Songs in Ordinary Time (63 page)

“Hello?”

“I been thinking about you.” His husky whisper gave her goose bumps.

“What do you mean?” She looked around uneasily, even though she knew Louis was still down the street.

“I been thinking of kissing you. All day long I been thinking of that.”

“Oh.” She had to clear her throat. Her eyes closed. “I guess you haven’t had a very busy day, then.”

“I keep thinking of putting my mouth all these different places on you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, first I start with your feet.”

“My feet?”

306 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

“Yah. Your toes. I put my…”

Each part that he named tingled. His breathing was heavy in her ear.

Through the window now came another man’s voice: “Attaboy! Attaboy!

Eye on the ball now, here it comes, nice and easy.”

She sighed. It was the strangest feeling, this low voice churning waves of heat through her body while, blurred beyond the window screen, a priest kept throwing a ball to Benjy Fermoyle, who could not catch it. Finally the priest called out that this time the ball was going to hit him, so he’d better not miss. Benjy caught it. “That was great!” The priest whooped and clapped his hands. “That was really great!”

“And then,” gasped the voice, “I carry you up the stairs and I put you down on the nice white sheets…”

I
t was almost closing time when a tap came at the office door. Marie Fermoyle looked up from her typewriter to see Cleveland Hinds peering in at her. He had just dropped Ferdinand Briscoe off after a Chamber executive meeting, and since he was passing by, he thought he’d just pop in and say hello.

She nodded. Omar had made her first loan payment, so that couldn’t be why Hinds was here. Her throat went dry. Renie’s signature. Oh God, that must be it.

“So how’re things?”

“Fine,” she gulped. “Things’re fine.”

“And the family?” He cleared his throat uneasily.

“They’re fine, too.” This was so humiliating. Oh God, she wanted to die.

He stepped all the way in now and closed the door. His silver hair shone above his deep tan.

“Where’s your compadre?” he asked, gesturing at the empty desk.

“Astrid’s part-time. She only comes in three days a week.”

He smiled. “Well, that’s nice. Makes things a little more private.” He laughed. “She’s certainly a tinselly kind of gal, isn’t she? Not my type.” She tensed as he picked up her stapler and clicked it a few times, catching the staples in his palm as they fell. “I’ve always admired you, Marie. I mean,
really
admired you. I hope you know that.”

She held her breath, preparing for the accusation. Once an admirable woman, she was now a fraud.

He put his hand on her shoulder. “Do you know what I’m saying?”

“No,” she lied into his elegant blue gaze. She would not blink or look away. His hand seemed to sink into her flesh, its weight deep inside her bones.
I will never do it again
, she wanted to say, but was afraid she would start crying.

“Tell me something, do you like to dance?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Would you ever consider having a drink, then, just the two of us?”

“I don’t drink.”

SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 307

“Oh, you’re much too virtuous, Marie.” He laughed and slipped his hand away in a fragrant breeze past her face.

“I’m just busy, Mr. Hinds, that’s all,” she said, attempting to roll a fresh sheet of stationery into her typewriter. Her hands were shaking.

“Not so busy that you’ve forsaken all of life’s pleasures, I hope.” He smiled.

“Just the ones I don’t need,” she said, then began to type: date, address, salutation. She felt trapped.

“Well!” he said. “I’d best be on my way.” He opened the door, then turned back. “By the way, how’s the rumpus room coming? I saw Renie the other day, but I forgot to ask him. Are you pleased with it?”

She stared up at him, her fingers still striking the keys. At the mention of Renie’s name, all color had drained from her flesh.

“Maybe I’ll stop by and see it one of these days. Make sure you and the bank’re getting our money’s worth. Take care now,” he said with a wink, then closed the door.

Rumpus room rumpus room rumpus room rumpus room rumpus room
, she had typed across the line.

R
obert Haddad turned over the envelope; another warning from the home office on all the unpaid premiums. If they didn’t receive payment in ten days, the policies would be canceled. And he would be ruined. He dropped the envelope into the wastebasket, then stared out the window at the bar, rankled by the unfairness of all that cash just rotting away in Hammie’s cellar. If he could only get back down there, his troubles would be over, but immediately after the break-in, Hammie had had thick iron bars welded across the cellar window.

Everything had gotten so complicated. Might as well just go home and tell Astrid the truth. Soon everyone would know the terrible mess he was in. At the sound of a car pulling up out front, he backed his chair into the shadow of the file cabinet. He could see the dented front end of Sherman Bloom’s new Pontiac Bonneville. He’d promised Sherm his insurance check for the accident two weeks ago, but then he had to use the money for Astrid’s new furniture, her red-and-silver dinette set and her Hollywood bedroom suite of blond ash.

“Goddamn you,” Bloom called as he kicked the locked office door. “You no-good bastard! You lying son of a bitch!” Finally Bloom got into his car and drove off in a rattle of loose parts.

There had to be a way, he thought, watching the barroom door flash open and close across the street. First shift from the wire plant was getting out, and the men were stopping at Hammie’s for a quick one before heading home with their empty lunchpails and grease-stained shirts. Not one of their wives had a glass-topped dressing table and a heart-shaped mirror framed with lights. Why couldn’t Astrid be content with her life? She was going out with her girlfriends practically every night now, and it was tearing 308 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

him apart. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, nothing he wouldn’t give her.

The phone began to ring. He stared at it for a long time, then picked it up, answering in a high feminine voice. “Haddad RIFCO! How may I help you?”

“Is Bob Haddad there? This is Sam Fermoyle calling.”

He rolled his eyes. “Mr. Haddad is out right at the moment. Sorry.”

“Okay, look, when he comes, you tell him I don’t want any insurance. I just want the money back I paid him,” Fermoyle said.

“That would require a notice of cancellation, sir,” he said sweetly. The last thing he needed was Fermoyle barging in here.

“Well, then, that’s what I want, a notice of cancellation, then.”

“No sooner said than done,” he piped, holding the phone close as he scrawled his pen across a sheet of dusty paper. “There! All I need now is, uh, let’s see, fifty dollars for the notice of cancellation.” He couldn’t believe his own resourcefulness.

“Fifty dollars!” Fermoyle cried. “Look, miss, you don’t understand. I just got out of the hospital and I don’t even have fifty cents. That’s why I want the money back I gave Haddad! I’m trying to get a job and I need money, you know, for decent clothes and things, so I can look presentable.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but that’s our normal procedure.”

“Can’t you take the fifty out of the money I’d be getting back?” Fermoyle pressed.

“Absolutely not, sir.”

“So in other words I’m stuck with an insurance policy I don’t even need.”

“Not something you need, sir; something your children need,” he said in his sweetest voice.

“What they need right now is money. Look, you tell Haddad, I’m coming—”

“I told you, sir, Mr. Haddad’s not here!” he interrupted, lips pursed. “I’ll certainly tell him you called, but as I said, unless you bring in fifty dollars for the notice of cancellation, your policy is absolutely ongoing and irrevers-ible.”

“Christ,” Fermoyle sighed. “I can’t get a break anywhere.”

“Some days are like that, Mr. Fermoyle. Believe me, I know,” he said softly.

“Well, thanks, anyway. You’ve been very helpful, and I appreciate that, miss. I really do.”

“Well, thank you, sir. I’m just doing my job best I can,” Haddad said, staring out at Hammie’s with what, he realized, must be the same desperate longing this poor bastard felt for booze.

W
hen Alice got up at noon, Benjy was eating a peanut-butter sandwich and drinking Kool-Aid in front of the television. “Father Gannon called,” he said without looking away from the screen. “He said to tell you SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 309

the time’ll be the same.” He glanced at her. “He’s not coming over here again, is he?”

“No, it’s about this what-do-you-call-it, this thing he’s doing, this campaign, I think he said. He’s working on it.” She kept clearing her throat. Her face felt hot. Joe had popped in on her yesterday. When he saw how much that upset her, he tried to act as if he’d come to see how Benjy was doing, to throw the ball around in the backyard. Joe had to shoot down every one of Benjy’s excuses before he had finally gone outside with him, and then Benjy had been miserable the whole time. He’d been embarrassed that he couldn’t catch the ball. Joe had found Norm’s glove hanging in the garage, but Benjy refused to put it on. It had been painful to watch. Last night after work she told Joe he was never to come here like that again.

A commercial came on, and Benjy hurried into the kitchen to put his dish and glass in the sink. Black ants were running over the countertop, their quarry a bowl of bloated cornflakes. He grabbed the insecticide and sprayed, then watched them curl up, dying in the glistening oily slick.

“That was bright,” she said. “Now everything’s covered with spray.”

“I had to kill the ants! Mom said they’re in the walls, they’re all over the place.”

“They probably are,” she said with a bitter laugh.

“They were in the tub this morning and she started to cry.”

“That’s not why she was crying, not over ants. It’s Duvall, that’s what it is. God, I wish he’d just go. It almost seems like he’s got some power over her or something.” She shuddered. “I don’t know, sometimes he scares me.”

He was staring at her. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, it’s like he’s just waiting.”

“Waiting for what?” he whispered, his face white.

She tried to change the subject, but he persisted. What did she mean, waiting—waiting for what? She explained that it was just an expression, waiting, like trouble waiting to happen. She turned on the water and rinsed the dirty dishes. She was starting to feel that way about Joe, as if there were some pressure building in him, some imminent eruption.

“Alice?”

“What?” she asked, surprised to see him still there, biting his thumbnail.

He kept opening his mouth, then sighing. “What is it? You can tell me.

Come on, Benjy, tell me.”

“Nothing,” he said so miserably that she turned back to the sink. She was afraid it was about Joe, who was calling daily now. Sometimes it almost seemed as if he wanted people to find out about them. Last week with her in the car he’d dropped off a saw at Saint Dominick’s for Father Krystecki, who walked Joe out to the car. “You remember Alice Fermoyle,” he’d said, touching her arm, causing Father Krystecki to blush as much as she was.

Benjy’s show was starting. He raced back to the couch. Last night Norm had told their mother Benjy should at least go to the pool. Even if he just stood there, Norm said, at least he’d be getting some fresh air. At least he’d be around other kids. There were only so many battles she could fight, her 310 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

mother had answered. She barely had energy for anything lately. Haggard and heavy-eyed, she came home from work exhausted and often went to bed right after supper. Duvall hadn’t been around in days. They didn’t dare ask, but they were hoping he was gone for good.

Alice wrung out a wet rag and started to clean up the bug spray. The fumes turned her stomach, so she opened the window. Mrs. Klubock was hanging clothes on the line, gazing up with a little smile at the Fermoyle house. Mrs. Klubock had been her Girl Scout leader in the sixth grade. When all the other girls in the troop were given application forms for summer camp, Mrs. Klubock told Alice that she’d spoken to the director about letting her go free because of her family situation. After that,
klubock
became a family code word: you were being “klubocked” when someone acted as if he wanted to help, when all he really wanted was to nose around in your dirt.

After she washed the dishes she went in and sat next to Benjy. He glanced at her and smiled.

“Hey, Benj, you never told me what Mr. Tuck said.”

He shrugged, his eyes never leaving the screen. “Just that I was similating about the accident, that’s all.”

“What’s similating?”

“Making believe it didn’t happen.”

“What else did he say?”

“That’s all. Then I had to go.”

“Do you do that? Do you similate? Well, do you?” she asked, annoyed by his glassy stare.

He shrugged. A commercial came on. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

Thinking this might be the thing he’d been trying to say, she persisted.

“Benjy, you really liked that dog, didn’t you?”

Eyes on the television, he nodded.

“You miss him, huh?”

“Sometimes.”

“And you must be blaming Norm, but it’s really not even his fault. I mean, he shouldn’t have been drinking, but the thing is, he didn’t know the dog was there. It was one of those things, like Fate, when everyone’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. Benjy?” She gave his arm a little tug. “Come on, Benjy, talk to me.”

He shook his head.

“They say when bad things happen the best thing is to talk about them.

Otherwise you have all these feelings, all this pain bottled up inside. Benjy?

You know what I mean?”

He nodded and took a deep breath.

“So come on, talk to me. Tell me what you wanted to say in the kitchen.

Come on,” she said, playfully scratching the top of his head. She thought she heard him gasp. Eyes closed, he sank against her. The room seemed strangely full of the television; the pattern of flickering light and shadows it threw across the floor, the voices, the sputter, the laughter, the jangle—all SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 311