* * *
11
By eight-thirty the next morning, they had all the mail sorted and popped in the mailboxes.
Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber felt wonderful. Their job was easier in the summer. The catalogue glut diminished—only to return like a bad penny in the fall. A rise in summer postcards couldn’t compete with the tidal wave of mail from Thanksgiving to Christmas.
Harry enjoyed reading postcards before sliding them in the boxes. Maine, an excellent place to be in mid-August, claimed four Crozetians. Nova Scotia, that exquisite appendage of Canada, had one. The rest of the postcards were from beach places, with the occasional glossy photo of a Notre Dame gargoyle from a student on vacation dutifully writing home to Mom and Dad.
Miranda had baked her specialty, orange-glazed cinnamon buns. The two women nibbled as they worked. Miranda swept the floor while Harry dusted down the backs of the metal mailboxes.
“Why do humans have flat faces?” Pewter lazily inquired, made tired by this ceaseless productivity.
“Ran into a cosmic door.” Mrs. Murphy cackled.
“If they had long faces it would throw them out of balance,” Tucker said.
“What do you mean?” Mrs. Murphy didn’t follow the canine line of reasoning.
“They’d be falling forward to keep up with their faces. Flat faces help them since they walk on two legs. Can’t have too much weight in front.”
“You know, Tucker, you amaze me,” Mrs. Murphy admiringly purred as she strolled over from the back door.
Harry had put an animal door in the back door so the kids could come and go. Each time an animal entered or left, a little flap was heard. Mrs. Murphy was considering a stroll in Miranda’s garden. Insect patrol. She changed her mind to sit next to Tucker.
The front door opened. Susan came in carrying a tin of English tea. “Hey, girls, let’s try this.”
“Darjeeling?” Harry examined the lavender tin.
“Miranda, tea or coffee?”
“This is a tea day. I can’t drink but so much coffee when it’s hot unless it’s iced. Don’t know why.” She bent over to attack the dust pile with a black dustpan.
“Let me hold that, it’s easier.” Susan bent down with the pan as Miranda swept up.
“Have you made your morning calls?” Harry asked. Susan liked to get all her calls and chores done early.
“No, but Boom called bright and early, a switch for her. She wants to shoot the Best All-Round photo after Wittiest and I told her no. I need a month to lose seven pounds.”
“Susan, you look fine.”
“Easy for you to say.” Susan felt that Harry would never know the battle of the bulge, as both her parents were lean and food just wasn’t very important to her.
“She have a fit?”
“No, she asked again if I would help with Wittiest.”
“Will you help?”
“Yes.” Susan sighed. “What about you?”
“No!” Harry said this so loudly the animals flinched.
“One hour of your time,” Susan cajoled.
“BoomBoom wanted to be the chair of our reunion, let her do it. I’m doing my part.”
“Okay . . .” Susan’s voice trailed off, which meant she was merely tabling her agenda until a better time.
The front door opened, and a well-built man of average height stood there, the light behind him. He had thick, steel-gray hair, a square chin, broad shoulders. He opened wide his arms as he walked toward the counter.
“Cuddles!”
Miranda squinted, looking hard at the man, thrust aside the broom, and raced to flip up the divider. She embraced him. “Tracy Raz!”
“Gee, it’s good to see you.” He hugged her, then held her away for a moment, then hugged her again. “You look like the girl I left in high school.”
“What a fibber.” She beamed.
Mrs. Murphy looked at Pewter and Tucker as the tiger cat whispered, “Cuddles?”
* * *
12
“How many of us are left?” Tracy reached over for another orange-glazed bun.
Harry, upon learning that Tracy Raz was a “lost” member of Mrs. Hogendobber’s high-school class, forced her to take the day off. Miranda huffed and puffed but finally succumbed. She took Tracy home, setting out a sumptuous breakfast—homemade buns and doughnuts, cereal with thick cream, and the best coffee in the state of Virginia.
“Forty-two out of fifty-six.” Miranda munched on a doughnut. “Korea accounted for two of us, Vietnam one—”
“Who was in Vietnam?”
“Xavier France. Career officer. Made full colonel, too. His helicopter was shot down near the Cambodia border.”
“Xavier France, he was the last kid I would have picked for a service career. What about the others?”
“The usual: car accidents, cancer—far too much of that, I’m afraid—heart attacks. Poor Asther Dandridge died young of diabetes. Still, Tracy, if you think about it, our class is in good shape.”
“You certainly are.”
“You haven’t changed a bit.”
“Gray hair and twenty more pounds.”
“Muscle.” And it was. “How did you hear about the reunion? We’d given up on ever finding you.”
“It was a funny thing.” His movements carried an athlete’s grace as he put the cup back on the saucer. “Naturally, I knew this was our fiftieth year. I hadn’t much interest in attending the other reunions and I’ll come to that later. I remembered that Kevin McKenna worked for Twentieth Century-Fox. I’d see his name in the papers. He’s director of marketing. Got to be worth a bundle. I called and got the usual runaround but I left a message with my phone number and damned if he didn’t call me back. He sent me a copy of the invitation. I was footloose and fancy-free so I came early. Thought you might need an old fullback to help you.”
“Where do you live?”
“Hawaii. The island of Kauai. After high school I enlisted, which you knew. Well, in our day, Miranda, you enlisted or you were drafted. I figured if I enlisted I’d get a better deal than if I let myself get drafted. Army. Got good training. I wound up in intelligence, of all the strange things, and once my tour was up I re-enlisted but I made them promise to put me through Ranger school. Now it’s Green Berets but then it was Rangers. They did. I stayed in for ten years. Left after being recruited by the CIA—”
“A spy?” Her kind eyes widened.
He waved his hand to dismiss the notion. “That’s TV stuff. I had a wonderful job. I was sent all over the world to see events firsthand. For instance, during the oil crisis in the seventies I was in Riyadh. Worst posting I ever had was Nigeria. But basically I was a troubleshooter. I’d be the first one in, scope the situation and report back. They could make of my data what they wished—everyone in Washington has his own agenda. My God, Miranda, bureaucracy will ruin this country. That’s my story. Retired and here I am.”
“Did you ever marry?”
He nodded. “A beautiful Japanese girl I met in Kobe in 1958. That’s when I bought a little land in Kauai. Li could get back to her family and I could get to the States.”
“I hope you’ll bring her to the reunion.”
He folded his hands. “She died two years ago. Lymphatic cancer. She fought hard.” He stopped to swallow. “Now I rattle around in our house like a dried pea in a big shell. The kids are grown. My daughter, Mandy, works for Rubicon Advertising in New York, John runs the Kubota dealership in Kauai, and Carl is a lawyer in Honolulu. They speak fluent Japanese. I can carry on a conversation but the kids are fluent, which makes them valuable these days. They’re all married with kids of their own.” He smiled. “I’m kind of lost really.” He slapped his thigh. “Here I am talking about myself. Tell me what happened to you.”
“I married George Hogendobber, he became the postmaster here, and we lived a quiet but joyful life. He died of a heart attack, nearly ten years ago. Sometimes it seems like yesterday.”
“I don’t rem
ember George.”
“He moved here from Winchester.”
“Kids?”
“No. That blessing passed me by, although I feel as though Mary Minor Haristeen is a daughter. She’s the young woman you just met.”
“Miranda, you were the spark plug of our class. I’ve thought of you more than you’ll ever know, but I never sat down to write a letter. I’m a terrible letter writer. You’ll always be my high-school sweetheart. Those were good times.”
“Yes, they were,” she said simply.
“I wanted to see the world and I did. But here I am. Back home.”
“I feel as though I saw the world, too, Tracy. I suppose my world was within. I’ve drawn great strength from the Bible since George died. Harry calls me a religious nut.”
“Harry?”
“The girl in the post office.”
“Yes, of course. Minor. The people out on Yellow Mountain Road. He married a Hepworth.”
“Good memory. She’s their daughter. They’re gone now.”
“Whatever happened to Mim Conrad? Did she marry Larry Johnson?”
“No.” Miranda’s voice dropped as though Mim were in the next room. “Larry was four years older than we were. Remember, he was finishing college as she was finishing high school? Well, he did go to medical school. They dated and then the next thing I knew they weren’t dating anymore. He married someone else and she married Jim Sanburne.”
“That oaf?”
“The same.”
“Mim marrying Jim Sanburne. I can’t believe it.”
“He was big and handsome. He runs to fat now. But he’s a genial man once you get to know him.”
“I never tried. Larry still alive?”
“Yes, he practiced medicine here for decades. Still does, although he sold his practice to a young man, Hayden McIntire, with the provision that Larry’d work just one more year, get Hayden settled with the patients. That was several years ago. Still working, though. Hayden doesn’t seem to mind. Larry’s wife died years ago. He and Mim are friendly.”
“They were such a hot item.”
“You never know how the cookie will crumble.” She giggled a little.
“Guess not. Here I am. Miranda, it’s as though I never left. Oh, a few things are different, like that old-age home by the railroad underpass.”
“Careful. No one calls it that anymore, not since we’re getting so close ourselves. It’s assisted-care living.”
“Bull.”
“Well—yes.” She smiled. “The town is much the same. There are subdivisions. One on Route 240 called Deep Valley and one on the way to Miller School. There’s a brand-new grade school which cost the county a pretty penny. But pretty much Crozet is Crozet. Not beautiful. Not quaint. Just home.”
“Do you need help with the reunion?”
“What a delightful question.” She folded her hands together gleefully.
“That’s a yes, I take it.” He smiled. “Say, how does Mim look?”
“Fabulous. You know it’s her fiftieth reunion this year, too, at Madeira. She endured her second face-lift. She goes to the best and truthfully she does look fabulous. Slender as ever.”
“H-m-m.” He dusted his fingertips to rub off the sticky icing. “Jim Sanburne . . . I still can’t believe that. Is he good to her?”
“Now. For a long time he wasn’t and the further apart they drifted the haughtier she got. She was an embittered woman and then a miracle happened. I don’t know if you believe in miracles but I do. She was diagnosed with breast cancer. Larry broke the news. She had a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. Jim stopped running after women.”
“Stop drinking, too?”
“He did.”
“He’d put it away in high school, I remember that. Class of ’49. Good football player. I was glad I had a year after he graduated. Selfish. I wanted the attention.”
“You were All-State.”
“We had a good team for as small a school as we were.” He paused. “I closed up the house in Kauai. I’m looking to rent a house here, or rooms. Would you know of anything?”
“I don’t wish to pry but what would you be willing to pay?”
“A thousand a month for the right place.”
She thought long and hard. “For how long?”
“Well, until December first at least. Our reunion is Homecoming so I might as well stay a month after that.”
She smiled broadly. “I have an idea. Let me check it out first. Where are you staying now?”
“Farmington Country Club—pretty funny, isn’t it? The way I used to rail about that place being full of stupid snobs. Now I’m one of them—on a temporary basis, of course. And I heard a young fellow was murdered there—what? Two days ago?”
“Unlamented, I’m afraid. People are lining up to lay claim to the deed.” She stopped. “Not very charitable of me, but the truth is no one is very upset about the demise of Charlie Ashcraft. How about if I call you tonight, or tomorrow at the latest? I may have just the place.”
“Whose animals were those in the post office?”
“Oh, those are Harry’s. If they aren’t the smartest and cutest helpers.”
“I don’t remember you being that fond of animals.”
She blushed. “They converted me.”
He laughed. “Then they do have special powers.”
* * *
13
“Use this italics pen.” Chris handed Harry the fountain pen with the slanted nib.
“Let me practice first.” Harry gingerly scratched the pen over scrap paper. “Kinda neat.”
“I’ve divided up those cream-colored cards, the two-by-threes. See? Print the person’s name like this.” She held up a card. “Carl Ackerman, with the name at the top, leaving room for the title below. Got it?”
“I’ll never think of stuff.”
“You will, but if all the name tags are done now it will make life easier at the reunion. You’ll be surprised at the ideas that will pop into your head between now and then. I bet by the time of your reunion—when is it, again?”
“End of October. Homecoming weekend.”
“Right.” Chris picked a card off her stack, her deep maroon nail polish making her fingers seem even longer and more tapered than they were. “That’s lots of time. How about if I take the first half of the alphabet and you take the second.”
“All those M’s and S’s,” Harry laughed. “Thanks for having me over. The cats and dog thank you, too.”
“Thanks.” Mrs. Murphy sat on the floor, her eyes half-closed, swaying.
“The air-conditioning is perfect.” Tucker wedged next to Harry, who sat on the floor, using the coffee table as a desk.
“Right-o,” Pewter agreed. She rested on the silk sofa.
Harry eyed the gray kitty. “Get off that sofa.”
“Oh, I don’t care.”
“Silk is very expensive.” Harry leaned over. “I told you to get off.”
“You touch me and I’ll sink a claw into this gorgeous silk.” For emphasis Pewter brandished one razor-sharp claw.
“Hussy.” Harry backed off.
“She’s fine. I rather like having animals about. When I bought this house I liked the fact that it’s on an acre. I thought someday I might get a cat or dog.”
“Cat,” Pewter encouraged.
“Dog,” Tucker countered.
“Both,” Mrs. Murphy compromised.
“They’re funny.” Chris laughed.
“That they are. Why did you come here? After the big city it must seem like the back of the beyond.”
“Chicago was all I knew. I came through here two years ago on a vacation—a history tour. I just fell in love with the place. Being a stockbroker makes me pretty mobile and when an opening popped up at Harold and Marshall Securities I said, ‘Why not.’ I’d saved a good deal of money, which I think will tide me over as I build a new client base.”
“People are cheap here. What I mean to say is, it won’t
be as easy to sell as it was in Chicago.”
“I already know that,” Chris said matter-of-factly as she inscribed names, “but I needed a shake-up. I broke up with my boyfriend. My walls were closing in on me.”
Pawing Through the Past Page 8