Serendipity Green (25 page)

They reach the gate just as the flight begins to board. Victoria hugs him with relief and they penguin-walk with their luggage to their seats in coach. An hour and twenty minutes later they are back on the ground, in a cab listening to the driver's tape of Yobisch Podka's lively
Insipientia
. “I love this piece,” Aitchbone says, certain the driver is a Middle Eastern terrorist waiting for orders to blow the tip off the Washington Monument.

“When I was a boy I studied composition with Yobisch in Leningrad,” the driver says. “We still send each other birthday cards.”

“You're a musician?” D. William Aitchbone asks, certain that this tale about studying with the great Yobisch Podka is just a cover for his bomb making.

“I am a very good musician,” the driver says. “I have a tryout with the Cleveland Orchestra next month.”

The skeptical lawyer from just south of Cleveland hopes to trip him up. “What instrument?” he quickly asks him.

The driver answers effortlessly: “Violin. In Cairo I was first chair. In Cleveland I will be honored to sit in the last chair. It is the finest orchestra in the world.”

D. William Aitchbone is suddenly proud. “We're from Cleveland.”

The driver smiles into his mirror. “How about those Indians?”

D. William Aitchbone gives him two thumbs up. “This year the whole enchilada.”

“You are a nice couple,” the driver says. “Most of my fares think I am a terrorist.”

“No kidding?” says D. William Aitchbone.

And so the cab reaches the Hyatt and D. William Aitchbone tips the driver a five, which he is sure will go into a fund to buy
plastique
explosives. “Violin my American ass,” he says to Victoria Bonobo as the cab drives off.

They check in and tell the disappointed terrorist bellhop they'll carry their own bags. Inside the glass elevator D. William Aitchbone presses 18. He lets Victoria Bonobo play with his Adam's apple, even when the elevator stops at 12 for a terrorist carrying a stack of room service trays.

Bing! Ka-boomp
. Eighteenth floor. Victoria's room is first and D. William Aitchbone lets her kiss him on the lips, with all the suction she can muster. But he does not let her drag him inside. “I want you as bad as you want me,” he says, panting real pants. “But we've got breakfast with the VP at seven-thirty, and if we make love all night—and Sweet Jesus, it would be all night—we wouldn't be worth a damn. We'd end up with the Interior secretary again. Or worse.”

Victoria Bonobo is not disappointed. She is aroused even more by his manly insistence on business first. And so early in the morning another cab-driving terrorist whisks them to the White House for a breakfast of huevos rancheros and refried beans. The VP wears a Serendipity Green® tie in honor of their little village, and after his eyes drink in the sister of his old college roommate, he promises to attend Squaw Days no matter what. “I don't care if the prime minister of England gets blown up in his Bentley,” he says, “I'll be there for you. I'm really anxious to meet that Howie Dornick fellow.”

Yet another terrorist whisks them back to the Hyatt and they ride the glass elevator pawing and rubbing each other from floor to floor. They have two hours and twenty minutes until check out.
Bing! Ka-boomp
. Into D. William Aitchbone's room they rush. The PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB sign goes on the door. Into the bathroom goes Victoria Bonobo to undress and insert her diaphram. She steps out and finds the manly man she has been waiting a year for, still in his blue suit, standing in a pool of eggs and chili sauce and refried beans. “Sorry,” he says, his voice rippling like the belly of bullfrog. “I'm really sorry.” He starts to gag, but he doesn't vomit, inasmuch as this time his finger isn't down his throat. “At least the VP is coming this time for sure,” he says.

So now D. William Aitchbone knows he cannot be unfaithful to Karen Aitchbone. And from the frost in Victoria Bonobo's eyes, he knows she knows it, too. And the flight home is a miserable one. He drops her off at the end of her driveway and drives as fast as he can to his soapy white Queen Anne. He will wrap his arms around Karen and tell her over and over that he never slept with Victoria Bonobo, that he never could, nor would, nor will he ever, even if it means he will never be anything more impressive than president of the Tuttwyler village council.

He drives past Howie Dornick's Serendipity Green® house as fast as he can, pretending he doesn't see the television crew or the little crowd of daytrippers. He hurries into his own house ready for his hug. He finds a letter on his perfectly puffed pillow:

Bill,

Hope you and Vicki enjoyed Washington. I've taken Amy and Cannon to the farm. Not for a visit, Bill—for good!!!!

Karen

p.s. Penny Grinspoon died last night. Try to be civil at the funeral.

Of course D. William Aitchbone will be civil at Penny Grinspoon's funeral. It will be the political event of the year. The governor will be there. Half a dozen state legislators will be there. Buddy Bowfin, the 22nd District's fourteen-term congressman will be there. Every businessman who needs a friendly vote from the Tuttwyler Village Council, or the Wyssock County Commissioners, or the Ohio General Assembly, or the U.S. Congress will be there. Hundreds of run-of-the-mill voters will be there. Of course D. William Aitchbone will be civil at Penny Grinspoon's funeral.

On the morning of the funeral God purifies Tuttwyler with below-zero temperatures and a torrent of snow. But the cold and snow stop no one from venturing forth to pay their respects. The red-brick Methodist church on the east side of the square hasn't been this full since Artie Brown's funeral eleven years earlier.

Though surrounded by his children and grandchildren, Donald Grinspoon sits painfully alone in the front pew, snow dripping off his old pair of Weideman boots. Surrounded by Karen and Amy and Cannon, D. William Aitchbone also sits painfully alone, nodding politically at every set of eyes that find him.

There are several eulogies. Donald and Penny's eldest daughter, Donna, who looks so much like her mother, remembers the warm peach pies and vanilla ice cream, and how her mother lead them all in singing “Jingle Bells” at 6:30 every Christmas morning. Younger daughter Jeanie, with her father's eyes and smile, remembers the potato salad and the marshmallow fights and how her mother decorated the living room at their Key Largo condo exactly like their living room on South Mill, so her family and her many friends would always feel at home. The governor remembers the selfless days and nights dear Penny put in manning the Republican Party booth at the Wyssock County Fair, making sure everybody who walked by got a campaign button for their lapel, a bumper sticker for their car, and a warm Republican smile for their hearts. Finally, D. William Aitchbone speaks of Penny's unflagging loyalty to her husband, and of Donald's unflagging love for her. “Penny Grinspoon was simply the best,” he says. “We will all miss her so.”

The church empties. The procession to the village cemetery begins. Penelope nee Tuttwyler Grinspoon gets a goodbye swing around the square and a final look at her soapy white Victorian on South Mill. “I have never been unfaithful to you,” D. William Aitchbone whispers to Karen Aitchbone as they crawl along in their American-made Japanese luxury sedan, just five car behind the hearse, just one car behind the governor's limousine. “I love you like Donald loved Penny.”

“Really?” Karen Aitchbone whispers back, glancing into the back seat to make sure Amy and Cannon are occupied by their books from the library. “Does that mean you're going to buy me a condo in Key Largo?”

Her loyal husband is stunned. “You know about the Weideman Boots thing?”

“The whole town knows about the Weideman Boots thing. Penny made sure everyone knew.”

“Penny knew?”

“Wives always know.”

“I swear, Karen, Vicki Bonobo and I have never—”

“Save it for your lawyer, Bill,” Karen Aitchbone says, in anything but a whisper. “And make sure it's a good lawyer, Bill. Because I'm going to get a great lawyer.”

D. William Aitchbone isn't whispering now either. “I swear, Karen, you've got more brass than a marching band!”

At the cemetery the great herd of frozen, glove-banging mourners crowds around the grave Howie Dornick has dug. The village backhoe sits just twenty yard away, frozen Ohio clay stuck to its hydraulic claw like cake frosting stuck to a mixing bowl beater. Penelope is handed over to God with as much Christian joy as a day in February allows. The minister invites everyone to the Grinspoon house for lunch. The glove-bangers retreat to their cars. Thirty minutes after the hearse pulled in, the hearse pulls out, leaving only three living humans in the cemetery.

Two of those still-living humans are Donald Grinspoon and D. William Aitchbone. They stand by the flower-covered grave for a long while, saying nothing. Then they meander through the rows of headstones toward the Civil War memorial. The granite soldier leaning on his rifle atop the memorial watches them approach.

“I appreciate what you said about Penny at the service,” Donald Grinspoon says. “She thought you were the best, too.”

“Thank you, Donald.”

“She was so proud when you passed the bar.”

“I still have the card she sent me. She put ten dollar inside, like it was my birthday or something.”

“That's Penny for you.”

“I bought a couple of neckties with it.”

Donald Grinspoon smiles nostalgically. “At my store?”

“Of course at your store.”

The mentor gently brushes the snow off the shoulders of the protégé's Burberry. “I'm sorry about Karen leaving with the kids. Really sorry.” The sudden growl of the backhoe's engine fills Donald Grinspoon's eyes with tears. “The whole thing makes me feel like crap, Bill. I told you to go ahead and diddle Vicki, after all.”

“That's just it, Donald. I didn't diddle her. I went to Washington thinking I might. But I couldn't go through with it. You'd think Karen would know I couldn't, wouldn't you?” He tells him how be stuck his finger down his throat and threw up the huevos rancheros.

They are at the base of the Civil War monument now. They brush the show off the granite bench and sit. They watch the backhoe fill Penny's grave. “Karen's a good woman. She'll forgive you,” Donald Grinspoon says.

D. William Aitchbone is tempted to ask if he knew that Penny knew about the Weideman Boots thing. But he lets sleeping dogs lie. “It's going to be a real tightrope, Donald. At the same time I'm convincing Karen that I didn't sleep with Vicki, I've got to keep Vicki believing that someday I will.”

“That is a real tightrope,” the mentor agrees.

“And I've got to stay balanced on that goddamn tightrope until the VP comes to Squaw Days. After that Vicki Bonobo can go diddle herself.”

The other still living human at the cemetery is, of course, the operator of the backhoe, one Howie Dornick. Hoping to outlast the other two, he takes his time covering the grave. It is not an easy task. Graves are small holes. The claw at the end of the backhoe's scorpion tail holds a lot of dirt. But with the help of the cold and the snow, he does outlast the others, and now that he is alone and the last scoop of dirt deposited, he digs Katherine Hardihood's cellular phone from the bib pocket of his overalls and calls her. “Coast is clear,” he says.

By the time Katherine and the Bittinger boy arrive at the cemetery, Howie Dornick has already positioned the backhoe's claw over the grave of one Seth Aitchbone, great-great-great-great-great uncle of one D. William Aitchbone.

They have wisely decided to exhume ol' Seth during the light of day. The growl of the backhoe after dark might raise suspicion. It might bring the law. It might bring the entire conspiracy crashing down on their heads with the force of the Tuttwyler brothers' clubs. So they will open ol' Seth's grave in the light of this gray, snow-flying day.

Howie Dornick has dug scores of graves. He knows just when to stop the big claw before it rips the lid off ol' Seth's new box. He eases the backhoe out of the way then slides into the hole with a shovel. It has only been a few months since this new eternal resting place was dug and the dirt and clay easily scoops off. Katherine Hardihood watches for cars or people walking their dogs. “The coast is clear,” she says.

The lid goes up. The Bittinger boy eases into the hole. He goes straight for ol' Seth's skull. “Yessss!” he says, as if the famous Donald Johanson had just called him with a job offer. “Entry hole right through the roof of the mouth. Point-blank. Consistent with a self-inflicted wound.” He pulls a camera from his parka and shoots all 36 exposures. He pulls out a tiny ruler and takes a number of measurements. He examines the rest of the skeleton, finding nothing suspicious.

Katherine Hardihood now goes to her car and returns with the box containing Seth Aitchbone's family. The Bittinger Boy shakes their bones right on top of ol' Seth's bones, mingling mother, father and child for all eternity, or at least until the next exhumation. That job completed, Howie Dornick works quickly with the backhoe.

Hugh Harbinger meets Buzzy at the Peacock and with mugs of the day's house blend in hand, they sit in the front window and watch the West Villagers dig their cars out of the tofu-hard snow that fell all night. “I hear Koko's back from Morocco,” says Buzzy. “And she's brought some beautiful brown camel boy with her. Humpty humpty.”

“I thought she was never stepping foot in New York again.”

“You said the same thing.”

“And I meant it.”

New York irony never gets any better than this and they giggle at their own brilliance. “So,” says Hugh Harbinger, “any dish on what Koko's got up her sleeve?”

Buzzy's voice melts like mozzarella. “Wwwwhite!”