Bingo (29 page)

T
he day started with a tiff in the composing room between Pewter and Louisa May Alcatt. Arnie Dow brought his cat to work that morning because he would be taking her to the vet’s on his lunch hour. His wife worked up in Hanover, so she couldn’t do it. Louisa May, hale and hearty, needed her rabies shot. By the time I reached the composing room, ugly words had been exchanged and suspicious hair tufts were lodged in Pewter’s claws.

Arnie, a good-natured man, kept his temper about the cat argument. As I heaved Pewter’s ever-increasing bulk over my shoulder he wished me luck. Said he and the boys were rooting for me.

Staggering under the weight of Pewter, whom I considered renaming Godzilla, I ran into Ann Falkenroth. She rarely visited the paper, so seeing her was a pleasant surprise. Ann belonged to that generation of white women of a certain class who were trained to take care of a home, a man, and children, beautifully. The idea of working in the outside world was both frightening and repugnant. In fact, it was Ann Falkenroth née Lansburg who cut Spots Chalfonte to the bone back in 1932. Spots landed a minor role in a Ronald Colman movie and on a visit home Ann said, “Spots, you look ravishing. I’m so sorry you’re still working.” Now whether Ann said any such thing is up for question. I’m not going to ask her. Apart from that moment, if it happened, Ann was a good woman.

“That cat is on a seafood diet. Everything she sees.” Ann petted Pewter’s head.

“How nice to see you. I wish you’d come by more often.” I was sincere.

“Charles has his bailiwick and I have mine. Did he tell you we found exactly the right place for us in Palm Springs?”

“No. But he’s been flying in and out of the office like a hummingbird.”

“I know.” She rolled her eyes. “Well, we did find the right community for us. It’s called Morningside and oh, Nickel, it’s scrumptious. The walls of the place are serpentine, the lighting is fabulous, and the golf course is going to tax my slender abilities. I tell you it’s something to be standing on an emerald-green fairway staring up at the San Jacinto Mountains, and we even found the right model home for us, the Oakmont Four! We thought about the Pinehurst but decided we needed more space if for nothing else than for Charles’s books. You must come visit us.”

“I’d love to.” I could easily adapt to Palm Springs and I vaguely remembered a brochure for Morningside that Charles once left lying around the office. I could get used to that too.

“Well, dear, I’ve got to run. Garden Club and you know what a witch Mildred Adams can be if one is late. Notice I said ‘witch.’ ”

“I admire your restraint.”

Ann giggled and slipped out the back door. She possessed a bubbling energy, a genuine sense of optimism. I could understand why Charles loved his wife.

As she went out the back door Ed Tutweiler Walters came in the front. This was a day of surprises and the noon church bells hadn’t rung yet. He was waiting by my desk as I carried in Pewter from the back.

“Hello.” Ed never used more words than he had to use.

“Ed, how good to see you. Won’t you sit down?”

He took the wooden captain’s chair next to my desk. “Read your article this morning about the Bon Ton. Town’s talking.”

Good. That’s what they were supposed to do. “You’re kind to mention it.”

He leaned forward. “Nickel, if you hear of a place to rent, will you call me out at Verna’s or leave a message at the restaurant?”

“Sure. What are you looking for?”

“Nothing fancy. In town.” He smiled. “I like it here. I need a change.”

“Runnymede would be lucky to have you. I know my mother”—this killed me but I had to say it—”and my aunt will be very happy if you live among us.”

He flushed at this but it opened him a bit. “Birmingham is full of memories. Time for a change.” He paused. “You know, I haven’t had fun like this since my wife was alive.”

Memories and a sense of the future keep us alive. I was sure that Ed’s memories of his wife drove him forward. I was equally sure that neither I nor any other human being would know those memories.

“I’ll tell the gang if they get a promising ad for the classified, to let me know.”

“Thanks.”

As Ed rose, in rolled Nils Nordness, and was he pissed. John, languishing at his desk, did not bother to take his feet off it as Nils hovered over him.

“You misquoted me, you sorry son of a bitch!”

“Nils, I have my notes right here.” John handed them up to the real estate developer.

Ed sat back down.

Nils read them for two seconds. “This isn’t English.”

“Shorthand.” John smiled.

Nils threw the note pad on the ground. “Hoffman, I’m never giving you an interview—I’m never giving anyone from this goddamned paper an interview again. And I’m pulling my advertising.”

Lolly scrambled out from under my desk. I held her by the collar as she growled.

“Suit yourself.” John smiled again, bloodlessly.

Charles, up from the press in time for the last exchange,
walked over. “Nils, what’s the problem here? No need to be threatening.”

“This jackass misquoted me.”

“I didn’t misquote you. I can’t print everything you said. No reporter can do that. I picked out the salient points.”

“Stick to your column.” Nils turned to me. “At least those are better than Miss Bleeding Heart here.”

“Nils, I’ll thank you not to come into my newspaper and insult my staff.” Charles’s bow tie hopped up and down.

“It won’t be your newspaper for long, thank God. Diz Rife has respect for businessmen. Things’ll perk up around here.”

“Maybe he’ll buy it and maybe he won’t,” I piped up.

“You don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.” Nils’s gaze circled the room. “So you all better start kissing Diz Rife’s ass.”

“You’re doing a good enough job on that already.” John still kept his feet on his desk.

Nils clenched his fists, swayed a moment, and then charged out.

“You’ll drown in a sea of parking tickets if you go north of the line,” Roger said to John.

“He was born a twin, you know—Nils and a turd? They threw out Nils and kept the turd.” John finally took his shoes off the desk. “Thanks for the support.” He spoke to Charles.

“Every species of authority or rich man has had it in for the press since Peter Zenger.” Charles slapped John on the back, heard his phone ring, and returned to his office.

Ed whispered to me. “Is it always like this?”

“Only on Wednesdays.” I smiled.

After Ed left, dazed by the outburst and somewhat excited, we started talking at once. I don’t know what it is about a fight but my blood gets up and my mood rises with it. I could twist the beginning of
A Tale of Two Cities
to say it was the worst of times and I was at my best.

After we finished hooting and hollering I called out to Michelle: “Got an assignment for you.”

“What?”

“I want a feature on airport art and I want you on my fence crew for the horse show.”

She stopped for a moment and then said, “You lie.”

“Michelle, pretty soon you’ll be one of the boys.” I smiled broadly at her. She wasn’t sure how to take that, but Roger laughed and so did John. She allowed as how it might be a compliment.

Orrie Tadia perched in the high chair at the Curl ’n Twirl. Georgette BonBon pored over an issue of
Cosmopolitan
with a half-naked woman on the cover. The cover girl appeal confused me. Wouldn’t a half-naked woman do better on a magazine for men? Yet
Cosmo
sold like hotcakes. Was there something buried deep in the psyches of women that I didn’t understand?

“What are you doing here?” Orrie asked me.

“Lunch hour. Came to see if Mom was about.”

“She’s at the paint store.” Mr. Pierre, deeply concentrating on Orrie’s new color, champagne blond, never removed his gaze from her hair.

I started to leave but Orrie said, “Well?”

“Very becoming. And Mr. Pierre knows exactly how to frame your face, Orrie. With the tan, you look, well, you look like you did when I was a girl.”

I don’t know about soul travel but Orrie was so happy she might have floated off her chair. “Aren’t you the sweetest thing. Honey, did I tell you about Lauderdale-by-the-Sea? Cirrhosis-by-the-Sea, I call it. Apart from the tidal wave of alcohol consumed at the nightly cocktail parties the weather was splendid and I was robbed by a man armed with a coconut—”

“We learned that at Wheezie’s birthday party.”

She settled in her chair. “So you did. I don’t know how you can bear the winter. Or Louise. She’s two years older than God. She needs heat.”

“I ran into Ann Falkenroth and they’ve found a place they love in Palm Springs. Heat made me think of it.”

“They did?” Orrie loved gossip—pardon me, information—as much as Mother and Wheezie.

And myself, although I hate to admit it.

“Place called Morningside. I saw the brochure and the cheapest place is four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The one they’re buying isn’t cheap.”

Orrie waved her hand, the fingernails painted a fresh coat of Plum Fantasy. “After he sells the
Clarion
they can buy a city block.”

“Keep your head still, darling. I want to get this right.” Mr. Pierre pushed her head back.

“I’m on your side, Nickel.”

“Thank you, Aunt Orrie.” I called her “aunt” sometimes because I did when I was little. In those days I thought every woman or man not my mother and father were my aunt or uncle. I imagined myself the center of a large family.

Her voice dropped to the sotto voce range. “Precious lamb, what is this about Ed Tutweiler Walters?”

“Jungle lust.” Mr. Pierre winked at me.

“Stop.” She slapped at him but her tone said
More, More
.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.” I was by her ear.

Georgette put down her magazine. “Nickel, speak up.”

“This is private,” Orrie sniffed.

“He’s my uncle.” Georgette was right.

“Darling, you have so many,” Mr. Pierre chortled.

“Georgette, what do you know? I mean, all I know is Mother and Aunt Wheezie shoot daggers at each other at the mere mention of his name.”

Orrie moved her head and Mr. Pierre pushed it back again. A Jack Russell after a groundhog couldn’t have been more attentive.

“He doesn’t say much,” Georgette volunteered, “but I know he knows he’s between them. He’s not stupid.”

“Does he have any money?” Orrie blurted.

“Orrie,
très
subtle.”

“Mr. Pierre, you want to know as well as I do,” Orrie said.

“He has a pension from work. Uncle Eddie isn’t tight but he isn’t a big spender. I reckon he’s set. If he sells the house in Birmingham he’ll be pretty well off.”

“Think he’d like a champagne blonde with a deep Florida tan?”

“Do you want to have both Louise and Juts mad at you?” Mr. Pierre shook a curling iron in front of her face.

“Now that you put it that way …” Orrie slumped back in the chair and let Mr. Pierre work his will upon her.

That evening I accompanied Aunt Wheezie over to Saint Rose of Lima’s. First she entered the parish, genuflected, and whispered some prayer under her breath. She stuck her elbow in my ribs because I didn’t genuflect nor did I make the sign of the cross. My being a Lutheran mattered not a bit to her. I bent my knee and made the sign of the cross, speaking in Latin. Changing to the vernacular was the dumbest thing the Catholic Church ever did.

Our shoes clicked on the old wooden stairway as we descended into the hall.

“Nickel, I wish you’d come back to church.”

“I go to church.”

“The True Church. I hate to think of your soul wandering in Purgatory because you’re a Lutheran.”

“Maybe my soul can travel out of Purgatory like yours does when you sleep.”

“Don’t make light of anything so serious.”

“Aunt Wheezie, I think piety is like garlic: a little goes a long way.”

“You do this to me every time I try to save your soul.”

We snapped on the lights. How lonesome the place appeared without the bingo tables set up, Mutzi, the Ping-Pong balls.

“Fuse box or circuit breakers?” I asked.

“Circuit breakers.”

We wandered around until we found the circuit breakers in metal boxes right inside the kitchen, which was at the far end of the hall. I opened the boxes and Louise studied their contents.

“See one circuit breaker, you’ve seen ’em all.”

“I have to know what controls what.” She pointed to a number on the switch and a corresponding number on the inside of the metal box door. Written on the door was the section of the church to which each fuse supplied power. For instance, number sixteen had written beside it:
FATHER’S OFFICE AND SMALL PANTRY, FIRST FLOOR
.

My aunt’s dedication to the church was genuine but a small part of her ferocity had to do with the fact that she thought being a good woman meant being religious. Ed’s appearance in our midst had toned down her Catholic fever. I wondered if her temperature was climbing again.

“Why isn’t Millard here to show you himself?”