Don't Rely on Gemini (13 page)

“I have to get back to work.”

He gave her a little two-fingered salute of farewell, noticing as he did the very ample bosom Linda had thrust near his coat. “So long.” He smiled, noticing the gold pin attached to her orange sweater, a Zodiac pin identical to the one Margaret had been buried wearing.

Was it an illusion, his mind playing tricks?

He pushed through the door, out into the fresh air.

Was that to be the next step in this deadly game: fanciful reminders of Margaret?

But the whiskey said calmly, why wouldn't two women from the same town buy the same kind of pin?

Astrology was in, wasn't it?

Wasn't that fact the reason for all of it?

Tiffany, the Siamese, sat on Neal's lap and watched the bubbles in Neal's glass of champagne with calculating crossed eyes.

Archie Gamble and Neal were comparing notes on their childhood.

Before coming here, Neal had stopped at the police precinct on River Road and reported Margaret's “disappearance” to Tom Baird. The officer had taken down the pertinent information, but Neal had been surprised by the faint smile on Tom's face. Neal and Margaret had never known the policeman well, but he had stopped by their house on a few occasions and had drinks with them, while he warned them against burning anything outdoors during dry spells or questioned them about hunters who poached in the woods.

What had moved him to smile? Had he decided that Margaret had left Neal after an inconsequential family squabble, or was he one of those people who suffered from “pathognomic parapraxis”—an inability to keep a straight face upon hearing of someone else's misfortune?

He
had
smiled. Neal mulled it over in his mind as Archie Gamble described his father's tyranny. Neal half-listened and thought vaguely of his own father. He had hated him every bit as much as Archie claimed to despise his, but the tyranny was of a different sort, the worst kind: the tyranny of the weak. Norman Dana had been a big, muscular, table-pounding job-jumper whose rages were invariably followed by self-pitying tears and meaningless wails of
mea culpa.
He would actually get down on his knees and weep into his wife's lap; Neal's mother treated him like a little boy she had always to forgive for being naughty.

Neal had to force himself to keep up his end of the conversation.

He said, “I was terrible at all sports. I loved long-hair music; my friends were bespectacled library-goers, and my father had a habit of calling me ‘Cornelia.' “ (—Son, will you forgive Daddy for that? Oh, Daddy's so bad!)

“My girlhood wasn't much different,” Archie chuckled. “I always had my nose in a book, hated football and baseball, and loved opera. My old man once said he wouldn't hit me because he didn't hit girls.”

Neal and Archie laughed and so did Mrs. Muckermann. Dru was in the kitchen slamming dishes around furiously, still in a fit over Anna Muckermann's surprise visit. A friend on her way to Tarrytown had deposited Mrs. Muckermann on the Gambles' doorstep in Piermont. Dru had no alternative but to ask her to join the birthday party. Mrs. Muckermann had remembered that they had decided to have the party on Saturday night instead of the following Tuesday, which was the actual birthday, so she had arrived with gift-wrapped presents for both Archie and Neal.

Mrs. Muckermann said, “You
see?
You
are
typical time twins; you have a great deal in common! And you're both typical Geminis with Taurus rising.”

Archie said, “Hi there, TV viewers. I want you to meet my athtro-twin. Ithn't he marvy? As boys, we were thimply thickening thissies!”

“The interest in music, of course, is the Taurine influence,” said Mrs. Muckermann.

“That's right,” Archie said. “That famous pianist, Harry Truman, is a Taurus.”

Mrs. Muckermann regarded him with cold eyes. “Brahms was a Taurus,” said she, “and Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan, Nellie Melba, and Irving Berlin. Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, and Perry Como are all Taureans, too.”

“So is that distinguished politician, Shirley Temple,” Archie added, getting up to pour more Piper.

Had Tom Baird somehow heard the reason for Margaret's absence three years ago? It was unlikely; everyone but Neal's close friends had thought she was in Bucks County looking after her mother, who was convalescing from an illness.

Since Margaret's death, Neal had often found himself wondering how life would have seemed to him if it were really true that Margaret had simply disappeared. Cold. Populated with the likes of a Cliff Bates who hadn't even bothered to discuss it at length with Neal or to ask Neal to come to brunch anyway, and with a police officer who smiled …
smiled
when Neal announced he had no clue to Margaret's possible whereabouts. And the Gambles? Neal had told them over the telephone last night that he was going to the police. Archie had all but dismissed the subject, murmuring something about such things happening “to the best of us.”

How could the Gambles presume to know what had happened between Neal and Margaret? Did they imagine that Margaret would actually run off without a word over a silly argument concerning the show?

All of it was such an injustice to Margaret! She had deserved better than that! She had been such a good woman, trying eternally to improve herself, going to so much trouble every day to make life gracious, meaningful. God, and to have it be someone like Penny Bissel who would strike her down—Neal was convinced of that now; Margaret had not hit Penny.

It was Margaret who had been unable to finish what she was saying: “Face what you are! Cheap, CHE—”

Yes. Cheap!

How could he not have seen that from the beginning? How could he have missed the way Penny began every sentence with “Like,” the way she picked at hangnails and let her tongue root around her teeth to wipe away food particles when she finished eating, the way she left the bathroom door open when she was on the toilet, the way she pinned a ripped seam in a dress instead of sewing it, and her habit of combing her hair constantly: on the street, in restaurants, even immediately after lovemaking—her perpetual fixation with her hair, and that particularly stupid expression which came over her face as she jerked the comb up and down, like someone priming a pump.

And now Penny was two weeks late … now there was a very good possibility that she was carrying Neal Dana's child. Carrying a motive for Neal Dana's murder of his wife.

• • •

“Your lack of interest in sports is consistent with the Taurine inertia,” Mrs. Muckermann was saying as she unwrapped a stick of Juicy Fruit. “Taurus is a slow, bovine sign; Taurean children are often dreamers. Introspective. I can see where the males might be considered slightly sissified as youngsters. Rudolph Valentino was a Taurus. Henry Fonda is. Tyrone Power was, and James Mason is.”

“Freud was, too,” Archie Gamble said. “But Neal and I are Geminis, remember?”

“Geminis with
Taurus rising,”
said Mrs. Muckermann, popping the gum into her mouth. “Taurus is a decided influence.”

Neal glanced down at the cat hairs accumulating on his brown slacks and pushed Tiffany off his lap. Margaret had never liked cats after she had seen one kill a baby sparrow … Neal didn't see how he could give Sinister away. He sat there remembering the way Margaret had put all her maternal energies into looking after the bird. He wretchedly recalled his inertia over their vague plans for looking into the possibility of adopting a child. It hadn't been Margaret's idea, it had been Neal's, and she hadn't pushed it, but why hadn't he been sensitive enough to her needs to encourage it? What kind of barren, ungratifying existence had he forced on her? How bravely and thoughtfully she had tried to make the best of it! And he had dared to cross off her interest in subjects like astrology as hogwash, just as though Neal Dana knew wiser ways to come to grips with the monotony of life.

The champagne was reaching him; he called out in his mind for Margaret to forgive him, and guiltily he envisioned her there with him, enjoying this discussion of astrology, punishing himself with the knowledge of how it would please her.

As though she were reading his mind, Mrs. Muckermann inquired, “What sign is your wife, Neal?”

“Virgo.”

“Yes, well, the Taurean side of your nature probably doesn't like the critical character of Virgo … but Gemini is ruled by Mercury, as Virgo is: you both enjoy people; you're both outgoing. Of course, Virgo's a little more realistic.” Then she said, “Has Archie shown you his chart and explained it to you? The same things would apply to you, of course.”

“I've been sparing him that,” said Archie.

“You really should look at it,” Mrs. Muckermann told Neal. “King Lear once remarked, ‘The stars above govern our conditions.' “

Archie said, “He made that remark to Shakespeare, didn't he?”

She ignored the sarcasm and continued. “But I favor a philosophy that believes we can work
with
our stars to change our conditions.”

“The fool is ruled by his stars, the wise man rules his stars, is that it?” Neal said.

Mrs. Muckermann said flatly, “No … You never rule your stars, my dear Neal: you work with your stars. And you
must
know what to be wary of, what aspects to watch, good and bad.”

Archie was rolling his eyes back in his head, and holding his palms up in his lap in a “what do you do?” gesture.

“Oh, I know Archie's making faces behind my back,” Mrs. Muckermann said, “and since you're his astro-twin, Neal, you're probably highly skeptical, too, but it's for your own good that I warn you.”

“Warn me?” Neal said.

“You're very badly aspected right now.”

• • •

But it was not until Dru had served the moules marinières, French rolls, and romaine and onion salad, that Mrs. Muckermann really got rolling. She was drinking champagne with the meal as fast as Archie could pour it, and she was monopolizing the conversation, leaving no doubt in anyone's mind that Saturn's malignant influence was “probably already” affecting Neal's and Archie's lives. She dragged in the moon-Mars square again, rode hard on all the oppositions being stimulated, and paused only long enough to advise Dru that she had not chopped the garlic for the moules fine enough.

“I just swallowed quite a sliver of it,” she cackled. “You'll all pay tomorrow.”

Dru began kicking Archie violently under the table at that point, and when she went into the kitchen for more rolls, she called to Archie, “Can you come here a moment, darling? I need help with something.”

Archie gave Neal an apologetic smile and left him with Anna Awful.

Dru said, “She is
not
staying overnight!”

“I agree. Where's the bus schedule?”

“On the counter. Does she think she's invited for the weekend, Archie?” Dru said incredulously. “It sounds like it. We'll all pay tomorrow—what does that mean if it doesn't mean she's planning to see us at breakfast?”

“And get her
off
Neal's back, Archie! I don't think her little gifts for you two were the least bit amusing!”

Both Neal and Archie had received a copy of
4000 Names for Your Baby.

“She wasn't trying to amuse us,” Archie said. “It's all that business about Mars, Neptune and Leo being in the House of Offspring. You know she can't let go of anything; she keeps harping away on the same damn things! And she's crocked, you realize?”

“Pissed! Did you see Neal's face when he unwrapped it?”

“The poor bastard just left the police!” Archie said. “And I'm damn sure he suspects Margaret's left him for this Tuto.”

“I don't know, Archie. I think he'd be angrier. He just looks all shook up.”

Archie was running his finger down the bus listings. He said, “Anna Awful is the crowning blow, regardless of what he thinks! First she tells him there'll be violent upheavals in his life, then she tells him it's all right, though, because Mars, Neptune and Leo are going to provide progeny! She never stops to think that somebody might not want progeny!”

Dru sighed. “I know. Thank God he doesn't have any interest in it; if he believed her, he'd have a perfect excuse for going out and hanging himself!”

“So would I.”

“So would you … Did you hear her tell him what his first name meant?”

Archie said, “Even if he doesn't have any interest in it, it can begin to get you. Enough of it can begin to get you … What about his first name?”

Dru dropped more rolls into the bread basket. “While you were up in the bathroom she picked up the baby-name book and said, ‘Cornelius means battle horn, and you'll be doing a lot of battling in the days to come.' “

“What'd he say?”

“He didn't even smile. He just looked at her and he said, ‘I hope my horn helps me, then. Or am I beyond help?' “

“Naturally she assured him he was beyond help, right?” Archie said.

“Just about. Oh, she's a bitch on wheels, Arch! Do you know she came out here before dinner and she had the nerve to tell me I was playing right into Saturn's hands by not having a cake for your birthday!”

“Did you tell her that I don't like cake?” Archie said. He passed her the bus schedule. “Here's one leaving at ten-something. I don't have my glasses. What is it, ten-twenty or ten-thirty?”

“Ten-twenty … No, I didn't tell her you don't like cake! Why should I defend myself? She said, ‘Oh, sweetie, now's a time you have to work at your marriage! Archie's marital aspects are very turbulent!' I almost told her I didn't have a marriage in the ninth place!”