The Man in the Window (28 page)

Francine let out a yip and, clutching Minky, rushed into her house. Kitty lurched out of view. Bert gunned his station wagon and screeched off down the street, throwing Bev back up against her seat like a rag doll. He didn’t even turn up his driveway, but shot past his house as if Iris were in pursuit.

Carl momentarily stood his ground. Actually, it was more water than ground, which he finally realized and twisted off his hose before looking up and giving a wave to Iris frowning at him from across the street.

“Sorry, lady,” he called to her. “I had to see.”

“See?” Iris shouted back, about to tip over into a deeper anger. “What do you think you had to see?”

“That he was all right. That everything was okay.”

He waved again, this time to Louis who had raised his hand to give Carl the all-clear. “Thank you, Carl,” Louis called, “I’m fine.”

Carl took a length of hose and began to gather it around his arm. “Well, I’ll leave you folks to your business then.” He traipsed across his wet lawn and disappeared behind his house.

There was no one left on the street now. If anyone was watching, and there were probably many, then it was from the secret safety of a curtained window. Louis shifted his gaze to the yard next door to Carl’s: Mrs. Bingsley’s. He moved down the walk until he was at Iris’s side, where he stopped and
continued to stare across the street. She was about to tell him again that he didn’t have to go to the azalea, that he’d done more than enough for his first time out, when she felt him tensing at her side. She reached out with her hand to stop him, because she suddenly realized what he was about to do; but he’d already begun to move, to gather momentum as he’d done before.

“Louis!” she shouted after him.

That’s it, he’s gone. Watching him run, she was sure of it, that he was like an escaped prisoner made crazy by the world suddenly open to him. He’d run, keep on running as he tried to see everything, to smell and touch, to bring to his senses all that they had been deprived of for sixteen years. Iris stood perfectly still and watched, because she knew she’d never catch a man like that. Her thoughts flashed instantly forward, and she imagined herself standing where she was now and Louis running for the horizon, his scarf, lifted by the wind, straight back behind him, his figure receding in the distance before he was swallowed by the sun.

All this Iris imagined as Louis ran down the front walk, then out into the street where he veered left and picked up speed as he crossed to the other side. Iris understood then. Mrs. Bingsley’s azalea, he headed straight for it. Louis never slowed down; he looked like he was about to run right into the middle of the thing, immerse himself in the flaming red abundance of flowers. But he cut quickly to the side and stuck his hand out, moving as fast as before, and skimmed his fingers along the edges of the huge bush. Iris lost sight of him for a second as he circled behind it, like the moon orbiting the earth. Then there he was, careening into view, facing her now, his eyes wide as he moved back across Mrs. Bingsley’s front yard and into the street again. Iris stiffened as he headed straight for her. She heard him panting as he approached. He never stopped running, and as he passed her, she saw his hand jerk upwards toward her head. She squinted in anticipation of the blow. She hardly felt a thing, a fluttering above her ear, fingers in her hair, the warmth of his hand. She
reached her own hand to the place where his had been, as she turned and watched him mount the porch steps two at a time and rush into the house, closing the door behind him. There was something behind her ear, something thin and soft behind her ear and tangled in a strand of her hair. Iris freed it, and held it in her cupped hand. She looked for a long time at the flower that Louis had picked for her from the azalea, the azalea she’d earlier confessed she had not even noticed. From the bush she had not seen, she now held a single red flower, unbearable in its beauty.

As if this was not enough, she heard a heavy scraping sound and raised her eyes to Louis opening his bedroom window. He poked his head out and said, “Thank you, Iris, for a lovely morning. Come back tomorrow?”

Iris couldn’t even answer him. She placed the red petals behind her ear again and nodded yes before turning on her short legs and walking unsteadily home along the exuberantly flowered streets of Waverly.

CHAPTER THREE

A
RNIE AND
Gracie, too, were walking. Arnie paused on the corner of Dickinson and Elm, and shaded his eyes to see better.

“What is it?” asked Gracie.

“Could’ve sworn I just saw my daughter turn up the street there.”

“Would that be so strange?”

“If that woman was my daughter, it’d be mighty strange. She looked drunk or something. Iris does not go off on morning drunks. Least not that I know of.” Arnie started walking again. “Though some mornings, in my opinion, she could use a good drunk.”

Gracie asked, “So how long has she been with you?”

“Two, three years,” said Arnie. “She moved out for a long while, then moved back in again when my LuLu passed away.”

They walked without talking for a time. Arnie stayed to Gracie’s right side, so his hook would be out of view. He’d tried to fit the thing in his pocket, but it kept snagging on his belt loops. She didn’t seem to care one way or another, but still, having a hook didn’t work to your advantage when you were trying to impress a lady

“It’s a terrible business, isn’t it?” Gracie said after they’d gone a block.

Arnie hesitated. She mean his hook? “What is?” he asked.

“Oh, losing your… having your husband, your wife just disappear. That’s how I’ve thought of Atlas’s death, as a disappearance. I looked the word up, you know, and it means ‘to go out of sight.’ For those first terrible weeks I had a sense that’s just what he’d done, gone out of sight, that he was always in the room I
was about to enter, but when I’d enter it, he’d moved on to the next room. It was a very cruel sensation.”

Arnie nodded. Sometimes he’d had the feeling that LuLu was even closer than that. For months after her funeral, he’d suddenly awaken and know that she was in bed sleeping quietly beside him. In his longing for her, he was sure he could hear her softly breathing, he could feel the weight of her near him, smell the warmth whose scent had been forty years a comfort to him. He’d lie unmoving until he could not resist his need to reach out to her, and for him the cruel sensation was the cool of the empty sheets beneath his hand.

“You’re right,” sighed Arnie, “it’s a terrible business. I realized, when LuLu died, that that’s what it’s always been about—losing things. You live for any length of time, it all begins to peter out on you. I feel like one of the cars I used to work on. When I was a young mechanic, I saw myself as a big beautiful brand-new Packard, going down the road forever. And then, bit by bit, as the miles start to add up on you, stuff you don’t even pay attention to as meaning anything starts to go. You get a few dents, your engine begins to knock a little, your transmission fluid don’t move through you like it used to. Then Christ Almighty, one day you’re going down that road and your whole damn power train locks on you, and boy you’ve really had it then. I’m a junker now, and to tell you the truth, I ain’t so sure I’ll be passing the next inspection.”

Gracie smiled at him. “That’s the most colorful description of growing old I believe I’ve ever heard. I’m not sure I agree with your final assessment, however.”

“How’s that?” Final assessment. He liked the way Gracie talked, even though he didn’t always catch her meaning.

“That you’re a junker. Your parts may rattle a bit, but you’re hardly a junker.”

“Thank you for saying so. But you take a good look at me, which I don’t advise, you may change your mind.”

“Arnie, my dear, the beauty of being old is that one is unable to take a good look.”

They both laughed, and then stopped suddenly, their eyes briefly meeting. Gracie knew he was thinking the same thing. Imagine: I used to laugh like that with Atlas, and you with LuLu. A shyness and a slight sense of betrayal colored Gracie’s cheeks. Arnie fiddled with his hook.

They turned the corner onto Cedar Lane. “You getting tired?” Arnie said to break the silence. He hid his hook again. “You need to head back, let me know, ’cause I’ll walk your legs off. I’m used to it from walking my dog. Iris, she won’t go out with me anymore.”

“Oh, I’m fine, fine. I walk a great deal myself.” Truth was, she felt a buzzy ache starting up in her right knee. She didn’t want to head back, though. She hoped Louis wouldn’t—mind? And if he did, would he ever, in a million years, tell her? She didn’t feel his aloneness if she was in the house with him or out on her own doing errands. But when she went to the movies with friends, or to lunch, she never looked back at the house for fear he would cheerily wave her on. She knew that even at the height of his own loneliness, he would not begrudge her moments in the world. Not even these moments, with this intruder of the night turned suitor. No, Louis must have watched from his window as she and Arnie disappeared into the spring morning; watched and wished them well.

As if reading her mind, Arnie said, “Seems like a pretty good boy you have there, that Lawrence.”

Gracie looked at Arnie, to see if he was joking with her somehow. When she saw nothing in his face, she remembered that he was hard of hearing and had misheard a word or two last night as they drank their cocoa. Which way should she go? She didn’t want to embarrass him with a correction, especially when he’d just finished telling her he felt like an old junker. But then he’d be more embarrassed later when he learned Louis’s right name. Better do it now, she thought.

“Yes,
Louis
is a good boy. Too good sometimes,” she said, rather loudly.

Arnie cocked his head. “That two boys you got? Louis and Lawrence? Now, I met Lawrence. Where’s Louis live?”

She was in it now. “Actually, Arnie, it’s Louis who lives at home.”

“Louis and Lawrence?” said Arnie. “Both at home still? Boy, I bet that gets crowded. I know when Iris moved back in I couldn’t walk into a room of my house without bumping into her. Of course, she’s kind of hefty, built for bumping, you might say.”

Oh dear. Gracie kept trying. “No, actually, you see it’s just Louis and me at home. There is no Lawrence.”

Arnie got it then. Gracie saw the chagrin spread across his face. He touched her arm with his hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I shouldn’t have pursued it.”

And now he thinks Lawrence is dead! She wanted to laugh, or give Arnie a good shake. But she said, loudly and leaning close to what she hoped was his good ear, “Don’t be sorry, Arnie. It was long ago and far away.” An odd sort of sadness crept through her as she said the words. Well, in a way a child of hers had died: Beautiful Louis at sixteen, lost in a fire. She cleared her throat and looked away.

Arnie didn’t notice. His eyes were set on a different direction. “Gracie, it was good of you to come out with me this morning. I mean, me barging in on you last night, and all. I wasn’t sure, you having slept on it for a night, if you was going to want to see me.”

“I was glad to see you, Arnie.” She was, truly. Spring meant Atlas working in his garden. She was happy to have the chance to associate it with something else, like walking beneath the green overhang of maple trees with this new man.

“It’s strange for me, Gracie, to want to see you.” When she turned to him, puzzled, he stammered on. “I mean, what I mean is, besides LuLu I never much wanted to be with anyone else, to go on walks and such. But that’s the first thing I wanted to do this morning when my eyes popped open—get over to this part of town and see you.” Arnie couldn’t believe the words were leaving his mouth.

“You’re a sweet man, Arnie.” Gracie smiled. To think I could move a man to say such things. Me, the Widow Malone.

“Well, I don’t know about that.” Arnie shrugged.

“I do. LuLu did all right for herself when she married you.”

It was Arnie’s turn to clear his throat and look away.

After they went around Dartmouth Circle, Gracie said they’d better head back. Her knee really was bothering her. They stopped every so often to admire a stand of tulips in someone’s yard, or a particularly fine azalea. A block or two from home Gracie paused, started to ask something, then didn’t.

“What is it?” Arnie said.

“My son,” she said. “Louis. I’m curious.”

“What about?”

“You haven’t asked me why he wears a hat and scarf. Are you being polite, or do you already know about him?”

“No to both questions,” Arnie said. He lifted his hook. “And you haven’t asked me about this.”

She looked at it without expression. “It never occurred to me to, Arnie.”

“There you go. It never occurred to me to ask about your boy. You got a hook for a right hand, you don’t nose around in other folks’ business. I guess me and you are about equal in that respect. Having lived with something pretty private, we’ve lost a certain curiosity.” He tapped his hook. “Lost my hand fooling with a car.”

“Louis was burned in a fire.”

“There,” said Arnie. “Got that out of the way, and it wasn’t even in the way.” He smiled.

An immense white azalea caught their eyes as they turned onto Gracie’s block.

“That’s a hell of a bush,” said Arnie.

“White is my favorite. Double-blossoming white.”

They were about to start up again when Arnie reached out, so quickly Gracie wasn’t sure he’d moved at all. But then she saw the blossom in his hand, and tilted her head toward him as he reached up and placed it in her white hair.

CHAPTER FOUR

I
T WAS
the skin on his face, with its memory of pain, that alerted Louis to the nearness of flames. He had been asleep, and the memory obliterated his dreams; the knowledge of heat and light startled him to wakefulness. Fear contracted him, caused him to shrink and curl upon his bed, his eyes clamped shut. A thought flashed: When they find me—a blackened ball stuck to the stinking sheets of my smoldering bed—I will horrify them, my monstrosity complete. He buried his head in the crook of his arm because he was terrified that the fire, which surely surrounded him, would flare into his face and melt his eyes. He couldn’t move because he might create a wind that would fan the flames. And if he opened his mouth to cry out, the heat would enter him, burning him from within. In what he took to be his final vision, he saw his room transformed into a crematorium, and himself, at first whole and recognizable upon his bed, slowly consumed by fire, feet, thighs, chest, scarf, hat.