Boy Toy (6 page)

I was stunned. Pierce was confused. Neil explained, “I believe the morel is a spring mushroom.”

“Mark,” said Thad when he had regained sufficient composure to speak, “morels grow in
May.
You know, ‘May madness’? It’s the morel hunt. They’re the most prized of edible mushrooms, and
everyone’s
after them.”

Barb lectured, “But there are delicious species thriving all year long—well, not in winter, of course. But now, for instance, in deep summer, chanterelles and porcini are bustin’ out all over.” She turned to Thad, “Hey, hot stuff, keep your eyes peeled for black trumpets.”

“The mini-chanterelles?” he asked, taking his field guide from the knapsack.

“Right. I could use maybe a pound for one of my party recipes, a favorite—”

“Now
wait
a minute,” I interrupted, alarmed. “You mean to tell me you’re going to go digging for this stuff in the park, then feed it to a houseful of
guests
?”

“Mark,” Neil shushed me, “Barb’s a hell of a cook, and Thad’s a studious young mycologist—”

“But—”

Thad assured me, “Mr. Gelden’s the best. He’s an expert. He made sure that
everyone
in Fungus Amongus passed their identification-training sessions. I scored a ninety-four!”

Good God, I thought, what about the other six percent?

Neil told me, “Frank is an intelligent, committed teacher. I’m sure his first priority has been to help the kids distinguish between edible and—”

“Hey,” said Barb, as if something had clicked. “Are we talking about Frank
Gelden
—forty years old, kinda geeky?”

We all turned to her. “Well,” I stammered, “he’s a…biologist.”

“I’ll be
damned
,” she said, thumping a palm to her forehead. “Frank and I went to school together, in the same class. God, I haven’t seen him in over twenty years. Still the same old nerdy type, huh?”

Neil, Pierce, and I shared a quick, amused glance. Pierce told her, “No, actually, he’s, uh… he’s a rather attractive man.”

“Sociable too,” I added. “Very pleasant.”

“Frank? This I gotta see. We all used to think he was—”

“You’ll see him Saturday,” Neil told her. “He’ll be at the party. He’s the play’s technical director.”

Pierce told Thad, “Speaking of the play, I hear you’ve got a hit on your hands.”

“I sure hope so, Sheriff. We’ve worked real hard on it.”

Pierce got up from the table. “One last rehearsal tonight?”

“Nope.” Thad stuffed the field guide back into his knapsack, smiling with satisfaction. “Mr. Diggins says we’re ready. He gave us tonight off, to rest up for the opening weekend. It’ll be nice to stay home for a change—but it’ll sure seem strange not being at the theater.”

Pierce joked, “Well, at least Jason Thrush will be out of your hair.”

Thad’s expression visibly soured at the mention of his costar.

Barb told him, “You can help me clean those chanterelles tonight.”

“Yeah,” he said, brightening, hoisting his knapsack. “I’m off to the park.”

“Uh-uh-uh,” Neil reminded him. “You’ve just eaten. What’s next?”

“I know, I know,” said Thad, sounding put-upon but fully accepting the drill. Stepping to the hall that would lead him upstairs to his bathroom, he quoted Neil, “ ‘One must respect one’s instrument.’ ”

Pierce looked at me obliquely. Under his breath, he asked, “Huh?”

I explained, “Theater talk for ‘brush and gargle.’ ”

“Ahhh.”

Neil said, “It may sound silly, but it’s a sensible ounce of prevention. The kids have worked so hard—a sore throat could really screw up the show at this point.”

Thad paused in the hall, considering this. Turning back to us with a cheery grin, he noted, “Jason has had that bad cold for quite a few days now. If it gets any worse, he may not be able to play the lead in tomorrow night’s premiere. How cool would
that
be?”

And he blasted upstairs for the ritual cleansing of his instrument.

B
ECAUSE NEIL’S ARCHITECTURE OFFICE
is located midway between the
Register
and our favorite local restaurant, the First Avenue Grill, I frequently take a noontime stroll along Dumont’s main street, stopping to meet him so we can enjoy lunch together. On Friday, though, he was booked for a long midday meeting out at Quatro Press, the town’s largest industry, which was founded by my late uncle, Thad’s grandfather, Edwin Quatrain. Because I now sit on Quatro’s board of directors, and because the thriving printing plant seems in continual need of expansion, I had no trouble securing for Neil a contract to assist in these matters on a retainer. Though the work has no glamour, Neil takes satisfaction in doing it well. What’s more, the money is good—a “bread-and-butter account,” he calls it—and the retainer has added considerable security to the iffy period of establishing his practice here.

That Friday, I walked alone to the Grill in my shirtsleeves; it was too hot for a jacket, so I had left my sport coat at the office. I tugged the knot of my tie and unbuttoned my collar, allowing an extra quarter inch of breathing room. Folded under one arm were that day’s front sections of both the
Chicago Journal
and the
New York Times
—since I’d be alone at table, I’d use the time to catch up on the
Register
’s “competition.”

Ducking into the shade of the Grill’s storefront awning and opening the door, I felt a rush of air-conditioning welcome me like a hug. Stepping inside the simple but handsome dining room, I paused to button my collar and adjust my tie.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Manning,” said the hostess. “So nice to see you, as always. Your table’s ready, of course.”

“Thank you, Nancy.” Though I’d eaten here nearly every day (some evenings too) since arriving in Dumont, and though the same woman had always greeted me and seated me, I realized that I knew little about her. I knew, for instance, that her name was Nancy Sanderson, that she owned the Grill, and that she had a special love for food, concocting the daily specials, which were always worth trying. Despite this culinary passion, she had a lean build that made her seem tall, but in fact her always perfect hairdo topped out no higher than my eyes. She was older than I, perhaps in her later fifties. Unlike the rest of the staff (most of them buxom Wisconsin women, all uniformed in crisp whites, like nurses of yore), Nancy dressed smartly, but with little pretense of high fashion; that day, she wore a sensible, summery knee-length green skirt with a matching jacket. I had no idea whether she was a Mrs. or a Miss, as the ring on her finger was of ambiguous design. This lack of basic information was due, no doubt, to her reserved manner. Not that she was stiff or cold—in fact she was highly cordial—but the correctness of her bearing and the formality of her inflections kept personal matters at a distance.

Walking me to my usual corner table between the fireplace and the front window overlooking First Avenue, she said, “You might enjoy today’s special, a mock chicken Caesar, nice and crisp, perfect for such a hot day.”

Sitting, I set my newspapers on the far side of the table and draped the large linen napkin over my lap. “Sounds promising. What’s ‘mock’ about it?”

“I made it with succulent strips of chicken mushrooms, lightly sautéed with wine and shallots, which are then added to the traditional Caesar salad, prepared with freshly coddled egg.” With a gentle smile and a slight bow of her head, she added, “If you’ll forgive my immodesty, it’s quite delicious.”

Timidly, I returned her smile. “Chicken mushrooms?”

“I forgot”—she paused for a quiet laugh (which carried a hint of condescension, I felt)—“you’re not
from
here, are you, Mr. Manning? You weren’t brought up with the traditions of mushrooming that are part of our local heritage. The wooded countryside does indeed seem to yield a special bounty here, and generations of Dumonters have delighted in the hunt’s pleasant roving.”

Since she’d gotten off track, I asked again, “Chicken mushrooms?”

“That’s their common name, of course. They’re also known as sulphur shelf, or more correctly,
Laetiporus sulphureus.
Strikingly beautiful, orange-tinted, they grow in overlapping clusters, or ‘shelves,’ along logs or tree trunks. They fruit most abundantly right now, in the deep of summer. I harvested these myself, just this morning. The texture and flavor are remarkably similar to chicken.”

I’d heard the same thing said of rattlesnake, but I assumed Nancy would not appreciate this observation, so I refrained from sharing it. “That sounds wonderful, but I think I’ll take a look at the menu first.”

“Certainly. I’ll send Berta over to take your order in a few minutes. Shall I bring some Lillet while you consider your choice?” She was referring to a pleasant French aperitif stocked at the request of the
Register
’s retired publisher, Barret Logan, also a Grill regular. Since I’d bought his newspaper and taken over his standing lunch reservation, it seemed appropriate to adopt his “usual” as well.

But the hot weather made me wary of alcohol, so I answered, “Thank you, Nancy, not today. Just iced tea, please.”

As she bobbed her head and slipped away, I made a show of opening my menu for careful perusal, but I knew the offerings so well that I didn’t need to read them—I’d have the steak salad and, depending on what was fresh that day, perhaps some berries for dessert.

Setting the menu aside, I reached for the
Chicago Journal
, pushed my chair back a few inches, and began reading the folded paper, resting it against the table’s edge. Skimming the headline story—another Cook County ghost-payroll scandal—I was momentarily drawn into the world of big-city politics that had once consumed my interests but now seemed so remote. With a silent chuckle of surprise, I turned the page, realizing that I didn’t miss my old reporting career at all, not even its high profile or busy pace. There were other rewards to enjoy—right here in Dumont—such as the day-to-day pleasures of an ordinary life with Neil, such as the wonders of watching Thad mature into early manhood.

“It was Thad Quatrain,” said a nearby voice, breathy and secretive.

My head jerked up from the paper. Had I really heard Thad’s name, or had I merely imagined the name popping from my thoughts?

“My
God
,” said another lowered voice, another woman, barely able to quell her excitement. “You mean they
fought
? They actually
fought
?”

“They were rolling on the
floor
together,” the other assured her, “knocking over
furniture.
Thad
threatened
Jason. The whole rehearsal came to a
standstill.
Denny Diggins could barely maintain
order
.”

Unfolding the paper and raising it, I turned, peeking around the edge of my makeshift camouflage. At an adjacent table, two middle-aged ladies lunched, their noses inches apart, each of them pinching icy shrimp tails, gnawed to the husk, plucked from a shared shrimp cocktail. I recognized neither woman, neither the source nor the listener, and from the confused and faulty account of Wednesday’s rehearsal, it was apparent that neither of them had been there. This was mere gossip, secondhand at best, embellished and mutated in the retelling.

“Well,” said the listener with a low chortle, “it’s not surprising. The rivalry between those two boys is practically
legendary
.”

“
Everyone
knows,” agreed the source, pausing to suck her tail before plunking it onto a saucer already piled high with shrimp debris. Picking a fleck of husk from her lips, she added, “Joyce’s story just confirms it.”

Aha. She had heard something from Joyce Winkler, whom I had met Wednesday night—the costume lady who had juggled her work schedule at the hospital lab in order to do some bonding with her daughter Nicole. The two women at the Grill, I assumed, were other high-schoolers’ moms, and news of the “boy toy” incident was now working its way through the gab circuit. I doubted that Joyce had related the incident with the imprecision of the current recounting, and in fact, I couldn’t really blame her for passing it along—I’d built a successful career as a reporter doing essentially the same thing. The difference, of course, was that my own “gossip” was always in writing, and what’s more, I was fully accountable for the accuracy of my stories.

“The bottom line,” said the source, dabbing her mouth, leaving a smear of liver-colored lipstick on her napkin, “was that Thad actually threatened to
kill
Jason. Everyone heard it. In
my
book”—she sat erect, folding the napkin and placing it on the table—“that goes well beyond the bounds of healthy, normal teenage rivalry.”

Even with no breaking news on Friday, it was a busy day at the
Register
, with the typical rush to lock up Sunday’s extra sections. Adding to this routine tension was a sense of opening-night jitters, absorbed from life with Thad during his year of growing theatrical involvement. As the afternoon wore on, I found myself repeatedly checking my watch, counting down the hours till curtain. I also found myself replaying the troublesome conversation I’d overheard at lunch.

The shrimp woman had a point: though she was fuzzy on the details and circumstances surrounding the “boy toy” incident, perhaps I should have been more alarmed by Thad’s threat. Granted, he was merely paraphrasing a line from a play, its context obvious to all present. And granted, he did this to defuse a volatile situation, sloughing off bigotry with humor. Still, Thad was young, and perhaps he needed to hear—specifically, from me—that death threats, however lamely intended or seemingly justified, should be considered off-limits in the resolution of future disputes.

So when I arrived home from the office, I offered to drive Thad to the theater that evening, even though, some months earlier, I’d bought him a seventeenth-birthday car (an efficient Japanese compact, nothing too flashy, but it was new and it was red, giving him sufficient peer status to get his mind off the “car thing” and the “job thing,” allowing him to focus on school). He could easily have transported himself to and from the theater that night, as he had done all summer, but I knew he’d gladly accept my offer because, oddly, riding in my car together had come to represent the cement of our relationship, our mutual trust.