Equal Affections (17 page)

“It was crazy at the store today. A real madhouse. I remember when this was a small town.”

“Well, Iris, I could have warned you. King's on a Saturday.”

“You have to eat!” Iris says, then sighs. “Oh, well.”

She hangs up just as Walter is coming out of the bathroom. “Has April called yet?” he asks brightly.

“No!” Danny shouts, slamming down the phone.

“I was just asking, you don't have to get mad!” Walter shakes his head as he towels off, then cheerily hops off to the bedroom to put on clean clothes. Apparently the prospect of April's arrival has added considerably to his already improved mood. He takes mute pleasure in the way she and her coterie can transform the place into a hive of counterculture exoticism: incense burning in a guest room; pot brownies baking in the oven; women curled together in sleeping bags on the living room floor. New people! Conversation! Company! Apparently Danny's own relentlessly cheerful presence is just not enough for Walter. From the computer, it seems, he will move on to April. All of which makes Danny angry, as does the knowledge that Walter will treat April reverentially, indulgently when she arrives. Danny has privately been hoping to teach April a lesson over the course of this visit, but now he fears that Walter will undermine whatever position of strength he attempts to take. He can just see Walter making her bed, doing her laundry, even winking at her across the room—sheets and underwear in hand—as Danny sternly tells her she has to do these things herself this time. She will always find someone; if not him, someone else.

Soon enough the phone rings again. “I'll get it,” they both say, but Walter's hand is quicker. “Hello?” he says. There is a pause, and he smiles and laughs. “Where are you? Really? They're at Friendly's,” he reports to Danny, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece. “They're having Peanut Butter Cup sundaes.”

“Goodie,” Danny says.

Again Walter laughs. “They want to know what to do now,” he says.

“Well, tell them to get the hell over here,” Danny snorts. And to his own chagrin feels excitement, giddiness, delight.

“Danny says get the hell over here,” Walter dutifully reports. “What? Oh. Okay. She wants to talk to you.” He hands Danny the phone.

“We're early,” April says.

“I know.”

“Want to know why?”

“Why?”

“A cancellation in Rhinebeck.”

“Ah.”

“Right now we're at Friendly's. I love Friendly's. I wish Friendly's was in California.”

Danny can see her, standing at the pay phone in the back of the big, barnlike Friendly's. Undoubtedly the old ladies who frequent the place are staring in earnest at her band of oddly dressed accomplices.

“Well, you know how to get here from Friendly's,” Danny says.

“We'll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Okay. See you then.”

“Bye, Powderfoot.”

“Twenty minutes,” Danny says to Walter. But Walter is gone. Already he is making up beds.

It is still March. Just a few weeks before the month begins during which the whole world will fill with her name.

___________

“God,” April says, stretching her head back so that the sun will touch her face, “it's good to be out of that goddamned van.”

An electric churning noise issues from the kitchen, where Walter is preparing daiquiris. April, dressed in blue jeans and a white blouse embroidered with tiny blue flowers, lies back on one of last summer's battered chaises, dragged from the garage just a few minutes before her arrival. She is pale and seems to have gained some weight.

Three are with her: Mikel, the guitarist, a short, pretty, well-muscled woman in running shorts; Leela, the new drummer, a woman older than most of April's ever-changing band members, tall and reedy and with something of the look of a mild kindergarten teacher; and Paul, the pianist, a man (in and of itself extraordinary, a sign of changing times), indeed, an extraordinarily handsome man, darkly tanned and muscular and shirtless. His body gives off a strong smell as he lifts suitcases from the van, Walter in his shorts running up alongside, offering to help.

“Powderfoot, honey, do you have any Tab?”

“You're early,” Danny says. “I haven't had a chance to shop. Just Diet Coke.”

“You know I cannot stand Diet Coke,” April says. “I have a reaction. Just water then.”

Although the implications are teeming in his head, Danny fixes her a glass of water, with ice and even a slice of lemon, and brings it to her on the porch. Leela is explaining to Walter that she and Mikel won't be staying with them; they will be taking the van to visit friends in Bucks County. As for Paul, he's heading by train to New York, to meet his lover, Barney, for a rendezvous. Paul smiles, and Walter looks nervous.

“But,” April says, “you're going to have me to yourselves for an entire blissful, restful week before the New York concert. A brief vacation.” And Walter, cheered by this news, smiles again.

“Thank you, darling,” April says as she takes her glass of water. Like a queen, Danny thinks, lying on her chaise lounge. She has always taken it for granted that he will do her favors, as if asking them really is the prerogative of the older sibling.

“Ah,” she says. “I can't tell you how glad I am to be here, Powderfoot. Really glad, no fooling. I am beat. And just think what fun we'll have this week. We'll go shopping at the grocery store, and I'll make cakes and brownies, and we'll watch TV and eat popcorn.”

“April,” Danny reminds her, “both Walter and I work.”

“I could take some time off,” Walter volunteers. “Leave early, that sort of thing.”

“Well, we'll have fun at night then. During the day I'll work, too. You don't know how long I've been waiting for a stretch of time longer than two days in one place. I have this idea for some new songs I've been dying to get started on, and I just haven't had a minute, what with the concerts and all. But now. Yes. Now I'll have some time.” And she lies back in the sun, smiling slightly, and closes her eyes.

Leela and Mikel are finishing packing up the van. “So where do you hail from?” Walter asks them.

“Oregon,” Mikel says.

“Oakland,” says Leela.

“And what about you, Paul?”

Paul is lifting a huge amplifier out of the van and onto their lawn, and Danny thinks he really should ask him whether April is expecting to use their house as a warehouse as well as a hotel.

He remembers the interest scale.

“St. Louis.”

“Well, we're off,” Leela says, climbing into the passenger seat of the van. “We'll see you in a week, I guess. Take care.”

“Aren't you going to say good-bye to April?” Walter asks.

“Wouldn't want to wake her.”

And indeed, turning, Walter and Danny are astonished to see that April has fallen asleep. Her head tilted to one side, one hand drooping over the edge of the yellow plastic chaise. She is snoring very quietly.

D
anny had a cold, and his mother had taken him to the doctor's office. All around him, children were shuffling, sneezing, snorting, their mothers leafing through out-of-date copies of
House & Garden
or
Family Circle
. He had just finished reading
Highlights for Children,
finished comparing the meticulous behavior of that wonderful boy Gallant with the oafishness of his hideous alter ego, Goofus, when he noticed lying among the magazines a pair of big, bright children's books with glossy covers, one called
Bible Stories
and the other
Tales for Tots
. He picked up the second one; on the cover a red-cheeked, red-haired little girl was feeding an apple to a pony while her freckled brother chased around a puppy with a bright nub of a tongue. The book had a lot of pictures, most in color, which reminded Danny of
My Weekly Reader
. As he thumbed through it, one of them in particular caught his eye: It was of the freckle-faced little boy on the cover, only now he was lying in a hospital bed with casts on both his arms and one of his legs, and bandages wrapped around his head. Just above his nose the bandages were blotched red. The boy, according to the story, was Timmy, who had been hit by a car. His friend Jimmy comes to visit him, and when he asks how Timmy is, Timmy looks up at him and says, “It's okay, Jimmy, don't be frightened, for I know I am loved by the Lord Jesus.” The next picture was of the same hospital bed, only this time empty, the sheets and the pillow slightly rumpled. Jimmy was
standing by the bed, looking up at the ceiling and smiling, a large peach-colored hand resting on his shoulder. “Timmy's body died,” the story concluded, “but his soul went up to Jesus.”

Danny closed the book. He did not cry. The death of children, at that point, was in and of itself not enough to frighten him; Kenny Schiff, after all, had shot himself while playing with his father's gun, and Andy Conklin's brother had died on his bike, and Marisa Wu had gotten leukemia. No, what disturbed him about
Tales for Tots
was how pretty it made death, how cozy and red-cheeked and freckle-faced. He was only a child himself, and probably he was more shaken than he knew, but reading the story, he felt welling up in himself not fear so much as outrage, that such things should be left around in pediatric waiting rooms, where other children, more vulnerable than he, might read them.

He tapped Louise's shoulder. “Mom,” he said.

“What?”

“Look.” He handed her the book, watched her eyes move back and forth as she skimmed the story, then widen when she reached the end. She slapped the book shut so loudly that a few women glanced up from their magazines. Then she stood, holding the book in the air, and Danny became worried that she was going to lose her temper and make a scene, or take out her rage on the wrong, undeserving person. She had done these things before.

“Mom,” he said, “what are you going to do?”

“Take care of this once and for all.”

“Mom—”

But already she had marched up to the nursing station. Peggy Thaxter, the nurse, whom she knew and liked, smiled up at her and said, “Can I help you with something, Louise?”

“I'd like to know who's responsible for this—this garbage being left here for little children to read.”

She slammed the book down on the counter of the nurse's station, and Peggy Thaxter stepped back.

“Garbage?” Peggy Thaxter said. Louise opened the book to the story of little Timmy. “My God,” Peggy said as she read it. “I had no idea. They just leave them, you know, those Seventh-Day Adventists, they come by when no one's looking and leave them so people will buy them. See, there's a little order form in the back. I never paid much attention to them until now, figured they were harmless, but now that I see, well,
Louise, thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing this to our attention; I'll most certainly make sure Dr. Kerr sees this, and I'm sure he'll agree, these stories have no place here.”

She took the book from Louise and deposited it on a shelf behind her desk.

Louise nodded and sat down again. “Did they get rid of it?” Danny asked.

“Probably it'll go right back out as soon as we leave,” Louise said. “You can't trust these people.”

“Not even Mrs. Thaxter? I'm sure we can trust Mrs. Thaxter.”

Louise looked at him, opened her mouth as if to say something, then shut it again. “Did that story scare you?” she asked instead.

“No, but it might scare some other little kid, littler than me.”

“Not anymore it won't, if I have anything to do with it.”

How strong she could be, when she needed to.

Strong and frightening.

___________

Danny was sitting in his office when the phone rang. “Hi, it's your father,” Nat said. “Don't worry, everything's okay.”

“Good,” Danny said. Nat prefaced all his calls with such reassurances, as if he felt obliged to dispel from the start any possibility of bad news.

“Things are going along just fine here, but I did think you ought to know, your mother's been having some—well, sort of rash, on her stomach and feet. I'm sure it's nothing. At first we thought it was poison oak, but it doesn't seem to be that. Anyway, it's just a rash, nothing serious, only Louise is kind of uncomfortable. Has to take a lot of special baths.”

“That's too bad,” Danny said. “I hope they figure out what's causing it.”

“Oh, I'm sure they will. Anyway, just wanted to let you know. Has April arrived at your place yet, by the way?”

“Last night. You can call her at the house.”

“Good. I may do that if I have a chance. But you'll fill her in, won't you? I just wanted to make sure I knew where I could reach you. And everything is going well with your job and all, I suppose?”

“Fine.”

“Your house okay?”

“Fine.”

“How's Walter?”

“He's just fine.”

“Good. Well, I really ought to run. I'm at the office too. Give him my best. I'll talk to you soon.”

“Okay. Bye, Dad.”

“Bye.” He hung up. Nat's phone calls rarely went beyond such simple goals as determining that Danny was fine, that he knew where he could reach him
in case
. This giving and receiving of reassurance was a business motivated not so much by love as by anxiety, for Nat had the soul of the caretaker, who checks one house after another and, finding things are as they should be, moves on. It reminded Danny of the way his father used to kick the twenty-year-old cat Elvira when she was asleep, just to make sure she was still alive. This need for reassurance has nothing to do with love. Oh, love strengthens, and purifies, and colors it, but in essence it is virtueless, an addiction. He did what he had to: made the phone call; established that everything was in its proper place and just fine. A matter of clearing the conscience, which, in Nat's case, seemed to be something like clearing the throat.