AT THE HAMBURGER STAND I DAWDLED MUCH TOO LONG, listening to the girls prattle and watching them familiarize themselves with the wonders of my car, while Jean listlessly munched her way through a footlong hot dog.
“The good thing about having one like Belinda is that when you don’t feel like talking you don’t have to worry,” Jean said, staring at Belinda as if she were something rare and curious, like a Fabergé egg.
“I’ll talk,” Belinda said, quickly.
“That’s why I don’t have to worry,” Jean said. “You’ll talk.”
“She talks like a faucet,” Beverly said. Then she pretended to be turning off a faucet, not looking at her sister while she did it.
Belinda gave her a cool look, then carefully selected a French fry, wobbled it around in the ketchup for a bit, and fed it to me.
“Not enough ketchup,” she said blandly, ignoring her mother’s and her sister’s veiled criticisms.
“You don’t have to feed him,” Beverly observed. Belinda had positioned herself comfortably on the soft velour divider between my front seats, assuring that she and only she had free access to me.
Belinda wobbled another French fry in the ketchup, and ignored the comment. It was plain that Jean and Beverly relied heavily on irony in their dealings with her. It may have represented their only chance, but it didn’t work. Irony means little to a natural winner.
Belinda looked at her sister, calmly turned an imaginary faucet back on, and went on with her prattle, giving me a pat or a French fry or a big smile from time to time, to keep me under control.
“Thanks,” Jean said, when we got back. “I don’t know why I ate that hot dog.” She opened her door and got out, followed by Beverly.
“I still didn’t get to see your antiques,” I said.
Jean looked about to cry. “Oh well,” she said. “It’s just an excuse.”
“What’s an excuse?”
“My store,” she said. “It allows me to pretend I know how to do something. Who would come here to buy an antique?”
“Me,” I said.
She shrugged. “Yeah, but you’re crazy,” she said, peeping in at Belinda, who was waiting impatiently for the adult talk to be over.
“Coming with us?” Jean asked.
Belinda shook her head.
“He can take us home,” she said. “Because it’s not far.”
“Maybe he has something better to do,” Jean suggested.
Belinda thought it over, assuming a seductive look. Then she blew her mother a fine kiss.
“I think I’ll just go with him,” she said. “He can take me home.”
“Get out of that car!” Jean yelled, suddenly. A good deal of rage, none of it really directed at Belinda, poured out with the yell.
Belinda hesitated for a moment, evidently contemplating a face-off. She read the impersonal nature of the rage as easily as I had. Then she thought better of it and turned and gave me a hug.
While we were hugging she put her hot little mouth in the vicinity of my ear.
“I want you to come back tomorrow,” she whispered.
Then she popped a hand over my mouth, to keep me from making a reply.
“Can’t I even ask why?” I asked, through her fingers.
Belinda glanced at her impersonally furious mother, then whispered the reason.
“So you can take us to Bask’n Roberts.”
“You mean Baskin-Robbins, don’t you?”
Belinda looked exasperated. She plainly didn’t welcome quibbles at such a time.
“Jist do it,” she said, and hopped out.