by Daniel Klein
Both men laugh, joined quickly by the women.
Later, when they all are saying goodbye in front of the old university building, Esther and Zeina hugging one another, Gnomes and Wendell shake hands.
“There’s a black church in Grandville,” Gnomes says.
“The Zion on Pleasant Street.”
“It’s been there a long time. I understand they’ve kept pretty good records of their past members.”
“Thanks. I’ll check it out.”
Binx has been fed some leftover pot roast—”Probably the first time a doggie bag from that place ever went to a real doggie,” Wendell joked—and is sleeping in the truck bed for the trip back to Grandville. Both Wendell and Esther seem content to remain silent for a long while.
When Wendell turns onto the turnpike, Esther says, “I asked Zeina to come down for dinner some Sunday. Howard too, of course.”
“Nice,” Wendell says.
“Maybe you could bring Lila. She might find him interesting.”
Wendell does not reply. He does not know what to say. He feels very comfortable riding in his pickup with this sweet and lovely woman at his side, but her casual invitation distresses him, makes him want to slow things down.
“Just a thought,” Esther says after a moment.
Wendell looks over at her. She does not look offended in the least. He does not believe that she is hiding hurt feelings, or even that she has girded herself against them. It strikes Wendell that Esther has simply forsaken all disappointments as an act of will, that she simply cannot be bothered with them.
“I’m older than I want to be, Esther,” he says softly.
“If that’s an apology, I don’t accept it,” Esther answers, smiling at him. “I thought you could tell by now that I don’t want anything that doesn’t come naturally.”
“I’m just starting to realize that,” Wendell says. He is also just starting to realize that he likes this woman a great deal and that feeling is not altogether disagreeable. Just unsettling. He smiles at her. “What are you serving?” he asks.
“Pot roast.”
Esther turns on the radio and tunes in the Five Colleges station that is playing folk music, both old and new. She sings along with some of the older ones, laughing when she slides off tune. And now they are back on Route 7 on the outskirts of Stockbridge heading for the Grandville town line. Wendell senses something in himself that he does not remember feeling since he was a child—melancholy that the day is coming to an end.
CHAPTER SEVEN
After school on Friday afternoons, Lila hangs around Grandville High for a while, then makes her way along the highway to the Nakota for the evening shift. This makes more sense than taking the school bus home and killing an hour there before walking into town and taking the four o’clock Loop Bus back to the highway.
Usually, she cannot get away from the high school fast enough. Every minute there feels like house arrest. She believes that high school basically serves the same function as nursery school—in loco surveillance. The courses in geometry, French, and history are all a cover for the real purpose of the institution—keeping an eye on teenagers so they can do no harm.
Lila has few friends at school. Most of the students she talks to are smokers like herself, the kids who sneak out of lunchroom or study hall to dash across the highway and grab a cigarette behind the trunk of a spruce tree. All of these kids are in the vocational program—car repair, building trades, or computer technology, which used to be called stenography—so Lila does not see them in her classes. She is in the college preparation program, even though going to college is something she never thinks about.
The other college prep students think Lila is a snob because she does not talk to them, but mostly because she is so pretty and does not talk to them. Lila thinks they are all deluded, that they have never even tried to discover what they really want or feel, so they go through their day playing the role of High School Student and get so immersed in this role—the dating, the gossip, the grade warfare—that they forget what it is to be a real person.
On these Friday afternoons, Lila roams around the high school building and grounds feeling like a spy, or maybe an anthropologist on a field trip to a remote, hither-to-undiscovered society, trying to make sense of its patterns of behavior. She peers through the window in the door to Study Hall B where the French Club is watching a video of Au Revoir Les Enfants with English subtitles. She wonders how many of them—the teacher, Mlle. Glass, included—have convinced themselves they actually understand what the actors are saying without the aid of the white letters at the bottom of the screen.
Through the door window to Study Hall C, she sees several of her secret smokers and realizes immediately that they must be in Detention, the prison within the prison. She catches Amanda’s eye—she of the roach hidden under a rock—and waves, then scurries down the corridor to the outside door.
Mr. Cyzinski’s voice carries up to her from the tennis courts. It is loud and boisterous like a sportscaster’s, but Lila easily recognizes its testy bass notes. Personally, Lila has reached an understanding of sorts with the guidance counselor. The few times she was required to attend ‘college readiness’ sessions with Mr. Cyzinski, he informed her that she was not only wasting the school’s time, but her own, and Lila could not have agreed with him more. Like most sports coaches, Cyzinski views the entire world as made up of either winners or losers, and Lila takes a perverse pleasure in willingly volunteering for the latter category. So it is not Mr. Cyzinki’s winning voice that captures her attention, it is the distraught sound of his daughter, Stephanie’s, faint reply. That is what draws Lila to the stand of scotch pines that protect the tennis courts from the wind.
Lila is now standing behind a low-hanging bough of one of these trees, furtively eyeing the courts. Cyzinski and Stephanie are there, facing one another across the net. No one else is around.
“I don’t think you realize how lucky we just got, Sweetheart,” the father is explaining to his daughter.
“But . . . I like regular tennis, Dad. I’m . . . I’m pretty good at it,” Stephanie stammers back, looking down at her racket.
“Sure you are, Steph. Just like you’ll be terrific at royal tennis too. If you work at it, you’ll be fantastic. I guarantee it, pal.”
“I don’t know about that. I don’t even know what the heck it is.”
Everybody in school knows Stephanie Cyzinski. She is well liked by both her classmates and teachers for her good cheer and hard work. Even Lila has less disdain for her than for most of the others. Lila senses a struggle going on inside Stephanie. More than once she has spotted Stephanie peering out the window of their social studies class with a look of rueful longing on her face. Still, Lila would never consider talking to her.
“Let’s just give it the old college try,” Mr. Cyzinski is now saying, the laugh in his voice suggesting that he thinks he has said something witty.
“Actually, I don’t even know if I want to go to Harvard,” Stephanie answers quietly.
“Want to go to Harvard?” Cyzinski bellows. “Are you crazy?”
Stephanie bursts into tears, and Cyzinski reaches across the net and wraps an arm around his daughter’s shoulders. “Aw, Steph, I’m sorry. Just think about it, okay, kiddo? Just give it a chance.”
Lila takes this opportunity to sneak back from the trees toward the highway. She rarely thinks about what it would have been like to have a father, largely because Wendell feels like a father to her, only milder and less judgmental. Mr. Cyzinski’s attitude does not surprise her. Back in middle school when she still hung out with her grade school friends, she would occasionally attend intermural basketball games and she never forgot the time Sandra Hurp’s father screamed at his daughter in the middle of a game, calling her ‘spastic.’ When Lila told Wendell about this, he said that most girls’ competitive sports are a result of the women’s liberation movement; then he added his favorite saying, “Beware of what you desire, for you
will surely get it.”
Lila is walking along the shoulder of the highway, leaning forward to counterbalance the weight of her backpack. It is loaded with books and notebooks that she will not open over the weekend. She thinks of it as a disguise. Sometimes, she will encounter Appalachian Trail hikers along this stretch, off the trail to get a cup of coffee or shop for groceries. For the most part, they are a grim bunch, preoccupied with how many miles they have walked or how many are left to go. Nonetheless, Lila likes to think that with her long gait and bulging backpack, a passing out-of-town motorist will assume she is one of them, a traveler from afar.
As Lila sees Nakota’s gold spire appear over the crest of the hill, she starts looking forward to her first dumpster break with Pato. Suddenly, she hears tires crunch against pebbles behind her and she jumps to her right, landing in the gutter. She twirls around and sees a Grandville Police car inching toward her, then come to a full stop just a couple feet away from her. The cruiser’s cherry light is on and spinning. Flip Morris is leaning over the passenger seat, his face in the open window.
“You’re a hazard, Lila,” he calls to her. “A crash just waiting to happen.”
“You’d have to be blind not to see me,” Lila answers.
“That’s for damned sure,” Flip says, pumping his eyebrows a couple of times in a gesture that he probably thinks is macho. “Get in the car. I’ll drive you the rest of the way.”
Lila hesitates. She would rather walk and certainly would rather remain by herself until she joins her co-workers at Nakota, but the idea of a drawn-out argument with Flip Morris is even less appealing. She slips off her backpack one shoulder at a time, while Flip watches her. She gets in the cruiser, placing the backpack between them.
Flip snaps off the cherry light, slips the car into gear, and peels onto the highway. He reaches into his shirt pocket, pulls out a pack of Camels, and expertly shakes a single cigarette up from its opening. He offers it to Lila.
“No thanks,” Lila says. “I’m underage.”
Flip laughs. “That’s a matter of opinion. Some people just grow up faster than others,” he says.
Lila definitely agrees with that. For starters, she feels a lot more mature than Flip Morris. “But I wouldn’t want to break the law, especially in the presence of a police officer,” she says with deadpan coyness.
Flip laughs far harder and longer than Lila’s comment merits, possibly thinking his appreciation will win points with her, but it only confirms her assessment of his maturity.
“What time do you have to be at work?” Flip says. He has placed the cigarette between his lips and now lights it with his Harley-Davidson Zippo.
“Four,” she lies.
“Why the hell so early?”
“Prep work. I need to do some stripping—bean stripping.” Lila realizes immediately that the word ‘stripping’ was poorly chosen. Does she say things like this on purpose just to provoke assholes like Flip Morris?
Indeed, Flip’s eyes glint as he looks over at her. “Do you have any idea how hot you are, girl?” he says with a swaggering smile.
Lila quickly turns away from him and stares out the windshield. She can feel her pulse accelerate, her face flush. Thank God the Nakota is only a couple hundred feet ahead. “You can let me out on this side,” she says evenly. “It’s easier.”
Flip does not slow the car. He drives past the Japanese restaurant without saying a word. Lila swallows hard, folds her arms across her chest. “Just drop me off here, Flip. Here is fine,” she says, still staring straight ahead.
Flip presses down on the accelerator. They fly by the Getty station, the new motel, the pottery outlet. Lila takes a deep breath, feeding her panic some oxygen. She knows instinctively that begging is not the way to go; it only arouses assholes. She turns and looks him straight in the face. “Don’t embarrass yourself, Flip,” she says coolly.
Lila does not know where these words come from, probably a movie she once saw, but they feel right and strong coming out of her mouth. They work too. Flip abruptly applies the brakes. Before the cruiser comes to a full stop, Lila opens the door and jumps out. She stumbles, but does not fall. Her backpack is still on the car seat. She leaves it there.
“Fuckin’ tease!” Flip snarls. He guns the motor, pops the clutch, and his car lurches forward. Seconds later, he heaves Lila’s backpack out his window and it lands in the middle of the highway.
Lila waits until the cruiser is out of sight before stepping out onto the road to pick up her backpack. The top flap is torn and her history and geometry texts have bounced out, their pages turning swiftly one by one, as if the wind were a speed reader. She gathers them up, then sprints to the other side of the highway. She feels heroic.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WGVS-AM broadcasts at fify watts, which is just about as low-powered as a radio signal can get and still have listeners. But because its transmission tower stands in the valley at the center of the Grandville mountain range, those fifty watts are enough to get the job done. Most locals switch on the station first thing in the morning, especially in the winter months when snow day school closings are announced starting at 6:30 a.m.; at those times, WGVS has more juvenile listeners than at any other.
The dial stays on the station after the kids leave for school or, better yet as far as they are concerned, go back to bed for a delicious mid-winter sleep. Nick Palmer, the morning deejay, plays golden oldies and light pop, like Martina McBride’s In My Daughter’s Eyes or Billy Mure singing April in Portugal. In between songs, Palmer sprinkles regular features like Lost and Found (mostly cats and dogs, although some people still chuckle about the time Ted Barrett posted the loss of a wood bridge that broke free of its moorings during the big hurricane and sailed down Mahaiwe Brook to points unknown) and The Trading Post, where on the air you can buy and sell such items as used vacuum cleaners and exercise bicycles, and during hunting season, fresh venison. There are also birth and death notices, along with the occasional ‘Happy Birthday!’ sent out by request of a loved one or, at times, just as one of Nick Palmer’s pranks.
At noon, the AP comes on for a three-minute wrap-up of world and national events, followed by a five-minute wrap-up of local news. Then Bob Balducci takes over for Nick with only oldies, some going as far back as Johnny Ray. Bob often has a guest he interviews live, like a town selectman or the high school principal, although lately he also has been getting people like Andrew Fellows, who runs the chamber concert series at the Congregational Church, or Babs Dowd, a newcomer to town who wrote and is directing the new Grandville Players production coming up next month.
As one leaves the house to go shopping or get a haircut or buy stamps, the car radio picks up where the kitchen radio left off. And stepping into Artorian’s Package Goods or Bob’s Barber Shop or the post office, only a line or two of a familiar song is missed before it continues on the radios playing inside these destinations.
Franny sets the tuner in Write Now to WGVS when she opens at seven o’clock. In part, this is in deference to her customers, but Franny would not deny she finds the station comforting too. She likes the idea that it cannot be picked up even as nearby as Lenox; it is Grandville’s secret signal. But at five, she switches over to the NPR FM station out of Albany for the news show, All Things Considered. At this hour, most of her customers are either school kids or day workers like herself who have had their fill of WGVS for the day.
Patricia Neighmond, All Things Considered’s chief science editor and one of Franny’s favorites, is reporting on a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that says a diet high in phytoestrogens reduces the risk of lung cancer by forty-six percent, even in smokers. Further, Ms. Neighmond says, there is no better source of phytoestrogens than soybean products, like tofu. This is cheering news for Franny. Although Lila never smokes at home, Franny knows her daughter is a smoker, so those tofu dinners are serving a double purpose. Franny is heartened by any sign that she is a good mother.
Tonight, she is thinking of locking up a few minutes early so she can pick up a bottle of wine at Artorian’s before it closes, then go home for an early supper with Lila. She has only one customer left in the shop, a woman who has been studying the rack of Thanksgiving greeting cards for the past ten minutes. Franny does not know her name or recall ever having seen her in the shop before, but the woman’s long face is definitely familiar. On weekdays at this time of the year, virtually every face Franny sees is somewhat familiar. She would like the woman to hurry up with her decision and leave.
“Need any help?” Franny asks.
The woman offers a reticent smile and shrugs.
“I like the one with the turkey holding a shotgun,” Franny says, walking over to her.
The woman remains looking at the rack of Thanksgiving cards as she starts to speak. “You’re Franny deVries, aren’t you? Lila’s mother.”
“Yes,” Franny answers. “And you look very familiar too, but I’m afraid I don’t know your name.”
The woman finally turns around to face Franny. She appears to be about Franny’s age, but looks much more worn. Her face is rutted and gray, her shoulders slumped. Franny guesses that she is poor, possibly from Housatonic or Frowell River, although heaven knows there are still poor people living right here in Grandville.