Part 22 (1/2)
Even Elsie had seen it was a preposterous idea but so Eddie-like that she'd started laughing, too.
And there it stood now, looking as if it had always been there, unmarked by the effort, not even a streak on the mirror, since Walt had wiped it with the hem of his T-s.h.i.+rt, a surprising delicacy after all the heave-ho.
Elsie began to feel better, as if reliving the men's heavy lifting was the exercise that she'd needed. She unfolded the doubled-up bare mattress on the cot and stretched out. The women she'd been snarling at were dwindling, as remote as the waif from County Clare, as the grade-grubbing prize girl, and soon they were no more than dust motes pa.s.sing through the bar of light.
She woke up. The sunbeam had moved just enough to be bouncing off the mirror, dit-dit-dah-dit. But the blinking seemed to be making a puttering noise. She rubbed her eyes. It was a motorcycle idling. She got up, combed her hair with her fingers, and looked at herself in the mirror. She raised the window. Walt waved and yelled, ”I figured it was you.” He killed the engine and said, ”I saw you riding your bike. Thought you were Deirdre. Lucky it's you. I can't find the key. I left some beer and lunch meat in the fridge. I thought the lunch meat might go bad.”
”I've got the key. Shall I toss it down?”
”No, don't do that. It'll get lost in the ivy or you'll ding my bike.”
”Okay, I'll come down.”
”Or you could let down your hair.”
She was at a loss for an instant. She knelt on the window seat and raised the screen, as if the screen made it harder to hear. ”What?”
”Let down your hair. Like in that fairy tale.”
It wasn't that she hadn't heard him. ”Yes,” she said. ”Rapunzel.” She leaned out and lifted one of her short curls with her fingertips. ”I think you've got the wrong girl.” He went back to his motorcycle. She called out, ”For all you know I might be the wicked witch.” He didn't say anything-had she been too obviously fis.h.i.+ng for a compliment? He hung his helmet on the handlebar. All right, he was going to stay around.
”Tell you what,” he said. ”You could open up that window seat, and we could test that escape ladder.”
”You want me to climb down?”
”Or I could climb up.”
She opened the lid of the window seat. She began to lower the chain-link ladder over the stone sill, letting the links slide through her hands. When it was halfway down she grabbed a rung and held it. She felt the ladder sway. She let the rung slide from her palm to her fingertips, then let it fall. She stepped back and watched. The chains grew taut as they took Walt's full weight. As he climbed, the top links scratched the stone sill, scribbling white marks, lines and arcs of a hieroglyph easy enough to decipher.
chapter sixty-four.
Mary missed JB terribly as soon as he went back to Boston. She regretted whatever bad moods she'd let him see. She feared he'd come to his senses as soon as he got to the big city. He said he'd be back as soon as he could. G.o.d knows she'd heard that before, though not lately. A part of her was loopy as a teenager, but another part administered a slow drip of wryness. So her fingers trembled when she got a letter from him care of Sawtooth, but she wasn't undone when it wasn't a love letter.
Dear Mary, you never answer your d.a.m.n phone. You're the only person I know who doesn't have an answering machine. So call me. Best time would be next Sunday after you get through with the Sawtooth brunch.
He didn't pick up the phone right away-in fact the message on his answering service was well under way when his real voice cut in. He said, ”Wait a second, we'll have to wait,” while his recorded voice was saying, ”... to send a fax, or leave your name and number after the beep.” ”Okay. Mary, are you there? It'll record for a bit, then click off. Sorry, I've been right by the phone, you just caught me the one minute I was in the can. Wait. I'll turn the TV off.”
Not sweeping her off her feet.
”Okay. Here we are. Look, something's come up. Don't know where to begin. Do you know Tory Hazard?”
”I know who she is. So how have you been?”
”Yes, you're right. How are you? You sound great. I can't wait to see you. What day is today? Oh yeah, of course it's Sunday. Are you still at Sawtooth? At your place?”
”I just got home. Is something wrong?”
”No, no, could be good. I can be there in two hours. Would that be okay? Sunday traffic's all the other way, could be an hour and a half.”
Mary thought this might well be what she wanted but that he needed a few pointers on presentation.
He said, ”What time is it? Not three yet. So it'll still be light.”
Their first three days had been a tumble of energy, and then, after she got over her Monday-morning snit of wanting to be alone and he'd gone for a swim and come out with his teeth chattering, she'd taken him home, put a warm quilt over the two of them, and they lay there, good-humoredly chatting and dozing. A bit more poetry out of him, not his own, Yeats-” 'And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow ...' ”-and he'd trailed off. Now here he was tumbling again.
”So when were you doing all this calling?” she said. ”Maybe that's my fault-I shut the ringer off if I've worked late.”
”Oh, all the time. Doesn't matter, here we are. So where were we? I'm all set. How are you?”
”Wait-what's this got to do with Tory Hazard? And why does it have to be daylight?”
”Will it drive you nuts if I hold off till I'm there? I'm listening to myself and I'm not doing it right.”
He was at the door before she finished the Sunday paper-she'd read more thoroughly than usual. She'd brushed her hair and put on a dress as soon as she'd hung up the phone.
When they headed south on Route 1 she said, ”We're not going to Sawtooth, are we? That's the last place-”
”Not quite.”
He pulled into the driveway of the old Hazard place; the name was still on the RFD mailbox. He stopped between the barn and the small house. Years ago she'd been to Mr. Hazard's bookshop in Wakefield, never here, though the stone wall on the far side of the house marked the beginning of the Sawtooth property. He walked around the outside of the house, nodding to himself, turning to look at her with an expression on his face that left her even more puzzled. Eagerness and confusion?
He had the key. He let her go in first but then went into a trance in front of the full bookshelf in the main room.
He said, ”She's pretty sure he'd just bulldoze this.”
”Okay,” Mary said. ”Time's up.”
He ran his hand through his hair. ”I've known Tory for a while, not from way back, not from when her father was still alive. So I never met him, so I can't tell what she means when she says I remind her of her father.”
Mary had seen Tory at Miss Perry's funeral. Haggard, attractive. Mary wondered for a moment, then was sure that he'd had an affair with her. An instinct and then an additional reason: women who have doted on their difficult fathers don't bring them up lightly. ”Let's clear up the bulldozing,” she said. ”Just to start with something easy. You mean Jack Aldrich.”
”Right.”
”And he's made your Miss Hazard an offer.”
”Right.”
”But she'd rather sell to a rumpled old guy who loves books and reminds her of dear old da.”
”Okay, close enough.”
”But here, my dear Watson, is where the trail becomes more difficult to follow. One possibility is that you just want my expert advice as a former owner of South County real estate. That's too simple for all the fuss you're making. Another is that your old pal Tory Hazard wants to install you here with an eye to the pair of you starting up again. That would mean you're hopelessly obtuse in more ways than one.”
”Jesus, Mary. I knew this wasn't going to be easy.”