Leave Well Enough Alone (12 page)

“John, please!” It was Mrs. Hoade, who’d run in from the garden, breathless.

“I don’t give a damn what you say,” he growled. “She’s going to be punished. Look what she did to my pants! Look what she did to Doris’s arm!”

“It’s
Dorothy,”
said Mrs. Hoade.

“She could sue us!”

“I won’t sue anybody! I promise,” Dorothy said, sweeping Lisa up in a bundle in her arms. She carried Lisa upstairs. “It’ll be all right. I’ll just get her cleaned up.”

Dorothy glanced down miserably to the runny pink stains and sticky blotches that coursed down her good dress and made the cloth adhere uncomfortably against her legs. Soapy lather did not improve the mess Lisa had made of her fingernails. Lisa’s tantrum had ebbed completely, but in its stead was something close to a wordless panic. Holding Lisa like a wounded puppy, Dorothy sat down on the fluffy hamper lid and rocked her in her lap. She sang her a lullaby her mother had made up and used when Dorothy had been little. Lisa’s pink thumb went into her mouth and she closed her eyes. Dorothy hoped she could transmit some peace to the little girl as easily as Mr. Hoade had imparted terror.

“Let’s try another bath,” she said, when Lisa’s breathing steadied.

“I had a bath already.”

“I know. I know, but it isn’t just to get you clean. It’s also... Well, when I’m upset about something I sit in a hot tub. It makes me feel much better.” Dorothy drew the bath water. “And while you’re sitting in it, we’ll play Twenty Questions. How would that be?”

“I guess so,” said Lisa, her voice shaking a little.

“Now get in so you don’t catch cold. Does Mommy have any nail-polish remover?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where did you find the nail polish?”

“In her top bureau drawer.”

“Okay. Now while I get it, you think of the nicest thing in the whole world, okay?”

“What is that?” asked Lisa, lowering herself into the bubbles.

“Anything you want it to be,” said Dorothy. She closed the bathroom door so that Lisa would not be in a draft, and went off in search of nail-polish remover.

Mrs. Hoade didn’t seem to be the type to wear nail polish in the first place. Her nails were bitten and the cuticles overgrown. Dorothy opened the top drawer, inhaling as she did the sweet, nostalgic smell of lavender sachet. Curiously enough there were at least five bottles of nail polish, all the same color, Windsor, lined up against the side of the drawer. Fortunately there was a bottle of remover at the end of the row. Under the bottles, along with combs, powder puffs, a key ring, the gold locket Mrs. Hoade usually wore, an embossed silver pencil, a reading magnifier, and all sizes of emery boards, was a stack of photographs in a yellow envelope. Underneath that was a pile of letters. Dorothy glanced guiltily over her shoulder. She felt curiosity overcome her as surely as the tide taking an unmoored boat out to sea.

The envelope had been processed by Kodak in the fall of 1944. She was about to look furtively at what she hoped were old love letters underneath, when she thought she’d see if there were any pictures of the stable. She flipped through the photographs. Sure enough, the stable stood right about where the cottage had been built. She could tell by the presence of an ash tree that still grew in the very same spot. The stable had been built of board-and-batten siding, Dorothy told herself proudly. Sister Elizabeth’s English classes covered a whole range of what Sister considered an educated young man or lady should know. There was a hayloft and a cistern right near the entrance. There were several pictures of horses, but the people seated upon them or holding their lead lines were too small to identify. She came upon a picture of the fishponds as well, and saw the cupids once again. They looked so fine and innocent in the sunlight. Dorothy was sorry that they should now be buried away in the cellar like dead bodies. There were a few interior shots of the house. One showed the greenhouse from the inside. Instead of the present living-room wall, where the painting hung and the highboy stood, there was no wall at all, only a pleasant vista of sunlit glass and aspidistras sitting in wrought-iron planters. Otherwise, nothing but the wallpaper seemed to have changed downstairs.

“Dorothy, come!” Lisa’s muffled voice called to her from the bathroom. What a shame that stable was destroyed, Dorothy thought as she stuffed the pictures back in the envelope.

Lisa sat in the bubbles, smiling and composed when Dorothy reached the bathroom. She extended a dreadful pink hand and placed it on the rim of the tub for Dorothy to clean, and grinned as if nothing had happened. “Did you think of the nicest thing in the whole world?” Dorothy asked.

“Yup.”

“What was it?”

Lisa looked up slyly and grinned. “Two éclairs,” she said, “and three meringues with chocolate sauce and whipped cream and ice cream.”

No trace of a stain remained on Mr. Hoade’s trousers when Dorothy came out into the garden, her traveling skirt and blouse replacing the cotton dress. With the disappearance of the nail polish his anger, too, seemed to have vanished. Maybe he swallowed some of the kerosene, Dorothy thought. I wish he had.

“This is my little princess!” he said, scooping up a pristine Lisa now outfitted in a slightly outgrown yellow dress and presenting her to the flaccid-jowled gentleman whose signed photograph now adorned the inside of Dorothy’s wastebasket. They must have retouched out half his chins in the picture, she decided.

“I’m Dorothy Coughlin, sir,” she said boldly. “I’m very honored to meet you.” Mr. Hoade did not look pleased.

“Are you the little girl who wanted the autographed picture?” he asked, taking a large black cigar out of his mouth and grinning broadly. He was wearing a vest, Dorothy noticed, and trousers with front pleats, so he was probably a Republican. If there was to be a scandal, all the better.

“Yes, sir. I was hoping, if you had a minute, sir...I’m the editor of our high-school newspaper,” Dorothy lied headily, “at Sacred Heart in Newburgh, and I’m going to be a reporter someday and I was wondering if I could ask you some questions on the coming campaign... I...I certainly would appreciate it and I’m sure everybody at school would appreciate it too, that is...if it isn’t too much trouble.”

“Shoot!” said the toothy, cigar-filled mouth. The pale blue eyes called off Mr. Hoade’s intervention with an amused blink.

“Well, sir,” said Dorothy, her mouth drying up. “May I ask what office you’re running for?”

“President.”

“President!”

“You heard it right.”

Dorothy tried to swallow. If this man was running for president, it was beyond her wildest dreams. She had counted on governor or even senator, but president! “And what,” she heard herself ask, “is your position, sir, on...on the Russians?” she managed to blurt out.

The cigar was removed again.

“You mean the longshoremen’s strike?”

“Longshoremen’s strike?”

“Yes, the dockers’ boycott.”

“Yes...that one.”

“Well, I support them, naturally, but that’s a different union, you know.”

“A different union?”

“Honey?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Did you think I was running for president of the United States?”

“Uh...no!” said Dorothy.

“John, what have you been telling people?” The mouth and the four fat chins began to jiggle in tremendous merriment. The laughing voice went abruptly serious again, however, and to Dorothy’s disappointment informed her that the presidency in question belonged to a labor union, but if Dorothy was interested in finding out about the Russians, she should write a letter to Congressman Such-and-such from the second district in Philadelphia, mention his name, and she would get a personal reply to all her questions. As soon as this advice was given, Mr. Hoade steered Dorothy to the buffet table, placed a dinner plate in her hands, and with a sarcastic bow disappeared into the crowd of people.

There was nothing on God’s green earth, Dorothy thought sadly as she helped herself to some beef Stroganoff, that was more boring or unglamorous than labor unions. Her father belonged to the P.B.A., and she hated it when he talked of the tiresome meetings he attended and the gray-faced, ill-spoken men who ran them.

Lisa and Jenny, uninterested in the Stroganoff, found their way to the television early. “This is all I could get you,” said Dorothy, presenting them with two soggy cream puffs. “There were no éclairs and no meringues.”

“We saw,” said Lisa.

“What are you watching?” Dorothy asked.

“
Return of the Cat People
,” Lisa answered, “and Mom said we could.”

Lisa’s singsong assertiveness convinced Dorothy that she was back to normal after the tantrum. She left both girls and went into her own room with the intention of losing the earlier humiliations of the evening in Istanbul, or wherever Agatha Christie would take her.

Perhaps, she thought, as she settled herself on the bed, a slowly melting cream puff on the dresser, I’ll be able to wangle a ride tomorrow. Agatha Christie did not successfully obliterate the memory of the horrid, fat jowls, or the mocking laughter she’d endured. And all my fault, Dorothy told herself. She wished she’d brought the pair of riding boots back and could have spent the evening cleaning them up. After all, she reasoned, I could tell Mrs. Hoade that Baldy gave them to me. It isn’t stealing to take something that nobody wants or even knows is there. “Oh, yes, it is!” said Maureen. “It’s stealing and it’s lying!” “Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind!” cautioned Sister Elizabeth. “The thief doth fear every bush an officer!” The source of that wisdom escaped Dorothy. Sister had used it every day in class for two weeks until Michael Brodie finally returned a five-dollar bill he claimed he’d found on the ball field, but that everybody knew he’d slipped out of Mary Beth Pendleton’s desk when she wasn’t looking.

I didn’t lose the watch after all, she went on, trying still to concentrate on her book, and Miss Borg was good enough not to rat on me. I’m grateful. God has been merciful, and look what I’m doing. I’m still thinking about stealing those boots. I’m the best example of a miserable sinner I can think of, Dorothy decided. Maureen’s absolutely right. I’ll probably wind up in jail someday. Mrs. Hoade could fire me for stealing. That would look just dandy at home, wouldn’t it. She went back to Istanbul.

Dorothy read three pages. She turned back to the beginning of the story. She’d forgotten what was going on. Baldy’s riding breeches (not the same as jodhpurs, as she had been told by Baldy) had an elegant look. They were enhanced, even on chubby Baldy, by the soft leather and potent shape of her old mahogany-topped hunting boots. Dungarees and loafers, despite Dorothy’s svelte figure, made her feel silly and amateurish next to Baldy. The boots would help, even without the breeches. The girls would be busy with their
Cat People
for at least another hour. The party would go on down at the swimming pool, far from the cottage, until midnight, surely. As usual, Dorothy remembered to lock her door before she went out, in case Lisa sneaked in to go through her things and discovered she wore a 32A instead of a 34B bra.

Thunder rattled somewhere miles away. A strong wind blew a cloud in front of the moon, extinguishing its light, hiding Dorothy as her feet scudded through the mounds of newly mown grass. She hadn’t been able to find any more flashlight batteries, but had managed to locate a candle and a book of matches. I’m not frightened, she told herself. The cloud moved away and then moonlight broke out again, lighting the tops of the grasses around the narrow path to the cottage. Not a bit frightened. After all, if I were an archaeologist I’d have to do a lot of things scarier than this. There had been a time, that past winter after Sister Elizabeth had gone off on a tangent and spent a whole class talking about Heinrich Schliemann and the discovery of Troy, when Dorothy had made a final decision to become an archaeologist. She and Kate had written to the Museum of Natural History to apply for summer jobs on a dig anywhere in the world. The Museum had responded politely that they were much too young, but Dorothy still had it in her mind to discover a lost city in the East someday. Think of Heinrich Schliemann, she told herself as the trees rustled around her. He wouldn’t be afraid of snakes and spiders in some silly old basement in Pennsylvania. Once she stopped and peeked through the brush to the faraway party. All she could see were the Japanese paper lanterns swinging wildly in the wind like captive balloons. I can still go back, she said, mentally shaking a finger at herself. Greed is pushing me forward. My good conscience is weak. Dear God, let me get the better of this.

The thunder rattled again, not so distant this time. The little house looked dark and comfortable ahead of her. She rummaged around in the vines and nettles for several minutes until she found the heavy metal ring again. The trapdoor creaked as it gave and then rose under her urging. She stopped. No light was turned on in the cottage. By now there was enough cracking and soughing of branches to hide her movements anyway. Dorothy placed her right foot on the first rung of the ladder. I’ll tell Mrs. Hoade, she resolved. I’ll tell Mrs. Hoade the truth about losing her watch last night, and finding this door, and being very careful not to get hurt. I’ll tell her I found the boots and I’ll ask her if I may borrow them for the summer. Dorothy sighed. She smiled. If the riding boots could be shined up and made presentable, they would be worth risking Mrs. Hoade’s annoyance at her explorations here. She climbed down without hurrying and lit the candle when she reached the floor. The burst of warm friendly light showed the boots, lying on their sides, exactly as she’d left them. She shook each one just to make doubly sure nothing had nested inside. A white deposit fell off the leather onto her fingers; however, it seemed still to be in tolerable condition underneath. Suddenly a massive clap of thunder echoed outside. The cellar would be a good place to wait out the storm, Dorothy reckoned; on the other hand, I might be here all night and they may come looking for me. She pinched out her candle and, boots under her arm, crossed the sandy floor to the ladder.

The first of the rain pattered down on her face. She closed the door soundlessly and took refuge under the ash tree as another deafening crash roared overhead. What a stupid place to be in a thunderstorm! she said aloud, holding her hands over her ears. THIEVING MOTHER’S HELPER STRUCK BY LIGHTNING! said the
Daily News
headline in her mind. Dorothy prepared to make a dash for the big house, when the lightning seemed to split open the entire sky. It illuminated the woods and cottage and every blade of grass in an eerie sliver of deadly clarity. Then she saw someone standing at the window of the cottage looking out at the storm. The person was too tall to be Miss Borg.