Runny03 - Loose Lips (6 page)

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“You know, your brother is in deep trouble with the Hunsenmeir sisters.”

“I told him last night that he better write something good about them real soon or his goose will be cooked.”

“Cooked, he’ll be pate.”

“Ma’am?”

“He’ll be cooked, then ground up into little pieces.”

“Oo-whee.” O.B. shook his head.

“I have an idea that might help him.” O.B. stopped brushing Rambunctious and looked over the horse’s withers as she continued.

“You know the girls are opening a beauty salon in Barnhart’s old shoe-repair shop. Maybe on the day they open their doors for business, Popeye could write a story. Any new business is worthy of the
Clarion’s
attention, after all.”

“Wish I was as smart as you, Miz Chalfonte.”

“That’s very kind of you, O.B., but you know more about horses than I could if I had three lifetimes to learn. There are many different kinds of smart.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Doesn’t it surprise you that you and Popeye are from the same family? You’re so different.”

He started brushing again. “Popeye always thought he was better than the rest of us. Going to the University of Maryland put the cherry on it.”

“For Carlotta it was her summer in Rome in nineteen hundred and three. She saw one too many cardinals in a red dress. I think if you can get along with your family you can probably get along with anybody.”

“You got a point there.” He paused. “My brother better do something fast. He’s twenty-five and can’t find a girl to please him. I never saw such a picky man.”

“Miss Chalfonte.” A voice called from the end of the stable where the big doors were open.

“I’m in the tack room.” Celeste recognized Rillma Ryan’s voice.

Rillma greeted O.B. as she passed, then bounced into the oak-paneled room. “Thank you so much.”

“For what?”

“For getting me the job in Washington.”

Celeste noticed how soft Rillma’s brown eyes were, how glossy her black hair, her lips perfectly shaped. She’d known Rillma was pretty, but somehow in the last few weeks she had matured into a beautiful woman, or maybe Celeste was just now noticing.

“I’m glad you can go. It’s a wonderful opportunity. And you’ll be a big help to Francis. He’s like all Chalfontes, a strategist, not a tactician. I know you’ll take care of the details in his office.”

“If there’s anything I can ever do for you, Miss Chalfonte, please tell me. I’ll do anything, you know.” Rillma exuded excitement.

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

“Well, I’ve got to race back and pack up.”

“When do you leave?”

“Monday.”

“Ah, then you do have a lot to do.”

Impulsively, Rillma kissed Celeste on the cheek, then dashed out again as breathlessly as she had arrived.

As she watched the beautiful girl reach the open doors, her youthful figure surrounded by a burst of light, Celeste felt a catch at her heart and wondered if she’d made a dreadful mistake.

C
hester Smith was foot-weary from the dance of politeness. Walter Falkenroth, Chessy’s biggest customer while his new house was being built, was not an unkind man, but when he said “Jump” he expected Chessy to reply “How high?” If Chessy hoped to find some peace in his mother’s kitchen, though, he was doomed to disappointment.

Chessy’s mother and his wife cordially detested each other and had done so since he and Juts began dating. Their wedding day saw all their friends at the service but not Mother Smith, who feigned illness. Keeping both women happy, or at least away from each other’s throats, took elegant sidestepping.

Mother Smith, built like a credenza, scrubbed her sink as she lambasted him.

“—by the nose.”

“Now, Mother.”

“She does, she leads you around by the nose. The rest of the family will be here and you should be here, too.”

“We go through this every year.” He sat on the floor, his legs straight out as he leaned back to fix a hinge on a low cabinet door to the right of the sink.

“Your place is with me. Not with those Hunsenmeirs. They’re not our kind of people. She can go to her people, you can come home.” When her son did not reply she continued. “You
married beneath you, Chester.” She sighed an artful sigh. “Those things happen, but you don’t need to keep company with them. You belong here on Easter Sunday with your brothers. Oh, Uncle Will is coming up from Richmond and Uncle Lou is taking the train in from Harrisburg.”

With a grunt, Chessy tightened a screw, the powerful muscles on his forearm also tightening with each turn. “Mother, Christmas dinner here, Easter dinner there. Let’s not fuss.”

“I’m not fussing. I’m trying to get you to see the light.” She turned off the water after wringing out her dishrag. “In order to rise in this world, one must mix with the right people.”

“I’m doing okay.”

“You could do better.”

“I like what I do.”

“You’re the eldest, Chester. You should set an example. Joseph received another promotion.” She paused and before she could say “at Bulova Watch,” where Joseph worked, her son quietly interrupted.

“I’m not as smart as Joseph and I’m not as ambitious as Sanford.” Chester carefully did not use his brothers’ nicknames in front of his mother, who thought them common. “I get along.”

Rupert Smith, a big, broad-chested man like Chester, opened the back door. “Hello, Son.”

“Hi, Dad.”

“Chester, don’t use slang in my presence.”

Rupert placed the folded newspaper he carried under his arm on the table as though it were fine china. “I’m ready for a cold beer. Will you join me?”

“Sure.”

“If you two are going to drink spirits, then you go out on the back porch. I don’t want anyone coming in the house and—”

“Jo, we’re going to drink our beer right here in the kitchen.”

She slapped down a wooden spoon. “Then you can fetch it yourself.”

Rupert crossed over to the tiny wooden icebox with the ice compartment on the top and pulled out a long-necked brown bottle of good Pennsylvania beer. He handed one to Chester, then opened his own beer and the paper. Rupert’s idea of visiting was to read the headlines out loud.

“Says here a man was arrested in Hagerstown for posing as a financier from New York City.”

“Rupert,” Jo cut in, “tell your son to come to Easter dinner.”

“I expect he knows that, dear.”

Exasperated, she stormed out of the kitchen. “You men always stick together.”

Rupert ignored her and read another headline. “‘Nevada lashed by storms.’” He read in silence. “Out there two inches of rainfall is a flood. I’d like to see the West.”

“Me, too.” Chester drained his bottle. He needed to head home. “Dad, I’ve got to get back.”

“Oh.” Rup glanced up from his paper. “Why don’t you try and stop by after church on Easter. It will make life easier here.”

Chester felt a wash of battery acid in his stomach. “Dad, it’s not that simple.”

Rupert said nothing, returning to his paper. Chester washed out his beer bottle, dropping it in the garbage can under the sink. He walked down the hall to say good-bye to his mother, who was polishing the big mahogany dinner table.

“Bye, Mother.”

Focusing on her task, she growled, “You could make an exception just once. After all, this may be the last time we’re together. You know Lou’s not been well.”

This was too familiar a ploy for Chester to rise to the bait. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“When you have children we
will
refashion our holiday schedule.”

“It’s been a long, dry spell.” He smiled tightly. None of his brothers had children, either.

“You have all married barren women.”

“Maybe it’s us.”

Sharply she said, “Oh, no, it isn’t. Our people have never had that problem, not your father’s people.” She shook her head. “It’s the wives.”

“If I don’t get by Sunday, you have a happy Easter, Mother.”

He left by the back door. Without a word, she continued polishing. His father kept his nose in the paper.

Chessy opened his own back door a half hour after he said he’d be home.

Juts, wearing her apron with flowers on it, greeted him. “You’re late, goddammit, and I burned the liver.”

“I stopped by Mother’s.”

“That battle-ax kept you just to spite me.”

Chester kissed Juts on the cheek, removed his coat, then washed his hands. “Be ready in a jiffy.”

She called after, “Was she on the warpath about Easter dinner?”

“I don’t know, honey, it goes in one ear and out the other. You know I don’t pay any attention to her.”

But he did. Chester paid attention to everybody, and sooner or later his silence would become an unbearable burden.

S
urely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows: He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.’”

“‘All we like sheep have gone astray: and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.’”

As Pastor Neely read the introit for Good Friday, Juts, smartly turned out in subdued colors, veil over her face, automatically read the responses. The liturgy appealed to her; she knew it by heart for the entire ecclesiastical calendar.

She shared a hymnal with her mother but her mind wandered even as her lips carried the correct, dolorous response. “‘Hear my prayer, O Lord: and let my cry come to thee.’”

Juts was counting names in the congregation, mostly women. The men didn’t or couldn’t take off work today, but she knew that every lady sitting in sad repose would dutifully drag her husband to Easter service. A sick person would be carried in on a stretcher. No one missed Easter service.

She numbered three Elizabeths, two Katherines, and one Kitty. One Mildred, one Florence, her age. Then it struck her that names tag a generation. Not the classic names, but the Mildreds, the Myrtles, the Roses.

She wondered what she would name a daughter. Certainly
she didn’t want to copy anyone around her. She discounted Dorothy because the Maupins had named their tiny baby Dorothy and that child strongly resembled a ferret. Dora sounded like a fat whale, Eleanor like a priss, and Bernice was the name of a girl who ought to grow up to work in a millinery shop. None of those would do. Bonnie was too bouncy, Lucille a touch old-fashioned for this new generation. Margaret wasn’t too bad, but Juts didn’t want to be classic, she wanted to be original.

Of course, if she ever bore a son, that would be easy: Chester junior.

Before she could further muse on this subject, great velvet curtains were drawn over the stained-glass windows—the altar and pulpit already being draped in black velvet—all lights were extinguished, and a chilling silence fell over the worshiping women. It was three o’clock, the hour at which Jesus surrendered His spirit to His father.

Julia Ellen, not overfond of the Old Testament, or even some parts of the New, wondered why the fathers were so cruel, starting with God. Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son. Moses cared not a whit for his own. Nothing good really happened until the New Testament. At least those stories didn’t scare her when she was a child, although Good Friday gave her the creeps. Sacrifice held no appeal for Juts, even one made nineteen hundred years ago.

When the organ gave a rumble, the curtains opened, and she breathed relief. She was even happier when the service ended. She and Cora filed down the aisle to shake Pastor Neely’s hand as he stood at the door to the vestibule to greet them.

Once out on the sidewalk of the square, the temperature in the mid-fifties, she looked for Louise, emerging from St. Rose of Lima’s.

“There she is.”

And there she was, swathed in black with deep purple
highlights, her veil shimmering over her face, tiny little squares embroidered into the mesh.

“Mother.” Louise walked across the square, glanced around, and said sarcastically, “Junior McGrail ignored me. In church. That’s a good Christian.”

“Pig fat and bone idle, that one,” Juts said.

“Where are the girls?” Cora inquired.

Louise turned around just as Maizie skipped down the steps, forgetting the solemnity of the occasion.