Agnes Mallory (6 page)

So the next Friday, I was back out on Hampshire Road playing baseball as the sun went down. Up at the sewer, with Dave lobbing them in this time, Freddy and Rick sharing the narrow outfield which went only from curb to curb. I had invisible men on first and third, two outs and two fouls on me – and we allowed foul-outs in this game to keep it moving so I could go down with any swing. And it was that time of day again, the light failing. And the big front window of Andrea Fiedler's house had gone ebony again and was shimmering with the reflection of gnarly apple branches, sparsely blossomed. My Louisville Slugger, circling over my shoulder, was pictured on the glass as well, and so was the tennis ball coming in. And her shape, her silhouette, Andrea's, was also there, I imagined, melding with the other blackness as she hovered spectral in her living room, watching me perform.

Dave's pitch reached me. I swung. Gave it a thok, a real shot. Usually I pulled those over the housetops, a long strike, but this one stayed true. Soon, it was bouncing way the hell down by the corner of Hartford and Sloane. Rick, who was fast, was tearing after it, but he had no chance of catching up. He could only watch where the ball landed and report back.

‘Home run,' he shouted.

I made only the most restrained gesture of triumph, yanking the air in front of me into my fist. Then I pivoted from the plate to walk off the energy. And I saw that the light had come on in the Fiedlers' window.

Mrs Fiedler was in there, setting the dinner table. Then, as I watched, a toilet flushed faintly in the distance and Andrea skipped in too and started to help with the cutlery. She came in, I saw, from the back of the house somewhere. She hadn't been stationed at the window, in other words. She hadn't been watching me.

I returned to the sewer for a few practice swings, while Rick and Freddy relayed the ball back to the mound.

The next day, Saturday, was a warm, pleasant day in May, but I awoke somehow in the tar pits of meditation. I didn't know why I was in such a funk. I even watched the cartoons scowling. In pajamas till ten, my hair uncombed. Nothing satisfactory. Finally, somewhere between ‘How come we never have any
good
cereal?' and ‘This is a stupid house, there's nothing to do here,' my mother got sick of me. ‘It's a lovely day,' she said. ‘Why don't you go outside and play?' And I was banished to the suburban streets.

Like a lonesome cowpoke, I wandered aimlessly. What was life? What good was anything? Why did I have to be stuck in Miss Truxell's class? It had ruined my existence. Nothing was ever any fun anymore. And where was my dog – why had my parents killed my poor dog two years ago without telling me? Oh, Clancy, Clancy, if only you were here. Eyes on the macadam, sneakers kicking stones, I shuffled east to Plymouth and then Piccadilly Road. I was going to think this world out, I decided. I was going to know what I believed and stand for it and never complain and watch everything with an air of dangerous quiet and make terse, profound statements through tight lips. And hey, what if the women were not quite naked but were in their underwear and leaned forward and said, ‘Please, please, King Harry, you can do anything you want to me?' The sun was at my back, the lawns were dewy, birds sang, and the air was like sponge cake, soft, warm and sweet.

A screen door banged. I raised my eyes and up ahead was Agnes.

This time, she was not only flouncing smugly from one lawn to the next, but was decked out in green beret and brown smock – a Girl Scout uniform. Now she was selling Girl Scout cookies, for Cripes' sake. She headed up the path to the next door, primly toting her sample boxes, clipboard and order form. Disgusting. I shook my head, determined to mope right past her.

So, of course, there was no one home at her next stop and I came abreast of her just as she laid off the chimes and came prancing down the front walk toward me.

‘Hi,' she said.

I stopped. Lifted my world-weary visage, as if surprised to see her there. She was standing flat-footed on the sidewalk, facing me straight on in that unnerving way girls have. I tipped her the lorn, lonesome wave of the ambling saddle tramp.

‘Taking a walk?'

‘Yeah,' I sighed, grimly remembering how I'd killed a man in a gunfight in Abilene.

‘I'm selling Girl Scout cookies. I've done twenty boxes so far just this morning, although my mother took five. Jessica and I are going to share our sales so neither of us has more than the other. And that way we'll both have more than Michelle. She's our friend too but she's kind of annoying.'

I nodded with a sad, kind of faraway look in my eye.

‘Well … I have to go home for lunch now,' she said. ‘You could come if you wanted to. We're having wagon wheel noodles and Girl Scout cookies for dessert.'

Normally, I'd have refused out of simple shyness – and, too, it was just about time for me to be movin' on to another town. On the other hand: wagon wheels and Girl Scout cookies – those vanilla creme sandwiches especially … And it'd teach my mother something if I just didn't turn up for her lunch.

I shrugged. ‘Okay.'

And we walked off together to the top of the hill.

And so, The Queer Lunch. There's no doubt it was the beginning of something. And it sure was queer, too, right from the start, right from the minute I walked in the door. There was the smell of the place, first of all. Not your usual kid's house smell, open to the air, the screen door banging, laundry going, lunch on. It was that other smell, stagnant and ripe, plush with the must of another country. Not that I actually thought of Grandpa or the Nouveau Riche Hotel Of Parental Death or anything. But the defeated-looking stuffed chairs in the living room, and the rattle of Hummel shepherd boys on the mantelpiece and of hand-sculpted glass on the coffee table as I tromped through after Agnes – these did feel familiar to me, even as they felt unalterably foreign.

The kitchen was better. Brightly lit with a window on the trees out back. Yellow wallpaper and shiny floor tiles. And the starchy smell of noodles steaming. And there was the Mom, Mrs Sole, hair up and apron on, comfortably at her stove, a recognizable and reassuring presence.

‘Hi, Mom, I'm home,' Agnes said.

She turned from the noodle pot, wooden spoon in hand. Smiling. ‘Oh, hel …'

Did I register the way her eyes went flat, the way her cheeks, pinkened by the noodle steam, drained suddenly to chalk? Her smile was back in place in a pulse beat.

‘And Harry! How – how nice to see you.'

‘He was taking a walk,' Agnes said. She dropped her cookie-selling stuff on the kitchen counter. ‘Can he have lunch with us?'

‘Lunch?' whispered Mrs Sole. We regarded each other, she and I, she with her wooden spoon upraised.

‘I'm hungry,' said Agnes. ‘Can we eat now?'

‘Yes. Yes,' said Mrs Sole. She glanced desperately back at her noodle pot. ‘I guess we have enough, I …' She looked at me again. I looked up at her blankly. I wondered if she was feeling sick or something. ‘Of course,' she said finally. ‘You're more than welcome to stay, Harry. We'd love to have you.'

‘He's our friend Mr Bernard's son,' said Agnes.

‘Yes. Yes, I know,' said Mrs Sole, and cleared her throat.

‘Are we eating now? Should I call Daddy?'

Mrs Sole turned slowly back to the stove. She put her spoon back in the pot – weakly, it seemed. She stirred with slumped shoulders. ‘Yes,' she said softly. ‘Call Daddy. He's on the back porch.'

‘Come on,' Agnes said to me. She scampered out the kitchen door. ‘Daddy! Daddy!' we heard her call.

I'd lingered there and stood behind Mrs Sole, squinting up at her back. ‘Excuse me, Mrs Sole,' I said. ‘I ought to call my mother.' Her head came up; I heard her make a noise – a laugh, I think. A sort of wild, frightened laugh. ‘To tell her I won't be home for lunch,' I said.

‘Of course, Harry.' She turned, just barely, pointed with her wooden spoon at a phone screwed into the side of a cupboard. ‘The phone's right over there.'

So over I bounced. Lifted down the receiver. Dialed Mom. ‘Hi, it's me,' I said. ‘I'm staying at a friend's house for lunch. Okay. Okay. Bye.' I fit the phone back in its cradle and turned around.

Agnes's Mom was staring at me. Bent over her pot, gripping her spoon, holding it into the steam without stirring. Staring at me over her shoulder like a terrified animal. She licked her ashen lips – she seemed about to smile, about to speak. But then her stare, as if at a shrill alarm, shot elsewhere. Nervously, I followed the line of it to the kitchen door.

Agnes had returned. She stood in the doorway. She was hanging happily onto her father's sleeve, bouncing up and down by his trouser waist, as he surveyed the kitchen, me, his wife, through inconsolable eyes.

‘Lunch time!' Agnes sang.

Dr Sole. Dr Chaim Sole. The first thing that struck me about him, naturally, was how old he was. You couldn't help but notice it. The way he walked, shuffling slowly in pants a size too large. The grizzled wattle at his neck, his limp yellow-gray hair, his damp, uncertain lips, his rheumy eyes. Even I, blithe and stupid, thought he must be Agnes's grandfather really. But Agnes said, ‘Daddy, this is Harry. Harry, this is my Daddy.' And in they came.

He's what I remember best about The Queer Lunch, what made it truly queer, deeply queer, though he said hardly anything to me. Just brushed by above me with a distracted smile when we were introduced, and patted my hair with his dry palm – like any old man. We ate in a sunny alcove off the kitchen, with screen doors letting onto the slate patio, the small yard, the treeline and the spring weather. There were modern paintings on the white wall, I remember. Drips and smears of pastel that you couldn't focus on, and that were oddly disturbing. The Doctor sat at the head of the glass table. He ate salad and bread and spoke to his wife, when he asked for anything, in a thick voice with some sort of accent. He spoke with formal, courtly sweetness to her: it was nerve-wracking, and made me sit up straight and say, ‘Thank you' a lot and keep my mouth shut otherwise whenever I could. Agnes, though – she chattered away. Seated across from me, her eyes brown and bright, her head up like a twittering bird's.

‘Jessica says she's not sure she's even going to invite Michelle to her birthday party because she's so annoying, but she says she probably will because Michelle is still her best friend although I'm her best best friend. Michelle thinks she's so great because she can do cartwheels, but Jessica says she'll teach me to do cartwheels too, she taught Michelle and she says it's not so hard …'

‘The bread please, my dear,' said the doctor.

Mrs Sole handed me the basket and I passed it on to him, then stole a glance back at her. She was sitting like a ramrod, watching him. Her breath held, her cheeks still pink as if with kitchen steam, her eyes fairly glittering with hectic terror. Only when Agnes's prattling paused, did she seem to come awake, round on her daughter desperately with:

‘Have you told Harry we visited a farm, Agnes? Why don't you tell him about the farm?'

‘Oh. Yes. That was fun. Well, we went to a farm …'

And off Agnes went again. And up again sat Mrs Sole, swallowing with relief, resuming her anxious watch along the table. And I, with my nose buried in my bowl of wagon wheels, oppressed by Mrs Sole's strange nerves and Dr Sole's bizarre old age, and with the foreign aura of formality and a gothic closeness that pressed in on top of me like gloom, only just dared, clamping my mouth on my buttery spoon, to hazard a look also at Agnes's father. And, well, he, during all this, was staring at the bread. That's all he was doing. Staring at a hunk of bread he'd lifted from the basket. What an expression he gave it too, as he held it there like Yorick's skull, absently mashing his salad with flaccid, lettuce-flecked lips. A hunk of hand-sliced rye, it was. He turned it a little, this way and that, as if studying the facets in the light; the shape, the crust, the seeds, I don't know. Tragic, intimate, ardent, amused, enraged: if you held in your hand your own malignancy and found it had the face of the woman you love – that was the gaze he was putting on that wedge of rye. While Agnes blathered about funny-smelling sheep, and Mrs Sole sat rigid, flushed and saucer-eyed; and I, finally, laced into those noodles again, scraping the bottom of the bowl with my spoon, and politely declining seconds.

‘Why don't you two take your cookies outside?' said Mrs Sole when she had doled them out to us two apiece. ‘Agnes, why don't you take Harry down to the stream and play there?'

It was a relief to tumble with Agnes out the patio doors back into that pillowy spring day, and lunch was forgotten at once. Agnes, still in her Girl Scout uniform, her scraped knees bare, skipped along ahead of me, over the slate, then over the grass, then up to the edge of the trees where we could hear the stream riffling below us. I came up beside her and we stood munching our vanilla cremes intently until our hands were free. Then, when our mouths were stuffed, we dusted the crumbs off our fingers. Agnes gulped her cookies down.

‘Now!' she said.

And there, at last, it was again. A genuine thrill to see it, too; a goosey scare even. Her crimped face was of a sudden all witchery, with arched brows and torchlight eyes. Her voice was that mysterious whisper. The weird voodoo girl I remembered from last April had returned.

She pressed in toward me until I nearly leaned away. ‘Now,' she hissed, ‘I'm going to take you to … the
star rock
! Follow me!'

Arms out like wings, she ran into the trees. She'd left her Girl Scout beret inside, and her braids, which had been pinned up before, bounced around free behind her. I felt a little stupid, I reckon, but I sure enough jogged after her all the same. Losing her for moments in the maze of trees. Sliding down the slope to the muddy streambank. Leaping the water on a bridge of stones. Then scaling the opposite slope over rocks and roots, litter, beer cans and pine needles until finally, panting, we pushed together through another stand of conifers and oaks, and came out into an empty lot.