Tied to the Tracks
Page 25
“Well, now, look at this. I can’t remember the last time I had Coca-Cola cake. I believe I’ll have to start the bidding at fifty dollars.”
“I hope Tony is getting this,” Rivera said to Angie when Marylou Scott went off with Ogilvie’s high school football team. The boys had come up with close to three hundred dollars among them so they could each claim a spoonful of casserole, a chicken wing, and a few crumbs of cake. Now only two baskets remained on the table, but it seemed to Angie that the crowd was significantly bigger than it had been.
“I feel like the kid who gets picked last for kickball,” Angie said. There was a warm wind but she was wishing for a shawl or a sweater or a blanket she could hide under. She alternated between wondering where John was in the crowd and hoping he had stayed away. She needed to tell him about Win Walker and the condom debacle, but there would be no chance to do that for the next few hours.
“I’m glad they do the guest baskets last,” Rivera said. “I wouldn’t want to miss any of this.”
Angie said, “Did you see Little Billy Munro?” She pointed with her chin. “The entire population of the Liars’ Bench is over there giving you the eye, and they haven’t bid on a basket yet. Look,” she said, “you’re up.”
The mayor was holding up Rivera’s basket in one hand while he peered at the list in the other. “Folks—”
“One hundred dollars!” The decidedly female voice came from the back of the crowd.
“Oh, shit,” said Rivera, sliding down in her chair. “Weepy Meg.”
Ridley Smith laughed, though he didn’t look much amused. “I haven’t even—”
“One hundred twenty!” Markus Holmes called, his voice cracking.
“One thirty.” Meg’s voice boomed like a soprano foghorn. Angie wanted to get a look at the woman she had only heard about, but there were enough people craning their necks. She settled for sending a furtive glance in John’s direction. He was talking to Kai, his head bent down solicitously. A flush started deep in Angie’s belly, but luckily nobody was paying any attention to her just now.
“The Liars bid one hundred fifty!” called Little Billy.
“Wow, Angie.” Rivera gave a nervous giggle. “I’ve got the Liars and the lesbian competing for my company at dinner.”
“Supper,” Angie muttered. “It’s called supper in the evening.”
The mayor was trying to impose some order on the bidding, and not having any luck at all.
“One fifty-five!”
“One hundred sixty!”
“Is that you, Meg?” The mayor squinted into the late-day sun. “Are you bidding for the ladies’ auxiliary?”
“I’m bidding for myself,” Meg called back. “You got a problem with that, bubba?”
Angie turned to hiss in Rivera’s ear. “Weepy Meg is the mayor’s sister?”
Rivera bit her lip. “Who knew?”
“One hundred sixty-five dollars!” Little Billy had worked his way to the stage and he held up a fistful of bills. “Cash money.”
“Two hundred fifty dollars,” Meg yelled.
“What a time to come out of the closet,” Angie said.
Rivera slid slower on her seat. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or pissed off.”
“I’d go with flattered,” said Angie. “There’s lots of people here got pissed off covered already.” But when she really looked, she didn’t see as many thunderous expressions as she might have expected. She did see I’m the Shit That Happens and his friends, all of them looking uncharacteristically interested in the proceedings. Somebody else was making trouble for once, which might be an irritation or a relief; it was hard to tell.
“Maybe I could lend Markus some money,” Rivera said, just as the gavel thwacked on the podium.
“Sold,” said Ridley Smith. “To my little sister Meg, for three hundred fifteen dollars.”
“Eat in plain sight,” called Angie as Rivera walked off.
The only safe thing John could think to do was to leave before the bidding started on Angie’s basket, and that with as little fanfare as possible. If he was gone and Angie was in plain sight, Patty-Cake Walker’s suspicions could be put to rest for tonight, which would be a good thing for all parties.
He kissed Miss Junie’s cheek and made excuses that were at least partially true: he was near dead on his feet, and he did have a big day ahead. On Thursday five different reunions would get started, and in the first flush of enthusiasm for his new job he had said yes to every invitation. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, a way to keep busy on the two days before the wedding and while making clear to the administration that he was willing to do his share of the work. Now he found it hard to think about giving a dinner talk on new directions in academia, but he would have to do just that, in about forty-eight hours.
Which would hopefully take his mind off both Angie and Caroline.
He saw Louanne Porter getting into her squad car as he came to the edge of the park and waved her down to get a ride home, glad to let her distract him for ten minutes with stories about things that had kept her busy: kids smoking weed out in the open, Charmaine Walker just drunk enough to think it would be a good idea to jump in the river topless, the theft of a half dozen pies from the food tent, and a night in jail for Peter Robeson, whose wife had been taken to the emergency room with a broken jaw and a black eye.
“The Jubilee isn’t much fun for you,” John said.
“More fun than it was for Georgia Robeson,” said Louanne. “But she never learns. Tomorrow she’ll get him out of jail and refuse to press charges, and about Labor Day we’ll go through the whole thing again. I’ll never understand women who go looking for exactly the wrong man to marry.” She seemed to remember that John was about to get married himself and threw him an apologetic smile. “Caroline being one of the exceptions, of course.”
“Of course,” John said.
He got out near campus to walk the last block in the twilight, thinking about Caroline and the choices she had made. She would be coming home tomorrow or the day after, and they would have to sort it all out between them. He might say, I went about this all wrong, and I couldn’t be the husband that you deserve to have. Which was only part of the truth, but she deserved all of it. If she wanted a play-by-play confession, he’d give that to her, too, because he might be stupid at times, but he couldn’t be a coward about this. That would be unfair to everybody.
He’d take the blame, pay the bills, make the phone calls. The long list of wedding plans in reverse: cancel the caterers, the church, the flowers, the honeymoon, send back the presents. He’d be the one to tell people to stay home, the wedding was off.
John stopped just where he was, overcome by a jolt of guilt so great that his stomach cramped with it.
On the other side of all that was Angie, or the hope of her. There was a long list of potentially troublesome practical questions that had to do with logistics and jobs and where they would be spending their time. To all that, Angie had added another item, one he hadn’t let himself think about.
They had been pinned together on the old couch on the Ivy House porch, the night breeze gentle on his sweaty skin, when she had put her forehead against his. “You’re going to be mad, at some point,” she had said, “when you realize what you’ve thrown away for me.”
It had taken him by surprise, but it shouldn’t have. Angie had a way of cutting to the bone, and he was smart enough to recognize the truth, even if he didn’t know what to do about it.
John let himself into the house, cool and dim with the shades drawn against the afternoon sun. There was a scattering of half-filled moving boxes and packing paper, a pile of math books on the coffee table, and a note on the table next to the phone.
I have deleted all the phone messages that were not of importance, Kai had written. Here are the rest: 1. Your car will not be ready until next Monday. 2. President Bray’s assistant called to ask if you will have dinner with him and some of the alums on Thursday after
your talk. 3. Lucy will arrive here on Friday morning by car.
His mother, on top of everything else. John collapsed on the couch and concentrated on thinking of nothing at all. Not Caroline or Angie or work, and certainly not of his mother or Saturday, when he was supposed to be getting married.
All the things he wanted to stop thinking about followed him, as he half knew they would, and ran amok in his dreams. John dreamed of his mother driving toward Ogilvie in a huge old Pontiac convertible, her eyes hidden behind dark glasses and her hair and long neck wrapped in a silk scarf. In the dream he was in the backseat, and they were talking to each other on cell phones that beeped and buzzed and faded in and out.
He woke to the sound of fireworks, a long hiss followed by a muffled boom. Outside the sky would be filled with cascades of hot color, but the house—this house he loved so much and would live in for the rest of his life—was a safe place, cool and dark. John sat up, pressed the heel of a palm into an eye, and took stock: he was thirsty, and he smelled of barbecue smoke and sweat and Angie.
He thought of calling her. She could come over here, if they were careful. She could spend the night with him in his own bed, and he would wake up to find her hair a tangle across the pillow. John glanced at his watch and calculated when it would be safe to try her cell phone. Time to take a shower and change.
On his way through the front hall he saw the FedEx envelope. Either he had stepped over it as he came in the door, or it had been delivered while he was asleep on the couch. For a long moment John stood looking down at the colorful cardboard rectangle, then he turned on the hall light and picked it up.
His name and address had been written by Caroline. Her handwriting was unmistakable, sharp and black and slanting backward. The only return address was a FedEx office outside Savannah, nowhere near the last place he had seen her. John took a deep breath and opened it.
Dear John,
I left the retreat house yesterday afternoon shortly after you dropped me off, because I have some crucial things to think about and I can only do that in a more neutral setting. Please don’t worry. I’ll be back on Friday and we’ll sort things out then, I promise.
Love,
Caroline
John read the letter twice without moving from that spot, and then he sat down on the hall stairs, where he stared at his own hands for a good while. Finally he let out a hoarse croaking laugh.
Yesterday in the late afternoon Caroline had sat at a motel desk somewhere and written this letter. She had never got the letter he had brought to the retreat house. He looked at the words on the page.
We’ll sort things out then.
At least, he told himself, he could be not be accused of being dense; any reasonable person must admit that there was no useful information here at all beyond the simple fact that Caroline had gone off. It was the kind of letter a sister might write, or a close friend. A woman about to get married—a woman who was happy about the fact that she was about to get married—would hardly write such a letter.
John realized now that Caroline had been increasingly distant over the last month, vaguely ill at ease, almost, at times, untouchable. At first he had seen all that as pre-wedding jitters, symptoms of the stress that came from dealing with her sisters; then he had been too distracted by Angie, and he hadn’t paid close enough attention.
“Christ, I’m an idiot.” He said these words out loud in the empty house. Worse still, he was a clueless idiot, one with no answers, and no way to get them. Caroline would come back on Friday, but what then? The worst-case scenario was that she would show up relaxed, refreshed, looking forward to the wedding.
What if Caroline doesn’t want to let you go? Angie had asked that question the night in the emergency room, and what had he said?
Caroline is nothing if not practical. He had never anticipated something like this, and had no idea what to do next. He had three days to manage the Rose girls and Miss Junie, three days to pretend that he was about to get married. In good conscience he could say nothing about calling off the wedding until he had spoken to Caroline. If he still had the courage to do it at that point.
John got up to go take a shower. Outside, a triple burst of fireworks echoed across the sky, and all across Ogilvie dogs put back their heads and howled.
FIFTEEN
To: Patricia C. Walker
From: Angeline Mangiamele
Re: follow up (2)
Just a note to inquire about the status of my memo dated one week ago. The
most important matters:1.
The beta monitor in the editing suite is still waiting for repair or re-
placement. This is our most urgent need.
2.
My mail is still not reaching me. Have you had any success with central
mail services on sorting this out?
3.
We understand that Rob Grant has okayed an additional two hundred
photocopies a month be added to our allowance, but thus far our PIN code is
not working. Could you please clarify this situation for us?
Thanks for your help.
A.
To: Angeline Mangiamele
From: Patricia C. Walker
Re: follow up (2)
1. The necessary requisition forms have been sent. In the summer Technology Assistance—like this department—is understaffed, but I will call and see what the estimated wait might be.
2. As I put a number of things in your inbox just yesterday I thought this problem was resolved.
3. Your PIN numbers have been updated. During your short stay with us, requests regarding the photocopier, its use and access issues, should be directed to me, in accordance with official departmental policy.
Patricia C. Walker
Senior Secretary and Office Manager
English Department
To: Patricia C. Walker
From: Angeline Mangiamele
Re: follow up (3)
Just a note to inquire about the status of my memo dated ten days ago. The most important matters:1. Still no progress on the monitor.
2. The mail in my box includes two credit card offers addressed to (a) An-drew Malone, and (b) Anil Mustafa; a flier for a sale at the campus bookstore; and three internal memos, all from you. I have not received any outside mail addressed to me since I arrived.
3. PIN number still not working.
Thanks for your help.
A.
To: Angeline Mangiamele
From: Patricia C. Walker
Re: follow up (3)
1. Technology Assistance tells me the monitor is scheduled for pickup today or tomorrow.
2. Maybe you gave out the wrong address?
3. I see that I forgot to give you the new PIN number. Please check your inbox for it later today.
Patricia C. Walker
Senior Secretary and Office Manager
English Department
To: Patricia C. Walker
Cc: John Grant, Department Chair
Assistant
From: Angeline Mangiamele
Re: follow up (4)
Just a note to inquire about the status of my memo dated two weeks ago. The most important matters:1. Our progress is seriously compromised by the lack of a working monitor. If Technology Assistance cannot repair or replace it today, I will submit an urgent request for a new monitor through Rob Grant immediately.
2. I have a phone call into the US post office to see if they can track down the problem from their end.
3. Please e-mail the PIN number ASAP.
Thanks for your help.
A.
To: Angeline Mangiamele
Cc: John Grant, Department Chair
Assistant
From: Patricia C. Walker
Re: follow up (4)
1. The new monitor has been ordered and should arrive tomorrow. Rob tells me he has e-mailed you the UPS tracking number directly.
2. As you will have heard from Mason Campbell at the post office, it seems they had a request on file for your mail to be held there for pickup. Their hours are 8-4 weekdays.
3. According to official university and departmental policy, e-mail may not be used to transmit any sensitive information including (but not limited to) computer passwords and PIN numbers. I have put a photocopy of the relevant pages of the technology guidelines manual in your inbox, and deducted those six pages from your monthly allowance.