Seventeen Against the Dealer (24 page)

In the evening, while her brother and sister worked in the kitchen, because the snow had stopped as suddenly as it had started, after she had called Cisco and been assured that she needn't keep calling up to nag, she went into Gram's room, closing the door behind her so as not to disturb the two golden heads bent over schoolwork at the table. Gram had one of the tapes playing. A half-eaten bowl of Jell-O was on her table. “This toy,” Gram said. “I don't know why you went and bought a thing like that.”

Dicey sat down on the bed. Gram shifted over to give her room. “You do, too. You know perfectly well . . .”

“All right, I do, and I take that for granted, or, as granted. Since I can, I do. There's no need to go buying me a present.”

“I know. I wanted to.”

“Presents don't prove love,” Gram pointed out.

“I know.”

“Although the right present at the right time can show . . . I've been thinking,” Gram said. “About your grandfather. John. No, more about marriage. Or the two together, since that's my experience of it. At first, I thought I'd failed—and I blamed him for that. Then, I thought he was failing—and I blamed him. It wasn't for years that I figured out that
we
failed,
we
were the ones failing, it took the two of us. I don't think he ever understood that. I think he was stuck like a pendulum in that back-and-forth blame, me to her to me . . . I don't wonder he was a bitter man.”

“I'd feel better if I'd ever met him,” Dicey said.

“Oh, no, you wouldn't,” Gram told her. “I met him, and however much of the fault was mine, I still felt much the worse for it. Some horses just can't pull together in harness, and it's unkind to yoke them. Do you know how many years it took me to get over my fear of books, after that man?”

“Of course not. How could I?” Dicey demanded.

“You know,” Gram said, “if you're not going to marry your young man, you should tell him. You should make up your mind. He might want to marry Maybeth.”

“He doesn't love Maybeth.”

“He could.”

Dicey didn't want to think about Jeff. She hadn't thought about Jeff since—“Not and love me. We're entirely different.”

Gram just shook her stubborn head.

“Besides, he doesn't want to anymore.” She made herself say it right out: “Jeff said he didn't want to get married, the last time I talked to him.”

For a long time, Gram didn't say anything. The music washed around the room, all the different instruments separate but also melded together. Then Gram said, “Whoever does know about these things? It's so hard to love someone—”

“Hard to live up to love,” Dicey agreed.

“Then there's time, too. Who knows. Certainly not me. I wondered why we hadn't been hearing from him,” Gram said.

That was more than Dicey thought she had to listen to. “You could have asked.”

“If I had, you wouldn't have told me. And I'd like to know what else you haven't told me about.”

Dicey didn't know how Gram knew.

“I may be sick, and weak, and old, but I'm not dead, girl.”

And a good thing, too, Dicey thought. She guessed she might as well tell Gram. “Remember that man I told you had ordered a boat? He canceled the order. I gave him his money back, but Claude has paid me, so I'm fine.”

She didn't know what Gram would say to that. She wanted to leave the room, but if Gram had anything to say she ought to stay and listen. She wanted to hear whatever it was Gram had to say, if Gram wanted to say anything.

“I thought I was dying,” Gram said. “I did, truly. Not a heartening perception. Well, I was coughing blood. Not much, but . . . I didn't know what horrible disease it was; each one I thought of was more horrible than the one before—but I thought how much I'd miss you, all of you, miss our time together, miss finding out how the songs end, how the stories come out. But mostly, the truth is, I thought how much I'd miss me.”

Gram stopped speaking and closed her eyes. “It's not very nice, but it's true, I'm who I'll miss most.”

Dicey didn't say anything. She didn't know what to say.

Gram opened her eyes, and a smile swam across her face. “Not that I intend to die any too soon, now that I feel so much better. I ask you, Dicey, how can I feel so bad and have it be so much better?”

“I dunno. But I don't feel all that bad myself, and I should.”

“Don't be too sure of that, girl.”

Dicey laughed and got up from the bed. “I'm not sure of anything,” she promised her grandmother.

She wanted to call Jeff and tell him Gram was better. He hadn't known Gram was sick, but the gladness of Gram being better was something she wanted to talk with Jeff about. Also, she would enjoy the sound of his voice in her ear, she admitted that. And why shouldn't she call him? she asked herself. Wasn't Jeff their friend? He thought a lot of Gram, as she did of him, and a friend should know about good news. Dicey went into the living room, before she could think another thought, and dialed the number. The phone was answered right away, but not by Jeff. “Roger?”

“Yes. Who's this?”

“Dicey. Is Jeff there?”

There was a hesitation she wouldn't have heard if she hadn't been listening so eagerly. Then Roger said, “He's left.”

“Left?”

“For interviews, you know. Graduate schools. I'm not sure exactly where—Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire—he didn't leave an itinerary. He didn't tell you?”

“No.”

She didn't even know where Jeff was. She couldn't place him in any known geography, and she didn't know enough to even guess what he might be doing at any given moment. She hadn't realized how accustomed she was to knowing where he probably was, at any given point of the day.

“He probably wrote it down for you, it's probably in the mail, but that's pretty funny. He's been pretty distracted with these applications, Dicey.”

So Jeff hadn't told Roger how Dicey didn't matter in his life anymore. “Tell him, when he gets back—”

“Not until Tuesday or Wednesday next week. He's driving. He's looking at a lot of places.”

“That's okay, just tell him my grandmother has pneumonia and is getting better. That's all I called to say.”

“Will do. Do you want him to call you?”

Yes, Dicey did, but she couldn't say that. She couldn't say no, either, because that would be a lie. She found a truth to tell: “I just wanted to tell him about Gram. I figured he'd want to know that.”

“Sure thing. See you,” Roger said.

Probably not, Dicey thought, which was too bad, because she liked Roger. She liked almost all of Jeff's friends.

She was just sitting there, looking at the phone as if she didn't have anything else to do. But she didn't have anything else to do. There was an echoing hollowness inside her—not hunger—it was in her chest, not her stomach, an empty hollowness locked inside her rib cage. Like an empty house.

M
aybeth at breakfast Wednesday morning ate little. Dicey had the feeling that if she hadn't been there watching, Maybeth might not have eaten anything. Sammy, spooning up his oatmeal, looked over the top of his spoon at Maybeth and then at Dicey. Dicey looked at Sammy and then at Maybeth and then back at Sammy.

Maybeth looked frightened. She had drawn herself closed, like a clam retracting back into its shell when you finger it. Like a clam, Maybeth couldn't get entirely into her shell, and she knew it, and that made her more silent and less hungry.

Dicey met Sammy's eyes. “It's only a test, Maybeth,” she said.

Maybeth's bent head nodded obediently.

“You've taken lots of tests,” Dicey reminded her.

“I know,” Maybeth said, her voice soft.

Dicey almost got angry. Why should her sister have to go to school, anyway, and be made to feel like this? “It doesn't matter,” she announced. “I don't care if you pass it, and neither does anyone else here.”

“Right,” Sammy echoed her.

“I know,” Maybeth said.

“Then don't let it get to you, okay?”

“I can't help it.”

“But why?” Dicey asked.

“Because this one we've studied for—and I know more. I do.”

Sammy laughed. “But that's crazy. If you know more, you should be feeling confident.”

Maybeth shook her head. “It makes me nervous, because I'm not used to it. I'm sorry. Because—what if I know more and I still don't pass? Because I know how to fail because I always fail the tests. I don't know how to pass them,” she explained.

Dicey wanted to promise her sister that this time would be different, but she couldn't do that. All she could tell Maybeth was the truth. “You just have to take it, and then wait and see.”

Maybeth nodded. “Don't worry,” she said.

“I'm not the one who's worried,” Dicey pointed out, and was rewarded with a little shy smile.

After she had seen them off down the driveway, she got to work, busying herself with chores. She put together a piecrust for dessert, wrapped the dough in wax paper, and put it into the refrigerator to chill, and then looked in on Gram.

Gram was sitting up straight, with music playing—light, intricate music, like patterns of sunlight on waves. “Who is this Vivaldi?”

Dicey didn't know. “Do you want a snack?” she asked. “A nice bowl of Jell-O? We've got green or yellow. Or another piece of toast?” She looked at the dishes she was picking up. Gram wouldn't ask for anything, so she had to think of everything to ask Gram about.

“No and no,” Gram said. “I feel better, but not hungry.”

“Tea? Ginger ale? Water?”

“No, thanks.”

“How about a book? Are you ready for a book?”

“You know, I might be.” Gram sounded surprised. “Can you find me
David Copperfield
?”

Dicey thought she could.

“It's Dickens,” Gram said. “I feel like Dickens. What was all that at breakfast?”

“Maybeth has a test today.”

“The perversity of children seems unlimited,” Gram said. Dicey stared at her. “You should be in school, and you refuse,” Gram explained. “Maybeth shouldn't have to, but she wants to. You tell me if it makes sense.”

“Does it have to make sense?” Dicey asked.

“No, but it would be easier on me if it did. I've left the farm to Maybeth, in my will. I've been meaning to tell you that. She's the one who might need to have it, and she'd always give a home to any of you. In fairness, I should leave it to all four of you, and I know that, but I also know that Maybeth—if she's not lucky—and there's no guarantee of luck, girl.”

Dicey knew that. She knew what Gram was thinking, who Gram was remembering.

“I've been meaning to tell you what I decided about my will,” Gram said. Her tone of voice said that even if Dicey wanted to argue about it, it wouldn't do any good. But Dicey didn't want to argue.

“I think it's exactly the right thing to do, Gram,” she said.

“And you're right.”

“You're thinking about Momma.”

“Maybe about all my children,” Gram said. “The ones I know where they're lost, and the one I don't know.”

“Is it a secret about the farm?” Dicey asked.

“Not a secret,” Gram said carefully, thinking about it. “A privacy, though, between us.”

“I'll get
David Copperfield
,” Dicey said.

“Have you by any chance retired from business?” Gram asked.

“If you'll promise not to get out of bed,” Dicey answered.

“How can I promise that?” Gram snapped. “I'm going to have to go to the bathroom, aren't I? Brush my teeth and hair, wash my face—maybe even have a bath.”

She'd answered her own question and Dicey didn't need to say anything more.

While Gram read, Dicey cleaned up the mess she'd made in the kitchen, wondering how it was that Maybeth could get a piecrust made and the kitchen kept clean at the same time, then she went upstairs to see what needed doing up there. The woodwork could use a wash, she decided, seizing on a chore that would take most of the day.

“How was the test?” she asked Maybeth as soon as her sister walked in the door.

“I don't know. But it's over,” Maybeth said. “It only lasts as long as it lasts. So I never mind, once it's over.” Sammy grabbed a sandwich, then took the truck to work. Dicey barely had time to say hello to him. He looked in on Gram and was gone.

“There's mail for you,” Maybeth told her, taking a glass of water and her day's news into Gram's room.

Dicey didn't count a phone bill as mail. She was going to have to deposit that check to pay it, and she always paid her bills right away. She put the envelope from the phone company into her checkbook, with Claude's check, and put both back into the rear pocket of her jeans. There was no need to carry Claude's check around with her, she knew, but it made her feel better. She had three months in her pocket, March, April, May. By the end of April, all her storage boats would be picked up, and who knew if a new job might turn up. Maybe she should call Ken and see if he could find somebody else to order a boat from her. She didn't think there was much chance of that; she knew there wasn't much chance; Mr. Hobart's boat had been a fluke.

But Gram was right—she hadn't been to the shop for days. Cisco was working alone.

Once she got the check into the bank, she'd write him one for—$200? No, $150, that was the most she could afford, really, and she ought to make it cash. Cisco was the kind of person who would much rather have cash, and it would be more fun to give it to him that way, anyway. Although, she reminded herself, she wasn't—properly speaking—giving him anything. He'd earned whatever she decided to pay him.