Face on the Wall (17 page)

Homer couldn't handle it. “Oh, God, I don't know. Don't you think she's just being melodramatic?”

“Well, possibly, but don't you think somebody should—?”

“Listen, I've got to go.” Homer looked at his wife despairingly and zipped up his briefcase. “Later, we'll talk about it later.” With a guilty
harrumph
he went out and slammed the front door. His feet pounded heavily down the porch stairs.

Mary tried to remind herself of Homer's good qualities, and couldn't think of any. Sighing, she gathered up her own books and papers, put on her coat and followed him out the door. It was time for her weekly class as Historian in Residence at Weston Country Day.

For half an hour the house was empty. The phone rang and rang in the presence of curtains and rugs, tables and chairs, then stopped ringing. But when Homer roared back down the driveway in a rage, catapulted up the porch steps, and snatched up his forgotten lecture notes, it rang again.

Angrily he grabbed it, dropped it, picked it up, juggled it, and shouted, “HELLO.”

There was a pause, while the caller recovered his hearing. “Homer, this is Bill Kennebunk.”

“Oh, God, Bill, I'm sorry. How's Rollo McNutt today? Is he within earshot? Listening for compliments” Homer raised his voice. “Hey there, McNutt, you're a sleazeball and an asshole.”

Sergeant Kennebunk snickered. “No, no, it's okay. He's shut himself in his office to write reports. Actually, he goes in there every morning to take a nap. Listen, Professor Kelly, I mean Homer, I called that hotel in Albany. The name Pearl Small appears on the register, single room, number 609, April eighth and ninth.”

“No kidding?” Homer pondered. “Of course, it doesn't mean—”

“That's right. Anybody could use a false name. The hotel people aren't about to ask for a birth certificate. So I asked for a description. Blonde, the guy said. Cute blonde, maybe thirty, thirty-five.”

“Cute blonde? Does that sound like a princess? Remember, Bill, I told you Princess was her nickname, because she looked like one. You know, in a fairy story. Mary puts a lot of stress on her long golden hair. I like brunettes myself.”

“The point is, somebody should go there. Right away.”

“Go there! Oh, right. Go to Albany and interview the staff before they forget which guest was which.” Homer winced, feeling the questioning glance of Kennebunk's brown eyes across fifteen miles of Massachusetts landscape—highways, fields, strip malls, and the miscellaneous sprawl of suburban Boston. “Well, I'm afraid it can't be me. I can't possibly get away. Couldn't you get McNutt to assign you to Albany to look into the whole thing?” This suggestion was answered by ironic laughter, and at once Homer saw the impossibility of his suggestion. “Well, no, I suppose you couldn't. But—oh, God, Bill—if you knew my schedule. I've just been explaining it to my wife. Oh, Jesus, Bill, I'll think about it. I know, I know, it's got to be done right away. Hey, I've got an idea. My wife will go.” Homer rolled his eyes at the ceiling, imagining the domestic strife to come.

“Your wife?”

“Certainly. Mary's a good sport. She'll go. You'll see.”

Chapter 26

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall….

Lewis Carroll,

Through the Looking Glass

A
nnie's broker was on the phone, her old boyfriend Burgess. He had walked out on Annie a long time ago, but he made up for it by giving her investment tips from time to time. Annie trusted him. Burgess wasn't your typical suit-and-tie corporate kind of stockbroker, he was a sporting adventurer in business for himself, but his insane speculations usually paid off. “Listen, Annie, I'm going to take every single cent out of those mutual funds of yours. I've got a really hot tip.”

“Well, fine, Burgess. Anything you say.”

Annie had forgotten about Minnie Peck's giant hubcap woman. She didn't think of her again until she brought a bag of garbage to the compost heap and stumbled over a heap of junk. Good God, it was
Millennial Woman
stretched out on a pile of oak leaves. Annie called Flimnap and he came to look. He had been away—it was yet another of his mysterious absences—but now he was back.

“We've got to get that thing out of here before the vegetation closes in,” said Flimnap. “Why don't I rent a flatbed trucks?”

“Sure,” said Annie, laughing. “And you'd better hurry. That vine crawling up her arm is poison ivy.”

They didn't warn Minnie Peck that
Millennial Woman
was coming, not until they had dumped Min's giant work of art onto the bed of the rented truck with a clatter of colliding hubcaps. Only then, as Flimnap climbed into the driver's seat, did Annie phone Minnie to say her colossal sculpture was on its way home.

Minnie was furious, but there was nothing she could do. She had to clear a space in the middle of her studio, where she was welding together another enormous work of art.

As they backed up to her loading platform, she turned off her blowtorch and took off her welder's mask. “Hi there,” she said, cheering up at once when she saw Flimnap O'Dougherty. “Come on up. Meet
Millennial Man
.”

Annie gaped. Feebly she said, “Wow.”
Millennial Man
was a construction of identical TV sets tuned to the same boxing match. All seventeen televisions had been glued and screwed together into a vague suggestion of the human body. Halfway down between the legs dangled a remote control and a couple of sponge-rubber balls. Minnie was launching herself fearlessly into the next thousand years.

Flimnap studied the seventeen screens, as blow after blow landed on bleeding flesh and the bloodthirsty crowd roared. “They're on a loop, right? So it plays the same thing over and over?”

Minnie had taken a fancy to Flimnap. “O'Dougherty, I need you,” she said boldly. “Why don't you stay and give me a hand? I'm great on the creative side, but the engineering follow-through gives me a hard time.” She glanced at Annie and said slyly, “Surely Annie doesn't need you anymore, and anyway housepainting isn't worthy of you at all. My stuff is
art
.”

There could be two opinions about that, thought Annie, as they got to work removing
Millennial Woman
from the truck. With a racket of dingdonging hubcaps, they soon had her standing erect next to
Millennial Man.

“Oh, don't they look
darling
together!” screamed Minnie.

When Annie got home again she found Eddy Gast high up on her scaffolding, smiling down at her. He said a cheerful, “Hello, Annie!” and bounced on the wooden boards, which boomed and slid a little sideways.

She was dismayed. “Oh, Eddy, how did you get in? Come on down. Here, let me help you.”

He had a picture in his hand. Clutching it, he was clumsy on the ladder. Annie supported him, and set him safely on the floor, and scolded him for coming in when she wasn't there.

But she couldn't be mad at Eddy for long. Joyfully he beamed at her and showed her the picture. It was Mother Goose astride a majestic bird, its wings spread wide over constellations of stars.

“Oh, Eddy,” she said, “how marvelous.”

Chapter 27

“I will sing to you of the happy ones and of those that suffer. I will sing about the good and the evil, which are kept hidden from you.”

Hans Christian Andersen, “The Nightingale”

C
issie Aufsesser was astonished when Charlene Gast spoke to her in school. Normally Charlene looked right through her, as though she were invisible, when actually Cissie was a solid mound of a girl, twenty-five pounds overweight.

“That's cool,” Charlene said, staring at the brand-new camera hanging on a strap around Cissie's neck. “Is it automatic?”

“Oh, yes, Charlene,” said Cissie. “It does everything. You just aim it and click.” She took it off her neck and pushed a button to uncover the lens. “See, you just look through here.” She handed the camera to Charlene, who lifted it to her face. “You don't even have to decide whether you need the flash or not. If it's too dark, the flash goes off by itself.”

Charlene turned the camera over in her hand, then gave it back to Cissie. “It's really cool,” she said again.

“Want me to take your picture?” said Cissie, greatly daring.

“Okay,” said Charlene. She stood smiling while Cissie fumbled with the camera, her fingers trembling.

Charlene did not offer to take Cissie's picture. “Thanks,” she said, turning away quickly. Wistfully Cissie watched her run away across the playground to Becca and Joanna and Carrie. Should Cissie offer to take everybody's picture Maybe they would talk to her if she took their picture. Everybody liked to have their picture taken. In fact, although Cissie didn't know it, her father had hoped his gift of a camera would improve her social standing.

But now she hung back. She was too shy.

“What a nice camera, Cissie,” said Mary Kelly, who had seen her with Charlene. “May I take your picture?”