The Love Letters of J. Timothy Owen (14 page)

“Did you tell her what happened?” Patrick wanted to know.

“Not yet. Maybe never. I haven't decided.”

“I'll bet it would help if you did, Tim. She's probably wondering anyway, with you so down and all.”

“Yeah. She thinks I might have a low-grade virus. When all else fails, a low-grade virus fills the bill, right? I'll see you, Patrick.”

Patrick was a good friend. At least he had one good friend. His father called during the week. “How about this Saturday, Tim?” he said. “You up for some golf?”

“No thanks, Dad.” He saw Len Feeley's outraged expression as he recounted the tale of the letters, saw his angry face as he recited further atrocities committed against his daughter.

“I'm helping Mom out. She's beefing up her business for the summer trade.”

“Oh, Kev's not around?” His father's voice was casual.

“I guess he's off on vacation or something.” His was equally casual. “I'll tell you what, though, Dad. If you want to play some tennis, I might see my way clear. I feel the need of some strenuous exercise. Tennis might be just the thing.”

“Tennis it is, Tim. I'll call you later in the week to set up a time, after I see when the court's available.” They played at the high-school courts, which were rented out by the hour.

His mother and father were involved in their own lives, and he, the carefree teenager, the vagabond adventurer, was hanging around, limp as a dirty sock. Ironic.

One torrid day in early July, the monsters' mother called. He recognized her voice immediately.

“Is that you, Tim?” she asked.

“No.” He let his voice soar into an upper register. “Tim's gone. He left with his backpack and his hiking boots, so I don't expect him home for a long time. He might not be back until school begins.”

“Oh.” He could hear screams and grunts in the background, the sound of flesh against flesh. The monsters were playing a game, probably Monopoly.

“Children, please be good,” the monsters' mother said in a pleading voice. “You wouldn't know of anyone who baby-sits, would you? It would only be for an hour or two. I simply have to get away by myself for a while.” The mother's voice, ever patient, was showing signs of wear and tear.

“Nope. But if you leave your name and number, maybe I'll think of somebody.” It crossed his mind to suggest Sophie. It would be a suitable punishment, but Sophie had sat once and never would again.

He went out to lie in the hammock with the Sunday funnies. His mother was having a wine-and-cheese bash at the shop, hoping to entice some new customers. Several of her friends were helping out. He'd begged off.

A soft breeze lulled him. He fell into a doze. No matter how tough his day had been, and he made sure his days were filled with hard work, he found himself waking sometime before the dawn and thinking about Sophie. He found himself hating her and tried not to. It wasn't her fault if she'd gotten the wrong idea. Anyone might've, he supposed. It was understandable. He looked like a weirdo, indeed had bent all his efforts toward that end—ergo, he was a weirdo. Never mind that underneath he was soft as a grape, loved his parents, dogs, and small children. He tried to view himself dispassionately, see himself as Sophie had seen him. So he wrote love letters, love letters written a hundred years ago and good enough to be put in a book of the world's best. Boy, what did she want? He made a vow: never again would he write another love letter. He would conduct any romance, friendship, or momentary aberration by telephone. Or by smoke signals. His mother's stamps would remain untouched, his handwriting, used only for school assignments, would deteriorate to the point of complete illegibility. And no one would notice or care.

His soul, too, had taken a beating. No more flickering laser-beam light to it. It was flattened, battered, wasting away inside. Tough. He and it were wounded, beyond belief.

One night he and Patrick decided to go out to the Mall. It was Friday and his mother was out for dinner with some friends. Patrick's father would've been glad to drive them there, but that smacked too much of childhood. They hitched a ride with a big, beefy blond guy reeking of some exotic, long-lasting after-shave.

“You kids on the prowl, huh?” the beefy guy asked, grinning ear to ear. “When I was your age, boy, you couldn't tie me down on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays either. Two beauties like yourselves must have the girls crawling all over, huh?” They knew that the beefy guy knew they didn't have girls all over them but they nodded, grinning back in what they hoped was a lascivious manner. The guy told them some dirty jokes, and they nudged each other and chortled, and by the time they got where they were going, their faces were stiff and stretched from all the grinning they'd had to do in return for the free ride.

“Good hunting!” shouted the beefy blond guy as they got out. A bunch of girls, standing huddled around a window display of bathing suits, turned languidly in their direction. He saw her at once. She stood at the far right, her friend Barbara beside her. She didn't look at him. He suspected she couldn't bring herself to look directly at him. Her eyes shifted rapidly from one spot to another, avoiding his. Her face was less lovely, less appealing than he'd remembered. It seemed she'd tricked him into thinking she was someone she was not. Or perhaps he'd fooled himself. It didn't matter. His heart stopped very briefly; then, to his astonishment, he was flooded with such a rush of overwhelming dislike he was stunned. Barbara giggled and shoved Sophie to make sure she wouldn't miss him. He made himself walk slowly to where the girls stood.

“Sophie,” he said, and was surprised his voice sounded so normal, “you didn't have to do that. You didn't have to make a scene, let everybody in on it. I didn't mean any harm. It was just something I thought was a good idea. To copy the letters. They were written by famous people. They weren't mine. I wish they had been. I wanted you to know how I felt about you. It seemed a good way. I'm sorry. It was dumb. I should've known better.”

Startled, Sophie didn't answer, though her mouth dropped open. He looked at Barbara. Her eyes were like hatpins—small, sharp, and cold. Shiny eyes with no light shining from them.

“It's all right, Sophie. I won't write to you again. I don't feel anything for you anymore. You don't have to worry.”

He turned and walked away. Out of sight of them, he leaned against a wall, breathing hard.

Patrick appeared. “I'm proud of you, Tim,” Patrick said. “That took a lot of guts. You deserve a medal. That was really fine. You finished her off but good.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I did, didn't I?”

But, as he spoke, there were tears in his eyes.

Chapter 21

The next couple of weeks were plenty gloomy. To cheer himself up, he took to wearing an old rubber Richard Nixon mask around the house. The first time he wore the mask, his mother screamed and backed into a corner. His father had worn the mask to a New Year's Eve party at the height of Watergate. Now his father, once choleric at the mention of Nixon's name, no longer cared. The fun, he said, had gone out of politics.

He considered wearing the mask when he rode out to the Collinses' to mow their lawn. His mother said it was too dangerous—someone might take a potshot at him. He said how about wearing his headphones instead? Too dangerous, his mother said. He wouldn't be able to hear someone honking at him, telling him to get out of the way.

Mr. Collins had a ride-'em mower, a second hand job that looked as if it might be the first ride-'em ever invented. Mrs. Collins fed him lemonade and brownies made from a mix, before and after the mowing. Mr. Collins paid him the same amount he would've if he'd had a push mower. The Collinses' daughter Marilou, fifteen and nubile, had a slight squint and enormous feet and read poetry and played chess when she wasn't making goo-goo eyes at him. Which should've restored his confidence and didn't.

Summer, which had always been his favorite time, dragged. Patrick went to Florida to visit his grandfather. “The temperature's hit over a hundred every day for a week,” Patrick said gloomily. “Disney World, here I come. I'm too old for it, but maybe I'll get to shake hands with Donald Duck.”

He ran into Tony Montaldo in the supermarket.

“My mother might have to take me to an orthodontist,” Tony said. “My teeth are killing me. If I need surgery, it's gonna cost you big bucks, King Kong. Know what? My father said he never would've taken you for a violent guy. He was amazed when I told him it was you who did it to me. Absolutely amazed.”

“Me, too,” he said. “Ordinarily, I'm a peace lover. But you asked for it, and I'd do it again. You tried my soul once too often, kid.”

He dreamed he was dancing to wild music, totally out of control. His partner's hair kept getting in his eyes, so he couldn't see who she was. Melissa stood on the sidelines, mouthing words, trying to tell him something.

If there'd been another way of handling Tony, he'd have taken it. But sometimes, he reflected, a good punch in the nose is worth a hundred soft words.

He did not, would not, allow himself to think of Sophie.

That night he and his mother went out for dinner to celebrate. She'd made her first real money, sold a lot of old linens to a collector who'd paid her three times what the linens had cost her.

She was jubilant. “I think I've finally made the big breakthrough, Tim,” she said, eyes sparkling, “I feel it in my bones. And I have you to thank for part of it. If you hadn't been such a big help this summer, I don't think I could've done it.”

“Anytime, Ma. You could've done it on your own, though.” He took pride in the knowledge that he had been of some help to her. It made him feel good, and not many things did lately. “What looks good for dessert?”

The restaurant was famous for its wide choice of excellent desserts. He had about narrowed it down to either the apple pie à la mode or the profiterole with hot chocolate sauce when his mother said, “Who is that girl over there, Tim? She keeps looking over here as if she knows you.”

It was Sophie. Who, when she saw him looking at her, had the grace to duck down behind her menu, where she stayed until he turned away.

“Yeah, it's a girl who used to sit for the monsters. A girl I knew in school. I think I'll have the profiterole. How about you?” and that was that. He'd never told his mother about Sophie. It was still too hurtful to talk about. The time had never seemed ripe. Someday he would be able to talk about it with ease. But that day was far away. Until then, Sophie was someone he'd once known, and not well, at that.

Inside him, a small spot ached dully, like a tooth that was giving trouble and probably would give more. Only he couldn't bite down on his aching spot, to ease, even momentarily, the pain. It would have to heal itself. He stole another glance at Sophie on his way out of the restaurant and felt only a curious detachment, a sense of wonder that he had spent so much time and effort trying to win her heart as well as her attention. Just as well he hadn't succeeded. If he'd gotten to know her better, he probably wouldn't have liked her nearly as well as he imagined. That was life. He'd know better next time.

Chapter 22

The shoemaker's children go barefoot. And the lawn mower's lawn grows long and thick and studded with weeds because the lawn mower is out mowing other people's lawns.

His mother said she'd pay him for mowing their lawn, but he said nix. That would be chintzy, to take money for mowing his own lawn.

The mower wouldn't start. He pulled at it repeatedly, and it refused to fire. He wondered if he could talk his mother into buying a ride-'em number, and grinned, thinking of his father's face if he caught him mowing the lawn sitting down. It went against the old work ethic. Honest toil demanded honest sweat and nothing else would do.

“Benjy!” cried a new and different voice. So the monsters' mother had found herself a sitter after all. God bless her. The sitter and the mother. They both deserved medals. He peered out from behind his phony glasses and his bangs, which had been let go, much like the lawn, and were badly in need of trimming. He saw the monsters milling around the screen door, which was still pockmarked with holes large enough to admit a whole fleet of mosquitoes. The sitter must've lured them there with some irresistible bait. Maybe half a steer, done rare, or a bulging bag of M&M's. Whatever, he wished her well. The monsters, from a distance, seemed to have grown like the proverbial weeds. He wished the new sitter would be big and strong and wily. And fast on her feet.

The mower started up at last. His father would've been proud. Sweat poured down his face. He took off his glasses, as they only made things worse. He found an oily rag in the garage, which he tore into strips to make a proper sweatband for himself. Perfect. He caught a glimpse of himself in the garage window, bringing to mind John McEnroe at Wimbledon or, better still, Rambo returning from the wars. Either way, the sweatband lent him an air of dissolution, which he found rather sexy and hoped others might find sexy, too.

No matter how hard he worked, he made only a slight dent in the lawn's raggle-taggle appearance. Pausing to rest, he saw a tall woman over at the monsters' house. She wore a white hat and seemed to be telling them something. And they seemed to be listening. A first. Perhaps she was a witch. A witch in a white hat would be a switch. Maybe her rates were higher than your average, everyday baby-sitter, but she was worth every penny. More power to her. Cast that spell, baby, he told her. I salute you. If he hadn't been so eager to finish the job, he might've crossed over to monster territory and introduced himself.

When at last he'd finished and the lawn resembled a greensward, he admired his work. And hoped his father might come over tonight, maybe for dinner, and see the good job he'd done. He had tried not to let his father's approval mean so much, but it did.