The Recycled Citizen (10 page)

“What possessed Loveday to ask her that?”

“Well, you see, I had the box of invitations, and then I bought this big plastic bag full of boxes of envelopes to mail them in. The bag wasn’t at all heavy, just a bit of a nuisance, but Tigger insisted on carrying it for me and I wasn’t about to risk physical violence by trying to take it away. When she walked into the center wearing those awful clothes, Mr. Loveday naturally assumed the bag was full of trash she wanted to redeem. He came flapping out and told her the center was only for senior citizens. She said, ‘I’m with her,’ and he started wagging his tail and licking her hand. He wanted to explain what the center was about and began burbling about volunteer work, at which point I saw my chance to grab the list and ditch Tigger, so I took it. Do you think I should have stayed?”

“God, no! The farther you keep away from that woman, the better I’m going to like it.”

“Me too,” said Sarah. “But don’t you think it’s odd, the way she’s been popping up in unexpected places all of a sudden?”

“A screwball like her?” Max shrugged. “I’d say the unlikely’s always more likely than the likely. What’s for dinner?”

“Not a great deal, I’m afraid. I meant to stop for something on my way home, but between trying to duck Tigger and getting that mailing out, I forgot. Are you terribly hungry? I could manage an omelet and a salad.”

“Unless you’d like to go out. How about the Ritz Carlton?”

“I don’t think I’m quite up to the Ritz Carlton. Let me fix you something to drink and we’ll think about it.”.

Sarah’s guileful plan was to ply Max with cheese and crackers until he was ready to settle for something simple, so that she wouldn’t have to put her shoes back on. As it turned out, she didn’t have to work her gastronomic wile. Theonia phoned, sounding somewhat less dovelike than usual, to say that after she’d gone to the not inconsiderable bother of preparing Chicken Kiev, two of her boarders had called at the last minute to inform her they’d be dining out. Could Sarah and Max possibly come and fill out the table?

Max, who’d taken the call thinking it might be Pepe Ginsberg calling back, said they’d be glad to help out in an emergency. He wouldn’t go so far as to wear his dinner jacket, of course. Theonia wouldn’t expect that. He never had when he was a boarder, although most of the others dressed up to the nines and sometimes a good way beyond. One of his London-made suits with a white shirt and a discreet silk tie would do nicely.

Sarah, on the other hand, was delighted to put on her gold mesh necklace with the little diamonds and a floor-length chiffon caftan in shades of mauve and pink. That would please Theonia and enable her to ease her sore feet into soft bedroom slippers which nobody would see. An hour later she had the pleasure of finding herself a welcome guest in her own dining room.

The room itself hadn’t changed much since Sarah had presided there as landlady during her brief widowhood, but Theonia and Eugene Porter-Smith were the only two left of the original boarders. Soon even Eugene would be gone. He’d recently been promoted to a post of grandeur and affluence at Cousin Percy Kelling’s accounting firm. He’d toned down his wardrobe and gone in for good works such as befit a man of serious purpose. Instead of hanging around the Charles Street coffeehouses during his spare time, he’d been putting in a good many hours over at the SCRC, setting up an improved accounting system for Dolph.

Now he was ready to set up his own household. Not long hence, he intimated, Mr. and Mrs. Bittersohn, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Brooks Kelling, would be receiving invitations to what would no doubt be a pretty splashy wedding. The bride to be was not the Miss Jennifer LaValliere who’d once captured his fancy in this very room—she’d been Mrs. Somebody Else for quite a while now—but a Jennifer whose father was so big in real estate that Eugene didn’t have to say how big he was. Miss Wilton-Rugge held her degree from Babson Institute and shared her prospective bridegroom’s passion for a real knock-down-and-drag-out, rough-and-tumble audit.

“Then you won’t be doing volunteer work at the SCRC any more?” Sarah asked him.

“I doubt if I would have in any case,” he told her. “What I’ve been doing, basically, is setting up a simple, workable bookkeeping system for the center. They have rather an interesting problem over there, you know, with so many members bringing in various kinds of junk, the different salvage places they work with and all. Once I’ve got things running smoothly, though, they should be able to function without a hitch.” Porter-Smith went on to explain in totally incomprehensible detail just how simple and foolproof his system would be.

“But I take it you haven’t been working in direct contact with the members,” Max put in when it became possible to do so.

“Not really. I pass the time of day with them, you know, and try to answer their questions about Social Security and old-age benefits. It’s appalling how ignorant some of those people are about handling their finances.”

“I daresay most of them have never had any finances to handle,” said Brooks Kelling.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Porter-Smith contradicted, as he was always ready to do. “One fellow tells me he used to be the bookkeeper for a big meat-packing plant, until he became a vegetarian and his principles cost him his job. According to Loveday, they all lie about what important jobs they used to have, but this man does at least appear to understand the basic principles of accounting. A good deal better than Loveday does, I must say. I’ve never seen a worse mess than those books were in before I took them over. Loveday himself admits figures aren’t his forte. I can’t help wondering how much his ineptitude’s cost the Kellings, though I suppose I shouldn’t say so in front of their relatives.”

Brooks and Sarah burst out laughing. “Don’t worry about Dolph’s losing money,” Sarah assured the accountant. “I can’t say about the books, but I can guarantee you that Dolph has a running record in his head of how much the center has taken in and put out ever since the day they opened. If you asked him this minute what the balance of their checking account is, he’d tell you right down to the penny. It’s a family joke that most of the Kelling men have adding machines in their heads. So do some of the women, for that matter. Right, Brooks?”

“Oh yes, I do it myself, though money has never been among my primary interests. Sorry, I wasn’t meaning to pun. Even my Cousin Jeremy, whom I believe you all know, isn’t quite the devil-may-care spendthrift he likes to pretend he is. I’ve sometimes suspected his penchant for martinis stems from the plain economic fact that good gin costs less than good whiskey.”

“I never thought of that, but you could be right, Brooks,” said Sarah. “Getting back to that bookkeeper who swore off meat and ruined his career, Eugene, do you think he could by any wild stretch be telling the truth?”

“Probably not about the vegetarianism,” said Porter-Smith, “since I’ve noticed he eats whatever they give him at the center, but he must have worked with figures somewhere. I can’t understand why that man doesn’t pull himself together and get a decent job, instead of foraging in trash cans for a nickel here and a nickel there. Even if he is getting on in years, there’s plenty of part-time work for bookkeepers and tax consultants. Of course his appearance is against him.”

Eugene Porter-Smith shot the cuffs of his brand-new dinner jacket to show off the engraved golden cuff links in his starched white cuffs. Time was when he’d gone in for ruffled pink shirts and maroon velvet tuxedo jackets with satin lapels. Now that he was a coming man, he’d put such youthful follies behind him in favor of sober black of a conservative cut, though there was still a devilish je ne sais quoi about the way he tied his tie.

“His appearance?” said Sarah. “Are you talking about Ted Ashe?”

“Why yes, I believe that’s his name. Tallish, on the heavy side, rather young-looking for a senior citizen, it seems to me, though his face is so dirty it’s hard to tell. That’s another funny thing about him, because he’s always fairly clean-shaven. I suppose I shouldn’t be mentioning such things at the dinner table, but I’ve often wondered how he manages to shave himself every day without disturbing the dirt.”

“Indian or Oriental blood,” said Brooks promptly. “Other races tend to be less hirsute than the Caucasian. But then we have more to cover up.”

Porter-Smith shook his head. “He doesn’t look Indian or Oriental. Besides, I usually see him late in the day when he’s grown a little stubble. But the next time I see him, the whiskers are no longer and he’s just as filthy as he was before.”

“Electric razor, then.” Brooks wasn’t to be daunted by a faceful of stubble. “That’s the only kind you can use without lather, unless you don’t mind raking your skin off.”

“Good thinking, Brooks,” said Max, “only where does he plug it in? Back alleys don’t have outlets, so he can’t be sleeping rough even though he looks as if he is. If he goes to a shelter, they’d have facilities for him to shave, but they’d also make him clean himself up. Ergo—I knew I’d find a place to use that word someday—he’s got a pad of his own somewhere. Would Loveday have the address?”

“I suppose so,” said Porter-Smith. “I never touch the personnel files myself. That’s Loveday’s territory, and he doesn’t like me after what I said about his ledgers. How come you people know Ted Ashe, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“We don’t,” said Sarah. “It’s just that his name keeps cropping up lately. For instance, Cousin Dolph was wondering whether Ashe would be a suitable person to help at the auction Saturday night. You’re going, aren’t you?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for anything. Mrs. Dolph’s asked me to clerk. My fiancée’s all excited about it. Jennifer hopes to pick up some real conversation pieces for our new home.”

“She’ll find plenty of those,” Sarah assured him, thinking of the seaweed mottoes.

A couple of the other boarders were looking interested and another one decidedly put out, so Sarah thought she’d better issue a blanket invitation. “It was a spur-of-the-moment inspiration and it’s not open to the general public, but of course you and your friends would be welcome.”

Max’s lips were twitching a little, and Sarah could see why they might. She and Theonia had sent out well over four hundred invitations that afternoon. Aunt Emma must have rounded up her busload by now. Marcia Whet would be bringing a party, so would Aunt Appie and no doubt a few more. What if everybody they’d asked came and brought a friend? She’d better curb her hospitable impulses and start praying for a fine night and a full moon so the auction could be. held out on the lawn if the crowd overflowed the house.

Boardinghouse custom decreed that the proprietors spend half an hour in the library after dinner, dispensing coffee and chitchat to those boarders who chose to linger and enjoy their company. Eugene Porter-Smith was the first to leave. This would probably be his last session with the SCRC debits and credits, he told them, before he and his Jennifer buckled down to more serious business like picking out the wedding rings. The moment the half hour was up, Brooks rose.

“I’ll take out the tray. Charles is treading the boards tonight.”

Having a butler who was also an actor, though not a terribly successful one, fortunately for the Kellings’ domestic economy, added glamor to the ambience but sometimes led to a certain amount of confusion with the operational mechanics. “Oh, too bad,” said Sarah. “Can I help clear up?”

“There’s no need. Charles will be back soon, I’m sure! He gets stabbed halfway through the first act. You people go upstairs with Theonia. I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

Back when Sarah was running the boardinghouse, she’d turned her late mother-in-law’s boudoir into a sitting room for herself. Except for Brooks’s Audubon prints in place of Sarah’s Philip Hale tea party and Charlotte Lamson portrait drawing, and Theonia’s sewing materials in place of Sarah’s art supplies, the room hadn’t been changed much. The love seat on which Max had managed to undermine a young widow’s inhibitions was still where she’d put it, and the two of them quite naturally settled themselves there.

“This is nice,” Sarah observed with a satisfied little sigh. “I’m so glad your boarders conked out, Theonia. Poor Max would have had rather slim pickings if they hadn’t.”

“I don’t see that he looks particularly abused.”

Theonia settled her taffeta flounces in one of the
bergères
that would perhaps have been put up for auction Saturday night if Mary and Dolph hadn’t donated them to Sarah instead. “Do tell Brooks about the funeral, Max. I haven’t had time to talk with him myself.”

“As soon as he comes up.” Meanwhile Max obliged with a description of the simple service, because Theonia liked to know about these things. He regretted that he was unable to report on how the mourners had liked her chocolate brownies because he hadn’t stayed for the refreshments.

“Why not?” said Brooks, who’d by now joined the party, smelling faintly of dishwashing liquid. “I’d have stayed.”

“No you wouldn’t,” said Max. “Lionel’s wife’s former girlfriend was passing the platters.”

“You don’t mean that strange person they call Tigger, who glares at one from behind her hair like a wolverine out of a thicket? What in the world was she doing there?”

“Sarah got her a job. Tell him,
kätzele.”

Sarah explained once more how she’d inadvertently acquired Tigger and led her to the SCRC, and how Osmond Loveday, hearing the magic password
Kelling,
had trapped the woman into volunteering.

“Leave it to Osmond,” said Brooks, “He may be and usually is totally ignorant about the motivations behind whatever cause he’s working for, but he knows all the tricks when it comes to raising the funds. His philosophy may be summed up as, ‘Never give a sucker an even break,’ Not that Osmond’s dishonest, you understand. It’s just that he’s developed the technique of arm-twisting to its ultimate stage of refinement.”

“He’d better not try twisting Tigger’s too far,” said Sarah. “I think she’s a mental case, or the next thing to one. You should have heard her this morning, berating that Ashe man.”

“What was she saying?”

“I wouldn’t repeat that kind of language even if I knew what it meant. All I can say is, she must have had a thorough grounding in the gamier Elizabethan dramatists.”