“Well, I’m going home anyway,” Pearl answered her own train of thought. And she believed she’d have the good fortune to go home alone. The way she’d left years ago. On a Greyhound bus with its nose pointed toward adventure. Maybe she could retrace her path, if she tried.
“I’d go back to when it was just me and Margie and Sicily, finding Orion in the sky and making snowhouses for fairies. The year Daddy left for China. The best year of my life. I’d go straight back to a September day in 1922. I’d go back to the first leaves of autumn falling.”
But very modern footfalls stepped upon the crinkly leaves of 1922 and mashed them well when Marvin announced that he would drive his wife back to her birthplace. To the old McKinnon breeding grounds.
“You’re as bad as them salmon I’ve read about,” Marvin said.
“But you hate Mattagash,” Pearl protested. “You know you do. And what about business?”
“I’m worried about you, Pearly,” Marvin had said as he left for the office, the calfskin briefcase obediently in tow. “And business is so slow Randy could handle it, for Chrissakes. Just kidding,” he added when he saw the look on Pearl’s face. “I wouldn’t leave Randy alone with a houseplant, much less a guest.”
This had surprised her. Did Marvin actually notice when things had risen up inside Pearl’s emotions and refused to settle back down? Was there an understanding there all those years that she had overlooked? Or was it something else? Was it something akin to how the crows start up before a storm? Or how rabbits sense the earthquake in their feet? Did Marvin look at her the way you look at a gold watch, one that’s not been keeping accurate time lately, one that’s been squandering seconds and minutes? Yet if you took it apart for a look inside, all you would see would be whirling, complicated mechanisms that meant nothing to you, and you would be very sorry you pried in the first place.
“Bless him,” thought Pearl. “He tries.”
Once in Mattagash, Pearl would announce her need to stay on at the old McKinnon homestead for a time. “At least for a while,” she would tell Marvin. “I want to walk in that blue vetch, that cow’s vetch that fills the back field. I want to lie awake to the noisy river. I want to find holes drilled in the birches and catch the sapsucker at it. It might be a pile of bones to you, Marvin, and to Junior and the kids, that old house might be. But even elephants have got a place to go. Even dogs can find the right field to die in.” She would tell him all that. Sort of. She’d probably leave out the part about the cow’s vetch and the birches and sapsuckers. Men weren’t much for poetry. Not even men from Portland, Maine. And it wasn’t dying she was going home to achieve. At least not in the flesh. But the spirit was ready, like some beaten, misunderstood snake straight out of the Reverend’s Genesis, to shed sixty years of old skin.
“Absolutely not,” Pearl told Marvin when he went on to say that Junior, Thelma, and Randy would be going, too. “Not one inch will I drive with Thelma.” And she meant it. “You remember the last trip north we took with her. We ended up in a clover field.”
“That was better than the river,” said Marvin.
“Yes,” said Pearl. “You’re right about that. But the only reason we didn’t end up in the river is that Thelma is not real good at wrecking cars. She’s not real good at anything.”
“Well,” said Marvin. “I’ll tell you one thing, Pearly. I’m worried about this family. Whether you want to admit it or not, we’ve got to get Junior away from that secretary.”
“What secretary?” asked Junior’s mom.
“Come on,” said Marvin, and smiled. Pearl was almost girlish when she coyly took Junior’s side. “First of all, I’m gonna fire Monique Tessier. I was hoping this little infatuation would run its course, but it doesn’t look like it will. I don’t want that woman to step one step back inside my funeral home, unless it’s as a houseguest. Houseguests are always welcome.” Pearl frowned. Must he always consider business?
“I know that Thelma, and this is putting aside what you think of her,” Marvin continued, “needs a good rest away from here.”
“How about Bangor?” Pearl asked. “How about a week at the nuthouse?”
“I see a lot more than you do, Pearl. I work with Junior and, God help me, Randy too. I overhear the employee gossip. Thelma’s been taking a lot of some prescription drug. She’s wired up most of the time.”
“She was wired up when he married her,” Pearl said. She remembered how silly Thelma had been on her wedding day. She had giggled aloud when it was time for her to say “I do,” and later, at the reception, she had dropped wedding cake all over the floor and thrown a bridesmaid’s bouquet instead of her own.
“And Randy can’t be left alone. You know that. We’ll have to take him along. Maybe it’s time we started pulling together as a family, Pearly,” Marvin said. “It doesn’t matter what the occasion is, really. I don’t care if Amy Joy is getting married or divorced. I don’t care if she just got out of jail and they’re throwing a big welcome-home party for her. What matters is us. The Ivys.” He squeezed Pearl’s hand. “Come on,” he said again. This wasn’t like him at all. Something had jarred him out of his complacency. So he recognized, did he, that his good old watch, his forty-years-of-marriage gold watch, was losing some costly seconds. Was ticking like a bomb.
“Junior says the girls don’t want to go,” Marvin added. “He says they both hate Amy Joy.” Well. At least Pearl wouldn’t have to watch Cynthia Jane tug at her crotch for eight hours, one way, to Mattagash.
“Not in the same car,” Pearl said finally, and meant it. “I will not ride in the same car with her.”
“All right,” said Marvin. He had anticipated this reply. “We’ll separate, then. Junior can take his own car, and we’ll take the company car. I’ll deduct it as a business trip. You know I’ve been wanting to check out that funeral home in Watertown. The one that’s for sale.”
“The one you were going to buy and set Junior up in?” Pearl asked. What a strange reversal of feelings! When Marvin had first suggested this business expansion idea, just last Christmas, Pearl was all against it. She hadn’t liked the notion of Junior being so far away from Portland. From her. Now that these homecoming notions had sprouted inside her and she secretly planned to stay on in Mattagash, she didn’t want Junior and his family in Watertown because they would be too close.
“Junior needs to get his rabbit raisins counted, if he expects me to buy him his own damn business,” Marvin said, forgetting his speech about families pulling together.
Pearl thought it over quickly. Two cars. Thelma in one. She in another.
“Okay,” she said.
“That’s my Pearly!” said Marvin. “That’s my girl.”
“To hear Sicily talk about the wedding,” Pearl said, changing the subject, “maybe it would be better if Amy Joy was just getting out of jail.”
***
Thelma, on the other hand, packed everything, including her fox stole.
“Christ,” said Junior when he saw the fox’s head hanging from the suitcase. “You can’t wear that in Mattagash! People will be shooting at you!”
“Let them, then,” said Thelma, and packed a stapler.
Randy refused to go. He had grown to love his job of sitting in the coffee room, eating doughnuts, and keeping his mouth shut. All for sixty-eight ninety a week. His grandfather had even noticed, much to his own pleasure, that Randy had been taking a Bible to work every day. What Marvin did not notice was that the Bible was slimming down daily. The Bible was imploding, as though some biblical censor were at work, scratching out the ancient sex scenes and all that unnecessary violence.
“I don’t want to go, and I’m afraid that’s it!” Randy told Junior. “Them people are real hicks. It’s like driving to the Lost Continent. Forget it, man.”
“No, you’ve got it all wrong,” Junior said. “It’s not a case of ‘Forget it
, man.’ It’s a case of ‘Forget it, Randy.’ Now you go upstairs and pack, and I mean only things that are legal.”
“Balls,” said Randy. He stared into Junior’s eyes. He was almost as tall now, though nowhere near as hefty. Yet it was a most frightening thought for Junior. “This is my little boy,” he thought, and his eyes misted. “This is the kid on the rocking horse.” He was relieved when Randy relented, for he had no idea what he’d have done otherwise.
“Lord love a duck,” said Thelma, as Randy stomped every step down the hallway to his room. “Are you packing those?”
“What?” asked Junior, and stared down at his hands. They held only the most essential items of underwear, neatly folded. He was notorious for packing only what he needed. An army packer, his own mother called him. He glanced quickly, a small peek so as not to rile her, at Thelma’s burgeoning suitcase. A large sewing basket teetered on top of Thelma’s Wooly-Bully bear from childhood. Junior would let the teddy bear pass, chalking it up to Thelma’s lifelong insecurity. But did she think there were no needles or thread to be found in all of Mattagash? Well, maybe there weren’t. But that still didn’t explain the stapler. Or the flashlight. He looked again at the innocent accoutrements in his hand.
“Why?” he asked cautiously.
“Oh, nothing,” Thelma giggled. “Lord love the helpless, is all.”
***
Monique Tessier didn’t take the firing lying down. At least, she and Junior were not in bed when he told her. They were sitting in her old Buick in the parking lot at the new IGA where they would be lost in a sea of cars. Monique’s cleavage, legendary back at Wally’s Service Station, where she usually tanked up and then checked her own oil, was now relaxing inside a buttoned-to-the-throat blouse. Junior was relieved. It would make the job less difficult.
“I’m sorry, babe,” Junior said and watched a shopper load her groceries into the trunk of a car in front of them, then send her shopping cart reeling in the direction of the little station where the other carts were corralled. So that was how carts wound up wandering aimlessly about the parking lot, annoying customers and looking generally homeless as dogs. He was about to comment to Monique about the rudeness of some shoppers but she stopped him.
“That son of a bitch,” Monique said, and slapped the steering wheel.
“Aw, Neeky, come on now,” said Junior, and placed an arm around her shoulder.
“Don’t you Neeky me,” she said.
“All right,” said Junior. “Monique.”
“Why didn’t he have the guts to tell me himself?” she asked.
“Look, all I know is that he called me in, told me he knew what was going on, and said it was time I put an end to it.”
“What did he say?” asked Monique. “How did he say it?”
“How?” asked Junior. Monique nodded.
“Word for word,” she said. “And don’t lie to me.”
“He said, ‘It’s time for you to fire the bitch.’” Junior spoke quickly.
“That spineless corpse lover,” Monique said.
“Now, now. Come on, Neeky. Remember that it’s my job you’re talking about, too.”
“That no-good grave robber,” Neeky added.
“Look, this doesn’t mean we can’t still meet occasionally, sweetheart. We’ll have even more freedom now.” Junior spied another shopper about to hurl her shopping cart out into the swirl of things. What the hell is it about these women shoppers, he wondered. Are they so pissed about conditions at home that they willfully abuse the IGA’s property? Male shoppers would be different. Junior knew that if someone took a poll they would discover that 95 percent of all men parked their shopping carts in the rightful spot, and with the same care they took parking their cars.
“That bone sucker,” said Monique, tearfully.
“I think that’s enough,” said Junior.
“It’s just,” Monique sobbed, “what am I going to do? I got payments, Junie. I got bills.”
“He’s giving you two weeks’ severance pay.”
“That’s not the point. Where do I go about getting another job? After me and Tony got divorced, this is the only job I’ve had. How is that going to look on a résumé? Two years at Corpse City.”
“I wish you’d watch what you say,” said Junior, and focused his concentration on a group of pigeons pecking away at some littered food.
Monique blew her nose and inspected her face in the mirror. Lipstick came out of the purse and went to work immediately. A comb was employed. She looked like her old self, but she was still seething. She really had hoped Junior would divorce squirrelly little Thelma and marry her. Everyone knew the Ivys were swimming in money, and the funeral parlor business wasn’t like Hula Hoop, Inc. It would be around as long as there were people around. Once married, Monique would never have to darken a single door at that god-awful place. She would have long, leisurely lunches with her friends, both male and female. She would have her nails done weekly at Très Nails!, and she would open accounts with the very best Portland stores. Kmart would not see her face again. Junior would see it rarely. Now look what had happened. The old fart. She had underestimated him.
But then, he had underestimated her, too. She was not done with the funeral parlor, yes, goddamn it, PARLOR, by a long shot.
“Junie?” she asked.
Junior had, in the few seconds’ silence between them, watched three more women careen their carts out across the parking lot rather than park them! They were throwing carts about the place like the aluminum in old gum wrappers. Were they all on Valium? Was it a conspiracy that men had no idea was going on unless they sat for an hour in the parking lot? What did those lanky bitches think they had there? Bumper cars?
“Junie, take me to Mattagash with you.”
Junior forgot all about the brainstorm he just had for Valet Cart Parking, an idea he pondered on selling to the IGA, when he heard Monique’s latest utterance.
“You can’t be serious!” he all but shouted. “To my cousin’s wedding?’
“Of course I’m serious,” Monique said. “Why should I have to stay home when she can go?”
“Because. That’s why. What would you do in Mattagash? What would people say?”
“They wouldn’t have to know.”
“Monique, you’ve never been to Mattagash. Believe me. Everyone would know.”
“But how? I promise I’ll lay low,” Monique said, as she playfully tugged at Junior’s tie.
“In Mattagash? Do you even realize what you’re saying? There’s no place to lay low in! D-Day would have flopped in Mattagash. It’s a regular hotbed of communications. Forget it.”
Monique pouted. She would not let go this easily. Not on the old fart’s life, she wouldn’t. She had invested too many months to bow out gracefully. Big tears rolled easily out of their ducts. Junior was touched when he saw them.
“Oh, babe,” he said. “Cutie pie. Don’t. Now come on. Be realistic. I’ll take you to Boston when I get back. Maybe we can even spend the night there. In Boston a person can lay low.”
Monique burst into tears. All the facial repair she’d done earlier was washed away.
“No, I’m sorry,” said Junior, and patted her. “Cry if you want to, but when it comes to this, the answer is no. N. O.”
Monique stopped crying. What was this? A man denying her something? Was that what she could expect from her forties, only two years away? A fat undertaker telling her no, and then spelling it for her? Well, we’d see. We’d just see.
THE FIRST TIME FOR SECOND THOUGHTS: AMY JOY INHERITS SOME ART
“I can’t help but get sentimental about weddings. After all, a man only gets married three or four times in his life.”
—Irving V. Gifford, to his cell mate, after reading a letter from home
Amy Joy put her head back on Jean Cloutier’s shoulder and liste
ned to the music that was winging on invisible waves all the way up from WPTR in Boston. It was an unusual thing, this notion of unseen forces penetrating one’s mind. Maybe ancestors could do that, too. Could send out messages to you, down the years, over centuries and lifestyles. But if that were so, Amy Joy’s ancestors would be telling her not to marry this young French-speaking Catholic. At least according to Sicily, the ancestors would be highly peeved to be dug up and informed of the wedding.
“They’re not rolling over in their graves,” she told Amy Joy. “They’re spinning.”
The bright red Chevy Super Sport was parked in the darkness below Sicily’s house, its nose pointed over the hill at the Mattagash River. The April night engulfed them, a lingering chill still in the air. But Amy Joy wanted the windows rolled down, and they were. The Mattagash, high with its April load of water, thundered along in front of them. Old Man River was what Amy Joy called it. Old Man Mattagash River.
“Woman, oooooooh woman,” Gary Puckett asked all the way from WPTR. “‘Have you got cheating on your mind?’”
“Putois?” asked Jean Claude, pensively.
“What?” Amy Joy leaned toward him and nibbled the lobe of his ear.
“Chalice!” said Jean Claude, and jumped. “Cut dat out! It makes me tickle, me.”
“It makes you what, you?” Amy Joy teased him. The French teacher at Mattagash High School, who lasted just a half year since Amy Joy and one other boy were the only Mattagashers interested in learning French, had told her that French-speaking people talk this way because that’s how they actually speak in their own language. “They repeat the pronoun,” he had said, and from then on Amy Joy didn’t laugh to hear this done.
“Putois?”
“What?” No biting this time.
“Do you tink dat your mudder she’ll be hokay, her?”
“She’ll be fine,” Amy Joy said. She was still angry at Sicily for her behavior earlier in the evening.
“Is it true that Catholics burn their dead?” Sicily had asked Jean Claude.
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