Searching for Caleb (23 page)

   "It will never be over."

   "I don't understand."

   "We're going to be demolished," she said. "I feel it."

   But now she had insulted him. He straightened up, which made him look smaller. He said, "Don't you think I can have a reasonable discussion with my own girl's parents?"

   "Yes but-"

   "You forget, I'm a minister. I've convinced families who swore they'd cut off their daughters without a penny. I've convinced fathers who claimed that-"

   "But it wasn't you their daughters were marrying."

   "Now don't worry. If worst comes to worst we'll just go away quietly and have the ceremony in my own church."

   But neither of them wanted that. They wanted everything perfect. Arthur wanted her to be happy, and Meg would only be happy with a white dress that dipped to a point at the waist, Sarah Cantleigh's veil, and a bouquet of baby's breath. She wanted to walk down the aisle of the family's church in Baltimore where her mother had been married; she would like to be guarded by rows and rows of aunts and uncles and second cousins, grave Peck eyes approving her choice. Bridal showers, long-grained rice, Great-Grandma's sixpence in her shoe. Arthur waiting beside the minister, turning his pale, shiny face to watch her procession.

   Whenever he looked at her, she felt queenly. All right, so he was not a handsome man, but would a handsome man treat her as adoringly as Arthur Milsom did? When they went to lectures she looked at the lecturer and Arthur looked at her. She felt the thin moon of his face turned upon her.

   He assisted her in and out of cars, through doorways, up the shallowest steps, his hands just barely brushing her. (The aunts would love his manners.) He devoted his entire attention to her, so much so that sometimes, he said, he worried about his jealous God. Nobody had ever, in all her life, felt that way about her before.

   A car drove up in front of the house, chugging and grinding familiarly.

   "There's Mama now!" Meg said. "Look, she beat him home after all." She rose and went out to the porch. Justine was still seated behind the wheel, straight-backed and prim, unguarded by even the vestige of a door. The car looked like a cross-section of something. But, "Certainly makes it easier to get in and out!" she called to Meg, and she waved gaily and stepped onto the sidewalk. "Coming, Grandfather?"

   "Mama, I want to talk to you," Meg said.

   But then up spoke Dorcas Britt, the lady next door, calling over the hedge in a large, rich voice that seemed to mock Meg's. "Justine, honey!

   I got to talk to you."

   "A man came along doing eighty and flung Grandfather into the windshield," Justine said.

   "Mama."

   The house was swept suddenly with a variety of colors and shapes- the white, tottering grandfather, Justine flicking back her yellow hair, Dorcas all chartreuse and magenta on red patent-leather spike-heeled sandals. Arthur stood up with his fingers laced in front of him, as he did when greeting church members after the sermon. He wore a determined smile. Meg felt a twist; was she doomed to be embarrassed by everyone, all her life, even Arthur? "Mama, Grandfather, you remember Arthur," she said. "Mrs. Britt, this is Arthur, my-Arthur Milsom."

   "My baby has been kidnapped," Dorcas told him.

   Her baby was nine years old and she was kidnapped regularly, always by her father, who did not have visiting rights, but Arthur didn't know that and he grew white around the lips. "Oh, my heavens!" he cried.

   "Arthur. It's all right," Meg told him.

   "All right?" said Dorcas. "To you, maybe."

   "Grandfather was zonked in the forehead," Justine said.

   Which caused Arthur to spin next in the grandfather's direction, full of a new supply of horror and sympathy. He hadn't learned yet. Such an expenditure of emotion would drain you in no time, living here. "Arthur,"

   Meg said.

   "The man was going eighty, at least," said Justine. "How else could he have ripped a door clean off like that?"

   "It was already hanging by one hinge, Mama."

   " 'You were going eighty,' I told him, but guess what he said? It's against the law to open a car door on the street side. Did you know that?

   How are we supposed to get into our cars?"

   "Perhaps from the sidewalk side," Arthur said carefully.

   Justine paused, in the middle of removing her hat, and looked over at him. "Oh. Arthur," she said. "Why, how are you?"

   "I'm just fine, thank you, Mrs. Peck. How are you?"

   "And Meg! Meggie, did you find my note? I forgot to tell you I was going off today. Did you have anything to eat when you came home from school?"

   She didn't wait for an answer. She kissed Meg on the cheek-a breath of Luden's cough drops. Whenever she kissed people she gave them quick little pats on the shoulder. Meg drew away, trying to regather her dignity. "Mama, when you get a moment," she said.

   "But I have a moment. All the time in the world. What can I do for you?"

   "Don't you have to start supper?"

   She meant, Can't you come out in the kitchen and talk without Dorcas? But Justine said, "Oh, I thought we would just have pick-ups tonight." The only one who understood Meg was Dorcas, who drew herself in while remaining, somehow, as billowy and bosomy as a featherbed. A fat blonde with tiny hands and feet. "Yow are not a mother," she said. "You have never had your baby kidnapped. This is not something I can just go home and forget until a more convenient time."

   "Perhaps if you called the police," said Arthur.

   "Police! Ha!"

   "Mama, I want to talk to you a second."

   "All right."

   "I mean, privately."

   "Honey, can't you talk here? Dorcas is a friend, we don't have to be private from her."

   "I should say not," said Dorcas.

   "Well, I'll wait till Daddy comes home," Meg said.

   "Oh, Duncan! Where is he? Shouldn't he be here by now?"

   And off she flew to the window, with Dorcas tripping behind her on her ridiculous shoes. "Look here, Justine, you got to help. Won't you lay the cards? I got to know where Ann-Campbell is."

   "Oh, well, I'm sure she's all right."

   Ann-Campbell would be all right anywhere. Meg pitied her kidnapper. But Justine gave in, soft-hearted as usual. "But maybe just a quick reading," she said. And off they went to the kitchen for the cards. Grandfather Peck stood teetering from heel to toe, peering after them. "Are they going to make supper?" he asked Meg.

   "They're doing a reading, Grandfather."

   "A what?"

   "Reading."

   "What would they be reading now? It's suppertime."

   He sat down suddenly in the armchair. There was a long knot growing on his forehead. "Grandfather, you're turning purple," Meg said.

   "Ah?"

   "Perhaps he needs medical attention," Arthur whispered.

   But the grandfather, who could sometimes hear astonishing things, slapped his knee and said, "Nonsense!"

   Then there was a blue-and-yellow flash in the door-Duncan, wearing the jeans Mr. Amsel had asked him not to. He sprinted across the hall and into the coat closet. "Daddy?" Meg said.

   "Meg, where is that magazine I was reading last night?"

   "I don't know."

   "Do you have to put everything away all the time?"

   "I didn't put it anywhere."

   "Never mind, I found it."

   Off he went again. The door slammed. Arthur began stroking his chin thoughtfully.

   "Was that Duncan?" the grandfather asked.

   "Yes, Grandfather."

   "You're a pastor," he told Arthur.

   "Assistant pastor, yes sir."

   "Here's an idea for a sermon."

   "Grandfather."

   "All our misery comes from the length of our childhood. Ever thought of that?"

   "No, sir, I don't believe I have."

   "Look at it this way. Everything arises from boredom, right? Irritation, loneliness, violence, stupidity-all from boredom. Now. Why are we bored?

   Because the human childhood is so durned lengthy, that's why. Because it takes us so durned long to get grown. Years. Years and years just hanging around waiting. Why, after that just anything would be an anticlimax."

   "Sugar," Duncan called, crossing the front hall again.

   "How's that?"

   "Eat more sugar."

   "What'd he say?"

   Duncan stuck his head in the living room door. "Sugar hastens puberty," he said. "All the Eskimos are growing up faster now they've switched to carbohydrates."

   Grandfather Peck scratched his head.

   "Daddy," said Meg, "we want to talk to you."

   "Ah so, Meggie." But then he saw Arthur. "Why, looky there, a man of the cloth."

   "Daddy, when Mama gets through-"

   "Where is your mother?"

   "She's reading the cards for Dorcas."

   Arthur stood up. Next to Duncan he looked very small and stalwart.

   "Actually, Mr. Peck," he said, "I feel it would be quite enough just to talk to you."

   "Oh, more than enough," said Duncan.

   "When I became a man," the grandfather said, "I caught myself thinking, many times, so this is what it's like to be grown up! Plodding back and forth, between work and home. Even being a judge was not what I had hoped. Really you don't make judgments at all; you simply relate what happens today to what has happened yesterday, all the precedents and statutes and amendments. And when you've waded through that, what next?

   You get old. And you're old for years and years and years. Your hearing goes and your knees go. Some people's teeth go. I myself have kept all my teeth but I wouldn't say it has done much good. After all, whatever I eat I ate a thousand times before. In addition I have become more and more conscious of where the food comes from. Pork tastes like pigs, beef like cows, lamb like sheep's wool, and so forth. Milk chocolate, which I used to consider a treat, nauseates me now. I taste the smell of cow barns."

   "I wonder," said Duncan. "If we ran some experiments with goat's milk chocolate-"

   "The Chinese venerate age. If I were in China people would come to me and say, 'You're old and wise. What's the meaning of it all?' "

   "What is the meaning of it all?" Duncan asked.

   "I don't know," his grandfather told him.

   "Mr. Peck," said Arthur, "I would like to marry your daughter."

   The grandfather said, "My daughter?"

   But Duncan understood. He gave Arthur a long, clear, untroubled look, as if nothing such a man could say would bother him. Then he said, "She's seventeen."

   "Eighteen," said Meg.

   "Eighteen? Oh yes."

   "And Arthur's twenty-six."

   "Well, that's ridiculous," said Duncan. "When you're seventy he'll be seventy-eight."

   "So?"

   "And you're still in school."

   "We're planning a June wedding," said Arthur. "She'll be graduated by then."

   "And Daddy, you know I'm not the college type."

   "Who is? Who cares about college? Did I ever say I wanted you to go to college? But I didn't say I wanted you to get married right off the bat, either, and go live in Simper, Virginia, sitting in the front pew every Sunday nodding all the flowers off your hat. It's a trap. Do you want to be trapped? I thought you would go off and do something, Meggie, travel somewhere. Leave old Caramel behind if you like, we're not trying to keep you for ourselves. Hitch-hike to California. Take a freight train. Take a bus. Learn to surf. Marry somebody unpredictable. Join the Foreign Legion."

   "But I can't be that way."

   "Try! Anything but this. Just settling for it doesn't matter who, any pale fish in a suit-"

   "Mr. Peck," said Arthur, "I understand, of course, that in the heat of the moment-"

   "How will you have babies, Reverend Mildew, osmosis?"

   "Mama!" Meg called.

   "Don't trouble your mother, Meg, I'll see him out myself."

   "Unfortunately I am not that easy to discourage," Arthur said.

   "That is unfortunate." But Duncan was guiding him toward the door anyway, and Arthur was allowing it. "Now," said Duncan, "if by any strange chance Meg still feels the same when she is of a decent age, Reverend, I admit there is nothing I can do about it. Meanwhile, goodbye."

   "But I am of age!" Meg said.

   The front screen slammed.

   Meg looked at her great-grandfather, who smiled a weary smile showing every one of his perfect teeth. She crossed to the kitchen door and opened it.

   "Meg," said Dorcas, "your mother's a marvel. My cards say Ann-Campbell is with Joe Pete and I'm to enjoy the rest while she's gone."

   "Mama, listen."

   Justine looked up. She was seated at the kitchen table, holding both hands rigid. Between each finger were long sprays of raw spaghetti.

   "Look, Meg!" she said. "I'm learning the I Ching!"

   "Is that all you have to do?"

   "Well, we should use yarrow stalks but we don't know what they are."

   "I just want to tell you this," Meg said. "I blame you as much as him."

   "What, Meggie dear?"

   "The two of you are as closed as a unit can get, I don't care what he says."

   "Closed? What?" said Justine, looking bewildered. She rose, holding out two spaghetti whiskbrooms. "Wait, Maggie darling, I don't-"

   But Meg was gone. She ran across the hall and out of the house. There was no sign of Arthur or Duncan in the yard. Only the Ford, melting into the twilight, with a magazine page flapping in the space where the door should have been. WOULDN'T YOU REALLY RATHER HAVE A BUICK?

   9

   For the Polk Valley church's April bazaar Justine wore her very best dress-an A-line shift that Duncan had bought her five years ago at a nearly-new sale. She pulled her hair into a sprout on top of her head, covered it over with her hat, and dabbed at her mouth with a pink Tangee lipstick from high school. On her feet she wore her black Mary Janes, on her arm a gypsy bracelet borrowed from the Blue Bottle. Generally speaking, she thought she looked very presentable.