The Son of Someone Famous

by M. E. Kerr

  I followed him to the door.

  He whispered at me, “What feels right is right.” Then in a loud voice he said, “I’ll see you, Brenda Belle! Tell Adam he’d better brush up his manners if he wants to keep you! Good night! Happy New Year!”

  I felt like my legs had turned to rubber. I was definitely not immune to Tyrone Hardin. I felt as though I’d had a heart transplant, only a drum had been put inside to replace the heart.

  As soon as I shut the door, my mother said, “Brenda Belle, what kind of a lady are you? You got yourself a Coke, but you didn’t give him anything. Didn’t he want anything?”

  Before I could defend myself she said, “If a gentleman doesn’t want anything when a lady offers him something, then a lady doesn’t have anything, either.’’

  “I had such a nice time!” my Aunt Faith said.

  “Fawning over that boisterous woman!” said my mother. “I was embarrassed for you, Faith.”

  “Were you, Millie?” my aunt said. “What a pity you couldn’t enjoy yourself.”

  “I don’t think much of Adam Blessing or that Christmas tree tied with beer cans,” said my mother. “I didn’t expect anything from old Charlie, but Brenda Belle, you led me to believe his grandson was a nice boy.”

  “He is a nice boy, Millie,” my aunt said.

  “You heard what the Hardin boy said about him, Faith,” my mother said. “The Hardin boy is a nice boy. He’s a gentleman. He called Brenda Belle a lady.”

  “Does that automatically make me a lady?” I said.

  “In his eyes, I would say so,” said my mother.

  “And I would say so what!” said my aunt, yawning.

  “Nighty-night, all,” I said. “Don’t enjoy yourselves too much.”

  “I don’t intend to enjoy myself at all,” said my mother, marching upstairs behind me.

  From the Journal of A.

  After Brenda Belle left the party with Ty Hardin, I made a jackass of myself by drinking too much punch. I even threw up. My father is fond of saying that the second most disgusting thing is a throw-up drunk. (The first most disgusting thing, according to him, is a beggar. “If you ever find yourself on your knees, A.J.,” he is also fond of saying, “don’t beg. Pray!”)

  I don’t think I was really jealous of Ty Hardin, or anything like that. I was just tired of trying to please people and not being able to, and trying to behave as someone thought I should, and discovering it didn’t make any difference, anyway.

  I suppose the reason Brenda Belle didn’t wait for our first kiss at the stroke of midnight was that she began to see me and my grandfather through Ty Hardin’s eyes. The beer cans on the tree and the jelly glasses probably got to her, and she just took off with him—the hell with Nothing Power and the fact we were supposed to be going steady. I was also still smarting from the very perfunctory way I’d been treated by Dr. Cutler when I’d called Christine. . . . I guess I felt like a jackass and that’s why I turned into one.

  I fell asleep next to Janice atop some pillows on the floor of my grandfather’s bedroom. Billie Kay had passed out on the living-room couch, which was where I was supposed to sleep.

  When I woke up, I had such a bad headache I couldn’t move right away. I heard my grandfather’s side of a conversation with one of his sons (an uncle I had never met) who had made one of his rare telephone calls in honor of the new year. My grandfather’s sons were not exactly the attentive types, and my grandfather’s conversation with the only one who’d called during the holidays was subdued and short. (“I’m having a wonderful time,” he said, “so don’t worry about me. I’ve got Annabell’s boy here and we’re getting to know each other, so don’t worry about me at all.”)

  After he hung up, he and Billie Kay began talking together in the living room . . . if you could call it talking together. My grandfather was talking about my mother, and Billie Kay was talking about my father and Billie Kay.

  I stared up at the ceiling and listened for a while.

  “He never told me anything about Annabell,” Billie Kay was saying. “What was she like? He never liked to discuss his past. I told him everything from apples to zucchini about my life, but Mr. Big Deal liked to live in the present.”

  My grandfather said, “She was just another young girl, very young, small town. Her mother died giving her life, and I raised her by myself. When she was little she said she wanted to be a vet like me. I would have liked that. I wasn’t close to my boys. None of my boys wanted to follow in my footsteps.”

  “I once wanted to be an architect,” said Billie Kay. “A builder of bridges. I became a burner of bridges behind me, instead.”

  “About a year before it was time for her to go to college, I hired a young assistant. Cutler. He was a married student over at the university, and he needed the job.”

  “Yes, I’ve burned plenty of bridges behind me in my time,” Billie Kay said, “and I’ve crossed plenty of bridges before I came to them.”

  My grandfather said, “For a while she helped us out. Then she went to New York City, skipped the whole idea of going to college—just took off.”

  “He never told me about his years in New York City,” Billie Kay said. (He never told me, either.)

  My grandfather said, “She met him there and married him less than a month later. I only met him once. At her funeral.”

  “For all I know about your past, I used to tell him, you’re from Mars or Venus. More likely Venus.” Billie Kay laughed.

  “He was all in pieces,” my grandfather said.

  “I’m in pieces right now,” Billie Kay said. “I’ve got three thousand little men with hammers buried under my skin, and they’re all beating on my bones. Two thousand nine hundred of them are located inside my head.”

  “I’ll make some more coffee,” my grandfather said.

  I was trying to picture my father all in pieces. I’d seen him drunk, and I’d seen him depressed, but he was always all in one piece and tough as a chuck roast. If he was ever down, his hands were always balled in fists, and he never stayed down very long.

  I was also letting the new accord between Billie Kay and my grandfather register. They were actually carrying on a conversation of sorts; at least they weren’t taking swipes at each other. I didn’t know how that had evolved, but one of the last things I remembered about the party was that my grandfather began taking charge toward the end of the evening.

  He was getting food into people who were driving, and he was emptying ashtrays. He was being very gentle with Billie Kay, too. She was sitting around with her head practically hanging between her knees, and her cigarettes almost burning off the skin on her fingers. She was complaining about not getting any residuals from her old movies being shown on television. My grandfather was saying things like, “Well, you got a right to be mad about that, they should pay you,” and “No, you’re not boring me, that’s quite all right.”

  I hadn’t ever seen my grandfather in that role before. Usually at the end of the evening, he was the hang-head and the complainer. He’d also stuck to his bargain, which surprised me a little, and he hadn’t said anything when Billie Kay didn’t stick to hers and tried to catch Janice to give her “a big Moo Year’s smooch.” (Janice hid behind the shower curtain in the bathroom until the moment passed.) Someday I hope some adult will explain to me what’s so damned funny about having a hangover. Why does a hangover always get a laugh? Both Billie Kay and my grandfather thought it was a huge joke when I came out of the bedroom with my bloodshot eyes, holding my head with my hands.

  “Welcome to the club,” Billie Kay said. “Oh, A.J., are you a beautiful sight!”

  My grandfather stood in the kitchen doorway chuckling.

  “Is this your generation’s idea of having a good time?” I said.

  “I suppose you kids have a better idea,” Billie Kay said. “Like shooting up until you become welfare cases.”

  “I’ve got a pot of black-eyed peas cooking,” my grandfather said, “made Southern
style with salt pork and corn pone to soak up the pot liquor. You know,” he began, “if you eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day, you have good luck all year. That superstition dates back to—”

  Never mind the rest. My grandfather was his old self again.

  By the time I had begun to recover from my hangover several hours later, Billie Kay and my grandfather were talking about a franchise business called Ice Cream Boats. Billie Kay was telling him this chain was mushrooming on the west coast, and that he ought to get into something just like it. My grandfather was protesting that he was too old, sounding younger by the minute.

  I decided to go for a walk. I knew where I was going as I put on my coat. I’d known since the night before when I’d begun drowning my sorrow in the punch bowl. I wasn’t admitting it right out to myself, but my feet knew where I was going, and they took me straight there, down Ski Tow Avenue, up Rider Road and through the woods to Herman Avenue.

  It was a balmy afternoon for winter in Vermont. The sun was out and there was a certain mildness to the weather that reminded me of January in Virginia. My father had a house in Virginia during his first years in Washington. It was smack in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley, and I used to love that house—until I discovered that most of the time I was the only one home, unless you want to count the housekeeper.

  I used to think that after I got married and began to raise a family, I’d live in Virginia. That was when I was about nine years old, before I realized what a complicated idea getting married was, and before I appreciated the fact you can’t just plunk yourself down in any state you want to and live there: You have to do something for a living. I gave up the plan as soon as I was aware there were all those strings attached. The best way was not to have any plans, just glide. I was the glider type.

  But that afternoon while I was walking along, I thought of living in Virginia again. I was humming that old folk song, “Oh, Shenandoah, I long to see you,” going along trying to ignore where I was going, at the same time talking myself into it.

  I figured the worst that could happen was that she’d just slam the door in my face. I hadn’t done anything to deserve having the door slammed in my face, so it probably wouldn’t happen. I figured, too, that she might welcome some interest on anyone’s part, because of being ditched on New Year’s Eve . . . I knew I’d welcome some interest on someone’s part. I’d been ditched, too.

  When I got to her house, I almost walked past it. Then I decided that if nothing else, an explanation was due me as to why she hadn’t wanted Brenda Belle to bring me to her Christmas Eve party.

  I pictured my father in the same situation. I squared my shoulders and stuck out my jaw (which wasn’t my father’s style at all) and then I let my muscles relax and let my face soften, and thought of this gentle facade camouflaging this steel trap (which was my father’s style when he was wheeling and dealing) . . . and I went forward.

  The doorbell rang chimes.

  “Hello, Christine,” I said. “Happy New Year.”

  She said, “Adam, you should have called before you came here.”

  I said, “I called last night.”

  “I know,” she said. She was all in black: black pants, black sweater, with her blonde hair spilling past her shoulders, and she kept looking behind her nervously.

  I said, “Happy New Year.”

  “Happy New Year,” she finally said. “I don’t think you’d better come in.”

  “Then come out,” I said. “Come for a walk.”

  A man appeared behind her. He was a pipe smoker like my grandfather. I took this as a good sign.

  He was a medium-height, balding, bespectacled man. I couldn’t fathom him stealing anyone’s business out from under him, much less ever being involved in revolting and repulsive things. He had soft eyes and a pleasant, boyish grin.

  “This is my father,” Christine said.

  I said, “How do you do, sir?”

  “Hi,” he said.

  Christine said, “Daddy, this is Adam Blessing.”

  He didn’t say anything right away and I just stood there for a moment trying to figure out what had come over him. The only way I can describe it is that it was as though he’d come to the door in a perfectly pleasant frame of mind and suddenly discovered something all wrong with what was standing there on his doorstep. He didn’t seem angry. The word was: unwilling.

  I was surprised by my own voice blurting out, “I don’t know anything about what went on between my grandfather and you. I just wanted to wish Christine a Happy New Year.”

  He cleared his throat. He gave me a certain look, the kind that says you’re expendable, like the contagious person in the crowded lifeboat or the fat man at the famine.

  “Don’t be long, Christine,” he said. Then he disappeared from view.

  “Christine, what’s the matter?” I said.

  “Nothing is,” she said.

  “Something is.”

  “Let me get my coat,” she said.

  She closed the door and I stood there for what seemed like a very long time. I wished I’d never gone there; I wanted to glide back into the scenery.

  Then she appeared wearing this fur-collared coat around her shoulders, and when I tried to help her put it on, she said, “No, I’m not going to be out here long.”

  “We could go for a walk,” I said.

  “No, we can’t,” she said. “Anyway, wouldn’t a walk bore you?”

  “What are you talking about, Christine?”

  “If my Christmas Eve party would bore you, wouldn’t a walk bore you?”

  “You didn’t even ask me to your party,” I said.

  “I asked Brenda Belle to ask you and she said you said it would bore you.”

  “Brenda Belle said you told her not to bring me,” I said.

  “I only asked her because I wanted you to come,” she said.

  “She didn’t tell me that,” I said.

  “She said you said it would bore you.”

  “I never said that,” I said.

  “Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” she said.

  “It matters,” I said. “Of course it matters. Why are we standing here like this? Come for a walk.”

  “I can’t,” she said. “Did you send my father a strange card?”

  “No,” I said.

  “He thinks you did.”

  “Is that why he acts that way?” I said.

  “He doesn’t like you, Adam.”

  “He doesn’t even know me.”

  “He says he doesn’t know anything about you.”

  “Then how can he dislike me?”

  “He says you’re an unknown quantity.”

  “How can he dislike an unknown quantity?”

  “It goes back to the thing with Charlie,” she said.

  “Don’t call my grandfather Charlie,” I said.

  “Everyone in Storm calls him Charlie,” she said.

  “Do you like me?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  She said, “My father is watching us.”

  “He can’t read lips, can he?”

  “I like you all right,” she said.

  “I like you, too.”

  “This is awful,” she said.

  “What’s awful about liking each other? I liked you from the moment I saw you.”

  “You don’t know my father.”

  “How can he dislike an unknown quantity?”

  “It goes back to the thing with your grandfather.”

  “What happened, what exactly happened?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  The front door opened and her father called out, “Christine?”

  Christine called back, “Okay, Daddy, I’m coming.”

  “I’ll see you in school,” I said.

  “You’re going steady with Brenda Belle,” she said.

  “I can explain that.”

  “Don’t bother. It won’t make any difference.”

&nbs
p; “I’ll see you in school,” I said.

  “It won’t do any good,” she said. “You’re an unknown quantity.”

  “How can you dislike an unknown quantity?”

  “I don’t, Adam!”

  Her father’s voice again, “CHRISTINE!”

  She said, “I’ll see you in school.”

  “I’ll see you,” I said.

  “See you,” she said, and she went back up the walk and inside the house.

  That night when Brenda Belle called to announce she’d run off because she’d overheard me trying to call Christine, I didn’t tell her about “going there that afternoon. I was tempted to really yell at her for lying about Christine’s Christmas Eve party, but I was too high from seeing Christine to be mad at anyone.

  Brenda Belle said, “I forgive you if you forgive me.”

  “I forgive everyone,” I said, “for everything.”

  “That’s wonderful, sweetheart,” she said. “Besides, he didn’t even call me today.”

  “Who didn’t call you today?”

  “Ty Hardin,” she said. “He didn’t even call me.” Then she said, “Adam? I want to read you something my aunt found in Helen Stiles’ ‘Stars Today’ column. It’s all about Billie Kay’s ex!”

  This is what she read to me:

  The powerful bigwig seen around Tinsel Town with Electric Socket was rumored to be mucho involved at Washington’s Sans Souci restaurant with the widow of you-know-who. Is there a short circuit in Electric’s socket, or was Mr. Powerful just whispering state secrets into Widow Wonderful’s ears?

  “That’s wonderful, sweetheart,” I said. “A million thanks for sharing it with me.”

  Notes for a Novel by B.B.B.

  Groundhog Day is a late date for making New Year’s resolutions, but I made one then, anyway.

  My resolution was to try and stop being a sneak. It was inspired by a conversation I overheard between my mother and my aunt as I was dressing for school.

  They were in my mother’s room, where my mother was getting ready for her once-a-month trip to the Burlington Shopping Center.