The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay (35 page)

 

Edward pulled in to his parking space on the car lot. He’d been gone four hours. He checked into his rearview for signs of Iris’s lipstick. A glob of apple filling was stuck to his chin. He adjusted the mirror to get a better look behind. Yes, there was Murphy, hands in his pockets like a good-for-nothing, watching him. Edward readjusted his mirror and got out of the car. Back on the job. It had been good to be out, to be moving.

“Well, well, look who’s here! We thought maybe you got lost, took a wrong turn!” Murphy said, with that hale and hearty voice of his, like he was on the radio. It always meant trouble. “Where you been, Eddie?” Murphy wouldn’t even let him get to his desk, following along behind him like a dog in heat. “We were just starting to get worried, weren’t we, Jones?” Ralph Jones never looked up from the magazine he was reading behind his desk.

“I been with a customer. Test-drive.” Edward took his jacket off and hung it over the chair. He could smell Iris’s perfume in it.

“Make a sale?”

“I’m working on it.” Bastard. Edward opened the drawer of his desk, like he was looking in there for something important, keeping his head down. If he looked up into Murphy’s face, there’d be no turning him off. Edward lifted up a page of the manufacturer’s price list that he always kept on top, over his magazines and joke books. Murphy was standing in front of his desk.

“I hope it works out, Eddie. I really do.”

Edward looked up. “Well, isn’t that nice of you, Murphy?”

“Yeah, well.” Murphy put his hands on top of the desk and leaned over toward him. Edward could smell them Pep-O-Mints he always sucked. “See, Eddie, this customer you were out fishing for . . . well, it kept you from snagging the one you had on the hook.”

“Is that so?” Christ, that Blair guy he’d spent all of yesterday buttering. He’d come back, the bastard, when he said he would.

“We kept him dangling here as best we could, Eddie, thinking you was just out for a bite, thinking you’d be rolling onto the lot any minute. We even called your wife at the store, to see if you’d surprised her with a little visit. Blair, I think that’s his name?” Edward nodded. “He was gasping for air, Eddie. You could see that we had to get him off the hook or throw him back. He’d been over to Rubell Motors, and they were angling for him, they would of hooked him for sure if I’d of let him walk out of here. If I hadn’t stepped in. He was losing patience.”

Edward watched Murphy’s tongue moving the Life Saver around while he talked. “You made the sale?”

“Couldn’t throw him over to Rubell, now, could I, Eddie?” Murphy shrugged like he was sorry about something. Sorry his hairy horse’s ass.

“The used Belvedere two-door that Marston woman traded in last week? That’s the one I got him hot for.” Edward wanted Murphy to know just who had done the real selling, that bastard, just who had done the real work. “’Cause he was a cold drop-in when I got my hands on him. He wasn’t looking to buy shit till I took him around the lot.”

Murphy grinned. “Oh, I don’t doubt that, Eddie, not for a minute.” He smiled that sickly smile of his that Edward wanted to plaster across some roadside. “Actually, Eddie, the truth is, I bumped it up a little. He ordered one from the factory. With extras. A/C. Radio. Special paint job. Four-door. Convertible, actually.”

Edward could feel his face get hot. The root beer he’d drunk down so fast was trying to come up on him. He held on to the top of his desk drawer, waiting for Murphy to stop gloating and shut his trap. He needed that sale. Christ. You could sit around this place for a week and have nothing. Do a whole book of them word puzzles. Everyone had some kind of book like that in his desk. Even Murphy had them sports books. Then you go out for an hour or so, you finally get the hell out of here, and this happens.

“Did you hear me, Eddie?” Murphy again. “You seemed lost in thought there.” Edward looked at him. “I say your wife wants you to call her. Hope I didn’t worry her none, trying to locate you.”

“I’ll call her right now.” Edward reached for his phone. That’d get Murphy off his desk, at least.

“You do that, Eddie.” Murphy finally walked away. “Don’t want to worry that nice lady.” Edward watched him reach into his pocket and peel back another Pep-O-Mint.

He turned his face to the wall, where he had his calendar pinned up, some covered bridge in Vermont, and put the receiver to his ear. He dialed his own telephone, so he’d get a busy signal. He couldn’t talk to Idella now. Them bastards would listen to every word, and she’d be nothing but questions. He didn’t have the strength to come up with any answers.

 

“Where were you?” It was the first thing out of Idella’s mouth as soon as the customer was out the front door with his six-pack. She stood behind the register of Jensen’s Drive-In Store, her hands resting on top of the closed cash drawer, her nylons rolled down around her ankles like little brown doughnuts. Edward barely had time to come in the side door and snag a bag of Humpty Dumpty from the potato-chip rack.

“With a customer.” Edward crammed a handful of chips into his mouth.

“For four hours?”

“How do you know how long it was?”

“Because I called the showroom, finally. They said you’d just left. I never heard a word from you, did I?”

“I tried to call, but the line was busy.”

“That’s what Mr. Murphy said. But I been right here standing at this register all the livelong day since nine o’clock this morning, and not one call has come in on that telephone except for Mr. Murphy looking for you. The only thing that’s been busy is me. Pat called in sick, George couldn’t fill in for her, so I’ve been standing here since I woke up this morning. I’m about ready to drop. I’ve had three beer deliveries to put away, plus Oakhurst, Old King Cole, and Humpty Dumpty. The whole time kids kept coming in asking for candy and bringing in them damn empties. I couldn’t even pee till Mrs. Rudolf come in and I asked her to keep an eye out while I went upstairs. I was ready to burst.”

“Well, Jesus Christ, Idella, none of that is my fault. You blame me for everything. You’d blame me if you farted.”

“Don’t go getting funny.”

“Who’s been nagging at me since I walked in the goddamned door?”

The front door opened, and a customer walked in. “Good evening,” Idella called out cheerily. “How are you this evening?”

Edward walked over behind the meat counter in the back of the store. The lights were off, and the shadows felt good. He sat on the rickety kitchen chair they had back there and stared into the display case, at the unsliced torpedoes of bologna and salami, the white cardboard containers of hamburger that Idella had carefully weighed out and wrapped, and the hot dogs from Jordan’s Meats, skinny penises linked by their tails and layered into the box. They put something in them hot dogs to make them red. He didn’t know why.

He could hear Idella out there making small talk. “Oh, yes, kids’ll all be out of school before we know it. No, we don’t take a vacation, really. We’ve got the camp out on Highland Lake. We’re going to open it up on Sunday. But it’s so hard to keep up and run the store. And renters are so hard on it. The things people’ll do when it’s someone else’s property. You want matches, too? And kids get out there in the winter and break in and use the place for drinking and whatnot. It’s terrible. Do you need a bag for that?” The high trill of Idella’s voice was like water running somewhere, a leak that wouldn’t shut off.

Christ, Idella’d be wanting to rent out the camp soon, or Barbara and Donna would want to use it with their friends, always wanting to go swimming. Edward reached into his shirt pocket and shook out a Lucky Strike. He and Iris had been going out there since the fall. It got cold as hell in the winter. They made their own heat, him and Iris. Edward felt around in his pants pockets for his matches. They’d walked in there in the snow one time, when the camp road wasn’t plowed. Snow come up to their knees. They’d thrown snowballs. He hadn’t done that since he was a kid. They’d gotten out the wool blankets Idella had in mothballs and garbage bags, and they’d made a fire from what was left stacked out on the porch. With a bottle of Crown Royal and some Italian sandwiches he’d brought from the store, they had a feast. Idella did make a good Italian sandwich, even Iris had to give her credit there.

Where were them matches? He swatted at his pockets, going around and around to the same places he’d already been—shirt, pants, jacket. Goddamned matches. Iris had stuck them in her purse, probably. She was always taking things from out of his pockets. Said she liked to keep bits of him around. He stood up, staying behind the meat counter, and waited till Idella went over to the beer cooler and slid the door open. She always restocked it right after a sale, to keep the beer cold. Edward walked over to the register and reached behind it for some matches. Idella was bent over halfway into the cooler, like a cow in a stall, with just her ass sticking out and them bony legs. She was getting them warm six-packs into the way back so the cold ones’d be up front. Edward knew he should be doing that. And he would. After he had a smoke. He got back onto his chair in the shadows and lit his Lucky Strike.

He picked stray bits of tobacco off the tip of his tongue and thought of Iris, the way her tongue got so quick. He took a long drag and felt his lungs fill up with smoke. Why anyone would smoke them filtered things, like having cotton in your mouth, he couldn’t figure. You smoke or you don’t. Where would they go now, him and Iris? He blew the smoke out and watched it curl up to the ceiling. Iris never stopped talking when they were “doing it,” kept talking the whole time, her voice all soft and low. Christ, that was the one time Idella ever got quiet. Iris talked dirty to him. She egged him on, teased, till he’d have to stop her mouth up with his tongue and then he’d steer into her so hard and clean like he owned the road and his foot was flooring the pedal. God Almighty.

“Where the hell have you been? I thought you was upstairs going to the john or something, till I smell this cigarette. Here I been standing all the livelong day while you’re out driving around—at least you get to go someplace—and when you finally get here, you sit down some more and keep me standing. Couldn’t you at least help me fill up the cooler?”

“Jesus Christ, Idella, I help you plenty. What do you think I been doing all day? Driving around in the country looking at the trees? I been trying to sell some goddamned cars, that’s what I’ve been doing while you’re in here squawking with the customers.” There she was, at him, at him, not even letting him have the pleasure of one cigarette.

“Did you sell any?”

“I would have, a brand-new factory convertible, if that Murphy bastard didn’t steal the customer the one time I go out to get something to eat so I don’t have to stare into his goddamned ugly face. I spent my whole afternoon yesterday with that customer. He said he had to go talk to his wife. His wife, my ass. He was over at Rubell’s, the bastard. I offered him a good deal. Then he comes back today and gives the sale to Murphy ’cause I’m getting something to eat.”

“But Murphy called here looking for you.”

“Sure he did, to cover his ass. He’d made the sale already, the goddamned cheating bastard.” Edward could feel that wave of heat pouring down his face. He pounded his fists against the top of his legs.

“Well, don’t go bursting something over it. It’s done. Sit down. I’ll get you a beer.” Idella was on her way to the cooler. “It’s a damn hard way to make a living, I know that much.” She got a cold Budweiser out, replaced it with a bottle from the back, and opened it on the soda cooler. “Here, sit down and drink this. Are you hungry? I’ve got some sandwiches made.” Edward nodded that he was hungry. He took a swig of the beer. “Let me get you set up.” Idella pulled down the wooden shelf that served as their eating area and unwrapped a long, thin sandwich from the white paper it had been rolled into. People came in from all over to get them sandwiches for their lunches, Edward thought. Jensen’s Drive-In made the best Italian sandwiches. “Do you want extra oil?” Edward nodded. Idella squirted olive oil from the shaker bottle up and down the sandwich. She used real olive oil. “Extra ham?” Edward nodded again. She got some sliced ham out of the cooler and tucked it into the long roll. “Sit here. I’ll get you some chips to go with it.”

“Barbecue,” Edward called after her, his mouth already full.

 

“Turn off the beer signs, Edward. Lock the front door. It’s after eleven. I’m not ringing up one more customer. Jesus, what a day. I’m so tired I could drop.” Idella let out a deep sigh. She stood facing the counter behind the register, preparing to tally the day’s cash drawer and make out the nightly deposit. Edward would ride them down to Casco Bank on Main Street, and she’d put it into the night-deposit slot. “Ten, twenty, thirty . . .”

“Where’d we get them new flavors?” Edward had locked the door, turned off the neon beer signs, and opened the ice-cream freezer as he passed it.

“Seventy, eighty . . .” Idella stopped laying down the pile of bills. “From the ice-cream delivery, where’d you think? Jesus, Edward, I’m trying to count.”

“I was just asking, for Christ’s sake.” He bent down closer to look at the frozen boxes before him.

“One hundred, one hundred and ten . . . Don’t go getting into anything now.”

“I’m just looking!”

“One hundred and thirty.”

She finished counting the tens. Edward leaned into the cooler to read the flavor on the box. “Banana Rum. That sounds awful good. Do you think it’s legal?”

“Course it’s legal. It’s just rum flavoring, is all.”

“I’m going to have to try me some.”

“Not now, Edward. It’s so late. Haven’t you had enough? I saw you with that Payday.” Idella started counting the next pile. “Five, ten, fifteen, twenty . . .” He heard the soft
slap, slap, slap
of the bills as she stacked them.

“Where’s a spoon?” Edward removed a half gallon of ice cream.