Runny03 - Loose Lips (5 page)

“I know that.”

“Then don’t talk as though you knew him.”

“Celeste told me that … I did know him, sort of.”

“Tell me why Celeste will pay our rent for a year but not the damages?”

“Because if we work we’ll have to learn something.”

“I have learned something.”

“Oh?”

“Never to sit next to you when you eat a strawberry frappé.”

Louise exhaled loudly. “You wear me out. I have to be sharp for this.”

“’Beautiful savior, king of creation’—” Julia sang.

“Stop it.”

“I have a good voice.”

“Did I say you didn’t?” Louise checked her wristwatch. “Another couple of minutes.”

“Are you sure we’re on the right road?”

“Julia, how many times have I run up the road to McSherrystown?”

Juts kicked off her shoes and flexed her toes. “I’m kind of sorry Barnhart’s closed.”

“Go over to Cashton’s.”

“If there’s enough business for two shoe-repair stores there’s enough business for two beauty salons. I wonder how Junior McGrail will react?”

“Smile to our faces and tear us down behind our backs.”

Julia paused. “How’s Pearlie with this?”

“Says it will never work—but he hasn’t taken a job at Rife Munitions.”

“Is he still mad at you?”

“Maybe a little. He’s too worried about Mary to fuss with me. She’s working on my mood, too. If we had the money we’d send her to Immaculata Academy.”

“Won’t do any good.”

“A Catholic education is the best there is and Immaculata is one of the best schools around.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean she’d sneak out with Extra Billy no matter where you sent her. She’s in love and she thinks she’s the only person who’s ever felt this way. You were like that once. Your ass runs away with your head.”

“I most certainly was not. I had sense. Mary, however, does not.”

“Louise,” Juts chided her. “You
swooned
over Pearlie. You wrote his name in your schoolbooks and Miss Dwyer sprouted blotches when she saw you had defaced state property. You were awful.”

“I was not. I didn’t lie to Mother.”

“No.”

“And I didn’t sass her. As for you, you were a pest.”

“With good reason. Pearlie would give me a dime to leave you two alone. I made a real haul.” She smiled. “I think you were more in love with Pearlie than I was with Chester. But you were younger when you met him. I love Chessy but I don’t think I was quite so wrapped up in him.”

“No, but then you’ve always been independent.”

“He’s still mad at me.”

“Oh.”

“He comes home late from work and he reads the newspaper. He hardly talks to me.”

“Chessy?” This surprised Louise. Her brother-in-law was an even-tempered man.

“Yesterday he took Buster for a forty-five-minute walk.”

Buster was their Irish terrier, a joyful, expressive fellow, devoted to Juts and Chessy as well as to the cat, Yoyo.

“So? Chester loves to walk Buster.”

“I know, but usually I go with him.”

“He’s worried sick about the money.”

“Well, so am I!” Juts put her shoes back on. “I think my feet are growing. Anyway, I’m doing something about the mess we made. I’m willing to work but Chessy says it takes money to make
money. I sure hope you get somewhere with Diddy because then we won’t have to use up so much money getting started.”

“Yeah.” Louise was worried, too. The reason she had gone to Celeste in the first place was to ask for a loan. Before she could open her mouth Celeste had asked her to intervene with Diddy. Since Diddy and Louise had gone to school together and remained friends, Celeste’s request made some sense. Louise readily agreed. It spared her the humiliation of being in debt to her mother’s boss. Once she caught her breath she asked for one year’s rent. Celeste laughed and called her shrewd. Scared was more like it.

“You know what Chessy said to me last night?” Juts went on. “He said the most dangerous food in the world is wedding cake.”

D
iddy Van Dusen lived the asceticism of the extremely rich. Self-denial in such lavish proportions gagged Juts. She would gladly have taken the castoffs that Diddy dispensed to the poor. Not that Juts was terribly poor, but she realized that in the class scheme of America she was hanging on to the lower middle class by a thread. Good bloodlines shored her up although not as much as Louise, who shouted D.A.R. the minute she felt threatened. Illustrious ancestors had never put a penny in Julia Ellen’s pocket, so she abstained from the great Southern vice of ancestor worship.

Now, walking through the grounds of Immaculata with Diddy, she tried to be cheerful.

“We’ve built another dormitory since last you were here.”

“Wonderful,” Louise cooed.

“We try to keep some rigor in their lives—after all, life is filled with tests.” Diddy’s strong features balanced her fair coloring. She resembled a Van Dusen more than a Chalfonte.

“Do you ever get tired of it here?” Juts blurted out.

Diddy stopped by the sundial in the middle of the central quad. “No, I’ll carry on Mother’s great work.”

“Your mother was a saint.”

Juts fought back a smirk as Louise drenched Diddy in praise about her departed mother, herself, and Immaculata. By the time Juts got back in the car her facial muscles ached from the strain of false smiles.

Louise crowed over her victory.

“—at the mere mention of godless people, Carlotta quivered. But it’s true, you know.”

“What’s true?”

“Julia Ellen, you haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”

“Yes, I have. You talked about the British and the Germans fighting in North Africa. It was North Africa, wasn’t it?”

“Don’t you read the newspaper?”

“I read the sports page from cover to cover. The Orioles are going to be great this year.”

“Juts, no one cares about a minor-league team but you. The Orioles are small beans and the International League is teeninetsy.”

“Baseball is baseball!”

“Well, as I was saying, I brought up the sale of her stock and told her flat out that Celeste sent me over, knowing how I care about these important moral concerns.”

“Ha.”

“I do so care—anyway, I told her that bad as the world is right now, it will be far worse if the Communists sit back and let Germany defeat everyone, then come in and beat a weary Germany on their way to mopping up all of Europe. They don’t believe in God. They believe everything is about money.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Julia!”

“All right, all right. Good job. Celeste will be grateful.”

“A year’s rent!”

Juts brightened. “How about a striped awning outside. Red and white.”

“Green and white.”

“That’ll look like a grocery store. We have to be more colorful and we can’t give Junior anything to carp about. She’ll have to make it up—know what I mean?”

“Well—”

“Red and white.”

“Red and white,” Louise agreed.

Juts watched clouds, a deeper gray, rolling in from the west. “Louise, I’m real proud of you. I couldn’t have talked to Diddy. I can’t even talk to my husband.”

“Oh, that will pass. What you need is a baby.”

“It’s not like I haven’t been trying. He won’t go to the doctor. I even told him that I’ve gone and I’m okay.”

The first raindrop splattering on the windshield forced Louise to slow down. “I hate to drive in the rain.”

“That makes two of us when you’re behind the wheel. Why don’t you let me drive?”

“I told you, Pearlie would die or kill me. The only reason I got the car today was that he wants to stay on the good side of Her Highness.”

“He’s no fool. Hey, Wheezer, pull in at that Esso station, will you? I need a Co-Cola.”

As Juts pulled two cold bottles out of the big red cooler, Louise watched as the raindrops splashed, mixed in with light sleet.

“Now I’ll have to wash and wax the car.”

“Men love their cars more than they love us.”

“Pearlie says the car is more dependable and doesn’t throw dinner plates at him.”

Juts popped the cap off the bottle. The metal cap fell down in the slot with a click. She handed the bottle to her sister.

“I’m taking Celeste’s money to Barnhart’s tomorrow morning. How about if you meet me at the store at nine?”

“Good by me.”

They clambered back into the car, the rain and sleet beating down in gray sheets.

Juts piped up. “Let’s wait until this blows over. Anyway, I want some peanuts.”

“You can’t eat them in the car. One little shell and my husband will skin me alive.”

“All right. All right.” Juts slammed the door, dashing for the little office.

She brought roasted peanuts and two more Cokes to Louise, who got out of the car. Cold, they huddled under the overhang, eating and drinking.

“Damn, it’s getting nasty,” Juts complained. “Ever notice how spring gets your hopes up and then whammo, you’re back down on the floor? Kinda like my Orioles. I’m going to buy a true baseball cap this year.”

“You get fat by talking and thin by swinging a bat. That’s what Aimes used to say.”

Juts brushed off her hands, the salt falling down like tiny sparkles. “Can’t wait for late summer when I get boiled peanuts. Is there anything better than that?”

“Momma’s fried chicken.”

“Hmm.” Juts took a hop-step to the car. “Funny what you remember.
Aimes did say that, didn’t he? I remember him saying, ‘What you don’t have in your hand, you can’t hold.’”

They rode back to Runnymede. Juts was unusually silent.

“Are you worried?”

“About what?”

Louise replied, “About going into business. There’s a lot to do.”

“No.”

“It’s not like you to be quiet. You’re getting to be like a light-bulb, Julia, you switch on and off these days.”

“My mind wanders.” She shifted her weight. “I don’t know. I have a funny feeling.”

“Like someone’s going to die?” Louise imagined disaster in large portions.

“No.”

“Have you seen any blackbirds pecking at your window?”

“For a Catholic you sure do set store by signs.”

“I do not, but everyone knows a blackbird pecking at your window means someone’s going to die, and soon.”

“No, I don’t think anyone is going to die. No.”

“Did you skip your monthly?” Louise’s voice rose hopefully.

“Nah. And will you stop pushing me.”

“I’m not pushing you.” Louise inhaled and her voice lowered into the important-information register. “But I know that no woman is truly complete and happy until she has children.”

“Mary and Maizie make you jump for joy.”

Louise pooh-poohed that sarcastic comment. “Growing pains. They’ll grow up. We did.”

“I wonder. Sometimes I think no one grows up, we just grow old.”

“Women grow up, we have to.” She slowed as she neared Julia’s small house with its neatly trimmed hedges. “Maybe you’re tired. I feel edgy when I’m tired.”

“No, I’m not tired. Not after two Co-Colas. I just have a
funny feeling. Like life is going to throw me a curveball.” She paused a moment, then pulled herself back up with a big smile. “That’s why I need that Orioles cap.”

R
ambunctious lived up to his name. By the time Celeste returned to the stables from what was to have been a relaxing hack, she was exhausted, out of sorts, and wondering if age was creeping up on her. If she heard the phrase “still beautiful” one more time, she thought she’d scream. A biting wind out of the north lashed her face. Her cheeks glowed rosy and moist.

“How was he, Miz Chalfonte?” asked O. B. Huffstetler, Popeye’s brother.

“Naughty. You know how he can get when he wants to see if you’re asleep at the wheel.”

O.B. laughed. “Time for a come-to-Jesus meeting?”

“I’ll give him a day to think about it. If he’s bad tomorrow then I expect I’ll have to remind him of his manners.” She slumped in a chair in the tack room as O.B. untacked Rambunctious, now an angel. She called out, “When’s your wife due?”

“Another six weeks or so. Starting to tell on her.”

“I should wonder.” She used the old phrase that was actually a form of agreement. “You’ll be a good father.”