Boy Toy (5 page)

“
Well
,” she sniffed, daintily spreading cream cheese on one of the items in question. “Pardon me, I’m sure.” And she broke into laughter.

This insouciant attitude was reflected in the bald pride she took in defying stereotypes. On the morning when she’d first gone shopping for our household, she’d paused at the back door and turned to tell me, “Don’t get your hopes up—I
never
haggle over a price.” Before leaving, she added, “And I
don’t
winter in Miami.” I noticed as well that she never peppered her sentences with Yiddish. In fact, Neil once uttered an experimental
Oy!
in her presence, and she promptly threw a dishrag at him.

As for Barb’s religious views, which she and I had discussed at length one quiet evening shortly after she came to work for us, they were anything but Orthodox. If she believed in God at all, it was a naturalistic deity, and her Judaism was reduced to a heritage. “I consider myself a cultural Jew,” she told me, and I realized that the concept was one that I could borrow. Though I had long ago dismissed the notion of God’s existence and therefore scoffed at Christ’s purported divinity, I was raised in a family and a society that, by and large, paid lip service to this belief. Doctrines aside, I had absorbed the whole mythology and had become, to paraphrase Barb, “a cultural Christian.” There was no point in fighting it—it was part of my self-consciousness. In other words, though I was certain there had never been a “virgin birth” to remove my “stain of original sin,” I felt blissfully free to enjoy the trappings and hoo-ha of Christmas. For that matter, so did Barb.

At breakfast that morning, she dropped the topic of bagels and got down to the business of running the household. Between bites she asked, “Are there any bills you want paid, Mark?”

After a slurp of coffee, I answered, “There’s a fresh stack on my desk in the den—you know where to find the checkbook.” Pierce subtly caught my eye, wrinkling his brow in a curious expression. I told him, “Yes, Doug, Barb has full access to the household accounts. She handles money better than I do.”

She added, “MBA from Chicago,” meaning the University of Chicago, one of the best business schools anywhere. Then she turned to Pierce, sticking out her tongue, just the tip.

Pierce laughed softly. “Barb, you’re one unlikely ‘maid.’ ”

Indeed she was. And after half a year with us, it was easy to forget her background. Though raised in Dumont and schooled in the Midwest, she’d sought her fortune in the pressure cooker of New York finance, struggling up the ladder as a money manager for an investment firm. When I’d first interviewed her, I had, ignorantly, asked if that meant she had been a stockbroker. Appalled by the question, she assured me in no uncertain terms, “I
don’t
do retail. My role was essentially that of an analyst, involved with emerging markets.” Unfortunately, the bottom had fallen out of those markets, and worse, she had discovered that “ninety-nine percent of my colleagues were pigs, total chauvinist assholes who couldn’t see past my tits.” So she cashed in her chips, which were considerable, and bailed, returning to her roots in Dumont. She’d had it with business, and though straight, she’d had it with men—at least for a while.

During that first interview, I was up-front about the unconventional nature of our household, and she made it equally clear that the whole setup appealed to her—she was comfortable with gay men, and since she’d never married or had children, she appreciated the opportunity to nurture Thad. I liked her simply because she was the polar opposite of Hazel, a breath of fresh air. At a deeper level, Barb would add even greater diversity to our “family,” providing a valuable exposure for Thad as he prepared to leave his white-bread upbringing and stick his toes into the larger world. Clearly, Barb wasn’t seeking a lifetime career as a domestic. She didn’t need the money—she was “buying time,” she admitted, and needed “a situation for a while.” She gave me her commitment, though, to remain with us at least until Thad went off to college, a year and a half from the time she was hired. So we shook hands, and she moved in.

Neil got up and took the empty coffeepot to the sink, rinsing it. Returning, he paused by the refrigerator, asking Barb, “More pop?”

She shook her head and drained the last of her glass. “Too much gas. I need to practice later, after you guys leave the house.”

Again the quizzical look from Pierce.

Neil returned to the table, telling him, “Her new clarinet—it’s a beauty.”

Barb nodded proudly, dabbing her lips with a paper napkin. “A genuine Leblanc. Made in France. Opus model, grenadilla body, silver keys—
the
best.”

“Six grand,” I said, supplying the detail that Pierce wanted to hear.

“Zow!” he said. “I’d think you’d get
gold
keys.”

“Actually, they’re available, special order.” She grimaced. “But that’s tacky.”

This from the woman who’d had the bumpers of her Range Rover gilded—now that’s tacky. But when it came to issues of music, the woman did indeed have high standards, and this was an intriguing new piece to the puzzle that was Barb Bilsten. At first blush, she seemed jaded and smart-mouthed to the point of being coarse. It was easy to overlook her deeper intelligence, her analytical precision. As for her family’s cultured background and her own refined musical talents—who’d have guessed?

She had previously mentioned her old clarinet, needing a new one, a good one, wanting to take some remedial lessons. I hadn’t known she was serious till last week, when she’d arranged to visit the instrument company’s American headquarters in the southeast corner of the state. She’d hopped into her Range Rover one morning, driven down to Kenosha, spent a few hours with their resident clarinet guru, and driven back triumphantly with her new Leblanc. Only then did I realize that my own knowledge of classical music (a point of snobbish pride, I confess) paled next to hers.

She was saying, “It’s
important
to have music in the house—there’s a child under our roof. Haven’t you read that music makes you smarter? It’s true. They’ve got these studies now that show how musical training sort of ‘hardwires’ kids’ brains to let them learn
everything
better and faster. I’m hoping Thad’ll get interested.”

She was right. I couldn’t have agreed more. Still: “Thad has so
many
interests.”

Neil quipped, “What a difference a year makes.”

“It wasn’t that long ago,” agreed Pierce, “when he didn’t even have friends.”

Barb nodded meaningfully. “He has plenty of friends now, including a few of the female persuasion.”

I shared a smile with Neil. “We’ve noticed,” I said. “Neil and I sat him down for ‘the talk’ not long ago. I don’t mean ‘birds and bees’—he knew about the mechanics years ago. No, we talked to him about responsibility in general and safe sex in particular. He’d heard it all before, of course, but he really seemed to appreciate that we cared enough to break the ice and get down to specifics.” Swirling the cold coffee in my cup, I recalled the knot in my stomach as we’d broached that conversation.

Neil leaned forward, elbows on the table, to continue the story. “Thad knew exactly what we were driving at—disease and pregnancy—and he addressed our concerns head-on. He actually told us not to worry, explaining that he wasn’t really ‘dating’ yet. But I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.”

With good-natured skepticism, Barb asked, “What about Miss Kwynn? She’s been around the house quite a bit lately.”

And again, that questioning look from Pierce. “Who?”

“I think Kwynn Wyman is just a theater pal,” I answered. “She’s a nice girl too. You should have seen the way she stuck up for Thad last night. When the dating bug does bite, I hope Kwynn’s nearby.”

“My my,” clucked Barb, rising from the table, “so look who’s playing matchmaker.” Removing a few dishes and her glass, she rinsed them at the sink.

I had no snappy answer to her comment, realizing that it contained a grain of truth.

“Leave your dishes,” Barb told us, moving toward the hall. “I’ll clean up after I’ve tapped Mark’s checkbook.” And she left the kitchen to pay some bills, going to my den at the front of the house.

“Whoa,” said Neil, glancing over his shoulder at the clock, “it’s nearly eight. I’d better head upstairs and get my act together—I’ve got a busy day ahead.”

Before he could stand, I asked vacantly, “What are you working on?” The reason I asked (I already knew the answer) was simply to keep him sitting there for a few minutes, or even a few more seconds. The mere sight of him was food to me, a source of energy and sustenance. Though I could never get enough, I didn’t deserve him at all. During our four years together, I’d had slips of fidelity—in my dreams and in my fantasies and, once, in a cabin in Door County—but the man in my life stayed in my life. He was a successful architect who had first moved his practice from Phoenix to Chicago to be with me. Then, when my professional wanderlust had brought me north to Wisconsin to run my own paper, he had agreed, with only mild complaint, to an arduous “arrangement” of alternating weekends while pursuing his career in the city. I couldn’t possibly expect him to chuck the prestige and dazzle of his Chicago firm—to uproot himself again just to be with me—but last autumn he had decided to do exactly that, setting up his own practice right here in Dumont, in a converted storefront on First Avenue little more than a block away from the
Register
’s offices. There in the kitchen, in front of Sheriff Pierce, I reached across the table and took his hands in mine. “What was that project?” A goofy smile betrayed my clumsiness at keeping him in the room.

He smiled back at me, not the least bit goofy. He made no move to draw his hands from mine and, in fact, leaned an inch or so nearer. “The home office, remember? Cynthia Dunne-Gelden?”

“Hey,” said Pierce, entering the conversation, “that’s a nice place—out there on county highway B, right?” He swirled the last inch of coffee in the glass pot, considered whether he wanted it, then poured it into his cup. No steam rose from the dark, tepid liquid.

Neil let his hands slip from mine, answering Pierce, “That’s the one. It
is
a nice place, but it’ll soon be even better.”

I explained to Pierce, “The wife is some sort of executive who travels a lot and wants to build a freestanding home office near the house.” Turning to Neil, I asked, “What does she do?”

“Just…
business.
” He shrugged. “She’s a vice president for some cell-phone firm based in Green Bay. Lately she’s been spending quite a bit of time at the main offices, but mostly she courts and curries bigger clients out this way. Her territory includes Dumont, which is why she decided to settle here. That was eight years ago, when she married Frank.”

I asked, “Frank was already here then?”

“Right,” said Pierce, having spent most of his life in Dumont. “Frank Gelden was born here. He’s about forty, a good five or six years younger than me, so I didn’t know him in school, but the family has been around forever. Frank teaches, right?”

Having learned this information only twelve hours earlier, I answered, “He’s a molecular-biology prof out at Woodlands. Smart, productive—sounds as if he and Cynthia are a perfect match, though I’ve never met
her
.”

“You will on Saturday,” Neil told me, getting up, carrying his cup and a few dishes to the sink. He paused to stretch a runner’s kink from between his shoulders. When it popped, he finished his thought: “She’ll be here at the house, at the cast-and-crew party with Frank.”

“Great.”

“
Anybody home
?” called a younger voice, Thad’s, as he bounded downstairs from his bedroom, shot through the center hall, and appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. “Oh”—he stopped, seeing us—“hi, everybody.”

“Well, good
morning
,” I told him, turning in my chair for a good look. He was fully dressed (T-shirt, shorts, hiking shoes), carrying a knapsack and a flat-bottomed wicker basket, looking ready to leave the house. I’d rarely seen him up and at’m before noon when there was no school. I laughed. “Trouble sleeping?”

“It
rained
last night,” he announced, beaming.

Neil folded his arms. “We noticed. So what?”

“Good for the corn,” Pierce offered lamely—as if any of us cared.

“Good for the
mushrooms
,” Thad explained. “Ought to be some great hunting today, so I wanted to get an early start.”

I smiled through a cringe. Had he been a half hour earlier, he’d have gotten a real eyeload—Neil and me doing our improvised towel dance there in the middle of the kitchen.

“Morning, hot stuff!” said Barb, returning from the den. Giving Thad a shoulder hug, she asked, “Heading out for fresh fungi? I spotted a few beauties in the park when I was there earlier.”

He nodded eagerly, ready to bolt for the door.

She wagged a finger. “Eat first.”

He opened his mouth to protest, then spotted the platter on the table. “Bagels!” he chimed, then reached in front of me to grab one.

Barb eyed me with a tight smile, a smug air of conquest. Bending to speak in my ear, she said, “Hook a kid early enough, and he’ll eat anything.”

I could well recall Thad’s first encounter with a bagel, shortly after Barb’s arrival. He’d looked at the dense, oily roll with an inquisitive, apprehensive expression, poking at the thing with a fork, as if it had hurtled to the table in flames from Mars. “They’re just like doughnuts,” Barb had lied to him, “but better.” To my surprise, he bought that, and before long, he’d acquired a taste for the things. His maturing palate, though, did not sufficiently expand to include cream cheese, which he still couldn’t stomach, so this morning he slathered a half bagel with peanut butter. (In this ongoing rumpus regarding bagels, it goes without saying that lox had yet to be broached.)

Preferring
any
topic to the one that wouldn’t die, I said, “Mushrooms in August? I thought they were sort of an autumn thing, like—what are they?—morels.”

Thad nearly choked (on his you-know-what). He and Barb looked at each other, bug-eyed, then broke into rude peals of laughter.