The Great Interactive Dream Machine

by Richard Peck

  The iced-tea glass hung in Mom’s hand.

  “Ah, Josh,” Miss Mather said, peering into the living room. “How nice to see you. Nanky-Poo sends her regards.”

  Mom nudged me, and I stood up. Miss Mather came forth. “Mrs. Lewis, I have been remiss about paying calls and not nearly as neighborly as I should have been.”

  We’d lived here on top of her since I was preschool. Mom’s eyes were huge. “... Tea?” she said.

  Miss Mather smiled.

  I went out to the kitchen for another glass. We didn’t have vanilla wafers, but I found some Oreos. When I got back, Miss Mather was sitting on the sofa next to Mom where I’d been.

  “I was myself a Pence girl, you know.” She leaned nearer Mom. “They show improvement later on.”

  Heather was still in the doorway, amazed.

  “Thank you, Josh.” Miss Mather took the glass in her little red-tipped claw. “You may sit over there.” She pointed me into a chair and turned back to Mom. “Such a well-mannered boy. He does you proud. I do enjoy the calls he pays on me with his little friend.”

  Mom’s head revolved slowly between Miss Mather and me. I hadn’t ever happened to mention to her about dog duty.

  “Josh?” she said faintly. “Calls?”

  “Why yes.” Miss Mather slapped one of her sharp little knees. “Josh is quite like a great-nephew to me. Of course I have always thought of you all as ... extended family.”

  “Us?” Mom murmured.

  “And so I wonder if I might ask a great favor.”

  You could have heard a pin drop.

  “As I expect Josh has told you, I have recently rekindled an acquaintance with an old beau.”

  She meant Mr. Thaw.

  “Beau?” Mom said. “Oh.”

  “It is all thanks to Josh and to his little friend that Teddy Thaw and I have been reunited. Fate and our own foolish pride had kept us apart.” She laid a small paw on Mom’s sleeve. “Though he little realized it, Josh played his part as Cupid.”

  From the doorway Heather made a strangled sound.

  Mom edged up on the sofa. She’d already had a long day, and her mind was trying to process this data.

  “That would be Mr. Thaw, the History teacher at Huckley, and ... you, Miss Mather?”

  “Call me Margaret,” Miss Mather told Mom. “All my friends do. At least they did when they were alive. Teddy and I agree that we have lost quite enough time. More than fifty years, in fact.” A faint color came over her face. She was blushing.

  “Of course it will be just a small wedding at home. But as I have only a small number of blood relatives left, I wonder if you would all attend. And perhaps see to some of the arrangements. Just a few flowers, just a few friends.”

  In the doorway Heather stared.

  After Miss Mather left, Mom gazed into her empty iced-tea glass. She was lost in thought, almost cyberspaced. “Josh, will I ever need to know why you and Aaron have been paying calls on Miss Mather?”

  “I don’t think so, Mom,” I said. “With any luck, no.”

  You may have read about the wedding in The New York Times, the “Lifestyles” section:Romance Interrupted by World War II Proceeds Slightly Off Schedule

  It was that last Saturday in August, the most humid day of the year. Miss Mather’s living room was banked with flowers. Mom had rented an organ and hired a lady to play it. Quite a few people turned out, considering this was summer in the city. Several people from the apartment building came, including Mr. and Mrs. Zimmer. A small group of Huckley faculty members came, though Trip Renwick was still up at soccer camp. And some other people too. After all, as The Times said, the Mathers and the Thaws are among the oldest families in New York.

  Dad came. My dad. He flew in from Chicago. He said he had to see this for himself. Hey, whatever it takes.

  The aisle was just the middle of Miss Mather’s living room. Heather went first, carrying a small basket of daisies. She’d given Mom a lot of grief about this.

  “I’m supposed to start my career as a bridesmaid for an eighty-year-old bride? Mo-om.” But she got a new, really mature dress out of it. And she secretly thought that bridesmaiding was basically a pretty grown-up job. She was thirteen by now, and it had really gone to her head.

  “But I’ll need three-inch heels to complete the look,” Heather said. “I’m not negotiable about that.”

  Next down the aisle were Aaron and me in Huckley dress code. I was burning up in mine. He was carrying a cushion with the rings. I had Nanky-Poo on a leash. She waddled along with a new bow in her topknot. We looked ridiculous, and Heather’s still calling me Cupid.

  There by a portable altar waited Mr. L. T. Thaw. It was like being in class. Beside him was his best man, the headmaster. They both had white carnations in their buttonholes, and Mr. Thaw’s new groom suit was a dead ringer for all his old suits. If he could stand up straight, he’d be over six feet tall. The headmaster was a lot taller than that. They both really loomed. As Aaron and I approached, the headmaster’s eyes narrowed at us. Nothing wrong with his memory.

  Then came Mom. She was matron of honor. She had a new dress too and carried a bouquet. She looked really pretty, but there was something dazed in her eyes.

  The organ music swelled, and Miss Mather appeared in her doorway. Mom had come down early to help her dress. She carried a load of lilies and wore her own mother’s wedding gown. It practically had a bustle, but she didn’t wear a veil. “At my time of life,” she’d told Mom, “I think we can dispense with that.” Her old eyes swept the room and found Mr. Thaw. He was looking craggily back. She blushed. He smiled. A first.

  She came down the aisle on her own. You could hear the squeak of her regular shoes under her lacy skirts. Her papa was long gone, but she’d propped his picture on the mantel. He glared down at all of us. What he’d have thought of this wedding you wouldn’t want to know.

  So that was basically it. Miss Mather and Mr. Thaw were married. The ceremony was fairly short, conducted by the clergyperson from St. James church around the corner on Madison Avenue. Aaron handed up the rings to them, and they finally threw caution to the winds. They even kissed at the end like a regular bride and groom, and it wasn’t a quickie either.

  Then Mr. Thaw spoke a few words. Looking down at Miss Mather, who was still clasped in his arms, he said in a big classroom voice, “Margaret, I gaze upon your webbed beauty with an eye too old to wander farther afield. Whatever is left of me is yours.”

  The room stirred, and Mom made a strangled sound. But this is probably how teachers get married. Put them at the front of a room, and they have to have their say.

  For the reception, Vince came up from the front door to pour the punch.

  The best part of it was that Dad was there. He was looking good in his summer blazer. Then when it was time for pictures, we had a separate one taken of us Lewises as a family. It’s still in a frame in our living room. Heather’s on one side, clutching her daisy basket. I’m on the other, sweating buckets in my dress code. If you look close, Dad’s hand is holding Mom’s.

  The whole event was almost too much for Mr. Thaw. He had to sit down to drink his punch. But Miss Mather—Mrs. Thaw—got him up to cut the cake. She bustled around, serving slices, introducing people, swooping in her old skirts.

  Then she was leading this big, senior-size guy up to meet Heather. Heather looked up all six feet of him, and her daisies quivered.

  “My dear,” Mrs. Thaw said, “I wonder if you have met my great-nephew, Otis?”

  I looked again, and my eyes popped. It was Otis “Stink” Stuyvesant. I knew that. But I sure hadn’t expected to see him here. I’d been hoping I’d never see him again anywhere. I grabbed Aaron by the arm. “Aaron, her great-nephew is Stink Stuyvesant,” I blurted.

  “As you say,” Mrs. Thaw said. “We Mathers and the Stuyvesants have intermarried several times over several centuries.”

  Heather stared up at Stink, and you could see the whole roof of her mouth.
She’d been waiting all summer for him to call, and here he was. Did she realize that he didn’t look anything like the Stink she thought she’d met? No. I can read Heather’s mind. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist.

  When she could breathe, Heather sighed, “I loved your letter.”

  Aaron and I were right there, under Stink’s elbow—silent, listening.

  Stink dug a big shoe toe modestly into the carpet. “Hey”—he shrugged—“I’m in it mostly for the exercise.”

  Aaron and I stared at each other. Stink thought that Heather meant his athletic letter. He’d lettered in both lacrosse and soccer.

  But I doubt if Heather heard him. She couldn’t wait to speed dial Muffie McInteer.

  And there behind Stink was his own picture in a silver frame on the table next to the sofa where Mr. and Mrs. Thaw were sitting now, close together. Nanky-Poo too, thinking it was teatime.

  When the reception was over, I sort of wished it wasn’t. Then we Lewises were all in the elevator, heading home.

  “You been behaving okay?” Dad said with a hand on my shoulder. “Not acting out?”

  “Not lately, Dad,” I said, “but I’m right on the edge. You better hang around. I could use some supervision.”

  “Maybe I will,” he said, giving Mom a look. “And there’s a little summer left. I’ve rented a house for Labor Day weekend. A little sun. A little swimming, maybe some tennis. Just the four of us. It’s in the Hamptons.”

  Heather clutched her forehead. She was wearing a lot more eyeliner than Mom usually allows. “Da-ad,” she said, “I couldn’t possibly go to the Hamptons. All those same old faces? Like enough already. Besides, Stink’s in town.”

  Aaron gave me a jingle that night, late. Same old Aaron.

  “I’ve been doing some heavy-duty collating and really taking a hard look at my formula. Actually, Fishface did us a favor—the little insect. I’ve been synthesizing, and we’re going to be able to go electronically with our every need and move ourselves out—boom, boom. Past, future, lateral moves. Foolproof. We’re virtually there, Josh, with a byte-driven interactive dream machine vaccinated for viruses. We’ve got a command system here to cybernetically realize our every wish.”

  I was already beginning to pack for the Hamptons. “Aaron,” I told him, “I’ve already got mine.”

  And at that very second the lights in my room went out. I could hear Aaron’s strangled gasp.

  “Aaron, don’t tell me you’re soldering. I don’t want to hear that.”

  “You kidding?” he said. “Of course I’m not soldering. I’m talking to you. It’s not me. Check out your window.”

  I did and the whole neighborhood was blacked out. This happens. It’s a New York thing.

  Now my phone was squawking in Aaron’s voice. “My formula!” he squawked. “My formula! No, no, no, no, no.”

  He’d dropped the phone. You could hear him racing around the room, practically bouncing off the walls.

  Back to the drawing board.

  Richard Peck was born in Decatur, Illinois. He attended Exeter University in England and holds degrees from DePauw University and Southern Illinois University.

  In 1990 he received the American Library Association’s Margaret A. Edwards Award, which honors “an author whose book or books, over a period of time, have been accepted by young adults as an authentic voice that continues to illuminate their experiences and emotions, giving insight into their lives.” His other books include Are You in the House Alone?, Ghosts I Have Been, The Ghost Belonged to Me, Remembering the Good Times, Princess Ashley, and Lost in Cyberspace.