The Celebrity (7 page)

Gerald nodded. “I suppose it would,” he said.

“They’ll hear about it on the radio in a few days, anyway, or read it in a newspaper. Anyway, they’ll hear it somehow and then they’ll think, Why those two knew it all the time and didn’t go shouting from the housetops.”

“It would be better that way.”

“A lot,” she said. “Because your friends are always a
little
upset if one of your children gets rich and famous.”

How wise she is, Gerald thought; she looks like a perfectly ordinary person, but her intelligence is often astonishing. Well, intuition then; her intuition is often astonishing. She understands human nature so well and she has more self-control than I have. I’d have blatted to the first customer that came into the store.

He looked at her admiringly. She was in her old flannel bathrobe, but she never looked sloppy, even in the early morning. Her white hair was cut short and it curled over her head like a child’s. Her blue eyes had the odd three-cornered shape that Thornton alone, of all the children, had inherited, and though she had slept even less than he had, they were clear and rested. She was just plump enough so that her cheeks were round and firm; compared to her he must look all skin and bones. Some people filled out and expanded in flesh as they grew old; others seemed to shrink into themselves and get wizened. He was a shrinker.

“I can’t imagine getting upset if one of the Heston boys got rich and—” He broke off and then said, “But you’re probably right. I won’t say a word.”

He finished his coffee and put his palms on the table. Pushing down on them, he rose to his feet. His knees felt like cement. It would be good to go back to bed, but he never felt comfortable letting Hiram run things alone all day, filling prescriptions as well as managing the counters. He sighed and started for the stairs.

In the bedroom, he slowly drew on the socks Geraldine had remembered to lay out, along with fresh underwear and a shirt, before getting into bed last night.

Last night? This morning; less than five hours ago. He should have made her turn the light out much earlier, but he had felt as much like talking as she had. At Thorny’s, with everybody around, neither of them had said much; they never did any more when they were with young people, even with their own children. Once you were close to seventy, you knew that everything you said sounded pokey or silly, except to other people of seventy; and more and more you kept things to yourself. Even Geraldine hadn’t said much until they had left the party; then she had started and not once during the whole drive home had she stopped.

If Geraldine had any serious fault, that was it. That not-stopping, that need to tell him every tiny thought she had about every single thing, from the reasons she had decided to paint the kitchen or top a cake with a new kind of icing, to the reasons she felt wonderful that this great success had come to Gregory instead of to Thornton or one of the girls.

Well, at least this wasn’t paint or icing; this was enough to make anybody want to talk forever. Gregory, of all the children! There was always something strange and special about that long string bean of a boy, but who in his senses would ever have thought he could turn into a famous author? He suddenly remembered the day Gregory had gone off alone to see the editor—he was fourteen and had never traveled on a train by himself. He hadn’t opened his mouth about his plans but he left a note so they wouldn’t worry. “Gone to New York, back soon,” it had said, or something equally laconic. They
had
worried; the boy was so immature and impractical compared to the way Thorny had been at fourteen. Why, even at ten, Thorny had a paper route that took him three miles from the house every afternoon; by eleven, he was earning two dollars a week mowing neighbors’ lawns; at thirteen, he was regularly employed every Saturday as delivery boy for the store. But at ten Gregory showed not a spark of ambition or gumption; he kept his nose forever in a book, and if you asked him to phone anybody, he would freeze with shyness.

Maybe Geraldine and he hadn’t been clever about bringing Gregory up. It was so much easier and quicker to send Thorny to the phone, to tell Thorny to water the lawn, to get Thorny to hammer in a nail. It was a real shock when Gregory came jauntily back from New York that day and said, “I’m going to write school news for the
Sun.
I saw the school page editor and I’m the correspondent for Freeton High.” A boy who had never written anything except bits for the school magazine, having the nerve to tell newspaper editors what he wanted! He never earned more than fifty or sixty cents a week for the items he sent the
Sun
about class elections and Arista and the S.O.—what had S.O. stood for?—but he was prouder of being “on a real newspaper” than if he’d been captain of half the school teams like Thorn. Maybe that alone should have tipped them off that someday he’d be a big author. Student Organization, that’s what it was, and Thorn had been president of it in his last year, while Gregory had never been elected to anything.

Gerald shook his head, and consulted his watch. It was much too early to go downtown, but he could Start on the Squibb cartons that came yesterday. And, behind the locked doors, alone, he would be able to think everything out. He finished dressing quickly. The store was a good place any time. He was proud of the Johns Pharmacy, especially now that it was the only independent drugstore left in Freeton. He didn’t care how many Liggetts and Rexalls and Walgreens opened up on Main Street, there still would be folks who preferred getting their drugs and cosmetics and sodas in a store that was the lifework of somebody who had belonged to the town for over forty years. They never could have that same confidence, or even affection, for a salaried manager of a unit in a big chain.

His father had owned a pharmacy before him, and his only ambition, as a boy, had been to own one too. From the moment he had married, he had never loved any human creatures except Geraldine and the children, but the store was the other half of his nature and he always went to it with an eagerness that was like love. Once inside, looking out at the world through the plate-glass window, he was undisputed master of everything, challenged by nobody. It was a kingly feeling and he would never be truly old as long as he had it.

Mysterious vitality, coursing through Geraldine’s nervous system, reduced the burden of her housework to the merest chore, and by nine, she had swept and dusted and made beds and washed dishes, had sprinkled and rolled up yesterday’s wash, had made the chocolate nut pudding which would be dessert for supper, had dressed for the street and started down the path to the front gate. She left the house as hurriedly as if she were late for an appointment. Then she paused uncertainly. Nothing was ahead but the marketing.

It was mild for January, but the wind was blowing in steadily from the bay and she shivered. Across the street, Amy Persall, wearing only a gingham house-dress without even a sweater over it, was briskly sweeping the steps of the porch. Gazing vacantly at Amy’s back, Geraldine thought, That’s what it is to be young—she can’t be more than a couple of years older than Gregory, and how surprised she would be if she knew that he had just made a fortune! Geraldine stared at Amy thoughtfully.

The broom made a pleasing swish-swish-swish across the dry planks of the steps. If she were to go across and tell Amy, her broom would drop, her mouth fall open, and her eyes start from her head. Geraldine smiled and remembered her own wisdom at the breakfast table. She promptly opened the gate and turned left. At the click of the latch, Amy looked around and called, “Hello, there.”

“Morning, Amy.”

Amy’s broom came to an expectant standstill, but Geraldine only said, “My marketing,” and went right on. She had said she wouldn’t and told Gerald he mustn’t and that was that.

Suddenly she felt tired. At the corner, the wind flung itself upon her and she shivered again. She had been casual about Gerald’s talk of a nap, but now she wondered whether excitement
could
support you very long after so little sleep. If you were young, yes; but not if you were growing old. Her blood seemed lukewarm, her bones huddled together. She walked more slowly.

She turned into Main Street, already crowded and bustling though it was still early. Cars honked irritated horns, people went by with blank eyes, even the traffic cop was a stranger. Freeton was growing old too. When Gerald and she had first moved out here, a year after Thorny’s birth, it was scarcely more than a village, with meadows and fields just back of the houses and stores, with sandy gravel roads that had to be tarred each summer, and with so few families you knew everybody. The Long Island Rail Road station was a long wooden platform instead of the concrete and brick slab it had become and there was only a two-story grade school. When boys and girls were ready for High, they had to go to Mineola or Jamaica, and the first talk of building a big high school right in town had seemed like the talk of radicals. And yet, ten years later, when Freeton High was ready, pupils swarmed to it from every direction and it seemed only a matter of months until the building which had seemed so spacious began to be called inadequate. The war had done the usual trick to Freeton’s population. The first war. She always forgot, these days, to specify the number when she said “the war,” but it was that earlier one which would, for her, always remain The War.

Geraldine shook her head, and tried to recapture her earlier mood. Long before there was even a hint of gray in the sky, she had waked with a kind of bubbling-up in her mind. My own child, she had thought again and again, my own son. Gregory. Not Thorn, who had always been successful at everything, in school, in college, in business, but Gregory. The one who had always been—if she had to admit it, which she had never done to one solitary soul all her life—her favorite son. Parents should never have favorites, and among the girls she had none. But from the instant they had put Gregory into her arms nearly forty years ago, so puny, with such a weak little cry—from that moment, something fierce had welled up in her heart. And when Gerald had looked at him and said, “He’s good and long, like his brother was, but no husky bruiser, is he?” she had burst into tears.

Gerald kept right on comparing the two of them, even when Gregory was old enough to understand. She had often gone at Gerald about it, but he was forever getting the two of them to “make a muscle,” talking about Thorny’s husky build and how much he weighed. Thorny would barrel out his chest like a boxer and absolutely shine with conceit while poor skinny Gregory would look on and marvel.

Anyway, it was Thorny’s turn to do a little marveling, now, and
that
was only right. This thought had in it so much—Geraldine hesitated, searching her heart—so much spite that she was shocked. She was being unfair, really, for Thornton was as happy last night as the rest of the family; his delight and excitement had been a beautiful thing to see. You might have thought, watching him, that this great good luck was happening to
him
—

“Deeny, oh, Deeny.”

It was Fanny Heston’s voice, somewhere behind her, and she turned quickly, but couldn’t see anybody. Gerald didn’t like “Deeny” for a nickname but all her close friends went right ahead with it, and Fan was one of her closest. Just then, Fan came in sight, stepping out of the recessed entrance to Smith’s Hardware, and they went toward each other eagerly, both calling out, “Hello, stranger.” This they always regarded as a delectable joke, since no more than three days ever went by between visits. Fan and Jim Heston were the Johnses’ oldest friends and neighbors; even after the Hestons had moved to the outskirts of town, they had never lost touch and presumably never would as long as telephones and cars existed. Fan’s arms were loaded with bundles, but, Geraldine thought, she’s as straight in the back as a woman of fifty.

“You were going to phone me.” Fan stopped short and added, “Deeny, are you sick?”

“Heavens, no.”

“But you look worn out.”

“Why shouldn’t I? I never slept a wink all night.”

“Why not?” Fan immediately set her parcels on the sidewalk, and said urgently, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why couldn’t you sleep a wink?”

“Nothing bad, I meant.”

“Something
good!
What was it?”

Geraldine couldn’t help smiling. Just running into Fan, just chatting idly this way—her spirits had already risen to the level they’d been on before seeing Amy. She was considering this phenomenon of the emotions when Fan said, “Deeny,
what?
”

“I can’t tell you, not just yet.”

“A secret? About what?” Fan moved closer.

“I’ll tell you in a few days.”

“That’s not fair! Teasing me, when we’ve always—”

“I’m not trying to tease you, honestly, Fan.” She was flustered. How on earth had this started? “It’s just something that happened last night and I never closed my eyes. Gerald didn’t either.”

Fanny Heston cried, “What
kind
of thing?”

“Just something about Gregory.” That far she could go but wild horses couldn’t make her go further.

“About Gregory?”

“About his new book.”

“Has it come out?”

“No, but it’s—” She bit her lip and again thought of the breakfast table.

“I won’t tell a soul, if you say not to. You know I won’t.”

Geraldine sought frantically for some skill which might help her deflect this conversation to other matters, but her mind refused her. And Fan was so concerned, so worried-looking. “Promise? Not a word to anybody?” Her own words startled her.

“Promise. Oh, Deeny, come
on.
”

“Well, it’s just earned over a hundred thousand dollars.”

“It what?” Fan almost screamed it.

“It’s just been taken by Best Selling Books, that book club, you know, and they pay over a hundred thousand dollars down and maybe more later on.”

“A hundred thousand—you’re fooling!”

“Remember, you promised—”

“A hundred thousand
dollars
?”

“To start with.”

“Why, he’ll be rich for the rest of his life!”