“What about the watermelon?” Janet asked. “You weren’t here last Tuesday and I ended up buying a bad one.” Frederick looked at Janet’s pale face. Had she forgotten to wear her infernal hormones? What was wrong with some women? Did he look like the Watermelon Fairy? Chandra had declared that his own vanity was the cause of this Bacchanalian frenzy which occurred each Tuesday at the supermarket. “You pretend to know things about produce which no mortal human knows, not even farmers,” she’d accused him. “I bet you act like some Roman god of the harvest down there, Freddy. I know you. You’ve got those women believing you’re Ralph Nader.” Perhaps he had mentioned a few lessons learned from Consumer Reports over the months, and by doing so had possibly saved them and their families from being poisoned by Chilean grapes, Chicken a la Salmonella, and the like. But he had no idea how much women talked to one another. Rumor had spread rapidly that he was the last word on artichoke hearts, a genius with mouthwashes, a virtuoso of brown rice. But that didn’t mean they could harness him every Tuesday as their own personal soothsayer, which was happening as talk of his supermarket clairvoyance increased. Chandra had been smug about it, suggesting that he learn to say three little words, I don’t know. “But you can’t do it, can you, Freddy?” she’d badgered. The more horrible truth was that Frederick Stone did know the answer to their questions. He had done his research. Could he be faulted for that?
“By the way,” Mrs. Freeman asked, “where were you last Tuesday?” Frederick thought about last Tuesday. He had actually spent the day bailing Chandra out of the Portland slammer, a tiny matter of illegal traipsing on a fur farm. But this was none of Mrs. Freeman’s business, especially since she had again worn her ragged mink to the grocery store.
“Dental appointment,” Frederick said. He tapped on the nearest melon, his hand sensing the vibrations. He leaned down and listened for that special music, a quick, resonating plunk that promised just enough ripeness.
“Is it playing our song, Fred?” Janet asked. He heard the women titter. On the third melon he found it, that subtle little bong, the tone heavy as a bell.
“Oooh, there you are,” Frederick whispered. He lifted the melon up, as though it were a plump baby, and placed it in Janet’s cart.
“I think you’ll find this one satisfactory,” he said. He merely nodded at Janet’s thank-you. He wished Chandra could see him at some of his finest moments. And she might, too, if she ever picketed the meat department.
“Thanks, Frederick, you’re a dear,” said Janet. She tilted her head, as though listening to the same melon music, and smiled sweetly. Frederick smiled back. He wasn’t sure if the recent divorce was prompting Janet to be more aggressive or if her hormonal pack was pumping overtime. It was true that grocery stores across the country had become the new meat market, so to speak, in which singles could bump their carts together and fall in love. Frederick had read how males loaded up with expensive gourmet items to impress the casual female shopper, the one with the firm ass. But he had generally been a spectator to such mate calling, Chandra’s Tampax no doubt serving as a deterrent, not to mention the fact that tofu wasn’t exactly known as an aphrodisiac.
“No problem,” said Frederick, and tried not to stare after Janet’s retreating wiggle. Women could wiggle more easily, couldn’t they, when they were leaning forward on their carts, sashaying up and down the aisles like tigresses. And his brother, Herbert, wondered why Frederick didn’t mind the shopping.
“Frederick!” A stout woman was just turning down the long aisle of canned goods. Frederick listened as his name echoed around the Carnation milk, then bounced off the acoustical boxes of shredded wheat. It was Mrs. Paroni, headed for him in a maniacal hurry, coupons fluttering behind her like leaves falling.
She’s going to have a heart attack one of these days, Frederick thought as he watched her legs, trussed up in tight, shiny hose, getting closer. The legs looked like sausages about to burst.
“I’ve forgotten which you told me was better. Tomato sauce or tomato puree?” Mrs. Paroni held out two cans for his inspection. Her face was flushed. He could hear the breath rolling around in her chest, little growls almost, her heart a tired conductor shoveling coal into the furnace. The woman needed to give up fatty foods.
“Actually, Mrs. Paroni,” Frederick said patiently, “they’re made by essentially the same process. You can interchange them in your recipes without tasting the difference.”
“But there was something you said I should watch for,” Mrs. Paroni insisted. She dropped her hands helplessly to her sides, a can in each.
“It’s the cans themselves,” said Frederick. He suppressed one of his trademark sighs. “Some are welded, some are soldered with lead. Remember I showed you how to peel the paper back a little so you can see the difference?”
“I’m supposed to get the welded ones, aren’t I?” Mrs. Paroni said. “Maybe if I was Italian, I’d remember.”
“Whether you’re Italian or not,” Frederick said, “you shouldn’t ingest any lead.”
“My second husband is Italian, you know, but I’m not. I’m not even part Italian. My ancestors were…” She paused, as if trying to remember.
“Lebanese,” Frederick said. He’d heard the limbs of Mrs. Paroni’s ancestral tree rattled so many times that he felt as if he knew the whole goddamn family.
“According to my mother-in-law, I can’t make spaghetti sauce,” Mrs. Paroni said.
“I know,” said Frederick. If she didn’t get the hell out of his face, he’d be in the supermarket all day.
“But if my first husband, Samuel, were still alive, he’d tell you that I make the best goddamn mahshi you ever ate!” Mrs. Paroni lifted herself up on her dachshund legs to announce this. Why did old ladies like to swear in his presence? And they did it in such flirting tones. “The secret is in the spice,” she added, and winked.
He nodded good-bye and wheeled away. How many years had poor Samuel listened to that jabber? Frederick had no doubt that Sam was sitting up in heaven, praying that his ears would heal.
By the time Frederick made it to the checkout counter, he had advised Laurel Robinson which apple juice had fared best in the latest tests for residue of the chemical Alar. He had also paused to mention that Consumer Reports rated Orville Redenbacher’s Original Gourmet Popping Corn seventh in its ability to shear off more easily with each chew, thus not compressing excessively into the teeth.
In line behind him at the checkout was Doris Bowen, fresh from the latest Palm Beach trip, teeth sparkling white against her tanned skin. She was at her coquettish best, bending over to hoist up the twelve-pack of Coors from the bottom rack of her cart, her white breasts spilling from the cups of her bra. She had the kind of dyed blond hair that never looks as unnatural as the waitress-blond one sees at truck stops. It was as if money could make everything look real, if you only had enough of it. And Doris Bowen was certainly rich, or at least her husband was. Frederick had heard her refer often to “power people” and social gatherings at “George and Barbara’s in Kennebunkport,” a place Chandra intended to picket. It all had something to do with automatic rifles and the NRA. Frederick assumed that Doris Bowen could afford to send the housekeeper shopping. That she didn’t suggested boredom to him. After all, what can one do until the enchanting cocktail hour?
“Hello, Frederick,” Doris said, the white teeth moving like ghosts behind her red lips. “Don’t you have a lecture for me about the bacon?” Frederick looked at the slab of Hormel bacon which Doris held up so seductively that it could have been a dirty magazine.
“Lecture?” Frederick asked. He hoped the way in which he was canting his head, what Chandra called “birdlike,” was just casual enough to be flirtatious. He didn’t know what it was about Doris Bowen in her white shorts and little tops, her white summer dresses, her white slacks and sweaters, her white boots and sandals, but it was something. White had come to signal the rich
, just as purple had once been worn by only royalty.
“What lecture did you have in mind?” Frederick asked coyly. He imagined Chandra behind a one-way glass, watching him like some kind of high school principal. She’d have a good laugh, wouldn’t she?
“You know,” Doris said. “The lecture I heard you give Mrs. Paroni one day last month about bacon.” Frederick frowned. He hoped it wasn’t too much, coupled with the canting of his head. He might come off to Doris Bowen as having Bell’s palsy rather than a sexy aloofness. But he had been unable to suppress the thought of Chandra swooping in, waving a brochure on factory farming, one that had pictures of the sows chained to cement slabs, unable to move, eighty million of them yearly. Damn Chandra and her pictures, which were worth a million words. Frederick hadn’t been able to enjoy pork for years, had nearly wept one morning at breakfast when he realized that he must bid good-bye to sausage patties forever. What would Doris Bowen say about that?
“Didn’t you warn dear little Mrs. Paroni about the perils of eating bacon?” Doris arched one of her golden eyebrows, the eyebrows of the rich, which seem to curve naturally into a bored What next? question.
“Mrs. Paroni shouldn’t even smell bacon,” Frederick said.
“Didn’t you tell her that it’s loaded with stalactites and something else?” He had to smile at this. He did find them charming—let Chandra call him sexist—women who simply needed nothing more than for him to explain them out of some quandary.
“Nitrates and nitrites,” he said. “To say nothing of the fat and cholesterol.”
“I don’t worry about fat,” Doris Bowen said as Frederick produced his courtesy check-cashing card, and then dropped his receipt into one of the sacks. No, she probably didn’t. Fat was most likely that which one liposuctions away at the wave of a red fingertip.
Loading his groceries into his Chevy station wagon, Frederick couldn’t help but look up, through the big plate window which advertised Van Camp’s pork and beans, to see that Doris Bowen was casting blond, shivery looks out into the parking lot. He considered lingering a bit, taking his time in placing the grocery sacks on the backseat, but then he saw Mrs. Paroni on her way out with a bag boy. He quickly slammed the Chevy’s back door and then climbed beneath the wheel.
On the drive home Frederick remembered the soft white mounds of Doris Bowen’s breasts, rolling like little hills inside her halter top. The firm, impertinent breasts of the rich. Silicone breasts. Silicon chips! He wondered instantly who handled the accounting for Arthur Bowen Developers, Inc. It wasn’t as if Frederick didn’t find Doris Bowen attractive. He had always been intrigued by women who were so openly sensuous. That was his sixties upbringing. But in the eighties, something incredible had happened. Personal computers hit the market, and it was as if Frederick had been swept away to another planet. As mountains of new material on PCs became available, he had plowed through them with infinite patience. He came to know, and then to love, the magical device. It had been a long time since his emotions had been so stirred, and the enigmatic machine, as if sensing his passion, slowly unveiled its secrets to him. This new obsession filled the lonely gaps, made up for the peace marches he had gradually dropped away from, the world problems he had come to leave to those who felt they had world answers.
There was another side effect as well. The computer gave Frederick the opportunity to make a living in his own home, of being his own boss, of keeping his own hours. As Stone Accounting & Consultation grew, Frederick began to relax. The smoky ideals of the sixties faded into the bright genius of the computer chip. His old self dwindled as his bank account increased. There was no doubt about it: the establishment had finally made Frederick Stone an offer he couldn’t refuse. He had sold out. At least according to Chandra he had. But through it all Frederick and Chandra had remained together. The shades of their hair may have changed in sync, but the color of their convictions had not. It was a good thing, too, Frederick had reminded himself many times during their long marriage. After all, computers were putting food into their refrigerator, even if milk-fed veal wasn’t among it.
• • •
At six o’clock Frederick wasn’t troubled about what to fix for dinner. Later on, when he felt hungry, he would make a sandwich. Chandra would be eating with the rest of the boycotters in Augusta. She had already told him that there would be a discussion on factory farming at the Renaissance Teahouse after the boycott, sponsored by a group of concerned college students and professors. He expected it would be late evening before he would hear her cooing to the orange cat out on the front porch, so he mixed himself a drink and stood staring out the window. A warm rainfall was blowing over Ellsboro Street. Frederick watched as the leaves of the wild cherry outside his window siphoned off the raindrops. He wondered with genuine sympathy if the boycott was over. He knew the intent was to picket some restaurant still heartlessly serving milk-fed veal. He hoped that Chandra was dry, wherever she was. He had done a lot of picketing himself, and he knew the rain was a nasty thing. He knew it could turn magnificently lettered signs quickly unreadable. As the cherry tree swayed in the wind, Frederick remembered one of those pickets. It had been during the antiwar marches, in the heart of the Vietnam era. Where, he couldn’t remember, only the incessant rain, beating the marchers down, beating them back, the capitalist fists of the rain, and Chandra there beside him, her hair blond with youth, yellow with protest, both of them in the sweetness of their lives. His sign had said WAR IS MURDER, a fine red lettering done by Chandra’s own pacifist hand. But the rain had taken the letters and splattered them like blood up and down the poster board. When Frederick looked up at them, they ran before his eyes like the blood of those soldiers, soldiers on both sides, like the blood of the Crusades, of all the really expensive, important wars, and all the forgotten wars. He saw on the poster the blood of all humanity in a sea of despair, and he had felt the first of those insights into the truth about the world that would plague him thereafter: that it was all for nothing. If the war were to stop tomorrow, then it was time for the war to stop. No matter that a few people voiced their displeasure, no matter how hard a few folks worked to change things, the world would continue at its own pace, and the world news would end up tucked away on reels, in tin cans on the back shelves at CBS and NBC and ABC, as if they were little lives that have already been lived and were no longer useful. It was all for nothing, and that’s what made him cry that day, in the midst of the downpour, beneath the sign dripping its blood, the day Chandra believed to be his most emotional, personal protest of the war. It became a marker from then on. “That was the big march where Freddy cried so hard,” he would hear her say, as if it were a badge of his beliefs, a medal from the battlefronts of the protest years. But Frederick remembered exactly what it was he felt. He hadn’t been crying for any soldiers, for any heartless governments, for any civilians being rained down upon with napalm. He was crying for himself, for Frederick Stone, because the beginning of the end of innocence had just occurred.
It was almost ten o’clock before he finally made the sandwich. With Chandra out tilting at the windmills of factory farms, he had used the entire evening to study the manual and install the latest update of his accounting package. Then he backed up the day’s work on floppy disks and stored them in the safe. It was well past eleven, a few minutes into The Tonight Show, when Frederick snapped off the television and went to sleep. It seemed like only seconds later that he awoke to realize Chandra had slid into bed beside him. It seemed like only seconds, but maybe it was many lifetimes, so far apart had they grown in twenty-some years.
• • •
The house was already alive with the bleeps of Frederick’s computer when Chandra finally awoke, a bit past noon. Frederick was deep at work, up to his neck in the Boardwalk Café’s personal finances. He heard her footfalls above his head as she padded into the hall and down to the bathroom, then back again. He abandoned the dollar signs of Portland’s oldest
café and went out to the kitchen to pour Chandra her morning coffee. He sniffed it anxiously and then frowned. He wouldn’t drink it, but then he had discerning taste buds.
Upstairs, the bedroom door was open, as it always was. Chandra suffered from a kind of bedroom claustrophobia, contracted no doubt from being locked up in an earlier life of protest. Carry A. Nation, maybe.
“Hey,” said Frederick. “Ready for some coffee?” He put the cup on the bedside table and then opened the blinds. “That’s a beautiful day out there you’re missing.” Chandra squinted the bright sun out of her eyes. She shook her head.
“I used to believe that a woman chooses a husband to replace her father,” she said. “But you sound more like my mother as time goes on.” She reached for the coffee.
“Speaking of your family,” said Frederick. “There’s a little message for you, down in the den.”
“There must be a God,” said Chandra, “or we wouldn’t have answering machines. What does she want now?”
“Joyce is threatening to kill poor Teddy,” said Frederick. “The condom thing again.”
“She should feel blessed that the kid is using condoms,” said Chandra. “Who cares if he keeps them in his dresser drawer?”
“He keeps the used ones in his dresser drawer,” Frederick reminded her. “That means he’s bringing concubines home from geometry class while Joyce is at work.”
“Teddy is sixteen now,” said Chandra. “Joyce has no damn business snooping in his bedroom.”
“Finding congruent angles and graphing hyperbolas right there in his own bed,” Frederick added. “In Joyce’s very house.”
“She’s just afraid of missing something.”
“Well, you might call her back,” said Frederick. He was leaning into Chandra’s vanity mirror, inspecting the puffiness around his eyes again. He would give it one or two more days before charting it on his computer calendar as permanent damage. “She is your sister, after all.” He began a quiet inspection of the single gray hairs on his head.
A Marriage Made at Woodstock Page 3