In For a Penny (13 page)

Going in through the screen door, he stood for a moment in the room that Molly had always called the breakfast porch. It ran the length of the front of the house, its screened windows looking out onto the arroyo. There were faded Navajo rugs on the floor, patterned with gray zigzags the color of weathered asphalt, shapes that suggested the pale runes on the stones in his trouser pocket. The painted parchment shades on the wall sconces and standing lamps threw a sunset glow over the rugs and the old wooden furniture and the glass-fronted case that housed souvenirs of back country highways: broken geodes and iron-red chunks of desert rose, hand-sized slabs of amethyst and quartz crystal. There were seashells, too, black murex and top shells that entombed the faintly audible spirits of seacoast dreams, ghosts that seeped up through the floor like water through sand, immersing him in whispered memory.

He took the fallen stones out of his pocket and set them atop the case, hearing their low voices fabricate dusty conversations like the drone of an airplane invisibly distant in a lonesome sky. He heard the sound of singing from some far room in the house, and he moved anxiously to the doorway, where he caught a brief glimpse of Molly, or perhaps her shadow, crossing the open door of the kitchen, once again disappearing in the instant that he saw her.

In the living room the fire burned in the stone hearth, and he piled on the last of his oak logs and fanned them to flame, not yet ready to give up the heat and the light. It seemed to him that only yesterday there was half a cord of split logs stacked behind the house. But what he pictured in his mind – their spacious back yard with its shade trees and patio, its vegetable garden and tiki torches – was inconsistent with the looming darkness of the cliff face just beyond the lamplit window in the far wall.

The house was increasingly full of voices, his own among them, murmuring the tale of his life in halting fragments, the utterances shifting into place like puzzle pieces moved about on a tabletop, the picture increasingly filled out, very nearly finished. He put his hand to his chest, catching his breath, the firelight casting staccato silhouettes across the walls like a shadow play. He stoked the fire with the iron poker until a nebula of sparks flew up the chimney. The room brightened, and in the glowing moment before it dimmed again, he looked around one last time at the fading souvenirs of his life, the photographs and books, the stones and seashells, the sheet music on the piano. …

The very doors and windows were veiled with mist, and the lights flickered and began to go out one by one. He was happily conscious that in some far room of the house Molly herself was getting ready to go, perhaps checking her purse, looking into the mirror to get her hair right. He heard her footsteps echoing on the hardwood floor, heard her singing as she descended the porch steps outside, and at last he turned to follow her, leaving behind him the dying fire and all the rest of what he had been.

. . .

Outside, he headed toward the garage, feeling his way through the obscuring fog and hearing the door slam on the passenger side of the Plymouth. He opened the driver’s side door and slid in behind the wheel, looking carefully ahead, sensing Molly’s presence on the seat next to him, hardly daring to believe that this time she’d linger. He pumped the accelerator twice, all the way to the floor, then turned the key. The car started easily, and he let it idle itself smooth before he backed out of the garage, looking over his shoulder, his hand clutching the steering wheel knob with its frozen shamrock.

He glanced at her hopefully now, and there she sat, smiling beside him as ever. She patted his knee. “I can drive if you’re tired,” she said. But he wasn’t tired, not in the least. Although he had always loved driving at night, he had never looked forward to it more than he did right now. In the thinning fog the headlights shone on the trees and stones and shrubbery of the arroyo, and as he angled the car out onto the road, he saw that what appeared to be impenetrable darkness behind them was actually the high mountain that shadowed the canyon. And now, as Blake accelerated up the long rise that would lead them out of the canyon, he saw the mountain slide sideways in the rearview mirror like a theater curtain on a wheeled traveler, revealing at last the starry radiance of the infinite night sky.

w
hy George Mason decided to take a look into the garage sale he couldn’t say, although it might have had something to do with the weather, with the pleasant Saturday morning and the promise of the empty day ahead. He often took walks in his neighborhood, invariably watching the ground for a lucky find. Lost dollar bills were more common than a person would think, and if he went walking early it was a rare day that he didn’t at least spot the odd nickel or dime.

The garage sale sign was tacked to the post of a curbside mailbox. The name on the box was “Fortunato” and an arrow on the sign pointed toward the open garage door, a looming rectangle of darkness imbued with shadowy promise. Inside it took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but then he saw quickly that it wasn’t his kind of sale despite the propitious name on the mailbox. It was all junk, knickknacks from Pic n’ Save and the worst kind of book club books and a rack of worn-out old clothes. He had the abrupt inclination to leave—a feeling strangely close to dread—and as he began to turn back toward the street he saw, with a shock that took his breath away, the disembodied head of an old woman hovering in the air in the corner of the garage.

He stared at it, his mouth open, taking in the bare light bulb in the rafters overhead, and the way the rafter itself cast a shadow across her shoulders, creating the illusion that had so unnerved him. She nodded at him now and smiled obscurely, but her smile and nod seemed to him to be false, the irritating private gesture of someone who had just confirmed a secret knowledge. Next to her sat a TV tray with an open cigar box on it. There were a few coins in the box, no paper money at all.

Leave
, he told himself, but instead he examined the scattering of odds and ends on a rickety card table: a glass tumbler, a Pet Rock with the paint chipped away, a filthy old hair brush, a souvenir letter opener with a wooden handle that had apparently been chewed by a dog, and a few other objects equally depressing. The only object that wasn’t sadly pathetic was a coin purse sewn up out of thin leather and with a palm tree painted on it, the purse small enough to fit into his hand. It was the kind of thing a child would buy at a tourist shop at the seashore, and he felt an odd nostalgic attraction to it. The brass clasp clicked apart easily when he tried it, the purse expanding like an open mouth. Inside lay a single penny.

“How much for the coin purse?” he asked, breaking the silence. But as soon as he said it he realized that he had left home without any money. He hadn’t even brought a pocket comb. He started to put the purse down.

She shrugged. “Tell me what it’s worth to you.”

He took another look at it, suddenly picturing himself owning it, carrying his coins in it, maybe a spare house key. The painted palm tree had an enticing desert island look, with a reddish sunset behind it and a streak of blue water. After the space of a few seconds he said, “All I’ve got is a penny,” and he secretly and shamefully let the contents of the purse slide out onto his hand. His face was hot, and he realized that he was blushing because of the lie: he didn’t have a penny. The purse had a penny.

“I’ll take a penny,” she said flatly.

He heard a creaking noise just then that sounded like a door opening, and a breath of wind found its way into the garage and kicked up a little dust devil that stirred the clothes on the metal rack before dying out in a ghostly whisper. He had the uncanny feeling that someone had leaned close to him and said something into his ear, but there was no one else in the garage except the woman, Mrs. Fortunato, who watched him frowningly from her chair.

“I left home without any money,” he said in sudden confusion, reaching into his pocket, still hesitating. He drew out his hand and looked at the penny that had already been in it. “You can’t take just a penny for this. …” He smiled crookedly at her. The few coins in her cigar box couldn’t possibly amount to more than a couple of bucks. At this rate she wouldn’t make enough to keep the light bulb burning. Still, garage sale money was usually pin money anyway, and a penny earned is a penny earned, according to the ancient wisdom.

He realized that the woman was saying something to him: “It’s worth what someone gives for it, just like anything else.”

“Well, it’s just that a penny is all I’ve got,” he said weakly.

“I don’t despise a penny. There’s better things been sold cheaper. And worse things too.”

“I guess that’s true,” he replied, not bothering to make sense out of this. Wanting merely to leave now—leave and take the purse with him—he gave her the penny, thanked her, and walked out into the morning, which now had most of the promise drained out of it. A memory of childhood flitted into his mind, making him feel even more shameful. Once when he was about ten he had shoplifted some marbles from a dime store and had gotten caught. He felt like that now, except this was worse: this was an old lady and not Woolworth’s, and he wasn’t a child anymore, and he hadn’t gotten caught.

Perhaps he could find some excuse to go back into the garage sale and put the purse back onto the table without her knowing it, and with another penny in it, too. That’s just what he would do—go home, find a penny to put into the purse, and then haul it back down here, good as new. It wouldn’t take ten minutes, and it would satisfy his conscience. If he put a quarter into it, it would satisfy his conscience twenty-five times. The idea of it picked his spirits up.

But of course he
could
simply turn around right now and take the purse back. That would be the honest thing. He wouldn’t even have to come clean, just put the purse back onto the table. Except that the old woman hadn’t really liked the look of him; he had seen that much in her face. She would almost certainly think he was up to something, which of course he was. And he had to admit, she had obviously been happy enough to get the penny.
She
thought she had made a sale.

So there was nothing wrong with the
result
of the transaction, he told himself as he continued up the sidewalk. The whole thing was a means and ends puzzle, really, although in this case the means and the ends seemed to be the same thing. Maybe they were
always
the same thing. Abruptly he wondered what Peggy would say. Probably she would tell him to quit worrying so damned much. You could twist anything around if you worked at it hard enough. For God’s sake, he thought, most people don’t even pick up a penny when they drop one. It’s not worth the effort.

And right when that thought came to him he spotted a penny on the sidewalk, which perfectly illustrated his point as he walked past it, letting it lie, although on any other morning he would have picked it up. It occurred to him that if he
did
bend over to pick it up, it could become the penny in the purse, and he could turn around right now and head back down to the garage sale. But he didn’t turn back: he took the purse out of his pocket and had another look at it. Out here in the sunlight it looked brighter and newer than it had in the old woman’s garage, and he realized how at odds it had been on that table with the rest of the junk, almost as if it had been put there on purpose—a silk purse among a bunch of sows’ ears.

Had he been set up? Was this some sort of penny-ante sting operation? The idea was ludicrous. No one would go to the trouble to set a man up over a penny. …

He found that he was home again, and he climbed the front steps, crossed the porch, and entered the living room, feeling a grateful relief in the cozy familiarity of the place, a safe haven from his teapot tempest. But now he was at loose ends. Peggy still wasn’t home, and he had nothing planned for the day. A half hour ago that had seemed like a good thing. He found his pocket change where he had left it on the kitchen counter, and he put it into the purse, which slid neatly into his pocket, barely making a bulge. He had been making a mountain out of a damned mole hill, he told himself. It wasn’t worth another thought,
even if someone offered him a penny for it
. He laughed out loud at the joke, but his laughter had a hollow echo in the empty house, and he fell silent, wandering back into the living room where he sat down in an easy chair and tried to read a book. But it wasn’t any kind of day to be reading—better to get some work done while the sun shone. He went out into the garage and looked around at his tools and at the half-finished wooden lamp that he had been building in his spare time over the last couple of weeks. The lamp’s boxy walnut frame looked ugly to him today, and the idea of working on it was infinitely tedious. He went out again, closing the door and aimlessly heading down the driveway just as Peggy turned in off the street.

“I’ve had the worst damn morning,” he admitted to her, helping her pull grocery bags out of the car, and following her into the house. As Peggy rearranged the refrigerator, finding room for lettuce and broccoli, Mason talked about the purse and the penny.

“I forgot eggs,” she said, interrupting him. “I’ll have to go back down to the market.” She shut the refrigerator door and leaned back against the counter.

He stared at her. “Never mind the eggs,” he said. “I’ll pick them up later. I’m telling you about my morning.”

“Sorry,” she said, “but I don’t see the big problem.”