to the knolltop home of Mayor Crinklaw.
In his wide, shaded yard, a crowd of agitated young villagers had gathered in a tight circle, watching something. Conk Crinklaw was among the onlookers, and so were Ginger’s two girlfriends, but I did not see Ginger herself.
As I slipped close, I discovered why. Ginger lay on her back on the ground opposite a boy I recognized as one of Conk’s churlish friends. They lay with their heads at reverse ends, and their hips evenly aligned. Both wore expressions of confidence.
Some kind of event was about to ensue, for the boy sat forward and, staring at Ginger, made a strange pronouncement: “My name is Burpo Bowen. You, Ginger Boultinghouse, have insulted the universe. Prepare to die.”
The girlfriends hooted at this. “How did she insult the universe, Burpo?”
“By beating him,” Burpo Bowen said, tipping his gaze toward another of Conk’s friends, a tall boy with stiff, strawlike hair, who looked deeply abashed. Burpo Bowen said, “Thoust girly-girl shall not beat a maley-male in a manly-man sporting event.” He blinked slowly. “And so it is written.”
“Well, it just got erased!” Maddy said, and the boy on the ground said, “And I am about to rewrite it in idyllics.”
“Italics, you idiot,” Ginger said. “And oh, by the way … no, you’re not.”
Another of Conk’s friends stepped in. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “for the global championship of Never Better County, we have Ginger Boultinghouse, the temporary champeen, and Burpo Bowen, her worthy challenger.” He glanced at Ginger and the boy, both now lying flat on the ground, their nearest arms interlinked. “All right, contestants,” he said, rhythmically chopping his hand through the air, “one … two …”
As he counted, the two rivals each raised a leg up into the air like an inverted pendulum. Twice they swung past each other. On the third such swing, their legs suddenly interlocked, and each contestant began straining to pull the other forward.
The boy grunted and heaved.
Ginger, to my very great surprise, began to smile.
The boys in the crowd shouted, “Do it, Burpo!” and “Nail her, dude!” and more of that sort of inane encouragement.
Ginger yawned, then flipped the boy ferociously forward, where he lay sprawled on the lawn.
Ginger’s girlfriends exploded with shrieks of laughter. The boys stared in stony silence. Ginger rose and, with a pitying look, extended the boy on the ground a hand. “My condolences, Burpatoid.”
Burpo Bowen was not a gracious loser. He batted away her hand, pushed himself up, and slipped sulkingly to the back of the gathering.
“Well,” Ginger said, dusting off her shorts and looking around, “I guess that concludes the festivities.”
After a still moment, somebody said, “Not quite.”
The crowd parted as Conk Crinklaw strode forward.
A mischievous grin spread across Ginger’s face. “Really?”
Conk gave his broad shoulders a modest shrug. “I’ve done a little of this Indian leg-wrestling thing.” He gave his friends a wink of the eye. “And I don’t ever recall getting beat.”
“Not until now,” Ginger said pleasantly.
“Well, let’s just us see,” Conk said, and lowering himself onto the ground, he began methodically to stretch this way and that.
His confidence seemed warranted. The boy was the quintessential specimen of brutal power—all muscle and gristle and grit. I found myself fearing that Ginger might actually get hurt.
And so, when the legs again began to swing and the count again reached three, I was not surprised when in that first flashing instant, Conk pulled Ginger quickly forward. But it was only for a moment. In the next instant, Ginger had regained her position, and their upright legs were locked in a state of fiercely resistant equilibrium.
Three times Conk gathered himself and with a great throaty grunt launched a surging offensive.
Three times these attempts had no effect whatsoever on Ginger.
In truth, while Conk strained and grunted and his friends coaxed and cajoled, Ginger seemed to be studying the clouds overhead. After a time, she held out an open hand and said, “Beverage, please.”
One of the girlfriends gave her a bottle of water, from which she sipped while Conk again groaned and heaved and strained to overcome her.
But Ginger, holding Conk’s leg steadily in place, merely passed back the water and said, “Napkin, please,” and, with Conk still straining and red-faced, she daintily daubed her lips.
Mein Gott! She was trifling with the boy! Even Conk’s friends grew quiet.
“Had enough, Conklodite?” Ginger teased after a time.
“Just … going … to …,” the boy huffed, “ask … you … the … same … question.”
His face had moved beyond red to purple, and truly, it seemed his bulging eyes might pop from their sockets.
“You could call Ouchies,” Ginger teased. “I could mercy you if you called Ouchies.”
This was too much for Conk, who, straining harder, said, “Why … don’t … you … just … go …”
Well! Whatever indecorous remark was about to spill from his lips Ginger preempted with a pull of her leg that was as startling for its suddenness as for its ferocity.
It was a thing to see! Conk Crinklaw flew forward, as if flung from a catapult, and landed flat on his back with a severe whump!
The girlfriends filled the air with loud whoops, and it took several moments for the shock on Conk’s face to drain away. He sat up and looked around questioningly, as if wondering how he, Conk Crinklaw, could possibly have come to this. But Conk Crinklaw was no Burpo Bowen. He rose, grinned, and with as much graciousness as he could muster, shook Ginger’s hand.
“That was flat-out impressive,” he said. His square-jawed grin widened slightly. “And you know what you won, don’t you?”
“What’s that?”
“A big ol’ smoochy kiss from the likes of me.”
Once the ensuing raucous laughter began to wane, Ginger said, “Sounds more like the booby prize.”
Conk grinned and said he’d always been partial to the booby prize himself, which drew more hooting laughter from his friends.
This raucous interplay went on a while and might have gone on a good deal longer had Deputy McRaven’s patrol car not wheeled around the corner. The deputy slowed the vehicle and stared pointedly at the young people until one of Conk’s friends called out, “Loverly day, ain’t it, Deputy?”
Deputy McRaven stared at them another long moment before moving slowly on. Once his patrol car had turned the corner, Ginger said, “That guy is everywhere. It’s like there are three of him or something.”
No one responded to this, but Burpo Bowen said, “Know why McRaven has never gone to Disneyland?” a
nd before anyone could speak, he answered his own question: “Because he’s not tall enough to get on any of the rides!”
This struck everyone as richly comical, though I myself had no knowledge of what this Disneyland might be, nor of the rides for which the deputy might be judged too short. In any case, it was poor timing that Frank Bailey should pass by at this boisterous moment. He carried a Green Oven Bakery bag and walked head down, as if lost in thought. If he saw the gathering in the mayor’s yard, he gave no indication of it.
“Hey, Frank, how’re you doing?” Burpo Bowen called out in a false, bright tone, and when Frank Bailey looked up, Burpo said with exaggerated politeness, “You’ll be glad to know you’re looking more like a cream puff every day.”
It took a moment for these words and the laughter that followed them to deliver their sting. Then Frank Bailey again ducked his head and trudged forward, as if cruelty, like rain or wind, was just another element he had learned to move through.
“Don’t rush off!” Burpo called. “It’s not that often we get to see a real, live Frankopotamus!”
Harsh laughter followed, but once it was quiet, Ginger fixed her eyes on Burpo Bowen and said, “You’d be more interesting, Burpo, if you had a brain.”
“Ouch,” somebody said, but before the banter could be taken further, Ginger broke away from the group and headed through the yard gate.
“Hey, where’re you going?” Marjory called after her.
Ginger stopped and turned. Her face was stone. “To Jeremy’s,” she said, her gaze moving from one girlfriend to the other. “Want to come?”
The girlfriends lowered their eyes.
“Okay, then,” Ginger said in a tone that seemed to mix disappointment with acceptance. “See ya.”
In a few long, purposeful strides, she rounded the corner out of view.
“Weirder by the day,” said Marjory, and Maddy replied, “I’d say by the minute.”
Conk Crinklaw stared at the corner Ginger had just turned, then finally broke his gaze, manufactured his trademark grin, and said to those who remained, “Okay, what’ll it be? Pitch horseshoes, shoot pool, or swim at Klimmer’s Bridge?”
Maddy said, “We don’t have our suits,” and Conk Crinklaw, slipping mischief into his voice, grinned at her and said, “That settles it then. We swim at Klimmer’s Bridge.”
When I found Ginger, she had caught up to the baker’s apprentice from behind. “Hey, Frank,” she said.
“Leave me alone,” he said over his shoulder.
“Burpo’s an idiot, Frank.” She stepped in front of him to cut him off. “It makes a difference whether the person insulting you is an idiot or not.”
Frank Bailey peered at her from his white doughy face. “It’s okay. I’m kind of used to it. And it’s not them. It’s this place, which is why …” But then his expression stiffened and his voice trailed off.
“Which is why what?” Ginger asked.
Frank Bailey was looking at her with the abashed yet yearning look I’d seen on his face when he watched from within the shadows of the bakery that day as Jeremy, Ginger, and her two girlfriends left the bakery. “You’d never understand,” he said.
“I might.”
Again he seemed on the verge of saying something, but he did not. He just ducked his head, stepped around her, and continued walking toward his home.
Ginger watched him for a moment, then turned back toward Main Street.
I looked from one to the other, and followed Frank Bailey. I could not help myself. I was intrigued by the secret he would not speak.
Listen, if you will, I said when I drew alongside him.
Nothing. No response whatever.
I tried it more loudly: Listen, if you will.
Still nothing. He walked on, pulling at one ear and occasionally expelling a deep breath. He crossed over to a dirt lane and turned up a buckling stone walkway to a small house in terrible need of paint.
“Is that you, then?” his mother called out when he entered.
Frank Bailey gave a murmuring assent, and his mother appeared from another room, her fading hair pulled tight to her skull, her skin aged by cold and wind and worry. I knew a little of her story. She had come from Scotland in her late girlhood and, prettier then, and livelier, she quickly found a husband whose work for the railroad initially kept him away a few days at a time, and then a few weeks and a few months. And then, at about the time that Frank, their only child, gained Pubertät, the railroad man was gone for good. There were citizens who said it was because he could not face the kind of dainty boy his son had become. Not just one or two said this but many.
“Pastries, then?” she said, peering into the paper bag Frank Bailey had just presented her. “From Mr. Blix?”
“Mmm,” the boy said as if he was speaking here and thinking somewhere else. He pulled at his earlobe, stretched its flesh.
“He’s a nice man, Mr. Blix,” she said, and the boy nodded distractedly.
Mrs. Bailey put a kettle on the stove, and they did not speak again until she poured boiling water into a teapot.
“So?” she said as she rearranged her empty cup.
“Pardon?” he said, brought back from his thoughts.
“You’re tugging at your ear, then, aren’t you? So I guess you have something to say.”
“Oh.” The boy broke off a section of a small cake dusted with powdery sugar. “Mr. Blix gave me a funny choice today.”
Mrs. Bailey looked up from her steeping tea. “A funny choice, you say?”
“Mmm. He said I could stay here and work with him, which he said he would like. And I would, too.” He swallowed. “But he also said that there’s a really good cooking school in California. He said if you graduate from this school, you can get a good position anywhere in the world.”
Mrs. Bailey seemed to be studying her son.
“He meant it, Mother. He’s been watching me in the kitchen.” He looked down. “He thinks I have a talent.”
“This school,” she said. “How in the world would we pay for it?”
The boy regarded the bit of cake in his hands. “Mr. Blix said he would pay for it,” he said, and then looked directly at his mother. “I know how you are about charity, but he said once I have a position, I can pay it back bit by bit.”
Mrs. Bailey watched him. “Why would he do that?”
“Because he’s nice, and because he really does believe I can be—I don’t know—a master baker or something.” The boy took a breath. “And also because he said he knows”—and now something crumpled in the boy’s face, and the look that it left there was heart-wrenching—“he said he knows what it’s like to be … misfitting.” A moment passed. “That’s why he left Sweden.”
Mrs. Bailey looked off.
In a small voice, the boy said, “Maybe he’d come back—you know, the old man—if I was gone.”
Her face hardened. She shook her head.
“He might, though,” the boy said.
“No. It wasn’t you at all. He just wasn’t the right kind of a man for being a father or a husband, either one.”
“No, Mom. It was me. He couldn’t stand the sight of me. He just couldn’t.”
This time, she did not argue. “California,” she said.
“Mmm.”
Her face broke down, too. It seemed she might cry. “You wouldna’ come back, then?”
“Yes, I would,” he said. “Even if I didn’t live here, I would always come back, you know”—there was a slight crack in his voice—“to wherever you are.”
Oh, the tender misery here! I could not bear it, and took my leave.
When I returned to the bookstore, Ginger was rapping frantically at the locked door. She cupped her hands to each side of her face and peered through the window and then knocked again, harder. She had balled her hand into a fist to pound even louder when the door swung open and Jeremy stood before her.
He seemed both glad to see her and amused at her agitation. “A little chi
ll factor might be good here,” he said. “Just a suggestion.”
Ginger’s expression relaxed. “I know. I kind of overreacted.” She breathed in and out. “It’s just that I was with Conk and all of them, and all of a sudden I wished I was with you and then creepy McRaven was parked right over there”—she glanced across the street—“and so I waited for-freaking-ever for him to leave and then you didn’t come to the door right away and …”
Jeremy brought her a tall glass of water. Once she had sipped from it and settled into the overstuffed armchair, she relaxed and told him about her gratifying leg-wrestling competition (though she deleted mention of Conk’s assertion that she had won a “big ol’ smoochy kiss”). Jeremy told her about the mayor’s visit, including the promissory note he had signed (though he omitted Mayor Crinklaw’s observation that Conk was nuts for Ginger).
“So, how’d you beat Conk and those guys? Conk’s pretty strong.”
Ginger pretended indignation. “I’m pretty strong, too, just for the record, or at least my legs are. Plus I’m super flexible. I mean, have you seen me do the splits?” She illustrated by lowering herself to the floor with one leg extending forward from the torso and the other leg behind. “And straddle split,” she said to herself, extending her legs to left and right.
Why she did not yelp in pain I could not say.
She held her position but glanced toward the telephone. “I guess the show didn’t call.”
Jeremy shook his head.
“They’ll call,” she said. “They will. I just know it.”
And, truly, something in my ancient soul went out to the girl, so badly did she want to believe her own words.
Jeremy idly rattled the dice in their little cup, Ginger drifted over, and soon they went back to their game of Monopoly. Ginger had just moved her marker—a small silver terrier—seven squares to one of her own properties when she said, “Oh! I do have a little bit of good news.”
Jeremy dropped the dice into the cup. “Yeah?”
She nodded. “The baker wants us to work for him tomorrow morning.”