Raising Demons (21 page)

He came through the door and made directly for his father, to whom he announced insistently, “They was muskets in my school this day, muskets.”

“Mouses,” Sally said softly, “mouses in his school.”

“Look, Dad,” Laurie said confidentially, “you got to realize that there are fellows in this town would
love
to get a thing like that on me. I can see Ernie Smith now.” And he closed his eyes and shuddered.

The only person in the family immediately delighted was, of course, Jannie, who had taken to putting red polish on her toenails secretly, and had gotten three valentines from friends of Laurie's in sixth grade. Jannie perceived that she had all this time been seriously underrating her father, the Beauty Contest Judge, and she asked most ingratiatingly if she might be allowed to sit next to him at lunch.

“Daddy is going to see a lot of girls,” Sally told Barry. She turned to me. “Daddy likes to look at girls, doesn't he?”

There was a deep, enduring silence, until at last my husband's eye fell on Jannie. “And what did you learn in school today?” he asked with wild enthusiasm.

“Daddy is a Chinese temple gong,” Barry remarked. “Daddy may ride on my steamroller.”

“He did not,” Sally said, amused. “Daddy is a
nice
man.”

“
I
'm going to be in beauty contests when
I
grow up,” Jannie said, reaching dreamily for the bread and butter. “I bet I win, too.”

“Somebody goofed,” Laurie said drearily.

Three days before my husband was to leave for Burlington there was a prominently placed article in our local afternoon paper about the beauty contest. It included a picture of my husband, identified by name and address. Laurie announced that he had a bad cold, a headache, an undefined pain somewhere in the middle of his back, and a blister on his heel, and was, as a result, forced to stay home from school for at least a week. Jannie brought eleven members of the Starlight 4-H Club home to compare her father in real life with his picture in the paper. Many of our female friends telephoned to ask what their chances might be if they decided to enter the beauty contest. Since my husband's students are all girls, there was a certain amount of oblique comment in his classroom, and he was compelled to confess that he found it inexpedient to enter the faculty dining room. The article in the paper said, “Prominent Local Educator to Judge Statewide Beauty Contest.”

It turned out that one of the contestants came from nearby, and she offered to drive my husband up to Burlington. The offer was made through Mr. Williams, and my husband told me reluctantly that Mr. Williams had assured him that there would be no improper influence brought to bear upon him during the ride. I told him how rare a man he was, to be able to preserve an absolutely impartial opinion upon such controversial matters, and went off in a surly mood to the grocery, where I met a friend who said
she
would be
scared
to let
her
husband judge a beauty contest.

“Might as well move out of
this
town,” Laurie kept telling his father grimly.

On the morning of the day that he was to leave my husband was not able to eat any breakfast. He sat at the table in his best suit, wearing a tie someone had brought him from Italy, toying with a little piece of waffle, and telling the children over and over that they must behave themselves and be good children and he would bring them all something from Burlington.

“At least you could be considerate enough to leave at
night
, at least,” Laurie said. “This way, you go right through the center of town in broad daylight.”

My husband stirred nervously. “I was thinking,” he said to me. “You know, I don't even know how they judge these things. What standards they use, or anything.”

“As a prominent local educator,” I said unkindly, “you were probably expected to do your own research.”

“It's a real public disgrace,” Laurie said.

The children and I crowded unashamedly onto the porch to gape at the possible Miss Vermont when she drove up. She seemed a very nice girl, rather shy, and quite pretty. She had a good-looking car.

Under the enigmatic gaze of his family my husband descended the steps and greeted the maiden and her escort, a formidable-looking creature who was apparently a combination chaperon and attendant, since she kept giving little hitches to her charge's clothes, and adjusted a scarf carefully over the shining golden curls before the two of them got into the car.

“I hope you win,” Laurie said grudgingly as they went down the walk. “I bet
she's
the prettiest girl there,” he added with unexpected local patriotism.

“I hope you win, Daddy,” Sally said, and Jannie gazed with rapture on the golden curls.

“Going Daddy,” said Barry mournfully, and we all came indoors.

During the day there were eleven telephone calls from people wanting to know if he had really gone. Most of them had thought of something funny to say. The afternoon paper had another picture of my husband and a long story about the festivities he would encounter in Burlington. They included an imposing list of guest appearances and a Pageant of Beauty.

Laurie still flatly refused to go to school, and during the afternoon he made the serious tactical error of deciding instead to accompany me to the barbershop to get Barry's hair cut. Several of my husband's colleagues had stopped by to chat with the barber. Luckily, Barry had decided that this was not the day he had selected to have his hair cut, and Laurie and I were too busy holding him down in the chair to hear more than a fraction of what was said.

“How come you didn't go along?” someone asked Laurie, and someone else said, “How do you ever
get
a job like that, anyway?”

“He spent years studying,” Laurie said grimly. I was holding both of Barry's ears tight so the barber could get it even across the front. Barry was shouting, “Too early! Too early!” which Sally told me meant that he wanted everyone to be quiet and wait a minute.

“You think he's ever coming back?” the barber asked me humorously.

The grocery was worse. A number of acquaintances of ours were doing their shopping, and both Laurie and I had the clear feeling as we entered that all conversations all over the store had stopped, while everyone turned to look at us. People told Laurie, and told me, and then told us both together, that my, what an odd hobby my husband had, and did we think he was ever coming back, and was he going to make a career of this kind of thing. As a small consolation I got Laurie and Barry each a popsicle, and did a lot of split-second planning to ensure that I would not have to shop again for four days.

Although I am not ordinarily nervous when my husband is away from home, I found it extraordinarily difficult to occupy myself that first evening. I put the children to bed and wandered around the house straightening things. I washed out a couple of the girls' dresses and a pair of stockings of mine, and waited for the phone to ring. I did not really suppose that there had been an accident, of course—our possible Miss Vermont looked like a cautious driver—but I finally made a batch of cookies and then sat down with a book, within reaching distance of the phone. By the time my husband called I was almost asleep.

“How are you? How is everything?” I asked, bemused.

“Very nice,” he said. “The hotel is nice and we had a nice dinner. She's a very nice girl.”

“Fine,” I said. “Just fine. I was in the barbershop this afternoon and—”

“Except,” he said, “I spilled coffee on my gray pants.”

“Wash it out right away,” I said. “In the barbershop—”

“She already did,” he said. “There's going to be a Pageant of Beauty.”

“I know. It was in the paper. Pete said—”

“We judge them in evening gowns and in bathing suits and for compatibility.”

“Really?” I said. “I'm so glad you're glad you decided to go.”

“What?” he said.

“Nothing,” I said. “I got Barry's hair cut.”

“Fine,” he said. There was a long silence. “How is everybody?” he asked finally.

“Fine,” I said.

“I'm very glad to hear it,” he assured me. “Well, I have to get up early. There's a breakfast.”

“How exciting,” I said. “Goodbye.”

The children and I had a lovely time the next day. Laurie resolutely declined going to school, and he and I spent the morning making a cheese soufflé for lunch. When the girls came home in the afternoon and Barry got up from his nap all of us sat around the kitchen table and made things out of colored paper. Laurie and I felt strongly that there was no point in going down for the afternoon paper, particularly since the news shop is always crowded around the time the paper comes out, and there would be a lot of people standing around and gossiping. Laurie pointed out, in addition, that the morning paper had already been delivered, and that he personally found a second paper superfluous. I myself felt that I had read all I cared to about the Pageant of Beauty, although I have heard since that the article that evening was little short of overwhelming.

When my husband called that night he was a little bit upset. “It didn't come out,” he said immediately, “that coffee stain.”

“That's too bad,” I said.

“I've got to wear it to the Pageant. But Charmian says no one will notice. All the girls were very nice about it.”

I asked with restraint, “Have you found out what standards apply?”

“You know something?” he said. “One of the girls here used to live in Brooklyn.”

“Have her put some baking soda on it,” I said.

“That's what Sandy suggested. She was the one in the pink dress who gave me a bandage for this scratch on my finger.” There was a long silence. “How are the children?” he asked.

“All fine. And you?”

“Say,” he said, “there's an interesting fellow here, another judge. Used to judge cattle. Did you know that you can tell a cow's age by the rings on the horns?”

“No,” I said. “I didn't.”

“Nice fellow.
He
likes Barbara for Intellect.”

“A number of people have called you,” I said.

“Is there any mail?”

“Yes,” I said with malice. “There are a lot of new coins from that place in Chicago.”

He sighed. “I wonder if I should give up coins,” he said. “Start collecting something else for a while.”

The next day was Saturday and the children and I took a long drive out into the country and had hot dogs for lunch at a diner in the next town. We got back late, too late, we agreed, to bother to go down and get the afternoon paper, which was probably sold out anyway. My husband called while the children were having dinner.

“I'm on my way to the Pageant,” he said. “That coffee stain doesn't show at all.”

“Your father called,” I said. “I told him where you were.”

“We do the judging tonight,” my husband said happily. “I guess I'll be home tomorrow.”

“That will be nice.”

“Thirty-four and a half inches,” my husband said to someone on the other end of the phone. “You tell her I don't care
what
her mother said.”

“Your
father
said—”

“What?” said my husband. “Just a minute. No,” he went on to whoever was talking to him, “I'm calling my
wife
.”

I closed my mouth tight, so I would be sure not to say another word, and hung up very gently.

I was sound asleep when my husband came home. He arrived at four that morning, wrinkled, scratched, coffee-stained, and irritable. Our local entry had not won, and, disgruntled, had loaded my husband into her car and come home in a huff, dropping him off on the corner with his suitcase. “Woosh?” I said when I opened my eyes and saw him coming into the room.

“Fine, fine, oh fine,” he said. “Anything happen while I was gone?”

“Hm? Oh. Nothing, except Laurie is never going to speak to you again and your father says to call him the minute you get home, no matter what time it is.”

“You'll have to send this suit to the cleaner's,” he said. “Look, I got a cigarette lighter. It says JudgeMissVermont-BeautyContest. Look.”

I leaped back as he flashed the lighter under my nose. “A memento of your day of glory,” I said with a gentle smile.

“That reminds me,” he said. “Got to make a note to write that girl Linda. Turns out she's very much interested in coins.”

Wearily I sat up and reached for a cigarette. “Well,” I said, “who won the beauty contest?”

“Hm?”

“Who won the beauty contest?”

“Oh, I don't know,” my husband said vaguely. “Some girl.”

 • • • 

The next morning, Sunday, Laurie gathered his courage together and called his friend Rob; either Rob was superlatively tactful or he had a short memory, because Laurie invited him over and they spent the day in Laurie's room playing jazz records. Jannie and Sally and Barry made mudpies in the dirt near the barn, and late in the afternoon Laurie and Rob, emerging from Laurie's room, volunteered to build a sandbox, which pleased the smaller children, although the sandbox, complete, turned out to be ten feet square and to hold, as I subsequently discovered, a staggering amount of sand. My husband was in the study all that day, arranging the coins from the place in Chicago. Although Laurie did not speak to his father, he did not actually
not
speak to him, and passed him the salt at dinner with an air almost friendly.

The next morning everyone went back to school. It was my morning on the nursery school car pool, so about eleven-thirty I left my kitchen by the back door, after checking to see that the stove was turned off, except for the oven on “warm” where the lunch casserole was waiting. The table was set, the bread sliced, the cake ready on a plate, and my decrepit old refrigerator was rattling and grumbling to itself; since the weather had turned warmer, it opened more easily, but it had developed a kind of excited cackle which it turned on every twenty minutes and which made it alarmingly difficult to—say—count spoons in the kitchen, or figure how many baked potatoes, or hear what anyone was saying from the next room. My husband was lunching at the college, the three older children were due home from school at various times up until twelve-fifteen, and everything was ready for my return with Barry. On the corner I encountered Sally, who got out of school early because the kindergarten children were escorted by their teacher past the bad train crossing in the center of Main Street, and who tended to get home around a quarter of twelve, after stopping off at Pudge's tree with Jeanie. I persuaded Sally into the car, stopped briefly at the store to get a carton of cigarettes, collected Barry, tired and sandy-faced, from the nursery school, and reasoned and enticed into the car the two neighboring children who are the other members of the car pool. I dropped the two other children off at their separate front doors, and drove home. I made this identical trip three days a week, keeping to a consistent time and route.