17

When I called Polly Friday night, her mother said she was running a fever of a hundred and three and couldn’t come.

“I suspect it may be measles,” she told me. “There’s a lot of it around and she’s never had them.”

I said I was sorry. I was. Not only because Polly might have the measles but because that meant I’d have to go see Al’s mother alone.

“You want me to do the wash?” I asked my mother Saturday morning. She looked at me in surprise.

“I hadn’t really thought,” she said. “I haven’t worked my way beyond tonight’s dinner. Why do you ask?”

My mother is the kind of housekeeper who has to do things spontaneously. If she happens to feel like running the vacuum, she runs it. But if she happens to feel like writing a letter or reading a magazine, that comes first.

“Because Al asked me if I’d check in and see if her mother was all right, if she needed anything. She’s worried about her, I guess. I thought if I had to do the wash, then I couldn’t stay too long,” I said.

“Hey,” my mother said, “I like that, the child worrying about the parent. That’s a nice twist. Go check under Teddy’s bed. You’ll strike it rich.”

I went into his room. It smelled. Of quite a few things.

“Get under the bed and bring out whatever you can carry,” I told him. He was halfway under before he realized he was being bossed around. He started to back out, mouth open to moan and carry on. I strategically placed a sharp knitting needle against his rump. I carry this needle around for just such purposes.

“Don’t make any sudden moves,” I told him, “or I may draw blood.”

He crawled back in, muttering and groaning as he worked his way through the old apple cores and orange peels. My mother said she has too many other things to do than to check under our beds for debris. That was our responsibility, she said. My mother is trying to bring Teddy and me up to be responsible citizens. It isn’t easy, as she’ll tell you at the drop of a hat.

I managed to half fill a laundry bag.

“I guess I’ll go over now,” I said.

“That’ll be a nice gesture,” my mother said, lying on the couch reading a book.

“You ought to be the one to go,” I said. “She’s more your age than she is mine.”

“A good point,” my mother said. “Let me read you this. It’s a riot.”

She knows if there’s one thing that drives me bonkers it’s to be read to from a book somebody else likes. I went down the hall to Al’s apartment.

I rang the bell. Maybe she wouldn’t be home. Sometimes she had Saturdays off, sometimes not. If no one answered, I could always say I’d tried.

“Why, hello, dear,” Al’s mother said when she opened the door. She seemed quite glad to see me.

“Come in and have a sandwich.” She didn’t even ask me what I was doing there. She seemed to accept me as a person, not like a friend of her kid’s. Before I knew what I was doing, I was sitting at the kitchen table while she made us both a bologna sandwich. I was relieved to see she used mayonnaise instead of butter, also that she put both mustard and relish on without asking. You can tell all kinds of things about a person by the way she makes a bologna sandwich.

“What fun!” she said. “I was going through our old photograph albums when you came. Now we can do it together. There are lots of pictures of Alexandra when she was a baby, when we lived in California, outside of L.A.”

When Al first came to our apartment house, she told me she had lived in L.A., among other places. I thought she meant Ellay. I told her I never heard of a place called Ellay. She didn’t even laugh at me. I thought that was nice of her.

“I’m filled with nostalgia today,” Al’s mother said. “I guess it’s because Al’s at her father’s wedding.” She looked at her watch. “They must be having the ceremony just about now. I do hope she has a good time. You know, it seems like only yesterday that Al looked like that.” She put a mess of pictures in front of me.

All I can say is, Al was a pretty funny-looking baby. She’s much better-looking now.

“I’ll never forget how I felt when my mother-in-law came to the hospital to see Al,” she went on. “It was her first grandchild. I said, ‘I’m warning you, she isn’t a pretty baby. In fact, she’s funny-looking.’ I guess I wanted her to be prepared. Anyway, when she came back from the nursery, she said, ‘I’m not going to lie to you, she is funny-looking.’”

Al’s mother took our plates and put them in the sink. “And do you know, I cried for a long time after she left. My husband was furious at her, but what could he do? The damage had been done. I’ve never forgotten it.” She smiled at me.

“What a stinky thing to say,” I told her.

“Yes,” she agreed, “it was stinky. She was an extraordinarily tactless woman.”

We settled down to look at the pictures. The doorbell rang and Al’s mother said, “Oh, dear, that’s probably Mr. Lynch. When she opened the door, she said, “Hello, Henry.” She didn’t sound overjoyed to see him. “You know Al’s little friend. We were just looking at some photographs.”

“I thought you might be in need of some company today,” Ole Henry said. “Thought you might be a bit lonely, Al gone and all.”

“That was kind of you,” Al’s mother said. “I might have, but we’ve been having a fine time, talking and looking at these old photographs. There’s nothing like looking at old photographs to bring back memories.”

She went to the kitchen and made him a sandwich. Then the three of us looked at the pictures.

“There’s Al and her father and me in the park. Look at the length of that dress, will you! And the hair! You see that bonnet Al’s wearing? Some old lady knitted it and I didn’t want to offend her, so I put it on Al. It was pink. Her father said she looked like Barney Oldfield in it. He was a racing driver,” she said to me.

We looked at lots more pictures, she and I. Ole Henry got bored. He walked around the room, whistling under his breath.

“Oh, what fun we had in those days,” Al’s mother said. “We did nothing but laugh. Life was marvelous.” She turned the last page and we sat and said nothing.

“There’s nothing like your first love, I guess,” she said quietly. I think she was talking to me.

Ole Henry put his hand on hers.

“Each of my wives has been very dear to me,” he said. “Each dearer than the last.”

Holy Toledo, how many wives had he had? I made a mental note to tell Al to find out.

Just call him Bluebeard Lynch.

“I better get going,” I said. “Thanks for the sandwich.”

“You were sweet to come see me.” Al’s mother walked me to the door. “I enjoyed it more than I can say.”

“Same here,” I said. I meant it.

“I expect Alexandra will be over first thing tomorrow to tell you about the wedding,” she said.

“Tell her I’ll be waiting,” I said.

She shut the door and I pushed the elevator button for down before I realized I didn’t have my laundry bag. I was just reaching to ring her bell again, although I didn’t want to, when the door opened.

“You forgot this,” Al’s mother said.

I said thank you. I’d forgotten my excuse for getting away. I hadn’t needed it, after all.