by Robert Maxxe
Of course, that was sure to be the hottest topic on Elm Street this morning, the work on Pooh's, speculations about what kind of shop was coming in.
And now Carrie had an odd awakening. Suddenly everyone was talking about it—she, Patrick, passers-by. They were talking about it today. But there hadn't been a word about it yesterday, or the day before. Which could only be explained one way in a town like Millport, where news traveled fast. Yesterday there had been nothing to talk about The nearly completed demolition she had seen this morning must have been done overnight!
Carrie grabbed for her Rolodex and found the phone number for Owen Haber, the local attorney who served as chairman of the Town Council.
On her first attempt to get through, she got a busy signal. Perhaps she wasn't the only concerned citizen who had questions about the sudden changes on Elm Street.
On her fifth try the phone rang, and the secretary answered and put her through. Haber, who was elderly but still thought of himself as a ladies' man, gave her an effusive greeting. Then he said:
"I'd ask what I can do for you, but I think I already know. It's about Miss Bedford's, am I right?"
Which cleared up any doubt that everyone was objecting.
"Owen, aren't you at all bothered by this?" Carrie asked. "Workmen who come in the dead of night and change the face of the town?"
"Nope," he answered crisply. "As I've been telling everybody and his brother, this saved us having our street tied up all day with demolition trucks, and all the traffic of people rubbernecking. Got the job done with a minimum of fuss. It isn't changing the face of the town either, Carrie. We granted permits with the strict proviso that the cottage would remain standing and be restored; only the interior is to be altered."
"But doesn't anything about this strike you as strange?" Carrie persisted. "Why do you think everyone's been on your back?"
"Goodness, Carrie. I thought you knew Millport well enough by now to answer that one for yourself. Our people love it here precisely because it's stable, predictable. Nothing ticks 'em off quicker than something new or different. Hell, just look at the way we feel about the summer people. We live off 'em, for gosh sakes, but we don't even like the changes they bring once a year. But that's human nature, isn't it? Change, outsiders—always given a fish-eye to start. Give new things a chance, though, and they generally work out for the best. I guarantee that'll be the case here."
"How can you be sure?"
Haber spoke softly. "Carrie, fond as we all were of old Miss Bedford, you know she never put a dime into maintenance and repair. That old house had become a real eyesore. We're damn lucky to get that place fixed up at the tenant's expense. It's going to mean a vast improvement for the street."
Carrie couldn't argue. She'd grown used to Pooh's as it was, but the paint was discolored and peeling, the roof sagged and leaked, and the windows were rarely cleaned.
"Owen, exactly what is the cottage going to be used for? I met that man Peale—I gather he's behind it—but he wouldn't tell me any details."
"Something to do with electronics," Haber replied, "that's all I know."
"All you know?" Carrie echoed sharply. "Before granting permits, don't we have a right to know exactly how the property will be used?"
There was a pause. "In this case, I'm afraid not," Haber said. "We have no right." He went on to clarify the statement for Carrie. The zoning code presently in effect had been passed eighteen years ago. The code, as written at that time, would have banished from Elm Street the kind of kitchen-sink operation that Winifred Bedford was running in her home. However, community sentiment ran strong on the old woman's behalf, so a liberal zoning variance had been granted. Unfortunately, the variance had failed to look ahead to the day of the old woman's demise: it remained in effect, attached to the property.
"Fact is," Haber concluded, "as long as that place is rented and not sold into new hands, the tenant has every right to open any kind of legitimate business."
"Where does that leave us if it turns out you've been misled? That what we've got coming in is, say . . . a pornographic bookstore?"
Haber let out a robust laugh. "Landsakes, anything like that, we'd close 'em down overnight. We're not going to throw community standards out the window, no sir. Not in Millport. Anyway, this Peale fella has told me enough to reassure me. Whatever it is, it's something to do with electronics. Now, I can't see any danger in that, can you?"
The phone call reassured Carrie. Haber was a Millporter, after all, born and bred. His grandfather had purchased large tracts of oceanside land way back, when it was all farms, and the family had grown wealthy selling it off as lots for the cantilevered glass-walled beach houses erected by affluent vacationers. Owen Haber still had plenty of land to sell, and over the years the prices had gone nowhere but through the roof. He wasn't going to let anything run down Millport.
Something to do with electronics.
Now she could enjoy playing with the riddle. And when the answer came, she knew it was right. Weren't home computers a booming market? Just the kind of household accessory that would fit in some of the trendy homes of Millport.
A home-computer center was coming to Elm Street.
No, she thought, supplying the answer to Owen Haber's question, she couldn't see any danger in that.
4
As it turned out, she was wrong: the weekend she'd expected to be the last was not. There was another, one week later, when the weather turned unseasonably warm and a large contingent of summer people trooped out from the city for one more taste of sun and surf. Carrie had a hectic time meeting the unforeseen rush, but when it was done a welcome fourteen hundred dollars in extra profit was on the books.
The local flap over the "doings" at Pooh's cottage seemed to die down as quickly as it had flared up. Customers in Treats still made conversation about it, but their comments derived less from anger at the change than curiosity about what it would bring. Carrie's time was fully occupied with her own business, and attending to personal matters. After the busy weekend that she knew must positively end the season, she spent days catching up with essential tasks deferred over the past weeks and months. She took the children shopping for new winter clothes, wrote all the friends she owed letters, replaced the wallpaper that was peeling in the downstairs bathroom, and brought the vacuum cleaner to be repaired. She gave two full days to tending Emily, who stayed home from school suffering from a stomach bug.
And she kept a promise to Nick.
For a long time he had been wanting a certain kind of electric guitar. "A Fender Stratocaster," he would announce excitedly every time the wish was repeated to Carrie. "You know, the kind Eric Clapton plays." Whoever that was, Carrie couldn't deny that Nick deserved encouragement. He had taken only a year of lessons on a traditional instrument, but thereafter he had worked diligently to sharpen his technique. Whole Saturday mornings he sat alone in his bedroom and tirelessly practiced the same chords and riffs. Disappointed as Carrie was that Nick showed no interest in learning any of the classical repertoire à la Segovia, she wasn't unsympathetic to her son's dream of forming a rock-'n'-roll duo with Dougie Bannerman, his best friend. When Carrie heard Nick strumming away behind the closed door of his room, she could tell he was very good.
He was, in general, that kind of kid. When he got interested in something, applied himself, he had no trouble excelling. From second grade on, Nick's teachers had regarded him as extraordinarily bright. When they had lived in the city—where everything was more competitive, even education—Carrie was always being advised by schools to put Nick into special programs for "gifted children." She staunchly opposed the notion. The way she saw it, if Nick had unusual aptitudes, they would emerge in any case. Putting him in situations where he was set off as special, separated from average kids his own age, might as easily stifle him as help him to blossom. Her judgment seemed confirmed by the way Nick was developing. He did wonderfully in school, winning praise for his comportment and sociability as well a
s high marks. He was an easygoing kid with broad interests and plenty of friends. And he was creative. Halfway through the summer he played Carrie a song he was writing titled "Guitar Money." The lyrics told of a down-and-out drifter, fallen folksinger who was trying to earn money to redeem his pawned guitar so he could get back on top. The story was affecting, the melody tuneful, and Carrie occasionally found herself humming the chorus: "Oh yeah, I got a song to sing / A song as sweet as honey / And I'm gonna make it heard / When I get my guitar money." What most amused—and amazed—Carrie was that her twelve-year-old son could equate his feelings with those of a broken-down old has-been. How he had chosen the basic theme for a song was less of a mystery. Since June he had been working part-time at Treats as a delivery boy with the avowed aim of saving enough to buy his Fender Stratocaster.
After hearing the song, Carrie announced that she would match whatever Nick had saved by October with an equal sum, so that he could afford the equipment he wanted.
On Thursday, when Emily was occupied with her after-school gymnastics group, Carrie drove Nick forty miles to the shopping center in Patchogue, which had a big discount music store.
With the money he'd saved plus Carrie's supplement, Nick had a total of $412. They learned almost at once, however, that the particular instrument on which Nick had set his heart, along with the necessary amplifier and speakers, was a few hundred dollars beyond his reach. Crestfallen, Nick started immediately for the door, muttering that he would go on saving no matter how long it took. But a friendly salesman suggested that there were several good instruments that would fall within Nick's budget. Soon he was strapping on a succession of different guitars, running his fingers over the strings to produce spirited clusters of notes. Finally, Nick made his choice. More important than having the Stratocaster, he declared, was getting The Mindbenders started.
"The Mindbenders?" Carrie said. "What's that?"
"Me and Dougie—the name of our group."
For a moment Carrie wondered whether she wasn't launching Nick on a career that would someday see him performing in stadiums, dressing in bizarre costumes, taking drugs. What was the old saying—music hath charms to soothe the savage breast? Not the music of The Mindbenders, Carrie thought. But then she shut down her dark imaginings. Nick was a good kid. According to his own poem, he had a song to sing "as sweet as honey." Carrie pulled out her checkbook.
Choosing the guitar had worked up an appetite in Nick—as these days almost any activity did. After loading the cartons containing his new equipment into the station wagon, he announced to Carrie that he was starving to death.
They went to a pizza place on the other side of the shopping center. It was thronged with teenagers, and getting her order filled took five minutes. Carrie would have objected once to Nick's spoiling his appetite for dinner, but in Jane Brody's health column for the New York Times she had read that pizza was as nutritious as anything else she might serve. Nick ordered three slices with pepperoni and, to be companionable, Carrie got one with mushrooms.
At the table Nick talked nonstop about his plans for The Mindbenders. He did confess, though, that he wasn't sure about the name. "That was Dougie's idea," he said. "It seems a little too . . . too raunchy to me."
There was hope yet, Carrie thought.
Despite the fact that he'd done all the talking and ordered three slices to her one, Nick had cleared his paper plate before Carrie was even half finished.
Somehow, without food filling his mouth, Nick no longer had any need to speak. He sat fidgeting, picking small remnants of cheese from his plate, and frowning at Carrie's use of knife and fork instead of the customary fingers. Abruptly, he started fishing in his pockets.
"Got a quarter?" he asked.
"What for?"
"Play a game while I wait." Nick nodded toward a corner.
Carrie turned around and saw a row of kids standing at a phalanx of black-sided machines capped by lighted signs, each one spelling out the name of a video game in bright colors.
DEFENDER
PAC-MAN
GALAXIAN
ASTEROIDS
DONKEY-KONG
Now, beneath the hubbub of voices in the crowded pizza parlor, Carrie became aware of the sound effects, the boom and whistle and ping of spaceships being disintegrated, and electronic blips being gobbled up by bigger blips.
She considered refusing Nick the coin, telling him to use his allowance if he wanted to toss money away on frivolous things. But he'd already spent so much of his own money today, all diligently earned and saved. The quarter was little enough reward. Carrie rummaged in her purse and came up with two.
"One's enough," Nick said when she proffered both.
He went over to the corner and waited a couple of minutes until a space opened up at the PAC-MAN.
As she continued eating, Carrie enjoyed watching Nick at the machine. Like her, he had a lean, athletic build, and though there was nothing more to playing the game than moving a small lever an inch or two, he threw his whole body into the effort. Bending his knees, twisting his shoulders and tilting his hips, he seemed not merely to be steering the creature on the screen through a maze, but sharing its journey, darting around corners, and reversing course to escape from devouring electronic monsters.
Carrie dawdled over her pizza, giving Nick a chance to finish. But after she was done, and had waited another five minutes, Nick was still at the game, doing his energetic dance of body English. Half a dozen kids had closed ranks behind him, watching over his shoulder. Carrie got up, went and edged through the gallery.
"Nick . . .?"
He didn't answer, his eyes remaining intently fixed on the video screen.
"Nick," Carrie insisted, "I'm afraid we have to go. Emily will be—"
"—can't—" He expelled the hot whisper between his teeth as though barely able to spare the breath.
Carrie hesitated. She could sense the unspoken alliance in all the children surrounding her. They wanted Nick to have his full turn, to be permitted to finish. Whether it was a matter of fairness, or just the constant test of wills between the generations, Carrie felt its force. Impatient as she was, she let Nick continue.
Standing by, she lapsed into watching the action on the screen. Up and down and sideways through the maze went the moving ball with its insatiable mouth, devouring rows of white dots. Predators in flashing colors popped out of corners and alleys to pursue the mouth, and it kept eluding them—or gobbling up special dots that triggered a change in the rules, made the predators vulnerable for a few seconds so that they could be eaten for extra points.
The chase engaged Carrie's interest for a minute, but at last all the dots on the screen had been devoured, and it appeared that Nick had won.
But then a short sequence of calliope-like boop-de-boops issued from the machine. The screen blinked on and off, and the maze appeared again with new strings of dots running through all its channels. Now Carrie realized what had kept Nick at the game so long. He could play forever, as long as he beat the machine.
And in forty-five minutes Emily's gymnastics group would end, and she would have to be picked up.
Nick was locked in battle again, maneuvering the gobbling ball through the maze.
"C'mon, Nick," Carrie blurted out sharply. "You'll have to leave this—"
"Give him a chance, lady. He could set a record." Carrie spun around and appraised the girl who had spoken. She was in her mid-teens, with a very pretty face set in an expression of sullen defiance. She wore a T-shirt with a slogan across the front, placed so that the words were thrust forward by her taut, ripe breasts: "All this and brains, too." Carrie glared at the girl in reproach, but the child returned an unwavering stare. It was Carrie who turned away first. Whatever had happened, she wondered, to the natural order of authority, respect for one's elders?
For a moment longer she remained uncertain, intimidated. The pervading sense of unity among the children was like a magnetic field, holding her suspended between the
two poles of decision.
She looked back at the screen of the video game.
The ball of moving light gobbled up the smaller dots.
Her eyes were held for another second.
Then her impatience reached a flashpoint, tipped over into a sudden fury. Why should her life come to a stop, her responsibilities be neglected, just so a few more pinpricks of light could be attacked and annihilated?
Her hand shot out and locked onto Nick's wrist. "Damn it," she snarled, "I will not have you disobeying me so you can be . . . the slave of this stupid machine!"
It took an extra tug to dislodge Nick's hand from the control lever, but then it came away in hers. Almost immediately the immobilized ball on the screen was caught by one of its pursuers, and it wilted to the accompaniment of an electronic note spiraling down the scale. As if he had been similarly caught, Nick's last resistance ebbed, too. Carrie pulled him away from the machine, and instantly another boy shoved himself in front of it and continued the game.
Crossing the parking lot, Nick finally broke his resentful silence. "You shouldn't've let me start if you weren't going to let me finish."
"I didn't realize it would take so long." Carrie sighed. "It looked like you were going to be there all night."
Nick shrugged. "I'd have lost sooner or later."
"Or later," Carrie said with emphasis, unlocking the passenger door.
One of the qualities Carrie appreciated most in Nick was that he never held grudges or brooded for long. On the trip back to Millport, he soon opened up, jabbering about his new guitar and the reasons he and Dougie preferred to aim their band's sound toward New Wave rather than punk. Once or twice he also put in his appreciation for the money Carrie had given him.
She could only half-listen. She kept mulling over her outburst at the machine. Hadn't she overreacted terribly? It was, as the old saying went, only a game.
A collision on the expressway had slowed traffic to a crawl for several miles. Realizing she'd never be in time to pick up Emily as she emerged from gymnastics, Carrie stopped at the first phone booth and called Alice Revering. Alice, whose daughter attended the same gymnastics group, agreed to pick up both girls and keep Emily at her house.