The Books of Fell (5 page)

You see, Ping’s in an unusual and enviable position,” Mr. Pingree said. “He’ll actually get paid to go to Gardner.”

I was pigging out on the steamers. There wasn’t a speck of sand in them. They were little and juicy, and the butter was real butter and warm.

“Who pays him?” I said. I ate the tails, too. Keats said you weren’t supposed to eat the tails, and it was really gross to see someone do it, but I always ate them. Once Keats said what do they taste like? They couldn’t be good. I told her they tasted like rubber erasers at the ends of pencils. They tasted like good rubber erasers at the ends of pencils.

Pingree said, “Ping’s grandfather left twenty thousand in his will. Ten thousand goes to Ping when he finishes his junior year at Gardner. The other ten is his when he graduates.”

“Neat!” I said.

Mom hired this kid to take my grandfather out of the nursing home one afternoon a week, to get him a good meal in a luncheonette called Little Joe’s. They made things like macaroni and cheese, meat loaf, franks and beans — it was a mom-and-pop place near Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn. This kid would sit across from my grandfather and let him talk while the kid ate as if there were no tomorrow. I felt like that kid.

“Ping isn’t impressed with money,” Pingree continued. “Two things that always kept my wheels oiled don’t even make Ping’s spin: love and money. He hasn’t any interest in either.”

Out in the parking lot near the dunes, gulls were circling overhead, waiting for customers to toss out corners of clam rolls, or potato chips.

“Money and love,” Pingree said. “They’ll both make you and they’ll both break you.”

“For sure,” I said.

“You at your age,” Pingree snickered, “you can’t even see the tip of the iceberg yet.”

I tore off some bread from a thick slice, to soak up some of the clam juice left in the shells.

Pingree said, “The person you think you’ll love all your life when you’re your age, when you’re my age you’ll either feel sorry for, or trapped by, or bitter over if you marry her. Possibly all three. I married my high school sweetheart, only I was in prep school, of course, and she went to boarding school.”

I got a fresh napkin out of the metal container on the table, and wadded up the old, wet one.

“After Ping’s mother died,” Pingree went on, “I married my Fern. I think poor Ping suffered because I loved her so much. He was little, getting over his mother’s death still, and I’d fallen for Fern like someone your age falls. I was besotted. Do you know that word?” He didn’t wait for my answer. “That’s a good word,” he said. “Besotted … I owe Ping something for that. Do you want more butter?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

He signaled to the waitress, pointing at the small green dish between us with a quarter inch of melted butter in it.

He wasn’t eating much. My grandfather’d eat like a bird at Little Joe’s, but the kid who took him there ate a couple of entrees and a couple of desserts. He never said anything.

My grandfather’d complain, “That kid sits like a dummy, like a dummy who’s been starved.” I didn’t like feeling like the starved dummy.

So I spoke up.

“If you could have love or money, but not both, which would you rather have, Mr. Pingree?”

“You can call me Woody.”

I wasn’t so sure I could. He was a lot older than my father’d been when he died. He was older than most of my teachers at school.

“That’s a good question, Fell,” he said.

It was a fantastic July evening, white clouds floating around in the sky like big pillows. We were sitting on the outside porch, under a red-and-white-striped awning. You could hear the ocean just over the dunes.

Pingree said, “I’d choose love if I could trust it. I’d choose money if I could hang on to it.”

“But which?”

He thought about it. I’ll give him that. He frowned and passed one hand over his white hair, looking up from his clams.

“If I have to choose, I’ll choose money,” he finally said. “I understand it better, and I need it more.”

There were a couple of kids racing by, waiting for their parents to finish eating, and their mothers were screaming at them, “Don’t run!”

“I’m going to tell you something, Fell, and it may shock you.”

What shocked me was what I saw driving into the parking lot: a battered white Volkswagen with a Born to Shop decal on the rear bumper.

I didn’t believe it, but there they were. Mom must have left the house about two minutes after I’d mentioned steamers on the phone. That was probably all she needed to hear to start her mouth watering.

The Fells were seafood lovers. Summer nights back in Brooklyn we’d pile into the Dodge and drive out to Lundy’s for the Shore Dinner at the drop of a hat.

I looked back at Pingree. He’d put down his clam fork to light a cigarette.

“You were about to shock me,” I said.

He took a drag on the cigarette. He said, “My son hates Fern no matter how she tries to please him. He thinks she was responsible for his mother’s death. You see, we all worked at the Institute together: Ping’s mother, Fern, and I. We were all close friends.”

“What
is
the Institute, Mr. Pingree? What kind of work do you do there?”

He shrugged. “Research, mostly. For the government. Classified, so it rarely gets publicized. I think that disappoints Fern, too. She’s blooming in a bowl. But that’s another story.”

“How did Ping’s mother die?” I didn’t have any choice but to call her that. Pingree couldn’t seem to say her name.

“It was a boating accident. Ping’s mother knew boats. Fern didn’t. Still doesn’t. Hates the water now. Anyway, they were out in my old boat together. Ping’s mother fell overboard. Fern didn’t even know how to steer the damn thing or turn it around. Before she could do anything, Ping’s mother drowned. She was a good swimmer” — Pingree took a suck from his cigarette — ”so my guess is she hit her head when she went over, and knocked herself out.”

At that point, the three of them were heading into Lunch. My mother. Jazzy. Georgette.

Here was Pingree talking to me man-to-man; here was my mother headed in to call me Johnny and say things like “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

“So Ping and Fern don’t get along too well,” Pingree said. “My son is laughed at. I know that. It’s my fault. He wants to be a magician because that’s all he thinks he can change: one card into another, a handkerchief into a rose … Poor Ping. I want him to know he isn’t trapped and that his life can be changed, too.”

Jazzy’d even brought along the fancy clothes shoebox, easy to distinguish from the poor clothes one because there were red and silver sequins pasted on it.

“I have certain plans I’m going to keep from Fern.”

“Like what?”

I kept my head down as though that would stop Mom from seeing me. That was ostrich thinking: Bury your head in the sand and no one’s supposed to be able to see the rest of you.

“I’m going to find a way Ping won’t have to go to Gardner, without Fern knowing anything about it.”

“That’ll be a neat trick.”

My mother was inside then, telling her hostess there was her son, out on the terrace. I saw her pointing in my direction, saw the hostess step back to let Jazzy and my mother pass.

“That will indeed be a very neat trick,” Pingree said. “And, Fell?”

“Yes?”

“Keep it under your hat. Can I trust you to do that?”

“Absolutely!”

Then my mother appeared on the porch, calling out, “Johnny? Look what the cat just dragged in!”

“Us!” Jazzy squealed. “We want screamers!”

“Oh, migosh,” I said to Pingree. “This is embarrassing. My whole family’s just shown up.”

“Quite all right,” he said. He looked toward my mother and Jazzy, heading our way. My mother liked to wear white in summer. She was in a white pants suit, with a white plastic bracelet. She had on white plastic earrings and white beads.

Jazzy had on her new Little Leaguer top, with red pants and red sneakers.

“Don’t tell me
you’re
Woodrow Pingree!” my mother exclaimed when she got to our table.

Pingree rose and stuck out his hand, the cigarette hanging on his lips.

“So we meet again,” Pingree said.

“This is the mysterious Mr. X!” my mother said. She said to Pingree, “This is my son, Johnny … the one I told you all about … and all along you’ve known each other!”

“All along,” Pingree said.

“You knew he was my son,” said Mom. “Yes, I knew.”

Jazzy put Georgette down on the table, still dressed in her rags.

It was nine o’clock. I said, “I’m going to call my date and tell her I can’t make it.”

“I wish you’d keep your date, Fell,” Pingree said.

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

My mother was saying the same thing — ”I don’t know” — over and over. But it wasn’t as if she were considering an idea that didn’t appeal to her. There was that little light in her eyes, the sort that comes there at the prospect of a new store opening nearby, inviting the public to open charge accounts.

Pingree had suggested we all go back to our house. He’d waited until my mother put Jazzy to bed to drop the bomb. The saucer my mother’d given him for an ashtray was overflowing with butts. There was a smokey haze above the room. My mother got up to open another window and put on some lights. We’d been sitting in the living room listening while it got dark out.

I didn’t know how I could go on a date and act normal after someone had just offered to pay me twenty thousand dollars to become his son for two years.

“Let me get this straight,” my mother said. “Johnny goes to this Gardner School as your son.”

“Yes. My son’s already been accepted there. I’ve already paid his tuition.”

“Everyone at Gardner will know Johnny as your son.”

“Exactly. Johnny will be Ping there.” Pingree shook up a cigarette from the Viceroy package. He picked his lighter up from the table. “Gardner is in a very small town in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The boys come from all over the United States, about seventy in all. Most of them rich kids. About fifty are old boys and twenty new ones.” He lit the cigarette. “None from around here. I checked. None from Brooklyn. A lot of them are legacies, as Ping is. Their fathers and their grandfathers have all gone to Gardner.”

My mother sat down on the leather hassock near the armchair where Pingree was sitting. He had his legs stretched out in front of him, relaxed, no hint in his voice or his posture that my mother’s sudden arrival at Lunch had thrown him. He said it had. He said he hadn’t counted on making this proposal quite yet. Then, with a shrug, he said so what if it was a little premature? We’d all need the extra time.

“Johnny will be Ping at Gardner,” said my mother, “and Ping will go off to this school in Switzerland.”

“L’Ecole la Coeur. Yes. Ping will be John Fell there.”

“But what about my school transcripts?” I said.

“We’ll have them forwarded to Switzerland. As I told you, Ping will skip a year. Gladly. Ping hates school. And you’ll repeat a year. You’ll enter Gardner as a junior.”

“I don’t know,” my mother said for about the fortieth time.

I said, “And I’m supposed to say I won a Brutt scholarship to go overseas to prep school?”

“That’s the easiest part. Fern and I are on the search committee for those scholarships. We give several a year to worthy students. They study in France, Italy — all over the place. I usually do the interviewing and Fern okays my choices. Fern already likes you. She’s for it. She thinks I was looking you over for the scholarship.”

Mom said, “But she doesn’t know Ping’s going there in Johnny’s place.”

“No.”

“But won’t she write him, call him?”

“She’s never called him. They aren’t that close. She may write him once or twice. Johnny will forward the letters to Ping. Ping will send his to Johnny to mail. Ping rarely uses the telephone. But if he wants to call, Fern will think he’s calling from Gardner.”

I said, “But what if Keats wants to call me, Mr. Pingree?”

“Woody.”

“Woody. What if Keats decides to call me? She
could.”

“Tell her L’Ecole la Coeur discourages transatlantic calls. That’s all. You can call her, if you have to. She’ll think you’re in Switzerland.
But
” — Pingree dropped an ash into the saucer — ”I’d cool this thing with the Keating girl. It’s cooling anyway, isn’t it? Her father led me to believe it was.”

“She’s the least of it!” said Mom.

“Mom, she’s not the least of it.”

“She is where I’m concerned. She’s never treated you like anything but a toy.”

“Well, that may change,” Pingree said. “Girls treating you like a toy may change once you’ve had some Gardner polish. You’ll come out of there a man.”

“What am I now?”

“A boy,” my mother said.

Pingree glanced down at his Rolex. “A boy with a date soon. I have to run along. You keep your date, Fell. We’ll talk more about all this…. But how does it strike you, Mrs. Fell?”

Mom turned her palms up. “I wish I could understand why you can’t just tell your wife you don’t want your son to go to Gardner. He isn’t even her son!”

“There are a lot of reasons I can’t,” said Pingree. “You have to know my wife, know a lot about her background, things I’m not privileged to reveal. People are complex, Mrs. Fell. And sometimes it comes down to little things, too, like the fact that my wife would hate to have Ping give up that twenty thousand left for him in the will. My wife is very parsimonious.”

“Par-si-what?”

“Parsimonious, Mom. The opposite of what you are. Careful with a buck.”

Mom shot me a look. Pingree smiled. He said, “Yes. Fern is careful with a buck. She’s also convinced that I’ve spoiled Ping. She talked me into sending him off to this military school he hated.”

“If you ask me,” Mom said, “you’ve let her push you around.”

“Agreed,” said Pingree. “The heart has its reasons.”

“Isn’t she going to find out anyway, someday? She’ll wonder where the twenty thousand went, won’t she? And you have to pay Ping’s tuition in Switzerland?”

“Only half. The scholarship takes care of the rest. I have the money set aside to cover all that, Mrs. Fell … and if she finds out someday, well” — Pingree shrugged — ”I’ll handle it then.”

“What about vacations?” I asked.

“What about them? You’ll come home at Christmas, spring break, and summers, as Ping will.”

“They’ll probably speak French at that school in Switzerland,” I said. “People will expect me to rattle off French.”

“They speak English and French at L’Ecole la Coeur. But after Gardner,” said Pingree, “you’ll be able to rattle off French. You’ll get a first-rate education, far better than Ping will get at that country club he’s going to. But Ping can’t wait to get away.”

“And he knows I’ll get the twenty thousand?”

“He knows you’ll get ten thousand at the end of your junior year, and ten when you graduate, yes. Ping doesn’t give a hoot about money. But the Gardner diploma will be in his name —
I
care about that, strangely enough. Our family has always come out of Gardner.”

“And I’ll have this diploma from a country club.”

“A diploma that will surely impress all your customers in your fancy restaurant one day.” Pingree smiled at me. Then he stood up. “It’s time for your date, isn’t it?”

“I have to call her,” I said.

Mom said, “You’ve given us a lot to think about.”

“We’ll work things out,” said Pingree. “When you decide, if it’s a go-ahead, we’ll start by getting Fell’s passport.”

“Is Ping going to use my passport? We don’t look at all alike.”

“No. Ping will travel with his own passport. You won’t use yours. We’ll work out all the details, don’t worry.”

Mom said, “What an opportunity it would be for you, Johnny!”

I just couldn’t believe the offer was for real.

“Remember what I told you when I first came into Dressed to Kill?” Pingree said to Mom. “Your fate is set. Just lean into it.”

“I hope those pants fit,” Mom said.

“They’re too young for me, Mrs. Fell. I didn’t go in your store for pants.”

Mom walked him toward the door. “I thought you were this lonely man, just interested in hearing about my family.”

“I
was
interested in all you had to say about Fell.”