The Widower's Tale (4 page)

I sat down and began to take a mental tour of Matlock's sinuous roads. Our one gas station, manned for decades by Vince Kaliski, a veteran of Okinawa whose wife ran the Girl Scout troop, had closed ten years before. Even the nearby house where Vince and Mary brought up their boys had been razed. More recently, Coiffure Cottage, a beauty salon dating to Cretaceous times, had morphed into a modern art gallery. Buck and Calvin, the plumber and the electrician I engaged to keep my house in working order, had sold their own houses and retired to Florida, none of their numerous sons willing to succeed them--or able to afford our rapidly bloating taxes. Since their departure, I had been forced to employ tradesmen from several towns away, fellows I would never encounter with pleasure at the P.O. or the deli counter at Wally's. Some might have referred to Vince, Buck, and Calvin as "ordinary fellows" or "salt of the earth." Such terms are merely code for men who've led lives in which boyhood dreams become a luxury, a whim, before boyhood even comes to an end.

Where were these men now? Were they still alive? Even our elementary-school teachers, the Bens, could no longer afford to live among us.

When I e-mailed Robert about the dogs, I typed into the subject line
Scylla and Charybdis
. During my evening swim, I had a grandiose vision of myself as a lone, graying knight in his drafty castle, surrounded on all sides by Philistines of a novel variety: well schooled, well nourished, well informed (with information convenient to their collectively blinkered conscience), and sure of the ergonomic traction with which their stylishly countrified shoes met the ground.

I was so worked up that night, I could not resist calling Robert's mother as well. Trudy listened--she's a good listener, which I'm sure makes her popular with patients--but she was hardly sympathetic. When I told her how much I missed Vince, Buck, and Calvin, she pointed out that I'd never socialized with them.

"Socializing is not the only sign of kinship," I said. "You women are not so aware of this. We knew what it was to have a meeting of the minds without some knitting circle. And now it seems as if whatever men I do see about town--and let me tell you, it's rare to spot a man under sixty by daylight!--these men hold down hocus-pocus jobs. They're 'derivatives traders' or 'IT consultants.' They have squeaky-clean nails and flannel shirts that came straight out of a mail-order parcel from L.L.Bean--which of course now belongs to some retailer run by the mob in Bayonne, New Jersey."

"Dad, those guys are prosperous, and so are you. You hate to hear it, but you have more in common with them than you ever did with Mr. Kaliski or the guys who cleaned our oil tank."

"No, I disagree with you there, my dear. And if you want to discuss income--isn't that what you mean when you refer to prosperity?--I'm sure I never made half what Buck did! I understand he bought quite the boat after selling his house and cashing in his retirement savings."

"I'm not talking numbers, Dad, and you know it. It has to do with ... station in life."

"Class, is that what you mean?"

"Yes. Exactly."

"But that's my point. This used to be a town with many classes."

"Barely."

"We lived comfortably together, so you wouldn't have noticed. We did not need 'great rooms' and three-car garages and central air and--"

"Now you're talking values," said Trudy. "Which have changed since the days you're talking about. You think Mr. Kaliski, if he were still around, wouldn't want a hot tub?"

"I wish you could have seen this town when your mother and I found this house--for a song! The roof was about to cave in, and anyone else would have given up on that barn. But not your mother. She said we would make this a 'house for the generations.' Some of our neighbors, people who didn't know us from Adam, volunteered to pitch in. It was like an old-fashioned barn raising."

"Dad, I've heard all this before. It's sweet. You and Mom lived in a different time, believe me. But you know what? Let it go. Because listen, can I tell you something, Dad? You are turning into a crank! You've always been on the verge, but now it's finally happening."

The tour of my barn that was no longer a barn left me restless, despite my swim. So there I stood, just a few hours later, in The Great Outdoorsman. This establishment is the linchpin of business in motley downtown Packard, a town twenty minutes from Matlock that might as well be on the other side of an ocean. At its center, threatening to topple into a sluggish forgotten waterway, huddle three vast, mostly abandoned brick buildings that once housed shoe factories and a mill; only one has been renovated, bravely declaring itself to be the Packard Arts Center. The town's houses, though old, are weary, not stately; its woods are more weedy than sylvan. Packard is like a poor relation to Matlock, invited to share a cup of grog at the gift-giving holidays; which is to say that Matlock residents fill The Great Outdoorsman and Packard's other modest shops when their pockets are feeling a mite shallow. It also boasts a DMV office with a blessedly short line, a consignment shop whose furniture is perfect for your children's first dormitory rooms, and a small, struggling cinema with third-run movies and lumpy velvet chairs from which the occasional spring protrudes to rip an unmendable hole in your trousers.

But TGO, as it's known, is one of my favorite stores, because it's bright, filled with unpretentious useful things (from long johns to snowshoes), and still run by the family that founded it sometime around the Great Depression.

My mission that day was to procure the swimming trunks with which I had promised Clover I would henceforth gird up my loins. I must have looked a little lost as I ran my hand through a rack of repellently slinky, skimpy garments, because a young woman came over and asked if I needed help.

"Let's see," I said. "If you have access to a time machine that could transport me back to an era when men wore bathing suits that actually concealed something, the answer would be yes."

She laughed. "Oh, these are just the Speedos."

"As opposed to the Slomos?"

She laughed again, her amusement genuine. I felt pleased with my sly little quip. "That's very funny," she said. "But follow me."

For the second time that day, an attractive woman was leading me forward toward the future. This one took me all the way across the store, through aisles filled with clothing for climatic conditions at the opposite end of the seasonal spectrum. TGO was not air-conditioned, and I began to perspire at the mere sight of all that fleece and flannel.

"Here are the more traditional trunks," she said when we reached a rack near the fitting rooms. "There's not a lot left, I'm afraid. But all the swimwear's half off now."

"Doesn't anyone get a yen for a new suit in the midst of a heat wave like this? And do you honestly believe that someone's going to purchase anything made of suede?" I pointed to a row of jackets lined with sheepskin.

"The world is a strange and often illogical place," said the young woman. "The answer to both of those questions would be yes."

This was not your typical sales gal.

I turned my attention to the three swimsuits left in my size. At least they were cut to my expectations--and dirt cheap--but there was nothing subdued or solid. Two were faux Hawaiian, the third printed with a madras plaid I associate with people who join country clubs. I pulled out the two Hawaiians.

"Well!" I turned toward a full-length mirror outside the fitting booths.

"Don't you want to try them on?" asked my handmaiden.

"Not necessary. But lend me your opinion."

With a comic flourish, I struck what I imagined to be a surfing pose, legs akimbo, knees bent. Waistband stretched between my thumbs, I held one and then the other suit in front of me. "Devil? Or the deep blue sea? Pull no punches."

She stood back and narrowed her eyes. I noticed that she did not look like one of the freckled Irish wives from the large family that usually staffed the store. She was about Clover's age, deeply tanned, and her hair was strikingly dark. I wondered if she cared that anyone could see it was dyed.

"Hmm," she said. "The pink pineapples would be a daring choice. You would turn heads in that one.... The hula girls are actually more conventional."

The pink pineapples (depicted on an aqua background) were indeed quite gaudy but ornamented a suit with a longer cut. Perhaps it would seem irrational to make the demure choice after having swum buck naked for so long, yet such was my preference. "Daring it shall be," I concluded.

"You won't regret it." My handmaiden held out her hand, and I extended mine to shake it. But she was merely reaching for the hangers.

"Silly me," I said when our hands collided awkwardly. "I thought I was to receive your congratulations. I will have you know that this is the first swimsuit I have purchased since I was in college."

"Well then, I'm glad you're headed back to the water," she said.

I was about to explain my situation to her when I stopped myself. I laughed and shook my head.

"What's so amusing?" she said.

"I'm having one of those--what youngsters so blithely call 'a senior moment.' I thank you for your cordial assistance."

"A genuine pleasure," she said, and she seemed to mean it.

At the cash register, I counted out exact change and told her I didn't need a bag. I also remarked that I had not noticed her working there before.

"I started last month," she said, "and I'm just part-time."

"Well, I hope to solicit your sartorial discretion in the future."

"What a charming thing to say."

"Likewise," I told her. "There is a dearth of compliments in the world these days."

She expressed her agreement and handed me my new suit, neatly folded, along with the sales receipt. Then she said, "It's always nice when the last customer leaves me smiling. Thank you for that." I glanced at the large school clock on the wall; it was nearly a quarter past five. Almost any other clerk would have rushed me out by now.

She locked the front door behind me and waved through the glass as I settled myself on the red-hot vinyl upholstery of my car. Whatever refreshment I'd gleaned from my earlier swim was moot. All the way home, I kept the windows wide open and drove as fast as I dared along the country roads.
(Daring, yes that's me!
I thought, laughing at the image of myself all decked out in oversize magenta pineapples.)

As I approached my driveway, I was chagrined to see the bunch of balloons tied to the much larger mailbox now adjacent to mine, the one that blared
elves & fairies
(purple letters, sans serif, lowercase). I groaned. "Now it begins," I muttered. In two hours, the place would be crawling with E & F's eager-beaver parents. I'd rented the movie
Cape Fear
(I was on a Mitchum kick) and planned to watch it, with my dinner, in front of a fan in Poppy's dressing room. Never mind the heat up there; no one would spy on me.

The second thing I saw was the dark-skinned fellow who showed up at Mistress Lorelei's every so often to tend to her flowers and shrubs. In recent years, master shyster Tommy Loud (a grade-school classmate of Trudy's) had expanded his snow-and-tree-removal business by importing a literal truckload of foreign workers to mow lawns, build showy walls, and maintain swimming pools (another distressing new trend). Generally, they were dropped off by the half dozen, along with an armada of high-powered mowers, blowers, and trimmers. You could hear their work a mile away: a plague of locusts on steroids.

But this fellow arrived solo, worked hard, and then seemed to vanish as if into thin air. Once in a while, I'd nodded to him through the trees. He had nodded back.

Now he paced at the foot of Lorelei's driveway, looking at his watch and wiping the sweat from his face with a gray rag. He appeared agitated, and I could hardly blame him. Thanks to Lorelei's passion for keeping nature at bay, the foot of her driveway--paved, of course--was bathed in late August sun.

I parked my car by the house and walked back. "Hello!" I called out. "Need anything there?"

He looked startled to be addressed, and I wished that I had some language other than poofy French at my service.

"Sir," he said, and he bobbed his head.

For a moment, we stared at each other in perplexed silence. Then he said, "I have been waiting for the truck nearly an hour. Could I ... telephone?" His accent was strong, yet all I could tell was that it wasn't French.

"Of course," I said. "Come on over."

"Thank you." He made a great fuss of wiping his feet at the front door.

"Oh just come on in," I said. "I'm the world's worst housekeeper."

He entered and gazed slowly around. I pointed to the phone. Still he paused, looking at his hands, which were covered with Mistress Lorelei's high-class topsoil. He held a large rumpled paper bag.

"Listen," I said. "Come wash up and get a drink. You look like a fugitive from the Foreign Legion."

Insistently, I beckoned him toward the kitchen, where I poured him a glass of Clover's mint lemonade while he washed his hands at the sink.

"I thank you," he said before he drank the lemonade--which he did in one long draft.

"Now don't get brain freeze, young man."

He stared at me for a moment. He must have thought me mad.

"Oh don't mind me." I handed him the cordless phone Robert had attached to the wall by the fridge.

I left the room while he made his call. A moment later, he came into the living room. "They forgot me." He smiled calmly. "I'll go wait again."

"Please wait on my front porch, in the shade," I said. I saw him out the door, and I pointed to the wicker chairs. "Here. I insist. You don't even have a hat. You can see your ride pull up right through those trees."

Tentatively, he sat. He looked older than most of the boys I'd seen on Tommy's trucks; late twenties, perhaps. He had an unmistakably Mayan profile, dignified yet vaguely equine. I wondered what long, sad journey had landed him here, a lawn serf in Matlock. I didn't want to know how little he was paid by Tommy Loud. I hoped he didn't have children. Not yet.