A Light in the Window (42 page)

“H’lo.”

She was standing at the kitchen sink in a faded chenille robe and scuffs, making up a dinner tray. Her mane of red hair was tied back with what appeared to be the sash of her robe. It would be a terrific stretch, but he supposed she could be oddly attractive if she would dress herself and quit hunching over in that defeated way.

“Ah, Cousin. How’s it going?” He took his shoes off at the door, so he wouldn’t track mud, noting that his radio had been tuned to a country-music station.

“Booming along,” she said in her throaty voice. “You’ve popped home early.” There was a Coke can on her tray, but whatever was on her plate couldn’t be identified.

“And what did Puny leave us for supper?”

“Stewed chicken and rice.”

“And you’re having? ...”

“Rice with raspberry preserve and cottage cheese.”

“Aha.”

“You may recall that I eat flesh foods only on Sunday.”

He thought she looked like a stalk of Evie Adams’s Asiatic lilies, which needed staking every summer.

“You’ll join us for supper, of course.”

She left the kitchen and started down the hallway. “Sorry, but I have momentum on the book.”

“I thought you were going ’round and talk with people. Do research, you might say.”

She turned and stared at him with her magnified green eyes. “That comes later, of course.”

How much later, he couldn’t help but wonder, eyeing the pop top she had left in the sink.

“Are you sleeping through it?”

“Sleepin’ through what?” Dooley wanted to know.

“All that rumble in the guest room.”

“What rumble?”

He supposed that answered his question.

“I hear you’ve got company,” said Emma.

“A cousin. From Ireland.”

“Umm. Nobody’s seen ‘er, includin’ your house help. You’d think your house help would see ’er.”

“Doesn’t get out much, but she’s going to. She’ll be talking to descendants of Potato Famine emigrants.”

Emma peered at him over her half-glasses. “Descendants of
what?
”

“How’s Harold?”

“Grouchy.”

“Whatever for? His wife is a fine cook with an income-producing job and the housekeeping skills of a barracks sergeant.”

“I’m tryin’ to make him sleep in pajamas.”

“That explains it.”

“Says he never will. Baptists are hardheaded, you know. Episcopalians sleep in pajamas, and so do Lutherans. I’m not sure about Methodists.”

“You can never tell about Methodists.”

“He says he’s wearin’ his birthday suit, an’ that’s enough for him.”

“Maybe you should concentrate on more important things. What if you won this battle, only to lose the war?”

“Sometimes I don’t have a clue what you’re talkin’ about—win a battle, lose a war ...”

“Are you putting in a garden this year?”

“Harold is. I told him no more pole beans or I was leavin’. That garden nearly worked me to death last year. Came back from the honeymoon, had to jump in and go to pickin’ beans and tomatoes and cucumbers and squash, then put it all up in jars. Harold won’t eat anything put up in freezer bags.” She sighed deeply.

“That Harold!” he said, in an attempt to be consoling.

At 11:15, the Grill was still quiet. Having had a meeting in lieu of breakfast, he was famished and feeling in the mood to sit at the counter.

“We got two choices on today’s lunch menu,” Percy told him.

“What is it?”

“Take it ... or leave it.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Better watch what you’re sayin’. It might be liver.”

“So give me a tomato sandwich on whole wheat, not much mayonnaise.”

“Tomatoes ain’t any good yet. Too early. I’d take th’ grilled cheese.”

“Too much fat. Let me have an omelet with mushrooms.”

“All I got today is canned, no fresh.”

“Plain omelet, then.”

“I’m out of those brown eggs you like. White’s all I got. Wait a minute. I might have some brown down th’ hatch.”

“No, that’s OK. Too much trouble.”

“Hold your horses. Won’t take a minute.”

Percy disappeared behind the grill, opened the hatch in the floor, and went down the steps where he stored certain food items. He came back up quickly and lowered the hatch door.

“Nope.”

The rector scratched his head. “I’m worn out trying to get a bite to eat around here. How about a hot dog, all the way?” Live a little, he thought.

“My buns ain’t come in yet. Be here any minute.”

“Plain omelet with white eggs, and make it snappy,” he said, feeling his blood sugar plummet.

“I’d sure like to hear a dose of scandal this mornin’,” said Percy, taking two eggs out of the refrigerator. “Preachers hear scandal all th’ time. What’s th’ latest?”

“Uncle Billy got a new jacket for Easter. First clothing purchase in thirty years.”

“That news is too mild t’ mess with. Keep goin’.”

“Omer Cunningham’s come back to town.”

“Shoot, I heard that more’n a week ago. You’re about as up t’ date as th’
Muse.”

“Here’s a good one. Homeless Hobbes has a dog.”

Percy rolled his eyes. He could get better gossip out of a brick wall.

“It’s a nice little brown and white spotted dog, but it can’t bark. He named it Barkless. Homeless and Barkless, how do you like that?”

Percy thought his customer seemed thrilled with his dog story. “I had somethin’ more in’erestin’ in mind. Like, I hear you were out strollin’ with your nice-lookin’ neighbor before Easter. Velma told me this mornin’ to find out what’s goin’ on or she’d bust.”

The rector stared at the splatter board behind the grill.

“I figured you’d clam up. Here’s your omelet. What d’you think?”

“Looks a little dry.”

“Have some salsa,” said Percy, shoving two jars across the counter. “From Los Angeles to New York City, salsa’s th’ latest thing.”

“Which flavor?”

“Try th’ hot. It’ll roll your collar back.”

He recklessly spooned the stuff onto his plate.

“Lookit this,” said Percy, who took a napkin from under the counter and showed it to him. “Don’t that beat all?”

He instantly recognized one of Buck Leeper’s intricate doodles.

“Buck Leeper done that this mornin’. Looks like it was engraved or somethin’. ’Course, I couldn’t tell you what it is if you held a gun t’ my head.”

“A chambered nautilus.”

“Well, anyway,” said Percy, “what am I supposed to tell Velma?”

He should have gone home, as originally planned, where the menu was more varied and nobody asked hard questions.

“What about you and your nice neighbor?” inquired Puny when he walked home from the Grill to pick up his checkbook.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m hearin’ stuff.”

“You know.”

Barnabas sat down at his feet and peered up at him. Odd, but he thought he saw a questioning look in his eye.

“No, I don’t know. Do I pry into your affairs with Joe Joe?”

“It seems to me you’d be proud to talk about it.”

“Talk about what?”

“Bein’ in love.”

“Am I in love?”

“If you ain’t, I’ll eat your refrigerator.”

“That would be a pretty sight,” he said, tersely.

“I’m your house help. I ought to be one of th’ first to know, don’t you think?”

She looked so pretty in her green and white striped apron that he found it hard to refuse her anything. If he ever lost Puny Bradshaw, and the bright light that switched on every time she entered his house, he would be up the creek.

“Ah, Puny.” He sat down on the stool at the counter, feeling suddenly deflated.

“I know how you’re feelin’,” she said.

“You do?”

“Pretty much.”

“Well, it’s good that somebody does. I hardly know, myself.”

“I thought so.”

“You did?”

“I’d give you a big hug if you wouldn’t take it wrong.”

“I wouldn’t.”

She came and put her arms around him and squeezed. He squeezed back. “You’re the best of the best,” he said, trying not to croak.

“Same back and ditto. Now, get your chin up off th’ floor.”

He laughed. “Consider it done.”

Walking to the office, he felt that the eighteen-wheeler that had been parked on his shoulders for days had miraculously moved to another parking lot.

He couldn’t figure what to do about Meg Patrick.

But why do anything, he wondered, as long as she wasn’t a bother? He seldom saw her, and he closed his door at night to the thumping that sounded like a barn dance for field rabbits. Obviously, she was cleaning her own room, for she was no trouble to Puny. She was even doing her own laundry, he supposed.

It was a peculiar circumstance, but why worry about something that clearly wasn’t worth it?