Twenty-five

“Did you hear what happened in the game with Tupperville?” Drew said as we left school. The door banged shut behind us. “We were counting on Big Bob and his hitting was off. We barely pulled it out.”

“Tough,” I said automatically. I was thinking about Cary. Since we’d told each other about our parents, something had changed between us. Not on the surface, but underneath there was something that hadn’t been there before: a tension and, at the same time, a new kind of tenderness for each other.

“Drew!” Joanie Casson came running up. She and Drew had been going together again for the past week. “Drew, I’ve been waiting for you by the office. You were supposed to meet me so we could go down to the museum and check out my stuff. Hi, Pete,” she added. Joanie had taken Best of Show in the All-County Student Art Exhibition.

“We didn’t say we were going today,” Drew said.

“Drew, today is the last day. You promised me. The other day you said definitely you’d go with me.”

A blue car pulled up on the road below the slope of the lawn. A man got out and looked around, shading his eyes. It was Frank Miner. I wanted to run, anywhere, any way, any direction, but I kept on walking down the path, straight toward him.

“I told Mom I’d help her out in the store this afternoon,” Drew was saying. “I’m sorry, Joanie, the other thing must have slipped my mind—”

“The other thing? You know what, Drew? You’re a real hypocrite. You want me to come to all your games and jump around and cheer for my hero, but when it comes to me—to something that’s important to me—it slips your mind. You keep telling me you love me and then you do things that really hurt. She pulled his ring off her finger. “Here. Take it! I’m not even going to bother throwing it at you this time. And don’t think it’s just because of the museum. I heard about you being over to Kathy Ransome’s house Sunday night. I guess that slipped your mind too.”

“We just, we just, we didn’t do that much—”

She pushed the ring into his pocket. “Oh, I know, Drew. I’ve heard it before. We keep having this same conversation, and I’m really bored with it.” She walked away.

Drew stood still for a moment, then went after her. And as if that were his cue, Frank Miner hailed me. “Pete.” He strolled toward me, his hand out. “Got a minute? This won’t take long.” He gripped my arm and we walked back to the car.

Jay Beckman was behind the wheel. “Get in, we want to talk to you.”

“What do you want? I don’t know anything.”

“Look, don’t give us a hard time.”

“I’m not getting in the car.”

Beckman’s eyes went over me. “You really are a little pain in the—”

“Drop it, Jay,” Frank Miner said.

“This kid gets on my nerves, Frank. We’ve been waiting for him. He knew we were here, he saw us, and he just took his sweet A time. Is this going to be just like the first time? No cooperation? Connors, get in.”

“Jay, I’m telling you—leave the boy alone.”

The dialogue between the two of them was as neat as a TV show. Good cop, bad cop. I knew it, but I was unable to curb a rush of gratitude toward Frank Miner for defending me. “Pete,” he said, “I just want to ask you a few questions.” He looked directly into my eyes. “Have you heard from the folks recently?”

“No.”

“So it’s been a pretty long stretch this time?”

“I don’t hear from them.”

“No, don’t tell me that. They keep in touch. Sure they do. Their own son? What do you do, go out to get their phone calls?”

“They don’t call me.” I rubbed my lips. Numb.

“Aw, come on. They phone you and they write to you too. They love you, you’re their only son.”

“I told you,” Beckman exclaimed, tapping the steering wheel, “you crap around with this kid and—”

Frank Miner pressed my arm. “Look, Pete, I want to propose something important to you. We want to talk to your people, just speak to them for a while. None of us was born yesterday. I’m not coming around here asking for the impossible. I’m thinking of a phone conversation between me and your pop or your mom. Just a chat, nothing else. What do you think? Can you set it up for us? No strings. You tell them I guarantee that, just a conversation. We’ve got a proposal to make to them. We’ve got something to say that should interest them—and you too. You’d like to see your parents home, wouldn’t you?”

I tightened my lips and looked past his shoulder.

“Well, think about it,” he said. “It sounds like a good deal to me. You can help your parents and us and yourself. Three birds with one stone. After we talk to them, talk some business, I have a hunch they might just decide what the hell, why not come back? It’s time.”

He lit a cigarette. “No, really, Pete, I’d like to think I had a hand in bringing you and your parents together again. That would give me total satisfaction. Because I like you, I really admire you. I’ve been thinking about how hard these years must have been for you. No parents. Not using your right name. Nobody knowing about you, who you really are—I mean, that is tough. Really, really tough.”

Beckman rolled up the window, then rolled it down. “Are you through crapping around with this kid yet, Frank?”

The other man threw me an apologetic glance. “Okay, okay, we can talk about this next time. Let me give you a ride home, anyway. No, don’t shake your head, Pete. It’s just a ride, we’re not going to kidnap you!” He smiled. “I won’t even talk business, okay?”

It was not okay, but, unresistingly, I climbed into the back of the car. Frank Miner got in next to me. “Home, James.” He winked conspiratorially at me. We rode almost all the way in silence. Only once, he said, “Is that straight, that you don’t get phone calls from your folks?”

“Yes. Turn here.”

“I know where your house is,” Jay Beckman said.

The next day I met Cary at her school and we walked downtown together. She had some shopping to do. Somehow, we got on the subject of my uncle. “I like your uncle a lot,” Cary said. “A whole lot. He’s a special person.”

“You only met him once, how would you know that?”

“I told you, I make up my mind about people really fast.”

“Mmm.” My mind was on the agents. Why hadn’t I told Gene? I felt vague, as if there was a curtain between me and the world. I was here, walking along with Cary, but I wasn’t really here, at all.

“Do you think he’ll ever get married?”

“What?”

“Your uncle, Pete! Do you think he’ll ever get married?”

“I don’t know, Cary.”

“He’s very good-looking for an older man. Doesn’t his girlfriend want to get married?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’d like to get married someday and have children, but it worries me that I might not be a good mother.”

“Sure you’d be a good mother,” I said automatically.

“What if not loving your kids is hereditary?”

“You mean your mother? She was a sick person.”

“A druggie! You’re always making things sound nicer.”

I blew out my breath, sighed, then heard myself sighing, big dramatic, Gene-type sighs, but I couldn’t stop. “Are we fighting, Cary? I don’t want to fight with you.” Maybe I sounded desperate. I had a feeling of everything falling apart, falling in, caving in. “I don’t want to fight with you!”

“Pete.” She peered into my face. “Hey, what’s the matter?”

“Sorry, I just—”

“I don’t want to fight with you either. It’s awful when friends fight.”

We held hands and it was okay again.

Later, we stopped in to see Martha. “What a neat surprise,” Martha said. “This has been a dog of a day, I needed a surprise. Would you believe, not one customer all day?”

“What are all these hats for?” Cary said, examining Martha’s wooden tree.

“I’m never sure if it’s because I love hats or because it really does make a more interesting picture to put a hat on someone.” She put a wide straw hat on Cary’s head. “Look in that mirror and you’ll see what I mean.”

Cary tipped the hat back a little. It had a broad red ribbon hanging down in back.

“Sit down, let me do you just like that,” Martha said.

“I don’t know,” Cary said hesitantly. “How much is it?”

“No, no, nothing.” Martha picked up her charcoal stick.

Cary looked scared. “Hey, relax,” I said, “it’s not like going to the dentist.”

“I just never—nobody ever painted me before.” She sat down on the stool.

“It’s not a painting, hon,” Martha said. “Just a little character sketch.” She sat down in front of her easel. “I love your forehead … yes, stay just like that, that look—that graveness—”

Cary sat with her hands folded in her lap. I stood to one side of Martha while she worked, watching her magic, watching Cary appearing between the charcoal and the paper.

That night, I waited up for Gene to come home from play rehearsal. I must have fallen asleep at the dining room table. I dreamed about the two agents. In the dream, they were themselves, but they were also squat bulldogs, snapping and nipping at my legs. I woke up with a start, groggy, my stomach lurching.

It was almost midnight before Gene came in. “Pete!” His face was flushed. He threw his tattered playscript down on the table. “Listen to this. I’m going to play Lord Fancourt. Harvey Lewis has missed the last three rehearsals.”

I pushed the playscript away. “Gene, those two guys showed up again. Yesterday, right after school. I was with Drew—”

“The agents?” My uncle sat down abruptly. “What did they want this time? Drew was with you? That’s not so good.”

“He didn’t notice anything. He’s got crazies with his girl friend. They’re after me to set up a phone call with Laura or Hal. Gene, I got in their car. What’s the matter with me?” I pounded my fist on the table. “They want me to help put my mother and father in jail and I let them drive me home.” I jumped up and ran into the kitchen. Gene followed me.

“Take it easy, I’m sure you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I got into their bloody car, Gene! If only I could let Laura and Hal know that they’ve found me.” I pulled aside the curtain at the kitchen window. It was a dark cloudy night. “I don’t know … Maybe I ought to go away.”

“What do you mean, away?” Gene said.

“Away. Away. Disappear. It might be better for everyone. Laura and Hal, you. I was thinking—next, maybe, they’re going to start on you. But if I left … I’ll go live someplace else, another city …”

I stayed at the window, staring out into the darkness, listening to the sounds of my uncle fixing a cup of tea for himself … the water pouring into the pot, the clink of spoon against china. I thought about being alone in a strange city … walking down long, empty streets … looking for someplace to live … never seeing Cary again, or Gene, or Martha …

“Pete.” My uncle gripped my shoulder. “I want you to give me your word that you won’t do anything foolish.” The warmth of his hand soaked through my skin. “Promise me, Pete.”

I nodded. I couldn’t speak. The tears were in my throat.