“I am.”
She looked a bit awestruck now, poor child. “I-I read you in modern lit.”
“You don’t say. Large class?”
“I guess there were about eighteen of us. Why?”
“Just calculating my royalties.”
“You’re a real distinguished American author,” she pointed out.
“Careful. My head swells easily.”
“To tell you the truth,” she confessed, “I didn’t realize you were still alive.”
“That’s more like it, though you could bring me back down a little easier in the future.”
She giggled. Fern busied herself at the sink, noisily.
“So you do this sort of work, too?” Mercy asked, fascinated.
“Yes. I’m kind of the Bo Jackson of publishing.”
“But isn’t this, well, beneath you?”
“Nothing is beneath me,” I replied, “with the possible exception of screenwriting.”
“I guess I don’t understand why you bother.”
“Just finicky, really. I won’t eat out of garbage cans.”
“Oh.” Chastened, she poured herself coffee. “You must think I’m awfully sheltered and insensitive and stupid.”
I gave her a frisky once-over. “That’s not what I’m thinking at all.”
She blushed and lunged for her books. “Well, I’ve got a paper due tomorrow,” she said, starting for the stairs with her coffee. “Know anything about Spenser’s
Faerie Queen
?”
“Yes. Understanding it won’t come in handy later in life.”
“That’s not what this little girl needs to hear,” Fern cautioned.
Mercy sighed. “I’m not a little girl, Fern. I’m twenty-one years old.”
“Don’t remind me,” said Fern. “I was a middle-aged woman when you was born. I hate to think what that makes me now.
“Enjoy your Spenser,” I said.
She smiled and said it was nice meeting me. Then she went off to her room.
“Seems like a nice girl,” I observed.
“Keep your hands off or Mavis’ll cut ’em off,” Fern warned. “With a hatchet.”
“Not to worry, Fern. I’m not looking these days.”
“Look all you want. Just don’t touch.”
I brought my dessert plate to her at the sink. “Thanks for the best meal I’ve had in a long time.”
“You don’t believe me about Sterling Sloan, do you?” she demanded, peering up at me. “You think I’m some crazy old lady.”
“That’s not the case at all, Fern,” I replied tactfully. “I’m flattered that you confided in me. I’m just not your man. I came through the gate in a Chevy Nova, not on the back of a white horse. You need someone with a square jaw and fists of stone and a resting pulse rate of fifty-six. You need a hero.”
“I reckon so,” she said, crestfallen. “I just don’t know who … I mean, you were my best hope.”
I sighed inwardly. One hundred percent marshmallow, through and through. “I’ll sleep on it. How’s that?”
She brightened considerably. “That’s more like it!”
Thwack
. “Only don’t sleep too late. You got an audience with Mavis at nine o’clock sharp in the old library. She has fits if people are even a minute late.”
“I thought the old house was only used for formal occasions.”
“Believe me, honey, meeting Mavis Glaze
is
one.”
Her phone rang several times before she finally picked it up. My heart began to pound at once when she did. It always does when I hear that feathery, dizzy-sounding, teenaged-girl’s voice that belongs to her and no one else.
“Did I wake you?” I asked.
“No, I’m sitting up with Elliot.”
“Something serious?”
“I don’t know, darling. He simply wouldn’t touch his food all day.”
“Maybe he just wasn’t hungry, Merilee.”
“Hoagy, pigs are
always
hungry. No, I’m afraid Elliot’s not himself, the poor dear.”
She had named him after her first agent. And people say there’s no sentiment in show business.
“Call me old-fashioned, Merilee, but I still don’t believe in giving a name to someone you intend to eat.”
“Mr. Hoagy! How could you be such a-a
barbarian
!”
“Merilee … ”
“Elliot happens to be a member of this household, sir! And he’s certainly more of a gentleman than you’ll ever be.”
“Merilee … ”
“What!”
“Hello.”
“Hello yourself. Did you find out yet?”
“Find out what?”
“Who Vangie marries at the end of
Oh
,
Shenandoah
, silly.”
“Not yet. Do you really care?”
“Are you serious? I’ve only read that book eight times and wept uncontrollably every single time. And the movie, merciful heavens … Now listen, Hoagy, when you do find out, don’t tell me who it is. I’m serious. I’m such a blabbermouth I’ll spread it all over town and get you in deep doo-doo.”
“Okay,” I said.
Stunned silence. “What did you say?” she demanded.
“I said okay.”
“
Mister
Hoagy!”
“Just agreeing with you, Merilee.”
“I’m not so sure we can be friends anymore.”
“Is that what we are?”
“How’s sweetness?” she asked, neatly slipping my jab.
Lulu whimpered from next to me on the bed. She always knows when her mommy is on the phone. Don’t ask me how.
“Her usual obnoxious self. Have you called the vet about Elliot?”
“Not yet. I don’t want to be one of those overprotective city slickers who they all hoot at. I will if he isn’t better in a day or two.”
“Well, look on the bright side.”
“Which is … ?”
“He could stand to take off a few hundred pounds.”
“Very funny.”
“What do you remember hearing about the filming of
Oh
,
Shenandoah
?”
Merilee is a big fan of show-biz gossip, as long as it isn’t to do with her, of course. She often befriends elderly fellow cast members and eagerly soaks up their reminiscences of Hollywood’s golden age.
“Way over budget,” she replied. “Tons of pissy fits, bad weather, last-minute rewrites. First two directors got fired by Goldwyn in preproduction before Wyler finally took it over … Or are you more interested in who was doing the big, bad naughty with who?”
“I’ve missed your quaint little expressions.”
“It seems to me,” she recalled, “it was one of those shoots where everyone was hopping into the feathers with everyone else. Of course, that always happens on location, particularly with a love story.”
“Why is that?”
“We can’t tell the difference between real and make-believe, darling. That’s what makes us actors.”
“Which am I?”
“I like to think of you as a bit of both.”
“Why, Merilee, that’s the second-nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“What was the nicest?”
“ ‘You’re not the sort of man who I can see wearing anything polyester.’ ”
“As I recall,” she said, “neither of us was wearing anything, period, at the time.”
“Merilee Nash! You’ve been getting seriously ribald since you started hanging around with farm animals.”
“So that explains it.”
“Anything about Sterling Sloan?”
“Well, he died.”
“I know that. I was wondering if there was any chance it didn’t happen the way they say it did.”
She was silent a moment. “Oh, no, Hoagy … You’re not getting into something weird again, are you?”
“No chance. Housekeeper here just has some crazy idea.”
“I certainly don’t remember hearing anything.” She mulled it over. “I’m skeptical, frankly.
Oh
,
Shenandoah
has commanded so much attention through the years. If there’d been even a hint of scandal about Sloan, the sleaze-biographers would have been all over it by now.”
“That’s kind of what I was thinking.”
“Of course, I could ask around for you. Some of the old-timers might remember if there was scuttlebutt. Want me to?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. It’ll give me an excuse to call them. Comfy down there?”
“Aside from a lousy set of rental wheels.”
“Possibly you’re a bit spoiled in that department.”
“Possibly that’s not the only department I’m spoiled in.”
We were both silent a moment.
“I’d better get back to Elliot,” she said softly. “Hoagy?”
“Yes, Merilee?”
“What was her name?”
“Whose name?”
“The girl you met tonight.”
“I … what makes you think she was a girl and not a woman?”
“A woman can tell.”
“Why, Merilee, if I didn’t know you better, I’d swear you were jealous.”
“I’d swear I was, too.”
“You never have been before.”
“I wasn’t forty before,” she declared, sighing grandly. “And more important, neither were you. Sleep tight, darling.” And then she hung up.
I undressed and climbed into bed. I was working my way through a collection of James Thurber stories, which is something I do every couple of years to remind myself what good writing is. I had just gotten settled in when I heard a car pull up in the courtyard outside. I turned out my bedside lamp and pulled back the curtain.
A big Mercedes 560 SEL sedan was idling out there in the moonlight with its lights on.
Two women got out, one tall, almost regal, the other short and thin. The driver pulled the Mercedes into the garage while the two women spoke briefly. Then the tall one went in the kitchen door of the east wing, closing it behind her. The other woman got into a red Pontiac LeMans that was parked there and started it up. The Mercedes’s lights went off in the garage. A man got out and closed the garage door and went over to the LeMans. He was stocky, with a heavy torso and short legs. He said something to the woman in the car, gestured for her to roll her window down. Instead she began easing the car out of the courtyard toward the driveway. He was insistent — ran out in front of her, waved his arms for her to stop. She wouldn’t. In fact, she floored it and made right for him. She wasn’t kidding around, either. He had to dive out of the way or she’d have run him over as she sped on down the drive. He landed heavily and lay there a moment. Slowly, he got to his feet and brushed himself off. He stood there watching the driveway for a long moment before he went in the house.
I turned over and went to sleep, Lulu comfortably ensconced in her favorite position. I didn’t stay asleep long. She woke me at three, pacing the bedroom floor, whimpering like she had on the plane. I told her to shut up and come back to bed. She wanted me to let her out. These things happen. I did, after reminding her to stay away from the peacocks. Then I went back upstairs to sleep.
I dreamt I was being smothered by peacock feathers.
A steady tapping at the cottage’s front door woke me. Grandfather’s Rolex said it was seven-thirty. I padded downstairs and opened it. A covered breakfast tray was waiting there for me on the doorstep. So was Sadie, my new friend, who sat poised on her haunches a foot away, staring at it intently. Lulu was stretched out a few feet from her, staring at her staring at it. Lulu and the tray came inside with me. Sadie did not.
There was a copy of that morning’s
Staunton Daily News Leader
to go with my scrambled eggs, country ham, grits, toast, juice, and coffee. The food was excellent. So was the news. Crime in Augusta County was down 11 percent over the past three months, according to Sheriff Polk LaFoon the Fourth. And veteran Hollywood actor Rex Ransom was definitely planning to attend the
Oh
,
Shenandoah
fiftieth-anniversary gala. Already my day was made. When I finished eating, I climbed into a hot tub and lolled there. I was still there at nine, when I heard someone pounding on my front door, and at nine-fifteen, when someone pounded on it again, louder. When I got out, I stropped grandfather’s pearl-handled straight edge and shaved and doused myself with Floris. I dressed in my charcoal silk-and-wool tickweave suit with calfskin braces, a white Turnbull and Asser broadcloth shirt, lavender-and-yellow bow tie, and my brown-and-white spectator balmorals. I emerged with my breakfast tray a few minutes before ten. That damned cat was still there on my doorstep. Gordie was sitting on the ground nearby tossing a ball against a wall and catching it in his mitt on the comeback. The red LeMans from the night before was parked by the kitchen door.
“Mornin’, Hoagy,” Gordie said glumly.
“Something wrong?”
“Thaydie’s awful hungry,” he replied. “Jutht wish I had a little milk to give her … I mean, she’ll
thtarve.
” His lower lip began to quiver.
I sighed. This was turning into a miserable job. Truly miserable. “I have some milk in my fridge,” I said grudgingly.
His face lit up. “Really?”
I went back inside and filled my empty coffee cup with milk and put it out for her. She lapped it up hungrily.
“Gee, thankth, Hoagy,” Gordie exclaimed.
“No problem.”
“Wanna play catch?”
“Don’t you have school or something?”
“I’m on thpring break. Throw me one? Jutht one? Huh?”
“All right, one fly ball. Go deep.”
He tossed me the ball and dashed across the courtyard toward the lawn. It was an old hardball, worn and frayed. The sight of it in my hand triggered a memory. Of another worn, frayed hardball, another little boy, another tall, distant man. A powerful and most unexpected wave of nostalgia crashed over me. Nostalgia isn’t generally my style. Especially for that time and that tall, distant man.
Gordie was waiting for me, pounding his mitt. I waved him deeper. Then I wound up and aired out the old javelin shoulder. I sent the ball high in the air, way over his head. The little guy went after it. He was quick. He was there waiting for it when it came down, mitt held high.
“Wow,” he hollered, trotting back to me with it, “I ain’t never theen anyone throw a ball tho far in my whole life!”
“It’s all in the mechanics,” I said, wondering just when the pain would stop shooting through my shoulder. “Not a terrible grab, by the way.”
“Thankth. Throw me another?”
“Later. Maybe.”
Inside, Fern was doing the breakfast dishes. Someone was typing in the adjoining office.
She squinted at me disapprovingly when I handed her my tray. “Honey, Mave’s been waiting over there for you nearly one hour. I knocked on your door twice. You deaf or you just got a death wish?”