Miriam's Well (5 page)

“Worse,” I said.

“Worse? What could be worse? Quick, the bell's about to ring.”

I said, “Worse than cold hatred is not caring at all.”

“Yeah, I got it now. I'm not bad at this poetry stuff, am I?” He grinned, flashing the thin wire of his retainers, and I remembered only a couple of months before when his mouth was full of metal. But I hadn't noticed when he got his braces off. How could I miss a thing like that?

“
Clahss, clahss, si-lahnce, s'il vous plaît
,” Mrs. Kearney said. We hushed like a symphony crowd when the maestro lifts his baton. “
Bonjour, mes élèves
!”

“
Bonjour
,” we all replied.

“Bon Jovi,” Adam said. Oh, it was a good day. He had smiled at me. No, that wasn't why it was a good day. It was a good day because Brother James had restored my faith, and because Robert Frost was almost as good as Emily Dickinson. And because Adam had smiled at me.

CHAPTER FIVE

Told by Adam

In about five years, Diana would be an architect. Most of us in the senior class were planning to start planning any day, but Diana had always taken the right courses to guarantee her a spot in one of the top architecture schools in the country. That's the kind of girl Diana was—she knew what she wanted. Me, for example. From the time we started going out, she couldn't see any point in wasting her time or hot, wet whispers on any other guy in the school. One word sums up Diana: efficiency. Efficiency, and ambition, and brains. Three words. And she was a natural beauty. She had brown eyes as big and soft as Bambi's. Usually they were laughing eyes, but she could make them wide and innocent when she needed to, or small and pointed when she was fiercely determined to blow a debate opponent into shrapnel.

She wore her hair in shaggy brown curls that fluffed out around her face—none of that sticky processed stuff that feels like wet cotton candy.

Everyone liked Diana, in spite of her incredible superiority and kissing-up behavior. She was never afraid to say whatever was on her mind or to stand up for the underdog. Come to think of it, she would have made a good socialist, except for the fact that she comes from generations of rich fathers who had rich fathers.

My family could have been rich, since my father's a lawyer, but he's always taking no-win cases, or cases that pay in what he calls
personal rewards
. That's his philosophy on my allowance, also, that the personal rewards of living in my family should compensate for the measly bucks. So I'm always interested in a good cheap date, not that I let girls pay my way, often.

One of the cheapest things you could do in this town was to go to real estate open houses. The first Sunday of the Poetry-Is-a-Bitch phase of my life, there was a model house open at a new development. It was furnished down to every detail, including a pair of ceramic dalmations like you'd win on
Wheel of Fortune
.

Of course, Diana and I had to pass as potential buyers, not kids, or we'd have been thrown out before she even opened her mouth. So we both dressed like Yuppies, in debate clothes, and I carried my debate briefcase, as though I'd just rushed over to the house after taking a deposition at a Senate hearing. I didn't wear my retainers, either. I took them off as soon as I left the house, even though my mother was always warning me that I'd end up with fangs if I didn't wear them.

“Oh, Adam, look!” Diana pointed to one of the homey touches the decorators had scattered around the kitchen—a ceramic pecan pie that looked like something a dog would leave on your lawn. There was also a machine pumping out a domestic aroma, like hot mulled cinnamon cider. A realtor approached; the plot thickened.

“Might I ask your names?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Wagner,” I responded. “Might I ask yours?”

She shoved a card into my hand. She was Eunice Buntz. “Are you currently homeowners?” she asked.

“Just getting into the market,” I replied, oozing self-assurance. The cider machine was pumping and hissing like a respirator.

Diana and I went up to check out the bedrooms. The kids' rooms were like Nike shoe boxes, but the master bedroom had a little sitting area, with a ceiling fan and a fireplace separate from the action center of the bedroom. In the main arena, the decorator had gone whole hog, with a wall of mirrors and a round bed that had a padded pink and green spread, and lush plants that set off my allergies, and a bathroom fit for a Roman orgy.

“There's no door on it,” I said, between sneezes.

“That's an architectural affectation,” Diana scoffed. “I'd never design a house with no door on the bathroom. Who wants to be doing her business with an audience? I mean really?”

But it was the bed that got me. “Which end's the head?”

“It doesn't matter. You just start anywhere.”

“I've got to try this out.” I slipped out of my penny loafers and crawled to the center of the bed, then flopped. “This is weird.”

“Get up! Eunice is coming.”

I scrambled to my feet just in time.

“You like the bedroom?” Eunice Buntz asked.

“It has some stylistic innovations,” Diana said. “My husband is intrigued with the concept of roundness in the room.”

“What does Mr. Wagner do?” Eunice Buntz asked.

“I'm an assistant district attorney,” I said, slipping into my shoes. “Consumer fraud undercover, very confidential. My wife is an investment counselor.”

Eunice was impressed. “This is a very well planned home for a young up-and-coming family.”

Someone set off a tinkly bell over the front door to alert Eunice. She retreated to the first floor and the dog-crap pecan pie.

“Come see the view,” Diana said. My shoes sank into the green carpet as I went to the window and stood behind Diana. I wrapped my arms around her; we could easily have been a married couple looking over our brown heaps of earth that weren't lawn yet, and the bones of half-built houses, and the twiggy promises of trees, if you lived long enough to see it all happen. But I'm getting ahead of myself. In those days I thought everyone lived forever, except Jimi Hendrix.

“It's not an inspiring view, Adam. Let's not buy this house. Hey, isn't that your friend Miriam Pelham over on the bike path?”

I dragged my lips off Diana's neck; it was true, it was Miriam, walking with a giant of a man in denim overalls.

“Who's the guy? What a wonderful bush of a beard. Why don't you grow a beard like that, Adam?”

“I've got a better chance of growing a second head.”

“Could Miriam Pelham have such a dashing father? He looks sort of like Paul Bunyan on the chili cans. I would absolutely die if my father held my hand in public like that.”

“That couldn't be her father.”

“Why not?”

“Too young,” I said. “Maybe it's a boyfriend.”

“Too old.” Diana shook her head, and her hair brushed back and forth across my lips.

“Do that again.”

“Too old.” This time she wiggled everything from the waist up.

“
How
old?”

“Not old enough,” said Eunice Buntz, sneaking up on us. “You didn't fool me for a minute. I am trying to sell a house. Bye-bye, folks.” She stepped back, clearly intending for us to pass her on our way off the planet forever.

“Thank you, Ms. Buntz,” Diana said, with her sweetest puppy eyes glistening. “Adam, you can take me back to drug rehab now.”

Dodging the sprinkler outside, Diana said, “Let's catch up with Miriam and Paul Bunyan. I want to get a closer look at that guy.” Diana had the engine running before I was even buckled in. We headed up Thirteenth Street where we'd last seen them.

There are three places in Wichita where pimples in the road might loosely be called hills. Wichita, Kansas, is
not
San Francisco. Diana flew over the top of the zit of a hill on Thirteenth, and there was our prey, moving along at a good clip. Actually, it looked like Paul Bunyan was propelling Miriam along, like when you push a stalled car long enough that it takes off on its own. Diana honked, but the man did not turn around. Miriam stopped dead and leaned against a fence. We pulled into the service entrance of a clump of new house skeletons, and I jumped out over the door of the convertible.

“Hi, Miriam,” Diana called. “We saw you walking by. Is this your dad?”

Miriam was tilted toward the fence, and it seemed all her weight rose to her shoulders and sank into the wooden panels. She looked gray and was sweating like a pig, even though it was only about 55 degrees. Trying to catch her breath, she said, “This is Brother—”

“Oh, he's your brother,” Diana said. “Well, that explains it.”

“What does it explain?” the man asked, finally acknowledging us. His voice had a golden resonance, like a radio DJ's. He fixed his sea-blue eyes on Diana and would not lift them.

“Only that we couldn't figure it out,” Diana stammered. “Well, it doesn't matter.” She moved closer to me, reached for my fingers.

I asked, “Are you okay, Miriam?”

“Yes,” she said, but it was a lie.

“Who are your friends, Miriam?”

“This is Diana Cameron and—her boyfriend,” she replied, not looking at us.

“What is Diana Cameron's boyfriend's name?” the man asked, and I had the feeling that his questions were like commands.

“Adam Bergen,” I said, and I stepped forward to shake hands. His was so hot that I almost pulled my hand back. Remember the movie,
The Karate Kid
? My favorite part was when Mr. Miyagi, the old man, clapped his hands together and focused all his power into one hand, and then he put it on the kid to relieve pain. But this guy with the reddish beard was no black belt in karate, and his hand shouldn't have been so hot. I glanced at my palm, as if he might have raised a welt on it, but it was still smooth.

“You have told me about Adam,” the man said, and a little color rose in Miriam's cheeks, as she replied, “Yes, Brother James.”

Brother James? Diana and I exchanged looks. Was he like a church deacon or something? We didn't have brothers and deacons in the synagogue, but I watched a lot of TV. There's always one of those lunatic religious types turning up on
Barney Miller
and
Night Court
reruns.

The Brother James guy said, “I will leave you with your friends, Miriam. Be strong.” She didn't look like she could be strong enough to stumble over to the car. Brother James walked back toward Rock Road with even, giant steps, his hands in his pockets, and the chunky heels of his cowboy boots resounding off the pavement.

“You're both so dressed up,” Miriam said weakly.

“Adam and I were just house-hunting.”

“You really look nice.” She said it to Diana, but she was looking at me. It must have been that famous phallic symbol, the Man's Tie, that got her, because she turned totally red. Then I wondered if my fly was open, but there's no way to check without drawing everybody else's eyes to the target.

“That big guy is such a hunk,” Diana said.

“A hunk?” Miriam leaned her head against the fence post.

“A babe. A fox. A study. You know, I mean he's a tall, meaty man.”

“Jesus, Diana, the guy's her preacher. She's not supposed to notice.”

Diana snapped, “Ministers aren't supposed to be without gender, Adam. Only Catholic priests are into celibacy.”

Miriam's face, which had been flashing red like a neon sign a minute ago, was now as white as a puddle of Elmer's glue. “Has he rounded the corner?”

I told her I didn't see him, and Miriam slid to the ground. Her head fell back against the fence. I saw the wood vibrate with the impact. Diana crouched beside Miriam. What if there was something wrong with her that only women tell each other? I circled a bush and tried to look invisible.

“You need a doctor,” Diana said. “You look positively terrible. Adam, don't you think she needs a doctor?”

She looked more like she needed an undertaker. I'd seen people look healthier at Halloween parties.

“Come on,” Diana prodded. “Adam and I are taking you to a minor emergency center.”

“No,” Miriam protested weakly.

“That's stupid, and I have no patience with avoidable stupidity. You're as limp as a wet towel. Adam, help her up.”

Diana and I each took an arm and tried sliding Miriam back up to her feet, but she was like dead weight. Finally she stood up and let out a whelp like a dog whose paw's been stepped on.

“What's going on?” Diana asked, as we settled Miriam into the back seat of the convertible.

“I don't know.”

Diana flipped her hair off the back of her neck, her sign that she was through fooling around and was coming in for the kill. We drove to the emergency center, back over the hill and right through a red light at Rock Road. Brother James had turned off somewhere; anyway, I was relieved that we didn't have to pass him. Miriam made some lame attempts to get us to drop her at home, but Diana was determined.

At Mediplex, we eased Miriam into one of the plastic chairs in the waiting room. Diana, of course, did the talking.

“This is Miriam Pelham, P-E-L-H-A-M. She needs to see a doctor immediately.”

The nurse, a Ms. Doolan, asked, “Is she a minor?”

“Well, sort of.”

“Do you have written consent from her parent or legal guardian in the form of a notarized letter authorizing medical examination and treatment?”

“Well, not exactly.”

“We're just her friends,” I said. “She needs help, look at her.”

Ms. Doolan nodded crisply. She must have been able to see that Miriam was the color of an old sweat sock. “And is either of you over twenty-one?”

“This is ridiculous,” Diana cried. “You call this humane medical treatment? I'm writing a letter to the editor.”