The Future Homemakers of America. Laurie Graham
has, spitting image of yourself aged five. We have had our troubles, your father brought in some grade ewes and some wethers, Romneys and Blue Faces, five got loose, got pasture bloat so bad they were goners, another one swallowed a French letter, excuse my language, and I’d sure like to know how one of them things got on Bolster Graze. If there’s a way to die young, you can depend on a sheep to find it. Good money thrown after bad. I had my way we’d sell up, open a yarn store in Skowhegan. Norton Beebe, you’ll remember Norton, pumped gas down in Palmyra, had a sister with a withered leg, he got killed out in Korea, he was in the infantry, National Guard, darned if I understand what this war is all about. I just give thanks that you’re not out there, risking your neck. Best regards to your wife. Your loving mother, Clementine Dewey.
Vern screwed it into a ball and sent it spinning across the room.
‘You read that?’ he said. ‘Not risking your neck? She ever hear about the Soviet Union? She ever hear a nucular capability? What’s she think? I’m sitting here on my finger, flying a desk?’
I said, ‘I dunno, Vern. How’s she supposed to know what you’re doing? I sure as hell don’t.’
‘Norton Beebe,’ he said. ‘Guess he’s some kinda hero now. Tell you, the trouble with Maine, folks there don’t see the big picture. They’re so busy thinking ’bout some yellowskin shot Norton, they don’t even know there’s a big Russian grizzly after their asses. I guess you gotta look at the world from 42,000 feet to understand.’
He was doing his sit-ups.
‘You seen anything of Lois?’
I wondered where he might be coming from with a question like that. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I think I did. Why d’you ask?’
‘She say anything ’bout her birthday?’
‘No.’
‘Only, Herb’s fixing a surprise for her and he’s worried she might have gotten wind of it.’
‘She never said.’
‘He brung it down to Beer Call tonight,’ he said, ‘show us what he’d done so far. He’s carving her a roebuck. Amazing what that man can do with a knife. He’s got a real knack.’
I said, ‘You sure it’s a roebuck?’
‘Yup,’ he said.
I said, ‘You sure it’s not a giraffe?’
‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Legs were too short.’
I kept a low profile, stayed outta Lois’s path for a day or two, but in the end she come to my door.
‘Guess we better clear the air? she said.
She came in and I made coffee. It was hard, though, trying to talk normal with her, after what I had seen.
‘Peg,’ she said, ‘I know it didn’t look good …’
I said, ‘I didn’t want to get involved, Lo.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Well, I figured it would have been Audrey’s idea, snooping around, checking up on me. Thing is, you know, sometimes things happen that shouldn’t … but it was the only time. I swear.’
I said, ‘I don’t wanna talk about it.’
‘Me neither,’ she said. ‘So that’s that.’
‘Yup,’ I said.
She said, ‘You do believe me?’
‘Of course,’ I said. I lied.
‘So we’re friends again. Clean slate?’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Clean slate.’
‘Great!’ she said. ‘So you coming to Betty’s tomorrow night? We’re gonna have a pyjama party for my birthday. Booze, records, everything. Crystal can sleep over.’
Vern and Ed and Herb were starting three weeks of night missions. Okey was on assignment, Norway or some place we weren’t meant to know about.
I said, ‘How about Audrey?’
‘Yeah. She’s up for it,’ she said. ‘We declared a ceasefire. She’s bringing potato chips.’
I said to Audrey, ‘Betty’s twittering around making party favours and popping corn and I feel like I’m going to a party in a minefield.’
‘Panic over,’ she said. ‘I think we’ve put a stop to that little adventure. And no casualties!’
I took along beer and a card, but I didn’t wear my pyjamas. I kinda forgot, but it could just have been my way of holding out on Lois. I still had a certain something on my mind, until I seen some genuine sign of her shaping up.
I said to Crystal, ‘You gonna play nicely with Sherry and Deana?’
‘Only if I don’t have to be the baby or the patience,’ she said. Mommies and Hospitals were about the only games the Gillis girls knew. And sure enough, when we got there they were hauling Sandie around like a sack of grain, telling her she had to get a Band-Aid on her head.
Crystal sat in the corner, going through Betty’s albums. She never minded entertaining herself. I could hear her making up names for all the people in the photos. ‘Princess Nancy and Princess Jennifer and Princess Crystal Margaret Dewey, and they live in a palace and they are allowed a dog of their very own.’
By the time the kids crashed it was ten o’clock and I was the only one left sober.
‘I’d like to toast a drink,’ Betty said, up-ending a Schlitz all over the rug. ‘To our birthday girl, Lois. And to my Ed, ’cause Friday it’ll be our ninth anniversary.’
‘Nine years!’ Lois said. ‘D’you get a emerald or something for that?’
‘Gosh, no. Nine is … Audrey, help me out here, is nine years cardboard or tin?’
‘Well, whatever you get, you’ve earned it.’ Lois was on the floor, sharing cushions and a bowl of potato chips with Gayle. ‘Nine years with Ed Gillis. You deserve a Purple Heart. Where’d you find that man, anyway?’
‘In Warsaw, Indiana,’ Betty said. ‘I was visiting with Glick cousins and Ed was the boy next door. It was love at first sight. How ’bout you, girls? Audrey? How about you and Lance. Was it love at first sight?’
Underneath that rosebud nightdress Betty had a heart of pure mush.
‘Kind of,’ Audrey said. ‘I liked his freckles first. I took my time deciding about the rest of him.’
Betty said, ‘And what brought you together?’
‘Naked ambition,’ Lois said. ‘Audrey’s the only one of us gonna make Mrs Full-Bird Colonel, and you heard it here first.’
Audrey smiled. Seemed like the peace was gonna hold.
‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I suppose it was Route 94 brought us together, ’cause I was in Chicago, and Lance was in Great Lakes, Illinois. I wouldn’t mind a buck for every time I drove that highway.’
Lois had it about right, though, Lance being Lance T. Rudman II, son of the late Commodore Lance T. Rudman, US Navy, Annapolis Academy, white gloves and all and Audrey having such a cut-glass style about her.
Anyway, I told them about me and Vern, and Gayle told us how she couldn’t ever remember a time when she didn’t know Okey.